Visual Disabilities in Early China

Abstract

<p>This chapter addresses the issue of visual disabilities in China as described in records dating to the Zhou dynasty (1046-221 BCE). At this time, the Chinese world was divided into a myriad polities: the Zhou kings ruled from the Royal Domain (Ji), originally located around the two capital cities of Feng and Hao in what is now Shaanxi Province in the period between 1046-771 BCE, and later on around the capital city of Wangcheng (modern day Luoyang). The Royal Domain was surrounded by states ruled by aristocrats, nominally subject to the authority of the Zhou king, but increasingly independent as the dynasty went on. These ranged in size from tiny city-states up to great realms governing vast stretches of territory; some of these states were able to maintain courts where the luxurious lifestyle rivaled anything to be found in the Royal Domain. Scattered in amongst these states were others whose rulers and inhabitants were ethnically, culturally, and politically separate from the Zhou “Central States” (Zhongguo)—some of these regimes, particularly those located along major trade routes across Northeast Asia, or along the Yangtze River, were also enormously powerful and wealthy. However, the vast majority of documentation that survives from this period concerns the history and culture of the Royal Domain and its associated aristocratic courts that stretched hundreds of kilometers from the edge of the Gobi Desert to the East China Sea along the Yellow River; accordingly, these regimes will be the focus of this chapter. What is more, the issue of blindness and visual disability in early China cannot be addressed without understanding this complex web of major and minor courts, because Zhou dynasty kings and aristocrats actively recruited vast numbers of blind and visually impaired men to serve them. With thousands of blind men working at court, in close contact with the ruling elite and surrounded by the only significant body of literate people in all of East Asia, it is not surprising that they are extremely well-recorded. In fact, the blind and visually impaired appear to be by far the best documented group of disabled persons in early China.<br></p><div><br></div>