Debt: The First 5000 Years - autonomous learning

THE MIDDLE AGES 301
another man's vassal would split a tally just as he would if borrowing
grain or money. The common feature seems to be a contract between
two parties that begin as equal, in which one agrees to become subordinate.
Later, as the state became more centralized, we mainly hear about
fu presented to officials as a means of conveying order: the official
would take the left half with him when posted to the provinces, and
when the emperor wished to send an important command, he would
send the right half with the messenger to make sure that the official
knew it was actually the imperial will.160
We've already seen how paper money seems to have developed
from paper versions of such debt contracts, ripped in half and reunited.
For Chinese theorists, of course, Aristotle's argument that money was
simply a social convention was hardly radical; it was simply assumed.
Money was whatever the emperor established it to be. Though even
here there was a slight proviso, as evidenced in the entry above, that
"fu" could also refer to "the mutual agreement between heaven's appointment
and human affairs." Just as officials were appointed by the
emperor, the emperor was ultimately appointed by a higher power, and
he could only rule effectively as long as he kept its mandate, which is
why propitious omens were called "fu," signs that heaven approved of
the ruler, just as natural disasters were a sign that he had strayed.161
Here Chinese ideas did grow a bit closer to the Christian ones. But
Chinese conceptions of the cosmos had one crucial difference: since there
was no emphasis on the absolute gulf between our world and the one beyond
it, contractual relations with the gods were by no means out of the
question. This was particularly true in Medieval Taoism, where monks
were ordained through a ceremony called "rending the tally," ripping
apart a piece of paper that represented a contract with heaven.162 It was
the same with the magical talismans, also called "fu," which an adept
might receive from his master. These were literally tallies: the adept kept
one; the other half was said to be retained by the gods. Such talismanic
fu took the form of diagrams, said to represent a form of celestial writing,
comprehensible only to the gods, which committed them to assist the
bearer, often giving the adept the right to call on armies of divine protectors
with whose help he could slay demons, cure the sick, or otherwise
attain miraculous powers. But they could also become, like Dionysius'
symbola, objects of contemplation, by which one's mind can ultimately
attain some knowledge of the invisible world beyond our own.163
Many of the most compelling visual symbols to emerge from Medieval
China trace back to such talismans: the River Symbol, or, for
that matter, the yin-yang symbol that seems to have developed out of
it.164 Just looking at a yin-yang symbol, it is easy enough to imagine