Abstract
In the bamboo manuscript Fanwu Liuxing from the ancient State of Chu, which is currently housed in the Shanghai Museum , the phrase, “I have heard it said that …” (wen zhi yue 聞之曰) appears some nine times, suggesting that the text relies to some extent on the words of a historical figure or classic text. It attempts to provide explanations of the reasons for existence by appealing to descriptions of Dao (道), the One (Yi 一) or the Heart-mind (Xin 心), and draws upon these theories to guide matters of governance. The text may be divided into two parts; the former comprises three sections, mostly in the form of questions, whilst the latter part comprises six sections in the form of answers offered. The structure of the Fanwu Liuxing text is loose; its author chose to gather together material on a similar theme, according to their personal requirements. The content of the text is not an original creation by its author; at the same time we can point out that the characteristics of thought and use of language are closely related to the four chapters of the Guanzi, the “Inner Training” chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
For the image of the text and interpretations see Ma Chengyuan ed. Shanghai Museum Collection of Warring States Chu Bamboo Manuscripts, vol. 7 . Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Book Press, 2008, pp. 221–300.
- 2.
The four chapters we refer to here are “Neiye” 内業, “Xinshu Shangi” 心術上, “Xinshu Xia” 心術下 and “Baixin” 白心. The references to the Guanzi are made from Chen Guying , A Full Interpretation of the Four Chapters of the Guanzi. Beijing: Shangwu Yinshu Press, 2006.
- 3.
Regarding the rhyming of the Fanwu Liuxing, see Chen Zhixiang, Reading the Rhyme of the Fanwu Liuxing, Fudan University Unearthed Manuscripts official website (hereafter referred to as the Fudan University official website) http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn, January 10, 2009. Also see the below useful references: Gu Shikao, “Slip Order and Mending the Rhymes of the Fanwu Liuxing Appearing in the Seventh Volume of the Shanghai Museum Collection,” posted in http://www.bsm.org.cn , February 23, 2009. Although we can affirm that the rhymes exist, due to the manifold possibilities of slip organization order, there is yet a unified rhyming version.
- 4.
Wu Kejing 鄥可晶 transcribed the Fanwu Liuxing Re-Edited Transliteration first posted on Fudan University’s official website (http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn), December 31, 2008.
- 5.
Compiler Cao Jinyan feels that all the sections ought to begin with the alternate reading, “It is asked that” (wen zhi yue 问之曰), a perspective based on his reading that the text is composed of a series of questions. On this point, see also Ma Chengyuan ed., The Shanghai Museum Collection of Warring States Chu Bamboo Manuscripts vol. 7, p. 221 . The New Interpretation also reads the second wen 闻 as wen 问, to read “It is asked that…”. Li Rui’s I”nterpretive Notes on the Fanwu Liuxing” (posted on Confucius 2000 Net December 31, 2000) reads all sections as beginning with the phrase “I have heard it said that …” without offering his reasons for interpreting the original in this way. For the purposes of this chapter, we adopt the same position, i.e. that all sections begin with the same phrase; as we will explore further on in the chapter, the content of the Fanwu Liuxing text is not an original creation, but rather quotes from previous persons or texts . In this case, even if we accept the appearance of the character wen 问, as valid, it should also be seen as a reference to a question of a precious person or text, so that is, in fact, still a case of the author “having heard it said that”.
- 6.
Regarding the character “處” (translated here as coexist), the Revised Edition and Interpretation reads “序” (sequence), while later the author Qian Kejing maintains that the correct interpretation follows the organizer’s original interpretation as “處”. See Qian Kejing, “Supplementing Interpretations of the Fanwu Liuxing in the Shanghai Museum Collection Vol. 7,” Fudan University official website, April 11, 2009.
- 7.
Following “they do not perceive the true state of what is around them to right and left” the organizer’s version as well as the Revised Edition and Interpretations all add a question mark; we maintain that according to the overall meaning of the text it should be a period. See Cao Feng , “‘The True State of What is Around Them to Right and Left’ in the Fanwu Liuxing.” Appears in http://www.bsm.org.cn, January 4, 2009. For the rendering of “Scholar-Knights of the Nine Continents create plans, who can mark boundaries for them,” we sum up the works of a few scholars: He Youzu 何有祖, “Readers’ Notes to the Fanwu Liuxing” (appeared in http://www.bsm.org.cn, January 1, 2009); Fan Guodong凡國棟, “Explaining the “Scholar-Knights of the Nine Continents Create Plans” in the Fanwu Liuxing of the Shanghai Museum Collection Vol. 7 Slip 4” (see http://www.bsm.org.cn, January 3, 2009); Fan Changxi范常喜, “A Short Note on the Fanwu Liuxing of the Shanghai Museum Collection Vol. 7” (http://www.bsm.org.cn January 3, 2009) as well as the ideas of other scholars.
- 8.
For this section we use the transliteration from Appendix 6 in the Literary Collection of the Shanghai Museum Collection of Warring States Chu Bamboo Manuscripts 1–5, composed by Li Shougui李守奎, Qu Bing曲冰 and Sun Weilong孫偉龍, 2007, pp. 791–794.
- 9.
The contents of the third section following “I have heard it said” can be separated into two sections; the first section explains how the rationale of doing great things should follow from the rationale of dealing with small matters, and this is not a question phrase. Version A has a clear punctuation mark after “必從寸始” (“that must surely begin with one small step”) which express a distinct context. As for version B, due to destruction of the manuscript we have no way of confirming this issue. The second section inquires into the mechanism of each natural phenomenon; for the reading of “What should one attend to in the case of the Ri’er of the Sun [a special cosmological phenomenon]? Who should one visit a punitive mission upon in the event of Yueyun of the Moon [another special cosmological phenomenon]? When the waters flow East, what should be filled? At sunrise, why does the sun appear large and yet its light does not hurt the eyes? Why at midday can a small goose obscure the sun? Who is higher than Heaven? Who reaches further than the Earth?” we follow the organizer Cao Jinyan, whilst for the reading of “Who made the Deity of Thunder? Who created Di (The Heavenly Emperor)?” we follow Chen Wei in his “Notes to the Fanwu Liuxing,” published at http://www.bsm.org.cn on January 2, 2009. As for the unknown character, transcriber Cao Jinyan reads it as the “漆” character (see Revised Edition and Interpretation) and thus makes it an unreadable solution; Zhang Chongli 張崇禮 in his “New Interpretation of the Fanwu Liuxing” (http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn, March 20, 2009) reads the last two phrases as “夫雨之至, 孰唾津之?夫風之至, 孰噓吸而迸之?,” but this interpretation has no basis.
- 10.
The character for “grasp”(執) that appears in the combination “grasping the Dao” is seen a lot in the Fanwu Liuxing; the compiler reads this character as “識” “to know”, and other scholars either read it as “察” (observe) “守” (adjoin) or “得” (obtain). Yang Zesheng’s 楊澤生 “Discussing the Fanwu Liuxing from the Two Characters Related to ‘少’” (http://www.bsm.org.cn March 7, 2009) has a discussion on this character and maintains it should be “執” (grasp), and we agree with this rendering; regarding the reading of “端冕” we follow Li Rui, “A New Interpretation of the Fanwu Liuxing (Manuscript),” http://www.confucius2000.com, December 31, 2008; regarding slips 14 and 16, we follow Gu Shikao 顧史考, “Slip Order and Mending the Rhymes of the Fanwu Liuxing Appearing in the Seventh Volume of the Shanghai Museum Collection” (ibid.), and Wang Zhongjiang , “New Views on Compiling the Fanwu Liuxing” (http://www.bsm.org.cn, March 3, 2009). We support this kind of organization; see Cao Feng , “Verifying the Two Methods of Organization of the Fanwu Liuxing,” Hunan Province Museum Periodical 6 (March 2010). We read “箸” as “宁.”
- 11.
The Revised Edition and Interpretations read “few” (少) as “small” (小), and read “clear” (白) as “泊,” and we agree that this is the correct reading. See Cao Feng , “Annotations to the “Sin bu sheng xin” Section of the Fanwu Liuxing,” in Zhang Xiancheng ed. Research on Language and Writing in Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts , vol. 4, Bashu Press, May 2010. According to the Revised Edition and Interpretations the two “乎” characters are read as the beginning of the next phrase, it signifies “I” (吾), however we follow Li Rui’s reading as “乎.” See Li Rui, “Interpretive Notes on the Fanwu Liuxing” (cited above). As for “訬成,” Yang Zesheng reads as “崇成” in his “Discussing the Fanwu Liuxing from the Two ‘shao’ Characters” (cited above). We similarly analyze the structure of the character “訬”, and maintain that it could be read as “眇成” or “妙成,” see Cao Feng, Annotations to the “xin bu sheng xin” Section of the Fanwu Liuxing.
- 12.
The “女” character is read as “四” (four) in Shen Pei’s “A New View of the Character for “One” in vol. 7 of the Shanghai Museum Collection,” published on the Fudan University official website (http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn, December 31, 2008); However, Shen Pei does not state clearly in this paper how exactly this character can be read as “四”. After Qin Hualin 秦樺林 published his “Annotations to the Twenty-First Slip of the Fanwu Liuxing” on the Fudan University official website on January 9, 2009 (http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn), Shen Pei (web name of “水土” Shuitu) then gave an explanation according to this form, refer to: the connection between slip 21, 13A and 12B, as well as the addition of the “目” mu character supplemented between “無” wu and “而知名” er zhi ming, the earliest proposal to this supplement was offered by Li Rui, see Li Rui, “A New Interpretation of the Fanwu Liuxing (Manuscript)” (cited above), we have previously supported this organization, see Cao Feng , “Discussing the Compilation of the Fanwu Liuxing Through the “不見而名”(bu jian er ming) in the Laozi” (appears in http://www.bsm.org.cn, March 9, 2009), and Cao Feng, Fanwu Liuxing Liangchu Bianlian de Wenxian Yanzheng (cited above); the rendering of “遠之歩天, 邇之施人” follows Song Huaqiang 宋華強, “An Explanation of 遠之歩天 in the Fanwu Liuxing,” in http://www.bsm.org.cn, June 28, 2009.
- 13.
For how to read “俯” and “察”, see Xiaoya’s (小疋) response to the Revised Edition and Interpretations; as for reading “握” see Xiaoya’s (小疋) response to Sun Feiyan 孫飛燕, Readers Notes to the Fanwu Liuxing; for the rendering of the “稽” character, see the compiler Cao Jinyan; as for the reading of the character when it follows the phrase “毋遠求度”, see Qin Hualin’s reply to the Revised Edition. For the reading of “maintaining the one” (守一Shouyi), we follow Wu Kejing’s “Supplementing Interpretations of the Fanwu Liuxing in the Shanghai Museum Collection vol. 7” (cited above). The phrase “執此言” appears twice in the Fanwu Liuxing, and the Revised Edition renders it as “執此, 言…”; this is inappropriate due to the responding phrase following the “speech” (言) character in slip 20 and slip 25.
- 14.
The Fanwu Liuxing also has a slip 27, but this slip is not connected to the other Fanwu Liuxing slips; this has already become a consensus in academic circles.
- 15.
Ma Chengyuan ed., Shanghai Museum Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts, vol. 7, p. 221 .
- 16.
See Guo Moruo, “An Inspection into the Posthumous works of Songxing and Yinwen,” in The Entire Collection of Guo Moruo’s Works vol. 1. Beijing: Renmin Press, 1982, pp. 553–557; Chen Guying also supports this view; see A Complete Interpretation of the Four Chapters of the Guanzi, pp. 169–170.
- 17.
We find it necessary to explain here that although the compiler Cao Jinyan divides the Fanwu Liuxing into nine chapters, since the organization of the chapters is different, the contents differ widely from the nine chapters we discuss here.
- 18.
Ma Chengyuan ed., Shanghai Museum Collection of Warring States Bamboo Manuscripts, vol. 7, p. 221 .
- 19.
See Asano Youichi, “A New Interpretation of the Structure of the Fanwu Liuxing,” http://www.bsm.org.cn , February 2, 2009. The text that appears online in Chinese is only an abstract; for more details see: Asano Youchi, “The Entire Configuration of the Fanwu Liuxing in the Shanghai Museum Bamboo Collection,” China Research 48 (June 2009).
- 20.
Cao Feng , published online at Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts Net 9 March, 2009. See also The Hermeneutics of Excavated and Transmitted Texts , compiled by the Fudan University Excavated Texts and Ancient Graphs Research Centre and published by Shanghai Guji Press in October 2010.
- 21.
Wang Niansun 王念孫, Readers Magazine , vol. I. Beijing: China Bookstore, 1985. In this book, he maintains that “soft and hard” should be read in the reverse order to rhyme with the text , see p. 55.
- 22.
Ibid. p. 56.
- 23.
See Cao Feng , “‘The True State of What is Around Them to Right and Left’ in the Fanwu Liuxing” (cited above).
- 24.
Regarding the two characters for “不聞” (translated above as “unaware”/“ignorant”), there are versions that lack these characters; for further details see Huang Huaixin 黃懷信, Zhang Maorong 張懋鎔 and Tian Xudong 田旭東, Concentrated Notes to the Yizhoushu Book II, Shanghai: Shanghai Ancient Book Press, 1995, p. 1049.
- 25.
The earliest appearance of this material was in Wu Kejing’s response to his Revised Edition.
- 26.
Chen Huiling 陳惠玲 was the first to supply these two items: see Chen Huiling, “An Examination of the Supplemented Explanation to The True State of What is Around Them to Right and Left of Slip No. 3 of the Fanwu Liuxing,” Fudan University Official Website, April 22, 2009.
- 27.
Sima Qian maintained that the text was written by Qu Yuan 屈原 (340–278 bce); however, Tan Jiefu 譚介甫 and other scholars pointed out early on that the text does not have a single appearance of the character “兮” which marks it as completely different from the Twenty-Five Chapters of Qu (屈賦), and therefore it is not possible that it is the work of Qu. Rather, “at the time that King Qi Xuan passed on his rule to his son King Qi Hun, the Jixia Academy scholars had already jointly discussed this issue. Since Qu Yuan at that time went to the state of Qi quite a few times it is possible that he participated in these discussions, at the end there are a few items that discuss the affairs of the state of Chu, it might have been raised by Qu Yuan himself.” See Tan Jiefu, New Edition of Qu Yuan’s Poetic Essays, vol. II. Beijing: Zhonghua Press, 1978, p. 406. Therefore, it is possible that Qu Yuan discussed related subject matters which were assembled and then placed in the historical records of the state of Chu as well as the personal laments, and was integrated into one piece of work of literature. On the other hand, the excavation of the Fanwu Liuxing contributed to the research into the Ten Questions; thus, this issue was raised and discussed again.
- 28.
The phrase following this one is, “Hui Shi made no attempt to evade the questions, and answered him without any exercise of thought.” One can note that the focus on this issue has also been attempted an answer by the School of Names .
- 29.
Asano Youichi, A New Interpretation of the Structure of the Fanwu Liuxing (cited above) discusses the connection between the “Inquiring into Things” chapter of the of the Fanwu Liuxing and the Miao minority epic poem of Genesis, and maintains that this chapter offers a synthesis of the situations described by the Miao minority’s Genesis and the Heavenly Questions .
- 30.
For the annotations to “shao che (少徹)”, “knowing the pure (知白)” and “miraculous formation (訬成)”, see Cao Feng , Annotations to the “Xin bu sheng xin” Section of the Fanwu Liuxing (cited above).
- 31.
Regarding these two items we follow Li Rui: A New Interpretation of the Fanwu Liuxing (manuscript) (cited above).
- 32.
See Li Rui, A New Interpretation of the Fanwu Liuxing (Manuscript) (aforementioned); Wu Kejing, “Discussion on the Organization and Connection Between Version A and B of the Fanwu Liuxing in the Shanghai Museum Collection vol. 7,” first published on the Fudan University Website: http://www.gwz.fudan.edu.cn on January 7, 2009; (aforementioned); Cao Feng , “‘The True State of What is Around Them to Right and Left’ in the Fanwu Liuxing” (aforementioned).
- 33.
We maintain that there is a difference between “One gives birth to Two, Two gives birth to Three, Three gives birth to Four, After Four comes a conclusion” and Laozi Chap. 42, “Dao generates the one, one generates two, two generates three, three generates the myriad beings”; this difference may be related to Yin-Yang and the five phases. For further discussion see Cao Feng , “Explanation of ‘After Four Comes a Conclusion’ in the Shanghai Chu Bamboo Slips of the Fanwu Liuxing,” ta http://www.bsm.org.cn , August 21, 2009.
- 34.
See Cao Feng , “Examination of the Mawangdui Silk Manuscript of the ‘All Things Have Forms’ Diagram,” which appears in Chu Excavated Texts and Research on Pre-Qin Thought. Taipei: Taiwan Shufang Press Ltd., 2010.
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Cao, F. (2017). The Literary Structure and Characteristics of the Thought in the Bamboo Manuscript Known as All Things Flow into Forms (Fanwu Liuxing). In: Daoism in Early China. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55094-1_4
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