Sinology
Acquaintance

Those working in any ancient tradition, and wishing to consider evidence from other such traditions, would be helped if each field provided, for the others, something like basic acquaintance information. Not instruction in the language (that is for the experts), but introductions to some of the local specifics. Here is our suggestion for classical China. Included are references to articles (many from past or forthcoming issues of our journals, Warring States Papers and Alpha (the latter for studies from a comparative point of view), to show how we arrive at those conclusions, or to give extra detail on some matters of interest. We also refer to these larger works: Prospects (1994), TOA (The Original Analects, 1998), and EC (The Emergence of China, 2015).

Viewer questions or corrections are always welcome; use the mail link at the bottom of this page.

Language

The Chinese language has been much mythologized in the West, which merely prevents understanding. Some basics: Modern and classical Chinese differ greatly, and are best kept apart. Chinese has grammar (of the SVO type), but it is a grammar of position. Chinese words are uninflected; there are no I-me or do-did distinctions in either either speech or writing. Chinese characters are not ideographs, but logographs (word symbols); each has one or more associated pronunciations. There are more than 50,000 characters in the largest dictionaries (Morohashi), and every practitioner knows a few that are not in Morohashi. Elementary literacy in classical requires a core of about 8,000 (the Mathews Chinese-English dictionary has 7,773). Even more than with Arabic, Chinese calligraphy is an art in itself, which the general historian need not acquire, but it will help, in reading translations or commentaries, to memorize the characters for a dozen or so of the commonest historical or philosophical terms. Knowledge of how to make the strokes is useful for memorization; see Bjorksten, Learn to Write Chinese Characters, 1994.

Romanizations of Chinese are a sad story. Both the old Wade-Giles and the later Pinyin are counterintuitive, and invite mispronunciation. Our solution is the Common Alphabetic system, which follows the usual Western convention (vowels as in Italian, consonants as in English) with a few necessary extensions. There is a table comparing all three in the back of TOA or EC, or any volume of Warring States Papers. Here is that table.

History

The earliest Chinese "dynasties" are mythical; history begins with Shang. Sometime in the reign of King Wu Ding (c01320), there occurred an Aryan Conquest, which introduced chariot warfare and the idea of writing. (An earlier Aryan incursion of chariots into India seemingly did not bring writing). The Aryans became the ruling group, with the indigenous Chinese as the subject population. In India, the Aryans dominated so thoroughly that they imposed their language (known as Sanskrit) on North India; in the earliest hymns (the Rg Veda), only occasional native words occur (all of them involved with farming,and thus deriving from the subject population). In China, the opposite occurred; the number of Aryan conquerors was too small to impose itself linguistically, and the only Aryan terms which can be detected have to do with horses or chariots (the Chinese word for horse, "ma," is cognate with OHG "marah" and Eng "mare," and one of two Chinese words for "dog" relates to Lat "canis;" the other is the native word. One more is the conquerors' word for God: Chinese di ~ Skt dyaus ~ Gk Zeus ~! Lat deus.

History as based on texts opens with the "oracle bones" of King Wu Ding's palace (see Keightley, Sources of Shang History, 1978). The next dynasty, Jou, which conquered Shang in c01120, is known from a number of bronze inscriptions (largely presentations by the Jou King to meritorious warriors). Jou fell in 0771, but was not replaced by a third dynasty; its later Kings, in their enclave at Lwo-yang, retained only a limited ceremonial importance. The former Jou subject states were on their own, and presently sought to revive a Jou-type hegemony, with themselves as Hegemon. For the first 50 post-Jou years we know nothing. But 0722, the small state of Lu (the home state of Confucius) undertook to keep a chronicle, the Chun/Chyou ("Spring and Autumn") text, which gives a detailed account of sacrificial and political matters from then on. This defines the "Spring and Autumn" period of Chinese history (08c-06c).

That chronicle as we now have it ends with the death of Confucius in 0479, and everything from then until the creation of the Empire (under Chin, in 0221) is best assigned to the "Warring States" period, 05c-03c, the golden age of Chinese philosophical thought, and the time on which posterity's interest naturally focuses.

It is helpful to have a rough idea of the locations of the major Warring States; here is a map. The dominant states in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods moved from east to west: first Chi, then Jin, and finally Chin.

Nature of the Classical Texts

As in all ancient traditions (see our Primer for examples), many classical Chinese texts are growth texts, and their formation process needs to be recovered before they can be understood. See TOA for a separation of the various strata in the Analects. As a second example, here are our conclusions about the complex Han dynasty text Han Shr Wai-jwan (Prospects 1-11).

It is not entirely a secret that the classical Chinese texts are the results of a growth process. Jang Sywe-chvng noted long ago that the typical Warring States text is not the literary inspiration of one individual, but the doctrinal record of a school. Such a text naturally adds new chapters to keep current with new issues, or to further develop their own ideas. New material is also added to old chapters (as extensions or interpolations), in some cases to keep the record more homogeneous as a whole. Different texts also interact with each other; this is indeed the age of the "Hundred Schools." One of the most famous of these interactions is the argument over human nature: the Mencian school's half of it is at MC 6A; Sywndz's half is in SZ 23. The two halves must be put back together before either is fully intelligible. Similarly, the Analects is aware of the Micians (the school of Mwodz), whose art of definition they eventually adopted; and also of the Legalist tradition of the Gwandz, from which LY 12 quotes several phrases (TOA 89-96, from c0326).The meditation approach of the Dau/Dv Jing influences some groups (including some of the authors of the Jwangdz), and is opposed by others. The Micians at first criticize the warlike governments of their day, but later, as they themselves become involved with government, they adjust that position, and wind up being indistinguishable from their onetime enemies, the civil-service oriented Confucians. Without noticing these changes in individual texts, or these arguments between texts, we can understand neither the texts nor the classical period itself.

When the major Chinese texts have been stratified, and their interactions noted, it becomes possible to date much of the material (individual sayings attributed to Confucius or Mencius, chapters of the Dauist or military texts) to within a year or two. This results has special value for the study of ancient India: From the time of Confucius (0c to early 05c), Chinese traders were reaching India, bringing back with them the technique of Buddhist meditation; in later centuries, they were also familiar with the major Upanishads. We can say, for instance, that the second stratum of the Maha-Parinibbana Sutta was already in place by the year 0510.

Changes During the Classical Period

Before considering individual texts, we may summarize the major changes in the period, which are reflected in different ways by the texts. China in this period was reinventing itself, and that process had several important aspects. There are two periods: Spring and Autumn (roughly 08c-05c) and Warring States (05c-03c). The Chin Empire was founded in 0221, and was followed by the more durable Han (two centuries, then a break, and then another two centuries).

State. The Spring and Autumn state was hereditary, with a small directly-ruled area and all other land apportioned to support the hereditary chariot warriors. Beginning in the 05c, though rulership remained hereditary, the ruler's few assistants were expanded into a large salaried civil service, staffing a huge resource bureaucracy, with all land now directly ruled and taxed, in order to support the new mass army. Lineal succession continued, but was challenged by a theory of meritocratic succession. This idea was especially associated with the Confucians, and is part of their vision of an imagined antiquity, the age of "Yau and Shun," when rulership did pass to the most qualified successor.

Service. Confucius, himself a hereditary warrior with a landholding in Lu, adapted the old service ethos of the warrior (based on absolute faithfulness and reliability) to the needs of the new civil bureaucracy, with an analogous and equally fervent dedication to state service, but no longer service to a specific ruler, or even a specific state. This generality later made Confucianism useful to the unified Empire. This ethos of public service, this conception of the public good, is part of the Chinese worldview, but has only a slender philosophical basis in the West.

War. The new infantry army could do things the old chariot force could not, but it took a long time to figure out exactly how to use it. In the early 04c, the Tyen usurpers in Chi gave new impetus to that effort, resulting in the first writings on the theory of war (Sundz) and the theory of the state itself (Gwandz). War was opposed in the early Mician ethical writings, a position later modified; the Mician military writings contain an art of city defense. Later military texts are the Confucianized Szma Fa and the Wei Lyaudz (its final, and most brutal, segment was written in Chin). The Chin theory of government as supporting war is visible in the Shang-jywn Shu.

Law. The new government, which begins to be visible in detail in the 04c texts, required total control, based on top-down rules, or law (fa). Claims of pre-Warring States lawgivers and lawcodes (as in the Dzwo Jwan) are mythical. What we see in the Warring States, both in the (largely 04c) Shu documents and in the statecraft texts, is evolution in the detail and sophistication of the law. Civil law (the adjudication of disputes between persons) is present, but largely ignored by the theorists of state; it is implied in the early Analects and in the forensic style of argument seen in the earliest Mician text, MZ 17. This is the form of law - dispute resolution - which is central to the function of clan leaders rather than government courts and judges.

Literacy. Law requires literacy, both in those who apply the law and also in those who are subject to it. Literacy in Shang was confined to palace diviners; in Jou it spread to the court and the military nobility. By late Spring and Autumn it was known to the elite. From c0400, we have non-elite literacy, making possible public argument against the state. Fiction appears (in Dzwo Jwan narratives) in the 04c; by 03c it had reached the lower population (see the Jwangdz 8:4 story of the shepherd boy who lost his flock because he was absorbed in reading a book).

Logic. Law requires precise definition of terms. Is it murder if the state executes a criminal? The Micians took up this problem. Some of them were inspired by advances in science both local (successful prediction of eclipses, the discovery of the 60-year cycle of Jupiter), and imported (after the Alexandrian conquest of 0329/0327, Bactria was a wholly Greek city, and the paradox of Euthyphro was not only transmitted, but widely discussed in the Chinese philosophical texts). The Micians (MZ 40-45) devoted themselves to logic: the definition of terms and the classification of arguments. Sophism flourished.

Thought. All this gave an air of confidence to the period. Underlying reality could be discerned. Beneath trade lay a theory of money. Behind medical lore lurked a doctrine of heat and cold. Among the chances of combat the expert could see some constant strategic principles. The arbitrary hexagrams of the Yi could be understood in terms of their constituent trigrams. And philosophy was no longer a bunch of gnomic sayings, but a unified system of thought. As "Confucius" says in LY *4:15 (c0294), "By one thing I link it all together." All this is new, and the excitement of the people of that time is evident in their writings.

Antiquity. What is the authority for some principle? The spirits? The ruler? Written documents? Ancient tradition? Over the classical period, "antiquity," an authority not associated with one school tradition, but common to all the states, was increasingly relied on. Antiquity was a neutral zone, where anyone might invent a tradition, without challenge from philosophical rivals (except once, in MC 7B3, c0255). Reliance on a remembered or invented human antiquity, or on the constancy of nature, came to be permanent features of the Chinese mental world.

Chronology

These key external events are part of our framework for placing the texts, not only in relative time, but in in absolute time. We emphasize the Confucian tradition.

For a one-page list of exact dates for the chapters of the Analects, Sundz, Dau/Dv Jing, and parts of Gwandz, see here.

First Access to Texts

The outsider will largely work from translations. Only a few translations reflect the formation process which led to the text. Here are three:

Reputable first-acquaintance translations, though presenting the texts as a unity, include the following:

For details on all the major texts, as we understand them, see the Summary section.

Envoi

We hope to have suggested that these conclusions, based on a critical tradition going back to ancient times in the West, and also, though less continuously, in China, have helped to show more clearly how the classical texts arose and interacted over time, in the end producing the rich interplay of ideas and realities that we know as the Warring States: the Golden Age of Chinese thought.

Has this result any interest or utility beyond China? We venture to suggest that it does.

A more reliable chronology of the texts reveals a hitherto unsuspected fact: that the oft-noted similarities between Greek and Chinese ideas are not so many coincidences, scattered over time, but on the contrary, have a sharp cutoff date in Chinese sources. They turn out to be isolated Greek ideas which began to reach China, and to attract philosophical interest there, only after a certain moment in history (Alexander's conquest and Hellenization of Bactria, 0329-0327). Further investigation would show limited, but unmistakable, input from Indian meditation and Persian medicine. Still further investigation would suggest that, just as Persian medicine was also known in Greece (with Ionia, the easternmost Greece, as a particular focus for outside ideas), the Indian concept of the elements was known in, and produced somewhat different results in, both Greece and China. Thus does the ancient world become clearer to ourselves. We can acquire, not merely an impressionistic, but a more systematic, understanding of the ancient world.

Contact The Project