Great Ultimate, although symbolizing the principle of activi-
ty and tranquility, is not directly involved in the creative
transformation of the universe. Nevertheless, like Zhou
Dunyi and other neo-Confucian thinkers, Zhu Xi insisted
that the truth of the Great Ultimate must be personally real-
ized through moral self-cultivation: the truth of the Great
Ultimate is not simply knowledge about some external reali-
ty but a personal knowledge rooted in self-awareness in the
ethico-religious sense.
In the folk tradition, the symbol of the Great Ultimate
carries a connotation of mysterious creativity. The spiritual
and physical exercise known as Taiji quan (a form of tradi-
tional Chinese shadowboxing) is still widely practiced. This
slow, firm, and rhythmic exercise disciplines the body and
purifies the mind through coordinated movements and regu-
lated breathing. It is a remarkable demonstration that cos-
mological thought can be translated into physical and mental
instruction for practical living without losing its intellectual
sophistication. After all, in the Chinese order of things, to
know the highest truth is not simply to know about some-
thing but to know how to do it properly through personal
knowledge.
SEE ALSO Confucianism; Li; Yinyang Wuxing; Zhou Dunyi;
Zhu Xi.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chan, Wing-tsit. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton,
- See chapters 28, 29, and 31.
Fung Yu-lan. A History of Chinese Philosophy. 2 vols. Princeton,
1952–1953. See volume 2, pages 435–442, 457–458, and
537–545.
Graham, A. C. Two Chinese Philosophers. London, 1958.
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilisation in China. 5 vols. Cam-
bridge, 1954–.
Tu Wei-ming. Humanity and Self-Cultivation: Essays in Confucian
Thought. Berkeley, 1979. See chapter 5, pages 72–76.
TU WEI-MING (1987)
TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE (The cattle raid of Cuailnge)
is the longest and the most famous of the early Irish heroic
tales. It exists in three recensions. The first of them is pre-
served in Lebhor na hUidhre (The book of the dun cow),
dated circa 1100 CE, and in the Yellow Book of Lecan, a late
fourteenth-century manuscript. The second is preserved in
the Book of Leinster, written in the mid-twelfth century, and
the third in two manuscripts of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. However, as with many other early Irish tales, the
date of the earliest extant manuscript provides only a termi-
nus ante quem for the first recording as well as for the compo-
sition of the text, and even in the first recension of Táin Bó
Cuailnge there are several linguistic strata which make it pos-
sible to trace the earlier written history of the tale back to
the seventh or eighth century. This recension seems to have
been compiled about the middle of the eleventh century
from at least two variant written versions dating from about
the ninth century, but may also have drawn upon sources in
oral tradition. On linguistic and other grounds Rudolf
Thurneysen (1921) concluded that the saga may have been
recorded for the first time in the middle of the seventh centu-
ry. Moreover, there is a poem composed not later than the
seventh century in which the supernatural woman Scáthach
addresses the principal hero of Táin Bó Cuailnge, Cú
Chulainn, and foretells, cryptically and laconically, some of
the main events of the tale; but whether the poet was drawing
upon an oral tradition or a written version of the tale is un-
certain.
In its extant form, the story tells of an attack on the
province of Ulster organized by Ailill and Medhbh, king and
queen of Connacht, and supported by the rest of Ireland.
The object of the attack is to carry off the great bull of the
Ulster people, the Donn Cuailnge (“the brown bull of Cuail-
nge”). Such was the prestige of Táin Bó Cuailnge in early me-
dieval Ireland that it generated an extensive complex of ancil-
lary tales and traditions and came to be accepted by native
men of learning as the classic statement of the heroic ethos.
As it stands, the saga reflects something of Irish political
conditions at the beginning of the historical period (fifth
century) or earlier, but some scholars have suggested that its
original theme was the rivalry of two bulls. The background
to this rivalry is given in a separate tale: the bulls had former-
ly been magical swineherds who had quarreled and passed
through a series of metamorphoses before reaching their ac-
tual form. Bruce Lincoln has argued that the account of the
fight between the bulls at the end of Táin Bó Cuailnge is a
reflex of an Indo-European cosmogonic myth: “a man...
and a bull... are killed and dismembered, and from their
bodies the world is constructed” (Priests, Warriors, and Cat-
tle, Berkeley, 1981, pp. 86–92). However, several difficulties
remain to be resolved before this attractive hypothesis can be
accepted.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carney, James. “Early Irish Literature: The State of Research.” In
Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of Celtic
Studies, pp. 113ff. Dublin, 1983. This lecture refers to recent
philological studies on the early history of Táin Bó Cuailnge.
O’Rahilly, Cecile, ed. Táin Bó Cúailnge from the Book of Leinster.
Dublin, 1967.
O’Rahilly, Cecile, ed. Táin Bó Cúailnge: Recension I. Dublin,- This and the preceding entry refer to the two main re-
censions of the saga. Both recensions provide an introduction
and translation.
Thurneysen, Rudolf. Die irische Helden- und Königsage bis zum sie-
bzehnten Jahrhundert. 2 vols. (Halle, 1921). See pages 96ff.
This is the classic study of Táin Bó Cuailnge and the Ulster
cycle in general. The approach is predominantly textual and
philological; the main shortcoming is its inadequate compre-
hension of the oral and mythological dimensions of early
Irish literary tradition.
PROINSIAS MAC CANA (1987 AND 2005)
8960 TÁIN BÓ CUAILNGE