The Embodied Text Studies in the History of Chinese Texts Edited by Martin Kern, Princeton University Robert E. Hegel, Washington University, St. Louis Ding Xiang Warner, Cornell University VOLUME 3 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hct The Embodied Text Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese Manuscripts By Matthias L. Richter LEIDEN • BOSTON 2013 Cover illustration: Characters “shi yue 詩曰” (‘in the Odes it is said’) from the manuscript *Min zhi fumu, from Ma Chengyuan (2001-11, vol. II). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Richter, Matthias L. The embodied text : establishing textual identity in early Chinese manuscripts / by Matthias L. Richter. p. cm. -- (Studies in the history of Chinese texts ; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-23657-8 (hardback : acid-free paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-24381-1 (e-book) 1. Chinese classics--Criticism, Textual. 2. Chinese literature--Criticism, Textual. I. Title. PL2461.Z7R53 2013 895.1’09--dc23 2012038875 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 1877-9425 ISBN 978-90-04-23657-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-24381-1 (e-book) Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers and Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. contents v CONTENTS Acknowledgements. vii Introduction . 1 PART ONE *MIN ZHI FUMU: EXAMINING THE MANUSCRIPT AND ESTABLISHING THE TEXT 1. The Context of the Manuscript . 19 2. Codicological Examination. 25 3. Paleographic Examination. 33 4. Presentation of the Text. 48 5. The Extension of *Min zhi fumu 55 PART two THE Divergence OF MANUSCRIPT TEXT AND TRANSMITTED Counterparts: A REVIEW OF HOmOGENIZING READINGS 6. A Hierarchy of Criteria for Deciding on Disputed Readings . 65 7. Variants of Little Consequence for the Content of the Text . 73 8. Restoring Lost Manuscript Text. 99 9. Variants Concerning the Central Ideas of the Text. 112 PART THREE COMPARATIVE INTERPRETATION OF *MIN ZHI FUMU AND ITS TRANSMITTED COUNTERPARTS: DIFFERENCES IN THE NATURE OF THE TEXTS AND THEIR IDEOLOGY 10. The Core Text . 127 11. The Evolving Role of the Odes in Ru Instruction . 134 12. The Conclusion of the Core Text. 147 13. Later Additions to the Core Text: Indexical Text . 157 14. Texts as Repositories of Didactic Material: Active vs. Passive Text . 171 vi contents Conclusion. 188 Bibliography . 193 Index . 205 acknowledgements vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is the outcome of several years of research and was for the most part written in the academic year 2011–12 during my membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship for Assistant Professors. I wish to express my gratitude to the Institute and the Mellon Foundation for providing me such an inspiring intellectual atmosphere and generally ideal working conditions. Nicola Di Cosmo masterfully fostered a congenial and produc- tive atmosphere among the group of scholars in East Asian Studies at the Institute. The friendship, inspiration and encouragement of these col- leagues helped me very much to keep up the enjoyment and necessary pace of writing. I also wish to thank Michael Nylan for her unstinting hospitality in Princeton and for many stimulating conversations about the broader context of this book’s topic. Much of the research for this book was done during my time as a Creel Research Fellow at the University of Chicago in 2006–07. I am immensely grateful to Edward L. Shaughnessy and Donald J. Harper for making me feel at home in Chicago, for giving me the chance to participate in the many conferences, workshops and seminars on early Chinese manuscripts held there, and for being tremendously supportive in many ways. I owe special gratitude to several friends and colleagues for reading the entire manuscript and offering most valuable comments and criticism: the editors of the series Studies in the History of Chinese Texts, Robert E. Hegel, Ding Xiang Warner, and most particularly Martin Kern, provided many corrections and comments that helped me realize where my arguments were deficient or had not been conveyed with sufficient clarity. I particu- larly thank Martin for his hospitality in Princeton as well as his friendship and support over many years. Imre Galambos provided equally valuable comments. His enthusiasm for the subject and his straightforward, friend- ly criticism in many stimulating and challenging discussions have helped much to balance my arguments. My debt of gratitude to Paul W. Kroll extends much beyond his help in completing this book by ironing out countless blunders in my writing. He has been enormously helpful and supportive over the years as a colleague at CU Boulder. I also wish to express my profound gratitude to the editors at Brill’s, Albert Hoffstädt and Patricia viii acknowledgements Radder, for their great cooperativeness and kindness. Patricia took care of the technical editing process with amazing efficiency and resourcefulness. This book project could not have progressed as it did without the coop- eration, help and friendship I have received from my colleagues at CU Boulder, among whom Terry Kleeman deserves special thanks for his warmly welcoming manner and guidance in the process of adapting to a yet unfamiliar educational system in my first years in Boulder. I also feel indebted to my students at CU Boulder and previously at the Universities of Chicago, Hamburg and Freiburg. Teaching classes on manuscripts dis- cussed in this book and on early Chinese literature in general has been particularly helpful in realizing where arguments need to be structured more clearly and explicitly for a non-specialist audience. Special thanks are due to Heng Du for her work as a research assistant. I feel tremendously indebted to many colleagues and friends, whose manifold contributions I cannot possibly specify and whose names I cannot even enumerate exhaustively. To mention only the ones to whom I feel beholden the most: William H. Baxter, Wolfgang Behr, William G. Boltz, Chen Songchang 陳松長, Chen Wei 陳偉, Robert Eno, Feng Shengjun 馮 勝君, Enno Giele, Paul R. Goldin, Lisa Indraccolo, Li Songru 李松儒, Lin Su-ching 林素清, Yuri Pines, Rudolf Pfister, Michael Puett, Charles Sanft, Axel Schuessler, and Oliver Weingarten have all given me invaluable help and advice in various ways. What I owe to my wife, Antje Richter, is immeasurable and too multi- faceted to express in an acknowledgement. list of illustrations ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Margins, writing space, and bindings in the manuscript *Min zhi fumu 29 2. Selected characters from *Min zhi fumu, *Kongzi shi lun, and Heng xian 35 3. Selected forms of 之 in *Min zhi fumu 36 4. Forms of the components 糸 in 樂 and 幺 in {幾} in *Min zhi fumu 36 5. Constant vs. varying thickness of brushstrokes in *Min zhi fumu 37 6. Kongzi {孔子} in *Min zhi fumu 39 7. Guodian characters with and without additional strokes 40 8. Additional strokes in characters of *Min zhi fumu 41 9. Characters for sang {喪} in *Min zhi fumu 42 10. Warring States forms of 喪 with 亡 as secondary phonetic (a–d) and 死 as semantic classifier (d) 43 11. correct vs. flawed forms of phonophoric sang 44 12. correct vs. flawed forms of 孔 in *Min zhi fumu 45 13. typical vs. atypical forms of 天 45 14. correct vs. erroneous forms of 聖 46 16. The character 皇 in *Min zhi fumu and *San de 83 17. Forms of 而 in *Min zhi fumu 87 18. 其 and 而 in *Min zhi fumu and stylistically related manu- scripts 89 19. 而 in selected Shangbo and Guodian manuscripts 90 20. 天 vs. 而 in selected Guodian manuscripts and *Min zhi fumu 90 21. 系 and related graphs in *Min zhi fumu and 系 in a Baoshan document 92 22. ᰥ in *Min zhi fumu and other Shangbo manuscripts 104 23. All characters for the words wu {物} and zhi {志} in *Min zhi fumu 114 24. 志 in Zixia’s question vs. the characters for shi {詩} in *Min zhi fumu 115 25. Character forms for the words shi {詩} and zhi {志} 122 26. Section and text terminator marks in *Xing zi ming chu and *Xing qing lun 183 x list of illustrations list of illustrations xi Table 1. Style of script of *Min zhi fumu in comparison *Min zhi fumu, *Kongzi shi Zigao, section *Lu bang da han, Heng xian, section of slip #1 lun, section of slip #2 section of slip #5 section of slip of slip #7 #10 list of illustrations TableTable 2. Layout 2, layout of the of Shuihudi the Shuihudi manuscript manuscript *Wei li zhi dao *Wei li zhi dao xii 51 40 30 20 10 ? i ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ‧▁ ‧ ‧ ‧ ii ‧ iii iv ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ▁ ‧ ‧ ‧ v ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ ▔ light grey space: didactic text dark grey space: Wei Statutes white space: blank columns 1 through 51 / registers i through v --- : position of bindings / ‧: initiator dots introduction 1 INTRODUCTION Chinese political thought, philosophy, and cultural self-identification has never ceased to take recourse to the literature of the Warring States Period (453–221 bce) as its classical period and ultimate source of all major philo- sophical and religious traditions.