The Chʼu silk manuscript: translation and commentary

:6

THE CH'USILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION ANV COMMENTARY

and encouragement of serious study by allowing discreet 'a c c e s s to the FGA fil es. T h e r e is an . amusing side t o Shang's polemi cs.

7

He sta tes in his article that he

had in his own possession "a set of na tural , s i z e photographs" of the Manus cript as from

1947.

more t h a n

His hand- copy reproduced in We n-Wu

16

years"

(1964. 9)

was based upon t h e s e .

For

therefore, his c o l l e a g u e s were similarly denied a ccess t o this

even closer source of s tudy available throughout this period wi thin Mainland Ch i n a i tself!

As to t h e source of t h e s e four photographs Shang gives no details but

com-

parison of h is Pl. 2 (where masking along t h e right-hand and bottom edges is no t excessive as in t h e o ther thre e Pla tes) with an unmasked print from t he nega tive c overing the same ar ea , the b o tt o m right-hand c o r ne r . masking ,

so

Freer~Gallery

shows similarly a black triangular-shap ed object in

Al though shorte r

in Shang's Plate 2 as

th is remnan t match es pre cisely the shap e,

posi tion,

a result

of

and a ngle of t h e mount-

ing b o a r d c l i p whi ch appears in unmasked prints from the FGA negative's.

I t

ma y be

r e garded a s an amaz ing coinciden c e t h at t h e Chinese photographer should apparen t ly haveemplo yeaan identical mounting board and have s et the same kind of re taining clip in exactly t h e s ame angl e! cl ea r

From o ther aspects of t h e .s i t u a t i o n it is abundantly

t h at Shang's prints would have been

n e ga t Lve s; 'n o t

der~ved,

alb eit indirectly, from the FGA

only are t he s e t he only panchromati c pho tographs t h a t

hav e been made

of t h e Manusc r i pt b ut · also t h e date that Shang speaks of t h e prin ts in q u e st i o n having c o me into his possession

(19 47) ,

c o i n c i d e s remarkably closely wi th the date that

Ch ' e n Meng- chia returned to Peking af ter an ex tensive field- trip through t h e USA , '

,

' E u r o p e , e tc.

7

8

It is fully e vi d e nt upon s tudy o f many of the photographs of vess els

Several of usattempted,by writing .directly to Mr John Hadley Cox (or through others) , t o obtain . e>-(

p.,.

mission to have the FGA photographs reproduced but there being no response at all, no further steps , could be 't a ke n to provide the scholarly world with the urgently needed reproductions.

1i f'F

~,

i n his "Lun Ch' ang~sha ch' u-t' u chd.h tseng-shu" lifL&ij,' tJ:',

Ilf ?iii 1t , 10.6, 1955) says, for instance:

±

z:

~ if

Tung Tso-pin

(Ta-lu tzse-ctii b :*

"In winter 'o f the following year .(1948 ) I returned in hast. '

[to China] but left the book [by Ts' ai Chi-hsiang] in Chicago.

Having heard then that ~he original

Manuscript had long before reached Washington and that·:the person in whose possession it it and would not s how it to anyone, I wa s not even able to find · out its whereabouts thus never satisfaction of seeing it with my own eyes ... "

Thanks to the FGA's 'cooperation, however, the h;imd-

copies published by Professors J aO, Hayashi, Shang (indirectly), and myself have individually appeared together with an extensive literature on the CSM .

.Reproductions d fa l l these' studies and others effea

prior to 1967 have been assembled in the Suppl ementary .Vo l ume of my major survey - this compilation of stUdies, pr e p a r ed at the request of the p r es e nt owner of the Ch'u Silk Manuscript, will be found ient and useful for reference purposes when the work is eventually published. 8

One further set of photographs of the Manuscript wa s made;

and this as a result of my prompting to

the late Mr Alan Priest, Curator of Oriental Art, MetroPolitan Museurn, New York . end of 1961 (or possibly a little .later).

This was towards thl

During tne ' fall ,of 1961 MrPriest kindly allowed me access

to the CSM which at the time, was "under consideration for purchase" and in storage at .the Muse.urn. . I did not k no w, ho wever, until late in 1965 that these photographs had a ctually been taken when a set four contact prints were pas s ed on to me. ed for me by the Museum photographer. and have a particular value.'

Upon my request four very fine enlargements were then prep4

These photographs are the fir st infrared versions made oftheC '

The point be elaborated later ,(p o 8 3 et al.).

THE VISCOVERY OF THE CH'U SILK MA~~SCRIPT

7

Ind'rubb ings reproduced in Ch 'en' s v a l u a b l e series of ins cription etucties ( K' ao- k u

hsue h- pa o ,19 5 5- 1956 ; Vols .. 9- 14 ) t h a t t he s e ma terials are the pro ceeds o f' ac tive r es e a r c h and collection such as we all seek to . accumulate when studying a b ro a d . That he might als o have o b tain ed a se t o f the FGA photographs o f t he CSM when in the USA is t o be exp e c t ed; I as sume Shang o btained t he prints (or the c o p i e s of t h o s e l tha t h e work ed on) f r o m Ch' en. Ac cording t o his pos t -"Liberation" informant, th e tomb c omp r i s i n g a coffin and • sar cophagus (both made e nt i r e l y of wood) was no t large .

The black la c qu e r e d coffin

was pla c ed aga i n st 'on e side of t he sarcophagus and the space c ont a i n i n g the burial ob jec ts formed an "L " shape .

Her e again, t h e ' theme of an imbalance in t h e tomb

I t ru c t u r e , is t o b e inferred from t h e des crip tion whi ch Shang o btained.

In all

pro babi lity detail s of the actua l CSM t omb became fa irly generally known amongst the lo cal li t t erati shortly af ter i t s discovery; t h e s e deta ils soon became i n t er mi n g l e d Wit h d e s c r i pt i on s o f o t h e r plunder ed t omb s ; gradually a g en e r a l

stat e of c on f u s i on

ob t a i ned i n t h e c a s e of descriptio~s o f par ti cular tombs . T he Manuscrip t, folded in e i gh t se gments, was earlier supposed to have been found in a b a mb o o c a s k et approxima tely 2) em in length and 1J em in width . does no t

Shang

t hink t h i s s tory i s reliable a n d sta t es t h at t he wid th of t h e Manuscript

f olds wa s great er than t h e wi dth o f

t h e ca s k et .

Although he is c o r rec t in doubting

, t h e c a s k et s to ry t he origina Z f olds of the .Ma nus c r-Lp t do, on t h e c ont r a ry , a·llow it to fit the c a s k e t measurements hi s mea ~urements,

qui~e

comfortably - Shang has mistakenly followed in

the folds that have o ccurred since th e mounting of the Manus cript

follo wing excava ti on .

The c a s k et wa s s upp o s e d l y dis c ov ~red in t h e nor th-south

align ed spa c e a t t he head o f t he coffin wh i l e i n t h e ar ea t o t he righ t of the c o f f i n wer e found, he wa s t o l d :

~~

a la c querp'an-basin

~

; a lacquer pei-cup with

l~gs

1f

; a bronze sword enc l os ed in a wooden case; a bronze k O-dagger-ax e jG ; 24 round-

bodied tomb- f i gures ; an ea rt h enwa re ting- cauldron

hu-vase

-:b"

~tiB -~ff ,-

a tui - cauldron

:¥t ,

and a

Al ongsid e t h e a bo~ e -men ti oned c a s k e t was a pil e of b l a c k funereal clay

~

t a b let s whi ch were unins cribed. Shang goes into considerabl e detail in describing t h e nature of tombs found in the Changsha ar ea.

Ther e a r e two type s , t ho se wi th an accumula ti on of mud and water

wherein t he c ontent s hav e l ar g ely p erished and t h o s e unpolluted by muddy wa ter but nevertheless in a c o mp a r at iv e ly damp s ta t e. found well preserved .

In the la t ter, t he c ontent s are usually

T h e "und er takers" c a l l e d t h e m

1< 11llJ f-

h uo - t ung - t z u , "fi re-

h ol e s " on ac count of the inflammable gases whi ch seeped out when the ce i l i n g planks of : t h e sarcophagus we r e removed . perienced grave

j, ~.

~

robb ~~ who a t tempted t o use a ligh ted can d l e t o eXPlor~ t h e in terior

of the t omb i s c ited . 9

~, ManuscriPt

A c a s e of s eri ous injury which befell one inex-

I t was from a tomb of this type, Shang sugges ts,

tha t

the

was unearthed.

- - - - - - ----9 Cf. Ts'ai Chi-hsiang 's account as reproduced in Shang' s Ch'ang-sha ku-wu wen-chien-chi , A.5b-6a.

I,

THE CH'U SILK 'MANUSCRIPT • TRANSLATION ANO COMMENTARY

8

Throughout; his description o f

the tomb and the details of i ts c o n t e n t s Shang

emphasizee the point 'c h a t he -has based his information upon data provid ed since the "Libera 'cion" by parties who were present at the time of excavation.

W'ith due caution

he observes that there might b e some errors in re collection. In

1942

*

Shang received a n offer of sale of "brush-written silk 'pieces" from a

certain T I ang Chien-ch' {ian

~ ~~

known locally as "Tailor

1-1 angv ,

Shang was in-

formed by a friend whom h e had requested ,t o act on his beh~lf t h at when Tailor Tlang showed him the "Manuscript" i t

was rolled up fragment upon fragment in white paper

and this in turn was rolled in newspap er.

There were n9t many large pieces and the

piles of small fragments would, h e thought, original posi tions.

be very diffi cult to restore t o their

This was in t h e "winter of

1942"

but by the time Shang had

replied, Ts'ai Chi-hsiang had already c o mp l e t e d purchase of the "Manuscript". 10 This part of Shang's ac count is interesting because the Ch'u Silk Manuscript in its original (i.e. unmounted)

state upon recovery c o u l d not have been the same high~y

fragmented collection of "brush-written silk pieces" as just described. in places,

stretched and folded,

It is torn

and with some small fragmen tary pieces pasted around

t h e peripheries but for the most part still comprises a practically continuous piece of fabric except for the centre vertical folded area. Sha.ng t.a dates,

of course,

From the point of view of

the Ch' u Silk Manuscript was already in the USA three to

four years before he received Tailor T'ang's offer of sale.

Possibly all the con-

fusion is due not only to an entirely different silk manuscript but also one from some o ther tomb. 10

11

Chiang Hsiian-yi ~

however:

Y: fs (Ch'ang-sha !it ¥Y ,

1950, Vol. 2, p. 1) in his note on the Manuscript> states,

" .... when [the Manuscript] was excavated at Changsha it came into the hands of a

tailo ~who

attempted to sell it to dealers' agents from various parts of our country but without success.

It was

not until I came to Changsha again from Canton that I learnt he had accepted a small deposit from an American who had taken the Manuscript 'on approval' to the USA and all that was left in the owner's hands was a foreign promissory note".

Jao Tsung-yi observes that there are two stories current on this

matter and that the account concerning the Manuscript comirig into Ts'ai Chi-hsiang's possession related also that he sold it to Cox ("Cllang::'sha Ch'u""!l\u shih-chan shen-wu-t'u-chiian k'ao-shih" j$ !j:JI; ~ !!5 ~

f', Journal of Oriental Studies, , Hon g Kong,

!it ¥Y

~;il ~ .!:i

1954, Vol. I, Pt. 1, p. 67). ' Tung Tso-pin

(loc. cit.) repeats the two stories and settles for the second of these, namely, that Ts'ai actually sold the Manuscript to Cox.

Ts'ai was a friend of Tung's and naturally Tung observes that the second

account is the more creditable one.

However, the source thereof (apparently verbal) is not disclqsed

and we have only Chiang's statement above "in writing" from someone actually "on the spot", cf. also my observations in note 13 below which demonstrate, that the Manuscript was apparently never in Ts'ai's possession at all. 11

It is important to keep in mind, too, that Shang had long before made himself unpopular amongst the

local "undertakers", as he sarcastically refers to the people concerned

- and accordingly few would

volunteer accurate information to him, and seldom could he gain direct access to many of the items unearthed.

So, the participant informed me.

Such points ,mat c h well Shang's own published statements:

if unearthed in the east, they would say:

, Wen-wu 1964.9, p. 8).

in the west •.•. " ("Chan-kuo Ch'u-po-shu shu-liieh"

Such lack of 'reliability amongst the accounts Shang

Ch'eng-tso assembled since "Liberation" would, of course, be of more serious proportions - obviously Shang would then be told only what the "undertakers" thought safe to tell him.

Somet ime after

;:ir go od

t he f i r st dra f t

T h i s r ar e publi c a tion p r i nt e d part ly i n mo v abl e typ e ( ,.;ith ma ny

~ 'p e o i a l ly engra v ed type),

print ing o f

s ev ~ral

p artly by p hoto - lithogr aphy , and with woo d-b l oc k colour

of t h e i l l u s t r a t i o n s i s b oth t e c h n i c a l ly and intrinsi cally a

'Orlt of c o n s i derab le i n tere s t. f'i rs t

l nl our, ,or:l.pt

s e c tion of my surve y wa s wr-Lt t en i t wa s

fortune t o o b t a i n a c ce..ss t o a c o p y of Ts'a i Chi-hsiang's Wan -Cho u ts e n g-s h u

l'ao- ah ' e n g. 12

'h'

of t hi s

As the fi r st p ub lishe d s tudy of t h e Ma n u s c r i pt and

p u b lication cont a ini ng a r eproduc ti o n of t h e Manu s cri p t -

to o, ' -

i t is,

o f' course , a mos t

and i t s backg round .

impor t ant s o urc e fo r

a n d t hi s i n

the study of t h e Manu-

T h e ' t i t l e - p a g e bears t h e da te 19 45 a nd t h e author's

Figu:t'e 3 " Left: The c ov er tit leIt rip ( ~ ~ t 'ai - ah 'i en) o f Ts'ai Chi-hsiang's Wan-Chou ts eng-shu k 'ao oh'eng written by Ts ' ao Tien- ch 'iu . Ri ght:

The t i tle-page written i n ~ s cript by Huang Mien probably a si st er o r niec e o f Ts'ai' s wife. The relationship i s not entirely c lear and l itt l e r e l e vant i nf ormati on a pp e ars either in Ts ' ai ' s p r e f ac e , or i n the Ueh-fu-ahuan r.!l J!lii f~ memor ial i s ing h i s wi fe ( t he two con cluding page s of t h e bpok). His wife I S IIX>ther h a d been marr ied a s e cond time t h us t he p h r as e i.'f T hun -

hsi ao-ahuan /J'

..

'li ng.

~,

preface 1944.

I n t h e P refa c e T s'ai ment i ons aft e r

de t ailing v arious family mis-

tor 'tun es a r i sing fr om t he Japa nese en t ry in t o, Ch a ngsh a in t he summer of 1944, fAmi l y' s i l l -fat e d s e arch f or r efuge i n liddle , of autumn of' that year,

t h e country ,

t hei r

ret u rn t o t he ci t y i n t he

etc., how upon s o rt i n g through hi s luggage he "came

loro ss s e veral s heets of v al u a b l e fa csimile c o p i e s of t h e bamb o o casket;

-l.

the

t he bronze

Mr Fritz , Low-Beer who is well known for his work on Chinese lacquer and as the owner of a choice

tDllection very generously permitted me to take his copy of this book back to Canberra for the preparalion of photographs with the view of r eproducing it in the Supplemen tar y Vol ume of the major survey .

, this volume of reproductions of all studies conducted on the CSM prior to 1967 has ~en in the printer's

,I t

hands for nearly three years awaiting the present owner's instructions regarding the printing of this

end

the major survey.

f;l h hed

r..

I t is, accordingly, most fortunate ' that a facsimile copy ha s ,me a nt im e been pub-

by Yi - wen yin- s hu -kua n ,

~)(

J'lJ if til , Ta i p e i ; ' the scholarly world will, indeed,

be indebted to

Yen' Yi-p' ing for his sympathetic interest 'i n r e p r od ucing such wo r ks of rarity i n ' fac simi l e form, thus

:: lIki ng them generally available.

IV

s wo r-d and s c abbard, Changsha , edi ted ,

e t c.

t h e la cqu er ba s i ns ,

and the la te Ch o u

Whi ch [fac si mi le co p i e s] had earlier ,been hidden away.,,1

e xplana tions co mp i l e d , and a

commentary on the Manuscript t e x t

{I~ i~

then "order ed his elde st son Hsiu-huan d e ta i l followin g

J added.

to p rep a r e drawings perfe c t

He

in e very

t h e original [ f a c s i mi l e ] c o pi e s " and thus ca me in to being ' th H Wan -

, 14 Chou tseng -:shu k ' ao -ch 'e ng . tha t ' the Ma n u sc r i pt wa s occ a s ion

silk writing exc a v at e d , at

There is accordingly,

ev er o wned b y T s ' a i

se ems t o have b een mer e l y th e

-

wha t

a remarkable lack of evidence

he had p ack ed a way on a n

e a r l i er

shee ts of fa csimile c o p i e s which were made

either b y h imself or by som e p ar t y whos e name is no t

r e c orded.

Ts'ai ' s wri tings con fi r m also other de t ails t o u c h e d upon in t h i s c h a p t e r

as tht

f o l l owing p assa ge d em on s tra t es: In r e c ent y ear s many Changsha as a

t h e c ity wal l s . 13

t om bs of C h o u and Ch' i n d ate have been e xc a vat e d a t

r esul t of wid ening and levelling of t h e te r r i t o r y outside T h i s La te Chou silk manus crip t

wi t h bla ck ink wri t ings

So far as I can ascertain it can b e no other than the results of a rather hurried a nd

reading o f the present sentence which has given rise, either d i r e c t l y or indirectly, t o the statemen'i tha t the Ch' u silk Manuscript was in TS' ai's possession (see Ch' en P' an

1Jc

po-shu k'ao','

~ F¥j ~~ ~

i!f

~, BAS Vol. 24, p. 193;

ch ' ang~sha ch'u-t'u Chan-kuo tseng-shu hsin-;hih

Ilt M

"Hsien-Ch' in Liang-Han

Jao Tsung-yi, op. ai ti ; , p . 67, also in his

* i:l' lli ± ¥J. '* ill' ~

duction, or bac kgr ou nd , paragraphs of most other surveys. of the CSM having been in his collection, or possession.

~ f~ , p , l ;

and in

Nowh e re , however, does Ts'ai The earliest published statement to the

effect that Ts'ai had the Manuscript i s in Ch'an P'an's article (loc. cit.) above.

But Ch'en did

have access to Ts'ai's book thus the transmission of the present sentence in a slightly c o u l d easily have given ris e to the error.

It has been followed by succeeding writers.

never possessed the Manuscript or the o t h e r artifacts he refers to - but merely f a c s i mi l e copies of them - the story, apparently originating in Jao's first survey, which relates his selling the Manuscript to Cox would seem to have little or ~o b a s is .

14

According to J a o Tsung-yi (op. cit. 'p. 67 ) Ts'ai had taken photographs of the Manuscript

these made into colour plates;

ch'ang-sha (Vol. 2, PI. 27). graphs of the original ... "

later on a tracing was made by Chiang Hslian-yi and published in his Jao c omme n t s :

"What a pity Chiang did not also incorporate the photo-

So far as I can discover there i s no r ecord of Ts'ai having actually

taken photographs - Ts' ai's own words would s eem to b e fai~ly clear on thi s point ( f;~ :.$: JJ( ~& ) not- ;: wi t hs tand i ng the ambiguity that sometimes attends ying-pen (cf. Mor ohas hi 10019 :55) "a rubbing"

( :h,

'* ) or a

"photographic [printing] plate" ( ~ ~

J:&:

~~ IOn

2J>: ) ~~r !t chiao-p'ien is,

of course, the more usual term for "p hotograph" so far as the significance c oncerned. reasons:

which may mean

Of the character ying is

I believe, furthermore; Ts'ai does not u s e ying-pen in the , s e n s e of ,photograph for threl , (1) t he classifier cheng is generally glossed in dictionaries as the classifi er for "[shes

ofl writing or artwork"

(Morohashi 898 2 ( i!!'

m~

JJ( '" ~

1ii t'L ),

"scrolls" ( iJ· It

the term ying-pen is shortly after referred to by Ts' ai as yUan-pen ( W,l,

fJR 2J>:

{,

i~IJ ~ Q\t

lation above) which does not app ear to be an a pp rop r i a t e way to r efer to "photographs" ,

- see trans'"

(3)

i ng s which Ts'ai's eldest son p r e p a r e d are obviously derived from sketches or drawings made at some ; earlier stage directly from the original items and executed in Chinese style "perspective". photographs were available and copied the results would have been different. so in the case of the CSM hand-copy.

And this is

An Chih-min ~ ~ ~ , who had access to Ts'ai's book and cites

it c op i ou s l y , correctly classified this hand-copy as one made "directly from the original Manuscript (i. e. not from photographs) see his "Ch' ang-sha Chan-kuo tseng-shu ch' i ch' i yu-kuan wen-t' i"

~

'* i!!' :&. J:t;:

1i BM M

m (Wen-wu

1963.9, p , 49).

question in terms of facsimile hand-copies.

* ry '"

It is well evident that he has read the sentences

THE VISCOVERY OF THE CH'U

MANUSCRIPT

~ILK

11

was [amongst several] found in a late Chou tomb containing a wooden sarcophagus [excavated somewhere] in the Eastern Suburbs. were neatly folded and stored in a bamboo casket. people did not know how to take care of them, came damaged.

The 'ma n u s c r i p t s

Unfortunately the Local

so that more than half

be~

Consequently, many broken fragments of silk fill.ed the Only the present Manuscript is complete and without mis~

bamboo casket.

sing pieces . •.• (op.

cit.

1. t a },

The existence of more than one silk manuscript was realized only re c ,ently and independently of information ob tained from the participant. thus valuable

f~rther

support although it

w~s

15

Ts'ai's account

recorded long ago - many of the

"levant details being unnoticed by other scholars who had access to the book,

except

tor An Chih-min who has cited the present passage amongst others (Wen-wu, 1963.9,

48).

The passage c o n t i n u e s significantly:

•••• and furthermore effectively demonstrates the fact that the [ground of the] document is silk. years,

it has turned

int~

As it has been buried i n the soil for many a Gdeep brown colour which to some extent inter-

mingles and blends with the [colour of the] characters. It is 15 inches 16 in width . and 18 inches in length. The writing is in black ink (amongst some of the broken fragments of silk,

there were instances also of charac-

ters written in red ink) and the characters executed as small as flyheads.

The brush-strokes are uniform and orderly; in every respect the

calligraphic style is that of the Liu-kuo [the Six S ta tes of the Chan-kuo period] ••••• (l.lb) Tl1ai's record of red characters on some of the fragmentary pieces would. seem to l\lggest that loose pieces of the Second Manuscript were also withdrawn together with

the

CSM in addition to the ink and fibre remnants presently bonded to its . surface.

Unfortunately, however, being unaware that Second Manuscript fragments were, adhering to the surface of the CSM,

indeed,

it did not occur to me to question the partici-

pant thoroughly as t o whether any appreciable number of fragmen tary pieces of the other"Manuscripts l

he reported seeing were also retrieved.

Query was,

of course,

See details in Jean Mailey's contribution in Early 'Chinese Art and its Possible Influence in the

"Qific Basin (Noel Barnard, Editor):

"Suggestions Concerning the Ground of the Ch'u Silk Manuscript

&1'1 ~lation to Silk.,.wei;iving in Pre-Han and Han China" and also my survey scientific Examination •... ~.

16).

It was not until some time after my interviews with the participant that the results of

"C1hnical 'examination conducted in the Metropolitan Museum revealed that traces of both ink and fabric Itmnants of a further silk document were adhering to the surface.

Hitherto, all of us who had studied

Manuscript simply assumed that the character remnants were the result of someone writing over Man~script.

original surface - or perhaps, the characters were on the under surface of the

I use .the terms "width" and "length" here .for Ts I ai I s WE tsung and tfi huang so as to accord with the I,levant data presented in Scientific Examination •••. (p. 13).

Upon comparison it will be observed

,hat Ts I ai's measurements are approximately 1/2" more for. both width and length.

possible this varia-

'Lon may indicate shrinkage or it may merely be due to rough and ready measurement.

As to Ts'ai's

.'.cription of the deep brown colour of the silk ground in terms of this being the consequence of ~~rial

and the colour as observed after excavation, this, too fits in with the details

Jlrticipant.

give~by

the

Also it supports well the doubts I raised (op.cit. p. 19) regarding T .H. TSien's state-

'Int that the colour change took place since its recovery from burial (Written on Bamboo and Silk, pp. U2-l23) •

THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY mad e i n res p ec t of oth er comp lete "Manus cript s" b e i ng re covered.

,.

Ts'a i's re cord a bove may thu s b e fai rl y r eliable insofar as o f t he other

" Ha n u scr i pts " migh t,

indeed, ha ve come to light to g e th er wi th t he CSM _

a ll · p robably a dhe r i ng to t h e CSM t og eth e r with pi e c es of t h e Se cond Manu scr i pt . wou l d have be e n d e ta ched d u ring c l e an i n g an d moun t i n g op era tions. On e impressi o n t ha t r e i gn s st r on g ly in my mi n d after d u e c o n s i der at i on o f s uc h informa t i on as T S'a i h as r ec o r d e d wh ich h as beari ng u pon t h e dis co v e ry of t heC h ' u Silk Manusc ript i s t h a t he wa s no t h ims elf ent i r e ly , le t alone dir e c tly, c o nv e r s ant wit h t he d e t ails o ~ t h e f ind.

I t wo u l d s eem e viden t eno u g h fr om b o th t he c o n t e n t

and t he manner of his present a tion t h at he wa s mainl y working upon se cond-hand informa t ion.

In his remar ka bly b r ief accoun t o f

t h e to mb s truc tur e h e expands his

tex t wi th elaboration s based upon passages sele c ted from t h e traditi onal li terature. TS' ai was, however, one o f t he bes t informe d p ersons in r egard to t he f inds made in Chang sha during the p eri od of exc a v a t i o n and levelling for road con st r uc t ion and building programmes out s i de t he c ity wall.

Sha n g mak es f r e q u e nt r ef erence in his

Ch 'a ng -sha ku -wu wen -chi e n -chi to t he ar t object s whic h came in to Ts ' a i's h and s and r ei ies a g reat d eal u pon . h i s desc ri pt i on s of bur ial con d iti o n s .

Ts I ai wr i t ing sev e n

o r mor e yea r s la ter probabl y d re,,, upon h i s n o tes and re c olle c ti ons · of det ai l s sp e cifically c o ncer ned wit h t h e CS M tomb wh ic h h e simply e laborated wi t h r el e van t info rmat ion d eriving from oth er t o mbs of c omparab le s t yl e and d a te .

1~~f>1

r-

I

I!

I if

~t

~

I I 1

, I

I I I

JD

I I

... ~

0.

1\ t

,I I

I I I

I I-----~;.D'I:- ..

---

-.:- - --+ -;;~ "'--=-1

I Figure 4 Plan , s ec tion , and general reconst ruct i on of a Changsha tomo of t he type in which t he CSM was sa i d t o have b een f oun d (a ccording to Ts 'ai Chi -hs iang) . One of t he two large r ect angle s i n t he plan represent s the coffin and the other , a box of identical s i ze i n which the ming-o h 'i were s upposedly stored. The lat t er i tem is very much open t o ques t ion. I n t he r i ght-hand drawi ng i t i s i nteresting to observe t he artist 's misapprehens i on .of t he nature of corner j oi ns. The dome-like s hape surmounting the s tructure compri s e s lime ; bamboo mat t i ng covers t he cei l i ng boards of t he tomb . So f a r as t h e early his tory of t h e Manus crip t a nd i ts dis co very is c o nc e r ned t h e r e appears to be little i nf o r~at i o n avail able o v e r and above t h at recorded in the pre c eding pages.

It wa s unearthed in 1934; apparen tly remained in t h e possession of

a t a i l o r namedT'ang Chien- ch'uan until circa 1938 wh en it came into th e hands of

THE VISCOVERY OF THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT Hadley Cox.

13

In this year it was taken from Changsha to the USA and practically

:Lng seems to have been known of its existence either Cin Changsha or in Washington ")

New Haven) until Ts'ai's survey and its illustration of this unique treasure was Curiously Ts'ai makes no mention of the whereabouts of the Manuscript and entirely unaware that it had been taken to the USA some five or years before.

It is conspicuously absent amongst the fine objects d'art from

Oox collection exhibited in the Gallery of Fine Arts at Yale id'1939.

Only in

when the two volumes of Chiang Hsuan-yi's Ch'ang-aha were published did it known that the CSM was in private hands in the USA. 17 It would be sheer speculation on my part to attempt any explanation regarding lack of information and the secrecy attending the existence of the Manuscript ~

1945.

It is, however, common knowledge amongst museum staff, collectors,

and others interested in such matters that for some time after this date • Manuscript was on offer to various Institutes in the USA for a. considerable s~ Owing to its illegible appearance and the fact that it was not a work of suitable for display purposes , it apparently was not considered attractive to warrant any appreciably large outlay to secure it.

Other

were, no doubt, instrumental in creating the generally cool reception CSM concern the primitive manner in which' this valuable document was r,served" during the long period it was off~red to various Museums; the general '/il"tment and storage methods are not, unfortunately, of a level calculated to elicit One of the two previous owners had pasted it to a sheet of thick, coarse This was kept in a roughly made folder of two equally thick and coarse It was in this condition that I first saw the in late 1961 in the Metropolitan Museum. "

lurface abrasion.

So far as I

18

The major danger here was

t~t

can judge from detailed examination of the "Met."

I'otographs against those prepared by Acto Scientific Photographic Laboratory Inc.

Ihere ~'h'

does not, however, appear to have been appreciable surface damage caused to

fabric. 19

The method of storage had, of course,

the advantage of allowing easy



regarded as a doubtful case because, in addition to such guidance as might be by the Mu-t'ien-tzu ahuan,

so many and varied are the other literary materials said

to have been incorporated in the Wei tomb that their presence, Assuming that a

tomb containing literary remains was,

explaine~,:

too, must be

indeed, discovered in 279 A.D.

we may now the better assess the significance of its alleged contents in terms of the well known Wu-wei find.

No one,

it may be recollected, has attempted to see any

special magical or mystical motives behind the placement of the Yi-ti

~mt

tablets

on the male tomb-occupant's coffin-lid; a quite realistic interpretation in terms 'of

'*

the ancient worthy being a specialist on the Books of Ceremony and possibly also an official in the commandery seminary (ahun-wen-hsueh kuan the excellent survey by Ch'en Meng-chia Wu-wei Han-coh i en

WJt '§[) appears lEt.oo