Lǔ Bāng Dà Hàn 魯邦大旱
The Great Drought in the State of Lu (modern editorial title)
(anonymous; excavated bamboo manuscript, no attributable author)
About the work
Lǔ Bāng Dà Hàn 魯邦大旱 is the shortest text 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, comprising approximately 6 bamboo strips in 5 sections bearing roughly 250 graphs. It records a dialogue between Duke Āi of Lǔ 魯哀公 and Confucius about the appropriate response to a severe drought afflicting the state of Lǔ. The duke asks Confucius to prescribe a remedy; Confucius’s answer prioritises the correction of governance (xíng yǔ dé 刑與德 — punishments and virtue) over ritual sacrifice.
Abstract
The dialogue begins with Duke Āi summoning Confucius: “You — won’t you plan a remedy for us?” (zǐ bù wèi wǒ tú zhī 子不為我圖之?). Confucius replies that a great drought is caused by failures in punishments and virtue (邦大旱，毋乃失諸刑與德乎 — “is it not that we have lost our way in punishments and virtue?”). He then deflects the duke’s suggestion of costly sacrificial offerings to the mountains and rivers: “Why do that? The common people know how to serve the spirits with jades and silks” (shùmín zhī shuō zhī shì guǐ yě, bùzhī xíng yǔ dé 庶民知說之事鬼也，不知刑與德 — “the common people know how to make spirits happy; they do not know punishment and virtue”). Confucius’s advice is to “not stint on jade and silk vessels for the mountains and rivers,” but first to correct punishment and virtue (zhèng xíng yǔ dé 正刑與德).
Significance. The text is brief but significant for three reasons: (1) It is one of very few pre-Hàn texts to record a direct conversation between Confucius and Duke Āi of Lǔ (who appears in the Lúnyǔ 論語 only in the famous “Ai Gong asked” passages). (2) The prioritisation of ethical governance (xíng yǔ dé 刑與德) over sacrificial ritual (guǐ shén 鬼神) in a crisis context reflects the anthropocentric strand of early Confucian thought — the position that human moral order, not ritual appeasement of spirits, is the proper foundation of governance. This aligns the text with the Lúnyǔ passage where Confucius does not discuss spirits and the afterlife (wèishēng wèi zhī, yān zhī sǐ 未生未之，焉知死). (3) The compressed three-part structure (opening question → Confucius’s diagnosis → Confucius’s prescription) anticipates the format of the longer Confucian dialogue texts in the Shanghai Museum collection.
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.
- Gentz, Joachim. “Rational Choice and the Chinese Discourse on Divination as Illustrated by the Newly Excavated Bamboo Manuscripts.” Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 65.4 (2011): 953–1004 — places Lǔ Bāng Dà Hàn in the context of Confucian attitudes toward divination and spirits.
- Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Hackett, 2006 — provides translated excerpts and commentary relevant to the Confucian ethical vs. religious governance debate.
Links
- Wikipedia (Shanghai Museum bamboo texts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Museum_bamboo_texts