Introduction: Why Should We Listen Anew to This Clap of Spring Thunder$1

Between heaven and earth, all things have their season. Among the Twenty-Four Solar Terms, Jingzhe (Awakening of Insects) is the most dramatically charged. It does not open quietly like Lichun (Beginning of Spring), nor does it mark itself by the extremity of the sun's shadow like Xiazhi (Summer Solstice). Jingzhe is a solar term named after sound -- it is by a resounding clap of spring thunder that the earth, slumbering through the whole of winter, is roused awake.

Why did the ancients establish a solar term specifically named after "startling" (jing)$2 Why, in their cosmology, did the awakening of all things not occur naturally but required being "startled," being "roused"$3 What, precisely, did that thunderclap set in motion$4 Did it awaken merely the insects hibernating in the soil, or some deeper, more universal life force$5

The Book of Documents (Shangshu, "Canon of Yao") states: "He thereupon commanded Xi and He, in reverent accordance with august Heaven, to calculate and delineate the sun, moon, and stars, and so respectfully to deliver the seasons to the people." These few words capture the fundamental reason for the birth of the solar terms -- "respectfully to deliver the seasons." The word "respectfully" (jing) and the word "deliver" (shou) elevate astronomical observation to an almost religious plane. Observing the heavens was not to satisfy curiosity but to express "reverence" -- awe before the Way of Heaven. Delivering the seasons was not for convenience but to "deliver" -- to transmit the will of Heaven to the human world. Among all the seasons that needed to be "delivered" to humankind, Jingzhe was the most critical: it marked the true beginning of the year's agricultural work, the transition of the earth from deathly stillness to vitality, the reactivation, after a winter's slumber, of that ancient bond between Heaven and humankind.

Why should we reexamine Jingzhe from the perspective of the pre-Qin era and high antiquity$6 Because that was the age in which this solar term was born -- an age when its meaning had not yet been obscured by layer upon layer of later commentary. In that age, thunder was not a meteorological phenomenon but the language of Heaven. The awakening of hibernating creatures was not a biological instinct but proof of the mutual responsiveness of Heaven and humanity. Jingzhe was not a mark on the calendar but a solemn cosmic ceremony -- Heaven, through its thunderous voice, issued a summons to all slumbering things, and all things answered that summons by awakening.

Embedded within this is a question of extraordinary depth: How do all things "know" that spring thunder has sounded and that they should awaken$7 A hibernating creature buried several feet underground can neither hear the thunder nor see the sunlight. By what means does it "know" that the season has turned and life should begin again$8 The ancients' meditation on this question touched upon the most subtle core of the cosmology of the unity of Heaven and humanity.

The Wenyan commentary on the Qian (Heaven) hexagram of the Book of Changes (Yijing) declares: "The great person is one whose virtue accords with that of heaven and earth, whose brilliance accords with that of the sun and moon, whose order accords with that of the four seasons, and whose sense of fortune and misfortune accords with that of the spirits and gods." To "accord with the order of the four seasons" means that a person's actions, emotions, and even states of mind should all undergo corresponding adjustments as the four seasons turn. Jingzhe is precisely that critical threshold where "storing" turns to "moving," where quiescent dormancy transforms into vigorous action. Across this threshold, what had lain dormant through the winter was not insects alone, but also the human spirit, human aspiration, and every dimension of human vitality.

This article will proceed from the core ideas of the two pre-Qin schools -- the Confucian and the Daoist -- while reaching back to still more ancient traditions of myth and etymology, to undertake as thorough a reading as possible of the Jingzhe solar term. We seek to know not only what Jingzhe is but why it is so; not only what the ancients did at Jingzhe but why they did it. We shall examine the tortuous history by which its original name "Qizhe" was changed to avoid the taboo name of Emperor Jing of the Han. We shall peer into the cosmic tableau behind the two characters "jing" and "zhe." We shall hearken to the ancient echo of "the sovereign emerges from Zhen" in the Zhen (Thunder) hexagram of the Book of Changes. In the course of these inquiries, perhaps we can once again touch that ancient world in which all things possessed spirit and Heaven and humanity responded to each other -- and in that clap of spring thunder, hear a summons addressed to our own lives.