The ideal of the gentleman occupies an important position in the Confucian Analects. Many elements of this ideal appear in pre-Confucian sources as fundamental images of aristocratic excellence. This article presents several of those images as they appear in Western Chou bronze inscriptions, the Shih-ching and Shu-ching. In particular, we will study the role of model behavior and model emulation as well as images of Wen Wang, noble ancestors and their virtue, te. We shall see the application of these expressions of human excellence gradually extended beyond royalty and nobility to become components of a new definition of human worth applicable to all men.

A.C. Graham understood the “core chapters” of the Mozi as the collected literary remains of three independently evolving traditions of early Mohism. The present study makes use of the remarkable coexistence of parallel texts in a single book to get a clearer picture of how such traditions may have been formed. Examining textual recurrences and “marked” lexical and functional terms in the core chapters, the author argues that the “Ten Theses” may not all have been parts of some “original” teaching by the “master” referred to, but documents attesting to the very process of transmission within still living, competing traditions.

These parts were, it is argued, summarily incorporated within three distinctive “documents” relatively late in the history of transmission, that is, just before or during early Han.

A Qing dynasty commentator was the first to discover that line 79 of the Chuci “Tianwen”, tian shi zong heng 天式縱衡, referred to the diviner's board, or what the author calls the “cosmograph.” This instrument was a model of the cosmos used by the diviner to determine, among other things, the position of asterisms beneath the horizon. The discovery was echoed by noted scholars in the twentieth century, but no one could determine the significance of the reference. This article analyzes the quatrain in which the line appears and shows how the cosmograph is the microcosmic key to the poem's cosmic interpretation. Quite simply, the answer to the question lies among the stars.

The likelihood that the author of “Tianwen” had a cosmograph in mind when he wrote verse 79 is evidence that other lines may also reflect the existence of such devices. For example, with regard to verse 7, huan ze jiu chong 圜貝九重, in which commentators have always perceived a “nine-tiered” heaven, the author argues that what is “round” is the cosmos, and the jiu chong refers to its “manifold” dimensions. Huan ze then is the “cosmic model”, like the cosmograph, and the succeeding lines of the poem describe its components as a means of depicting the motions of the heavens.

This paper reexamines the famous painting from Mawangdui Tomb number 1. Instead of approaching it as an independent “work” and matching its images with fragmentary textual references, I explore its relationship with other buried objects, the tomb's structure and symbolism, and the ritual process during which the tomb was constructed. Based on ancient ritual canons, I reject the popular opinion that the painting served to summon the departed soul or to guide the soul to Heaven. Rather, the painting formed part of the jiu-group (“the body in its long home”) at the center of the burial, and enclosed by the guan-coffins decorated with images of protection and immortality, and again by the guo-casket, a replica of the deceased's household (zhai). The painting's meaning and function must be comprehended within this architectural-ritual context. Moreover, neither the painting nor the whole tomb represents a coherent conception of the afterlife. This feature separates this tomb from those constructed earlier and later, and represents a transitional period in the history of early Chinese art and religion.

In the Han, the art of the bedchamber belonged to the disciplines called “prescriptions and techniques,” which also included various medical arts such as nutrition, internal conduction, and associated incantations and spells. This essay investigates the Mawangdui art of the bedchamber texts with special emphasis on their terminology, and briefly addresses the importance of these texts in studying ancient Chinese culture.

Seven texts are examined: “Prescriptions for nourishing life,” “Prescriptions for miscellaneous cures,” “Book of childbirth,” “Ten questions,” ’Joining yin and yang” “Prescriptions for miscellaneous spells,” and “Talks on the loftiest ways under heaven.” The terminology found in these works is organized into the following categories: male and female genitals, the steps of foreplay, positions and methods of intercourse, the benefits and harms of intercourse, techniques of ejaculation control, and male and female sexual reactions. The terminology and topical categories of later bedchamber texts are highly consistent with the Mawangdui texts, especially regarding the following three most influential concepts: “the method of nine shallow and one deep,” “ride many young women, but ejaculate rarely,” and “returning jing to supplement the brain.”