Du Kang and the Invention of Chinese Wine

Where Does Wine Come From?

A taste for wine seems Io be a universal characteristic of humanity. But when we try to trace the production of fine wine back to its origins, it is not such an easy for us to find a satisfactory answer to the question: "Where does Chinese wine (Chinese Liquor Baijiu) come from?" According to The Shi Ben (The Book of Origins), an important pre-Qin source, "Yi Di first made wine, of five different flavors, and later Shao Kang made wine out of sorghum.” On this basis, people in later times have taken Yi Di and Shao Kang to be the inventors of Chinese wine-making techniques. Those who make and sell wine have regarded Du Kang (Shaokang) as the founding father of their trade.

Yi Di’s making of wine is further described in three works, the Lvshi Chunqiu (Historical Writings Compiled by Lv Buwei), the historical practice of the 3rd century BC, the Zhan Guo Ce (The Intrigues of the Warring States), a historical work compiled under the Han. Also, the Shuowen Jiezi another Han period work, which explains the origins, composition, and meaning of Chinese characters. The story goes that it was the women at the court of the Xia Dynasty ruler Yu who got Yi Di to make wine. With a great many efforts Yi Di produced an excellent wine with a pleasing flavor and presented it to Yu. Yu tasted it and pronounced it not bad, but because he was worried that later rulers would lose their kingdoms if they drank pleasant wine like this, he treated Yi Di with disfavor and would not allow himself to have anything to do with wine. His concern was that large-scale wine making would result in shortages in the grain supply, which would then affect the stability of the government. Yu was right about this: in later generations, there were typical cases of rulers who forfeited their power because of their taste for wine.

There are also a lot of traditions about Du Kang’s wine making. They include the following account. Du Kang was the grandson of King Qi of the Xia Dynasty 4000 years ago, and deserves to be called "the Hamlet of the East." He was initially called Shao Kang, and his father was murdered. When he grew up, he assembled a party of senior ministers at court and killed his father's murderer. Then he became king and did a lot to consolidate the Xia Dynasty, which lasted 400 years. In his youth, he had been an official with responsibility for food and drink. He once put some grain in o hollow tree, and after a time he became aware of a strange fragrance emanating from the tree. It was from this that he worked out how to make wine. So people regarded him as the inventor of wine-making. As for why his name changed from Shao Kang to Du Kang, there is no explanation in the sources.

There is a famous saying about Du Kang and his wine making: "One bout of Du Kang’s fine wine can make you drunk tor three years.” Wine makers, because of their reverence for Du Kang, take him to be an immortal, and his name is synonymous with good wine. It is said that in the Jin Dynasty (265-420) one of the "Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" Liu Ling was a great lover of wine and had an enormous capacity for it. Because he was dissatisfied with politics, he often went off traveling, and wild drinking was part a great of these expeditions.

One day south of the city of Luoyang he fetched up in front of Du Kang’s wine shop, and looking up he saw two antithetical couplets saying: "One cup for the tiger, and he's drunk in the mountains; two cups tor the dragon, and he sleeps in the deep.” Along with these lines, which ran vertically, there was a horizontal line that added: "If you're not drunk for three years you don't have to pay.” When he finished reading those words, Liu Ling thought to himself: 'This wineshop keeper thinks a lot of himself. Since you talk so big, sir, I'll drink you dry - every pot and pitcher.” He then went in, drank one cup and asked for another. Du Kang appeared in front of him and advised him not to drink anymore, but Liu Ling was not persuaded. After drinking three cups in succession, Liu Ling discovered that he had no money on him, and so he told Du Kang that he had to go home to get some cash to pay for him. Du Kang said that instead, he would go to Liu Ling’s house in person three years later to collect the sum owed.

Three years passed and Du Kang arrived at Liu Ling's house to find only Liu Ling's wife. When he explained that three years before Liu Ling had come to drink at his wine shop and had left without paying, the wife flew into a rage and said “Three years ago after drinking in some shop or other my husband come home and died. So it was your wine! If you want your money, I want my husband!” At first, Du Kang was surprised, but after he thought for a while, he said to Liu Ling’s wife: “He did drink my wine. But I think he isn’t dead; he’s just drunk. Let’s go and have a look at him, and wake him up.” So they went in a crowd to where Liu Ling was buried, opened his grave and took the lid off his coffin. An astonishing scene met their eyes. Liu Ling was sitting up in his coffin with his clothes in good order, and his face was flushed as if he had just been drinking and was sleeping it off. They went close to call out to him, and his lips moved a little. He was whispering with a sigh of admiration: “That’s a great wine! Great wine!”

So perhaps Yi Di and Du Kang were the inventors of wine making. But a large number of people think that the emergence of wine making was entirely the result of natural processes. In the Huai Nan Zi (The book of the Prince of Huainan), an essential work of the Western Han Dynasty, we find the view that “the delights of the pure wine-jar begin with the work of the plow.” This makes a close connection between the making of wine and the cultivation of grain. The Jin Dynasty scholar Jiang Tong, in his Wine Edict, states still more explicitly that wine was the result of natural fermentation, and he thought that wine making went back to the ancient time of Shen Nong. The idea that wine occurred naturally is the explanation which appeals most to people today. Grain was severely stored, and so sprouted and produced molds. After grain of this kind was cooked, leftovers that were kept for some time turned into sprouted grain wine. People tasted it and discovered an unusual and attractive flavor, and then deliberate attempts to make wine began.

Wine in Sacrifice – Holy Means of Invocation, an Offering in the Holy Rite

In China, the liquid used in the earliest sacrificial offerings was not wine but pure water, because people had not yet learned how to make wine. The ancients thought that pure water was very precious, a suitable gift for the spirits, and even after wine began to be produced the custom persisted in some sacrifices of using pure water as an offering. This water when used for sacrifice was referred to as mysterious wine.

In ancient times wine used for sacrifice was divided into two broad categories. One was a wine made in the usual way; for the other turmeric root pounded into a paste was added to the grain for fermentation, and the resulting wine had a natural fragrance. The typical wine was made of grain and fresh water, and because the ingredients were mixed in different proportions and the maturing time varied the wines produced differed in color and strength. The ancients generally divided these wines by color and strength of flavor into five categories, giving them different names. The weaker and clearer the wine, the more it was valued.

For sacrificial rituals, there was a whole set of regulations, which not only stipulated what wines were to be used but also prescribed the vessels in which it was to be served. 

The culture of Shang and Zhou times had the ritual system at its heart, and sacrifice was an essential part of this system. The inscriptions preserved to bronze have a great deal of material related to sacrificial ritual, some of which confirm the classical texts, and some of which supplement their omissions. Sacrificial rituals in antiquity fall into two main types, sacrifices to ancestors and military rites. The offerings to ancestors include regularly reoccurring offerings to all ancestors and particular offerings to the more closely related dead. The most important and solemn of the military offerings was the sacrifice of captives.

In antiquity, especially under the Western Zhou, when significant sacrifices were carried out the most critical element was the “offerings to the impersonator.” What was the-shi (祀sacrificial)? When sacrifices were carried out, the role of the recipient of the cult, whether ancestor or spirit, was acted by a living person. The choice of someone for this impersonator role was strictly regulated. For state sacrifices the part was usually taken by a senior minister; the cult activities of ordinary people were mostly directed towards their ancestors, and that time an impersonator was generally chosen from among the dead man’s grandsons. The impersonator’s function was critical, and whatever his original status, once the ritual began he represented the ancestor or divinity throughout its progress, and even the ruler of the state had to make obeisance to him and offer him wine and other sacrificial goods. The impersonator had to sit upon the sacrificial altar while the participants knelt before him, and it was as if an ancestor of another spirit had come to visit from another world. These offerings to the impersonator had a significant influence on the later development of drama.

Sacrificial offerings varied in scale, and their importance was generally reflected in the number of times wine was offered. Ancestral rites ranked highest, and wine was offered nine times; offerings to the spirits of heaven and earth came next, and wine was offered seven times; the spirits of mountains and rivers and other nature spirits received five offerings of wine.

According to ancient sources, in the cult of ancestors under the Zhou 2500 years ago, the wine was used in the following ways: Before every sacrifice, specially designated people prepared the wine that would be needed for the rite. Usual wine and fragrant wine were both required, and of the natural wine, they adjusted specified quantities of the different types. The total for one sacrifice could be more than 150 litres. At the same time, the vessels and implements for holding and ladling out the wine had to be prepared as well, and the spoons were generally of jade, or at least their handles were.

At the beginning of the sacrifice, after the participants had taken their places, the first step was to sprinkle fragrant wine on the ground to call on the spirits to descent – the ancients thought that the soul was particularly sensitive to fragrant smells. After the wine was sprinkled on the ground the fragrance which immediately emanated would make it easy to attract the spirits. Then the ruler would take a jade ladle and ladle out fragrant wine from a full vessel, offering it to the impersonator on the altar who was playing the role of the most ancient ancestor; the impersonator would first sprinkle a little of the fragrant wine on the ground. And then take a small sip, putting the remainder down on the altar.

Next, it was the turn of the ruler’s consort to offer wine to the impersonator, who responded with the same sequence of actions as before. Then the ruler and his wife offered wine in the same way to the other impersonators. The purpose of this part of the ritual was to call on the spirits to attend, and after it was over, the participants imagined that the souls to whom they were sacrificing were now present. Next, they sacrificed one or more pigs, oxen or sheep. After that, to the accompaniment of music, the ruler and his consort from either side of the altar would offer wine to the impersonators and invite them to enjoy some morsels of food. Then they provided wine again, this time a more watery wine, for the impersonators to rinse their mouths – the ancients customarily rinsed their mouths in this way after eating. At that point, the senior ministers in succession offered wine to the ruler and his consort. When they had drunk the wine, the ruler and his senior ministers danced for the impersonators in a display of the state’s greatness and strength. Then the princes and others offered wine to the impersonators. The impersonators drank with the princes and senior ministers too, and after this was over, they retired, bringing their whole performance to an end.

In sacrificial rituals like these wine was not only the catalyst in making contact with the spirits, it also permeated the whole interchange between the world of the souls and the world of living men.