民之父母

Mín zhī Fùmǔ 民之父母

The Father and Mother of the People (modern editorial title, from the key phrase in the opening question)

(anonymous; excavated bamboo manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

Mín zhī Fùmǔ 民之父母 is one of six texts in 馬承源 Mǎ Chéngyuán ed., 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》 vol. 2, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè 上海古籍出版社, 2002. It comprises approximately 18 bamboo strips in 9 sections. The text is a dialogue between Confucius and his disciple Zǐxià 子夏 (卜商 Bǔ Shāng), structured around the question: what does it mean to be “the father and mother of the people” (mín zhī fùmǔ 民之父母) — a phrase from the Shī 詩 (Odes), Sīgān 斯干 / Bèi Mountain (大雅·泂酌 Jiǒng Zhuó). The answer introduces two technical moral categories: the “Five Arrivals” (Wǔ Zhì 五至) and the “Three Without-forms” (Sān Wú 三無), which together define the ruler’s maximal moral reach.

Abstract

The text is closely related to the received Lǐjì 禮記 chapter Kǒngzǐ Xiánjū 孔子閒居 (Confucius at Leisure), which records the same dialogue between Confucius and Zǐxià on the same topic using much of the same vocabulary. The Shanghai Museum version therefore belongs to a group of pre-Hàn texts whose relationship to the received Lǐjì chapters illuminates the pre-canonical transmission history of Confucian ritual-philosophical texts.

The Five Arrivals (Wǔ Zhì 五至). Confucius defines the Five Arrivals as a cascade of moral presences that must all “arrive” simultaneously for the ruler to be truly “the father and mother of the people”: zhì 志 (intention/will) → lǐ 禮 (ritual propriety) → yuè 樂 (music) → āi 哀 (grief/sorrow) → and the Odes themselves (in the Lǐjì version, the fifth arrival is rén 仁 / benevolence). “When things arrive, intention arrives; when intention arrives, ritual arrives; when ritual arrives, music arrives; when music arrives, grief arrives; grief and music mutually generate each other, and the gentleman rectifies this” (āi yuè xiāng shēng, jūnzǐ yǐ zhèng 哀樂相生，君子以正).

The Three Without-forms (Sān Wú 三無). The Three Without-forms are the highest degrees of moral presence, reaching beyond all physical expression: soundless music (wú shēng zhī yuè 無聲之樂), formless ritual (wú tǐ zhī lǐ 無體之禮), and garmentless mourning (wú fú zhī sàng 無服之喪). The ruler who embodies these “spreads across the four seas” — his moral influence fills the world without being visible or audible. The text illustrates each with a citation from the Odes and Documents: soundless music = “King Cheng dared not rest, day and night attending to his mandate” (Chénwáng bù gǎn kāng, sùyè qí mìng 成王不敢康，夙夜其命 — Shī, Wén Wáng Yǒu Shēng 文王有聲); formless ritual = “his bearing was dignified and stately, not to be displaced” (wēi yí chí chí, bùkě xuǎn yě 威儀遲遲，不可選也 — Shī, Gōng Liú 公劉); garmentless mourning = “whenever the people suffered mourning, he rushed headlong to the rescue” (fán mín yǒu sàng, púfú jiù zhī 凡民有喪，匍匐救之 — Shī, Guǎ Rén 寡人).

The text then develops the Three Without-forms further through a five-stage elaboration (§§7–9), each stage expanding the spatial reach of the ruler’s moral influence: from “not contradicting the will” to “filling the four directions,” from “filling the four seas” to “being handed down to grandsons and great-grandsons.”

Comparison with the received Lǐjì Kǒngzǐ Xiánjū. The two versions agree on the basic framework and on most of the canonical citations, but differ in the number and sequence of the elaboration stages, in specific graph readings, and in the precise phrasing of individual propositions. These differences have been used to argue that both texts derive from a common pre-Hàn source rather than either being a copy of the other.

Translations and research

• 馬承源 ed., 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》 vol. 2, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè, 2002 — editio princeps.
• Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006 — methodological framework for the Shanghai Museum – Lǐjì comparison.
• Kimura Eiichi 木村英一 and related studies on the Kǒngzǐ Xiánjū / Mín zhī Fùmǔ parallelism in Japanese Confucian scholarship.
• Cook, Scott. “Xu Jian’s ‘Questions About the Liji’: A New Account of the Authorship and Transmission of the Book of Rites.” T’oung Pao 96.1–3 (2010): 169–214 — contextual discussion of pre-Hàn Lǐjì chapter transmission.

Links

• Wikipedia (Shanghai Museum bamboo texts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Museum_bamboo_texts