The Context of the Manuscript 19

Chapter one

The Context of the Manuscript

No other text figures as prominently in the newly discovered early Chinese manuscripts as the Odes (Shi 詩). Their diverse texts, ranging in genre from the Airs of the States (“Guo feng” 國風) to the solemn dynastic Hymns of Praise (“Song” 頌), were the foremost texts of the Ru 儒 curriculum since the .1 A substantial number of Odes fragments are among the manuscripts discovered in the 165 bce tomb of Xiahou Zao 夏 侯竈, Marquis of Ruyin 汝陰.2 Tomb three of Mawangdui, the burial site of a son of Marquis Dai 軑, Chancellor of the Changsha 長沙 kingdom under the early Han, contained a silk manuscript with a discursive text, named *Wu xing 五行 by its modern editors, which makes extensive use of Odes quotations to illustrate its rather abstract precepts of moral con- duct.3 A counterpart of the core text *Wu xing, but without the extensive commentary that follows it in the Mawangdui manuscript, was found among the manuscripts retrieved from the ca. 300 bce Guodian 郭店 tomb one.4 The same tomb as well as the Museum (Shanghai bowuguan 上海博物館) collection of bamboo manuscripts both contain counterparts of the Liji 禮記 chapter “Zi yi” 緇衣, a text that makes similar use of the

1 For general information about the Odes, textual history, important editions, commentaries, and translations, see Loewe 1993, 415–423. For a history of Odes hermeneutics and uses of the Odes in teaching other texts and in Ru teaching practice, see van Zoeren 1991 and Nylan 2001. 2 Tomb 1 of Shuanggudui 雙古堆 in Fuyang 阜陽, Anhui, was excavated in 1977. For concise information on this find, see Pian Yuqian and Duan Shu’an 2006, 424–427. For a study of the bamboo slips with Odes fragments, see Hu Pingsheng and Han Ziqiang 1988. 3 Tomb 3 of Mawangdui 馬王堆 in Changsha, Hunan, was sealed in 168 bce and excavated in December 1973 and into 1974. The tomb occupant is assumed to have been Li Xi 利豨, the son of Li Cang 利蒼, the Marquis of Dai, who is buried in tomb 2 of the same site. The standard publication of the manuscript is Guojia wenwuju gu wenxian yanjiushi 1980. For details of the site, see the excavation report, He Jiejun 2004. A concise overview of the manuscripts found in tomb three is given in Pian Yuqian and Duan Shu’an 2006, 404–412, and in more detail in Chen Songchang 2000. For a detailed codicological study of the manuscript containing the text *Wu xing, see Richter 2011. 4 A translation of both *Wu xing manuscripts with text-critical and interpretive notes is contained in Csikszentmihalyi 2004. Other influential studies of the texts are Ikeda Tomohisa 1993 and Wei Qipeng 2000.

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Odes.5 (The Guodian and manuscripts will be discussed in more detail below.) The Shanghai collection also contains a manuscript, whose text the editors have titled *Kongzi shi lun 孔子詩論, relating ’ normative teachings about the Odes, as well as a manuscript with Odes fragments.6 Especially the texts *Wu xing, *Zi yi, and *Kongzi shi lun have been extensively studied.7 Here we shall focus on another manuscript in which the Odes figure prominently. Its relatively short text, titled *Min zhi fumu 民之父母 by its editor Pu Maozuo 濮茅左, has excited less interest than the aforemen- tioned Odes appearances in manuscripts.8 It does not quote the Odes ex- tensively, but by referring to them as didactic material in a scene of instruction given by Confucius to his disciple Zixia 子夏, it provides liter- ary evidence of a particular use of the Odes. A comparison with the two transmitted early imperial counterparts of this text can give us new insights in the changing status of the Odes. The manuscript text is largely parallel to the Liji 禮記 chapter “Kongzi xian ju” 孔子閒居 (Confucius dwelt in leisure) and the Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語 chapter “Lun li” 論禮 (Disquisition on ritual).9 Whatever we may hope to learn from the manuscript, the first step must be to establish textual identity in a reliable manner. This includes the extension of the text: Does the manuscript text represent an integral

5 For a text-critical study of both manuscript versions and the transmitted text “Zi yi,” see Shaughnessy 2006. Since this is a study in textual identity, I will write *Zi yi in italics when referring to the manuscript text, but will use quotation marks for the title of the Liji chapter, in acknowledgement of the fact that it has come to be transmitted and interpreted as a chapter of this compilation rather than as an independent text in its own right. Shaughnessy (2006, 66) makes the same distinction. 6 *Kongzi shi lun is published in Ma Chengyuan 2001–11, I.3–4, 11–29, 119–168; the Odes fragments are published under the title *Yi shi 逸詩 in vol. IV.4, 23–30, 171–178. Of the numerous Chinese studies of *Kongzi shi lun the most prominent are Liu Xinfang 2003, Chen Tongsheng 2004 and Huang Huaixin 2004. For an edition of *Kongzi shi lun with a complete English translation, see Staack 2010. 7 Among Western studies of these materials, most notably those by Martin Kern, who has devoted a series of articles to the Odes in early manuscripts. Cf. in particular Kern 2005a and 2010. 8 Ma Chengyuan 2001–11, I.3, 15–30, 149–180. Apart from numerous articles, usually discussing individual characters or passages of the text, there are but few more extensive studies of the manuscript, e.g., the critical annotated editions of the text by Ji Xusheng in Ji Xusheng et al. 2003 and Nishiyama in Nishiyama et al. 2004; further, the comparative studies of the manuscript vs. transmitted versions by Xu Shaohua 2005 and Nishiyama 2008. Brief accounts of the manuscripts are included in Kern 2005b (pp. 321–325) and Shaughnessy 2006 (pp. 45–50). The former focuses on the Odes quotations in the text, the latter on its divergence from its Liji counterpart. 9 For dating and a general account of the textual history of these texts, see Jeffrey Riegel’s and R.P. Kramers’ articles in Loewe 1993, 258–262 and 293–297, respectively.

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