內豊

Nèi Fēng 內豊

Inner Abundance (modern editorial title; 豊 here = 豐 “abundance/richness”; the title refers to inner virtue as the source of proper conduct in human relations)

(anonymous; excavated bamboo manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

Nèi Fēng 內豊 is one of the texts in 馬承源 Mǎ Chéngyuán ed., 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》 vol. 4, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè 上海古籍出版社, 2004, comprising approximately 20 bamboo strips in some 18 sections. The text is a didactic work on the ethics of the five relationships (wǔ lún 五倫), organized around the principle of xiào 孝 (filial piety) and tì 悌 (fraternal submission), with specific attention to the protocols for speaking about one’s relational counterparts.

Abstract

The text opens with the claim that the filial son’s standing (lì xiào 立孝) rests on love (ài 愛) as its foundation and ritual propriety (lǐ 禮) as its essential value. The text then develops a symmetrical set of rules for discourse appropriate to each relational role:

Discourse protocols (§§2–9). For each of the five relationships, the text specifies what one should speak about when in the presence of the other party:

• A ruler (jūn 君) should speak of how rulers use ministers, not how ministers serve rulers
• A minister should speak of serving rulers, not using ministers
• A father should speak of nurturing children, not of filial failure
• A son should speak of filial piety, not of fathers’ failures
• An elder brother should speak of cherishing younger siblings; a younger brother of deferring to elders

The organizing principle: “When speaking with the ruler, speak of using ministers; with ministers, speak of serving the ruler; with the father, speak of nurturing children; with the son, speak of filial piety; with the elder brother, speak of cherishing the younger; with the younger, speak of deferring to the elder — reversal of these is disorder” (§8–9). This creates a mirrored ethical structure where each party’s discourse is oriented toward the virtue of the other role, not their own.

Filial piety in practice (§§10–16). The second major section addresses the practice of xiào:

• A filial son has no private joys or private sorrows: he rejoices in what his parents rejoice in and sorrows in what his parents sorrow over (§10)
• He should follow what is good, and stop what is not good; if his parents cannot be stopped, he should quietly defer (yīn ér rèn 陰而任) (§11)
• Even to the point of death, he must follow — yet “filial piety without remonstrance is incomplete, and remonstrance without compliance is also incomplete” (xiào ér bù jiàn, bù chéng… jiàn ér bù cóng, yì bù chéng xiào 孝而不諫，不成…諫而不從，亦不成孝) (§12)
• When parents are ill, the filial son does not fasten his cap strings, does not adopt a dignified gait, does not stand idly, does not speak carelessly; he performs apotropaic rituals at night, makes sacrifices at the five altars (wǔ sì 五祀) — not necessarily for their efficacy, but to fulfill the duty of filial piety (§14–15)
• A filial son serves his parents with food: between fine and inferior, he chooses the inferior for himself (§16)

Fraternal submission (§§17–18). The text concludes with tì 悌 as “the common rule of the people” (mín zhī jīng 民之經): in small matters do not contend; in large matters do not cause disorder. The young must heed the commands of the old; the low must heed the commands of the high (wéi shào bì tīng cháng zhī mìng, wéi jiàn bì tīng guì zhī mìng 為少必聽長之命，為賤必聽貴之命) — following others’ advice protects one from culpability.

Genre and intellectual context. Nèi Fēng belongs to the Confucian didactic tradition focused on family ethics and is closely related in spirit to the Lǐjì 禮記 chapters on filial conduct such as the Nèizé 內則 and the Qūlǐ 曲禮. Its unusual feature is the mirror-symmetrical discourse protocol of §§2–9, which has no precise parallel in received texts. The text’s formulation that filial piety requires both compliance and remonstrance — and that either without the other is incomplete — anticipates the tension found in Lúnyǔ discussions of remonstrance. The tì-as-mín-zhī-jīng formulation in §17 is closely comparable to the received Lǐjì (Jīyì 祭義) passage fù mǔ ér ài zhī, xiào zhī běn yě 父母而愛之，孝之本也.

Translations and research

• 馬承源 ed., 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》 vol. 4, Shànghǎi gǔjí chūbǎnshè, 2004 — editio princeps.
• Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006 — contextual study of early Chinese manuscript traditions.
• Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. Material Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Early China. Brill, 2004 — background on the discourse of inner virtue (nèi 內) in early Confucian ethics.

Links

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