Organizer and Chair: Bent Nielsen, University of Copenhagen
Discussant: Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago
Our understanding of pre-Qin intellectual history has been greatly enhanced—and sometimes dramatically altered—by the archaeological manuscript finds in China in recent decades. The discoveries of manuscripts—some of which have received counterparts—dating from the Warring States to early Han have sparked off a number of studies, translations, and re-translations, e.g. the Lao zi by R. G. Henricks, the Sun zi by R. T. Ames, and the Yi jing by E. L. Shaughnessy. Focusing on manuscripts discovered at Mawangdui in 1973 and Guodian in 1993, the present panel demonstrates how the interpretation and translation of philosophical and cosmological concepts and key terms in what has traditionally been thought of as Confucian and Daoist contexts may be influenced by such finds.
The "Wuxing Pian" and the Confucian Road to Virtuosity
Scott Cook, Grinnell College
Throughout the Analects of Confucius we find passages that speak to the notion that the gentleman might cultivate himself to the point where his sensual pleasures and desires are replaced with an almost visceral delight in something of a more sublime nature. The Mencius tells us, in various ways, how true moral fortitude is achieved only when one’s vital energy is nurtured to unite as one with his mind’s intent. Indeed, the complete embodiment of proper moral conduct within the self is an idea that runs throughout the early Confucian tradition. In both texts, moreover, such a state is strongly associated with the concept of "happiness" (le) or "musical" (yue) perfection.
The discoveries of the "Wuxing pian" ("Essay on the Five Conducts") at both Mawangdui in 1973 (including Jing and Shuo sections) and Guodian in 1993 (Jing only) have shed much new light on both the nature of such notions and their development in the later stages of pre-Qin Confucianism. This paper will trace the prior tradition of associations between the five conducts (humanity, propriety, ritual, knowledge, and sagacity), of the distinction between human "goodness" (shan) and heavenly "virtuosity" (de), and of the musical metaphors that pervade the text; as well as examine the quasi-systematic thought of the text itself in an attempt to place it within the context of its own time. It will show how a new, yet familiar, concept of musical "virtuosity" emerges therein, deriving from the complex interplay between traditional Confucian thought and contemporary philosophical discourse.
The Oldest Chinese Water Cosmogony: The Bamboo-Slip Manuscript Taiyi sheng shui (Taiyi Generates Water)
Donald Harper, University of Arizona
"Taiyi (Grand One) generates water" is the opening sentence of one of the manuscripts recovered from Guodian tomb 1, Hubei, in 1993; the burial is dated to the late fourth century B.C. The text proceeds from this initial creative act to describe the formation of the world, whose cyclical regularities provide the basis for human existence. The text is evidently incomplete (fourteen slips containing somewhat more than 300 graphs are extant), yet it provides significant new evidence for a number of developments in Warring States religious and intellectual history. The cosmogony predates the Yin Yang cosmology that became dominant in the third and second centuries B.C.; the terms Yin and Yang occur, but their formation is fifth in the sequence of creation, following the creation of water, heaven, earth, and the spirits. The text sheds new light on the nature of Taiyi as both a deity in Warring States religion and the prime entity in cosmological speculation. Moreover, the text’s language and content demonstrate the existence in the fourth century B.C. of the type of cosmological discourse found in the Zhouyi, "Xici zhuan," and in the astrological treatise of the Huainanzi.
On Softness and Hardness in the Mawangdui Yi zhi yi
Bent Nielsen, University of Copenhagen
The Yi zhi yi—The Significance of the Changes (so named by Zhang Liwen after the first words spoken by the Master in the text)—is one of the hitherto unknown texts accompanying the Mawangdui Yi jing. In contrast to some of the other Yi jing related texts discovered at Mawangdui, it is generally agreed that the Yi zhi yi—which incorporates passages also occurring in two of the received Wings: Shuo gua 1–3 and Xi ci zhuan part 2 sections 5–8 (of the Zheng yi edition)—is Confucian in nature. However, an important part of the text is devoted to the concepts of softness and hardness (rou gang) and how these relate to civil (or cultural) and martial potency (wen wu) which has certain parallels in the Huang-Lao canon also discovered at Mawangdui. In the Yi jing softness and hardness have at least three different meanings: the terms may refer to the lines of the hexagrams, they may refer to things in the natural world, or they may be used in cosmological speculations. In the present paper, I examine these concepts in the context of the Yi zhi yi.
Divination Songs and the Text of the Yi jing
David Schaberg, University of California, Los Angeles
Edward Shaughnessy and others have noted in the hexagram statements of the Yi jing the presence of poetic themes shared with certain Shijing poems. Huang Yushun has recently argued that the line statements of every hexagram contain a rhyming song. These observations suggest a new approach to the question of the relation between the received text of the Yi jing and the version discovered at Mawangdui. By reading the two texts against each other, against other divination songs, and against the numerous fragments of popular song preserved from the pre-Qin period, I demonstrate that they are best understood as parallel attempts to fix in writing a text which in the early Han was still, in some circles, being transmitted orally-aurally. The Mawangdui scribes were forced to solve for themselves the problem of transcribing the spoken words associated with each hexagram, and frequently came up with solutions different from those enshrined in the received text. In the context of the pre-Qin song tradition, both sets of solutions make sense, but both involve a sacrifice. For the polysemy of the spoken word, which would have been extraordinarily useful in practical divination, written texts substituted the more limited interpretability of particular logographs. The original practice of Yi jing divination may have been possible only as long as prognosticators based their interpretations on the sounds of the songs, and would have ceased to exist as soon as a particular transcription was canonized.