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Returning to The Canon: A Review of Michael Nylan's the Five “Confucian” Classics
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Returning to the Canon: A Review of Michael Nylan's The Five “Confucian” ClassicsNew Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001. xiii + 402 pp.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2015
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2. The title has, of course, long belonged to Michael Loewe, whose presence has shaped and continues to guide Western Sinology. I intend throughout this review, however, to keep in mind the future of the field over the coming decade or more, and in this respect Nylan is poised to be the most influential scholar of the Han.
3. See, inter alia, Nylan, Michael, “The chin wen/ku wen (New Text/Old Text) Controversy in Han,” T’oung Pao 80 (1994), 83–145 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “A Problematic Model: The Han Orthodox Synthesis, Then and Now,” in Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, ed. Chow, Kai-wing, Ng, On-cho, and Henderson, John B. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 17–56 Google Scholar; “Sima Qian: A True Historian?” Early China 23–24 (1998–1999), 203–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some publishers have in recent years shown an interest in publishing the collected essays of prominent Sinologists; the field would benefit enormously by having Nylan's work presented in this fashion.
4. Note, for example, that the Han shu 漢書 bibliographic treatise, “Yiwen zhi” 藝文志, maintains that the Way of the sages is embodied in the Five Classics, while philosophical texts such as the Mencius were written in a time when the Way had fallen into decline and was understood in only a fragmentary fashion; Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962), 30.1746 Google Scholar.
5. For another prominent example, see Henderson, John B., Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confucian and Western Exegesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6. In the final chapter of the book, Nylan returns to Kang Youwei, and the rationale for introducing him earlier is clear.
7. It should be noted that, in place of a full bibliography, there is a short list of suggested readings, and also that the author occasionally uses casual footnotes to make asides or additional comments that she feels need to be readily available to the reader. The list of suggested readings, however, does not go nearly far enough to be of use to the serious student hoping to do a research paper. If I am wrong about the intended audience for this book, then the decision to make endnotes available only via the internet was ill advised; I cannot imagine any other compelling reason that would outweigh the inconvenience posed by not having the notes between the covers of the book.
8. The notes and bibliography were apparently not copyedited with the same care extended to the formally published text. The notes are replete with typographical errors, omissions, and other mistakes that would in all likelihood never have made it into “print.”
9. Nylan was able to make brief reference to a manuscript in the possession of the Shanghai Museum known as “Kongzi shi lun” 孔子詩論, unpublished at the time her book went to press but now available in Shanghai bowuguan cang Zhanguo Chu zhushu 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書, ed. Chengyuan, Ma 馬承源, vol. I (Shanghai: Shanghaiguji, 2001), 119–68Google Scholar, which provides a detailed example of how Warring States authors imagined or remembered Confucius's use of the Odes as a teaching device.
10. Perhaps the single clearest relic of this process is the Preface to the Documents, which, Nylan notes, “in specifying a historical context for each chapter, aims to weave successive chapters into a single, continuous narrative” (159).
11. “The Shi ji, in company with the Han traditions attached to the Documents, is one of the first texts to propose that the Central States history is lengthy, continuous, and thus sacred”; see Nylan, , “Sima Qian,” 217 Google Scholar. Regardless of the questions I raise here over the first creation of a continuous narrative of Central States civilization, I consider Nylan's “religious reading” of the Shi ji a crucial development in Western Sinology; the coming generation of scholars will likely show that sensitivity to the religious motivations of Sima Qian opens up a broad range of useful new approaches to the text. Because her approach to the Documents is so closely tied to her understanding of the motivations and editorial approaches of Sima Qian, I will discuss the Shi ji below freely, despite the fact that it is not one of the Five Classics. Nylan notes that, in our extant sources, it is the Shi ji that first links Confucius to the creation of the canon (pp. 32–33).
12. See Nylan, , “Sima Qian,” 217n51Google Scholar. Interestingly, Gu was also keenly interested in the contributions various non-Central States cultures might have made to early Chinese civilization.
13. I do not have in mind the sort of critique mounted by those who hope to overturn Gu's approach based on the impressionistic notion that recent manuscript discoveries have often demonstrated the veracity of the ancient tradition, e.g., Xueqin, Li 李學勤, Zouchu yigu shidai 走出疑古時代 (Shenyang: Liaoning daxue, 1994)Google Scholar.
14. This question must be addressed regardless of one's position on the authenticity of the transmitted version of the text and its relationship to the reconstructed “old text” versions we have at our disposal. See Nivison, David S., “The Key to the Chronology of the Three Dynasties: The ‘Modern Text’ Bamboo Annals ,” Sino-Platonic Papers 93 (January, 1999), i–iv, 1–68 Google Scholar, and Nivison, , “Chu shu chi nien,” in Loewe, , A Bibliographic Guide, 39–47 Google Scholar. At least one recent scholar has suggested that this text may be “the first written history of China,” or at least our earliest surviving continuous historical narrative; see Khayutina, Maria, “Host-guest Opposition as a Model of Geo-political Relations in Pre-imperial China,” Oriens Extremus 43 (2002), 80–81 Google Scholar.
15. Sivin, Nathan, “The Myth of the Naturalists,” in Sivin, , Medicine, Philosophy, and Religion in Ancient China, Collected Studies Series CS512 (Aldershot, Great Britain, and Brookfield, Vermont: Variorum, 1995), 4, 1–33 Google Scholar. See Sima Qian's comments at the end of the “Wudi benji” 五帝本紀 chapter of the Shi ji (1.46), where he discusses briefly his decision to draw on material from the texts “Wudi de” 五帝德 and “Dixi xing” 帝繫姓, works that apparently come down to us as chapters of the Da Dai liji 大戴禮記 (the latter chapter is known to us simply as “Dixi”).
16. Historians are familiar with this pattern: credit for an invention usually goes not to the first person to invent something, but rather to the last person, who manages to gain widespread recognition for it. As we will see below, there is of course no true “last” retelling, but many narrative elements that take shape in the Han become quite stable, and remain influential throughout the rest of Chinese history. The Documents preface and the Shi ji emerge from a period of great intellectual attention to the creation of a coherent historical narrative at the end of the Warring States era and the start of the Han, and eventually come to define the parameters of this most widely accepted historical framework. To put the matter most cautiously, they are neither the first nor the last attempts at writing a continuous history of China.
17. On alternate centers of civilization, see Bagley, Robert W., “Shang Archaeology,” in The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C., ed. Loewe, Michael and Shaughnessy, Edward L. (Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 124–231 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and von Falkenhausen, Lothar, “The Waning of the Bronze Age: Material Culture and Social Developments, 770–481 b.c.,” in Loewe, and Shaughnessy, , Cambridge History, 450–544 Google Scholar.
18. Hanfeizi jishi 韓非子集釋, ed. Qiyou, Chen 陳奇猷 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1974), 1041–42Google Scholar (“Wu du” 五蠹). The author goes on here to point out how the values of the past are no longer efficacious in the present.
19. Shuo yuan jiaozheng 說苑校證, ed. Zonglu, Xiang 向宗魯 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987), 366–67Google Scholar (“Zhi wu” 指武). A version of the story very similar to this telling is found in Huainanzi 淮南子, “Ren jian” 人間; see Huainanzi jiaoshi 淮南子校釋, ed. Shuangdi, Zhang 張雙棣 (Beijing: Beijing daxue, 1997), 1915 Google Scholar. There, current editions of the text feature King Zhuang of Chu 楚莊王, but Xiang Zonglu shows that this must be a later textual error (Shuo yuan jiaozheng, 366). Otherwise, these two tellings differ somewhat in wording; the story is used in the “Ren jian” chapter to make a point very similar to that made by Han Fei: that different eras require different approaches to government.
20. In addition to the parallel story in “Ren jian,” the “Shuo shan” 說山 chapter of the Huainanzi also refers in passing to the story: “King Yan of Xu brought about the destruction of his state by practicing benevolence and righteousness” 徐偃王以仁義亡國 (Huainanzi jiaoshi, 1692); and another chapter, “Fan lun” 氾論, summarizes it in a few lines: “King Yan of Xu clothed himself in kindness and personally implemented benevolence and righteousness; those states that submitted to him numbered thirty-two, yet he himself was killed and his state perished, leaving no descendants behind” 徐偃王被服慈惠，身行仁義，陸地之朝者三十二國，然而身死國亡，子孫無類 (Huainanzi jiaoshi, 1412). Lun heng, chapter 5 (“Xin ou” 辛偶), also refers to the story only in passing, suggesting that both the story and its moral were widely known: “Duke Wen of Jin cultivated civil virtue, while King Yan of Xu implemented benevolence and righteousness; Duke Wen was thereby rewarded, yet King Yan was in his case destroyed” 晉文脩文德，徐偃行仁義，文公以賞賜，偃王以破滅; see Lun heng jiaoshi 論衡校釋, ed. Hui, Huang 黃暉 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990), 40 Google Scholar. The section “Qi jian” 七諫 of the Chu ci includes a brief reference to the story: “King Yan put his benevolence and righteousness into practice—King Wen of Jing awoke and Xu was destroyed” 偃王行其仁義兮，荊文寤而徐亡; see Chu ci buzhu 楚辭補注 (Sibu beiyao ed.), 13.4a. The poems comprising the “Qi jian” are traditionally attributed to Dongfang Shuo 東方朔, an older contemporary of Sima Qian. Most critical scholars reject the attribution while agreeing with the general dating implied.
21. See the inscriptions collected in Chuping, Dong 董楚平, Wu Yue Xu Shu jinwen jishi 吳越徐舒金文集釋 (Hangzhou: Zhejiang guji, 1992), 248–318 Google Scholar. As far as I am aware, there are no known inscriptions that mention King Yan of Xu, but the corpus of inscriptions we have makes it clear that the title wang, “king,” was regularly used in Xu.
22. See von Falkenhausen's, Lothar treatment of this region in “The Waning of the Bronze Age,” 525–39, especially p. 538 Google Scholar.
23. Additionally, E.G. Pulleyblank has managed to tease a great deal of information out of place names, kinship terms and other words by careful phonological and textual analysis. See Pulleyblank, Edwin G., “Zou 鄒 and Lu 魯 and the Sinification of Shandong,” in Chinese Language, Thought and Culture: Nivison and his Critics, ed. Ivanhoe, P. J. (La Salle: Open Court, 1996), 39–57 Google Scholar; “The Chinese and their Neighbors in Prehistoric and Early Historic Times,” in The Origins of Chinese Civilization, ed. Keightley, D. N. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 420–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “Ji 姬 and Jiang 姜: The Role of Exogamic Clans in the Organization of the Zhou Polity,” Early China 25 (2000), 1–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
24. Xu does not seem a very promising subject of inquiry if we limit ourselves to the Documents; there the San Miao 三苗 might emerge as a better candidate for renewed examination.
25. Duke Zhao 昭公, 30.4; Bojun, Yang 楊伯峻, Chun qiu Zuo zhuan zhu 春秋左傳注, rev. ed. (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1990), 1505 Google Scholar. It is likely that sometime before its defeat by Wu, Xu had already entered into the Chu federation. See Falkenhausen, , “The Waning of the Bronze Age,” 538 Google Scholar.
26. Shi ji 42.1779 Google Scholar; see also 5.175.
27. The relevant passages summarized above read: 六年春，徐子誕來朝，錫命為伯…秋七月，西戎來賓徐戎侵洛。冬十月，造父御王，入于宗周。十四年，王帥楚子伐徐戎，克之. See Guowei, Wang 王國維, Jinben Zhushu jinian shuzheng 今本竹書紀年疏證, 245–46Google Scholar, in Guben Zhushu jinian jizheng 古本竹書紀年輯證 ed. Shiming, Fang 方詩銘 and Xiuling, Wang 王修齡, (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1981), 188–290 Google Scholar. Note that no specific mention of King Yan of Xu is made in this text.
28. Hou Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1965), 85.2808 Google Scholar. Shaughnessy surmises this story was “probably based on an early text of the Zhushu jinian”; see “Western Zhou History,” in Loewe and Shaughnessy, Cambridge History, 324. Clearly, the Hou Han shu narrative is derivative of the Shi ji first and foremost, and while the Zhushu jinian as we know it was interred long before Sima Qian's time, it is likely that he had access to materials that were very similar to that text's passage concerning King Mu's campaign against Xu. The Hou Han shu makes explicit the notion that Xu's prominent position in the southeast was first given royal recognition by the Zhou house before King Yan turned on the Zhou. The version of the story recorded here also draws in important ways from a longer version from the Bowu zhi 博物志, which is examined in detail below.
29. The Mu Tianzi zhuan 穆天子傳 was probably not the only collection of such lore; see the entry in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Loewe, Michael (Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and The Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993), 342–43Google Scholar.
30. Equally puzzling, if we try to treat this story as reflecting historical reality, is the notion that this leader of a non-Zhou federation rules by the distinctly Zhou (and we might argue “Confucian”) values of benevolence and righteousness; this element of the story alone alerts us to its anachronistic and fictional nature, and will be addressed in more detail below.
31. Combining the Shi ji account, the legends about King Yan of Xu circulating in the Warring States and Han, and the information recorded in the Chun qiu, poor Xu is destroyed three different times in three different centuries. In fact, this is not so unusual. The first defeat, during the reign of King Mu, does not imply the destruction of Xu, and in any case inscriptional materials show that Xu was active in the Spring and Autumn era. If there was indeed a defeat at the hands of Chu in the seventh century, it is likely that the ruling house of Xu was not destroyed; both Falkenhausen, “The Waning of the Bronze Age,” and Hsu, Cho-yun, Ancient China in Transition (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1965), 59–62 Google Scholar, make clear how the defeat of a state in the Spring and Autumn period did not always imply its actual destruction. If there is any historical basis for the tradition that Chu defeated Xu, this may well have been an important event in the history of relations between these two states, one that probably led for at least some time to Xu's vassalage. Naming patterns of kings seen in Xu inscribed vessels suggest that Xu's continued existence was dependent on Chu as overlord (see Falkenhausen, , “The Waning of the Bronze Age,” 517n120)Google Scholar.
32. For an introduction to the dating and authenticity of the text, see Greatrex, Roger, The Bowu Zhi: An Annotated Translation (Stockholm: Föreningen för Orientaliska Studier, 1987)Google Scholar.
33. Bowu zhi (Sibu beiyao ed.), 8.3a–b.
34. There are of course important parallels to the egg motif in early Chinese legends. In the very same genealogy Sima Qian gives for the surname Ying in the “Qin benji,” mentioned above, we find that the ancient ancestress of the Qin line was impregnated by swallowing the egg of a dark bird. Later we are told that one descendant of this line had the body of a bird (Shi ji 5.173–74). Note that the ruling lineage of Xu is also linked to this ancestral line, since they share the surname Ying with the ruling line of Qin. The best known parallel is the origin myth of the Shang people, alluded to briefly in, e.g., the Shi, “Xuan niao” 玄鳥 (Mao 303). Modern scholars often explain the classical expression Niao Yi 鳥夷, which seems to refer to many different groups in the lower Yangzi river valley area, as a reference to a totemic association between the Yi groups and birds; Xu is certainly to be included in this category. See, inter alia, Shuye, Tong 童書業, “Niao Yi shuo” 鳥夷說, in Tong Shuye lishi dili lunji 童書業歷史地理論集 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 2004), 47–51 Google Scholar.
35. Xunzi jijie 荀子集解, ed. Xianqian, Wang 王先謙 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1988), 74 Google Scholar. The passage is obscure and may be corrupt; I follow the line of reasoning adduced in Wang Xianqian, 74. The interpretation is spun from an attempt to read some significance into the meaning of King Yan's name/title (he is “bent over”), a common feature of legends about King Yan. For another approach, see Knoblock, John, trans., Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, vol. I (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988–1994), 204 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knoblock follows a commentarial tradition that the word “horse” is a graphic error for “forehead.” The exact meaning of the line is less important for our purposes than the fact that King Yan of Xu is listed among so many other early sage-heroes who were all described with some physical deformity or abnormality.
36. Cited in the Jijie 集解 commentary to the Shi ji by Pei Yin 裴駰 (fifth century); see Shi ji, 5.168 Google Scholar. There is another fragment of the Shizi that may be relevant to our inquiry: “King Yan of Xu was fond of oddities. He dove into deep waters and obtained strange fish. He entered deep into the mountains and obtained strange beasts. These he displayed in great numbers in his court” 徐偃王好怪﹐沒深水而得怪魚﹐入深山而得怪獸者﹐多列於庭; Shizi 尸子, ed. Jipei, Wang 汪繼培, in Ershier zi 二十二子 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1986), 377bGoogle Scholar.
37. In the literature of the Warring States and Han periods, this area, the region between Chen and Cai, was imbued with a rich symbolism, discussed further below.
38. Yang Shoujing 楊守敬 suggests that the specific name, Mu, was removed by later editors who realized that the story did not make chronological sense; see Shoujing, Yang, Shuijing zhu shu yaoshan 水經注疏要刪 (1905; reprint, Taipei: Wenhai, 1967), 8.14 Google Scholar.
39. Bowu zhi, 8.3a–b. The Bowu zhi tells us that it is citing this story from a text called the Xu Yan wang zhi 徐偃王志, or Treatise on King Yan of Xu. Whether there was such a work or the Bowu zhi is the first to present this configuration of the King Yan story, four distinct narratives appear to have been woven together here: first, the origin myth of the miraculous birth of King Yan; second, the story of King Yan's reception of the Heavenly portent and the genesis of the federation of thirty-some states he is said to have led; third, the Shi ji narrative portraying the campaign by Chu as an act instigated by the Zhou king; and finally, the story of King Yan's escape to Pengcheng and the removal of his people to a mountain in that area. Two features of this longer story provide the threads that tie this patchwork together: a concern for local cultural geography (perhaps a feature of the zhi genre) and a desire to portray King Yan in a positive light. I propose the following general dating for each of these four narrative elements: the first may be a revision of a genuine origin myth and would therefore be very old; the second, as I argue in some detail below, is probably a Confucian innovation of the third century B.C.E.; the third of course seems to be a creation of Sima Qian from the start of the first century B.C.E.; and the final section probably dates to the second or third century c.e., when people with the surname Xu began celebrating King Yan as their founding ancestor (see more below). It was probably this later group who were responsible for the first articulation of the particular version of the story attested in the Bowu zhi.
40. This purported episode in Confucius's life has captured the attention of modern scholars; its importance as a feature of the broader legends about Confucius is clear, although a handful of articles devoted to the episode suggest that there is not full agreement concerning the significance of the story. For an introduction to the story of Confucius's trouble between Chen and Cai and citations of several different versions or mentions of it in early literature, see Makeham, John, “Between Chen and Cai: Zhuangzi and the Analects ” in Wandering at Ease in the Zhuangzi, ed. Ames, Roger (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 75–100 Google Scholar. A particularly complete treatment of passages from pre-Han and Han works pertaining to this episode is offered in Ning, Chen, “Mohist, Daoist, and Confucian Explanations of Confucius's Suffering in Chen-Cai,” Monumenta Serica 51 (2003), 37–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Chen's fascination with the topic of suffering highlights many elements of the different tellings of this story that lead me to conclude that, in at least one well-known rendition, the story centered on demonstrating Heaven's special recognition of Confucius as a sage and potential sage ruler. At the same time, Chen's insistence on interpreting virtually all versions of this story as philosophical meditations on suffering obscures some of the other important rhetorical features of the legend. See also Riegel, Jeffery K., “Poetry and the Legend of Confucius's Exile,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 (1986), 13–22 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
41. The “Fan lun” chapter of the Huainanzi includes another brief mention of the King Yan story that makes this very point: “King Yan of Xu understood benevolence and righteousness, yet did not understand the times (or, perhaps, “timing”)” 徐偃王知仁義而不知時; see Huainanzi jiaoshi, 1412.
42. Note, for example, how Chu (Jing) features in one of the hymns, “Yin wu” 殷武 (Mao 305), presumably performed at the court of Song, whose rulers traced their line back to the Shang kings. These hymns probably date to the Zhou period, and reflect Song elite attempts to cast their history in terms consistent with the Zhou vision of the past. This is evident in the extent to which this and the other poems in the Shang hymns section of the work make reference to the Mandate of Heaven and other forms of Heaven's intervention in human history.
43. It seems likely that, in the Western Zhou period, Chu was located much closer to Zhou civilization, and that it only gradually moved south into the middle Yangzi River valley. See Falkenhausen, “The Waning of the Bronze Age,” 514, and the further references provided in the footnote there.
44. Later, more elaborate versions of the King Yan legend suggest that some elements of the story may be quite old, but that they were probably remembered and transmitted as local phenomena, serving the interests of local people, and thus open to constant revision. We might suspect that such interests come into play in the Bowu zhi version of the legend, which is so much richer than anything extant from the Han or earlier. Nevertheless, I take the origin myth at the start of that account as most likely a very early myth. A passage in the Shuijing zhu 水經注 that derives from the Bowu zhi account adds more information about a tomb of King Yan in the area during the Tang dynasty, suggesting continued local interest in the centuries after the Han; see Shuijing zhu (Sibu congkan ed.), 8.26b–27b. Our best evidence for continued interest in the legend comes from two other Tang sources. First, the collected works of the famous Tang literary genius Han Yu include many short essays built around stele inscriptions he composed, and there is one entitled “Quzhou Xu Yan wang miao bei” 衢州徐偃王廟碑 “Stele inscription at the shrine dedicated to King Yan of Xu in Quzhou”; see Han Changli quanji 韓昌黎全集 (Shanghai: Shijie shuju, 1935), 27.360–62Google Scholar. This is the most sophisticated narrative construction of the King Yan legends I have found, and Han Yu shows how its inscription on the stele is tied to local elite of the surname Xu, who treat King Yan as a sort of sage-hero founder of their line. In this way, they turn Sima Qian's conflation on its head, now using the legend to glorify their own lineage on the model of older Zhou narratives about founding ancestors. To do this, King Yan must be fully rehabilitated, a task that Han Yu accomplished in a quite ingenious manner. The text opens with a return to the question of the timely use of civil or martial values that is the main concern of the Shuo yuan passage on King Yan cited above. The author here discusses the emergence of the ruling lines in Qin and Xu from a common ancestor, the progenitor of the Ying clan. Here, however, the fates of these two states are treated as moral counterparts to one another, twin narratives representing the different approaches that King Yan of Xu and the First Emperor of Qin took to government. Qin represents the path of aggression, and we are informed that Qin's ways led not only to the destruction of the Qin empire, but also to the end of the Qin ruling line. King Yan, on the other hand, was able to preserve his ancestral line, so that the Xu surname prospered even while the Xu state disappeared, in direct contradiction to the Huainanzi passage claiming that he had no descendants. Second, the Yuanhe xingzuan 元和姓纂 confirms that, by the Tang, the surname Xu was regularly traced back to those loyal followers of King Yan who reportedly fled with him to the area of Pengcheng. The assumption is that this group included living descendants of King Yan himself; see Bao, Lin 林寶, Yuanhe xingzuan (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1994), 196–211 Google Scholar.
45. In this regard, readers should turn to Robert Eno's recent article in this journal on the possibility that Confucius himself was poised between the boundaries of two great civilizations, the Zhou culture of the state of Lu and what is usually referred to as the Eastern Yi culture of the Shandong peninsula and eastern seaboard area, where Lu was situated; see “The Background of the Kong Family of Lu and the Origins of Ruism,” Early China 28 (2003), 1–41 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
46. The field is changing; since the publication of Nylan's book, research in the West based largely on insights afforded by newly discovered manuscripts has begun to emerge, and some of this scholarship will help in a reassessment of early writing about ritual. See, inter alia, Cook, Scott, “The Debate over Coercive Rulership and the ‘Human Way’ in Light of Recently Excavated Warring States Texts,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 64.2 (2004), 399–440 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
47. On the group that styles itself “New Confucians” see Bresciani, Umberto, Reinventing Confucianism: The New Confucian Movement (Taipei: Variétés Sinologiques no. 90, Taipei Ricci Institute, 2001)Google Scholar, and Makeham, John, New Confucianism: A Critical Examination (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48. Shaughnessy, Edward L., trans., I Ching: The Classic of Changes (New York: Ballantine, 1997)Google Scholar; Lynn, Richard John, trans., The Classic of Changes: A New Translation of the I Ching as Interpreted by Wang Bi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.
49. The term is ambiguous enough in the original to allow for the development of a range of meanings: neither the Yanzi chunqiu nor the Lüshi chunqiu is an annalistic text.
50. See, inter alia, Schaberg, David, A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001)Google Scholar and Pines, Yuri, Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722–453 B.C.E. (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002)Google Scholar.
51. In fact, the Zuo actually refers to him as “Chu zi” 楚子, but he called himself King; thus he ought to be called “King”, not “Duke” Zhuang, as Nylan does. King Zhuang's speech ends: …夫武，禁暴、戢兵、保大、定功、安民、和眾、豐財者也。故使子孫無忘其章…武有七德，我無一焉。何以示子孫。 “Now as for the Martial, it means prohibiting violence, collecting weapons, protecting the great, establishing merit, pacifying the people, unifying the masses, and making resources abundant. It is for this reason that we cause our descendants not to forget its resplendence … The Martial has these seven virtues, yet I have not a single one of them. What am I to display to my descendants?” Zuo zhuan Xuan 12, in Bojun, Yang, Chun qiu Zuo zhuan zhu, 744–46Google Scholar.
52. See McNeal, Conquer and Govern: Early Chinese Military Texts from the Yi Zhou shu, forthcoming.