Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn

Zhongshu Dong, John Major, Sarah Queen

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9780231539616
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Colecciones literarias asiáticas

The Spring and Autumn ( Chunqiu ) is a chronicle kept by the dukes of the state of Lu from 722 to 481 B.C.E. Luxuriant Gems of the "Spring and Autumn" ( Chunqiu fanlu ) follows the interpretations of the Gongyang Commentary, whose transmitters sought to explicate the special language of the Spring and Autumn. The work is often ascribed to the Han scholar and court official Dong Zhongshu, but, as this study reveals, the text is in fact a compendium of writings by a variety of authors spanning several generations. It depicts a utopian vision of a flourishing humanity that they believed to be Confucius's legacy to the world.

The Gongyang masters thought that Confucius had written the Spring and Autumn, employing subtle phrasing to indicate approval or disapproval of important events and personages. Luxuriant Gems therefore augments Confucian ethical and philosophical teachings with chapters on cosmology, statecraft, and other topics drawn from contemporary non-Confucian traditions. A major resource, this book features the first complete English-language translation of Luxuriant Gems, divided into eight thematic sections with introductions that address dating, authorship, authenticity, and the relationship between the Spring and Autumn and the Gongyang approach. Critically illuminating early Chinese philosophy, religion, literature, and politics, this book conveys the brilliance of intellectual life in the Han dynasty during the formative decades of the Chinese imperial state.

Group 1

Exegetical Principles

GROUP 1, “Exegetical Principles,” generally describes the exegetical approaches and guiding principles of what later became known as “New Text Confucianism.”¹ Followers of this tradition of scholarship, which we will henceforth refer to as Gongyang Learning, believed that Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn as a record of “subtle terms embodying great principles” of praise and blame that he desired to bequeath to the world.² Dai Hong (fl. ca. 150 C.E.), whose description came to be accepted as authoritative, describes the transmission of the Gongyang Learning as having begun with Confucius’s disciple Zixia 子夏 as an oral teaching transmitted through various descendants of the Gongyang family to Gongyang Shou 公羊壽, who, in turn, transmitted it to the Han scholar Huwu Zedu, the person identified as having finally committed these teachings to writing during the reign of Emperor Jing (r. 157–141 B.C.E.).³

This first group of thematically linked discussions and essays consists of seventeen chapters, which differ markedly in the state of their preservation.

GROUP 1: EXEGETICAL PRINCIPLES, CHAPTERS 1–17

1. 繁露 Fanlu Luxuriant Gems (楚莊王 Chu Zhuang Wang, King Zhuang of Chu)

2. 玉杯 Yu bei Jade Cup

3. 竹林 Zhu lin Bamboo Grove

4. 玉英 Yu ying Jade Brilliance

5. 精華 Jing hua The Quintessential and the Ornamental

6. 王道 Wang dao The Kingly Way

7. 滅國 (上) Mie guo (shang) Annihilated States, Part A

8. 滅國 (下) Mie guo (xia) Annihilated States, Part B

9. 遂本消息 Sui ben xiao xi Waxing and Waning in Accord with the Root

10. 盟會要 Meng hui yao The Essentials of Covenants and Meetings

11. 正貫 Zheng guan The Rectifying Thread

12. 十指 Shi zhi Ten Directives

13. 重政 Zhong zheng Emphasize Governance

14. 服制像 Fu zhi xiang Images for the Regulation of Dress

15. 二端 Er duan Two Starting Points

16. 符瑞 Fu rui Signs and Omens

17. 俞序 Yu xu Yu’s Postface

These chapters elucidate and extend the principles of the Spring and Autumn through the lens of the Gongyang Commentary, but they do so in different ways that have important implications for understanding the authorship and various source-texts used to compile the Chunqiu fanlu. We regard the Chunqiu fanlu as a posthumous collection of Gongyang Learning that includes Dong Zhongshu’s interpretations and those of his disciples and later followers. As such, the collection documents the ways in which the tradition was transmitted during the Western Han after the Gongyang Commentary had been committed to writing during the reigns of Emperors Jing and Wu, continuing through a number of successive reigns. The materials in group 1 appear to predate Wang Mang’s interregnum but would have remained authoritative through much of the Eastern Han until He Xiu 何 休 (129–182 C.E.) stepped onto the interpretive stage to build on Dong’s interpretations. Most important, they demonstrate how Han scholars working in this tradition used the Spring and Autumn to address the most pressing issues of their day.⁴

This first group of chapters divides naturally into two subgroups, chapters 1 through 5 and 6 through 17. They originally may have been separate collections of materials relating to Gongyang Learning that were amalgamated at some unknown later time.

Description of Chapters 1 Through 5

The first five chapters in the text contain the closest readings and the most detailed explications of the specific passages and the terminology that Confucius supposedly used to encode his moral evaluations of the affairs recorded in the Spring and Autumn.⁵ The majority of passages in these chapters follow a uniform pattern of explication,⁶ exhibiting a common question-and-answer format. Topics are taken up in a seemingly random fashion; in other words, they do not follow the order of the Gongyang Commentary, nor do they explain its principles in a linear or developmental sequence. These discussions typically consist of an exchange between an authoritative voice and other, less authoritative voices. The authoritative voice of the unnamed speaker is denoted by the simple expression “someone stated” (huo yue 或曰) or “it was stated” (yue). Sometimes, especially when the authoritative voice answers a question or concludes a dialectical exchange, we gloss yue as “the answer is.” This anonymous authoritative voice identifies the various principles of the Spring and Autumn, Confucius’s subtle terminology, and the method of praise and blame informing that terminology. The interpretations of the Gongyang Commentary and claims regarding Confucius’s use of terminology articulated by this authoritative voice are sometimes enhanced with flourishes from the Odes.⁷ The other unidentified voices in these discussions, indicated by the set expressions “someone raising a question stated” (wen zhe yue 問者曰) and “someone raising an objection stated” (nan zhe yue 難者曰), either pose queries and conceptual difficulties in response to the claims articulated by the authoritative voice or challenge the consistency of claims put forth by the authoritative voice, a principle, or the application of a principle. These questions and challenges are answered in turn, and the dialogue ends when the authoritative voice enjoys the last word.

The topics addressed by the participants of the discussion follow neither a logical sequence nor a systematic exposition, although we would argue that this is neither the consequence of a badly damaged or misarranged text nor the outcome of the putative master’s inability to present his theoretical claims systematically. Rather, it is indicative of the mode of instruction operative in these passages, one that is intentionally discursive and unmethodical. It is meant to inculcate an intuitive sense of the whole of Confucius’s reform program laid out in the Spring and Autumn by means of a judicious sampling of its parts. The students, too, are expected to build on these examples, applying a method of radiating analogies to other similar entries in the text until they achieve a holistic sense of the Spring and Autumn.⁸ As one passage explains,

In discussing the undertakings of twelve generations, [the Spring and Autumn] comprehensively encompasses the Human Way and perfectly delineates the Kingly Way. Its standards are found throughout the 240 years [it discusses], reinforcing one another and constituting a variegated pattern. They are based on juxtaposition and contrast and do not simply follow a linear [path] from antiquity. For this reason, those who discuss the Spring and Autumn must collate and thereby penetrate [its] standards and connect and thereby inquire into them. [They must] group together those that are comparable, match those that are categorically similar, scrutinize their connections, [and] pick out their omissions. Only then will the Way of Humankind be harmonized and the Kingly Way be established.⁹

The terminological subtleties and purposeful lacunae are the hidden signs to be connected to others similar in kind in order to gain a comprehensive knowledge of the world.

The mode of instruction operative in the first five chapters also is highly fluid and interactive. The master is ideally guided not only by the knowledge of the Spring and Autumn that he wishes to impart to his students but also by the queries and responses of those students, as well as their characters and temperaments. These factors shape the master’s instructional approach at every turn. It is not limited to the Spring and Autumn but is indicative of how all the Six Arts should ideally be transmitted. As chapter 2.6, explains, “[T]hose who excel at providing instruction, having praised [their understanding of] the Way, will [then] pay cautious attention to [their pupil’s] conduct. They will adjust the timing of their instruction, some earlier and others later, conferring on some students more while others less, adopting a fast or slow pace [according to the abilities of their students].”¹⁰

In addition to exemplifying a distinctive method of instruction, the first five chapters identify a number of substantive principles that explain precisely how Confucius encoded the Spring and Autumn with his ethical-political message for later generations of rulers. Accordingly, many passages discuss in great detail the terminology of the Spring and Autumn: the specific terms employed by Confucius to indicate praise and blame, his deliberate omission of certain events, the method he used to encode the Spring and Autumn, the causes of specific deviations from the standard terminology, as well as apparent terminological contradictions, contraventions, and inconsistencies across different entries of the Spring and Autumn.¹¹ Some typical examples are

The Spring and Autumn employs terminology enabling what has already been clarified to be elided and what has not yet been clarified to be recorded explicitly. (chapter 1.1)

The Spring and Autumn distinguishes twelve generations and treats them as three periods: Those that [Confucius] personally witnessed, those that he heard of from others, and those that he heard of through transmission by others. (chapter 1.3)

When the Spring and Autumn [records] affairs that are the same, [it employs] terminology that is the same. (chapter 4.5)

When the Spring and Autumn records events, it sometimes distorts the facts to avoid mentioning certain events. When the Spring and Autumn records people, it sometimes alters their names to conceal their identities…. Thus those who discuss the Spring and Autumn must master these terms that distort the facts and follow their twists and turns. Only then will they comprehend the events that it records. (chapter 4.9)

Through these discussions, students came to understand the implications of specific terms in the Spring and Autumn as well as the terminological trends that are key to understanding Confucius’s ethical evaluations. These ethical evaluations amounted to a political template for the Han, one that addressed the most important issues of the day. Thus the focal point of many discussions—the praiseworthy or reprehensible actions of the regional Lords of the Land during the Spring and Autumn period—expressed the desire of the early Han rulers (particularly Emperors Jing and Wu) and the scholar-officials who spoke for them to resolve the urgent political challenges that regional lords posed to the early emperors of the Han.

The Gongyang’s position that Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn as a ...