A philological study of the excavated texts included in the seventh volume of the Compilation of Warring States Chu bambooslips housed at the Shanghai Museum

Abstract

In 1994, two batches of unearthed Chu 楚 bamboo slips from the Warring States period (Zhanguo shidai 戰國時代, 475–221 B.C.), totaling 1200 pieces and featuring over 35000 characters, appeared in the cultural relic market of Hong Kong. These slips, highly valuable for philological research, cover nearly 100 kinds of ancient Chinese classic. They were soon collected by the Shanghai Museum for restoration and analysis, and have, since 2001, been published in successive volumes entitled Shanghai bowuguan cang Zhanguo Chu zhushu 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書, eight volumes of which have been issued to date.

My study focuses on the seventh volume, published in 2008, comprising five chapters — Wuwang jian zuo 武王踐阼, Zhengzi jia sang 鄭子家喪, Jun ren zhe hebi an zai 君人者何必安哉, Fan wu liu xing 凡物流形, and Wuming 吳命— comprehensive annotation and transcription of which have been provided by the volume editor. In spite of the efforts put on interpreting these bamboo texts, existing researches have their limitations; some intricate textual problems remain to be solved. The present dissertation attempts to examine the elucidations and interpretations of these bamboo texts in order to identify and screen out erroneous views among them. Sophisticated investigation on several controversial issues has been carried out to determine and restore the intent of the original passages.