Xun Xu and the politics of precision in third-century AD China

Sinica Leidensia Edited by

Barend J. ter Haar Maghiel van Crevel In co-operation with

P.K. Bol, D.R. Knechtges, E.S. Rawski, WL. Idema, H.T. Zurndorfer

VOLUME 95

Xun Xu and the Politics of Precision in Third-Century AD China

By

Howard L. Goodman

BRILL

LEIDEN. BOSTON 2010

On the cover: The author's own cover design shows a third-century figurine of a di-flute player (adapted from Wu Zhao, Zhuixian shiqu de yinyue zongji; cited Figure 9, p. 227). We can imagine this as Lie He, the flute expert and ensemble leader from whom Xun Xu gained technical knowledge. Yet Xun also remeasured and refashioned Lie's way of making flutes and playing modal music by imposing his ideal of Zhou standards. (The E. Zhou bronze rule is adapted from photograph supplied by Nanjing University; cited Figure 4, p. 176.) This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goodman, Howard L. Xun Xu and the politics of precision in third-century AD China / by Howard L. Goodman. p. cm. - (Sinica leidensia, ISSN 0169-9563; v. 95) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-18337-7 (hardback: alk. paper) 1. Xun, Xu, d. 289. 2. Historians-China-Biography. 3. Scholars-China-Biography. 4. China-Intellectuallife-221 B.C.-960 A.D. 5. China-Politics and government-220-589. 6. China-History-Chin dynasty, 265-419. 7. China-History-Three kingdoms, 220-265. I. Title. II. Series. DS748.44.x86G662010 931.0072'02-dc22 [B]

2009053995

ISSN 0169-9563 ISBN 978 90 04 183377 Copyright 2010 by Koninklijke Brill NY, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

DEDICATION

To the spirit of learning and antiquity imparted by my father Mortimer Goodman (I9I7-I98I), and the support toward that of my mother Sophia. Also to the spirit ofsino logy imparted by Hellmut Wilhelm, Frederick W Mote, and Denis Twitchett, as well as their unforgotten friendship and that of their families.

CONTENTS

Dedication ..............................................................................

v

List of Maps, Figures, and Tables.... ...... .............. ......................

xi

INTRODUCTION: THE ZHENGSHENG JFJ~ MODE ...................... ..

Showing Up in Shishuo xi nyu ............................................ .. Biography Large and Small ................................................. A More Real Xuan .............................................................

1.

5 12

Directions Toward a More Real Xuanxue ...............................

17

Conclusions, Findings, and Suggestions .............. .................

22

Xun Xu's Use of Zhou Antiquity........ .................. .............. Politics of Precision ............. "........................................... Archeology, Historiography, and the History of Sciences and Technologies ........................................................ The Earliest Sources for Xun Xu's Life................................

22

25 27

The Seven Chapters and Acknowledgments ...... ...................

29

THE XUNS OF YINGYIN AND LUOYANG .................................

35

Commemorating Kin and Supporting Learning: Yingchuan to about 212 AD ............ .................... ............. The Lay of the Land ...................................................... Xun Leadership In and Around Yingyin ............................ The "Commemorative Tablet 1Ml for Prefect of Palace Writers Xun Yu" ........................................................................ Xun Yijing Scholarship.....................................................

The Xuns in Luoyang to about 282: Sorting Out Zhengshi Styles and Establishing Jin Imperial Ties ...... .................... Xun Can, a Prototype of the Zhengshi-era Mavericks ........... Xun Yi and the Traditional Path Followed by Can's Older Siblings .... ...... .... ..... ................ ..... ................ ..... The Impact of Xun Scholarship in Luoyang ......................... Xun Musicologists and Legists ........................................... Xun Xu's Foothold onto a New Career ................................ Xun-Family Pathos in an Entombed Epitaph of 295 AD ........

"Commemoration for Xun Yue ofYingchuan Yingyin, Jin-[EraJ Late Gentleman-in-Attendance of the Palace Wri ters" ...............................................................

23

38 40 43 50

52 57 59

62 65 69

72 75

78

viii

CONTENTS

Xun Wives and Daughters................................................ Material and Evocative Aspects of Xun Burials....................

Memory and Counter-Memory........................................... 2.

XUN xu'S FIRST POSTS, CA.

3.

AESTHETICS AND PRECISION IN COURT RITUAL SONGS, CA. 266-272 ....................................................................... .

80 82 84

248-265 ................................. The Political Taint of Cao Shuang's Regime, 240- 249 ..........

91 94 Former Cao-Wei Men as Ethically Correct Jin Stalwarts ........ 100 The Cooperative Exegete ..................................................... 103 Factions........................................................................... 107 Anti-Xun Xu Roots in the Wu War Factionalism ................. 109 The Tone ofXun Xu's Early Career ..................................... I I I Factions as Cooperative Struggle ......................................... lI8

Wealth and Collecting; Design and Construction .............. .. A Coterie of Lyric-Writers for Court Music ........................ ..

121 12 3 12 5

Higher and Lower Music; Court Music and Party Music ...... ..

12 7

A Lyric-Writing Competition ............................................. .

1 33

The Song-Writers as Political Actors .................................. . Competing Lyrics for the Dance-Song Performances ............ .

1 36

140 A Turn toward an Aesthetic of Precision .............................. . 1 50 The Aesthetic and Philosophic Thrust of Xun's Lyrics............ 153 Who Was the Xun Balladeer? ............................................. 155 4.

COMMANDEERING STAFF AND PROCLAIMING PRECISION,

273-274 ........................................................................ High-Stepping into Bureaus and Imperial Holdings.. ...........

CA.

161 163

Problems in the Bureaucratic Structure of the Palace Writers Office ..... ..... ................... ....... ...... ...... ............. An Archival Project with Zhang Hua ........................ ..........

164 168 The Wider World of Metrology.............. .......... .......... ......... 171 Xun Xu's Metrology ..................................... ~...................... 175 Xun Xu the Hypersentient "Metrosophist" ........ .................. 177 Xun Chuo, Writing For and About Family.................. ........ 179 The Earliest Descriptions of the Process behind Xun's Metrology.......... ........ ............. ....... ....... ..............

The Inner Story ofXun's Metrology..................................... The Antiquarian Flurry.................. ...... .......................... ..... Xun Xu's 274 AD Colophon Stating Seven Old Devices as Metrological Witnesses ................................................. Tracing Ghosts of the Official Bronze Foot-Rule ofJin .........

180 183 187

191 194 Li Chunfeng's Antiquarian Jury.......... ................ ................ 197 Li Chunfeng Throws Solvent on Legend and Evidence.......... 203

CONTENTS

ix

Ritual Mensuration, Music, and Early Sciences....... ....... ...... 207 The Prisca Zhou ............................................................. 208 Habits of Science in the Third Century: Status, Sites, Techniques .................................................................

5.

274-277 .................................. Problems of Pipes and Pitches .................. .............. ...... .......

Xun Xu's Flutes Versus Lie He's Mode...... .............. ............. Songshu's Bundle of Documents On Xun Xu's Musicology.....

215 217 217 225 228 228

Annotated Translation of Xun Xu's Memorial of 274 AD and Xun's Dialog with Lie He ........................................

232

Songshu Part 17: Xun Xu's Flute Temperament and the Impact of New Modes.................. .............. .......... ..........

256

A MARTINET OF MELODY, CA.

Flutes, Regulated Pitch, and Musical Scales ........ ............ ..... Xun Xu's Regulators and Di-Flutes .. ...... ............................

The Pitch Distortions That Xun Xu's New Flute Indirectly Attempted to Solve .... ................ ........ .................... ...... The Modal Variety That Xun Xu Attempted to Thwart .........

Proto-Sage Versus Martinet .......... .............. .......... .......... ..... Ruan Xian's Complaint: The Flutes Are Shrill and Laden with Grief......................................................... Ruan Xian in Mundane Terms.......................................... The Ruan Xian and Shan Tao Legends as Framed by Western Jin Politics......................................................

6.

212

277-284.. Policies That Shooed Off the Princes and Promoted the Rank-and- File ................................................................ A New Day: Victory Celebrations ............ .......... ................. First Reactions to the Ji Tomb ............................................. A NEW DAY, NEW ANTIQUITIES, NEW FACTIONS, CA.

259 263 265 266 269 272 279

281 286 290 Antiquities Emerge as Victory Is Celebrated........................ 292 Translation of the"Mu Tianzi Zhuan" Preface by Xun Xu's Official Team, Written 282-83 ........................... The Team Members ........................................................

295 301

The Ji-Tomb Texts Are Folded into Ongoing Work on the Jin Palace Classics Register Uin Zhongjing Bu) .............. 305 The Rest of the World Weighs In .. .............. ............ ............ 312 Calligraphy and Access .................................................... 313 The Zhang Hua Ambit .......................... ........ ...... ............ 320 Xun Xu and Zhang Hua as Forces in the Jin Offices for Historiography.. .......... .............. .......... .......... 325 Changes in Methods of Historiography.. .................. ...... ..... 334 Chronology as Theory and Practice .................................... 334 Xun Xu's Attempt to Impose a Zhou Chronology in the "First" Annals Edition .... ........ ............ ............ .........

336

x

CONTENTS

The Use of Shiji, and Several Candidates for the "Other" Annals Edition .............................................................

7.

A Foot-Rule Bubbles Up as Attacks on Xun Xu Begin ..........

338 346

"THEy'VE STOLEN MY PHOENIX POOL", 284-89 AND BEYOND ... Zhi Yu's Ambit and a New Anti-Xunism .... ..... ....... ... ... ........

351 352

Zhi Yu's and Wang Jie's Ideas about the Historiographical Value of Commentaries ................................................. Xun Xu in a Time of Anti-Xunism .....................................

353 362 365 367

Assessments in 286 of Hua Qiao's History of Later Han .... ..... Xun Xu's Demotion and Demise. ... ..... ..... ......... ....... ..... ...... The Post-Xun Xu Resumption of the Debate about Where to Begin the Jin Dynasty...................................... 370 Prisca Antiqua: The Spirit of Western Jin Scholarship and Letters ...................................................................... 374 The Primordial as Contactable .... .... ..... ....... .......... .... ........ 375 The Personal as Contactable . ... ..................... ........... ......... 378 Bibliography...........................................................................

383

Index ...................................................................................... 397

LIST Of' MAPS, HGURES, AND TABLES

Map. Details ofYingchuan Commandery and the Luoyang Area ............................................................. facing

35

List

Items ofXun-Family Intellectual Culture .........................

88

Seven Generations ofXuns (with Notes) ......................

44

Figure 2. Trajectories ofXun-Family Skills .................................. Figure 3. Xun Xu: Associations, Antagonisms, Influences ............

54 74

Figure 4. An Eastern Zhou Bronze chi ........................................

176

I.

Figure

I.

Figure 5. Ruan Yuan's Depiction of Gao Ruona's "Former Jin chi".. 195 Figure 6A. Twelve Pitch-standards (ps), or Lulu 1~ g................ 221 Figure 6B. Order of Computational Steps to Produce the Twelve Lulu........ ............ .... ...... ........... ........ ......................... 221 Figure 6C. Two Heptatonic Chinese Scales, With Notes Correlated to the Twelve Lulu ............................................... 221 Figure 6D. The Zhengsheng Scale Mapped to the Piano's Whi te Keys .......................................................................... 224 Figure 7. Fragments of Late-Warring States Bamboo Pitch-pipes. ........... ..... .... .......... .... ........ .................. .............. 226 Figure 8. Two Bamboo Transverse Flutes ..................................... 226

if, Player ......................

227

Figure loA. One of Several Extant Tang-era chiba RJ\. .... ...........

228

Figure 9. Figurine of Long-Flute, or Di

Figure loB. Layout of Di Finger Holes ............................... ........ 265 Figure II. Ruan Xian and His Lute; Shan Tao and His Drinking Gourd ................................................................... 272 Table I. Thirteen Men in Xun Xu's Ambit Who Were Mature during the Cao Shuang Years ................................................ 96 Table 2. Found-Objects Relevant to Xun's Metrology and Musicology........ ....... ......... ....... ................ .... ................. 188 Table 3. Xun Xu's Metrological and Musicological Creations ....... 191 Table 4. Five of Li Chunfeng's Fifteen Categories: Selected for Relevance to Xun Xu ............................................................ 199 Table 5. Xun Xu's and Zhang Hua's Influence in Western Jin Historiography Offices ................... ..... ............... 326

INTRODUCTION

THE ZHENGSHENG JI5t MODE Those who probe and search the dark depths have been doing so ever since Wang rBi} and He rYan} {JJF )j

@

6~) ..

-tf::

.~5)[,

1 Yijing

®;~~n

•• -®--

?05-74' • • discou;se wi 1 • • 1 Zhong reo 1

_ --

!t~ (Q 130+) expert in Jing Fang Yljing and chanwei prognostication; taught youthful Chen Shi.

__ - - -

245-~ 313

JinIH

'

.9_

I

1

Qca

/

'

"'g.y, an essentially pre-Han work that delves into all manner of technical thought, including in one place some specifics of metrology. Such a commentary is extant and ascribed to Fang. If he in fact was a Guanzi commentator, then he was not just a bystander to the world of technics and arts, but a dedicated transmitter. 61 This complicates in a most interesting way the question about intellectual fences among the early-Tang editors. Polymathic pursuits would have 60 Qiu Guangming n::7'tIVj and Long Yangping Ilffi;fJli~li., Zhongguo kexue jishu shi: Duliangheng juan I=lq~JlI~4~,:f;Hfj.5t'., )JtTI!:1[QJ~ (Beijing: Kexue chuban she, 2001), pp. 70-71, 81-84. 61 See Guanzi 1rr~f- I (sect. "Chengma" *Ji!{j) (SBCK edn.), pp. 17b-18a, on metrological terminology; discussed briefly in Qiu and Long, Zhongguo kexue jishu shi, p. 17. For scholars' having rejected Fang as the actual author and ascription to another Tang scholar, see W Allyn Rickett, in Michael Loewe, ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographic Guide (Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993), p. 249.

118

CHAPTER TWO

brought Tang scholars like Li, Xu, Fang, and others into common territory. Ultimately, the question ofXun Xu's high-stepping and causing controversy over metrology and harmonics is a real one. What did he do, and how far did he go? These matters will come out in due course. At this point, we can say that here the authorial voice of Fang, better, "Fang/Xu," wrote for skilled readers, and thus chose deflected phrases to judge a man famous for his devotion to precision. An unskilled reader would think that Xun was simply a harsh policy adviser who had stirred up resentment in locales over such things as tax-grain quotas and thus caused angry outcries. That would be a mistake.

FACTIONS AS COOPERATIVE STRUGGLE

This chapter has paid particular attention to several ways by which the political landscape of the 240S through 250S affected careers in Luoyang. We have positioned Xun Xu there by means of his and others' places in dusters and factions. Crucial was our listening for the political tone of the late-240s, a time that culminated in political murders. After 249 came a taint that could adhere to those who had been on the Cao side-the losing side (and the Sima dynasts in addition were tainted from having won). I suggested, however, that there was room for choice and development. That is in part because because many of the Wei-neutral and at least mildly pro-Jin types wished to move past the Wei's final image. The reign-name "Correct (or, Corrected) Beginning" helped accomplish this forward motion, and it was based at least in part on musicologists' debates. Xun and the men who would be associated most with him seem to have been part of a slightly younger cohort of late-Wei courtiers who, in contrast to an older and warier cohort, were more accommodating to power. Men like Xun Xu seem to have worn complicated political hats: they did not hide from Cao Shuang service but at the same time were becoming pro-Sima and tired of the Wei's tinkering with various kernels of legitimacy. Drawing on a useful phrase of David Knechtges, a scholar with a sensitive approach to medieval Chinese lives and ideas, I wondered whether and how the Simas may have been curious to identify and perhaps even villify anyone who had served Cao Shuang. Knechtges' key word was "ardent," and my own contribution to that metaphor is to say that "ardor" had several sides to it. I agree that from 249 to 265 the Simas would have been sure to demote or execute direct military supporters of any Cao attempt to storm back into the palace,

XUN

xu's

FIRST POSTS

119

as it were. In fact, they did eliminate hundreds in the purge of 249. But ifXun Xu's relatively young cohort (Table r) were relatively ardent in accommodating Cao Shuang, they nonetheless also demonstrated attitudes amenable to the Simas. In fact, my discussion proceeded to other groupings, like those whom I termed "Former Wei Loyalists of Deferent and Pious Comportment." They were singled out in 266 by Jin Emperor Wu as moral court leaders, and they included Xun Xu's kinsman Xun Yi. Wudi was seeking a different sort of ardor, namely filial reputation and nominal displays of loyalty to the Wei. Filial devotion plugs directly into the theme of Chapter One, where Xun Yi is seen gaining a solid place for himself as a mourner. A person's earlier support of the Wei could mean things other than military action. In short, the two Xuns, Xu and Yi, were cooperative during the Wei, were not overtly military until the 250S when Xun Yi made contributions to Sima strategy, and they were a family that possessed skill and learning in the court rituals. This made them able to mitigate any Cao Shuang taint and be seen as exuding the right kind of ardor. Thus they could segue into court literary posts that the Simas were highly concerned to fill. Several calls were put out and intellectual examinations held, but the Xuns would not have to submit to such vetting, since they were at the top tier of Sima loyalists. Both immediately found themselves in committees tasked, under the guidance of Jia Chong, with reviewing and correcting aspects of legal policy and administrative and criminal codes. Xun Xu's very first post-249 position was as Prefect serving outside of Luoyang, probably in the near south. He made a great impression there on local students. But what is more important in this moment is to see that the cooperative scholar would already be receiving enmity and gearing up as a factionalist. My narrative stepped out of chronological flow to show how the two great policy struggles of the 270s-80s may have had ad hominem roots already in the mid-260s. One of the most important things to take from the consideration of factions is that they were malleable and could be paradoxical. For example, the Jia-Xun faction did not oppose the war per se as much as they opposed the secretiveness of the dealings of Yang Hu and Zhang Hua: the potential of wealth to whoever led the invasion may have been a factor. In fact, the Wu War men were not as enduring and collusive a faction as were Jia's men; at the close of the war they did not remain a policy bloc and did not even reap advancements. They melted apart and took shape as a different faction with different agendas, as

120

CHAPTER TWO

discussed in Chapter Six. Finally, the emperor, who was in charge of (or at least had to give imprimatur to) the important commissions to establish new rites and policies, may not have felt the implications nor seen the lineaments of factions in the same way that his leading officials did. Therefore, despite enmities, such as that between Xun Xu and Zhang Hua, based on social status or perhaps raw loathing, and despite the oppositional stances that emerged when the heir-apparent affair developed, the emperor still placed Xun and Zhang on several commissions early in the 270s. Factions sometimes did not matter, but also sometimes they functioned more as wedges (with specific moments or policies breaking people apart according to loyalty networks) than as straight up-and-down oppositional fronts. 62 When court politics were strained, factions could, in a certain way, become vehicles for getting things done. The Tang editor of the seventh-century Jinshu forged another sort of tone concerning Xun Xu's life. The obscure way in which Xun was condemned may show us something about the way biographical truths tended to have multiple facets requiring multiple readings and outside sources. We noticed the editor's masking ofXun Xu's achievements in metrology and harmonics. This prompts us to ask about the place and the role of technical matters in the context of scholarship-especially court scholarship. Why would Xun Xu the cooperative exegete and calculating factionalist devote the next ten or twelve years to archeology, metrics, and the reform of the flute's scale-notes? First of all, as we soon see, those areas of study helped Xun Xu to establish his deep loyalty to the Simas by dismantling Wei ritual legitimacy in a bold, scientific manner. But also, Xun increasingly devoted energy to small scholarly and research teams. Through his court commissions he saw the usefulness of such teams as well as workshop artisans, the lowest of all court officials. As we move forward into Xun Xu's projects, we must keep in mind this expanded meaning of "faction," and come to see precision per se as an object of quarrel in the same way that dynastic succession and war policies could be.

62

This flexibility in factionalism is brought out in Yu, "Xi Jin dangzheng."

CHAPTER THREE

AESTHETICS AND PRECISION IN COURT RITUAL SONGS, CA. 266-272 Jue if]: The Turn The third step in the Chinese gamut, another whole step, is a "turn" - the jue note. It gives our ears the "major third" interval from gong. In early China's circle-of-fifths, the major third's length is assigned the fraction 7.III, whereas gong, shang, and zhi, have whole numbers. Numeric ratios begin to clash with the physics ofactual musical instruments. A musicologist in early China would know that beyond jue lay not just hard-toproduce notes, but a world of competing modes. For Xun Xu, the "turn" turned out to be a time of complexity and competition.

These several years were a turning point during which Xun Xu's career went in a new direction. He challenged his peers intellectually and experienced forward motion. He gained appointments to reform the court's music, starting with lyrics for ritual songs. We see for the first time his overarching principle as a reformer intent on a fundamentalist Zhou restoration, which on several occasions in China's past had served as an ideological frame in attempts to unify and shape the realm. A Zhou restoration, according to the most trenchant model, that of Wang Mang's (r. 9-23 AD) court, involved nominal and real changes in noble grants, official hierarchies, administrative and penal code, the calendar, architectural standards and shapes, and ritual song-texts and musical scales. As this book progresses, we shall see that Xun Xu directed many of these areas for the Jin court. Back in 260, Xun Xu had recently emerged, like many others, from associations with the Wei-dynasty court of Cao Shuang. He was already advising Sima Zhao and in addition was building a reputation outside Luoyang as a leader oflocal officials and students; he was made Intendant of Secretaries at court, with a minor noble title. After his inlaw Zhong Hui failed in his rebellion in Shu, and after Sima Zhao was made Prince ofJin, both in 264, Xun was appointed Palace Attendant. His posts were moving along on the scholar-adviser track of official-

122

CHAPTER THREE

dom, as opposed to the military track, and they were directly inside the palace archival and historiographical offices. Part of the relatively quick rise was due to his kinsman Xun Yi's solid place among the Simas. But Xun Xu himself was politic: he had imitated Yang Hu's gesture by turning down a noble title, and was eventually placed into the activities of a new court, becoming a scholar in the law committee. Xun's family had not been famous for any intertextual weaving, as it were, or for reshaping canons, that is, there was no Xun who synthesized Daoist and Confucian traditions by means of cosmological insights. There was one Yijing political moralist back in the late 100S and Yijing debaters closer to Xun Xu's day. Furthermore, not even in the early days at their Yingyin manor had Xuns attained literary leadership or forged a poetic voice in the new, more intimate styles. It is no surprise, then, that Xun Xu generally did not meet in soirees or exchange poems and quips (with one brief exception), nor was he particularly known in history as a commentator on the Confucian classics. He is known to have authored a work on the Classic ofFilial Piety, but no part of it remains. These were exceptional times for writers of classical commentaries, and in fact quite a few of the great examples from Wei-Jin times went on to be honored in subsequent centuries. Nevertheless, a scholar in the Jin era contributing to court ritual studies did not have to be, nor need to be, renowned as a classical commentator. The court program to gather scholars and revise rites offered places to Xun Xu and Xun Yi. The latter worked on the rites fl, which may have included aspects of court music. Xu was placed into the law codification project, a field in which the Xun family stood out (see Figure 2, Chapter One).l Several days after Sima Yan's imperial accession in February of 266, Xun Xu and Xun Yi were among a group of Sima boon-companions, including Yang Hu $tr't (221-278) and Pei Xiu ~* (224-271), who were promoted and enfeoffed. This coterie assumed control of state affairs at the outset of the dynasty.2 In Chapter Two we saw that upon accession, Xun Xu had been made Palace Attendant and he punctiliously declined a noble title. We pick up the Jinshu biographyexactly at that point:

I The entire Xun-family involvement in legal policy and compilations since the end of Eastern Han was discussed in chap. I, sect. "Xun Musicologists and Legists." 2 See jS 40, p. nGG; and 43, p. 1224: Pei was lauded and supported in this new status by Shan Tao.

AESTHETICS AND PRECISION IN SONGS

123

[Xun] was appointed as Inspector of Palace Writers, additionally [appointed] )jll Palace Attendant and Intendant Drafter 0'I~J1H1: [for historiography]. 3 Together with Jia Chong (217-282), he brought order to the regulations and commands (i.e., the system of adminstrative and criminal codes).4

The new posts in 266 were honors but not sinecures: young scholars worked hard. Furthermore they did their work at specific palace locations. Beginning at this point Xun Xu would focus on the physical surroundings of the Jin offices. The writing offices, where court annals and diaries, and old records pertaining to office ranks and codes, were being edited became his springboard to the Imperial Library, which in turn was a rich trove of texts, objects, and trained underlings.

WEALTH AND COLLECTING; DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION

It would seem that already by 266, Xun Xu's family had a mansion in Luoyang, and Xun indulged in pleasureful objects. If a passage in Luoyang qielan ji y~~ffiJ1nu :I~D (completed 547 AD) is to be believed, and there is positive reason to accept it, precious items were found perhaps sometime in the late 400S or early 50 os at a residence roughly two or three kilometers southwest of the Changhe Main Gate of the imperial inner city of Luoyang. Luoyang qielan ji expands upon a legend that claimed that the luxuries had once belonged to Xun Xu and that the site had been Xun's mansion before it was converted to a structure housing Guangming Jt SjJ Monastery. One of the objects was a set of two bodhisattvas mounted on a stand, with an inscription naming Xun as the owner; it purportedly read: "Made for Inspector of Palace Writers Xun Xu ... on the fifteenth day of the fifth month in the second year of the Taishi period (July 4, 266)."5 Remarkably, the year conforms to that in the above Jinshu passage. It makes the "outer story"

3 See Xun Xu's biography,fS 39, p. II53. "Drafter" could refer to Xun's responsibility to compile "diaries of activity and repose"; Beitang shuchao ~tllt~Fg;y (n. p.: Nanhai kongshi sanshi you san wan quan tang edn., 1888) 57, p. 2a, cit. Wang Yin's "Jinshu," claims that Xun was commissioned in this post to compile the benji of Sima Zhao (Wendi). 4 LiulBiannian 7, p. 60, claims Jia's exegetical project to adjust the legal code was initiated earlier, in 264, but we know that it was not completed until about 268. List I (part 2) indicates that Xun Yi was producing compilations on both ritual and administrative code (see especially "Jin xinli" and "Jin zayi"). 5 Luoyang qielan ji (SBBY edn.) I, pp. 9b-IOa; trans. Wang Yi-t'ung, A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo- Yang, by Yang Hsuan-chih (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 1984), pp. 55-56; the 6th-c. plan of Luoyang is Wang's map I, p. 14. Standard chrono-

124

CHAPTER THREE

about Xun's mansion and artworks indeed quite believable: one wonders if the statue and colophon were dedicated to the day on which he achieved his career milestone. Stories like this grew up in the following centuries. Shishuo xinyu, juan 21 ("Skill and Art"), says that Xun Xu was a collector of valuable artifacts, a type of material pleasure that complements the story of the statue. We learn about a personal struggle between two haughty families: an extremely valuable sword of Xun Xu was illegitimately obtained by his in-law uncle Zhong Hui. In order to avenge himself of the loss sustained by such a trick, Xun, " ... who was a very skillful painter, went in secretly (to the nearly finished Zhong mansion, which was not yet occupied) and painted the walls of the Zhongs' gatehouse with a portrait of their late father, Zhong You, his clothes, cap, and features just as they were while he was alive." The portrait affected the Zhongs deeply, especially because of its accuracy. 6 We would be right to suspect the high drama given in a story about revenge by portraiture. But aside from legend and fiction, as with many anecdotes we are helped by the numerous documentary kernels of truth. It seems that Xun Xu was in fact an appreciable, maybe excellent, craft-painter. The Tang-era history of painting and portraiture Lidai minghua ji Hl1~~ :&i1c. corroborates it. We read a remark on Xun's renown and his place among the few greats of Jin times, and his inhabiting the topmost category of skill, or ®. Quoting a Qidynasty text, it says of Xun and another top-category painter, Zhang Mo*~: Their attitude and style were of utmost excellence and participated with the gods. [As artists] they only selected essence and living spirit, leaving behind the [mere] skeletal outlines. If we are restricted to [the way they] gave shapes to things, then [their] fine essences are not visible. But if we choose from outside the realm of imagined shapes, then [we see that they] had become disinterested in lavishness. This can be called subtle logical tables would disagree with the translation "June 24"; thus I correct to "July 4." The same story, condensed (perhaps quoting another tradition), appears in Fozu tongji {VllfIHf~j,lc (13th c.) 36, and in other florilegia. Wang, ibid., pp. xiii-xv, notes that Luoyang qielan ji was occasionally used as a source by such compilers as Yan Kejun Ilt~liJM], and frequently archeologists and art historians rely on it. Certain aspects of the Xun Xu anecdote we might reject, e.g., the holy lights and the statue's coming to life. (Alexander Soper, Literary Evidence for Early Buddhist Art in China [Ascona: Artibus Asiae, 1959], p. 7, rejects the truth of the anecdote entirely, but for reasons I find not too convincing.) (, SSHYIMather, p. 365. On Xun-Zhong relations, see Howard L. Goodman, "Chinese Polymaths, IOo-300 AD: The Tung-kuan, Taoist Dissenters, and Technical Skills," AM 18.1 (2005), pp. 151-53.

AESTHETICS AND PRECISION IN SONGS

excellence. H~ *,U *~~.

)IIll¥~M10t,

*S l!-X Z ~ T;ni}j}';!:tWr.'" Here, I use the wording of the Taiping yulan version to bring out Xun Xu's hubris; Mather has "he personally tuned the kungs and shangs ... so that none was out of tune."76 3) Certain critics, presumably supporters of Ruan Xian's musical opinion, claimed that Ruan had a "spirit understanding."77 Liu pursues the parallelism he already began, now balancing Xun's I,!f.J fijip with Ruan's trl1fijfp. 4) At the public performances, Ruan's own convictions made him think poorly of Xun's music, but he said nothing. With the Taiping yulan variant, Ruan seems distinctly more noble than Xun, 73 See SSXYII, p. 530; trans. SSHY/Mathe1~ p. 357. Main features, including the unflattering portrait ofXun, are repeated in IS 22 "Yue zhi" A, p. 693. A variant "SSHY' text is quoted in TPYL 565, p. 4a [2552]. 74 For "If*~ffli(''' Mather says "intuitive." "An" has several semantic directions, including "intuitive," but also "hooded and ulterior" and something like "shallowly brilliant." IS 16A, p. 490, uses an in the sense of "automatically"; and clearly to mean "dumb, or shallow"; see IS 39, p. II57. Also IS 22 "Yue zhi" A, p. 693, carries this sense when restating this very anecdote. 75 The TPYL variant has JRll:Jliflc:Vq:j:rr ("[someone] created four-finger [instrumental pieces]"; perhaps referring to tunes played on pipa, but that is a mere guess. 76 TPYL's I~] fiW (also used in IS 22, "Yue zhi" A, p. 693), takes the place of SSHYs 1"liOia. A locus classicus for .!/t!:fil"r is Shangshu ~'f]:f1Jr~ (sect. "Shundian"): "(When) the eight (kinds of) sounds ... can be harmonized ];'t!:flkY and not encroach upon each other, Spirits and men will be brought into harmony"; trans. Karlgren, "Book of Documents," p. 7. Xi Kang's famous essay on music cites the phrase as well; see Robert G. Henricks,

Philosophy and Argumentation in Third-Century China: The Essays of Hsi K'ang (Princeton: Princeton U. p', 1983), p. 8+ In the sixth century, Suishu's opening, metaphysical claim in "Treatise on Music," 55 14, p. 285, states: "We speak of tones/notes ~J: they are rooted in the Great Beginning but come out from men's heart/minds. According to [the various categories of] real things, sympathies are stirred and distributed into the stuff of forms. When the stuff of forms becomes activated, it is harmonized into the [array of] pitch-standards. Gong and Shang are successfully tuned ~~];H;ij'~fi~Y, and we nalne it 'music.'" 77 The TPYL text has 1J~J'lj6um~2., where SSHYhas only 1J~'f,iI~J. Mather's translation (" ... and his contemporaries claimed ... ") suggests that Ruan had his own partisans.

268

CHAPTER FIVE

since he controlled his mouth, being careful not to say anything; the Shishuo version amplifies Xun's dark qualities-he even knew the words intended by Ruan's silence. 78 5) Xun resented the silent disapproval (was "mentally jealous") and demoted Ruan to Grand Administrator of Shiping ~t,\F;' (in modern Shensi; then some couple dozen kilometers west of Yongzhou; or Charig' an). The variant text, being somewhat pro-Ruan, says that "[Xun] summoned Ruan back south [to the capital] 1'/)( IVl:I'hli," showing Xun's capitulation. The anecdote then continues with the Shiping affair about the "discovery" of an ancient foot-rule that proved Ruan Xian's "divine knowledge," the episode treated in Chapter Four. Ruan, according to his supporters, had brilliantly perceived a problem with Xun Xu's new metrics and consequently knew that the new flutes, which expressed Xun's pitch-standards, were wrong. What is new here is persona: the troublesome Xun Xu naturally bows to the sublime Ruan. An earlier text found in Fu Chang's 1~~ "Jin zhugong zan" 0~ ("Eulogies of the Archons of Jin"), from about the early 300S/9 frames the incident blandly, but with new details. r) Ruan Xian complained that Xun's sounds were too high because the new metrics varied from those of antiquity. A variant of Fu's anecdote is a bit more sympathetic to Xun Xu. 80 2) Ruan's philosophical remark on the new tuning system held that "a high pitch connotes grief." (He refers to Liji's '''The music of a dying state is sad and full of longing ... ," which Li Chunfeng also quoted in his review of the incident.) Furthermore, Ruan offered a type of proof: extant ancient bells and sounding stones matched Du Kui's pitch-standards and did not match Xun's.81 Thus, Du Kui's system should not have been changed. 3) After banishment to Shiping, Ruan died (presumably there). 78 In TPYL Xun is made into the perceiver ofthe denigration: "Xun in his heart thought that (i.e., intuited) Ruan's conception [about music] would logically [cause Ruan] to claim that [the music] was out of tune." TPYL also suggests that Ruan was the nobler person: " ... although Ruan's mouth, even from the very beginning, [uttered] no words of protest." SSHYis quite different: " ... it was because Ruan never spoke a word to Xun that [Xun] understood [how much] he resented him"; cf. Mather's translation. 79 Fu Chang, quoted in the Shishuo commentary; see SSXY]], p. 530 (trans. SSHY/ Mather, p. 358). so TPYL 16, p. 3a [80], has Ruan "stepping forward right away to dissent III"H~m" against Xun's pitches, and uses phrases to make Xun seem quite skillful, and perhaps really the better musicologist. Sl Mather's translation suffers from an accidental elliptical sentence. Mather is undoubtedly correct that the reference here is not to actual bells that Du had made, but the bell pitch-standards.

MARTINET OF MELODY

269

Fu Chang's version ends, as did Shishuo, with the dubious foot-rule discovery in Shiping. Fu is not concerned with the battle of personas: his is just a plain report about court musicological troubles. Furthermore, Ruan does not rise to the level of hero, the one whose philosophy of music is meant to save the state. Fu hedges the technical question by hinting that Xun Xu had actually been right about the litlit system.

Ruan Xian in Mundane Terms There is evidence about the extended family of Ruans, and it has been put to use in Donald Holzman's commanding study of Ruan Ji llfC*"i (210-263), the uncle of Ruan Xian. In Eastern Han the family had been a solid example of the administrative elite. Ruan Ji's own father was Ruan Yu IJGJ~, a noted scholar-one of the literary Jian'an Masters Jt3'C-tr, and a loyal aide to Cao Cao. He had been a pupil of Cai Yong and was, like Cai, a renowned zitherist. Musical skills filtered down for several generations of Ruans. As Holzman showed,82 one cannot put Ruan Ji and his ilk into an easy category; at times they waxed poetic about power and service, at other times hid from it in anguish or simply avoided power-brokers through drunkenness and insousiance. 83 Sometime in the 250S, Ruan Ji had been associated with Xun Xu's kinsman and mentor Xun Yi iU~j in a multi-scholar project to compile Wei history, as we noted in Chapter One. 84 Both Ji and his son Hun 1JG~i!I (fl. 260-85) wrote essays and exegeses on Yijing topics. Music and Yijingwere coalescing already for some time as a new blend of interests that fed into the early fashions in xuanxue philosophies and debates. But in any event, Ji discouraged Hun from following him in a career of eccentricity, while his nephew Xi an did follow him. 85 Ruan Xi an's bare Jinshu biography mentions his highest post (Gentleman Attendant of the Cavalry), his purported penury as a "poor Ruan" (with the implication that he and Ruan Ji actually pushed their own branch of the family into poverty), and his musical skill in har82 Donald Holzman, Poetry and Politics: The Life and Works o/juan Chi A.D. 2IO263 (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 1976), where Ruan Xian does not figure much. See Mather's biographies of Ruan Xian and his sons; SSHYIMather, pp. 538-39. All facts, below, on Xi an's life are given in his limited biography in jS 49, pp. 1362-63, unless otherwise noted. (TPYL 583, p. 3a, cites some of the same phrases, taking them from an early "Biographies of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" 11·l*-t;i~1W.) 83 Ruan narrowly avoided serious trouble by evading the visits of Zhong Hui; Holzman, Poetry and Politics, p. 59, also p. 98. 84 Also, see Holzman, Poetry and Politics, pp. 52-53. 85 On Ji's Yijing .0jr.g~, see ibid., pp. 93-99; also jS 49, p. 1362, and S5 32, p. 910; for Ruan Hun's, see Zhu Yizun *Jj1(,~~~, jingyi kao r.~1~'-f'~~ II, p. 2a.

270

CHAPTER FIVE

monics and performance on the pipa. From other sources we learn about Ruan Xian's having made lyrics for the qin .86 Ruan's interest in the pipa included a new style of construction for it; this gained him fame in following centuries. 87 We cannot tell for sure when Ruan Xian was born (or even when he died); but his birth seems to have occurred around 235. It also seems that he started a family only late in life. 88 His biography mentions that he frequently associated with Ruan Ji and kept out of public life, interested mainly in playing music at family parties. As mentioned, he authored lyrics for instrumental melodies. He also wrote classicist works, including one on the Yijing-his "Essay in Answer to Doubts Raised about the Zhou Changes" JWJ~i~~~.89 As a young man, he was so handsome that he inspired sighs from other men, seemingly in contexts of recommendations to office. 9 (J He was recommended to the Jin court by Shan Tao ill (2°5-283), who likewise became famous as YFSj 60, sect. ":~.FilI11~fJ.:i~j'(:, 4" mentions that the qin piece "Sanxia liuquan ge ~=-:u~ :JlZP:l~~I, was actually written by Ruan (citing "Qinji" ~t 4i~). Ruan Xi an also seems to have left a collection of writings, not extant today: "Ruan Xian ji," in Ijuan (see Songshi ;;j~st 203 ["Yiwen zhi" 2], p. 5332). 87 Xin Tangshu iIYi')jif{lf 200 (biog. Yuan Xingchong }L:h'~'II), p. 569: "Someone once broke into an old tomb and got a cast-bronze device resembling a pipa; its body was a regular circle [in shape]. No one could distinguish [its category] A.~figWY:. Xingchong said, 'This is the [music] instrument that Ruan Xian made.' He ordered [artisans] to change it into wood, and had it strung tlil h) l.),~(, tL,c. Its tones were clear and elegant JPlif.3,£~1Ii, and the musicians thereupon called it a "Ruan Xian." TPYL 612, p. loa, cites this via "Guochao zhuanji" l~xPlYHW.iYC. On the "Ruan Xian pipa,"see Yang, Zhongguo gudai yinyue shigao I, p. 131. 88 I find no references to Ruan's birth or death dates; also, Xu Jian nH~ (Qinshi chubian 2j:.'i!. {

3) < Masters of Documents and Foremen Clerks in the Imperial Library [ministers] Qian, Xun, and Ji JWJ, ~fj- > 4) < Text Collator in the Imperial Library, Zhang [minister] Zhou 1Y:~t:-: III QI5 ~l~

[Gl.] Hf > 4l

5) 42 < The ancient-script Mu Tianzi zhuan has been completed; we respectfully make a report that combines and orders [the text(s)].111·50r,&kf 1~~ C,'f~ 1'[

This ends the spurious portion ofXun's preface. The text of today's extant editions of the preface now follows. My translation, below, adopts that of Shaughnessy with stylistic and nonsubstantive variations, but also gives several comments in the notes concerning substantial differences. In the second year of the Great Vigor [Taikang] era ;((»}t)I': (from February 6,281, through January 25,282),43 people ofJi county illicitly burgled and opened an ancient tomb. As for the texts that they obtained, they were all bamboo strips, bound with silk r~frfm~~j~f,~;d. Based on the minister [Xun] Xu's L), 1: 1lWj44 prior determination of the ancient (that is, Zhou) foot-rule, we measured the lengths of the strips as being two chi, four cun~J\!'ITg -'llong; they were written with black ink, each strip having forty characters. Ji is in the the territory of the Warring States-period state of Wei. Based on the Annals that were obtained ~NI' q!,~acif:, this was the tomb of Wei Huicheng Wang's ~J1Ut!:.~nx;r son Ling Wang {>( _T. [sic] .45 In "Roots of the Generations [Shiben],,,46 this was

41 Zhu, }izhong, p. 49, thinks this should be "chen Zhou" but was later miswritten as "Zhang Zhou." 42 Ibid., also holds that this originally was "chen Zan." 43 Assuming actual first robbery or first report of robbery was in late fall of 279 (following Wudi's Annals), here Xun's statement shows that well-connected officials themselves may have been confused over the date of the act versus the date of the report. See, above, n. 27. 44 Shaughnessy has "Based on my.,. ": this is plausible, but I prefer to see the preface as written as a bureau announcement, in passive tone and third person. 45 Pei Yin's commentary at Shiji 44, p. 1849, quotes He Qiao (via Xun) stating this fact as well, but using the phrase "~I.. " The SBCK edn. also writes the incorrect "~"; the Ming edn. of HWLC as well as the principal Qing-era re-cuts of the latter, all continue with "ling", but the SKQS version of HWLC as well as Yan Kejun's C}W version of the preface both correct it to "jin." See Shaughnessy, Rewriting, pp. 134-35, 140, for an explanation of ''jin wang." He is right to say that we cannot know whether Xun Xu and his team or a later printing made the error in the preface text. 46 "Shiben" was mentioned in HS 30 ("Yiwenzhi"), p. 1714, as a genealogical histo-

NEW ANTIQUITIES, NEW FACTIONS

297

Xiang Wang Based on the "Chronological Tables of the Six States" in the Records of the Historian from the twenty-first year of Ling Wang [sic] until the year of the burning of the books in the thirty-fourth year of Qin Shihuang47 was eighty-six years, and to the second year of [current] Taikang when these texts were first obtained was in all 579 years. (The following ellipsis represents a passage dealing solely with the narrative features of "Mu Tianzi zhuan" itself. I am dispensing with that discussion.) ... Ji commandery collected the texts carelessly, losing and breaking many of them. Although their phrases are not standard, they are all the ancient text [versions], and can indeed be viewed and gone over ~lfl~JtY(/f"; j.I~ ryJikI'I-flj':)J},l"nl~l 'itX. [We, or, the Imperial Library]48 carefully transcribed them onto yellow paper two-feet [high]49 and submitted them ~. ·.)~jlURI[SJ:, requesting that after events had settled down both the original strip texts and the transcription be given to the Palace Library to be copied. [The officials] will store them in the Palace Classics and duplicate [them] in the Third Archive (or, Three Archives) »i~Lrlrf.~l~, mlj;(E~_·.-:I*J.50 [This] Preface respectfully [submitted].51

Seven points emerge from the preface: I. Chronology of discovery, retrieval, transcription, and preface Xun understood much of the in situ conditions of the tomb materials, but this would have been got from hearsay. Despite the remarks about physical aspects, it is doubtful, even if possible, that he inspected the tomb in person in Ji commandery. He assigns the year Taikang 2 (ending late-January, 282) to the robbery and the handover of slips to the authorities. Generally in chronological summaries like this, the use of

ry; commentators have asserted that it was a source used by Sima Qian. See also SS 33 ("Jingji" B), p. 990. 47 The HWLC and SKQS edns. incorrectly read "Qin shiwang ~:F"; following SBCK, I use Qin shihuang "ltL" 48 I differ from Shaughnessy, Rewriting, p. 140, who translates the previous sentence as ''Although the language is not eloquent, they are all ancient texts rather worthy of note. The Director carefully transcribed them ... " He may have accidentally read ~~ as\:gi:, thus implying a full-stop after W3L I have observed the punctuation provided in the Ming edn. of HWLC, namely: "nnIBI1~." The subsequent sentence thus contains no stated subject. 49 Shaughnessy, ibid., says "width," but this in the sense of a long scroll's width. Yithai ],Jr~ 58 (Xuxiu SKQS edn., p. II5I), quotes Zhongxing shumu's rclrJl'~~·~ln-::1 small precis of the preface, which states that the transcriptions were made on "one-foot" "writing paper fif*[l;" not "two-foot" "yellow paper." 50 Shaughnessy, Rewriting, p. I4 0 , says" ... and to be placed in the Central Classics ... ". The action here may be simply the inserting of the yellow sheets of new transcription into Xun's ongoing catalog called "Jin Zhongjing." Alternatively, rlrl.:\~{ may have been shorthand for the specific archive of the Palace Writers offices. On both points, see below, sect. "The Ji-Tomb Texts Are Folded into Ongoing Work." 51 Ibid., does not translate this final, short sentence.

298

CHAPTER SIX

dates tends to flatten events. We can refine things by using circumstantial evidence from official titles and other details. We can accept "fall/winter 279-80" (from Wudi's "Annals") as the officially reported time of the robbery, even though the robbery per se may have involved many months of tunneling and deception. From about January of 280 to February of 281, while large-scale war logistics, including demobilization, were underway, the bamboo slips were gathered into carts by Ji authorities and taken to Luoyang and stored at first in the Imperial Library. There, the Library Inspector Xun Xu and others measured, cleaned, and sorted damaged slips. Based on processes seen in modern archeology, it is unlikely that Xun's team could have finished cleaning and sorting more than a very small percentage of the texts by February, 281. Moreover, we do not have to assume that after "Taikang 2" (after late-January, 282) no further cleaning and sorting occurred. A fair deduction about the actual time of transcribing Mu Tianzi zhuan is that the Xun team, having established that its bamboo-slip text was in decent enough shape, perhaps the best of all,52 spent from about mid-281 to mid-282 transcribing it onto presentation paper in modern characters. We saw that Xun Xu was made Imperial Household Grandee in 282, an appointment that logically occurred prior to the presentation of the preface. In the "old colophon," He Qiao was called "GentlemanConsultant in the Palace Writers" and listed after the name of his superior, Xun Xu. He is treated in detail, below, but one fact must be mentioned: he is known to have been Prefect of the Palace Writers in about 282, an apparent promotion occurring late in that year. In sum, the text of Mu Tianzi zhuan and the preface (with its general description of Ji Tomb texts) were completed by a point late in 282-before He Qiao's promotion. 2.

Timing vis-a-vis Du Yu

Given factionalism and Xun Xu's tendency to control personnel, we have to assume that at first only the Xun team had access to the Ji Tomb original slips. Xun must have decided to use the Mu Tianzi zhuan preface in particular for some reason as a vehicle for making a report on the damaged texts and the team's techniques. I would argue that it was the very first such report to have been based on examining the bamboo slips. Du Yu's report narrates his own itinerary: already 52 Initial shipment to the Imperial Library and the good extant condition of Mu Tianzi zhuan are both stated by Du Yu in his own report; see Shaughnessy, Rewriting, p. 143.

NEW ANTIQUITIES, NEW FACTIONS

299

ensconced in the south upon closure of the war, he went from Jiangling 1Ir5~ to Xiangyang ~ ~J)J in "282, month 3" (which began March 26). A few lines later, he says, "I got to see [the slips] late."53 In my opinion, "seeing" would place him in Luoyang, but probably early in 283. Deducing when and how Du saw the slips is a difficult matter that is pursued later in this chapter. 3. Editing difficulties We learn that the original strips had been strung with silk chords, had used black ink, and had been handled poorly by Ji commandery authorities. There is reference to loss and breakage (confirmed by Du Yu and Shu Xi). Xun thus has an excuse for possible mistakes in rearranging the jumbled slips. He seems to be letting us know that it was difficult. Another sort of excuse is the phrase "after events had settled down," which indicates that there had been some confusion, perhaps in the area of lines of authority and orders, as personnel and resources were thinned out during the war. But if we take the verb as "settle down" (in the future indicative), it may refer to intense goings-on in the Library, with Xun's mustering personnel.

4. Summary of Mu Tianzi zhuan The preface gives a full summary of the contents of Mu Tianzi zhuan. I have not included Shaughnessy's translation of that portion. 54 It lists its narrative parts and mentions its descriptive language. This will have, as we see, some bearing on the matter of Xun's having provided, or not, summaries of the contents of items that went into the lin Palace Classics register, as discussed later. 5. Measuring strips and line-lengths Above, Xun Xu refers to his metrology of the 270S that established a reformed Jin "foot" that he could demonstrate was a return to the Zhou foot. After stating that the lengths of the ancient bamboo slips (perhaps implying all of them) were 2.4 Zhou feet R (= approx. 55.44 cm),55 the preface then says that he transcribed them to yellow paper Ibid. See ibid, p. 17 2 . 55 Many pre-Qin slips from Chu (most of our retrieved examples) are in the 35-55 cm range (personal communication from E. Shaughnessy, April, 2009), and we can extrapolate this to northern practices. In Han times 55 cm was also one of several standard lengths; see Michael Loewe, "Wood and Bamboo Administrative Documents of the Han Period," in Edward L. Shaughnessy, ed., New Sources of Early Chinese History: An Introduction to the Reading of Inscriptions and Manuscripts (Berkeley: So53

54

300

CHAPTER SIX

2.0 new-Jin-feet tall (46.2 cm)-significantly different in size. Any notion that Xun's "2 feet" resulted from a metrological conversion from the "2.4 Zhou feet" would seem incorrect. In earlier chapters we learned that the standard that Xun Xu reformed by shortening was the incorrect Eastern Han- Wei foot, not the Zhou foot, and the differential for that had been .04 foot, not" .4". (Eastern Han and Wei practice had lengthened the purported Zhou foot by this tiny amount.) The Ji Tomb had contained late-Zhou-era slips, thus Xun would not have corrected downward by a ".04" per foot, since his "New Jin chi" paralleled the Zhou value. Furthermore, by choosing a much shorter paper size, the team either squeezed the original 40-character-per-line standard onto the much shorter dimension, or let the lines flow their own way. 56 Shaughnessy's study has shown that in fact, considering the extant Zhushu jinian (we are thus not speaking of Mu Tianzi zhuan) with its 40-character lines, Xun's transcription did not parse into accurate 40-word lines. Xun was seeking a certain regularity outside the needs of mere facsimile transcription: he was aiming for both fine display and modular efficiency in archival storage. In addition, the fact of colored paper bears on our discussion, below, of a classifying scheme being imposed on the Palace Classics register.

6. Disposition and storage As with the Han-era flute-regulators that he and Zhang Hua discovered in 274, Xun again demonstrates the extensive control he had over retrieved objects of antiquarian and ritual interest; he could, if he so deemed, destroy objects that he thought incorrect or of no use, or he could direct them to be carefully saved, which he ends up announcing as: " ... store them in the Palace Classics and duplicate [them] in the Third Archive (or, Three Archives)." This alerts us to the probability that at least two, and maybe more, copies of the team's transcriptions were made, and possibly even direct facsimiles of the bamboo-slips per se, imitating their ancient character forms and damaged areas. Moreover, storage in the Archives indicates that a more secure place than the

ciety for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1997), pp. 161-68. 56 Zhu, Jizhong, p. 10, believes that in fact Xun was making a metrological correction (followed by Shaughnessy, Rewriting, p. 141, who also assumed that the Ji Tomb supplied the items that allowed Xun to reform metrology: the latter had occurred, however, in 273-74). Further, I do not accept Zhu's theory about Xun's having produced 2o-character lines on his paper medium.

NEW ANTIQUITIES, NEW FACTIONS

301

Imperial Library was sought, one less vulnerable to access by scholars of whom Xun Xu did not approve.

7. Shiji and chronology The team noticed that the slips used datings based on a local king's own reign years. They consulted Shiji for converting those to a more general chronology. In the part of the preface not included, above, Xun also states that the bamboo-slip story of Muwang was similar to that found in Shiji. This will bear on our further discussions of the approaches to historiography during Xun Xu's time.

The Team Members Xun Xu's imperially commissioned team was pressing forward to get the Ji Tomb texts organized into something they viewed as close to the originals but also to transcribe them into modern orthography. A chief aid was He Qiao fU dill (b. ca. 235; d. 292), named in the "old colophon" as a "Gentleman-Consultant in the Palace Writers." We have a problem with errors and poor organization in his Jinshu biography. 57 We learn facts about his older kin, a few of his titles and posts, and his style of mourning for parents, but few chronological anchors exist, probably reflecting even earlier textual deficits. He Qiao's family were of somewhat lesser noble status than the Xuns but were rising in stature and especially in wealth. 58 He was lauded as governor at Yingchuan ~)II, which was the home region of the Xun family, a factor possibly contributing to Xun Xu's suspicion. Acting as a kind of prefatory summary of He's life, without any datemarkers, the first paragraph says that he gained praise from Jia Chong and came to the emperor's attention, then became Prefect of the Palace Writers. (This is a key datum and is analyzed, below.) He Qiao openly disliked Xun Xu and seems to have been aligned with the proWar faction. He was in fact lauded by Zhang Hua. In the biography of Ren Kai 1:f't:1t1:, who was an influential adviser of the throne throughout the 270s, we are told that Ren's associates included He's "followers" and Zhang Hua, and that these (and other) friends of Ren were 57 One example is at IS 45, p. 1283: He together with Xun Xu and Xun Yi goes to assess the heir-apparent's condition; the episode is placed after the date-marker "When Wu was pacified"; but it cannot be dated post-280, since Yi died in 274. Shaughnessy, Rewriting, p. 138 (and his n. 20), although citing the old colophon seems to err by saying He Qiao was on Xun's team with the rank of ling Zhongshu ling. We have just seen that the colophon says "ling Zhongshu huiyi lang." 58 Du Yu stated that He was obsessed with money; see He's biography, IS 45, p. 1284.

302

CHAPTER SIX

aligned against several chief members of the Jia-Xun faction-namely, Jia Chong, Yang Yao, and others. 59 We must attempt to reconstruct He's career ladder because his role in the Ji Tomb texts and in Xun's life is much more complex than simply aiding Xun Xu in the Mu Tianzi zhuan transcription. His biography later states that "when Wu was pacified" He Qiao was made Palace Attendant 1~ t=p and received special courtesies, thus occurring about 281. The appointment as Palace Attendant was not linked to a place in the Palace Writers hierarchy; in fact, a high official in the Writers could also be a Palace Attendant. The Jinshu editors then restate a famous Shishuo xi nyu anecdote about the conflict between the Prefect and the Inspector of the Palace Writers. To infer that the conflict was only about personal emotions would be misleading. At the beginning of Chapter Four I discussed in detail the way the two positions conflicted in vertical authority because of changes in the offices made by Cao Pi, the first emperor of Wei. The longer, more nuanced, version of the prefect-inspector conflict given in Shishuo relates that He and Xun Xu had to share the Palace Writers' carriage (one thinks of today's limousine service for many hundreds of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.). The sharing was in my opinion, however, caused directly by the Wei-era change in the structure of the bureau. Prefect He Qiao could not contain his dislike of Inspector Xun Xu partly because the two were a twinned leadership, and He did not want such a close association. After this, according to Shishuo, the bureaucracy stopped the carriage-sharing requirement. 6o The story itself, however, yields no fact by which to date the year He Qiao received appointment as prefect, but we have other evidences. One evidence comes from an extensive debate recorded in the "Treatise on Rites" in Jinshu that concerned proper etiquettes and relationships in cases of second wives. The debate began in about 280, but included about a dozen opinions lodged separately by leading scholars, and thus may have extended for a year or two. About one-third of the way into the opinions we hear that He Qiao, called an Intendant 4J[ Prefect of the Palace Writers, shared the opinion of a certain group consisting of Inspector Xun Xu, a certain Xun Xu relative, and Xiahou Zhan ~ 1*rt!: (243-91).61 The next evidence is the roughly mid- to late-282 preface

59 (,(l

61

jS 45, p. 1286. SSXY no. 5-14 (SSHYIMather, p. 156). jS 20 ("Li zhi" B), p. 63 6 .

NEW ANTIQUITIES, NEW FACTIONS

303

to Mu Tianzi zhuan itself, as seen, with He's status given as Intendant Gentleman-Consultant in the Palace Writers. The third is a document written by the historian Chen Shou (233-297) and carried in his Sanguo zhi. It is a memorial dated March 25, 274, presenting a certain work of Chen to the Jin court. 62 Referring to his superiors Xun Xu and He Qiao, Chen calls He an Intendant Prefect of the Palace Writers. Of these three, the ritual debate evidence is the best, assuming the debate was protracted and He Qiao was called upon about 281-82. Second best is the preface datum from the old colophon to the Mu Tianzi zhuan preface, which although "spurious" gives us no cause to reject the reconstructed office title for He. We must, however, reject Chen's Sanguo zhi datum. It seems to reflect Chen's words as written in the 280s while he redacted Sanguo zhi, giving the still-living He Qiao his properly updated title. Most important, from about 271 forward, the Prefect of Palace Writers was Zhang Hua, probably (but not certainly) until about 279-80. This must rule out He Qiao's occupying the post then. Finally, although men's office titles can be used anachronistically, the "Rites Debate" and the old colophon may be accurate: He Qiao was aligned with Xun Xu on policy in the former case and ranked officially below Xun Xu in the latter. Since both seem to reflect He in the year 282, then we can say that they show the moment He Qiao move up a notch on the Palace Writers career path. We must recap. He Qiao, leaning toward Zhang Hua's faction and haughty towards Xun, was put into Xun Xu's Ji Tomb project around 28r-perhaps through Jia Chong's influence. In that year he had been made Palace Attendant, a post traditionally linked to historiography and textual work. For the Mu Tianzi zhuan team, He was made Gentleman-Consultant in the Palace Writers. After that, in about mid-282, he was promoted probationarily to Prefect of the Palace Writers by his nominal superior, Xun Xu. The post of prefect seems not to have been filled since 279, when Prefect Zhang Hua went off to oversee the Wu War.63 After the war Zhang struggled against the Jia-Xun bloc, and as 62 SGZ 35, pp. 929-31. See William G. Crowell and Robert Joe Cutter, trans. and annot., Empresses and Consorts: Selections from Chen Shou's Records of the Three States with Pei Songzhi's Commentary (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999), pp. 62-63. 63 I base myself partly on the table of leading Jin offices by Qing-era Wan SitonglJi~ HfrIBJ, "Jin jiang xiang dachen nianbiao" -111(-jl?J·1;ll*J:l:/clt.Jt, t+1\t, j!iUJ1. Taibei: Xinwen feng, 1997: 233-41. Chen Shuguo 1~IUJ.yl1J\& , 1;-111-iH:@iY~. Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue, 2004. Yu Zhaoweirj~1)',(. "Xi Jin dangzheng yu fa Wu zhanzheng zhi guanxi lunlue" VCjf'-H~i:{i9~{:JG~;\}n\iJYi-:
ods, 17m7, 30,55,65,75,313,362; on Gongyang, 360-61, 362; Great Treatise, 217; on Guanzi 1'Jr-, II7; on Guoyu, 241n34, 247, 248; on Hanshu, 304; hermeneutics, 16, 16-17nn27-28, 20; "hidden talents," 106; on Laozi, 15, 20, 24n38, 51n32, 275, 312n84; on musicological texts, 231; necessity of, 356; on Sangfit, 355-56, 358; on Shiji, 304, 336, 340; on Shishuo xinyu, 2n3, 201; techniques of, 16, 17, 248n42, 362, 377; Ten Wings, 15, 55, 66; Tradition o!Zixia, 356; uses of, 26,353-65; on Xiaojing, 122, 312n84; on Xun Xu's flute-construction guide, 257, 259, 263; on Yijing, 5, 15, 20, 39, 43, 45 n 9, 49, 52-55, 57, 65, 86,149, 21 7, 269, 270, 354n3, 370; on Zhouli, 18 5, 214, 254, 359; on Zhuangzi, 20; Zuozhuan /d~J, 87, 217, 287n22, 292, 317, 360-61, 362, 378. See also under Xun family; Xun Shuang; Xun Xu; Zhi Yu scholarship, on individual classics: Five Classics, 317; Guoyu ID.£I)'{fj-, 176, 231, 241n34, 257, 315-16, 370; Huainan zi 1fl~I'~lI', 222; Liji f~~!ifG, 142n57, 239m6, 240, 240m8, 255, 268, 356, 370; Lunyu fi1fu1ffi', 66-67; Sangfu y~ !JIll. (Mourning Vestments), 355-56, 358; Shiji 9:i'ic, 43, 222, 29 6n45, 297, 301 , 332, 337-46; Shijing ;iJi*(I~, 80n93, II6, 135, 152, 287nI9, 288m4, 376; Shujing i)H\~{ (or Shangshu IVUllO, 51, 142n55, 255',288n25; Xiaojing ~:r.;(I~, 122; Yijing }&H~p., 142n54; Zhouli NlHk~, 175, 176, 1,8.°,182, 18 5,25 2 , 255, 357; Zhuangzi JilT, 15, 20n34, 21, 24n38, 236n21, 275 sciences. See under Philosophy self-control, 146 self-cultivation, 93 Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove: aesthetics of, 154; criticism of scholars by, 100; criticism of Xun Xu by, I, 24, 154-55, 216; and music, 139; and politics, 275; portraits of, 125, 272-77; reception in legend, 3, 216, 272-73, 277; and xuanxue, 13, 68. See also Ruan Xian; Shan Tao Shan Tao (2°5-83), 96 (Tbl. I), 108, 122n2, 154, 216, 270-71, 272-77, 314n88 shangfang lili] /i. See under Artisans Shang Junlf'fjJ4J, II6 Shao Dongfang {dI5W/i, 291, 341

INDEX

Shaughnessy, Edward, 17n27, 280, 29 0n2 7, 29 1, 293, 294, 295 nn 38-39, 29 6 , 29 6nn 44-45, 297 nn 4 8-5 I , 300, 30 5n6 5, 312n8 5, 317, 321 , 324, 325nI 5, 333 nI2 7, 33 6 , 337, 33 8, 34 2nI 50 , 344, 345-4 6 ,35 2 Shen Yue ¥JLr.t'l (441-513), II4, 126, 128, 130, 13 1, 132, 133, 135, 140, 144, 146, 15 2, 155, 156, 157, 159, 228, 230-32, 25 1, 256, 257, 312n84, 342. See also Historiography, primary sources: Songshu Shentu Pan III J~~nT (d. ca. 194), 212 shi ;'14j poetry. See Literature: poetry Shi Le, Il3n48 Shiji. See under Scholarship, on individual classics Shijing. See under Scholarship, on individual classics Shiping ~tl.iIZ.: archeological discoveries in, 200, 201, 204-6, 268, 269 Shishuo xinyujU:r&?iil!'ffM-: commentary on (see under Scholarship, commentary); and Confucianism, 3; legendizing, II4, 201, 205, 266-69, 271; omissions from, 14; style of critique, I, 2, 4, 378 (see also Prisca Zhou: Prisca antiqua); and Xun Can, 61; on Xun XU, II4, 124, 302 Shu (state), 103, 109, 121, 283, 329, 330, 339 Shu Xi !fit[' (ca. 263-ca. 302): and calligraphy and paleography, 322; criticism ofXun Xu, 332, 352, 373n46; and "daoistic" thought, 376; as an editor/ annotator of Bamboo Annals (via Wei Heng), 325, 325nII5, 345; and historiography, II3, 325, 345, 37 2, 374, 375-76; and historiography offices, 327 (Tbl. 5),333; and Ji Tomb, 292, 313, 315, 316 , 319, 321- 22 , 324, 325 33 6 , 338, 361; need for biographies of, 9; and primordial antiquity, 33, 380; and Zhang Hua, 321- 22 , 333, 351, 372 Shujing. See under Scholarship, on individual classics Shun Shrine: archeological discovery at, 197, 201, 203, 205; pitch-regulator found under, by Xi Jing ~ ljl' (W Han),I97 shushu WXif] arts. See under Philosophy Sima Biao (b. ca. 237; d. 306), 326 (Tbl. 5), 329, 33 2, 333, 338-40, as an editor/annotator of Bamboo An-

409

nals, question of, 340 Sima family and Sima dynasts, 20, 93; and bureaucratic regulations, 106; "Cao Shuang taint" (see under Cao Shuang); Chongyang ling X~I)£,JI)~ (tomb), 42; chronology ofJin dynasty, 334-36, 370, 373; court, 25, 63, 71-72; princes, 281-85; and prisca Zhou, 23; recruitment (and culling) of scholars and officials by, 100-I, 10 5, 106, II9, 122, 152, 274, 283-84, 28 5,3 14, 321 , 329, 330, 339, 34 6 , 353; succession crisis, 108n35, 281, 282, 286, 314-15, 362-64; and xuanxue,69; and Xun family (see under Xun family) Sima Liang 'ljH!§~"6, 314 Sima Lun f:lJJ~MlfU (277-301),137,372 Sima MUI 329 Sima QianI1j);!;)jig, 340, 340nI46, 359, 366 Sima ShiEijH!;jllili (208-55), 63,71,73, 93, 108 Sima Wei Prince of Shiping, 77, 7 8 , 83, 314 Sima Yan. See Jin Wudi Sima YiEIJ);:!{;;;f'..Qj (179-251), 56, 63, 73, 92. See also under Factions Sima You ilj);!D{r)(: (248-83): claim to throne, 108, IIO, III, 279, 281-86; death, 108; refusal of noble title, 105; and Wei Heng, 315 Sima Zhao. See Jin Wendi Sima Zhen Ij'JJi!§5~ (8th c.), 3I2n84, 336 Sima Zhong. See Jin Huidi Sima Ziwen 'E1]HE}T:J(, 279 sinology, Western. See Historiography: modern approaches Songshu Jf,(fJc';:. See under Historiography, primary sources Soper, Alexander, 124n5 spirits. See under Philosophy Spiro, Audrey, 270n88, 273-74, 274n97, 277 status, social, 154. See also Xun family: social position Straughair, Anna, 289 Sun Sheng 1iJlX: (ca. 302-75), 363n24 Sun Xiu 1i1*, 170 Sun Zi. See Liu Fang

Tang Taizong Jilf:;:l(1'j~, II2, II4 Tang Yongtong r-0j)IH1~, 16, I6n26, 16I7 n2 7, 27

410

INDEX

Tave rn or, Robert, 174 taxation, 138, 174, 203, 208, 283 technicians and technical experts, 102, 125, 151, 153, 178, 181n49, 183, 186, 234, 247, 256, 257, 26 5, 28 5,3 0 4, 328 , 34 2, 344 technology. See under Philosophy; Technicians Temple of Purity (Qingmiao r,lH:9]), 64, 64 n6 5 Ten Wings. See under Scholarship, commentary time. See Calendar; also see under Precision Ting Pang-hsin, 143, 143 n60 , 145, 147 treatises, standard-history. See under Historiography, primary sources Triple Concordance '::i1ll, 21 tuwei l~qiIM\ ("charts and weft-texts"), 136, 339 typology. See under Historiography Vogel, Hans Ulrich, 174, 214 voice (yin See Xuanxue: Zhengshi timbre Wagner, Rudolph, 16m6, 17m7, 21 Wan Sitong ;~l~JWlliJ (1638-1702), 303n63, 32 8, 37 2n 45 Wang Baoxuan 19, 20, 21, 65, 66 Wang Bi ~[~i'i~ (226-49),13,16, 55, 58, 66, 67--68, 68n72, 69-70, 28 4, 354n3, 380. See also Wang-He Wang Can (d. 217), 354 Wang Chen ~UJL (d. 267), 80, 97 (Tbl. I), 99, 99 nI 4 WI, 10 4, 279, 326 (Tbl. 5), 3 28 Wang family ,of Donghai *rfB~, 40 Wang GuoweiTIDxlMt (1877-1927),195 Wang Ji 287, 366 Wang JieFJ:t! (267-3 0 5), 353, 360- 62 , 377 Wang Lang{J~I) (d. 228), 9,163, 166 Wang Mang (r. 9-23 AD), 24, 121, 177, 210, 381 Wang Sengqian (fl. 480s-90s), 158 Wang SuI;;ll'I (195-256), 9, 131, 152, 166, 168, 353, 35 6 , 35 8 Wang Tingjian 361, 362 Wang Yin::[J~, 169nI6, 200, 3II Wang Yunxi:ljllil'li~, 157 Wang Zichu '-{