Daoism in Early China: Huang-Lao Thought in Light of Excavated Texts

233 Pages·2017·3.98 MB·English

by  Feng Cao

Daoism
in
Early China
Huang-Lao Thought
in Light of
Excavated Texts
Feng Cao
Daoism in Early China
Feng Cao
Daoism in Early China
Huang-Lao Thought in Light of Excavated Texts
Feng Cao
Renmin University of China
Beijing, China
Translated by Callisto Serle, Sharon Y. Small and Jeffrey Keller
ISBN 978-1-137-55722-3 ISBN 978-1-137-55094-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-55094-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017943496
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any
other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic
adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Heritage Image Partnership Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Nature America Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Translating involves much effort and needs a lot of time. First and foremost
I want to thank Callisto Serle and Sharon Y. Small who kindly undertook
the task to translate my book into English with such a great care. Callisto
Serle and Sharon Small both are Ph.D. candidates in the field of Philosophy
and do research in the field of Ancient Chinese Philosophy, Callisto at
Renmin University of China and Sharon at Beijing University. Sharon also
did the final editing of the work. I am very happy that I had the opportunity
to put the task into their hands. At an earlier stage, Donald Sturgeon, doing
research at the University of Hongkong at that time, was involved in the
translation of this book, too. I owe a special debt of gratitude to him and I
am happy that I can express my thanks at this occasion.
In addition, I am also particularly grateful to Carine Defoort of the
Sinology Department of the University Leuven and to my colleague
Dennis Schilling at the School of Philosophy of Renmin University of
China. These two distinguished scholars of Chinese studies were so kind to
write recommendations for the English version of my book.
Carine Defoort and the editors of the journal Contemporary Chinese
Thought were so generous to allow me to include the article “Huang-Lao
Thought and Folk Techniques and Calculations: Using Clues from
Excavated Texts” in this volume. Jeffrey Keller translated the article for
publication in the fall issue of 2013 of Contemporary Chinese Thought. His
name should be mentioned in the translators’ list of this book. I am very
grateful to Carine Defoort and Jeffrey Keller for their generosity.
I also owe special thanks to my doctoral student Yu Feng for handling
with the more detail things in the process of publication.
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to Wang Wanying and Liu
Yehua from the Renmin University Publishing House for building the
international bridge and conducting and promoting the English edition.
I am also grateful to Sara Crowley Vigneau, Senior Editor at Palgrave
Macmillan, and Connie Li, Editorial Assistant at Palgrave Macmillan, for
their invaluable assistance in this project.
Beijing, China Feng Cao
April 2017
谢辞
本书的主要译者是中国人民大学哲学院博士生 Calisto Serle 和北京大学
哲学系博士生 Sharon Y. Smal, 最后统稿由 Sharon Y. Smal 负责。两位
女士的专业都是中国哲学,并专攻先秦秦汉思想。所以由她们翻译非常
合适。翻译是一项既耗费精力又耗费时间的工作, 在此向她们认真和辛
苦表示衷心感谢。
香港大学哲学系 Donald Sturgeon 先生曾经参与过此书的翻译。我必
须在此记录他的名字,并向他表示谢意。
另外, 要感谢为我的书写推荐词的两位很有声望的中国学者,他们是比
利时鲁汶大学汉学系教授戴卡琳 Carine. Defoort, 以及中国人民大学哲
学院教授谢林德。
以戴卡琳教授为主编的《当代中国思想ContemporaryChineseThought》
杂志, 曾于2013年秋季号刊登过我的论文《Huang-Lao Thought and Folk
Techniques andCalculations:UsingClues fromExcavatedTexts》,在征得戴卡
琳教授以及杂志主办方的同意后,我将此文纳入到本书中,并将译者 Jeffrey
Keler 也列入本书译者名单中,在此也谢谢戴卡琳教授和 Jefrey Keler 的慷
慨。
感谢我的博士生俞风同学, 为本书的出版做了大量琐碎的事情。
最后,郑重感谢中国人民大学出版社的王琬莹女士和刘叶华女士, 是她
们搭起了国际的桥梁,策划并促成了本书英文版的出版。也郑重感谢
Sara Crowley Vigneau, Senior Editor at Palgrave Macmillan 和 Connie Li,
Editorial Assistant at Palgrave Macmilan 为出版事务付出的许多辛勤劳
动。
曹峰
2016年4月18日于北京
CONTENTS
1 Introduction: On the Huang-Lao Tradition of Daoist
Thought 1
1 Looking at the Basic Characteristics of Huang-Lao
Daoism 2
2 Reviewing Past Research and Looking to the Future 9
3 How Does the Idea of a “Huang-Lao Daoist” School
Stand up to Scrutiny? 15
4 A Brief Introduction to the Contents of This Book 18
5 Conclusions 24
2 Huang-Lao Daoism Research in Light of Excavated
Texts 29
1 Introduction 29
2 Two Types of Theories Regarding Dao and Governance
in the Huangdi Sijing 31
3 Early Huang-Lao Thought in Bamboo Manuscripts
from the Ancient State of Chu 39
4 Conclusions 50
3 Huang-Lao Thought and Folk Techniques and
Calculations: Using Clues from Excavated Texts 53
1 A Look Back at Previous Studies 53
2 Techniques and Calculations in Textual Images
of the Yellow Emperor 57
vii
viii CONTENTS
3 The Relationships Between the Concepts
of “Forms and Names” and “Forms/Punishment
and Virtue/Bounty”
and Techniques and Calculations 67
4 Linguistic Characteristics of Techniques
and Calculations in Huang-Lao Texts 82
5 Conclusion 86
4 The Literary Structure and Characteristics
of the Thought in the Bamboo Manuscript Known
as All Things Flow into Forms (Fanwu Liuxing) 87
1 Introduction 87
2 The Literary Structure of the Fanwu Liuxing 89
3 The Characteristics of Thought in the Fanwu Liuxing 109
4 Some Last Observations 121
5 From Auto-Creation to Autonomy: An Analysis
of Political Philosophy in the Hengxian 125
1 Introduction 125
2 Past Research 127
3 Self-generation from Pre-Qin, Throughout Qin
to the Han Dynasties 133
4 The Parallel Between the Sections of the Hengxian 148
5 Concluding Remarks 154
6 The Idea of Names or Naming as One of the Key
Concepts in the Huangdi Sijing: Discussing
the Relationship Between the Concepts
of the Schools of Dao, Names and Legality 155
1 Preface 155
2 The Kinds of Names Seen in the Huangdi Sijing 160
3 Surveying Names (審名) in the Huangdi Sijing 177
4 The Relationship Between Ruler and Names 188
5 The Relationship Between Names and Law 199
6 Conclusion 206
Bibliography 207
Index 219
TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
Professor Cao Feng’s book deals with excavated texts not previously
available in the West. Those texts considerably add to our historical,
philological and philosophical insights on a sparsely understood period.
While working with excavated texts, the original bamboo slips contain
many characters that are not easy to decipher or are missing characters that
the author is required to fill in on his own. In some cases, the author offers
his own interpretation of those characters; sometimes this is not possible.
In such instances, there is no choice but to leave them untranslated and
note that the character in question is unknown. The original graph is
included and no English translation offered.
The translation of passages from the classics follows the author’s own
interpretation and rarely employs existing translations. As translation is
interpretation, I donot interpret the classics and as faithfully as possible render
the quotes selected by the author. Where there is any mismatch between the
original classical passage and the English rendering, the blame is solely mine.
Since there is no consensus regarding titles, I have chosen to leave them
in Chinese transliteration into Pinyin, giving an English translation only as
an option on their first appearance. The reasons for this are manifold. As is
well known in academic Sinology, titles of classical texts are given in ret-
rospect either by the name of the author or by the first two to four words in
the text. There is a large debate regarding these titles and their meanings.
Translating each title would presuppose a finite definition causing them to
lose their openness of possibilities. As the texts discussed in this book are
mostly excavated texts, their authorship is unknown (therefore the former
option for titling is out of the question), and the characters at the
ix
x TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
beginning if the text are in some cases open to debate. For example, the
title of the Hengxian (恒先) could be translated as “Primordial
Constancy.” We would then lose other possibilities embodied in the two
words heng and xian. Moreover, this would neglect the possibility that the
heng character does not mean “constancy,” but rather stands for ji (极),
meaning “extreme.” Although reading heng as “constancy” makes perfect
sense in the text, one look at the original bamboo slip and this certainty is
lost. There are other examples.
The case becomes more complicated in regard to the Huangdi Sijing
(黄帝四经). It is composed of four texts and there is considerable academic
debate about its title. Do the four texts form one or should they be treated
separately? Do they reflect the thought of the Yellow Emperor, or is the
Yellow Emperor a mythological entity with no thought to actually reflect?
Therefore, translating this title into “The Four Canons of the Yellow
Emperor” would not only be misleading and irresponsible, but would also
be a historical definition, which is outside the aim of Prof. Cao Feng’s book.
Beijing, China Sharon Y. Small
February 2017