This article aims to illustrate the usefulness of analytical approaches to early Chinese writings which center on effects of textual memory. Due to a dearth of contemporaneous descriptions, concrete practices of oral transmission, dictation, performance, and interpretation in Early China largely lie beyond the ken of present-day scholarship. But recurrence of linguistic-stylistic elements testifies to the presence of these elements in an author's memory. Memory should thus, in principle, provide a comparatively accessible perspective on textual production. To demonstrate this point, the article investigates verbal parallels to a passage from Huainanzi 淮南子 15, “Bing lüe” 兵略 (An Overview of the Military). The internal and distributional patterns as well as the qualitative properties of textual overlaps with other extant writings suggest a composition process that involved a particular type of textual memory. Parallels are fuzzy and patchy; they rarely exceed one or two clauses; they display an irregular distribution across intertexts; the similarities between them cut across linguistic and stylistic categories and recombine in unpredictable constellations. This bundle of characteristics suggests not so much systematic exploitation of trained mnemonic capacities to reproduce long stretches of text verbatim, but instead, a reliance on the aptness of linguistic-stylistic elements of various kinds to spring to mind piecemeal in particular thematic contexts. These specificities are captured well by Boris Gasparov's notion of “communicative fragments.” To invoke an Aristotelian distinction, the resulting effects are close to those of unsupervised remembering rather than the deliberate, goal-directed cognitive activity of recollecting. Looking beyond the present study, it is hoped that future investigations of intertextuality will combine aspects of close reading—as in this article—and methods of digitally enhanced distant reading. This will likely help to elucidate distinct habits of text production and to devise more refined textual typologies, which might eventually feed into more nuanced literary, historical, and philosophical interpretations.

This study considers Xunzi's criticism of Zisi, Confucius' grandson, providing a detailed analysis of some of the most famous but also difficult passages in the Xunzi. By drawing on the newly excavated text, “Wuxing” (The five conducts), the study shows that not only did Xunzi have an intimate knowledge of Zisi's teachings, but in fact he had available to him a certain version of the “Wuxing.” This understanding makes it possible to evaluate Xunzi's role as a reporter of Zisi's teachings, and to the extent that Xunzi reported these teachings fairly and accurately, the study offers specific suggestions for reimagining a period that has been little understood in Early Chinese intellectual history, or the transition from Confucius to Mencius.

Among the texts discovered in December, 1973, at Mawangdui in Changsha, Hunan, was by far the earliest manuscript text (copied about 175 B.C.) of the Zhouyi or Zhou Changes, together with various commentaries, some known—such as the “Xici” or “Appended Statements”— and others —”Ersanzi Wen” or “The Two or Three Disciples Ask,” “Yi zhi Yi” or “The Propriety of the Changes,” and “Yao” or “Essentials”—not heretofore known. Despite the great anticipation with which scholars learned of this discovery, it was not until twenty years later, 1993, that this manuscript was finally published, and even at that only incompletely. In this comte rendu, the author introduces the state and contents of the manuscript, including especially how it varies from the received text, and some of the debate that these variora have already engendered among historians of Chinese thought.

The location of the Chu core area during the reign of King Wu (740-690) is a question rendered uncertain by two issues: 1) the date of the move from Danyang to Ying, and 2) the locations of these capitals. In the traditional literature, both were considered to have been situated along the Yangzi, in southwest Hubei. Recent suggestions, on the other hand, place Danyang in either the Dan Valley (southwest Henan) or west-central Hubei (Nanzhang or Yicheng counties); and arguments have been offered that Ying was also in the Yicheng area.

In the arguments both for and against these hypotheses, a commonly employed assumption is that Chu military activities under King Wu hold the potential for indicating the area from which the campaigns were launched. The present paper analyzes one of these campaigns, the military encounter at Pusao between Chu and Yun, east of the Han River (Handong), in 701. This episode is noteworthy for the number of states and placenames that occur in the Zuozhuan account of it.

The present study suggests that in plotting the states and placenames appearing in this account, geographical sources dating from the sixth century through the early Qing that are frequently cited in defense of the Southern School (Yangzi Valley) view exhibit several deficiencies. Correcting these leads to the conclusion that regardless of whether Danyang or Ying was the capital at the time, in 701 the Chu force could well have set forth from the Nanzhang/Yicheng region.

In 1977, some 17,000 pieces of pyromantic turtle-shell, of which nearly 300 pieces were inscribed, were discovered at the site of the Zhou ancestral temple in Qishan, Shaanxi. Scholarship on this important inscriptional source has been hampered by the piecemeal nature of its publication. Now, Wang Yuxin, in his XiZhou jiagu tanlun, has brought together the information and conclusions of sixteen studies published through 1981. In addition, Wang has also presented his own research into the nature and periodization of these inscriptions. The author of this review article acknowledges Wang's contributions to the study of the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions, but finds fault not only with Wang's periodization but also with his assertion that a number of these inscriptions recording sacrifices to Shang ancestors manifest instead an exogamic relationship between the Shang and Zhou kings.

Thus far, scholarship on early China has mainly focused on conceptual debates and re-interpretations of terminology. I showcase in this article a methodology called metaphorology that enables us to analyze how discourses developed through the reworking of images. In particular, I reconstruct a discourse on governance and self-cultivational practices as enshrined in Mengzi 3A.4, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter and Huainanzi 9.13. While Mengzi 3A.4 purports that the cultivation of agricultural fields and human bodies are necessary steps in the civilizational process, the Zhuangzi’s “Mati” chapter demands a decultivation of the human population and a return to the wilderness. In my reading, Huainanzi 9.13, from the “Arts of Rulership” chapter, amalgamates these two image-based debates with the help of the metaphors of the ruler as an overgrown courtyard and the officials as tilled fields. Hence, I propose that Huainanzi 9.13 creates its integrative vision of governance that promotes both education and decultivation by synthesizing the “Mati” chapter's focus on wilderness and Mengzi 3A.4's concerns with tilling. As a result, I encourage us to engage fully in imagery's role as a central and foundational aspect of early Chinese debate culture rather than a rhetorical side effect of its various discourses.

This article is a preliminary study of the silk diagram of the mourning system excavated from Mawangdui tomb three (dated to 168 b.c.e.) in 1973. Although it is the earliest precisely dated document of one of the most enduring social institutions in Chinese history, this mourning diagram has received little scholarly attention. Through analyzing its structure, inscriptions, kinship terms, and cosmological symbolism, and comparing it with relevant Warring States and contemporary Han sources, the author has reconstructed the diagram based strictly on evidence internal to the diagram itself. The author then explains the cosmological and numerological significance of the Mawangdui mourning system, and, through rereading passages in Lun yu 17/21, the “Sannian wen” chapter in the Li ji, the “Li lun” in the Xunzi, and the testamentary decree of Emperor Wen (d. 157 b.c.e.), he discusses the multiple ways of justifying mourning practices during the Warring States and early Han periods and the changing interpretations of the cosmological/numerological basis of the mourning system by later text-based scholars, such as Zheng Xuan and Wang Su. Finally, the author discusses the nature and function of the diagram as the source of ritual diagrams illustrating a text in the Chinese classical exegetical tradition. This Mawangdui diagram is a schematic representation of the mourning system with its basic numerological principles and cosmological significance. As a kinship chart, it illustrates the five degrees of mourning, which characterize the scope of close kinship in early Han China. It depicts a mourning tradition similar to those recorded in the Yi li and the Li ji, but represents differently in degrees of mourning that people, especially married-out daughters and their children, were obligated to observe for the death of a relative. It is thus invaluable for us to understand the historical formation of the Chinese mourning tradition and subsequent ritual manuals and legal codes, and it provides new materials for the sociological study of issues concerning Han family structure, the nature of descent groups, women's position, and patrilinealism.

The article presents the findings of a survey of the imprecation phrase ma yi fei shi 麻夷非是 and its variations, as written (using brush and ink) on several thousand excavated covenant texts (mengshu 盟書) from Houma 侯馬 and Wenxian 溫縣. I argue that the findings support Zhu Dexi 朱德熙 and Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭's analysis of the phrase as mi yi bi shi 靡夷彼氏 “Wipe out that shi” (shi, I suggest, referring to the covenantor and his direct male descendants). Through comparison of scribal hands, I demonstrate that those variations which do not fit this analysis were produced by a small number of scribes and, in almost all cases, can be shown to be errors. I conclude that such variations are generally unreliable and do not require us to reject Zhu and Qiu's analysis. These examples suggest that formulaic, possibly archaic, stock phrases, such as this imprecation, were liable to be misinterpreted, even during the period in which they were in use. Identification of scribal hands and scribal errors was essential to this analysis, demonstrating not only the importance of this methodology in such research, but also the potential value of these particular materials for furthering our understanding of scribal habits and text reproduction in early China.

Since the 1970s scholars in China have identified mo 貘 as the ancient name for the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). I concur with this identification and I trace the source of the modern misidentification of mo as the Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus) to the article by Jean Pierre Abel-Rémusat published in 1824. Abel-Rémusat based his identification on woodblock drawings of the mo depicted as the quadripartite animal first described by Bo Juyi in the ninth century: elephant trunk, rhinoceros eyes, cow tail, tiger paws. Xu Shen (ca. 55–ca. 149) in the Shuowen jiezi compared mo to the bear, as did all descriptions of mo before Bo Juyi. Bo Juyi's description reflects new ideas about mo in medieval culture, and cannot be used as evidence of the animal named mo in early China. As a consequence of Abel-Rémusat's mistaken identification – which was immediately accepted in Western zoology – the word mo lost its original meaning and became the word for tapir in modern Chinese and Japanese. Examination of textual and zooarchaeological evidence confirms the giant panda as the original referent of mo. Although the tapir inhabited the region of China in prehistory there is no evidence of the tapir in China in historical times.

The description of the “Nine Provinces” (Jiu zhou 九州) found in the Rong Cheng shi 容成氏 (Mister Rong Cheng?, late fourth century b.c.e.) manuscript from the Shanghai Museum Bamboo Slips Collection (Shangbo cangjian 上博藏簡) is the only manuscript version of it known to date. Its discovery immediately raised the question of its relation to the cluster of descriptions on the “Nine Provinces” transmitted from the late Warring States to the early Western Han periods. There is general consensus that the manuscript description of the “Nine Provinces” has close affinity with the transmitted descriptions, as well as with a wide spectrum of transmitted early Chinese texts in general. It is distinguished by the eclectic combining of known spatial concepts, rather than manifesting any radically new or specifically Chu traits. In this study I reassess this impression with respect to the reference to the Han River in the manuscript, which up to now has been noted only in passing as an unsolved puzzle. I argue that the Han River is referred to here as the central axis that divides terrestrial space into southern and northern halves, something that implies a shifting of the mapped area to the South and thus conveys a Chu view of space. Together with philological analysis of the descriptions of terrestrial space, I apply an innovative method of investigation of these descriptions through landmarks, using as a visual aid traditional Chinese historical maps. In addition, I explore the predominance of waters as the distinguishing feature of the representation of terrestrial space in the Rong Cheng shi manuscript and demonstrate its difference from the structuring of terrestrial space proceeding from mountains to waterways to be seen in the majority of transmitted early Chinese texts.

In this article I question the assumption that all place-names in the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan refer to real places. I suggest instead a mythic origin for many of these seemingly referential elements. By analyzing a complex of myths either referred to or alluded to in the text, I show that several crucial place-names come in fact from cosmological referents rather than geographical ones. The Mu T'ien-tzu chuan cannot then be read purely as a historical account. I extend this argument by revealing how the elements of cosmological myth in the narrative must themselves be read as elements of symbolic discourse; that is, they have to be read within an astronomical context as references to celestial phenomena. By reading the cosmological and astronomical discourses of the myths together, I demonstrate the literary significance of the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan, a significance which to date has been obscured by misreadings of its historicity. Finally, I argue that only by reading the Mu T'ien-tzu chuan as a literary fiction can one understand what it tells us about how notions of political legitimacy were constructed and then altered in the representation of King Mu's (fictional) journey. The narrative is thus revealed to be a wholly symbolic tale whose interpretation has implications for the wider realm of the interconnections among history, literature and culture.

In the past decade, it seems, the study of early Chinese manuscripts has at last begun to move from its rather marginal position as a highly specialized subject into the mainstream of scholarship on the Warring States and early imperial periods. This is certainly due in part to the impressive quantity of manuscripts found so far. A still more important factor is probably the fact that the manuscripts recovered to date now include a significant number of politico-philosophical texts. While literature of a more technical nature has attracted attention only in smaller circles of scholars, these more generally appealing finds have spurred a markedly increased interest in early Chinese manuscripts both in China and in the West. This is also reflected by the vast improvement in the quality of publications with regard both to photographic reproduction and to transcription and/or interpretation. The field of palaeography has accordingly gained visibility and esteem. It hardly need be mentioned that orthography is a vital concern in reading manuscripts. Many books and articles on the manuscripts consequently touch upon the subject of orthography when they interpret manuscripts or discuss special palaeographic issues, or when they address the Chinese writing system in a more general way. Yet, to my knowledge, Imre Galambos’s Orthography of Early Chinese Writing is the first monograph ever to elevate the question of early Chinese manuscript orthography to the status of its central subject matter.

When Li Xueqin was born in Beijing on 28 March, 1933, the Republic of China was in power, with its capital in Nanjing, and the Japanese occupied Manchuria. On 29 July 1937 Japanese troops invaded Beijing and brought it under control in little more than a week. The occupation of Beijing lasted until the Japanese surrender in August 1945. The People's Liberation Army entered Beijing in the end of January of 1949 and on 1 October 1949, when Li Xueqin was sixteen, Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China. This period of warfare was followed by periods of political turmoil which often centered around intellectuals—thought reform in the early fifties, the anti-rightest campaigns and the Great Leap Forward of the late fifties and early sixties, the Cultural Revolution from the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies.

The Ching-fa, one of the four “lost” books attached to the Ma-wang-tui Lao tzu, addresses issues of universal concern for legal theory. This paper examines how the Ching-fa's nine short theaties present fa linked with tao as a Law or model for guiding and judging the legitimacy of the ruler's use of coercion. I attempt to demonstrate that the conception of a universal and timeless Law offered a more universally applicable standard for governing than did the old laws based on the practices of the ancient sage kings. The text's notion of law linked with a timeless, natural principle, tao, is compared with early Western theories of universal law and its relation to justice. I conclude that the content and ultimate purposes of law are different in these early traditions but that in both cases the emerging imperial states were better served by theories of law based on abstract standards rather than on particular histories and customs.