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容成氏

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Text ID
KR2p0040
Date
-350–-250
Dynasty
戰國

Róng Chéng Shì 容成氏

Rong Chengshi (modern editorial title, from the first in a list of legendary pre-Yao rulers who opens the text)

(anonymous; excavated bamboo manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

Róng Chéng Shì 容成氏 is the longest 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 53 bamboo strips bearing some 1,900 graphs organised across 42 sections. It is a political-philosophical narrative of early Chinese history from the legendary pre-Yao rulers through the founding of the Xia dynasty, structured around the shàn ràng 禪讓 abdication ideology: each sage ruler transmitted the throne not to his own son but to the most worthy person available. The text ends with the accession of the Xia, when Qǐ 啟, the son of Yǔ 禹, seizes the throne against the abdication tradition, inaugurating hereditary kingship and the beginning of political decline.

Abstract

The legendary opening. The text opens with a list of nine pre-Yao legendary rulers who each possessed the world without passing it to their sons: Róng Chéng Shì 容成氏, Zūn Lú Shì 尊盧氏, Hè Xū Shì 赫胥氏, Gāo Xīn Shì 高辛氏, Cāng Jié Shì 倉頡氏, Xuānyuán Shì 軒轅氏, Shénnóng Shì 神農氏, Húndùn Shì 渾敦氏, and Fúxī Shì 伏羲氏. Under their rule, the blind performed music, the lame guarded the gates, the dwarfs made arrows, the deaf were employed in accounting — “all the abandoned and discarded found their place” (fèi qì bù … 廢棄不…). This utopian picture of inclusive governance under sage-kings echoes themes in the Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 and in Mòist thought.

The Yao–Shun–Yu cycle. The main body of the text (§§6–28) narrates the reigns of Yao, Shun, and Yu in detail, dwelling on: the process of Yao’s search for and recognition of Shun’s virtue (observing him plough in a distant field, conversing with him on ritual and governance); Shun’s quintuple abdication offers (wǔ ràng 五讓 — five offers to yield to a worthier person) before accepting; Shun’s appointment of Yu as hydraulic engineer, Hou Ji 后稷 as farmer, Gao Yao 皋陶 as judge, and Zhi 質 as music-master; and Yu’s own hydraulic works to make the Nine Provinces habitable (with detailed geographical descriptions of the 九州 hydraulic system: Jiang州 and Xuzhou via the Huai and Yi rivers; Jingzhou and Yangzhou via the Three Rivers and Five Lakes; Yuzhou via the Yi and Luo; Yongzhou via the Jing and Wei).

Yu’s governance style. The description of Yu’s rule (§§21–26) is distinctive in its emphasis on extreme frugality and direct engagement with the people: Yu “wore unadorned clothing, ate no double-course meals, did not take a carriage to morning court, did not hull rice before eating, did not break bones in the slaughterhouse” (yī bù xiān měi, shí bù zhòng wèi, cháo bù chē nì, chōng bù miǔ mǐ, zǎi bù zhé gǔ 衣不鮮美，食不重味，朝不車逆，舂不毇米，宰不折骨). He built a drum in the courtyard for petitioners, always rushing out immediately whenever it was struck.

The fall from the abdication ideal. The text’s dramatic climax (§28) is Yu’s death: having no suitable heir among the sage-kings left (Gao Yao having died), Yu “yielded to Yi 益” (a minister), but Qǐ 啟 (Yu’s son) “attacked Yi and seized [the throne] for himself” (qǐ yú shì hū gōng yì, zì qǔ 啟於是乎攻益，自取). The text continues (§§29–42) with the reigns of seventeen generations of Xia kings, ending with the tyrant Jie’s defeat and the founding of the Shang by Tang.

Significance. Róng Chéng Shì is the longest and most sustained pre-Hàn treatment of the abdication ideology (shàn ràng 禪讓). Sarah Allan (Buried Ideas, 2015) treats it as the centrepiece of a body of excavated texts arguing that abdication rather than hereditary monarchy was the originally intended constitutional arrangement for Chinese civilization — a “buried idea” that was politically suppressed after the Qin and Han established hereditary empire. The text’s hydraulic geography (the detailed Nine Provinces system) has attracted interest from historians of Chinese cartography and environmental history.

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 with photographs, transcription, and extensive annotations.
  • Allan, Sarah. Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts. SUNY Press, 2015 — translates Róng Chéng Shì in full and provides the major English-language study.
  • Shaughnessy, Edward L. “The Editing of Archaeologically Recovered Manuscripts.” In Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006.
  • Pines, Yuri. Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era. University of Hawai’i Press, 2009 — background on abdication ideology in the Warring States.
  • Lewis, Mark Edward. The Flood Myths of Early China. SUNY Press, 2006 — contextual analysis of the hydraulic geography sections relevant to the Yu narrative.

Other points of interest

The list of nine pre-Yao rulers at the text’s opening (Róng Chéng Shì, Zūn Lú Shì, Hè Xū Shì, Gāo Xīn Shì, Cāng Jié Shì, Xuānyuán Shì, Shénnóng Shì, Húndùn Shì, Fúxī Shì) is unique: several of these figures are known from other traditions in different genealogical configurations. The inclusion of Cāng Jié Shì 倉頡氏 (the legendary inventor of writing) and Húndùn Shì 渾敦氏 (whose name echoes the Zhuangzi’s “primal chaos” figure) alongside the more familiar Xuānyuán 軒轅 (Yellow Emperor) and Fúxī 伏羲 suggests a Chu-region mythological tradition somewhat at variance with the northern Chinese legendary tradition as preserved in the Shǐjì 史記.

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