Sarah A. Queen - From Chronicle To Canon - The Hermeneutics of The Spring and Autumn

Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions
General Editor, Denis Twitchett
FROM CHRONICLE TO CANON

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From chronicle to canon
The hermeneutics of the
Spring and Autumn,
according to Tung Chung-shu
Sarah A. Queen
Connecticut College
CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia
© Cambridge University Press 1996
First published 1996
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Queen, Sarah A. (Sarah Ann)
From chronicle to canon: the hermeneutics of the Spring and
Autumn, according to Tung Chung-shu/Sarah A. Queen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-48226-7 (he)
1. Tung Chung-shu, 2nd cent. B.C. Ch'un ch'iu fan lu.
2. Confucianism and state - China - History. 3. China - History - Han dynasty, 206
B.C.E.-220 c.E. I. Title.
PL2470.Z7Q43 1996
299'.5i282 - dc2o 95"43438
CIP
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0-521-48226-7 hardback
Transferred to digital printing 2003

To the memory of my friend,
Robert Andrew Heller,
for his courage and love
Contents
List of tables page ix

Acknowledgments xi
List of abbreviations xiii
1. Introduction 1
PART i: Three perspectives on the authenticity of the

Ch 9un<h 'iu fan4u
2. A biography of Tung Chung-shu 13
3. A history of Tung Chung-shu's literary corpus 39
4. The authorship of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 69
PART 11: Exegesis and canonization

5. The Spring and Autumn and Kung-yang tradition 115
6. Reforming the Ch'in laws 127
7. The wider circle of Han jurisprudence 163
8. Refashioning the imperial rites 182
9. Canon, cosmos, and court patronage 206
10. Conclusion 227
Appendix 1. The birth and death dates of Tung Chung-shu 241

Appendix 2. The dates of the Han-shu 56 memorials 249
Appendix 3. Han transmission of Kung-yang learning 255
Appendix 4. Han dynasty disciples of Tung Chung-shu 256
Appendix 5. Citations and titles attributed to Tung Chung-shu 259
Appendix 6. Transmission of Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu editions 264
Selected bibliography 269
Index 279
vn
Tables
1. The composition of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu page 77

2. The exegetical chapters 1-6 78
3. The exegetical chapters 7-37 80
4. The Huang-Lao chapters 86
5. The technical terminology of the Huang-Lao chapters 87
6. The yin-yang chapters 94
7. The five-phase chapters 102
8. The ritual chapters 105
9. A synoptic view of 74/2 and 75/2 109
10. A synoptic view of 75/1 and 75/3 110
11. Directives to induce rain 111
12. Celestial-terrestial correlations 224
IX
Acknowledgments
Perhaps more than any other cultural heritage that has enriched our
world, Confucianism has held tenaciously to the view that personhood is
an interdependent process, coming into being and growing in relation
to and participation with others. What is true of individuals pertains
most assuredly to their creative endeavors. I am consequently indebted
to many teachers, colleagues, institutions, and friends.
First and foremost I would like to thank Benjamin Schwartz, Tu
Wei-ming, and William Graham, who directed this study in its first
transmutation as a doctoral dissertation submitted to History and East
Asian Languages at Harvard University. During its second metamorpho-
sis from doctoral dissertation to book manuscript, conversations and
correspondence with such eminent scholars as Michael Loewe, Wm.T.
de Bary, A. F. P. Hulsewe, and Nathan Sivin proved invaluable. I extend
special thanks to Nathan Sivin, who commented extensively on the
manuscript and generously contributed to improving this study.
A number of other colleagues offered their criticisms and insights at
various stages of this project. I am indebted to Irene Bloom, John Major,
Lisa Raphals, Harold Roth, Karen Turner, Sze-kar Wan, Wu Hung,
Robin Yates, and Judith Zeitlin. Jen Chi-yu of the Peking Library, K'ung
Fan and Chung Chao-p'eng of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
Institute of World Religions, and my classmates from Nankai University,
Hsu Ya-min and Wu Ch'ung-kao, made great efforts to facilitate research
conducted in the People's Republic of China. Special thanks are also
due my students at Connecticut College who read and discussed earlier
drafts of this work.
I would also like to extend my thanks to those institutions which
provided financial assistance during the evolution of this study to its
present form: to Wellesley College for granting me the Edna F. Moffet
Fellowship to begin research on the dissertation, to the Woodrow Wilson
National Fellowship Foundation for selecting me to receive the
XI
A cknowledgments
Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship to continue research and writing, to

the Mrs. Giles S. Whiting Foundation for providing a summer stipend to
conduct research in the People's Republic of China and a year-long
grant to complete the dissertation, and to Connecticut College for
supporting a semester's leave of absence to conclude revisions on the
manuscript. A subvention from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation de-
frayed some of the publication costs for which I am grateful.
Most importantly I would like to thank my mother, Sylvia Queen, and
my dearest friends Martha Fenn, Shelley Fried, Kathleen Harrington,
Sandra Horbach, Robyn Rosen, and Johan van Wegen, whose gifts of
friendship sustained me through these difficult years of loss and enabled
me to complete this project.
xn
Abbreviations
CCFL Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu (Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and

Autumn) Ssu^pu ts'ung-k'an edition
CCFLCCCI Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chin-chu chin-i (New Commentary and
Explanations to Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and
Autumn)
CCFLIC Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i-cheng (Verification of the Meanings
in the Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn)
CHC Ch'u-hsueh chi (Records of Elementary Learning)
CLCSC Chou-li Cheng-shih chu (Master Cheng's Commentary to
the Rites of Chou)
CS Chin-shu (History of the Chin Dynasty)
HHS Hou-Han shu (History of the Later Han Dynasty)
HHSC Hou-Han shu-chu (Liu Chao's Commentary to the
History of the Later Han Dynasty)
HS Han-shu (History of the Former Han Dynasty)
HTHHSC Hsin-T'ang Hou-Han shu-chu (New T'ang Commentary
to the History of the Later Han Dynasty)
HYISIS Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series
IWLC I-wen lei-chu (A Categorized Collection of Literary
Writings)
KWY Ku-wen yuan (Garden of Ancient Literature)
LHCS Lun-heng chu-shu (Explanatory Notes to Discourses
Weighed)
LSCCCCCI Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu chin-chu chin-i (New Commentary and
Explanations to Master Lu's Spring and Autumn)
PTSC Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao (Book Excerpts from the Northern
Hall)
SC Shih-chi (Records of the Historian)
55 Sung-shu (History of the Sung Dynasty)
SWCTC Shuo-wen chieh-tzu chu (Tuan Yu-ts'ai's Commentary
xiii
Abbreviations
to the Explanation of Writings and Elucidation of

Graphs)
SYCC Shuo-yuan chiao-cheng (Collated and Revised Garden of
Theories)
TKYCC T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-ching (The T'ang Dynasty K'ai-yuan
Reign Period Canon of Prognostications)
TPYL T'ai-p'ingyu-lan (Imperial Digest of the T'ai-p'ing Reign
Period)
TT T'ung-tien (Comprehensive Documents)
xiv
1
Introduction
Confucian scholars of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) articulated

a vision of an omnipotent but disciplined sovereign who relied on their
advice and counsel to align the empire with the norms of Heaven and
Earth. This view of imperial government, drawn from the scriptural
traditions of antiquity, defined Chinese political culture for thousands of
years. Indeed, many of the institutions created during the Han persisted
into the early twentieth century, when dynastic rule perished forever.
The ideal of the ruler as high priest and fount of wisdom, however rarely
realized, was central to what is often imprecisely called 'the victory of
Han Confucianism.' The contrasting claims of the founding emperors
just before and just after the Han period exemplify the extent to which
this view of rulership supplanted the ideals of the earlier Ch'in dynasty
(221-206 B.C.E.). When the first Ch'in emperor assumed the throne he
did not acknowledge the role of any superhuman spirits leading him
forward to success beyond paying a bare tribute to his ancestors at the
ancestral shrine. Instead the emperor credited his achievements to his
ability to conquer his rivals, pacify new territories, and administer them.
In contrast, the founding emperor of the dynasty that succeeded the
Han engaged in solemn and elaborate religious ceremonies to demon-
strate that his succession to the throne followed the will of higher
powers.1 This study illuminates the ideological creation of emperorship
and empire that coalesced in the formative years of the Han by re-
examining and revising four long-accepted views of Tung Chung-shu
(ca. 195-105 B.C.E.), the scholar and statesman most often depicted as
the chief architect of this ideal.
1 Loewe 1986, pp. 727-731.

Introduction
Founder of imperial Confucianism

Scholars generally agree that in developing a rationale and a model of
rulership appropriate to the new circumstances of the unified state,
Tung Chung-shu was primarily responsible for the rise of Han Confu-
cianism as an imperial philosophy and cult. To be sure, Tung Chung-shu
used cosmology to justify Confucian principles of governance and con-
struct an imperial ideology, but his was not a solitary pursuit. The
institutionalization of Confucianism was a historical process that
spanned several centuries and involved many groups within Han society.
While Tung Chung-shu's reforms were important, he is one of a long list
of scholars beginning with Shu-sun T'ung and Lu Chia who served the
first Han ruler, Emperor Kao (r. 206-195 B.C.E.).2 The process also
encompassed the activities of Tung's disciples and exegetes of other
Confucian texts, such as Liu Hsiang (79-8 B.C.E.) and his son Liu Hsin
(d. 23 C.E.), who were active in the centuries following Tung's death. No
less important were the successive Han emperors, empresses, and em-
press dowagers whose varying receptivity toward Confucian scholars of-
ten determined the critical difference between principle and practice.
Confucian scholars also competed for literary patronage and vied for
political influence with followers of textual traditions and devotees of
esoteric lore as diverse as the regions over which the Han rulers claimed
sovereignty. For example, contenders for the court's patronage included
practitioners of a Taoist tradition called Huang-Lao (Yellow Emperor
and Lao-tzu), as well as doctors, diviners, and magicians known collec-
tively asfang-shih (technical masters).3 This competition determined the
degree of Confucian influence in any particular period and conse-
quently the extent to which the institutionalization of Confucianism
advanced. Yet the confluence of local cultural traditions at the central
court of the Western Han (206 B.C.E.-8 C.E.) rulers also gave rise to the
cross-fertilization of philosophical ideas, cosmological principles, and
political techniques among these various advocates. As they evolved in
this pluralistic atmosphere, traditions (master-disciple lineages that
transmitted doctrines and techniques associated with a text or corpus of
texts attributed to a founding sage or sages) were neither impermeable
nor immutable. Scholars might adopt an attitude of hostility or receptiv-
ity toward other practitioners based on a complex array of political and
2 For a brief discussion of their activities, see Loewe 1986, pp. 752-753.
3 The SCand HS identify Huang-Lao texts and techniques with the Taoist tradition. See,
for example, SC 56/2062 or SC 107/2843 where the terms Huang-Lao and Tao-chiaare
used synonymously. For a more detailed discussion of Huang-Lao, consult Chapter 4.
Introduction
doctrinal factors. The institutionalization of Confucianism in general,

and Tung Chung-shu's contributions in particular, involved both the
rejection and the absorption of principles and techniques from other
traditions. As David Hall and Roger Ames have so aptly suggested, he 'is
arguably more representative of Han syncretism than of Confucius and
even pre-Ch'in Confucianism.'4
Father of yin-yang five-phase Confucianism

Historians have frequently portrayed Tung Chung-shu as the grand
systematizer of yin-yang and five-phase cosmology, but here too they
have overstated the degree to which Tung Chung-shu synthesized these
two originally independent systems of thought. Their systematization
began at least as early as the third century B.C.E., if not earlier, when the
philosopher Tsou Yen established a reputation based on his theories of
the five phases. By 250 B.C.E., the committee of scholars working under
Lu Pu-wei, who compiled the Lu-shih ch'un-cWiu (Master Lu's Spring and
Autumn), had also begun to integrate the yin-yang andfive-phasecorre-
lations that would come to define imperial Confucianism.5 The Western
Han authors of the Huai-nan-tzu (Master Huai-nan), Huang-ti nei-ching
(Inner Scripture of the Yellow Emperor), and T'ai-hsiian ching (Canon of
Supreme Mystery) continued their efforts.6 Liu Hsiang and his son Liu
Hsin, whose work Pan Ku (32-92 C.E.) drew upon to create the 'Wu-
hsing chih' (Treatise on the Five Phases) in the Han-shu (History of the
Former Han), further harmonized yin-yang and five-phase principles.
And in the Eastern Han (25-220 C.E.) Ssu-ma Piao (240-306 C.E.)
crowned these earlier efforts with his compilation of a 'Wu-hsing chih' in
the Hou-Han shu (History of the Later Han). Tung Chung-shu has long
been associated with this systematization based on the numerous essays
devoted to five-phase cosmology in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu (Luxuriant
Gems of the Spring and Autumn), the eighty-two-chapter work tradition-
4 Hall and Ames 1987, p. 24.

5 Graham 1986b, p. 9.
6 For a discussion of the integration of yin-yang andfive-phasecosmology in these three
texts see Major 1993, Sivin 1987, and Nylan 1993. Other writings from the late Warring
States to the Western Han, such as the later chapters of the Chuang-tzu, the additional
text attached to Version A of the Ma-wang-tui Lao-tzu, and the Appendixes to the I-ching,
incorporate yin-yang principles but do not show any influence fromfive-phasecosmol-
ogy. While authors of the Huai-nan-tzu were setting down essays that combined these
cosmological principles, some Han authors did not display such a concern. This diver-
gence in cosmological thinking may indicate that five-phase correlations with other
cosmological traditions were not as pervasive during the Western Han as is usually
assumed.
Introduction
ally ascribed to him.7 We will see, however, that since Tung Chung-shu
did not compose many of these essays, his contributions were far less
decisive than usually assumed.8
Faithful ideologue of Emperor Wu

Most treatments of Tung Chung-shu also depict him as a devoted
ideologue of Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 B.C.E.).9 According to this view,
while advocates of Huang-Lao thought enjoyed the imperial patronage
of Emperor Ching (r. 156-141 B.C.E.), Tung waited patiently in the
wings for a more favorable patron to appear on the throne. Ready with
his bag of cosmological tricks (a theory of the mutual interaction of
Heaven and humanity) and interpretive techniques (New Text Confu-
cianism), Tung sprang into action when Emperor Wu ascended the
throne in 140 B.C.E. to forward the emperor's expansionist policies and
authoritarian inclinations.10 In fact, Tung's agenda was somewhat differ-
ent. He was neither simply a passive observer of the Huang-Lao policies
of Emperor Ching nor a political lackey for Emperor Wu's activist
pursuits; the character of Tung Chung-shu's intellectual authority and
his vision of imperial rulership was far more complex and contradictory.
Though he criticized Emperor Wu's policies on numerous occasions, for
example, he did not use his great moral authority to curb the inherent
power of the throne. Though he labored to establish a text-based the-
ology11 that would limit the emperor's powers, he also drew upon the
7 For example, Knoblock continues this historiographical tendency when he states: 'By
150, the Five Process theory was an integral part of the mainstream of Confucian
thinking, as witnessed by the Chunqiu fanlu [Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu] of Dong Zhongshu
[Tung Chung-Shu].' Knoblock 1988, p. 216.
8 This is not to suggest that Tung Chung-shu's thinking was completely devoid of
influence from five-phase thinking, but it did not figure as prominently in his cosmol-
ogy, and certainly not in his omenology, as hitherto believed.
9 Although he was an outspoken critic of the emperor, never attaining a high position in
government and once nearly losing his life because of his forthright and uncompromis-
ing views, Tung Chung-shu has long been the subject of attack in the literature
published in the People's Republic of China. Beginning with Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, con-
tinuing through the Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius campaign, and most recently in
articles written by Li Tsung-kui, Tung Chung-shu has either been ridiculed for his
'superstitious beliefs' or rejected as a sycophant who was merely interested in further-
ing the powers of autocracy. In discussing certain aspects of his thought, Li Tsung-kui
takes an even harsher view, calling Tung a 'criminal.' Fortunately some Chinese
scholars have begun to challenge this view. See, for example, Li 1985.
10 For a recent example of this reading of Tung Chung-shu, see Peerenboom 1993, pp.
254-255-
11 I do not use the term 'theology' in its conventional sense to denote the study of a
transcendent god who creates the universe and its relationship to that creation, but
rather to indicate those beliefs concerning the nature of Heaven and human beings'
relationship to Heaven that Tung Chung-shu ascribed to the Spring and Autumn.
Introduction
Confucian texts to sanction and amplify the ruler's revered position as a

'cosmic pivot,' responsible for aligning the human realm with the moral
patterns of the cosmos.
Author of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan4u

With few exceptions, Western scholars who have studied Tung Chung-
shu have accepted the authenticity of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.12 They have
not distinguished the text's dissimilar voices, different dates of composi-
tion, or the diverse circumstances under which its numerous chapters
were composed. Although attributed to Tung Chung-shu, we will see
that the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu is most likely the product of an anonymous
compiler who lived sometime between the third and sixth centuries. The
received text preserves authentic writings and other materials not
authored by Tung Chung-shu.13 Sorting out the authorship and dates of
all the materials in this collection (seventy-nine of the chapters are
extant) is a task that exceeds the scope of this study. Yet there exists such
a dire need to reevaluate this text, as witnessed by the inaccurate descrip-
tions enumerated in the previous pages, that I have ventured to draw
some preliminary hypotheses and conclusions in the first part of this
book. Part I identifies the text's various materials, assesses their reliabil-
ity, and proposes approximate dates for some of the text's authentic
writings.14 I explore the authenticity of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu through
three related methodological lenses. The first provides a wide-angle view
of the social, religious, and political issues and events that defined
12 For general works devoted to Chinese philosophy that draw upon the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu without noting the issues of authenticity, see Fung 1953 and Chan 1963. For the only
general work that raised the authenticity problem see Hsiao 1978; however, Hsiao
simply mentioned the problem in a footnote and did not take up the problem in his
discussion of Tung's ideas. Unpublished doctoral dissertations devoted to Tung
Chung-shu that accept the authenticity of the text in its entirety include Tain 1974,
Davidson 1982, and Vuylsteke 1982. Tain explores the problem of authenticity briefly
and concludes that the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu is authentic. Davidson and Vuylsteke do not
raise the issue at all. For the only doctoral dissertation devoted to Tung Chung-shu that
examines the authenticity of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu along the lines of this volume, see
Arbuckle 1991. To date, however, it has not been possible to obtain a copy of this study.
13 For example, the six Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapters that discuss yin-yang cosmology con-
tain both distinctive yin-yang theories and different attempts to reconcile accounts of
the yearly progression of the yin-yang cycles with that of the five phases. These
elements that suggest multiple authorship have gone virtually unnoticed. For a more
detailed discussion of this issue, see Chapter 4.
14 These issues will be taken up in greater depth in my forthcoming study and translation
The Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn (Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu), Basic Texts of
Classical Chinese Writing, The Culture and Civilization of China, to be published by
Yale University Press.
Introduction
Tung's historical period and his life. The second lens affords a middle-
range view of Tung's literary landscape. What can one infer about Tung
Chung-shu's writings from descriptions and citations by the author's
contemporaries and scholars of later ages? The third and most narrowly
focused lens examines the form and content of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu to
unearth, but surely not exhaust, important information embedded in
the text's architecture. Part II, the heart of the study, reconstructs Tung
Chung-shu's interpretations of the Ch'un-ch'iu (Spring and Autumn)
and reformulates his role in the creation of Confucian orthodoxy during
the Western Han.
Politics and hermeneutics: The reformist exegete

Who was Tung Chung-shu and how did he contribute to the rise of
Confucian orthodoxy? Based on a critical reading of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu, and on other previously unexamined materials, Part II focuses on
Tung Chung-shu's role as a reforming exegete, because through his
interpretations of the Confucian texts he delineated his ideal vision of
imperial sovereignty. Relying on two attitudes that defined the Confu-
cian scholar, a deference for the past and a veneration for the writings of
Confucius, Tung helped shape the fundamental contours of the tradi-
tional Chinese state. By recreating history and text, he hoped to reform
imperial sovereignty. Following his predecessors Lu Chia, whom Em-
peror Rao commissioned to write the Hsin-yu (New Conversations), and
Chia I, who composed the famous essay 'Kuo Ch'in Lun' (Surpassing
Ch'in) during the reign of Emperor Wen (r. 180-157 B.C.E.), he also
sought to discredit the Ch'in dynasty. The draconian character of the
dynasty was a prominent theme in his writings and came to define
traditional historiography for centuries to follow, as only the most excep-
tional historians and officials were willing to discount this mode of
criticism.15 This interpretation of the Ch'in provided an intellectual
rationale for discrediting the political and religious framework of im-
perial sovereignty that had developed under the earlier regime. It also
justified the construction of a new political and religious order, albeit
one that drew heavily on pre-Ch'in ideas and continued aspects of pre-
Ch'in hermeneutics.
Desiring to eradicate Ch'in influences, Tung Chung-shu read anew
the texts and commentaries long associated with the Confucian tradi-
tion. This was particularly true for the Spring and Autumn and the accom-
panying Kungyang chuan (Kung-yang Commentary), Tung Chung-shu's
15 Loewe 1986, p. 734.

Introduction
special area of expertise. He maintained that the Spring and Autumn

could resolve Ch'in excesses and endeavored to explicate how and why
the text was relevant, indeed indispensable, to the creation of an alterna-
tive social, political, and religious culture for the Han. Consequently,
Tung Chung-shu and his disciples read into the Spring and Autumn a
particular vision of history and ascribed to the text new types of legal,
ritual, and cosmological authority that were relevant to their reformist
goals. I will examine these modes of authority, which made it possible for
Tung to end state support for non-Confucian texts and to establish a
text-based theology represented in the first Confucian Canon. Hence-
forth the Confucian Canon - though occasionally eclipsed by competing
Taoist and Buddhist canons and though more fluid than its Western
religious counterparts - would occupy a prominent position in the
doctrinal and political life of the traditional state.
The formation of the Confucian Canon transformed interpreters as
well as texts. Through their control over the sacred wisdom and hallowed
literature of the past, Confucian scholars sought to define a unique and
indispensable role for themselves as a kind of priest-scholar class respon-
sible for the unbroken transmission of this traditional wisdom within the
unified empire. In this respect, Tung helped establish basic patterns and
tensions that defined the relationship between the state and the intellec-
tual, center and periphery, power and authority, and politics and culture
in the ancient regime. For example, Confucian scholars sought to gain
political power and influence political policy based on their textual
interpretations. Yet they also endeavored to preserve an independent
and critical voice based on the authority and prestige derived from their
mastery of the Confucian texts. To what extent would cultural endeavors
restrain politics or be restrained by them? To what extent would scholars
compromise their independence to engage in politics? To what extent
would local authority rival or reinforce the literary prowess or military
power of the central government? These unresolved tensions, which
colored the intellectual history of the Western Han, reemerged in every
dynasty to follow. Moreover, some would argue that despite the succes-
sive revolutions of 1911 and 1949, they continue to influence the politi-
cal culture of contemporary China.
Canonization in comparative perspective

The significance of Tung Chung-shu's canon-building efforts transcends
the period in which he lived in yet another sense. His efforts to articulate
the authoritative and sacred dimensions of the Spring and Autumn paral-
lel the work of great exegetes from other religious traditions. Scholars
Introduction
have deeply explored the commentaries associated with the Tanakh of

Judaism, the Old and New Testaments of Christianity, and the Qur'an
of Islam. Yet studies conducted by earlier scholars of the 'Confucian
Classics,' as they are generally called, have focused on the texts and have
been largely introductory. Only recently have scholars begun to examine
the 'commentarial assumptions and strategies' of Confucian exegetes.16
In recent years as well, scholars of comparative scripture have begun to
reexamine the conventional use of the Bible as the criterion for defining
the sacred texts of other traditions - that is, for determining what
constitutes 'scripture.' Some have begun to look across cultures at scrip-
ture as a concept that can be understood only in relation to a particular
community. William Graham explains:
The sacrality or holiness of a book is not an a priori attribute but one that is
realized historically in the life of communities who respond to it as something
sacred or holy. A text becomes scripture in living, subjective relationship to
persons and to an historical tradition. A text is only scripture insofar as a group
of persons perceive it to be sacred or holy, powerful and meaningful, possessed
of an exalted authority, and in some fashion transcendent of, and hence distinct
from, other speech and writing. What is scripture for one group may be mean-
ingless, nonsensical, or even perversely false for another.17
This recent tendency in religious studies, best exemplified by the work of
W. C. Smith and William Graham, should significantly improve our
ability to understand scripture in cultures other than our own, for it
views scripture not as a literary genre but as a religiohistorical phenom-
enon. 18 By locating scripture in the thought and praxis of the community
from which its meaning and authority are derived, we gain new insight
into the dynamic process by which other communities define the sacred
status, authority, and function of their holy books. I have adopted such
an approach in Part II, where I describe how Tung Chung-shu and his
disciples read the Spring and Autumn and what they ascribed to this text.
Part II joins ongoing efforts to define scripture not as a text merely
similar to or dissimilar from the Bible, but as a text whose generic
definition must be derived from its various interpreters in differing
contexts across space and time. Only in this way will one be able to
construct a definition of the holy book that is truly expressive of the
common yet multifarious religious tendency to scripturalize the written
word.
16 See Henderson 1991, Van Zoeren 1991, and Smith 1990.

17 See under the heading scripture in Eliade et al. (1987).
18 See Smith 1971, pp. 131-140. For more recent works devoted to the problem of
scripture as a comparative phenomenon, see Levering 1989 and Henderson 1991.
8
Introduction
The religious dimensions of the Confucian tradition

At the same time, this approach serves to highlight the unique dimen-
sions of Confucian spirituality. 'Scripture' in the Confucian context
differed from its Western counterparts, and the differences, as well as
the similarities, are worth emphasizing. If one accepts recent arguments
that certain presuppositions dominated traditional Chinese culture and
distinguished it from the West, how might one define Confucian reli-
giousness?19 David Hall and Roger Ames have pointed out that the
Chinese phrase denoting the unity of Heaven and humanity, Vien-jen ho-
i, is 'a convenient formula for capturing what is generally perceived as
the fundamental characteristic of Chinese religiousness.'20 The author of
several works on the subject, Rodney Taylor has characterized the reli-
gious dimensions of this unity as 'man's capacity to perfect his moral
nature and thus emulate or even seek union with the ways of Heaven or
the underlying principle.'21 Tu Wei-ming also develops the notion of
unity in his study of the ancient Chinese text the Chung-yung (Doctrine
of the Mean), traditionally ascribed to Tzu-ssu (492-431 B.C.E.), the
grandson of Confucius:
The relationship between Heaven and man is not an antinomic biunity but an
indivisibly single oneness. In this sense, the sage as the most authentic manifes-
tation of humanity does not coexist with Heaven; he forms a coincidence with
Heaven. . . . Despite the possibility of a conceptual separation between Heaven
and man, inwardly, in their deepest reality, they form an unbreakable organismic
continuum.22
Tu defines the Confucian way of being religious as 'ultimate self-trans-
formation as a communal and as a faithful dialogical response to the
transcendent.'23
Building on these discussions of Confucian religiousness, I suggest
that 'a faithful dialogical response to the transcendent,' which revealed
itself as a concern to 'emulate or even seek union with the ways of
Heaven,' was the foundation of Tung Chung-shu's theology. Yet, and
perhaps most important, Tung Chung-shu also assumed that if the world
were to reflect Heaven's Way, human beings must will it to be so. But
human effort alone was not sufficient to unite Heaven and humanity.
19 For example, Hall and Ames argue that early Chinese culture assumed an immanental
cosmos, conceptual polarity, and tradition as interpretive context. See their thoughtful
discussion in Hall and Ames 1987, pp. 11-25. See also de Bary 1973 and Tu 1979a.
21 See Taylor 1985.
22 Tu 1976, p. 84.
23 Tu 1976, p. 94.
Introduction
Tung argued that the texts of Confucius were essential to the process
whereby human beings came to embody Heaven, and Heaven came to
be personified in human beings. Inasmuch as the Confucian texts in
general, and the Spring and Autumn in particular, functioned as both the
vessel for these religious beliefs and the instrument for their realization,
they possessed religious authority. Therefore, rather than following con-
vention and translating the Chinese term denoting the canonical texts of
the Confucian tradition, ching, as 'classics,' throughout this study I will
call them 'scriptures.' I do not intend to gloss over the unique character-
istics of the Confucian tradition, but rather to employ the term 'scrip-
ture' in a way that expands its 'traditional connotative bounds'24 to
include other varieties of religious experience - in this case, one
grounded in a unitary vision of Heaven and humanity. It is significant
that Tung Chung-shu and his fellow exegetes attributed the Spring and
Autumn to the human hand of Confucius and not to a transcendent
being. In this sense, examining a Han Confucian's perception of scrip-
ture promises to shed new light on an old and perplexing question: How
is Confucian spirituality to be understood?
1O
Parti
Three perspectives on
the authenticity of the
Ch 9un-ch 'iu fan-lu
2
A biography of Tung
Chung-shu
The Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu1 is one of the more problematic texts surviving
from China's medieval period. The Han-shu 'Bibliographic Treatise' lists
a Tung Chung-shu in 123 bundles2 and a Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-
yu (The Kung-yang [Scholar] Tung Chung-shu Judges Cases) in 16
bundles, and the Shih-chi (Records of the Historian) 'Biography of the
Confucian Scholars' mentions a Tsai-i chih chi (Records of Disasters and
Anomalies). Yet references to a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu do not appear in any
books or fragments surviving from the Han dynasty.3 The text's earliest
reference dates to the Liang dynasty (502-557 C.E.).4 From the Sung
dynasty (960-1279 C.E.) onward, a long list of Chinese luminaries have
vehemently attacked, cautiously doubted, or devoutly defended the
text's authenticity.5 In the twentieth century, a handful of Japanese
scholars also began to note problems with the text.6
1 Scholars have debated the title of this work for centuries. According to one interpreta-
tion, fan-lu means luxuriant dew and symbolizes the richness of meaning in Confucius's
Spring and Autumn. The more commonly accepted interpretation is that of gems hang-
ing down from a cap, representing the connecting links between the use of terms in the
Spring and Autumn and the events it describes. See Chan 1963, p. 273.
2 I have rendered the Chinese term p'ien as 'bundle' because it most clearly represents the
physical characteristics of early Chinese texts. Such works were written on bamboo strips
bound together with leather, each book consisting of a single bundle called a p'ien.
3 See HS 30/1727, HS 30/1714, and SC 121/3128.
4 In his Han i-wen-chih k'ao, Wang Ymg-lin noted that the bibliography Ch'i-lu (Seven
Records) by Yuan Hsiao-hsu (479-536) listed a Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu in seventeen scrolls
(chu'an). See CCFLJC 'Evidence'/5a.
5 For example, the Sung Neo-Confucian Chu Hsi rejected the entire work as spurious. The
Ch'ing editors of the Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu edition of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu suggested that
some chapters were questionable. In his Liang-Han ssu-hsiang shih, Hsu Fu-kuan articu-
lated the most extreme and tenuous arguments to defend the authenticity of the entire
text. See Hsu 1975, pp. 192-195. For the most complete compilation of traditional
appraisals of the text, see CCFLJC 'Evidence'/ ia-31 a.
6 In the 1950s Keimatsu Mitsuo published an important article on this question. He
maintained that thefive-phasecosmology chapters in the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu were spuri-
ous. See Keimatsu 1959, pp. 25-46. Tanaka Masami also questioned the authenticity of
13
Some time between the third and sixth centuries an unknown figure
probably compiled the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu from what survived of the Tung
Chung-shu and other works by Tung Chung-shu that had circulated as
separate items during the Han.7 These authentic writings were com-
posed under diverse circumstances and at different times during the
course of Tung's long official career. Thus, although Tung certainly
composed parts of the received Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, he did not write it as a
single work as it is now constituted. The text also includes materials not
written by Tung. Some were probably written by his disciples, whereas
others seem unrelated to either Tung Chung-shu or the period in which
he lived. In Part I we will see that the biographical details of Tung
Chung-shu's life, the history of his literary corpus, and the internal
features of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu provide persuasive evidence to support
these claims. It is therefore essential to reexamine the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu
before moving on to Part II, a study of Tung Chung-shu's interpretations
of the Spring and Autumn and his role in the formulation of Confucian
orthodoxy during the Western Han. Establishing an accurate chron-
ology of the important events in Tung Chung-shu's life is the first step
in unraveling the hazy provenance of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu.8
Birth and early years (ca. 195-156 B.C.E.)

Biographical details concerning the early years of Tung Chung-shu's life
remain as inaccessible today as they must have been to the Han his-
torians Ssu-ma Ch'ien and Pan Ku, who remark in only the briefest
these chapters, although he maintained that some of them were authored by Tung. For
this discussion and several other essays on the authorship of this text, see Tanaka 1986.
More recently, in his review of Sagawa Osamu's Shunjugaku run bu, Iwamoto Kenji
also expressed his doubts. He suggested that one should not quote freely from this
text when discussing Tung's thought, since he suspects that the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu
includes materials dating from as late as the end of the Western Han. See Iwamoto 1984,
p. 96.
7 Some Chinese bibliophiles, such as Hu Ymg-lin (1551-1602), argued that the Ch'un-
ch'iu fan-lu is a composite of the Tung Chung-shu and Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yii.
Although the former text probably constitutes parts of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu, it is not
likely that the latter text was employed to compile the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu. The six cases
that survive from the Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yii share important theoretical
principles with the first six chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, but their literary forms are
quite distinct. The Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yii fragments are case summaries
followed by Tung's judgments, while thefirstsix chapters of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu consist
of questions and answers on the Kung-yang Commentary, suggesting records of instructive
discussions or debates in which Tung participated. For a more detailed discussion, see
Chapters 3 and 4.
8 For earlier efforts to establish a chronology of Tung Chung-shu's life, see CCFLJC
'Introduction'/7a-i7b; Li 1978, pp. 199-229. These chronologies are useful but often
omit evidence to support their claims and contain numerous errors.
A biography of Tung Chung-shu
fashion on Tung's life before he emerged at the national level of poli-

tics.9 Both the Shih-chi and Han-shu simply note that Tung was a native of
Kuang-ch'uan10 and that he mastered the Spring and Autumn at a young
age.11 Contrary to more typical practice, they do not report his courtesy
name, father's name, social status, early endeavors, birth date, or year of
death. Nor do they indicate under what local master Tung studied as a
young man. Historians have conventionally adopted the Ch'ing dynasty
scholar Su Yii's dates (ca. 179-104 B.C.E.) for Tung's birth and death,
but a handful of Han references suggest that he may have been born
around 195 B.C.E.12 Moreover a Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapter identifies
Tung's hometown as Wen Ch'eng, near the northwest border of present-
day Ching county in the southern part of Hopei province.13 Yet even
these most rudimentary facts are highly debated. Consequently, much of
Tung's early life remains beyond the historian's reach.
Erudite in the court of Emperor Ching (ca. 156—141 B.C.E.)

By 152 B.C.E. Tung Chung-shu had left his hometown and traveled to
Ch'ang-an to serve in the court of Emperor Ching (r. 156-141 B.C.E.).14
9 For Han references to Tung's prominence, see HS 27/1317 and HS 56/2527.

10 SC 121/3127 and HS 56/2495. Chou Kuei-tien has noted that from 155 to 51 B.C.E.
Kuang-ch'uan, which corresponds to modern-day Hopei province, was both the name
of a kingdom (kuo) with seventeen districts (hsien), and the name of a district within the
kingdom of Kuang-ch'uan. Neither the SCnor the HS indicates whether it refers to the
kingdom or the county, but based on other references in these chapters it most likely
refers to the kingdom of Kuang-ch'uan. Over the centuries, people from Hopei prov-
ince who live in areas corresponding to the Kuang-ch'uan of antiquity (Te prefecture,
the town of Kuang-ch'uan in Ching county, and Ts'e-ch'iang county) have claimed
Tung Chung-shu as their native son and erected various monuments to him. For a
more detailed discussion, see Chou 1989, pp. 23-33.
11 SC 121/3127 and HS 56/2495.
12 During the past several decades scholars have begun to challenge Su Yu's dates. Shih
Chih-mien has argued that Tung Chung-shu must have been born between 194 and
180 B.C.E. Li Wei-hsiung has dated Tung's birth to the years between 187 and 180
B.C.E. (during the reign of Empress Lu) and his death to around 114 B.C.E. Yueh
Ch'ing-p'ing and Chou Kuei-tien have proposed that Tung Chung-shu was born even
earlier, between the years 206 and 195 B.C.E., but Yueh dates Tung's death to before
114 B.C.E. whereas Chou argues that Tung must have died before 104 B.C.E. but after
107 B.C.E. Gary Arbuckle has proposed ca. 200—120 B.C.E. and Marianne Bujard ca.
198-115 B.C.E. See Shih 1945, pp. 50-52; Li 1978, p. 2; Yueh 1988, pp. 58-59; Chou
1989, pp. 1-5; Arbuckle 1989, p. 226; and Bujard 1992, pp. 145-217. For a detailed
discussion of Tung's birth and death date, consult Appendix 1.
13 See CCFL lo/gb.i. Unless otherwise indicated CCFL refers to the Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an
edition.
14 Tung Chung-shu was known to have been a colleague of Hu-wu Tze-te. The latest year
that Master Hu-wu could have retired from Emperor Ching's court was 152 B.C.E. Since
he and Tung Chung-shu were colleagues, Tung must have arrived at the court before
152 B.C.E. For an explanation of this date, consult Appendix 1.
15
As in earlier years, the central government competed with local teachers

and regional courts of the emperor's relatives to attract scholars and
practitioners to enhance its power and prestige.15 But the historical
record indicates that from the reign of the first Han ruler, Emperor Rao
(r. 206-195), to the death of Empress Dowager Tou (consort to Em-
peror Wen and mother of Emperor Ching) in 136 B.C.E., although Han
rulers summoned Confucian scholars to the central court, the scales of
imperial patronage were decidedly tipped in favor of a group of Taoist
adepts associated with Huang-Lao.16 The Shih-chi and Han-shu record
that numerous officials and politically prominent figures studied Huang-
Lao doctrines17 and practiced Huang-Lao techniques.18 Indeed some of
the clearest and most unambiguous indications of official support for
Huang-Lao date from the time of Emperor Ching. The Shih-chi states
that 'the Empress Dowager Tou was fond of the techniques of the Yellow
Emperor and Lao-tzu.'19 A dedicated follower, she compelled her hus-
15 Up until 145 B.C.E., when the post was abolished by the central government, the various
kings appointed erudites in their fiefs (Bielenstein 1980, pp. 106; 188, note 126; 202,
notes 37, 38, and 53). The official histories document their efforts to attract scholars
with gifts and titles. For example, Liu Te, the king of Ho-chien, was one of the most
important regional patrons of the period. He made great efforts to draw scholars to his
court and collect precious copies of pre-Ch'in texts for his library, which rivaled that of
the capital. He did much to promote the Tso Commentary, Institutes ofChou, 'Record of
Music,' and other texts associated with the Mao interpretations of the Odes (see SC59/
2093, //S2410, and Van Zoeren, 1991, p. 83). Liu Wu, the king of Liang, was another
important patron. The SCreports that he 'invited the outstanding and renowned from
all over to his court and none of the wandering scholars and persuaders failed to come'
(see SC 58/2083). Liu An, the king of Huai-nan, also brought a number of scholars to
his court. Han sources attribute many compositions to Liu An and his retainers, the
most famous of which is the Huai-nan-tzu, a work he presented to Emperor Ching's
successor, Emperor Wu. See Roth 1992, pp. 12-26.
16 Ssu-ma Ch'ien traces Huang-Lao back to a founding master of the late Warring States
whose name, Ho-shang Chang-jen (The Old Man by the River), attests to the vague
origins of this lineage. According to SC 80/2436: 'Ho-shang Chang-jen instructed An
Ch'i-sheng, An Ch'i-sheng instructed the Honorable Mao Hsi, the Honorable Mao Hsi
instructed the Honorable Le Ch'en. The Honorable Le Ch'en instructed the
Honorable Kai. The Honorable Kai instructed natives of Kao-mi in Ch'i and Chiao-hsi.
He was the teacher of Ts'ao [Ts'an] the administrator of Ch'i.' This is not the place to
resolve difficult questions of definition. For the purposes of this study I follow the SC
and HS in treating Huang-Lao as a Taoist lineage whose adepts followed techniques
and doctrines based on texts ascribed to the Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu combined
with the most efficacious techniques of the other traditions. While it is possible that
Huang-Lao practitioners derived from a particular social class and geographical area
and that they constituted a specific political faction at court, these issues are beyond the
scope of this book and will be taken up in a subsequent study on Huang-Lao and Early
Han Confucianism. For a discussion of SC and HS descriptions of Huang-Lao, see
Chapter 4.
17 mn%zn.
18 H^Hc^^fflJ. A number of recent books and articles have noted these references. See
Wu 1985, pp. 192-195; Chung 1981, p. 94; and Peerenboom 1993, pp. 244-248.
19 U^r%Z.%. SC 121/3117-3118.
16
band, son, and other members of the Tou clan to 'read the Yellow
Emperor and Lao-tzu and revere their techniques.'20 When he assumed
the throne, 'Emperor Ching did not employ the Confucians and
consequently numerous erudites21 occupied official posts and awaited
imperial inquiries, but they had not yet advanced [to high political
office].'22
In this less than congenial atmosphere, Tung began his career as an
erudite of the Kung-yang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn.23 His
Confucian colleagues, those who served as erudites due to their mastery
of scriptural techniques,24 included Yuan Ku, an expert on the Odes, and
Master Hu-wu,25 a scholar of the Spring and Autumn. Master Hu-wu
followed the regional interpretations from the kingdoms of Lu and Ch'i
while Tung Chung-shu followed those of Chao.26 Despite regional differ-
ences Tung appears to have come under the influence of this great
scholar before Master Hu-wu returned home to Ch'i and devoted him-
self to teaching. According to the Han-shu, 'Tung Chung-shu composed
works that praised Master Hu-wu's virtues.'27 Tung's associates who were
known to have followed Huang-Lao included Wang Kuo-k'ai, Chi An,
Cheng Tang-shih, and Ssu-ma T'an's teacher, Master Huang.28
In the capital Tung 'first transmitted his interpretations of the Kung-
yang tradition to the Spring and Autumn.'29 He embraced his teaching
and scholarly tasks with single-minded determination.30 He is said to
have lectured from behind a lowered curtain. His older disciples would
pass on what they had heard to his younger disciples; thus many of his
students never actually saw his face.31 His reputation as an honest, forth-
20 SC 49/1975 states: 'Empress Dowager Tou was fond of the doctrines of the Yellow
Emperor and Lao-tzu. The emperor, the heir apparent, and other members of the Tou
clan could not refuse to read the Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu.' HS 97/3945 also states:
'Empress Dowager Tou was fond of the doctrines of the Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu.
Emperor Ching and other members of the Tou clan could not refuse to read Lao-tzu
and revere its techniques.'
21 An erudite (po-shih) was an official of special, broad skill and knowledge who served
under the chamberlain of ceremonials. He assumed such responsibilities as guiding the
imperial carriage and participating in major court policy deliberations. Hucker 1985,
22 %h%b%tki%n±M:twmttm%. sc 121/3117-18.
23 7/556/2495.
24 MVR.
25 The T'ang commentary So-yin identifies him as Hu-wu Tzu-te. SC 121/3118.
26 SC 121/3118.
27 M f K f - S K H . HS 88/3615.
28 For their respective biographies see HS50/2312; SC 120/3105 and //S2316; SC 120/
2323 and HS 120/3112; SC 130/3286-3287 and HS 62/2709.
29 SC 121/3127, //S 56/2495, and//S27A/i3i7.
30 7/556/2495.
31 SC 121/3127. Adapted from Watson 1993, 2:368.
l
7
right scholar a n d m a n of propriety spread quickly, a n d before long

'scholars r e g a r d e d h i m as a teacher to b e respected.' 3 2 Although Con-
fucian scholars may have h a d little influence over the most powerful
political figures of the central court, they a p p e a r to have found a m o r e
receptive a u d i e n c e a m o n g their students a n d like-minded colleagues.
Thus, in contrast to his political power, which r e m a i n e d circumscribed
while h e served in E m p e r o r Ching's court, in these early years of his
career T u n g already enjoyed a certain d e g r e e of influence a n d authority
based o n his doctrinal expositions of the Spring and Autumn. H e was
transmitting his scriptural interpretations to an ever widening g r o u p of
disciples a n d winning a reputation as o n e of the p r o m i n e n t scholars in
the capital.
T h e following brief r e c o r d of a discussion between Master H u a n g a n d
Yuan Ku indicates that the c o u r t debate may have b e e n an i m p o r t a n t
m e a n s by which followers of c o m p e t i n g traditions publicized their views
o n historical a n d c o n t e m p o r a r y matters. T h e subject of this exchange
was dynastic succession: w h e t h e r or n o t King T ' a n g a n d King Wu estab-
lished the Shang a n d C h o u dynasties by legitimate (receiving the man-
date) or illegitimate (regicide) m e a n s . This topic h a d already figured as
a subject of intense d e b a t e a m o n g w a n d e r i n g scholars of the late War-
ring States p e r i o d ( 4 0 3 - 2 2 2 B.C.E.). 3 3 Ssu-ma C h ' i e n relates:
Master Huang stated: T'ang and Wu did not receive the mandate, they commit-
ted regicide.
Master Yuan Ku responded: That is not so. Chieh and Chou were cruel and
tyrannical and so the hearts of the people throughout the empire turned toward
T'ang and Wu. T'ang and Wu punished Chieh and Chou with the approval of
the empire. The people who lived under Chieh and Chou would not serve them
any longer and gave their allegiance to T'ang and Wu. T'ang and Wu had no
other choice but to set up their dynasties. Is this not what we designate 'receiving
the mandate'?
Master Huang stated: Although a hat is old, it is certainly placed on the head.
Although a pair of shoes is new, it is certainly worn on the feet. Why is this the
case? It is due to the distinctions between above and below. Now although Chieh
and Chou had lost the Way, they were still rulers above. Although T'ang and Wu
were sages, they were still subjects below. Now when a ruler misbehaves and his
ministers below are not able to rectify his speech and correct his mistakes to
restore dignity to the Son of Heaven, but instead punish him on account of his
mistakes, substitute themselves in his place, and trample on the throne, is this
not a case of regicide?
32 7/556/2495.
33 See, for example, Hsun-tzu chapter 18, 'Cheng Lun' (Rectifying Discourses).
18
Master Yuan Ku stated: If what you have said is necessarily true, then wasn't
Emperor Kao wrong to replace Ch'in and ascend to the position of Son of
Heaven?34
Emperor Ching interrupted the debate at this point and dismissed the
two men. Ssu-ma Ch'ien notes that after this exchange scholars did not
dare discuss such politically volatile issues.35 This debate between Master
Huang and Yuan Ku, those in which Tung Chung-shu would participate
later in his career, and the many more recounted in the histories of the
period, indicate that court disputations and deliberations initiated by
the emperor, as well as the lectures that animated the teaching halls of
the erudites, provided opportunities for Confucian scholars to articulate
their doctrines.36 But what could a follower of Confucius hope to achieve
in a political context that so clearly favored Huang-Lao texts and prac-
tices? What specifically did Tung Chung-shu accomplish during these
years? The official histories are silent on these issues.
Tung Chung-shu must have been well established as a scholar and
teacher of the Spring and Autumn before arriving at the court of Emperor
Ching; otherwise it is doubtful that the emperor would have summoned
him at all. Although his biographies conjure up the image of a reclusive
and bookish man, Tung must have gained knowledge of the other
traditions at the emperor's court during the ten or so years he served at
the capital. In fact, a second record of the exchange between Master
Huang and Yuan Ku in the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu may indicate that Tung
witnessed this debate between a Huang-Lao practitioner and Confucian
scholar.37 Surely neither Tung Chung-shu's reputation nor his mastery of
the Spring and Autumn rules out the possibility that he was exposed to
Huang-Lao techniques or any of the other textual traditions, esoteric
learning, or local lore represented at the court. In fact, political con-
cerns could have motivated Tung Chung-shu to include references to
doctrines or techniques popularized by Huang-Lao practitioners. The
inclusion of a few key Huang-Lao techniques favored by Emperor Ching
or Empress Dowager Tou certainly would have rendered Tung's policy
recommendations more attractive to the powers he hoped to influence.
For example, chapter 22 ('Comprehend the State as the Body') of the
34 SC 121/3122-3123. Translation adapted from Watson 1993, 2:363-364.

35 Adapted from Watson 1993, 2:363-364.
36 For other references to court debate and disputation, see HS 22/1033-1034, HS 29/
1694, HS65/2858, //S81/3364, HHS 25/884, HHS36/1228, ////S40B/1373, HHS
40B/1374, and HHS 47/1588-1589.
37 The record appears at CCFL 7/14a. 2.1-15b. 1.18. For a longer discussion of this
material, see Chapter 4.
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu correlates Huang-Lao techniques to regulate and nur-

ture the body with Confucian principles to order and vitalize the state.38
It is written for a ruler well versed in the techniques of nourishing life.
An official new to the central court, regardless of his age or stature,
might have found it difficult to resist the political winds that so favored
Taoist practices. At the very least, he could not ignore the powerful
Empress Dowager Tou, especially if he desired to influence political
policy. She was known to treat Confucian scholars poorly when they
spoke critically of the Taoist texts she esteemed. When Yuan Ku voiced
his frank criticisms of the Lao-tzu, she ordered the old man to be thrown
into a pigpen with no means to defend himself.39 While it is true that,
given his outstanding reputation as a Kung-yang scholar and his uncom-
promising personality, Tung Chung-shu would have been unlikely to
abandon his principles and the respect of his colleagues simply to curry
political favor, neither would he have completely ignored the political
powers he served and aspired to influence.
Beyond political concerns, Tung Chung-shu simply may have felt that
aspects of Huang-Lao could enrich and support his views. One need not
assume a priori that Tung Chung-shu compromised his high ideals or
scholarly allegiances to reflect on Huang-Lao techniques and theories
and reconcile them with those of the Kungyang tradition. There was a
good deal of precedent for such a syncretic approach. Lu Pu-wei had
gathered together scholars from diverse backgrounds to compile one of
the great syncretic works of the pre-Han period, the Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu.
In the earlier decades of the Han, Lu Chia and Chia I had composed
essays that addressed Taoist themes.40 Although some members of the
ruling family and the bureaucracy may have sought to play one group of
practitioners against another to further their political ends, others were
attracted to the syncretic ideal that fostered intellectual unity rather than
discord. For all these reasons, one must entertain the possibility that
during these years Tung may have penned some essays that attempted to
harmonize principles derived from the Confucian scriptures with
Huang-Lao techniques.41
38 For a discussion of Huang-Lao techniques, consult Chapter 4.

39 SC 121/3123.
40 See, for example, chapter 1, 'Tao Chi' (The Foundation of the Way), chapter 4, 'Wu
Wei' (Nonpurposive action), chapter 6, 'Shen Wei' (Beware of Subtleties), and chapter
8, 'Chih Te' (Utmost Virtue) of Lu Chia's Hsin-yii (New Conversations), and chapter 8,
'Tao Shu' (Techniques of the Way), 'Liu Shu' (The Six Techniques), and 'Tao Te
Shuo' (On the Way and Its Virtue) of Chia I's Hsin-shu (New Writings).
41 For a more detailed discussion of Tung's response to Huang-Lao, see Chapters 4
and 9.
2O
Respondent to Emperor Wu's inquiries (ca. 140-134 B.c.E.)
When Emperor Wu assumed the throne in 140 B.C.E. at the age of

seventeen, Empress Dowager Tou remained in power as the young
emperor's regent. The emperor, however, immediately attempted to
depart from Empress Dowager Tou's earlier policies - and perhaps her
influence - by favoring the scholars who desired to implement reforms
based on the teachings of Confucius.42 In the winter of his first year,
Emperor Wu initiated an imperial inquiry with an edict directing his
highest officials to recommend 'scholars who were worthy and good,
sincere and upright, and frank and critical.'43 The newly appointed
counselor-in-chief, Wei Wan, responded by requesting that the emperor
dismiss those scholars among the recommended who did not follow the
teachings of Confucius - 'those who had mastered the teachings of Shen
Pu-hai, Han Fei, Su Ch'in, and Chang I.'44 The emperor approved his
memorial, signaling the decline, although not the complete eradication,
of Huang-Lao power at the central court. In the years to follow Huang-
Lao practitioners would continue tofillofficial posts under Emperor Wu.
Ssu-ma T'an, who served the emperor as grand astrologer from 140 to
110 B.C.E., was well versed in Taoist techniques.45 His son, who followed
in his father's footsteps and assumed the post of grand astrologer after
him, was said to have placed Huang-Lao before the Confucian scrip-
tures.46 In fact some Taoist adepts who served the previous emperor, like
Chi An and Cheng Tang-shih, would advance to even higher political
posts under Emperor Wu.47 The fang-shih (technical masters) would also
come to enjoy much political prestige and influence, all the while jock-
eying for influence with their Confucian and Taoist counterparts.48 At
present, however, the Confucian scholars had caught the emperor's ear.
When Tou Ying, T'ien Fen, Chao Wan, and Wang Ts'ang urged the
42 In 140 B.C.E. Emperor Wu promoted Tou Ying to counselor-in-chief and T'ien Fen to
defender-in-chief. Each post ranked 10,000 bushels and was one of the three dukes
(san kung) among whom major responsibilities in the central government were divided.
In that same year, at Tou Ymg's and T'ien Fen's urging, Emperor Wu also promoted
Chao Wan to censor-in-chief and Wang Ts'ang to chamberlain for attendants, two of
the most eminent posts in the central government. HS 52/2378-79; Hucker 1985, pp.
301 and 593.
43 HS 6/155-156; Dubs 1944, 2:28.
44 //S6/156; Dubs 1944, 2:28. SC63/2146, associates Shen Pu-hai and Han fei-tzu with
Huang-Lao.
45 SC 130/3286-3287 and HS 62/2709.
46 HS 62/2738.
47 See SC 120/3105 and HS 50/2316; SC 120/3112 and HS 50/2323.
48 For the influence of the fang-shih under Emperor Wu, see DeWoskin 1983.
21
emperor to establish a Luminous Hall,49 the emperor called a court

conference to deliberate the matter.50 He even equipped a messenger
with a lavish carriage laden with gifts of silk and jade to entice the famous
exegete of the Odes, Master Shen P'ei, to travel to the capital to partici-
pate in the deliberations.51 It may have been in conjunction with this
conference that Han Ying, an exegete and teacher of the Odes and
Changes, bested Tung Chung-shu in a debate before Emperor Wu.52
Indeed, on the eve of 139 B.C.E., it appeared that Confucian reforms were
under way. Yet the scholars' efforts to 'promote the techniques of the
Confucians and demote the Taoist doctrines' displeased the still power-
ful Empress Dowager Tou.53 In 139 B.C.E., when Chao Wan asked
Emperor Wu to forbid memorializing matters to her, she promptly
expelled Chao Wan and Wang Ts'ang from their posts and forced Tou
Ying and T'ien Fen to resign. Chao Wan and Wang Ts'ang committed
suicide in prison, and Tou Ying and T'ien Fen retired to their homes.
Having removed these reformers from their positions of power, the
empress dowager promptly appointed Hsu Ch'ang, the marquis of Po-
chih, to the post of counselor-in-chief and Chuang Ch'ing-ti, the marquis
of Wu-ch'iang, as censor-in-chief.54 With her supporters back in positions
of power, the first round of Confucian reforms ground to a halt.
Shortly before the empress dowager died, the political fortunes of the
Confucian scholars changed again. In 136 B.C.E. Emperor Wu limited
erudites to the Five Scriptures: the Changes, the Odes, the Documents,
the Rites, and the Spring and Autumn with the Kung-yang Commentary.55
Soon after she died, the emperor dismissed her political cronies Hsu
Ch'ang and Chuang Ch'ing-ti and promoted his uncle T'ien Fen to
counselor-in-chief and Han An-kuo to censor-in-chief.56 After assuming
49 The Luminous Hall (Ming-t'ang) was a cosmic temple built with a conical top conform-
ing to Heaven (which was considered round) and a square base to accord with Earth
(which was thought to be square). Knechtges 1982, pp. 114-116.
50 T'ien Fen and Tou Ying attempted to institute a number of additional reforms and
eradicate the influence of the Tou family at the central court. They 'ordered the
adjunct marquises at the capital - many of whom were related to the Tou family - to
proceed to their tenures, abolished the custom barriers, and established regulations on
clothing according to correct ritual to initiate an Era of Grand Peace.' Adapted from
Watson 1993, 2:93. See also SC 107/2843; 7/552/2379; HS 6/157; HS 88/3608; HS
22/1031.
51 HS 6/157; Dubs 1944, 2:30.
52 HS 88/3613. It is not clear from the historical records when this debate took place.
Su Yu and Li Wei-hsiung date it to 126 B.C.E. but do not provide evidence for their
positions.
53 B98fll«5&ttStW. HS 52/2379.
54 H552/2379; HS 88/3608; and Watson 1993, 2:93.
55 //S6/159; Dubs 1944, 2:32.
56 SC 121/3118; HS 19/769; and Watson 1993, 2:94.
22
his new post, T'ien Fen 'proscribed the doctrines of Huang-Lao, Forms
and Names, and various other lineages while he promoted several hun-
dred Confucians versed in the literary arts.' 57 In 134 and 130 B.C.E.,
Emperor Wu held two additional imperial inquiries. In the years to
follow the emperor called other court deliberations to ascertain the
opinions of his officials on important policy decisions.
During these early years of Emperor Wu's reign, Tung Chung-shu and
the man who was to become his chief political nemesis, the Spring and
Autumn scholar Kung-sun Hung, participated in imperial inquiries initi-
ated by the emperor. 58 Tung Chung-shu's three famous responses to
Emperor Wu in Han-shu 56 suggest that he shared his views with
Emperor Wu at the inquiries held in 140 and 134 B.C.E. 59 Although Han
sources do not associate him with Tou Ying, T'ien Fen, Chao Wan, and
Wang Ts'ang, a number of Tung's proposals were in line with their ideas.
Like these four scholars, Tung urged the emperor to institute reforms:
Therefore since Han obtained the empire it has constantly desired to govern
well, but up to the present day it has not been able to govern well. It has failed
to govern well because it did not change and alter when it was appropriate to do
so. The ancients had a saying: 'Looking down into the pond and coveting the fish
does not compare to retreating and weaving a net.' Now looking down at the
government and desiring to govern for more than seventy years does not com-
pare to retreating and instituting reform. Having instituted reform, it will be
possible to govern well. If the state is well governed, disasters will diminish day by
day and blessings will increase.60
Echoing the recommendations of Chao Wan, Tung encouraged the
emperor to proscribe other textual traditions:
In his ignorance your minister suggests that all that lies beyond the category of
the Six Arts and the techniques of Confucius should be cut off and not allowed
to be promoted. Only after evil and licentious theories are destroyed is it possible
to unify rules and regulations61 and clarify standards and measures so that the
people know what to follow.62
57 %&fr%w\%igmznMxmm%%t'&A. sc 121/3118.
58 Emperor Wu also summoned Yuan Ku out of retirement, but it appears that his rivals
at court convinced the emperor to dismiss him on the pretext that he was too old to
serve. SC 121 /3123. It is unclear precisely when Kung-sun Hung came to the capital. SC
121/3123 states that Emperor Wu summoned both Yuan Ku and Kung-sun Hung to
the court when he first came to the throne but SC 121/3118 suggests that Kung-sun
Hung was summoned only after Empress Dowager Tou died.
59 For the dates of Tung's memorials, consult Appendix 2.
M"M#?& ' # i & » J & S H * ' mWB^. HS 56/2505 and HS 22/1031.

61 This is a tentative rendering of the term fJf&iL
62 #S 56/2523.
23
Tung also bemoaned the lack of qualified candidates to fill the posts in
the bureaucracy of the central government and encouraged Emperor
Wu to establish an educational institution to train scholars for office:
Therefore among the important ways to nurture scholars none is greater than
the Grand Academy. The Grand Academy is an institution to which scholars will
attach themselves. It is the root and source of educational transformation.
Presently, with the numerous scholars from each commandery and each king-
dom, there is a lack of those responding to your edicts. This means that the
Kingly Way will gradually become extinct. Your humble minister requests your
majesty to establish the Grand Academy and appoint enlightened teachers in
order to nurture the world's scholars. Frequently examine and question them to
make the most of their talents, and then it will surely be possible to obtain
outstanding candidates.63
He urged the emperor to rely on his highest officials in the outlying
areas to send their best and brightest to the capital to study:
In his ignorance your minister suggests that your majesty direct the adjunct
marquises64 and commandery governors65 with a salary of 2,000 bushels66 each to
select the most worthy of their functionaries, and annually supply two to serve as
guards of the lodgings67 and observe the abilities of the great ministers. Those
who supply the worthy should be rewarded, while those who supply the unworthy
should be punished. In this way, the imperial marquises and two-thousand
bushel officials will all devote their minds to seeking out worthies, and it will be
possible to obtain the empire's scholars and employ them in office.68
In fact, during the winter of 134 B.C.E. Emperor Wu responded to
Tung's requests and for the first time directed 'each commandery and
kingdom to recommend one Filial and one Uncorrupt person to the
court.'69 Ten years would pass before he instituted Tung's recommenda-
tion to establish the Grand Academy. Nonetheless, Tung was probably
63 tt
%?%vmmt' flij^&finm^ °HS56/2513.

64 Adjunct marquis (lieh-hou) was 'a title of nobility awarded for extraordinary merit in
state service, distinguished from an imperial marquis (chu-hou), who inherited noble
status as the son of a prince (wang).' Hucker 1985, p. 311.
65 A commandery governor (chiin-shou) was the head of a commandery and had a rank of
2,000 bushels. Hucker 1985, p. 202.
66 Er-ch 'ien-shih literally means 2,000 bushels of grain. It was the annual salary of an official
of this rank. Hucker 1985, p. 205.
67 Su-wei is one of the many titles used to designate the military units serving as the
imperial bodyguards. Hucker 1985, p. 461.
68 EB!U&te7l«l »^ I15#ff JEiK
HS56/2513.
69 HS 6/160 and Dubs 1944, 2:35.
24
instrumental in furthering the reform measures put forth by Tou Ying,

Tien Fen, Chao Wan, and Wang Ts'ang after they fell from power in 139
B.C.E. His forthright recommendations deeply impressed the emperor
who promoted Tung to serve his brother, Liu Fei, as administrator of
Chiang-tu. The historical records state that the emperor promoted Tung
after he completed the inquiry. Since the memorials indicate that he
participated in both inquiries of 140 and 134 B.C.E., he probably as-
sumed this post around 134 B.C.E.
Administrator to the king of Chiang-tu (ca. 134—130 B.C.E.)
During the years Tung Chung-shu served as administrator of Chiang-tu

to King I, he developed a reputation for his cosmological interpretations
of the disasters recorded in the Spring and Autumn.10 Ssu-ma Ch'ien
explains:
Taking up the various natural disasters and anomalies recorded in the Spring and
Autumn, Tung Chung-shu deduced why the yin and yang circulate irregularly.
Thus when seeking rain [he] closed off the yang forces and freed up the yin
forces. When stopping rain [he] reversed these actions. He implemented them
in this one kingdom [of Chiang-tu] and never failed to achieve the results he
desired.71
Whether Tung's measures were as efficacious as his biographer suggests
is open to debate. Nonetheless, it is clear from Ssu-ma Ch'ien's remarks
that during these years Tung had already begun to combine
cosmological principles and ritual practices to relieve droughts and avert
floods.
While serving King I, Tung Chung-shu continued to express his un-
compromising views. The king was a military man who had established a
reputation for his martial abilities during the rebellion of the Seven
Kingdoms, which had challenged the previous ruler.72 During an ex-
change with Tung Chung-shu he expressed his preference for the ag-
gressive policies of Kou Chien, the king of Yueh, and his great ministers
compared with the humane and righteous advisors of Yin whom Con-
fucius praised. When he solicited his administrator's opinion, Tung
responded:
70 In Han times an administrator (hsiang) was a senior official who served in a princedom
(wang-kuo), marquisate (hou-kuo), or other semifeudal domain. Hucker 1985, p 230.
The Han kingdom of Chiang-tu corresponds to several counties in present-day Chiang-
su province.
71 SC 121/3128.
72 HS 53/2409, HS 53/2414, and HS 56/2523.
25
I, your minister, am foolish and not up to the task of presenting you with a
meaningful response. I have heard that in earlier times the duke of Lu asked Liu-
hsia Hui: 'I wish to attack Ch'i. What do you think?' Liu-hsia Hui responded:
'You cannot.' Liu-hsia Hui returned home with a troubled expression and said:
'I have heard that when [the ruler] is going to attack another state he does not
question the humane. Why were these questions directed at me?' [Liu-hsia Hui]
was ashamed when he was simply asked about the subject, not to mention
establishing treacherous schemes to attack [the kingdom of] Wu. Based on this
example I say that [the kingdom of] Wu fundamentally lacked even one humane
person. Humane people are those who rectify themselves with righteous princi-
ples and do not calculate what will bring them benefit. They illuminate the Way
but do not anticipate the results. This is why even a five-cubit-tall boy from the
gate of Confucius is ashamed to mention the Five Hegemons because they place
treachery and force before humaneness and righteousness. They simply engage
in treachery and nothing else. Therefore they are not worthy of being men-
tioned within the gate of the great noble man [Confucius]. Compared with other
feudal lords the Five Hegemons were worthy. Compared with the Three Kings
they were but coarse stone to polished jade.73
Despite the hawkish proclivities of his superior, Tung did not shrink
from voicing his conviction that although the Five Hegemons were not
completely devoid of moral worth, King I should emulate the historical
model provided by the humane and righteous policies of the Three
Kings.
Grand master at the capital (ca. 130—124 B.C.E.)
In the midst of Tung Chung-shu's career as administrator of Chiang-tu,

King I demoted him. Liu Fei may have held Tung responsible for his
failed attempt to win the emperor's approval to initiate a military ex-
pedition against the Hsiung-nu.74 Whatever the case, Tung returned to
the capital to serve as a grand master of the palace around 130 B.C.E.75 In
this capacity Tung Chung-shu was ordered by the emperor to instruct
73 HS 56/2523-4.
74 A short entry in the HS 'Biography of the Thirteen Kings' may be relevant. It states:
'During the yuan-kuangera [134-129 B.C.E.] the Hsiung-nu entered the Han frontiers
in great numbers. [Liu] Fei sent up a memorial to the emperor recommending that
they attack the Hsiung-nu. The emperor did not allow the recommendation.' In his
'Chronological Table' Li Wei-hsiung dates this to the fifth year of the yuan-kuang era
(130 B.C.E.). If Tung was demoted because the emperor did not approve of Liu Fei's
recommendation, he would have returned to the capital around 130 B.C.E., about the
same time that Chu-fu Yen was there rising up the ranks.
75 A grand master of the palace (chung ta-fu) was one of three policy consultants to the
emperor. See Hucker 1985, pp. 12, 194.
one of his favorite courtiers, Wu-ch'iu Shou-wang, in the Spring and

Autumn.™ But the most significant event of this period was the lawsuit
that threatened Tung's life.
According to the Han-shu, the intrigue began when the power-hungry
official Chu-fu Yen stole a composition from Tung Chung-shu in which
Tung analyzed the political significance of a fire that had occurred in the
mortuary temple of Emperor Kao. Tung had completed a draft but had
not yet submitted it to the emperor when Chu-fu Yen paid him a visit, saw
the memorial, and lifted it to send on to the emperor.77 The Shih-chi
identifies the composition as the Tsai-i chih chi (Records of Disasters and
Anomalies) and states that Tung composed the work only after he was
demoted to grand master of the palace and was residing in the dormitory
that housed officials serving in the capital.78 One can only conclude that
the draft memorial must have been part of the larger work referred to in
the Shih-chi Despite these discrepancies, both accounts agree that after
he received Tung's composition, the emperor summoned a number of
scholars, including Tung's disciple Lii Pu-shu, who examined the work
and thoroughly criticized it.79 Tung was then turned over to legal offi-
cials, who tried him for 'privately composing a book on disasters and
anomalies' and charged him with 'the crime of immorality.'80
Why did the work create such an uproar? The memorial may provide
some answers. It records that there were actually twofiresin the year 135
B.C.E. Both the mortuary temple in Liao-tung and the side halls in
the funerary park to Emperor Kao in the capital burned down.
Han interpreters believed fires that destroyed palaces, imperial ancestral
halls, temples, or other symbolic buildings or grounds were particularly
inauspicious omens for the reigning dynasty. This double catastrophe at
sites commemorating the founding emperor of the dynasty must have
seemed particularly foreboding to Tung Chung-shu. Employing the
analogical reasoning that was a hallmark of his omenology, Tung Chung-
shu argued that Heaven sent down disasters at both the periphery
and center of the empire to warn the emperor that he must deal deci-
76 //S64A/2794. Since the decree identifies Tung Chung-shu as palace grandee, it most
likely dates from this period in his career.
77 HS 56/2524.
78 SC 121/3128.
79 //S 56/2524 and SC 121/3128.
80 HS%6/1930. The term pu-tao, literally 'without the Tao,' indicated particularly serious
crimes directed against the ruler. For a detailed discussion of this term, see Hulsewe
1955, pp. 156-204. For an additional account of Tung's trial, see LHCS 29/1650,
where Wang Ch'ung describes Tung's work as 'a book concerning techniques of the
Tao [ Tao shu] in which Tung spoke much about calamitous events being caused by the
faults of the government.'
sively and harshly with his unruly relatives in the distant kingdoms and
with his corrupt officials near at hand in the metropolitan area of the
capital:
Therefore Heaven caused this disaster as if to say to your majesty, 'Facing the
present era, although worn out by serious dangers, if you do not rely on Grand
Peace [T'ai-p'ing] and utmost selflessness [chih-kung] you cannot create order.
Spy out those imperial relatives with the noble rank of imperial marquis who
have departed from righteousness to the greatest degree. Execute them without
mercy just as I have burned Emperor Kao's temple at Liao-tung. Spy out your
trusted courtiers in the capital area who have engaged in dishonest practices and
those that are honored but not upright. Execute them without mercy just as I
have burned down the side halls in the funerary park to Emperor Kao.'81
Chu-fu Yen may have found this memorial threatening on at least two
accounts. Although a power to contend with at the capital, he was also a
bit of a scoundrel who possessed an insatiable appetite for wealth.82
Consequently, many high officials bribed him with gold to win his favor
and support.83 Chu-fu Yen may have feared that he was one of the
corrupt officials Tung Chung-shu wished to see punished. He also may
have been angered by the memorial because he disagreed with Tung
Chung-shu on how to resolve the pressing political problem in the
kingdoms.
The kingdoms, with their independent administrations, sources of
revenue, and military troops, had threatened the central government's
stability since the early days of Emperor Kao. To limit the power of the
feudal lords, Emperor Wen initiated the policy of dividing up the king-
doms in 164 B.C.E., and Emperor Ching continued this policy until the
revolt of the Seven Kingdoms in 154 B.C.E. The issue was hardly resolved
when Emperor Wu took over the reins of power.84 Tung's recommenda-
tions must have appeared extreme to officials like Chu-fu Yen who
advocated adopting a more conciliatory attitude toward the feudal lords.
Chu-fu Yen argued that if the emperor treated the feudal lords too
leniently, they would become haughty and extravagant and fall into
moral chaos, but in contrast, if he were too demanding, they would unite
their forces and defy the capital. The revolt of the Seven Kingdoms had
shown that any attempt to use legal means to divide up their territories
would only sow the seeds of revolt. Chu-fu Yen urged the emperor to
81 HS 27A/1332.
82 According to Chu-fu Yen, one either 'lived and dined from the five cauldrons or died
from being boiled alive in them.' SC 112/2961.
83 SC 112/2961.
84 See HS 35.
28
order the feudal lords to abandon the practice of primogeniture and

divide up their lands equally among their sons and younger brothers.
Such a policy would reduce the size and strength of the kingdoms
without depriving the feudal lords of their territories.85
Chu-fu Yen and the officials ordered to judge the case dealt harshly
with Tung Chung-shu, sentencing him to death. But the emperor inter-
vened, pardoned Tung, and reinstated him as grand master of the
palace.86 Nonetheless, Tung's enemies at court had apparently suc-
ceeded in silencing him. The Shih-chi notes that after the trial Tung
Chung-shu 'no longer dared express his opinions on disasters and por-
tents.'87 Thus the trial is significant not only because it illuminates the
court politics of the period, but because it establishes a terminus post
quern for Tung's writings on omens. When did the trial occur? Su Yii and
Li Wei-hsiung have dated Tung Chung-shu's trial to 135 B.C.E., the year
of the fires, but that date presents several difficulties.88 Tung composed
the memorial only after he left his post in Chiang-tu, but he did not take
up this post earlier than 134, and in 133 he was still serving as adminis-
trator to Chiang-tu.89 Similarly, Chu-fu Yen could not have exposed Tung
Chung-shu in 135, because in that year he had not yet entered the
capital.90 The trial must have occurred later than 134, but how much
later? Chu-fu Yen set out for the capital in 134, arrived there by 129, and
85 HS 112/2961.
86 SC 121/3128.
87 Ibid.
88 SC 121/3128 and HS 56/2524 record that the affair with Chu-fu Yen occurred after
the mortuary temple of Emperor Kao burned down in 135 B.C.E. For Su Yu and Li Wei-
hsiung's explanations, see CCFLIC l/ioa-iob; Li 1978; p. 208. No specific evidence
dates Tung's memorial on the fire to the year it occurred. Moreover, Eberhard has
shown that scholars did not necessarily comment on anomalies when they first oc-
curred. The time lag between a portent and an event that was related to it varied as
widely as one month to eleven years. See Eberhard 1957, p. 53.
89 A fragment of an official directive confirms that Tung was still serving as administrator
of Chiang-tu in that year. In a document preserved in chapter 71 of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu, dated 'the eighth month of the twenty-first year,' the administrator of Chiang-tu
wrote: 'The yin rains have persisted for some time and [I] fear that it will damage the
five grains. [We must] hasten to stop the rain.' The twenty-first year of the king of
Chiang-tu corresponds to the second year of the yuan-kuang era of Emperor Wu (133
B.C.E.). See 'Chronological Table of Feudal Lords and Kings from the Rise of the Han'
in SC 17/857.
90 The SC 'Biography of the Marquis of Ping-chin and Chu-fu Yen' describes Chu-fu Yen's
activities after he failed to find employment in the hinterlands: 'He finallydecided that
it was no use seeking employment among the feudal lords and during the first year of
the yuan-kuang era. [134 B.C.E.] of the present emperor he journeyed west beyond the
pass to the capital, where he obtained an interview with General Wei Ch'ing. Wei
Ch'ing mentioned him several times to the emperor, but the emperor failed to sum-
mon him to court. Although he had very little money, he continued to linger about the
capital until many of the officials and their retainers had grown to dislike him. At last
29
was killed in 127.91 He must have brought Tung's memorial to the

attention of the emperor some time between 129 and 127. Thus 127
B.C.E. may serve as a terminus post quern for Tung's writings on omens and
portents.
Administrator to the king of Chiao-hsi (ca. 126-123 B.C.E.)

Having scarcely recovered from the episode with Chu-fu Yen, Tung once
again found his life threatened. Kung-sun Hung, who had risen from
humble origins as a keeper of pigs to become one of the most powerful
officials in the empire, initiated the attack. Perhaps motivated by jeal-
ousy or threatened by Tung's influence, Kung-sun Hung convinced
the emperor to appoint him administrator to Liu Tuan, King Yu of
Chiao-hsi,92 who was infamous for his brutal treatment of officials sent by
the central government to punish the king for defying the laws.93 Con-
trary to Kung-sun Hung's expectations, the Shih-chi reports, Liu Tuan
had heard of Tung's reputation as an outstanding Confucian (taju) and
treated him very well.94 In fact, the events of 124 B.C.E. suggest that Tung
may actually have enjoyed a good deal of influence over the king. This
may be seen in Liu Tuan's handling of the legal case against Liu An, the
king of Huai-nan. In 124 B.C.E., the emperor summoned forty-three
he decided to submit a letter directly to the throne. His petition was brought before the
emperor in the morning, and that same evening he was summoned for an audience.
His memorial dealt with nine items, of which eight were concerned with legal matters.
The other item was a criticism of the attacks being made on the Hsiung-nu' (following
Watson 1993, 2:192-193; HS 58/2621; and SC 112/2953). If Chu-fu Yen did not enter
the capital until the year 134 B.C.E., he could not have stolen Tung's writings in 135,
the year that Emperor Kao's mortuary temple caught fire.
91 The SC 'Biographies of General Wei Ch'ing and Cavalry General Huo Ch'u-ping' state:
'In the fifth year of the Yuan-kuang era [129 B.C.E] Wei Ch'ing was appointed chariot
and horse general and sent out of Shang-ku to attack the Hsiung-nu' (SC 111/2923).
This was the first time that Wei Ch'ing was appointed to this post, so how could
Chu-fu Yen have visited General Wei Ch'ing in 134 B.C.E. when he traveled to the
capital? Chou Kuei-tien argues that the 129 B.C.E. date is reliable, whereas the passage
from Chu-fu Yen's biography must be corrupt. Li Wei-hsiung also employs this evidence
to date Wei Ch'ing's appointment and Chu-fu Yen's memorial to 129 B.C.E., but
he incorrectly dates Tung's trial to 135 B.C.E. Chu-fu Yen must have brought
Tung's memorial to the attention of the emperor after Wei Ch'ing became chariot
and horse general in 129 B.C.E., but not later than 127, the year in which he was killed
after assuming his new post as administrator of Ch'i (SC 112/2962; Watson 1993
2:205).
92 The Han kingdom of Chiao-hsi corresponds to parts of present-day Shan-tung.
93 See SC 121/3128 and SC 59/2097. Kung-sun Hung became censor-in-chief in 126
B.C.E., counselor-in-chief in 124, and died in 121. HS 58/ 262 3 states: 'In total he served
as censure-in-chief and counselor-in-chief for six years. When he was eighty years old he
died in his post as counselor-in-chief.' Therefore, during the six years between 126 and
121 B.C.E., Kung-sun Hung must have recommended Tung for the post in Chiao-hsi.
94 SC 121/3218 and HS 56/2525.
3°
kings and marquises to judge these two kings who had conspired to
rebel. Liu Tuan recommended capital punishment for Liu An based on
a principle from the Spring and Autumn.95 The historian Ch'ien Mu posits
that Tung Chung-shu actually drafted Liu Tuan's proposal.96 The fact
that Liu Tuan cited a principle found only in the Kung-yang Commentary
adds weight to the argument that Tung at least influenced Liu Tuan's
judgment of the case.97 Furthermore, in his memorial concerning the
fires of 135 B.C.E., Tung Chung-shu had expressed his concern about
unruly kings and advised the emperor, with Heaven as his authority, to
execute those who had deviated farthest from the path of righteousness.
Despite his successes with Liu Tuan, Tung remained only briefly in this
post. He feared that if he stayed long in Chiao-hsi he would be accused
of some crime, so he resigned on grounds of illness and returned
home.98
Retirement and death (ca. 123-105 B.C.E.)
After Tung Chung-shu returned to the capital, the emperor directed

him to debate Duke Chiang of Hsia-ch'iu, a scholar of the Ku-liang
Commentary and Odes." 'Tung Chung-shu was well versed in the Five
Scriptures, a capable and exceptional speaker, who excelled at linking
various literary passages. Duke Chiang was a stammerer. When the em-
peror directed him to deliberate with Chung-shu, Duke Chiang did not
compare with him.'100 The counselor-in-chief Kung-sun Hung, who
'compared and compiled their opinions, followed the recommendations
of Tung Chung-shu.'101 This debate, which occurred around 122 B.C.E.,
marked the rise to prominence of Kung-yang learning. Tung's views so
impressed the emperor that he directed the heir apparent to receive
instruction from him in the Kung-yang Commentary to the Spring and
Autumn.102 Indeed, during these last decades of his life, Tung appears to
have enjoyed his greatest influence at court. He had finally won the
support of his adversary Kung-sun Hung. In addition, the emperor
95 SC 118/3094, HS 44/2152, and Watson 1993, 2:345.

96 Ch'ien 1969, p. 71.
97 See the Kung-yang Commentary to Duke Chuang 32.3 translated by Malmqvist 1971,
p. 148.
98 SC 121/3218 and HS 56/2525.
99 HS 88/3617.
100 w$?m^mmwm^mx. tL&mnn »±&mw$fm, *inw#. HS 88/ 3 6I 7 .
101 The relevant passages do not identify the name of the collection. See SC 121/3129
and HS 88/3617.
102 HS 88/3617. Since Kung-sun Hung occupied the post of counselor-in-chief from 124
B.C.E. until his death in 121 (SC 112/2953), and Emperor Wu designated an heir in
122 (//S6/174), the debate must have occurred in either 122 or 121 B.C.E.
31
honored Tung by appointing him tutor to the heir apparent while

seeking his advice on important policy decisions. The official histories
report that 'when there were important deliberations at court, the em-
peror often sent messengers to Tung's home, including even the cham-
berlain for law enforcement, Chang T'ang,103 to question him. Tung's
replies all possessed clear standards.'104
The memorials written by Tung after retirement attest to this
influence at court. For example, on one occasion Tung advised
the emperor on agricultural policy and put forth the following
recommendation:
The Spring and Autumn does not record other grains, but it does record when
winter wheat and spring grain did not mature. From this we see that among the
five grains, the sage [Confucius] attached greatest importance to winter wheat
and spring grain. Presently the cultivation of winter wheat is not popular in
Kuan-chung.105 This year if you neglect what the Spring and Autumn considers to
be most important, then you will destroy the means to support the people. I
implore your majesty to send down an edict to the grand minister of agriculture
instructing the people of Kuan-chung to increase the cultivation of winter
wheat106 and directing them not to pass the seasonal time [for its cultivation].107
103 The location of Tung's home at this point in his career is a matter of debate. Han
sources do not indicate whether he resided in the capital or returned to his home-
town. His frequent consultations with Chang T'ang and others from the central court
suggest that he resided in or not far from the capital.
104 See 7/556/2525. Emperor Wu appointed Chang T'ang to the post of chamberlain for
law enforcement in 126 B.C.E. and promoted him to imperial counselor in 121. Since
Chang T'ang served as chancellor during the five years between 126 and 121 B.C.E.,
and since Tung Chung-shu did not retire earlier than 124, he probably received
inquiries from Chang T'ang no earlier than 124 and no later than 121. Chou Kuei-
tien notes that since Tung was near seventy when he retired around 122, he could not
have been born in 204 B.C.E., the conventional date of his birth, because he would
have been eighty-three by 122 B.C.E. Because this claim contradicts Pan Ku's state-
ment that puts Tung's retirement age near seventy, Chou suggests that Tung was
probably not born in the first year of Emperor Kao's reign but rather toward the end
of his reign, around 195 B.C.E.
105 Kuan-chung, literally 'within the passes,' refers to the metropolitan area of the capital
Ch'ang-an (modern-day Sian) and its surrounding lands. It was separated from the
rest of the empire by mountains and four passes, making it a strategically beneficial
site.
106 On the term su-mai (Hf), Yen Shih-ku says: 'In the autumn or winter, they plant it, over
the New Year it is ripe, hence it is called su [lit. sleeping or overnight] wheat.' See
Dubs 1944, 2:63.
107 HS 24/1137. Nancy Swann dates this memo ial to the years between 109 and 89
B.C.E., Hsu Cho-yun to around 100 B.C.E., and Chou Kuei-tien to approximately 120
B.C.E. The memorial refers to the minister of agriculture as ta-ssu-nung. Nancy Swann
points out that from 143 to 104 B.C.E. the minister of agriculture was designated by
the title ta-nung-ling, and from 104 to 89 B.C.E. the minister of agriculture was denoted
by the title ta-ssu-nung. The title ta-nung-linp occurs eleven additional times in the
Treatise and with one exception is used in pi sages that relate events predating 104
32
The 'Annals of Emperor Wu' record that in 120 B.C.E. the emperor
directed officials working in commanderies that suffered from floods to
urge the people to plant winter wheat.108 It is not inconceivable that he
took this action in response to Tung's memorials. In a second memorial,
which was written after 119 B.C.E., 109 Tung urged the emperor to rectify
the injustices and inequities of his day:
The ancients taxed the people not more than one-tenth [of their crops] and so
what they sought was easily supplied. The ancients employed the people not
more than three days [out of each year] and so their labor force was easily filled.
The resources of the people were sufficient inside [their households] to nourish
the elderly and fully develop the virtue of filial piety. It was sufficient outside
[their households] to serve the ruler by supplying taxes. It was sufficient among
the subordinates of [their households] to care for wives and sons with the utmost
love. This is why the people were delighted to follow their rulers. When the Ch'in
[rulers] arose, this was not the case. They employed the laws of Shang Yang and
altered the institutions of the Five Emperors and Three Kings. They abandoned
the well-field system, and the people were allowed to buy and sell land. The rich
possessed lands connecting north to south and east to west, while the poor
lacked even enough land into which to stick an awl. The rich also monopolized
the profits from the rivers and marshes and controlled the surplus resources
provided by the mountains and forests. In their rapaciousness and greed they
exceeded the regulations in order to surpass one another in their extravagance.
In the cities the rich commanded the respect due the ruler; in the villages they
enjoyed the riches of dukes and lords. How could the common people have
avoided poverty? Furthermore, [the Ch'in] increased the monthly demands of
local corvee labor and the yearly demands of regular conscript and frontier
garrison duty, so that labor requirements were thirty times that of the ancients.
Field and poll taxes and the profits from salt and iron were twenty times that of
the ancients. Some cultivated the fields of the powerful and gave up as much as
half of their crop in taxes. Therefore the poor often wore garments fit only for
cattle and horses and ate food fit for dogs and pigs. They were also burdened by
greedy and cruel officials who punished and executed recklessly. Distressed and
B.C.E. But the other title, ta-ssu-nung, occurs three additional times, and in two
instances it is also used to describe events that predate 104 B.C.E. Therefore, while the
appearance of the title ta-ssu-nung suggests that the memorial dates from 104 to 89
B.C.E., further evidence must be marshaled to fix its date. Swann 1950, p. 179, note
230. Hsu does not explain his reasons for dating the memorial to ca. 100 B.C.E. See
Hsu 1980, p. 244.
108 See //S6/177; Dubs 1944, 2:63.
109 Martin Wilbur and Chou Kuei-tien have pointed out that Tung's suggestion to return
salt and iron to the people dates this passage to later than 119 B.C.E., when Emperor
Wu reinstituted the salt and iron monopolies. Nancy Swann dates the memorial to ca.
100 B.C.E. She believes Tung's recommendation to eradicate the arbitrary execution
of slaves may have been instrumental in persuading the emperor to order the trial of
a marquis for murdering his slaves in 100 B.C.E. See Wilbur 1943, p. 312, note 1; Chou
1989, p. 6; Swann 1950, pp. 177-183.
33
lacking security, the people fled to the mountains and forests and became
thieves and bandits. The circuits were half-filled with convicts, while in a single
year those tried and imprisoned numbered in the tens of thousands. When the
Han arose, it followed these practices without change. Although difficult to
implement the ancient well-field methods in every detail, it would be suitable to
approximate this ancient practice. Limit the people's land ownership110 in order
to assist those in need and obstruct the paths to simultaneous accumulation [of
wealth]. Return the profits of salt and iron to the people.111 Abolish male and
female slaves and eliminate their fear of arbitrary execution.112 Lighten taxes and
diminish labor services in order to extend the people's strength.113 Only then can
they be well ordered.114
As in his earlier memorials, Tung continued to express his admiration
for the political policies of the Five Emperors and Three Kings, un-
equivocal rejection of more recent Ch'in political practices, and desire
for political reform. In the last memorial dating from his retirement,
Tung made the following recommendations concerning Hsiung-nu
policy:
Righteousness moves the noble person, but profit moves the greedy person. You
cannot speak of righteousness to the Hsiung-nu. You can only please them by
increasing their material benefits, and so bind them before Heaven. Therefore
increase their material benefits in order to eliminate their intentions; take a
solemn oath with them before Heaven in order to strengthen their covenants;
and hold their beloved sons as hostage in order to control their hearts. Then
even if the Hsiung-nu desire to expand their territories, how could they forfeit
these significant benefits, deceive high Heaven, or murder their beloved sons?
Now taxes levied and tribute sent hardly equal the cost of maintaining the three
armies, and the security of city walls does not differ from treaties concluded
between people of integrity. Would it not be advantageous to all-under-Heaven
if among the people of the frontier cities who protect the borders, fathers and
older brothers could relax their vigilance, children could be nourished, the
'barbarian' horses115 did not spy over the Great Wall, and urgent dispatches no
longer traversed the empire?116
110 Nancy Swann has pointed out that the term ming-t'ien (& ffl) means literally 'regis-
tered field.' See Swann 1950, p. 183.
111 Here Tung urges the emperor to abolish the government's monopoly on salt and
iron.
112 The commentator Fu Ch'ien suggests that the statement refers to the killing of male
and female slaves on the owner's own authority.
113 The point here is to relax the government's demands for labor services to free up the
people to direct their strength toward agricultural activities to sustain their families.
114 HS 24/1137. This translation has benefited from comparisons with Wilbur 1943, p.
312; Swann 1950, pp. 177-184; and Hsu 1980, pp. 163-164.
115 Hu (#3), barbarian, was one of many derogatory and scornful terms used to denote
non-Chinese people. See Hulsewe 1979, p. 52.
116 //S94V3831.
34
In 107 B.C.E., Han administrators reopened their discussions on Hsiung-

nu policy after the Hsiung-nu leader Wu-wei (114-105 B.C.E.) sus-
pended border raids to demonstrate his desire to renew the ho-ch'in
policy.117 Several administrators argued that since the Hsiung-nu had
been weakened in battle, they could be made to submit to the Chinese
emperor as subjects. Consequently, Emperor Wu sent Yang Hsin on a
diplomatic mission to the Hsiung-nu in that same year. When Yang Hsin
met with the Hsiung-nu leader, he proposed, among other things, that if
Wu-wei desired to renew the ho-ch 'in policy, he should send his eldest son
to the capital as a hostage. Wu-wei objected on the grounds that such a
stipulation was not part of the former ho-cWin treaties.118 In fact, the new
stipulation (that the Hsiung-nu leader send his eldest son as a hostage to
the capital), which was proposed to the Hsiung-nu in 107 B.C.E., may
have derived from Tung Chung-shu's recommendation.119 But precisely
when Tung put forth these policy recommendations - whether in 107
B.C.E. or earlier - cannot be determined from the existing evidence. One
can only conclude that Tung composed the memorial by 107 B.C.E.
During the years following his retirement, Tung also continued to
teach and write.120 Tung probably died sometime between 115 and 105
B.C.E., although the date of his death cannot be determined from the
extant evidence.121 This eminent scholar and teacher left behind sons,
grandsons, and hundreds of disciples122 who achieved high office be-
cause of their erudition.123 Reflecting on his scholarship, Ssu-ma Ch'ien
remarked: 'From the rise of the Han down to the reign of the fifth
117 Twitchett and Loewe 1986, p. 394.

118 Dubs 1944, 2:94.
119 Chou 1989, p. 7.
120 HS 56/2525 and SC 121/3128 state: 'When it came time for him to leave office and
retire to his home, to the end of his life he did not inquire of his family's business
affairs. He considered the cultivation of learning and the writing of books as his [only]
duties.'
121 For a discussions of the date of Tung's death, consult Appendix 1.
122 Han sources indicate that Tung's disciples numbered several hundred, although they
identify only twenty-two of these disciples by name. Nonetheless, their biographies
enable one to establish a clear line of transmission for the Western Han period. They
also suggest that, following Tung's death, a regional center of Kung-yang learning
developed in the northeast commanderies of Tung-hai and Lang-yeh. Eleven of
Tung's twenty-two disciples known by name were natives of either Tung-hai or Lang-
yeh. Chu Ta, Meng-Ch'ing, Shu Kuang, Yen P'eng-tsu, and Ma Kung were all natives
of Tung-hai. Kung Yu, Wang Chung, Kuan Lu, Tso Hsien, Kung-sun Wen, and Tung-
men Yun came from Lang-yeh. For more information on the Han transmission of
Kung-yang learning and Tung Chung-shu's disciples, see Appendixes 3 and 4.
123 HS 56/2525 and SC 121/3129. After Tung Chung-shu's death, his family was trans-
ferred to Mou-ling. The transfer probably occurred in 96 B.C.E., because the 'Annals
of Emperor Wu' records that in that year Emperor Wu transferred both officials and
commoners from the commanderies and kingdoms to Mou-ling and Yun-yang. (I have
35
generation of rulers, only Tung Chung-shu established a reputation for

elucidating the Spring and Autumn.'124 Pondering his integrity and influ-
ence, Pan Ku wrote: 'With bold words and searching responses, he was a
pure Confucian of his age.'125 Praising his talents, Liu Hsiang claimed:
'Tung Chung-shu possessed the ability to assist a true king. Even I [Yin]
and Lii [Wang] lacked the means to augment [his talents]; while the
likes of Kuan [Chung] and Yen [Ying] certainly did not compare to
him.'126
With the preceding biography as the benchmark, we can reexamine
the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu and begin to clarify the provenance and date of
many chapters. For example, it becomes evident that chapter 71 ('A
Response on the Suburban Sacrifice'), an exchange between chamber-
lain for law enforcement Chang T'ang and former administrator to
Chiao-hsi, must date to around 123 B.C.E., when Tung Chung-shu re-
tired from his official duties. Chapter 25 ('Yao and Shun Did Not
Unauthorizedly Abdicate the Throne; T'ang and Wu Did Not Seize the
Throne by Regicide'), which resembles the debate between Yuan Ku and
Master Huang, probably dates from 156 to 141 B.C.E., when Tung
served Emperor Ching as an erudite. It is also possible to approximate a
date of composition for one essay in chapter 77 ('Conform to Heaven's
Way'), a treatise combining the Confucian notion of centrality with
Taoist techniques of inner cultivation. The biography transforms the
previously opaque reference to keeping to the mean (chung) when
erecting terraces and halls127 into a subtle criticism of the Sky-Piercing
Tower (T'ung-t'ien T'ai) built by Emperor Wu in 109 B.C.E. for the
purpose of attracting immortals.128 Such examples, which will be
enumerated further in Chapter 3, demonstrate how the distinctive
periods and important events of Tung's life provide a context with
emended Yun-ling to Yun-yang, following Yen Shih-ku.) During Han times until the
reign of Emperor Yuan, when the practice was abolished, it was common to transfer
powerful families to the mausoleum towns of the emperors both to supervise their
activities and to diminish their spheres of influence. Mou-ling was the town located
north of Ch'ang-an where Emperor Wu's mausoleum was located. According to the
'Annals of Emperor Wu,' during the first year of the t'ai-shih era (96 B.C.E.), 'Braves
and stalwarts from among the official and common people of the commanderies and
kingdoms were transferred to Mou-ling and Yun-yang.' See HS 24/1137-1138; Ch'u
1972, pp. 196—199; and Knechtges 1982, pp. 106-108.
124 SC 121/3128.
125 The encomium reads: fllfflttff ' #*BftH£ ' J H M ? 6 ' S 4 £ ! i » ' T t i ¥ & '
l * 5 t J S # ' ^Wifrif ' &1tt#fiflt ° HS100B/4255. See also 7/556/2525.
126 7/556/2526.
127 CCFLJC 21b. 10-2 2a. 1 states: 'A high tower is predominantly yin while a broad hall is
predominantly yang. They depart from the harmony of Heaven and Earth. Therefore
a sage does not erect them, but simply keeps to the mean.'
128 See Knechtges 1982, p. 194, and Dubs 1944, 2:99.
36
which to clarify the dating and authorship of many essays in the Ch 'un-
ch 'iu fan-lu.
Political power, court patronage, and private scholarship

The world in which Tung Chung-shu moved was politically and intellec-
tually diverse. Devotees of esoteric learning, practitioners of local lore,
and followers of various master-disciple lineages brushed shoulders at
the central court of the emperor and the regional courts of his relatives,
where competing centers of learning flourished in the first several dec-
ades of the Han. There was a tremendous diffusion of knowledge across
the various social classes, local cultures, and scholarly traditions. To deny
this diversity and diffusion is to deny the history of the Early Han.
Unified by their common desire to influence the powers of the day,
scholars and adepts migrated to and from these various centers to pro-
mote their techniques and doctrines, where they were welcomed with
official appointment and lavish gifts by their respective sponsors. But the
world in which Tung moved was not simply the world of politics and
powerful patrons. Beyond the realm of public learning sponsored by the
central and regional courts lay the private learning of the local scholars.
It was here that many of the most famous scholars of the Western Han,
including Tung Chung-shu, began their education, and it was to this
realm of private instruction that many returned when they retired from
politics, whether as a consequence of old age or an unwillingness to
serve a corrupt ruler. The literary patronage of the emperor and his
relatives undoubtedly invested these master-disciple lineages with vary-
ing degrees of political power. But the lineages, as well, bestowed upon
these courts an authority that could not be earned by political means
alone. It was derived from their dogged determination to ensure the
unbroken transmission of traditional learning, despite rulers who sought
to silence their remonstrations through mutilation and death, and those
who hoped to control their scholarship by burning their books.
Tung Chung-shu, like other Confucians that populated the courts of
the Early Han rulers, was at once a scholar and an official. His doctrinal
expositions must be read in relation to the ideals and ethics embodied in
the interpretive tradition that he followed as well as the personalities and
policies that defined the political world he hoped to influence. Looking
back at his long career we find that he served and deliberated with some
of the best minds and most renowned scholars of the period, while he
survived the attacks of some of the most corrupt and power-hungry
officials at court. Yet, in contrast to Kung-sun Hung, who flattered
whoever would advance his career, or Chu-fu Yen, who used his political
37
power to enhance his wealth, Tung did not compromise his integrity as
a forthright and honest scholar to advance politically or materially. His
unremitting devotion to the ethical, political, and religious ideals of the
Kungyang tradition prompted some of the most distinguished scholars
and historians of his age to sing his praises. It also won him the respect
of the emperor. Although his political rivals kept him in check for
decades, at the twilight of his career, if only for a few fleeting years
before his death, Tung Chung-shu emerged as an influential force at the
court of Emperor Wu.
3
A history of Tung
Chung-shu's literary
corpus
In the preceding chapter we saw that Han sources attribute three works
to Tung Chung-shu: Tung Chung-shu, Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu,
and Tsai-i chih chi. Yet the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu appears to be a post-Han
collection from not later than the sixth-century Liang dynasty. This
chapter clarifies the relationship between this later collection and the
Han works attributed to Tung Chung-shu by considering the received
text within the broader spectrum of Tung's literary corpus. Bibliogra-
phies, catalogs of private collections, commentaries, acknowledged and
unacknowledged quotations, paraphrases of Tung's writings, extant
fragments, and various editions of Tung's works all shed light on the
text's authenticity. For example, while Han citations of Tung's works
that appear in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu substantiate reliable portions of the
received text, Han descriptions of his writings suggest the reliability of
essays that cannot be confirmed through direct testimony. Additional
materials with which to study the received text that have hitherto not
been explored are post-Han citations attributed to Tung Chung-shu that
lack parallels in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. These unattached fragments of
Tung's writings preserved in various commentaries and encyclopedias
have been virtually forgotten over the years. In this chapter I examine
these writings to provide a second lens through which to examine the
authenticity of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. They will augment the chronology
of the previous chapter that provided the historical context in which to
consider the received text.
From the second century B.C.E. to the third century c.E.

According to the Han historian Pan Ku, Tung Chung-shu's writings
'clarified the aims of scriptural techniques.'1 The three works he as-
. HS 56/2525.
39
cribed to Tung Chung-shu possessed distinctive characteristics. The

Tung Chung-shu was the loosest compilation of the three. It consisted of
'memorials submitted to the emperor and items of instruction, totaling
one hundred and twenty-three bundles [p'ien].'2 The Tsai-i chih chi
analyzed both Han anomalies and those recorded in the Spring and
Autumn. Tung probably completed this work by the year 127 B.C.E. 3 The
Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu contained Tung's judgments of 232
court cases based on the Spring and Autumn, which derived from the
problematic cases brought to Tung's attention by Chang T'ang. Since
Tung Chung-shu received inquiries from Chang T'ang after he retired
from office, this text could not have been written earlier than 123 B.C.E. 4
Additional doctrinal explications on the Spring and Autumn appear to
have circulated under several separate titles. Pan Ku explains:
His expositions of the successful and unsuccessful affairs of the Spring and
Autumn, such writings as Reputation and Promotion [ Wen Chu], Jade Goblet [ Yu-pei],
Luxuriant Gems [Fan-lu], Pure Brightness [Ch'ing-ming], and Bamboo Grove [Chu-
lin], came to an additional several tens of bundles [p'ien] amounting to more
than a hundred thousand graphs. All were transmitted to later generations.5
The Tung Chung-shu, Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu, and the Tsai-i
chih chi survived into the Later Han. 6 But after the Han, the three works
gradually disappeared from the historical record.
From the third to the tenth century

It is striking that none of the three works mentioned in Han sources have
survived in their original form. The Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu,
listed in official bibliographies through the Northern Sung (960-1127),
disappeared during the Southern Sung (1127-1279). A few anthologies
and collections preserve the handful of cases surviving from this impor-
2
3 See Chapter 2 for a discussion of the text's dating.
4 When presenting his composition to the throne in 196 C.E., Ying Shao recounted the
circumstances under which Tung wrote the work: 'After Tung Chung-shu retired from
his post in Chiao-hsi, when the court debated policy matters it often dispatched Chang
T'ang to discuss them with Tung Chung-shu. Tung Chung-shu composed the 232 cases
[shih] of the Ch'un-ch'iu chiieh-shih based on the problematic issues brought to his
attention by Chang T'ang.' HHS 48/1612. For the dates of Tung's retirement, see
Chapter 2.
5 HS 56/2515-16. Commentators and bibliographers over the centuries have disagreed
on how to interpret the ambiguous character p'ien. The sixth-century scholar Yen Shih-
ku held that these titles corresponded to separate works by Tung Chung-shu. Others,
such as Ou-yang Hsiu (1007-1072), argued that they were essays from the Tung Chung-
shu.
6 See LHCS 12/690, 26/1478, and 30/1700.
40
Tung Chung-shu's literary corpus
tant text. The Tsai-i chih chi does not appear in the historical records
after the Han. Official bibliographies and references confirm the trans-
mission of the Tung Chung-shu to the fifth century C.E., but by the
seventh century they no longer list the work in their 'Bibliographical
Treatises.'7 Nor do bibliographies of private collections, which began to
appear around the tenth century, refer to the work. Although encyclope-
dias from the sixth through the tenth century contain numerous refer-
ences to Tung Chung-shu, Tung-tzu (Master Tung), and Tung-sheng shu
(Book of Master Tung), because they generally note citations by both
author and title it is impossible to determine whether the headings refer
to a person or a book.8 It is equally impossible to determine whether the
titles Tung-tzu and Tung-sheng shu were variant names for the Tung
Chung-shu of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu.9
About the time that the Tung Chung-shu disappeared from the histori-
cal record, references to a Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu began to appear. Yuan
Hsiao-hsu's (479-536) Ch'i-lu (Seven Records) recorded that the Ch'un-
ch'iu fan-lu consisted of seventeen scrolls (chuan) and attributed the text
to Tung Chung-shu.10 Although the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu is most likely the
earliest posthumous compilation attributed to Tung, it is hardly the only
post-Han collection ascribed to him. In addition to this text, the 'Biblio-
graphical Treatise' of the Sui-shu (History of the Sui Dynasty) lists two
other works attributed to Tung Chung-shu that do not appear in earlier
sources: a lost work called the Tung Chung-shu ch'ing-tao t'u (Catalog of
Tung Chung-shu's Supplications and Prayers) in three scrolls (chuan) y
and a Tung Chung-shu chi (Collected Works of Tung Chung-shu) in one
scroll.11 By the Sui dynasty (589-618) the Tung Chung-shu ch'ing-tao t'u
7 The HHS 'Annals of the Empresses' states: 'Empress Ma can recite the Changes, likes to
study the Spring and Autumn, and the Songs of Ch 'u. She is especially fond of the Offices
ofChou and the Tung Chung-shu.' HHS 10/409.
8 Consult Appendix 5 for these citations.
9 To further confuse matters the 'Bibliographical Treatise' of the HS lists a Tung-tzu
attributed to Tung Wen-hsin, an early Han follower of Mo-tzu. See HS 30/1726.
10 The title Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu appears in the Sui-shu ching-chi chih by Wei Cheng (580-
643), the first official bibliography that does not list a Tung Chung-shu. CCFLIC 'Evi-
dence'/ ia-31 a. The Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu title also appears in another work of this period,
the Hsi-ching tsa-chi (Miscellaneous Notes from the Western Capital). In an apocryphal
story recounting the origins of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, this text states: 'Tung Chung-shu
dreamt that he embraced a dragon and thereupon composed the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.'
See PTSC 99/ 3a. When silk scrolls replaced bamboo strips as the basic material upon
which books were written, the term chuan came to replace the older term p'ien (bun-
dle). Thus prior to the advent of printing, Han references to the Tung Chung-shu
mention a 12%-p'ien work whereas later references to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu list a 17-
chuan composition. After the advent of printed editions, these terms came to denote
books (chuan) and chapters (p 'ien) within a single text.
11 See Sui-shu 32/930, 34/1038, and 35/1056 respectively. Sui-shu 34/1028 lists an
additional work in one section entitled the T'ai-i lung-shou-shih ching (Master Tung's
41
disappeared from the bibliographical record, and no information con-

cerning its content survives. Judging from the title, it probably contained
liturgical writings by Tung Chung-shu. The Tung Chung-shu chi has sur-
vived with the altered title Tung-tzu wen-chi (The Collected Literary
Works of Master Tung). It is a collection of Tung Chung-shu's belles
lettres culled largely from the Han-shu. Yet the prefaces and postfaces
that usually contain vital information concerning a text's transmission
do not generally accompany the text. One scholar maintains, without
explaining his reasoning, that the collection originated during the Six
Dynasties (317-389) and disappeared during the thirteenth century,
and that scholars probably compiled the extant anthology from various
works, around 1515.12
From the sixth century, when it first appeared in the bibliographical
record, through the tenth century, when information concerning spe-
cific manuscripts and editions become available, well-known commen-
taries and encyclopedias frequently quote the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu and
other titles associated with Tung Chung-shu.13 With few exceptions, the
citations attributed to the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu appear in the received text.
But a number of citations ascribed to other works by Tung Chung-shu
also occur in the received Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. This suggests that the text
Canon on the Great Unity Dragon Head Ceremony) with a commentary by Master
Tung. This appears to be the same work listed at Hsin T'ang-shu 59/1555 under the
variant title Tung-shih ta lung-shou-shih ching (Master Tung's Canon on the Great
Dragon Head Ceremony). It is, however, impossible to substantiate whether this Master
Tung is Tung Chung-shu or another scholar who shared his surname.
12 Yao 1948, pp. 40-68.
13 The Liang dynasty figure Liu Chao (fl. 502-520) quotes Tung Chung-shu six times in
his commentaries on the Hou-Han shu. The Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao (Excerpts from the
Northern Hall), an encyclopedia meant to provide materials useful for writing essays
that was compiled before 618 by Yu Shih-nan (558-638), quotes Tung Chung-shu
twenty-nine times. The I-wen lei-chii (A Topical Collection of Literary Writings), com-
piled between 622 and 624 under imperial auspices by Ou-yang Hsun (557-641) and
others, preserves nineteen quotations attributed to Tung Chung-shu. The Ch'u-hsiieh
chi (Records of Elementary Learning) compiled under imperial auspices in 725 by Hsu
Chien (659-729) contains fourteen citations associated with the Han master. The
T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-ching (The T'ang Dynasty K'ai-yiian Reign Period Canon of Prog-
nostications), a collection of earlier writings compiled by the Indian astrologer Ch'u-
t'an Hsi-ta, includes twenty-nine quotations attributed to Tung Chung-shu. The
ninth-century compendium of political and social history, the T'ung-tien (Comprehen-
sive Documents), cites Tung Chung-shu six times. The T'ang literary collection, the Ku-
wen yuan (Garden of Ancient Literature), preserves five items attributed to Tung
Chung-shu. And the T'ai-p'ing yu'-lan (Imperial Digest of the T'ai-p'ing Reign Period),
one of the three great encyclopedias compiled by the Sung emperor T'ai-tsung, com-
pleted in 983, contains no less than sixty-four passages attributed to Tung Chung-shu.
For a summary of all citations attributed to Tung Chung-shu from this period,
with their varying titles and their corresponding locations in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, see
Appendix 5.
42
Tung Chung-shu 's literary corpus
was transmitted in uninterrupted fashion from the sixth through the

tenth century, but materials not original to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu became
incorporated into the text. Still other citations attributed to Tung
Chung-shu lack parallels in the received Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. They provide
additional evidence with which to clarify the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu materials
and will be reviewed in a following section.
From the tenth to the twentieth century

Information concerning the transmission of specific editions of the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu dates from the Northern Sung dynasty. Beginning in
the tenth century, bibliographies record more than one edition of the
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu. Whereas the bibliographical treatises of the official
histories from the Sui onward all list a Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu in seventeen
chiian, records from private libraries and nonofficial bibliographies from
the Northern Sung record a shorter ten-chiian manuscript.14 The earliest
identifiable ten-chiian manuscript is a woodblock edition published by a
Mr. Wang of T'ai-yuan in 1047. Around this same time, Ou-yang Hsiu
noted he saw both a forty-p'ien edition and one containing eighty-odd
p'ien. In addition, on the occasion of an imperial request for rare books,
he saw some thirty p 'ien ascribed to Tung. Since he could not find several
of them in the eighty-/? 'ien edition he had seen, he concluded that
Tung's writings were scattered and incomplete.15 These comments indi-
cate that as late as the Northern Sung certain materials attributed to
Tung Chung-shu continued to circulate outside the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.
Moreover, two different recensions of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu existed. The
longer seventeen-c/man edition probably contained approximately
eighty p'ien while the ten-chiian edition most likely consisted of forty
p'ien. However, since no extant sources describe the content of the ten-
chiian edition, it is impossible to ascertain precisely how and to what
extent these two texts resembled one another.
During the Southern Sung, these two families of manuscripts con-
tinued to circulate, although the ten-chiian edition was much more
common than the seven teen-chiian edition. The Imperial Library of the
Southern Sung housed a ten-chiian edition containing thirty-seven p'ien.
The library's catalog, the CWung-wen tsung-mu (General Catalog on the
Glory of Literature), noted that the edition corresponded to the entries
in the Sui and T'ang histories but the content was confused and con-
tained later interpolations. In 1208 Hu Chii printed a ten-chiian
14 CCFUC 'Evidence'/ib.
15 CCFUC 'Evidence'/2a-2b.
43
woodblock edition. Another bibliophile, Lou Yiieh (1137-1213), owned

a seventeen-c/m<zn edition containing eighty-two p'ien. He had searched
for many years before he was able to locate the longer manuscript in the
home of P'an Ching-hsien, a rare-book collector. During his protracted
hunt, he came across no fewer than six thirty-seven-/?'ien editions. Lou
Yiieh compared the editions of P'an and Hu, incorporating the strengths
of each into a woodblock edition that contained seventeen chuan with
eighty-two p'ien (three were missing), which he printed in 1211. Lou
Yiieh's manuscript is important because all later seven teen- chitan edi-
tions containing eighty-two p'ien are based on this text.16
Beginning in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the eighty-two-p'ien edi-
tion eclipsed the shorter version. The six Ming editions housed in the
Peking Library contain seventeen chuan.17 During the Ch'ing (1644-
1911) the seventeen-chuan edition continued to predominate in public
and private collections. Around 1773 the Ssu-k'u editors printed the
famous Chii-chen edition in seventeen chuan with eighty-two p'ien. They
followed Lou Yiieh's edition preserved in the mammoth encyclopedia,
the Yung-lo ta-tien (Great Compendium of the Yung-lo Era). In their
efforts to restore the text, the editors added 1,100 characters, omitted
110 characters, and emended 1,820 characters. The other three major
Ch'ing editions - the Ssu^pu ts'ung-k'an edition, Lu Wen-ch'ao's anno-
tated edition of 1785, and Ling Shu's annotated text of 1815 - were
mainly based on the earlier Chii-chen edition.18
Su Yii's Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng (Verification of the Meanings in the
Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn), printed by Wang Hsien-ch'ien
in 1914 is by far the most important annotated edition with commen-
tary. It contains seventeen chuan with eighty-two p'ien (three no longer
extant). In addition to the four Ch'ing texts just mentioned, Su Yii
consulted several Ming manuscripts, including a critical edition by Sun
P'ing printed during the t'ian-ch'i period (1621-1628). In 1984 the
Shang-wu Press published a modern, punctuated edition with commen-
tary by Lai Yen-yuan. In 1995, the Shan-tung Friendship Press published
a Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chiao-shih (Critical Annotations to the Spring and
Autumn Studies), compiled by Chung chao-p'eng. This is the most
comprehensive edition yet published, including notes from no less than
thirty-nine earlier editions dating from the Sung through the Ch'ing
dynasties.19
16 For a chart tracing the textual transmission of the various editions of the CCFL, see
Appendix 6.
17 Pei-ching t'u-shu-kuan shan-pen shu-mu, p. 26.
18 CCFLIC 'Evidence'/ 10a- 14b.
19 See also Loewe 1993, pp. 83-86.
44
The debate on authenticity

Scholars have debated the authenticity of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu since the
eleventh century, when Wang Yao-ch'en, editor of the first orthodox
catalog of bibliographical notices, noted the problem in the Ch 'ung-wen
tsung-mu. Wang suspected the text was not a unitary work because
whereas the Han-shu listed several titles separately, such as Fan-lu, Yii-fiei,
and Chu-lin, Fan-lu had become incorporated into the title Ch'un-ch'iu
fan-lu, and his edition contained chapters entitled Yu-flei and Chu-lin.
Wang noted these discrepancies but concluded the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
could not be a forgery of his day because of its syncretic characteristics.
Wang confirmed the early origins of the text, but did not wrestle with the
more difficult problem of dating or specific attribution. 20
After Wang Yao-ch'en, scholars typically either supported the text's
authenticity but questioned its title or questioned both the text's title
and contents. The Ch'ing scholar Yao Chi-heng, author of Ku-chin wei-
shu k'ao (Analysis of Forged Works from Ancient and Modern Times),
and Huang Yun-mei, who wrote Ku-chin wei-shu k 'ao pu-cheng {Additional
Comments to Analysis of Forged Works from Ancient and Modern Times),
represent these two positions. Yao Chi-heng based his conclusions on Hu
Ying-lin (1551-1602), who argued that the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu derived
from the Tung Chung-shu and the Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu.21
Another bibliophile of the period, Chou Fu-ch'eng, also supported this
view. While Hu hinted at the rough correspondence between the Kung-
yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu and the first sixteen chapters of the Ch 'un-
ch'iu fan-lu, Chou argued his case unambiguously:
The first seventeen chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu all discuss the meaning of
the Spring and Autumn. They must be the work entitled Kung-yang chih-yu in
sixteen bundles [p'ien] listed in the Han-shu 'Bibliographic Treatise.' The re-
maining writings from chapter 18 onward do not cover the Spring and Autumn.
I consider these writings to be the one hundred twenty-three bundle work
[entitled Tung Chung-shu] mentioned in the 'Bibliographic Treatise' of the
Han-shu.22
Unfortunately neither Chou nor Hu presented substantial evidence to

support his argument. It is unlikely that the first seventeen chapters
derive from the Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu because they do not
exhibit any of the text's formal features. The six surviving cases from the
20 See CCFLJC 2/1. This discrepancy was persistently noted by a long list of scholars who
wrote bibliographies or prefaces to the CCFL in the centuries that followed.
21 Ku-chin wei-shu k'ao pu-cheng, p. 301.
22 Ibid.
45
Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu follow a consistent formula.23 They

begin with a terse summation of a legal case and end with a judgment
proposed by Tung Chung-shu based on the Spring and Autumn.24 The
first sixteen chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, however, contain dia-
logues and essays. Many are theoretical discussions of the legal and ritual
principles in the Kung-yang Commentary that appear to be records of oral
doctrinal expositions.25 They are invaluable illustrations of the ways in
which the Kung-yang exegetes developed more general principles drawn
from Confucius's judgments. Nonetheless, these two sources display
important conceptual similarities. In fact, the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapters
often provide a gloss to the legal decisions in the Kung-yang Tung Chung-
shu chih-yu. Thus, it is quite possible that certain ideas that occur in both
sources derive from the same person, although it is not likely that they
derive from the same text.26 Chou Fu-ch'eng's second claim, that the
remaining chapters of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu are derived from the Tung
Chung-shu, warrants more serious investigation. In the discussion that
follows, I will explore to what extent this is true, for both the early and
later portions of the text. But additional sources must have been em-
ployed to compile the text because the Han-shu states that the Tung
Chung-shu consisted of Tung's official writings to the emperor and in-
structions to his subordinates, and the last half of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
contains many unofficial writings.
Huang Yun-mei, a representative of the opposing view, was more
comprehensive in his approach to the problem of authenticity than his
predecessor Yao Chi-heng. After rejecting as superficial the arguments
of Hu Ying-lin and Chou Fu-ch'eng, he turned to opinions derived from
analyses of the content of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. For example, he cited
Huang Chen, who held that the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu was a fake. With the
exception of chapter 32 ('An Official Response to the King of Chiao-
hsi. . .'), whose content is also preserved in Han-shu 56, Huang was
bothered by the disparities and contradictions between Tung's Han-shu
memorials and the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu. He was particularly troubled by
chapters 19 ('Establish the Primal Numen'), 23 ('The Changing Regu-
23 Ma Kuo-han included eight cases in his collection, but two of them may not be from the
Chih-yu. The third case is attributed simply to 'a Kung-yang theorist.' The seventh case,
although clearly the opinion of Tung Chung-shu, is a passage from his famous response
to Emperor Wu. See Ch'un-ch'iu chueh-shih 31/2b and 3b.
24 For the circumstances under which Tung Chung-shu composed this work, see
Chapter 2.
25 It is interesting to note that these materials explicate the Kung-yang Commentary to the
Spring and Autumn, but they consistently refer only to the Spring and Autumn.
26 For a more detailed discussion of the continuities between the Kung-yang Tung Chung-
shu chih-yu excerpts and the early chapters of the CCFL, see Chapter 4.
46
lations of the Three Dynasties from Simplicity to Refinement'), 30 ('Hu-

maneness Must Precede Wisdom'), and 35 ('An In-depth Examination
of Names and Designations'). He also noted that the 'terse and refined'
writing style of the memorials was not apparent in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.
On the other hand, Huang Yun-mei was not convinced by the arguments
of scholars like Ch'ien Ch'ien-i, who wrote extensive notes on chapter 35
('An In-Depth Examination of Names and Designations') to support the
text's authenticity. He maintained that 'a scholar from the Sung could
not have done such a brilliant job combining the theories of Mencius
and Hsun-tzu.'27 However, Huang concluded that both the title and the
text of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu were spurious.
Scholars refined their discussions of authenticity as they moved be-
yond the bibliographic references to engage in intertextual analysis,
comparing Tung's writings from the Han-shu with the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.
But many continued to dismiss the text because they felt that problems
with part of the text were synonymous with problems with the whole.
Although their discussions are invaluable for pointing to issues within
specific chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, a doubtful passage does not
necessarily indicate a spurious chapter, nor does a problematic chapter
prove the questionable nature of an entire work. Glaring disparities or
contradictions within different essays attributed to the same author do
not necessarily prove that an entire work is questionable. This is particu-
larly true of texts that have undergone a long history of transmission, for
it increases the likelihood that scribal errors and extraneous materials
may find their way into the text. Likewise, we must reevaluate the opin-
ions of those who maintained that particular editions were unreliable
simply because they did not preserve quotations from the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu cited in earlier encyclopedias. They may simply have lost some of their
original passages over the centuries they were handed down from gen-
eration to generation.28
From the Sung (960-1279) through the Ch'ing (1644-1912) dynasty,
the debate over the authenticity of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu did not gener-
ally progress beyond these inconclusive and sweeping opinions. The
publication of the Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu (Complete Collection of the Four
Treasuries) edition marked an important milestone in the history of the
debate. The Ssu-k'u editors articulated a third viewpoint that had not
been considered seriously in the polarized debates of the preceding
centuries. In their Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu (General Catalog of Works
27 Ku-chin wei-shu k'ao pu-cheng, p. 303.

28 In his Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chiaopu, Liu Shih-p'ei collated these quotations missing from
the CCFL and suggested where they belong in the text.
47
in the Complete Collection of the Four Treasuries), they maintained that the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu preserved materials from the Han dynasty, but that not
all of them were derived from Tung Chung-shu.29 The Ch'ing scholar Su
Yii developed this perspective further in his Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i-cheng.
Abandoning the notion that the spurious nature of a single chapter
called the entire work into question, he considered the problem of
authenticity on a chapter-by-chapter basis. He significantly advanced
textual studies of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu. Building on the idea of a post-
Han compiler, he argued that the work derived from a variety of Tung's
writings dating from different periods of his life, and that these authen-
tic materials stood alongside writings of more questionable provenance.
Su Yii also maintained that historical circumstances caused Tung's work
to fall into obscurity during the Later Han. With the rise of the Old Text
school, scholars began to criticize the Kung-yang Commentary. Conse-
quently Tung's works fell into disfavor and were not preserved intact. In
fact, he asserted, 'if not for people of the Sui and T'ang periods who
occasionally quoted [Tung's original works], people of the Sung would
not have been able to collect and recompile the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.'30
Thus, although Su Yii believed that the text was a later reconstruction,
he maintained that it nevertheless contained some authentic essays by
Tung Chung-shu.
Su Yii was careful to note errors, repetitions, incomplete essays, inter-
polations, problematic chapter titles, and misplaced phrases in the text.
Despite the poor condition of many chapters, and the inclusion of
spurious chapters, he argued, many ideas in the text hung together as a
coherent whole. Wherever possible, he provided evidence from early
sources to support the authenticity or early origin of essays within the
text, employing a variety of methods: quoting similar passages from Han
and pre-Han works; citing quotations from Tung's writings in Han texts;
noting phrases or paragraphs attributed to Tung preserved in earlier
encyclopedias; and observing conceptual continuities between different
essays. Su Yii was mainly concerned with establishing a critical edition of
the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. Through painstaking efforts he proposed many
new readings and supplied many new explanations for the titles of
individual essays. However, he was also troubled by many essays in the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. For example, he proposed that chapters 25 ('Yao and
Shun Did Not Unauthorizedly Abdicate the Throne; T'ang and Wu Did
Not Seize the Throne by Regicide') and 77 ('Conform to Heaven's
Way') were not written by Tung Chung-shu, and that chapter 23 ('The
29 CCFLIC 'Evidence'/2b. 30 CCFLIC 'Preface'/2b.
48
Changing Regulations of the Three Dynasties from Simplicity to Refine-

ment') was not likely to be Tung's original essay.31 Unfortunately, Su Yii
died before he completed his work on the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu, leaving
many textual questions unresolved.
Traditional appraisals of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu demonstrate that, al-
though Western scholars have generally accepted the text's authenticity,
it has been the subject of unending controversy among Chinese scholars
since as early as the Sung dynasty. In the premodern eras, scholars
maintained one of two extreme positions. Either they dismissed the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu as an outright forgery, or they defended it as the
genuine work of Tung Chung-shu but carrying a problematic title. The
Ssu-k Ju editors and Su Yu represent a more moderate approach charac-
teristic of modern studies of the text that avoids sweeping generaliza-
tions. In this regard the contributions of such scholars as Keimatsu
Mitsuo, Iwamoto Kenji, Tai Chun-jen, Goran Malmqvist, and Michael
Loewe should be noted. Their contributions will be taken up in the
following chapter where I analyze specific characteristics of the text.
More studies of this nature must be conducted, since the majority of the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu materials, neither obviously spurious nor genuine,
continues to raise questions for the discerning reader.32
Han sources of Tung Chung-shu's writings

As I suggested in the introduction, one way to clarify the relationship
between the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu and Han works attributed to Tung
Chung-shu is to compare the received text to writings and descriptions
of Tung's corpus that have survived in other works. Looking across
the centuries we find that a fair number of Tung's writings have survived
in texts from the Han period. Many of them resemble the kind of
memorials and instructions that must have originally constituted the
Tung Chung-shu and omen analyses that composed his Tsai-i chih chi. In
addition to the Shih-chi and Han-shu discussed in previous chapters, the
Shuo-yuan (Garden of Theories), Yen-t'ieh lun (Discourses on Salt and
Iron), Shuo-wen chieh-tzu (Explanation of Writings and Elucidation of
Graphs), Lun-heng (Discourses Weighed), and Chou-li Cheng-shih chu
(Master Cheng's Commentary to the Rites of Chou) preserve important
citations, paraphrases, and descriptions of Tung's writings. A review of
31 CGFL/C7/3oa, i 6 / i 6 b , and 7/25^

32 Chapters that parallel the Kuan-tzu and the Huai-nan-tzu, and those containing excerpts
from Tung's memorials in the Han-shu, are the clearest examples of how greatly the
text's materials vary in their reliability.
49
these materials will help clarify the central question: To what extent does
the Ch 'un-ch 'iufan-lu preserve the authentic writings of Tung Chung-shu?
In the Shih-chi, Ssu-ma Ch'ien quotes Tung Chung-shu on one occa-
sion. This citation parallels several passages in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-luP By
far the most numerous excerpts from Tung's writings occur in Pan Ku's
Han-shu. Portions of Tung's memorials, possibly derived from the origi-
nal Tung Chung-shu, appear at Han-shu 22 ('The Treatise on Ritual and
Music'), Han-shu 24 ('The Treatise on Food and Goods'), Han-shu 27
('The Treatise on the Five Phases'), Han-shu 56 ('The Biography of
Tung Chung-shu'), and Han-shu 94B ('Record of the Hsiung-nu'). 34
Similar passages and topics appear in Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapters 1, 16,
21, 27, 30, and 32.35 Beyond the specific policies enumerated in his
memorials outlined in the previous chapter, Han sources also indicate
that omenology - the analysis of portents and omens - also constituted
an important aspect of Tung's thought. The introduction to Han-shu 27
explains:
In the days of [Emperors] Ching [156-141 B.C.E.] and Wu [140-87 B.C.E.],
Tung Chung-shu mastered the Kung-yang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn,
first put forward his yin-yang theories, and was honored by the Confucians. After
the days of [Emperors] Hsuan [r. 73-49 B.C.E.] and Yuan [r. 48-33 B.C.E.], Liu
Hsiang mastered the Ku-liang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn, enumerating
the inauspicious and auspicious omens [found therein]. His teachings were
based on the 'Great Plan' [of the Odes] and differed from Tung Chung-shu.
Hsiang's son Liu Hsin mastered the Tso Commentary to the Spring and Autumn. His
interpretations of the Spring and Autumn were quite numerous. They were dis-
cussed in the Commentary to the Five Phases and also differed from Tung Chung-
shu, so this is why when citing Tung Chung-shu I have distinguished him from
Liu Hsiang and Liu Hsin.36
Consistent with biographical comments noted in Chapter 1, this passage
links Tung's omenology to both the Spring and Autumn and yin-yang
cosmology. It also distinguishes his omen theories from those developed
by exegetes of other canonical texts. The remainder of Han-shu 27
records Tung's analyses of approximately eighty anomalies. In every
33 Compare SC 130/3297-3298 and CCFL 1/93.9.1-123.1.4; 5/13.4.1-23.4.14; and 6 /

3b. 1.1-53.9.1. The psrallels between the SCsnd CCFL have 3lso been noted by Wstson,
J
955>P- 211.
34 See HS 22/1031-1032; HS 24/1135-1136; HS 27A/1315-1522; 7/556/2495-2526;
3nd / / S 9 4 B / 3 8 3 1 .
35 Compsre CCFL 1/43.1.19—63.7.16 3nd//S56/2518-2519; CCFL 6/33.2.1-33.7.11 3nd
HS56/2500; CGFL7/i3.4.i-ib.9.i5 3nd//S56/2512; 0 0 ^ 8 / 1 0 . 8 . 5 - 2 3 . 2 . 1 9 3 n d / / S
2520-2521; CCFL 8/13b.4.i-i4b.2.11 3nd HS 56/2498; CCFL 9 / 2 ^ 7 . 1 - 3 ^ 7 . 3 3nd
7/556/2523-2524.
36 //S27A/1317.
5°
case, Tung looks to the omens recorded in the Spring and Autumn. Even
the single memorial on the fires of 135 B.C.E. begins with an analogy to
the Spring and Autumn?1 These citations do not appear in the received
text. It may very well be that the Han-shu 27 citations derived from the
Tsai-i chih chi. If so, Han-shu 27 has played a crucial - but unrecognized
- role in preserving this work over the centuries. 38
The Shuo-yuan, an anthology compiled by Liu Hsiang during the first
century B.C.E., also contains several passages that roughly parallel por-
tions of the first six chapters in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.39 The Yen-Vieh lun,
an account of the court debate held in 81 B.C.E. compiled by the Kung-
yangscholar Huan K'uan (first century B.C.E.), briefly describes Tung's
omenology in chapter 54 ('On Anomalies'). An unnamed literatus
draws on his theories to explain the causes of disasters and anomalies:
The origins [of anomalies] the administrator of Chiang-tu Master Tung deduced
from the mutual succession of the yin and yang and the four seasons. The father
begets it, the son nourishes it, the mother completes it, and the son stores it
away. Therefore spring [presides over] birth and corresponds to humaneness
[jeri\; summer [presides over] growth and corresponds to virtue [te]; autumn
[presides over] maturity and corresponds to righteousness [i]; winter [presides
over] concealment and corresponds to propriety [ li\. This is the sequence of the
four seasons and what the sage takes as his model. One cannot rely upon
punishments to complete moral transformation, therefore one extends moral
education.40
This passage confirms earlier descriptions that associated Tung's
omenology with yin-yang and four seasons cosmology on the one hand,
and with the authoritative texts of the Confucian tradition on the other.
It is also significant that the unidentified speaker did not associate Tung
with five-phase cosmology.41 If Tung's omen interpretations included
five-phase correlations, one would certainly expect to find references to
them in this discussion.
The Han dictionary Shuo-wen chieh-tzu, written by Hsu Shen (fl. 100
C.E.), also cites Tung Chung-shu, either the book or scholar, on one
occasion. It records: 'Tung Chung-shu states: When the ancients in-
vented writing, they drew three [horizontal] lines which they connected
37 For a detailed discussion of Tung's memorial analyzing this omen, see Chapter 2.
38 Tung's writings in the 'Treatise' conform to the descriptions of this text reviewed in
Chapter 2.
39 Compare, for example, CCFL 2/40.6.1-513.4.19 and Shuo-yuan 10/249-250; CCFL 3 /
2a.2.i-2a.8.3 and Shuo-yuan 5/110; CCFL 3/ioa.7.i-i ib.2.1 and Shuoyiian 8/176-
177; CCFL 4/43.2.1-4b. 1.6 and Shuo-yuan 15/369—370.
40 Yen-Vieh lun chien-chu 54/382.
41 Yen-Vieh lun chien-chu 54/381.
51
through the center [by a vertical stroke] and called this king.'42 A similar
statement begins Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapter 44 ('The Kingly Way Pen-
etrates Three'). 43
The Lun-heng written by Wang Ch'ung (27-ca. 100 C.E.) mentions
Tung Chung-shu on numerous occasions. Wang Ch'ung appears to have
been quite familiar with Tung's three major works: the Tung Chung-shu,
Tsai-i chih chi, and Ch'un-ch'iu chih-yu44 He also quoted the following
passage from an essay on human nature in which Tung was said to have
appraised the theories of Mencius and Hsiin-tzu:
Heaven's great course [ta ching] consists of yin and yang. Humanity's great
course consists of the emotions [ch'ing] and the nature [hsing]. Nature is engen-
dered by the yang vital force and emotions are engendered by the yin vital force.
The yin vital force is degenerate, while the yang vital force is humane. Those who
say that human nature is good observe only the yang vital force, while those who
say that human nature is evil observe only the yin vital force.45
This citation, which correlates the emotions with the degenerate yin
force and the nature with the humane yang force, does not appear in the
received text of the Ch'un-cWiu fan-lu. Chapter 35 ('An In-Depth Exami-
nation of Names and Designations') and chapter 36 ('The Inner Sub-
stance of Human Nature') share some conceptual parallels with this
citation. For example, chapter 35 also correlates the nature with yang
and the emotions with yin and argues that ultimately a person is a blend
of good and evil potential: 'A person possesses nature and the emotions
just as Heaven possesses yin and yang. To say that the basic substance of
human beings lacks emotions is like saying that there is yang in Heaven
but no yin.' However, chapter 35 maintains that both the nature and the
emotions possess good and evil tendencies. The nature is neither purely
good, nor are the emotions purely evil. Yin corresponds to the emotions
but 'a person has its dual nature of greed and humanity.' The essay
argues: 'Both nature and the emotions are the same in a state of sleep.
Emotions are a part of nature.' Both the nature and the emotions
constitute part of the inner substance of a person, and both are equally
responsible for the good or evil that emanates from a person. The
precise relationship between the Wang Ch'ung citation and the Ch'un-
ch yiu fan-lu essays on human nature is difficult to determine from the
extant evidence.
The Lun-heng also contains several passages that describe Tung
42 Shuo-wen chieh-tzu chu 1 /18a.

43 CCFL n / 6 b . 3 . i - 6 b . 3 . i 4 .
44 See LHCS 12/690, 26/1478, and 30/1700.
45 LHCS 3/198.
52
Chung-shu's ritual practices, particularly those associated with floods

and droughts. This work relates Tung Chung-shu to the Yii sacrifice on
no fewer than seven occasions. Apparently, by Wang Ch'ung's day, Tung
Chung-shu had developed a reputation for this rite derived from the
Spring and Autumn and transmitted by his disciples. Wang Ch'ung
explains:
For deducing the meaning of the Spring and Autumn and seeking out the
explanations of the Yii sacrifice, examine the intent of Confucius and scrutinize
the ideas of Tung Chung-shu. Since Confucius is no more and Tung Chung-shu
is already dead, when contemporaries wish to discuss it, to whom should they
turn with their questions? Only the disciples of Confucius and the followers of
Chung-shu are able to explain it.46
The 'Final Discourse on the Dragon' (Luan Lung P'ieri) explains the
sacrifice in greater detail:
Tung Chung-shu developed the Yii sacrifice of the Spring and Autumn. He
erected a clay dragon to attract the rain. His intention was to rely on the clouds
and the dragon to summon one another. The Changes state: 'The.clouds follow
the dragon; the winds follow the tiger.' He sought rain by relying on things of the
same category. Therefore he erected a clay dragon, yin and yang followed their
kind, and clouds and rain naturally arrived.47
Several features mentioned here are worth emphasizing. First, Tung
Chung-shu was well known for practicing the Yii rite associated with the
Spring and Autumn. Second, he developed this rite according to the
yin-yang cosmology popular in his day. Third, he followed specific
procedures based on the theoretical principle that things of the same
kind or category can activate or influence one another. Fourth, Tung
employed correlations derived from yin-yang categories and not five-
phase cosmology. Finally, the ritual manifestation of this line of thinking
was the use of a dragon, an object of the yin category, to attract by
sympathetic response another phenomenon of the yin category, rain.
Han rites to end droughts were not limited to techniques meant to
attract the vital force of yin and its correlates. Since yin and yang were
perceived to be complementary, a dearth of yin implied an excess of
yang. This was true of droughts and of all other depletions of yin.
Therefore certain actions associated with the Yii sacrifice were meant to
restrict the vital force of yang by sympathetic response. Another passage
relates:
46 LHCS 15/890. 47 LHCS 16/911.
53
Young boys and male shamans are full of yang. Therefore during the Great Yu
sacrifice, young boys [are made to] dance and male shamans are exposed. The
rite of the Yii sacrifice is meant to increase the yin and shut off the yang. This is
why, likewise, when there is a solar eclipse and the yin prevails, we assault the yin
at the Altar of the Soil. When there is a solar eclipse the yin prevails, therefore
we assault things belonging to the yin category; when there is a drought the yang
prevails, therefore indignation is directed toward things of the yang category.
Male shamans belong to the yang category, therefore, when Duke Hsi of Lu
encountered a drought he decided to burn male shamans. Male shamans are full
of yang and so there are many people in the land of the south who are shamans. 48
Although it does n o t m e n t i o n T u n g Chung-shu explicitly, t h e line of

reasoning informing t h e actions described in this passage, together with
the passage previously cited, amplifies well Ssu-ma C h ' i e n ' s claim that
w h e n T u n g Chung-shu wished rain to fall, h e would shut off t h e yang
forces a n d free u p t h e yin forces. 49 T u n g Chung-shu was also known to
have sanctioned t h e c h a n t i n g of specific songs from t h e Odes to accom-
pany t h e Yu sacrifice:
Tung Chung-shu said: The Yu is a technique to seek rain. The songs that are
chanted are the 'South of Chou' from the Airs of State, the 'Call of the Deer'
from the Lesser Odes. The songs 'District Wine Drinking' and 'Great Archery'
are also to be included. 50
W h e n did T u n g Chung-shu perform t h e Yii sacrifice? Did h e d o so o n
a regular basis t h r o u g h o u t t h e year, to e n s u r e that t h e expected rains
would c o m e , o r d i d h e perform it o n a n a d h o c basis in response to
droughts? Two c o m m e n t s from 'Responses according to Kind' {Kan Lei
P'ieri) shed light o n this question. T h e first states:
As for the Great Yii sacrifice of the Spring and Autumn, Tung Chung-shu erected
a clay dragon and in every case he did so for a single season. When it did not rain,
frightened and anxious [he performed] the Yii sacrifice. Seeking yin and praying
for blessings, he was filled with anxiety and sympathy for the common people. 51
This description suggests that h e e n a c t e d t h e Yii sacrifice, n o t o n a
regular basis, b u t only in response to d r o u g h t s . A second c o m m e n t
corroborates this idea:
When there were enormous droughts, the Yii sacrifice of the Spring and Autumn
was performed. In addition, Tung Chung-shu erected a clay dragon to summon
48 LHCS 23/1288.
49 LHCS 15/876 also reports that when Tung Chung-shu performed the Yu sacrifice 'he
established a hsii.' It is difficult to establish the precise meaning of this term. Forke has
rendered it clay altar.
50 Chou-li chu-shu, p. 817.
51 LHCS 18/1049.
54
the vital force [of yin] according to kind. If Heaven responds to the Yii sacrifice
and the dragon, it will produce a thunderstorm. Why? Summer and autumn
rains are accompanied by thunder. If one must follow the Spring and Autumn and
the techniques of Tung Chung-shu, then does not the Great Yii sacrifice and the
dragon summon Heaven's anger?52
In this second passage Wang Ch'ung attempts to attack and discredit the
Yii sacrifice. He takes advantage of the fact that the sacrifice, in addition
to bringing rain, also brings thunder, a phenomenon associated with
'Heaven's anger.' Why, he concludes, would anyone desire to deliber-
ately summon Heaven's anger? Wang Ch'ung assumes that the Yii sacri-
fice was only observed in response to 'enormous droughts' (ta han) and
only in the summer and autumn months of the year. How might these
two claims be interpreted? Perhaps droughts, by definition, only oc-
curred during these seasons of the year, and when there was a lack of
rain during the other seasons they were not called droughts. Or perhaps
the Yii sacrifice was simply executed following droughts in the summer
and autumn seasons.
It is interesting to note that in the Spring and Autumn, the text on
which Tung Chung-shu based this rite, the Yii sacrifice was not usually
performed every season of the year. The text records the occurrence of
the Yii sacrifice twenty times, and in all but one case (when it was
discharged in the winter), the sacrifice was carried out during the au-
tumn months. 53 The Kung-yang Commentary also associated the Yii sacri-
fice with droughts:
What was the Yii sacrifice? It was a drought sacrifice. If so, why is there no
mention of the drought? The occurrence of a drought may be inferred from the
reference to the Yii sacrifice. If mention is made of the drought only, the
occurrence of the Yii sacrifice may not be inferred.54
On this point of ritual practice, the Kung-yang Commentary differed from
the other two commentaries associated with the Spring and Autumn, the
Tso and the Ku-liang. The latter two maintained that autumn was not the
appropriate season during which to perform the Yii sacrifice.55 Accord-
52 LHCS 18/1054.
53 Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuanyin-te30 Huan 5/7, 104 Hsi 11/3, 106 Hsi 13/4, 218 Ch'eng 3 /
10, 225 Ch'eng 7/11, 260 Hsiang 5/5, 265 Hsiang 8/7, 284 Hsiang 16/9, 285 Hsiang
17/6, 320 Hsiang 28/4, 350 Chao 3/5, 362 Chao 6/6, 369 Chao 8/8, 391 Chao 16/
5, 413 Chao 24/4, 415 Chao 25/4, 438 Ting 1/6, 450 Ting 6/8, 459 Ting 12/6, and
491 Ai 15/4.
54 Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuan yin-te 30 Huan 5/7.
55 The Tso Commentary to Duke Huan 5/7 records that performing the Yu in autumn was
'unseasonable.' The Ku-liang Commentary to Duke Ting 1/6 explains that by the ninth
month of autumn it is too late to request rain, because a lack of rain at this late date
would already indicate an insufficiency of food.
55
ing to the Kung-yang Commentary, the Yu sacrifice always followed a

drought that appears to have been understood as a lack of rain during
the seventh, eighth, and ninth months. The Lun-heng suggests that Tung
Chung-shu's writings on rain-seeking techniques to avert droughts
would advise such activities only in the months of autumn and not
throughout all the seasons of the year.
Finally, the Lun-heng also describes flood-averting rites practiced by
Tung Chung-shu. In both instances the text identifies these rites with the
female deity Nii Wa. In the first passage, the author expresses difficulty
in pinning down the canonical basis that sanctions sacrifice to Nii Wa:
When the rains do not clear, they sacrifice to Nii Wa. Where in the Rites is this
seen? Fu Hsi and Nii Wa were both sages. As for abandoning Fu Hsi and
sacrificing to Nii Wa, the Spring and Autumn does not mention it. On what, then,
are the suggestions of Tung Chung-shu based?56
The second citation responds to the query raised in the first:
The world has grown accustomed to painting images of Nii Wa with the form of
a female and the appellation 'woman.' It was Chung-shu's intention perhaps to
refer to Nii Wa as an ancient female ruler. The male is yang while the female is
yin. The vital force of yang causes disasters. Therefore he sacrificed to Nu Wa to
seek her assistance. A commentary also states: 'Kung Kung and Chuan Hsu
fought to become the Son of Heaven. Kung Kung was not victorious, and in his
anger he knocked against Mount Pu-chou, causing Heaven's pillars to break
and earth's filaments to snap. Nii Wa melted five colored stones to repair the
blue sky. She cut off the legs of the sea turtle and erected them at the four
poles.' Perhaps Tung Chung-shu sacrificed to Nii Wa because he saw this com-
mentary.57
These passages suggest that as part of the rite to stop rain, Tung Chung-
shu sacrificed to Nii Wa, who was associated with the yin category. Like
the earlier descriptions of Tung Chung-shu's ritual practices, they depict
him practicing sympathetic magic informed by a dynamic view of natural
processes driven by the ceaseless interaction of the yin and yang vital
forces. The polarity of the vital forces associated with any phenomenon
were determined by understanding its essential functions. Such catego-
ries were functional and relational: Something was yin only in relation to
something that was yang, and it might be yang in relation to a different
complement.58 The famous scholar Cheng Hsiian (127-200) supple-
56 LHCS 16/903.
57 LHCS 16/908-909.
58 This is explained in great detail in Sivin 1987.
56
ments Wang Ch'ung's rich descriptions with his reference to a supplica-

tion authored by Tung entitled Prayer to Relieve Solar Eclipses:59
Shining, shining, great brightness,

Do away with the lack of sunlight.
How is it that yin has overcome yang?
[How is it that] the base has overcome the lofty?60
Once again, consistent with other Han sources, yin-yang categorical

thinking constitutes the framework for this prayer, which most likely
accompanied rituals meant to avert solar eclipses. From this handful of
references we catch a glimpse of what must have been a much larger
repertoire of Tung's ritual prescriptions circulating in the Han. Al-
though not usually noted in general studies, they indicate that Tung
Chung-shu was recognized by his contemporaries as an important ritual
specialist. His ritual practices, which knew no boundaries between magic
and religion, were informed by yin-yang thought and drew upon the
Confucian scriptures for their authority, especially the Odes and the
Spring and Autumn.
Post-Han sources of Tung Chung-shu's writings

Among the post-Han compositions attributed to Tung Chung-shu are a
number of citations that are not paralleled in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. The
most informative examples appear in the following four sources: Liu
Chao's (fl. 502-520) sixth-century commentary to the Hou-Han shu
(History of the Later Han Dynasty), the sixth-century encyclopedia I-wen
lei-chu (Topical Collection of Literary Writings), the eighth-century
catalog of anomalies, the T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-ching (T'ang Dynasty K'ai-
yuan Reign Period Canon of Prognostications), and the eighth-century
collection entitled Ku-wen yuan (Garden of Ancient Literature). Al-
though scholars have generally either ignored or dismissed them as
spurious, I believe they are not only authentic but invaluable sources for
illuminating key aspects of Tung Chung-shu's thought. We will see that
they present a picture of Tung's ideas and ritual practices consistent with
the reliable Han materials reviewed in the preceding pages.
The Liang dynasty scholar Liu Chao quotes Tung Chung-shu six times
in his commentaries to the treatises in the Hou-Han shu.61 In the one
59
60 « * ! $ , MUl&it. £WJ>m&M? & * g * ? Chmi-li Cheng-shih chu 6/164.
61 See Appendix 5.
57
citation that does not occur in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, Tung directed the
king of Chiang-tu to induce rain by stating the following:
The formula for seeking rain is that of decreasing the yang and increasing the
yin. I ask our great king to remit a month's taxes from the women of Kuang-ling62
who invoke prayers for others. One month of taxes should be conferred upon
the shamans. Regardless of their age,63 these shamans should all gather together
at the gate of the city. [There] they should construct a small altar and offer dried
meats and wine as a sacrifice. The women alone should choose a broad, large,
convenient site and move the market there. Prohibit the married men from
entering the market and from gathering together to indulge in food and wine.64
The wives of the city officials should be directed to keep watch over their
husbands. When all of these procedures have been carried out, the rain will
simply pour forth.65
The passage enumerates several detailed procedures to seek rain based
on yin-yang categorical thinking and does not display any influence
from five-phase cosmology. Again the techniques to procure rain enu-
merated in this passage coincide with Han comments describing Tung's
activities while serving in the kingdom of Chiang-tu.
The I-wen lei-chii preserves four citations that do not appear in the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. This literary collection attributes two passages on
ritual to a work entitled Tung-sheng shu. The first outlines the appropri-
ate orientations for the emperor's quarters:
Ritual. The palace of the Son of Heaven [ T'ien-tzu chih Kung] is located in the
Temple of Purity [Ch'ingMiao], to the left of the Hall of Coolness [Liang Shih],
to the right of the Luminous Hall [Ming Tang], and to the rear of the Grand
Chamber [Lu Ch'in]. These four are sufficient to avoid the cold and heat, being
neither high nor expansive. What is high nears the sun [yang], while what is
broad is excessively shady [yin]. Therefore buildings must be suitably shaped and
correct.66
The absence of five-phase thinking in this citation is striking. The build-
ings are located along the four cardinal points, with no concern for
establishing a fifth direction at the center, which would correspond to
the correlations in five-phase thinking. Furthermore, the excerpt em-
62 Kuang-ling was the capital of Chiang-tu.

63 It is unclear whether the text here refers to the age or rank of the shamans.
64 A citation from the Ku-chin chu (Commentators Ancient and Modern) following this
passage indicates that Emperor Wu instituted such prohibitions during his reign. It
reads: 'Emperor Wu, yuan-feng, sixth year [105 B.C.E.], fifth month, drought. Women
and female shamans [missing text]. Husbands do not enter the market.' HHS5/3120.
This citation also occurs at T'ung-tien 603/531 (shang).
65 See HHS 5/3118.
66 TWLC 61/1095. For further details on the Hall of Coolness and the Grand Chamber,
see Knechtges 1982, pp. 120, 190.
58
ploys the terms yin a n d yang in their earliest a n d most r u d i m e n t a r y

senses. T h e second citation o n ritual attributed to the Tung-sheng shu
states:
Inner principles [li] are created by Heaven. Outer refinements [wen] are created
by human beings. What human beings create we call ritual [li]. In accordance
with human emotions, ritual is either simple or refined [chieh wen] in order to
rescue the emotions from disorder. Now a dike is a restraint for water, while
ritual is a restraint for human beings. Punishments restrain them at the end,
while rites restrain them at the beginning. 67
T h e analogy between the restricting properties of a dike a n d those of

ritual also a p p e a r in o n e of T u n g ' s memorials to E m p e r o r Wu in Han-shu
56. 6 8 T h e title Tung-sheng shu so closely resembles the H a n title Tung
Chung-shu that o n e suspects it was an alternative title. T h e s e two passages
probably derived from that H a n work.
T h e third citation, which dates to the years between 134 a n d 130
B.C.E. w h e n T u n g Chung-shu was the administrator of Chiang-tu, con-
sists of an official m e m o r a n d u m instructing T u n g ' s subordinates to
p r o c u r e rain. It states:
The administrator of Chiang-tu, Tung Chung-shu, sends down [orders] to the
clerk of the capital that upon receipt of this document [he should] take the
[following] actions. Order the official families residing within one hundred li of
the capital to all implement this document and announce it to the [surround-
ing] counties. Instruct the wives to watch over their husbands. Grant the female
shamans one month of taxes, and instruct them to seek rain. Also instruct
the female shamans to select through mutual recommendation those who are
pure and easy to instruct to carry out the sacrifice. Kneel to pray and say: 'Heaven
generates the five grains to nourish human beings. Now the five grains are
withering away from drought. It is feared that they will not ripen.' Reverently
present purified wine and sweet offerings. Bow twice and request rain.69
Like the prior excerpt describing the p r o p e r a r r a n g e m e n t of the im-

perial palace, this passage lacks any reference to five-phase cosmology.
Instead, T u n g directs his subordinate to i m p l e m e n t practices informed
only by yin-yang correlations.
T h e last citation, entitled Shih pu yu fu ( L a m e n t of a Frustrated
Scholar), is the only surviving rhyme-prose attributed to T u n g C h u n g -
shu. Given its i m p o r t a n c e in the history of this g e n r e , it is n o t surprising
that various scholars have studied it, a n d some have c o m m e n t e d o n its
authenticity. With the exception of H e l l m u t Wilhelm, most have
67 IWLC 38/675.
68 See HS 56/2503-2504.
69 IWLC 100/1726.
59
doubted its reliability.70 Goran Malmqvist's article 'Han Phonology and

Textual Criticism' has been particularly influential and has been widely
accepted.71 More recently, however, David Pankenier has demonstrated
that the rhyme scheme on which Malmqvist based his arguments was
mistaken.72 By presenting an alternative reconstruction of the rhyme
scheme that is far closer to the identifiable characteristics of ancient
rhyme-prose pieces, Pankenier successfully demonstrates that the pho-
nological evidence in Shihpuyufu affirms the traditional attribution to
Tung Chung-shu.73 He strengthens his phonological analysis by further
considering the content of the Shih pu yu'fu. Pankenier points out that
when the rhyme-prose piece is compared with those by Hsiin-tzu and
Ssu-ma Ch'ien, it 'reveals a marked similarity in rhyming patterns, and
clear evidence of mutual influence provided by literary allusions.'74 The
presence of ideas associated with the Kung-yang Commentary and the
Changes also coincides with Han descriptions of Tung's intellectual life.
Based on this sound and careful analysis, one may conclude that the
traditional attribution of the Shih pu yu fu should no longer be ques-
tioned. Given its rich content, which reveals much about Tung Chung-
shu's personal attitudes toward the political circumstances of his day, his
exegetical approach to the Confucian scriptures, and his familiarity with
Taoist texts, the importance of this fu cannot be overemphasized.75 The
Shihpuyufu provides an additional, valuable point of reference by which
to test more questionable materials in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.
The T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-ching contains twenty-nine quotations attrib-
uted to Tung Chung-shu that carry the following titles: Tung Chung-shu
tui tsai-i, Tung Chung-shu tsai-i tui76 Tung Chung-shu tsai-i chan,77 Ch'un-
ch 'iu fan-lu78 Tung Chung-shu wu-hsing ni-shun79 and Tung Chung-shu.80
Unlike Han-shu 27, which is virtually limited to Tung's analyses of por-
tents and anomalies found in the Spring and Autumn, this encyclopedia
70 IWLC 30/541. See Wilhelm 1957, pp. 310-319. 71 Malmqvist 1963.
72 Pankenier 1990, pp. 434-459.
73 For a detailed discussion of this rhyme scheme compared with Malmqvist's, see
Pankenier 1990, pp. 455-459.
74 Pankenier 1990, p. 459.
75 Pankenier's article exemplifies the kind of scholarship that is necessary to begin to
clarify Tung Chung-shu's literary corpus.
76 rAYCC4/4a.8-5b.i, 9/153.4-153.5, 9/153.5-153.6, 9/i5a.7-i5a.8, 10/193.7-19^1,
1
7/3 a -5~3 a ^» 99/ i a -8-ib.3, and 120/19^4-19^8.
77 TKYCC 5/24a.6-24b/i.
78 TKYCC io2/6b.6-6b.7, io2/8a.3-8a.4, 113/2D.1, 1 i6/8b.6-8b.7, and 120/23D.5-
3
79 TKYCC 113/293.6-293.8.
80 TKYCC 7/2b.6-2b.7, 7/9D.7-7.103.2, 8/8b.6, 9/143.7-143.8, 9/153.3-153.4, 10/
19a.7-19b. 1, i8/4a.8~4b.i, 76/3a.6~3a.7, 76/4^8-53.2, 76/53.3-53.4, 88/4b.i,
101/4a.2-43.3, 101/53.1-53.2, snd 101/83.2-83.3.
60
preserves a much wider selection of anomalies. In addition to those in

the Spring and Autumn, such as collapsing mountains, earthquakes, hail-
storms, snowstorms, disappearing stars, eclipses, locusts, and comets, the
Tang K'ai-yuan chan-ching lists explanations of such anomalies as thun-
der, lightning, solar halos, and odd colorings of the sun. It appears that
the compiler of this compendium included a wider range of Tung's
analyses than the editor of Han-shu 27, who largely preferred to confine
Tung's comments to anomalies in the Spring and Autumn.
Han-shu 27 does preserve one memorial by Tung Chung-shu written
in response to a Han anomaly.81 This document indicates that Tung
interpreted contemporaneous as well as historical anomalies. The T'ang
K'ai-yuan chan-ching seems to include both types of omen analysis: those
found in the Spring and Autumn and those which occurred during the
time Tung was actively interpreting omens. The T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-
ching quotations are highly abbreviated and exclude the specific context
of the anomalies. Consequently, only a small number of citations can be
identified with those in Han-shu 27 derived from the Spring and Autumn.
Although most of the remaining citations were probably culled from
Tung's comments on Han anomalies, it is impossible to prove such a
hypothesis based on the extant sources.
With the exception of two quotations attributed to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu, which includefive-phaseconcepts and occur in the current text, the
remaining twenty-seven citations do not appear in extant editions of the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. Significantly, these passages, like those in Han-shu 27,
do not draw onfive-phasecosmology and display a similar logic. This is
true in three respects. First, they interpret the immoral activities of the
ruler as the cause of various anomalies. Second, they categorize constitu-
ents of the natural world in terms of the vital forces of yin and yang.
Third, they interpret anomalies as portents of future disasters in the
government. The T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-ching quotations depart from the
Han-shu 27 comments in only one important respect: They do not refer
to Heaven, whereas Tung's analyses in the earlier source typically in-
clude the phrase, 'Heaven warned as if to say.'82 However, this difference
may simply derive from the abbreviated form of the T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-
chingquotations. The continuities and consistencies between the reliable
Han-shu 27 excerpts and the T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-chingmaterials suggest
that these previously neglected writings constitute a reliable source
for clarifying Tung Chung-shu's omenology. They may also provide a
more complete picture of the long-lost Tsai-i chih chi. Together with
81 For an analysis of the political significance of this omen, see Chapter 2.

82 ^$^B.
61
the Han-shu materials, they offer an additional point of comparison to

the omenology in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.
The Ku-wen yuan, a work traditionally ascribed to an anonymous au-
thor of the T'ang, preserves two items not present in extant editions
of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu in addition to the Shihpuyufu already discussed.
The first is entitled Yu-^pao tui (An Official Response to a Hailstorm).83
The introductory lines note the occurrence of a hailstorm at the capital
in the first year, seventh month, of the yuan-kuang period (134 B.C.E.).
Inquiries from a person named Pao Ch'ang and responses from Tung
Chung-shu on the origins of various types of anomalies based on yin-
yang concepts make up the rest of the document. Some scholars have
suspected the authenticity of this document because the hailstorm to
which it refers is not listed in the 'Annals of Emperor Wu' in either the
Shih-chi or the Han-shu.84 However, this argument may be dismissed
because there is ample evidence that the dynastic histories contain
selective rather than comprehensive lists of anomalies.85 In fact, the
document is most likely the authentic record of an exchange between
Tung Chung-shu and one of his students that transpired at the capital in
134 B.C.E. before Tung departed for his post in Chiang-tu. Several types
of internal evidence support this contention.
First, the document is dated as if it were recorded in the Ch'ang-an
capital, because it follows Emperor Wu's reign periods rather than those
of Liu Fei, king of Chiang-tu. It also states that the hailstorm occurred 'in
the capital.'86 Unless the term could refer to the capital cities of king-
doms and commanderies, this evidence also suggests that the document
was composed in Ch'ang-an. Pao Ch'ang,87 the interlocutor throughout
the document, does not appear in the Han histories and remains a
mysterious figure. But the nature of the dialogue, with Pao Ch'ang
raising questions of clarification and receiving Tung's explanations with-
out rebuttal, suggests a conversation between a teacher and his disciple
rather than a debate between two contenders of different exegetical
traditions. Finally, the document does not attach an official title to Tung
Chung-shu. These three pieces of evidence, the date, the reference to
the capital, and the lack of an official title for Tung Chung-shu, indicate
that the document may record a discussion of 134 B.C.E., before Em-
peror Wu appointed Tung to the position of administrator to Chiang-tu.
Tung's responses to Pao Ch'ang's inquiries are consistent with Han
83 KWY 11/266-271.
84 Li 1978, p. 12.
85 See Eberhard 1957 and Bielenstein 1950.
86 jKBP.
87 S*.
62
descriptions of Tung's omenology. Based on the theory of mutual re-

sponsiveness between Heaven and humanity, Tung maintains that when
a sage rules the state, the yin and yang are harmonious and the winds
and rains timely. If the ruler's political practices grow corrupt, however,
these forces become discordant and violent. Tung's responses also con-
tain a detailed account of the movements of the yin and yang forces
through the yearly cycle, another important point of comparison from
which to evaluate similar materials in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.
The second document is entitled Ch'eng-hsiangKung-sun Hung chi shih-
shu (A Letter to the counselor-in-chief Kung-sun Hung).88 Li Wei-hsiung
has dismissed this letter as a forgery, because the document contains two
incongruous official titles. Kung-sun Hung carries the title counselor-in-
chief and Tung Chung-shu, administrator of Chiang-tu. Li contends that
since Kung-sun Hung accepted the post of counselor-in-chief in 124
B.C.E. after Tung Chung-shu had left his post as administrator of Chiang-
tu, Tung Chung-shu could not have written this letter when he served in
Chiang-tu.89 Though it is true that Tung Chung-shu no longer served in
Chiang-tu when Kung-sun Hung was counselor-in-chief, this hardly
proves the document is a forgery. After he was dismissed from his post as
administrator of Chiang-tu and before serving as administrator of Chiao-
hsi, as I pointed out in Chapter 1, Tung Chung-shu resided at the capital
as grand master to the palace from approximately 130 to 124 B.C.E.
Between administrative appointments regular officials typically served in
the capital as court gentlemen (lang). Some enjoyed the more pres-
tigious ranks of superior grand master of the palace (t'ai-chung ta-fu),
grand master of the palace (chung ta-fu, kuang-lu ta-fu), or grand master
of remonstrance (chien ta-fu, chien-i ta-fu). Although responsible for con-
sulting with the emperor on policy decisions, a scholar with the title
grand master of the palace possessed a rank, not an official appoint-
ment.90 Thus, Tung Chung-shu could have written this letter after leav-
ing Chiang-tu but before he served in Chiao-hsi, because in between
administrative appointments it would have been natural for him to
address the counselor-in-chief with his last official title, administrator to
Chiang-tu. Moreover, as I also pointed out in Chapter 1, the Shih-chi and
Han-shu state that Kung-sun Hung persuaded the emperor to appoint
Tung Chung-shu to the post in Chiao-hsi when he served as one of the
three dukes. Although these sources do not indicate whether Kung-sun
Hung did so as censor-in-chief, the post he filled from 126 to 124 B.C.E.,
88 Ku-wen yuan 10/240-242.

89 Li 1978, p. 17.
90 Hucker 1985, p. 12.
or as counselor-in-chief, the appointment he held from 124 to 121

B.C.E., the letter consistently refers to Kung-sun Hung as counselor-in-
chief. This also suggests that the letter was written between 124 and 121
B.C.E. Since Tung Chung-shu was serving in Chiao-hsi by the end of 124
B.C.E., and he wrote the letter before taking up this post, he could not
have written the letter later than that year.
The content of the letter also suggests that Tung Chung-shu wrote it
after he left Chiang-tu but before he went to Chiao-hsi. Twice in the
letter, Tung Chung-shu laments his loss of an official appointment:
I, Chung-shu, knock my head, deserving the death penalty for speaking. I am a
simpleton and lack a political reputation or the ability to act as an example for
the current dynasty. Repeatedly I have been blessed by your compassionate
grace. I have been mistakenly dismissed and lack the means to realize my official
responsibilities.91 I have personally seen my grand councilor92 shoulder the
burdens of the empire. The hearts of the multitudes follow you. It is only
necessary [to secure] worthy officials to complete the task of the sage's transfor-
mation. I implore my lord marquis to open and expand the counselor-in-chief
Hsiao [Ho]'s93 paths for seeking worthy personnel and broaden the gates of
recommendation so that you will obtain such personnel and succeed to Duke
Chou's righteous principle of humbling himself before the scholars94 to obtain
those who are exceptional, hidden from the world, and extraordinary. Each will
think how to exhaust his wisdom and strive to make his virtue flourish so that the
court will be filled with refined and eminent officials and all will be prepared.
Then my lord marquis will be greatly established, the Way and its virtue will
spread everywhere, and moral transformation will flow to the four extremes of
the empire.
I, Chung-shu, am foolish and mean, my scriptural techniques95 are shallow and
insubstantial. My knowledge is partial and petty. I cannot assist you in the
slightest way. This is why my lord marquis has neglected to employ me. I have
heard that the Spring and Autumn states: The worthy and the sage search widely
to establish their reputations. They select those who are good and follow them.
There is nothing they do not heed.' It also states: 'Those who are close but do not
speak, curry favor; while those who are distant but do not speak, harbor resent-
ment.' This is why I hasten to tell all within my heart and speak sincerely.
91 This could also read: Repeatedly I was blessed by your compassionate grace. Yet I have
been mistakenly dismissed and lack the means to realize my official responsibilities.
92 Grand councilor 'was a quasi-official reference to a paramount executive official who
shared power in the central government, such as a counselor-in-chief (ch'eng hsiang).'
Hucker 1985, p. 515.
93 Hsiao Ho (d. 193 B.C.E.) served as counselor-in-chief under Emperor Kao. The Han
legal code compiled in 200 B.C.E. is ascribed to him. For a discussion of his legal
reforms, see Twitchett and Loewe 1986, pp. 526-527.
94 w*T±zm
95
64
Tung Chung-shu urges Kung-sun Hung to appoint more worthy and

capable scholars to the bureaucracy. In a typical manner, he cites the
Spring and Autumn to support this policy recommendation. Did Tung
have his own welfare in mind? The letter certainly reads as a plea for
employment by a frustrated scholar.
Tung continues the letter with another familiar political theme, the
importance of humaneness and righteousness:
I, Chung-shu, knock my head, deserving the death penalty for speaking. The
undertakings of Yao, Shun, and the Three Kings all fundamentally derived from
the principles of humaneness and righteousness. Humaneness is the means by
which human relationships are ordered. Therefore the sage kings considered it
to be the most important principle of governing. Some have said: 'To send out
ordinances and promulgate statutes that benefit the multitudes under Heaven is
called humane government. To worry over the harm brought to the multitudes
under Heaven is called a humane heart.' Only when these two are complete will
all within the seas respond with sincerity. It is simply a matter of my lord marquis
looking deeply into antiquity and contemplating with utmost sincerity the foun-
dations of humaneness and righteousness.
Tung found these values particularly relevant to problems confronting

the central government at the time. According to the Han-shu 'Annals of
Emperor Wu' and 'Treatise on Food and Money,' by 120 B.C.E. people
living east of the Han-ku Pass had grown so destitute that the central
government transferred over 700,000 people from this area plagued by
floods and other natural disasters to the Lung-hsi, Po-ti, Hsi-ho, Shang,
and K'uai-chi commanderies located west of the Han-ku Pass. Before
transferring the population, the government had sent officials to empty
the granaries and had urged the rich to make loans to relieve the
starving people. 96 After these policies proved unsuccessful, the govern-
ment moved the population. The records do not indicate how long the
people in these regions had suffered, or how long the government had
attempted to resolve their hardships by other means before adopting the
drastic policy of transferring the inhabitants in 120 B.C.E., but given the
various policies implemented by the central court, it is probable that
these issues had persisted for a few years before 120 B.C.E. Toward the
end of the letter, Tung Chung-shu refers to the problems of starvation
and banditry in this very locality:
96 //S6/187; Dubs 1944, 2:64; //S94B/1162; Swann 1950, p. 263. This passage indicates
that the central government moved the population west of the Han-ku Pass to the
region called Hsin-Ch'in (New Ch'in) south of Shuo-fang Commandery.
Presently [in the regions] east of the pass97 the five grains have all grown costly98
and families suffer from starvation. Those who are dead or distressed constitute
half the population [east of the pass]. Bandits and thieves have also arisen. There
is a constant flow of troops sent out to suppress the bandits and wandering
refugees. Innocent people have been harmed. I am anxious for our sage ruler.
My subordinates and I brought about these calamities. We were in charge and
responsible for preventing and stopping them and have utterly failed. I ought to
be the first to be punished.
At the end of the letter, he recommends additional administrative poli-
cies based on the Spring and Autumn:
I, Chung-shu, knock my head, deserving the death penalty for speaking. I am
extremely foolish, being of the opinion that the way to assist in stopping evil must
fundamentally rest with the official functionaries. It is fitting that you examine
and investigate the circumstances within the empire; instruct the officials over
the multitudes to devote their minds to administrative techniques99 in order to
expose all traces of destruction and evil; and enable the multitudes to find
security in their occupations so that there will be no worry of bandits and thieves
and the emperor's anxieties will be alleviated. I, Chung-shu, knock my head,
deserving the death penalty for speaking. I humbly submit these administrative
techniques based on the Spring and Autumn.
As a consultant on policy, the grand master Tung Chung-shu would have
accepted responsibility for recommending policies emanating from the
central government.
Finally, this letter should not be dismissed as unreliable, because it
expresses ideas consistent with Tung's political principles enumerated in
the reliable Han sources. From this perspective, the arguments in the
letter - providing for the impoverished peasants, filling the bureaucracy
with capable and worthy scholars, establishing humaneness and right-
eousness as the basic principles of government - and the mode of
argument, which cites the Spring and Autumn as the authoritative source
for all policy recommendations, are wholly consistent with ideas found
in reliable materials attributed to Tung Chung-shu. It is most likely that
Tung Chung-shu wrote this letter in his capacity as grand master of the
palace. This would explain the presence of the title linking him to
Chiang-tu, his indirect pleas for an official appointment, his willingness
to accept responsibility for the court's policies, and his efforts to recom-
mend additional measures to resolve the significant crisis confronting
97 Kuan-tung ( H ^ ) , 'east of the Pass,' refers to the lands east of the Han-ku Pass, one of
the four strategic passes that separated the metropolitan area of Ch'ang-an from the
rest of the empire. The region corresponds to present day Ho-nan and Shan-tung.
98 m^m&n.
99 »g.
66
the central government in the years approaching 120 B.C.E. Tung

Chung-shu probably wrote this letter in 124 B.C.E. In fact, this very
correspondence may have prompted Kung-sun Hung to persuade the
emperor to end Tung Chung-shu's tenure in the capital by appointing
him administrator of Chiao-hsi.
The Ch'un-ch'iu fan4u and beyond

Through the centuries, various sources have ascribed at least eleven titles
to Tung Chung-shu: Tung Chung-shu (Tung Chung-shu), Kung-yang
Tung Chung-shu chih-yu (The Kung-yang [Scholar] Tung Chung-shu De-
cides Court Cases), Tsai-i chih chi (A Record of Disasters and Anomalies),
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu (Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn), Tung
Chung-shu ch'ing-tao t'u (Tung Chung-shu's Chart of Supplications and
Prayers), Tung-tzu wen-chi (Collected Literary Works of Master Tung),
Wen Chu (Heard and Promoted), Yii-pei (Jade Goblet), Fan-lu (Luxuriant
Dew), Ch'ing-ming (Pure Brightness), and Chu-lin (Bamboo Grove).
Compared with other works in Tung Chung-shu's literary corpus, the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu is distinctive in several ways. First, Han sources cite the
Tung Chung-shu, the Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu, and the Tsai-i
chih chi, but they do not refer to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. Second, bibliogra-
phies, encyclopedias, and manuscripts confirm the uninterrupted trans-
mission of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu from the sixth century to the present
day, but there is no evidence that a compilation carrying this title existed
earlier. Third, unlike the Tung Chung-shu, the Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu
chih-yu, and the Tsai-i chih chi, the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu survives almost
completely intact to the present day. Fourth, though materials surviving
from the Tung Chung-shu, the Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu, and the
Tsai-i chih chi resemble Han descriptions of Tung's writings, many essays
in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu depart from Han portrayals of Tung's thought.
To what extent does the received text preserve compositions by Tung
Chung-shu? Direct testimony from the Han supports the contention that
the Ch'un-chiu fan-lu preserves Tung Chung-shu's writings, perhaps even
portions of the original Tung Chung-shu. We have seen that Han citations
directly corroborate a small number of Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapters (1, 16,
21, 27, 30, 32, and 44). Han accounts of Tung Chung-shu's works and
ideas depict a scholar who rejected Ch'in policies and sought to institute
an alternative political and religious culture based on a particular
hermeneutic of the Kung-yang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn.
They suggest that Tung Chung-shu drew most heavily from this text
when setting forth his political, legal, ritual, and cosmological ideas. Han
sources also indicate that Tung Chung-shu was best known for his dis-
67
tinctive omenology derived from the Spring and Autumn and based on
yin-yang cosmology. They do not typically associate Tung Chung-shu
with the five-phase cosmology that also gained prominence during this
period.
Post-Han materials attributed to Tung Chung-shu that lack parallels in
the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu complement Tung's intellectual landscape as de-
picted by Han sources. They confirm that Tung Chung-shu drew from
the authoritative texts of the Confucian tradition to set forth his re-
formist ideas. Most important, they demonstrate that he based his cos-
mology on yin-yang and four-season correlates, and thatfive-phaseideas
did not figure prominently in his thought. In the following chapter,
these often overlooked but valuable materials, particularly those that
describe Tung's theoretical and practical responses to natural disasters,
will be compared with similar subject matter in the received text to
clarify the authenticity of additional chapters in the Ch 'un-ch yiu fan-lu.
68
4
The authorship of the
Ch 9un-ch yiu fan-lu
Beyond Tung Chung-shu's biography and the history of his literary

corpus examined in the first two chapters, internal characteristics of the
CWun-ch'iu fan-lu also shed light on the text's authorship. Vocabulary,
grammar, rhetorical style, literary form, viewpoint, and organization
illuminate both the editing process that brought this work into existence
and the materials that were employed to compile it. This chapter pro-
vides a preliminary analysis of these features in conjunction with the last
two chapters,1 to further my argument that the CWun-cWiu fan-lu is a
composite work, assembled by an anonymous compiler. The term 'com-
posite' highlights two important aspects of the text. It contains essays
authored by Tung Chung-shu and records of his doctrinal expositions
addressed to different audiences in a number of diverse venues. Yet it
also preserves heterogeneous writings, with a more complex and some-
times problematic relationship to the historical Tung Chung-shu. We
will see, for example, that the authentic compositions provide a retro-
spective view of Tung's thought as it evolved throughout his long politi-
cal career. Those authored by his disciples document developments in
the Kung-yang tradition through the Eastern Han dynasty, while the
rebuttals of his critics highlight the contested areas of Han discourse. In
short, there is much to be gleaned from this problematic text.
Yet the techniques available to study early Chinese texts sometimes
yield ambivalent results and the criteria to analyze these writings are
highly contested. While biblical and classical studies have developed
numerous tools with which to study the dating and authorship of texts,
it is a relatively new field of study within sinology. Only a handful of
scholars have applied such approaches as form criticism and source
1 These issues will be taken up at greater length in my textual study and annotated
translation, The Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn (Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu), Basic Texts
of Chinese Classical Writing, The Culture and Civilization of China, forthcoming from
Yale University Press.
69
criticism to the texts of ancient China. The Herculean efforts needed to

clarify both the method of textual studies (what criteria ought to be
applied and how) and its objective (the dating and authorship of these
texts) will demand more collaborative work than has thus far been
characteristic of sinological endeavors. The task of returning the ancient
Chinese text to history is upon us and it will no doubt subsume the
energies of an increasing number of sinologists in the years to come.
This is particularly relevant to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. As we will see,
historicizing the text allows a new view of Tung Chung-shu, one that sees
his hermeneutics evolving not outside of history, but in relation to the
political factors and doctrinal discourses that defined his day.
The composition of the Ch'un-ch'iu fanlu
Standard printed editions of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu typically list seventeen

books (chu'an) consisting of eighty-two chapters (p yien), with the follow-
ing seventy-nine extant chapter titles:
Book One
1 'Ch'u Chuang Wang' (King Chuang of Ch'u), four sections.2
2 'Yu Pei' (Jade Goblet), seven sections.3
Book Two
3 'Chu Lin' (Bamboo Grove), six sections.4
Book Three
4 'Yu Ying' (Jade Flower), nine sections.5
5 'Ching Hua' (The Essential and the Ornamental), seven sections.
Book Four
6 'Wang Tao' (The Kingly Way), six sections.
2 In the eleventh century Lou Yu noted that only one edition he had seen began with this
chapter title, a manuscript held in his friend P'an Ching-hsien's private library. Lou
concluded that this title must have been added by P'an. Su Yu suggested that this chapter
was originally named Fan-lu but that someone changed it to avoid repetition with the
book's title. Unfortunately he did not provide any evidence to support this view. The
current chapter title derives from the first three graphs of the chapter.
3 SC 10/430 records that Emperor Wen obtained a jade goblet in the seventeenth year of
his reign (163 B.C.E.). The chapter's title may commemorate this auspicious event.
4 A number of commentators have been bothered by the titles of chapters 2 and 3 because
they do not correspond to their contents. The authors of the catalog of the Northern
Sung Imperial Library, the Ch 'ung-wen tsung-mu, suggested that these titles were added to
the text. See CCFLIC, 'Evidence'/29b.
5 Han interpreters read the appearance of the Jade Flower as an auspicious omen that
occurred when the ruler cultivated the five virtues: humaneness, righteousness, pro-
priety, wisdom, and sincerity. See SC 10/431, note 4.
70
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
Book Five
7 'Mieh Kuo' (Destroyed States, Part One), one section.6
8 'Mieh Kuo' (Destroyed States, Part Two), one section.
9 'Sui Pen Hsiao Hsi' (Follow the Foundation of Expansion and Contrac-
tion), one section.7
10 'Meng Hui Yao' (The Essentials of Covenants and Meetings), one
section.8
n 'Cheng Kuan' (Rectify the [Unifying] Thread), one section.
12 'Shih Chih' (Ten Guiding Precepts), one section.
13 'Chung Cheng' (Value Government), four sections.9
Book Six
14 'Fu Chih Hsiang' (The Regulation and Symbolism of Clothing), one
section.
15 'Er Tuan' (Two Beginnings), five sections.10
16 'Fu Jui' (Auspicious Portents), two sections.11
17 'Yu Hsu' (Yii's Preface), one section.12
6 The commentator Ch'ien Ch'ien-i suggested that chapters 7 and 8 originally consti-
tuted a single essay.
7 Su Yii noted that the title and contents of this chapter do not correspond to each other.
However, the title may relate to a memorial regarding a hailstorm preserved in the Ku-
wen yuan. In this document entitled 'Yu Pao Tui' (Response to a Hailstorm) Tung
Chung-shu states: 'From the tenth month onward, the yang vital force is first generated
by Earth below. It gradually flows and spreads. Thus it is said to be expanding [hsi]. The
yin vital force revolves and collects. Thus it is said to be contracting [hsiao]. Day and
night the yin and yang are generated until the fourth month, when unblended yang
presides over affairs. From the fourth month onward, the yin vital force is first gener-
ated by Heaven above. It gradually flows and spreads. Thus it is said to be expanding
[hsi]. The yang vital force revolves and collects. Thus it is said to be contracting [hsiao].
Day and night the yin and yang are generated until the tenth month, when unblended
yin presides over affairs. In the second and eighth months the yin and yang are equal,
one does not exceed the other. Based on this we can deduce that there are no errors
in their movements.' See Ku wen-yuan 11/267.
8 The title of this chapter does not correspond to its content.
9 Su Yu suggested that the first two sections of this chapter do not correspond to the title.
In fact, this chapter consists of four unrelated fragments and it is likely that only the
third, from which the title is drawn, represents what remains of the chapter's original
essay.
10 Two interpolations occur in this chapter. The first, CCFL 6/2a.5-13~2a.6.16, appears to
be misplaced from chapter 23. The second, CCFL 6/2a.7.o,-2a.o,.i3, may belong to
chapter 4. The remaining chapter reads as a continuous essay.
11 Su Yu commented that this chapter is incomplete. The first section contains some
parallels with one of Tung's memorials preserved in HS 56/2500. The second section
consists of sixteen graphs that do not belong in this chapter.
12 Pre-Ch'in and Han philosophical works typically concluded with a preface that ex-
plained their principles and outlined their aims. When a preface appears in the body
of the text, as in this case, it may indicate that the work has been rearranged or that
additional materials have been added to the original text. Since the compositions that
follow this preface differ markedly in form and content, I suspect that chapter 17 marks
the end of the first source employed to compile the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu.
71
18 'Li He Ken' (Separation and Union with the Root), one section.13
19 'Li Yuan Shen' (Establish the Primal Numen), six sections.
20 'Pao Wei Ch'iian' (Preserve Position and Power), three sections.
Book Seven
21 'K'ao Kung Ming' (Investigate Achievement and Reputation), three
sections.
22 T u n g Kuo Shen' (Comprehend the State as the Body), one section.
23 'San Tai Kai Chih Chih Wen' (The Changing Regulations of the Three
Dynasties from Simplicity to Refinement), three sections.
24 'Kuan Chih Hsiang T'ien' (Official Regulations Reflect Heaven), four
sections.
25 'Yao Shun pu Shan I. . .' (Yao and Shun Did Not Unauthorizedly Abdi-
cate the Throne; T'ang and Wu Did Not Seize the Throne by Regicide),
two sections.
26 'Fu Chih' (Regulations of Clothing), two sections.
Book Eight
27 'Tu Chih' (Regulations of Limitation), five sections.
28 'Chueh Kuo' (Ranking the States), one section.
29 'Jen I Fa' (Standards of Humaneness and Righteousness), one section.14
30 'Pi Jen Ch'ieh Chih' (Humaneness Must Precede Wisdom), two sections.
Book Nine
31 'Shen chih Yang [Mo] Chung yu Y (For Nourishing the Self, Nothing
Outweighs Righteousness), one section.
32 'Tui Chiao-hsi Wang...' (An Official Response to the King of
Chiao-hsi. . .), one section.
33 'Kuan Te' (Observe Virtue), one section.
34 'Feng Pen' (Revere the Foundation), one section.
Book Ten
35 'Shen Ch'a Ming Hao' (An In-Depth Examination of Names and Designa-
tions) , four sections.
36 'Shih Hsing' (The Inner Substance of Human Nature), one section.
37 'Chu Hou' (The Feudal Lords), one section.
38 'Wu-hsing Tui' (A Response on the Five Phases), one section.
39 Missing title and text.
Book Eleven
41 'Wei Jen Che T'ien' (Heaven Constitutes Humanity), three sections.
42 'Wu-hsing chih Y (The Righteousness of the Five Phases), one section.
43 'Yang Tsun Yin Pei' (The Loftiness of Yang and Lowliness of Yin), one
section.
13 Su Yu noted that the content of this chapter does not appear to correspond to the title.
14 Chan translated this title incompletely as 'Humanity and Righteousness.' See Chan
1963, pp. 285-286.
72
Ch 'un-ch yiufan-lu
44 'Wang Tao Tung San' (The Kingly Way Penetrates Three), three sec-
tions.
45 'T'ien Jung' (Heaven's Deportment), two sections.
46 'T'ien Pien Tsai Jen' (The Heavenly Transformations in Humans), one
section.
47 'Yin Yang Wei' (The Positions of Yin and Yang), one section.
Book Twelve
48 'Yin Yang Chung Shih' (The Yearly Cycle of Yin and Yang), one section.
49 'Yin Yang I' (The Righteousness of Yin and Yang), one section.
50 'Yin Yang Ch'u Ju Shang Hsia' (Yin and Yang Emerge, Retire, Ascend, and
Descend), one section.
51 'T'ien Tao Wu Er' (The Heavenly Way Is Not Dualistic), one section.
52 'Nuan Ao Shu Tuo' (Heat or Cold, Which Predominates?), two sections.
53 'Chi F (The Basis of Righteousness), five sections.
Book Thirteen
55 'Ssu Shih chih Fu' (The Tallies of the Four Seasons), one section.
56 'Jen Fu T'ien Shu' (Humans Correspond to the Numerical Regularities of
Heaven), one section.
57 'T'ung Lei Hsiang Tung' (Things of the Same Kind Activate One An-
other), one section.
58 'Wu-hsing Hsiang Sheng' (The Mutual Conquest of the Five Phases), one
section.
59 'Wu-hsing Hsiang Sheng' (The Mutual Production of the Five Phases),
one section.
60 'Wu-hsing Ni Shun' (Deviation from and Compliance with the Five
Phases), one section.
61 'Chih Pen Wu-hsing' (Governing Based on the Five Phases), one section.15
Book Fourteen
62 'Chih Luan Wu-hsing' (Governing That Disrupts the Five Phases), one
section.
63 'Wu-hsing Pien Chiu' (Relieving the Disturbances of the Five Phases), one
section.
64 'Wu-hsing Wu-shih' (The Five Phases and the Five Undertakings), five
sections.
65 'Chiao Yii' (Discourse on the Suburban Sacrifice), one section.
Book Fifteen
66 'Chiao I' (The Righteousness of the Suburban Sacrifice), one section.
67 'Chiao Chi' (The Suburban Sacrifice), one section.
68 'Ssu Chi' (The Four [Seasonal] Sacrifices), one section.
69 'Chiao Ssu' (The Suburban Offering), two sections.
15 I have emended this title based on Liu Shih-p'ei's discussion in Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chiao-
pu 2/i2b.
73
70 'Shun Ming' (Comply with Orders), two sections.

71 'Chiao Ssu Tui' (A Response on the Suburban Offering), one section.
Book Sixteen
72 'Chih Chih' (Presenting Gifts), one section.
73 'Shan Ch'uan Sung' (Ode to the Mountains and Rivers), one section.
74 'Ch'iu Yu' (Seeking Rain), one section.
75 'Chih Yu' (Stopping Rain), two sections.
76 'Chi I' (The Righteousness of Sacrifice), one section.
77 'Hsiin T'ien chih Tao' (Conform to Heaven's Way), five sections.
Book Seventeen
78 'T'ien Ti chih Hsing' (The Conduct of Heaven and Earth), two sections.
79 'Wei Te Suo Sheng' (The Origins of Authority and Virtue), two sections.
80 'Ju T'ien chih Wei' (Imitate the Activities of Heaven), one section.
81 'T'ien Ti Yin Yang' (Heaven, Earth, Yin and Yang), one section.
82 'T'ien Tao Shih' (The Operations of the Heavenly Way), one section.
Commentators have been troubled by the titles of individual chapters
for a number of different reasons. Their most enigmatic feature involves
a glaring discrepancy between the bibliographical record and the re-
ceived text. For centuries scholars have noted that the Han-shu lists two
titles - Yu Pei (Jade Goblet) and Chu Lin (Bamboo Grove) - as works
that circulated separately from the Tung Chung-shu, whereas these same
titles appear at the head of chapters 2 and 3 in the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu.
This difference has led many to conclude that someone must have added
these titles, with their content, to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu.16 Consequently,
the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu could not simply be the Tung Chung-shu renamed.
Yet surprisingly enough, they have not emphasized the fact that of the
seventy-nine chapter titles in the received text, Han sources corroborate
the authenticity of these two titles alone. Similarly, these chapters, which
describe and evaluate the affairs of the Spring and Autumn, are consistent
with Pan Ku's description in the Han-shu.17 Thus, although they derive
from a source other than the Tung Chung-shu, they may represent some
of the most reliable material in the entire work.
Over the centuries commentators have also been bothered by the fact
that many chapter titles do not correspond to their content while others
relate to only some parts of their ensuing chapters.18 For example,
chapter 10 ('The Essentials of Covenants and Meetings') does not dis-
cuss principles governing interstate relations but rather contains a mov-
ing account of calamities recorded in the Spring and Autumn and
16 See the opinions of numerous traditional commentators and bibliophiles in CCFLIC
'Evidence'/1-31.
17 For Pan Ku's citation, see .Chapter 3, p. 40.
18 See CCFL chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 13, 18, and 61.
74
Confucius's mission to eradicate the world's suffering. Chapter 13

('Value Government') corresponds to only the third of four fragments
that make up the chapter. In many cases, these issues may simply reflect
the poor condition of the text. They do not a priori implicate the work
as unauthentic. It is quite common for ancient texts to become dam-
aged, misarranged, or incomplete during centuries of transmission. But
these explanations do not account for all the idiosyncracies of the Ch 'un-
ch 'iu fan-lu. For in some cases it appears that entire chapters were lost
and someone simply copied material from other texts to fill in the
content, while other chapters appear to have been restored clumsily with
a pastiche of essay fragments combined to form a chapter based on a
shared theme. These types of problems must be analyzed on a chapter-
by-chapter basis.
The chapter titles are also heterogeneous. They belie the notion of a
single source for the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. Some are as short as two graphs
while others are several graphs long. They also lack a single principle of
naming that would bind the titles into a unified whole. For example,
some derive from the opening lines of their respective essays, others
from a specific term in the chapter, and still others from concepts that
sum up the chapter's central theme. These different principles of nam-
ing may indicate the respective fingerprints of various editors during the
text's centuries of transmission. They may also reflect the different
origins and dates of the compositions preserved in the text. In the
following pages, we will see that there is a rough correspondence be-
tween certain types of chapter titles and the writings that follow them.
Clearly, rather than putting to rest the complicated and bothersome
questions regarding the integrity and authenticity of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu, the chapter titles raise more questions than they resolve.
The seventy-nine extant chapters of the text also differ widely in
literary form. Several consist of dialogues concerning specific interpreta-
tions of the Spring and Autumn (1-6, 23, 25, 28, 46). Official responses
{tut) directed at the kings whom Tung Chung-shu served as administra-
tor (32, 38), the emperor whom he advised (16, 21, 27, 30), and
representatives from the central court who sought his opinions on im-
portant policy matters (71) compose all or part of several additional
chapters. An ode (sung) constitutes one chapter (73), while prose essays
make up the remainder of the text. It is a well-known fact that different
genres often coexist in ancient Chinese texts. For example, prose and
rhymed verse occur together in the Chuang-tzu and Huai-nan-tzu. In the
case of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, as we will see, these different genres
indicate that the text was compiled from multiple sources composed
under diverse circumstances and for different audiences.
75
Perhaps most suggestive of multiple authorship is the fact that the

Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu preserves a wide range of viewpoints. Admittedly some
of these differences no doubt reflect changes in Tung's thought as it
evolved over the years and responded to the realities of court politics
and the changing temperaments of its literary patrons. We have seen
that Tung's long official career spanned the two distinct reigns of Em-
peror Ching, who supported Huang-Lao, and Emperor Wu, who patron-
ized the Confucian scholars. Furthermore, to expect one to remain
absolutely consistent throughout a long and productive intellectual
career and to assume one always will approach an intellectual problem
from the same vantage point may be an unreasonable expectation on the
part of the reader. This is particularly true of a scholar like Tung
Chung-shu who developed his theories always with an eye to practice. At
the same time, these explanations do not account for all the disparate
voices within the text because certain chapters express a viewpoint in-
consistent with the age in which Tung lived. While some seem to incor-
porate ideas of an earlier time, others express concepts that either were
not associated with Tung or had not yet emerged on the intellectual
scene during the Western Han.19 As we will see, it is not likely that the
same person could have maintained all the varying intellectual attitudes,
advocated the disparate political practices, or held to the different
cosmological assumptions enumerated in this work. Thus, while some of
the divergent opinions no doubt reflect the evolution of Tung's ideas,
others must derive from the multiple authors whose writings the text also
preserves.
The composite nature of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu is also apparent in the
organization of the text, which falls into roughly five literary units based
on common subject matter. In the preceding chapter we saw that Hu
Ying-lin and Chou Fu-ch'eng, supporting the idea of a single author,
proposed that the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu consists of two major divisions, re-
flecting the two texts - the Tung Chung-shu and the Chih-yu - from which
it was derived. In more recent years, Hsu Fu-kuan discussed the organi-
zation of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu in his well-known Liang-Han ssu-hsiang-
shih (Intellectual History of the Han Dynasties). According to the subject
matter discussed throughout the extant seventy-nine chapters, he out-
lined a tripartite structure for the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu consisting of what he
called Master Tung's Scholarship on the Spring and Autumn; Master
Tung's Philosophy of Heaven; and Discussions of Sacrifice and Court
19 For example, the tendency to correlate the current dynasty with the fire phase of the
five-phase sequence dates to the Eastern Han. Yet chapters 58, 59, and 60 contain
correlations of this nature.
76
Table 1. The composition of the Ch' un-ch 'iu fan-lu
Units Books Chapters
Exegetical chapters 1-10 1-6, 7-17, 23-37

Huang-Lao chapters 6, 7, 16, 17 18-22, 77, 78
Yin-yang chapters 11, 12 ,13, 17 41, 43-57, 79-82
Five-phase chapters 10, 11, 13, 14 38, 42, 58-64
Ritual chapters 14, 15, 16 65-76
Ceremony.20 Although I generally agree with Hsii Fu-kuan's findings, my

own views depart from his in two respects. First, the compelling organi-
zational features of the text did not undermine Hsu Fu-kuan's view that
the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu was a homogeneous text authored by Tung Chung-
shu.21 Yet I believe they provide an important key to understanding the
composite nature of the work. Second, as Table 1 suggests, the Ch 'un-
ch'iu fan-lu consists of five, not three, distinct literary units. In the dis-
cussion that follows, I will examine and evaluate them, in relation to
each other and to the biographical and literary evidence presented in
Chapters 1 and 2.
The exegetical chapters

The first group of chapters, comprising roughly the first half of the text,
consists of exegetical writings devoted to the Kung-yang Commentary.
These thirty chapters set forth and clarify general principles of the Spring
and Autumn, the esoteric language Confucius employed to state his
ethical evaluations, and the lessons culled from a consideration of the
different events recorded in the Spring and Autumn. The literary form of
chapters 1 through 6 distinguishes them from the prose essays that
largely compose chapters 7 through 37. The first six chapters contain
approximately forty pericopes, many of which share a common question-
and-answer format. Furthermore, the last and longest section in chapter
6, which repeats topics discussed in earlier chapters and links numerous
ethical principles to specific passages in the Kung-yang Commentary, may
mark the end of the first source employed to constitute this literary unit.
Table 2 summarizes the various sections that constitute the first six
chapters.
20 See Hsu 1975, pp. 190-191. 21 See Hsu 1975, pp. 192-195.
77
Table 2. The exegetical chapters 1-6
Chapter Section Location Graphs
1 1 i/ia.4.i-ib.7.i4 260
1 2 i/ib.8.i-3a.i.i4 420
1 3 1/3a. 1.15—4a. 1.18 37O
1 4 1 /4a. 1.19—6a«7.16 843
2 1 i/6a.g. 1-7^3.2 426
2 2 1/7^4.1-7^8.17 101
2 3 i/7b.g.i-8a.6.2i 141
2 4 i/8a.7.i-8b.2.i6 100
2 5 i/8b.2.i 7-8^7.17 99
2 6 i/8b.8.i-ga.8.n 192
2 7 i/o,a.o,.i-i2a.i.4 924
3 1 2/^.4.1-33.4.5 713
3 2 2/3a.5.i-4b.5.8 551
3 3 2/4^6.1^.4.19 344
3 4 2/5^5.1-7^2.12 677
3 5 2/7b.3.i-8b.5.6 404
4 1 3/^.4.1-1^5.4 22
4 2 3/ia.5.5-ia.7.i 36
4 3 3/ia.7.2-2a.i.i8 234
4 4 3/2a.2.i-2a.8.3 117
4 5 3/2a.g.i-3a.3.2 243
4 6 3/3a.4.i-3a.8.i4 98
4 7 3/3a.g.i-4a.5.6 280
4 8 3/4a.6.i-5a.8.i3 384
4 9 3/5a.8.i4-6b.44 454
5 1 3/6b.6.i-7a.i.ig 103
5 2 3/7a.2.i-7b.3.i 199
5 3 3/7b.4.i-8a.g.i3 281
5 4 3/8b.i.i-ga.2.i7 200
5 5 3/ga.3.i-gb.i.io 150
5 6 3/gb.2.i-io.a.6.8 258
5 7 3/ioa.7.i-nb.2.i 463
6 1 4/ia.4.i-ib.g.i 377
6 2 4/2a. 1.1-33.4.12 333
6 3 4/33.5.1-43.1.8 278
6 4 4/4a.2.i~4b.i.6 !54
6 5 4/4^2.1-53.7.2 277
6 6 4/5a.8.i-iob.i.8 1,845
The consistent manner in which many of these sections explore the

Kung-yang Commentary unifies them. They appear to be records of doctri-
nal expositions of varying degrees of completeness. Some consist of
questions and answers concerning a single passage or a series of passages
78
from the Kung-yang Commentary. Others include statements and rebuttals

of specific points of interpretation. They are often supported by addi-
tional references to the Odes, Documents, Changes, Scripture of Filial Piety,
and sayings of Confucius.22 They may be records of discussions Tung
held with his disciples and/or deliberations in which Tung participated
with other scholars.23 The reader will recall that Tung was known to have
debated the Odes scholar Han Ying and the Ku-liang scholar Duke
Chiang of Hsia-ch'iu. Kung-sun Hung compared and compiled the opin-
ions from the latter debate. Whether the exegetical pericopes in the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu are records of actual dialogues or simply adopt such a
form as a convenient literary trope demands further investigation. None-
theless, they may very well be the most reliable materials in the entire
work. First, such close readings of the Kung-yang Commentary could only
have been conducted by an exegete of this interpretive tradition. Sec-
ond, parallels with the Shuayuan, cited in the previous chapter, support
a Western Han date for at least some of these writings.24 Third, the
content corresponds to Tung's discussions of the Spring and Autumn
preserved in his famous memorials to Emperor Wu and in what remains
of the more reliable Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yuP Fourth, the
technical language corresponds to vocabulary from more reliable works
attributed to Tung. Finally, as I noted in Chapter 2, Pan Ku corroborates
the authenticity of the titles of Chapters 2 and 3, and his description of
these works as doctrinal expositions of the Spring and Autumn corre-
sponds to their content. For the purposes of explaining what Tung
Chung-shu and his disciples of the Kung-yang Commentary perceived
scripture to be, these chapters are invaluable. They shed light on the
dynamic process of interpretation that elevated the Spring and Autumn to
canonical stature under Emperor Wu.
With chapter 7 ('Destroyed States'), the text's literary form shifts from
dialogues to mainly prose essays.26 This change may indicate that these
chapters derive from a different source, albeit one equally interested in
interpreting the Kung-yang Commentary. As Table 3 illustrates, many of
the chapters from 7 through 37 consist of essays of varying degrees of
22 It is interesting to note that they do not employ the Analects title when quoting this
work, but refer instead to Confucius, Chong-ni, or simply the Master.
23 The dialogues introduce questions with the set phrases wen-cheyueh (P^ # 0 ) and nan-
cheyueh (m^ 0 ) , which may be rendered as 'one who queried stated' and 'one who
objected stated.' The latter appears in chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 46. Phrases like nan
yueh (objected by stating), nan che (one who objects), and pu neng nan (was unable to
object) typically appear in Shih-chi, Han-shu, and Hou-Han shu passages that recount
disputations and deliberations.
24 See Chapter 3, note 39.
25 For a detailed comparison, see Chapter 5.
26 Chapters 23, 25, 28, 32, and 38 consist of dialogues.
79
Table 3. The exegetical chapters 7-37
7 5/ia.4.i-2a.4.i4 373
8 5/2a.6.i-3a.6.i 359
9 5/3a.8.i~5a.i.7 572
1O 5/53.3.1-5^7.18 273
n 5/5b.g.i-6b.8.2 338
12 5/7a.i.i-7b.g.i6 347
13 5/8a.2.i-8b.i.i6
13 2 5/8b.i.i7~8b.g.i7 161
13 3 5/8b.g.i8-ga.5.i 77
4 5/ga.5.2-ga.8.i6 72
14 1 6/ia.4.i-ib.g.g 292
15 1 6/2a.2.i-2a.5.i2 75
15 2 6/2a.5.13~2a.6.16 25
*5 3 6/2a.6.17—2a«7-8 13
15 4 6/2a.7>g—2a.g. 13 39
15 5 6/2a.g.i4~2b.g.3 166
16 1 6/3a.2.i~3a.7.i 1 105
16 2 6/3a.7.i2~3a.8.g 16
17 1 6/3b.i.i-5a.g.i 239
23 1 7/3^2.1-7^5.20 1,546
23 2 7/7^5.2 i-ga.g.6 560
23 3 7/gb.i.i-ioa.7.i4 318
24 1 7/ioa.g.i-na.g.7 367
24 2 7/1 ia.g.8-i3a. 1.1 526
24 3 7/i3a.i.2-i3a.6.i2 116
24 4 7/13a.6.13—13b.g. 1 235
25 1 7/ 14a. 2.1—14a. 8.4 121
25 2 7/ i4a.8.5—15b. 1.18 431
26 1 7/15^3.1-15^3.11 11
26 2 7/15b.3.12—16a. 2.11 161
27 1 8/ia.4.i—ib.3.14 179
27 2 8/ib.4.i-ib.8.4 85
27 3 8/ib.8.5~2a.2.ig 74
27 4 8/2a.2.2o-2a.8.i 108
27 5 8/2a.g.i-2b.8.5 173
28 8/3a.i.i-8b.4.5 2*059
29 8/8b.6.i-i2a.3.i5 1,202
3° 8/12 a.5.1—i3b.3.g 492
30 8/13b.4.1—14b.2.11 334
31 g/ia.4.i-2b.5.i7 559
32 364
33 g/3b.g.i-6a.g.5 880
34 g/6b.2.i-8b.i.8 7O3
35 io/ia.4.i-2a.8.8 440
35 2 io/2a.g.i-2b.6.2i H3
35 3 io/2b.7.i-3a.5-8 150
35 4 io/3a.5.g~7a.5.i2 1,404
36 1 io/7a-7.i-8b.g.8 596
37 1 io/ga.2.i-ga.8.6 117
80
Ch 'un-ch 'iufan-lu
completeness, some of which appear to have been constituted from essay

fragments that share a common theme.
The interpretive approach, as well as the literary form of these chap-
ters, also suggests a second source. Unlike the earlier pericopes, which
build up more general principles of application from specific citations in
the Spring and Autumn, several essays begin by stating a general interpre-
tive principle followed by a series of illustrative examples. Chapter 35
('An In-Depth Examination of Names and Designations') is a lengthy
disquisition on the role of the Spring and Autumn in the rectification of
names. Chapter 29 ('Standards of Humaneness and Righteousness')
discusses the models of humaneness and righteousness derived from the
Spring and Autumn. Although these chapters were probably written by
Tung Chung-shu, others were likely written by his disciples, while the
provenance of still others is more difficult to identify. For example,
chapter 12 (Ten Guiding Precepts'), a restatement of the master's
teachings on the Spring and Autumn, contains references to the five
phases suggesting that it was written by one of Tung's disciples. Su Yii has
questioned the authenticity of the third section of chapter 23 ('The
Changing Regulations of the Three Dynasties from Simplicity to Refine-
ment') and Harada Masaota has argued that the entire chapter could
not have been written earlier than the Eastern Han.27 The historical
cycles described in the chapter are certainly far more elaborate than the
triadic cycle that Tung describes in his third memorial to Emperor Wu
and the dyadic cycle discussed in reliable materials attributed to him.
Chapter 23 combines cycles of two, three, four, five, and nine.281 suspect
that it does not preserve the ideas of Tung Chung-shu but, rather, those
of his disciples elaborating on the simpler theories of their master.
However, further research must be conducted before this hypothesis can
be proved.
Chapter 24 ('Official Regulations Reflect Heaven') describes how the
regulation and selection of officials derive from the numerical attributes
of Heaven. The system of government depicted in the first section
directly contradicts the ideal government enumerated in chapter 58
('The Mutual Conquest of the Five Phases').29 Although there is no
27 For example, Harada Masaota argued that similarities with the Eastern Han works Po-
hu f'wwgand Ch'un-ch'iu Kung-yang chuan Ho-shih chieh-ku, and the chapter's treatment
of the theory of form and substance, suggest that it could not have been written before
the Eastern Han. See Harada 1958, p. 509.
28 For a more detailed discussion of Tung's view on historical cycles, see Chapter 8.
29 Su Yu notes that the offices enumerated in the first section correspond to those listed
in the 'Regulations of the King (Wang Chih)' and 'Great Tradition (Ta Chuan)' of the
Records of Rites (Li chi). Cheng Hsiian held that they were the regulations of the Hsia
Dynasty. The 'Way of the Ruler (Chun Tao)' chapter of the Shuo-yiian (Garden of
81
compelling reason to doubt 24/1, the system described in the latter

chapter is based on the mutual conquest of the five phases, a cosmology
not associated with Tung by his contemporaries but certainly associated
with some of his disciples. Chapter 24/1 probably constitutes an original
essay by Tung. Chapter 24/2 may be later commentary that was mistak-
enly incorporated into the text, while 24/3 and 24/4 are essay frag-
ments that repeat information presented in the first section.
Chapter 25 ('Yao and Shun Did Not Unauthorizedly Abdicate the
Throne; T'ang and Wu Did Not Seize the Throne by Regicide') appears
to be a conflation of two originally separate items. The first concerns the
transferral of the mandate during the reigns of Yao and Shun; the
second debates whether T'ang and Wu received the mandate to rule or
simply seized the empire by force. The content of chapter 25/2, which
parallels the debate between Master Huang and Yuan Ku reviewed in
Chapter 1, suggests that it may be a more complete account of this
discussion recorded in the Shih-chi50
Chapter 26 ('Regulations of Clothing') consists of a passage that is
virtually identical to a similarly named section of the 'Li Cheng' ('Estab-
lishing Government') chapter of the Kuan-tzu.31 W. Allyn Rickett main-
tains that the chapter 'appears to have a linguistic and logical
consistency that would indicate it was probably written by a single per-
son, though the writer undoubtedly made use of earlier material.'32 The
passage on clothing regulations appears to be well integrated into the
sections that precede and follow it inasmuch as they collectively present
a detailed description of the organization and operation of government.
Yet Rickett also notes that the passage stands out from the Kuan-tzu
chapter because it mentions the Son of Heaven whereas the remainder
of the essay describes the government of a late feudal state headed by a
prince. Despite this oddity, he concludes that the chapter probably dates
from around the middle of the third century B.C.E.33 In the Ch'un-ch'iu
fan-lu, this passage is even more out of place than in the Kuan-tzu. It
stands out as constituting one of the shorter chapters (161 graphs) of
the text. It also lacks introductory or concluding remarks, as if either it
Discourses) lists these official titles in a passage where T'ang, the first ruler of Shang,
questions his minister I Yin, suggesting that this system may have been attributed to the
Shang dynasty.
30 Compare CCFL 7/ 14a.2.1-15b. 1.18 and SC 121/3122-3123. Su Yu also questions the
authenticity of this chapter on several additional grounds. See CCFLJC 7/31%.
31 For a detailed discussion of the variations across these two sources, consult Rickett
1965, pp. 108-109.
32 Rickett 1965, p. 100.
33 Ibid.
82
were disaggregated from its original context or other parts of the essay
were lost.34
Chapter 27 poses more intriguing and complicated questions. The
authenticity of the third section can be affirmed based on parallels to
Tung's third memorial in Han-shu 56. The fifth section - the passage
most closely associated with the chapter title - probably constitutes what
remains of the original essay to this chapter. Yet the first, second, and
fourth sections largely parallel portions of the 'Fang-chi' (Records on
the Levee) chapter of the Li-chi (Records of Rites). Jeffrey Riegel has
argued that the 'Fang-chi' probably documents a court debate in which
a number of scholars contributed their respective opinions on the politi-
cal and social functions of ritual. He suggests the deliberations included
the opinions of Meng Ch'ing and Hou Ts'ang, both of whom were
disciples of Tung Chung-shu.35 Riegel roughly dates the chapter to the
mid-first century B.C.E. based largely on a reference to the Lun-yu (The
Analects).36 If Riegel is correct, then portions of chapter 27 must have
been recorded by Tung's disciples after his death. However, since this
evidence is tentative at best, until further research is conducted to clarify
the chapter's date, one cannot rule out the possibility that chapter 27
may indicate that the 'Fang-chi' records deliberations on ritual in which
Tung Chung-shu participated. In his memorial to Emperor Wu, Tung
also made use of the levee analogy, comparing the restraining properties
of a dike to the transformative powers of education (chiao-hua):
Why is it that Heaven and Earth have not yet responded and auspicious omens
have not yet arrived? It is because transformative education has not been estab-
lished and the common people have not been rectified. The common people
pursue profit [li] just as water flows downward. If you do not rely on
transformative education to restrain and restrict them like a levee, you will not be
able to stop them. Thus when transformative education is established and de-
pravity and vulgarity cease, it is because the levee is intact. When transformative
education is neglected, depravity and vulgarity arise, and penalties and punish-
ments [hsingfa] cannot overcome them, it is because the levee has collapsed.
The kings of antiquity were enlightened on this point. Thus, when they faced
south to order all-under-Heaven, there was not a single ruler who did not take
transformative education as his greatest undertaking. They established the
Grand Academy for instruction within the states and they set up village schools
for transformation in the municipalities. They steeped the people in humane-
34 Eleven unrelated graphs precede the passage.

35 See Riegel 1978, pp. 12-13, 110-115.
36 'As far as can be determined the collection of Confucius's sayings was not referred to
as Lun-yu until the first century B.C.' See Riegel 1978, pp. 115, 189.
ness, polished them with righteousness, and restrained them with ritual. Thus,
their penalties and punishments were quite lenient, but their prohibitions were
not defied. Their transformative education was put into practice and customs
were refined.37
In a second case Tung likens the restraining properties of a levee to

ritual:
Inner principles [li] are created by Heaven. Outer refinements [wen] are created
by human beings. What human beings create we call ritual [ li]. In accordance
with human emotions, ritual is either simple or refined [chieh wen] in order to
rescue the emotions from disorder. Now a dike is a restraint for water, while
ritual is a restraint for human beings. Punishments restrain them at the end,
while rites restrain them at the beginning.38
This citation, which the I-wen lei-chii attributes to the Tung-sheng shu,
appears in the 'Fang-chi' chapter. Could we read this as a second trace
of Tung's presence at that court deliberation? Until the 'Fang-chi' chap-
ter can be dated with more precision, we are left with the intriguing
possibility that Tung was one of the specialists who participated in the
deliberation recorded in its pages. Thus, the chapter may preserve not a
court deliberation of the first century B.C.E. but one that took place
possibly a century earlier during the reign of Emperor Wu.
In summary, whether speaking of the chapters that closely explicate
particular passages or those which begin with more general inter-
pretive principles from the Kungyang Commentary, their close association
with this commentary and their subject matter unify these chapters
within the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. At the same time, whereas the first six
chapters probably contain some of the most reliable materials in the
entire text, several essays that appear between chapters 7 through
37 exhibit characteristics that call their authenticity into question. I
have set out some preliminary suspicions and problems concerning a
number of these chapters. Clearly they should be explored in much
greater detail than is possible in the present study. Nonetheless, these
preliminary findings suggest that this portion of the text contains
records of Tung's doctrinal expositions and authentic writings com-
bined with materials that were not written by Tung Chung-shu. Some of
these latter materials may have been written by his disciples, but further
research must be conducted before this can be proved to be more than
a suspicion.
37 HS 56/2503-2504. 38 IWLC 38/675.

84
The Huang-Lao chapters

Following and expanding on the research conducted by Tanaka Masami
and Su Yu, who have suggested that some Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapters
exhibit Huang-Lao influence and may have been authored when Tung
Chung-shu served Emperor Ching, I have designated the following
materials the Huang-Lao chapters.39 According to Table 4, which sum-
marizes the composition of each chapter, this literary unit consists of
roughly twenty essays. These chapters express an intellectual world quite
distinct from the first group in the Ch 'un-chiu fan-lu. Close exegetical
readings of the Spring and Autumn do not appear here. In fact, one of the
striking characteristics of these chapters is their lack of interest in the
Confucian texts.40 They focus on problems of statecraft, particularly the
ways in which a ruler should implement his political authority.41 They
address this problem in a highly syncretic manner, blending Taoist,
Mohist, Nominalist, and Legalist ideas, and displacing the Confucian
voice prominent in the previous division of the text.42 For example, these
chapters argue that Lao-tzu's doctrine of nonpurposive action,43 Shen
Pu-hai's theory of titles and actualities,44 Han Fei's advocacy of impartial
39 Tanaka Masami has argued that Tung wrote chapters 18, 19, and 20 early in his career
when Huang-Lao thought was in vogue. Su Yu also remarked that chapter 18 reflects
Huang-Lao influence. See Tanaka 1986, pp. 52-67 and CCFLJC 6/ 16a.
40 With the exception of chapter 77/1, which cites the Odes on one occasion, these essays
do not cite the Confucian scriptures.
41 The largely apolitical tenor of chapter 77, 'Conform to Heaven's Way,' distinguishes it
from the rest of the 'Huang-Lao' chapters. It advocates nourishing the body by corre-
lating breathing practices and sexual techniques to the seasonal movements of yin and
yang.
42 In other words these materials do not generally contain themes associated with the
Confucian tradition of the Han. For example, they do not emphasize the importance
of humanity and righteousness, they do not stress the transformative influence of the
ruler's moral example, nor do they draw from the Confucian scriptures. With the
exception of the second essay in chapter 19, where these themes appear, and chapters
2 2 and 79, which exhibit a tension between certain Confucian and Legalist ideas, the
Confucian voice is virtually absent from the remaining essays. In this respect these
writings differ from those of other Early Han Confucians known to have been influ-
enced by Huang-Lao thought. For example, in Chia I's and Lu Chia's essays, the
Confucian voice is quite evident despite borrowings from other traditions. This differ-
ence raises many important questions. How might one explain the absence of the
Confucian voice in the essays just mentioned? Is it possible that these essays may not
have been authored by a Confucian scholar? Was there a distinctive Confucian re-
sponse to Huang-Lao teachings? These issues will be addressed in my subsequent study
on Huang-Lao and Early Han Confucianism.
43 Almost every essay in this block of writings supports the Taoist ideal of nonpurposive
action as an essential technique of rulership.
44 H. G. Creel discusses chapters 18, 19, 20, 21, and 78 in relation to the thought of Shen
Pu-hai. He notes that the discussions of bureaucratic recruitment in chapters 20 and 21
draw on the terminology of Shen Pu-hai. Creel cites as evidence Han-fei-tzu chi-chieh 17/
85
Table 4. The Huang-Lao chapters
18 1 6/5b.2.i-6a.g.8 306"
19 1 6/6b.2.i-7a.i.i3 168
!9 2 6/7a.i.i4-8a.4.i5 425
l
9 3 6/8a.4.i6-8a.6.ig 46
l
9 4 6/8a.7.i-8b.2.i 85
1 6/8b.3.i-8b.8.8
9 5 113
l
9 6 6/8b.8.9-gb.6.i 324
20 1 6/gb.8.i-iob.3.i9 270
20 2 6/10^3.20-113.5.4 204
20 3 6/1 ia.5.5-1 ib.7.6 217
21 1 7/ia.4.i-ib.9.i5 295
21 2 7/2a.i.i-2b.3.i5 231
21 3 7/2b.4.i-2b.7.7 70
22 1 7/2^9.1-3^9.11 192
77 1 i6/gb.i.i-ioa.6.6 272
77 2 i6/ioa.6.7-na.2.9 290
77 3 i6/na.2.io-i4a.3.i 1,103
77 4 i6/i4a.3.2-i4a.74 102
77 5 i6/i4a.8.5~i5a.6.4 3!4*
78 1 i7/ia.5.i-2b.7.i 461
78 2 i7/2b.9.i-4a.i.g 296'
"Chapters 18 and 78/1 contain numerous parallels. They

may be two recensions of the same essay. See also note 59.
^Following the end of chapter 77/3, other editions of the
CCFL vary from the SPTK edition. SPPY preserves four
fragments corresponding roughly to SPTK fragments 1, 2, 3,
and 5; CCFLJC contains 6 fragments corresponding roughly
to those of SPTK, with an additional fragment coming
between SPTK fragments 3 and 4.
c
Chapter 78 of the SPTK edition is so badly fragmented and
misarranged that I have made an exception and referenced
Su Yu's reordering of the chapter in CCFLIC.
rewards and punishments, Mo-tzu's emphasis on elevating the worthy,
and Kuan-tzu's techniques of inner cultivation are indispensable meth-
ods of rulership.45
In addition to the syncretism that distinguishes them from other
5b, which states that Shen pu-hai's methods include the tallying of titles and actualities:
'to demand that the substance of one's performance accords with one's title (hsiin ming
tse shih).' Ssu-ma T'an uses virtually the same phrase (k'ung ming tse shih) to describe a
method he identifies with the Nominalists. See Creel 1970, pp. 88-91.
45 Several essays suggest a familiarity with the kinds of inner-cultivation techniques advo-
cated in 'Hsin-shu Shang,' 'Hsin-shu hsia,' and 'Nei-yeh' of the Kuan-tzu and 'Ching-
86
Ch 'un-ch 'iufan-lu
Table 5. The technical terminology of the Huang-Lao chapters
Term Chapter location
Numen/numinous (sheri) i8( 2 x),

Clarity/brilliance (ming) i8(iX), i9( 3 X), 7 8(3X)
Nonpurposive action (wu-wei) i8(2X), ig(iX), 2o(iX), 78(iX)
Vital essence (ching) 1 9 (3X),22(6X),77( 2 X)
Rewards and punishments (shangfa) ig(iX), 2o(2X), 2i(4X),78(iX),
Titles and actualities (ming shih) 2O(lX), 2l(lX)
Employ worthies (chi/te/jen hsieri) i8(iX), i9(7X),22(5X), 7 8(iX)
Emptiness and stillness (hsii ching) 19(1 x), 20(1 x), 22(1 x), 78(1 x)
Adaptation (yin) 2O(2X), 2l(lX)
Grand peace (t'ai p'ing) , 22(lX), 78(lX)
Potency (te) 9 3 ) , 2O(5X), 2l(lX), 22(lX)
77(2X),78(iX),79(i6x)
Positional advantage (shih) 19(lX), 2O(lX), 2l(2X), 78(lX)
Form/body (hsing) l8(3X), 19(6X), 2O(8X), 22(2X),
77(iX),78(6X)
literary units in the text, one may also detect Huang-Lao influence in the
distinctive vocabulary that characterizes these essays.46 Table 5 summa-
rizes the technical terminology unique to these chapters. Many of these
technical terms either do not occur elsewhere in the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
or, when they do, carry a different semantic connotation. For example,
only these chapters espouse nonpurposive action and employ the term te
to denote the Taoist sense of potency rather than the Confucian sense of
moral virtue. These linguistic features, and the intellectual concerns
they elucidate, set these chapters apart from other materials in the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. In short, the Lao-tzu-centered statecraft mentality, the
overtly syncretic and pluralistic qualities, the close association between
inner cultivation techniques involving the numen (shen) and the vital
essence (ching) with political efficacy, and the chapters' distinctive tech-
nical vocabulary indicate their close affiliation with Huang-Lao.
shen' of the Huai-nan-tzu. Sometimes, as in the Kuan-tzu and Huai-nan-tzu, the ruler is
urged to practice these techniques as a means to rule effectively (chapter 20). Other
times techniques to nourish the body parallel those designed to strengthen the state.
So, for example, chapter 22 maintains: 'Those who desire to accumulate vital essence
must empty their minds and still their bodies. Those who wish to accumulate sages must
humble themselves.'
46 It is interesting to note that although this list was generated independently, most of the
terms correspond to those identified by Harold Roth as belonging to the technical
terminology of the Huang-Lao tradition. See Roth 1991b.
87
While I have designated these essays the Huang-Lao chapters, I do not

intend to gloss over the difficult problem of definition as it concerns this
term. Most scholars agree that Huang-Lao flourished during the first
several decades of the Han dynasty, especially under the reigns of Em-
perors Wen (179-157 B.C.E.) and Ching (156-141 B.C.E.). Archaeologi-
cal excavations conducted in 1973 near Ch'ang-sha, Hunan Province,
unearthed an important text believed to be part of the Huang-Lao
tradition, conventionally designated the Huang-Lao po-shu (The Huang-
Lao Silk Manuscripts).47 Although this discovery inspired more than a
decade of scholarship that endeavored to clearly define Huang-Lao,
more than twenty years later debate and disagreement persist. Given the
lack of consensus, in this study I will limit my analysis to the descriptions
of Huang-Lao roughly contemporaneous with the period under
discussion.
As I indicated in Chapter 2, the Shih-chi and Han-shu associate many
officials and rulers of the Western Han with either Taoist or Huang-Lao
techniques, the two terms being used interchangeably in these texts.48
The histories generally identify a person as a practitioner or follower
of the 'texts,' 'techniques,' or 'doctrines' of the Yellow Emperor and
Lao-tzu. For example, the Shih-chi (Biography of Lao-tzu and Han Fei)
links the teachings of Han Fei with Huang-Lao.49 Following this passage,
Ssu-ma Chen, author of the T'ang commentary So-yin, quotes the Han
figure Master Liu (Hsiang or Hsin), who explains:
The methods of Huang-Lao do not esteem extravagance. [Through] quiescence,

simplicity, and nonpurposive action the ruler and minister are spontaneously
rectified. The doctrines of Han Fei reject lavishness. [They advocate] the impar-
tiality of laws and regulations and the mutual correspondence of names and
47 In addition to the material unearthed at Ma-wang-tui discussed by R. P. Peerenboom,

a brief review of recent scholarship suggests that a number of additional texts may be
more closely related to this tradition than hitherto acknowledged. This would include
what A. C. Graham labeled the 'Syncretist writings' of the Chuang-tzu and the Ho-kuan-
tzu (Master of the Pheasant Cup); what Kimura Eiichi called the 'Huang Lao writings
of the Han-fei-tzu' (chapters 5, 8, 20, and 21); Kuan-tzu XVI/49 and XIII/36-37; and
the Huang-Lao aspects of the Huai-nan-tzu discussed by Harold Roth and John Major.
In this respect I would suggest that even the Hsi-tz'u chuan (Commentary on the
Attached Verbalizations) might be reassessed. Despite its traditional attribution to
Confucius, Willard Peterson noted that it has long defied easy categorization as either
a Confucian or a Taoist text. These materials will be taken up in my subsequent study
of Huang-Lao and Early Han Confucianism. See Peerenboom 1993; Graham 1987,
1989; Kimura 1944; Roth 1991b; Major 1993; and Peterson 1982.
48 See Hsiao 1978, pp. 552-556, and the authors enumerated in Chapter 2, note 18.
49 SC 63/2146.
88
realities. This is why it states * [the doctrines of Han Fei] are derived from Huang-
Lao.'50
Han Fei followed Huang-Lao in 'rejecting excessiveness and extrava-
gance' (tipofu yiri); advocating 'impartial laws and regulations' (fa chih
wu ssu);51 and promoting 'the mutual correspondence of names and
realities' (ming shih hsiang ch'eng). According to Table 5, these tech-
niques figure prominently in this group of writings from the Ch 'un-ch 'iu
fan-lu.
Beyond a handful of additional references to such techniques as
'purity a n d quiescence' (ch'ing-ching) a n d 'nonpurposive action' (wu-
wei), the richest a n d most detailed description of the Taoist Lineage
(Tao-chia) derives from Ssu-ma T ' a n . It is particularly valuable because it
was written by a m a n closely associated with this tradition. 5 2 T h e g r a n d
historian explains:
The Taoists enable the vital essence [ching] and numen [shen] within human
beings to be concentrated and unified. [They] move in unison with the Formless
and provide adequately for all living things. In deriving their techniques, they
follow the grand compliances of the Naturalists, select the good points of the
Confucians and Mohists, and combine with these the essentials of the Nominal-
ists and Legalists. They shift [their policies] in accordance with the seasons, and
respond to the transformations of living things. In establishing customs and
promulgating policies, they are nowhere unsuitable. Their precepts are concise
and easy to grasp; their policies are few but their achievements are numerous. 53
T h e s e c o m m e n t s describe several characteristics that are consistent with

the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu essays. According to Ssu-ma T ' a n , Huang-Lao em-
phasizes the cultivation of the vital essence a n d the numen. 5 4 It is also
m a r k e d by a pluralistic a n d syncretic attitude in which the techniques
(shu) of n o fewer than five traditions provide grist for the Huang-Lao
mill: from the Naturalists, 'the g r a n d compliances of the four seasons'
(ssu shih chih ta shun); from the Confucians, the rites pertaining to ruler
a n d minister, a n d father a n d son, a n d the distinctions between h u s b a n d
a n d wife, elder a n d younger; from the Mohists, ways to 'strengthen the
foundation of agriculture a n d economize e x p e n d i t u r e ' (ch'iangpen chieh
yung), allowing individuals to provide for their families; from the Nomi-
50 SC 63/2147.
51 Ssu-ma T'an identifies these concepts with the Mohists and Legalists respectively.
52 The introduction to Ssu-ma T'an's preface states that he studied Taoist theories under
Master Huang. See SC 130/3288.
53 SC 130/3289. This translation has benefited from comparisons with Roth 1991a.
54 In his translation of this passage, Roth renders ching-shen as the compound term
'Numinous Essence.'
nalists, the bureaucratic technique of 'demanding that the substance of

one's performance accords with one's title' (k'ung ming tse shih); and
from the Legalists, methods that 'honor the ruler and humble the
ministers' (tsun chu pei ch'en).55
Ssu-ma T'an explains the syncretic aspects of the Taoist tradition in
greater detail:
The Taoists take no purposive action [uru-wei] and yet it is said that there is
nothing they do not accomplish. The substance of their doctrines is easy to
practice and yet difficult to comprehend. Their techniques rely on emptiness
[hsu] and non-Being [wu] as the basis and adaptation [yin] and conformity
[hsuri] as the application. They have no fixed doctrines nor any constant forms;
therefore they are able to apprehend the true nature [ ch 'ing] of all living things.
They act neither before nor after others; therefore they are able to be the master
of all things. They have methods that are no methods, they [simply] implement
[their policies]. They have measures that are no measures [tu], they [simply]
adapt to living things and harmonize with them. Therefore it is said: The sage
is not crafty, the seasonal alterations is what he preserves.' Emptiness is the Tao's
constancy. Adaptation is the ruler's precept. Thus when the numerous officials
arrive in unison, he allows each official to spontaneously clarify himself. If the
substance of his acts [shih] tallies with his speech, the ruler designates his speech
correct. If the substance of his acts does not tally with his speech, the ruler
designates his speech false. When false words are not heeded, traitors do not
arise, the worthy and unworthy are spontaneously distinguished, and black and
white then take form. With those he desires to employ there is nothing he does
not accomplish! Therefore he merges with the great Tao, dark and obscure. He
illuminates all-under-Heaven and yet he again reverts to the Nameless. What
gives life to all human beings is the numen,56 and what all human beings must
rely on is the body [hsing]. When the numen is used excessively, it dissipates;
when the body toils excessively, it breaks down; when the body and numen
separate, one dies. Those who die cannot live again; what separates cannot be
reunited. Therefore the sage attaches great importance to this. From this we
observe that the numen is the basis of life and the body is the vessel of life. If [the
ruler] does not first stabilize his numen57 but claims, 'I possess the means to rule
all-under-Heaven,' how can he accomplish this?58
55 SC 130/3290-3291. Although scholars generally describe Huang-Lao syncretism as a

blend of Legalism and Taoism, this comment clearly suggests that Huang-Lao synthe-
sized ideas from several traditions. Benjamin Schwartz has particularly emphasized the
pluralistic nature of Huang-Lao thought. See Schwartz 1985, pp. 237-254.
56 The numen (sheri) is the finest portion of the vital force (ch'i). Seated in the cardiac
system, it governs the vital processes, is responsible for all consciousness and mental
activity, and is the object of mental self-cultivation.
57 The concern here is to stabilize the vital force so that it will not escape from the body.
It does so normally in sleep and permanently in death.
58 SC 130/3292.
9°
Once again, even this more detailed description recounts techniques

explored in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu materials: nonpurposive action
{wu wei), conformity (hsu'n), emptiness (hsii), adaptation (yiri), accom-
modating the seasons (yin shih), and tallying titles and actualities with
one another (mingshih hsiang tang). Moreover, in his closing comments,
Ssu-ma T'an states that methods of inner cultivation were an essential
aspect of this tradition, which politicized them by claiming they en-
hanced the ruler's efficacy. These chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu
explore such ideas.
Consistent with these descriptions, some of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu es-
says devoted to bureaucratic recruitment argue that the ruler must
implement rewards and punishments according to objective and impar-
tial standards that are derived from his knowledge of the Tao, achieved
through techniques of inner cultivation. One essay explains: 'Still and
voiceless, tranquil and formless, the ruler clings to the one that has no
beginning and acts as the source of the state.' Having achieved a 'vacu-
ous mind and in a tranquil state,' the ruler proceeds to 'listen to the
ministers' echoes and intelligently observe their shadows and so practice
the standards of rewards and punishments.' Another essay urges the
ruler to reward and punish ministers 'according to the substance [of
their performance] and not their reputation.' Other essays rely on the
cosmological principles of Heaven and Earth to legitimize their particu-
lar statecraft arguments. For example, chapters 18 ('Separation and
Union with the Root') and 78 (The Conduct of Heaven and Earth')
maintain that the correct policies of the ruler take their patterns from
Heaven, while the proper duties of the ministers derive from Earth.59
The correspondence between Han descriptions of Huang-Lao tech-
niques and the salient features of these chapters evokes an author (or
authors) closely affiliated with this tradition.
Despite the consistent Huang-Lao flavor that unifies these chapters, a
small number of them express divergent and at times contradictory
claims. For example, although many share the common theme of
nonpurposive action, they endow the ruler with antagonistic character-
istics. Chapter 78 supports the unrivaled position of the ruler as 'the
most honored without an equal.' Yet chapter 22 ('Comprehend the
State as the Body') stresses the idea that the ruler must be 'humble
and self-effacing' to attract worthies to his court. While one essay in
chapter 19 ('Establish the Primal Numen') argues that the ruler must
59 The first essay in chapter 78 appears to be either a more complete recension or a later
elaboration of chapter 18. Chapter 78 adds further details to the original structure of
chapter 18, and where there are parallel lines, chapter 78 presents a more elaborate
cosmology.
91
hide himself deep within the palace walls, thereby remaining mysterious
and beyond judgment, a second essay in chapter 19 holds that the ruler
must remain highly visible and participate in important public rituals
during the course of the year.
These essays also discuss the application of rewards and punishments
several times, but with different implications and from different vantage
points. Chapter 20 ('Preserve Position and Power') urges the ruler to
reward and punish as a means to regulate the masses below and thereby
consolidate his position and authority. In the essays that make up this
chapter, 'numinosity' (shen) is not a state of mind, but rather a political
expedient meant to keep the ruler out of sight and beyond the judgment
of his ministers. These essays also encourage the ruler to employ rewards
and punishments according to the likes and dislikes of the populace so
that he can encourage the people with rewards and awe them with
punishments. Having 'restrained and regulated' the people according to
this technique, the ruler can successfully defend his unique 'positional
advantage' in the political hierarchy. The harsh and utilitarian tone of
these essays, and their complete lack of concern for objectivity and
impartiality, mark a radical departure from Huang-Lao ideas. In con-
trast, chapter 21 ('Investigate Achievement and Reputation'), which is
concerned with bureaucratic recruitment, urges the ruler to implement
rewards and punishments according to objective standards rather than
subjective opinions; to reward and punish officials in accordance with
the substance [of their performance] and not in accordance with their
reputation. The two essays comprising chapter 79 argue that rewards
and punishments must emanate from the ruler's emotional states. How-
ever, while chapter 79/1 maintains that the ruler must first temper his
emotional responses by practicing methods of inner cultivation to
achieve a 'harmonious' and 'equitable mind,' 79/2 instructs the ruler to
regulate his emotional responses according to the constant changes of
the seasons. Whereas chapter 20 evokes an author concerned with
strengthening the ruler's power in an age of political chaos in which he
constantly faces challenges from below, the authors of chapters 21 and
79 seem intent on limiting the ruler's power in a period in which
political consolidation has already occurred.
The chapters' varied approach to political legitimation provides per-
haps the most persuasive evidence of multiple authorship. The author of
chapter 20 does not seek to justify his advocacy of particular statecraft
techniques; the ability to keep the ruler in power at the top is its own
justification. Other essays, as mentioned earlier, rely on the cosmological
principles of Heaven and Earth to sanction their particular statecraft
arguments. Chapter 18 and the first essay in chapter 78 maintain that
92
the ruler's policies must follow Heaven, whereas the proper duties of the
ministers derive from Earth. Analogies from inner cultivation supply the
framework for chapter 22 and the second essay in chapter 78. Chapter
77 ('Conform to Heaven's Way') combines all three approaches.
These divergent responses to the problem of legitimation and differ-
ent applications of political techniques may exemplify several authors
writing at different stages in the development of the Huang-Lao tradi-
tion. One might speculate that in the earlier pre-Han period, techniques
that came to be identified as Huang-Lao during the Han drew analogies
from inner cultivation. Later, however, as the spread of cosmological
thinking influenced the tradition, these arguments expanded to include
the cosmological concepts Heaven and Earth. This may explain some of
the different viewpoints and attitudes represented in the material. Until
we are able to establish a clearer chronology of the development of the
Huang-Lao tradition, and until the linguistic features of the Huang-Lao
chapters can be studied in greater detail, their authorship and prov-
enance will remain unresolved. I suspect that more extensive research
will confirm my suspicion that Tung Chung-shu composed some but not
all of the essays composing the Huang-Lao chapters.
The yin-yang chapters

Like the Huang-Lao chapters, the yin-yang chapters (chapters 41
through 57 and 79 through 82), often consist of more than one essay or
essay fragment. Thus, although nineteen chapters constitute this group
(chapter 54 is no longer extant), perhaps as many as twenty-three essays
appear in this division of the text. Where chapters consist of more than
one essay or fragments from more than one essay, the boundaries be-
tween them are readily apparent by marked shifts in subject matter,
which cannot be explained by positing the existence of lacunae in a
single, continuous essay. Table 6 summarizes the composition of the
yin-yang chapters.
These chapters constitute a cohesive unit based on several readily
identifiable characteristics. Though cosmological ideas are scarcely men-
tioned prior to this point in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, these essays articulate
the ruler's relation to the cosmos in terms of yin-yang and four-seasons
cosmology. Yin and yang denote two fundamental concepts, both of
which are quite familiar to the student of Han intellectual history. They
are understood to be the two aspects of vital force (ch 'i) that pervade the
natural and human realms, and the two essential and abstract categories
under which all things in the universe may be subsumed. They are
employed to set forth two related arguments concerning the cosmos and
93
Table 6. The yin-yang chapters
41 1 n/ia.4.i-ib.5.i2 213
41 2 n/ib.6.i-ib.8.n 53
4i 3 n/ib.8.i2-2a.6.i2 142
4i 4 n/2a.7.i-2b.2.8 89
43 1 n/4a.2.i-6b.i.8 9O5
44 1 ii/6b.3.i~7b.2.9 345
44 2 n/7b.2.io-8b.7.i6 463
44 3 n/8b.7.i7-gb.2.i2 255
45 1 n/o,b.4.i-ioa.3.n 171
45 2 n/ioa.3.i2-ioa.5.i6 47
46 n/ioa.7.i-nb.8.2i 600
47 1 i/i2a.i.i-i2a.g.2 167
48 i2/ia.4.i-2a.4.5 343
49 i2/2a.6.i-3a.4.ig 351
50 i2/3a.6.i-4b.2.g 472
51 12/4^4. 1-5b.6.14 431
52 i2/5b.8.i-6b.6.i2 322
52 2 i2/6b.6.i3~7a.4.ii 146
53 1 i2/7a.6.i-7b.6.i8 207
53 2 i2/7b.6.ig-8a.i.4 70
53 3 i2/8a. 1.5-8^7.8 130
53 4 i2/8a.7.g-8b.i.i7 72
53 5 i2/8b.i.i8-8b.g.8 148
55 13/^.4.1-1^7.13 265
56 i3/ib.g.i~3b.2.i2 612
57 13/3^4.1-5^3.15 553
79 17/5^2.1-5^1.17 185
79 i7/5b.i.i8-6a.3.i2 226
80 i7/6a.5.i-8a.8.6 816
81 17/8b. 1.1-1 oa. 1.16 545
82 17/ ioa.3.1-1 ob.g. 13 308°
a
Chapter 82 of the CCFUC and CCFLCCCI preserve an
additional section consisting of 218 graphs.
its relation to human rule. These chapters insist repeatedly that yin
and yang are not complementary equals. Yang is Heaven's ontological
superior.
As the two basic ingredients employed by Heaven, yin and yang ac-
count for the transformations of the seasons. In fact, descriptions of the
progression of the yin and yang through the four seasons of the year
constitute the second organizing theme of these chapters. Such discus-
sions occur in chapters 43 (The Loftiness of Yang and Lowliness of
94
Yin'), 46 ('The Heavenly Transformations in Humans'), 47 ('The Posi-

tions of Yin and Yang'), 48 ('The Yearly Cycle of Yin and Yang'), 50 ('Yin
and Yang Emerge, Retire, Ascend, and Descend'), 51 ('The Heavenly
Way Is Not Dualistic'), 52 ('Heat or Cold, Which Predominates?'), and
53 ('The Basis of Righteousness'). Furthermore, except for chapter 50,
the essays maintain that Heaven employs these two constituents differ-
ently, giving priority to the vital force of yang over the vital force of yin.60
Such a view has important political implications and relates directly to
the second way in which these chapters describe yin and yang.
These essays also assume that yin and yang are the two essential and
abstract correlates for everything in the human and natural worlds. Most
important, they are the correlates of punishment and virtue (hsing and
te) respectively, and it is in this capacity that nearly every chapter (43, 44,
46, 47, 49, 51, 52, 53, 80) employs yin and yang to advocate a clear
preference for virtue over punishment. In fact, it is precisely at this point
that the two connotations of yin and yang converge; how Heaven em-
ploys them in the natural world provides the ultimate standard for how
the ruler applies punishment and virtue in the human world. In this
respect two different but complementary arguments may be discerned.
The first argues from the perspective of quantity (chapters 49 and 53).
The following citation from chapter 53 exemplifies this approach:
Heaven sends forth yang to create warmth and thereby generates things. Earth
sends forth yin to create coolness and thereby brings things to maturity. Without
warmth there is no generation, and without coolness there is no maturation.
Nevertheless, if you calculate the quantities of their apportionment, warmth and
heat constitute one hundred, while coolness and cold constitute one. Virtue and
education compare to penalties and punishments in this same way. Therefore
the sage increases his love and decreases his sternness, extends his virtue and
limits his punishment. He relies on this to be a counterpart to Heaven.61
The second type of correlative claim argues from the perspective of

location and direction. Chapters 43, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51, and 52 maintain
that the movements of the yin and yang and their various positions
during the course of the year demonstrate Heaven's preference for
virtue over punishment.
The remaining essays - chapters 44 ('The Kingly Way Penetrates
Three'), 45 ('Heaven's Deportment'), 49 ('The Righteousness of Yin
60 In fact chapter 50 argues the opposite claim and gives priority to yin over yang.
For example, it states: 'From this we see that during Heaven's winter, yin is to the right
and yang is to the left. Heaven promotes what is to the right and demotes what is to the
left.'
61 CCFL i2/8a. 7.9-93.1.17.
95
and Yang'), 55 ('The Tallies of the Four Seasons'), 79 ('The Origins of

Authority and Virtue'), and 80 ('Imitate the Activities of Heaven') - set
forth their political arguments based on four-seasons cosmology. Rather
than outlining the specific movements or locations of yin and yang, they
describe how the more general characteristics of the seasons - the
coolness of autumn or the heat of summer - provide the cosmological
models for rulership. For example, chapter 4 4 / 1 claims:
Heaven constantly takes loving and benefiting as its intent and nourishing and
maturing as its task. Spring, autumn, winter, and summer are all Heaven's
agents. The king, likewise, constantly takes loving and benefiting all-under-
Heaven as his intent and takes bringing peace and joy to an age as his task. Love,
hate, happiness, and anger are all the king's agents.62
This notion, that the sage ruler complies with the Way of Heaven, also
bespeaks influence from the Huang-Lao tradition. 'Adapting to the
seasons' {yin shih), the point of departure for all of these essays, is a
Huang-Lao technique noted by Ssu-ma T'an and present in several pre-
Han and Han works associated with this tradition. At the same time, the
discussions of cosmology in these chapters, which assume a natural
world ultimately subordinate to a Heaven possessed of a will, illustrate
one way that Kung-yang scholars adapted the Huang-Lao discourse to
their particular vision of Heaven.
Differences between the yin-yang chapters and the Huang-Lao chap-
ters also indicate a selective synthesis of Huang-Lao ideas with more
typically Confucian values. The yin-yang chapters do not exhibit the
overt syncretism, Lao-tzu-centered statecraft mentality, and close associa-
tion between Taoist techniques of inner cultivation and political efficacy
that characterized the Huang-Lao chapters. Nor do the chapters favor
yin and its correlations. Rather they display a clear preference for the
yang principle, with all its attendant cosmological, political, and ethical
implications. And unlike the Huang-Lao chapters that generally do not
support their views with references to the canonical texts of the Con-
fucian tradition, the yin-yang chapters often cite the Spring and Autumn,
the Odes, the Changes, and the Documents to support their arguments. 63
Important differences also exist within the yin-yang chapters. Perhaps
62 Chapters 44, 45, and 80 define the four emotions as love, hate, happiness, and anger
(hau, 0, hsi, nu)', chapter 49 uses happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy (hsi, nu, ai, le);
chapter 79, happiness, anger, severity, and virtue (hsi, nu, wei, te); and chapter 46, love,
joy, sternness, and sorrow (ai, le, yen, ai). The significance of these differences remains
to be explored.
63 For a detailed discussion of the implications of these characteristics, particularly with
regard to Tung Chung-shu's cosmology and the question of Huang-Lao influence, see
Chapter 9.
96
Ch 'un-ch yiu fan-lu
the most important variation among these essays is in the cosmological

assumptions that inform them. For example, while almost every chapter
argues for the priority of virtue over punishment, a hallmark of the
Kung-yang interpreters, they enumerate very different accounts of the
seasonal movements of yin and yang to present cosmological sanction
for this political viewpoint. Separating these cosmological claims from
their didactic arguments, we find the following different and often
contradictory statements:
43 For this reason yang constantly resides in plenary positions [shih wei] and
is active at the height of the yearly cycle while yin constantly resides in the
void [k'ung ch'u] and is active at its final stage. . . . Therefore in the
summer yin retires and resides below and is not permitted to play a part
in the activities of the year. In the winter it emerges and resides above,
keeping to the void. During the period of nourishment and maturation it
lies submerged below. It is set apart at a distance and not permitted to
take up the activities of yang. During the period of idleness, it is elevated
to the void, where it is permitted to prepare for the next activity and
undertake the tasks of defending and blocking.64
44/2 Yin begins in autumn while yang begins in spring.
46 Therefore lesser yang following wood arises and assists spring's [task of]
generating; greater yang following fire arises and assists summer's [task
of] nourishing; lesser yin following metal arises and assists autumn's
[task of] completing; greater yin following water arises and assists win-
ter's [task of] storing.... As for the activities of yin, in spring it resides in
the eastern quarter; in autumn the western quarter; in summer the empty
left; and in winter the empty right. These are the constant locations of
yin. As for the activities of yang, in spring it resides above and in winter
below. These are the constant locations of yang. During the course of the
year yin undergoes four shifts in location while yang constantly resides in
[positions of] substance.65
47 The vital force of yang first emerges in the northeast and moves toward
the south where it assumes its position. It then circles westward and
retires in the north, where it hides itself for repose. The vital force of yin
first emerges in the southeast and moves toward the north where it also
assumes its position. It then circles westward and retires in the south,
where it covers itself for submission.66
48 Therefore when the spring season arrives, lesser yang emerges in the east.
It joins wood and together with it, both generate. When the summer
season arrives, greater yang emerges in the south. It joins fire and to-
gether with it, both warm. .. . When autumn arrives, lesser yin flourishes
64 CCFL ii/8b.i.n-ga.2.12. 65 CCFL 11/iob.i. 16-1 ia.9.18.
66 CCFL 11/ 12a. 1.1-12a.3.5.
97
but is not permitted, since it is autumn, to follow metal [in the west]. If
it followed metal it would harm the achievements of fire. . . . With regard
to the activities of yin, yin firmly and constantly resides in the void and is
not permitted to reside in the plenum. When winter arrives, it retires to
the void.67
50 When the course of Heaven first approaches the beginning of winter, yin
and yang each come from their own quarter and transfer themselves to
the rear. Yin comes westward from the east, and yang comes eastward
from the west. In the middle of winter, they meet each other in the north,
where they unite as one. This is called the [winter] solstice. They then
divide and move away from one another, yin moving toward the right and
yang moving toward the left. . . .68
51 Yang emerges and constantly is suspended in the front, responsible for
the affairs of the year. Yin emerges and constantly is suspended in the
rear, keeping to the void.69
52 In the course of the year these two, yin and yang, each issue forth
singularly. They issue forth singularly, and are located in the same de-
gree, although their intentions differ. Yang emerges and is constantly
suspended in the front, responsible for the affairs of the year. Yin
emerges and constantly is suspended in the rear, keeping to the void.70
Could a single Han author have drawn upon so many different ac-
counts of the yearly movements of yin and yang to justify the political
argument that the ruler ought to give priority to moral education over
punishments? Or do these different cosmological claims indicate several
scholars working independently to craft the most convincing cos-
mological argument to support this application of imperial bounty?
These differences may indeed represent the views of several scholars
who individually endeavored to enhance a time-honored Confucian
ideal. Less likely, but also plausible, is the possibility that these differ-
ences represent the efforts of a single author drawing from the various
cosmological theories of the time to legitimate his ethicopolitical claims.
In the latter case, the point might be that, regardless of the particular
cosmological theory to which one subscribes, all lead to the same ulti-
mate ethical truth.
A closer look at some obvious contradictions within these essays
strengthens the argument for multiple authorship. Here again one must
approach the evidence with caution, since the existence of such contra-
dictions does not in itself prove multiple authorship. Nevertheless, they
further the notion of several people in a dialogue with one another,
attempting to resolve a particular intellectual problem (to elucidate the
67 CCFL i2/ib.5.i6-2a.3.2. 68 CCFL 12/35.2.4-35.4.19.
69 CCFL i2/4b.8.io-4b.g.ii. 70 CCFL i2/8a.i.5-8a.3-5.
98
relationship between the practice of reward and punishment and the

emotive states of the ruler) or laboring to find the most persuasive
argument for a shared viewpoint (to demonstrate that the ruler ought to
employ punishment and virtue as Heaven employs yin and yang). Two
examples of this evidence will suffice. First, the only two chapters that
combine yin-yang and five-phase principles to describe the seasonal
progression of the year - a departure from the bulk of the essays found
here - disagree over the location of the lesser yin during the autumn
season. Chapter 46 states:
Therefore lesser yang following wood arises and assists spring's [task of] gener-
ating; greater yang following fire arises and assists summer's [task of] nourish-
ing; lesser yin following metal arises and assists autumn's [task of] completing;
greater yin following water arises and assists winter's [task of] storing.
However, chapter 48 maintains:
Therefore when the spring season arrives, lesser yang emerges in the east. It joins
wood and together with it both generate. When the summer season arrives,
greater yang emerges in the south. It joins fire and together .with it both
warm. . .. When autumn arrives, lesser yin flourishes but is not permitted, since
it is autumn, to follow metal [in the west]. If it followed metal [in the west] it
would harm the achievements of fire.
Second, although most chapters advocate the Huang-Lao technique
of 'adapting to the seasons' {yin shih), chapter 80 refutes this idea. Its
author asserts: 'If you detain virtue and await spring and summer or if
you cease punishments and await autumn and winter, you will possess a
reputation for complying with the four seasons, but in fact you will defy
the constant norms of Heaven and Earth.' 71 Such examples evoke an
image of scholars in dialogue with one another working through the
intellectual issues of their day.
Whether or not one accepts the notion of multiple authorship, the
question of who wrote these chapters remains unresolved. If we compare
these materials to the reliable sources outlined in the previous chapter,
we find that two citations are particularly relevant to the problem at
hand. Han-shu 56 and Yen-t'ieh lun preserve Tung's opinion on yin-yang
cosmology, the very subject taken up in these chapters. In one of his
memorials to Emperor Wu, Tung Chung-shu explains:
The greatest aspect of Heaven's Way lies in yin and yang. Yang constitutes virtue
and yin constitutes punishment. Punishment presides over death, while virtue
presides over life. Therefore yang always occupies the vast summer and devotes
itself to the matters of birth, growth, nourishment, and maturation. Yin always
71 CCFL i7/6b.i.8-6b.2.14.
99
occupies the vast winter and accumulates in vacant and useless places. From this
one can see that Heaven relies on virtue and does not rely on punishment.
Heaven causes yang to issue forth and circulate above, presiding over the
achievements of the year. Heaven causes yin to retire and lie below occasionally
issuing forth to assist yang. If yang is not assisted by yin, it cannot complete the
year on its own. Ultimately, however, the completion of the year is designated by
yang. This is Heaven's intention. The king carries forth Heaven's intentions in
the conduct of his affairs. Therefore he relies on moral instruction and does
not rely on punishment. Punishment cannot bring order to the age, just as
yin cannot complete the year. Those who rely on punishment to govern do
not comply with Heaven. This is why the former kings did not rely on pun-
ishment.72
The reader will recall that Yen-t'ieh lun chapter 54 ('On Anomalies')
paraphrases Tung's ideas as follows:
The origins [of anomalies] the administrator of Chiang-tu Master Tung deduced
from the mutual succession of the yin and yang and the four seasons. The father
begets it, the son nourishes it, the mother completes it, and the son stores it
away. Therefore spring [presides over] birth and corresponds to humaneness
[jen]; summer [presides over] growth and corresponds to virtue [te]; autumn
[presides over] maturity and corresponds to righteousness [i\; winter [presides
over] concealment and corresponds to propriety [li\. This is the sequence of
the four seasons and what the sage takes as his model. One cannot rely on
punishments to complete moral transformation, therefore one extends moral
education.73
These two citations demonstrate that Tung's views resemble several

arguments in the yin-yang chapters. His statements to Emperor Wu
show that by around 140 B.C.E., Tung was employing the authority of
Heaven to make very specific political arguments. How Heaven em-
ployed the two basic constituents of the cosmos, yin and yang, provided
a compelling model of rulership. Correlating punishment and virtue
with yin and yang, respectively, Tung urged the emperor to order his
empire by means of moral education rather than penal solutions. These
passages also prove that Tung Chung-shu relied on both yin-yang and
four-seasons cosmology to argue this policy. Nonetheless, his cos-
mological arguments appear to be somewhat rudimentary, compared
with many in the yin-yang chapters. They do not associate yin and yang
with any particular direction but rather with groups of complementary
opposites - winter and summer; retiring and issuing forth; lying below
and circulating above; accumulating in empty, useless places and presid-
ing over birth, growth, nourishment, and maturation - and they do not
refer to five-phase cosmology. These differences suggest that Tung
72 HS 56/2502. 73 Yen-t'ieh lun chien-chu, p. 382.
1OO
Chung-shu probably wrote some of the essays in the yin-yang chapters,

but those supporting his political ideas based on different or more
elaborate cosmological schemes may have been written by his disciples.
The authors of essays that clearly refute Tung's ideas, such as chapter 80,
are more difficult to identify.
The five-phase chapters

This group consists of nine chapters devoted tofive-phasecosmology.74
The fragments and essays that constitute the various sections of each
chapter are summarized in Table 7. Over the years scholars have devoted
the most attention to these compositions. As mentioned previously, both
Japanese and Chinese scholars have published studies of these chapters
and have expressed their doubts concerning the authenticity of either
some or all of them. One such figure who significantly contributed to
our understanding of these nine chapters was the scholar Tai Chim-jen.
In the 1950s, Tai published an article in which he attacked the views of
the famous reformist Liang Ch'i-ch'ao (1873-1929) on the origins and
development of five-phase cosmology. Following the traditional view-
point, Liang held that Tsou Yen, Tung Chung-shu, and Liu Hsiang were
the three major architects offive-phasecosmology.75 But Tai argued that
only yin-yang concepts informed Tung's cosmology and that the Ch'un-
ch'iu fan-lu chapters dedicated tofive-phasecosmology were not written
by him. Tai, like Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang and Hu Ying-lin, whose opinions he
cited, suspected the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu was spurious. He maintained the
early chapters that discuss the Spring and Autumn were perhaps authored
by followers of Tung's doctrines during the Western Han, but that the
chapters not associated with the Spring and Autumn, in particular those
dealing with thefivephases, must have been written during the Eastern
Han.
Tai presented several types of evidence of varying persuasiveness to
demonstrate that the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu was spurious. He noted that the
Lun-heng passage that cites Tung's essay on human nature does not
appear in the received text. He also questioned the authenticity of
chapters 58 ('The Mutual Conquest of the Five Phases'), 59 ('The
Mutual Production of the Five Phases'), and 60 ('The Deviance and
Compliance of the Five Phases'). He argued because they correlate the
reigning dynasty with fire, a tendency that began with Wang Mang's
74 Only three chapters in the entire text, 43, 64, and 81, combine discussions of the five
phases with yin-yang concepts.
75 Liang's article attacked this type of cosmology and called it a 'perverse doctrine.'
1O1
Table 7. Thefive-phasechapters
38 1 io/gb.i.i-iob.5.2 452
42 1 11/2^4.1-3^9.3 481
58 1 13^.5.1-7^3.9 682
59 1 i3/7a.5.i-8b.g.n 602
60 1 i3/ga.2.i-na.5.2 75°
61 1 i3/na.7.i-nb.8.2i 221
62 1 i4/ia.4.i-ib.2.i6 142
63 1 i4/ib-4.i-2a.7.7 246
64 1 14/2^9.1-40.5.13 814
interregnum (9-23), between the Western and Eastern Han dynasties,

these chapters could not have been written earlier than the first century
C.E. Although Western Han scholars, such as Chia I and Chang Ts'ang,
had discussed which phase corresponded to Han rule, they had confined
their discussions to the earth and water phases.76 Internal evidence in
chapter 60 also supports an Eastern Han date. For example, it employs
the Eastern Han designation for talented men nominated for official
appointment, mao ts'ai (Cultivated Talent) .77 This term replaced its West-
ern Han counterpart, hsiu ts'ai (Cultivated Talent), to avoid the taboo on
Emperor Kuang-wu's name.78 Because the presence of the term could
mean the essay was either authored or recopied at this date, this evi-
dence is inconclusive by itself. Yet when one considers that during the
Eastern Han the Old Text doctrines eclipsed Tung Chung-shu's ideas, it
seems less likely that the essay was recopied at this time. Tai also made
much of the fact that when Li Hsien (651-684) commented on the
reference to the Tung Chung-shu in the Hou-Han shu 'Biography of
Empress Ma,' he did not mention the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, but rather
referred back to Pan Ku's description of the Tung Chung-shu in the Han-
shu. Tai felt that Li must have suspected the authorship of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu
fan-lu.
Han-shu 27 preserves the most persuasive evidence to support Tai
Chun-jen's argument. In his discussions of the Han-shu 27 anomalies,
76 See Ku 1941, 5:430-441.
77 Hucker 1985, p. 248.
78 The usefulness of examining taboo characters to help date texts is discussed in
Henricks 1979. More recently, Mansvelt Beck 1987 sought to clarify whether the
emperor's name is taboo from the beginning of his reign or after his death. Based on
a study of the Ch'in Chronicle unearthed at Shui-hu-ti, he argued persuasively that
taboos became operative following the death of the emperor.
1O2
Tai n o t e d that T u n g only employed yin-yang cosmology to explain the

disastrous events r e c o r d e d in the Spring and Autumn. T h e two or t h r e e
times Pan Ku associates T u n g Chung-shu with five-phase cosmology
occur w h e n Pan Ku combines T u n g ' s opinions with those of Liu Hsiang.
As o t h e r examples in Han-shu 27 d e m o n s t r a t e , these passages r e p r e s e n t
the opinions of Liu Hsiang, n o t T u n g Chung-shu. T u n g ' s Han-shu me-
morials, likewise, are limited to yin-yang cosmology. O n the basis of this
evidence, Tai c o n c l u d e d that T u n g ' s cosmology did n o t incorporate five-
phase concepts. In his wide-reaching survey of T u n g ' s various writings in
the Han-shu, Tai discovered that T u n g ' s peers consistently associated
h i m with yin-yang cosmology, a view consistent with my own findings
e n u m e r a t e d in Chapters 1 a n d 2. In his discussion of Han-shu 27, Tai
simply listed citations to s u p p o r t his thesis that T u n g Chung-shu was n o t
influenced by five-phase cosmology. Yet o t h e r conclusions may be drawn
from a close r e a d i n g of Han-shu 27. T h e text's n u m e r o u s citations
suggest that T u n g Chung-shu's omenology was derived exclusively from
anomalies cited in the Spring and Autumn; that it displayed n o influence
from o m e n theory developed by exegetes of the Documents; that it was
n o t systematized b u t based o n individual historical circumstances; that it
built o n yin-yang naturalistic interpretations in some cases a n d o n an-
t h r o p o m o r p h i c interpretations in others; a n d that it never explained
anomalies to predict H a n events. 79
T h e cosmology of the five-phase chapters is quite distinct from that
of Han-shu 27. T h e chapters consistently a d o p t naturalistic explanations
of anomalies, based o n dislocations in the five phases. They catalog
various anomalies a n d emphasize the specific a n d unvarying corre-
s p o n d e n c e between a particular action a n d a particular anomaly. For
example, c h a p t e r 6 3 ('Relieving the Disturbances of the Five Phases')
explains:
When the wood phase undergoes a disturbance, ice will adhere to trees in
autumn and there will be excessive rains in spring. These anomalies occur when
corvee labor and taxes are excessive and the people are impoverished and
starving. Avert these calamities by lightening corvee labor and taxes and opening
the granaries to relieve the distressed.80
T h e authority of the Spring and Autumn, central to T u n g ' s explanations

in Han-shu 27, which provide rich historical descriptions of the events
precipitating an anomaly, does n o t a p p e a r in these chapters. Instead,
they contain terse formulas, cataloging a n d systematizing the wide vari-
ety of anomalies in n a t u r e . Significantly, they also i n t r o d u c e auspicious
79 For a more complete account of Tung's cosmology, see Chapter 9.

80 CCFL i4/ib.5.8-ib.6.i6.
103
omens and suggest the predictability of anomalies - features that are

absent in Tung's writings. The contrast is quite striking.
Other features of the five-phase chapters not discussed by Tai Chun-
jen raise further questions of attribution. Chapter 61 ('Governing Based
on the Five Phases') and chapter 62 ('Governing that Disrupts the
Five Phases') are virtually identical to a long passage from chapter 3
('The Heavenly Patterns') of the Huai-nan-tzu. Although they are well
integrated into the Huai-nan-tzu text both stylistically and philoso-
phically, they stand out as isolated fragments in the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu,
lacking introductory and concluding remarks.81 Furthermore, the Huai-
nan-tzu did not circulate until the very end of the Western Han.82 There-
fore chapters 61 and 62 were most likely copied from the Huai-nan-tzu.
Chapter 60 ('Deviation from and Compliance with the Five Phases') and
chapter 64 ('The Five Phases and the Five Undertakings') are clearly
based on the Documents and are characteristic of the Han tradition of
interpretation that developed around that text. Yet Han-shu 27 indicates
that Tung never drew on ideas developed in this tradition to explicate
omens.83 In addition, the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chapters appear to further
systematize and elaborate the ideas in Han-shu 27. They were most
likely written by a later exegete of the Documents, not by Tung Chung-
shu. In short, the five-phase chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu are the
most problematic writings in the entire text. Based on the evidence
presented in the preceding pages, their traditional attribution should be
challenged.84
The ritual chapters

This last division found toward the end of the text consists of eleven
chapters devoted to ritual matters.85 Table 8 provides an overview of
their composition and location. With the exception of chapter 70
81 The integrity of the Huai-nan-tzu chapter is interrupted only at the very end of the essay.
See Cullen 1976.
82 Roth has pointed out that after the text was presented to Emperor Wu in 139 B.C.E.: 'it
undoubtedly remained in the Imperial Library until, according to the Preface by the
late Han commentator Jao Yu, it was arranged, edited, and named Huai-nan-nei by the
famous bibliographer Liu Hsiang ca. 10 B.C.[E.].' Roth 1992, p. 16.
83 Su Yu notes that in his chapter entitled 'Han Ju Shuo Tsai I' (Han Confucians Discuss
Anomalies) in Nien-er-shih cha-chi, Chao I maintains that Tung Chung-shu never drew
upon the 'Hung-fan' in his explanations of anomalies. See his comments to chapter 60
in CCFUC.
84 For further evidence supporting this line of argument, see the discussion of Han-shu 27
in Chapter 9.
85 This list departs from the one suggested by Hsu Fu-kuan, who included CCFL chapter
73 and excluded chapter 68.
104
Table 8. The ritual chapters
1 14/45.7.1-63.2.19 455
66 1 i5/ia.4.i-ia.g.i5 116
67 1 i5/ib.2.i-3a.g.i 681
68 1 15/35.2.1-43.5.2 254
69 1 15/4^7.1-4D.7.6 195
70 1 i5/6a.i.i-6b.2.i2 203
70 2 i5/6b.2.13-6^5.12 63
70 3 15/6^5.13-73.9.19 280°
70 4 15/73.9.20-83.4.5 245
71 1 i5/8a.6.i-gb.4.i2 524
72 1 16/1 a.4. 1-23.4. 20 386
73 1 i6/2a.6.1-33.4.4 297
74 1 i6/3a.6.i-6a.5.3 1,031
74 2 16/63.5.4-63.9.2 75
75 1 i6/6b.2.i~7a.i.ig 181
75 2 16/73.1.20—73.4.2 46
75 3 16/73.4.3-7^6.14 !95
76 1 16/73.8. i-g3.8.20 55O
a
Sections 1 3nd 3 3ppe3r to hsve been originslly psrt of the
same esssy interrupted by section 2 (3n interpolstion of 63
graphs). Su Yu hss moved these 63 graphs to chspter 68.
('Comply with Orders') and chapter 73 ('Ode to the Mountains and

Rivers'), the ritual chapters discuss and develop specific rites from the
Spring and Autumn. A recent study has confirmed the reliability of chap-
ter 73 based on parallels with the first century text, Shuo-yiian.86 As their
titles indicate, chapters 65 ('Discourse on the Suburban Sacrifice'), 66
('The Righteousness of the Suburban Sacrifice'), 67 ('The Suburban
Sacrifice'), 69 ('The Suburban Offering'), and 71 ('A Response on the
Suburban Sacrifice') address the same topic;87 chapter 72 ('Presenting
Gifts') describes the ritual of offering introductory gifts;88 chapters 68
('The Four [Seasonal] Sacrifices') and 76 (The Righteousness of
Sacrifice') are devoted to the seasonal sacrifices performed at the ances-
86 See Arbuckle ig8g, pp. 226-234.
87 Over the centuries, commentstors hsve debsted the original form of chapters 65
through 6g. Some, like the late Ch'ing scholar Lu Wen-ch'ao, maintained that these
separate chapters were once a single lengthy discursus on the Suburban Sacrifice. The
poor condition of these materials, which are ridden with omissions, interpolations, and
misarranged passages, makes it difficult to evaluate Lu Wen-ch'ao's reconstruction with
any degree of precision. See CCFLJC i4/8a-i5/6b.
88 This rite, mentioned in the Spring and Autumn at Duke Chuang 24.6, is also discussed
in other Confucian texts. See Yang ig85, pp. 338-370.
105
tral temples; and chapters 74 ('Seeking Rain') and 75 ('Stopping Rain')

set forth ritual procedures to procure and stop rain. The author of these
chapters directs his views on ritual practice to an audience seeking to
institute liturgical practices based on the authority of the Confucian
scriptures. This is particularly true of chapter 71, which is a record of
questions regarding the Suburban Sacrifice directed to Tung Chung-shu
after he retired from his post as administrator of Chiao-hsi, and chapter
75/3, which contains Tung's official instructions to avert a flood when
he served as administrator of Chiang-tu.
Chapter 74/1 is the only problematic essay in this group.89 Several
features indicate that it was probably not written by Tung Chung-shu. As
I noted in Chapter 3 when describing Tung's techniques to stop or
procure rain, his contemporaries never associated him with five-phase
cosmology.90 Moreover, the reliable materials on rain-seeking practices
ascribed to Tung Chung-shu that have survived external to the Ch'un-
ch'iu fan-lu (the Lun-hengcitations, Liu Chao's commentary to Hou-Han
shu, and the I-wen lei-chii materials) do not draw onfive-phasecosmology.
Chapter 74/1 differs markedly from these former citations because of its
reliance on five-phase cosmology. Michael Loewe has raised doubts
concerning the reliability of chapter 74/1. He maintains that the essay
shows 'signs of a considerable debt to philosophical principles hardly
formalized in Tung Chung-shu's lifetime.'91 Based on this feature of the
chapter, he concludes that 'it may be supposed that, although the de-
scription may call on actual practice, it may have been composed anach-
ronistically (some centuries later), at a time when considerable
standardization had set in.'92 Whether or not the essay was composed
'anachronistically,' it certainly contains several features that do not
correspond to the general characteristics of Tung's cosmology or
omenology. A closer look at these materials will elucidate this point.
As the preceding table illustrates, chapters 74 and 75 preserve mate-
rial from five essays. Chapter 74/1 is the longest, most complex, and
89 The materials on the Suburban Sacrifice not only are internally consistent but also
correspond to ideas expressed by Tung Chung-shu in other more reliable materials. In
addition, the expression 'mao ssuyeri in chapter 71 supports a Western Han date. Tsai
Yung's Tu-tuan states: 'The Han continued the Ch'in method of using the terminology
mao ssu yen (to deserve death for daring to speak) when officials sent up memorials to
the throne. When Wang Mang usurped the throne he destroyed this ancient practice
and replaced the term mao ssu with the term ch'i shou (to knock the head or to
kowtow).' CCFLIC 15/i2a.4.
90 For a more elaborate discussion of this problem, see Chapter 3, pp. 49-57.
91 Loewe 1987 p. 206. Loewe is no doubt referring to the complex five-phase principles
in this essay. The Han sources that describe sacrifices to avert droughts do not typically
include such elaborate five-phase correlations.
92 Ibid.
106
most complete essay of the five; 7 4 / 2 a n d 7 5 / 2 a p p e a r to be r e m n a n t s

of essays; 7 5 / 1 a n d 7 5 / 3 are official directives written in response to
droughts. Whereas the reliability of c h a p t e r 7 4 / 1 is highly questionable,
the r e m a i n i n g materials in c h a p t e r 74 a n d those from c h a p t e r 75 a p p e a r
to be quite reliable. How can o n e confirm that these chapters consist of
materials that were originally five separate essays? C h a p t e r 7 4 / 1 de-
scribes rain-seeking techniques a p p r o p r i a t e to the spring, s u m m e r , late
summer, fall, a n d winter. T h e description for spring is the most detailed.
Those which follow for the r e m a i n i n g four seasons, after n o t i n g proce-
dures specific to each season, refer back to the spring description. 9 3 T h e
excerpt translated h e r e exemplifies the pervasive five-phase correlations
in this essay:
Seeking rain in the spring when there is drought, instruct the prefectures and
towns, on a day [corresponding to the phase] water, to pray to the altars of the
soil and grain, the mountains and the rivers. Members of a household pray to the
spirit of the door. Do not fell famous trees, nor axe mountain forests. Expose
female shamans and gather emaciated persons for eight days. Outside the east-
ern gate of the town, construct an altar eight feet square with four openings. Set
out eight pieces of dark green silk. The [presiding] spirit is Ch'i Kung. Sacrifice
to Ch'i Kung with eight live fish and water. Prepare clear wine and cured meats.
Select those among the female shamans who are pure and eloquent to act as
the invocators. They should pray and fast for three days, dressed in dark green.
They should first bow twice then kneel in a line. Having knelt in a line, they
should bow twice again, then rise, and pray: 'August Heaven generates the five
grains in order to nourish the people. Now the five grains are diseased by
drought. We fear that they will not mature to bear fruit. We respectfully bring
forward this clear wine and cured meat.' They should bow twice again and
request rain. When blessed with timely rains, they should present a sacrificial
animal.94
In addition to the presence of five-phase correlations, two o t h e r fea-

tures suggest an a u t h o r o t h e r than T u n g Chung-shu. Two intrusions
from the Shen Nung ch'iu-yu shu (Shen N u n g ' s Book o n Seeking Rain)
occur toward the e n d of this section, 95 a n d t h e r e a p p e a r to b e several
parallels between these two sources. 9 6 Until these characteristics can b e
researched in greater d e p t h , so that the relationship between these two
sources is clarified, the possibility that c h a p t e r 7 4 / 1 is a m o r e complete
93 This may indicate that the description for the spring season constitutes the earliest
layer of this essay, but later, four additional seasons were added to construct a ritual
program consistent withfive-phasecosmology.
94 CCFL 16/3^6.1-30.3.15.
95 See CCFL 16/5a.7.9-63.1.3.
96 See Ta&yu tsa-chi 1/73 and IWLC 100/1723.
107
version of an essay that originally derived from the Shen Nung ch 'iuyii shu
cannot be ruled out.
A comparison of 74/1 and 74/2 further illustrates that these two parts
of the chapter were originally separate essays. First, chapter 74/2 neither
sums up nor concludes chapter 74/1. Second, where as 74/2 only refers
to four seasons, chapter 74/1 refers to five seasons, in keeping with its
five-phase cosmological framework. Third, 74/2 and 74/1 contain dif-
ferent instructions for constructing dragons to procure rain. Fourth,
although 74/2 holds that dragons should be constructed on 'days under
the influence of water' and 'kengtzu days,' 74/1 sets out specific days for
constructing rain-inducing dragons, based on the cyclical stems (chia
and i for spring; ping and ting for summer; wu and chi for late summer;
kengand hsinfor autumn; and jen and kueifor the winter). Finally, 74/2
finds its mirror image in 75/2, further suggesting its independence from
the material that precedes it. All of this evidence supports the view that
74/1 and 74/2 were originally two separate and distinct accounts of
rain-seeking practices. In addition, in contrast to 74/1, a closer look at
74/2 and 75/2 indicates they should be considered authentic writings of
Tung Chung-shu.
It is helpful at this point to recall Ssu-ma Ch'ien's description of
Tung's activities while serving as administrator of Chiang-tu. The histo-
rian explained that 'when seeking rain [he] closed off the yang forces
and freed up the yin forces. When stopping rain [he] reversed these
actions.'97 Based on this description, one would expect to find opposing
analogues in Tung Chung-shu's writings on this subject. Compare the
translations of 74/2 and 75/2 in Table 9. Indeed these passages display
the very features Ssu-ma Ch'ien associated with Tung Chung-shu's prac-
tices. The general directives for seeking rain are the very mirror image of
those for stopping rain: In the first case, one simply opens up the yang
forces while obstructing the yin forces; in the second case, one simply
opens up the yin forces while obstructing the yang forces.
A synoptic view of 75/1 and 75/3, which provide more detailed
accounts of Tung's techniques to stop rain, appears in Table 10. These
two passages complement the more general comments in chapter 75/2.
The numerous directives to seal up various conduits for water and
prohibit women from entering the market are specific examples of
'blocking up' things belonging to the yin category, whereas the involve-
ment of male elders and male shamans, the beating of drums, the
sacrificial offering, and the invocation of prayer to the Spirit of the Land
represent actions meant to 'arouse the yang forces.' Compare them with
97 SC 121/3128.
108
Table 9. Synoptic view of 74/2 and 75/2
74/2: Seeking rain 75/2: Stopping rain
During the four seasons, in every case on In general the main structure for stopping rain
a water day [shuijih], construct a dragon. is for the women to seek to hide themselves away
You must take pure clay to construct it. and for the men to seek to gather together and
Bind and cover the dragon. When the be joyous. Open up the yang forces and
dragon is completed, discard the cover. block up the yin forces. Obstruct water
During the four seasons, in every case on and liberate fire. Take a vermillion cord
a keng tzu day, order the wives and and encircle the Spirit of the Land ten
husbands among the officials and times. Wear red clothing and a red cap.
commoners to conjugate. In general the After three days stop. {CCFL i6/7a.i.2o-
main structure for seeking rain is for the men 7*4-2)
to seek to hide themselves away and for the
women to seek to gather together and be joyous.
(CCFL i6/6a.5.3-6a.g.6)
the two passages on seeking rain from the Hou Han-shu and I-wen Lei-chu.
Table 11 offers a synoptic view of these communications written when
Tung Chung-shu served as administrator to Chiang-tu.
Again, the simple and straightforward principle of opening up the yin
forces while obstructing the yang forces informs these directives. In
mirror opposition to the previous two passages, they grant special com-
pensations to the female shamans and call on them to invoke prayers,
while they prohibit the men from entering the market. In all cases no
special directives are based on a consideration of the season in which the
drought or excessive rain occurs. And although they make numerous
yin-yang correlations, these directives do not draw on five-phase
correlations.
The questions generated by chapter 74/1 when compared with the
entire corpus of rain-seeking and rain-stopping materials that are attrib-
uted to Tung Chung-shu or descriptive of him indicate that this essay
contains ideas that are not characteristic of his rain-seeking techniques.
Although it is possible that there remains imbedded under several layers
of rewriting and editing a remnant of an original essay authored by Tung
Chung-shu, until this essay can be studied in greater depth, it seems
prudent to exclude chapter 74/1 from the pool of reliable sources for
studying Tung Chung-shu. In contrast, chapter 74/2 and chapter 75/1,
75/2, and 75/3 present techniques for seeking and stopping rain that
both are consistent with one another and reflect contemporaneous
descriptions of Tung's practices. There is no reason to doubt their
authenticity.
109
Table 1 o. A synoptic view of 75/1 and 75/3
75/3
When the rain is excessive, order the In the twenty-first year, in the eighth
prefects and counties to seal up the month, on such and such a day, the
irrigation canals, block off the channels, administrator of Chiang-tu Tung Chung-
and cover the wells on an 'earth' day. shu notified the clerk of the capital and
Prohibit the women from traveling or the commandant of the capital: The yin
entering the market. Order all the rains have persisted for some time and [I]
prefects, districts, and hamlets to sweep fear that it will damage the five grains.
out the altars to the Spirit of the Land. [We must] hasten to stop the rain. The
Send down orders to the prefects and rite for stopping the rain dispels the yin
counties that if the assistant, foreman and arouses the yang. Notify the seven-
clerk, and bailiff number three or more, teen prefectures, eighty separate districts,
the male shaman should number one. If and officials of the capital ranking 1,000
the officials under the county bailiff piculs and below as follows: Those men
number three or more, the male shaman who hold office should admonish their
should number one. If the elders of the wives to return to their homes. Prohibit
hamlets number three or more, then the the women from entering the market and
male shaman should number one. In do not allow them to go to the wells.
every case the male shamans should fast Cover the wells so they do not leak water.
for three days, each wearing clothing Beat the drums and offer a sacrificial
appropriate to the season. Prepare, a animal at the altar of the Spirit of the
small pig, grain, salt, and wine sufficient Land. Pray to the Spirit of the Land
for the altar to the Spirit of the Land. saying: 'The rain has been excessive. The
Beat the drums for three days. Before five grains are not in harmony. We
praying, bow twice. Then kneel down and respectfully present this fattened sacrifi-
recite [the prayer]. When you have cial animal to implore the Spirit of the
finished reciting the prayer, bow twice Land to favor us by stopping the rain,
again before rising. Pray saying: 'Alas! thereby eradicating the people's hard-
Heaven gives birth to the five grains to ships. Do not let the yin destroy the yang.
nourish human beings. Now the rain is When the yin destroys the yang this does
excessive. The five grains are not harmo- not accord with Heaven. It is the constant
nious. We respectfully present this intent of Heaven to bring benefit to
fattened sacrificial animal and pure wine human beings. We human beings wish to
to implore the Spirit of the Land to favor stop the rain, and so we dare make these
us by stopping the rain, thereby eradicat- pronouncements to the Spirit of the
ing the people's hardships. Do not let the Land.' Beat the drums and offer a
yin destroy the yang. When the yin sacrificial animal at the altar of the Spirit
destroys the yang, this does not accord of the Land (CCFL 16/7^4.3-
with Heaven. It is the constant intent of 7b.6.i8)
Heaven to bring benefit to human beings.
We human beings wish to stop the rain,
and so we dare make these pronounce-
ments to the Spirit of the Land.' Beat the
drums, but do not sing. Arriving at the
end [of the ceremony], the rain will stop.
(CCFL i6/6b.2.i-7a.i.ig)
H O
Ch 'un-ch yiu fan-lu
Table 11. Directives to induce rain
Hou Han-shu I-wen lei-chii
Chung-shu memorialized the king of The administrator of Chiang-tu, Tung

Chiang-tu stating: The formula for Chung-shu, sends down [orders] to the
seeking raina is that of decreasing the clerk of the capital that upon receipt of
yang and increasing the yin. I ask our this document [he should] take the
great king to remit a month's taxes [following] actions. Order the official
from the women of Kuang Ling who families residing within one hundred li of
invoke prayers for others. One month of the capital to all implement this docu-
taxes should be conferred upon the ment and announce it to the [surround-
shamans. Regardless of their age,6 these ing] counties. Instruct the wives to watch
shamans should all gather together at the over their husbands/ Grant the female
gate of the city. [There] they should shamans one month of taxes, and instruct
construct a small altar and offer dried them to seek rain. Also instruct the
meats and wine as a sacrifice. The women female shamans to select through mutual
alone should choose a broad, large, recommendation those who are pure and
convenient site and move the market easy to instruct to carry out the sacrifice.
there. Prohibit the married men from Kneel to pray and say: 'Heaven generates
entering the market and from gathering the five grains to nourish human beings.
together to indulge in food and wine. The Now the five grains are withering away
wives of the city officials should be from drought. It is feared that they will
directed to keep watch over their not ripen. Reverently present purified
husbands. When all of these procedures wine and sweet offerings.' Bow twice and
have been carried out, the rain will simply request rain. (IWLC 100/1726)
pour forth. (HHS 5/3118)
"Note the phrase ch'iu yu chihfang (>|cMÎ^f), which describes seeking rain as a specific
formula, technique, or prescription.
*t£M-fi£;fc/K It is unclear whether this phrase refers to the shamans' age, physical
stature, or rank.
c
An alternate rendering would be: 'Direct the wives to receive their husbands.'
The multiple voices of the Ch'un-ch'iu fanlu

In the preceding discussion I have suggested that the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu is
a composite work that preserves many voices. The first is the voice of
Tung Chung-shu, heard in his doctrinal expositions, ritual prescriptions,
omen analyses, and discussions of yin-yang cosmology. Over the course
of four decades it matured in dialogue with the various political powers
whom he served; the students to whom he transmitted his interpreta-
tions; the scholar-officials with whom he debated and deliberated; and
the Huang-Lao advocates and technical masters with whom he com-
peted for imperial patronage. The second voice is that of Tung's
disciples, developing and elaborating on the ritual practices, ethical
111
principles, and omen analyses of their master, in some cases by setting

forth different accounts of the yearly movements of the yin and yang, in
other cases by harmonizing Tung's ideas withfive-phasecosmology. The
third and faintest voice is that of the critic, echoing in the various
rebuttals throughout the text. Undoubtedly far more research than was
possible in this study must be conducted before we will be able to
identify, date, and contextualize further the disparate voices I have
sketched out in the preceding pages. But when this research is com-
pleted, we will no doubt begin to see more clearly the rich exchange and
diffusion of ideas that characterized the Western Han world. Based on
the findings outlined in Part I, I will depart from other studies on Tung
Chung-shu by not drawing freely from the suspect writings in the Ch'un-
ch'iu fan-lu while looking beyond the text to other reliable materials
ascribed to him. In Part II, we will see that when we no longer confuse
Tung Chung-shu's voice with those of his followers and critics, and when
we begin to consider his hermeneutics in relation to the intellectually
diverse and politically dynamic world in which he moved, a rather differ-
ent picture of this Confucian exegete emerges.
112
Part II
Exegesis and
canonization
5
The Spring and Autumn
and Kung-yang tradition
The Spring and Autumn became part of the Confucian canon in 136
B.C.E., when Emperor Wu limited the erudites to the Five Scriptures, one
each for the Odes, the Documents, the Changes, the Rites, and the Spring
and Autumn. In 124 B.C.E. the emperor established the Grand Academy
(T'ai-hsueh), where erudites expounded on these works to prepare
students for government service. Emperor Ling (r. 168-189) ordered
definitive editions of the Five Scriptures engraved in stone in 175 C.E.,
the final act in Han times symbolizing the establishment of the Confu-
cian Canon. How did the Spring and Autumn come to enjoy canonical
status under Emperor Wu? As I suggested in the Introduction, a variety
of factors contributed to the text's rise to canonical status. Chief among
them were Han scholars, like Tung Chung-shu, who reformulated its
authoritative dimensions in terms relevant to the new circumstances of
the Han empire and the reformist policies they hoped to institute. To
understand Tung's contributions as one of the foremost Western Han
exegetes and teachers of the Kung-yang Commentary to the Spring and
Autumn, however, a brief introduction to the text and its pre-Han inter-
preters is in order.
Long before 136 B.C.E., master-disciple lineages had begun to trans-
form the Spring and Autumn from a terse historical chronicle to a text
embodying the highest ideals of the Confucian tradition. Five interpre-
tive lineages are known to have arisen and passed on their beliefs
through oral transmission: the Kung-yang, Ku-liang, Tso, Tsou, and Chia.
Whereas by the Han, Master Tsou's tradition would suffer decline from
a dearth of teachers and Master Chia's lineage from a lack of texts, the
Kung-yang, Ku-liang, and Tso traditions would flourish, stimulating some
of the most substantial doctrinal, political, cosmological, and legal de-
bates of the Han, as they competed for imperial patronage within the
new empire.1 The beliefs and attitudes that pre-Han exegetes of the
1 For a brief discussion of these five traditions see HS 30/1715.

Kung-yang lineage ascribed to the Spring and Autumn constituted a body

of hallowed concepts transmitted to Tung Chung-shu and codified in
the Kung-yang Commentary of the Han. They provided a framework within
which Han scholastics constructed new theories and established novel
ways of reading the Spring and Autumn. Their interpretations constitute
an important prelude to the contributions of their Han descendants. We
begin by considering some of the basic features of the Spring and Autumn
that generated this rich history known as the Kung-yang tradition.
Exoteric features of the Spring and Autumn

The title Spring and Autumn or Ch'un-ch'iu derived from the seasonal
references that marked the passage of time in the chronicles compiled
by rulers of the various feudal states during the Spring and Autumn
period (722-481 B.C.E.). Though numerous chronicles existed at this
time, today only the Spring and Autumn from the state of Lu survives. This
work records title accessions, marriages, deaths, diplomatic meetings,
military campaigns, alliances, and other important events during the
reigns of twelve dukes of Lu from 722 to 481 B.C.E. Other entries also
recount unusual natural occurrences, such as droughts, floods, plagues,
and eclipses. They are stylistically terse and laconic. The chronicle does
not weave them into a narrative account or explain their significance. As
William Hung has noted: 'The important happenings of two and a half
centuries are dismissed with only slightly more than sixteen thousand
words. The longest entries rarely exceed forty-five words, while the short-
est ones consist of only one word.'2 Isolated from its original context or
hermeneutical circle, the Spring and Autumn appears to be little more
than the dry court chronicle of an age long gone by. Yet it is this very
feature of the text that makes it such a fascinating subject of inquiry.
There is assuredly little in the plain sense of the text that explains why it
enjoyed such a prominent place in the history of the Confucian tradi-
tion. 'We must surely admit,' claimed Burton Watson, 'as we scan the
dull, dry pages of the old chronicle of Lu that nothing less than a great
personality and a great tradition could ever have invested them with the
interest and life they have maintained through two thousand-odd years
of Chinese civilization.'3
Nonetheless, the original setting and purpose of the Spring and Au-
tumn may partially explain why it enjoyed a privileged status even after it
outlived the purpose for which it was initially composed. There was from
2 Ch'i 1938, p. 49.

3 Watson 1958, pp. 72-73.
Spring and Autumn
the beginning a close connection between historical writing and the

religious aspects of state power. Scholars have long recognized that the
historian of China's pre-Ch'in civilization, the ta shih or grand scribe, was
a semireligious functionary concerned with court divination, ceremony,
and sacrifice, and later became a keeper of detailed, daily chronicles. 4
Yet even when the historian became absorbed with the task of document-
ing state affairs, historical writing remained one of the critical instru-
ments linking the religious and political aspects of state power. Jacques
Gernet suggests that texts like the Spring and Autumn consist of notices
that ritual functionaries most likely announced day by day, month by
month, and year by year, at the ancestral temple to the royal line of the
house of Chou.5 This religious dimension of the Spring and Autumn
exemplifies the ancient Chinese belief that communication between the
human realm and that of Heaven was not only possible but essential to
a well-governed society. It granted historical texts a special status within
Chinese civilization. Perhaps these aspects of the Spring and Autumn
prompted Confucian exegetes of the late fourth century to appropriate
it anew. Perhaps the laconic style of the text, which left so much open to
suggestion, also made it an ideal text for appropriation. Whatever the
case may have been, by the latter part of the fourth century B.C.E.,
interpreters had begun to endow it with esoteric attributes. Despite the
shifting political and social circumstances of the Warring States period
(403-222 B.C.E.), the Spring and Autumn would continue, with its new
accretions of meaning, to enjoy a special status as an object of reverence
among Confucian scholars.
Esoteric features of the Spring and Autumn

Indeed, centuries before the Han dynasty, some Confucian scholars
already claimed that the Spring and Autumn embodied matters of the
most profound significance. Their interpretations came to constitute,
albeit in a much more elaborate and self-conscious form, the fundamen-
tal beliefs of Tung Chung-shu and his disciples of the Kung-yang Commen-
tary. Various philosophical texts from the early fourth to the early second
century B.C.E., the Kung-yang Commentary (whose oral antecedents date
to the pre-Han era), and the statements of Han exegetes reflecting on
the received tradition provide a limited view into the world of the early
interpreters and their vision of the Spring and Autumn. We know, for
example, that by Tzu-hsia's day (ca. 507-407 B.C.E.), scholars debated
4 See Watson 1958, p. 71, and Hucker 1985, p. 470.

5 See Gernet 1982, p. 84.
117
the correct interpretations of the text. 6 It is also apparent that by Hsiin-

tzu's lifetime (fl. 298-238 B.C.E.), some argued that the Spring and
Autum, like the other authoritative works that constituted Confucian
learning in his day, could not be understood without the mediation of a
teacher. 7 The most informative comments appear in the Meng-tzu
(Mencius), a work of the early fourth century B.C.E. Although the Meng-
tzu does not explicitly associate them with the Kung-yang tradition, Han
dynasty scholars of the Kung-yang Commentary would identify these beliefs
as the very heart that sustained their tradition and distinguished them
from the Ku-liang and Tso lineages, the two other principal interpreta-
tions of the Spring and Autumn.
Sagely origins
Perhaps the most important belief associated with the Spring and Autumn
at this time concerned the text's origins. The Meng-tzu explains:
When the world declined and the Way fell into obscurity, heresies and violence
again arose. There were instances of regicides and parricides. Confucius was
apprehensive and composed the Spring and Autumn. Strictly speaking, this is the
emperor's prerogative. That is why Confucius said, Those who understand me
will do so through the Spring and Autumn', those who condemn me will also do so
because of the Spring and Autumn.'8
According to this passage, the author of the Spring and Autumn was not
a court historian acting under the auspices of the ruler, but the most
honored of sages, Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.), acting out of a personal
sense of moral outrage. The circumstances that prompted Confucius to
create (tso) this history were of crisis proportions. Civilization had en-
tered a period of utter decline in which the normative order, which had
been passed down by the sage-kings of antiquity, had ceased to prevail.
Motivated by this crisis, Confucius created the work to articulate and
therefore preserve the Way, which was on the verge of being lost forever.
In this sense, early interpreters read the text as Confucius's attempt to
6 For example, the Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu (Master Lu's Spring and Autumn) recounts a
conversation between Tzu-hsia and a man from Chin who was puzzled over a passage in
the Spring and Autumn. See Yuan 1969, p. 6.
7 In 'An Exhortation to Learning,' Hsun-tzu commented: The Rituals and Music present
models but do not offer explanation; the Odes and Documents present matters of antiquity
but are not always apposite; the Spring and Autumn is laconic, and its import is not quickly
grasped. It is just on these occasions that the man of learning repeats the explanations
of the gentleman. Thus, he is honored for his comprehensive and catholic acquaintance
with the affairs of the world.' Knoblock 1988, p. 140.
8 Meng-tzu 3B.9, Lau 1976, p. 114.
Spring and Autumn
leave behind an account of that all-embracing normative order. But

Confucius's act held a deeper, more radical significance. In initiating
this historical work, Confucius admittedly usurped a prerogative enjoyed
only by the highest authority of the land and consequently challenged
the state's intense and long-standing desire to control and dominate the
writing of history. The sense of moral obligation that compelled Confu-
cius to confront the burdens of history superseded his desire to comply
with courtly prohibitions against the private creation or compilation of
historical writings. History was no longer simply denned by the public
and communal concerns of the ruler, but by the intensely private and
personal obligations of the sage as well. With this singular act of creativ-
ity, Confucius inspired generations of scholars to speak with an engaged
yet independent voice, to take up the task of composition and free
themselves from the tyrannical grip of state power. Several hundred
years later, Tung Chung-shu would usurp this same prerogative when he
chose, no doubt out of a sense of moral indignation, to compose pri-
vately his famous work devoted to the analysis of omens, the Tsai-i chih
chi9
Moral authority
In an additional passage, the Meng-tzu elucidates another aspect of the
moral dimensions of historical writing:
The traces of the [former] kings were extinguished when the Odes was lost. After
the Odes was lost, the Spring and Autumn was created [tso]. The Shengof Chin, the
Tao Wu of Ch'u, and the Spring and Autumn of Lu were the same kind of work.
Their accounts concern Duke Huan of Ch'i and Duke Wen of Chin, and their
literary form is that of a history. Confucius said, T have appropriated their
righteous principles [i].M0
The term i has generated a number of interpretations over the years.
Burton Watson renders the term as 'righteous decisions,' D. C. Lau
translates it as 'didactic principles,' and Benjamin Wallacker suggests 'a
sense of justice.'11 David Hall and Roger Ames argue that i or 'significa-
tion' denotes a sense of appropriateness or Tightness, stressing the sub-
jective and context-dependent qualities inherent in the term.12 Most
recently, John Knoblock explains:
9 The circumstances under which Tung Chung-shu wrote this work and the trial to which
he was subjected as a consequence are recounted in Chapter 2.
10 Meng-tzu 4B.21.
11 See Watson 1958, p. 76; Lau 1976, p. 132; and Wallacker 1978, p. 215.
12 See Hall and Ames 1987, pp. 89-110.
Yi [i\, then, is the principle that expresses the congruity between action and
situation, what is reasonable and right in the circumstances. It becomes more
than mere congruity since it reflects an inner sense for what is right. What is right
is what 'ought to be done.' Yi [i] expresses the 'ought,' our duty, whether moral
or official. When things are done in accord with what 'ought to be,' they are yi
[i] just... . When we fulfill what ought to be done, we are yi [i], 'moral' and have
obeyed what our sense of right has told us should be done because it is right. Acts
that show a high sense of moral duty are called yi [i] 'righteous' and persons of
incorruptible moral purity like Bo Yi [Po I] and Shu Qi [Shu Ch'i] were called
'righteous knights.'13
Knoblock offers perhaps the most comprehensive explanation of the
various nuances of the term. Like so many other concepts that define
ancient Chinese culture, i simply spans the dichotomies that constitute
Western discussions of morality. For it denotes a morality that is at once
both internal and external, both personal and universal, both immanent
and transcendent,14 both subjective and objective, both constant and
contingent. In fact, within the Confucian tradition it is the very tension
between these realms that inspires the moral transformation of self and
society.
Regardless of how one precisely understands the term as it appears in
the Meng-tzu, the passage clearly indicates that history and ethics had
become inseparable. Indeed, this tendency within early Chinese culture
to moralize history is well illustrated by the claims of the sage himself.
Confucius said: 'If I wish to set forth my theoretical judgments, nothing
compares to illustrating them through the depth and clarity of events.'15
During the Han, scholars like Tung Chung-shu and Ssu-ma Ch'ien
would exhibit this same propensity to elucidate questions of ultimate
moral concern within the context of everyday human experience. The
ways in which individuals endowed events with moral significance by
exercising a personal sense of Tightness, appropriateness, or righteous-
ness when they confronted circumstances in which objective norms
failed to provide straightforward solutions would become a central con-
cern of Tung's exegesis.
Censorial power
In addition to its sagely origins and profound moral significance, the
censorial power that scholars ascribed to the text at this early date may
13 Knoblock 1988, pp. 95-96.

14 I use the term 'transcendent' in the sense of beyond the individual but not beyond the
cosmos.
15 SC 130/3297.
12O
Spring and Autumn
be gleaned from another passage in the Meng-tzu, which equates Confu-

cius 's creation of the Spring and Autumn with the accomplishments of
other time-honored sages who brought peace and security to the world:
In ancient times Yii controlled the Flood and brought peace to the empire; the
duke of Chou subjugated the northern and southern barbarians, drove away wild
animals, and brought security to the people; Confucius completed the Spring and
Autumn and struck terror into the hearts of rebellious subjects and undutiful
sons.16
For the early interpreters, the text was nothing short of Confucius's
radical critique of the evils of his day. The terror he evoked in the hearts
of those who were the worst offenders illustrates the tremendous censo-
rial power with which history was now endowed. Far from a dispassionate
recorder of deeds, in his capacity as a self-proclaimed historian Confu-
cius had become the paradigmatic critic. Speaking in his stead, Confu-
cius censored the ruler's subordinates in the sociopolitical hierarchy
of his day. When Ssu-ma Ch'ien was asked why Confucius wrote the
Spring and Autumn, he responded with the following words of Tung
Chung-shu:
When the Chou declined and Confucius was employed as the minister of crime
in the state of Lu, the feudal lords attacked him while the great officers ob-
structed him. Confucius knew that his words were not heeded and that the Way
was not realized. Thereupon he passed judgment on the preceding two hundred
forty-two years, setting out a standard for all-under-Heaven. He criticized the Son
of Heaven, scrutinized the feudal lords, admonished the great officers, in order
to illuminate the affairs of the [true] king.17
By the Han dynasty the critical purview of the historian would be greatly
expanded to include the highest authority of the land, the Son of
Heaven. So too would those charged with the transmission of this
ancient wisdom, scholars like Tung Chung-shu and his disciples. 18
Transformative power
The earlier passage from the Meng-tzu also exemplifies the trans-
formative power that early exegetes attributed to the Spring and Autumn.
As an instrument to combat evil in the world, they deemed the work to
16 Meng-tzu 3B.9, Lau 1976, p. 115.

17 SC 130/3297.
18 For other examples of Han images of the historian as critic, see Watson 1958, pp. 72-
75-
121
be powerful and efficacious: It 'struck terror into the hearts of rebellious

subjects and undutiful sons.' An anonymous interpreter cited in the
Kung-yang Commentary echoes this belief when he states: Tor restoring
order in chaotic times and effecting a return to what is correct, nothing
comes closer than the Spring and Autumn.'19 One of Confucius's immedi-
ate disciples and one of the best known of the pre-Han interpreters, Tzu-
hsia, developed a reputation for his theories concerning this aspect of
the text. He was said to have surpassed Yen-tzu, another early interpreter
of the Spring and Autumn, in his ability to use the text as a guide to
eradicate calamities within his state.20 The Han-fei-tzu explains: 'The
possibility of removing calamities is revealed in Tzu-hsia's explanation of
the Spring and Autumn, "Who is skillful in maintaining his position of
power, early on nips evil in the bud."'21 Another quotation from the
same text elucidates the reasoning behind this approach toward evil.
Tzu-hsia states: 'The instances of regicides and parricides recorded in
the Spring and Autumn are numerous. None of these events were the
outcome of a single day, they came about gradually.'22 Kung-yang
exegetes of the Han perpetuated this belief in the text's transformative
power. The Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu describes Tzu-hsia's political applications
of the text in the following way:
The ruler of the state must not fail to study the Spring and Autumn. If he does not
study the Spring and Autumn he will have no means to observe the dangers
around him, and will not understand the state's great handle of authority or the
chief responsibilities of the ruler.23
Interpreters viewed the text as a blueprint of the Way of Heaven, the
perfect model for ordering the human world, powerful and effective in
the human struggle to combat evil and to direct humanity along a course
consistent with that of Heaven. Its various models of humanity and
righteousness were indispensable to the ruler whose chief responsibility
was to rectify his person and the society over which he ruled.24
Indeed the transformative power of the Spring and Autumn was not
unique to this text alone. It was a defining characteristic of all the
Confucian scriptures. In fact, one might argue that it was this optimistic
belief in the unlimited transformative powers of these texts that lent
19 Kung-yang Commentary to Duke Ai 14.1.

20 Han-fei-tzu suo-yin 34-2-3/813.
23 CCFL 6/30.9-4^1.
24 For a good example of the ways in which the Spring and Autumn directed the
moral rectification of the ruler, see CCFL, chapter 29, 'Standards of Humanity and
Righteousness.'
122
Spring and Autumn
them scriptural status within the various interpretive communities that

coalesced around them. Thus, although exegetes like Tung Chung-shu
emphasized the transformative power of the Spring and Autumn, they did
not read it in isolation from other Confucian scriptures. Each of the six
excelled at developing a particular virtue, but all were equal; when taken
as a whole, they ordered the totality of human existence.25 Tung Chung-
shu explains:
The noble man [Confucius] knew that those who occupy positions [of authority]
cannot rely on evil [measures] to win the people's submission. Therefore he
selected the Six Arts to aid and nourish them. The Odes and Documents order
their intentions;26 the Rites and Music purify their [inner] goodness; and the
Changes and the Spring and Autumn illuminate their understanding. These six
forms of learning are great indeed and each possesses its particular strength. The
Odes guides intentions, consequently it strengthens inner substance.27 The Rites
moderates conduct, consequently it strengthens outer refinement.28 The Music
praises virtue, consequently it strengthens transformation through moral
suasion.29 The Documents records meritorious deeds, consequently it strengthens
undertakings.30 The Changes is based on Heaven and Earth, consequently it
strengthens astronomical calculations.31 The Spring and Autumn rectifies right
and wrong, consequently it strengthens human governance.32
In the following chapters, we will see that many exegetical passages in
the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu exemplify this proclivity to view the Confucian
scriptures in a holistic way. Tung Chung-shu drew upon the Changes,
Documents, and Odes, for example, to amplify his interpretations of the
Spring and Autumn.
Prophetic power
During the Han this belief in the transformative powers of the Spring and
Autumn inspired exegetes to develop Tzu-hsia's interpretations in new
ways. Perhaps in an attempt to distinguish themselves from the technical
25 It is interesting to note that the Kung-yang scholars in particular, and Han Confucians
in general, did not rank their scriptures hierarchically. Fung Yu-lan has pointed out
that scholars began to discuss these six texts of the Confucian tradition as a collective
entity before the Han, during the later years of the Warring States period. For addi-
tional comments by Han Confucians regarding their various attributes, see Fung 1953,
pp. 400-403.
26 M.
27 jf.
28 X.
29 JR.
30 ¥ .
31 « .
32 ?p. CCFL i/8b.8.1-9^3.13.
123
masters with whom they competed for imperial patronage, perhaps in

response to the great appeal that divination held for Emperor Wu,
scholars like Tung Chung-shu emphasized the text's prophetic powers.
They argued that one divines the future not by means of tortoise shell,
bone, or milfoil but rather through careful scrutiny of the past. Tung
Chung-shu writes: 'The ancients had a saying: "If you do not know what
the future will bring, observe what has passed." As a discipline to be
studied, the Spring and Autumn informs us of what has passed to illumi-
nate what the future will bring.' 33 By mastering its detailed accounts of
human conduct, and its records of those who failed and those who
succeeded, the ruler could control the future of his dynasty by embody-
ing those principles and practices that led to success and avoiding those
that led to disaster. Tung Chung-shu explains:
The Spring and Autumn records the successes and failures of all-under-Heaven. It
reveals what causes some to succeed and others to fail. Although the causes are
extremely subtle they are nonetheless apparent; although they are not always
recorded in the text, they are nonetheless explained. One must not fail to
examine this. Now Mount T'ai is quite large, but if you do not observe it you will
not see it. How much more is this the case of those things that are quite subtle!
Therefore examine the Spring and Autumn and compare the past events that it
describes; carefully deduce the origins of events and observe their
causes.... The causes of events are quite near to human beings. Is it possible not
to contemplate them?34
In the hands of Han exegetes like Tung Chung-shu, the Spring and
Autumn became a powerful divinatory tool, as persuasive as those
wielded by his courtly competitors. History had become a mirror capable
of reflecting the future as well as the past.
Ethical judgments
Pre-Han exegetes also read the work as a record of ethical judgments.
The most comprehensive pre-Han explication of the ethical principles
and moral judgments in the Spring and Autumn survives in the Kung-yang
Commentary. Originally an oral tradition passed on from teacher to disci-
ple for some three hundred years, it was probably recorded on bamboo
strips in the Western Han during the reign of Emperor Ching (156-141
35
B.C.E.) by the Ch'i scholar Hu-wu Tzu-tu. The Kung-yang Commentary
33 CGFL3/ioa.7.i-ioa.7.i2.
34 CCFL 2/40.6.1^.4.19.
35 The putative authors and transmitters of the Kung-yang Commentary are numerous. One
version of transmission set forth by the Eastern Han scholars Tai Hung and Ho Hsiu
runs as follows: Tzu-hsia passed on the teaching to Kung-yang Kao; Kung-yang Kao
124
Spring and Autumn
established basic patterns by which the esoteric message of the Spring and
Autumn would be read by future generations of Han exegetes.36 It as-
sumes that Confucius set forth his ethical precepts by passing judgment
on the numerous events that he recorded in the Spring and Autumn.
Confucius adopted several techniques to indicate his praise or criticism.
Chief among them, as Burton Watson has pointed out, were his choice
of material, order of presentation, and the particular terms he em-
ployed.37 The exegetes, whose catechistic rendition of these interpretive
points fills its pages, maintain that only a painstaking consideration of
these subtleties would reveal the judgments that Confucius bequeathed
to a future sage.38 Therein Confucius hid his powerful message of world
salvation. Thus, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, word by word,
the Kung-yang Commentary decodes these linguistic clues to Confucius's
appraisals and uncovers the moral significance of each event.39 In the
years following the birth of the Han empire, exegetes like Tung Chung-
shu drew upon this account of the hidden messages of the Spring and
passed on the teaching to his son Kung-yang P'ing; Kung-yang P'ing passed on the
teaching to his son Kung-yang Ti; Kung-yang Ti passed on the teaching to his son Kung-
yang Kan; and Kung-yang Kan passed on the teaching to his son Kung-yang Shou.
During the reign of Emperor Ching, Kung-yang Shou transmitted it to Master Hu-wu
Tzu-tu from Ch'i who recorded the teaching on bamboo slips. See Tai Hung's preface
preserved in the Kung-yang chuan shu quoted by Yuan 1969, p. 5. The Kung-yang
Commentary cites several additional masters who were also responsible for the transmis-
sion of Kung-yang learning prior to the Han. No fewer than eight teachers are men-
tioned: a Master Shen at Yin 11.4, Chuang 10.3, and Ting 1.1; a Master Kung-yang at
Huan 6 and Hsuan 5; a Master Ssu-ma at Chuang 30.7; a Master Nu at Min 1; a Master
Pei Kung at Ai 4; a Master Lu at Hsi 5, 20, 24, and 28 and Chuang 3 and 23; a Master
Kao at Wen 4; and a Master Kung Hu at Chao 31. This last master is mentioned in
chapter 17 of the CCFL, and his homophonic variant appears in the 'Chien Pen'
chapter of the Shuayuan. In this passage Kung Hu-tzu quotes Tzu-hsia, suggesting that
he was a disciple of the Kung-yang tradition who came after Tzu-hsia. See Shuoyiian
chiao-cheng, p. 68. Chapter 17 cites four additional early exegetes of the Spring and
Autumn: Tzu-kung, Ming-tzu, Tzu-hsien, and Tzu-ch'ih.
36 Many scholars have debated whether an oral tradition preceded the received Kung-yang
Commentary. In his Hsien Ch'in chu-tzu hsi-nien, Ch'ien Mu maintains that the lack of
abundant references to the early masters of the Kung-yang tradition outside of the
Commentary suggests that the Kung-yang tradition was fabricated during the Han. See
Ch'ien 1956, p. 86. Given the internal evidence from the Commentary indicating its
clear indebtedness to a long oral history prior to its first recording in the Han, and
given the esoteric nature of the Kung-yang tradition, which suggests that a taboo
concerning its transmission in written form may have existed, Ch'ien Mu's argument
appears to be unfounded. For evidence in the Commentary that indicates oral transmis-
sion, see Malmqvist 1971, pp. 67-222.
37 Watson 1958, p. 78.
38 See Kung-yang Commentary to Duke Ai.
39 It should be noted that in doing so, the Kung-yang Commentary generated numerous
interpretive principles that were often contradictory and inconsistent. For a few exam-
ples, see Watson 1958, pp. 79-83.
125
Autumn. Building on specific examples from the Kungyang Commentary,

Tung endeavored to establish a comprehensive and consistent vision of
the Spring and Autumn. He derived more general principles of exegesis
from specific interpretive passages in the Kungyang Commentary, harmo-
nized contradictions, and drew analogies to contemporary concerns. As
we will see, his interpretations endowed the text with new types of
authority relevant to his reformist goals for the Han empire.
126
6
Reforming the Ch'in
laws
Kung-yang exegetes of the Han were the heirs to a rich tradition of

interpretation. Pre-Han expositors endowed the Spring and Autumn with
profound ethical significance; in this sense it had become the paradig-
matic 'morality book.' The transformative, censorial, and prophetic pow-
ers derived from this moral dimension of the text colored Han readings
of the Spring and Autumn. Scholastics like Tung Chung-shu and his
disciples transmitted these beliefs while expanding and redefining the
attributes they ascribed to the Spring and Autumn. Indeed, the dialogues
in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu suggest that during the Han, scriptural interpre-
tation constituted one of the main arenas in which scholars worked
through the most compelling and urgent issues of their day. There, for
example, they endeavored to renegotiate the parameters of political
power and textual authority; to redefine their relationship to the state;
and to reform what they perceived to be the worst abuses of the previous
dynasty. In doing so, they endowed the Spring and Autumn with ethical,
political, legal, historical, religious, and cosmological significance rel-
evant to their reformist goals and the circumstances of their age. This
chapter examines Tung Chung-shu's legal interpretations of the Spring
and Autumn and his efforts to reform the laws that the Han dynasty
inherited from the Ch'in.
The Ch'in legacy

Two broad concerns shaped Tung Chung-shu's readings of the Spring
and Autumn. On the one hand, he was troubled that the legacy of the
preceding Ch'in dynasty continued to shape the policies of his day.1 On
1 The following comments concerning the Ch'in dynasty's legal practices represent the
beliefs of Tung Chung-shu and other Han Kung-yang exegetes. They are not meant to
provide a historical reconstruction of Ch'in law. The claims of the Kung-yang scholars
suggest that the Huang-Lao policies sponsored by earlier Han rulers and officials did not
127
the other hand, Tung was committed to a particular Utopian vision of

community and confident that such an ideal could be realized. However,
it was first necessary to eradicate the excesses of Ch'in policies and
institutions. As he explained to Emperor Wu:
[The Ch'in rulers] taught the laws of Shen Pu-hai and Shang Yang and imple-
mented the theories of Han Fei. They despised the Way of [the Five] Emperors
and [the Three] Kings, so that greed and avarice became customary. They
possessed neither the cultural forms nor the inner virtue to educate and instruct
those below. They punished in accordance with names but did not investigate
realities. Those who had achieved goodness were not necessarily pardoned while
those who had committed evil were not necessarily punished. This was due to the
fact that the various officials all made a display of empty words with no considera-
tion for the truth. Outwardly they possessed the propriety of serving their ruler
while inwardly they harbored hearts set on defying him. They acted falsely,
plotted deceit, and pursued profit shamelessly. Moreover, [the Ch'in rulers]
were fond of employing harsh and cruel officials, exacting levies without limit,
and exhausting the people's wealth and labor. The people became destitute and,
unable to follow the occupations of farming and weaving, many resorted to
banditry. Thus, although those who suffered mutilating punishments and those
who were condemned to death were numerous, crime did not cease. The degra-
dation of their customs caused this to be so. This is why Confucius said: 'Guide
them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people
will stay out of trouble but have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep
them in line with the rites, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform
themselves.'2
The Ch'in government had failed on several accounts, but Ch'in legal
practices were particularly troublesome. Although Confucians had ear-
lier conceded that strict laws effectively limited criminal conduct, they
criticized the Ch'in emperors on the grounds that law alone cannot
ensure that human beings will develop their ethical propensities en-
dowed at birth. Committed to the moral transformation of self and
society, Kung-yang exegetes of the Han found that the Ch'in approach to
law was critically flawed precisely because it was confined to the realm of
human conduct and did not encompass issues of human motivation. It
did not address the central concern of the Confucian scholar, the ethical
propensities of the human heart.
In their exegesis of the Spring and Autumn, Tung Chung-shu and his
disciples also insisted that legality was not necessarily synonymous with
supersede Ch'in legal practices in substantial ways. Historians need to examine more
closely how and to what extent Huang-Lao policies transformed the Ch'in legacy. For a
discussion of Huang-Lao influence on Tung Chung-shu's thought, see Chapters 2, 4,
and 9.
2 HS 56/2510. The citation from Lunyii 3.2 follows Lau 1979, p. 63.
128
Reforming the Ch 'in laws
morality. They argued that morality and what the law sanctions and
immorality and what the law forbids do not always correspond. A person
who acted 'unlawfully' could be motivated by moral concerns, whereas
one who acted 'lawfully' could be prompted by immoral desires. They
also suggested that strict adherence to a code of inflexible laws regard-
less of circumstance often led people to act in ways that the law was
meant to prevent. Society was not always stable, particularly in times of
famine and war. Thus fixed laws could not account for all the changing
and conflicting moral choices motivating and confronting a human
being. Since Ch'in laws did not recognize these exigencies, they had
become a source of injustice and immorality.
In his role as minister of crime, Confucius was a prototype to be
imitated. Kung-y ang exegetes set out to demonstrate the comprehensive-
ness of Confucius's judgments and their appropriateness as a model of
and for morality. As a model of morality, the Spring and Autumn pre-
served Confucius's accounts of individuals who complied with or devi-
ated from Heaven's norms. As a model for morality, Confucius's
judgments provided precedents based not on the limitations of the law
but on a consideration of motivation and circumstance. His example,
preserved in the numerous judgments recorded in the Spring and Au-
tumn and filtered through the exegetical lens of the Kung-yang scholars,
served as a counterpoint to the Ch'in legal practices that continued to
enjoy significant influence in the early years of the Han. Determined to
reverse the trend, Tung Chung-shu urged Emperor Wu to reform the
Ch'in legacy:
Confucius said: 'A piece of rotten wood cannot be carved, nor can a wall of dried
dung be troweled.'3 Now Han has succeeded to the Ch'in legacy, which resem-
bles rotten wood or dried dung. Although you desire to improve and repair it,
how can it be done! Although laws are enacted, crime proliferates; although
orders are disseminated, deception increases. The situation resembles one who
tries to stop water from boiling by adding hot water or one who attempts to
extinguish a fire by bringing in wood. This simply makes matters worse, but to no
avail. It may be compared to a lute or a harp that has gone out of tune. In serious
cases it must be unstrung and restrung before it can be played again. Similarly
when government policies are enacted but they prove ineffective, in serious cases
it is necessary to change and reform them before they can be set in good order.
When one must restring and fails to do so, then even a gifted artist cannot make
the tuning good. When one must reform but fails to do so, then even a great and
worthy ruler cannot govern well. Therefore since Han obtained the empire it has
constantly desired to govern well, but up to the present day it has failed to
3 Lun-yu 5.10, Lau 1979, p. 77.

129
accomplish this because it did not reform when it was appropriate to do so. The
ancients had a saying: 'Looking down into the pond and coveting the fish does
not compare to retreating and weaving a net.' Now looking down at the govern-
ment and desiring to govern for more than seventy years does not compare to
retreating and instituting reform. Having instituted reform, it will be possible to
govern well. If the state is well governed, disasters will diminish day by day and
blessings will increase.4
Tung Chung-shu's desire to root out Ch'in influence and implement
reform shaped his exegesis of the Spring and Autumn, which he perceived
to be, on the one hand, the template through which to reconstitute his
vision of moral community and, on the other, the fertile ground on
which to articulate all the limitations of the Ch'in approach to ordering
human life. The legal authority the Spring and Autumn came to enjoy
during the Western Han derived from Tung Chung-shu and other ex-
positors of the Kung-yang Commentary who presented this work as an
authoritative source of norms that defined proper human relationships
and precedents that provided analogues for contemporary cases.5 A
defense of the traditional Confucian preference for moral suasion over
punishment and a desire to limit the ruler's power characterized their
efforts to reform Ch'in legal practices.6 These goals derived from their
conviction that both the law and the emperor must be subject to higher
principles of authority: the ultimate truths of Heaven embodied in the
sacred texts of the Confucian tradition.
Moral instruction versus coercive penalties

In the legal discussions of the day, scholars associated virtue with yang
and punishments with yin. Taking up these well-established correlations,
Tung Chung-shu argued that Heaven preferred yang and that analo-
4 HS56/2504-2505.1 am deeply indebted to A. F. P. Hulsewe, who read through an early

draft of this chapter and suggested numerous and detailed corrections to this translation
and the translations of legal cases that follow.
5 In addition to the Spring and Autumn, scholars derived legal precedents from the
Documents and Odes. Kung-sun Hung and Chang Tang, who rose to powerful positions
in the government under Emperor Wu, contributed significantly to these legal develop-
ments. The HS 'Biography of Chang Tang' relates that during Emperor Wu's reign,
when Chang Tang served as chamberlain for law enforcement, he selected students who
specialized in the Spring and Autumn and the Documents to assist the law clerks in settling
questionable legal cases. See HS 59/2639.
6 The Kung-yang scholar Kung-sun Hung also argued that strict punishments and penalties
could not reform the empire. He stated: 'I have heard that long ago, during the time of
Yao and Shun, ranks and rewards were not esteemed, and yet the people were urged to
goodness; no importance was attached to punishments and penalties, and yet the people
did not disobey.' HS 58/2615.
130
Reforming the Ch'in laws
gously sage government, which models itself on Heaven, should embody

a corresponding preference for moral suasion over punishment: 7
The greatest aspect of Heaven's Way lies in yin and yang. Yang constitutes virtue
and yin constitutes punishment. Punishment presides over death, while virtue
presides over life. Therefore yang always occupies the vast summer and devotes
itself to the matters of birth, growth, nourishment, and maturation. Yin always
occupies the vast winter and accumulates in vacant and useless places. From this
one can see that Heaven relies on virtue and does not rely on punishment.
Heaven causes yang to issue forth and circulate above, presiding over the
achievements of the year. Heaven causes yin to retire and lie below, occasionally
issuing forth to assist yang. If yang is not assisted by yin, it cannot complete the
year on its own. Ultimately, however, the completion of the year is designated by
yang. This is Heaven's intention. The king carries forth Heaven's intention in
the conduct of his affairs. Therefore he relies on moral instruction and does not
rely on punishment. Punishment cannot bring order to the age, just as yin
cannot complete the year. Those who rely on punishment to govern do not
comply with Heaven. This is why the former kings did not rely on punishment.
Currently you dismiss those officials who uphold the moral instruction of the
former kings while you rely solely upon those officials who rely on law to order
the people. Doesn't this indicate your intent to rely on punishment? Confucius
said: To punish those you have not first been instructed is cruel.' If cruel
governing is applied below, then even if you desire to spread your virtue and
moral instruction to all within the four seas, it will certainly be difficult to
achieve.8
Not unexpectedly, during the golden age of the past, laws were superflu-
ous, prisons were empty, and rulers governed the people through moral
instruction. Tung explained to Emperor Wu:
7 It should be noted that Tung was not the first to equate yin with punishment and yang
with virtue. The Shih-liu ching (Sixteen Constants) section of the Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-
shu also sets forth these correlations. However, many of Tung Chung-shu's writings
maintain a clear preference for virtue over punishment. For a more detailed discussion
of his cosmology and its relation to Huang-Lao thought, see Chapter 9.
8 HS56/2502. The ideas in this memorial echo those in CCFLchapter 43 (The Loftiness
of Yang and Lowliness of Yin'), where they are discussed in greater detail. For example,
Tung states: 'When yang first emerges, living things also begin to emerge. When yang
first flourishes, living things also begin to flourish. When yangfirstdeclines, living things
also begin to decline. Things emerge and retire in accordance with yang; numerical
categories begin and end in accordance with yang; and the rectification of the Three
Kings can only arise in accordance with yang.' Yen-Vieh lun chien-chu, chapter 54 ('On
Anomalies') also takes up this theme. An anonymous voice for the Kung-yangviewpoint
states: 'It is the Way of Heaven to love life and despise death; to love reward and despise
punishment. Therefore [Heaven] directs yang to reside in concrete places and to issue
forth virtuous activities, [Heaven] directs yin to hide away in vacuous places and to assist
yang. .. . This is why Heaven despises winter and honors spring, extends [the activities
of] yang and restrains [the activities of] yin. Thus the king faces south and listens to all-
under-Heaven. He turns his back on yin and inclines toward yang. He gives priority to
virtue and not punishment.' See CCFLJC 1 i/ga.
Why have Heaven and Earth not yet responded and auspicious signs not yet
appeared? It is because transformation through moral instruction has not been
established and consequently the people are not yet rectified. The people con-
tinue to seek after profit as water naturally tends toflowdownward. If you do not
rely on transformation through moral instruction to dam up this [tendency],
you will not be able to stop it. Hence, when moral instruction has been estab-
lished, evil and corrupt practices cease because the dikes have been perfected.
When moral instruction has been neglected, villainy and evil appear but punish-
ments and penalties cannot overcome them, because the dikes have deterio-
rated. The kings of antiquity understood this principle. Therefore when they
faced south and ruled the world, they all considered transformation through
moral instruction their most important undertaking. They set up institutions for
study in the country and created schools for transformation in the villages. They
saturated the people with humaneness; refined them with upright conduct; and
restrained them with ritual. Hence, the reason the prohibitions were not diso-
beyed although the punishments were light was because transformation through
moral instruction was practiced so that manners and customs became good.9
Conversely, rulers of decadent times relied on excessive punishments
and penalties to control the populace:
Yet by later ages [the Chou] became debauched and degenerate and could not
unify principles or unite the people. The feudal lords were defiantly rebellious,
and they ravaged the people in their struggles over territory. They abandoned
moral instruction and relied on punishments and penalties.10
Like his Confucian predecessors, Tung Chung-shu favored the trans-
forming influence of moral instruction and ritual over strictly legal
solutions. At the same time, he admitted that law was a necessary adjunct
to ritual although they functioned differently. This distinction was not
new, however, nor was it limited to the Kung-yang interpreters. In earlier
years the Han Confucian Chia I had distinguished law and ritual as
follows: 'Ritual acts to prohibit [evil] before it occurs. Law comes into
operation after [evil] has occurred.'11 Tung Chung-shu's contemporar-
ies, who contributed their ideas to the Huai-nan-tzu, also echoed this
widespread sentiment when they stated: 'What governing takes as its root
are humaneness and righteousness; what it takes as its branches are law
and regulations. . . . Law is created to supplement humaneness and
righteousness.'12 Tung Chung-shu further clarified their relationship:
If the decision of a legal case is correct, then inner principles [li\ will be further
clarified and moral instruction will be further enhanced. If the decision of a legal
case is incorrect, then inner principles will be obscured and the people will be
9 HS 56/2503-2504.
10 HS 56/2500.
11 7/548/2252. 12 HNT 20/356.
132
misled. Law and moral instruction will hinder one another. Instruction is the
root of government. Litigation is its branches. The realms over which each has
jurisdiction differ, although they are employed to the same end. They must
comply with one another. Therefore the noble man [Confucius] attached much
importance to them.13
What was new was the cosmological justification provided by Tung
Chung-shu. As we will see in greater detail in Chapter 9, by combining
yin-yang concepts with the older Confucian ideal of Heaven, Tung and
his disciples strengthened their efforts to demonstrate the preferability
of moral suasion over coercive measures. On the one hand, they argued
that the ruler must transform the people through moral instruction,
because Heaven, the ultimate model for the ruler, showed this very
preference. On the other hand, as the preceding citations demonstrate,
they maintained that the ruler ought to favor moral instruction, because
it was far more effective than law in the struggle against evil. Whereas law
was limited to redressing evil after it became manifest in an individual's
conduct, ritual and moral instruction directed the development of inter-
nal ethical values.
The righteous principles of the Spring and Autumn

Tung Chung-shu transformed pre-Han approaches to the Spring and
Autumn in several significant ways. It is characteristic of the Kung-yang
Commentary that the explanations in its various entries are independent
units of interpretation. Each stands alone without reference to similar
judgments found elsewhere. Although specific exceptions to general
principles are mentioned, they are not derived from a cumulative read-
ing of similar cases in the text but lie beyond the commentary as a set of
accepted exegetical principles. These principles are always introduced
by the set phrase, 'The Spring and Autumn does not generally record x,
why in this case does it do so?' In contrast, Han exegetes of the Kung-yang
Commentary considered several entries in relation to one another. By
comparing and contrasting its various 'cases,' they categorized and
cataloged Confucius's judgments, thereby deriving both precedents and
principles applicable to contemporary cases. They argued that there was
a methodology and a demonstrable consistency to Confucius's judg-
ments that underlay the seemingly numerous exceptions in the text. The
claim of consistency was critical to their argument that legal decisions
should be bound by the precedents and precepts of the Spring and
Autumn.
13
Equally important in their efforts to establish the Spring and Autumn as

the ethical standard with which to order the Han state, as we will see in
greater detail in Chapter 8, were the cosmological claims that Tung
Chung-shu and his disciples associated with the text. The one most
relevant to this subsequent legal discussion asserted that Confucius's
opinions embodied moral principles that human beings shared with
Heaven. What was at best only implicit and marginal in pre-Han inter-
pretations was both explicit and central in Tung Chung-shu's reading of
the text. He explained: T o love goodness and loathe evil, to cherish
honor and despise dishonor, these are not qualities that human beings
are able to generate on their own. They are qualities that Heaven be-
stows on human beings. The noble man [Confucius] judged human
beings according to these qualities that Heaven bestows on human
beings.'14 Throughout his writings, Tung Chung-shu maintained that
'the Spring and Autumn extends Heaven's bestowals and complies with
Heaven's inner principles.'15 One came to understand the applicability
and appropriateness of these principles through the context-specific
models of good and evil provided in the Spring and Autumn.16 How then
was this accomplished?
The early chapters of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu enumerate and clarify this
ethical dimension of the Spring and Autumn in their discussions of the
righteous principles of the Spring and Autumn {ch'un-ch'iu chih i).17 In the
preceding chapter we saw that in its broadest sense i denoted what was
moral or ethical. More specifically, it signified the code of norms or
standards that the earliest rulers of antiquity bequeathed to posterity
In this respect Tung sometimes employed the term li (rites, ritual,
14 CCFL 2/7^6.20-7^8.9.17.
15 Emending jen A to t'ien ^ following SPTKedition. See CCFL 2/6D.2.16-6D.3.2.
16 For a fuller discussion of Heaven's attributes and role in the realization of moral
community, see Chapter 8.
17 ^F^C^Ji. For example, CCFL 4/43.2.1-4b. 1.6 enumerates the following principles:
'The Son of Heaven sacrifices to Heaven and Earth. The feudal lords sacrifice to the
altars of the she and chi and only to the mountains and rivers within their territory.
When there is a Son of Heaven, the feudal lords must not usurp his right to distribute
land, to enfeoff, and to take others as captive. The great officers of the Son of Heaven
must not dance to the music of the Son of Heaven, must not transmit the poetry of the
Son of Heaven, and must not marry into the family of the Son of Heaven. The relatives
of a ruler must not plot against him. If they do, they must be executed. The great
officers do not inherit the tides and ranks of their ancestors. The great officers are not
granted the right to expel or instate a ruler. The establishment of sons of the principal
wife is based on seniority and not on considerations of worth. The establishment of
sons [other than the principal wife] is based on nobility and not on seniority. The
establishment of the wife is based on the principal wife and not on the concubine. The
Son of Heaven does not consider the family of his wife to be subjects. The Son of
Heaven cherishes those who are close to him and induces those who are distant to draw
propriety, rules of decorum) as a synonym for the term i When denoting

norms or standards, Tung Chung-shu designated some ching-i (immuta-
ble norms) or ching-li (immutable rites), which were inviolable and
unchangeable regardless of the circumstances one encountered. Still
others, those which he termed pien-i (mutable norms) and pien-li (muta-
ble rites), could be modified or transgressed due to the circumstances
one encountered. Thus some norms were constant and timeless whereas
others were alterable and contingent. But which norm was most appro-
priate to any given situation was also a matter of i, for it was determined
by an individual's sense of what was right, fitting, or suitable in a given
situation, /also indicated the idea of obligation and duty. It was the i or
duty of the historian, for example, to record the faults of the ruler.18
When speaking of self-cultivation Tung argued that i constituted one of
the basic principles of self-transformation; it designated 'what is appro-
priate to one's self.'19 When used to appraise an event, it functioned as
a 'didactic principle,' as Lau has explained. When employed to judge an
individual, it denoted a 'righteous decision,' as Legge and Watson have
suggested. Yet that decision derived partially from what Wallacker has
called the 'sense of justice' in the Spring and Autumn.
According to Tung and his disciples, Confucius never revealed the
righteous principles of the Spring and Autumn isolated from the specific
judgments to which he attached them. As we will see, Confucius derived
his opinions from these normative principles in relation to both motiva-
tion and circumstance. He did not praise or condemn based on conduct
alone but rather always in relation to the internal motivations and exter-
nal circumstances that shaped human conduct. If, according to the
rhetoric of the Kung-yang exegetes, Ch'in legal practices severed the
critical link between the name (form) and reality (substance) of human
conduct, Confucius's mode of judgment reestablished that crucial
connection.
Motive
In contrast to the Kung-yang Commentary, which devotes only a single
entry to the concept of intent, Tung Chung-shu argued that Confucius
near. He never fails to promote those who are close so as to summon those who are
distant. This is why he [first] considers his state as the interior and the states of the
feudal lords as the exterior, [and then] he considers the states of the feudal lords as the
interior and those of the / and Ti tribes as the exterior. This is what is meant by
beginning from what is near.'
18 See Watson 1958, p. 73.
19 CCFL 8/10^3.15-100.4.4.
135
always judged individuals based partially on the intention, motive, or aim

(chih) that prompted them to follow certain courses of action and avoid
others. 20 The following Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu passage that explains Confu-
cius's choice of terminology when describing the succession of Duke Yin
and Huan exemplifies this idea:
In Duke Huan's mind there was no king [who wielded authority over him].21
Therefore when [Confucius recorded his reign as lord], he did not write [the
term] 'king.'22 Duke Huan intended to establish himself as lord. Therefore
[Confucius] wrote 'acceded to the throne.' 23 He wrote 'acceded to the throne' to
indicate that Duke Huan assassinated his ruler and elder brother [Duke Ym]. He
did not write [the term] 'king' to indicate that [Duke Huan] had defied the Son
of Heaven. Therefore, in the case of Duke Yin, he did not employ [the term] 'the
first,'24 and in the case of Duke Huan, he did not employ [the term] 'king.' In
both cases he followed the dukes' intentions to reveal their undertakings. When
he followed the intentions of worthy people, he revealed their righteousness;
when he followed the intentions of unworthy people, he exposed their evil.
Looking at it from this perspective, we find that what the Spring and Autumn
praises is good and what the Spring and Autumn condemns is evil. Both aspects
must be considered.25
20 Tung most often employs the term chih J& to discuss the interior aspects of conduct.
But he also employs the terms i M and hsin Jk to denote the aims, intentions, or
motivations informing one's action.
21 Duke Huan did not intend to recognize the authority of the Chou king and receive
permission for his succession. Instead, he murdered his brother and installed himself
on the throne of his state.
22 Tung must be referring to the entry at Duke Huan 3.1, where the Spring and Autumn
omits the standard formula for chronicling the passage of time. Instead of the usual
phraseology, the third year, Spring, the King's first month, the Spring and Autumn
records, 'the third year, Spring, the first month.' The term 'king' has been omitted.
The Kung-yang Commentary does not note this omission, although Ho Hsiu (129-182)
takes it to be significant and writes that the Spring and Autumn here indicates that Duke
Huan acted as though there were no king. See Ch'un-ch'iu Kung-yang chuan Ho-shih
chieh-ku 4/6b. Su Yu suggests that Ho Hsiu is indebted to Tung Chung-shu for this idea.
23 The Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Huan 1.2 states: 'The succession to the title [va-
cated by] an assassinated prince is not [normally] indicated by the phrase chi wei. Why
does the Text use this phrase here? [In order to indicate that the proceedings] were in
accordance with Duke Huan's wishes.' Malmqvist 1971, p. 94.
24 Cheng (the first), refers to chengoi chengyueh (the first month), the standard formula of
the Spring and Autumn for chronicling the passage of time. This comment refers back
to the entry at Duke \ln 11.4: 'Why does the term chengyueh [the first month] not occur
in [the section of the Spring and Autumn devoted to] Yin? Ym intended to resign in favor
of Huan. Therefore the term chengyueh [the first month] is not used.' Malmqvist 1971,
p. 87. This statement is enigmatic because the phrase chengyueh does, in fact, occur in
the section devoted to Duke Ym in current editions of the Spring and Autumn. One can
only conjecture that it did not occur in the editions read by the Han Kung-yang scholars
whose discussion is preserved in this passage.
25 CCFL 3 / 3 a.4- 3 a.8.
136
Confucius did n o t j u d g e individuals according to the letter of the law.

W h e t h e r h e d e e m e d people guilty or i n n o c e n t was n o t d e t e r m i n e d
simply by w h e t h e r their actions complied with or deviated from the law.
Rather, Confucius considered w h e t h e r they were motivated by g o o d or
evil intentions. An unidentified spokesman for the Kung-yang viewpoint
cited in Yen-Vieh lun explained:
Law is dictated by human emotions. Accusations are not set forth to trap people.
Therefore, in judging cases, the Spring and Autumn considered the mental state
[of the accused] and established the offense. If the intentions [of the accused]
were good and they nevertheless disobeyed the law, they were pardoned. If the
intentions [of the accused] were evil and their actions nevertheless accorded
with the law, they were punished. 26
Following this principle, T u n g Chung-shu always gave greatest consid-

eration to the intentions of the accused w h e n d e t e r m i n i n g guilt or
i n n o c e n c e . In accordance with Confucius's example, h e insisted: Tf the
intent is n o t evil, release [the accused] without charge.' 2 7 T h e following
case from T u n g ' s legal c o m p e n d i u m exemplifies this a p p r o a c h . It begins
with a brief summation:
B, A's father, and C had an argument and fought one another. C took his belt-
knife and stabbed B. Thereupon A took a stick to strike C and accidentally
wounded B (his father). How should A be judged? 28
An a n o n y m o u s o p i n i o n follows:
Someone states: A beat his father. The case warrants that he be executed and his
head exposed.
This j u d g m e n t does n o t consider the internal dimensions of the crime.
T h e statutes regarding a son beating a father provide sufficient g r o u n d s
for j u d g i n g the case. T u n g , however, objected:
I humbly submit that the [relationship between] father and son is the most
intimate [of all human relationships]. There is no son who, on hearing that his
father is fighting, is not stricken with fright. A took up the stick to save B. He did
not do so with the desire to abuse his father. A principle of the Spring and Autumn
[is provided by the following example]. Hsu Chih's father was ill. Hsu Chih gave
him medicine and his father died. The noble man [Confucius] considered his
original intention, pardoning him without punishment. A's case does not corre-
26 Yen-t'ieh lun chien-chu 55/57.

27 PTSC 44/ ib.
28 The practice of substituting celestial stems for the names of actual persons involved in
a particular suit goes back at least to Ch'in times. For Ch'in examples, consult the cases
translated in Group E of Hulsewe 1985, pp. 183-207.
137
spond to what the statutes define as 'beating one's father' and does not warrant
adjudication.29
Tung set forth an elaborate argument against the judgment. Not only
did he explore, in great detail, the motivations of the son accused of
beating his father, but he also cited a judgment from the Spring and
Autumn to support his views. A closer look at discussions of Hsu Chih
from the Kung-yang Commentary and the Ch yun-ch 'iu fan-lu sheds further
light on how Tung constructed his analogy from the Spring and Autumn.
The Kung-yang Commentary contains several general exegetical princi-
ples that explain Confucius's choice of vocabulary and his correspond-
ing moral disapproval of violent crimes recounted in the Spring and
Autumn. In the case of assassinations, for example, 'the Spring and Au-
tumn does not record the burial of an assassinated feudal lord unless the
assassin has been punished,' because 'the Spring and Autumn considers
that unless this has been done there are no [true] subjects and sons.' 30
When ministers assassinated other ministers, ' [the Spring and Autumn]
refers to them as commoners [jeri].'31 When a feudal lord assassinated a
minister, the text refers only to the lord's state to indicate the assassin, 32
but when a minister assassinated a feudal lord, it refers to him by his
surname. 33
The first principle, that of omission, bears directly on the court case
under discussion. Duke Chao 19.2 notes that 'Chih, the heir of Hsu,
assassinated his ruler Mai.' Three entries later Duke Chao 19.5 records
the ruler's burial without indicating that the assassin had been punished.
Yet, according to the principle set forth in the earlier passage, Confucius
recorded the burial of assassinated lords only when the assassin had been
punished. The Kung-yang Commentary addresses the inconsistency in the
following manner:
Since the assassin had not yet been punished, why does the Spring and Autumn
record the burial? It did not amount to an assassination. Why so? Chih presented
medicine and the medicine killed [his father]. If so, why does the Spring and
Autumn use the term 'assassinate' in this context? In order to criticize Chih for
not having fulfilled all his duties as a son... . Chih presented medicine and the
medicine killed [his father]. Therefore the noble man used the term 'assassi-
nate' in this context, stating that Chih, heir of Hsu, assassinated his ruler Mai.
This [entry] was the noble man's verdict in the case of Chih. [The entry] 'There
29 Ch'un-ch'iu chiieh-shih 31 /2b—3a. My translations have benefited from a comparison

with those of Arbuckle 1987 and Wallacker 1985.
30 Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuan yin-te 22/Yin and 11/4 Kung.
31 Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuan yin-te 173/Wen and 16/7 Kung.
32 Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuan yin-te 97/Hsi; 7 / 3 Kung; 137/Hsi; and 3 0 / 4 Kung.
33 Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuan yin-te 172/Wen and 16/7 Kung.
138
was the burial of Duke Tao of Hsu' signifies that the noble man pardoned Chih.
This phrase 'pardoned Chih' is an expression implying that Chih was exempted
from guilt.34
The Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu discusses Hsu Chih together with the Chin
minister Chao Tun. 35 Duke Hsuan 2.4 records that 'Chao Tun of Chin
assassinated his ruler I-kao.' When Chao Tun's name reappears at Hsuan
6.1, the Kung-yang Commentary explains that once the Spring and Autumn
records an assassination, the assassin does not reappear in later pas-
sages.36 Again the Kung-yang Commentary addresses what appears to be an
inconsistency between a general exegetical principle in the Spring and
Autumn and its application to a specific instance of assassination:
Chao Tun assassinated his ruler. Why does he reappear here? Chao Ch'uan was
the one who with his own hands assassinated the ruler. Since this was so, why
does the Spring and Autumn lay the blame for this deed on Chao Tun? [Chao
Tun] did not punish the assassin. Why is it said that he did not punish the
assassin? The historian of Chin recorded the crime as follows: 'Chao Tun of Chin
assassinated his ruler I-kao.' Chao Tun said: 'Oh, Heaven! I am innocent! I did
not assassinate the ruler.'37
The Ch 'un-ch yiu fan-lu passage restates the general principles governing
assassination from the Kung-yang Commentary:
When the ruler is assassinated and the assassin is punished, the Spring and
Autumn considers this to be good and records the event. If the assassin is not
punished, then the burial of the ruler is not recorded and the assassin does not
reappear [in subsequent entries]. The burial is not recorded [when the assassin
is not punished], to indicate that the Spring and Autumn considers that there are
no [true] ministers and sons. The assassin [who is not apprehended] does not
reappear [in subsequent entries], to indicate that it was suitable that he be put
to death.38
Like the Kung-yang Commentary, this Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu passage distin-
guishes general principles in the Spring and Autumn and specific excep-
34 Adapted from Malmqvist 1971, p. 203.

35 It is interesting to note that the CCFL discussion linking these two figures may very well
be indebted to the Ku-liang rather than the Kung-yang Commentary. The closing lines of
the Ku-liang Commentary at Duke Hsuan 2.4 state: 'In [this case involving Chao] Tun
may be seen the extreme [demands that the Spring and Autumn places on] loyal
ministers. In [the case of] Chih, the heir of Hsu, may be seen the extreme [demands
that the Spring and Autumn places on] filial sons.' Malmqvist 1971, p. 181.
36 The Spring and Autumn and the Kung-yang Commentary do not preserve an explicit
statement of this general principle. However, Hsuan 6.1 assumes the principle that a
named assassin does not reappear in later passages when it questions the reappearance
of Chao Tun.
37 Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsuan 6.1.
38 CCFL 1 /9b. 1.16-9D.3.17.
tions: 'Now Chao Tun assassinated his ruler, and yet four years later he
reappears in another entry. This is not the standard phraseology of the
Spring and Autumn.'™ The passage continues: 'Scholars of the past and
present have raised different questions concerning this matter. Some
say, 'This is a case of assassinating a ruler. Why then [does the assassin]
reappear?" Others say, "The assassin has not yet been punished. Why
then is the burial of the ruler recorded?"' Tung responded:
[If] the reappearance of Chao Tun causes us to raise questions and discern that
he did not personally murder his ruler but he should be put to death, and if the
reference to the burial of Duke Tiao causes us to raise questions and discern that
he should be punished for the crime of regicide, then the theories of the Spring
and Autumn would be chaotic. Who could emulate them? Thus, if you connect,
compare, and discuss them, although difficult to distinguish right from wrong,
you will discover that the righteousness [of these two cases] is identical.40
Both the Kung-yang Commentary and the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu assume that
the general rules of Confucius's judgments were revealed by word choice
and that specific variations or exceptions to these general rules were the
source of ethical ideals. For Tung Chung-shu, these exceptional cases
were the key to understanding the fundamental import of the events
recorded by the sage. Tung attempted to persuade his students that the
inconsistencies they raised only appeared to be so. By showing them
that the text was not contradictory, he extracted the hidden principles
that Confucius employed in his judgments. In this case, for example,
Tung argued that the principle was the righteousness motivating Chao
Tun. Thus by understanding the intent of the actors, one ultimately
comprehended Confucius's normative evaluations. Tung Chung-shu
explained:
The Odes states: 'What other human beings possess in their hearts, I can measure
by reflection.' This indicates that all events have their counterparts. By observing
the external facts of an event, one can see what lies within. Now if we look into
the actions of Tun, and observe his heart, [we find that] his original intention
was not criminal. What lay within his heart was not the counterpart to regicide.
We can also examine what Tun said when he called out to Heaven. If his heart
were not sincere, then how could he act in this way? Therefore if we follow his
actions from beginning to end, we find that he did not intend to commit
regicide. If he is to be labeled with an evil [deed], his error was not to go beyond
the border [and absolve himself of allegiance]. His crime was not to punish the
assassin. It is proper for a minister to punish an assassin on behalf of his ruler,
just as it is proper for a son to taste medicine on behalf of his father. The son
39 # # « £ # » & . CCFL i/9b. 4 .2i-9b. 5 .6.

40 CCFL i/gb.8.7-ioa.2.17.
140
[Hsu Chih] did not taste [his father's] medicine and consequently [Confucius]
increased [the crime to] parricide. The minister [Chao Tun] did not punish the
assassin and consequently. [Confucius] increased [the crime to] regicide. Their
intentions were identical. This is how Confucius showed all-under-Heaven that
the evil of abandoning the correct relations between the ruler-minister and
father-son is as significant as this.41
According to Tung, even though the law held that regicide and parri-
cide were punishable by death, one must not necessarily conclude that
Hsu Chih and Chao Tun should have been executed. The Kung-yang
Commentary is quick to point out that, on the one hand, 'Confucius
pardoned Hsu Chih' and, on the other, it was 'Chao Ch'uan who with his
own hands assassinated the ruler.' Tung argued that in these two in-
stances Confucius did not follow the letter of the law. Instead, he inten-
tionally magnified the crimes of Hsu Chih and Chao Tun to call
attention to the principles and values that are proper for those who
partake of the father-son or ruler-minister relationship.
In a case involving a widow who remarried, Tung Chung-shu again
determined his judgment based on the intent of the accused. As in the
preceding citation from the Chih-yu, the case begins with a summary of
the offense:
A's husband B, while on board a ship, ran up against heavy winds. The ship sank;
B drowned and was never buried. Four months [later], A's mother C arranged
that she be married. How should both be judged?42
Someone's judgment follows:
A's husband died and was not yet buried. [In such a case] the law does not
permit remarriage. A was motivated by selfish considerations to once again
become a wife. The case warrants that she be executed in the marketplace.
In this case the anonymous judgment derives from a strict reading of the
legal statutes supported by the claim that selfish concerns motivated the
accused. But Tung argued:
I humbly submit that a righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn [is provided
by the phrase] 'the wife returned to [the state of] Ch'i.'43 It expresses the view
that when a husband dies and there is no son, it is proper to remarry. The wife
did not manipulate the regulations to serve personal ends,44 nor is she guilty of
41 CCFL i/iob.2.4-iob.9.7.
42 Based on the comments that follow, it appears that the summation of the case was
originally longer, including comments regarding the widow's motives.
43 This phrase appears in the Spring and Autumn at Duke Wen 18.7. The Kung-yang
Commentary does not comment on this passage.
44 The term employed is chuan chih (#$!]), a difficult phrase to render concisely
in English; Arbuckle translates it as 'to set the rules to suit herself.' For his discussion
141
selfish and unrestrained conduct. She was obedient and compliant. [In this
case], 'to remarry' is analogous to the term 'to return.' Furthermore, it was a
superior who was responsible for A's remarriage. A did not harbor any licentious
intentions. This is not a case of marrying for selfish reasons. Those who are clear-
minded in deciding court cases will unanimously maintain that [her intentions]
do not correspond to the crime. The case does not warrant adjudication.45
Whereas the anonymous judgment derives from the legal statute con-
cerning the remarriage of widows, Tung's judgment looks to an entirely
different source of authority, the Spring and Autumn. Tung's supposition
here, as in the legal case cited earlier, is that guilt requires proof of
intent. Even if Tung were willing to accept the anonymous judgment
that remarriage in this instance was a crime, because the accused did not
intend to violate the law but simply complied with her mother's request,
guilt did not necessarily lie with the accused. In the earlier case, Tung
argued that although a son had beaten his father, the son had intended
to defend him. Similarly, in this case Tung reasoned that since the
woman did not remarry out of personal considerations, but rather with
the righteous intent of complying with the wishes of her superior, the
intent did not match the crime. Tung's legal argument is quite clear:
Cases must not be judged by one's conduct alone; it is significant only
insofar as it illuminates the intent of the accused.
This principle of judgment is well illustrated in the following passage
from the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu. The discussion centers on two pairs of indi-
viduals in the Kung-yang Commentary, each of whom committed the same
offense, but who warranted different punishments. The two officers,
Feng Ch'ou-fu and Yuan T'ao-t'u, committed the crime of 'deceiving the
commander of a troop of forces.' The two ministers, Ch'ing-fu and Ho-
lu, were said to be guilty of 'assassinating their lords.'46 Tung explained:
When settling cases, the Spring and Autumn takes the facts as the basis for probing
the origins of the intent.47 When the intent is evil, it does not wait for the evil
intent to come to fruition in an evil deed, before passing judgment. The initiator
of an evil deed receives the heaviest penalty. [Those whose intentions] are origi-
nally upright are judged with a light penalty. Thus the crime of Feng Ch'ou-fu
warranted decapitation while it was not proper to capture Yuan T'ao-t'u.48 Chi-
of the different connotations of the term chuan, see Arbuckle 1987.

45 Ch'un-ch'in chueh-shih 31/3a. See also Wallacker 1985, p. 65.
46 This discussion also illustrates how Han Kung-yang exegetes read across the Spring and
Autumn, categorizing separate instances of similar offenses.
47 #lfc;2:IKRt&#KiWlS&ife. CCFL 3/9^3.1-9^3.14.
48 According to the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Ch'eng 2.4, Feng Ch'ou-fu of Ch'i
intentionally deceived the leader of the Chin forces in the hope that Duke Ching would
escape from the enemy surrounding them. After the duke fled, Ch'ou-fu was decapi-
142
tzu of Lu banished Ch'ing-fu, while Chi-tzu of Wu pardoned Ho-lu.49 In these

four cases, the crimes were identical but the judgments differed because the
basis [of their intentions] differed.50 In the cases where the leader of an army was
deceived, in one instance [the accused] died and in the other instance [the
accused] did not die. In the cases where the ruler was assassinated, in one
instance [the accused] was punished and in another instance [the accused] was
not punished.51
Tung assumed that legal judgments cannot be correct if they are con-
fined to the external facts of a crime. As the remnants of Ch'in law seem
to indicate, earlier legal practitioners sought to provide a comprehensive
legal code that could account for all the external variables of crime. 52
According to the Kung-yang theorists, however, the burden of a correct
judgment lies in the sphere of intent. The jurist must consider the
relationship between motive and conduct; guilt and innocence cannot
be determined by conduct alone. As this discussion of the Kung-yang
Commentary illustrates, conduct and intent {hsing-i), outer form and
inner substance (wen-chih), name and actuality (ming-shih) may diverge
from one another.
Two additional legal cases demonstrate the extremes to which Tung
Chung-shu was willing to carry the idea of intent. The first case reads:
A had a son B whom he entrusted to C. B was raised to adulthood by C On one
occasion, his face flushed with intoxication, A confessed to B: 'You are my son.'
B was angered and beat A with a staff twenty times. Since B was originally his son,
A could not overcome his anger and reported him to the prefectural officials.
Tung Chung-shu judged the case stating: 'A sired B. He was unable to raise him
tated for the offense of deceiving the commander of the three armies. Yuan T'ao-t'u
appears at Duke Hsi 4.5 where the Kung-yang Commentary maintains that it was not
proper to capture him because the captor had not yet ordered his troops. Tung appears
to be reading new meaning into these passages.
49 The Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Min 2.3 explains that Chi-tzu of Lu did not execute
the assassin Ch'ing-fu but banished him. Chi-tzu reduced the crime because the two
men were relatives. The Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsiang 29.8 explains that Chi-
tzu of Wu pardoned Ho-lu for assassinating his elder brother in a succession crisis.
According to the Kung-yang Commentary, reluctant to set a poor example for his sub-
jects, Chi-tzu explained: 'You killed my elder brother. If I in turn were to kill you, then
fathers and sons, elder brothers and younger brothers, would continue to kill one
another in an endless sequence.' Apparently Tung's reading of the text departs from
the Kung-yang Commentary here.
50 There are really two pairs of identical cases discussed here. Yuan T'ao-t'u and Feng
Ch'ou-fu both were said to have cheated the commander of an army, while Ch'ing-fu
and Ho-lu assassinated their lords.
51 CGFL3/9a.3.i5-9a.7.7.
52 See Hulsewe 1985. This book contains translations of Ch'in laws and regulations found
in December 1975 in the coffin of tomb no. 11, one of a group of graves discovered in
the Shui-hu-ti area of the Hsiao-kan District, Yun-meng Prefecture, central Hu-pei
Province.
and entrusted him to C. A had already severed the obligations binding father and
son. Although B beat A, B does not warrant adjudication.'53
In what may very well have been an unprecedented legal decision, Tung
argued that the biological relationship between father and son could be
severed voluntarily and that, in such cases, the laws that dictate the
father-son relationship no longer applied. In handing over his son to
another to raise him to adulthood, A had abrogated the obligations (i)
binding father and son. Consequently B could not be tried for the crime
of striking his father since he had long ago ceased to be A's son.
Tung also argued that if by his own volition a man adopts a boy and
raises him as a son, he has by his intention and conduct constituted the
father-son relationship. Therefore the laws pertaining to fathers and
sons are applicable to such a person. The Chih-yii recounts:
At the time there was a problematic case.54 The case stated that A was without a
son. By the side of the road, he came upon an abandoned baby boy B. He raised
him as his son. When the boy reached adulthood he committed the crime of
murdering a man. He related the circumstances to his father A, and A hid B.
How should A be judged? Tung Chung-shu decided [the case] stating: 'A had no
son. He rescued and raised B. Although A did not sire B, for whom would he
have exchanged B? The Odes states, 'The moth generates its young, but the wasp
sustains them.' It is a righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn that the father
conceals the son from the law.55 A was right to conceal his son and does not
warrant adjudication.'56
In these two cases Tung indicates quite clearly that the father-son rela-
tionship is brought into existence when a father intends to act as a father
and a son intends to act as a son. In both cases, it is a matter of internal
attitude and external conduct. In the first case, the father's conduct
demonstrated his intentions to end his relationship with his son, while in
the second case the accused voluntarily entered into the father-son
relationship when he gave an abandoned boy a home and raised him to
adulthood. When judging cases, one applies the legal statutes regarding
the father-son relationship only when it is possible to prove that the
parties involved truly constituted such a relationship. Such a judgment
must be based on an assessment of the intent and conduct of the parties
53 Ch 'un-ch 'iu chileh-shih 31 /1 a.

54 MM>. This expression denoted a problematic case that could not be resolved at the
lower levels of the bureaucracy and was consequently sent up to the central govern-
ment to be judged.
55 The Spring and Autumn and the Kung-yang Commentary do not refer to this principle. It
appears in Lunyii 13.18.
56 Ch'un-ch'iu chueh-shih 31/ia. In translating this case and the one that immediately
follows I have benefited from Wallacker 1985, pp. 63-65.
144
involved, for, according to Tung, this is the true basis not only of the
father-son relationship, but of all human relationships as well.
Humaneness
A n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t c o n c e p t that shaped T u n g Chung-shu's interpreta-
tions of t h e Spring and Autumn was t h e principle of h u m a n e n e s s (jen).
Following t h e Kung-yang Commentary, T u n g a n d his disciples a r g u e d that
personal c o m m i t m e n t to h u m a n e n e s s was o n e of the highest ideals to b e
realized by an individual. Although they subscribed to a hierarchical
view of social relationships a n d they p e r p e t u a t e d t h e duties a n d respon-
sibilities that defined t h e five relationships - ruler-subject, father-son,
husband-wife, b r o t h e r - b r o t h e r , a n d friend-friend - they d i d n o t simply
reconfirm t h e power of t h e superior over t h e subordinate. Complying
with t h e orders of o n e ' s superior was an i m p o r t a n t principle of t h e
Spring and Autumn,57 b u t so too was individual moral autonomy. In fact,
Kung-yang exegetes a r g u e d that beyond t h e duties prescribed by t h e five
relationships lay a higher allegiance to h u m a n e n e s s . W h e n confronted
with a choice between these two obligations, t h e answer was unequivocal:
'Faced with [an opportunity to practice] h u m a n e n e s s , d o n o t yield to
your c o m m a n d e r . ' 5 8 O n e case from t h e Chih-yii recounts a minister
confronting this very choice:
A prince was hunting and captured a fawn. He ordered his minister to take up
the fawn and return with it. On the way home, the minister noticed that the
fawn's mother was following him and whining. He was moved to release the
fawn. [Upon discovering this] the ruler was angered. The [minister's] crime was
under discussion and had not yet been determined when the ruler fell ill.
Fearing that he would die, the ruler wished to entrust his young son [to some-
one's care]. He recalled the minister and exclaimed: 'How humane is the
minister! He encountered a fawn and treated it with compassion, how much
more is this the case with regard to other human beings.' He released the
minister and entrusted his son to him. What opinion should be upheld? Tung
Chung-shu stated: 'The nobleman does not take young animals or eggs. The
minister did not protest when ordered to take the fawn home. This was contrary
to righteousness. Nevertheless, in the midst of carrying out his orders, he was
moved by the fawn's mother and demonstrated his compassion. Although he
disregarded his ruler's order, it is permissible that he be transferred.' 59
57 See, for example, CCFL i5/6a.i.i-6b.2.i2 and 15/6^5. i3-7a.g. 19.

58 ^ t ^ F ^ ^ & i p . Tung Chung-shu cites this phrase from Lun-yii 15/36 in an abbreviated
fashion at CCFL 2/4b. 1.1-4b. 1.6.
59 Ch'un-ch'iu chueh-shih 31/ib. Arbuckle has pointed out that the term hsi is somewhat
ambiguous, referring either to the fact that it was permissible according to law to exile
the minister or to the fact that in Tung's judgment it was permissible for the ruler to
In this case, Tung reasoned that the minister's first responsibility was to
criticize his ruler, who had failed to act humanely. In this sense, the
minister was wrong. Subsequently, however, the minister was moved by
his compassion for the animal's mother and showed humaneness for the
animal despite the fact that this meant defying his ruler's orders. Tung
supported the ruler, who recognized the minister's show of humaneness
and decided to release him and lighten his sentence. Ultimately Tung
supported the primacy of the minister's allegiance to humaneness, be-
yond the normative allegiances that bound one as subject to a human
sovereign.
The Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu explores this idea in greater depth in a discus-
sion of the Ch'u minister Ssu-ma Tzu-fan. According to the Kung-yang
Commentary, King Chuang of Ch'u once besieged a city in the state of
Sung and sent his brother Ssu-ma Tzu-fan to spy out the conditions of
the enemy. When he crossed the border, the Ch'u minister spoke with
an officer of Sung who frankly informed him of the dire circumstances
within the city: The population had been driven to cannibalism. Ssu-ma
Tzu-fan then promised the Sung officer that his forces would retreat in
seven days if a victory had not been won. Upon returning to Duke
Chuang, Ssu-ma Tzu-fan informed him of the pact and persuaded him to
give up the fight. The Kung-yang Commentary concludes that Confucius
magnified this event to praise Tzu-fan, by recording that men from Sung
and Ch'u established peace.60
In the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu an anonymous interlocutor questions Confu-
cius's praise for the Ch'u minister, given the fact that he appeared to be
guilty of two serious offenses cited elsewhere in the Kung-yang Commen-
tary, 'usurping power inside [the state] while acting without the author-
ity granted one's title outside [the state].' 61 Tung responded:
Because Tzu-fan possessed compassion rooted in empathy, he could not bear to
starve the people of the [Sung] state and cause them to eat one another. Those
who extend their compassion to distant places are great; those who naturally act
humanely are good. Now Tzu-fan's heart was aroused, and he pitied the people
of Sung without calculating his offense. Thus [the Spring and Autumn] magnified
this event.62
Ssu-ma Tzu-fan was worthy to be emulated on two accounts. He ex-
tended his compassion to those who were distant from him in terms of
transfer him to the post of tutor. In either case the harsher punishment usually
associated with the crime of disregarding the ruler's command is reduced because of
the minister's humaneness.
60 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsuan 15.2.
62 CCFL 2/3a.74-3a.g.2o.
146
both blood and geography. It is easy to show compassion for those

closest to us - relatives, friends, and neighbors - but the truly great
person is able to extend that sense of personal compassion to the
stranger from a distant land. The Ch'u minister also made a spontane-
ous show of his personal sense of humaneness toward the people of Sung.
Ssu-ma Tzu-fan's motives were not colored by considerations of how his
ruler would treat him, nor was it a matter of weighing the circumstances
and choosing between various ethical choices in conflict with one an-
other, as in the principle of expedience (ch 'uari) to be discussed later.
On the contrary, Tung argued, Ssu-ma Tzu-fan did not choose at all. So
authentic was his sense of humanity that he simply could not bear to see
others suffer.63 Similarly, the minister in the previous case defied his
ruler's orders because he was spontaneously moved to extend his com-
passion to another living thing.
These discussions, which defend the moral autonomy of the indi-
vidual and praise those who act out of a personal sense of humanity
rather than the obligations binding the ruled to the ruler or the subject
to his lord, indicate that Tung Chung-shu advocated a number of norma-
tive values that challenged, rather than reconfirmed, the hierarchical
status quo. Although elsewhere Tung argued that subordinates were
obliged to respectfully follow the orders of their superiors, they were not
expected to carry them out blindly and uncritically.64 Nonetheless, the
most authentic instances of humanity did not involve reflection at all;
they were completely spontaneous. Certainly a scholar intent on simply
justifying and enhancing the autocratic powers of emperorship would
not articulate these kinds of historical arguments that ultimately sanc-
tioned greater autonomy and flexibility for the ministers and officers
who ran the bureaucracy of the Han empire.
Mutable and immutable norms

As a model for emulation, Ssu-ma Tzu-fan embodied some of the highest
ideals of the Kung-yang tradition. As an example of Confucius's judg-
ment, he provided a precedent for judging contemporary court cases.
This case highlights an important distinction made by Kung-yang
exegetes between righteous principles that cannot be changed and
those that may be altered due to circumstance.65 This distinction exem-
plified their desire to defend a mode of ethical conduct and judgment
63 One is reminded of the famous passage from Meng-tzu 2A/6.

64 See, for example, the first essay in CCFL chapter 70 ('Comply with Orders').
65 M. and M.
147
derived from a consideration of the external circumstances as well as the

internal motivations that determined an individual's conduct. How does
Ssu-ma Tzu-fan's case exemplify this distinction? The Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu
discussion continues with an objection. Unconvinced by the explanation
presented earlier, an unidentified person cites offenses found elsewhere
in the Kung-yang Commentary:
It is a standard of the Spring and Autumn that the minister should not show
concern for [other] feudal lords and policy decisions should not be determined
by the officers. Tzu-fan was a minister of Ch'u and yet he pitied the people of
Sung; this is a case of showing concern for their feudal lord. He did not submit
to his lord but made peace with the enemy; this is a case of policy decisions being
determined by a minister.66
The same anonymous speaker cites an analogous case from the Spring
and Autumn, which Confucius had criticized:
In the case of the alliance at Mou-liang, trustworthiness lay with the ministers,
but the Spring and Autumn criticized this, considering that they had usurped the
respect due the ruler.67 Here [in the case of Ssu-ma Tzu-fan] the peace [likewise]
depended on the ministers. This is also a case of robbing the ruler of his due
respect, and yet the Spring and Autumn magnified this event. This is what I am
questioning.68
Tung offered his rebuttal by continuing to discuss the theme of humane-
ness. This time, however, he related humanity to the distinction between
constancy and change:
The principles of the Spring and Autumn certainly include constancy and change.
The principle of change applies to unusual [circumstances], whereas the princi-
ple of constancy applies to usual [circumstances].69 Each is confined to its
respective category. They do not obstruct one another.70
Tung argued that Tzu-fan must be judged according to the principle of
change that presides over events occurring under unusual circumstances:
Currently what the philosophers refer to are in every case the constant [norms]
of all-under-Heaven. These are the principles of righteousness to which everyone
agrees. Tzu-fan's conduct changed in response to the turn in circumstances. His
66 CCFL 2/3^1.3-3^3.4.
67 In other words, the great officers trusted one another to uphold the covenants they
enacted.
68 CCFL 2/3D.3.5-3D.54.
69 An alternate rendering of this passage would be: 'When circumstances change, [the
Spring and Autumn advocates] employing [ritual principles that are] mutable; when
circumstances are constant [the Spring and Autumn advocates] employing [ritual prin-
ciples that are] immutable.'
70 CCFL 2/43.1.16-4^3.1.
148
was a righteousness cultivated in solitude.71 When the eyes are startled, the body
loses its composure; when the heart is startled, there are matters that are forgot-
ten. Such are the emotional responses of human beings. When one is inundated
with startling emotions, [the Spring and Autumn] grasps one's single act of
goodness and does not exhaustively [describe] one's mistakes. The Odes states:
'One who plucks greens and plucks cabbage does not judge by the lower parts.'72
This expresses my meaning.
Now when Tzu-fan went and observed the state of Sung, he heard that people
were eating one another. He was deeply startled and pitied them. The extreme
of an unintentional [act] lies here.73 It was because his heart was alarmed and his
eyes startled that he was moved to violate the constant rites. Rites approximate
humaneness. They refine one's inner substance and perfect one's body.74 Now
when people are forced to eat one another, humaneness is greatly lost. How can
one speak of manifesting the constant rites?75 At that moment [Tzu-fan was
endeavoring] to save their inner substance. How could he be distressed by
[concerns for] outer form? Thus it is said: 'Faced with [an opportunity to
practice] humaneness, do not yield [to your commander.]'76 This expresses my
meaning.
As for the wording of the Spring and Autumn, there is that which is referred to
as lowly, and that which is referred to as lower than lowly. Now, if there is the
lower than lowly, there is also the loftier than lofty. Yielding to a superior's
command is something that the Spring and Autumn esteems. Nonetheless, [Tzu-
fan] observed people eating one another and was startled by people preparing
one another as food. He rescued them and forgot to yield [to his commander].
The principles of the noble man [Confucius] included a sense of righteousness
that was loftier than submission. Therefore, when those explicating the Spring
and Autumn do not rely on the constant righteousness governing usual circum-
stances to question the great justice in changing precedents, they have nearly
mastered the righteousness of the Spring and Autumn.77
Contrary to what had been suggested, Tung argued that the Kao-liang
case did not parallel the Ssu-ma Tzu-fan case. The righteous principle of
constancy must preside over the former, whereas the righteous principle
71 Emending shu fr to tu ffl following Su Yu CCFLIC 2/6a.7.

72 Modified from Waley 1937, p. 100.
73 In other words, Tzu-fan's actions were spontaneous.
74 The whole comprises the proper balance of form and substance.
75 An alternate reading would be: 'It was because his heart was alarmed and his eyes
startled that he was moved to violate constant propriety. Propriety approximates hu-
maneness. It refines one's inner substance and brings one's person to completion. Now
when people are forced to eat one another, humaneness is greatly lost. How can one
speak of manifesting propriety?'
76 Tzu-fan is clearly faced with a choice between substance and form: acting out of his
inner sense of humaneness or following the command of his ruler.
77 CCFL 2/4a.3.2-4b-5.8. This distinction between righteous principles of constancy and
change is closely related to the constant propriety and the propriety of unusual circum-
stances distinguished in Tung's discussions of ritual. For more details, see Chapter 8.
of change must dictate judgment of the latter. When the circumstances

are unusual, judgments must be lenient: 'When one is inundated with
startling emotions, [the Spring and Autumn] grasps one's single act of
goodness and does not exhaustively [describe] one's mistakes.' With this
dramatic and moving account of Ssu-ma Tzu-fan, Kungyang exegetes
claimed that the Spring and Autumn possessed two standards of righteous-
ness that were applied according to the particular circumstances of an
event. Implicit in this discussion was the desire to set out a standard of
judgment that would give due weight to the changing circumstances that
shape one's conduct. The Ssu-ma Tzu-fan case provided a precedent for
pardoning actions that would normally be condemned. In this instance,
circumstance and motive combined to transform a lawless act into a
commendable one.
Discretion
The distinction between immutable and mutable norms appears in

another passage from the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu in connection with the con-
cept of discretion (chuari).78 Like so many other terms under discussion
in this volume, it is difficult to limit chuan to a single English equivalent.
Chinese encyclopedias most often equate it with the term shan, which
denotes acting on one's personal sense of responsibility without authori-
zation from a superior. In the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu the term carries both
negative and positive connotations depending on its application. When
applied appropriately to a particular circumstance, it denotes the justi-
fied exercise of personal discretion, initiative, or responsibility when
deciding a course of action. When applied inappropriately, it signifies
one who follows a course of conduct based on personal desires or goals
rather than the directives of a superior or out of concern for the com-
mon good. The following Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu passage explores Confucius's
judgments of officials who act on their own discretion. Tung argues
that its correct application is contingent on first arriving at an under-
standing of these two broad categories of righteousness. Without such an
understanding, many of the statements in the Kungyang Commentary
appear contradictory and absurd. The following question, raised by an
unidentified figure who has not yet grasped the distinction, is a case in
point:
The standards of the Spring and Autumn state: 'A great officer does not act
according to his own discretion.'79 'On a journey abroad, if an officer finds
78 * .
79 %£M. See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Chuang 19.3.
150
himself in a position to bring security or benefit to his state, then it is permissible

for him to act on his own discretion.'80 'A great officer leaves the state on account
of his ruler's orders, yet [the decision] to advance or retreat rests with the great
officer.'81 'On hearing of the burial [of a relative], one continues to advance and
does not return.'82 Now the Spring and Autumn states that a great officer does not
act according to his own discretion but it also states that it is permissible to act
on his own discretion. It states that [the decision] to advance or retreat rests with
the great officer but it also states that one must continue to advance and not
return. There appear to be contradictions. What may be called correct?83
Tung responded by delineating the circumstances under which it is
* correct' to exercise one's discretion. He began with the theoretical
considerations:
These four standards each have their appropriate context of application. If you
can grasp their appropriate context of application, then each is correct. If you
lose sight of their appropriate context of application, then each is incorrect. The
Spring and Autumn certainly possesses constant principles of righteousness. But it
also possesses principles of righteousness that are a response to unusual circum-
stances. The statement 'not to act according to one's own discretion' refers to
times of peace and tranquillity. 'That it is permissible to act on one's own
discretion' refers to times of danger and calamity. The statement 'the decision to
advance or retreat rests with the great officer' refers to a military commander
employing troops. 'To continue to advance and not retreat' refers to not harming
one's superior on account of one's relatives, not hindering the public on account
of the personal. This is what is meant by the expression 'When you are about to
exercise your personal discretion, be sure you understand the precepts.'84
He continued with examples from the Spring and Autumn to illustrate
these theoretical principles:
Thus when Kung-tzu Chieh received orders to escort a daughter of Lu to Cheng
as a companion to the wife of a man of Ch'en and initiated another undertaking
on the road by concluding a covenant with Duke Huan of Ch'i, the Spring and
Autumn did not condemn him because this rescued Duke Chuang from dan-
ger.85 When [however] Kung-tzu Sui received orders to act as an envoy to the
80 U. Ibid. 81 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsiang 19.

82 The Spring and Autumn at Duke Hsuan 8.2 states: 'In summer the sixth month, Kung-
tzu Chieh entered the state of Ch'i. When he arrived at Huang he returned.' The Kung-
yang Commentary states: 'Why does the Spring and Autumn state that he returned after
arriving at Huang? He was ill. Why does the Spring and Autumn state that he returned
on account of his illness? In order to criticize. What was there to criticize? A great
officer leaves the state on account of the orders of his ruler; when he hears of the burial
of a relative, he must continue to advance and not return.'
83 CCFL3/7D.4.1-7D.8.10.
84 CCFL 3/7D.8.1 i-8a.4.3.
85 Ho Hsiu explains: 'Before this the duke had attended neither the meeting at Chan nor
You. When Kung-tzu Chieh left the state, he encountered [the rulers of] Ch'i and
capital, and on the road initiated an event in Chin, the Spring and Autumn
condemned him, for at this time Duke Hsi was safe. There was no need to rescue
him from danger. 86
Tung concluded by explaining how each case illustrated the applicability
of righteous principles of constancy and change:
Therefore when danger exists, if one does not act on one's own discretion to
rescue [one's ruler], one is said to be disloyal. If, however, there is no danger and
one acts out of a personal sense of responsibility without the proper authority to
do so and initiates an undertaking, then this demeans the ruler. Thus if we
compare these two ministers who both initiated an undertaking, we find that in
one case the Spring and Autumn judged the minister to be right and in the other
case it judged the minister to be wrong. The righteousness of each minister
caused them to be judged in this way.87
In sum, Tung argued that officials must be allowed greater flexibility to

take actions that are not expressly authorized by the ruler; they must be
allowed to exercise their discretion or initiate an undertaking when the
circumstances warrant and should not be punished as a consequence.
Nonetheless Tung's attempt to renegotiate political authority and en-
hance the power of the officials had its limit. In times of peace, when the
ruler's life was not threatened, there was no need for his ministers to act
without the authority of the ruler, since he was in a position to wield that
authority given him by virtue of his position. When unusual circum-
stances arose, however, and the ruler's life or the state's security was
threatened, a minister was obligated to try to relieve the danger. This
precept is further qualified by the principle of expediency.
Expediency
88
Expediency (ch'iiari) encompassed the idea of properly weighing and
adjusting oneself to changing circumstances. Like the notion of intent,
Kung-yang scholars developed this principle to address the limitations of
Sung, who wished to make a profound scheme for attacking Lu. Therefore he feigned
that he acted on the duke's command and made a covenant with them. Thus he saved
his country from difficulties and preserved the lives of the hundred clans.' Malmqvist
P
86 CCFL 3/8a.4.4—8a.7.i4. Tung's explication departs from the Kung-yang Commentary.
The Spring and Autumn at Duke Hsi 30.8 states: 'Kung-tzu Sui entered the capital. He
acted on his own discretion and entered the state of Chin.' The Kung-yang Commentary
states: 'A great officer does not act on his own discretion. Why then does the Spring and
Autumn use the term sui [to act on one's own discretion] ? Duke Hsi was unable to hold
on to the reins of government.'
87 CCFL 3/8^7.15-8^9.13.
88 ff.
Ch'in legal practices. They emphasized intent to redress the Ch'in's

failure to consider the complex relationship between conduct and moti-
vation; they stressed expediency to remedy another area of jurispru-
dence they felt had been neglected: the circumstances under which
crimes occur. They recognized that, under certain circumstances, if
actions prescribed by the law were blindly carried out, they could lead to
greater evils than those the laws were meant to prevent. An inflexible
legal system that left no room for individual moral autonomy could give
rise to new abuses.
As I stated before, these exegetes believed that a fixed set of laws, no
matter how detailed, could never account for all the complex moral
choices that confronted the individual. Furthermore, circumstances of-
ten compelled a person to choose between conflicting moral allegiances.
In any given situation one might encounter various contending notions
of the 'good.' How was one to choose? The individual must be granted
the autonomy to exercise moral discretion and make the most expedient
choice. The principle of weighing different ethical norms and adjusting
one's conduct to suit a given situation was an ancient one. The Lun-yii
recognized that this ideal was difficult to implement correctly.89 The
most important pre-Han reference to this principle appears in the fol-
lowing passage from the Meng-tzu:
Shun-yu K'un said: 'Is it prescribed by the rites that in giving and receiving, man
and woman should not touch each other?' 'It is,' said Mencius. 'When one's
sister-in-law is drowning, does one extend a hand to help her?' 'Not to help a
sister-in-law who is drowning is to be a brute. For a woman and man, in giving
and receiving, not to touch one another is prescribed by therites.To extend a
helping hand to a drowning sister-in-law is expediency.'90
Like the Meng-tzu, the Kung-yang Commentary explains that expediency
implies that 'one eventually achieves goodness, although at an initial
stage one has acted contrary to constant standards.'91 It limits the circum-
stances under which it is permissible for a subject to exercise expedient
adjustment to those instances when 'the life of one's ruler or the preser-
vation of one's state is at stake.'92 It also explains, 'The one who practices
it may suffer personal losses, but no harm must come to others. The
noble man does not kill others to save his own life, nor does he destroy
the state of others to preserve his own.'93 As in the case of Tzu-fan, who
89 See Lunyii 9/30.

90 Translation modified from Lau 1976, p. 124.
91 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Huan 11.4.
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid.
was the paradigmatic model of humaneness, the Kung-yang Commentary

singled out the individual, Chai-chung, to exemplify this principle and
serve as a model worthy of emulation and one against whom to judge
others. 'When those of old possessed the ability to weigh and evaluate
circumstances, it was the ability of Chai-chung they possessed.'94
Why did Chai-chung earn the praise of Confucius? The Kung-yang
Commentary explains that when he served as a minister to the state of
Cheng, Chai-chung ventured into the state of Sung, where he was cap-
tured and threatened by the ruler of Sung. The Sung ruler commanded
Chai-chung to expel the ruler of Cheng, Hu, and replace him with Hu's
brother, Tu. The ruler of Sung believed that this change in leadership
would bring him many political advantages. If Chai-chung submitted to
the constant principles of righteousness and refused to obey the Sung
ruler's command, then his own ruler (Hu) would die and the state of
Cheng would perish. If, however, Chai-chung chose to exercise the
principle of expediency and obey the Sung ruler's command, his ruler
could remain alive, and his state could be preserved. Tf things were
allowed to take their course, Tu could definitely be expelled and Hu
could definitely be reinstated.' Most important, if such a plan ended in
failure, Chai-chung, not his ruler, would be disgraced. This case exempli-
fies, in every detail, the application of expedient adjustment as deemed
permissible by the Kung-yang Commentary.
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu discussions of this principle follow the Kung-yang
Commentary closely in both definition and application. They explain that
although expediency runs contrary to the constant norms, it necessarily
falls within the realm of acceptability.95 The principle condones the
potential exercise of deceit, but the practice of such deceit ultimately
lends support to higher norms.96 These immutable norms are the right-
eous principles of the Spring and Autumn that cannot be compromised
under any circumstance. The Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu equates them with the
4
great virtue' of the Lunyu, where there is no room for deviation. Muta-
ble norms, on the other hand, are identified with the 'small virtue' of the
Lun-yu\ those which can be compromised for the sake of other principles
that carry greater significance and importance in the hierarchy of moral
values set forth by Confucius.97
Applying the principle of expediency to cases in the Kung-yang Com-
mentary, the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu reconfirms that Chai-chung excelled at

95 * < t i | S I S f e # n H U * S ^ : « . CCFL 3/4^7.2-4^7.12.
96 fHMl<' ^lBZVJ^^.M^. CCFL
97 See Lun-yu 19/11.
weighing and evaluating circumstances and was therefore the most suit-
able model for emulation and the standard by which to judge analogous
cases. The following discussion, which compares Chai-chung to another
minister in the Spring and Autumn, elucidates the particular reasons why
Tung Chung-shu deemed Chai-chung the worthiest exemplar of this
principle. The passage begins with a question:
Feng Ch'ou-fu sacrificed his life to save his ruler. Why didn't the Spring and
Autumn permit that he understood expediency?98 Ch'ou-fu deceived [the state
of] Chin," and Chai-chung complied with [the demands of] Sung.100 Both
deviated from what was correct to preserve their rulers. However, what [Feng]
Ch'ou-fu accomplished was more difficult than what Chai-chung achieved. Why
is Chai-chung shown to be worthy while Ch'ou-fu is shown to be wrong?101
The inquirer argues that Chai-chung and Ch'ou-fu resemble each other
because they both defied the proper norms. Yet Ch'ou-fu confronted
circumstances that were far more dire than those faced by Chai-chung.102
Why then, the interlocutor asks, does Confucius praise Chai-chung but
condemn Ch'ou-fu? Tung explained:
This is a case where it is difficult to distinguish between right and wrong. This is
why it is necessary to examine cases that are deceptively similar to one another103
but are not identical with respect to their inner principles.104 When [a ruler]
abdicated the throne to avoid trouble with his brothers, the noble man [Confu-
cius] treated such cases with deep respect.105 When [a ruler] was captured and
fled, the noble man [Confucius] treated such cases with deep condemnation. To
save his ruler's life, Chai-chung placed him in that position which others respect.
Thus the Spring and Autumn considered that he understood expediency and
treated him as a worthy. To save his ruler's life, however, Ch'ou-fu placed his
ruler in that position which others disrespect. Thus the Spring and Autumn
considered that he did not understand expediency and treated him in an
abbreviated manner. They resembled one another in that both deviated from
98
99 Feng Ch'ou-fu deceived the commander of Chin to save his ruler, and thereby
committed the offense of 'cheating the leader of the three armies.' Duke Ch'eng 2.4
relates this incident.
100 According to Duke Huan 11.4, the state of Sung was so strong and Cheng so weak that
Chai-chung could preserve his ruler's life only by complying with the Sung demand to
put another in his place, meanwhile biding his time until he could restore his own
ruler to the throne. If unsuccessful, Chai-chung would bring disgrace upon his own
person.
101 CCFL 2/5^5.1-5^7.16.
102 The inquirer refers to the fact that the enemy surrounded both Ch'ou-fu and his
ruler, Duke Ching. Chai-chung, however, was taken captive while on a mission abroad.
103 $%ffi£l
104
105 This refers to the legitimate ruler of Cheng who, following Chai-chung's forced
compliance with the Sung demands, gave up the throne to his younger brother.
what was proper to save their rulers. But causing the ruler to be honored and
causing the ruler to be disgraced are not identical with respect to inner
principles.106
In exercising expediency, an official must be sure n o t to c o m p e l the
ruler to violate the constant n o r m s . H e must ensure that ' b e n d i n g the
rules' will n o t p r e c l u d e the ruler from fulfilling his responsibility as
living moral exemplar to his p e o p l e . Clearly w h e n the ruler's life is in
danger, the loyal minister is duty-bound to save him, b u t any a n d all
u n e x e m p l a r y behavior must fall o n the minister. T h e m o r a l purity of the
ruler must n o t be c o m p r o m i s e d at any cost. In addition, b e n d i n g the
rules can b e justified only if it is d o n e with the intention of realizing a
righteous principle. As T u n g explained:
Thus in all cases where human beings intervene, if they first deviate from what
is proper but later achieve righteousness, the Spring and Autumn refers to this as
hitting the mark of expediency.107 Even if they are unsuccessful, it praises
them.108 This is the case with Duke Yin of Lu and Chai-chung of Cheng. However,
if they first do what is proper, but later deviate from what is proper, the Spring
and Autumn refers to this as an evil course. Even if they are successful, it does not
cherish them. This is the case with Duke Ch'ing of Ch'i and Feng Ch'ou-fu.109
Why did Confucius praise Duke Yin a n d Chai-chung b u t c o n d e m n

Duke C h ' i n g a n d Feng Ch'ou-fu? Because the righteous goal of preserv-
ing the state so the rightful ruler would eventually r e t u r n to the t h r o n e
motivated Duke Yin of Lu a n d Chai-chung to d e p a r t from the constant
n o r m s . An earlier passage of the Kung-yang Commentary records that
Duke Yin of Lu deviated from the p r o p e r n o r m s of succession when h e
allowed himself to be established as ruler in his b r o t h e r ' s place. Accord-
ing to those n o r m s , the succession of sons n o t b o r n e by the principal
wife should b e based o n nobility a n d n o t seniority. Because Duke H u a n ' s
m o t h e r was n o b l e r than Duke Yin's, it would have b e e n p r o p e r to
establish Duke H u a n as the ruler. However, Duke Yin faced an unusual
set of circumstances. ' T h e great officers b r o u g h t Yin forward a n d estab-
lished h i m as ruler. If, u n d e r these circumstances, Yin h a d rejected
[their decision] to establish h i m as ruler, t h e n h e would have h a d n o
reassurance that H u a n [at a later stage] would be certain to b e estab-
lished as ruler.' 1 1 0 T h u s Duke Yin deviated from the p r o p e r course of
106 CCFL 2/5b.7.i7-6a.4.n.

107 I translate the expression chung ch'uan ( + W) as a verb-object phrase meaning,
literally, 'to hit the mark of expediency.'
108 Here again Tung argues that the Spring and Autumn judges individuals' intentions
regardless of the external outcome of their actions.
109 CCFL 2/6a.4.i2-6a.7.8.
110 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Yin l.i; Malmqvist 1971, p. 69.
156
succession with the expectation that in the future there would be an

opportunity to carry forth the righteous intention of installing his
brother as ruler. The passage continues: 'That Yin allowed himself to be
established as ruler was, to all intents and purposes, for the sake of
Huan.' 111 Unfortunately Duke Yin was murdered by his brother, Duke
Huan, before he was able to install him on the throne. 112 We have seen
that Chai-chung also deviated from the constant norms when he com-
pelled his ruler to abdicate in favor of the ruler's younger brother who
was backed by Sung. Like Duke Yin, he preserved the state and saved his
ruler's life, intending to reinstate the legitimate ruler when the opportu-
nity arose. And like Duke Yin, Chai-chung failed to realize his intentions
when Hu of Cheng was compelled to flee to the state of Wei.113 Because
Duke Yin and Chai-chung intended to realize a righteous principle,
Confucius praised them even though they were not able to succeed in
the end. In both cases the ministers did not challenge the ruler's honor,
because they never compelled him to compromise his integrity. When,
however, in the course of saving their rulers, ministers compelled them
to compromise their integrity, Confucius condemned them. Duke
Ch'ing of Ch'i and Feng Ch'ou-fu exemplified this principle.
The Spring and Autumn does not grant the ruler the personal preroga-
tive to compromise ethical norms to survive. The ruler, by virtue of his
position, must especially represent the norms that bind society. Even
more than the ministers below him, the ruler must be willing to die to
bring honor to his state. This is particularly true if remaining alive could
bring dishonor to the spiritual world of his ancestors and Heaven, those
to whom he is responsible in the moral hierarchy. Tung explained:
Ch'ou-fu deceived the commander of the Chin forces, committing a serious
offense against the state of Chin. In allowing Duke Ch'ing to escape, he caused
the ancestral temples of the state of Ch'i to suffer insult. Thus, although his
circumstances were quite difficult, the Spring and Autumn does not cherish him.
If Ch'ou-fu [had understood] the principles of righteousness, it would have been
proper for him to say to Duke Ch'ing: 'My ruler has acted negligently and
angered the feudal lords. You have lost all propriety. If today, upon suffering
such a great insult, you are unable to submit to death, this is shameless and will
double your offenses. Please let us die together so that the ancestral temples and
the altars of the state [of Ch'i] will not suffer insult.' If Ch'ou-fu had acted in this
way, although he would have given up his life, he still would have left behind
an honorable reputation. In this instance, death was worthier than life. This is
why, according to the noble man [Confucius], to choose life and suffer insult
111 Ibid.
112 See the Kungyang Commentary at Duke Yin 11.4.
does not compare with choosing death and achieving honor. This is what
'proper' refers to here.114
The discussions of expediency in the Kung-yang Commentary and the
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu make a subtle but significant distinction between the
preservation of the ruler and the survival of the state. The survival of
the state, 'defending the altars of the land and soil,' takes precedence
over the preservation of any particular ruler. Kung-yang exegetes argued
that in the most extreme cases, when the ruler was unable to preserve the
altars of his state either practically, by warding off the attacks of
neighboring states, or ethically, by defending the reputation of his ances-
tors from disgrace, the ruler must die with his state. It is in this context
that the Kung-yang Commentary and the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu maintained the
radical position: Tor the state to perish and the ruler to die are
proper.'115 Here again Kung-yang exegetes argued that Confucius's hier-
archy of normative values did not simply stop with the ruler. As in the
earlier discussion that posited humaneness as a focus of allegiance tran-
scending obligations to a particular ruler, they argued that loyalty to the
state must transcend allegiance to any particular ruler.
Dismissing charges because of a meritorious record

Determining a punishment commensurate with the crime committed is
particularly significant to resolving a legal case. We have seen that a
number of principles discussed by Kung-yang exegetes exemplify their
conviction that a just and fitting punishment could be determined only
if the pool of relevant 'facts' included the motivations informing the
accused. In the many instances of legal exegesis already examined, they
upheld an attitude of leniency regarding questions of punishment.116
They also argued that Confucius assessed a crime and determined pun-
ishment in light of the individual's past record. If it was characterized by
moral achievements, the accumulation of such a record could affect
Confucius's judgment of the particular transgression at hand. In fact,
Kung-yang exegetes maintained that under these circumstances Confu-
cius omitted mentioning the crime. Such was the case, for example,
when the small state of Hsiang was destroyed. The Kung-yang Commentary
explains that Duke Huan of Ch'i was responsible for this attack.
114 CCFL 2/60.7.14-7^3.21.

115 The Kung-yang Commentary to Duke Hsiang 6.8 and CCFL 2/6a.g.g discuss the princi-
ple in greater detail.
116 It is interesting to note that Tung Chung-shu idealized the 'symbolic punishments'
said to have flourished during the time of Yao and Shun. For a description of these
punishments, see Dubs 1944, 2: 123-125.
158
However, Confucius did not mention the state of Ch'i, deliberately

concealing Duke Huan's connection to the attack on account of his past
merit: 'Duke Huan often accomplished the meritorious acts of continu-
ing [the bloodline of] those who had been cut off and preserving those
who were about to perish; therefore the noble man [Confucius] con-
cealed [the present event] on account of these acts.'117 Exegetes identi-
fied this approach as the righteous principle of 'Dismissing Criminal
Charges Because of a Meritorious Record.'118
The emperor and his relations
Among the numerous righteous principles of the Spring and Autumn a

number of prescriptive dicta applied exclusively to the ruler and his
relatives. They denned what was appropriate for the ruler in various
matters ranging from imperial succession to ancestral worship.119 These
principles reveal the challenges of maintaining unity and the contradic-
tions inherent in the semifeudal structure of the Han political order.
Some strengthened the emperor's authority over his relatives, who were
a constant threat to unity throughout much of the Early Han, whereas
others limited and restricted his powers. Two such principles concerned
imperial relatives who committed offenses. The first called for the man-
datory execution of relatives who plotted rebellion. The Kung-yang Com-
mentary states unequivocally: 'The relatives of the ruler must not plot
[rebellion]. If they do, they must be executed.' The absolute impartiality
of this principle is striking, leaving no room to manipulate the law
for the sake of familial relations. Yet alongside this principle stood a
second and equally important dictum: 'The ruler ought to treat his
relatives with affection.' How could these two contradictory principles
coexist? One must first consider these principles in their scriptural
setting.
The principle dictating mandatory execution for relatives guilty of
plotting rebellion appears in the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Chuang
32.3, following an entry in the Spring and Autumn that records the death
117 See Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsi 17.2.

118 Wallacker translates the phrase i kung fu kuo lU^frSI^ as 'overriding [present]
transgressions on account of [past] merits.' Wallacker 1985, p. 67.
119 For example, when Empress Dowager Tou (Emperor Ching's mother) wished to
designate Emperor Ching's younger brother, Liu Wu, king of Liang, as his successor,
Yuan Eng and others at court relied on the authority of the Spring and Autumn to
persuade the emperor and empress to select Emperor Ching's son and not his
younger brother. See SC 58/2090—2092. In 40 B.C.E. officials who engaged in an
important debate concerning the imperial shrines also drew from the Spring and
Autumn to defend their positions. See HS 73/3115-3117.
159
of Ya, the son of Duke Huan. It explains that Ya did not die a natural
death but was poisoned by his brother, the minister Chi-tzu. Duke
Chuang was about to die, and Ya was already plotting to assassinate
Chuang's designated heir, Pan. Ya believed that the norms of succession
dictated that Duke Chuang should pass the throne to his younger
brother, Ching-fu, who was to inherit the throne on Pan's death. When
Ya had completed his preparations to assassinate Duke Chuang's heir,
Chi-tzu mixed a poisonous drug and presented it to Ya. He informed Ya
that his plans had been discovered but that if he drank the poisoned
wine, he would be spared the disgrace of state litigation. 'Of what does
[Confucius] approve in the case of Chi-tzu, who killed the duke's
brother?' The passage states: Tn accordance with the principles govern-
ing the relations between ruler and subject, one must not exclude one's
elder brother from a [justified] execution.' Why then did Chi-tzu poison
Ya rather than have him executed? The Kung-yang Commentary explains
that Chi-tzu commiserated with Ya and wanted to spare him the disgrace
of public execution by making it appear as if he had died a natural death.
It concludes that Chi-tzu's behavior exemplified 'the way to treat one's
relatives with affection.' This rather long excursus explicates two impor-
tant principles that influenced the administration of justice during the
Han. Chi-tzu's willingness to bear full responsibility for his brother's
death and punish his relatives who plotted assassination exemplifies
Confucius's judgment that the relatives of the ruler should not be ex-
empt from punishment if they commit offenses. At the same time,
however, Confucius allows those responsible for judgment some leeway
in determining how the punishment ought to be applied. Thus, the
principle that called for Ya's death was not compromised, while the
execution of the death sentence was mitigated.
Although this passage suggests that the norms defining the ruler-
minister relationship must not be compromised on the basis of familial
considerations, another entry suggests that the principle of showing
affection for one's relatives should take precedence over the norms that
dictate mandatory execution for rebellious relatives. Duke Min 1.1 ac-
knowledges that this duke succeeded to the throne following the murder
of the previous ruler, Pan (the son and designated heir of Duke Chuang
just mentioned). The passage identifies Ching-fu, the younger brother
of Duke Chuang, as the murderer. It then draws an analogy between
Ching-fu's plot against Pan and Ya's plot against Pan, suggesting that
Chi-tzu faced the unavoidable obligation of executing Ching-fu as he
had Ya. Nevertheless, it also asserts that Chi-tzu intentionally did not
probe into the facts of this case because he wished to show deference for
his relative, Ching-fu. Apparently the Kung-yang Commentary failed to
160
resolve the conflict between these two normative principles. As we will

see in the following chapter, the unresolved conflict between the two
appears in legal cases from the Han. Officials relied on both principles
when trying cases involving relatives who were accused of plotting
rebellion.
Confucius as paradigmatic judge

For Kung-yang exegetes who rejected the legal practices of the Ch'in
dynasty, the Spring and Autumn provided fertile interpretive ground for
reform. They endeavored to construct a unified and consistent vision of
the text that would radically transform the legal practices of their day.
Their collective efforts attributed new types of authority to the Spring and
Autumn, altering the manner in which it was read from that time on.
Unwilling to simply perpetuate the laws of the Ch'in dynasty, Kung-yang
exegetes articulated an alternative normative code for society. To this
end, they read the Spring and Autumn, in conjunction with the Kung-yang
Commentary, as a compendium of moral principles derived from Confu-
cius. The handful of judgments that survive from Tung's legal compen-
dium suggests two important features of these 'righteous principles.'
They carried the same weighty authority as the laws although they often
embodied principles at odds with the Han Code. For example, when a
widow remarried at her mother's request, Tung Chung-shu found sanc-
tion for her actions in the Spring and Autumn even though the law
outlawed remarriage.
In addition to their codification of the Spring and Autumn, Kung-yang
exegetes approached the text as a book of legal precedents. Having
criticized Ch'in administrators for their failure to punish justly because
they emphasized the form (wen) of the law at the expense of its sub-
stance (shih), Kung-yang exegetes were equally intent on providing a
standard for judging conformity to or deviation from the normative
standards in the Spring and Autumn. They also questioned the simple
correlation between morality and legality. Finally, they endeavored to
make legal practices more flexible. If those in positions to judge legal
cases demanded strict adherence to the law, regardless of the situation,
the law could give rise to the very injustices that it was meant to prevent.
For these reasons, the exegetes argued that Confucius's judgments were
always informed by a constellation of concerns that went beyond a
consideration of conduct to consider internal motivation, external
circumstance, and the competing and conflicting ethical obligations
that influenced one's conduct. Kungyangscholars developed the princi-
ples of intent, discretion, constancy and change, and expediency to
161
address these numerous legal issues. They argued that these principles
derived from Confucius's judgments, as well as his mode of judgment,
must be applied to contemporary legal practices. Confucius had become
the paradigmatic judge, not only for the Han, but for future generations
as well.
162
7
The wider circle of Han
jurisprudence
The interpretations described in the preceding chapter, which were

shaped by the confluence of the Kung-yang tradition and the concerns of
Han dynasty Kung-yang scholars to critique and reform the Ch'in legacy,
delineated numerous principles and precedents. How influential were
these views? When Han administrators settled cases, they often cited
precedents and principles from the Kung-yang tradition.1 In fact, they
drew from the Kung-yang reading of the Spring and Autumnfarmore than
the Tso or Ku-liang, the two other principal commentaries on the Spring
and Autumn that animated legal discussions of the day.2 Moreover, in
both exegetical topoi and analytical mode, their interpretations were
often identical to those of Tung Chung-shu.3 These similarities suggest
that scholars like Tung Chung-shu, who followed and developed the
Kung-yang Commentary to the Spring and Autumn, influenced Han legal
proceedings in important ways. This chapter illustrates the ways in which
official administrators applied principles and precedents from the Kung-
yang Commentary to settle legal cases of the period.
Motive
In the previous chapter we saw that Kung-yang exegetes frequently ar-
gued that when determining his judgments, Confucius considered the
intent of the accused to be one of the most important factors. As the
following two examples illustrate, Han officials also employed this right-
eous principle to resolve legal cases. The first case, which occurred when
1 Ch'eng Shu-te has collected and summarized the seventy-odd Han cases from the Han
histories that cite the Spring and Autumn as an authoritative legal source. See Ch'un-ch'iu
chueh-yu k'ao 6/ia-28b.
2 The Han cases collected by Ch'eng Shu-te quote the Kung-yang Commentary roughly fifty
times, the Ku-liang Commentary once, and the Tso Commentary ten times.
3 The correspondence is quite remarkable when one considers that the surviving Chih-yu
cases represent a very small proportion of what originally constituted the text.
163
Emperor Ai came to the throne in 7 B.C.E., involved several members of

the central court.4 The affair began when an official named Hsiieh Hsiu
criticized his older brother Hsueh Hsiian for failing to properly mourn
their mother's death. These objections eventually developed into a slan-
derous campaign against Hsuan initiated by Hsiu's close friend, the
palace steward5 Shen Hsien. Hsiian's son, K'uang, who was serving as an
attendant gentleman,6 eventually discovered the source of the slander.
He bribed a retainer named Yang Ming to attack and wound Shen Hsien,
who was then serving as an erudite, to render him unfit to serve in office.
Yang Ming attacked Hsien just outside the palace gates. He cut off his
nose and lips and wounded his body numerous times. According to the
case summary, K'uang also knew that the office of metropolitan com-
mandant7 was vacant and suspected that Hsien would be appointed to fill
the post, empowering Hsien to bring to the throne formal allegations
against his father.
The 'case was sent down to the appropriate authorities' 8 to determine
the punishment commensurate with Hsiieh K'uang and Yang Ming's
crime. Several legal officials and the palace aide to the censor-in-chief9
deliberated and sent a petition to the emperor expressing the following
judgment:
[Hsiieh] K'uang is a minister of the court.10 His father [Hsiieh Hsiian] is a
former grand councilor11 who was twice enfeoffed as an adjunct marquis, but
4 While working on this case I benefited significantly from suggestions offered by A. F. P.
Hulsewe, who was simultaneously preparing for publication a translation and analysis
of the same lawsuit. See Hulsewe 1990.
5 Palace steward, chi-shih-chung, was an honorific designation for eminent court officials.
Because the title indicates one who literally provided service within the palace, it
implied that one who carried the designation was a worthy companion and mentor of
the emperor. Hucker 1985, p. 133.
6 Hsiieh K'uang was an attendant gentleman (shih-lang) who served as an assistant to the
imperial secretary who headed the right section (yu-ts'ao). See Hucker 1985, p. 426.
7 I read ssu-li as an abbreviated reference to ssu-li hsiao-wei, the metropolitan comman-
dant who in 89 B.C.E. was appointed to supersede the director of criminal labor (ssu-li),
with expanded powers of investigation and impeachment over officials of the area
around the dynastic capital, and who directed a kind of personal censorial service for
the emperor. Hucker 1985, p. 451.
8 (£~F^^]. This phrase occurs quite frequently in the legal cases summarized in the HS
and HHS, suggesting that a course of established legal proceedings existed.
9 Palace aide to the censor-in-chief, yu-shih chung-ch 'eng, was a particularly powerful post.
Hucker explains that it was second in the hierarchy of central government censors (yu-
shih) to the censor-in-chief (yii shih ta-fu) and actual head of the censorate (yu-shih fu,
yu-shih-t'ai) during long periods beginning late in the Former Han when the post of
censor-in-chief was discontinued. Hucker 1985, p. 592.
10 Court minister, ch'ao-ch'en, like court official, ch'ao-kuan, was a generic designation that
indicated officials whose appointments and ranks entitled them to attend imperial
audiences regularly. Hucker 1985, p. 119.
11 Grand councilor, tsai-hsiang, was 'a quasi-official reference to a paramount executive
164
Han jurisprudence
who failed to instruct his son so that he would receive the transformative influ-
ence of the emperor. Suspicion also existed between close relatives. [Hsueh
K'uang] suspected that [Shen] Hsien received instructions from [his uncle
Hsueh] Hsiu to slander [his father Hsueh] Hsiian.
All that [Shen] Hsien has said, however, is traceable to [Hsueh] Hsiian's
actions, which numerous people have witnessed and about which the public
authorities should have known. [Hsueh] K'uang knew that [Shen] Hsien was a
palace steward and he feared that if [Shen] Hsien became metropolitan com-
mandant, he would send a memorial to the throne condemning [K'uang's
father, Hsueh] Hsiian. So he openly commanded12 [Yang] Ming to wait near the
palace gates to intercept Shen Hsien. [Yang Ming] wounded a close underling of
the emperor13 along the main route to the palace in the midst of a crowd,
desiring to impair his hearing and sight to impede and sever the source of these
evaluations and opinions. He was cruel and crafty, lacking any sense of awe or
fear. The noisy swell of the multitudes has spread rumors of the incident to the
four corners of the empire.
[Yang Ming's actions] are not commensurate with [the statute dictating pun-
ishment for] 'ordinary people who become angry and incensed and conse-
quently quarrel and fight.' We, your subjects, have heard that one shows respect
for members of the imperial coterie because they are close to the ruler. The rites
[li] dictate that one dismounts at the palace gates and one bows to the horses
of the ruler's carriage, one shows respect even to the horses of the ruler. It is
a righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn that when the intent is evil,
one is not pardoned from punishment even if meritorious results follow.14
The spring that floods what lies above cannot be allowed to persist.
[Hsueh] K'uang initiated the crime and [Yang] Ming wounded [Hsien] with his
own hands; the intent and the result were evil. Both correspond to [the crime]
'great disrespect.'15 It is appropriate to apply the heaviest punishment to [Yang]
Ming. Together with [Hsueh] K'uang, both should be executed in the
marketplace.16
official who shared power in the central government such as a counselor-in-chief

(ch'eng hsiang).' Hucker 1985, p. 515.
12 The meaning of the graph kungfe, which here functions as an adverb, is difficult to
explain in this context. It may denote the way in which Hsueh K'uang openly, publicly,
or in his official capacity instructed Yang Ming to attack Shen Hsien. But perhaps the
author of the petition intimates that Hsueh K'ung took advantage of his status as an
official to order a subordinate to carry out his plot.
13 The phrase members of the imperial coterie, chin-ch'en, literally close underlings, was
an unofficial reference for the emperor's most intimate attendants. Hucker 1985, p.
14 h&zm, Mm&m, *£»».

15 Hulsewe points out that crimes qualified as 'great disrespect' or 'great impiety' (^C^
W) usually concerned religious and semireligious observances and embraced acts
affecting the emperor and the more or less sacrosanct areas of palaces and shrines. See
Hulsewe 1955, pp. 182-183.
16 See HS 83/3395. In preparing the translation of this case I have consulted Wallacker
1985, p. 66, and Hulsewe 1990, pp. 191-200.
165
The chamberlain for law enforcement [P'ang] Chen 17 refuted the palace
aide to the censor-in-chief's opinion with the following argument:
The statute states: 'When a person wounds another with a sharp object during a
brawl, [condemn the accused] to hard labor while [allowing the accused] to
remain physically intact.18 When there is premeditated murder,19 increase the
punishment by one degree so that the punishment is commensurate with one
who has plotted murder.' An imperial edict states: 'Do not rely on slanderous lies
to construe a crime.'20 The Commentary1 states: 'When you treat someone
unrighteously and thereby precipitate a physical assault, it is equivalent to the
crime of assaulting another; you are guilty of being unjust.'
Now [Shen] Hsien was filled with admiration for [Hsueh] Hsiu, and conse-
quently he repeatedly proclaimed [Hsueh] Hsuan's evil ways. Spreading rumors
is not proper; it cannot be called just. This is why [Hsueh] K'uang wounded
[Shen] Hsien. [Hsueh] K'uang's plan and plot were already established when
subsequently he heard of [Shen] Hsien's appointment to director of convict
labor. But [Hsueh] K'uang pressed [Yang] Ming to act based on his earlier plan.
It was not due to [Hsueh] K'uang's fears that [Shen] Hsien would become
director of convict labor. The source of the struggle [was therefore] a private
matter. Although the struggle occurred just beyond the gates to the side-apart-
ments [of the palace], [Shen] Hsien was wounded on the road, and thisfightwas
no different from 'ordinary people who become angry and incensed and conse-
quently quarrel and fight.' Those who murder others are put to death, whereas
those who wound others are mutilated. This is a principle shared by past and
present alike, one that was not altered by the Three Dynasties [of Hsia, Shang,
and Chou]. Confucius said: 'What is necessary is to rectify names.' If names are
not correct, then penalties and punishments will not hit the mark; if penalties
and punishments do not hit the mark, then the common people will not know
where to put hand and foot.22 Now if you maintain that since [Hsueh] K'uang
initiated the crime23 and [Yang] Ming wounded [Shen Hsien] with his own
hands, both are [guilty of] 'great disrespect,' then the public and the private
realm will lack distinction. According to a righteous principle of the Spring and
Autumn one must probe to the original intentions to determine the crime.24
17 Following Hulsewe 1990 who follows Ch'i Shao-nan's correction in Han-shu pu-chu 83/
7b
- *
18 Wan (7c) intact, refers to the fact that the criminal was not subjected to mutilation.
Ch'eng-tan (££iL), literally 'building walls or fortifications and standing guard from
early dawn' signified the heaviest of the hard-labor punishments. The accused were
often required to wear collar and leg irons and to have their heads shaven. See Hulsewe
1955, pp. 128-129, and 1985, pp. 14-15.
19 ftt
20 MM. For a detailed discussion of this term, consult Hulsewe 1955, p. 419, note 341.
21 The text does not specify to which commentary or tradition it refers.
22 Lun-yiX 13.3, following with modifications Lau 1979, p. 118.
23 The chamberlain for law enforcement maintained that Hsien was the 'initiator of evil'
because he was guilty of spreading the slander that had angered Hsueh K'uang and
precipitated the affair.
24 mm&m.
166
Han jurisprudence
When you probe to the source of [Hsueh] K'uang's intentions you will find that
he was angered by the slander brought upon his father. He did not commit any
other more serious crime. If you rely on slanderous lies and knit together small
transgressions to construe a serious crime and thereby trap [Hsueh K'uang] in
the death penalty, you will defy the enlightened edict [of the emperor concern-
ing slanderous lies]. I fear this verdict runs contrary to the intent of the law and
should not be put into effect. The sage kings did not increase punishments on
account of their anger. It should be upheld that [Yang] Ming murderously
wounded another and is guilty of being 'unjust'25 and that [Hsueh] K'uang
conspired with him. The aristocratic rank of both [Yang Ming and Hsueh
K'uang] should be eliminated to reduce26 [their punishment] of hard labor
while remaining physically intact.
As these two petitions illustrate, spokesmen for both sides of the legal
argument cited the identical principle from the Spring and Autumn to
establish the importance of intent when considering the proper punish-
ment for Hsueh K'uang. However, their evaluations of Hsueh K'uang's
intent differed. The palace aide to the censor-in-chief argued for the
harshest punishment precisely because he believed that the intent of the
assailant involved premeditation and was colored predominantly by pub-
lic and official considerations. To begin with, the case implicated three
members of an important family of officials, all of whom held high
office. Hsueh Hsiian, the patriarch who allegedly suffered from a slan-
derous campaign, was in fact guilty of the accusations brought against
him. Moreover, it was Hsueh Hsiian's conduct as an official that had
brought on Shen Hsien's criticisms. He had failed to act as an exemplary
official and properly mourn his mother's death. His son, Hsueh K'uang,
was aware of this official misconduct and feared that Shen Hsien would
see to it that his father was severely reprimanded for his conduct as an
official when he, Shen, was promoted. Moreover, Hsueh K'uang had
initiated the beatings to preclude Shen Hsien from acting in his official
capacity, seeking to inflict physical wounds that would deform Shen
Hsien and render him incapable of holding office. Adding insult to
injury, Hsueh K'uang had attacked an official who enjoyed a particularly
close relationship with the emperor within the sacred space of the
emperor's palace. These factors only served to increase the gravity of his
crime.
The commandant ofjustice argued, on the contrary, that the case was
a private and unofficial matter involving defamation of character. Shen
Hsien had, in fact, slandered Hsueh Hsuan. Far from being an innocent
25
26 Supplying the graph hsiao $1 after chieh W following Hulsewe's suggestion. See Hulsewe
1990, p. 198, note 50.
167
victim of crime, he was guilty of being 'unjust.' He spread false accusa-

tions against a man and was ultimately responsible for precipitating his
own assault. Hsueh K'uang was guilty of planning an attack against Shen
Hsien, not because he hoped to make the official unfit to serve, but
rather, because he desired to defend the good reputation of his father.
The personal and wholly unofficial character of the assault was also
demonstrated by the 'fact' that Hsueh K'uang's plan to attack Shen
Hsien was established long before he became aware of Shen Hsien's
potential promotion. Moreover, the actual assault occurred beyond the
palace confines. Thus, since the motive was not colored by official con-
cerns, and the crime occurred outside the sacrosanct area of the palace,
neither the charge of 'great disrespect' nor the punishment of execution
corresponded to the crime.
After hearing the views of these two spokesmen, the emperor solicited
the opinions of the consulting ministers. The counselor-in-chief K'ung
Kuang and the grand minister of works Shih Tan upheld the palace aide
to the censor-in-chief's opinion. The remaining majority of officials,
from the general on down to the erudites and the court gentlemen for
consultation, held that the chamberlain for law enforcement was cor-
rect. Ultimately Hsueh K'uang was condemned to 'the death penalty
reduced by one degree'27 and banished to Tun-huang. Hsueh Hsiian was
held responsible for his son's crime. He was demoted to commoner
status and ordered to return to his home in Tung-hai commandery,
where he died.28 The case summary does not report the fate of Yang
Ming.
Another case where the verdict turned on the question of motive
occurred during the years when Liang Shang acted as regent for Em-
peror Shun (135-141 C.E.). Liang Shang received a memorial from a
brilliant young scholar named Huo Hsu, who, at the young age of
fifteen, petitioned the regent on behalf of his uncle, Sung Kuang. Sung
Kuang had been accused of 'being reckless in his preparation of court
documents,'29 and his case had been brought to adjudication as a re-
sult.30 While he was detained in a Lo-yang prison for those awaiting trials
initiated by imperial decree, Sung Kuang was severely beaten. His
nephew Huo Hsu sent a petition to Liang Shang hoping to persuade the
27 Hulsewe has pointed out that the expression employed here, 'the [death] penalty
reduced by one degree,' was a synonym for ch'eng tan, hard labor.
28 See HS 83/3394-3396.
29 £ f » J $ £ .
30 Following Hulsewe's translation of the technical term tso ( ^ ) . For his discussion, see
Hulsewe 1985, p. 186, note 5. Katrina C. D. McLeod and Robin D. S. Yates render the
term 'to hold liable.' For their explanations, see McLeod and Yates 1981, p. 134, note
66.
168
Han jurisprudence
emperor to reconsider the accusation brought against his uncle based

on the following precedent from the Spring and Autumn:
I have heard that according to a righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn
one probes to the original sentiments of the accused to determine the crime;
one pardons the act and punishes the intent.31 Thus although Hsu Chih assassi-
nated his ruler, [Confucius judged that] he was not guilty. Although Chao Tun
allowed the assassin to escape, he appears in later entries.32 Such are the means
by which Confucius33 handed down the standards of the [true] king; such are the
former teachings that the present age of the Han dynasty should follow. The
[Tso] Commentary states: 'People's hearts differ as their faces differ.'34 This, in
fact, refers to the demeanor of one's face being large or small, mean or kind,
beautiful or ugly. Even for the nose, eyes, orifices, and hair, this also holds true.
As for the differences in people's temperaments, there are those that are firm or
yielding, relaxed or anxious, rude or polite. When, however, it comes to seeking
benefit and avoiding harm, fearing death and celebrating life, all people are the
same. [Sung] Kuang and I are relatives, [and are consequently bound by] the
righteousness of mutual concealment. If it is said that the grievance is excessive
and cannot necessarily be pardoned, then rely on human emotions to settle the
inner principles of this case.35
In the first part of the petition, Huo Hsu draws on the authority of the
Spring and Autumn to establish the principles and precedents relevant to
his uncle's case. He cites the identical principle and precedent discussed
earlier by Tung Chung-shu and suggests that, like Confucius who judged
Hsu Chih and Chao Tun, the emperor must consider his uncle's intent
and determine the appropriate punishment. Huo Hsu continues:
[Sung] Kuang is the offspring of an illustrious family and has always followed the
proper path. He holds one of the highest positions in the provinces and
commanderies. Daily awaiting to be summoned to the central court, he has
never been implicated in the slightest way. What kind of reputation could he
have hoped to gain by altering an imperial edict without cause? Even if there was
31 The phrase yuan ch'ing ting kuo (I^'BSHS) also appeared in the previous case. Al-
though some legal officials employed the term ch'ing to denote the facts of a legal case,
Kung-yang exegetes employed it somewhat differently, to signify the sentiments or
emotions informing a particular act. The examples cited from the Kung-yang Commen-
tary support such a translation, because in both cases the judgments derive from the
sentiments of the accused. The Chih-yu case discussed previously, in which Tung
employed the expression yuan hsin to judge Hsu Chih, also supports such a rendering
of the term.
32 The reader will recall from the previous chapter that exegetes of the Kung-yang Com-
mentary held that Confucius usually condemned ministers who did not punish their
ruler's assassins by omitting them from subsequent entries in the Spring and Autumn.
33 Confucius is here referred to as Chung-ni.
34 The practice of citing the Kung-yang Commentary in conjunction with the Tso Commentary
became far more common during the Eastern Han.
35.////S48/1615.
169
some question, and it was proper to search out an expedient solution, why would
he risk the death penalty to resolve a minute doubt? This is like one who relieves
hunger with the poisonous plant aconite or one who relieves thirst with poison-
ous wine. Even before the substance has entered the stomach, it has already
blocked off one's throat. Who would act in such a way? When the filial wife of
Tung-hai suffered injustice though she was innocent, her desolate spirit stimu-
lated the natural cycles and Heaven responded with a drought.36 As for the
adjudication of [Sung] Kuang's crime, his emotions can be fathomed.37 He has
defended the palace year after year but in the end has not seen justice.38 Crying
out at the gates of the Purple Palace,39 weeping blood below its double towers, he
disrupted the harmony [of yin and yang], bringing forth an anomaly, giving rise
to this severe destruction. All cases that have benefited from an order of amnesty
should not be brought forth a second time. If [cases where] the crime and
punishment are clear are still blessed by the emperor's humaneness, how is it
that in this instance of slander where evidence is lacking, on the contrary, justice
is not achieved? . . . It is clear that your virtue abounds and that your position is
revered. There is no one among the ministers that compares to you. Your words
move Heaven and Earth, while your undertakings transform yin and yang. If you
can indeed let your spirit dwell on this case and fully attend to it, then you will
assuredly enjoy the blessings of Yii Kung.40 Harmonious vital force will immedi-
ately respond, and all-under-Heaven will be joyful.
In the second half of his petition, Huo Hsu establishes his uncle's
credibility as an upright and faithful official. Because his record was
absolutely impeccable, Huo Hsu argues, there was no logical motive for
him to commit the serious crime of tampering with an imperial edict.
The accusation brought against his uncle must be slander. Thus, Huo
Hsu concludes, the emperor has no other choice but to pardon him. In
the end the persistent nephew persuaded Liang Sheng to follow
the precedent from the Spring and Autumn. The case summary concludes
36 This story from the HHS tells of a devoted and filial wife widowed at a young age
without a son. After her husband's death she diligently cared for her mother-in-law,
who wanted her to remarry. The young woman refused to remarry, and the old woman,
convinced that she had long been a burden to this young woman, committed suicide.
Subsequently the widow was accused of killing her mother-in-law. After the governor
judged that she be punished with execution, a drought of three years followed. When
the governor finally traveled to the grave of the filial young woman and offered a
sacrifice, Heaven sent down an abundance of rain and the harvest came to fruition. See
HHS 48/1617.
37 An alternative rendering of the term ch'ing would be 'the facts.' It is difficult to
determine the most appropriate translation in this context.
38 This is a tentative rendering of the phrase T F H H ^ ^ ^ J U J L
39 The Purple Palace (Tzu-kung) is another name for Tzu-weiyuan, the name of the barrier
of fifteen stars the Chinese pictured encircling the celestial pole. It was also known as
the Palace of the Celestial Emperor, and theoretically the Han emperor's palace
replicated it. Knechtges 1982, p. 116.
40 Yii Kung was a judge from Tung-hai commandery who was famous for his impartiality.
170
Han jurisprudence
that the emperor praised Huo Hsu's ability and pardoned his uncle
Sung Kuang.41
Humaneness
A case summary dating from the early years of Emperor Ming (r. 58-75)
recounts the compassion of an official named Wang Wang. While he was
serving as regional inspector of Ch'ing province, a drought in the
commanderies under Wang Wang's jurisdiction left the common people
destitute. Traveling with his regiment, Wang Wang was said to have seen
more than five hundred people wandering about naked and eating
whatever vegetation they could find. Moved by compassion and pity, he
distributed millet and cloth to the local population to relieve the dire
situation. After he completed the distribution, Wang Wang sent an
official report to the emperor to inform him of his activities.
The emperor felt that Wang Wang should be punished because he
had not first sent in a document requesting permission to act. The
memorial was shown to various officials who carefully deliberated on the
punishment. The three excellencies and the nine ministers concluded
that Wang Wang was guilty of 'giving orders without authorization' 42 and
that 'the laws contained constant stipulations' 43 to address such a crime.
An official named Chung-li I voiced the single dissenting opinion. Citing
a precedent from the Spring and Autumn, he argued:
In antiquity Hua Yuan and Tzu-fan, two good ministers from the states of
Sung and Ch'u, did not follow the commands of their lords and, acting on
their personal discretion,44 brought peace to their two states. It is a righteous
principle of the Spring and Autumn to consider one's virtues when discussing
such cases.45 Now, with his thoughts on righteousness, Wang Wang forgot his
crime. Faced with [an opportunity to practice] humaneness, he did not yield.46
If you were to correct him by means of the law, you would ignore his original
sentiments,47 and thwart the sagely court's precept of loving and nurturing [the
people] .48
Both sides agreed that Wang Wang was guilty of 'giving orders without
authorization,' but they disagreed on the appropriate punishment for
41 HHS 48/1615-16. 42
43 feW#«.
44 For a more detailed discussion of the term shan, consult the preceding chapter.
45 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsuan 15.2.
46 As in the CGFL passage cited in the previous chapter, the official Chung-li I sanctions
his arguments by referring to Lun-yii 15/35.
47 Here again the term ch 'ing refers to the sentiments of the accused and not the facts of
the case.
48 HHS 39/1297.
171
this crime. The majority of the officials favored a strict reading of the
statutes, which dictated a heavy punishment. Instead, Chung-li I cited
the Spring and Autumn and argued for a lighter punishment. Following
the righteous principle established by the Kungyang exegetes, Chung-li
I argued that since Wang Wang's actions were analogous to those of Hua
Yuan and Tzu-fan, he should be judged similarly.
As the final arbiter in the case, the emperor decided between these
two alternatives. The account of the case concludes that the emperor was
'filled with admiration for Chung-li I's arguments' and pardoned Wang
Wang.49 In this instance, arguments based on the authority of the Spring
and Autumn superseded those derived from the legal statutes. Such an
account suggests that in legal deliberations concerning the determina-
tion of punishments, the Spring and Autumn enjoyed a legal authority
equal to that of the law.
limiting punishment to the instigator of the crime

Another case from the Han-shu recounts that when banditry was on the
rise in Kuang-han around 20 B.C.E., an official named Sun Pao was
promoted to regional inspector of I province. The governor of Kuang-
han, Hu Shang, who was the son of the elder sister of Wang Yin, the
chariot and horse general serving as commander-in-chief,50 was thought
to be feebleminded and unfit for his post. When Sun Pao arrived in his
circuit, he personally traveled into the mountains and announced to the
robber bands that, except for the leaders and those who had initiated
the plans, all would be given a chance to repent and would be released.
He then sent them back to their villages.
After these events occurred, Sun Pao petitioned the emperor. He
acknowledged that he had 'forged an edict' in the emperor's name, but
he suggested that Hu Shang was the real initiator of the disorder, be-
cause Hu Shang had been lax in his duties, creating a fertile opportunity
for banditry to arise. Sun Pao went on to state that it was a righteous
principle of the Spring and Autumn to punish only the initiator of an evil
deed. By citing this precedent, Sun Pao accomplished two goals. He
found sanction for his decision to release a number of the bandits and
he suggested that Hu Shang should be punished for the banditry that
had occurred in the province under his jurisdiction. Hu Shang peti-
tioned the emperor as well, claiming that some of the bandits whom Sun
50 In other words, Hu Shang enjoyed this position because of family connections.
172
Han jurisprudence
Pao had released were, in fact, leaders who ought to have been
adjudicated.
The case summary concludes that both Hu Shang and Sun Pao were
punished. Hu Shang was summoned to the capital and sent to prison.
Sun Pao was adjudicated for having been 'negligent concerning people
guilty of capital punishment'51 and he was dismissed from office. How-
ever, many officials and commoners of I province reported Sun Pao's
numerous meritorious achievements to the throne and confirmed that
Wang Yin had brushed him aside. Persuaded by public opinion, the
emperor reappointed Sun Pao as regional inspector of I province and
promoted him to rectifier to the counselor-in-chief.52
Discretion
Some time around 116 B.C.E., when Emperor Wu occupied the throne,
the erudite Hsu Yen was sent out to investigate local customs. While
making his inspections, Hsu Yen 'forged an edict' instructing the states
of Liao-tung and Lu to engage in salt activities and to cast iron.53 After he
returned to the capital, Hsu Yen reported his actions to the throne and
was demoted to the post of aide to the chamberlain for ceremonials.
Subsequently, the censor-in-chief Chang T'ang accused him of 'forging
an edict' and 'seriously harming the law.' Chang T'ang concluded that
Hsu Yen's crime warranted the death penalty. Hsu Yen defended his
actions with a precedent from the Spring and Autumn. Citing a righteous
principle discussed by Tung Chung-shu, he argued that 'if ministers
travel beyond the borders and are in a position to bring peace to the
state or security to its people, then it is permissible to act on their own
discretion.'54
Chang T'ang, who held strictly to the letter of the law, was not per-
suaded by Hsu Yen's opinion. The emperor directed one of his advisors,
51 Following Hulsewe 1955, p. 260.

52 HS 77/3258. See also Wallacker 1985, p. 68. A case recounted at HHS 34/1175-1177
also cites the righteous principle of limiting the punishment to the instigator of the
crime. Legal officials distinguished between those who had full knowledge of a crime
and those who did not. They treated most severely those who initiated crimes and those
with full knowledge of the offense. See, for example, Ch'un-ch'iu Kung-yang chuan Ho-
shih chieh-ku, Duke Hsiang 25.10; Duke Chao 26.8; and Ch'ien-fu lun, Tuan Sung P'ien,'
p. 95. The Yen-t'ieh lun draws a further distinction between those who instigated a crime
and those who merely followed. The 'Ch'ih T'an P'ien' states: The criticisms of the
Spring and Autumn do not extend to the common people, they reprimand their lead-
ers.' Yen-t'ieh lun chien-chu, p. 263.
53 m».
54 //S64B/2818.
Chung Chun, to inquire into the disposition of the case.55 Subsequently,

Chung Chun questioned Hsu Yen, devoting the first part of his interro-
gation to a discussion of the Spring and Autumn. Determined to demon-
strate the shortcomings of Yen's defense, he argued:
In ancient times the states of the feudal lords were divided by different customs;
they varied every 1 oo li. From time to time there were interstate meetings; the
tendency for peace or danger changed in a moment's breath. This is why there
existed the expediency of acting on one's own discretion when one did not
receive orders. Today the world is united and customs are unified for hundreds
of li. This is why the Spring and Autumn states, 'for the king there is no exterior.'
You have traveled within the borders of the empire, how is it that you make
reference to traveling abroad? Furthermore, as for salt and iron, the
commanderies have an excess of these products stored away. Even if these two
states had neglected this, this would not have caused any worry to the empire. So
why do you quote the phrase 'in order to bring peace to the state and security to
the people'?56
In the first part of his interrogation, Chung Chun maintained that since
Hsu Yen was not on a mission abroad, and since the peace and security
of the state were not in jeopardy, the principle that Hsu Yen cited to
defend his actions was not applicable to the case. During the second half
of the interrogation Chung Chun turned his attention to the facts of the
case, questioning both the validity of Hsu Yen's claims and the motives
that informed his actions:
Liao-tung nears Lang-yeh to the south and borders Pei-hai to the north.57 Lu
pillows itself on Mount T'ai to the west, and to the east lies Tung-hai, supplying
[these two regions with] salt and iron. You calculated the population and arable
land of these four commanderies and determined that the usable implements
and edible salts were not sufficient to provide for Liao-tung and Lu. You claimed
that there ought to be sufficient salt and iron but that officials have mismanaged
[the distribution of these products]. Why have you stated these claims? You
forged an edict ordering the people to cast iron so that there would be enough
farming implements during the spring planting. Now, regarding the casting of
iron in Lu, it is appropriate to make advance preparations. But not until autumn
can one start the fires [to cast the iron]. Doesn't this statement contradict the
facts? Previously you memorialized to the throne on three occasions, and each
time there was no edict [in response]. Not only were your actions not permitted,
you went ahead and forged an edict, following the people's desires in order to
make a reputation for yourself. The enlightened sage must punish such action.
55
56 //S64B/2818.
57 During the Western Han, these were the names of commanderies located in the
eastern region of the Shan-tung Peninsula.
Han jurisprudence
Mencius would not permit the phrase: 'Bend the foot to straighten the yard.'58
The crime you have committed is quite serious, and yet what you have gained is
quite meager. Didn't you know that your actions would lead to the death
penalty? How could you expect that you would be fortunate enough to avoid
punishment while hoping to gain a reputation?59
By the end of the interrogation Hsu Yen confessed his guilt. The
officials presiding over the case determined that his crime warranted the
death sentence. 60 Chung Chun sent up a memorial to the emperor
stating that Hsu Yen was guilty of three crimes: forging an edict, acting
on his own discretion, and not maintaining his status as an imperial
emissary.61 He requested that the emperor send instructions down to the
censor-in-chief to summon Hsu Yen and send him to his punishment.
The emperor approved the memorial and praised Chung Chun's inter-
rogation, and his decree was passed down to the censor-in-chief.62
Dismissing charges because of a meritorious record

A very famous case dating from the reign of Emperor Yuan (48-33
B.C.E.) illustrates well how officials applied this principle to the adminis-
tration of justice. In 36 B.C.E., during an expedition to the Western
Regions, two military officers, Ch'en T'ang and Kan Yen-shou, initiated
an attack on Chih-chih, the powerful leader of the Hsiung-nu. Chih-chih
was actively seeking ways to damage China's interests in Central Asia by
capturing Chinese envoys and by attacking the Wu-sun, China's allies.
Chih-chih's maneuvers threatened to cut off all lines of communication
between the central court and its allies in the region. Responding to a
potentially dangerous situation, Ch'en T'ang forged an edict ordering
forces to attack Chih-chih. With the aid of protector-general Kan Yen-
shou, Ch'en T'ang defeated and killed Chih-chih.63 This legal case gen-
erated much debate at court, because, although the two men had
committed the grave crime of proclaiming an imperial edict without the
proper authority, their brilliant military exploit had averted a real dan-
ger in Central Asia. Emperor Yiian's favorite eunuch, Shih Hsien, and
the counselor-in-chief, K'uang Heng, expressed the view that the two
military officers were guilty of 'raising troops without authorization and
58 Following Lau 1976, p. 106.

59 HS 64/2818.
60 /JS64B/2817-2818.
62 //S64B/2817-2819. For another example of a legal case that employs this righteous
principle of the Spring and Autumn, see HS 79/3293-3294.
63 Twitchett and Loewe 1986, p. 212, and Dubs 1944, 2:279—285.
175
forging an imperial edict.' They argued that the two would be lucky to
escape execution and should certainly not be rewarded. They feared that
if the emperor rewarded these two officers, it would encourage others on
military expeditions abroad to act on their own initiative and would
instigate further incidents abroad. Emperor Yuan was personally de-
lighted by the brilliant victory won by these two officers, and yet he was
reluctant to disagree with the powerful eunuch Shih Hsien and the
counselor-in-chief. Consequently, the lawsuit went unresolved for quite
some time.
The case was finally settled when the chamberlain for the imperial
clan, Liu Hsiang, expressed an alternative view in a memorial to the
emperor. He first considered the intent of the two officers and argued
that they had acted out of loyalty to the emperor. Chih-chih had been
guilty of capturing and murdering several hundred envoys, and the
officers' decision to attack him had been, in fact, prompted by their
awareness of the emperor's desire to punish this powerful leader. In the
body of the memorial, Liu Hsiang combined various citations from the
Confucian scriptures that provided analogies to sanction the officers'
conduct and justify rewarding them:
In ancient times the great officers of the Chou dynasty, Fang Shu and Chi P'u,
chastised the Hsien Yiin on behalf of King Hsiian, and the numerous barbarian
tribes submitted. The Odes states: 'Numerous and in grand array. Like the clap or
roll of thunder. Intelligent and true is Fang Shu. He chastised the Hsien Yiin.
And the Man and Ching tribes came, awed by his majesty.'64 The Changes states:
'It is good to behead the leader and capture his followers.' This is to say that it
is good to punish those who are the chief evildoers, so that those who are not
obedient will all come to submit. Now the 'leader' of the Changes and 'the clap
of thunder' of the Odes cannot compare with those whom Kan Yen-shou and
Ch'en T'ang chastised. Those who judge great deeds do not record minor
transgressions; those who proclaim exceptional acts of goodness are not de-
terred by minor faults. The Models of Ssu-ma states: 'Military rewards do not
surpass a month.' This ensures that the people will promptly receive rewards for
their good deeds. In fact, to reward military achievement promptly is to value
employing the people. When Chi-fu returned [from his military expedition], the
duke of Chou rewarded him generously. The Odes states: 'Chi-fu feasts and is
glad. Great happiness is his. In returning from Hao, distant and long had been
his march.'65 If Hao, which was a thousand li away, was considered far,66 how
much more so the destination that is more than tens of thousands of li away.
64 This translation follows Legge 1874, 4:287.

65 Legge 1874, 4:284.
66 One Han li equaled 416 meters, or slightly more than a quarter of a mile.
176
Han jurisprudence
[Kan Yen-shou and Ch'en T'ang's] expeditions were that extreme. And yet Yen-
shou and T'ang have not yet been rewarded. On the contrary, they have been
humiliated for the merit of [being prepared] to die and have long suffered
humiliation before the legal officials. This is not the way to encourage meritori-
ous military personnel. In ancient times Duke Huan of Ch'i first achieved the
merit of showing reverence for the house of Chou. Later, when he committed
the crime of destroying Hsiang, the noble man [Confucius] glossed over his
error because of his former merit, and avoided [recording] the event on account
of it.67
Liu Hsiang closed with a precedent established by Emperor Wu in the
more recent campaign of Li Kuang-li, who had led forces into Central
Asia (104-101 B.C.E.):
The 'Sutrishna General,' Li Kuang-li, wasted 50,000 soldiers, a great deal of
money, and four years of effort, but only obtained thirty horses. Although he
decapitated King Mu-ku of Yuan, this was not enough to make up for all he
wasted, his crimes were that numerous. Emperor Hsiao-wu, who took no notice
of his errors, rewarded over a hundred men on account of his expedition of
10,000 li. Now Sogdiana is more powerful than Ferghana, the renown of Chih-
chih is greater than that of the king of Ferghana, and the crime of murdering
envoys is more serious than holding back horses demanded by the Han court.
Furthermore, Kan Yen-shou and Ch'en T'ang did not waste Chinese soldiers or
provisions. Compared with Li Kuang-li, they are one hundred times more meri-
torious. . . . It is fitting that you dissolve the pending case, dismiss their errors
without bringing them to trial, ancUreward them with rank to encourage those
who are meritorious.68
After Emperor Yuan received this petition from Liu Hsiang, he re-
sponded with an imperial edict in which, following the line of reasoning
set forth by Liu Hsiang, he defended the actions of Kan Yen-shou and
Ch'en T'ang. He pardoned the two officers, dismissed the charges, and
sent out an additional edict in which he instructed the dukes and minis-
ters to deliberate the matter of enfeoffing these men. Subsequently the
emperor enfeoffed Kan Yen-shou and Ch'en T'ang with estates of 300
households and rewarded them with the respective appointments of
commandant of Chang-shui and commandant of the bowmen shooters
by sound. The emperor also announced a great amnesty to the Lord-on-
High and the ancestral spirits.69
67 HS 70/3017. An additional legal case summarized at HHS 24/849 also employs this
righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn.
68 HHS 24/3018.
69 HHS 24/3020 and Wallacker 1985, p. 67. For another interesting case that draws on
this righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn, see HS 90/3666.
177
Mandatory execution of rebellious relatives

Some time after 57 C.E., Emperor Ming's brother, Liu Ching, king of
Kuang-han, was accused of treason. The emperor sent out an edict
directing Fan Shu and the directorate of the palace guard cavalry, Jen Ao
of Nan-yang, to 'set the case in order.'70 Subsequently they sent a memo-
rial to the emperor requesting the execution of Liu Ching. The emperor
summoned them to the Hall of Manifest Brilliance71 and said to them
angrily: 'You wish to execute my brother. If it were my son, would you
dare to do the same?' Fan Shu replied:
The state belongs to Emperor Kao [the founder of the dynasty], it does not
belong to you. Arighteousprinciple of the Spring and Autumn [states]: 'The
relatives of the ruler must not plot rebellion. If they do they must be executed.'
Thus when the duke of Chou executed his younger brother and when Chi-yu
poisoned his older brother, the commentaries to the scriptures magnified these
events. We considered that [Liu] Ching would rely on his mother and brother
and that Your Majesty would be concerned and feel compassion. Therefore we
ventured to request [his execution]. If it had been Your Majesty's son, we would
have had him executed on our own authority.72
The case summary reports that the emperor responded with a disgrun-
tled sigh, which suggests that he did not agree with Fan Shu's judgment.
In the end, however, the emperor followed the advice of his high offi-
cials and condemned his brother to death, whereupon Liu Ching com-
mitted suicide.73
Citing a principle from the Spring and Autumn, the official Fan Shu
argued that imperial relatives who plotted rebellion must be executed
without partiality. Officials expected the emperor to show favoritism
because Liu Ching was a blood relative. In this case, Fan Shu called
on the authority of the Spring and Autumn to prevent the emperor
from acting partially. The emperor's decision to follow the advice of
his officials and comply with this principle of the Spring and Autumn
is significant. It indicates that the Spring and Autumn came to
influence such weighty matters as those involving execution of a
member of the imperial family.74 This case also demonstrates that this
particular principle from the Spring and Autumn sought to prevent
70
71 The Hall of Manifest Brilliance (hsuan-ming) was an important library in the Northern
Palace of the Eastern Han emperors. Knechtges 1982, p. 258.
72 HHS 32/1122-1123.
74 For two other cases involving the mandatory execution of rebellious relatives, see HS
93/3735-3737 and HHS 42/1444-1445.
178
Han jurisprudence
the emperor from acting partially when his relatives were involved in
lawsuits.
Passing over the sons of treasonous imperial relatives

In 56 B.C.E., Liu Yuan, king of P'ing-kan, died while being tried for
murdering, with malice aforethought, several of his slaves.75 Liu Yuan
was descended from a long line of kings whom Emperor Wu had estab-
lished in that state because of 'the precedent of treating relatives with
affection.'76 When Liu Yuan died, the chamberlain for dependencies,
Wang Yu, memorialized to the throne, stating:
Previously, [Liu] Yuan took a knife and murderously killed his male and female
slaves, and his son killed the person who had exposed the crime. These crimes
were brought before the throne by the regional inspector [who demonstrated
that] it was a clear-cut case. When he was ill, Liu Yuan prepared a will instructing
his servants who were able to play musical instruments to follow him into the
grave, coercing sixteen servants to commit suicide. [Such actions were] cruel
and unjust. Therefore [according to] a righteous principle of the Spring and
Autumn, it is not suitable to appoint the son of a lord who has been punished
with execution [to his father's position].77 Although [Liu] Yuan was not ex-
ecuted, it is not suitable to appoint his heir.78
The emperor approved the memorial, and, in accordance with this

righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn, the state of P'ing-kan 'was
abolished.' 79 As with the previous case, the Spring and Autumn appears to
be the sole source of authority determining the outcome of this legal
case involving the offspring of imperial relatives charged with treason. A
third principle derived from the Spring and Autumn sanctioned a more
lenient approach to members of the imperial family involved in legal
suits.
Treating relatives with affection

In 150 B.C.E., Emperor Ching's younger brother, Liu Wu, king of Liang,
was accused of assassinating the court official Yuan Eng. Yuan Eng had
been instrumental in dissuading Emperor Ching from designating Liu
Wu as the heir apparent. Angered by this, Liu Wu had ordered two of his
75 Hulsewe 1955, p. 256.

76 W&Wi.
77 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Chao 11.10.
78 HS 53/2421.
79 The term used here is kuo ch'u (W\$fc). See Hulsewe 1955, p. 256.
179
officials to assassinate Yuan Eng.80 The two men committed suicide when
officials ordered the king to turn them over to the metropolitan authori-
ties.81 After the affair ended, and Yang Sheng and Kung-sun K'uei had
committed suicide, Liu Wu feared he would be punished with execution.
The king recalled the warnings of his minister, Tsou Yang, whom he had
earlier prosecuted because he had advised against plotting to murder
Yuan Eng. Liu Wu pardoned Tsou Yang, rewarded him with gold, and
instructed him to find a way to persuade the emperor to pardon his
crime.
Tsou Yang went to speak with Wang Ch'ang-chun, the emperor's
brother-in-law, and asked him to persuade the emperor to dismiss the
case. Drawing on the Spring and Autumn and other authoritative texts of
the Confucian tradition, Tsou Yang pleaded:
When Kung-tzu Ch'ing-fu of Lu ordered his servant to kill Tzu-pan, the case
could have been resolved by tracing the crime back to its source,82 [but] Chi-yu
did not consider the original intentions of Ch'ing-fu. Instead, he executed the
servant.83 When Ch'ing-fu personally murdered Duke Min, Chi-tzu did not pur-
sue [Ch'ing-fu when he fled to Ch'i] ,84 [In both cases] the Spring and Autumn
held that this was the principle of treating relatives with affection. When Ai
Chiang of Lu died in I, Confucius said: 'Duke Huan of Ch'i preserved the law
and was not crafty.' He thought Duke Huan was mistaken.85 If we apply this
[principle] to the Son of Heaven, then we would be fortunate if the case of the
king of Liang was not brought before the emperor.86
80 For a detailed account of the debate on this succession, see SC 58/2090-2092. Note
that Yuan Eng cited precedents from the Spring and Autumn to support his view that
Emperor Ching was bound by the norms of succession dictating that the throne be
passed on to the ruler's son and not his younger brother.
81 Hulsewe 1955, p. 268.
82 «#0f».
83 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Min 1.1. The point is that Chi-yu, the younger
brother of Ch'ing-fu, simply traced the crime to the servant and intentionally did not
consider Ch'ing-fu's motives because he was a relative.
84 Here again Tsou Yang argues that Chi-tzu did not follow the letter of the law and
avoided punishing Ch'ing-fu based on the righteous principle of treating relatives with
affection.
85 The logic behind this statement is difficult to follow. Yen Shih-ku explains that Ai
Chiang, the wife of Duke Chuang of Ch'i, engaged in illicit affairs with the duke's two
brothers and plotted to murder Duke Min. Consequently the people of Ch'i murdered
her in a place called I located in Ch'i. Apparently, when trying this case, Duke Huan
followed the letter of the law concerning the assassination of heirs apparent and did
not craftily get around the law by considering the principle of 'expediency' to avoid
executing a relative who had committed the crime of plotting murder. Yang appears to
be taking the quotation from Lun-yii 14/16 out of context to argue his point. The
citation does not appear in the Spring and Autumn and does not correspond exactly to
the passage in the Lun-yu.
86 HS 51/2355.
180
Han jurisprudence
The case summary concludes by noting that Tsou Yang was successful in
persuading Wang Ch'ang-chun to use his influence over his brother-in-
law. Subsequently, the emperor dismissed the case. In this instance, the
righteous principle of treating relatives with affection resulted in the
dismissal of a case involving treason. This principle, which allowed the
emperor to make exceptions to the law when relatives were involved,
worked at cross-purposes with those cited in the two previous cases. That
such contradictory principles derived from the same scriptural source
may indicate unresolved issues concerning either the extent to which the
imperial family was to be exempted from the law, or the extent to which
the emperor was to enjoy special prerogatives when judging cases involv-
ing family members. Although the general character of Tung's thought
suggests that he was more likely an advocate of the principles that
restrained the ruler from acting out of personal concerns, it is difficult to
assess his influence, since these principles do not occur in the extant
materials attributed to him.
A scriptural basis for Han law

The numerous cases reviewed in this chapter demonstrate that Han legal
administrators typically drew on principles developed by Kung-yang
exegetes like Tung Chung-shu. More specifically, they illustrate that the
Spring and Autumn functioned both as a code of ethical principles and as
a book of precedents. Thus, although the Ch'in statutes continued to
influence Han legal practices, court cases were also colored by the
extralegal authority of the Spring and Autumn. Virtually every kind of
legal case that involved the bureaucracy, from the lowest to the highest
echelons of government, and the imperial family, from the most distant
to the closest relatives of the emperor, was subjected to the authority of
the Spring and Autumn. Han administrators cited the Spring and Autumn
when charging individuals with a crime, defending their innocence or
prosecuting their guilt, pardoning or punishing them, supporting a
verdict of guilt or innocence, and determining punishment appropriate
to the crime under consideration. In sum, the Spring and Autumn shaped
every stage of the legal process, earning an unprecedented position of
authority within Han legal culture. Tung Chung-shu and his disciples
had established a scriptural basis for the practice of law that would
survive for centuries to come.
181
8
Refashioning the
imperial rites
Tung Chung-shu's endeavors to refashion the imperial rites once again

reflected his desire to rectify the abuses of the Ch'in dynasty. We have
seen that shortly after Emperor Wu assumed the throne, Tung and
several other scholars urged the emperor to reform the state's
ceremonial practices based on the teachings of Confucius. Although
they were initially blocked by the emperor's powerful grandmother,
Empress Dowager Tou, following her death in 135 B.C.E. Emperor Wu
was free to support this movement to remake the state religion.1 There-
after, Confucian scholars, together with other influential court practi-
tioners, competed to gain the emperor's patronage. They sought to
institute policies consonant with their religious viewpoint and historical
outlook - all the while strengthening their indispensable roles as overse-
ers of the state religion. In this respect, the ceremonial practices and
norms that Tung and his disciples ascribed to the Spring and Autumn are
particularly relevant.
For the purposes of the following discussion it is beneficial to differen-
tiate two basic ways that interpretive communities assume their texts to
be ritually significant. We may distinguish these two modes of reception
as 'first-order' and 'second-order' liturgy. First-order liturgy plays a di-
rect role in worship. For example, it may be read to or recited by a
congregation, or its very presence may function as a powerful symbol of
authority. Second-order liturgy does not play a direct role in worship; it
is prescriptive. Such scriptures serve to codify ceremonial norms,
whether describing specific rites or the attitudes that should ideally
accompany them. These two types of scripture are not mutually exclu-
sive; some traditions (e.g., Christianity and Judaism) approach scripture
as both first- and second-order liturgical texts. But Kung-yang interpret-
ers perceived the Spring and Autumn to be an authoritative source of
ritual practice in one sense only - as second-order liturgy. In other
1 SC 28/1384 and 121/3117. See also Bilsky 1975, p. 289.

182
Refashioning the imperial rites
words, they read the Spring and Autumn in conjunction with the Kung-
yang Commentary, primarily as a text exemplifying correct ritual behavior.
This included both the content and form of ritual, the attitudes appro-
priate to various kinds of rituals, and what particular rites should be
enacted. This was not necessarily true of the other Confucian scriptures.
The Odes, for example, was received as both a first- and second-order
liturgical text. We have seen that Tung Chung-shu prescribed the chant-
ing of specific odes to accompany the Yu Sacrifice. Similarly, other Han
ritual texts describe ceremonies in which the Odes is set to music and
performed. As a second-order liturgical text, the Odes was also important
as an authoritative legal text.2
It is also important to note that there existed two types of ritual
practice as well as two modes of receiving ritual texts. They derived from
two complementary understandings of Heaven's relationship to the
natural and human worlds. The first was regularized and cyclical, reflect-
ing the constant way that Heaven revealed its will in nature. It mirrored
natural cycles believed to be set in motion by Heaven. As the highest
functionary of the state religion, the emperor was required to respond to
these Heavenly cycles with the appropriate ritual behavior, in a sense
completing the circle begun by Heaven. They could be relatively short,
exemplified by the yearly cycle of rituals patterned after the four seasons,
or they could be longer, like the ceremonies accompanying the found-
ing of a dynasty, encompassing cycles that lasted hundreds of years.3 The
second type of ritual practice derived from the complementary belief
that Heaven also revealed its will in a less routine manner, responding to
both good and evil conduct in the human world with discrete and
irregular physical phenomena. The moral or immoral behavior of a
particular ruler, for example, could summon auspicious or inauspicious
signs from Heaven. This chapter's discussion is limited to the first type of
ritual practice. A more detailed discussion of rites enacted in response to
Heaven's anomalies follows in Chapter 9.
The search for legitimacy

The ritual values and practices Kung-yang exegetes emphasized in their
interpretations of the Spring and Autumn must be considered within the
2 For further examples concerning the relationship between ritual practice and the
canonical texts of the Confucian tradition, see Yang 1985, pp. 218-370.
3 For three versions of a ritual and administrative schedule modeled on an annual eycle,
see the 'Shih-chi' (Monthly Records) of the Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu; the 'Yueh-ling' (Monthly
Ordinances) of the Li-chi (Book of Rites); and the 'Shih-tse hsun' (Treatise on the
Seasonal Rules) of the Huai-nan-tzu. The Huai-nan-tzu chapter has been translated by
Major 1993, pp. 217-268.
183
larger context of the debates that preoccupied scholars during the

formative years of the Western Han. One such debate centered on the
Han's relation to the past and which earlier dynasty constituted the most
suitable model for the dynasty. Historical studies of the Western Han
generally characterize these views in terms of competition between those
who supported a model of political legitimation based on the Ch'in
dynasty and those who favored the earlier Chou. 4 In his discussions of
the Salt and Iron debates of 81 B.C.E., Michael Loewe identifies these two
groups respectively as the 'modernists' and 'reformists' and character-
izes their views as follows:
Reformists sought to purge China of its ills by reverting to what they saw to be
traditional values. Like their opponents, they took the view that China could best
be governed under a single imperial system. But the ideal regime wherein they
sought inspiration was that ascribed to the kings of Chou rather than that of the
first emperor of Ch'in; they wished to reform current abuses by harking back to
those earlier ideals.5
According to this interpretation, the Confucians glorified the cultural
refinement {wen) of the Chou and argued that Chou institutions were
the proper model for the Han dynasty. This was, indeed, an important
voice throughout the early years of the Han. For example, in 200 B.C.E.
Shu-sun T'ung persuaded the founding ruler of the Han dynasty, Em-
peror Kao, to participate in a well-ordered court ceremony following the
Chou kings Wen and Wu.6 When Emperor Ching (r. 156-141 B.C.E.)
contemplated the appointment of an heir apparent, he heeded the
advice of those Confucians who argued that Chou succession norms
were the appropriate model for the Han. 7 And in an imperial edict of 5
B.C.E., Emperor Ai (r. 6-2 B.C.E.) avowed his allegiance to the Chou by
'honoring the honorable,' a value that had come to be associated with
that dynasty. Later that same year when Empress Dowager Ting died, the
emperor ordered that she be buried with her husband in compliance
with the Chou model. He declared: 'The rite of associating [husband
and wife] in burial arose in the Chou [period]. How complete and
elegant were its cultural forms. I follow the Chou.' 8 Finally, as a memorial
4 General histories of the period have devoted most attention to advocates of the Chou
and Ch'in models, giving the impression that this debate was rather dichotomous.
Although this chapter demonstrates that the Confucian voice was far more multivalent
than hitherto recognized, it should also be noted that the contributions of the technical
masters and Huang-Lao advocates were also important. Their contributions to this
debate await further research.
7 SC 58/2091.
8 Dubs 1944, 3: 28-29.
184
to the throne dated 8 C.E. suggests, the Chou model played a central role
in the legitimization of Wang Mang's interregnum. 9
By the Eastern Han, the Chou ideal had achieved ascendancy. Michael
Loewe explains:
But from the founding of the Later Han the transfer of the capital to Lo-yang
signified a symbolic change. Imperial government now claimed that its adminis-
tration was directed toward the betterment of the people of China, and ideologi-
cal rather than practical considerations lay behind the choice of a new site. For
Lo-yang had long been identified with the house of Chou; in Later Han it was
the kings of Chou who were being invoked as the paragons of behavior, and the
institutions of Chou, rather than those of Ch'in, that were to be adopted as the
precedents for a just administration.10
According to this characterization, throughout the Western Han the
Ch'in and Chou models of legitimacy competed for supremacy, and
during the Eastern Han the Chou finally triumphed. This chapter will
suggest that exegetes of the Kung-yang Commentary represented yet a
third viewpoint not usually documented in studies of the period. Like
other Confucian scholars, they unequivocally rejected the Ch'in as a
legitimate exemplar for the Han empire. But, unlike those who upheld
the Chou model identified with the value of 'cultural refinement,' 11
Kung-yang expositors argued that the 'Way of the Uncrowned King'
marked by 'inner simplicity,'12 inaugurated by Confucius and embodied
in the Spring and Autumn, was the preferred standard for the Han.
These two values, cultural refinement and inner simplicity, became
increasingly polarized as scholars adopted the dyadic scheme of history
introduced by the late Warring States figure Tsou Yen (305-ca. 240
B.C.E.). It was Tsou Yen who first linked them to questions of realpolitik
and a cyclical and remedial notion of time. For Tsou Yen, political
success was a matter of timely conformity to either cultural refinement
or inner simplicity, two complementary aspects of statecraft. Indeed,
during the early years of the Han dynasty, these conceptual categories
took on a historical and cosmological significance not known in the pre-
Han period, when they were largely confined to discussions of moral
development, human nature, the emotions, and ritual. This develop-
ment was largely due to the fact that Tsou Yen's ideas came to enjoy a
certain vogue in the intellectual circles of the Western Han. The follow-
ing excerpt from a memorial to Emperor Wu takes Tsou Yen as its point
of departure:
9 Dubs 1944, 3: 240.

10 Twitchett and Loewe 1986, pp. 14-15.
11 X. 12 %.
185
I have heard that Master Tsou said: 'Administrative regulations or moral educa-
tion, cultural refinement or inner simplicity, are the means by which we speak of
rectifying [the excesses of the previous age]. When the time is appropriate, they
are employed. When the time has passed, they are abandoned. When it is
appropriate to alternate, then alternate [them]. Therefore those who maintain
the same [practices as the previous dynasty] and do not change, never witness
the perfection of governance.'13
During the Western Han the values associated with cultural refine-
ment and inner simplicity came to define two competing conceptions of
Confucius. What became critical were divergent views, not of the Shang
dynasty's correlation with inner simplicity or of the Chou dynasty's
correlation with cultural refinement, but of the historical role played by
Confucius and his relation to the authoritative texts of the Confucian
tradition. As we saw in Chapter 5, Kung-yang exegetes claimed that
Confucius personally witnessed the Chou decline and responded by
authoring (tso) the Spring and Autumn. However, advocates of the Chou
model argued that Confucius preceded the Chou decline and was the
'transmitter' and 'follower' of Chou culture as embodied in the Confu-
cian scriptures. As one official explains:
The true king must conform to the rites of the previous kings. In accordance
with the seasons, he enacts what is appropriate. Deleting and adding [to the rites
of the former kings] in accordance with the hearts of the people, gradually
regulations are created so that, arriving at the period of Grand Peace, all is
greatly prepared. The Chou surveyed the two [preceding] dynasties so that their
ritual texts were all the more complete. Affairs were regulated and crimes were
prevented. . . . Consequently the transforming influence of moral education
spread everywhere, the people were harmonious and friendly, natural disasters
did not occur, social chaos did not arise, and the prisons stood empty for more
than forty years. Confucius praised the Chou saying: 'How complete and elegant
are its cultural forms. I follow the Chou.' When the Chou declined, the feudal
lords overstepped its proper norms and measures; despising the harm that the
[Chou] ritual regulations inflicted on them, they cast away its texts. When the
Ch'in destruction of learning occurred, [the Chou ritual regulations] were
finally disordered and lost.14
When these divergent views of Confucius became associated with the
dyadic scheme of dynastic change, two views of history and two models of
Han legitimation resulted. Advocates of the Chou model maintained
that the Han should revert to the values associated with cultural refine-
ment based on the following correlations: Shang - Substance, Chou -
Form, Ch'in - Substance, and Han - Form. Those who followed the Way
13 HS 64/2809. 14 HS 22/1029.
186
of the Uncrowned King argued that the Han dynasty should revert to
values associated with inner simplicity according to the following histori-
cal correlations: Shang - Substance, Chou - Form, Spring and Autumn
- Substance, Ch'in - Form, and Han - Substance. The historical outlook
characterized by the Way of the Uncrowned King shaped both Tung
Chung-shu's general interpretations of the Spring and Autumn and his
specific discussions of ritual theory and practice. What kinds of ritual
authority, then, did Tung Chung-shu and his fellow interpreters associ-
ate with the Spring and Autumn}
Ritual theory and historical cycles

Only a few passages devoted to ritual, in the narrower sense denoting
religious ceremonies and rites, survive in the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu. Likewise,
many important Han ritual texts, where one would find additional mate-
rials on this subject, are no longer extant. Yet the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu
writings on ritual that do survive display a remarkable similarity to those
on legal matters discussed in Chapter 6. Consistent with their legal
discussions, Kung-yang interpreters articulated the ritual principles they
ascribed to the Spring and Autumn according to the same set phrase, the
'righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn.' For example, according
to the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, one 'righteous principle of the Spring and
Autumn dictated that 'the Son of Heaven sacrifices to Heaven and Earth,
while the feudal lords sacrifice to the altars of soil and grain.'15 Another
explained that 'when there is a grand mourning in the state, suspend the
sacrifices in the ancestral temples but do not suspend the Suburban
(Chiao) Sacrifice.'16
In their expositions of the Spring and Autumn, Tung Chung-shu and
his disciples discussed both specific rites and general theories of ritual.
They often cited principles of ritual theory that paralleled or echoed
their legal discussions. The example of Ssu-ma Tzu-fan is a case in point.
The legal discussion examined in the preceding chapter suggested that
Ssu-ma Tzu-fan exemplified two important principles. He embodied the
principle of expediency, while Confucius's judgment of him under-
scored the importance of considering mitigating circumstances when
determining punishment. With regard to ritual matters, Tung expressed
the same concern to clearly establish the relationship between internal
motive and external circumstance:
The Spring and Autumn possesses both immutable and mutable rites.17 Immuta-
15 CCFL 4/4^2.1-4^2.14. 16 CCFL i5/ib.2.5-ib.2.ia.
. 17 ffll and « « .
l87
ble rites pertain to those instances when the nature is calm and the heart is
tranquil. Mutable rites pertain to those instances when even if the nature is not
calm and even if the heart is not tranquil, the Way is not altered. This is why an
immutable rite holds that during the marriage ceremony no reference is made
to the host [i.e., bridegroom], yet a mutable rite maintains that when no other
wording is possible, reference is made to the bridegroom.18 According to an
immutable rite, the Son of Heaven is given the title King only after three years
have passed since the death of the former ruler,19 while a mutable rite refers to
those instances when, for various reasons, the title of King is given before three
years of mourning have passed. An immutable rite holds that a wife has no affairs
beyond the borders of the state, but a mutable rite affirms that it is permissible
to travel beyond the borders of the state when a mother chooses a wife for her
son or when participating in the burial of her parents. Only after you have
clarified what are immutable and what are mutable will you understand the
distinction between the trivial and important. It will then be granted that you
have arrived at an understanding of expediency.20
Someone objected: When the Spring and Autumn refers to events of the same
[category], it employs similar phrases [to describe these events]. Why, then, in
the four cases [you have just enumerated], each of which is an illustration of a
mutable rite, are some mentioned in the Spring and Autumn while others are not?
[Tung Chung-shu] responded: The Spring and Autumn orders numerous af-
fairs,21 distinguishes its classes,22 differentiates its deceptive subtleties,23 and cul-
tivates its roots and branches.24 Thus when stars fell, it referred to them [with the
term] yun;25 when locusts fell, [it] referred to them [with the term] yii26 Each
emanated from a different place; one fell from Heaven, whereas the other issued
forth from Earth. Thus the words used to describe them cannot be the same.
Now the four cases enumerated above are alike in that they are all to be
considered mutable rites. However, those who manifested them differed. Some
were manifested by men and others by women. Thus the words used to describe
18 The Spring and Autumn at Duke Yin 2.5 states: 'In the ninth month, Lu Hsiu of Chi
came to meet the bride [of his ruler].' The Kung-yang Commentary adds: 'Who was this
Lu Hsiu of Chi? A great officer of Chi. Why is he not referred to as an envoy? In the
marriage ritual, no reference is made of the host [i.e., the bridegroom]. To whom,
then, are references made? References are made to the paternal uncles, elder brothers,
teachers, and friends. Why, then, is reference made to the bridegroom in the entry
'The duke of Sung sent the duke Hsun Shou to come and present marriage gifts?' No
other wording [of this entry] would have been possible. What does this imply? [The
duke of Sung] had no mother. [The marquis of] Chi, did he have a mother? The
answer is: 'He had.' Since this is so, why then is no reference made to his mother? The
mother could not communicate [directly with the envoy]. The Spring and Autumn does
not record the meeting of brides of [feudal lords] of the Exterior. Why is this instance
recorded? In order to reprimand. What was there to reprimand? It reprimands [the
marquis of Chi] for being the first not to meet his bride in person.' Translation
modified from Malmqvist 1971, p. 73.
19 See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Wen 9.1.
20 * . 21 i i - » . 22 m&m. 23 mmm. 24
25 H. 26 M.
188
them must differ. Thus some are enumerated as immutable, whereas others are
enumerated as mutable.27
In this discussion of ritual theory, as in the administration of justice,
Tung Chung-shu expressed a preference for ritual substance rather than
its form. Here, too, he maintained that, when Confucius appraised ritual
matters, what was of central concern to him was the intention of the
individual engaging in a rite. According to Tung, this was the basis of
Confucius's judgments preserved in the subtle wording of the Spring and
Autumn. The following discussion on mourning from the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu illustrates well Tung's emphasis on intention. The passage opens with
a quotation from the Kung-yang Commentary concerning Confucius's
judgment on a ritual matter: 'The Spring and Autumn criticized Duke
Wen for making marriage plans during the mourning period.' 28 An
unidentified interlocutor, perhaps a disciple striving to master the eso-
teric code of Confucius's judgments, then queries:
It is the practice of mourning not to exceed three years. Three years of mourning
is the equivalent of twenty-five months. Now according to the scripture, Duke
Wen did not make marriage arrangements until the forty-first month. When he
made these arrangements the time of mourning had already long since passed.
Why then does the Spring and Autumn state that he made marriage plans during
the mourning period?29
Tung Chung-shu responds:
When the Spring and Autumn judges events, nothing is more important than
intent.30 When planning a marriage one must send silk as a betrothal gift. Duke
Wen sent them during the mourning period. This is why [the Spring and Autumn]
refers to [this event] as 'making marriage plans during the mourning period.'
Furthermore Duke Wen enacted the Hsia Sacrifice during the autumn and sent
his betrothal gifts during the winter. In each case, he erred by being too early.
That the Spring and Autumn did not criticize the former [enacting the Hsia
Sacrifice in autumn] but only the latter [betrothal gifts in winter] was certainly
on account of the fact that the mourning period of three years is [meant to give
adequate expression to] the emotional responses among those who are blood
kin. Even if he were following custom, if he were not able to do so completely, he
still should not have felt settled in his heart. Instead, he completely lacked the
mental attitude of mourning, and on the contrary thought of marriage. This is
something that the Spring and Autumn truly loathes, and so it criticized [Duke
Wen] for failing to exceed the mourning period of three years, and at the outset
criticized him for planning his marriage during that time. For failing to
27 CCFL 3/2a.g.i-3a.3.2. Text appears to be missing from this last sentence.

28 CCFL i/6a.o,.i—6a.o,.8. See the Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Wen 2.8.
29 CCFL i/6a.9.g-i/6b.2.16.
189
distinguish between the proper order of things, [the Spring and Autumn] slighted
him for lacking a human heart.31
Moving from this particular judgment to comment on the basis for all
of Confucius's opinions on ritual, Tung directs the conversation toward
the distinction between form and substance:
The Spring and Autumn bases its discussions of ritual on this type of example, for
the most important aspect of ritual is one's mental attitude. When one's mental
attitude was respectful and one's restraint complete, the noble man [Confucius]
granted that such a person understood ritual. When one's mental attitude was
harmonious and the [resulting] tones were graceful, the noble man [Confucius]
granted that such a person understood music. When one's mental attitude was
sorrowful and one lived with constraints, the noble man [Confucius] granted
that such a person understood mourning. This is why [the Spring and Autumn]
states: '[Ritual] should not be emptily applied.' This refers to the [proper]
emphasis on one's mental attitude. The mental attitude [of ritual] is its sub-
stance, while the objects [involved in ritual] are its form.32 [Ritual] form is
manifested by its substance. Thus if substance does not abide in the form, how
will form give to that substance [an adequate] display? Only when substance and
form are both complete can ritual be perfected. For if either substance or form
be one-sidedly practiced, one would be hard pressed to choose between the
two.33 And yet in a case where it is impossible for both to be complete and one
is one-sidedly practiced, it is better to possess the substance and lack the form.
Although he would not grant that [such a person was] competent in ritual, he
would still approve to some extent. [The entry] 'Chieh He-lu came' is a case in
point.34 However, if one possesses [only] the form and lacks the substance, not
only would [Confucius] not grant [that such a person was competent in ritual],
but he would also disapprove to some extent. [The entry] The duke of Chou,
that same person came' is a case in point.35 Thus, in setting out the proper
sequence of the Way, the Spring and Autumn places substance first and
form afterward; gives primary position to the mental attitude [of a person
engaged in ritual] and secondary position to the external objects [of ritual]. This
is why [Confucius] said: 'Ritual they say. Ritual they say. Can mere gems and
31 CCFL i/6b. 2 .i8-i/6b.g.i.

32 Here again Tung distinguishes between form (wen) and substance (chih).
33 *m^nmz%.
34 The Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Hsi 29.1 explains that this man was a ruler of the I
and Ti tribes who came to pay a visit to the Chou court. The text replaces the standard
term designating a court visit (ch'ao) with the graph meaning simply 'to come' (lai).
Although this ruler did not know the ritual forms proper to a court visit, the text
suggests he adopted an attitude appropriate to a court visit.
35 This statement appears to be a conflation of the two entries at Duke Huan 5.9 and 6.1.
The duke was from a state outside the Chou domain. The Kung-yang Commentary at 6.1
explains that the term shih lai designates disregard for this duke because he displayed
a disrespectful attitude.
190
gowns be called ritual?'36 From this one can infer that it is also proper to
say: Government they say. Government they say. Can mere commands and
orders be called government?37 Music they say. Music they say. Can mere bells
and drums be called music?38 From this one can infer that it is also proper to say:
Mourning they say. Mourning they say. Can mere clothing and garments be
called mourning?39
At first glance the comments cited here appear contradictory. On the
one hand, Tung claims that Confucius preferred the inner substance of
ritual. On the other hand, he argues that without both substance and
form, ritual is incomplete. How could these two claims simultaneously
hold true? The passage concludes:
This is why, when Confucius established the Way of Renewed Kingship, he made
it clear that he valued intention to return to harmony, and he revealed his love
of sincerity to obliterate hypocrisy. Confucius acted in this way because he
inherited the abuses of the Chou.40
Thus, Kung-yang scholars still held to a traditional Confucian ideal, first
expressed in the Analects, that substance and form ought to coexist in
perfect harmony: 'When there is a preponderance of native substance
over acquired form, the result will be rusticity. When there is a prepon-
derance of acquired refinement over native substance, the result will be
pedantry. Only a well-balanced mixture of these two will result in a noble
person.' 41 Hsun-tzu also expressed this view of ritual practice in the
following passage:
When form and ornamentation are emphasized while emotion and practical
use are slighted, rites are in their most florid state. When form and orna-
mentation are slighted and emotion and practical use emphasized, rites are in
their leanest state. When form and ornamentation and emotion and practical
use are treated as the inside and outside or the front and back of a single
reality, and both are realized and blended, then rites have reached the middle
state.42
Early Confucians believed that the relationship between form and
substance was one of mutual dependence. In other words, ritual forms
36 The 'gems and gowns' are the external objects of ritual. The quotation is from Lun-yu
17/11.
37 'Commands and orders' are the outward manifestations of government.
38 Lun-yu 17/11.
39 CCFL 1/6D.9.2-1/7D.1.11.
40 CCFL 1/7b. 1.12-1/71x3.2.
41 Lun-yu, 6/18. Translation modified from Lau 1979, p. 83. For other important com-
ments regarding form and substance, see Lun-yu 12/18 and 15/18.
42 Translation modified from Watson 1963, p. 96.
were necessary to give expression to the emotions of human beings.43

Here again Kung-yang scholars followed Hsun-tzu, who on numerous
occasions discussed the relationship between human emotions and
ritual forms.44 When such an ideal could not be realized, however, the
Kung-yang interpreters expressed a preference for ritual substance: the
mental attitude or emotions accompanying a ritual act. Although other
philosophers of the pre-Han era expressed this same preference, their
theoretical justification differed markedly from that of Kung-yang schol-
ars.45 For example, Chuang-tzu rejected form altogether. Rather than
giving expression to what was internal to a human being, he believed
cultural forms alienated human beings from their inner substance.46 In
contrast, Kung-yang scholars upheld the traditional Confucian ideal of
balance, tempered by considerations of historical contingency. They
argued that Confucius emphasized the inner substance of ritual to ad-
dress the abuses of his day.
Other chapters of the Ch yun-ch 'iu fan-lu also argue that an excess of
refinement or concern for outward appearances characterized Chou
abuses and that Confucius sought to rectify them by returning to simplic-
ity and a concern for inner substance. Chapter 6 (The Kingly Way')
claims, 'The Spring and Autumn redeems cultural refinement with inner
simplicity.'47 Chapter 12 ('Ten Guiding Precepts'), which is most likely a
restatement of Tung Chung-shu's teachings by a later disciple, asserts
that one of the guiding precepts of the Spring and Autumn is that the
ruler must 'revert to inner simplicity having inherited the cultural refine-
ment of the Chou.'48 The same chapter also relates simplicity to the
transforming influence of the ruler's educational institutions: 'By inher-
iting the cultural refinement of Chou and reverting to inner simplicity,
43 The classical expression of this problem occurs in Lun-yu 12.8, where the text states:
'Chi Tzu-ch'eng said: "The important thing about the gentleman is the stuff he is made
of. What does he need refinement for?" Tzu-kung commented, "It is a pity that the
gentleman should have spoken so about the gentleman. A team of horses cannot catch
up with one's tongue. The stuff is no different from refinement; refinement is no
different from the stuff. The pelt of a tiger or a leopard, shorn of hair, is no different
from that of a dog or sheep."' Following Lau 1979, pp. 113-114.
44 See the chapter entitled 'Li Lun'(On Ritual) in the Hsun-tzu.
45 For example, the 'Chieh Lao' (Explaining Lao-tzu) of the Han-fei-tzu states: 'Rites
constitute the external expression of the emotions; forms are the ornamentation of the
substance. Now a noble man clings to the emotions and discards the appearance; he
loves substance and loathes form.' Han-fei-tzu suoyin, p. 761. For an interesting illustra-
tion of the Mohist tendency to give priority to substance, and an early example of the
association between substance and frugality, see the lost passage from 'Chieh Yung'
(Moderation in Expenditure) of the Mo-tzu preserved in the SYCC 20/515.
46 See, for example, 'Mending the Inborn Nature' and 'The Mountain Tree' from the
Chuang-tzu.
47 CCFL i/6b. 5 .i4-6b.6.i. 48
192
[the ruler] establishes the proper orientation of educational transforma-

tion.'49 Confucius's relationship to the waning Chou dynasty was likened
to a king who, having ushered in a new dynasty, must resolve the abuses
inherited from the previous age. The successor to an era of excessive
cultural refinement, or attention to outward form, must display an ex-
cess of simplicity, or attention to the inner substance of ritual, to redress
the imbalance. Tung and his disciples assumed that the only way to
return to the ritual ideal, in which substance and form were in perfect
balance, was to emphasize what had been underemphasized in the
previous age.
However, since Confucius never rose to the position of ruler and was
unable to influence those in power, he endeavored to reform the waning
Chou dynasty by composing the Spring and Autumn. Tung explained:
'Confucius wrote the Spring and Autumn, first rectifying kingship and
then relating this to numerous affairs [in the world], manifesting the
writings of an uncrowned king.'50 In this sense, the Spring and Autumn
provided a compelling model of reform for the Kung-yang scholars who
viewed their relation to the preceding Ch'in dynasty as analogous to
Confucius's position vis-a-vis the Chou. For although the Han dynasty
followed the Ch'in, it did not abolish its excessive practices or evil
institutions.51 This view that Confucius broke radically with the Chou was
one of the hallmarks of the Kung-yang scholars; it distinguished them
from the more mainstream and traditional view that Confucius followed
the cultural forms of the Chou, which was the appropriate model for the
Han dynasty. Arguments raised during the deliberations concerning the
appointment of Emperor Ching's heir apparent exemplify this view-
point. When Emperor Ching was about to appoint an heir, Empress
Dowager Tou pressured him to install his brother, the king of Liang. The
emperor summoned a number of scholars versed in the Confucian
scriptures to respond to the empress's suggestion. Yuan Eng and others
stated:
It was the Way of the Yin to treat their relatives with affection, and so they
established [the ruler's] younger brother as heir. It was the Way of the Chou to
honor those who were worthy of honor, and so they established [the ruler's] son
as heir. The Way of Yin was marked by inner substance. Those marked by inner
substance model themselves on Heaven and show affection toward their rela-
tives. Consequently they establish the ruler's younger brother as heir. The Way
of Chou was marked by cultural refinement. Those marked by cultural refine-
ment model themselves on Earth, and those who are worthy of honor are
honored. They honor their fundamental origin. Consequently they establish the
49 CGFL5/7b.4.7-7b.4.ig. 50 HS 56/2509. 51 HS 56/2504.

ruler's oldest son as heir. When the heir apparent died, it was the Way of Chou
to establish the ruler's grandson. When the heir apparent died, it was the Way of
Yin to establish the ruler's brother. . . . Presently the ruling family of the Han
models itself on the Chou. The Way of Chou did not grant the establishment of
the ruler's brother; it is therefore appropriate to establish the ruler's son as
heir.52
This passage, which applauds the Chou dynasty as a model of political
legitimation, reveals the more familiar view of Han Confucianism. In
contrast, Kung-yang scholars believed that Confucius did not 'follow the
Chou,' but rather that he ushered in a new age.53 The 'Way of Renewed
Kingship' embodied in his Spring and Autumn sought to revert back to a
historical period that preceded the Chou, when the value of simplicity
defined the religious, political, and ethical norms of the day.54 Beyond
their ritual and historical significance, these two groups of Confucians
correlated simplicity and refinement with other principles that further
represented their differing political and religious agendas. Substance
and simplicity became associated with education, cherishing one's rela-
tives, Heaven, and frugality, whereas form and refinement became affili-
ated with administrative regulations, honoring the honorable, Earth,
and extravagance.
Tung Chung-shu's efforts to articulate a model for Han political and
religious values that preceded the Chou era are also apparent in another
historical theory he espoused known as the 'three teachings.' During an
imperial inquiry, Emperor Wu asked participants to explain why the
teachings of the Sage Kings Yao, Shun, and Yii differed when the Way
was said to be eternal and immutable. Tung responded:
52 SC 58/2091.
53 Chapter 13 of the Huai-nan-tzu also expresses a similar viewpoint: 'Now the Yin altered
the Hsia; the Chou altered the Yin; and the Spring and Autumn altered the Chou.'
54 Another example of how Han scholars applied Tsou Yen's dyadic scheme of alternating
cycles of form and substance to history appears in the HS 'Biography of Tu Chin.' The
biography points out that Tu Chin was a scholar of the canonical texts of the Confucian
tradition but does not identify him with a particular exegetical tradition. Nevertheless,
several of his memorials suggest that he was influenced by Kung-yang interpretations,
for he supported the idea of reversion to the values associated with simplicity
and substance. In the summer of 30 B.C.E., Emperor Ch'eng summoned scholars to
the White Tiger Hall who were known for their forthrightness to respond to several
broad questions presented in an imperial edict. In response to the last of six questions,
'What should the government of the present age strive to achieve?' Tu Chin wrote: 'Yin,
in consequence of Hsia, honored simplicity; Chou, in consequence of Hsia, honored
refinement. Now the House of Han has inherited the excesses of Chou and Ch'in.
It is therefore suitable to restrain refinement and honor simplicity; to abandon
extravagance and promote frugality; to manifest honesty and eradicate hypocrisy.
Confucius said: 'I detest purple for displacing vermillion.' This is what the government
of the present age should strive to achieve. HS 60/ 2674. Tu Chin's application of form
and substance to the historical dynasties of the Hsia, Yin (Shang), Chou, Ch'in, and
194
The Way has existed for ten thousand generations without imperfection. Imper-
fection means the loss of the Way. The ways of the former kings55 surely possessed
some biases and failures. Therefore their governments did not understand and
did not practice certain aspects [of the Way]. They promoted these biases to
rectify the imperfection [of the previous age] and nothing more. The historical
circumstances from which the ways of the three kings arose were not identical.56
They did not oppose one another, but when each sought to rectify the excesses
and turn the tide of decline [experienced by the previous era], the circum-
stances they encountered differed. Therefore Confucius said: 'Wasn't it Shun
who governed through nonpurposive action?'57 He simply changed the first
month of the calendar and altered the color of court dress to comply with the
Mandate of Heaven. As for the remaining aspects of his government, he con-
formed to the way of Yao in every last detail. What need was there to alter what
Yao had accomplished? Thus these kings possessed a reputation for changing
regulations, but actually did not alter the Way.58 However, the Hsia esteemed
loyalty, the Yin esteemed piety, and the Chou esteemed refinement, because it
was appropriate for them to employ these measures to rectify [the imperfec-
tions] they had inherited from the previous era. Confucius said: 'The Yin
adapted the Hsia rites. What was decreased and what was increased can be
known. The Chou adapted the Yin rites. What was decreased and what was
increased can be known. Should there be a successor to the Chou, even if a
hundred generations [should pass], it will be possible to know these things.'59
This means that what all kings employ must be these three. The Hsia adapted the
Yu rites. However, in this case alone, Confucius did not say what was decreased
and what was increased, [because] their ways were one and what they esteemed
was identical.60 The great origin of the Way emanates from Heaven. Heaven does
not change. Likewise, the Way does not change. For this reason when Yu suc-
ceeded Shun and Shun succeeded Yao, three sages succeeded one another but
Han is straightforward. Yet even at this early date one can see the tendency to correlate
Tsou Yen's substance-form distinction with other values or characteristics. Here Tu
Chin associates simplicity or substance with the values of frugality and truth, while
he correlates refinement or form with the values of extravagance and artifice. Undoubt-
edly Tu Chin's remarks depart in several ways from the CCFL passage. He does not
mention Confucius, and he applies Tsou Yen's cyclical view of history to a larger
historical context. Nevertheless, he does argue that the current dynasty must abandon
the cultural refinement of the Chou dynasty and adhere to inner simplicity.
55 Throughout this essay Tung distinguishes between the Way (Tao), which is eternal and
perfect and emanates from Heaven, and the way of the former kings (hsien-wang chih
tao), which represents the variable historical manifestations of the Way in the human
realm of governance.
56 Tsu literally means ancestor. Here it denotes the historical circumstances out of which
a new dynasty emerged.
57 Lun-yu 2/5.
58 Tung here distinguishes between their ming, the reputation or name that they have
acquired, and their shih, the actuality or substance of their governance.
59 Modified from Lau 1979, p. 66.
60 The Hsia inherited the Yu dynasty's preference for loyalty and did not alter this.
they preserved the same way. There were no 'policies for rectifying imperfec-
tions.' This is why Confucius did not speak of 'what they decreased and in-
creased.' Looking at it from this perspective, the way of those who succeed an
orderly age is identical to that of their predecessor, while the way of those who
succeed a chaotic age alters that of their predecessor. Now Han is the successor
to an age of great chaos. It is therefore fitting to diminish the excessive refine-
ment of the Chou and employ the loyalty of the Hsia.61
Unlike the perfect and immutable Way, the Shang and Chou govern-
ments were flawed and changeable. Furthermore, their imperfections
compelled the ruler of each new dynasty to alter his predecessors' prac-
tices. The extent to which earlier rulers iost the Way' determined the
extent to which reform was necessary in the dynasty that succeeded
them. However, the more remote reigns of Yao, Shun, and Yu embodied
the halcyon days of perfect government. Consequently, their rulers did
not institute 'policies for rectifying imperfections,' but simply changed
such ritual regulations as the first month of the year and court dress to
acknowledge their respective reception of Heaven's mandate. When
Tung argued that it continued the tradition of Yii without change, he
elevated the status of the Hsia dynasty by linking it with the perfected
governments of great antiquity. The underlying assumption was that the
governments of Yao, Shun, Yu, and the Hsia all shared the characteristic
of loyalty. But the Hsia was also a liminal era, standing on the threshold
of these eras of perfect order and chaos. Having succeeded an orderly
age, the Hsia simply followed the practices of its predecessor without
change, but toward the dynasty's conclusion, faults emerged and the age
of imperfection was ushered onto the historical scene. Having inherited
the excessive refinement of the Chou, which was perpetuated by the
Ch'in without reform, Tung concludes that Han rulers must revert back
to loyalty, the first of the three teachings in this cycle of remedial change.
Tung believed that the alternatives for reform were in a sense predeter-
mined - being limited to the three teachings of the Hsia, Shang, and
Chou, characterized respectively by an emphasis on loyalty, piety, and
refinement. Yet the ruler's conduct could affect the permanence or
impermanence of any particular cycle. For example, Yao, Shun, Yu, and
the Hsia had no need to alter their institutions, because each succeeded
a well-governed age free of excesses. The distinction between a historical
period of chaos and one of order was not predetermined, but rather
depended on the ruler's ability and willingness to model himself on
Heaven according to the precepts of the sacred literature of the past.
Ssu-ma Ch'ien argued similarly:
61 HS 56/2518.
196
The government of the Hsia dynasty was loyal. When loyalty declined, the
common people became rude. Therefore the Yin people succeeded it with piety.
When piety declined, the common people became superstitious. Therefore the
Chou people succeeded it with refinement. When refinement declined, the
common people became superficial. Therefore to remedy what is superficial,
nothing is better than loyalty. The ways of the Three Kings are like a cycle; they
end and begin anew. The Chou and Ch'in were eras that exhausted refinement.
The Ch'in government did not reform, but reverted to cruel punishments and
laws. How could they be free from error? Thus when Han arose, having suc-
ceeded to these excesses, it has changed and reformed, directing the people not
to tire in their efforts to obtain Heaven's cycle.62
Like Tung Chung-shu, he viewed the Han as the successor to two eras of
rule defined by excessive cultural pursuits. These arguments suggest that
this cyclical theory of history known as the 'three teachings' was an
important model for political legitimation during the Western Han.
Those who defended it sought to renew culture and politics by reverting
to the values of an earlier age.
Although statements in which Tung Chung-shu and Ssu-ma Ch'ien
combine these two theories do not appear in extant sources, the Shuo-
yilan and Lun-heng, texts dating respectively from the first century B.C.E.
and C.E., combine the dyadic (substance-form) and triadic (three teach-
ings) cycles described previously. In the Shuo-yiian, Liu Hsiang explains
how these two cycles complemented each other and dictated the appro-
priate model of reform for various aspects of government:
The Shang dynasty corresponds to ch'ang, what is constant. What is constant
corresponds to substance. Substance is ruled by Heaven. The Hsia dynasty
corresponds to ta, what is great. What is great corresponds to form. Form is ruled
by Earth. Therefore the kings first follow Shang and then follow Hsia. With two
the cycle begins anew. The rectification of court dress, with three begins anew.
The first of the five flavors, sweetness, is esteemed while the first of the penta-
tonic notes, kung, is esteemed. With one these cycles begin anew. The techniques
of the kings were like a cycle. Therefore Hsia taught loyalty. The noble were loyal
but the vulgar erred on the side of rudeness. For rectifying rudeness, nothing
compares to piety. Therefore Yin taught piety. The noble were pious but the
vulgar erred on the side of superstition. For rectifying superstition, nothing
compares with refinement. Therefore Chou taught refinement. The noble were
refined, but the vulgar erred on the side of superficiality. For rectifying superfi-
ciality, nothing compares with loyalty. Thus in their sageliness the sages resem-
bled the three revolutions of the carpenter's square and compass. With the Chou
the cycle begins anew. When the cycle reaches its end, it reverts back to the
62 SC 8/393-394. S e e also Watson 1958, pp. 12-15. The 'Piao-chi' chapter of the Li-chi
contains another rendition of the Three Teachings. See LCCCCI, p. 858.
beginning. The Odes states: 'As if carved and chiseled is his exterior; like gold and
jade is his substance.'63 This expresses the beauty of form and substance.64
In the Lun-heng, Wang Ch'ung treats the triadic cycle of the three
teachings as the concrete manifestation of the dyadic model of alternat-
ing periods of form and substance:
In every age prosperity alternates with decline. When decline persists for a long
time, corrupt practices appear. It resembles the clothing and food utilized by
human beings. When an article of clothing has just been completed, it is clean
and intact, but with time it wears thin. When food is first cooked, it is fragrant
and fresh. But with time it decomposes and begins to smell. The standards of
form and substance have been shared by ancient and contemporary alike. Sub-
stance alternates with form, just as decline alternates with prosperity. How can I
prove this? A tradition states: The Hsia kings taught loyalty. When they taught
loyalty, the noble were loyal but the vulgar erred on the side of rudeness. For
rectifying rudeness, nothing compares with piety. Therefore the Yin kings taught
piety. When they taught piety, the noble were pious but the vulgar erred on the
side of superstition. For rectifying superstition, nothing compares with refine-
ment. Therefore the Chou kings taught refinement. When they taught refine-
ment, the noble were refined, but the vulgar erred on the side of shallowness.
For rectifying shallowness, nothing compares with loyalty. One who succeeds the
Chou and becomes king, must teach loyalty. Hsia inherited the corrupt practices
that arose from the teachings of T'ang (Yao) and Yii (Shun). T'ang and
Yii taught refinement because they had inherited the corrupt practice of
superstition.65
In Wang Ch'ung's scheme, loyalty, piety, and refinement are the histori-
cal manifestations of the more abstract tendency for culture to move
cyclically from simplicity to refinement, and from prosperity to decline.
Unlike Tung Chung-shu, Wang Ch'ung held that these cycles character-
ized all ages of history, including those of Yao and Shun. There was no
perfect age that transcended these cyclical changes.
The close relationship between history and cosmology explicitly ex-
pressed in the Shuo-yuan passage and implicitly in the Lun-heng demon-
strates that by at least the first century B.C.E. scholars had begun to
correlate inner substance with Heaven and outer form with Earth.66 The
alternations of form and substance within human culture were but
manifestations of the natural cycles that pervaded the cosmos and served
as the ultimate model for human conduct. The Po-hu Vung (Comprehen-
63 Mao # 238. Adapted from Karlgren 1950, p. 191.

64 SYCC 19/477. CCFL, chapter 23, was probably written by Tung's disciples elaborating
on the simpler theories of their master, combines cycles of two, three, four,five,and
nine.
65 LHCS 17/1080-1081. 66 See SYCC 19/477.
198
sive Discussions at White Tiger Hall), attributed to Pan Ku, which pur-
ports to be the official r e p o r t of discussions o n the Confucian scriptures
held u n d e r imperial auspices in 79 C.E., further develops the
cosmological principles in the Shuayuan:
Why after adhering to [the principle of] substance must a king follow [the
principle of] form? To continue [the cycles of] Heaven and Earth, and to
comply with [the succession of] yin and yang. When the way of yang has reached
its summit, yin takes over its task; when the way of yin has reached its summit,
yang takes over its task; it means that neither yang succeeds yang nor yin
succeeds yin. It is simply that substance emulates Heaven, and form emulates
Earth. Therefore Heaven [provides] the substance; Earth receives, transforms,
nourishes, and completes it, thus [providing the] form. The Great Commentary to
the Documents states: 'After [the principle of] substance has been followed, a king
follows [the principle of] form, basing himself on the Way of Heaven and Earth.'
The Li-san cheng-chi says: 'The [principle of] substance emulates Heaven, [the
principle of] form emulates Earth.' 67
Heaven a n d Earth served as a m o d e l for h u m a n c o n d u c t providing the

b r o a d cosmological basis for the values to which a dynasty a d h e r e d . This
cosmological vision, in t a n d e m with the historical perspective already
outlined, formed the normative basis for discussions of ritual. T h e ruler
ritually r e e n a c t e d the normative patterns of the cosmos, based o n his
particular location within the cycles of history.
T o clarify the relationship between the political a n d religious policies
of a ruling family a n d this dyadic notion of history, H a n scholars distin-
guished 'a ruling family that a d h e r e s to substance' 6 8 from 'a ruling family
that a d h e r e s to form.' 6 9 Several texts dating from the first century B.C.E.
t h r o u g h the second century C.E. employed this terminology. For exam-
ple, a passage from Liu Hsiang's Wu-ching tyung-i ( C o m m o n Principles of
the Five Scriptures) explains:
Why does a ruling family that adheres to form place the Altar of the Soil to the
right and the Ancestral Temple to the left? A ruling family that adheres to form
emulates Earth to [establish] the ruler. The Way of Earth persists in the achieve-
ment of affairs. Since the Ancestral Temple is subordinate to the Altar of the
Soil, consequently the Altar of the Soil is placed to the right. A ruling family that
adheres to substance places the Altar of the Soil to the left and the ancestral
temple to the right.70
In addition, the Wu-ching i-i (Divergent Principles of the Five Scriptures),
attributed to Pan Ku's c o n t e m p o r a r y Hsu Shen ( 3 0 - 1 2 4 C.E.), preserves
67 Translation modified from Tjan 1949, p. 554.

68 MM. 69 XM.
70 Wu-ching t'ung-i 2§/Q2L.
many opinions of the Kung-yang exegetes and illustrates the principles

characteristic of this tradition in the first century C.E., roughly one
hundred years after Tung's death. Although much of this text has been
lost over the centuries, at least one passage explicitly identifies Kung-yang
interpreters as adherents of the principle of substance. Norms of politi-
cal succession are the subject under discussion:
The Kung-yang theorists state that a ruling family that adheres to substance
establishes as an heir [the current ruler's] brother, while a ruling family that
adheres to form establishes [the current ruler's] son. The Spring and Autumn
abides by [the principle of] substance. Therefore the establishment of brothers
was obtained.71
Additional passages document the fact that Kung-yang exegetes actively

debated interpreters of other textual traditions and that they advocated
ritual practices that differed from them based on their reading of the
Kung-yang Commentary,72 Such distinctions survive in far greater number
in Eastern Han texts. For example, the Po-hu Vung states:
(i)'A ruling family that adheres to substance emulates Heaven and therefore
models itself after the Three Luminary Bodies; a ruling family that adheres to
form emulates Earth and therefore models itself after the five phases.'73
(2)'By the change of the first month of the year [the principle of] substance is
substituted for [that of] form. A ruling family that adheres to form puts form
first, a ruling family that adheres to substance puts substance first.' 74
(3)'A ruling family that adheres to substance emulates Heaven, and reverences
the left. A ruling family that adheres to form emulates Earth and reverences the
right.'75
(4)'A ruling family that adheres to form employs one word for a posthumous
name [as in the case of King Wen and King Wu]. A ruling family that adheres to
substance employs two words.'76
Undoubtedly these examples provide a scattered and incomplete pic-
ture of this important Han discourse. Yet they do suggest that at least as
early as the first century B.C.E. and continuing through to the second
century C.E., this conceptual distinction informed discussions of ritual
practice. Moreover, scholars cited the Confucian scriptures to legitimize
and concretize them, identifying their texts with one or the other of
71 Wu-ching i-i 23/1 ob.
72 Wu-ching i-i 22/1 a-23/36a.
73 Following Tjan 1949, p. 219.
74 Following Tjan 1949, p. 449-
75 Following Tjan 1949, p. 252.
76 Following Tjan 1949, p. 371. Further examples appear in the Ch'un-ch'iu Kung-yang
chuan Ho-shih chieh-ku. See, for example, Ho Hsiu's comments following the entries at
Duke Yin 1, Huan 11, and Chuang 22.
2OO
these two models of ritual practice. Within the larger discussion of

competing models of legitimation, Kung-yang interpreters identified the
Spring and Autumn with the principle of substance.
Reforming the imperial rites

Two rites that Tung Chung-shu sought to institute illustrate the close
affiliation between his ritual interpretations of the Spring and Autumn
and the various correlates of substance or simplicity. Since it was one
such correlate, we would expect Heaven to figure prominently in the
writings of those who advocated this model of ritual practice. In fact, this
was precisely the case. Tung Chung-shu, for example, sought to institute
two ceremonies that emphasized the primacy of Heaven as an object of
worship, the Suburban Sacrifice77 and the Changing of Regulations
upon the Reception of Heaven's Mandate. 78
In chapter 65 ('Discourse on the Suburban Sacrifice')of the Ch'un-
ch'iufan-lu, Tung Chung-shu articulates two important ideas concerning
Heaven:
Heaven is the great overlord of the numerous spirits. If you are not prepared to
serve Heaven, then even the assistance of the one hundred spirits will not bring
advantages. How do I know that this is so? When no sacrifices were made to
Heaven but sacrifices were made to the other spirits, the Spring and Autumn
criticized this. Confucius said: 'If you commit a crime against Heaven, there is no
one to whom you can pray.' This was his rule. This is why we never saw the Ch'in
receive Heaven's blessings as the Chou did.79
State sacrifices must reflect the fact that Heaven reigned supreme over
all other spirits. Ritual obligations to Heaven must come before those
to other deities. If Heaven is neglected, moreover, supplicating the
lesser gods will be of no use. Since Ch'in rulers failed to comply with
this religious norm, their blessings were limited. Heaven occupied a
position of absolute supremacy and centrality within Tung Chung-shu's
theology.
Tung also argued that although Ch'in rulers failed to serve Heaven
properly, Han emperors could rectify the ritual transgressions of the past
by instituting ritual practices based on the Spring and Autumn that set out
the appropriate rites, the correct schedules of their performance, and
the proper hierarchical relationship between them. For example, he
outlined the relationship between the ancestral sacrifices and the Subur-
ban Sacrifice in the following way:
77 2MB. 78 &fH. 79 CCFL 15/2*5-2*8.

2O1
It is a principle of the Spring and Autumn that the king sacrifices to Heaven once
a year at the suburban altar and sacrifices four times a year at the ancestral
temple.80 The sacrifices at the ancestral temple follow the changes in the four
seasons, while the Suburban Sacrifice follows the beginning of the new year. The
sages had a reason for instituting this practice, and we must be familiar with
the reasons why they sacrificed [in this way]. Heaven is the ruler of the one
hundred spirits and that which is most honored by the king. And because
Heaven is the most honored, when the year changes, the king initiates the
Suburban Sacrifice. It must take place on the first hsin day81 of the first month,
to demonstrate that the most honored is placed before all other [ritual] affairs
of the year. Each time the year begins, the Suburban Sacrifice is enacted first.
Such is the righteous principle of placing the honorable first. Such is the way to
revere Heaven.82
For Tung Chung-shu, the Suburban Sacrifice honored Heaven. It was far
more important than the ancestral rites. By implication, he argued the
ruler's relationship to Heaven must take precedence over familial obliga-
tions. In construing the Suburban Sacrifice in this way, Tung Chung-shu
emphasized the ruler's obligations to Heaven.
Tung also argued that even when the ruler mourned a parent's death,
he should not abandon the Suburban Sacrifice:
It is a righteous principle of the Spring and Autumn to suspend the sacrifices at
the ancestral temples but not to suspend the Suburban Sacrifice when there is a
Grand Mourning83 in the state. Do not dare abandon the rites that serve Heaven
and Earth on account of the burial of a parent. The burial of a parent is most
sorrowful and painful. If, under such circumstances, the Spring and Autumn still
does not dare to abandon the Suburban Sacrifice, when is there sufficient cause
to do so? . . . The ancients, then, feared and revered Heaven and emphasized the
Suburban Sacrifice to Heaven to this great extent. Today various ministers and
scholars do not investigate this. They claim: 'There are many who are impover-
ished among the common people. Some are without sufficient food and shelter.
How can we enact the Suburban Sacrifice?' The Son of Heaven serves Heaven as
if he were serving his parents, and he nourishes the people as if they were his
sons and grandsons. To say that there is no need to sacrifice to Heaven when the
people have not generally been provided for, is like saying that there is no need
to feed father and mother when the son and grandson have not yet eaten. There
are no words more deviant than this. They are quite remote from propriety. The
honorable must come before the humble. Who is more honored than the Son of
Heaven? The term t'ien-tzu designates the Son of Heaven. How can one accept
80 See the Spring and Autumn and Kungyang Commentary at Duke Hsi 31.3 and Duke Huan
8.1.
81 This was the eighth of the ten-day cycle.
82 CCFL 15/13.4.1-^.9.15.
83 This refers to the rites of mourning following the death of a ruler.
2O2
the designation t'ien-tzu and lack the rites appropriate to the Son of Heaven? The
Son of Heaven must sacrifice to Heaven just as the son must nourish the father.84
This passage emphasizes the ruler's obligation to serve Heaven before all
other earthly or spiritual beings. Tung's final comments employ the
technique of name rectification to clarify the ritual obligations of the
ruler. He uses the designation t'ien-tzu (Son of Heaven) rather than the
alternative designation huang-ti (August Emperor) which the first em-
peror of the Ch'in dynasty had created. As Howard Wechsler explains:
'Whereas t'ien-tzu connoted power limited by the will of Heaven and
dependent on moral rectitude, the new title huang-ti seems to have
connoted no such limitations, representing power untrammeled by any
heavenly or earthly considerations.'85 By choosing the term t'ien-tzu,
Tung Chung-shu not only voiced rejection of the Ch'in model of
rulership and emphasized continuity with an earlier era, but also exhib-
ited his support for a type of rulership that could be challenged by a
higher source of authority.
His discussions of the series of ceremonial acts known as Changing
Regulations on the Reception of Heaven's Mandate (Kai-chih) echo this
sentiment. Tung Chung-shu explains:
In discussing events, the Spring and Autumn praises those who return to antiquity
and criticizes those who depart from their norms, hoping that [the ruler] will
emulate the former kings. However, to put it succinctly, the king must establish
new regulations. What I now say, that a new king must change his regulations,
does not mean that he changes his course or he alters his principles. It means
that having received the Mandate from Heaven [to found a new dynasty], he
rules under a surname different [from the preceding kings], and does so as a
new king rather than as the direct successor of these preceding kings. For if he
uninterruptedly continued the former regulations and practiced the old pursuits
without making any changes, there would be no way to distinguish him from the
preceding kings' direct line of succession. When a ruler receives the Mandate of
Heaven, this is a great manifestation of Heaven's [favor]. He who serves a father
carries out the latter's aims, and he who serves a ruler exemplifies the latter's
will. The same is true for how [a ruler] serves Heaven. Therefore, if Heaven
makes a great manifestation [of its favor] to someone by conferring on him the
Mandate, and yet things in the replacing [dynasty] are perpetuated unchanged,
then no proper manifestation is made [of Heaven's Mandate]. This is not in
accordance with Heaven's will. Therefore the founder of a new dynasty must
shift his place of residence, assume a new title, change the beginning of the year,
and alter the color of ceremonial dress - all for no other reason than that he
dare not disobey the will of Heaven and must clearly manifest [the Mandate
conferred] on him.86
84 CCFL 15/1^2.1-2^3.3. 85 Wechsler 1985, p. 86. 86 CCFL 1/4^2.1-53.1.12.

203
How successful were Tung Chung-shu's efforts to shape and deter-

mine imperial religious practices based on this particular view of history
and the authority of the Spring and Autumn} The rites enacted by Em-
peror Wu were unsystematic and highly eclectic throughout his reign,
suggesting that Tung Chung-shu and his disciples hardly enjoyed a
monopoly of influence in shaping imperial religious practices. Fierce
competition existed both among Confucian scholars as a group, and
between them and the technical masters at Emperor Wu's court. Confu-
cian scholars successfully persuaded the emperor to implement certain
ceremonies, but in the vast majority of cases recounted in the 'Treatise
on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices,' Emperor Wu sought out and instituted
ritual practices following the advice of the court's numerous technical
masters.87
A review of the rites that Emperor Wu instituted during his reign
reveals that Confucian scholars may have persuaded the emperor to
reestablish certain ritual practices and regulations. They included the
Suburban Sacrifice, the Feng and Shan Sacrifices, the Luminous Hall,
tours of inspection, and the promulgation of a new calendar. However,
in most cases these traditional ritual practices and regulations came to
serve different religious ends than those envisioned by the Confucian
scholars. The technical masters were largely responsible for this shift in
purpose. For example, under Emperor Wu the Luminous Hall came to
be associated with the search for immortality.88 Tung Chung-shu's at-
tempts to institute an imperial religion that stressed the supremacy of
Heaven as an object of worship were even less successful. Emperor Wu
instituted a number of imperial cults, largely at the suggestion of the
court's various technical masters. These included worship of a number
of divinities, such as the Five Emperors (Wu-ti), the Lord of the Earth
(Hou-t'v), and the Grand Unifier (T'ai-i). Rites directed to Heaven did
not supersede these imperial cults until 31 B.C.E. Even then, they were
implemented only sporadically until 5 C.E., when Wang Mang firmly
established the practice as part of his reform program.89
A mixed victory for the Confucian scholars

In the debates that preoccupied Han intellectuals searching for histori-
cal models, exegetes of the Kung-yang Commentary, like other Confucian
87 The account of Emperor Wu's performance of the Feng and Shan Sacrifices in this
treatise provides a good illustration of the competition between the Confucian scholars
and the technical masters. See SC 28/1397-1400; Watson 1993, 2:56-60.
88 Examples of this kind are found throughout the 'Treatise on the Feng and Shan
Sacrifices.' See SC 28; Watson 1993, 2:38-69.
89 Twitchett and Loewe 1986, pp. 663-664.
204
scholars, rejected the Ch'in dynasty as a model for the Han. Unlike those
who revered the Chou dynasty, however, they looked to Confucius's
'Way of Renewed Kingship' as the most appropriate model for the Han
dynasty. While others sought to restore the cultural refinement that had
been characteristic of the Chou dynasty, they turned to the inner sim-
plicity associated with the Shang dynasty and the loyalty of the Hsia.
Consequently, their interpretive discussions of ritual theory and prac-
tice, like those of legal theory and practice examined in Chapter 6,
displayed a marked preference for the principle of inner simplicity or
substance and other values closely associated with this concept. Accord-
ing to Tung Chung-shu, Confucius judged ritual matters in light of a
person's inner substance; he always considered the mental attitude ac-
companying a ritual act. Likewise, Tung Chung-shu sought to institute
ritual practices that emphasized the primacy of Heaven, a characteristic
identified early on with the value of substance. He believed that the
Spring and Autumn was a compendium of ritual norms and judgments
and insisted that if the Han dynasty were to succeed, it was essential that
imperial religious practices reflect these 'righteous principles of the
Spring and Autumn.'
To what extent did the ritual innovations of Emperor Wu reflect the
influence of Tung Chung-shu and his disciples? Materials preserved in
the Shih-chi, Han-shu, and Hou-Han shu suggest that the Spring and Au-
tumn functioned as an important source of ritual authority in two basic
senses. As a code of ceremonial regulations, the Spring and Autumn
influenced the outcome of both legal cases involving ritual norms and
court debates involving questions of ritual policy. Nevertheless, the full-
est account of imperial worship during the reign of Emperor Wu, the
'Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices' of the Shih-chi, indicates that
the Spring and Autumn had a more limited impact as a model for imperial
ritual practices. Tung Chung-shu was only moderately successful in his
efforts to convince Emperor Wu to reform court ceremonies based on
the Spring and Autumn as an authoritative source of ritual practice and
beliefs. The Spring and Autumn exercised much greater influence as a
compendium of legal precedents and ceremonial regulations than as a
model for imperial religious practices. Given these findings, we may
reconsider whether it is useful to employ the old and familiar phrase 'the
victory of Han Confucianism' when speaking of the ritual practices of
Emperor Wu.90
90 See Dubs 1938.
205
9
Canon, cosmos, and
court patronage
When Tung Chung-shu's reformist goals led him to recreate the Spring
and Autumn, he read a cosmology into the work. As the two preceding
chapters demonstrated, he based his discussions of the legal and ritual
significance of the Spring and Autumn on this cosmology. He believed
that the Confucian scriptures were critical to understanding the cosmos
and emulating its patterns of value. What view of the cosmos did Tung
Chung-shu articulate in his exegesis of the Spring and Autumn? In seeking
to answer this question, it is helpful to rethink the interrelationship
between three important aspects of Tung Chung-shu's thought as they
developed within the changing political environments of both Emperor
Ching's and Emperor Wu's reigns: his cosmological theories, scriptural
interpretations, and political ideas. Court politics, patterns of patronage,
and ideological pluralism, as well as doctrinal convictions, shaped
Tung's cosmology. The following discussion moves chronologically
through Tung's cosmological writings, beginning with the reliable yiri-
yang chapters of the Ch 'un-ch 'iufan-lu, proceeding to his famous Han-shu
memorials, and concluding with an analysis of Han-shu 27 ('Treatise on
the Five Phases') and the directives he authored while serving as ad-
ministrator to Chiang-tu. I use the term 'correlative' to refer to those
aspects of Tung's cosmology that sought to align the human realm with
the normative patterns of the cosmos. 'Interactive cosmology' is a loose
rendering of the Chinese expression Vien-jen hanging (the mutual re-
sponsiveness of Heaven and humanity). It emphasizes that human con-
duct can affect the natural constituents of the cosmos, but it does not
necessarily reject the normative priority of the cosmic realm, as
Peerenboom has suggested.1 Although I focus on Tung's correlative
1 For example, Tung contended when a ruler did not follow the cosmic norms he
generated a 'deviant vital force,' hsieh-ch'i, which disrupted the natural processes. Con-
versely, when a ruler aligned his political policies with the cosmic norms, he generated
an 'upright vital force,' cheng-ch'i, which nurtured the transformations of the natural
206
Canon, cosmos, and court patronage
cosmology while serving Emperor Ching and his interactive cosmology

while serving Emperor Wu, I do not intend to suggest that these two
aspects of Tung's cosmology stand in dualistic opposition to each other.
Rather, they are best understood as 'complementary polarities' in his
thought.
The correlative aspects of Tung's cosmology

Tung Chung-shu believed that the cosmic, natural, and human worlds
were intimately related to one another. When speaking of the political
realm, he argued that the ruler ought to correlate his actions and
institutions with the normative patterns of Heaven, an entity that embod-
ied the cosmic, natural, and human realms. In this respect, Tung's ideas
resembled one of the central themes in the Huang-Lao po-shu (Huang-
Lao Silk Manuscripts) unearthed at Ma-wang-tui in 1973.2 We will see
that there were important points of convergence, as well as differences,
between them. It is useful to review briefly some of the salient features of
two important texts from this work, the Ching-fa (Constant Norms) and
Shih-liu ching (Sixteen Constants), before moving on to a more detailed
comparison with the writings of Tung Chung-shu.3 The Ching-fa inte-
grates cosmological, meditative, and political concerns into a strikingly
cohesive world view. The opening lines of the 'Tao Fa' (Standards of the
Way) section state, 'the Tao generates standards.'4 Heaven is reliable,
constant, and ordered, exemplifying normative standards that are eter-
nal and fixed. The 'Lun Yuen' (Discussion of Essentials) explains:
world. A ruler's vital force was either deviant or upright with respect to the cosmic
norms. For a more detailed discussion of this issue, see Queen 1994a.
2 Peerenboom maintains that the Huang-Lao po-shu promotes 'foundational naturalism.'
He argues 'the way of humans (ren dao Aslt) is predicated on and implicated in the
normatively prior way of the natural order (Han dao ;?C3li). Correlated to this
foundational naturalism is the natural law theory of the Boshu [Po-shu]: The laws
that govern society are construed as objective laws of a predetermined natural order
discoverable by humans.' Peerenboom 1993, p. 4. For a lengthier critique of
foundational naturalism and the natural law theory of the Huang-Lao po-shu see Queen
1994a.
3 For a review of the divergent opinions concerning the dating and typology of this text,
see Tu 1979b.
4 ^L^Lld;. Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 43, line 1. The term fa is ambiguous. It is
impossible to determine from the context whether the translation 'standards' or 'laws'
is most appropriate. Regardless of which translation one chooses, fa refer to the human
world and do not determine natural phenomena. Both Karen Turner and R. P.
Peerenboom have argued that the Huang-Lao po-shu assumes the existence of laws of
nature. See Peerenboom 1990, 1993, and Turner 1989. I do not believe the text
assumes that human laws are grounded in laws of nature. For a detailed discussion of this
issue, see Queen 1994a.
207
To begin in civility5 and end in martiality6 is the Way of Heaven and Earth. That
the four seasons have their measures7 is the inner principle8 of Heaven and
Earth. That the sun, moon, stars, and planets have their regularities9 is the
standard10 of Heaven and Earth. That three seasons complete and achieve and
one season punishes and kills is the Way of Heaven and Earth. The four seasons
are timely and fixed. They do not fail. They do not err. They constantly possess
the normative standards.11
These very characteristics of Heaven and Earth - its constancy, regular-
ity, and predictability - constitute the normative standards for human
culture. The 'Lun' (Discourses) states:
The sun faithfully rises and faithfully sets. South and north have their limits.
These are the standards of measurements.12 The moon faithfully waxes and
faithfully wanes. Advances and withdrawals have their constants. These are the
standards of regularities.13 The arrayed stars have their regularities. They do not
deviate from their proper paths. These are the standards of faithfulness.14
The Ching-fa directs the ruler to govern the world according to the
normative patterns of the cosmos. He must, according to the text, 'com-
ply with Heaven.' 15 Moreover, if he fails to do so, disaster is inevitable.
The 'Kuo Ts'e' (Priorities of the State) warns:
Heaven and Earth are impartial; the four seasons are ceaseless. Heaven and
Earth are positioned; the sage consequently has his tasks. If he exceeds the limits
[of Heaven and Earth] and errs from their correspondences, Heaven will send
down calamities.16
How does the sage come to understand these cosmic norms and thereby
establish just and impartial rule? The Ching-fa posits a clear epistemologi-
cal path based on a progression of meditative practices. A passage from
the 'Lun' explains: 'Still, then balanced; balanced, then peaceful; peace-
ful, then unadorned; unadorned, then quintessential; quintessential,
then numinous. At the limit of absolute numinosity, sight and wisdom
are not deluded. Emperors and kings grasp this way.'17 Having achieved
this kind of gnosis, the ruler is able to act as a 'standard for the world,'
for when he implements various political policies, such as rewards and
punishments, he is sure to be impartial, just, and beneficial toward the
people. Precisely because they are commensurate with the norms of the
5 X. 6 it 7 jg. 8 SL 9 ft. 10 fi.

11 ^ W ^ S . Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 57, lines 1-2. 12
13 ft;£fi. 14 fg2lft. Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 53, lines 6-7.
15 im^c.
16 Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 45, lines 2-3.
17 Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 53, lines 12-13.
2O8
cosmos, and dependent on a cultivated state of mind, the political

techniques of the Ching-fa never drift far from either their meditative or
cosmological moorings.
The yin-yang chapters of the Ch fun-ch 'iu fan-lu, as their designation
suggests, also expound on the ruler's relationship to the cosmic norms.18
Reflecting a political outlook similar to that of the Ching-fa, they urge the
ruler to align his political policies with Heaven's norms implicit in the
natural world. Chapter 45 ('Heaven's Deportment') explains: The sage
observes Heaven and acts.'19 Mirroring the terminology of the Ching-fa,
the yin-yang chapters speak of 'matching, accompanying, complying,
tallying, and joining with Heaven.20 For example, one essay in chapter 44
('The Kingly Way Penetrates Three') claims: 'Only the human way can
join with Heaven.'21 A second essay in the same chapter argues more
specifically that seasonal phenomena, and, analogously, the ruler's emo-
tions, must issue forth in a regular and timely way. The seasons deter-
mine the quality of the harvest, just as the ruler's behavior determines
the social order: 'This is why an orderly age and a good harvest partake
of the same regularities, as do a disorderly age and a bad harvest. From
this we see that the inner principles of humanity correspond to the Way
of Heaven.'22 Echoing the cosmological claims of the Ching-fa, these
chapters also emphasize Heaven's regularity, constancy, impartiality,
and singularity. Chapter 45 states, for example, 'The Way of Heaven has
its sequences and its seasons. It has its limits and its measures.'23 Chapter
49 ('The Righteousness of Yin and Yang') explains: 'The constancy of
Heaven's Way is one yin then one yang.'24 Chapter 50 ('Yin and Yang
Emerge, Retire, Ascend, and Descend') begins: 'The grand regularities
of Heaven's Way are such that things that oppose one another cannot
arise together. Such is the case with yin and yang.'25 And chapter 77
('Conform to Heaven's Way') insists: 'Therefore, in all seasons, to be
timely is the Way of Heaven and Earth.'26 More specifically, these
essays maintain that the ruler must adapt himself to the seasons,27 an
idea present both in the Ching-fa and in Ssu-ma T'an's famous descrip-
tion of the Taoist lineage.28 They also follow many of the yin-yang
correlates enumerated in the 'Ch'eng' (Evaluations) section of the Shih-
18 In the discussion that follows I refer only to those yin-yang chapters whose authenticity
is confirmed by Han testimony. For a lengthier discussion of the dating and authorship
of these chapters, see Chapter 4.
19 CCFL 11/9D.5.19-9D.6.3. 20 SMUIIJ'J, and # ^ c .
21 CCFL 11 /7a.4.8-7a.4.15. 22 CCFL 11/70.1.5-7^2.9.
23 CCFL 11 /gb.4.i-9b.4.n. 24 CCFL i2/2a.6.i-2a.6.8.
25 CCFL i2/3a.6.i-3a.6.9. 26 CCFL 16/110.4.8-110.4.17.
27 mtff.
28 For a detailed discussion of Ssu-ma T'an's description of Taoism, see Chapter 4.
209
liu ching.29 And like the Shih-liu ching, they argue that Heaven's use of yin
and yang in the natural world provides the ultimate standard for how the
ruler should employ their correlates in the human world. At the same
time, however, Tung's essays also depart from the cosmology of the
Huang-Lao po-shu in at least three essential ways: They consistently privi-
lege the yang aspects of Heaven over those of yin; ascribe intentionality
to Heaven; and also correlate the ethical principles of the Confucian
scriptures with Heaven's normative patterns.
The priority of yang

The 'Kuan' (Observations) section of the Shih-liu ching states: 'Spring
and summer constitute virtue; autumn and winter constitute punish-
ment. Place virtue before punishment in order to nourish life.'30 In this
scheme virtue and punishment, and by extension yang and yin, shared
equally in the political and cosmic roles assigned to them.31 But Tung
Chung-shu ascribed to yang a more significant role in the yearly cycle
than its counterpart, yin. This claim concerning Heaven's operations in
the natural world, central to every essay in the yin-yang chapters, sup-
ported Tung's political argument that a ruler ought to rely more heavily
on the transforming influence of virtue rather than the chastising influ-
ence of punishment; that he should regulate his punishment and virtue32
to comply with the cosmic cycles of yin and yang:
Heaven sends forth yang to create warmth and thereby generates things. Earth
sends forth yin to create coolness and thereby brings things to maturity. Without
29 Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 83, lines 7-11: 'Heaven is yang and Earth is yin. Spring
is yang and autumn is yin. Summer is yang and winter is yin. Morning is yang and
evening is yin. Large states are yang and small states are yin. Significant states are yang
and insignificant states are yin. To have affairs is yang and to not have affairs is yin.
Those who straighten are yang and those who bend are yin. Rulers are yang and
ministers are yin. Superiors are yang and inferiors are yin. Men are yang [and women
are yin. Fathers] are yang and [sons] are yin. Older brothers are yang and younger
brothers are yin. Elders are yang and juniors are [yin]. The noble are [yang] and the
base are yin. The successful are yang and the unsuccessful are yin. Taking a wife and
[bearing] a son is yang and having a funeral is yin. Those who control others are yang
and those who are controlled by others are yin. Guests are yang and hosts are yin.
Military officers are yang and corvee troops are yin. Speech is yang and silence is yin.
Giving is yang and receiving is yin.'
30 Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, p. 62, line 11.
31 Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu generally grants yin and yang ontological parity. In at least
one case, however, the text ascribes to the correlates of yang a greater role in nature
than to the correlates of yin; and in another case, the text expresses a preference for
the correlates of yin over those of yang. See respectively the essays 'Lun Yueh' (Discus-
sions of Essentials) and 'Hsiung Ts'u Chieh' (The Male and Female Tallies).
32 JPJ«.
21O
warmth there is no generation, and without coolness there is no maturation.

Nevertheless, if you calculate the quantities of their apportionment, warmth and
heat constitute one hundred, while coolness and cold constitute one. Virtue and
education compare to penalties and punishments in this same way. Therefore
the sage increases his love and decreases his sternness, extends his virtue and
limits his punishment. He relies on this to be a counterpart to Heaven.33
Because Heaven not only determined the quantity of yin and yang that
composed the natural world but also orchestrated the movements of yin
and yang during the course of the year, Tung read the location of yin
and yang during a particular season, or the direction toward which they
moved, as cosmological proof of Heaven's preference for virtue over
punishment. 34
Heaven's intent
W h e n explaining t h e natural models for rulership, T u n g Chung-shu also
looked to t h e various characteristics of t h e four seasons. They provided
analogues for t h e specific qualities of rulership. Heaven's models served
i m p o r t a n t regulatory functions, limiting a n d c h a n n e l i n g t h e ruler's
emotions. T u n g explained:
The responses of the four limbs each have their appropriate place, like the four
seasons; cold and heat cannot exchange places, like the limbs and body. If the
limbs and body exchange places, we call such a person deformed. If cold and
heat exchange places, we call such a year calamitous; if happiness and anger
exchange places, we call such an age chaotic. The enlightened king rectifies his
happiness so it is appropriate to spring; he rectifies his anger so it is appropriate
to autumn; he rectifies his joy so it is appropriate to summer; and he rectifies his
sorrow so it is appropriate to winter. Superior and inferior imitate this and
thereby appropriate the Way of Heaven. The vital force of spring is loving; the
vital force of autumn is stern; the vital force of summer is joyous; and the vital
force of winter is sorrowful. Vital force that is loving generates things; vital force
that is stern completes achievements; vital force that is joyous nourishes the
living; and vital force that is sorrowful mourns the dead. This is Heaven's will.35
This passage reiterates t h e cosmological assumptions of t h e Huang-Lao

po-shu. Yet t h e image of Heaven, with its a n t h r o p o m o r p h i c qualities,
33 CCFL i2/8a.7.9-8b.i.i7. Tung related two additional correlates of yang and yin,
constancy (ching) and expedience (chuan), to virtue and punishment. In this case as
well, he argued, Heaven favored constancy over expedience. For an example of this
line of reasoning, see CCFL n / 8 a .
34 Based on the materials preserved in the yin-yang chapters, it appears that Tung's
disciples drew upon five-phase cosmology to further develop this ethical claim. For a
longer discussion of this issue, see Chapter 4.
35 CCFL 11 /5a.g.i2-5b.6.3.
211
suggests another way in which Tung Chung-shu reworked key elements

of Huang-Lao cosmology. As this example demonstrates, Heaven has
completely lost its spontaneous attributes and has gained a will.36 Heav-
en's intentions, moreover, account for the fact that it loves, nurtures,
and benefits all living things. Tung explained: 'If human beings examine
the intentions of Heaven, [they will discover] that they are inexhaustible
and limitless in their humaneness.'37
Canonical and cosmic norms

Tung's concept of wisdom also departed from Huang-Lao epistemology.
The yin-yang chapters do not assume that the normative patterns of the
universe are perceptible only to those who cultivate a numinous state of
mind. They do not recommend meditative techniques to comprehend
cosmic norms. Here, knowledge of cosmic standards is far more accessi-
ble than in the Ching-fa. One need only observe Heaven's grand regulari-
ties38 to discern the human correlates to Heaven's virtues. 'If you observe
where Heaven's regularities begin, then you will know where honor and
humility, compliance and deviance lie. If you know where honor and
humility, compliance and deviance lie, then the true disposition of
Heaven and Earth will become manifest and the true substance of the
sage will emerge.'39
Significantly, these essays contend that Heaven's regularities reside in
the scriptures of the Confucian tradition. Unlike the Ching-fa, the yin-
yang chapters contain several references to the Confucian scriptures and
are concerned with reconciling the correlative cosmology followed by
Huang-Lao advocates and Confucian scholars with the ethical claims of
the texts. As the following examples illustrate, these writings seek to
demonstrate how the Confucian texts support cosmic norms in the
human world. For example, chapter 55 ('The Tallies of the Four Sea-
sons'), which develops the general idea of timeliness, begins with the
claim that 'the sage tallies himself with Heaven's conduct and thereby
establishes his policies.' The essay then correlates the ruler's 'four poli-
cies' of gifts, rewards, punishments, and penalties with Heaven's 'four
seasons' of warmth, heat, coolness and cold. But it ends in the following
way:
36 Tung employs the terms chih M (will) and i M (intent) to express Heaven's intention-
ality.
37 Xm^^ZMMÛZiZi^. CCFL n/6b.9.i5-7a.i.5.
38 XZ*9L.
39 CCFL 11 /4a.5.i8-4a.7.g.
212
Gifts correspond to spring; rewards correspond to summer; penalties corre-

spond to autumn; and punishments correspond to winter. These four things
must be complete, just as the four seasons must be complete. Gifts, rewards,
penalties, and punishments, in accordance with the proper occasion, must issue
forth, just as warmth, heat, coolness, and cold, in accordance with the proper
season, must issue forth. Gifts, rewards, penalties, and punishments each have
their proper occasion, just as spring, summer, autumn, and winter each have
their proper time. These four policies cannot interfere with one another, just as
the four seasons cannot interfere with one another. These four policies cannot
exchange places, just as the four seasons cannot exchange places. Therefore,
when gifts, rewards, penalties, and punishments were not implemented on the
proper occasion the Spring and Autumn condemned [such conduct] .^
In this essay, Tung cited the Confucian literature to uphold the notion
that the ruler's policies must accord with Heaven, but he also insisted
that this was one of the fundamental principles of Confucius's praise-
and-blame theory.
Tung Chung-shu claimed that the Spring and Autumn also reflected
the superior and primary role that Heaven allotted to yang and the
subordinate and secondary role it allotted to yin:
Therefore the vital force of yang emerges in the northeast and retires in the
northwest. It issues forth in the first month of spring and completes [its tasks] in
the first month of winter, and all living things respond to it. When yang first
emerges, living things likewise first emerge. When yang just begins to prosper,
living things likewise just begin to prosper. When yang first declines, living things
likewise first decline. Living things emerge and retire by following yang, num-
bers begin and end by following yang, and the Rectification of the Three Kings
arose in succession by following yang. From this we see [that the Way of Heaven]
honors yang and humbles yin. Therefore those who count the days do so
according to the mornings and not the evenings. Those who count the years do
so according to yang and not yin. [Such] is the righteous principle of not
referring directly to yin.41 For this reason, when the Spring and Autumn discussed
the marriage ceremony, it mentioned the duke of Sung but did not mention the
mother of the marquis of Chi.42 It was proper for the mother of the marquis of
Chi to be referred to indirectly but not mentioned, while it was not proper for
the duke of Sung to be referred to indirectly but not mentioned. [The Spring and
Autumn] refers directly to yang but does not refer directly to yin because the Way
of Heaven ordained it.43
In this instance, Tung argued that Confucius avoided direct reference to
things or persons belonging to the yin category to mirror and confirm
40 CCFLi3/ib.i.i6-ib.7.i3.
41 m^mmzm.
42 See Kung-yang Commentary at Duke Yin 2.5.
43 MUM^Jt^lM^HH^l. CCFL 11/4^1.5-4^7.14.
213
the cosmic hierarchy that subordinates yin and elevates yang. Direct
reference to a male participant but not a female participant in a mar-
riage ceremony confirmed, through a particular social event, the univer-
sal applicability of this cosmic norm.
Inasmuch as the yin-yang chapters employ the Confucian scriptures
to suggest the basic compatibility between canonical and cosmic truths,
and insofar as they suggest that one comes to understand these truths by
reading the Confucian scriptures, these materials foreshadow themes
that grew more prominent in Tung's later intellectual development. Yet,
as these examples also suggest, in the early years of Tung's career when
Huang-Lao ideology held sway at court, scriptural truths remained sub-
ordinate and supplementary to cosmic norms. In keeping with Huang-
Lao cosmology, Tung emphasized the constant, orderly, and predictable
aspects of Heaven.
The interactive aspects of Tung's cosmology

By the time Tung Chung-shu stood before Emperor Wu to set forth his
views on politics, history, and the cosmos, his vision of a scripture-based
orthodoxy had taken shape. At this critical juncture in his career, he
urged the emperor to ban all textual traditions beyond the purview of
the Six Arts of Confucius. Tung's memorials preserve the clearest expo-
sition of his reform program, which endeavored to eliminate Ch'in
practices and to create an alternative sociopolitical order for the Han
based on Confucian texts and learning. The fact that Tung was com-
pelled to cite Ch'in abuses on the eve of Emperor Wu's rise to power also
suggests that Huang-Lao teachings, particularly the kind of correlative
cosmology articulated in the Huang-Lao po-shu, had failed to resolve the
abuses of political leadership that it endeavored to address. It is signifi-
cant that in the writings from this period Tung articulated an interactive
cosmology to supplement the correlative cosmology of his early years.
Tung continued to emphasize the link between cosmic norms and the
Confucian scriptures. But subtle shifts in the priority he gave to them in
relation to the natural world, and more dramatic shifts in his
cosmological ideas, distinguish this period from his earlier career. Dur-
ing these later years, for example, Tung emphasized the link between
the Spring and Autumn and the interactive aspects of Heaven and human-
ity. As he explained to Emperor Wu, T have carefully studied the Spring
and Autumn and examined the events of past ages to observe the realm
of mutual interaction between Heaven and humanity.44 It is truly worthy
44
214
of awe.'45 His interpretations transformed the Spring and Autumn into the
embodiment of Heaven's normative patterns as they were filtered
through the insights of Confucius, who related them to the human
world. During these years Tung perhaps sought to resolve the questions
left unanswered by the unidirectional emphasis of his correlative cosmol-
ogy. While it delineated cosmic norms to restrain political rule, correla-
tive cosmology did not enumerate human-generated restraints to
augment and extend the cosmic limitations. The Ching-fa argued that
the ruler who defies the cosmic order will inevitably perish, but surely
history had proved that this was not always the case. With his theory of
interactive cosmology and his scriptural interpretations, Tung may have
sought to close the gap between the ideals of cosmic restraint and the
realities of Han political rule. The following passage is a striking illustra-
tion of this approach:
When Confucius composed the Spring and Autumn, he planned it with regard to
the Way of Heaven above and substantiated it with regard to the sentiments of
humanity below. He compared it with ancient practices and tested it against the
present. Therefore what the Spring and Autumn condemns is what suffers calami-
ties and disasters. What the Spring and Autumn despises, is what encounters
extraordinary and strange omens. Confucius recorded the faults of the states and
related them to various calamitous and strange transformations to demonstrate
that no matter how good or how evil, the actions of humanity pervade and
penetrate Heaven and Earth, and past and future respond to one another.46
The Spring and Autumn embodied cosmic truths presented in light of
both the dynamic circumstances of human rule and the changing con-
texts of human relationships. It was, however, necessary to read the
Spring and Autumn in a particular way so that these links would become
evident:
The way of the Spring and Autumn is to cite the past to illuminate the future. This
is why, when an affair arises [in the world] below Heaven, observe which events
cited by the Spring and Autumn are comparable; find the essence of their subtle-
ties and mysteries to preserve the Spring and Autumns intent; and ascertain its
classifications and categories to thread together its inner principles. The trans-
formations of Heaven and Earth and affairs within the state will then all become
brilliantly clear and there will be nothing left to doubt.47
One must reason analogically when reading the events in the Spring and
Autumn to clarify the relationship between the human world and
Heaven. How, then, did Tung Chung-shu describe the attributes of
Heaven?
45 HS 56/2498. 46 HS 56/2515. 47 //S 27A/1331.
215
When Tung sought to win exclusive state patronage for the Confucian
scriptures, correlative cosmology continued to inform his views. As the
following citation from his memorial to Emperor Wu suggests, the
Heaven Tung described retained many of the characteristics seen in his
earlier writings:
I have heard that Heaven is the ancestor of all living things; this is why Heaven
supports and protects them all without exception. It establishes the sun, moon,
wind, and rain to bring them into harmony.48 It regulates yin, yang, heat, and
cold to bring them to maturity.49 This is why the sages emulated Heaven and
established the Way. With universal love and free from selfish desires, they
spread their virtue and practiced their humaneness to enrich them. They estab-
lished righteous principles and set out ritual norms to instruct them. Spring is
the means by which Heaven generates; humaneness is the means by which the
ruler loves; summer is the means by which Heaven nurtures; virtue is the means
by which the ruler nourishes. Frost is the means by which Heaven kills; punish-
ment is the means by which the ruler chastises. Speaking from this perspective,
the mutual verifications of Heaven and humanity are the enduring principles of
antiquity and the present.50
With its impartial, regulated, constant, and foundational roles,
Heaven continued to provide the ultimate models for human institu-
tions. Yet Tung Chung-shu also articulated an interactive model of cos-
mology in which Heaven did not always act in a regular and constant way.
Its irregularities had important political implications:
When a state is about to suffer a defeat because [the ruler] has erred from the
Way, Heaven first sends forth calamities and disasters51 to reprimand and warn
him.52 If the [ruler] does not know to look into himself, then Heaven again sends
forth extraordinary and strange omens to frighten and startle him.53 If he still
does not know to change, only then will he suffer ruin and defeat.54 From this
one observes that Heaven's heart is humane and loving toward the ruler of
humanity and that Heaven desires to end his recklessness. During those ages
when there is no great loss of the Way, Heaven still desires to support and secure
him. His task is simply to exert himself. He must exert himself to learn and
inquire, and then he will hear and see widely and his knowledge will become
increasingly brilliant. He must exert himself to practice the Way, and then his
virtue will increase daily and he will be in possession of great achievements.
These efforts will enable him to quickly achieve results. The Odes states: 'From
dawn to dusk without cease.' The Documents states: 'Make the effort. Make the
effort.' Both are references to exerting oneself.55
In this passage, the ruler is not subject to Heaven's impersonal processes;
48 mBnmmvxftz. 49
50 HS 56/2515. 51 & s . 52 » & . 53 mm. 54 muse.
55 HS 56/2498-2499.
2l6
Canon, cosmos, and court patronage,
rather, he is subordinate to a personal Heaven. Heaven responds to him,

not according to fixed rules and patterns, but rather according to his
intentions and actions. Heaven, which has taken on the anthropomor-
phic quality of a 'humane heart,' purposely manifests its disapproval.
Alerted to the fact that he has strayed from proper principles, the ruler
must engage in self-examination and rectify his person. If he fails to
'repent,' Heaven's anomalies grow correspondingly more significant
and awesome. Even so, Heaven does not abandon the ruler for his
transgressions. Heaven's relation to the ruler is not that of 'wholly other'
to human 'creature,' but that of father to son. If the ruler ultimately
suffers ruin and defeat, they are the consequence of his own all-too-
human actions, not the outcome of divine wrath.
Omenology
How did Tung Chung-shu describe the human-divine dialogue, and
what were its implications for the textual authority of the Spring and
Autumn} According to his contemporaries, Tung's most significant and
original contribution was the particular omenology that he read into the
Spring and Autumn. The Shih-chi explains: 'After the present emperor
[Wu] came to the throne he appointed Tung Chung-shu to the post of
administrator to Chiang-tu. Based on the various natural disasters and
anomalies recorded in the Spring and Autumn, Tung Chung-shu deduced
why the yin and yang circulate irregularly.'56 The strongest evidence
supporting this view appears in Han-shu 27. Although often overlooked,
this work is an invaluable source for Tung's omenology. It contains the
omen interpretations of several intellectual figures, providing a picture
offive-phasecosmology as it developed from the Western Han to the first
century of the Eastern Han period. In addition, its structure and content
indicate the striking inclusiveness of Han orthodoxy. Rather than ex-
punging the diverse traditions of Han omenology, its authors, Liu
Hsiang and Liu Hsin, attempted to impose a cohesive and unifying
framework on several divergent theories of divination and cosmology.57
Under the umbrella of a single tradition of interpretation affiliated with
five-phase thinking and centered on the Documents, the Lius attempted
to introduce order to a far-from-orderly tradition.
The Lius established their framework based on the 'Hung Fan' (Great
Plan) chapter of the Documents and the 'Commentary' and 'Explana-
tions' written by its Western Han exegetes. Four categories mentioned in
56 SC 121/3127-3128.
57 HS 27 derives essentially from the hands of these two men. See Eberhard 1957, p. 45.
217
the 'Hung Fan' that enumerate basic prerequisites for good government
determine the overall organization of Han-shu 27 thefivephases, the five
activities, royal perfection, and the various verifications. Anomalies asso-
ciated with the five phases (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), the five
activities (demeanor, speech, sight, hearing, thought), and, finally,
royal perfection are discussed in sequence. Falling in between these
well-defined topics are lists of chronologically arranged anomalies from
the Spring and Autumn and from the Western Han period (206 B.C.E.-8
C.E.).
In addition to Tung Chung-shu's comments, Han-shu 27 records those
of Liu Hsiang (76-8 B.C.E.), Liu Hsin (d. 23 C.E.), Ching Fang (77-33
B.C.E.), Sui Meng (active ca. 80-70 B.C.E.), Hsia-hou Shih-ch'ang, Hsia-
hou Sheng, Kung Sui, Ku Yung, Tu Ch'in, Tu Yeh, Yang Hsuan, Yang
Hsiung, Chen Fang, and Wang Yin. Although the opinions of Hsia-hou
Shih-ch'ang, Hsia-hou Sheng, and Liu Hsin incorporate five-phase con-
cepts, others are derived from a wide range of interpretive models
distinct from five-phase principles. These include interpretations based
on the Changes and its apocrypha, yin-yang correlations, historical anal-
ogy, and astrological correlations derived from numerological and field-
allocation (fen-yeh) systems. In his explanations of omens, for example,
Ching Fang, who relied heavily on the Changes and its apocrypha, never
invoked the authority of Heaven. For Ching Fang, Heaven was a system
of natural processes. Consequently, he tended to stress the specific and
unvarying correspondences between a particular action and a particular
omen. In contrast, for Liu Hsiang, Heaven acted like a deity, manifesting
its will through omens. He therefore always favored an anthropomor-
phic explanation of anomalies and appealed to the authority of Heaven.
One of the basic features of Tung Chung-shu's omen interpretations
in Han-shu 27, a total of eighty-three comments, is that they largely
derived from the Spring and Autumn. Even the lone memorial written in
response to a contemporary anomaly begins with an analogy from the
Spring and Autumn. Moreover, in thirty-nine instances, his comments are
cited in conjunction with those of Liu Hsiang, suggesting that where
anthropomorphic explanations were concerned, Liu perpetuated many
of the ideas introduced by Tung Chung-shu. Unlike those of Liu, how-
ever, Tung's explanations do not display the influence of five-phase
correlative thinking. Thus, they follow the general contours of Han-shu
27 only superficially. Under the section on dislocations in the fire phase,
for example, Tung comments on variousfires,but he does not follow the
explanations in the section's opening remarks. This superficial corre-
spondence breaks down in other sections where neither the anomalies
nor the explanations cited by Tung correspond to the opening remarks
218
that introduce them. The interpretive tradition following the Documents

appears not to have influenced Tung. It suggests that the Lius encoun-
tered numerous difficulties in their efforts to subsume Tung's comments
under the five-phase organizational scheme of Han-shu 27.
In his explanations of anomalies in the Spring and Autumn, Tung
Chung-shu always interpreted them as occurrences either resulting from
or presaging transgressions in the human world. He employed several
kinds of interpretive strategies to explain them, sometimes positing
anthropomorphic explanations of omens, other times offering naturalis-
tic explanations, and still other times deriving his explanations from
celestial-terrestrial correspondences. 58
Tung Chung-shu most often employed anthropomorphic explana-
tions of omens. The following citation typifies his reasoning:
The Spring and Autumn records: 'In the third year of Duke Ch'eng, in the second
month, the newly erected temple caught fire. . . . Tung Chung-shu held that
Duke Ch'eng lacked the distressed and sorrowful heart proper to one still in
mourning and had several times raised troops and engaged in military expedi-
tions. Thus Heaven destroyed his father's temple to show him that he had
abandoned the principles proper to a son and was incapable of offering sacri-
fices in the ancestral temple.59
The Spring and Autumn simply records that a particular duke erected a
temple and it caught fire. It does not explain why the temple was built or
what function it served. Beyond identifying this incident as a 'calamity,'
the Kung-yang Commentary does not explain why this event was consid-
ered calamitous. Tung Chung-shu, however, reads an elaborate ethical
and religious lesson into the event. The duke erected the temple when
the duke's father died, because he was obligated by religious custom
which dictated that he mourn and offer sacrifices to his deceased father
there. But the duke failed to carry out his obligation, and his active
involvement in military pursuits demonstrated the extent to which he
was emotionally distanced from his father's death. Consequently, both
the duke's attitude and his conduct brought about the direct interven-
tion of Heaven, who deliberately set the temple on fire to show the duke
he had failed to act in accordance with correct principles. This passage
exemplifies a consistent theme in Tung's omenology: Political and reli-
gious life must be subject to the authority of Heaven.
When Tung Chung-shu attributed anomalies to Heaven's will, he
emphasized the personal, anthropomorphic aspects of a Heaven that
58 For other important articles that discuss Han portent theories, see Bielenstien 1950,
Eberhard 1957, and Sivin 1969.
59 //S27A/1324.
219
engaged in a kind of dialogue with the ruler below. In these explana-

tions Tung did not refer to either yin-yang or five-phase cosmology;
rather, he tended to employ what one might characterize as a language
of revelation and repentance: Having observed the loss of correct prin-
ciples, Heaven sought to reprimand, warn, or frighten the ruler with
ominous signs. As many of the explanations suggest by their frequent use
of the phrase 'Heaven warned as if to say' (t'ien chieh jo yueh), Tung
believed Heaven 'spoke' through its omens. Heaven intended to
'awaken' (wu) those who had strayed from its normative values so they
would 'repent their sins and reprove themselves' (hut kuo tzu tse). Then
they could reform their behavior and realign themselves with the norma-
tive principles of Heaven. Such explanations did not resort to the
cosmological theories current at the time. In these cases, Tung assumed
an ethical continuity between Heaven and the human world.
Discontinuities resulted when human beings abandoned the ethical
principles of Heaven.
Tung Chung-shu also articulated naturalistic explanations of omens.
Significantly, these explanations did not emphasize the authority of a
deistic Heaven, but instead amplified the impersonal and constant prin-
ciples of Heaven. Accordingly, they suggested that immoral conduct
generated portents because it affected the cosmic balance of yin and
yang. Since Heaven and humanity shared the same vital force, activities
in the human realm 'activated' phenomena in other parts of the uni-
verse according to predictable and discoverable principles. Chapter 57
('Things of the Same Kind Activate Each Other') of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-
lu explains this reasoning in greater detail:
Heaven possesses yin and yang; humanity also possesses yin and yang. When
Heaven and Earth's vital force of yin arises, humanity's vital force of yin arises in
response. Conversely, when humanity's vital force of yin arises, that of Heaven
and Earth also arises in response. Their way is unitary. Those who understand
this, when wishing to bring rain, will activate yin to arouse yin. When wishing to
stop rain, they will activate yang to arouse yang. Therefore bringing rain is not
mysterious. People suspect that it is mysterious because its inner principles are
subtle and wonderful. It is not only the vital force of yin and yang that can
advance and withdraw according to kind. Even the way misfortunes, calamities,
and blessings are generated follows the same principle.60
At the same time, Tung Chung-shu was unwilling to confine himself to
a naturalistic view of the universe. While all phenomena in the universe
could be classified according to yin-yang categories, and while they
operated according to fixed and constant principles, the universe was
60 CCFL i3/4a.8.4-4b.4.8. This translation modifies Chan 1963, p. 283.

22O
not simply synonymous with these constants. Tung Chung-shu concludes

the essay in the following way:
Therefore when the F note is struck in the seven-string or twenty-one-string lute,
the F notes in other lutes sound naturally in response. This is a case of things
being activated according to kind. They are activated according to their sound,
but it is invisible. People do not see a physical form associated with what activates
them so they say that they sound on their own. Furthermore, since they activate
each other invisibly, it is thought that they do so spontaneously. In reality, it is
not that they do so spontaneously, but that there is something that causes them
to be so.61 There is definitely something concrete that stimulates them, but what
stimulates them is invisible. According to a tradition of the Documents, when the
House of Chou was about to arise, some big red crows holding seeds of grain in
their bills gathered on the roof of the king's house. King Wu was happy and all
the great officers were elated. The duke of Chou said, 'Make greater effort. Make
greater effort. Heaven reveals this in order to exhort us.'62
In all of Tung Chung-shu's essays that survive, there is no clearer indica-
tion that while he believed phenomena operated according to fixed and
constant standards that were not always apparent to the human observer,
their operations were not simply spontaneous as the Taoists claimed;
'there is something that causes them.' That something was Heaven.
Accordingly, one who attempted to stop the rain when there were floods,
for example, would address both the naturalistic and personalistic as-
pects of Heaven. On the one hand, one might try to alter Heaven's
course by manipulating yin and yang. On the other hand, one might
enact rituals to supplicate Heaven, who was ultimately responsible for
the ways in which yin and yang operate in the world. As the following
passage illustrates, it was precisely this kind of reasoning that informed
the sacrifices to stop rain that Tung oversaw while acting as administra-
tor to Chiang-tu:
When the rain is excessive, order the prefects and counties to seal up the
irrigation canals, block off the channels, and cover the wells on an 'earth' day.
Prohibit the women from traveling or entering the market. Order all the pre-
fects, districts, and hamlets to sweep out the altars to the Spirit of the Land. Send
down orders to the prefects and counties that if the assistant, foreman clerk, and
bailiff number three or more, the male shaman should number one. If the
officials under the county bailiff number three or more, the male shaman should
number one. If the elders of the hamlets number three or more, the male
shaman should number one. In every case the male shamans should fast for
three days, each wearing clothing appropriate to the season. Prepare a small pig,
grain, salt, and wine sufficient for the altar to the Spirit of the Land. Beat the
62 CCFL i3/4b.6.i3~5a.3. This translation modifies Chan 1963, p. 284.

221
drums for three days. Before praying, bow twice. Then kneel down and recite
[the prayer]. When you have finished reciting the prayer, bow twice again before
rising. Pray saying: 'Alas! Heaven gives birth to the five grains to nourish
human beings. Now the rain is excessive. The five grains are not harmonious. We
respectfully present this fattened sacrificial animal and pure wine to implore the
Spirit of the Land to favor us by stopping the rain, thereby eradicating the
people's hardships. Do not let the yin destroy the yang. When the yin destroys
the yang, this does not accord with Heaven. It is the constant intent of Heaven
to bring benefit to human beings. We human beings wish to stop the rain, and
so we dare make these pronouncements to the Spirit of the Land.' Beat the
drums, but do not sing. Arriving at the end [of the ceremony], the rain will
stop.63
Returning to Tung Chung-shu's naturalistic explanations of omens,
one would expect that he assumed the existence of constant principles,
and this in fact appears to be the case. Although the relationship be-
tween them is hardly clear, the seven explanations that refer to yin-yang
concepts assume their existence. Three of the seven explanations as-
sume the principle described earlier - that is, that 'things of the same
kind activate one another/ With regard to two different floods recorded
in the Spring and Autumn, Tung Chung-shu argued that military expedi-
tions had caused grievances and anxieties among the common people,
members of the yin category, which in turn gave rise to a yin-type
anomaly, floods.64 In the same way, when the wife of a duke, a member
of the yin category, engaged in illicit sexual activities, this conduct also
caused floods.65 In two additional instances, however, the accumulation
of an excess of yin generated the opposite response: a fire belonging to
the category of yang-type anomalies.66 Apparently, Tung Chung-shu be-
lieved that nature worked according to certain fixed principles, but they
may have been less important to him than the didactic principles he
ascribed to the Spring and Autumn. Tung appears to have been much
more interested in establishing particular ethical principles than in
stressing the absolute correspondence between particular categories of
conduct and particular categories of anomalies.
This idea finds further support in Tung's explanations of eclipses, the
largest category of omens. Tung interpreted ten eclipses - out of the
thirty-seven recorded in the Spring and Autumn on which he commented
- as portents of events to come, based on a system of celestial-terrestrial
correlations. Specifically, he read the location of the sun at the time of
each eclipse, with respect to the twenty-eight lunar lodges that defined
the heavens, as a sign of pending trouble in the state that occupied its
63 CCFL i6/6b.2-7a.i.i5. 64 See //S27A/1323 and 1327.
65 See HS 27A/1344. 66 See HS 27A/1326 and 1327.
222
corresponding geographical area on earth. The correlations that he

employed are summarized in Table 12.
The fact that Tung read two kinds of eclipses, those occurring when
the sun passed through Eastern Wall and those through Stomach, as
portents for the state of Lu may suggest that he did not always adhere
strictly to the particular astral-terrestrial correlations suggested in the
table. It is difficult to determine why he did not employ this model of
correspondence in his other twenty-seven comments on eclipses. Cer-
tainly, more research must be conducted before one can draw firm
conclusions from these materials. However, a preliminary consideration
of the matter suggests that history's didactic function was most impor-
tant to Tung Chung-shu. When naturalistic explanations served to illu-
minate or underscore the validity of the Spring and Autumn, he employed
them. When they did not, he conveniently ignored them. They played a
secondary role to the truths embodied in the Spring and Autumn.
In sum, Han-shu 27 indicates that Tung Chung-shu derived his
omenology from the anomalies cited in the Spring and Autumn. The five-
phase omenology developed by exegetes of the Documents did not influ-
ence his explanations. Instead, Tung's omenology emphasized the
didactic function of individual historical events, based on naturalistic
interpretations of yin-yang cosmology in some cases and Heaven-
centered, anthropomorphic interpretations in other cases. Among the
different Han views of whether in omens Heaven operated as a deity
manifesting its will or a system of natural processes, Tung's views, as
preserved in Han-shu 27, represent only one of a wide range of opinions.
At one end of the spectrum stood scholars like Liu Hsiang, who favored
anthropomorphic interpretations. At the other end stood interpreters
like Ching Fang and Sui Meng, who adhered to naturalistic interpreta-
tions of anomalies. As the earliest of the influential Han omenologists,
Tung perhaps foreshadowed the polarization in omen theory that fol-
lowed his death. He stood at a crossroads defined not by yin-yang and
five-phase concepts but rather by two competing conceptions of Heaven.
Drawing upon yin-yang cosmology, he attempted to reconcile the two,
but as omen theory gathered momentum in the years following his
death, scholars' opinions polarized, and the choice between a naturalis-
tic or an anthropomorphic Heaven took on far greater significance. It
came to indicate not only one's vision of the cosmos, but also one's
commitment to the primary role scriptural authority would play in un-
derstanding humanity's relation to the cosmos.
With regard to the yin-yang and five-phase cosmological traditions
and the degree to which Tung contributed to their synthesis and sys-
tematization during the Western Han, a close examination of Han-shu 27
223
Table 12. Celestial-terrestrial correlations
Celestial location at eclipse Terrestrial correspondence
Hsin (Heart) Hall of Light/Son of Heaven"

Tung Pi (Eastern Wall) State of Lu*
Pi (Net) State of Chin'
Wei (Stomach) State of Lud
Chen (Chariot Platform)/Chiao (Horn) State of Ch'u'
Liu (Willow) States of the I and Ti Tribes'
a
HS 27B/1496, 1498, and 1513.
*HS 27B/1483.
e
HS 27B/1492.
///S27B/1499.
suggests that he played a less essential role in the process of synthesis

between yin-yang andfive-phaseconcepts than has been imagined. Han-
shu 27 supports the claims of Tung's contemporaries that he made
significant contributions to Han cosmology by incorporating yin-yang
concepts into his explanations of disasters recorded in the Spring and
Autumn. However, five-phase concepts hardly figure in his interpreta-
tions. In fact, Han-shu 27 indicates that as late as the first century C.E.,
scholars felt compelled to demonstrate that five-phase thinking was
compatible with the omens recorded in the Spring and Autumn. To
accomplish this, the Lius drew upon thefive-phaseinterpretive tradition
that had crystallized around the 'Great Plan' (Hung-fan) chapter of the
Documents. Within this larger framework, they subsumed the interpretive
traditions associated with other texts, such as the Spring and Autumn and
the Changes, along with other divinatory and prognosticatory systems.
The great preponderance of space they devoted to omens from the
Spring and Autumn, compared with that devoted to Han omens, supports
the view that the Lius were primarily interested in establishing a link
between the Spring and Autumn and a five-phase tradition of omen
interpretation. In emphasizing the role of the Spring and Autumn as an
omen text, they perpetuated a tradition begun by Tung Chung-shu, but
they also altered it significantly. By giving primacy to the five-phase
tradition of omenology affiliated with the Documents, the Lius, not Tung
Chung-shu, contributed significantly to the synthesis of five-phase and
yin-yang cosmology. Ssu-ma Piao (240-306 C.E.), author of the Hou
Han-shu 'Treatise on the Five Phases,' continued their efforts. In his
discussion of the various omenologists' writings preserved there,
224
Mansvelt Beck noted: 'Nothing permits the assumption that the lists of
Ying Shao, Dong Ba [Tung Pa], and Qiao Zhou [Ch'iao Chou] were
influenced by thefivephases theory. It was Sima Biao [Ssu-ma Piao] who
rearranged the material into the 41 lists of this Treatise, who applied the
Five Phases theory to them, and who then found the historical events
that proved the correctness of his interpretations.'67 If Tung Chung-shu
had already accomplished this task earlier, why would later scholars have
taken such pains to establish this connection?
Politics and hermeneutics

The historical and literary evidence suggests that Tung Chung-shu's
cosmology resembled characteristics of Huang-Lao cosmology in vogue
during the early years of the Han dynasty. The yin-yang chapters of the
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu illuminate the correlative cosmology of Tung Chung-
shu's early years. With their selective approach to Huang-Lao ideas, their
unified voice, their sharply focused political message, and their abun-
dant references to the Confucian scriptures, they suggest a scholar re-
working key elements of Huang-Lao ideology. This tendency is
exemplified by the priority given to yang, the intentionality ascribed to
Heaven, and the correlations established between scriptural and cosmic
norms. At the same time, these chapters also reflect the political patron-
age of Emperor Ching's reign. They seek to demonstrate that scriptural
truths are commensurate with cosmic norms, yet they remain subservi-
ent to the authority of Heaven, reflecting the influence and power that
Huang-Lao adepts enjoyed under Emperor Ching.
Emperor Wu's patronage of the Confucian scholars enabled Tung
Chung-shu to recommend a program of religious, political, and legal
reform based on Confucius and the scriptures ascribed to him. He
continued to espouse correlative cosmology, but he also emphasized an
interactive model of the cosmos. Thus he described a Heaven that
embodied both the impersonal, regulated, and predictable workings of
the natural processes, and the personal and responsive ways of a deity
who could purposefully interrupt or circumvent those natural rhythms
and cycles. Tung perhaps sought to combine Huang-Lao notions of a
naturalistic Heaven with the anthropocosmic Heaven of the Confucian
tradition to address, among other things, political issues left unresolved
by earlier Huang-Lao theorists. While he reaffirmed the ruler's
unrivaled position as the cosmic pivot of the world, for example, he also
67 Mansvelt Beck 1986, p. 166.

225
stressed the emperor's indebtedness to Heaven and thereby introduced

additional restraints on his conduct.
Whatever Taoist techniques of rulership Tung Chung-shu may have
considered in his formative years, by Emperor Wu's day, they no longer
held favor. He now idealized an activist ruler, albeit one whose initiatives
often departed from Emperor Wu's personal political aims. The ideal
emperor was the Confucian sage who ruled by moral example, not the
Huang-Lao ruler who reigned through nonpurposive action. Under the
tutelage of such a ruler who was guided by the Confucian scriptures,
human culture could embody the normative patterns of Heaven. Ulti-
mately, Tung rejected the meditative techniques of the Huang-Lao prac-
titioners. For the achievement of 'numinous clarity,'68 he substituted
scholasticism and the mastery of scriptural truths. Only the texts
authored by Confucius provided the key to understanding the cosmos.
And only those scholars who fathomed their ultimate meaning could
correlate these normative patterns to the dynamic circumstances of
successive Han emperors. From this interpretive platform generations of
Confucian scholars would voice their criticism or praise of the political
center. Out of this union between politics and hermeneutics the Confu-
cian Canon was born. It defined the relationships between emperor and
scholar, power and authority, and politics and culture in the traditional
Chinese state. The conflicts, compromises, and concord among these
realms shaped dynastic rule for centuries to follow.
68
226
10
Conclusion
The Han dynasty marked the beginning of a new era. For two thousand
years before the Han, China had been dominated by clans that had held
together the many semiautonomous and semiindependent principalities
populating China's political landscape through manipulating kinship
ties, controlling civil and religious ritual, and exercising military power.
For two thousand years after the Han, China was essentially a unified
empire ruled by a Son of Heaven. The ideological shift that accompa-
nied such a profound political change, initiated during the Warring
States period, was orchestrated by Tung Chung-shu, who successfully
resurrected an older ideal of rulership and reconciled it with
cosmological ideas current in the Han; by the end of the dynasty, the
ideal emperor was both a sage-king and a high priest. The old order had
gradually broken down in its past five hundred years, as principalities
competed for hegemony, elites forsook their hierarchical niches to strive
for prestige and power, economic and technological developments
created new concentrations of wealth, and new ideas fermented in this
ripe medium. The eventual Ch'in unification in the late third century
was a triumph of realpolitik over the ideals that, beginning about 500
B.C.E., philosophers had taken from (or read into) the earlier Chou
order. Han scholastics then transformed the conquest regime that it had
inherited into one of China's long-lasting dynasties by turning away from
radical realpolitik to adapt the ideals of the Confucian scriptures to their
age.
The scriptural basis of imperial sovereignty

Tung's recasting of emperorship gave rise to patterns of political and
religious authority that came to define the traditional state. Since this
ideology was articulated in his commentaries on and interpretations of
the Confucian scriptures, the reinvention of imperial sovereignty was
227
concomitant with the re-creation of the Confucian textual tradition. His

efforts to establish a position of prominence and influence for Confu-
cian learning within the unified Han empire prompted the exclusion of
other teachings and the establishment of a Confucian Canon. The des-
ignation in 136 B.C.E. of official posts known as the 'erudites of the Five
Scriptures,' and the establishment in 124 B.C.E. of the Grand Academy,
where these texts were taught as a basic prerequisite for training in the
polity, were the institutional expressions of this canonization. Although
change was not readily apparent during Emperor Wu's reign, Tung's
efforts to reform the ritual practices of the state created an enduring
legacy. During the later years of the Han dynasty, im-perial rites
and sacrifices gradually moved away from Ch'in practices and toward
the religious ideals Tung ascribed to the Spring and Autumn. For
example, in 31 B.C.E. the emperor abolished the Ch'in practice of
worshiping a group of five deities and established an imperial cult of
Heaven. This form of worship persisted until the end of the imperial age
in 1911.
Tung's legal interpretations of the Spring and Autumn influenced
Chinese jurisprudence in significant ways. During the Han dynasty a
wide variety of officials adopted his mode of citing the Spring and Autumn
as both a code of ethical principles and book of legal precedents. There-
after, it became standard practice to cite the Spring and Autumn as a
source of legal authority. In this respect, Tung's new readings liberalized
the legal corpus. Administrators often employed precedents from the
Spring and Autumn established by Tung Chung-shu and his disciples as a
model for leniency rather than harshness, and as a means to humanize
the cruel and impersonal laws inherited from the Ch'in. Tung's reading
of the Spring and Autumn injected a new morality into Han legal prac-
tices. His interpretations were crucial because the ruler, the highest
judge in the state, came to rely on this source of authority as problematic
legal cases were brought before him. Yet Tung's efforts to establish a
scriptural basis for Han jurisprudence left a more problematic legacy as
well, for although his interpretations served to humanize the legal
functions of the state, they never replaced the Ch'in laws. The Ch'in
legal code survived the Han largely intact, persisting with only minor
changes throughout the traditional period. Thus Chinese law remained
cruel and peremptory. Moreover, Tung's idea that social relations
should play a large part in determining legal responsibility undermined
fitful attempts over the centuries to overcome the tension between
loyalty to state and loyalty to family, and thus perpetuated the traditional
climate that favored partiality and corruption.
Tung Chung-shu's cosmological ideas also influenced Han politics in
228
Conclusion
conflicting ways. Building on earlier scholars, like Lu Chia and Chia I,

Tung helped establish a Heaven-centered mode of political criticism,
providing opportunities for officials to censure the emperor through
their interpretation of omens. It became a powerful political weapon
during the Han and persisted as a traditional form of political dialogue
between the emperor and his officials. Yet, though Tung Chung-shu
relied on omenology to reproach the emperor and consequently estab-
lished an enduring and potent form of political dissent within the tradi-
tional Chinese state, in the hands of officials of weaker moral fortitude
it became a tool for self-advancement and political pandering.
In depicting the ruler as sage-king and high priest, Tung Chung-shu
emphasized that the emperor must subject himself to Heaven's authority
as revealed in the Confucian scriptures. As guardian, transmitter,
and interpreter of this wisdom, the Confucian official's function as
scholar-priest paralleled the dual function of the emperor. Inasmuch as
this religious ideology of rulership envisioned an emperor who ruled by
embodying Heaven's normative patterns, the emperor was dependent
on the scholar-priest to legitimate his actions and policies. Yet, paradoxi-
cally, by reconfirming the powers of 'church' and state in the singular
figure of the emperor, Tung's attempts to limit the ruler's power by
establishing a text-based theology gave rise to new opportunities
for abuse and new kinds of tension. The scholar-priest class endeavored
to restrain the emperor through its interpretations of Heaven's will
and the truths of the canon. At the same time, the emperor sanc-
tioned his actions by drawing upon the prestige of the throne, which
derived additional authority from the scriptural truths it now symbol-
ized. Without religious institutions independent of the emperor's au-
thority, the ability of the scholar-priest to act as an autonomous critic
could be severely limited when a strong-minded emperor ascended the
throne.
Tung believed the emperor must rule as the direct instrument of
Heaven. By the end of the Han, the ritual expression of this ideal
was firmly established in the imperial worship of Heaven. On the
other hand, without institutional checks and balances to limit the ruler's
authority and to hold him accountable to the ethical standards of
Heaven, this impressive rite could easily devolve into empty symbolism.
As the only individual entitled to enact rites to Heaven, the emperor
served as the highest religious functionary. And since his power was
based on the superhuman authority of Heaven, who sanctioned his rule
because of his moral virtue, the emperor was also a sage-king. In both
roles, he was bound to adhere to, exemplify, and perpetuate the ethical
ideals and standards of the Confucian scriptures. The scriptures, which
229
both enhanced and limited the authority of the high priest and sage-
king, were established as a permanent feature of the traditional Chinese
state.
The scriptural attributes of the Spring and Autumn

Why should one call the Spring and Autumn 'scripture'? Scripture must
be understood as a religious phenomenon whose 'scriptural' qualities
are not inherent in any particular text, but are instead relational. Sacred
texts exist only in relation to a community that ascribes certain roles and
ideas to them within a particular historical setting.1 Tung Chung-shu
exemplified the hermeneutic impulse characteristic of the Confucian
tradition. What did he conceive scripture to be? How did he conceptu-
alize the meaning and function of the Spring and Autumn, and how did
his interpretations come to influence and shape individual and collec-
tive life in the unified imperial state of the Han?
Building on their pre-Han interpretive ancestors, Tung Chung-shu
and his disciples transformed the Spring and Autumn into a powerful and
sacrosanct text. In this respect, the Kung-yang lineage resembled other
religious traditions in ascribing particular qualities to a group of texts
that set them apart for special veneration. The Spring and Autumn is
particularly rewarding as a focus for the study of scripture because it so
clearly exemplifies the interpretive quality of sacred texts. Unlike the
Hebrew Bible, which contains the beautiful love poems of the Song of
Songs, and the moving narrations ofJob's plight, the Spring and Autumn
does not display any outstanding literary qualities, nor does it contain
any rich accounts that would make it a likely candidate for interpreta-
tion. The fact that a perfunctory and terse text like the Spring and
Autumn, with its seemingly limited interpretive possibilities, came to
occupy such a revered position in the traditional Chinese state speaks to
the virtually limitless power and creativity of the reader.
In a penetrating discussion of the comparative aspects of scripture as
a relational phenomenon, William Graham has delineated six important
characteristics that religious communities throughout the world have
typically attributed to their holy books: heavenly origins, inspiration or
revelation, power, eternality, authority, and unicity.2 Tung Chung-shu
and his fellow exegetes certainly ascribed these attributes to the Spring
and Autumn. Yet their interpretations also departed from their Western
1 I am indebted to William Graham who introduced me to this thoughtful and fruitful

approach to the study of comparative scripture.
2 Eliade et al. 1987, pp. 133-145; Graham 1987, pp. 1-8.
230
Conclusion
counterparts in several respects. These differences serve to underscore

the unique characteristics of Confucian spirituality.
The Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions associate the idea of a
scriptural book quite closely with the idea of a heavenly text, from which
the scriptural word comes as revelation of divine knowledge or decrees.
As Graham has pointed out, 'The teachers and prophets whose words
become part of scripture are said to have been inspired in their speech
(as with the Hebrew prophets), to have been given God's direct revela-
tion to their fellows (as with Muhammad and Mani), or to have had an
experience in which they transcended the contingent world to grasp
ultimate reality (as in the Buddha's enlightenment).'3 Whether this
knowledge has been bestowed on an individual, or whether an indi-
vidual has gained this knowledge through his or her special abilities, it is
revered for its capacity to bridge the human and divine worlds.
The Kung-yang commentators to the Spring and Autumn likewise
viewed their holy book as a bridge between Heaven and the human
world. Yet the text bridged an existential rather than an ontological
chasm between Heaven and humanity for they were part of a single
continuum that was all too seldomly perceived or realized by human
beings. Moreover, the text was not the product of divine revelation but
was derived from the insights of the sage who manifests or reveals
Heaven to the human world. According to the Kung-yang interpreters, it
was precisely this concern that inspired Confucius to compose the Spring
and Autumn, in an attempt to recover the lost Way of Heaven. As the
living repository of Heaven's Way, the texts attributed to Confucius
enjoyed a special status. Like Moses or Muhammad, Confucius was seen
as the bearer of divine knowledge. His words were to be honored and
esteemed. Yet, unlike Moses or Muhammad, who received God's words
in a personal encounter, Confucius willed the Spring and Autumn into
existence, as the knowledge embodied in this text was not the product of
divine revelation, but derived from human perception. Consequently,
whatever 'transcendent' and sacred status the Spring and Autumn en-
joyed, it reflected an anthropocentric rather than a theocentric concep-
tion of the universe. The sage stood at the center of the cosmos, and his
texts were worthy of veneration precisely because he had cultivated his
person and become the human embodiment of Heaven. Sacred wisdom
was available to whomever strove to ascertain Heaven's Way, not because
God chose to be revealed through textual (Jewish and Islamic) or
human (Christian) forms.
The third functional attribute often identified with scripture is the
3 Eliade et al. 1987, p. 132.

231
power inherent in its words. In the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic tradi-
tions, this attribute is linked to the belief that scripture embodies the
word of God. In classical Hindu religion, the Vedic word represents
the cosmic truth apprehended directly by the ancient seers (risis), not
given by any anthropomorphic deity. In other traditions, such as the
Buddhist, the teaching embodied in the scriptural word is considered to
be salvific truth. In Confucianism, Heaven does not speak. Rather the
sage speaks for Heaven.4 Consequently texts are revered not because
they are the word of God but because they preserve the wisdom of the
sages. This wisdom relates the sage's apprehension of Heaven's Way,
and therefore it retains a 'transcendent' referent. Yet what is emphasized
in the Confucian tradition is the human perception and application of
that truth. First, the written word was felt to be powerful because
it embodied the particular experience of the sage Confucius, providing
a compelling model of self-transformation for the community at large.
Second, the salvific power associated with the Spring and Autumn derived
from the belief that the text embodied Heaven's Truths. But Tung
Chung-shu maintained that, because Confucius had left his blueprint
for the perfect state in the form of judgments purposely couched in an
esoteric language, the salvific power of the Spring and Autumn was latent,
contingent on the appropriate interpreter. These attributes reflected
broader assumptions in Confucianism concerning the nature of reli-
gious experience. Just as the sacredness of a text was contingent on
the human reader, so too was religious experience dependent on
the human will. This humanistic orientation explains why salvific power
in the Confucian context had a decidedly political and communal
emphasis.
Perhaps the most essential attribute of a scripture is the belief that it
possesses greater authority and is deserving of greater veneration than
all other books. Confucianism is exceptional in the great charisma it
attributes a corpus of books, and in the way this reflected on the author-
ity of books in general. In the case of the Spring and Autumn, many
factors contributed to the rise of this work as a canonical text. The sage
origins and salvational powers ascribed to it early on set it apart from
other works. Furthermore, Han scholars attributed additional legal,
ritual, and cosmological attributes to the Spring and Autumn to demon-
strate its indispensable role in the creation and perpetuation of the Han
empire. They approached the text as an authoritative code of precedents
to guide the administration of justice. The newfound ritual authority
that the Spring and Autumn enjoyed was due to similar readings. The
4 Heaven does not speak with a voice but reveals its will through the workings of nature.
232
Conclusion
most innovative of Tung's contributions lay in the sphere of cosmology,

where an ongoing dialogue between the ruler and Heaven was read into
the Spring and Autumn.
The new attributes ascribed to the Spring and Autumn in the years just
before its canonization no doubt imbued the text with unprecedented
authority and prestige. While Han interpreters of the Spring and Autumn
busied themselves demonstrating the legal, ritual, and cosmological
authority of this scripture, scholastics of other Confucian texts were
engaged in similar pursuits. With the flowering of exegetical activity in
the Han, there emerged a growing consensus within the Confucian
community as to which texts were sacred. Despite doctrinal and interpre-
tive tensions, this consensus cut across different exegetical traditions of
Confucianism and demonstrated a growing proclivity to view the Confu-
cian scriptures as a unified whole, to be venerated above all other written
works. This tendency is seen in three developments that date from the
Han period. First, a growing number of Confucian scholars expressed
the view that texts of other traditions should be proscribed; second,
Confucian exegetes emphasized Confucius's affiliation, whether as au-
thor or editor, with the scriptures of their tradition; and third, Confu-
cian interpreters expressed veneration for the scriptures as a group, with
each authoritative text identified as excelling in a particular virtue.
These developments indicate quite clearly that the idea of a unified
scriptural corpus had emerged within the Confucian tradition. They
were the final prelude to the canonization of the Five Scriptures in 136
B.C.E.
Both in Confucianism and in the so-called religions of the book, the
written word was central to the life of the community. Yet Confucian
interpreters placed less emphasis on the divine aspect of the written
word than on the 'transcendent' qualities of the sage. In place of direct
revelation, the insights of the sage conferred authority on the text. In
place of the word of God, the sage's teachings imbued the text with
salvific power. In Confucianism, the book was holy not because it served
as a focus for worshiping God, but because it ordered the totality of
human life in a manner commensurate with the Way of Heaven.
For Han exegetes like Tung Chung-shu, the Confucian texts were
scriptures because of the sage, Confucius, and not solely because of their
'transcendent' referent, Heaven. Moses was not a perfect man; yet pious
Jews believe that the Torah is nevertheless authoritative and holy be-
cause it was given to the Israelites through Moses by the perfect God,
Yahweh. The holiness of the Torah is consequently independent of the
frailty of its first human transmitter, Moses. The holiness of the Confu-
cian texts, on the other hand, was contingent on the infallibility of its
233
human author, Confucius. If Confucius had been imperfect, anything

less than a sage, his realization of the Way of Heaven would have been,
de facto, incomplete and his insights flawed. His writings consequently
would have been unworthy of study and veneration. But since Confucius
was the sage, the uncrowned king, the perfect emulator of Heaven's
Way, the Spring and Autumn was considered sacred.
Confucius's sage qualities enabled him to reflect Heaven's truths in
his composition of the Spring and Autumn and thereby achieve unity with
Heaven. In this respect, Confucius's conduct of writing was profoundly
religious. Although Confucius was rejected by the powers of his day, he
was not distracted from his ultimate spiritual quest to align his person,
and eventually the community, with the moral values of Heaven. Viewing
Confucius's conduct in this light, Tung articulated a fundamental claim
concerning both the authoritative status and the role of the Confucian
scriptures within the unified empire of the Han. While the status and
authority of Confucius's words transcended the state, the political order
was still the accepted locus for actualizing the ideals embodied in the
Confucian scriptures. If 'all-under-Heaven,' not simply the enlightened
sage, were to achieve unity with the Way of Heaven, it must be achieved
through the polity. Since this spiritual goal defined the very raison d'etre
of the political order, the state was hardly a secular institution, nor were
the texts associated with it simply 'classics.' Indeed the sacred character
of the traditional Chinese state and its scriptures was largely derived
from this optimistic insistence in the ultimate unity between Heaven and
humanity. In closing, therefore, I offer some comments on unity as a
religious ideal.
Unity as a religious ideal

The concept of unity illuminates not only the spiritual dimensions of the
Confucian tradition in general, but also the religious quality of Tung
Chung-shu's thinking in particular. Unity was a persistent spiritual
theme. The quest to become a sage, a central preoccupation of Confu-
cianism, was no less than the existential endeavor to realize human-
divine unity. Unity was predicated on the belief that humanity was
endowed with a nature fundamentally commensurate with that of
Heaven. It determined, early on, the decidedly secular tone of Confu-
cian thought. Given the immanence of humanity's divine qualities, at-
tention was naturally focused on the human community, where the
project of self-understanding loomed large. Nevertheless, this humanis-
tic emphasis clearly implied something more. It evoked a supreme deity,
and a particular relationship between deity and humanity, that differed
234
Conclusion
from Western religions. In contrast to the Judeo-Christian tradition, for

example, which posits an ontological gap between God and humanity
and thereby understands humanity to be fundamentally different from
God, early Confucians maintained that there was an essential ontological
unity between Heaven and humanity. This distinction is fundamental. It
may very well explain the typical Western portrayal of Confucianism as a
humanistic tradition devoid of religious characteristics.
The idea of a fundamental mutuality or reciprocity between Heaven
and humanity emerged quite early in China. The Odes and Documents
contain numerous examples of this belief. The idea of an ontological
similarity between Heaven and humanity derived from the belief that
Heaven was the supreme ancestor of human beings. Heaven 'gives birth
to the multitudinous people.'5 Heaven is the 'father and mother' of the
people.6 Having given birth to the human race, Heaven also imparted its
moral principles to humanity. The Odes explains: 'Heaven gives birth to
the multitude of people, they have bodies, they have [moral] rules; that
the people hold on to the norms is because they love that beautiful
virtue.'7 The idea that human beings possessed a moral nature derived
from Heaven also found expression in the phrase t'ien hsing ('Heavenly
nature'). According to the Documents, Heaven was near, 'inspecting' and
'observing' the actions of human beings. The Odes warns: 'Be reverent,
be reverent; Heaven is splendid, its charge is not easy (to keep); do not
say: 'It is very high above'; it ascends and descends in its workings, and
daily inspects us who are here.'8 Heaven rewarded those who were most
virtuous with rulership. Thus it was said that King Wen received the
Mandate of Heaven because his virtuous reputation was 'seen and heard
by God on High, and God favored him.'9 At the same time, despite their
optimism regarding the basic congruence between the numinous and
human worlds, the early texts were critically aware of humanity's ten-
dency to existentially fall away from this ideal. The Odes laments:
'Heaven gives birth to the multitudinous people, but its charge is not to
be relied on; there is nobody who has not a beginning, but few can have
a [normal] end.'10
Although they exhibit a shift in emphasis, these ideas continued to
inform the philosophical works of the late Spring and Autumn and early
Warring States periods. They focused attention on humanity as the
recipient of moral principles, rather than on Heaven as their progenitor.
Heaven gradually receded to the background becoming more remote,
5 Karlgran 1950, p. 214. 6 Karlgran 1950, p. 147.

7 Karlgran 1950, p. 228. 8 Karlgran 1950, p. 249.
9 Legge 1893, 5:385. 10 Karlgran 1950, p. 214.
235
while the question that grew ever more prominent was: How could
humanity realize this unity? During the fourth century B.C.E., Confu-
cius'S disciple Mencius proposed an answer that combined the older
belief in the divine qualities of human nature with a new emphasis on
the role of the human heart. He maintained that the human heart was
the moral faculty Heaven bestowed upon human beings at birth that
distinguished them from the beasts. However, they must utilize this
faculty to enact the unity between Heaven and humanity. The Meng-tzu
states: Tor human beings to give full realization to their hearts is for
human beings to understand their own natures, and human beings who
know their own natures will know Heaven. By retaining their heart and
nurturing their nature, they are serving Heaven.'11 All people could
become like Heaven insofar as they endeavored to develop their natural
endowments, namely the tender shoots of humaneness, righteousness,
propriety, and wisdom.12 It is in this sense that the Meng-tzu asserts,
'Virtuous human beings transform all experiences they pass through
and abide in the numinous.'13
Like the Meng-tzu, the Chung-yung (Doctrine of the Mean), an impor-
tant text attributed to the grandson of Confucius, Tzu-ssu (492-431
B.C.E.), but probably dating from 200 B.C.E., also emphasized the com-
mon ground shared by humanity and Heaven, devired from one's na-
ture imparted by Heaven. Also like the Meng-tzu, the Chung-yung held
that humans must existentially confirm the commonality through self-
cultivation and self-examination that centered on the nature. The
achievement of 'sincerity' typifies this process. The text explains:
Only those who are absolutely sincere can fully develop their nature. If they can
fully develop their nature, they can then fully develop the nature of others. If
they can fully develop the nature of others, they can then fully develop the
nature of living things. If they can fully develop the nature of living things, they
can then assist in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and Earth.
If they can assist in the transforming and nourishing process of Heaven and
Earth, they can then form a triad with Heaven and Earth.14
In their discussions of the unity of Heaven and humanity, pre-Han
Confucians emphasized the immanent nature of human beings' divine
qualities. The process of ultimately actualizing this common ground was
largely an introspective effort that directed one's heart toward one's
nature. As Tu Wei-ming has pointed out, 'The only way to know Heaven
was to penetrate deeply into the ground of one's own being.'15
With respect to the idea of unity, Tung Chung-shu was both a 'trans-
11 Meng-tzu 7A/1, 2, and 3. 12 t H ^ H i . 13 Meng-tzu 7A/13.

14 Chan 1963, pp. 107-108. 15 Tu 1976, p. 9.
236
Conclusion
mitter' of tradition and an important innovator. In general terms, his

innovations may be described as syncretic. In his discussion of cosmol-
ogy, for example, Tung drew upon ideas traditionally outside the scope
of mainstream Confucian discourse. Prominent among these was the
notion that nature was an 'organismic unity' animated by the two com-
plementary but polar fundamentals yin and yang. Tung's syncretic ap-
proach is most apparent in his descriptions of Heaven. Like his
predecessors, Tung viewed Heaven as the supreme ancestor of humanity
and the author of humanity's moral principles:
The beauty of humaneness rests with Heaven. Heaven is humaneness. Heaven
protects and shelters all living things, produces and transforms them, nourishes
and completes them. Its achievements are limitless. When it reaches the end, it
begins again. All that Heaven supports, it hands over to humanity. If human
beings examine into Heaven's intentions, they will see that its humaneness is
limitless. Human beings receive their destinies from Heaven. They derive their
humaneness from Heaven and are thereby humane. Therefore human beings
possess the relationships of father and elder brother, son and younger brother.
They possess hearts that are loyal, trustworthy, kind, and humane. They act with
propriety, righteousness, honesty, and conciliation. They possess knowledge of
right and wrong, compliance and deviation. Their cultured principles16 are
manifest and abundant, their knowledge broad and extensive. It is humanity
alone who is able to accompany Heaven.17
These moral principles were not only found in human nature. While
they constituted the internal landscape of every human being, Tung
argued that they also existed in the external world.18 Since Heaven's will
directed the course of nature, Heaven's moral principles were also im-
manent in the passing of the four seasons and the transmutations of the
stars. This new understanding of Heaven led to a second important
innovation. The mind, which had in the past been directed inward, was
now also turned outward toward the natural world, which also served to
guide humanity toward Heaven. This conceptualization of spiritual de-
velopment, in turn, suggests the third of Tung's innovations: the devel-
opment of a technical language to describe the role of epistemology in
the process of actualizing unity.
In the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu, the language of unity is expressed in a variety
of chapters, many of which are based on the idea of categorical corre-
spondence (t'ung-lei)19 and numerical correspondence (t'ung-shu)20 be-
tween Heaven and humanity. Thus, whether concrete or abstract, all
16 XM. 17 t i A i t & n m # ^ . CCFL 11/6b. 7.15^.4.15

18 On this point Tung Chung-shu was clearly indebted to his predecessors Meng-tzu and
Hsun-tzu.
19 w\m. 20 mwi.
237
phenomena in the human world ultimately shared a common ground

with Heaven. Tung explained: Tn what may be numbered, there is
numerical correspondence. In what may not be numbered, there is
categorical correspondence.'21 Because the vital force that unites
Heaven and humanity is at once spiritual and physical, the correspond-
ence between Heaven and humanity likewise shares these two qualities.
On a spiritual level, Tung maintained, the continuity of vital force
accounted for the various categorical correspondences, including
chiefly the Heavenly derivation of humanity's moral principles and cog-
nitive and emotive faculties. On a physical level, this continuity ac-
counted for the various numerical correspondences between the human
body and nature. For example, Tung pointed out that the ten months of
human gestation in the womb coincided with Heaven's yearly ten-month
cycle; similarly he noted how the 350 joints of the human body corre-
sponded to the 350 days of the yearly cycle.22 This twofold understanding
of correspondence enabled Tung to unite the anthropomorphic at-
tributes of Heaven emphasized by Confucians with the naturalistic quali-
ties of Heaven familiar to Taoists.
Only human beings were endowed with the ability to recognize this
ultimate commonality. One essay from the Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu states con-
fidently, 'For seeking out the subtleties of Heaven's numerical catego-
ries, none compares with humanity.'23 But human beings must exert
themselves to discover this unity. Tung warned, 'Now if the eyes do not
look, they will not see. If the mind does not deliberate, it will not
understand. Even if the world's greatest delicacy is set before you, if you
do not taste it you will not know its excellence. Even if the greatest
principles of the sages are set before you, if you do not deliberate, you
will not know their righteous principles.'24 Tung employed an elaborate
technical vocabulary to denote this process. He wrote that human
beings must examine (ch'a), deliberate (lun), and, most important, infer
(t'ui).
Since Tung Chung-shu assumed that the fundamental obligation of
the ruler was to initiate and facilitate the process of aligning the order
and values of the human world with those of Heaven, the relationship
between the ruler and Heaven was absolutely pivotal. Byfirstestablishing
unity in his own person, Tung Chung-shu argued, the ruler thereby
21 CCFL 13/3^8.16-3^9.9.
22 The ritual year is almost always said in early Chinese sources to be 360 or 365 days. It
is not clear why Tung Chung-shu refers to a 350-day cycle. See CCFL 11 /42L.7.16-4D. 1.4
and i3/2a.4.i4-2a.5.i.
23 CCFL 7/i3a.i.2-i3a.i. 10. 24 CCFL 8/ 12a. 1.19-12a.3.15.
238
Conclusion
transformed others t h r o u g h his example. T h e u n i q u e qualities of the

h u m a n h e a r t a n d m i n d a n d h u m a n n a t u r e m a d e this possible. T h e sage-
king h a d e a r n e d his position of leadership precisely because h e h a d
surpassed the average person in his endeavor to cultivate his Heavenly
virtues: his moral n a t u r e a n d his cognitive a n d emotive e n d o w m e n t s .
T u n g asserted that only the sage could ' c o n n e c t his m i n d to the subtle'
a n d ' p e n e t r a t e the transformations of the h u m a n world a n d so unite
t h e m with Heaven.' Consequently, h e described the sage as o n e who
'observes Heaven a n d acts'; a n d the ruler as o n e who 'illuminates the
Way of Heaven' a n d 'considers the m i n d of Heaven.' 2 5 Confucius h a d
exclaimed: 'Great i n d e e d was Yao as a ruler! How lofty! It is Heaven that
is great a n d it was Yao who m o d e l e d himself o n it.' 26 In very m u c h the
same spirit, albeit in a cosmological context, T u n g Chung-shu wrote:
The ancients, when they invented writing, drew three [horizontal] lines, which
they connected through the center [by a vertical stroke], and called this king
[ i ] . The horizontal lines represent Heaven, Earth, and humanity, while the
vertical line connecting them through the center represents the [king's] pen-
etration of their [interrelated] principles. Who, indeed, if not a [true] king,
could take the central position between Heaven, Earth, and humanity, so as to
act as the connecting link between them? Therefore the king emulates Heaven.
He takes Heaven's seasons as his models and brings them to completion. He
emulates Heaven's commands and circulates them among the people. He emu-
lates Heaven's regularities and employs them when initiating affairs. He emu-
lates Heaven's Way and thereby generates standards. He emulates Heaven's will
and aways returns to humaneness. 27
Nature, according to T u n g Chung-shu, e m b o d i e d Heaven's will. By

observing the operations of the yin a n d yang forces as they moved
t h r o u g h the yearly cycles of the four seasons, the qualities of Heaven's
will could be discovered. Heaven, however, encompassed m o r e than just
the forces of n a t u r e . Central to T u n g ' s n o t i o n of rulership was his
c o n t i n u e d insistence that the ruler derived his authority from Heaven
r a t h e r than from his lineal descent. Like Mencius before him, T u n g
m a i n t a i n e d that Heaven was free to retract it's m a n d a t e if the ruler failed
in his moral obligations:
Heaven generates humanity not on behalf of the king but on the contrary,
Heaven establishes the king on behalf of humanity. Thus if his virtue is sufficient
to provide humanity with security and happiness, Heaven gives [the mandate to
25 See CCFL 1 i/gb and 6/4a.
26 Lau 1979, p. 19.
27 Emending the last two occurences of the graph chih tp to fa $k based on preceding
lines. CCFL 1 i/6b.3.1-615.7.14.
239
him]. If his evil is sufficient to harm or injure humanity, Heaven withdraws [the
mandate from him] ,28
Before retracting the mandate however, Heaven always called the ruler
back to the path of unity with a purposeful disruption in the natural
world. The records of past omens preserved in the Spring and Autumn,
Tung maintained, were guides to understanding Heaven's will in the
present. As a record of the mutual interaction between Heaven and
humanity, the Spring and Autumn was indispensable to the ruler. By
studying analogous omens recorded in the text, together with their
didactic principles, the ruler could discover the source of his own moral
failings, correct his actions, and ultimately retain Heaven's mandate. In
this respect, the Spring and Autumn enabled the ruler to fulfill his funda-
mental religious and political obligation to align his person and his state
with Heaven's Way.
The concept of unity suggests two characteristics of the Confucian
world view that illuminate its religious dimensions. The Confucian tradi-
tion posited an ultimate continuity between Heaven and humanity, and
it affirmed humanity's ability to know Heaven. Religious experience,
therefore, consisted of the existential struggle to realize this unity, which
could be achieved through human effort. There was no implicit tension
between faith and reason. In the Confucian context, faith was reason. Yet
there persisted an explicit tension between the aspects of divine-human
unity as an ontological ideal and as an existential reality. In reconsider-
ing the spiritual dimensions of Confucianism, one finds that the locus of
religious life involved both the deification of humanity and the humani-
zation of Heaven. All human beings possessed the capacity to become
like Heaven; the extent to which they actualized their Heavenly poten-
tial, bringing Heaven into the human world, was the measure of their
religious life. Tung Chung-shu's contribution as a religious thinker was
the idea that text-based knowledge was absolutely indispensable to this
spiritual endeavor - in fact, he made it a practically unanimous belief
within Confucianism. It was in this sense that Tung Chung-shu left his
most profound and durable impressions on Confucian culture.
28
240
Appendix 1
The birth and death
dates of
Tung Chung-shu
In Chapter 1 I noted that historians have typically adopted the Ch'ing
dynasty scholar Su Yu's dates (ca. 179-104 B.C.E.) for Tung's birth and
death. In his Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng (Verification of the Meanings in
the Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn), Su Yu begins the
'Chronology of Tung Chung-shu' in 179 B.C.E., during the reign of
Emperor Wen (179-158 B.C.E.) and ends it in 104 B.C.E., during the
reign of Emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.E.).1 In the past several decades
Chinese scholars have challenged these dates. In an article devoted to
correcting Su Yu's errors, Shih Chih-mien argued in 1945 that Tung
Chung-shu must have been born between 194 and 180 B.C.E. (during
the reigns of Emperor Hui and Empress Lu) .2 Li Wei-hsiung, who pub-
lished a monograph on Tung Chung-shu in 1978, narrowed Tung's date
of birth to the years 187 to 180 B.C.E. (during the reign of Empress Lu).3
And in 1988 and 1989, respectively Yueh Ch'ing-p'ing and Chou Kuei-
tien independently proposed that Tung Chung-shu was born even ear-
lier, between the years 206 and 195 B.C.E. (during the reign of Emperor
Kao).4 Yueh Ch'ing-p'ing, who analyzed seven Han references to Tung
Chung-shu, argued the most comprehensively and persuasively for an
earlier birth date. A summary of his views follows.
The birth date of Tung Chung-shu

Yueh begins with a passage from the Hsin-lun (New Discourses) by the
Confucian scholar Huan T'an (43 B.C.E.- 28 C.E.), which states: 'Tung
Chung-shu concentrated his energies on explicating antiquity. When he
was over sixty years of age he did not peer into his courtyard or gather his
1 CCFUC 1/ 7a- 14a.
2 Shih 1945, pp. 50-52.
3 Li 1978, p. 2.
4 Yueh 1988, pp. 58-59; Chou 1989, pp. 1-5.
241
Appendix i
vegetables.'5 By the time Huan T'an cited this passage in the closing
years of the Western Han, it had become a familiar cliche for Tung
Chung-shu's bookish nature and single-minded devotion to scholarship.
An earlier version had already appeared in the Shih-chi and Han-shu,6 and
later in the Eastern Han, Wang Ch'ung (27-ca. 100 C.E.) cited it as yet
another example of Confucian hyperbole.7 Regardless of its veracity, it is
useful for dating Tung's birth, because the Shih-chi and Han-shu employ
this passage to characterize Tung's official career, after Emperor Ching
(r. 157-141 B.C.E.) appointed him to the post of erudite (po-shih), but
before Emperor Wu assumed the throne in 140 B.C.E. Yueh Ch'ing-p'ing
argues that if Tung Chung-shu was more than sixty years old toward the
end of Emperor Ching's reign, he could not have been born during the
reign of Emperor Wen, the conventional date for his birth, but must
have been born earlier during the reign of Emperor Kao (206-195
B.C.E.).
The second passage cited by Yueh - and by almost every scholar who
posits a birth date for Tung Chung-shu - derives from the Han-shu
'Record of the Hsiung-nu.' There Pan Ku laments: 'Tung Chung-shu
personally witnessed the policies of four generations [of rulers] and he
still repeatedly desired to preserve the ancient treaties and increase their
covenants.'8 Pan Ku argued that although Tung Chung-shu saw the
preceding four emperors struggle to maintain peaceful relations with
the Hsiung-nu, who lived in the steppe to the north, he continued to
promote the unsuccessful ho-cWin (harmonious kinship) policy under
Emperor Wu.9 This statement follows a long passage in which Pan Ku
describes China's relations with the Hsiung-nu during the four reigns of
Emperor Kao, Emperor Hui, Empress Lii, and Emperor Wen.10 It imme-
diately precedes a long citation from one of Tung's memorials addressed
to Emperor Wu, illustrating Tung's recommendation to augment the
earlier treaties with new provisions. Since 'the four generations' de-
5 i t t S H M t ^ f t * ' ¥ M A - H £ > ^mm*m - TPYL 976.

6 ^H^Kftgp^ft^#HXWfJPiH: ° SC 121/3127. For other Western Han rendi-
tions of this story, see HS 56/2495, TPYL 97, and TPYL 840.
7 LH 26/474.
8 ww$?%L&m$tzm > mu&^mx» « * K « - HS 946/3831-
9 The ho-ch'in (harmonious kinship) policy defined political relations between the Chi-
nese and the Hsiung-nu from beginning of the Han up to 134 B.C.E. In exchange for
annual gifts and the hand of a Chinese princess, the shan-yii (the Chinese transcription
of the Hsiung-nu term for their ruler) agreed not to raid China's borders. See Twitchett
and hoewe 1986, pp. 383-389.
10 It is interesting to note that, unlike the SC account of the Hsiung-nu, Pan Ku does not
discuss the reign of Emperor Ching - perhaps because Emperor Ching did not once
initiate military expeditions against the Hsiung-nu during his reign. See SC 110/2904;
Watson 1993, 2:148.
242
Dates of Tung Chung-shu
scribed by Pan Ku begin with Emperor Kao, Yueh concludes that Tung
must have been born during his reign.11
The third passage relevant to dating Tung's birth, an encomium by
Pan Ku in his 'Preface' to the Han-shu, reads:
Cautious and circumspect Chung-shu,

Twice administrator to imperial marquises,12
With his person cultivated these states were ordered,
Serving in office until the suspension of his official carriage,
With lowered curtains he set forth his ideas,
Discoursing on the Way and composing books,
With bold words and searching responses,
He was a pure Confucian of his age.13
Yueh notes that, according to the Po-hu t'ung (Comprehensive Discus-

sions at White Tiger Hall) and the Han-shu, officials generally retired
from office - 'suspended their official carriages' - and returned home at
about seventy years of age. Thus the phrase 'serving in office until the
suspension of his official carriage' suggests that Tung did not retire until
he was around seventy years old. An additional passage in the Han-shu
'Biography of Tung Chung-shu' records that Tung Chung-shu served as
administrator for the second time when Kung-sun Hung was already a
high-ranking official and that he remained in this post for only a short
time before retiring. Since Kung-sun Hung became a high official in 126
B.C.E., and since Tung Chung-shu retired shortly after he was appointed
administrator for the second time, he was around seventy in 126 B.C.E. If
so, he must have been born during the reign of Emperor Kao.
The fourth piece of evidence derives from the Shih-chi 'Biography of
Harsh Officials.' There the grand historian Ssu-ma T'an notes: 'When
11 Li Wei-hsiung and Shih Chih-mien, ignoring the import of the sentence and its
location in the passage, simply count back four rulers from Emperor Wu to arrive at the
reign of Empress Lu. (Shih Chih-mien considers Emperor Hui and Empress Lu as one
generation.) Chou Kuei-tien argues that, based on the HS 'Annals of the Emperors,'
four generations back from Emperor Wu is Emperor Hui. But this does not mean that
Tung was born during his reign, since to be old enough 'to witness personally' political
affairs (a reference to the Kungyang theory of the three generations that Confucius
judged in the Spring and Autumn), one could not be an infant. Therefore, Tung must
have been born during the reign of Emperor Kao.
12 An administrator (hsiang) was the senior official in a princedom (wang-kuo),
marquisate (hmi-kuo), or other semifeudal domain. An imperial marquis (chu-hou)
inherited noble status as the son of a prince (wang). Hucker 1985, pp. 311, 230.
13 wwttff' wttwm' g&mm' » # « « > T ! W S mmmmstw»»
ttffifll HS 100B/4255.
243
Appendix i
Kung-sun Chi-kung and Master Tung were first acquainted with Hsia
Wu-chii, they both learned of his [Ching-k'o's] affair and told me of it as
I have recorded here.'14 Yueh correctly points out that the 'Master Tung'
in this passage must be Tung Chung-shu, because Ssu-ma T'an also
refers to Tung Chung-shu as Master Tung in his preface at the end of the
Shi-chi. In 227 B.C.E., when Ching-k'o attempted to assassinate the king
of Ch'in, Hsia Wu-chu was serving as the king's physician. Yueh reasons
that if Hsia Wu-chii was no younger than twenty years of age at that time,
then according to the conventional date for Tung Chung-shu's birth
(179 B.C.E.), when Tung Chung-shu was born Hsia Wu-chii would have
been almost seventy years of age, and it is not likely that they would have
been friends. If, however, one assumes that Tung was born during the
reign of Emperor Kao (206-195 B.C.E.), then the two men would have
been closer in age, making it more likely that they could have known and
befriended each other.
The fifth statement relevant to dating Tung's birth, from the Shih-chi
'Biography of the Confucian Scholars,' records:
Master Hu-wu [polite name Tzu-tu] was a native of Ch'i. During the reign of
Emperor Ching he became an erudite. In his old age he returned to his home
and devoted himself to teaching. Many scholars from Ch'i who discoursed on the
Spring and Autumn received instruction from Master Hu-wu. Kung-sun Hung also
greatly benefited from his teachings.15
The 'Biography of P'ing-chin and Chu-fu Yen' records that Kung-sun
Hung was more than forty years of age when he studied the Spring and
Autumn.™ Thus, taken together, these statements suggest that Kung-sun
Hung received instruction from Master Hu-wu in the Spring and Autumn
when he was more than forty. According to the Shih-chi 'Biography of
P'ing-chin and Chu-fu Yen' and the Han-shu 'Biography of Kung-sun
Hung,' Kung-sun Hung died in 121 B.C.E. at the age of eighty. If he was
eighty in 121 B.C.E., then he must have been born in 200 B.C.E. and
would have been in his forties from around 160 to 152 B.C.E. (the fourth
year of Emperor Wen's reign to the fifth year of Emperor Ching's reign).
He would have received instruction in the Spring and Autumn from
Master Hu-wu not later than 152 B.C.E. after Master Hu-wu retired from
14 J&4HS¥#J ' Wkt&KMRW ' I r ^ K f > S ^ i l ^ l i n J i ° SC 86/2538. In this

passage, Ssu-ma T'an attempts to dispel the rumor that Ching-k'o assassinated the king
of Ch'in by claiming knowledge of the matter through Ching-k'o's two friends Kung-
sun Chi-kung and Tung Chung-shu. For a fuller translation of the context, see Watson
!993'3 :1 77-
m%M ° sc 121/3128.
16 SC 112/2949.
244
his post and returned to Ch'i. Thus Master Hu-wu must have served as an
erudite before 152 B.C.E.
The 'Biography of the Confucian Scholars' also notes that Master Hu-
wu and Tung Chung-shu were colleagues.17 Since both became erudites
under Emperor Ching, Tung Chung-shu must have assumed the post of
erudite before 152 B.C.E. (the fifth year of Emperor Ching's reign),
because Master Hu-wu could not have retired and returned home later
than that year. Yueh maintains that if Tung Chung-shu was born in 179
B.C.E., the date conventionally used to mark his birth, he would have
been just over twenty in the first year of Emperor Ching's reign and
simply too young to enjoy the reputation and prestige necessary to
become an erudite. If he was born during the reign of Emperor Kao,
however, by 156 B.C.E. (the first year of Emperor Ching's reign) he
would have been more than forty, an age more typical of scholars
appointed to this post.
Yueh Ch'ing-p'ing proposes that the 'Biography of Confucian Schol-
ars' contains an additional clue to Tung's birth date.18 Ssu-ma Ch'ien
mentions Tung Chung-shu together with other 'scholars of moral worth
and literary ability,' including Shen Kung, Yuan Ku, Fu Sheng, and
Master Hu-wu.19 Fu Sheng was already older than ninety when Emperor
Wen reigned; Master Hu-wu reached old age and retired to his home to
teach during the era of Emperor Ching; and Shen Kung was more than
eighty and Yuan Ku more than ninety when Emperor Wu assumed the
throne. If Tung Chung-shu was born in 179 B.C.E. (the first year of
Emperor Wen's reign), then he would have been much younger than
these scholars. If, however, Tung was born during the reign of Emperor
Kao, then he would not have differed significantly in age from these
men.
The seventh statement relevant to dating Tung's birth is from the
Han-shu 'Biography of Tung Chung-shu, which relates: 'When Chung-
shu was at home, whenever there was an important debate at court, the
court dispatched messengers and the chamberlain for law enforcement,
Chang T'ang, to Tung's residence to question him. Tung's responses
always possessed clear standards.'20 According to the Han-shu 'Table of
Officials,' Chang T'ang served as chamberlain for law enforcement from
126 to 120 B.C.E. Had Tung been born in the first year of Emperor
Wen's reign (179 B.C.E.), he would have been around fifty during the
17 SC 121/3118.
18 Ibid.
19 Tung follows Hu-wu in the first enumeration and precedes him in the second.
20 tt#«£' mmn^Km»fefe%R&mm»m£mmmz. » » » * « * ° HS
56/2525.
245
Appendix i
years that Chang T'ang served in this post (between 126 and 120 B.C.E.) .
At fifty he would have been young enough to appear before the em-
peror, and it would not have been necessary to send an important official
like Chang T'ang to his home. Had he been born during Emperor Rao's
reign (206-195 B.C.E.), he would have been between seventy and eighty
years of age at this time, older and perhaps less mobile. Under those
circumstances Chang T'ang could have been sent to Tung's home to
ascertain his opinions. Based on these seven references, Yueh Ch'ing-
p'ing concludes that Tung Chung-shu was not born in the first year of
Emperor Wen's reign (179 B.C.E.) but must have been born earlier,
during the reign of Emperor Rao (206-195 B.C.E.). Although these
passages do not prove that Tung was born at this earlier time, considered
together they certainly indicate that a birth date around 195 B.C.E. is far
more plausible than the conventional date of 179 B.C.E.
The death date of Tung Chung-shu

Scholars generally date Tung's death to around 115 or 105 B.C.E.. The
key passage refers rather vaguely to a number of events that occurred
after Tung Chung-shu died. It states:
After Tung Chung-shu died, expenditures became more excessive, the empire
was utterly exhausted, and human beings resorted again to cannibalism. In his
last years Emperor Wu regretted his military expeditions and enfeoffed his
counselor-in-chief as 'Marquis who Enriched the People.'21
Based on the reference to cannibalism, both Li Wei-hsiung and Yueh
Ch'ing-p'ing conclude that Tung Chung-shu must have died before 114
B.C.E. Yueh argues that because the Han-shu 'Treatise on Food and
Money,' 'Treatise on the Five Phases,' and 'Annals of Emperor Wu'
record the second occurrence of cannibalism in the year 114 B.C.E.,
Tung Chung-shu must have died before that year. However, Chou Ruei-
tien correctly points out that even though the 'Annals of Emperor Wu'
records cannibalism for the years 138 and 114 B.C.E. this reference is not
reliable for fixing Tung's death before 114 B.C.E., because the 'Annals of
Emperor Wu' did not record every instance of cannibalism.
Chou claims that Tung Chung-shu probably died by 104 B.C.E. He
looks first to the passage preceding Tung's memorials at Han-shu 24
where Pan Ru states:
21
HS 24/1137-1138.
246
Beyond the empire [the emperor] attended to the four / tribes, 22 while within
the empire he initiated building projects for his pleasure. Military service and
government expenses mounted rapidly in unison and the people departed from
the fundamentals. 23
C h o u argues that this passage describes events that o c c u r r e d between
115 a n d 108 B.C.E. T h e expeditions against 'the four / t r i b e s ' refer to the
campaigns waged by E m p e r o r W u from 110 to 108 B.C.E. 2 4 T h e phrase
'building projects for his pleasure' refers to such lavish structures as the
Po-liang (Cypress Beams) T e r r a c e a n d the T'ung-t'ien (Sky Piercing)
Terrace built by the e m p e r o r between 115 a n d 109 B.C.E. 2 5 C h o u be-
lieves that the passage analyzed by Li Wei-hsiung a n d Yueh Ch'ing-p'ing
describes events of 104 B.C.E. H e reads the statement 'expenses
m o u n t e d rapidly' as a reference to the Chien-chang Palace E m p e r o r Wu
erected after the Po-liang Terrace was destroyed by fire in 104 B.C.E. 2 6
Based o n this analysis, C h o u concludes that T u n g must have died before
104 B.C.E. b u t after 107 B.C.E.
Both d e a t h dates are t e n u o u s at best. Nevertheless, an additional
memorial in Han-shu 94B ('Record of the Hsiung-nu') strengthens
C h o u Kuei-tien's position, because it suggests that T u n g Chung-shu was
still alive a r o u n d 107 B.C.E. In an i m p o r t a n t memorial setting o u t his
views o n the Hsiung-nu, T u n g Chung-shu wrote:
Righteousness moves the superior man, but profit moves the greedy man. You
cannot speak of righteousness to the Hsiung-nu. You can only please them by
increasing their material benefits, and so bind them before Heaven. Therefore
increase their material benefits to eliminate their intentions; take a solemn oath
with them before Heaven to strengthen their covenants; and hold their beloved
sons as hostage to control their hearts. Then even if the Hsiung-nu desire to
22 The term /was one of several terms the Chinese used to denote non-Chinese people.
23 ftmm-% ' ftn^fj' & * $ * ' m & £ * « Hs 24A/1137.
24 Chou derives his evidence from the 'Annals of Emperor Wu,' which describes the
emperor's military activities during these years. In an edict of 110 B.C.E. the emperor
acknowledged his punitive expeditions against the southern Yueh and the Eastern Ou,
and his intentions to deal with the Western Man and the Northern I tribes. From 11 o
to 108 B.C.E. the emperor engaged in various expeditions to pacify these tribes. See HS
6/189-195.
25 The 'Annals of Emperor Wu' records that in 115 B.C.E. the emperor erected the Po-
liang Terrace and in 109 he built the T'ung-t'ien Terrace in the Kan-ch'uan (Sweet
Springs) Palace and the Fei-lien Lodge in the city of Ch'ang-an. HS6/182; Dubs 1944,
2:72, 90.
26 'After the Po-liang Terrace burned down, Emperor Wu consulted a shaman named
Yung-chih from the southern kingdom of Yueh who said: 'According to the customs of
Yueh, when a building is visited by fire, it is rebuilt on a larger scale, to overcome and
suppress [the malignant influences that caused the fire].' Emperor Wu then built the
Chien-chang Palace.' See HS 6/199; Dubs 1944, 2:98-99.
247
Appendix i
expand their territories, how could they forfeit these significant benefits, deceive
high Heaven, or murder their beloved sons? Now taxes levied and tribute sent
hardly equal the cost of maintaining the three armies, and the security of city
walls does not differ from treaties concluded between men of integrity. Would it
not be advantageous to all-under-Heaven if among the people of the frontier
cities who protect the borders, fathers and older brothers could relax their
vigilance, children could be nourished, the 'barbarian' horses27 did not spy over
the Great Wall, and urgent dispatches no longer traversed the empire?28
This memorial was probably written near 107 B.C.E., the year in which
Han administrators reopened their discussions on Hsiung-nu policy,
after the Hsiung-nu leader Wu-wei (114-105 B.C.E.) suspended border
raids in an attempt to show his desire to renew the ho-ch%n policy.29
Several administrators argued that since the Hsiung-nu had been weak-
ened in battle, they could be made to submit to the Chinese emperor.
Consequently, Emperor Wu sent Yang Hsin on a diplomatic mission to
the Hsiung-nu in that same year. When Yang Hsin met with the Hsiung-
nu leader, he proposed, among other things, that if Wu-wei desired to
renew the ho-ch'in policy, he should send his eldest son to the capital as
a hostage. Wu-wei objected on the grounds that such a stipulation was
not part of the former ho-ch'in treaties.30 Chou argues that this new
stipulation (that the Hsiung-nu leader send his eldest son as a hostage to
the capital), which was proposed to the Hsiung-nu in 107 B.C.E., prob-
ably arose in response to Tung Chung-shu's recommendation. Tung
Chung-shu must have written this memorial around 107 B.C.E., when
scholars were once again deliberating relations with the Hsiung-nu.
Therefore, Tung Chung-shu could not have died as early as 115 B.C.E.
He most likely lived until around 105 B.C.E.
27 Hu (#3), barbarian, was one of many derogatory and scornful terms used to denote
non-Chinese people. See Hulsewe 1979, p. 52.
28 //S94D/3831.
30 Dubs 1944, 2:94.
248
Appendix 2
The dates of the
Han-shu 56 memorials
For centuries historians have debated the dates of Tung Chung-shu's

three memorials to Emperor Wu in Han-shu 56. Of the many positions
proposed on the issue, the most plausible has been that Tung composed
them in either 140 or 134 B.C.E.1 The conflict derives from the historical
records that describe the context in which Tung composed the memori-
als, as well as their content. Han-shu 56 and Shih-chi 121 record that
Tung participated in an imperial inquiry ' after Emperor Wu assumed
the throne' (shang chi wei) and that the emperor promptly appointed
him administrator to the kingdom of Chiang-tu.2 They suggest that Tung
Chung-shu became administrator the first year that Emperor Wu as-
sumed the throne in 140 B.C.E.3 However, the Han-shu 'Annals of Em-
peror Wu' indicates that Tung wrote his memorials in 134 B.C.E., not in
140 B.C.E. This chapter records that Tung Chung-shu and Kung-sun
Hung distinguished themselves in an imperial inquiry of 134 B.C.E.4 An
additional passage from the Han-shu Treatise on Ritual and Music,'
which cites the first of Tung's memorials in Han-shu 56, also supports a
1 For a review and critique of the various dates proposed for Tung's memorials, see Shih
1980, pp. 90-99.
2 Formerly known as the kingdom of Wu, Chiang-tu was located in the northeast of
modern-day I-cheng prefecture in Chiang-su province. In 154 B.C.E., during the reign of
Emperor Ching, the king of Wu and six other kings staged a revolt. After suppressing the
revolt, the emperor renamed the kingdom Chiang-tu and placed it under a new line of
kings. Twitchett and Loewe 1986, p. 142.
3 HS 56 introduces Tung's memorials with the following comment: 'After Emperor Wu
assumed the throne he promoted several hundred scholars who were recommended
because of their moral worth and literary ability. And Tung Chung-shu because of his
moral worth responded to the emperor's questions there.' HS 56/2494. At the end of
the memorials the biography notes: 'When his responses were finished, the emperor
appointed Tung Chung-shu administrator to Chiang-tu to serve King I.' 7/556/2523.
The SC 'Biography of Confucian Scholars' states, 'When the present emperor assumed
the throne, he appointed Tung Chung-shu to the post of administrator to Chiang-tu.' SC
121/3127-28.
4 HS6/161.
249
Appendix 2
134 B.C.E. date for at least one of Tung's memorials. 5 The passage
begins:
After Emperor Wu assumed the throne he promoted and employed brave and
outstanding men, deliberated on establishing a Luminous Hall and regulating
ritual dress to bring about the Age of Grand Peace. But Empress Dowager Tou
favored Huang-Lao theories and was displeased by the Confucian scholars, so
that his plans were again abandoned. Afterwards [hou] Tung Chung-shu re-
sponded to an imperial inquiry stating . . .6
Prior to mentioning Tung Chung-shu, this passage recounts Emperor
Wu's activities during the years 140 to 139 B.C.E. and comments on
Empress Dowager Tou's successful attempts to thwart the emperor's
efforts to reform court ceremony. This introduction suggests that Tung
wrote the memorial after the events of 140 and 139 B.C.E.
Having cited Tung's memorial, Pan Ku explains further that the em-
peror did not implement Tung's recommendations because he was too
preoccupied with military affairs.7 In 135 and 134 B.C.E. Emperor Wu
held two important conferences to discuss Hsiung-nu policy. After the
first deliberations he decided to follow the majority opinion, which
favored continuing the ho-ch'in policy, but by 134 B.C.E., when the issue
was reopened for discussion, officials who supported the use of force had
persuaded Emperor Wu to reverse his former decision. 8 This evidence
suggests that Tung probably wrote the first Han-shu 56 memorial in 134
5 The citation is a shorter rendition, with some interesting changes, of Tung's first
memorial in HS 56/2502-2505.
6 HS 22/1031. The phrase 'brave and outstanding men' refers to the four officials Chao
Wan, Wang Tsang, Tou Ying, and T'ien Fen mentioned earlier.
7 HS 22/1031 states: 'At the time, the emperor had just waged a punitive attack against
the four barbarian [/] tribes. With a determined will set on military achievements, he
had no leisure to set his mind on ritual or cultural matters [li wen chih shih].'
8 Yu Ying-shih points out that in 135 B.C.E. the Hsiung-nu sent envoys to the court to
request the renewal of the ho-ch 'in agreement. Emperor Wu summoned a court confer-
ence to discuss the issue. Opinions were divided between two groups represented by
Han An-kuo, the censor-in-chief, and Wang Hui, a frontier official versed in barbarian
affairs. The former defended the ho-ch'in policy, while the latter strongly urged the use
of force. As Han An-kuo's opinion won the support of the majority, Emperor Wu agreed
rather reluctantly to continue the ho-ch 'in policy. The complete break with the Hsiung-
nu came in 133 B.C.E., as a result of another count conference in which prolonged and
heated debates between the peace and war parties finally led the emperor to reverse his
previous decision. From these debates it is clear why the change to an entirely new line
of foreign policy was considered necessary. Financially, the ever increasing demand of
annual gifts had already been no small burden for the empire. Politically, the fact that
disloyal Chinese generals and other undesirable elements often sought support from, or
defected to, the Hsiung-nu was a constant threat to the Han imperial order. But even at
such a price there was still no prospect of securing a lasting peace. Many officials
believed that brute force was the only alternative. Yu Ying-shih 1967, pp. 12-13. See also
HS 52/2398-2404.
250
Han-shu 56 Memorials
B.C.E., when Emperor Wu reversed the policy of appeasement that had

defined Hsiung-nu and Han relations for more than seventy years.
Records describing Kung-sun Hung's activities in the imperial inqui-
ries further complicate attempts to date Tung's memorials accurately,
because they do not generally support the claim in the 'Annals of
Emperor Wu,' that both Tung Chung-shu and Kung-sun Hung distin-
guished themselves in the same imperial inquiry of 134 B.C.E. The Han-
shu 'Biography of Kung-sun Hung' records that Kung-sun Hung
participated in the imperial inquiries of 140 and 130 B.C.E., but does not
mention 134 B.C.E. 9 This fact has led some scholars to argue, rather
feebly I believe, that since Kung-sun Hung did not participate in an
inquiry of 134 B.C.E., both men must have participated in the 140 B.C.E.
inquiry and the 'Annals of Emperor Wu' must be mistaken.10 Clearly
these passages do not agree on the question of when Tung participated
in an imperial inquiry. In my opinion, the only way to resolve these
contradictions is to entertain the possibility that Tung participated in
both the inquiry of 140 and that of 134 B.C.E. Tung's memorials support
this contention, as their content contains evidence that supports both a
140 and 134 B.C.E. date. A brief review of a few examples is in order.
In the first Han-shu 56 memorial, which is also cited in a more abbre-
viated form in Han-shu 22, Tung Chung-shu states:
Therefore since Han obtained the empire it has constantly desired to govern
well, but up to the present day it has not been able to govern well. It has failed
to govern well because it did not change and alter when it was appropriate to do
so. The ancients had a saying: 'Looking down into the pond and coveting the fish
does not compare with retreating and weaving a net.' Now looking down at the
government and desiring to govern for more than seventy years does not com-
pare with retreating and instituting reform. Having instituted reform, it will be
possible to govern well. If the state is well governed, disasters will diminish day by
day and blessings will increase.11
Scholars holding to a 134 B.C.E. date have argued convincingly that
'more than seventy years' after the Han was founded indicates the year
135 B.C.E. If Tung wrote the memorial in 140 B.C.E., he would not have
used this phrase. Not surprisingly, scholars holding to a 140 B.C.E. date
have argued that either the phrase is an interpolation, or the graphs for
9 HS 58/2613.
10 Yet another passage from the SC 'Biography of the Confucian Scholars' suggests that
Tung Chung-shu distinguished himself prior to 135 B.C.E., whereas Kung-sun Hung
advanced after that year. See SC 121/3118.
11 ftSSS^TlU* ' i$:#?6mM4^"I#^
#& # £ te*Sfc ° HS 56/2505 and HS 22/1031.
Appendix 2
the 'seven' or 'ten' are corrupt. One scholar has even tried to argue that
the ten is corrupt and the seven is correct, interpreting the phrase as a
reference to Emperor Wu ruling for about seven years. That would put
its date at 134 B.C.E., the year of Emperor Wu's second imperial inquiry.
In the second memorial, Tung Chung-shu bemoans the lack of quali-
fied candidates to fill the posts in the bureaucracy of the central govern-
ment. He encourages Emperor Wu to establish an educational
institution to train scholars for office:
Therefore among the important ways to nurture scholars none is greater than
the Grand Academy. The Grand Academy is an institution to which scholars will
attach themselves. It is the root and source of educational transformation.
Presently, with the numerous scholars from each commandery and each king-
dom, there is a lack of those responding to your edicts. This means that the
Kingly Way will gradually become extinct. Your humble minister requests your
majesty to establish the Grand Academy and appoint enlightened teachers in
order to nurture the world's scholars. Frequently examine and question them to
make the most of their talents, and then it will surely be possible to obtain
outstanding candidates.12
With the Grand Academy established and teachers appointed to pre-
pare scholars for their careers in office, one must obtain the appropriate
candidates. According to Tung, the emperor must rely on his highest
officials in the outlying areas to send their best and brightest to the
capitaj to study:
In his ignorance your minister suggests that your majesty direct the adjunct
marquises13 and commandery governors14 with a salary of 2,000 bushels15 each to
select the most worthy of their functionaries, and annually supply two men to
serve as guards of the lodgings16 and observe the abilities of the great ministers.
Those who supply worthy men should be rewarded, while those who supply
unworthy men should be punished. In this way, the imperial marquises and
two-thousand-bushel officials will all devote their minds to seeking out worthies,
12 $
# r a & « £ « - ' nmvtM*m& 0 HS56/2513.
13 Adjunct marquis {lieh-hou) was 'a title of nobility awarded for extraordinary merit in
state service, distinguished from an imperial marquis (chu-hou), who inherited noble
status as the son of a prince (wang).' Hucker 1985, p. 311.
14 A commandery governor (chiin-shou) was the head of a commandery and had a rank of
2,000 bushels. Hucker 1985, p. 202.
15 Er-ch'ien-shih means, literally, 2,000 bushels of grain. It was the annual salary of an
official of this rank. Hucker 1985, p. 205.
16 Su-wei is one of the many titles used to designate the military units serving as the
imperial bodyguards. Hucker 1985, p. 461.
252
Han-shu 56 Memorials
and it will be possible to obtain the empire's scholars and employ them in
office.17
In the winter of 134 B.C.E. for the first time Emperor Wu directed
'each commandery and kingdom to recommend one Filial and one
Uncorrupt person to the court.' 18 Later that same year he conducted his
second imperial inquiry. Tung Chung-shu could not have made these
recommendations during the imperial inquiry of 134 B.C.E., since the
emperor had already acted on them by that date. He must have sug-
gested this policy during the earlier inquiry of 140 B.C.E.
In the second memorial, Tung Chung-shu praises Emperor Wu for
'civilizing' China's distant neighbors. He states: 'Yeh-lang and K'ang-
chu, strange lands ten thousand li from China, rejoice in your virtue and
heed your righteousness.' 19 According to the Han-shu Treatise of the
Southwestern I,' Yeh-lang became subject to China in 135 B.C.E. 20 A
proclamation of 135 B.C.E. written by the famous poet Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju
(178-118 B.C.E.) to the rulers of the Pa and Shu areas suggests by that
date Emperor Wu had also made inroads into the distant land of K'ang-
chu.21 Thus, contrary to the previous two excerpts from the second
memorial, this statement suggests that the second memorial must have
been written in 134 B.C.E.
Tung's third memorial to Emperor Wu concludes with the following
recommendation:
In his ignorance your minister suggests that all that is not in the category of the
Six Arts and the techniques of Confucius should be cut off and not allowed to be
promoted. Only after evil and licentious theories are destroyed is it possible to
unify rules and regulations22 and clarify standards and measures so that the
people know what to follow.23
Given that the 'Annals of Emperor Wu' records that Chao Wan made a
similar recommendation in 140 B.C.E., and that by 136 B.C.E. the em-
peror had established 'erudites of the Five Scriptures,' it is not likely
17
* ' ^ T 2 ± R r » f f l f tttfe ° HS56/2513.
18 HS 6/160 and Dubs 1944, 2:35.
19 sep > j i / g ' $ ^ m m ' mmmm. ° HS 56/2511.
20 See HS 95.
21 Ssu-ma Hsiang-ju states: 'K'ang-chu and the other regions of the west, translating and
retranslating their strange tongues, have come to pay their respects, bowing their heads
to the ground and bringing gifts of tribute to our court.' See SC 117/3044; HS 57B/
2577; and Watson 1993, 2:285.
22 This is a tentative rendering of t'ung-chi §E#E.
23 HS 56/2523.
253
Appendix 2
that Tung forwarded this recommendation in 134 B.C.E. Instead 140

B.C.E. is a more plausible date for this passage that concludes the third
memorial.24
In sum, the relevant passages providing the context and the content of
the memorials indicate both a 140 and a 134 B.C.E. date for Tung's
memorials. It seems prudent to conclude that Tung participated in the
imperial inquiries of 140 and 134 B.C.E., and that Han-shu 56 preserves
materials from both deliberations.
24 Pan Ku also states: 'From the time Emperor Wu first assumed the throne the marquises
Wei-ch'i and Wu-an became chancellors [hsiang and promoted the Confucian scholars
[ju]. With Tung Chung-shu's memorials Confucius was promoted [t'ui-ming] and
various traditions were proscribed. [The policies of] establishing officials for educa-
tional institutions, and provinces and commanderies recommending mao-ts'ai and
hsiao-lien degrees, were all initiated by Tung Chung-shu.' HS 56/2525.
254
Appendix 3: Han transmission of Kung-yang learning
Tung Chung-shu Master Hu-wu

of Kuang-ch'uan of Ch'i
»ror Wu
1
Q.
• • • • i-
Wu-ch'iu Shou Wang ChuTa Ying Kung Yin Chung Lu Pu-shu
LJJ of Chao of Tung-hai of Tung-p'ing (Tuan Chung) of Wen
of Kuang-ch'uan
1
o \
or Chs
Meng Ch'ing Sui Meng

of Tung-hai of Lu
S> 1
an Emp
Kung Yu Yen P'eng-tsu

of Lang-yeh of Tung-hai
V. i
Empero
Shu Kuang Yen An-le T'ang-hsi Hui

of Tung-hai of Hu of Ying-ch'uan
—
Wang Chung
of Lang-yeh
c
Empei or Yua
Kuan Lu Ling Fang Jen Kung Ming Tu

of Lang-yeh of Huai-yang of Tzu-ch'uan of T'ai-shan
i Ma Kung
1
Tso Hsien
\
Kung-sun Wen Tung-men Yun
Sun Pao
of Tung-hai of Lang-yeh of Lang-yeh of Lang-yeh
Appendix 4
Han dynasty disciples of
Tung Chung-shu
Name Source Biographical information
Wu-ch'iu Shou Wang HS 64/2794 Wu-ch'iu Shou Wang studied the Spring
and Autumn under Tung Chung-shu
when Tung served as a grand master (ca.
130-124 B.C.E.). He eventually rose to
the relatively high rank of a two-
thousand-bushel official serving as
commander-in-chief (tu-wei) of Tung
commandery and palace attendant to the
grand master for splendid happiness
(kuang-lu ta-fu shih-chung).
Chu Ta HS 88/3616 Chu Ta served as administrator to the
kingdom of Liang.
Yin Chung SC 121/3129 No biographical information provided.
Lu Pu-shu HS88/3616 Master Lu rose to the office of
administrator to the counselor-in-chief
(ch 'eng-hsiang chang-shih). When the
prince of Huai-nan revolted in 122 B.C.E.,
the emperor appointed Lu to settle the
case. SC 121/3129 states that he
employed the 'righteous principles of the
Spring and Autumn to settle the case and
won the emperor's support for his views.
Ying Kung HS88/3616 The Honorable Ying served as a grand
master of remonstrance (chien-ta-fu)
under Emperor Chao. Ssu-ma Ch'ien
states that he was the only disciple who
'preserved the teachings and did not lose
sight of the master's methods [shou hsiieh
pu shih shihfa].' This assessment most
likely led Ssu-ma Ch'ien to trace the line
of transmission from Tung through Ying
Kung to the next generation of disciples
known by name: Sui Meng of Lu and
Meng Ch'ing of Tung-hai.1
256
Disciples of Tung Chung-shu
Sui Meng ^75/3153-3154 Sui Meng rose to the post of manager of

credentials {fu-chieh ling) but was
sentenced to death in 79 B.C.E. when he
predicted that a new Son of Heaven
would soon arise from among the ranks
of the commoners. Apparently the death
penalty was never executed because five
years later when his prediction came true
and Emperor Hsuan (r. 73-49 B.C.E.)
ascended the throne, Sui was
reappointed to the post of gentleman.2
He taught more than one hundred
students, three of whom are known by
name, Yen P'eng-tzu of Tung-hai, Yen An-
le of Lu, and Kung Yu of Lang-yeh. Sui
was said to have praised the two Yens as
the only disciples who preserved 'the
righteous principles of the Spring and
Autumn [ch'un-ch'iu chih i].' B o t h
established famous sublineages so that
beginning with Yen P'eng-tzu and Yen
An-le Kungyang learning developed two
lines of transmission.3
Yen P'eng-tzu HS 88/3616 Yen P'eng-tzu became an erudite under
Emperor Hsuan. He rose to the position
of governor (t'ai-shou) of Ho-nan and
Tung commanderies and eventually
became grand mentor of the heir-
apparent {t'ai-tzu t'ai-fu), a post he
occupied until his death. Yen instructed
Wang Chung of Lang-yeh who became a
chamberlain for the palace revenues
(shao-fu) under Emperor Yuan. Wang
Chung instructed Kung-sun Wen and
Tung-men Yun of Lang-yeh. Kung-sun
Wen became grand mentor (t'ai-fu) of
Tung-p'ing and Tung-men Yun served as
inspector (ts'u-shih) of Hsing-chou.4
Yen An-le HS88/3616-3617 The son of Sui Meng's elder sister, Yen
An-le came from a poor family but was an
exceptional student. He rose to the post
of aide to the governor (t'ai-shou ch'eng)
of Ch'i commandery. Yen instructed
Ling Fang of Huai-yang and Jen Kung of
Tzu-ch'uan. Both these disciples
established famous sublineages of
interpretation although the Han-shu does
not record Jen Kung's disciples.5 Jen
Kung became a chamberlain for the
257
Appendix 4
Yen An-le HS 88/3616-3617 palace revenues (shao-fu) and Ling

Fang became governor (t'ai-shou) of Tzu-
ch'uan kingdom. He instructed Ma Kung
and Tso Hsien of Lang-yeh who served as
grand minister of education {ta-ssu-t'u) .6
Rung Yu HS88/3617 The Honorable Yu also received
instruction from Ying Kung. He served as
a censor-in-chief {yu-shih ta-fu) and
instructed T'ang-hsi Hui of Ying-ch'uan.
T'ang-hsi Hui transmitted the tradition to
Ming Tu of T'ai-shan who served as an
attendant (shih) to the counselor-in-
chief.7
Meng Ch'ing HS71/3039 Meng Ch'ing transmitted his
HS88/3599 interpretations to Shu Kuang,
HS88/3615 Hou Ts'ang, and Lu Ch'iu-ching. Hou
and Lu specialized in the Bites and
Shu Kuang, in the Spring and Autumn.
Shu Kuang HS71/3039 After establishing a reputation from his
home in Lan-ling of Tung-hai, where
scholars came from great distances to
receive his instruction, Shu Kuang was
recommended to serve as superior grand
master of the palace to the erudites (po-
shih t'ai-chung ta-fu) under Emperor
Hsuan. He went on to serve as the junior
mentor of the heir-apparent (t'ai-tzu t'ai-
fu) and grand mentor of the heir-
apparent (t'ai-tzu shao-fu),8 Shu Kuang
instructed Kuan Lu.
Kuan Lu HS 88/3617 Kuan Lu of Lang-yeh became a palace
aide to the censor-in-chief (yu-shih chung-
ch'eng). Kuan Lu instructed Sun Pao.
Sun Pao HS 88/3617 Sun Pao served as chamberlain for the
National Treasury (ta-ssu-nung).
1
SC 121/3129 states that hundreds of other disciples, whose names no longer survive,
rose to fill the lower posts of grand master (tafu), gentleman (lang), receptionist (yeh-
che), and clerk on the staff of the grand astrologer (chang-ku-che).
2
//5 75/3153-3154.
3
HS 88/3616.
4
Ibid.
5
HS 88/3617.
6
HS 88/3616.
7
HS 88/3617 notes that Ming Tu also studied under Yen An-le.
8
HS 71/3039.
258
Appendix 5
Citations and titles
attributed to Tung
Chung-shu
Text Date Attribution CCFL Ch
SC 130/3297 1st B.C.E. Tung-tzu i/9 a 1

SC 130/3297 5/ l a 7
SC 130/3298 6/3b *7
HS 24/1137 1st c.E. Tung Chung-shu
HS24/1137 Tung Chung-shu
HS27/1321-1519 Tung Chung-shu (82X)
HS 56/2498-2505 Tung Chung-shu
HS56/2523-2524 Tung Chung-shu 9/nb 32
SWCTC 1/18a 2nd c.E. Tung Chung-shu 11/6b 44
LHCS 3/198 2nd c.E. Tung Chung-shu
CLCSC6/164 2nd c.E. Tung Chung-shu
CLCSC 6/164 Tung Chung-shu
CLCSC 6/164 Tung Chung-shu
////S 10/409 3rd C.E. Tung Chung-shu
////S 12/3263 Tung Chung-shu
HHS 15/3309 Tung Chung-shu
////S 48/1612 Tung Chung-shu
////SC 5/3117 6th C.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 3/7a 5
////SC 30/3672 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia H
////SC 77/2503 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/7a l
9
////SC 5/3118 Tung Chung-shu 74
////SC 30/3671 Tung Chung-shu chih-yii 16/73 75v
shu
////SC 5/3118 Tung Chung-shu tsou
Chiang-tu wang
SS 3 2 /93 2 Tung Chung-shu
5533/959 Tung Chung-shu
CS 27/811 Tung Chung-shu
CS 29/872 Tung Chung-shu
PTSC 44/lb 7th C.E. Tung Chung-shu chiieh-yu
259
Appendix 5
PTSC 15/ia Han-shu, Tung Chung-shu

chuan
Han-shu, Tung Chung-shu
chuan
PTSC Han-shu, Tung Chung-shu
chuan
PTSC 1/5b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/ia 23
PTSC 29/ib Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/6b-7a 19
PTSC 88/5b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i5/i3 a 68
PTSC go/ib Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i5/i3 a 68
PTSC 123/33 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia 14
PTSC 146/^ Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/6b 75
PTSC 149/43 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/nb-i2a 24
PTSC i49/5b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 12/2b 49
PTSC 151/ib Ch'un-ch'iu fan- 12/2b 49
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/2a 63
PTSC 153/ib Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/13a 24
PTSC 154/ib Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 12/2b 49
PTSC 155/13a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/12b 77
PTSC 155/13b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/4a 64
PTSC 155/13b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/i2b 77
PTSC 156/73 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/12b 77
PTSC 24/4b Tung Chung-shu
PTSC 27/ib Tung Chung-shu
PTSC 27/ib Tung Chung-shu
PTSC 29/2b Tung Chung-shu
PTSC 83/33 Tung Chung-shu
PTSC 84/3b Tung Chung-shu 16/12b 77
PTSC 39/3b Tung Chung-shu wu-hsing i3/3t> 60
ni-shun
PTSC 39/ib Tung-tzu
PTSC 8o/2a Tung-sheng shu
PTSC 5/1a 7/7* 23
PTSC 5/ib 7/7* 23
PTSC 5/ib 7/7* 23
PTSC 4/5b 7/7* 23
/WLC1/1 7th C.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/iib 24
IWLC 11/198 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 15/ 6 * 70
/WLC 20/362 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/2b 22
/WLC 69/1211 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i3/3 b 57
IWLC 80/1377 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/4K7 65
/WLC 83/1427 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/1 a 72
/WLC 89/1549 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i3/3b 57
/WLC 89/1706 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 13/9* 60
/WLC 94/1632 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/1 a 72
/WLC 100/1722 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ia 62
260
Attributions to Tung Chung-shu
TWLC 100/1726-1727 Tung Chung-shu i6/3a 74

IWLC 100/1726-1727 Tung Chung-shu i6/3a 74
IWLC 100/1726-1727 Tung Chung-shu i6/3a 74
/WLC 100/1726-1727 Tung Chung-shu
/WLC 100/1726-1727 Tung Chung-shu
IWLC 30/541 Tung Chung-shu shih^pu yu-fu
/WLC 11/98 Tung-tzu 11/6b 44
/WLC61/1095 Tung-sheng shu
/WLC 38/675 Tung-sheng shu
IWLC 88/1527 Tung Chung-shu ch 'ing-yii i6/ 5 b 74v
shu
HTHHSC 41 /12b 7th c.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/5* 23
//77///SC6o/i6b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/3a 74
HTHHSC 8 3 /3a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/1 a 72
//77///SCio/i3b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/6b 1
9
C//C 22/520 8th c.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia l
4
C//C 26/62 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia
C//C 22/619 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i3/9 b 60
C//C 22/619 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/2b 64
C//C 9/207 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i5/6a 70
C//C 30/735 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/1 a 72
C//C 9/204 Tung-tzu 11/6b 44
CHC 29/720 Fan-lu i6/i2a 77
C//C 30/726 Fan-lu i6/i2b 77
C//C 14/355 Tung Chung-shu lun 16/12b 77
CHC 30/748 Tung Chung-shu ta wen
C//C 4/67 Tung Chung-shu shu
rxycc io2/6b.6 8th c.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
77O^CCio2/8a.3 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
TKFCC 113/ 2b. 1 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
TKYCC 116/8b.6 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
TOTCC 120/23D.5 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ib 62
7/O^CC7/2b.6 Tung Chung-shu
TiO^CC 7/9b.7 Tung Chung-shu
77CTCC 8/8b.6 Tung Chung-shu
TKYCC 9/ i 4 a.7 Tung Chung-shu
TAYCC 9/15^3 Tung Chung-shu
77CYCC 10/ iga.7 Tung Chung-shu
T/CTCC i8/4a.8 Tung Chung-shu
TKYCC 76/3^6 Tung Chung-shu
TOTCC 76/4b.8 Tung Chung-shu
77Q^CC 76/5^3 Tung Chung-shu
r/Q^CC 88/4b.i Tung Chung-shu
TKYCC 101/4a.2 Tung Chung-shu
261
Appendix 5
TKYCC 101 /5a. 1 Tung Chung-shu

TKYCC 101 /8a.2 Tung Chung-shu
TXYCC 113/29^6 Tung Chung-shu xvu-hsing
ni-shun
T/O^CC 5/24a.6 Tung Chung-shu tsai-i chan
TKYCC4/42L.8 Tung Chung-shu tui tsai-i
TKYCC 17/33.5 Tung Chung-shu tui tsai-i
T£YCC 99/ia.8 Tung Chung-shu tui tsai-i
77CYCC 1 2 0 / ^ . 4 Tung Chung-shu tui tsai-i
TiiTCC 9/153.4 Tung Chung-shu tsai-i tui
7/0^^9/15^5 Tung Chung-shu tsai-i tui
T/iTCC 9/i 5 a.7 Tung Chung-shu tsai-i tui
TATCC 10/19^7 Tung Chung-shu tsai-i tui
7T43/i2a.4 9th C.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/3a.6 74
7T 43/13^7 Tung Chung-shu ch 'un-ch 'iu 3/7a.2 5
7T4/i2a.5 Tung Chung-shu shuo shang
7Ti4/4a.7 Tung Chung-shu tui
7T69/6a.7 Tung Chung-shu tuan
7T69/6b.5 Tung Chung-shu tuan
KWY$/$<1 Shih pu yiifu
KWY IO/Â Chih Ch 'eng-hsiang Kung-
sun Hung
/OWn/ia Chiao-shih tui i 5 /8a. 5 7i
XWFn/3b Yu-pao tui
iOVTi2/ib.7 Shan-ch'uan sung
TPJX l/ioa lOth C.E. Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/nb 24
7PFL 9/4a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/2a 64V
TPYL io/3b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu H/ l b 63v
TPFL i2/7b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i3/9 b 60
7PFL i3/6b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/2b 64
TPYL 15/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/3a-b 23
7PFL 17/43 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/i3a-b 24
7PFL i9/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 11/6a 43
TPYL 19/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 12/2b 49
TPFL 21/4b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 12/2b 49
7P>X 2 4 / 5 a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 11/6a 43
TPYL 26/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 11/5b 43
TPFL 26/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/lb 63v
TPYL 37/ 4 b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/nb 24
TPFL 7 6 / 3 b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i5/6a 70
TPFL i74/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/2b 77
TPYL 345/ib Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia-b l
4
TPFL 356/6b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia-b 14
TPFL 36o/2b Fan-lu i3/2a~3a 56
TPFL 4O2/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 7/3a-b 23
TPYL 467/2b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 1 i/6a 43
TPFL 527/3b Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 15/ia 66
262
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 15/ib 66

TPYL 627/2 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ib 63
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 6/ia-b 1
4
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i3/ 4 a 57
TPFL 7 i8/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 4/2a 6
TPYL 743/4a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 13/10a 60
TPYL 743/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 13/na 6ov
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/4a 74
TPYL 762/4a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/4a 74
TPFL 8 i3/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/4 b 65V
TPFL 837/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ia-b 62
TPYL 839/ lb Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/4b 65
TPFL 872/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 4/ia 6
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 4/ia 6
7PFL 872/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/2a 64
Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu !3/9 a 60
TPYL 876/11a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i4/2b 64
7PFL 877/6a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ib 63
TPFL 879/33 Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ia-b 62V
TPFL go2/4a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/ia 72
TPYL gio/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu i6/2b 77
TPFL 915/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu
TPFL 917/ib Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 16/1 a 72
7PFL 9 i 9 / 7 a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 15/9* 71
7PFL 952/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 13/9* 6ov
TPFL 952/2a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 14/ib 63V
TPYL 965/lb Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 9/ib 31
7WL 98o/4a Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu 17/ib 78
TPFL 35/93 Tung Chung-shu i6/3a 74
Tung Chung-shu
TPFL 956/43 Tung Chung-shu ch 'ing-yii i6/ 5 b 74v
shu
Tung Chung-shu chih-yii shu i6/7a 75v
Tung Chung-shu chueh-yii
TPYL 64o/8a Tung Chung-shu chueh-yii
TPFL 883/6b Tung Chung-shu wu-hsing 13/1 la 6ov
ni-shun
TPFL 77/2b Tung Chung-shu ta-wen
TPYL 76/6b Tung-tzu 11/6b 44
TPFL 76/6b Tung-tzu
Tung-tzu
TPFL 621/6a Tung-tzu
TPFL 523/6b Tung-sheng shu
TPFL 822/ga Tung-sheng shu
v = variant
263
Appendix 6
Transmission of
editions
Abbreviation key
CHKKSM Chung-hsing kuan-ko shu-mu (Catalog of the Southern Sung
Imperial Library). In CCFLIC.
CY Chi Yun. Postface copied by Wen Fan-kang preserved in a
late Ming woodblock edition housed in the Peking Library,
catalog no. 4462.
CYC Chang Yuan-ch'i. Postface from a Ming dynasty woodblock
edition of 1554 housed in the Peking Library, catalog no.
16.
CYH Chu Yang-ho. Preface to his 1625 edition of the CCFL.
HC Hu Chu. Preface to his 1207 edition of the CCFL.
HPL Huang P'ei-lieh. Postface from a Ming dynasty woodblock
edition of 1554 housed in the Peking Library, catalog no.
16.
HWTS Preface to the Han-Wei ts 'ung-shu edition of the CCFL.
LS Ling Shu. Preface to his 1815 edition of the CCFL.
LWC Lu Wen-ch'ao. Preface to his 1785 edition of the CCFL.
LY Lou Yueh. Preface to his 1211 edition of the CCFL.
O-YH Ou-yang Hsiu. 'Liu I Hsien Shang Ou-yang Yung Shu Shu
Hou.' In CCFLIC.
SK Sun Kuang. Preface from a 1625 edition of the CCFL by Chu
Yang-ho.
SY Su Yu. Preface to his 1914 edition of the CCFL.
TCC Tung Chin-chien. Preface to his 1696 edition of the CCFL.
TTK Tung T'ien-kung. Preface to his 1751 edition of the CCFL.
TWC Tung Wen-ch'ang. Preface to his 1625 edition of the CCFL.
264
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu Editions
Key to Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu Editions
1. Ch'ung-wen yuan edition

2. T'ien Wen-ch'u edition
3. Wang family of T'ai-yuan edition
4. Luo family Lan-hsueh t'ang edition
5. P'an Ching-hsien edition
6. Capital fascimile edition
7. Wang family of T'ai-tsung edition
8. 10/37 Chung-hsing Kuan-ko edition
9. Hu Chu's P'ing-hsiang edition
10. 17/82 Chung-hsing Kuan-ko edition reviewed by Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang
11. Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang's collated edition
12. Lou Yueh's Chiang-you Chi-t'ai engraved edition
13. Yue Ko's Chia-ho chun chai edition (second engraving)
14. Wang Tao-k'un edition
15. Yung-lo ta-tien edition
16. Han-fen-lou edition (handwritten Ming copy of a Sung edition)
17. Ch'ien Tsun-wang edition
18. Hua-chien lan-hsueh t'ang edition (copper movable type edition)
19. Chou Wei-yang edition
20. Sun Kuang's critical edition of Lou Yueh edition
21. Photolithographic fascimile of Hua-chien lan-hsueh t'ang edition
22. T'ien-chi hua-chai edition
23. Ho Ch'ung-chung's compilation of Han-Wei ts'ung-shu edition
24. Master Kuei Yen's edition
25. Han-Wei ts'ung-shu edition (Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang's collated edition)
26. Tung Wen-ch'ang's second engraving of the T'ien-chi hua-chai
edition
27. Master Kuei Yen edition
28. Tung T'ien-kung edition (second engraving of Wang Tao-k'un
edition)
29. Wu-ying-tien chii-chen edition
30. Che-chiang Bookstore edition (second engraving)
31. Huai-nan Bookstore edition (second engraving)
32. Ku-ching chieh-hui han edition (second issue of second engraving )
33. Pao-ching t'ang edition (collated and annotated by Lu Wen-ch'ao)
34. Wang You-p'u's Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu ch'iu-yu chih-yii k'ao-ting
35. Wang Jen-chun's Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-wen
36. Chang Hui-yen's reading edition
37. Yii Yueh's Fan-lu p'ing-i
38. Chang Tsung-hsiang's Tung-tzu (rearranged handwritten edition)
265
Transmission of Ch'un-chlu fan-Iu Editions*
(1037 -1928)
17 chuan/82 Chapter Editions 10 chuan/37 Chapter Editions
O-YH O-YH TCC

TCC
11. Ch'ung-wen yuan (1037) 2. Tien Wen-ch'u (1037) 3. Wang Family of T'ai-yuan (1047)j-Lj 4. Luo Family
TCC
HC
5, Pan Ching-Hsten 6. Capital Facsimile 7. Wang Family of Ta'i-tsung TCC
LY LY 10. Chung-hsJng 8. Chung-hsing

LY Kuan-ko [17/62] Kuan-ko [10/37] 9. Hu Chu of
J12. Lou Yuen (1211) P'ing-Hsiang
11. Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang CHKKSM
ITCC [17/82]
HWTS
13.YuetCo
CYC
14.WangTao-k'un CY
~J1S.Yung-lota-tlen (1403-1408)|-| 16. Han-fen-lou | - [ i 7 , Ch'lenTsun-wang
TTK SK 118. Hua-chien lan-hsueh fang (1516)

19. Chou Wei-yang (1554)
20. Sun Kuang 21. Photolithographic facslmilie of SKKC LWC

Hua-chten lan-hsueh fang
CYH
24. Master Kuei Yen
22. Tien-chi Hua-chai (1625) L 23. Ho Ch'ung-chung 125. Han-Wei Ts'ung-shu |«J
TWC
SY 127. Master Kuei Yen (1626)
26. Tung Wen-ch'ang (1689)] LWC
29. Wu-ying-tien Chu-chen (1773) L

28. Tung Tien-kung (1751)
LWC 35. Wang Jen-chun's
Cffun-ch'tu fan-Iu i-wen
TCC LS
30. Che-chiang Bookstore (1876) r [ 3 3 . Pao-ching fang 34. Wang You-p'u's Ch'un-ch'iu fan-Iu
ch'iu-yQ chih-yQ k'ao-ting
131. Huai-nan Bookstore SY

37. Yu Yuen's 38. Chang Tsung-hsiang's
36. Chang Hut-yen Fan-Iu p'ing~i Tung-tzu
(1761-1802)
32. Ku-ching chieh-hui han
LS LS
40. Tan Hsien
39. Ung Shu
LS (1815)
TCC
SY
41. Su Yu's Ch'un-ch'iu
fan-Iu i-cheng (1914)
SY
44. (Cang Yu-wei's (1858-1927)

Thng-shih ch'un-ch'iu hsueh
42. Ku-ching chieh-hui han
46. Hu-pei Ch'ung-wen
Bookstore (1876)
43. Chiang-yin Nan-ching shu-yuan
45.Tung Chun-chien's
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-Iu chu
(1906)
TCC
47. Hu-pei Institute
Bookstore (1911)
48. Shang-hai Commercial

Press (1919)
49. Shang-hai Han-fen-lou (1929)
| 5O.Shang-hal Han-fen-lou (1925) [< '
51. Shang-hai Chung-hua Bookstore (1928)

Appendix 6
39. Ling Shu's annotated edition

40. T'an Hsien's Tung-tzu
41. Su Yu's Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng
42. Ku-ching chieh-hui han edition (first issue of second engraving)
43. Chiang-yin Nan-ching shu-yuan edition (second engraving)
44. K'ang Yu-wei's Tung-shih ch'un-ch'iu hsiieh
45. Tung Chun-chien's Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chu
46. Hu-pei Ch'ung-wen Bookstore reprint of chii-chen edition
47. Hu-pei Institute Bookstore reprint of Hu-pei Ch'ung-wen Bookstore
edition
48. Shang-hai Commercial Press edition (photolithographic fascimile
of Wu-ying-tien edition)
49. Shang-hai Han-fen-lou edition (photolithographic fascimile of Wu-
ying-tien edition)
50. Shang-hai Han-fen-lou edition (photolithographic fascimile of
Ch'eng Family Ming Woodblock edition)
51. Shang-hai Chung-hua Bookstore (lead plate reprint of Pao-ching
t'ang edition)
268
Selected bibliography
A. Works written before 1900

Analects, HYISIS edition.
Chin-shu "ifiir, by Fang Hsiian-ling M^Tlt^ and others, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-
chii, 1974.
Ching-hsueh li-shih J8MMI&, by P'i Hsi-jui &M$I, Shanghai: Shang-wu Yin-shu
Kuan, 1937.
Chou-li Cheng-shih chu JillftJfPRS:, by Cheng Hsiian HP "2", Shanghai: Shang-wu
Yin-shu Kuan, 1937.
Chou-li chu-shu JWI^ftSl, in Shih-san ching chu-shu "hHMSitt, Peking: Chung-
hua Shu-chii, 1980.
Ch'u-hsueh chi #J<¥Sfi, compiled by Hsu Chien ^ H and others, edited with an
introduction by Ssu I-tsu Klliffi, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1962.
Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuanyin-te^%kWL^\%, HYISIS edition.
Ch'un-ch'iu chueh-shih ^f ftife^, by Tung Chung-shu lift^f, in Ma Kuo-han M
M Hf comp., Yii-han shan-fang chi i-shu 3E l^j ill M H f t ^ , vol. 31, Ch'ang-sha:
Lang Huan Kuan edition, 1883.
Ch'un-ch'iu chiieh-yii k'ao #$cftlft%, by Ch'eng Shu-te gflj 18, in Han-luk'ao 31
# % , Peking: Imperial Woodblock Edition, 1919.
Ch fun-ch 'iufan-lu ^ %k %. M, by Tung Chung-shu I t {41 If, with commentary by Lu
Wen-ch'ao Jt^C§S, Ssu-pu pei-yao E9 nPffiS edition, Shanghai: Chung-hua
Shu-chii, 1928.
C/& 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu ^ %k %. M, by Tung Chung-shu M ft ^f, Ssu-pu ts 'ung Wan H SP
HlflJ edition, Shanghai: Han-su-lou, 1929.
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu ^BF$C^S8, by Tung Chung-shu itft'lij, with commentary by
Ling Shu §|BS, Taipei: Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan, 1937.
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu chiaojru # ^ ^ § S M , by Liu Shih-p'ei $!) Wi^S, in Lm Shen-shu
hsien-sheng i-shu Sll ^ STfe^lft^, vol. 31, Ning-wu: Nan Family Lead Plate
Edition, 1934-1936.
Ch un-ch 'iufan-lu chin-chu chin-i # # C ^ f f ^ £ 4 ^ , b y Tung Chung-shu W ft £f,
with commentary by Lai Yen-yuan Sife7&, Taipei: Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan,
1984.
269
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng #$C^8S U S , by Tung Chung-shu Wi^f*}, with com-

mentary by Su Yu J^H, preface by Wang Hsien-ch'ien 3:5tel(t, dated 1914;
rpt. in fascimile, Taipei: Ho-lo T'u-shu Ch'u-pan she, 1974.
Ch 'un-ch 'iu Kung-yang chuan Ho-shih chieh-ku ^^^^flJfRlRScfttjby Ho Hsiu fi5
ifc, Taipei: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1966.
Han-fei-tzu sua-yin H ^ ^ ^ ^ l , compiled and edited by Chou Chung-ling fflUt
H, Shih Hsiao-shih jffi^S, and Hsu Wei-hsien IHftK, Peking: Chung-hua
Shu-chu, 1982.
Han-shu 91-(I, by Pan Ku IE H, with commentary by Yen Shih-ku JR Sft "S* (T'ang),
Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1985.
Han-shu pu-chu 8 l # M f t , with commentary by Yen Shih-ku IS ©"fit (T'ang), ed-
ited by Wang Hsien-ch'ien :£ jfcH, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1983.
Hou-Han shu # 3 I # , by Fan Yeh I6B|I, with monographs by Ssu-ma Piao ^M
jSl, with commentary by Li Hsien ^K (T'ang), Peking: Chung-hua Shu-
chu, 1965.
Hou-Han shu chi-chieh $LWLtt^ffl, with commentary by Wang Hsien-ch'ien i5fe
SI, Taipei: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1967.
Hsin Tang-shu ffjf • , by Ou-yang Hsiu ifcUft, Sung Ch'i 5fc}|3, and others,
Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1975.
I-wen lei-chu H JtMM, by Ou-yang HsiinfifcBIWand others, edited by Wang Shao-
ying i^Sffi, Shanghai: Shanghai Ku-chi Ch'u-pan she, 1985.
Ku-chin wei-shu k 'ao ifi" 4*fe• # , by Yao Chi-heng $fe S I S , in Wei-shu k 'ao wu-chung
fe##£S, Taiwan: She-chieh Shu-chii, 1965.
Ku-chin wei-shu k'aopu-cheng~^^%^^%^W., by Huang Yun-mei IHCZA/H, Nan-
king: Chin-ling University Institute of Chinese Culture, 1932.
Ku wen-yuan ~£\JC$i, compiled by Ch'ien hsi-tsu IllSt^, with commentary by
Chang Ch'iao $ H , Shanghai: Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan, 1937.
Legge, James (1893), tr., The Chinese Classics, 7 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1893-
Lun-heng chu-shih IwftffiS, by Wang Ch'ung 3E3S, with annotations by Peking
University, Department of History, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1979.
Ma-wang-tui Han-mu po-shu, vol. 1 ^ ^ ^ 6 3 1 ^ ^ ^ , Peking: Wen-wu Ch'u-pan
she, 1980.
Meng-tzu S ? , HYISIS edition.
Nien-er-shih cha-chi, tt*H5feSfB, by Chao I ffiS, Shanghai: Shih-chieh Shu-chii,
9
Pao-p'u-tzu J6^h^, by Ko Hung Mfflt, in Yang Chia-lo $bM$!i ed., Chung-kuo ssu-
hsiang ming-chu 4* SSffi^S M, vol. 6, Taipei: Shih-chieh Shu-chii, 1959.
Pei-t'ang shu-ch'ao J t ^ ^ & , compiled by Yu Shih-nan Jtti£]$J and collated and
annotated by K'ung Kuang-t'ao ?Lftl%, Taipei: Wen-hai Ch'u-pan she,
1962.
Shen-hsien chuan ttflljff, by Ko Hung H#l, in Ma Chiin-liang Mj$t 61 ed., Lung-
wei mi-shu t l j ^ ® # , vols. 4-5. Taipei: Hsin-yii Shu-chii, 1969.
Shih-chi$lWu, by Ssu-ma Ch'ien ^] Jf S , with commentaries by P'ei Yin HIH, Ssu-
ma Chen ^ L K (T'ang), and Chang Shou-chieh ?RÎ5 (T'ang), Peking:
270
Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1959.

Shuo-wen chieh-tzu chu 1$>3cffl:f'i5i, by Hsu Shen ifrtJt, with commentary by Tuan
Yu-ts'ai 8 1 ^ (Ch'ing), Shanghai: Ku-hsiang Ch'u-pan she, 1981.
Shuo-yiian chiao-chengi^fiLÛlk, by Liu Hsiang %!] ["I, with commentary by Hsiang
Tsung-lu [OJTFII, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1987.
Sui-shu W # , compiled by Wei Cheng 8UR, Ling-hu Te-fen ^ $ f t f l ^ , and oth-
ers, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chu, 1973.
T'ai-p'ingkuang-chi JZ^Mti, compiled by Li Fang ^$7 and others, Peking: Jen-
min Wen-hsueh Ch'u-pan she, 1959.
T'ai-f'ing yu-lan ^^SPSS, by Li Fang ^ © , Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1985.
T'ang K'ai-yiian chan-chingM^JC^S., compiled by Ch'ii-t'an Hsi-ta Hilt ^§18,
in Yingyin wen-yuan-ko ssu-k'u ch'iian-shu ^BflJcMffi^M^tt, vol. 807,
Taipei: Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan, 1983.
Tao-yii tsa-chiHMUfB, by Ch'ien Ch'i i$^f, in Pai-linghsueh-shan~S^îll, vol.
2, Shanghai: Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan, 1938.
T'ung-tienfijft, by Tu Yu tt tt, in Ying-yin wen-yuan-ko ssu-k 'u ch 'uan-shu f£ ^P j t JS3
H 0 J t ^ # , vol. 603, Taipei: Shang-wu Yin-shu Kuan, 1983.
Wei-shu H # , by Wei Shou IHfe, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1974.
Wei-shu t 'ung-k 'aofeiif S %, by Chang Hsin-ch' eng 36' h j§, Taipei: Shang-wu Ym-
shu Kuan, 1970.
^^, by Hsu Shen IfrtR, in Wang Mo I M comp., Han-Wei i-shu
3\ vols. 22-23, Woodblock Edition of Mr. Wang, 1798.
S M S ft, by Liu Hsiang filial, in Wang Mo i t t comp., //aw-
W« i-5/iw ch'ao S l i t t t i H ^ , vol. 22, Woodblock Edition of Mr. Wang,
1798.
Yen-t'ieh lun chien-chu MUctifflfSf ft, by Huan K'uan fe ill, with commentary by Ma
Fei-pai JS^£ "§*, Peking: Chung-hua Shu-chii, 1984.
B. Works written since 1900

Arbuckle, Gary (1987), 'Former Han Legal Philosophy and the Gongyang
Zhuan,' B.C. Asian Review 1 (September), pp. 1—25.
Arbuckle, Gary (1989), 'A Note on the Authenticity of the Chunqiu fanlu,' T'oung
Pao 75, pp. 226-234.
Arbuckle, Gary (1991), 'Restoring Dong Zhongshu (BCE 195-115): An Experi-
ment in Historical and Philosophical Reconstruction,' Ph.D. dissertation,
University of British Columbia.
Bielenstien, Hans (1950), 'An Interpretation of Portents in the Ts'ien Han shu,'
Bulletin of the Museum ofFar Eastern Antiquities 22, pp. 12-43.
Bielenstien, Hans (1980), The Bureaucracy of Han Times, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Bilsky, Lester James (1975), The State Religion of Ancient China, Taipei: Oriental
Culture Service.
Bodde, Derk (1981), 'Sexual Sympathetic Magic in Han China,' in Charles Le
Blanc and Dorothy Berei, eds., Essays on Chinese Civilization, Princeton:
271
Princeton University Press, pp. 373-380.

Bujard, Marianne (1992), 'La Vie de Dong Zhongshu: Enigmes et Hypotheses,'
Journal Asiatique, 278, nos. 1-2, pp. 145-217.
Chan Wing-tsit (1963), Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton: Princeton Uni-
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Ch'i Ssu-ho (1938), 'Professor Hung on the Ch'un-ch'iu,' YenchingJournal of So-
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Ch'ien Mu 1881 (1956), Hsien-Ch'in chu-tzu hsi-nien 7 f e # I S ? S ^ , Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press.
Ch'ien Mu 1881 (1969), Ch'in-Han shih H9|jfe, Taipei: San-min Shu-chii.
Ch'ien Mu 1881 (1971), Liang-Han ching-hsueh chin-ku-wenp'ing-i ffi3IM^4w"S"
^frPlH, Taipei: San-min Shu-chii.
Chou Kuei-tien JWISIffl (1989), Tung-hsiieh t'an-weiUL^W-ffli, Peking: Shi-fan Ta-
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Ch'ii Tung-tsu (1961), Law and Society in Traditional China, Paris: Mouton.
Chung Chao-p'eng (1981), 'Lun Huang-Lao chih hsueh t r a i i c ^ - ; ^ ^ , ' Shih-chieh
tsung-chiaoyen-chiu "tS^-Si^W^t 2, pp. 75-98.
Creel, Herrlee G. (1970), What Is Taoism1?, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Creel, Herrlee G. (1974), Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth
Century B.C., Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cullen, C. (1976), 'A Chinese Eratosthenes of the Flat Earth: A Study of a Frag-
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Studies 39, pp. 106-127.
Davidson, Steven Craig (1982), 'Tung Chung-shu and the Origins of Imperial
Confucianism,' Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
de Bary, Wm. Theodore, ed. (1973), The Unfolding ofNeo-Confucianism, New York:
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de Bary, Wm. Theodore, Chan Wing-tsit, and Watson, Burton, comps. (i960),
Sources of Chinese Tradition, New York: Columbia University Press.
Denny, Frederick M., and Taylor, Rodney, eds. (1985), The Holy Book in Compara-
tive Perspective, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Dewoskin, Kenneth J. (1983), Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China:
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Dubs, Homer H. (1938), 'Victory of Han Confucianism,' Journal of the American
Oriental Society 58, pp. 435-439.
Dubs, Homer H. (1944), The History of the Former Han Dynasty, 3 vols., Baltimore:
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Dull, Jack (1966), 'A Historical Introduction to the Apocryphal (ch'an-wei) Texts
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Fung Yu-lan, (1953), A History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 2, The Period of Classical
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Graham, A. C. (1986a), Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Liter-
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Graham, A. C. (1986b), Yin-yangand the Nature of Correlative Thinking, Singapore:
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Graham, A. C. (1987), Chuang-tzu, London: George Allen & Unwin.
Graham, A. ^ 1 9 8 9 ) , 'A Neglected Pre-Han Philosophical Text: Ho-kuan-tzu,'
Bulletin of the School of African and Oriental Studies 52, no. 3, pp. 497-532.
Graham, William (1987), Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the
History of Religions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hall, David, and Ames, Roger (1987), Thinking through Confucius, Albany: State
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Harada Masaota JiR EH IE B (1958), 'Kan ju no bunshitsu S l f i O ^ S t i f t , ' Waseda
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Henricks, Robert (1979), 'Examining the Ma-wang-tui Silk Texts of the Lao-tzu,'
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Hsu Cho-yun (1980), Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian
Economy (206 B.C.-A.D. 220), ed. Jack Dull, Seattle: University of Washington
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Hsu Fu-kuan ^ U l i (1975), Liang-Han ssu-hsiang-shih M ?HS ffl 3fe, Hong Kong:
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278
Index
Ai, Emperor, 164, 184 Chi An, 17, 21

Ames, Roger, 3, 9, 119 ch'i shou (to knock the head or to
Analects, 191 kowtow), io6n89
anomalies: Han-shu 27 analyses of, 50—1, ch'i (vital force), 93
60, 102-4; recorded in Spring and Ch'i-lu (Seven Records), 41
Autumn, 25; Tsai-i chih chi record of, 27,
Chi-tzu, 160
40—1, 49, 67, 119. See also rituals Chia I, 102, 132, 229
authority: being subject to Heaven's, 219—chia tradition, 115
20, 229; moral, 119—20, 130; Six Arts Chiang of Hsia-ch'iu, Duke, 31, 79
to aid, 123; Spring and Autumn as ch'iangpen chieh yung (strengthen the
source of, 142, 169-73, 178-9 foundation of agriculture and
economize expenditure), 89
'Bibliographical Treatise' of Sui-shu Chiao-ssu (Suburban Sacrafice), 201-4
(History of the Sui Dynasty), 41 chih (intention, motive, or aim), 136
Chih-chih, 175-6
canonization, 7—8, 233—4 Chih-yu (Judging Cases), 141, 144
ch'a (examine), 238 Ch'in dynasty: legal practices of, 127-30;
Chai-chung, 154—5 sovereign model of, 1; Tung Chung-shu
Chang I, 21 on, 6—7
Chang T'ang, 32, 40, 173-4 Ching, Emperor, 4, 15-19, 28, 184, 193-
Chang Ts'ang, 102 4
Changes, 22, 79, 96, 123, 176 Ching Fang, 218, 223
Changing of Regulations upon the ch'ing (true nature), 90
Reception of Heaven's Mandate ritual, ching (vital essence), 87, 89
201—4 ch'ing-ching (purity and quiescence), 89
Chao, Duke, 138 ching-fa (Constant Norms), 207-8, 215
Chao Tun, 139-41 Ching-fu, 160
Chao Wan, 21—3 ching-i (immutable norms), 135
Ch'en T'ang, 175—7 ching-li (immutable rites), 135, 187—9
Cheng Hsuan, 56-7 Ch 'ing-ming (Pure Brightness), 67
Ch'eng Ta-ch'ang, 101 ch'iu yu chih fang (formula for seeking
Cheng Tang-shih, 17, 21 rain), 111
cheng-ch'i (upright vital force), 206m Chou dynasty, 184—7, 194, 196, 205
Ch 'eng-hsiang Kung-sun Hung chi shih-shu Chou Fu-ch'eng, 45
(A Letter to the counselor-in-chief Ch'ou-fu, 155
Kung-sun Hung), 63 Chou-li Cheng-shih chu (Master Cheng's
279
Index
Chou-li Cheng-shih chu (cont.) historical references to, 41-2; Huang-

Commentary to the Chou-li [Rites of Lao chapters of, 85—93, 96—8; on
Chou]), 49 Master Huang/Yuan Ku debate, 19;
Chu Ta, 256 multiple voices of, 111-12; ritual
Chu-fu Yen, 27-30, 37 chapters of, 104-11; ritual practices
Chu-lin (Bamboo Grove), 67, 70, 74 described in, 53, 183, 187-201, 201-4;
chuan (discretion), 150—2, 173—5 scholarly debate over, 13—14;
ch'iian (expediency), 152-8, i8on85 transmissions of editions of, 264—8;
chuan (scrolls), 41 Tung Chung-shu as author of, 5-7;
Chuang Ch'ing-ti, 22 various editions of, 43; yin-yang
Chuang, Duke, 159-60 chapters in, 93-101, 209-10, 213
Ch'un-ch'iu (Spring and Autumn): Chung Chao-p'eng, 44
agricultural advice of, 32; on Chung Chun, 174—5
assassination, 139—40; authority of, 142, Chung-li I, 171-2
169-73; a s Confucian canon, 115-16; Ch'ung-wen tsung-mu (General Catalog on
censorial power of, 120—1; cosmology the Glory of Literature), 43, 45
of, 25, 206—17; discretion in, 150—2, Chung-yung (Doctrine of the Mean), 9,
173—5; dismissing charges in, 158—9, 236
175-7; esoteric features of, 117-26; Confucian canon: cosmology within, 212-
ethical judgments of, 124-6; 17; imperial sovereignty basis in, 2 2 7 -
expediency in, 152—8; exoteric features 30; past studies of, 8; Po-hu t'ung report
of, 116-17; function of, 10; on general of discussions on, 198—9; ritual
rules of judgment, 140; humaneness in, practices described in, 182—3; scriptural
145—7, 171—2; imperial relations in, attributes of, 230—4
159-60, 178-81; limiting punishments Confucianism: canonization of, 7-8, 2 3 3 -
in, 172—3; moral authority of, 119—20; 4; concept of unity in, 234-40;
motive in, 135—45, 1 ^3~7 1 » mutable Emperor Wu's interest in, 21—5, 225—6;
and immutable norms in, 147-50; five-phase, 3—4; Han, 1—3, 205; ideal
omenology in, 217-25; as one of Five ruler according to, 225-6; position
Scriptures, 22; origins of, 118-19; as under Emperor Ching, 17-20; religious
political policy basis, 66, 91—3, 228; dimensions of, 9—10, 234—40; Spring
prophetic power of, 123—4; righteous and Autumn as canon of, 115—16; Tung
principles of, 133-5; scriptural Chung-shu's contributions to, 6-7. See
attributes of, 230-4; as source of legal also Heaven's Way
reform, 161—2; transformative power of, Confucius: associated with dynastic
121-3 change, 186—7; a s author of Spring and
ch'un-ch'iu chih i (righteous principles of Autumn, 118-19, 121, 193; on
the Spring and Autumn), 134 expediency, 156-8; on intentions/
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng (Verification of motive, 135-6; judgments on
the Meanings in the Luxuriant Gems in discretion, 150—2; mode of judgment
the Spring and Autumn), 44, 48 by, 125, 135; as model of morality,
Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu (Luxuriant Gems of the 129—30; as paradigmatic judge, 161—2;
Spring and Autumn): authenticity on violent crimes, 138
debate over, 45—9, 67—9; authorship of, cosmology: comparison of Tung/Huang-
69-112, 118-19, 121; citations Lao, 212—14, 225—6; correlative basis of
attributed to, 42-3; clarifying Tung's, 207-10; elements within
provenance/date of, 36-7; Tung's, 206-7; five-phase, 101-4, 2 2 4 '
composition/chapter titles of, 70—7; four-seasons, 97—8, 100, 211—12;
cosmology of, 3; exegetical chapters of, history and, 198—9; as political policy
77-84; five-phase chapters in, 101-4; standard, 207-10; priority of yang in,
280
Index
210—11; within Confucianism, 212—17. 71117

See also yin-yang cosmology Hall, David, 3, 9, 119
cultural refinement, 185-7, 19^ Han An-kuo, 2 2
cyclical rituals, 183 Han Confucianism, 1-3, 205. See also
Confucianism
discretion, 150—2, 173—5 Han dynasty: Confucian ideal of sovereign
Documents: Heaven/humanity mutuality in, 1; debate over suitable model for,
within, 235; influence of, 79, 96, 103- 184-7; ideological shift during, 227;
4; 01, intentions of authority, 123; omenology of, 217-18; sources of Tung's
omenology framework in, 217-18, 224; writings from, 49-57; transmission of
as one of Five Scriptures, 22, 115 Kung-yang learning by, 255; Tung
drought rites, 53—6 Chung-shu disciples during, 256—8
Han Fei, 21, 85, 88, 89, 128
Eastern Han (25-220 C.E.), 3 Han-fei-tzu, 85, 122
eclipses, 222-3 Han jurisprudence: humaneness
exegetical chapters (Luxuriant Gems of consideration by, 171—2; motive
the Spring and Autumn), 77—84 consideration by, 163—71; punishment
expediency (ch'iiari), 152—8, i8on85 limited to instigator by, 172—3; use of
Kung-yang tradition by, 163, 181. See
fa chih xvu ssu (impartial laws and also legal practices
regulations), 89 'Han Phonology and Textual Criticism'
Fan Shu, 178 (Malmqvist), 60
Fan-lu (Luxuriant Gems), 67 Han rites, 52—4
'Fang-chi' (Records on the Levee), 83 Han Ymg, 22, 79
fang-shih (technical masters), 2, 21, 204 Han-shu 22 (The Treatise on Ritual and
fen-yeh (field-allocation systems) ,218 Music), 50
Feng Ch'ou-fu, 142-3, 157-8 Han-shu 24 (The Treatise on Food and
Feng (Sacrifice), 204 Goods), 50
first-order liturgy, 182 Han-shu 27 (The Treatise on the Five
Five Emperors (Wu-ti), 33—4, 204 Phases): analyses of anomalies in, 50-1,
Five Hegemons, 26 60, 102—4; a s cosmological writing, 206;
Five Scriptures, 22, 115, 228. See also dates of, 249—54; a s Tung omenology
Confucian Classics source, 217-18, 223-4
five-phase Confucianism, 3-4. See also Han-shu 56 (The Biography of Tung
Confucianism Chung-shu), 23, 50, 83, 99
five-phase cosmology, 101—4, 2 2 4 Han-shu 94B (Record of the Hsiung-nu),
flood rites, 53—4
flood-averting rites, 56, 221-2 Han-shu (History of the Former Han), 3,
four-seasons cosmology, 97-8, 100, 211- 27, 42, 45, 50, 63
Harada Masaota, 81
Heaven: attributes of, 215—17; authority
Gernet, Jacques, 117 of, 219—20, 229; Confucius revelation
Goran Malmqvist, 49 of, 234; emperor as instrument of,
Graham, William, 8, 230—1 229—30; mutuality between humanity
Grand Academy (T'ai-hsueh), 24, 115, and, 234—40; naturalistic/
228 anthropocosmic views of, 218—22, 225—
Grand Peace (T'ai-p'ing), 28, 87 6; omenology of, 218; political policies
'Great Plan' (Hung-fan), 224 complying with, 209-10; ritual practice
and, 201—4, 205, 221—2; yin and yang
hailstorm (yuan-kuang period), 62-4, of, 99-100, 130-3, 210-11, 220-1
28l
Index
Heaven's Way: communication between Huang-ti nei-ching (Inner Scripture of the

human realm and, 117; Spring and Yellow Emperor), 3
Autumn as road to, 122, 231; used for hut kuo tzu tse (repent their sins and
political arguments, 100-1; yang reprove themselves), 220
(virtue) and, 130-3; yin and yang humaneness, 145-7, 171-2
aspect of, 99-100. See also Confucianism 'Hung Fan' (Great Plan), 217
ho-ch'in policy, 35 Hung, William, 116
Ho-lu T'u-shu, 44 Huo Hsu, 168-71
Hou-Han shu (History of the Later Han
Dynasty), 3, 57, 102, 106, 109, 111 i (righteous principles/righteousness), 34,
Hou-t'u (Lord of the Earth), 204 119-20, 134-5
hsieh-ch'i (deviant vital force), 206m I-wen lei-chii (A Topical Collection of
Hsin-yii (New Conversations), 6 Literary Writings), 57—8, 84, 106, 109,
hsing (form, the body), 87, 90 111
hsiu ts'ai (Cultivated Talent), 102 immutable rites, 135, 187-9
Hsiung-nu policy, 34-5 imperial cults, 204
Hsu Ch'ang, 22 imperial relatives, 178—81, 199—200
Hsu Chih, 138—9, 141 imperial sovereignty, 227—30. See also
hsii (emptiness), 90, 91 political policy/structure
hsii ching (emptiness and stillness), 87 inner simplicity, 185-7
Hsu Fu-kuan, 77 intent (hsing-i), 143
Hsu Shen, 51, 199 intentions (chih), 135-45, 163-71
Hsii Yen, 173-5 Iwamoto Kenji, 49
Hsuan, Duke, 139
Hsueh Hsiu, 164-7 Jen Ao, 178
Hsueh Hsuan, 164—8 Judeo-Christian tradition, 235
Hsueh K'uang, 164—8
Hsun-tzu, 52, 118 Kai-chih (Changing Regulations on the
Hu Chu, 43 Reception of Heaven's Mandate), 203
Hu Shang, 172-3 Kan Yen-shou, 175, 175—7
Hu Ying-lin, 45, 101 Kao, Emperor, 2, 6, 16
Hu-wu, Master, 17 Kao-liang case, 149—50
Hu-wu Tzu-tu, 124 Keimatsu Mitsuo, 49
Huai-nan-tzu (Master Huai-nan), 3, 104 Kengtzu days, 108
Huan, Duke, 136, 157—9 King I, 25—6
Huan K'uan, 51 King T a n g , 18
Huang Chen, 46 KingWu, 18
Huang, Master, 17-19, 36, 82 King Yu of Chiao-hsi, 30-1
Huang Yun-mei, 45-7 Knoblock, John, 119-20
Huang-Lao: court influence of, 16; Kou Chien, 25
influence on Tung Chung-shu, 85—93; Ku-chin wei-shu k 'ao (An Analysis of Forged
using techniques of, 19—20 Works from Ancient and Modern
Huang-Lao chapters (Luxuriant Gems of Times), 45
the Spring and Autumn), 85—93, 96—8 Ku-chin wei-shu k 'ao pu-cheng (Additional
Huang-Lao cosmology, 212—14, 225—6 Comments to Analysis of Forged Works
Huang-Lao po-shu (The Huang-Lao Silk from Ancient and Modern Times), 45
Manuscripts), 88, 207 Ku-liang tradition, 115, 118
Huang-Lao (Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu), Ku-wen yuan (Garden of Ancient
2, 4> 17 Literature), 57, 62
huang-ti (August Emperor), 203 Kuan Lu, 258
282
Index
Kuan-tzu, 82 motive in, 135-45, * 63-71; mutable

K'uang Heng, 175-6 and immutable norms of, 147—50;
Kuang-wu, Emperor, 102 righteous principles and, 133—5, 149—
k 'ung ch 'u (yin residing in the void), 97 50. See also Han jurisprudence; political
K'ung Kuang, 168 policy/structure
k'ung ming tse shih (demanding the Legge, James, 135
substance of one's performance accords Li Hsien, 102
with one's title), 90 li (inner principles), 132
Kung Yu, 258 Li Kuang-li, 177
Kung-sun Hung: attack on Tung by, 30, li (rites, rules of decorum), 134—5
67; compiles Tung/Duke Chiang Li Wei-hsiung, 29, 63
debate, 31; exegetical writings on, 7 7 - Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, 101
84; imperial post filled by, 63-4; Liang Shang, 168—9
responds to imperial inquiries, 23; Liang-Han ssu-hsiang-shih (Intellectual
Tung's advice to, 65—7 History of the Han Dynasties), 76
Kung-sun K'uei, 180 Ling, Emperor, 115
Kung-yang Commentary to Spring and Ling Shu, 44
Autumn: as book of legal precedents, Liu An, the king of Huai-nan, 30—1
161—2; on Ch'in legal practices, 128; Liu Chao, 4 2 m 3, 57
criticism of, 48; on ethical/moral Liu Ching, 178
judgments, 124-6, 140; independent Liu Fei, 25-6
structure of, 133; on mutable/ Liu Hsiang, 2, 3, 51, 101, 103, 217—18
immutable norms, 147-50; as one of Liu Hsin, 2, 3, 217
Five Scriptures, 22; on purpose of Liu Tuan, 31
Spring and Autumn, 122; on relatives of Liu Wu, 179-80
ruler, 159-60; ritual practices described Liu Yuan, 179
in, 55-6, 183, 187-201; traditions in, Liu-hsia Hui, 26
117—18; on violent crime, 138—9 Loewe, Michael, 49, 106, 184—5
Kung-yang tradition: Han administration Lou Yuen, 44
use of, 163, 181; Han transmission of, loyalty, 196-8
255; rise to prominence of, 31; Spring Lu Chia, 2, 6, 229
and Autumn on, 115—26; writings on, Lu Pu-shu, 256
117-18 Lu Pu-wei, 3, 20
Kung-yang Tung Chung-shu chih-yu (Tung Lu Wen-ch'ao, 44
judgments): authorship of, 67; Ch'un Lu-shih ch'un-ch'iu (Master Lu's Spring
ch'iu fan-lu derived from, 45—6; content and Autumn), 3, 20
of, 40; historical references to, 40—1 Luminous Hall, 22, 204
'Kuo Ch'in Lun' (Surpassing Ch'in), 6 lun (deliberate), 238
'Kuo Ts'e' (Priorities of the State), 208 'Lun' (Discourses), 208
'Lun Yueh' (Discussions of Essentials),
Lai Yen-yuan, 44 207-8
Lao-tzu, 20 Lunyii, 153, 154
Lau, D. C , 119 Lun-heng (Discourses Weighed), 49, 52-3,
legal practices: attempts at reforming, 56, 106, 197-8
129-30, 182, 228; discretion and, 150-
2, 173—5; of dismissing charges due to Malmqvist, Goran, 60
merit, 158-9, 175-7; expediency and, mao ssu yen (to deserve death for daring to
152-8, i8on85; humaneness and, 145— speak), io6n89
7, 171-2; legacy of Ch'in, 127-30; mao ts'ai (Cultivated Talent), 102
moral instruction vs. penalties, 130—3; Master Shen P'ei, 22
283
Index
the mean (chung), 36 pien-i (mutable norms), 135

Mencius, 52, 236 pien-li (mutable rites), 135
Mencius (Mengtzu), 118, 120—1, 153, 236 piety, 196—8
Meng Ch'ing, 258 Po-hu t'ung (Comprehensive Discussions at
meritorious record, 158-9, 175-7 White Tiger Hall), 198-200
Ming, Emperor, 171, 178 political policy/structure: applied to ruler
ming (clarity, brilliance), 87 and relatives, 159—61; based upon
ming shih hsiang ch'eng (the mutual Spring and Autumn, 66, 91—3, 228;
correspondence of names and realities), cosmology and standards for, 207—10;
89 ethical norms represented in, 157-8,
ming shih hsiang tang (tallying titles and 225-6; of Five Emperors/Three Kings,
actualities with one another), 91 33—4; Heavenly numerical attributes
ming-shih (titles and actualities, names and basis of, 81—2; imperial relatives, 178—
realities), 85, 87, 91, 143 81; of imperial sovereignty, 227—30;
Mo-tzu (elevation of the worthy), 86 mutuality of Heaven and, 238-40;
Models of Ssu-ma, 176 religion and, 199; subject to authority
moral authority, 119—20, 130 of Heaven, 219—20; Taoist or Huang-
Moses, 231, 233 Lao influence on, 88—9; transferring
motive (chih), 135-45, 163-71 starving populations, 65-6; Tung's
mourning rites, 189—91 personal attitudes toward, 60. See also
Muhammad, 231 legal practices
Music, 123 political succession, 200
mutable rites, 135, 187-9 'Prayer to Relieve Solar Eclipses' (Tung
Chung-shu), 57
naturalists, 218-22, 225-6
nonpurposive action doctrine (Lao-tzu), rain inducing/stopping rite, 58, 106—11,
85,87 221-2
NuWa (female deity), 56 regularized rituals, 183
Rickett, W. Allyn, 82
Odes: on dismissed charges/merits, 176—7; Riegel, Jeffrey, 83
as first/second liturgical text, 183; righteous principles, 133-5, 149~5°
Heaven/humanity mutuality in, 235; Rites, 22, 115, 123
influence of, 57, 79, 96; on intentions rituals: citations regarding, 58—9;
of authority, 123; as one of Five described in Spring and Autumn, 53,
Scriptures, 22, 115; on rules of 104-11; drought, 53-6; 'Fang-chi' on,
judgment, 140-1; used for Yu sacrifice, 83-4; general practices of, 53;
54 governing burial of spouses, 184;
omenology: clarifying Tung's, 51, 61—2; historical cycles and theory of, 187—
linked to yin-yang cosmology, 50—1; 201; inner substance vs. outer form of,
sources on, 103, 217-25. See also Tsai-i 189-92; mourning, 189-91; mutable/
chih chi (A Record of Disasters and immutable, 135, 187-9; r a m inducing/
Anomalies) stopping, 58, 106—11, 221—2;
Ou-yang Hsiu, 43 reforming imperial, 201—4; regularized
and cyclical, 183; scriptures which
Pan Ku, 3, 14, 36, 39—40, 102—3 codify, 182—3; search for legitimacy of,
P'ang Chen, 166 183—7; Suburban Sacrifice, 201—4; to
Pankenier, David, 60 prohibit evil, 132; to supplicate Heaven,
Pao Ch'ang, 62 221-2. See also anomalies
Peerenboom, R. P., 206 ruling families, 178—81, 199—200
284
Index
sage-king, 229-30, 239. See also political Catalog of Works in Complete

policy Collection of the Four Treasuries), 48
scriptural attributes, 230—4 Ssu-ma Ch'ien: on origins of Spring and
Scripture of Filial Piety, 79 Autumn, 121; on Tung's biography, 14,
second-order liturgy, 182-3 18-19, 25, 108; on Tung's ritual
Seven Kingdoms revolt, 28 practices, 54; on Tung's scholarship,
shan (acting on personal sense of 35-6
responsibility), 150 Ssu-ma Piao, 3, 224—5
Shan Sacrifice, 204 Ssu-ma T'an, 17, 21, 89, 96
Shang dynasty, 196-8 Ssu-ma Tzu-fan, 146—50, 187
Shangfa (rewards and punishments), 87 Ssu-pu ts'ung-k'an edition, 44
Shang Yang, 128 Su Ch'in, 21
shen (numen, numinous, numinosity), 87, Su Yu, 15, 29, 44, 48—9, 81
Suburban Sacrifice ritual, 201—4
Shen Nung ch'iu-yu shu (Shen Nung's Book Sui Meng, 223, 257
on Seeking Rain), 107-8 Sun Pao, 172-3, 258
Shen Pu-hai, 21, 85, 128 Sun P'ing, 44
Shih Hsien, 175—6 Sung Kuang, 168—71
Shih pu yu fu (Lament of a Frustrated
Scholar), 59-60 ta shih (grand scribe), 117
shih (positional advantage), 87 Tai Chun-jen, 49, 101-2, 104
shih (substance), 90 T'ai-hsuan ching (Canon of Supreme
Shih Tan, 168 Mystery), 3
shih wei (plenary positions), 97 T'ai-i (Grand Unifier), 204
Shih-chi: on king of Chiao-hsi, 30, 63; on T'ang K'ai-yuan chan-ching (The T'ang
teachings of Han Fei and Huang-Lao, Dynasty K'ai-yuan Reign Period Canon
99; on trial of Tung, 27, 29; Tung of Prognostications), 57, 60-1
quotes in, 50 'Tao Fa' (Standards of the Way), 207
Shih-liu ching (The Sixteen Constants), Taoism: official patronage of, 16—17;
207 political standards under, 209-10;
Shu Kuang, 258 syncretic aspects of, 89-91
Shu-sun T'ung, 2, 184 Taoist Lineage (Tao-chia), 89
shun (comply, compliance), 89 Taylor, Rodney, 9
Shun, Emperor, 168 te (potency), 87
Shun-yu K'un, 153 temples: burning of Emperor Kao's, 27-8;
Shuo-wen chieh-tzu (Explanation of Spring and Autumn account of burned,
Writings and Elucidation of Graphs), 219
49, 51-2 Three Kings, 26, 33—4
Shuo-yuan (Garden of Theories), 49, 51, 'three teachings,' 194—5
105, 197 tipofu yin (rejecting excessiveness and
Sky-Piercing Tower (T'ung-t'ien T'ai), 36 extravagance), 89
Smith, W. C, 8 t'ien chiehjo yueh (Heaven warned as if to
Sayin, 88 say), 220
Spring and Autumn. See Ch'un-ch'iu T'ien Fen, 21-3
ssu shih chih ta shun (grand compliance of t'ien hsing (Heavenly nature), 235
the four seasons), 89 t'ien-jen kan-ying (the mutual
Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu (Complete Collection of responsiveness of Heaven and
the Four Treasuries), 47 humanity), 206
Ssu-k'u ch'uan-shu tsung-mu (General t'ien-tzu (Son of Heaven), 202-3
285
Index
Ting, Empress Dowager, 184 Tung Chung-shu chi (Collected Works of

Torah, 233 Tung Chung-shu), 41-2, 102
Tou, Empress Dowager, 16-17, 20-2, Tung Chung-shu ch'ing-tao t'u (A Catalog of
182,193 Tung chung-shu's Supplications and
Tou Ying, 21—3 Prayers), 41—2, 67
Treatise on th.. Feng and Shan Tung Chung-shu (memorials), 40—1, 49,
Sacrifices,' 204-5 67
Tsai-i chih chi (A Record of Disasters and Tung-sheng shu (The Book of Master
Anomalies): authorship of, 67; contents Tung), 58-9
of, 27, 40, 49, 119; historical references Tung-tzu wen-chi (The Collected Literary
to, 41. See also omenology Works of Master Tung), 42, 67
Tso tradition, 115, 118 Tzu-hsia, 117-18, 122
Tsou tradition, 115 Tzu-ssu, 9, 236
Tsou Yang, 180-1
Tsou Yen, 3, 101, 185—6 unity, 234—40
tsun chu pet ch'en (honor the ruler and
humble the ministers), 90 'the victory of Han Confucianism,' 1, 205
tu (measures), 90 violent crimes, 138-9
Tu Wei-ming, 9, 236 virtue over punishment, 97, 130—3
t'ui (infer), 238
Tung Chung-shu: as administrator of Wang Ch'ang-chun, 180-1
Chiang-tu, 25-6, 64-5, 108; Wang Ch'ung, 52-3, 57
administrator to King of Chiao-hsi, 30- Wang Hsien-ch'ien, 44
1; birth date/early life of, 14-15, 241- Wang Kuo-k'ai, 17
6; canonization efforts of, 7—8; Wang Mang, 101—2, 204
characteristics of works by, 39—40; Wang of T'ai-yuan, 43
charged with crime of immorality, 27- Wang Ts'ang, 21-3
30; as Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu author, 5-6; Wang Wang, 171-2
citations/titles attributed to, 259-63; Wang Yao-ch'en, 45
conceptual use of unity by, 234—40; Wang Yin, 172
contemporary criticism of, 4n9; Wang Y\x, 179
contributions to Confucianism, 6-7; Watson, Burton, 116, 125, 135
death date of, 35, 246-8; efforts to Way, 118, 194-6
reform legal practices, 127—62; Way of Renewed Kingship, 191, 194, 205
endeavor to refashion imperial rites, Way of the Uncrowned King, 185, 187
182-205; as father of yin-yang, 3-4; Wei Wan, 21
five-phase cosmology of, 101-4, 224> a s Wen Chu (Heard and Promoted), 67
grand master at capital, 26-30; Han wen (cultural refinement), 184
Confucianism promoted by, 2—3; Han Wen, Emperor, 28
sources on writings of, 49—57; influence wen-chih (outer form and inner
on sovereign model by, 1, 60, 227-30; substance), 143
omenology theories by, 51, 223-5; Western Han (206 B.C.E.-8 C.E.), 2
political context/influence of, 37—8; Wilhelm, Hellmut, 59
post-Han sources of writings by, 57-67; wu (awaken), 220
preservation of writings by, 67-8; Wu, Emperor: builds Sky-Piercing Tower,
retirement/death of, 31-7; ritual 36; interest in Confucianism by, 21-5,
practices of, 53, 108—9; service to 225-6; pardons Tung, 29; rites enacted
Emperor Ching by, 15—19; service to by, 204; Tung Chung-shu and, 4—5, 32—
Emperor Wu, 4-5, 21-5. See also 5; Tung's memorial to, 83-4; urged to
cosmology; political policy/structure reform Ch'in laws, 129-30, 182
286
Index
wu (non-Being), 90 yin-yang cosmology: disasters and, 56—7,

Wu-ching t'ung-i (Common Principles of 223-5; emotions correlated to, 52; of
the Five Scriptures), 199 Heaven and Earth, 220-1; as Heaven's
Wu-ch'iu Shou-wang, 27, 256 Way aspect, 99—100; linked to
'Wu-hsing chih' (Treatise on the Five omenology, 50—1, 223—5; priority of
Phases), 3 yang in, 210-11; rain inducing rite and,
Wu-ti (Five Emperors), 33—4, 204 58; regarding hailstorm, 62—3; seasonal
wu-wei (nonpurposive action), 35, 89—91 movements of, 97—8, 100; succession
eye1; of, 199; Tung Chung-shu as father
Ya, son of Duke Huan, 160 of, —4, 102—3; virtue/punishment
Yang Hsin, 35 association with, 97, 130-3; within
Yang Ming, 164—7 Spring and Autumn, 93-101; Yu sacrifice
Yang Sheng, 180 and, 53. See also cosmology
Yao Chi-heng, 45 Ying Kung, 256
Yen An-le, 257-8 Yu Pei (Jade Goblet), 67, 70, 74
Yen P'eng-tzu, 257 Yu sacrifice, 53-6
Yen-t'ieh lun (Discourses on Salt and Iron), Yu'-pao tui (An Official Response to a
49» 5 1 ' 99~ 1 O ° Hailstorm), 62—3, 7 i n 7
yin (adaptation), 90 Yuan, Emperor, 177
Yin Chung, 256 Yuan Eng, 179-80
Yin, Duke, 136, 156—7 Yuan Hsiao-hsu, 41
yin shih (adapting to the seasons), 91, 96, Yuan Ku, 17-20, 36, 82
99 Yuan T'ao-t'u, 142—3
yin-yang chapters (Luxuriant Gems of the Yung-lo ta-tien (Great Compendium of the
Spring and Autumn), 93-101, 209-10, Yung-lo Era), 44
213
287

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Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions

General Editor, Denis Twitchett

FROM CHRONICLE TO CANON

© Cambridge University Press 1996

First published 1996

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 0-521-48226-7 hardback

Transferred to digital printing 2003

List of tables page ix

PART i: Three perspectives on the authenticity of the

PART 11: Exegesis and canonization

Appendix 1. The birth and death dates of Tung Chung-shu 241

1. The composition of the Ch 'un-ch 'iu fan-lu page 77

Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship to continue research and writing, to

CCFL Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu (Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and

to the Explanation of Writings and Elucidation of

Confucian scholars of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.) articulated

1 Loewe 1986, pp. 727-731.

Founder of imperial Confucianism

doctrinal factors. The institutionalization of Confucianism in general,

Father of yin-yang five-phase Confucianism

4 Hall and Ames 1987, p. 24.

Faithful ideologue of Emperor Wu

Confucian texts to sanction and amplify the ruler's revered position as a

Author of the Ch'un-ch'iu fan4u

Politics and hermeneutics: The reformist exegete

15 Loewe 1986, p. 734.

special area of expertise. He maintained that the Spring and Autumn

Canonization in comparative perspective

have deeply explored the commentaries associated with the Tanakh of

16 See Henderson 1991, Van Zoeren 1991, and Smith 1990.

The religious dimensions of the Confucian tradition

24 Hall and Ames 1987, p. 12.

Birth and early years (ca. 195-156 B.C.E.)

fashion on Tung's life before he emerged at the national level of poli-

Erudite in the court of Emperor Ching (ca. 156—141 B.C.E.)

9 For Han references to Tung's prominence, see HS 27/1317 and HS 56/2527.

As in earlier years, the central government competed with local teachers

right scholar a n d m a n of propriety spread quickly, a n d before long

34 SC 121/3122-3123. Translation adapted from Watson 1993, 2:363-364.

Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu correlates Huang-Lao techniques to regulate and nur-

38 For a discussion of Huang-Lao techniques, consult Chapter 4.

Respondent to Emperor Wu's inquiries (ca. 140-134 B.c.E.)

When Emperor Wu assumed the throne in 140 B.C.E. at the age of

emperor to establish a Luminous Hall,49 the emperor called a court

M"M#?& ' # i & » J & S H * ' mWB^. HS 56/2505 and HS 22/1031.

%?%vmmt' flij^&finm^ °HS56/2513.

instrumental in furthering the reform measures put forth by Tou Ying,

Administrator to the king of Chiang-tu (ca. 134—130 B.C.E.)

During the years Tung Chung-shu served as administrator of Chiang-tu

Grand master at the capital (ca. 130—124 B.C.E.)

In the midst of Tung Chung-shu's career as administrator of Chiang-tu,

one of his favorite courtiers, Wu-ch'iu Shou-wang, in the Spring and

order the feudal lords to abandon the practice of primogeniture and

was killed in 127.91 He must have brought Tung's memorial to the

Administrator to the king of Chiao-hsi (ca. 126-123 B.C.E.)

Retirement and death (ca. 123-105 B.C.E.)

After Tung Chung-shu returned to the capital, the emperor directed