Lüshi Chunqiu

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Lüshi Chunqiu
An Edo period (1603–1868) edition
AuthorLü Buwei
Original title呂氏春秋
CountryChina
LanguageChinese
GenreChinese classics
Lüshi chunqiu
BUC
Lṳ̄-sê Chŭng-chiŭ
Middle Chinese
Middle ChineseLjó-d͡ʒjé tɕʰwin-tsʰjuw
Old Chinese
Baxter–Sagart (2014)*[r]ˤa k.dəʔ tʰun tsʰiw

The Lüshi Chunqiu (

Qin state Chancellor Lü Buwei, some years before the unification of China as the Qin dynasty. In the evaluation of Michael Carson and Michael Loewe, "The Lü shih ch'un ch'iu is unique among early works in that it is well organized and comprehensive, containing extensive passages on such subjects as music and agriculture, which are unknown elsewhere. It is also one of the longest of the early texts, extending to something over 100,000 words."[3]

Background

The

Shiji (chap. 85, p. 2510) biography of Lü Buwei has the earliest information about the Lüshi Chunqiu. Lü was a successful merchant from Handan who befriended King Zhuangxiang of Qin. The king's son Zheng, who the Shiji suggests was actually Lü's son, eventually became the first emperor Qin Shi Huang in 221 BC. When Zhuangxiang died in 247 BC, Lü was made regent for the 13-year-old Zheng. In order to establish Qin as the intellectual center of China, Lü "recruited scholars, treating them generously so that his retainers came to number three thousand".[4] In 239 BC, he, in the words of the Shiji:[5]

... ordered that his retainers write down all that they had learned and assemble their theses into a work consisting of eight "Examinations", six "Discourses", and twelve "Almanacs", totaling more than 200,000 words.

According to the Shiji, Lü exhibited the completed text at the city gate of Xianyang, capital of Qin, and above it a notice offering a thousand measures of gold to any traveling scholar who could add or subtract even a single word.

The

Daoism
.

Contents

The title uses chunqiu (春秋; spring and autumn) to mean 'annals; chronicle' in a reference to the Confucianist

State of Lu
history from 722–481 BC.

The text comprises 26 juan (卷; 'scrolls', 'books') in 160 pian (篇; 'sections'), and is divided into three major parts. The first is the Ji (紀; 'Almanacs'): books 1–12 correspond to the months of the year, and list appropriate seasonal activities to ensure that the state runs smoothly. This part, which was copied as the

Liji
chapter Yueling, takes many passages from other texts, often without attribution. The Lan (覧; 'Examinations') comprises books 13–20, which each have 8 sections. This is the longest and most eclectic part, giving quotations from many early texts, some no longer extant. The last part is the Lun (論; 'Discourses'), which comprises books 21–26 and mostly deals with rulership, except for the final four sections about agriculture. This part resembles the Lan in composition.

Integrity of the text

The composition's features, measure of completeness (i.e. the veracity of the Shiji account) and possible corruption of the original Annals have been subjects of scholarly attention. It has been mentioned that the Almanacs have much greater integrity and thematic organization than the other two parts of the text.

The Yuda (諭大) chapter of the Examinations, for example, contains text almost identical to the Wuda (務大) chapter of the Discourses, though in the first case it is ascribed to Jizi (季子), and in the second to Confucius.

Reception

Scholar Liang Qichao (1873–1929) stated: "This book, through the course of two thousand years, has had no deletions nor corruptions. Moreover, it has the excellent commentary of Gao You. Truly it is the most perfect and easily read work among the ancient books."[6] Liang's position, mildly criticized afterwards,[by whom?] was dictated by the lack of canonical status ascribed to the book.

Correction bounty

The Shiji tells that after Lü Buwei presented the finished Lüshi Chunqiu for the public at the gate of Xianyang and announced that anyone could correct the book's content would be awarded 1000

taels
of gold for every corrected word. This event lead to the Chinese idiom "One word [is worth] a thousand gold" (一字千金).

None of the contemporary scholars pointed out any mistakes in the work, although later scholars managed to detect a number of them. It is believed that Lü's contemporaries were able to detect the book's inaccuracies, but none dared to openly criticize a powerful figure like him.

Major positions

Admitting the difficulties of summarizing the Lüshi Chunqiu, John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel list 18 major points:

  1. Affirmation of self-cultivation and impartiality
  2. Rejection of hereditary ruler over the empire
  3. Stupidity as the cause of hereditary rule
  4. Need for government to honor the concerns of the people
  5. The central importance of learning and teachers
  6. Support and admiration for learning as the basis of rule
  7. Non-assertion on the part of the ruler
  8. Primary task for a ruler is to select his ministers
  9. Need for a ruler to trust the expertise of his advisers
  10. Need for a ruler to practice quiescence
  11. The attack on Qin practices
  12. Just warfare
  13. Respect for civil arts
  14. Emphasis on agriculture
  15. Facilitating trade and commerce
  16. Encouraging economy and conservation
  17. Lightening of taxes and duties
  18. Emphasis on filial piety and loyalty.[7]

The Lüshi chunqiu is an invaluable compendium of early Chinese thought and civilization.

References

Footnotes
  1. Albany
    : State University of New York Press.
  2. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-G057-1
    .
  3. ^ Loewe & Carson (1993:324).
  4. ^ Knoblock and Riegel (2000:13)
  5. ^ Knoblock and Riegel (2000:14)
  6. ^ Stephen W. Durrant, "The Cloudy Mirror", p.80
  7. ^ Knoblock and Riegel (2000:46–54)
Works cited

External links
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