The twilight of the Masters: Masters Literature (zishu) in early medieval China.

• Author: Tlan, Xlaofei
• Position: Critical essay

INTRODUCTION

In the early period of Chinese history, the notion of authorship is closely tied to the notion of sagehood. It is not that being a sage necessarily entails creating and writing (zuo [NON ASCII]), but rather that one must be a sage to create and write. In his paper "The Temptations of Sage-hood, or: The Rise and Decline of Sagely Writing in Early China," Michael Puett makes a compelling case arguing that over the course of the second century, with the spread of paper and increasing commonality of writing, the claim to sagehood no longer served as a basis for textual authority. (1) As a result of the technological advance and shifts in the cultural paradigm of writing and sagehood, writing of all kinds was produced in increasing quantity, but in this essay I shall focus on one particular type of writing known as "Masters' Works" or "Masters Literature," zishu.

"The Masters" (zhuzi) is a Han term used to refer to pre-Qin thinkers, and the further division of the Masters into six or ten distinct groups is largely a function of Western Han imperial library cataloguing carried out by the two court bibliographers, Sima Tan (d. 110 B.C) and Liu Xiang (77-76 B.C.). Despite the messy compilation and transmission history of "Masters' Works," there is no disagreement on what constitute the core texts of Masters Literature among scholars of Chinese literature and intellectual history. It is when we come to the "lower limit" of this type of writing that we encounter problems. As Wiebke Denecke states, "The end of 'Masters Literature' is of course open to debate." (2) While I fully recognize the complexities of this issue, in this essay I propose to tackle the problem from a formal perspective by emphatically pointing out a largely ignored but nevertheless crucial fact: namely, the form of zizhu-typically entitled X-zi (X standing for author's surname or an epithet) and consisting of a number of chapters on social, ethical, and political issues, each chapter under a subject heading--continued to be frequently employed throughout early medieval China. As a matter of fact, zishu was produced in voluminous quantity during the third and fourth centuries, and gradually lost its appeal and resonance only from the fifth century onward.

What happened? Why did people continue to write in the tradition of what Puett describes as "the great book" or "the grand philosophical treatise" even when such an undertaking could no longer be justified by claims to sagehood, nor (in most cases) could it be attributed to "revelations from divine powers"? But perhaps even more important, why did they by and large stop toward the end of early medieval China? When the form of zishu eventually fell from favor, did it metamorphose into some other form? And if so, what form or forms did it disappear into, and why? What large changes in Chinese literary, cultural and intellectual history did the fate of zishu mirror and reflect and symptomoze?

1. "A DISCOURSE OF ONE'S OWN":

   THE WRITING OF ZISHU IN EARLY MEDIEVAL CHINA

   Before we discuss the writing of zishu in early medieval China, it is necessary to delineate what should be included under the rubric of zishu. Earlier I have summarized the form of zishu as a work typically entitled X-zi, with X standing for author's surname or an epithet. Two factors, however, should be taken into consideration when we define a zishu in early medieval China. First, we must consider the flexibility of title in manuscript culture. For instance, Huainanzi a zishu by the Prince of Huainan, Liu An (179-122 B.C.), was originally named The Great Light (Hongile). (3) Du Yi's (258-323) Youqiuzi appears as Dushi youqiu xinshu in the bibliographic monograph ("Jingzizhi" of The History of the Sui (Sui shu) (4) Huan Fan's (d. 249) Shiyao lun is cited under various titles, such as Discourse on the Essentials of Governance (Zhengyao lun. The New Book by Huan Fan (Huan Fan xinshu), Huan Fan's Discourse on Today's World (Huan Fan shilun), Lord Huan's Discourse on Today's World (Huan gong shilun, and Master Huan (Huanzi). Master Liu (Liuzi) is also known as New Discourses (Xinlun ), Master Liu's New Discourses (Liuzi xinlun ), or Virtuous Words (Deyan ). (5) In early medieval China a piece of writing-be it prose or poetry--was quite commonly referred to by different titles, and a title was also frequently assigned by a later editor or even a copyist rather than by the author himself or herself. (6)

   Another factor is the use of the term lun (discourse or discussion[s]) to refer to a zishu. In early medieval China we begin to see the appearance of a relatively short treatise focusing on one particular issue, such as Xi Kang's (223-262) famous "Discourse on Music Having Neither Grief Nor Joy" ("Sheng wu ai le lun" ). This form in many ways resembles a chapter taken out of a longer treatise customarily regarded as a zishu. At the same time, longer treatises in book form, which typically consist of a number of chapters on philosophical, ethical and literary issues, continued to be written in the zishu tradition, even when they were not entitled Master So-and-so. Wang Fu's (fl- early second century) Discourses of a Hidden Man (Qianfu lun )and Zhongchang Tong's (180-220) Forthright Words (Changyan ) are good examples, as Liu Xie the late fifth-century literary critic, clearly treated these works as part of Masters Literature. In a chapter on "Masters" in his Wenxin diaolong, after listing several works from the Western Han to the Western Jin, including Wang Fu, Zhongchang Tong and Du Yi's works cited above, Liu Xie states:

   Although they are named "discourses," they belong to Masters Literature. Why? Because a "Masters' Work" (zi) sheds light on myriad things, and a "discourse" (lun) deals with one principle. Those writings are all extensive discussions on various topics, and so should be classified as "Masters Literature." [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (7)

   Sure enough, Liu Xie devotes a chapter to "Discourses and Discussion" (Lunshuo), and places all the shorter treatises on individual topics in this separate category. Although he locates the origin of "discourse" in the fortuitously entitled Lunyu, the Analects, and therewith manages to trace the genre back to one of the Confucian classics, the very first discourse which formally corresponds to the later discourses he cites turns out to be the chapter entitled "Discourse on Treating Everything as Equal" Qiwu lun in the Zhuangzi.

   A longer treatise in book form might also acquire a title that combines the term Master X and the term lun, such as Jiang Ji's (d. 249) Master Jiang's Discourse on the Myriad Affairs (Jiangzi wanji lun ), or Ruan Wu's (fl. early third century) Master Ruan's Correct Discourses (Ruanzi zhenglun ); Changyan is recorded as Zhongchangzi changyan in the Sui shu bibliography. (8) These works are all classified as Masters Literature in the bibliography section of the Sui History, which, though compiled in the early seventh century, certainly reflects the classification and cataloguing system of earlier times.

   An anonymous preface to Xu Gan's (170-217) Balanced Discourses (Zhonglun ) places "Master Xu" directly in the line of the pre-Qin philosophers Xunzi and Mencius:

   I consider Master Xun Qing and Meng Ke to have possessed sagely talents second only to those of Confucius. Celebrated as models of original learning and for continuing to elucidate the work of the sage Confucius, each of them recorded his own surname and personal name in his writings. While their surnames and personal names are still passed on today, their style names (zi), how ever, are not .... Would it not be even more likely that a similar fate might await Master Xu's book, Balanced Discourses, since his surname and personal name are not included in the title?

   [TEXT NOR REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (9)

   The anonymous writer of the preface then proceeds to give a detailed account of Xu Gan's name, style name, native place, family background, and life story.

   This preface is noteworthy on two other accounts. First and foremost, regarding Master Literature, there is a strong sense of producing something that is distinctly individual (no matter how anachronistic and wrong this view might seem from our modern perspective), as manifested in the clause zhu yijia literally "bring to manifestation the models of one household." The phrase yijia zhi fa is a variation of the Western Han historian Sima Qian's (ca. 145-87 B.C.) famous statement of "completing a discourse that is my own" or "completing a discourse that belongs to one household" (cheng yijia zhi yan ), which refers to his monumental work of history, Shi ji (10) This again echoes the three ways of achieving immortality as laid out in the still earlier work of history, Zuo zhuan namely, establishing virtue, establishing deeds, and establishing words liyan (11) Noticeably, by the third century "a discourse that is entirely one's own" was often explicitly associated with the writing of a long treatise in book form--in other words, a zishu. There is a significant difference, however, between Sima Qian's "discourse of a household," referring probably quite specifically to himself and his father, and the third century "discourse of one's own," as the latter accentuates the sense of individual achievements and individual expressions which bring fame to the individual writer. (12)

   Ruan Wu, the author of Master Ruan's Correct Discourse, once advised Du Shu (d. 252), the father of the famous Zuo zhuan scholar Du Yu (222-284): "Now that you have some free time, why don't you work on 'completing a discourse of your own'"? (13) Du Shu henceforth composed Normative Discourses (Tilun ). Both in his letter to Wu Zhi (177-230) and in his own zishu, the well-known Authoritative Discourses (Dianlun ), Cao Pi (187-226), Emperor Wen of the Wei (r. 220-226), expresses appreciation of Xu Gan's Balanced Discourses as "accomplishing a discourse that is entirely...