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Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts

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Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts -2- Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts Newly excavated manuscripts, as discussed in the Introduction, offer op­ portunities fo r a richer understanding of classical Chinese philosophy than was available to previous generations, even in China. Mter the dis­ covery in 1993 of a cache of bamboo manuscripts in an elite tomb at Guo­ dian, near Jingmen ntiF�, Hubei province #9.J;:ft�,1 the scholarly world celebrated the so-called Guodian Laozi: the three texts in the collection that are composed of material with close parallels in the received Lao·t.i. Now that this initial period of excitement has begun to ebb, it has be­ come clear that the other manuscripts from Guodian are at least as inter­ esting as the Laozi texts from a philosophical point of view and probably even more important from a historical point of view. The Guodian tomb has yielded the earliest editions of two canonical Confucian texts: Jet-Black Robes ( Ziyt) and The Five Forms of Conduct ( Wu xing) . Furthermore, the ex­ cavation yielded several previously unknown Confucian texts that shed light on the early history of the Confucian tradition. This chapter will fo cus on several texts from this last category: Cheng zhi wen zhi RIGZIIFJZ;2 Honoring Virtue and Morality (Zun deyi -��); The Xing Emerges from the Endowment (Xingzi ming chu '� §iii!±!);The Six Forms of Virtue (Liude 1\tfD ;3 Failure and Success Depend on Time ( Qjongda yi shi j'lJ jl�)�); The Way of Tang and Yu (Tang Yu zhi dao Mf.l1tZ.l�J;4 The Way of Integrity and Trustworthiness (Zhongxin zhi dao J!!. ffl'ZJ:i); and some unti­ tled miscellanies known as Collections of Sayings (Yucong �Ji). I believe that these works should be understood as doctrinal material deriving from a single tradition of Confucianism and datable to around 300 B.c. Of the surviving literature from the same period, they are closer to the Xunzi than to any other text and indeed anticipate several significant 36 Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts 37 ideas in Xunzi's philosophy.5 It is especially important to take note of these connections with Xunzi, in view of the emerging trend to associate the Guodian manuscripts with Zisi rJ!!.,6 the grandson of Confucius, whom Xunzi bitterly criticized. These newfound Confucian texts contain a number of core ideas that distinguish them clearly from Mencian Confucianism and suggest the ex­ istence of a vibrant non-Mencian tradition of Confucianism that culmi­ nated in Xunzi's system of moral philosophy. Before the discovery of the Guodian tomb, there was very little evidence concerning Xunzi's intel­ lectual antecedents, but it is apparent now that the Guodian manuscripts anticipate several characteristic themes in Xunzi 's philosophy: (1) the notion of "human nature" (xing ·�), including the controversy over whether the source of morality is "internal" or "external"; (2) the role of "learning" (xue ¥) and "habitual practice" (xi �) in moral develop­ ment; (3) the content and origin of "ritual" (li1ft), by which human beings accord with the Way; (4) the conception of the ruler as the "mind" (xin 1i:.') of the state; (5) and the psychological utility of "music" (yue �) in inculcating proper values. Each of these subjects will be addressed below. One caveat before proceeding: for a number of reasons, the Guodian manuscripts are among the most difficult texts yet excavated. First, the writing of the Chinese characters presents more epigraphic problems than that of manuscripts recently excavated at sites such as Mawangdui. The manuscripts contain dozens of opaque graphs, including many that simply cannot be deciphered (so-called daikao zi ��*) .7 Second, while the bamboo strips are well preserved, there are several lacunae, some of which occur, frustratingly, at crucial junctures in the argument of the texts. Finally, and most important, the texts had to be reconstructed strip by strip (since they were fo und, in the words of one Chinese expert, "in a pile"),8 and determining the correct sequence is often a matter of edu­ cated guesswork. Consequently, the current arrangement of the material is often questionable. For these reasons, the analysis and translations presented below are necessarily tentative. We can only hope that with more intensive study, and with the ongoing publication of the early Confucian texts housed at the Shanghai Museum, our understanding of the Guodian manuscripts will improve. Famously, Xunzi believes that human nature is "evil" � (or, more liter­ ally, "detestable")-by which he means that human beings naturally 38 After Confucius wish only to satisfy their appetitive and concupiscent desires. He is also famous for his distinctive use of the tenn xing, which is unlike that en­ countered, for example, in the Mencius. For Xunzi, xing means "what is so by birth" �Z..PJTPJ �1\i,9 or everything that we possess without hav­ ing exerted any effort to obtain it. For Mencius, in contrast, xing repre­ sents the natural course of development that an organism may be ex­ pected to undergo given nourishing conditions, as has been persuasively demonstrated in a classic study by A. C. Graham.10 This is no trivial point, because Xunzi's attempted refutation of Mencius is based on an under­ standing of the keyword xing that Mencius would not have accepted. The consequence of this difference in usage, as Dai Zhen M!l (1724-1777) pointed out, is that Xunzi uses xing to denote the characteristic that all members of a species have in common, whereas Mencius uses the term to denote the characteristic that distinguishes a species from all others.U (For example, all human beings have brains, but having brains does not distinguish human beings from all other species.) The Guodian manuscripts consistently use xing in the same sense as Xunzi:12 Within the four seas, [everyone's] xing is the same. That they use their minds differentlyis caused by teaching. 14 :!m.A.z.:[g:W$.A.z·rg: • ��ffii*fl";!FZW�� iP. • JW��i!?. • · • • • • JltPJ �Wfl"·rg: ffii :!m.A./F1l.T� iP. • 15 The xing of a sage and the xing of a mediocre person are without exception regulated by Heaven at birth; thus they are as they are.... Therefore the people allhave xing, and a sage cannot be without16 one. None of the Guodian manuscripts state explicitly that xing is evil, but it is evident that they regularly understand it to be naturally deficient of "morality" �. which must be attained from "outsid e" ��. In this respect, the conception of xing in the Guodian manuscripts could hardly come closer to that of Xunzi. TheXing Emerges fromEnd the owment explains that our inborn nature is revealed spontaneously in our responses to the stim­ uli around us and that it is not naturally moral. We must strive to "bring morality inside ourselves": Xunzi in the Light of the Guodian Manuscripts 39 JLA!ii!Efl"·� {,,t:JE� «f�rm�{'F «fmrm�rr · �'&'rm�JE · • · · w, �, tt · tt§$ili tfrf§x!J¥ ill , �z� · -tl!. • lUtJi��� JIU4t!&Z • · · U!Ml� ·!'if · -m1::�·� · • M�1lfm-m • �1lfm� � [m1lfijg] mz . ��1lftmf.l'1z •17 Although everyone has a xing, the mind has no fixed will. It becomes operative only after [it encounters] objects; it becomes active only after [it encounters] pleasure; it becomes fixed only after habitual practice. The qi of happiness, anger, grief, and sorrow is the xing. Once it is apparent externally, objects take hold of it. The xingemerges from the endowment; the endowment is sent down from Heaven. The Way begins in the one's responses toreality ;18 one's responses to reality are hom of one's xing. At first, one stays close to one's responses to reality; in the end, one stays close to morality. Those who know their responses to reality know how to express them; those who know morality know how to bring it inside themselves. In other words, when presented with external stimuli, we exhibit our qing •JW, our "responses to reality," which are simply a manifestation of our unsettled internal state. "Knowing one's qing" is identified here as a crucial first step toward moral development (and elsewhere, as described below, TheXing Emergesfrom the Endowrrumt emphasizes the importance of speaking in accord with one's genuine qing) . But the qing is only the be­ ginning of the Way; specifically, it lacks morality, for morality can come about only after "habitual practice," the conscious and habitual reforma­ tion of the xing. Other manuscripts in the corpus advance the same idea, affirming more explicitly that morality is not inborn. Humanity is hom in human beings; morality is hom of the Way. Some things are hom inside [us]; some things are hom outside [us] . ,20 e. ' f1'1-tP. ••• ��-tl!. Humanity is intemal. Morality is extemal. This last statement must be astonishing to any student of Chinese phi­ losophy, because it isattributed to the philosopher Gaozi 1!fr in a debate recorded in the received Mencius. The consequences of this association will be discussed later. For now, let us observe that this idea, namely, that 40 After Confucius morality must be obtained from outside the self, is common to Gaozi, Xunzi, and the Guodian manuscripts-and to virtually no other known members of the Confucian school. Xunzi postulates that, despite our natural evil, we can improve ourselves, namely, by what he calls "learning," which includes studying the canoni­ cal texts handed down by the ancient sages.21 These texts are the Rites, the Music, the Odes, the Documents, and the Spri ngs and Autumns, which in­ corporate the principles of the entire universe. <:m>z�x-tl?. <�>ztf1�-tl?.
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