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Xingyiquan master li guichang and disciple
The Li gui (Chinese: 利簋) is an ancient Chinese bronze sacrificial gui vessel cast by an early Zhou dynasty official named Li. It has the distinction of being the earliest Zhou bronze vessel to be discovered, the earliest record of metal being given as a gift by the king, one of only two vessels dateable to the reign of King Wu of Zhou to record personal names, and the only epigraphic evidence of the day of the Zhou conquest of Shang. This makes the Li gui highly important to the periodisation of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and it has been described as bearing "the single most important inscription regarding the Zhou conquest of Shang."
Contents
A round vessel on a square pedestal, the Li gui measures 28 centimeters high; the mouth of the vessel has a diameter of 22 centimeters. It has two bird-shaped handles and is covered with a high-relief taotie motif similar to earlier Shang ritual objects. It was excavated in 1976 in Lintong district, Shaanxi, and was kept for a time at the Lintong County Museum, before being transferred to the National Museum of China in Beijing, where it now resides. In 2002, it was listed among the cultural artefacts prohibited from leaving Chinese soil.
Inscription
The Li gui is inscribed with thirty-two graphs commemorating King Wu of Zhou's conquest of Shang. The most important feature of the inscription is the record of the cylical signs of the day of the decisive Battle of Muye. The inscription accords with the date carried by the Shi Fu (世俘, "capture of the world") chapter of the Yi Zhou Shu, and the Mu Shi (牧誓, "Speech at Muye") chapter of the Book of Documents. The inscription begins: "King Wu attacked Shang. It was the morning of the jiazi day." King Wu's name thus recorded on a contemporary vessel supports the theory that the early Zhou kings were called by the same titles in life as they were after their deaths, unlike later Chinese monarchs.
The next several graphs are the subject of much dispute in interpretation, most saliently over whether to read the word sui (歲, the bottom-rightmost graph in the inscription) as the name of a ritual or as a reference to the planet Jupiter. There is no scholarly consensus on the meaning of this portion of the inscription, with renderings ranging from "Jupiter was in the correct position, letting the King know he would conquer, and soon he controlled Shang" to "The King performed the sui and ding sacrifices, letting it be known that he could rout the ruler of Shang."
Following the problematic passage, the inscription concludes: "On the xinwei day [i.e. seven days later], the King was at Jian encampment. He granted his youshi Li metal, with which he makes this treasured ritual vessel for his esteemed ancestor Zhan." This indicates that Li, the caster of the vessel, may have been a participant in the Battle of Muye.