Sinologica
SummaryHere is a summary of the conclusions so far reached about the major classical Chinese texts. Some entries have references or links to preciously published work; others are awaiting formal publication. One characteristic of this work is that it takes account of methods and results in other antiquities as well. It turns out that the methods are more or less universal, and that specific results tend to be comparable in different traditions There are several ways in which ancient texts, as a group, agreed with each other, and differed from procedures familiar in more recent texts.
The methods of working with ancient texts have themselves been known since antiquity, in both China (where, however they have only an intermittent tradition), and in the West. They include the identification of additions and interpolations to a text, as well as the detection of forgeries; and the determination of directionality between related texts. These are entirely universal. Whether in Moses or in Mencius, an interpolation is later than the thing into which it is interpolated. And so on, throughout the whole range of what Philology does. See further the pages at this site for historical and philological method. Our own addition to that traditional toolkit is a test of stylistic difference.
Modern readers have generally preferred to take a simplistic view of these texts, For them, all Analects sayings are by Confucius, all the Dau/Dv Jing is the words of Laudz, and so on. This unhistorical reading wholly misses the dynamic of the classical Chinese situation, where texts adds new material in response to new conditions, and may carry on a running argument with their philosophical rivals. If China is not to be forever trivialized, the more dynamic sense of the texts and their period needs to be appreciated.
The Project's work is ongoing, and some key investigations are yet to be formally published. Here is a brief summary of results for the major texts, as of the year 2022. The texts are listed in chronological order of their earliest portions. Reference is made to the following monographs and books: Prospects (1994; see pages 1-74), The Original Analects (1998), and The Emergence of China (2015).
Besides studying texts, one must also examine specific problem words, such as the negative fei and the connective ji.
- The Major Pre-Imperial Texts -
(Names of the "Classic" texts and their major commentaries are in Red; see also "Han Stone Classics")Chun/Chyou ("Spring and Autumn," CC). The court chronicle of Lu, kept from 0722 on. It records events affecting the calendar, eclipses, famines, and other omens, as well as diplomatic and military events, all matters of primary concern to the ruler and his immediate circle. We possess only the portion to 0481 (the death of Confucius), with a few doubtful passages thereafter; the Kung proprietors of that text saw it as about Confucius, not the larger period in which he lived. What we have of the CC is an invaluable contemporary record; largely neglected by modern scholars, who prefer the more exciting Dzwo Jwan. CC records how the state of Lu acquired boundaries, and weathered an interval of climate change. It gives invaluable information about the nature of the early armies (which were to be replaced, in the Warring States period, by something much more powerful) and the contrast between formal battles and unopposed raids. The careers of many important individuals, both rulers and others, including some from other states, and not a few women of consequence, can be extracted from its famously terse entries. The feelings of the court about some unwelcome events can be detected by a close study of its wording. A comprehensive study currently in progress will emphasize the contrast of Spring and Autumn with the Warring States period, and highlight matters of wider historical interest, such as the typology of states, and the nature of transitions from one form of state to another.
Analects (Lun Yw, LY). Its core (now part of LY 4) is remembered sayings of the historical Confucius, written down by disciple Dz-gung at the time of Confucius' funeral. Extended under the headship of various disciples, including Dzvngdz (LY 7) and his son (LY 9), the last school head to work within the period when any original disciples were still living. At the beginning of the 04c, the school was taken over by members of the Kung family, and acquired a ritual emphasis. At the end of the 04c, it rejected meditation as a way of knowledge, and also war as a tool of statecraft. The Analects Confucians lost influence at court (see the preposed LY 1) and played a bystander role thereafter. With other texts, it was extinguished under the Chu governor Sywndz in 0249.
The Analects is the best example of a text whose growth process, including repeated harmonizing self-interpolations, is well understood; see in detail The Original Analects.
Shr (The Classic of Poetry). One of the three most important Chinese Classics. It consists of three sections: Fvng (popular songs real or invented, Ya (court pieces), and Sung (sacrificial pieces, some of them accompanied by dances). Some poems, such as the unrhymed Jou sacrificial hymns (the core of the Sung) and some songs of the urban elite (the later Ya), already existed in the 05th century. Then Confucius's disciple Dz-sya set out to collect songs from other states, as reflections of their culture, and indicators of hgow likely they might be to succeed Jou as the overlord of all. These became the Fvng section of the Shr. Some of them scandalized orthodox opinion, both at that time (LY 6:13) and later (LY 17:16), and more discreet poems were invented, and added to the section, to make it suitable for the young. The collection itself was formed during the Warning States period, and many of the poems reflect issues of that time, and not a more remote antiquity.
Mwodz (MZ). The sub-elite Micians were traders and property owners, Their "Golden Rule" for getting along in foreign places was known to (but rejected by) the Confucians as early as LY 5:12 (c0470). Under the leadership of Mwo Di in c0400, that principle and several antiwar tracts were written up as public protests against new war state. There followed repeated revisions of these and other topics in later years, as Micians entered government service and modified their views accordingly. These ethical chapters are MZ 1-39. MZ 40-45 are devoted to logic, MZ 46-50 to confronting the Analects Confucians, and MZ 51-71 to the art of city defense.
Dzwo Jwan (DJ). This huge endeavor (it is by far the largest Warring States text) began in the early 04c as a short ritual commentary on the Chun/Chyou, and developed over the rest of the 04c as a reimagining of all Spring and Autumn history, in an increasingly literary style (it reflects the first flowering of Chinese fiction). It takes up various ethical and political theories, such as theodicy, in which it parallels the development of similar ideas in the Mician ethical writings, not to mention the Book of Job. It is an important source for these and other 04c developments, but is treacherous as a guide to the earlier period, on which it imposes its own theory of history. After c0330, the DJ became a propaganda organ for the state of Chi.
Yi (The Classic Of Changes) stands apart from the other texts, and even the other classics. It is a divination manual, symbolizing every possible human situation by one of 64 six-line complexes or hexagrams. It had its origin in an earlier pentagram version, used by sub-elite traders and townsmen (EC 71); here is another glimpse of life at the sub-elite level, but one now buried beneath an elite rewriting process, which occurred sometime in the early 04c. The transition from the pentagram to the hexagram system mirrors a general social change, a change visible everywhere in the classical corpus. Yi divination is first heard from in the later layers of the Dzwo Jwan. The claim that the Yi was known and used in the Jou period, though now enshrined in standard myth (which attributes a stage in its formation to Jou Wvn-wang) is easily refuted.
Shu (The Classic of Documents). When reference to imaginary ancient figures proved insufficiently convincing, at some point in the 04c there began to be composed supposed speeches and decrees of ancient rulers. They deal with the basics of government, especially law, and several were revised either then or in the 03c, to take account of innovations in law. Some pieces reflect a consultative deliberation process, a radical departure from the former ruler-only pattern. Some 29 Shu are preserved; this genuine body of texts was supplemented in post-Han times by an almost equal number of forged Shu. None of the first group of 29 reflect any genuine antiquity; all draw on an imaginary antiquity to make contemporary points (one set of three, Shu 18-20, the Pan Gvng, used an imagined ancient precedent to justify the move of the Ngwei capital to Lyang, which was done in 0362). Some Shu show rivalry between Ngwei, with Shau-gung as its revered figure, and Lu, for whom it was rather the Lu ancestor Jou-gung who was decisive in supporting the new Jou Dynasty. No Shu can plausibly be dated before the 04c.
Gwandz (GZ). A series of Chi statecraft texts, the earliest dating from the mid 04c and the latest being composed in Han. This is the one text which, besides the Analects, has been widely recognized as not all of one date. Some Han chapters have a pronounced economic interest; others are explicit commentaries on very early GZ texts, to reconcile them with a later point of view. Many GZ chapters argue for or assume a statecraft of extreme top-down control; they lay out how revenue is to be maximized, and obedience guaranteed. An important subset are the Gwandz meditation texts (GZ 49 plus 36, 37, and 38). The earliest of these, GZ 49, was written by refugees from the Lu DDJ group, who in 0330 left that school to pursue a less governmental approach to meditation. Mencius, while in Chi, was a follower of that meditation group.
Sundz. Written in Chi during 0357-0319, and containing the new Chi art of war, in which for a time Chi led other states. Beginning with notes on how to negotiate different types of terrain with the new foot army (Sundz 9-11), it reaches full competence with the preposed Sundz 8. Then come increasingly sophisticated strategic chapters, also preposed (Sundz 7 through 2); Sundz 1 was added when the text was presented to Chi Sywaen-wang on his accession in 0319. The Sundz gets at some very basic principles of war, most obviously in Sundz 7; it is now studied in every staff college in the world. The next military text is the Wudz.
Dau/ Dv Jing (DDJ). The text of a Lu meditation school, going back to Confucius's disciple Yen Hwei in the 05c. In response to the crisis of 0342, this school began to put out an alternative, minimalist theory of rulership, based on the insights gained by meditation. There are in all three heads of the school. The early chapters (core at DDJ 14) alternate postposed and preposed chapters; this pattern continued under Li Dan ("Laudz"), who became head in 0330, until DDJ 38, from which point (reflecting the military crisis of 0318) all chapters are postposed. Li Dan took the school in a more realistic direction (antagonizing some students, who left for Chi). So did his successor, his grandson Li Ju, whose chapters (DDJ 67-81) show a distinct Mician influence, and drop meditation altogether. The DDJ, like several other school texts, had a constant rate of addition. By combining tshese indications, and relating them at some points to datable events, it is possible to put together a year-by-year chronology of the philosophical texts as a group.
Shang-jywn Shu (SJS). Associated with Shang-jywn ("The Lord of Shang," his fief in Chin; also called Shang Yang "Yang of the fief Shang" or Wei Yang "Yang, from the state of Wei"), who on his arrival in Chin was given trial command of an army which defeated Ngwei. He was rewarded with a fief ("Shang") and became the chief advisor to the Chin ruler of that time. He imposed a new, harsh set of laws in Chin. The absolute dates are uncertain. The core (SJS 10 and 11, on the conditions for using the people in war) is genuine; the rest is later additions; this is the chief repository of western (Chin) statecraft thought, paralleling the Gwandz (GZ) on the east.
Mencius (MC), born in c0385, was a student of the Analects school who also sat in on meetings of the DDJ group. About 0330, he traveled to Chi to observe its statecraft practice, and brought back maxims from the early Gwandz which he contributed to Analects 12 (c0326) and 13 (c0322). He left in 0320 to advise the King of Ngwei ("Lyang") on his own theory of "benevolent government," went to Chi at the death of that ruler in 0319, and eventually gained high position there. In 0315 he advised the annexation of occupied Yen, leading to a disastrous retaliation by other states in 0314; he was dismissed in 0313 and thereafter held posts in very minor states; he died in Tvng in 0302. To his preserved interviews with these rulers, his surviving disciples added forged interviews, expressing their own sometimes divergent lines of thought; these together make up MC 1. The disciples presently split into two schools: a southern or political one in Tvng (MC 2-3) and a northern or philosophical one in Dzou (MC 4-7). The latter contained both meditationist and governmental factions. With all other texts based in or near Lu, the Mencius came to an end in 0249, with a wry comment in MC 7B38.
Bamboo Annals (BA; Ngwei, 0309). The presentation of the Dzwo Jwan to the ruler of Chi in c0312 made an intentional sensation. The courtiers of Ngwei hastened to do likewise. They put together a chronicle, not of Lu, but of their own state, Ngwei, from whatever records they had plus liberal use of imagination. They waited anxiously for some event on which to end their chronicle triumphantly; one occurred in 0309, and the text was hastily brought to a close. It was buried with that ruler (Ngwei Syang-wang), and only recovered when that tomb was broken into in a later century. The text was known for a while, but then lost again. It has been recovered from early quotations by Wang Gwo-wei and others; there is a competing version supposedly discovered in the Ming Dynasty. The two agree only in part. Tempers flare over which is the real Bamboo Annals. We find the Wang Gwo-wei recovered version to be the more plausible.
Gwo Yw (GY, c0300). The BA was a sparse facts-only list of events, close to the original CC in literary tone. Separately, this text, in a place not possible to fix, based itself instead on DJ stories, extending some, revising others in a ritual direction, and adding (or inventing) yet others. GY is divided by state, Jin receiving the most attention (as was also true of the early DJ), and Chu coming next, implying the drama of the North/South contest of Spring and Autumn times. The Chi section consists solely of a discussion between Gwan Jung and Hwan-gung on preparing the state for war, taken almost verbatim from GZ 20, whose date (c0300), along with a mentioned eclipse, serves to date GY itself. The language is difficult (some have seen Chu language in it), and needs to be read with a commentary.
Sywndz (SZ), c0310-c0235, easily the least likable of the major figures, is the philosopher of social difference. His career included study at the Lu court, and he is listed in the transmission genealogy of the Shr, next after his master Gvnmoudz. Sywndz openly opposed many thinkers of the time, including the orthodox Confucians (Analects, Mencius) as well as the Dauists and Micians. In 0257 he was invited by the pro-Confucian ruler of Chi to be the senior member of the revived Ji-sya (The Chi ruler's subsidized political philosophers; founded in 0312), but soon antagonized the traditional Chi thinkers, and when Chu conquered part of Lu (0254), he went to Lan-ling as governor of occupied Lu under the new Chu rulership. When Lu was obliterated in 0249, he presided over the extinction of the rival texts Analects, Mencius, Dau/Dv Jing, and at least one group of the Micians. The genuine chapters of his works are SZ 3-24; the rest stem from his successor school in Chu. His most famous pieces are SZ 17 ("On Heaven"), ill-advisedly refuting the Chi Naturalists, and SZ 23 ("Human Nature is Evil"), from his dispute with the northern Mencians, whose side of the argument is in M 6A.
Wudz (WZ). The second major military text; composed in Ngwei by Li Dan's son Li Chung in two stages, and presented to two successive rulers of Ngwei, in 0295 and 0276. Li Chung was enfiefed by the latter as a reward. WZ goes beyond the Sundz in some points, such as the training of horses and the reconciliation of a conquered populace. This cautious text is appropriate for Ngwei; surrounded by enemies, it could only survive by holding what territory it had. This and the Sundz were regarded as early as 0250 as the classic war texts. Both were enormously expended during Han, but of them, only the Sundz has survived in modern estimation.
Jwangdz (JZ). Written by a diverse group of people beginning in c0285; the latest chapters are of Han date. Arguments for its unity have only proved the opposite. JZ is the only classical text which argues for the individual against the otherwise pervasive public-service values of the age. Its enemy is not the escalating wars, but the state itself: serving in office in dangerous times too easily led to death. The state remained dangerous in later dynasties, and the Jwangdz has become an identity text for many. From its earliest period, it contains conflicting views which themselves change and evolve over time. It knew, and at one point engaged seriously with, the part of the Dau/Dv Jing supervised by Li Dan, but knows nothing after DDJ 66. JZ and DDJ are oddly matched as representing "early Dauism;" DDJ is applied meditation, while JZ is a personalist protest against the oppressive civil government, and only briefly dallies with meditation as such. Its Laudz anecdotes are there for the purpose of making Confucius look ridiculous.
Yi Li. The earliest ritual text; its core (mid 03c) records ceremonies between ordinary people. Court ceremonies were included only in a later addition. YL is the only ritual text which can be plausibly dated to Warring States times: it is the likeliest thing referred to in Analects *7:18 (c0270), and the later, expanded version was only ritual text included in the conservative Han Stone Classics of late Eastern Han (the Yi Li portion was engraved in 181-182), which seem to have preserved the orthodoxy of Wu-di's time, when the Imperial Academy was founded.
Szma Fa (SMF), among the military texts, is a Confucian rationale for warmaking. Presented to the last Chi King, the Confucian-leaning Jyen, on his accession in 0264. Its five chapters consist in part of snippets culled from the Sundz and (to a less extent) the Wudz, the two generally recognized military classics of the mid 03rd century.
Wei Lyaudz (WLZ). Composed in two stages, the first in Ngwei (WLZ 1-10. c0242), and the last, more brutal part, in Chin (WLZ 11-20, 0237, and 21-24, 0232). The last of the classical military texts. Many more military writings, some of them with spurious Warring States credentials (both the Sundz and the Wudz were enormously extended, with extra chapters and with maps; see HS 30), would be composed in Han.
Lw-shr Chun/Chyou. Eclectic, and dependent on earlier Warring States texts. The first portion (1-12, preface 0241) was compiled under the direction of the Chin minister Lw Bu-wei. After his banishment and death, his followers continued to add to it, and to present it to the Chin sovereign of the time, producing the Lan chapters (LSCC 13-20) and then the Lun chapters (LSCC 21-26), the last group including material ascribed to Shvn Nung, the God of Agriculture, and presented to the First Emperor of the unified Chin Dynasty. LSCC thus takes us into the Imperial period, to which we now turn.
- Some Imperial Period Texts -
Gungyang Jwan. A rival to the Dzwo Jwan commentary on the Chun/Chyou. It was the standard commentary in early Han, but was eventually replaced in scholarly favor by the Dzwo Jwan. GYJ is the commentary that was included in the conservative Han Stone Classics; it was engraved in c180). The third such commentary, also produced in Han times (though claiming earlier oral credentials), is the Gulyang Jwan (GLJ); it is similar to Gungyang in format, though not in ideology.
Dzvngdz (DZ). The historical Dzvngdz is the one whose work we see in LY 7 (and the core of LY 8); he was a strong proponent of the meditation of Yen Hwei. He vanishes from the Analects, only to return in the late 04c as a quite different character. In Han times, he was associated with the filial piety cult. The chapters on Dzvngdz in one of the Han texts may be the entirety of the Dzvngdz text of Han times.
Jan-gwo Tsv. These stories are mostly about the rhetoricians Jang Yi and Su Chin, only the latter of whom was a real person. Both are portrayed as trying, unsuccessfully, to persuade the states to unite against Chin, so as to avoid being conquered. This is entirely fictional; it amounts to retrospective wishful thinking on the part of those discontented with the Empire. But there were many such; and there was an audience for this sort of literature. The collection evolved over time, in part as several separate collections. In one form it was used by Szma Tan in writing the Shr Ji, and those imaginary stories contribute to the weakness of SJ as a reliable history. Our present combined text (edited in Han by the bibliographer Lyou Syang) contains 497 stories, including several fables of the Aesop variety, with talking animals or stones; these reflect Indian cultural influence in Han times.
Shr Ji (SJ). A history of China from earliest times. Not a single work, but one with two primary authors. It was outlined and in large part completed by the Dauist-trained Szma Tan, with additions by his Confucian-trained son Szma Chyen (to whom the whole has been wrongly attributed). The still missing last few chapters were added by imperial command at the end of Han. Szma Tan misunderstood the chronology of the late 04c, and included many invented Han stories of the Warring States (the Jan-gwo Tsv, as it then existed), all of which compromises the historical value of his work, while admittedly increasing its recreational value. He did draw on genuine Dauist and other early text transmission genealogies (he was trained in both the Dauist and the divination traditions) and on some then-extant state ruler lists, but the result must be used with great care. SJ is esteemed for its literary qualities (it further develops the art of fiction previously exploited by the DJ), but like DJ, and for some of the same reasons, it is perilous if used uncritically as history.
Hwainandz (HNZ). A miscellaneous compilation, consisting of 20 chapters and a postface, HNZ 21, made under the direction of Lyou An, King of Hwainan, over the period from 0160 (the year of Lyou An's majority) to 0139. The finished work was formally presented to the Han Emperor Wu-di in 0139. It comes out of a treasonous atmosphere; Lyou An's whole life was spent in scheming to become Emperor, and after a series of near-rebellions, tense denunciations, and court inquiries, he finally cut his own throat in 0122, aged fifty-eight. The HNZ chapters have different authors. The earliest commentary mentions eight persons, all on Lyou An's staff; they can plausibly be correlated with the present HNZ (Prospects 15).
Han Feidz (HFZ). Not a Warring States text (though widely read as such), but a Han defense of Legalism, written, over many years, under Han Fei's name (Prospects 17-26). It develops the views of the Chin minister Li Sz, who was so hated a figure in Han that he could not be openly mentioned. Interesting as reflecting Warring States Legalism adapted to the purposes of the already realized Empire. For actual Warring States Legalism, see rather Gwandz (Chi, eastern) and Shang-jywn Shu (Chin, western), which anticipate, and try to rationalize, the eventual Empire. HFZ takes for granted the earlier achievement of that unified Empire.
Li Ji. A compilation of ritual texts from many sources, and of varying value for research. The final inventory was determined very late, and some of the text included had been revised in the meantime, If a Li Ji text or tale has a counterpart elsewhere, that counterpart is almost certain to be the earlier of the two.
The Han Stone Classics. When Han Wu-di, in 0190, officially approved Confucianism as the ideology of the serving elite (silently retaining Legalism as the ideology of government), he also established the Imperial Academy at Lwoyang, where the central Confucian texts would be taught. That curriculum reflected the then-current scholarship of Western Han. Much later, in Eastern Han, those texts, still reflecting the scholarly preferences of a time centuries earlier, were engraved on stones, from which rubbings could be made. No long afterward, those stones were smashed in the destruction of Lwoyang by rebels (190), but fragments remain, and have been published. It is these texts whose titles are given in red in the above list. Engraving them was an immense project, and required eight years. Working from calligraphic originals provided by Tsai Yung and others, the texts were engraved in the following order: the Lu text of the Shr (175-176); the Shu (177); the Jou Yi (178); the Chun/Chyou (179); the Gungyang Jwan (180) as a commentary on the Chun/Chyou, and so directly following it; the Yi Li (181-182); and the Analects (183).
This ended the First Imperial Period, the age of the Chin and Han Empires. That political unity would not be restored until the age of Swei and Tang.
Several books, among them one on Confucius, carrying the story of Confucianism beyond the classic period and into Han, are currently in progress. We will appreciate suggestions about which of many topics might deserve priority in this final effort.
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