Book of Documents

Book of Documents

A page of an annotated Book of Documents manuscript from the 7th century, held by the Tokyo National Museum
Author	Various; trad. compiled by Confucius
Original title	Template:Langn
Language	Old Chinese
Subject	Compilation of rhetorical prose
Publication place	China

Book of Documents

Lineage of editions during the Han dynasty

The Book of Documents (Chinese: 書經; pinyin: Shūjīng; Wade–Giles: Shu King) or the Classic of History, is one of the Five Classics of ancient Chinese literature. It is a collection of rhetorical prose attributed to figures of ancient China, and served as the foundation of Chinese political philosophy for over two millennia.

The Book of Documents was the subject of one of China's oldest literary controversies, between proponents of different versions of the text. A version was preserved from Qin Shi Huang's burning of books and burying of scholars by scholar Fu Sheng, in 29 chapters (Template:Tlit ). This group of texts were referred to as "Modern Texts" (or "Current Script"; Template:Tlit ), because they were written with the script in use at the beginning of the Western Han dynasty.

A longer version of the Documents was said to be discovered in the wall of Confucius's family estate in Qufu by his descendant Kong Anguo in the late 2nd century BC. The texts were referred to as "Old Texts" (Template:Tlit ), because they were written in the script that predated the standardization of Chinese script during the Qin. Compared to the Modern Texts, the "Old Texts" material had 16 more chapters. The Old Texts had been lost at the end of the Eastern Han dynasty, while the Modern Texts text enjoyed circulation, in particular in Ouyang Gao's study, called the Ouyang Shangshu (). This was the basis of studies by Ma Rong and Zheng Xuan during the Eastern Han.

In 317 AD, Mei Ze presented to the Eastern Jin court a 58-chapter (59 if the preface is counted) Book of Documents as Kong Anguo's version of the text. This version was accepted, despite the doubts of a few scholars, and later was canonized as part of Kong Yingda's project. It was only in the 17th century that Qing dynasty scholar Yan Ruoqu proposed that the "Old Texts" were fabrications "reconstructed" in the 3rd or 4th centuries AD.

In the transmitted edition, texts are grouped into four sections representing different eras: the legendary reign of Yu the Great, and the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. The Zhou section accounts for over half the text. Some of its modern-script chapters are among the earliest examples of Chinese prose, recording speeches from the early years of the Zhou dynasty in the late 11th century BC. Although the other three sections purport to record earlier material, most scholars believe that even the New Script chapters in these sections were composed later than those in the Zhou section, with chapters relating to the earliest periods being as recent as the 4th or 3rd centuries BC.

Textual history

The history of the various versions of the Documents is complex and has been the subject of a long-running literary and philosophical controversy.

Early references

According to a later tradition, the Book of Documents was compiled by Confucius (551–479 BC) as a selection from a much larger group of documents, with some of the remainder being included in the Yi Zhou Shu. However, the early history of both texts is obscure. Beginning with Confucius, writers increasingly drew on the Documents to illustrate general principles, though it seems that several different versions were in use.

Six citations to unnamed chapters of the Documents appear in the Analects. While Confucius invoked the pre-dynastic emperors Yao and Shun, as well as figures from the Xia and Shang dynasties, he complained of the lack of documentation prior to the Zhou. The Documents were cited increasingly frequently in works through the 4th century BC, including in the Mencius, Mozi and Zuo Zhuan. These authors favoured documents relating to Yao, Shun and the Xia dynasty, chapters now believed to have been written in the Warring States period. The chapters currently believed to be the oldest—mostly relating to the early Zhou—were little used by Warring States authors, perhaps due to the difficulty of the archaic language or a less familiar worldview. Fewer than half the passages quoted by these authors are present in the received text. Authors such as Mencius and Xunzi, while quoting the Documents, refused to accept it as genuine in its entirety. Their attitude contrasts with the reverence later shown to the text during the Han dynasty, when its compilation was attributed to Confucius.

Han dynasty: Modern and Old Scripts

Fu Sheng expounding on the Classic, attributed to Wang Wei (8th century)

Many copies of the work were destroyed in the Burning of Books during the Qin dynasty. Fu Sheng reconstructed part of the work from hidden copies in the late 3rd to early 2nd century BC, at the start of the succeeding Han dynasty. The texts that he transmitted were known as the "Modern Script" ( Template:Tlit) because it was written in the clerical script. It originally consisted of 29 chapters, but the chapter "Great Speech" (Tài shì ) was lost shortly afterwards and replaced by a new version. The remaining 28 chapters were later expanded into 30 when Ouyang Gao divided the "Pangeng" chapter into three sections.

During the reign of Emperor Wu, renovations of the home of Confucius are said to have uncovered several manuscripts hidden within a wall, including a longer version of the Documents. These texts were referred to as "Old Script" because they were written in the pre-Qin seal script. They were transcribed into clerical script and interpreted by Confucius' descendant Kong Anguo. Han dynasty sources give contradictory accounts of the nature of this find. According to the commonly repeated account of the Book of Han, the "Old Script" texts included the chapters preserved by Fu Sheng, another version of the "Great Speech" chapter and some 16 additional ones. It is unclear what happened to these manuscripts. According to the Book of Han, Liu Xiang collated the Old Script version against the three main "Modern Script" traditions, creating a version of the Documents that included both groups. This was championed by his son Liu Xin, who requested in a letter to Emperor Ai the establishment of a boshi position for its study. But this did not happen. Most likely, this edition put together by the imperial librarians was lost in the chaos that ended the Western Han dynasty, and the later movement of the capital and imperial library.

A list of 100 chapter titles was also in circulation; many are mentioned in the Records of the Grand Historian, but without quoting the text of the other chapters.

The shu were designated one of the Five Classics when Confucian works made official by Emperor Wu of Han, and Template:Tlit ('classic') was added to its name. The term Template:Tlit 'venerated documents' was also used in the Eastern Han. The Xiping Stone Classics, set up outside the imperial academy in 175–183 but since destroyed, included a Modern Script version of the Documents. Most Han dynasty scholars ignored the Old Script version, and it disappeared by the end of the dynasty.

Claimed recovery of Old Script texts

A version of the Documents that included the "Old Script" texts was allegedly rediscovered by the scholar Mei Ze during the 4th century, and presented to the imperial court of the Eastern Jin. His version consisted of the 31 modern script texts in 33 chapters, and 18 additional old script texts in 25 chapters, with a preface and commentary purportedly written by Kong Anguo. This was presented as Guwen Shangshu 古文尚書, and was widely accepted. It was the basis of the Template:Tlit ( 'Correct interpretation of the Documents') published in 653 and made the official interpretation of the Documents by imperial decree. The oldest extant copy of the text, included in the Kaicheng Stone Classics (833–837), contains all of these chapters.

Since the Song dynasty, starting from Wu Yu (), many doubts had been expressed concerning the provenance of the allegedly rediscovered "Old Script" texts in Mei Ze's edition. In the 16th century, Mei Zhuo () published a detailed argument that these chapters, as well as the preface and commentary, were forged in the 3rd century AD using material from other historical sources such as the Zuo Commentary and the Records of the Grand Historian. Mei identified the sources from which the forger had cut and pasted text, and even suggested Huangfu Mi as a probable culprit. In the 17th century, Yan Ruoqu's unpublished but widely distributed manuscript entitled Evidential analysis of the Old Script Documents (Template:Zhi) convinced most scholars that the rediscovered Old Script texts were fabricated in the 3rd or 4th centuries.

Modern discoveries

New light has been shed on the Book of Documents by the recovery between 1993 and 2008 of caches of texts written on bamboo slips from tombs of the state of Chu in Jingmen, Hubei. These texts are believed to date from the late Warring States period, around 300 BC, and thus predate the burning of the books during the Qin dynasty. The Guodian Chu Slips and the Shanghai Museum corpus include quotations of previously unknown passages of the work. The Tsinghua Bamboo Slips includes a version of the transmitted text "Golden Coffer", with minor textual differences, as well as several documents in the same style that are not included in the received text. The collection also includes two documents that the editors considered to be versions of the Old Script texts "Common Possession of Pure Virtue" and "Command to Fu Yue". Other authors have challenged these straightforward identifications.

Contents

In the orthodox arrangement, the work consists of 58 chapters, each with a brief preface traditionally attributed to Confucius, and also includes a preface and commentary, both purportedly by Kong Anguo. An alternative organization, first used by Wu Cheng, includes only the Modern Script chapters, with the chapter prefaces collected together, but omitting the Kong preface and commentary. In addition, several chapters are divided into two or three parts in the orthodox form.

Nature of the chapters

With the exception of a few chapters of late date, the chapters are represented as records of formal speeches by kings or other important figures. Most of these speeches are of one of five types, indicated by their titles:

• Consultations ( Template:Tlit) between the king and his ministers (2 chapters),
• Instructions ( Template:Tlit) to the king from his ministers (1 chapter),
• Announcements ( Template:Tlit) by the king to his people (8 chapters),
• Declarations ( Template:Tlit) by a ruler on the occasion of a battle (6 chapters), and
• Commands ( Template:Tlit) by the king to a specific vassal (7 chapters).

Classical Chinese tradition lists six types of Shu, beginning with dian , Canons (2 chapters in the Modern corpus).

According to Su Shi (1037–1101), it is possible to single out Eight Announcements of the early Zhou, directed to the Shang people. Their titles only partially correspond to the modern chapters marked as gao (apart from the nos. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18 that mention the genre, Su Shi names nos. 16 "Zi cai", 19 "Duo shi" and 22 "Duo fang").

As pointed out by Chen Mengjia (1911–1966), announcements and commands are similar, but differ in that commands usually include granting of valuable objects, land or servants to their recipients.

Guo Changbao claims that the graph for announcement (), known since the Oracle bone script, also appears on two bronze vessels (He zun and Shi Zhi gui ), as well as in the "six genres" of the Zhou li

In many cases a speech is introduced with the phrase Template:Tlit ( 'The king seemingly said'), which also appears on commemorative bronze inscriptions from the Western Zhou period, but not in other received texts. Scholars interpret this as meaning that the original documents were prepared scripts of speeches, to be read out by an official on behalf of the king.

Traditional organization

The chapters are grouped into four sections representing different eras: the semi-mythical reign of Yu the Great, and the three ancient dynasties of the Xia, Shang and Zhou. The first two sections – on Yu the Great and the Xia dynasty – contain two chapters each in the Modern Script version, and though they purport to record the earliest material in the Documents, from the 2nd millennium BC, most scholars believe they were written during the Warring States period. The Shang dynasty section contains five chapters, of which the first two – the "Speech of King Tang" and "Pan Geng" – recount the conquest of the Xia by the Shang and their leadership's migration to a new capital (now identified as Anyang). The bulk of the Zhou dynasty section concerns the reign of King Cheng of Zhou (r. c. 1040–1006 BC) and the king's uncles, the Duke of Zhou and Duke of Shao. The last four Modern Script chapters relate to the later Western Zhou and early Spring and Autumn periods.

Chapters of the Template:Tlit

Part	New   Text	Orthodox chapter	Title
Yu [Shun]	1	1		Template:Tlit	Canon of Yao
		2		Template:Tlit	Canon of Shun
		3		Template:Tlit	Counsels of Great Yu
	2	4		Template:Tlit	Counsels of Gao Yao
		5		Template:Tlit	Yi and Ji
Xia	3	6		[[Yu Gong|Template:Tlit]]	Tribute of [Great] Yu
	4	7		Template:Tlit	Speech at [the Battle of] Gan
		8		Template:Tlit	Songs of the Five Sons
		9		Template:Tlit	Punitive Expedition on [King Zhongkang of] Yin
Shang	5	10		Template:Tlit	Speech of Tang
		11		Template:Tlit	Announcement of Zhong Hui
		12		Template:Tlit	Announcement of Tang
		13		Template:Tlit	Instructions of Yi [Yin]
		14–16		Template:Tlit	Great Oath parts 1, 2 & 3
		17		Template:Tlit	Common Possession of Pure Virtue
	6	18–20		Template:Tlit	Pan Geng parts 1, 2 & 3
		21–23		Template:Tlit	Charge to Yue parts 1, 2 & 3
	7	24		Template:Tlit	Day of the Supplementary Sacrifice of King Gaozong
	8	25		Template:Tlit	Chief of the West [King Wen]'s Conquest of [the State of] Li
	9	26		Template:Tlit	[Prince] Weizi
Zhou		27–29		Template:Tlit	Great Speech parts 1, 2 & 3
	10	30		Template:Tlit	Speech at Muye
		31		Template:Tlit	Successful Completion of the War [on Shang]
	11	32		Template:Tlit	Great Plan [of Jizi]
		33		Template:Tlit	Hounds of [the Western Tribesmen] Lü
	12	34		Template:Tlit	Golden Coffer [of Zhou Gong]
	13	35		Template:Tlit	Great Announcement
		36		Template:Tlit	Charge to Prince Weizi
	14	37		Template:Tlit	Announcement to Kang
	15	38		Template:Tlit	Announcement about Drunkenness
	16	39		Template:Tlit	Timber of Rottlera
	17	40		Template:Tlit	Announcement of Duke Shao
	18	41		Template:Tlit	Announcement concerning Luoyang
	19	42		Template:Tlit	Numerous Officers
	20	43		Template:Tlit	Against Luxurious Ease
	21	44		Template:Tlit	Lord Shi [Duke Shao]
		45		Template:Tlit	Charge to Cai Zhong
	22	46		Template:Tlit	Numerous Regions
	23	47		Template:Tlit	Establishment of Government
		48		Template:Tlit	Officers of Zhou
		49		Template:Tlit	Lord Chen
	24	50		Template:Tlit	Testamentary Charge
		51		Template:Tlit	Proclamation of King Kang
		52		Template:Tlit	Charge to the [Duke of] Bi
		53		Template:Tlit	Lord Ya
		54		Template:Tlit	Charge to Jiong
	25	55		Template:Tlit	[Marquis] Lü on Punishments
	26	56		Template:Tlit	Charge to Duke Wen of Jin
	27	57		Template:Tlit	Speech at [the Battle of] Fei
	28	58		Template:Tlit	Speech of Duke Mu of Qin

Dating of the Modern Script chapters

Not all of the Modern Script chapters are believed to be contemporaneous with the events they describe, which range from the legendary emperors Yao and Shun to early in the Spring and Autumn period. Six of these chapters concern figures prior to the first evidence of writing, the oracle bones dating from the reign of the Late Shang king Wu Ding. Moreover, the chapters dealing with the earliest periods are the closest in language and focus to classical works of the Warring States period.

The five announcements in the Documents of Zhou feature the most archaic language, closely resembling inscriptions found on Western Zhou bronzes in both grammar and vocabulary. They are considered by most scholars to record speeches of King Cheng of Zhou, as well as the Duke of Zhou and Duke of Shao, uncles of King Cheng who were key figures during his reign (late 11th century BC). They provide insight into the politics and ideology of the period, including the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven, explaining how the once-virtuous Xia had become corrupt and were replaced by the virtuous Shang, who went through a similar cycle ending in their replacement by the Zhou. The "Timber of Rottlera", "Numerous Officers", "Against Luxurious Ease" and "Numerous Regions" chapters are believed to have been written somewhat later, in the late Western Zhou period. A minority of scholars, pointing to differences in language between the announcements and Zhou bronzes, argue that all of these chapters are products of a commemorative tradition in the late Western Zhou or early Spring and Autumn periods.

Chapters dealing with the late Shang and the transition to Zhou use less archaic language. They are believed to have been modelled on the earlier speeches by writers in the Spring and Autumn period, a time of renewed interest in politics and dynastic decline. The later chapters of the Zhou section are also believed to have been written around this time. The "Gaozong Rongri" chapter comprises only 82 characters, and its interpretation was already disputed in Western Han commentaries. Pointing to the similarity of its title to formulas found in the Anyang oracle bone inscriptions, David Nivison proposed that the chapter was written or recorded by a collateral descendant of Wu Ding in the late Shang period some time after 1140 BC.

The "Pan Geng" chapter (later divided into three parts) seems to be intermediate in style between this group and the next. It is the longest speech in the Documents, and is unusual in its extensive use of analogy. Scholars since the Tang dynasty have noted the difficult language of the "Pan Geng" and the Zhou Announcement chapters. Citing the archaic language and worldview, Chinese scholars have argued for a Shang dynasty provenance for the "Pan Geng" chapters, with considerable editing and replacement of the vocabulary by Zhou dynasty authors accounting for the difference in language from Shang inscriptions.

The chapters dealing with the legendary emperors, the Xia dynasty and the transition to Shang are very similar in language to such classics as the Mencius (late 4th century BC). They present idealized rulers, with the earlier political concerns subordinate to moral and cosmological theory, and are believed to be the products of philosophical schools of the late Warring States period. Some chapters, particularly the "Tribute of Yu", may be as late as the Qin dynasty.

Influence in the West

When Jesuit scholars prepared the first translations of Chinese Classics into Latin, they called the Documents the "Book of Kings", making a parallel with the Books of Kings in the Old Testament. They saw Shang Di as the equivalent of the Christian God, and used passages from the Documents in their commentaries on other works.

Notable translations

• Gaubil, Antoine (1770). Le Chou-king, un des livres sacrés des Chinois, qui renferme les fondements de leur ancienne histoire, les principes de leur gouvernement & de leur morale; ouvrage recueilli par Confucius [The Shūjīng, one of the Sacred Books of the Chinese, which contains the Foundations of their Ancient History, the Principles of their Government and their Morality; Material collected by Confucius] (in français). Paris: N. M. Tillard.
• Medhurst, W. H. (1846). Ancient China. The Shoo King or the Historical Classic. Shanghai: The Mission Press.
• Legge, James (1865). The Chinese Classics, volume III: the Shoo King or the Book of Historical Documents. London: Trubner.; rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960. (Full Chinese text with English translation using Legge's own romanization system, with extensive background and annotations.)
  • part 1: Prolegomena and chapters 1–26 (up to books of Shang)
  • part 2: chapters 27–58 (books of Zhou), indexes
• Legge, James (1879). The Shû king; The religious portions of the Shih king; The Hsiâo king. Sacred Books of the East. Vol. 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Includes a minor revision of Legge's translation.
• Couvreur, Séraphin (1897). Chou King, Les Annales de la Chine [Shujing, the Annals of China] (in français). Hokkien: Mission Catholique. Archived from the original on 2011-04-17. Retrieved 2014-11-11. Reprinted (1999), Paris: You Feng.
• Karlgren, Bernhard (1950). "The Book of Documents". Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. 22: 1–81. (Modern Script chapters only) Reprinted as a separate volume by Elanders in 1950.
• Katō, Jōken (1964). Shin kobun Shōsho shūshaku 真古文尚書集釈 [Authentic 'Old Text' Shàngshū, with Collected Commentary] (in 日本語). Tokyo: Meiji shoin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Template:In lang Qu, Wanli (1969). Shàngshū jīnzhù jīnyì 尚書今注今譯 [The Book of Documents, with Modern Annotations and Translation]. Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Waltham, Clae (1971). Shu ching: Book of History. A Modernized Edition of the Translation of James Legge. Chicago: Henry Regnery.
• Ikeda, Suitoshi (1976). Shōsho 尚書 [Shàngshū] (in 日本語). Tokyo: Shūeisha.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
• Palmer, Martin; Ramsay, Jay; Finlay, Victoria (2014). The Most Venerable Book (Shang Shu) also known as the Shu Jing (The Classic of Chronicles). London: Penguin Books.

See also

• Glossary of Shangshu exegesis

References

Works cited

• Allan, Sarah (2011), "What is a shu 書?" (PDF), EASCM Newsletter (4): 1–5.
• ——— (2012), "On Shu (Documents) and the origin of the Shang shu (Ancient Documents) in light of recently discovered bamboo slip manuscripts", Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 75 (3): 547–557, doi:10.1017/S0041977X12000547.
• Baxter, William H.; Sagart, Laurent (2014). Old Chinese: A New Reconstruction. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-994537-5.
• Brooks, E. Bruce (2011), "The Shu" (PDF), Warring States Papers, 2: 87–90.
• Elman, Benjamin A. (1983), "Philosophy (i-li) versus philology (k'ao-cheng)—the jen-hsin Tao-hsin debate" (PDF), T'oung Pao, 69 (4): 175–222, doi:10.1163/156853283x00081, JSTOR 4528296.
• Kern, Martin (2009), "Bronze inscriptions, the Shijing and the Shangshu: the evolution of the ancestral sacrifice during the Western Zhou" (PDF), in Lagerwey, John; Kalinowski, Marc (eds.), Early Chinese Religion, Part One: Shang Through Han (1250 BC to 220 AD), Leiden: Brill, pp. 143–200, ISBN 978-90-04-16835-0.
• Lewis, Mark Edward (1999), Writing and authority in early China, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-4114-5.
• Liao, Mingchun (2001), A Preliminary Study on the Newly-unearthed Bamboo Inscriptions of the Chu Kingdom: An Investigation of the Materials from and about the Shangshu in the Guodian Chu Slips (in 中文), Taipei: Taiwan Guji Publishing Co., ISBN 957-0414-59-6.
• Nivison, David S. (2018) [1984], "The King and the Bird: a Possible Genuine Shang Literary Text and Its Echoes in Later Philosophy and Religion", in Schwartz, Adam C. (ed.), The Nivison Annals : Selected Works of David S. Nivison on Early Chinese Chronology, Astronomy, and Historiography, Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 22–28, doi:10.1515/9781501505393-003, ISBN 978-1-5015-0539-3.
• Nylan, Michael (1995), "The Ku Wen Documents in Han Times", T'oung Pao, 81 (1/3): 25–50, doi:10.1163/156853295x00024, JSTOR 4528653.
• ——— (2001), The Five "Confucian" Classics, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-08185-5.
• Schaberg, David (2001), A patterned past: form and thought in early Chinese historiography, Harvard Univ Asia Center, ISBN 978-0-674-00861-8.
• Shaughnessy, Edward L. (1993). "Shang shu ". In Loewe, Michael (ed.). Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China; Institute for East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley. pp. 376–389. ISBN 978-1-55729-043-4.
• ——— (1999), "Western Zhou history", in Loewe, Michael; Shaughnessy, Edward L. (eds.), The Cambridge History of Ancient China, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 292–351, ISBN 978-0-521-47030-8.
• ——— (2006), Rewriting early Chinese texts, SUNY Press, ISBN 978-0-7914-6643-8.
• Shih, Hsiang-lin (2013), "Shang shu (Hallowed writings of antiquity)", in Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping (eds.), Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature (vol. 2): A Reference Guide, Part Two Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 4 China, BRILL, pp. 814–830, ISBN 978-90-04-20164-4.
• Vogelsang, Kai (2002), "Inscriptions and proclamations: on the authenticity of the 'gao' chapters in the Book of Documents", Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 74: 138–209.
• Wilkinson, Endymion (2000), Chinese history: a manual (2nd ed.), Harvard Univ Asia Center, ISBN 978-0-674-00249-4.

External links

• – Shang Shu at the Chinese Text Project, including both the Chinese text and Legge's English translation (emended to employ pinyin)
• Shangshu at the Database of Religious History.
• Selections from Legge's Shu Jing (also emended)
• Annotated Edition of The Book of Documents (13th century)
• Book of Documents Chinese text with matching English vocabulary at chinesenotes.com