In the wuchen year of Kangxi’s reign, the candidates gathered for the metropolitan examination begged the planchette spirit to show them the question.
The spirit wrote two characters: Don’t know.
The candidates bowed twice and begged again: “How can there be such a thing as a god who does not know?”
The spirit then wrote in large characters: Don’t know, don’t know, and again don’t know.
The crowd roared with laughter, and took the spirit for an ignoramus.
That session’s examination question was on the three clauses of the Analects that end: Without knowing the Mandate, one has no way to become a gentleman.
Again, before the provincial examination of the jiawu year, some scholars begged the planchette spirit to show them the question. The spirit wrote three characters: Cannot be spoken. The scholars begged bitterly and would not stop, so it wrote: It lies exactly on “cannot be spoken.” They were more bewildered than ever, and begged the spirit to show them plainly.
The spirit wrote a single character: to sign.
They knocked and asked again — but it did not answer.
Before long, the question was posted: the chapter of the Analects that begins, To know it is not so good as to love it.
