This article examines ji 記 in received and excavated texts from the late Warring States, Qin, and Western Han periods. In pre-imperial texts, the word rarely appears, and when it does, it usually refers to records of historical events, precedents, or authoritative knowledge, but the word, in contrast to later periods, never means “note” or “letter.” By contrast, Western Han documents from the arid northwest regions contain many examples of texts that self-identify as ji. These ji are best characterized as less formal notes or letters that invited or required exchanges of items or information between people. The articles argues that this incorporation of ji into different kinds of administrative work gave the word a wider and subtler palette of meanings than it apparently enjoyed in the pre-imperial period, judging from the extant sources. The shift is echoed in descriptions of practices at the Western Han imperial court. Thus, a closer look at ji reminds us that administrative texts help us understand not only government operations, but also shifts in manuscript practices during the early empires.

This article examines the story of Shun's 舜 ascension to the throne. This story has drawn considerable attention throughout Chinese history because of its significance with regard to political succession. However, in this article, I shed light on a different dimension of the story: its relevance to the issue of contingency. I investigate four texts, two excavated and two transmitted: Qiongda yi shi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Times), Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道 (The Way of Yao and Shun), the Mengzi 孟子, and the Xunzi 荀子. At one extreme, Qiongda yi shi highlights that Shun became a king by pure chance, while at the other extreme, Xunzi interprets the event as a necessary one, emphasizing that Shun cannot but succeed Yao. The other two texts fall somewhere in between the two extremes. I use these four texts to showcase different ways of thinking about areas over which humans are believed to lack control. My claim is that these four texts offer different accounts of the same event—Shun's ascension—because they see the event from different perspectives: from a perspective of the chosen, from a perspective of the chooser, from a mise-en-scène, and from a perspective of not of this world, respectively. I argue that the diverse perspectives of these texts entail the different understandings of several related issues such as the degree of human control over the event, the important features of the event, and the content of the moral and political lessons that we draw from the event.

The present article explores questions about the composition, performance, circulation, and transmission of early Chinese poetry by examining a small number of poems from the received Mao shi and their counterparts in recently discovered manuscripts. Starting from a close examination of the poem “Xi shuai” (“Cricket”), the essay briefly discusses the problems we face in dealing with looted manuscripts before advancing toward rethinking the patterns of early Chinese poetic composition and transmission. Instead of taking individual poems as discrete, reified objects in the form we encounter them in the Mao shi, it is suggested to read them as particular instantiations of circumscribed repertoires where the individual poetic text is but one of many realizations of a shared body of ideas and expressions. This analysis is informed by the examination of both manuscript texts and the received literature, but also by comparative perspectives gained from both medieval Chinese literature and other ancient and medieval literary traditions. In emphasizing the formation of poetry as a continuous process, it leaves behind notions of “the original text,” authorship, and the moment of “original composition”—notions that held no prominence in the early Chinese literary tradition before the empire.

The present paper aims to investigate the idea of “elevating the worthy” (shang xian 尚賢) as it appears in the newly found manuscript Zhou xun 周訓. This manuscript is part of the Peking University collection (Beijing daxue cang Xi-Han zhushu 北京大學藏西漢竹書), presumably copied in the first half of the first century b.c.e. In sharp contrast to most recently discovered manuscripts promulgating “elevating the worthy,” the Zhou xun introduces the meritocratic principle to support hereditary power transfer, by positing that the right to rule should be passed on to the most able son of a ruler. I argue that this position served several purposes. First, it provided a solution to the central problem of abdication discourse, namely, the conflict between the principles of “respecting worthies” (zun xian 尊賢) and “loving kin” (ai qin 愛親). Second, this interpretation of “elevating the worthy” entailed a significant extension of the number of potential contenders to the throne, challenging the system of primogeniture, the very cornerstone of political order in early China. This fundamental challenge appears to be deliberate and can be interpreted as an attempt to formulate a new paradigm for the ruling house of Zhou. The complete absence of the idea of Heaven's Mandate (tian ming 天命) from the Zhou xun certainly underscores its radical departure from Zhou conventional claims to power. However, I argue that, given the close association between the Zhou xun and the Lüshi chunqiu 呂氏春秋, it is also plausible that the former's theory was created to justify the Zhou's overthrow by the Qin 秦. In any case, the Zhou xun provides us with new insights into how the idea of “elevating the worthy” was applied to politics in early China.

The Qin jiandu heji 秦簡牘合集 [Corpus of Qin documents written on bamboo and wood] is the result of a long-term teamwork and collaboration project, directed by Professor Chen Wei 陳偉 of Wuhan University. This publication provides a new, updated edition of seven collections of Qin documents, including those from Shuihudi 睡虎地 (Tomb 4 and 11), Longgang 龍崗 (Tomb 6), Haojiaping 郝家坪 (Tomb 50), Zhoujiatai 周家臺 (Tomb 30), Yueshan 嶽山 (Tomb 36), and Fangmatan 放馬灘 (Tomb 1). Although former editions have not become entirely useless for the various reasons evoked in this article, Qin jiandu heji should now be considered the new standard edition for any serious academic research on those materials.

This article introduces and translates an excavated text from the Juyan region here referred to as “Evaluating Swords.” Dating to the Han-Xin period, it instructs its reader on how make a general determination of the quality of steel swords based on a visual inspection. The introduction to the translation discusses the background of the text, its present condition, and the problems of orthography and usage that complicate its understanding. A transcription and additional textual and interpretive commentary accompany the English translation of the text.

Based on a special issue entitled “Newly Excavated Texts in the Digital Age,” volume 21.2 (June 2011) of the Newsletter of the Institute of Chinese Literature and Philosophy, Academia Sinica (Zhongyang yanjiu yuan Zhongguo wen zhe yanjiu suo tongxun 中央研究院中國文哲研究所通訊), this article reflects on the various digital resources now being developed at institutions in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere, looking, in turn, at topics related to the graphic form of characters, the relation between character and word, and the question of context. In addition, the article considers the web forum, a platform of research and discussion that is increasingly becoming a part of scholarly exchange.

Recent excavations of Chinese bamboo manuscripts have so far yielded a wealth of information about classical philosophical debates, but conspicuously absent have been contemporary manuscript copies of texts on the most prevalent socio-political issue of the aptly named Warring States Period, namely warfare. Recently, however, the Shanghai Museum began publishing several Warring States bamboo manuscripts from the kingdom of Chu, which it acquired in 1994. Among them is the manuscript of a previously unknown Warring States text titled Cao Mie's Battle Arrays. Through a lengthy dialogue between Duke Zhuang of Lu and his advisor Cao Mie, this manuscript offers new insight into statecraft methods designed to ensure the viability of a small kingdom surrounded by larger bellicose neighbors. While many contemporary philosophical schools considered the welfare of a kingdom or army to be linked to the power of both virtue and the will of Heaven, Cao Mie gives precedence to the real-world efficacy of the ruler's actions and the subsequent response of the populace and soldiers. In this paper I offer an introductory codicological analysis of the manuscript, followed by a study of Cao Mie's central theme of personal action— which requires the ruler to be a visible, decisive, and active participant in handling mundane affairs of the kingdom and in commanding the military.