Transmitting Authority: Wang Tong (ca. 584-617) and the Zhongshuo in Medieval China's Manuscript Culture

238 Pages·2014·1.868 MB·English

by  Ding Xiang Warner

i
Transmitting Authority
ii
Sinica Leidensia
Edited by
Barend J. ter Haar
Maghiel van Crevel
In co-operation with
P.K. Bol, D.R. Knechtges, E.S. Rawski,
W.L. Idema, H.T. Zurndorfer
VOLUME 113
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sinl
iii
Transmitting Authority
Wang Tong (ca. 584–617) and the Zhongshuo in
Medieval China’s Manuscript Culture
By
Ding Xiang Warner
LEIDEN | BOSTON
iv
Cover illustration: Detail of “New Year’s Gathering” 辰人日北城別業小集 (1553). Ink and colors on paper
hanging scroll by Wen Zhengming 文瀓明 (1470–1559), acquired through the generosity of Judith Stoikov,
Class of 1963. Photography courtesy of Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New
York.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Warner, Ding Xiang, 1961-
Transmitting authority : Wang Tong (ca. 584-617) and the Zhongshuo in medieval China’s manuscript
culture / by Ding Xiang Warner.
p. cm. -- (Sinica Leidensia ; VOLUME 113)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-27321-4 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-27633-8 (e-book) 1. Wang, Tong,
584?-618? 2. Wang, Tong, 584?-618? Wenzhongzi Zhong shuo--Criticism, Textual. I. Title. II. Title: Wang
Tong (ca. 584-617) and the Zhongshuo in medieval China’s manuscript culture.
B128.W344W37 2014
181’.112--dc23
2014011341
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isbn 978-90-04-27321-4 (hardback)
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Contents Contents v
Contents
Contents v
Acknowledgments vii
Notes to the Reader x
List of Abbreviations xii
Introduction: The Enigmatic Case of the Zhongshuo  1
Part One
Assessing Textual Authority 15
1 The Transmission History of the Zhongshuo, Seventh through
Eleventh Centuries 17
I The Contents of the Received Zhongshuo 18
II Appendices to the Received Zhongshuo 22
III The First Shaping of the Zhongshuo 33
IV The Zhongshuo during the Tang Dynasty 38
V The Shaping of the Zhongshuo – In the Song Dynasty and
Since 42
2 Features, Problems, and Puzzles in the Received Zhongshuo  49
I Format Types 50
II Styles of Reference 59
III The Growth of Wang Tong’s Discipleship 77
Conclusion 92
Part Two
Interpreting Cultural Authority 95
3 The Genesis of a Confucian Master’s Legacy 97
I The Wunderkind from Longmen 98
II Man with a Charge 101
III Wang Tong and His White Ox Creek Circle 110
IV The White Ox Creek Circle and the Germination of the Wang Tong
Myth 126
4 The Cultivation of a Family Legacy 134
I A Grandson’s Tribute: Part One 134
II Yang Jiong’s Validation 140
III A Family Investment: Part One 145
IV A Grandson’s Tribute: Part Two 148
vi Contents
V A Family Investment: Part Two 159
5 Appropriations of the Master’s Legacy 167
I Before and After: Two Funerary Epitaphs for Descendants of
Master Wenzhong 169
II Sikong Tu and Pi Rixiu in the Days of the Dying Tang 175
III Restoring the Lost 190
IV Wang Tong in Popular Literature 198
Epilogue 203
Bibliography 215
Index 223
225
AcknowleAdcgkmneonwtsledgments vii
Acknowledgments
This book owes its fruition as much to years of labor as to the invaluable support
of many individuals and institutions. At the earliest stage, when I had just begun
to think about the history and puzzles of the Wang Tong controversy, a faculty
research grant from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a Regency
Advancement Award from Pacific Lutheran University enabled me to travel to
libraries and archives in China and the United States to conduct research that
led to publication of “Wang Tong and the Compilation of the Zhongshuo (Dis-
courses on the Mean): A New Evaluation of the Source Materials and Points of
Controversy” (Journal of the American Oriental Society 121 [2001]: 370–90), from
which this book developed. To the UMass Board of Trustees and PLU’s Board of
Regents, I express again my thanks for that generous support. I am deeply grate-
ful also to the National Endowment for the Humanities and to the National
Humanities Center for their generous support of a year-long residence fellow-
ship at the Center at a time when this book’s progress was reaching a critical
stage. The luxury of time and intellectual stimulation that the NEH fellowship
afforded me at the NHC proved crucial to the crystallizing of this book’s final
scope and arguments.
My research for this project was aided immensely by staff at several libraries,
to whom I extend my thanks: the Wason Collection on East Asia at Cornell
University, Drs. Liren Zheng and Dan McKee especially; the East Asian Library
at the University of California, Berkeley; the Harvard-Yenching Library at Har-
vard University; the East Asia Library at the University of Washington; the Rare
Book and Manuscript Collections at the Beijing National Library; the Asian
Collections at the U.S. Library of Congress; the Asia, Pacific, and Africa Collec-
tions at the British Library; the Shanxi University Library; Shanxi Provincial
Museum; the Rare Book and Manuscript Collections at the Taipei National Pal-
ace Museum; and the Library Services Office of the National Humanities Center,
in particular Betsy Dain, Jean Houston, and Eliza Robertson.
To William G. Boltz I owe a special acknowledgement of gratitude for the
invaluable philological training that I received under his tutelage at the Univer-
sity of Washington. In addition to teaching me essential skills for the study of
classical Chinese, he also, in a graduate seminar on textual criticism, introduced
me to a range of methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives, and
thereby also to the considerable challenges and rewards, when conducting tex-
tual scholarship. Although I ended up writing on a literary topic for my doc-
toral dissertation, the philological and critical rigor that he demanded, alongside
viii Acknowledgments
that of my other teachers David R. Knechtges and the late Jerry Norman, has
become an integral part of my professional identity and creed, and more im-
mediately, a driving force behind my writing of this book.
In recent years, invitations to present my work on the reception history of
Wang Tong and the Zhongshuo at professional and public forums have given
me valuable opportunity to share my work in progress, and the thoughtful feed-
back received on these occasions has helped me to sharpen the book’s focus
and clarify its points. I therefore offer sincerest thanks to the following for mak-
ing such opportunities available: Martin Kern of Princeton University; David R.
Knechtges of the University of Washington, Seattle; Paul W. Kroll of the Univer-
sity of Colorado, Boulder; Xiaofei Tian of Harvard University; and the two co-
organizers of the 2013 Bernhard Karlgren Workshop on the subject of Wang
Tong, organized under the auspices of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced
Study in Uppsala, Christoph Harbsmeire of the University of Oslo and Michael
Puett of Harvard University. Among the participants in this workshop, in addi-
tion to the co-organizers, Joachim Gentz, Olga Lomova, and David McMullen
volunteered valuable insights for which I am also grateful. Still other scholars,
within and outside the field of China studies, have likewise aided this book’s
completion, some by means of Sinological and/or philological assistance, some
by way of intellectual inspiration, but all of them through their kindness and
encouragement. To Megan Benton, Sherman G. Cochran, Anthony DeBlasi, Ma-
ria Cristina Garcia, Deborah Harkness, Paul W. Kroll, James Lesher, Tamara Loos,
Andrew Mertha, Bruce Rusk, Elenor Rutledge, Anna Shields, and Shawkat
Toorawa, I offer my heartfelt gratitude.
I am, as well, very much indebted to the two anonymous readers for Brill’s
Sinica Leidensia series, whose perceptive critiques, helpful corrections, and
astute suggestions facilitated this book’s final transformation from manuscript-
in-progress to finished book, and certainly made it better. I am of course solely
responsible for any errors of fact or judgment that remain, whether by accident
or through stubbornness, in the ensuing pages.
It will be observed that the topic and critical method of this book would
make it a natural fit for Brill’s Studies in the History of Chinese Texts series.
I would be the first to agree: but as I am one of the co-editors of that series, it
seemed to me the more proper course to submit the manuscript to the Sinica
Leidensia series for consideration, as it also is an established venue for philo-
logical and textual scholarship. I thank my two co-editors, therefore, Robert E.
Hegel and Martin Kern, for their understanding and support of my decision,
just as I thank the editors of Sinica Leidensia for their positive reception of my
proposal and acceptance of the manuscript. I extend special thanks also to
Brill’s acquisition editor for Asian Studies, Dr. Albert Hoffstädt, and assistant
Acknowledgments ix
editor, Ms. Patricia Radder, for making the process of this book’s evaluation and
preparation for publication with Brill truly pleasurable.
I am grateful to the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University,
for permission to reproduce a detail of Wen Zhengming’s (1470–1559) painting,
“New Year’s Gathering” (1532), which graces the cover of this book. Thanks are
owed in particular to the Johnson Museum’s chief curator and curator of Asian
Art, Ellen Avril; the editorial manager, Andrea R. Potochniak; and the curator
assistant for rights and reproductions, Sonja Gandert.
My final and deepest debt of gratitude is due to my husband of thirty years,
J. Christopher Warner, whose steadfast companionship has been my anchor in
life, whose fervent interest in my scholarly pursuits is a source of motivation,
whose unflagging confidence in me and in this book’s promise has been a bea-
con in dark moments of self-doubt, and most of all, whose own industry and
accomplishments as a scholar have been and will always be an inspiration.
Thank you, Chris, for crashing into my life all those years ago.