The Fuyang bamboo-strip “Annals” was compiled prior to 165 B.C., at least sixty or seventy years earlier than Sima Qian edited the various chronological tables in the Shiji. The “Annals,” which begins about the time of the Gong He interregnum of the Western Zhou and continues through the time of Qin Shi huangdi, seems to be incompatible with the “Qin Records” and was perhaps compiled using the “Historical Records” of some state other than Qin. It possibly includes two different types of tables: one in which years denominate the vertical columns and statenames the horizontal rows, with events recorded therein horizontally; and one that records the number of years that the feudal lords reigned. Although extensive damage makes it impossible to reconstitute the “Annals,” it can still provide useful information regarding some historical questions, such as the Warring States-period states of “East Zhou” and “West Zhou,” the appellations “Current King” and “Current Duke,” etc.

There are seventy-nine places in Wang Bi's Laozi zhu where the text of the Laozi transmitted over this commentary differs from quotations of it contained within the commentary. Building on the textual studies of Professor Shima Kunio, this essay demonstrates that the readings given in the commentary are supported in practically every case by a series of early quotations and texts of the Laozi, such as the Mawangdui manuscripts and the “Old Manuscripts” that form the basis of Fu Yi and Fan Yingyuan's editions. A comparison of all of these differences shows that Wang Bi's original text must have belonged to the same broad textual family as these early manuscripts, being most closely linked to the two “Old Manuscripts” and less directly related to the Mawangdui manuscripts. In most of the these cases, the textus receptus has been supplanted by the reading transmitted through the Heshang Gong commentary. Consequently, it is now necessary to replace the textus receptus of Wang Bi's Laozi with a conflated version of the two “Old Manuscripts” and, in some cases, the Mawangdui manuscripts.

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.

Oracle-bone scholars have long uniformly read the charges (i.e., the portion that mentions the event being divined) of Shang oracle-bone inscriptions as questions. Since the 1970's, many foreign oracle-bone scholars have proposed a new view that the charges are never questions, or at least are generally not questions. Whether or not the charges are actually questions is a very important question bearing not only on oracle bone studies, but also on research on ancient divination and on ancient Chinese grammar. Based on an examination of a great number of Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, the author of this essay believes that charges that can now be determined to be questions are mainly those choice-type charges in early inscriptions that contain the final particles yi and zhi, and true-or-false type charges that contain yi. Charges of the type “V bu V” (such as “rain not rain” [yu bu yu]) and “V bu,” regarded by many as choice-type questions, are actually comprised of the charge and a verification or use notation, the “bu V” being a verification and the “bu” being either a verification or a use notation (similar to the notation bu yong, “do not use”). Charges that can now be determined not to be questions are mainly in those inscriptions with complex charges, such as “this *spring the king ought not ally with Wang Cheng to attack Xia Wei, (for if he does) he will not receive divine assistance” (jin ?chun wang wu bi Wang Cheng fa Xia? Wei, fu qi shou you you, and “On ren we ought not hunt, (for if we do) it will rain” (ren wu tian, qi yu), the syntax of which shows that they cannot be questions.

When we read Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, we should distinguish between what the diviner is saying (in the “charge,” mingci) and what he is doing in the whole divination rite. What he is doing is not always seeking information; and even when he is doing this, what he says is usually not a question. This paper offers various arguments and examples to show this. For example, Li Xueqin's research proves that the oracle language possessed grammatical forms, such as final particles and final negatives, for marking a sentence as a question. Therefore, the first assumption should be that when a diviner does not use these forms, he does not intend a sentence to be understood as a question. And when two sentences in the same inscription — e.g., the charge and the prognostication — are alike in form (both of them being without final negatives or interrogative particles), it is a mistake to construe one of them as a question and the other as a statement.

The Fuyang bamboo-strip “Annals” was compiled prior to 165 B.C., at least sixty or seventy years earlier than Sima Qian edited the various chronological tables in the Shiji. The “Annals,” which begins about the time of the Gong He interregnum of the Western Zhou and continues through the time of Qin Shi huangdi, seems to be incompatible with the “Qin Records” and was perhaps compiled using the “Historical Records” of some state other than Qin. It possibly includes two different types of tables: one in which years denominate the vertical columns and statenames the horizontal rows, with events recorded therein horizontally; and one that records the number of years that the feudal lords reigned. Although extensive damage makes it impossible to reconstitute the “Annals,” it can still provide useful information regarding some historical questions, such as the Warring States-period states of “East Zhou” and “West Zhou,” the appellations “Current King” and “Current Duke,” etc.