Lexical changes in Zhanguo texts.

• Author: Pines, Yuri

THREE QUARTERS OF A CENTURY AGO Bernhard Karlgren undertook a bold attempt to analyze grammatical differences among major pre-imperial texts in order to verify their dating and authenticity. His studies, among which the article "On the Authenticity and Nature of the Tso Chuan" was the most influential, had a profound impact on scholarly discourse in China and in the West. Numerous scholars have followed Karlgren's lead, modified or criticized his methodology, and tried to propose alternative ways of dating pre-imperial writings. (1)

Attempts to develop new approaches toward the dating of Chunqiu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (722-453 B.C.) and Zhanguo [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (453-221 B.C.) texts were aimed at resolving one of the most controversial issues in the history of Chinese thought. Establishing a chronological sequence of pre-imperial texts might allow us to discern lines of intellectual influence among contemporary thinkers and resolve many enigmas of their intellectual legacy, which shaped China's traditional culture. Yet despite the great scholarly importance of this issue, attempts to establish a general chronology for pre-imperial texts were less popular among Western scholars in the last quarter of the twentieth century. W. A. C. H. Dobson's efforts in the 196fls were the last to propose a comprehensive chronological framework for pre-imperial writings, (2) until the more recent and ongoing work of E. Bruce Brooks.

Several factors may have contributed to a reluctance to continue systematic exploration of the dating of pre-imperial texts. Aside from certain flaws in Karlgren's methodology, which raised doubts in his results, a more important factor that discouraged later researchers from continuing his efforts was the deep reappraisal of the nature of Chunqiu and Zhanguo writings. Modern studies, of which Mark E. Lewis's magnum opus Writing and Authority in Early China (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1999) may be most representative, question the previous monochromatic picture of major historical and philosophical texts as being products by a single author, compiled within a short period of time. To the contrary, it is widely accepted today that these texts resulted from a long period of accretion, which included not just adding, but also editing out or modifying large portions of a text. Thus, the mere presumption of the fixed dating of a single text seems methodologically untenable. Instead we should prefer to discuss the dating of each passage, and such discussion in all but a few instances cannot but remain very speculative. (3) So, if the dating of a single text proves to be largely undeterminable, then attempts to establish a general chronological framework may appear to be hopeless.

Despite the above reservations, which I generally share, I believe that there is potential benefit in reconsidering the dating of pre-imperial texts. Statements like "it is impossible to date pre-Han texts with any degree of accuracy" lead the research of the pre-imperial intellectual legacy to a dead end. (4) While almost every received Western Zhou (1046-772), Chunqiu, and Zhanguo text indeed contains later additions and interpolations, this does not mean necessarily that the text becomes entirely non-datable. Unmistakable linguistic differences among pre-imperial texts, observed by Karlgren, Dobson, and others, strongly suggest that at least certain Ur-texts had been produced at a fixable time and space, and while these Ur-texts were later edited and modified, their role as the milestones in the development of pre-imperial discourse cannot be easily dismissed. In what follows I shall try to marshal additional evidence for the identifiable temporal difference between Chunqiu and Zhanguo (Ur-)texts, in the hope that this evidence might stimulate renewed interest in establishing a general chronological framework for pre-imperial writings.

Unlike Karlgren and Dobson, I shall focus not on grammatical aspects of supposed chronological change in Zhanguo texts, but rather on lexical changes. (5) My preference for a lexical rather than grammatical focus derives primarily from the higher reliability of this method. Traditional Chinese forgers were aware of grammatical peculiarities of ancient texts, and skillfully employed their knowledge in producing faked texts attributable to earlier times. Karlgren was the first to notice that the forged chapters of the so-called "old text" Shu jing [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] are grammatically nearly indistinguishable from the authentic chapters of the "modern text." (6) The fourth-century A.D. Shu jing forgers were able to falsify the ancient grammar; but they were much less aware of lexical changes, which resulted in their use of certain anachronistic terms. For instance, the term ji [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (trigger of a crossbow), which as we shall discuss below did not exist before the fourth century B.C., is used in the "Tai Jia" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] chapter that spuriously claims Shang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 1600-1046) provenance. Another Zhanguo term, discussed below, wanwu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ten thousand things, all the things), appears in the putative early Zhou chapter, the "Tai shi" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (7) These mistakes of the forgers suggest that analyzing the text's vocabulary may serve as a more reliable method for determining its dating than analysis of grammatical peculiarities. (8)

While grammatical differences may often be explained stylistically, as Karlgren's critics have convincingly shown, certain changes in the vocabulary of texts have a demonstrable temporal parameter. In some instances, as in the case of the crossbow-related terms discussed below, we may fix with a high degree of certainty the earliest date of the term's possible introduction into discourse. In other instances, as in the case of the term li [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (inner structure, principle), semantic changes over time are also easily observable. In these cases we can plausibly assume that changes in vocabulary derive from different dates, rather than from stylistic or dialectic reasons.

Aside from the above advantages, investigating vocabulary poses several problems for determining the text's dating. While massive occurrences of certain terms in a given text may indeed indicate that the text was composed after these terms had been introduced into discourse, the opposite part of the equation requires reliance on a problematic argumentum ex silentio. Can we be sure that absence of several terms from a certain text really suggests the text's early provenance? The answer may be positive only when we speak of relatively widespread terms, the absence of which cannot be explained stylistically or dialectically. But even then certain problems remain unresolvable: a relatively short text (of a thousand characters or less) may just incidentally avoid using anachronistic terms, partly invalidating thereby the argumentum ex silentio. Thus, lexical analysis, while helpful in discussing the dating of lengthy texts is much less beneficial when short texts are in question, and it is rarely useful in determining later interpolations or additions to the early Ur-text. I do not claim therefore that the method I propose will resolve all doubts regarding the dating of every Zhanguo text. I believe, however, that when properly applied, lexical analysis may contribute significantly toward determining the dates of major texts, thereby bolstering scholarly efforts to establish a reliable chronology of pre-imperial writings.

Investigating a text's vocabulary as the means of establishing its dating is not a novel method. Centuries ago some Chinese scholars suggested that anachronistic usage of certain terms could serve as an indicator of a text's date. For instance, the Song scholar Zheng Qiao [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1104-1162) argued that certain administrative terms employed in the Zuo zhuan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] indicate the late Zhanguo or even Qin [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (221-207) provenance of this text, much later than presumed by traditional chronology. While Zheng Qiao's examples of putative Zhanguo anachronisms in the Zuo zhuan are not necessarily accurate, and later scholars criticized his findings, his methodology remained influential. (9) For instance, the Yuan scholar Zhao Fang [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (1319-1369) used a similar method to defend the early dating of the Zuo zhuan:

The History of the Later Han (Hou Han shu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) was compiled by Fan Yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (i.e., Fan Ye [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 398-445) and thus it became as terse as [writings] of the Jin [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (265-420) and Song [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (420-479) times; the history of Yao [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], Shun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and the Three Dynasties was compiled by Sima Qian [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (ca. 145-86 B.C.), and thus it became as coarse as [writings] of the Qin and Han [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (206 B.C.-A.D.220) times. Though Mr. Zuo is considered a Zhanguo individual, his style has absolutely no Zhanguo flavor. For instance, terms depicting warfare in Zhanguo books completely differ from those in the Zuo zhuan. The Zuo has no expressions like "storming a fortress" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "seizing a city" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "crushing [an enemy]" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], "inflicting a sudden raid" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. The term "General" [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is seen only once in the later Zuo; perhaps it was the first time that this term was heard. (10) Zhao Fang might have been one of the first to use the argumentum ex silentio for the dating of ancient texts, assuming that if a...