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An Interpretation of the “Shao Gao”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

David S. Nivison
David S. Nivison*
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1169 Russell Ave., Los Altos CA 94022
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Abstract

This article presents a new translation of the “Shao gao” chapter of the Shang shu. Contrary to the views of Edward Shaughnessy in Early China 18, the author argues 1) that the main speaker is the Duke of Zhou, not the Duke of Shao; 2) that the political philosophy expressed is consistent with other texts ascribed to the Duke of Zhou; and 3) that the Duke of Zhou did not die in disgrace or in exile. The author dates the Duke of Zhou's death to the twenty-first year of King Cheng's reign, either 1017 or 1015 B.C.

倪德衛的論文״《召誥》解״,重新爲《尙書》第三十二章作了解釋,其觀點正與夏含夷發表於《早期中國》第十八期中的文章意見 相左.倪文認爲; (1)《召誥》主要的誥人是周公,而不是召公;(2)《召誥》中的政治觀點和其他文獻中所記載的周公之政治觀點是完全一致的: (3)周公並非被貶斥或被放逐而客死他鄕.倪敎授認爲周公是在成王二十一年故逝的,也就是說他是在公元前1017或是1015年死去的.

Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 20 , 1995 , pp. 177 - 193
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1995

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References

1. Iam going to give here a complete new translation of the “Shao Gao,” and I have constantly consulted (and often used) the translations by James Legge and by Bernhard Karlgren (each has the Chinese text). I have indicated the conventional sectioning used by Legge and Karlgren. For Yu's and Karlgren's opinion about the identity of the speaker, see Karlgren, Bernhard, Glosses on the Book of Documents (Rpt. Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1970), 63–64Google Scholar, “Shao Gao” 1718. The translations are (1) James Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. III: The Shoo King (1865; rpt. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960)Google Scholar; and (2) Karlgren, Bernhard, The Book of Documents, Göteborg, 1950Google Scholar (reprinted from Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 22 [1950])Google Scholar.

2. Shaughnessy, Edward L., “The Duke of Zhou's Retirement in the East and the Beginnings of the Minister-Monarch Debate in Chinese Political Philosophy,” Early China 18 (1993), 41–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. My present view on Cheng Wang's reign dates (developed in conference papers, not yet published) is this: His proper reign beginning with his accession was 1035–1006 B.C. This corresponds to what I conceived as his reign after coming of age, in my article “The Dates of Western Chou,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43 (1983), 570Google Scholar. I then supposed that the Regency of the Duke of Zhou (Chou) was the preceding seven years, 1042-1036. My recent research has shown me that Wu Wang died in 1038, the Regency being 1037-1031; 1037-6 were mourning years, in calendar terms. (Shaugh-nessy still favors 1042-36 for the Regency, and therefore 1045 rather than 1040 for the Conquest. See his book Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991], 242 n. 51.Google Scholar)

4. Wang ruo gong 王若公, “King-favored Duke.” For the construction, compare Shang shu 29 “Kang Gao” 5: hong yu Han ruo te, yu nai shen bu fei zai wang ming 弘手天若德、裕乃身不廢在王命, “be great in Heaven-approved virtue, so that your person will not fail in the king's (orders =) service.” But most commentators since antiquity have been unable to understand this line. Yu Xingwu has no trouble with it, but it baffles Karlgren; see Glosses, 284-5. (The problem is yu 裕, standing here for 谷,俗,欲: see note 6.) In “Shao Gao8] ”], gao gao shu Yin yue zi nai s/ii誰吿庶殷越自乃御事, with Karlgren, , Glosses, 64 (1720)Google Scholar, I omit zi 自.

5. “Shao Gao9] ”] wei wang shou ming 惟王受命: Shaughnessy makes a sentence of this, “It is the king who has received the mandate.” (I.e., the king alone, not the Zhou.) See Shaughnessy, “The Duke of Zhou's Retirement,”61. I take the four graphs as the opening clause of a sentence, “(it being that =) when the/a king receives the mandate,…” The next two phrases require this. Thus the line does not stress the unique authority of the king, but the heavy burden of responsibility involved in having the mandate. This is the theme of the entire “announcement.” The mandate is sometimes thought of as the king's, sometimes as given to Zhou, sometimes as given to all the people of Zhou, and sometimes as given to the king through the efforts of (or together with) the people (as in section 23).

6. “Shao Gao” [23], yu wangyi xiao min shou tian yong ming, 欲王以小民受天永命: Legge and Karlgren both take yu as “wish.” But the word here serves as a conjunction, not as the main verb of a sentence. This usage is the one that stopped Karlgren in “Kang Gao” [5] (note 4 above). The meaning is “so that (as one would wish),” as often in both archaic and standard old Chinese. Shaughnessy does not translate the phrase, but his argument assumes “I [sc. the Duke of Shao] wish.” See Shaughnessy, “The Duke of Zhou's Retirement,” 63; see n. 13 below for another example, with 谷 for 欲.

7. The genuine chapters of the Shang shu have seven instances of the graph dan 且: 26 “Jin Teng” 32; [5, 6] 32 “Shao Gao” [14];33 “Luo Gao” [24]; 36 “Jun Shi” [5, 16]; 39 “Li Zheng” [18]. In every case, “Dan” is used as the personal name of the Duke of Zhou; and in all six of the cases other than the “Shao Gao” it is unproblematically the Duke himself who is speaking. The “Shao Gao” alone has “Dan says,” allowing the theory that another person is referring to and quoting him. But the theory violates what seems to be an otherwise unbroken rule, that when “Dan,” the personal name, is used in the text of a speech, the speaker is Dan, referring to himself. The following qi 其 construction is performative, giving “Dan yue” the force, “I Dan hereby declare,”

8. Shaughnessy, “The Duke of Zhou's Retirement,” 60 n. 56. Legge thinks the king is treated as present, though not. I assume that the king is mentioned in the opening narrative, probably clipped from an official chronicle, only because in an official chronicle other events would be keyed to the king's actions. So the king must still be in Feng.

9. This distinction between yu 予 and wo 我 seems good for this chapter, but it does not always hold in other chapters; in the “Duo Shi,” for example, we find “wo yi ren” 我一人 (18), but also “yu yi ren” 予一人(20). Perhaps wo is sometimes a “royal plural” (here the words are represented as the king's); yu is never plural. For the verb yin 胤, see Shang shu 18 “Gao Zong Rong Ri” 5, where kings are said to be “Tian yin”, 天胤, “delegated by Heaven” to rule and care for the world's people.

10. See Shaughnessy, “The Duke of Zhou's Retirement,” 60. There is a text and translation of the Bamboo Annals in the “Prolegomena” to Legge's Shoo King.

11. In my “The Datçs of Western Chou,” I argued that the standardized second lunar quarter was always the eighth through the fifteenth (485-92, 566). See also Guowei, Wang 王國維, Guan tang ji lin 觀堂集林 (1923; rpt. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), j. 1Google Scholar, “Sheng bo si bo kao” 生霸死霸考.There is not yet universal agreement on the “four quarter” analysis, and there has been much debate in past years. I believe that the argument given here, together with discovery of ever more inscriptions datable to the reign of Xuan Wang, will soon settle the matter to everyone's satisfaction.

12. In any case, the substitution was made not later than the fixing of the text of the Mencius, because the short text is what gives the “Kang Gao” its title (it actually is a ming, wcharge,” rather than a gao, “announcement); the “Kang Gao” is referred to by title in Mencius 5B4. Furthermore, the long text (misunderstood, I hold) is what gives the “Shao Gao” its title, for the short text does not mention the Duke of Shao.

13. The “He zun” 河尊 inscription text is hui wang gong de, yu tian xun wo bu min 言王龔德、谷天順我不敏. See Shirakawa Shizuka白川靜, Kinbu” tsüshaku 金文通釋, Supplement 1 (Hakutsuru Bijutsukan Shi 白鶴美術館誌 48), 171-184, especially the discussion at 174-180.

14. See Shaughnessy, , “The Duke of Zhou's Retirement,” 71Google Scholar. My point is that the revision of a hypothetical Annals text that Lei Xueqi's theory assumes implies that the pre-revised text had ten fewer graph-spaces than it has now, because “space + er + ski + yi + nian” and “space + er + shi + er + nian” would disappear, but no new dates would be added at years 11 and 12, these dates being already in the text. But the text now, when the two opening ganzhi graphs are deleted, has exactly the right number of graphs for the slip-arrangement that Shaughnessy's type of research requires (see n. 16). (Trying to extend his methods, I think I find that a properly restored reign text in the Zhou chronicle would always end half way down a slip.) If the revision moved the entry in year 23 to a (blank) year 1 spot, then only one graph-space would have been lost. This space would have been regained in the date alterations that I posit for the last five entries in the Cheng chronicle. See n. 15.

15. The two-year uncertainty in these dates is due to my being unsure whether the year-counts are to be reckoned from Cheng Wang's succession, 1037, or his (post-mourning) accession, 1035. One would expect the later date, but in this case every year in the opening seven-year Regency is accounted for in the chronicle, and I assume the Regency to have included the mourning-completion years 1037-1036. I think, however, that Cheng's last year must originally have been called “year 30,” counting therefore from 1035. I posit these changes in some early fourth century (B.C.) revision: year 20 to 25(+ 1 space); 25 to 30 (- 1 space); 28 to 33; 29 to 34; 30 to 35 to 37(+ 1 space): net change, + 1 space.

16. Shaughnessy, Edward L., “On the Authenticity of the Bamboo Annals,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 46 (1986), 149–180CrossRefGoogle Scholar.