Rule: a study of Jia Yi's Xin shu [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Charles Theodore Sanft

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• Publié par: westfalische_wilhelms-universitat_munster
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 15
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

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Sinologie und Ostasienkunde





Rule: A Study of Jia Yi’s Xin shu


Inaugural-Dissertation


zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades


der


Philosophischen Fakultä t


der


Westfä lischen Wilhelms-Universität


zu


Münster (Westfalen)


vorgelegt von


Charles Theodore Sanft


aus St. Paul, Minnesota, USA


2005
























RULE


A STUDY OF JIA YI’S XIN SHU








CHARLES THEODORE SANFT







































































© 2005 Charles Theodore Sanft
All rights reserved







A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS






I would like to thank all of my teachers for their instruction over the years.
For a perma-student like me, these are too numerous to list exhaustively. But some
require mention.
Particularly, I want to thank my advisor, Professor Reinhard Emmerich of the
Institut fü r Sinologie und Ostasienkunde at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität
M nster, who has been not only an illuminating and inspiring teacher but also a kind
and generous friend. I would further like to express my appreciation to (in
alphabetical order) Professor Joseph R. Allen, Dr. Mark L. Asselin, Professor Stephen
Durrant, Dr. Yuri Pines, Mr. Mark Pitner, and Professor Tomiya Itaru 冨谷至 , who
read part or all of this dissertation and offered valuable corrections and advice. Blame
me for the mistakes remaining; they are certainly the result of ignored suggestions. I
also want thank all the members and students of the institute for their support and
assistance.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the memory of Professor Stephen S.
Wang 王士宗. It was my good fortune to have Professor Wang as my first teacher for
both modern and classical Chinese. If I have learned anything since then, it has been
built upon the solid foundations laid in his classes.








ü

CONTENTS


Introduction
Prolegomena 1
Source Materials5
Biographical Sketch of Jia Yi 13

1 Unstable Roots 28

2Sovereignty Thought 92

3Ritual and Power 152

4Practical Ritual 206

5Ritual and Punishment 245

6Xiongnu 281

Bibliography 321


INTRODUCTION

Prolegomena



Scope
This work treats Jia Yi’s 賈誼 (200-168 BC) Xin shu 新書, one of the most
important works of thought from the first half of the Han dynasty (206 BC – AD 221).
Through an examination of the themes and ideas present in this one text, I seek to
descry its internal workings. The Xin shu treats primarily political topics, and as such
my work here treats political themes. In my view, Jia Yi was primarily a theoretician,
and his work should be understood not simply as description or record of facts, but as
ultimately concerned with analysis and theory. In considering political notions, I have
been inspired by certain western scholars, particularly those who study political
theology. Nevertheless, I take Jia Yi’s writings as the focus of my work, and do not
attempt to force them into any particular interpretive framework. My claims are
claims about the Xin shu and the ideas represented within it. All else is servant of this
task.
This is not a history. History takes as its goal establishing facts about the past
and arranging those facts into a meaningful structure. History is of course necessary
and important, even to my purpose here, but it is not the project of this book. Nor is
relating Jia Yi to the events of his time my goal, though that, too, is a necessary aspect
of the analysis. Nor is my primary interest in the facts of Jia Yi’s life, though those
must feature in my discussion. Such questions that often form the focus of inquiry in
Chinese literature, and they are essentially historical. But reducing the study of
literary discourse to investigation only of who wrote what when forces literature to PROLEGOMENA
become the ancillary of general history. Instead of only historicizing, I will try to
understand how Jia Yi’s ideas as recorded function.
It must be said that Jia Yi is not a particularly original thinker in terms of basic
concepts. The principle ideas that he works with are found in contemporary and/or
earlier texts. I present some intellectual-historical background about about the most
important ideas Jia Yi uses, particularly about the notion of the people as root”
(chapter one) and ritual (chapter three). In neither case do I attempt a really
comprehensive treatment of these ideas; both bespeak independent consideration.
Rather, I provide the background necessary to understand Jia Yi’s ideas and their
function.
Despite not being a creative thinker in terms of fundamental questions, Jia Yi
is ever insightful in recognizing the theoretical possibilities of existing ideas,
particularly for their application to problems of governance. This is why chapters
four through six focus on how the ideas that I analyze were— theoretically— to work
in the real world. This is an attempt to follow Jia Yi’s ideas through to the conclusion
that he saw for them, rather than leaving them in the form of abstraction (a lá
philosophy) or taking them as mere evidence for facts (in the mode of history).
There are no firm boundaries between the varieties of human intellectual
endeavor, so I borrow what I need to help me, yet keep at the center always the
writings and ideas of Jia Yi. Instead of creating a structure for the Xin shu, I seek to
bring out and interpret what I have found there. Inevitably, I draw on a variety of
historical and philosophical sources to inform and support my readings— hopefully
preserving a textual focus. At the same time, I strive to avoid bombast and
unnecessary complexity.

Content
Aside from the introductory materials and bibliography, this book consists of
six chapters. The first of these, “ Unstable Roots, treats Jia Yi’s ideas about
governing the people and introduces a number of important terms. Chapter two,
Sovereignty Thought,” examines issues of sovereignty generally in Jia Yi’s thought,
with particular emphasis on conceptions of ruler and rulership. The third chapter,
Ritual and Power,” discusses the relationship between ritual and rule in the Xin shu,
especially how these two function in conjunction. “ Practical Ritual, chapter four,
2
”
“
“
”
“INTRODUCTION
examines how Jia Yi connects apparently abstract notions of ritual to themes of
practical governance, expanding the discussion of chapter four into the concrete realm.
The fifth and six chapters further extend this analysis, looking at the
interrelated notions of ritual and virtus function in two specific cases. Chapter five,
“ Ritual and Punishment,” considers Jia Yi’s deployment of the well-known
exclusions of grandees from punishments commoners from ritual, along with
discussion of how other readers have dealt with these issues. Finally, the Xiongnu
chapter treats Jia Yi’s plans for dealing with the eponymous tribesmen, in which he
suggests drawing them into a subordinate political relationship by means of virtus and
ritual. The creative re-deployment of existing ideas, especially concerning ritual, in
the then new imperial context is a subtext throughout.

Relationship to Prior Scholarship
The surface level of Jia Yi’s ideas is as simple and workaday as his prose is
difficult and ornate; likewise his themes. Thus, serious works on Jia Yi often treat
similar ideas. In the course of researching and writing, I have made use of a large
number of articles and books, each of which has contributed something to my work.
The list of these sources forms my bibliography, and inclusion there is
acknowledgement of real intellectual debt. In the text, points of fact, analysis, and
opinion taken directly from other scholars are noted. But I will not list all authors
who have made a point similar to one that I make or refer to the same line of the Xin
shu. I must particularly acknowledge the influence of Wang Xingguo 王興國, whose
1Jia Yi ping zhuan is the best available work on Jia Yi. It clearly and ably 賈誼評傳
treats Jia Yi’s ideas, though his conclusions are often quite different from mine.

Conventions
I use