A Research Note on the Textual Formation of the "Ziyi"

This paper provides a 'thick description' (using Clifford Geertz's notion) of " *Tang zai Chi/Di men " , which is part of the Tsinghua Manuscripts. Exploring its communicative dimensions and analysing the interplay between text and performance, this paper reconstructs the social use of " *Tang zai Chi/Di men " in the discourse of the time. The manuscript text records an imagined dialogue held at the Chi/Di Gate between King Cheng Tang and his famous official, Yi Yin, consistently introduced as 'minor minister'. The text is highly patterned and presents a conversation about the 'innately good doctrines of old and their actuality in the present'. The conversation is framed by an introductory formula commonly seen in textualised " Shu " traditions, as well as a final appraisal, which concludes the text in 'dramatic' terms (using Helmut Utzschneider's notion). The text is rhymed while the items under discussion are presented as catalogues, suggesting completeness. The well-balanced composition is at odds with the seemingly meagre content of the text, staging oddly empty phrases that leave the modern reader rather puzzled. By drawing on content-form and communication theories, and considering its performative dimensions, this paper probes the apparent conflict between the content and the form and reconstructs the strategies of Warring States communities to develop meaning through patterned text. Once contextualised, this rather peculiar text serves as a reference for meaning-construction of performance texts in the intellectual landscape of the Warring States period (ca. 453–222 BC) more globally.

Zhong 中(variously translated as “middle,” “center,” “centrality,” “the mean,” and “equilibrium”) is an important notion in early Chinese thought. This essay offers a brief survey of the possible connotations of zhong found in the Baoxun 保訓(Instructions for Preservation) text of the Tsinghua University’s Collection of bamboo manuscripts of the Warring States period (475-221 BCE). By making a preliminary textual analysis and philosophical interpretation of the concept of zhong in relation to ideal rulership as presented in this newly discovered ancient text it is hoped that it will shed some light on the continuing debate on the notion of zhong in early Chinese thought. Keywords Zhong 中. Rulership . Early Chinese thought . Qinghuajian 清華簡. Warring States bamboo slip texts

Classical Chinese contains a variety of expressions that are (in)famous for bearing particular analytical trouble. Expressions commonly rendered as way (dao), virtue (de), righteousness (yi), humaneness (ren) etc. require special status since they stand for central ideas. Yet these ideas vary even among roughly contemporaneous authors. Though Sinologists have devoted a large amount of energy into pinpointing these ideas, communication with Western philosophers is still hampered by the ideas' "cloudiness." For expressions like zhong – commonly and persistently rendered as “loyalty” - the process of understanding has only begun quite recently (Ames/Rosemont; Goldin, Masayuki Sato). The present paper attempts to give an idea of the complexity of early meanings of zhong, trying to demonstrate that the term formerly occupied a position similar in importance to those central ideas mentioned above, and that the idea of loyalty only very gradually gained in prominence, finally to obscure but not entirely conceal these other and earlier meanings. Ultimately a contradiction between two groups of meanings will be considered to be responsible for the continuing difficulties in translating the term within a given text. A hermeneutical and contextual analysis of examples from various pre Qin texts like the Zuozhuan, Lunyu, Mozi and Han Feizi will be employed to present the argument.

T'oung Pao, 2008

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2004

This little book is not what its title purports it to be. It is not in any sense a balanced presentation of everyday life in mankind's oldest literate civilization; instead it is a compilation of articles culled from various recent issues of L'histoire, a historical magazine published in France. All touch to a greater or lesser extent on that life. They are written for the most part by acknowledged masters of Assyriology and underpinned by decades of scholarly engagement with the enormous and intractable mass of cuneiform texts (the word used is 'dossier') that permit an intimate insight into all aspects of human activity that is unrivalled in the study of ancient civilizations. Georges Roux begins with two perplexing matters of prehistory, the questions of where the first settlers of Mesopotamia came from (Chapter 1: 'Did the Sumerians emerge from the sea?') and of what actually took place in the extraordinary mass graves ('death-pits') excavated by Sir Leonard Woolley (Chapter 2: 'The great enigma of the cemetery at Ur'). Both questions remain unanswered. Jean Bottéro takes over with two subjects of universal interest, food and love, on both of which he has written extensively over the course of a long and distinguished academic career (Chapter 3: 'The oldest cuisine in the world', Chapter 4: 'The oldest feast', Chapter 6: 'Love and sex in Babylon'). The second of these touches on an important feature of Mesopotamian mythology, that the gods often make decisions when drunk. But the point is not elaborated, though the theological implication is a serious one: that many of the faults in the world can be blamed on a less than sober divine assembly. Sandwiched between cooking, eating and loving is wine, another favourite topic, written up by André Finet (Chapter 5: 'An ancient vintage'). Beer was a staple in ancient Mesopotamia but sophisticated people developed a taste for wine and other imported liquor. The place and role of women are still fashionable topics. Jean Bottéro's study of feminist issues in a culture where women generally were owned by men (Chapter 7: 'Women's rights') appears in tandem with André Finet's chapter on some very up-market chattels, a royal harem of the early second millennium BC (Chapter 8: 'The women of the palace at Mari'). Appended to these is Georges Roux's investigation of an unusual Mesopotamian queen who, by virtue of wielding real power as her son's regent, became in Graeco-Roman antiquity the vehicle of a fascinating legend (Chapter 9: 'Semiramis: the builder of Babylon'). The rest of the book deals with intellectual topics. Ancient techniques for the treatment of disease and other physical and mental disorders, and the rationales that informed them, practical and theological, are analysed by Jean Bottéro (Chapter 10: 'Magic and medicine'). The same writer next gives an 230 REVIEWS Treasure comes from Takht-i Sangin, as opposed to the nearby site of Takht-i Kavad as suggested by nineteenth-century English and Russian sources (see now, on the provenance of the Oxus Treasure, M. Caygill and J. Cherry (eds), A.W. Franks: Nineteenth-Century Collecting and the British Museum, London, 1997, pp. 230-49). Then, although there are drawings of both the Eshmunazar sarcophagus and the Alexander sarcophagus, and references to them in the text (pp. 209, 490, 503, 608, 912, 952), he nowhere discusses the cemetery now in the suburbs of Sidon from which they come. All he says of the Eshmunazar sarcophagus (p. 952) is 'on the date and the circumstance of the allocation to Sidon, see Kelly 1987...'. Nor is there any mention of the impressive sanctuary of Eshmun on the outskirts of Sidon, which is one of the best examples of an Achaemenid stone building outside Iran. On the grounds that such a valuable book will surely be reprinted and updated from time to time, it may be useful (and the author of this review hopes he will be forgiven for doing so) to draw the attention of the author and publisher to a few areas where modifications might be considered. The references or footnotes are presented in 174 pages of 'Research notes' at the back of the volume which are gathered in sections following the order of the main text. They are not further linked to the text, which makes them difficult to use. It is also difficult to find out more about the illustrations. For example, the information that the Cypriot-Phoenician bowl illustrated in fig. 50c comes from Praeneste in Italy is buried in the notes on p. 983. The overall quality of the illustrations, which are all in the form of line-drawings, is regrettably poor. This criticism also extends to the maps. The translation on the whole is excellent, although there are a few slips-e.g. gold 'plate' for gold 'plaque' on p. 501, and Oxus 'Treasury' for Oxus 'Treasure' throughout (on pp. 215, 254, 501, 954, 1025). These are minor blemishes, however, and do little to detract from what is a magnificent achievement.

Autor(en): Kern, Martin Objekttyp: Article Zeitschrift: Asiatische Studien : Zeitschrift der Schweizerischen Asiengesellschaft = Études asiatiques : revue de la Société Suisse -Asie Band (Jahr): 59 (2005)

Bulletin Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 2006

Agency in Ancient Writing, 2013

「道」與「文」：論《文子》的論證特點

The present study aims to demonstrate how certain argumentative features of a text that exists only in a fragmentary fashion can be used to gain a fuller picture of its original content and structure. The Daoist treatise Wenzi 文子 is particularly suitable for this study, for it is available in two different but similarly distorted and fragmented versions: the received text as well as some Western Han 西漢 (206 B.C.–A.D. 6) fragments obtained at the archeological site of Dingzhou 定州 (1973). The study first deals with the numerous parallels between the Wenzi and other early Chinese manuscripts. In addition to demonstrating the major influence of Laozi 老子 and Xunzi 荀子 and adducing circumstantial evidence for the time of the text’s creation, the intertextual parallels also point to the importance of specific argumentative features. Among them, “antithetical parallelism” appears to be one of the most salient. The focus of the study is the reconstruction of a text sequence using this rhetorical figure. Furthermore, it argues that despite the widespread usage of “antithetical parallelism” in early Chinese texts, including the Laozi, there is some evidence to identify the source of the Wenzi’s inspiration for this particular argument as the Xunzi. In the latter, “antithesis” was one of the important constituents of the “patterned” discourse (wen) meant to reflect the theme of wen, the cultural legacy of the early Zhou Kings. Given the often neglected importance of the notion wen in the Wenzi, signifying the complete realization of the central Daoist notion, the Way (dao 道), the study concludes with the claim that, just like the Xunzi, the Wenzi also attempted to establish a connection between the content of its philosophical teaching and its formal, textual representation. 本研究旨在探討如何從現存殘篇中的論證特點來推測原始文本的整體內容和結構。道家典籍《文子》十分適合用來做這樣的研究，《文子》現有的兩個版本，即今本《文子》和 1973 年定州出土的西漢簡本《文子》，雖然存在一定差異，但都殘缺不全，且為人篡改過。本文首先分析了《文子》與其他早期中國文獻間的相似之處。研究發現《文子》在很大程度上受到《老子》和《荀子》的影響，這也為研究文本的創作時代提供了間接證據；此外，文本間的互文性也反映出特定論證特點的重要性，其中「反義平行」是最為突出的。本文的重點是要通過文本的修辭方式來重建文本序列。儘管 括《老子》在內的中國早期文獻都廣泛使用「反義平行」，但仍然能找到一些證據表明《荀子》才是《文子》的靈感來源，而「反義平行」恰恰構成了《荀子》中「文」的話語模式，並以此來闡釋周代所崇尚的文化價值 —「文」。《文子》中「文」這一概念極為重要，儘管這一點經常被人忽視，它意味著道家的核心概念「道」得以完全實現。本文認為，正如《荀子》一樣，《文子》也試圖建立一種哲學學說內涵與表現形式上關聯。