This is a working translation based on pages 01–05 of the photographed edition. The translation follows the original argument as closely as possible. Bracketed wording remains subject to verification against the full text.
The Origin of the Qin
In ancient times, when Fuxi ruled the world, he looked upward and observed the heavens, and looked downward and examined the earth. He received the signs that emerged from the Yellow River and the Luo River, and from them drew the trigrams.
He listened to the eight winds in order to establish the tonal laws. He took the solitary paulownia of Mount Yi, joined yin and yang, and created elegant music. He named it the qin.
The qin means prohibition. It prohibits what is perverse and helps establish the correct Way. For this reason, it is used to cultivate the body and regulate one's inner nature: to return to original truth, to forget the outward form, to unite with emptiness, and to gather the spirit into Great Harmony.
The Form of the Instrument
The qin is three chi, six cun, and five fen in length. Outwardly, it symbolizes the three hundred and sixty-five degrees of the circuit of Heaven and the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year. Its width is six cun, symbolizing the Six Harmonies. It has an upper and a lower surface, symbolizing the qi of Heaven and Earth.
These statements do not describe the qin as a neutral physical object. Its measurements are presented as signs. The body of the instrument participates in a larger order, linking its length, width, surfaces, and sound with the structure of Heaven and Earth.
Touch, Force, and the Middle Way
The treatise then turns toward the hand. In plucking, the player should not be careless or light. Yet force must not become violence. The hand must use strength and still arrive at the middle.
When the sound is high, clear, vigorous, and full of strength, the touch should be firm. When the sound is light, calm, and flowing, the touch should be softened. But neither force nor softness is sufficient by itself. The player must bring the two into balance.
The point is not simply to produce different sounds. The hand must understand the character of each sound and respond without excess. Technique becomes judgment.
The Qin and the Human World
The old qin tradition repeatedly connects the instrument with human relationships and the ordering of society. Stories of famous players, teachers, friends, and masters appear beside discussions of sound and touch. The qin is not separated from the world in which people teach, listen, recognize one another, and pass knowledge onward.
To understand the qin, therefore, is not only to understand its notes. It is to understand the conduct that allows those notes to be made meaningful.
Where the Five Tones Begin
The final page in this group forms a boundary with the following discussion of the five tones. It points toward the next layer of the book: the relation between sound, order, and the principles by which the world is understood.
This is why a faithful translation must resist the temptation to make the qin smaller than the original text makes it. The qin is an instrument, but it is also a discipline of the body, a theory of sound, a method of cultivation, and a language for describing order.
The pages do not ask the reader to choose between music and philosophy. They present the two as one continuous field.
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