Illustrated Investigation of the Names and Realities of Plants (Volume 25)

...bamboo, yet Shen Kuo original: "沈存中" (Shen Cunzhong), the courtesy name of the famous Song dynasty polymath Shen Kuo. in his Dream Brook Essays original: "筆談" (Bitan). A seminal 11th-century work covering science, technology, and culture. used the character for "candle" original: "燭" (zhu). This is a homophone for the "zhu" (竹) meaning bamboo. instead; I do not know what his reasoning was for this.

The preface to the Rhapsody on Heavenly Bamboo by Cheng Ji of the Liang dynasty states:

In the autumn of the second year of the Zhongdatong eraCorresponding to 547 CE during the Southern Liang dynasty., Liu Yun of Hedong served as the Director of the Palace Library. I served as a Cavalier Attendantoriginal: "散騎" (Sanqi). A high-ranking official title for those serving in the central government. and acted as his deputy. During the leisure hours we found amidst our duties of proofreading and editing, we became very close companions.

In the western corridor of the Director's office, there were several stalks of a strange plant. They had green stems with widely spaced joints, and their leaves were as glossy as if they had been polished or cut from silk. The red berries hung in heavy clusters, shining as brilliantly as dripping cinnabaroriginal: "渥丹" (wodan). A poetic description of a deep, moist, vibrant red color..

Liu Yun told me that the records in the western office refer to this plant as the "Eastern Heavenly Bamboo." The legend regarding it says:

When the Yellow Emperororiginal: "軒轅帝" (Xuanyuan Di). The legendary ancestral ruler and culture hero of China. was casting his ritual bronze tripods at South Lake and the myriad spirits were receiving their divine appointments, the Lesser Lord of the Eastern Sea presented this plant as tribute. He informed the Emperor, saying:

"The goddess NuwaThe mother goddess of Chinese mythology, famous for repairing the pillar of heaven. used this plant to smelt the stones used to mend the sky. If one brushes the water with it, the flow will be severed; if one uses it to guide a phoenix, the bird will come to rest. It can penetrate metal, stone, water, and fire without any hindrance."

The Emperor found this extraordinary and ordered the plant to be cultivated in the gardens of PenghuOne of the three legendary islands of the immortals in the Eastern Sea.. What we see now is the remnant form of that plant, though it no longer possesses the miraculous powers of those former times.

I found these words to be strange—absurd and not found in the orthodox classics. Therefore, I sighed to myself: "Things indeed possess qualities of being both weak and strong, or obscure and prominent. When their time has come, they are like the booming of thunder or the flight of a mounted host; but when their time has passed, they are like a cricket in a hole..."