The Heir and the Sage, Revised and Expanded Edition

Sarah Allan

Description

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the accounts of change of rule in Chinese texts from 600 to 100 BC, including the core philosophical works of the Chinese tradition attributed to Confucius, Mozi, Mencius, Xunzi, Hanfeizi, and Zhuangzi. Drawing from the early structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Sarah Allan demonstrates that similar motifs repeat in every period, and argues that they serve, like myth, to mediate the inherent social conflict between kinship relations and that of the larger community. This conflict is embodied in the idea of a dynastic cycle, founded by a virtuous sage king and passed down hereditarily until a last evil ruler is again replaced, and played out at regular intervals in legends of kings and ministers, heirs and sages, ministers and recluses, regents and rebels. Each philosophical text transforms the legends in a systematic manner to reflect its own understanding of the patterns of history that inform the present.

In this revised and expanded edition, Allan has added translations and original Chinese texts, as well as a new introduction further analyzing structuralism and discussing how the book remains relevant to ongoing sinological arguments. An earlier article by Allan, with supporting evidence for this book's thesis, is included as an appendix.
Preface To The Revised and Expanded Edition
Acknowledgments
Preface to the Original Edition
Introduction

1. Problem and Theory

2. Legend Set 1: Tang Yao to Yú Shun

3. Legend Sets 2 and 3: Yú Shun to Xia Yu and the Foundation of the Xia Dynasty

4. Legend Set 4: The Foundation of the Shang Dynasty

5. Legend Set 5: The Foundation of the Zhou Dynasty

6. The Philosophers

7. Conclusion

Appendix 1
Charts

Appendix 2
The Identities of Taigong Wang in Zhou and Han Literature

Bibliography
Index of Chinese Names, Places, and Important Terms

Sujets

• History of Asia
• China

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 07 septembre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438462264
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

THE HEIR AND THE SAGE
SUNY SERIES IN C HINESE P HILOSOPHY AND C ULTURE
Roger T. Ames, editor
The Heir and the Sage
DYNASTIC LEGEND IN EARLY CHINA
revised and expanded edition
Cover art: Taigong Wang fishing , Nicol Allan, ca. 1968
Published by
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact
State University of New York Press
www.sunypress.edu
Production and book design, Laurie D. Searl
Marketing, Anne M. Valentine
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Allan, Sarah.
Title: The heir and the sage : dynastic legend in early China / Sarah Allan.
Description: Revised and expanded edition. | Albany : State University of New York Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016005984 (print) | LCCN 2016008006 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438462257 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438462264 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Legends—China. | China—History—To 221 B.C.
Classification: LCC GR335 .A43 2016 (print) | LCC GR335 (ebook) | DDC 398.20951—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016005984
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
to Nicol Allan
Contents
P REFACE TO THE R EVISED AND E XPANDED E DITION
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
P REFACE TO THE O RIGINAL E DITION
I NTRODUCTION
C HAPTER 1
Problem and Theory
C HAPTER 2
Legend Set 1: Tang Yao to Yú Shun
C HAPTER 3
Legend Sets 2 and 3: Yú Shun to Xia Yu and the Foundation of the Xia Dynasty
C HAPTER 4
Legend Set 4: The Foundation of the Shang Dynasty
C HAPTER 5
Legend Set 5: The Foundation of the Zhou Dynasty
C HAPTER 6
The Philosophers
C HAPTER 7
Conclusion
A PPENDIX 1
Charts
A PPENDIX 2
The Identities of Taigong Wang in Zhou and Han Literature
B IBLIOGRAPHY
I NDEX OF C HINESE N AMES , P LACES, AND I MPORTANT T ERMS
Preface to the Revised and Expanded Edition
The Heir and the Sage was first published in 1981. It is now being republished on the heels of a new book, Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-slip Manuscripts . The Heir and the Sage serves as the foundation for that new work, which discusses the materials that have come to light in the intervening years and how they pertain to the ideas discussed in this one. Accordingly, I have not made substantive changes to the new edition. In any case, I believe that the work retains its integrity as a comprehensive account of how legends of change of rule operated in transmitted texts of the fifth to first centuries BC.
I have, nevertheless, made some minor changes. These include the correction of minor errors and the addition of some translations and original Chinese text of passages that were only cited briefly in the earlier edition. I have also added an “Introduction” in which I comment on structuralist theory and the method I used herein and outline how I now understand the development of historical paradigms in early China. I have also appended my article, “The Identities of Taigong Wang in Zhou and Han Literature,” first published in Monumenta Serica XXX (1972–73), because it provides supporting evidence for the role of history as a means of thinking about social conflict that is the thesis of this book. It is unchanged except for minor corrections.
Acknowledgments
This book originated as my doctoral dissertation at the University of California at Berkeley (awarded in 1974). I owe much to my teachers at Berkeley, especially Peter Boodberg (l903–1972) and Wolfram Eberhard (1909–1989). Boodberg and Eberhard were as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese. Boodberg was Russian, a philologist, and an idealist about the value of humanistic scholarship, who published very little, preferring to circulate his work in the form of mimeographed sheets. Eberhard was German, a folklorist and sinologist, who was proud to be considered a social scientist, and published prolifically. They agreed on very little, but each encouraged me to learn from the other, and they both supported my efforts to find my own intellectual trajectory. I also owe a great deal to Chen Shih-hsiang (1912–1971), who imparted his love for and gave me a solid training in early Chinese literature. And, to Cyril Birch, who managed to persuade a reluctant department to accept an unorthodox dissertation after the death of two of the original members of the committee, Chen Shih-hsiang and Peter Boodberg, I am eternally grateful. I began teaching at the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1972, and I also owe much to my colleagues there, D. C. Lau and Paul Thompson, for their criticisms and assistance. David N. Keightley also read a draft and offered many useful comments.
The book was first published by Chinese Materials Center in 1981. I am grateful to Robert L. Irick, who was willing to publish it at a time when mainstream sinology was unsympathetic to the use of structuralist method, as well as for returning the copyright to me before the first Chinese translation was published by Beijing University Press in 2001.
The Appendix, “ The Identities of Taigong Wang in Zhou and Han Literature ,” originated as my Master’s thesis. It was first published in Monumenta Serica 30 (1972–73): 57–99. It is reproduced here by kind permission of the Monumenta Serica Institute.
I would also like to thank, William French III, who as an undergraduate at Dartmouth, produced the electronic edition for me, and Claire V. Beskin, who proofread it. I am also grateful to Yu Jia 余佳 , who, in retranslating the book into Chinese for the Commercial Press edition ( Shixi yu shanrang 世襲 與 禪讓 , 2010), pointed out mistakes and omissions in the original English text that I have corrected herein.
My husband, Nicol Allan, made the sumi ink drawing of Taigong Wang fishing (with a straight hook) on the cover of this book to amuse and encourage me when I was a graduate student at Berkeley. It is, as it was when it was first published, dedicated to him.
Preface to the Original Edition
Ancient Chinese literature contains few myths in the traditional sense of stories of the supernatural, but much history. This has long puzzled scholars who have generally attributed the lack of myth to an aversion of the literati to folk cults and a rationalistic tendency to present mythological figures as if they were human in written texts. The Chinese have frequently been called the most history-conscious people in the world. Their record keeping begins with divinations inscribed on bone and shell in the Shang Dynasty. Confucius is said to have considered that his reputation would be determined by a dry chronicle of his native state of Lu. And by the first century BC, Sima Qian had compiled a lengthy and complex universal history, the Shi ji .
But what is history and what is myth? In the following work, I will apply a method derived from the structuralist school of myth analysis to some of the history that occurs in ancient Chinese texts. I will be particularly concerned with stories surrounding the transfer of rule and the formation of dynasties from the time of Yao and Shun to the Zhou Dynasty as recorded in texts written from the fifth to the first centuries BC. My purpose is to show that these accounts are structured, and that they serve, like myth, to mediate an inherent social conflict—a conflict between the interests of kinship and those of community. This conflict is embodied in the theory of the dynastic cycle, which I interpret as a conflict between rule by virtue and rule by heredity; it also appears in myth in various transformations—heir and sage, king and minister, minister and recluse, regent and rebel. Each period will be related to the next, and the themes will be shown to repeat themselves in the same structural configuration, though the stories, contrary to common belief, are seldom mere replicas of one another.
The texts on which this study is based were written in the Warring States and early Han periods. This is the classical period of Chinese philosophy, and the frequent brief references to history in the philosophical texts are taken as source material together with the more lengthy historical accounts. The stories vary and are frequently contradictory, but I will not be concerned with determining historical accuracy. Rather, by analyzing the range of possible variation and its meaning, I hope to show that “history” in these texts could be transformed, at least within a certain range, and that ancient Chinese writers used these transformations as a means of expressing political and social attitudes.
These texts and the world in which they were written are vastly different from the oral accounts and tribal societies studied by Claude Lévi-Strauss and his followers. Thus, although my theoretical assumptions derive largely from Lévi-Strauss’s early theoretical work, I have developed my own methodology by means of which I hope to shed light on the nature and meaning of references to history in early Chinese texts. At the same time, I hope to show the validity and usefulness of a structural method, if interpreted flexibly, to validate certain principles of Lévi-Strauss’s method of analysis, and to offer certain re