Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2013

Commentaries: Unearthed Bamboo and Silk Documents and the Pre-Qin Intellectual World

(Abstract)

Ding Sixin, Wang Bo, Cao Feng and Liang Tao

The last few decades have witnessed the excavation of a large quantity of bamboo and silk documents in relation to pre-Qin thoughts and society. Accordingly, steady progress has also been made in this regard. As earlier discussions focused on character, gloss and text annotations, we deem it ripe time to avail of the present research to enrich the writing of intellectual history, and to reveal the theoretical meaning underlying the materials. For this purpose, we have invited a few scholars to examine the pre-Qin intellectual world as reflected in bamboo and silk documents either from the macro view of text-thought interactions, the micro view of theoretical construction, schools of thought and their evolution pertaining to a particular kind of classics, or from the methodological view. Professor Ding Sixin from the School of Philosophy at Wuhan University asserts that we can gain a glimpse of the evolution of earlier “texts” and their interaction with “thoughts” from the bamboo and silk versions of Lao Tzu: The Eternal Tao Te Ching and I Ching (The Book of Changes) excavated over the past 40 decades, as well as the evolution and characteristics of these two kinds of text from the Pre-Qin period through to the late Western Han dynasty. Lao Tzu has undergone far more substantial textual changes than I Ching, which has retained relative consistency and stability in the course of textual transcription. We should strengthen the understanding of their textual character and reflect on our academic ideas and achievements. Professor Wang Bo from the Department of Philosophy at Peking University believes that there existed some specific documents interpreting The Book of Odes, such as Wu Xing (Five Elements), Confucian Poetics and Parents of the People during the Warring States period. These documents not only quoted and interpreted the characters and content in relation to The Book of Odes, but also developed the topic of mind, nature and feelings based on the characteristic of “poetry as a means of expressing one’s thought and feelings,” affirming and stressing the inseparability of mind/nature and rites. The proposition of the study of mind is a necessary result of Confucian meditations on the reestablishment of rites and order. Professor Cao Feng from the Department of Philosophy at Tsinghua University ascertains two theoretical clues running through the silk document of The Yellow Emperor’s Four Canons excavated from Mawangdui: the “Lao Tzu-style discussions on Tao and politics” and the “emperor-style discussions on Tao and politics.” Although such a model cannot be readily used to analyze the still earlier bamboo works on the thought of Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu, such as The Great One Gives Birth to Water, Heng Xian, Three Moralities and Fanwu Liuxing (When the Forms of All Things Become Animate), there exist close relations between later literature and the two types of discussions on Tao and politics, indicating a possibility of further evolvement. Professor Liang Tao from the School of Chinese Classics at Renmin University of China notes that the application of dual attestation to recent research on excavated documents has far exceeded that in Wang Guowei’s period. It is used both for an explanation and attestation of ancient history and for a suspicion and discrimination of ancient history. And the diachronic study of unearthed materials and printed materials is more similar to Ku Chieh kang’s “only pursuing its changes.” Therefore, the “prototype-meaning evolution theory” not only admits that historical records have their “origins” or “prototypes,” but also recognizes the distortions and twists arising from the inheritance, while trying to offer a possible explanation for such evolution.