武威漢簡‧甲本服傳

Wǔwēi Hàn Jiǎn‧Jiǎ Běn Fú Zhuàn 武威漢簡‧甲本服傳

Wuwei Han Bamboo Slips — Version A: Commentary on Mourning Dress

Excavated text; no attributed author.

About the work

This text is the transcription (shìwén 釋文) of Version A (甲本 jiǎ běn) of the Sāngfú zhuàn 喪服傳 (“Commentary on Mourning Dress”) as preserved on bamboo slips from the Mózuǐzǐ 磨嘴子 tomb 6 excavation, Wūwēi 武威, Gānsù (1959). The Sāngfú zhuàn is the commentary (zhuàn 傳) attached to the Sāngfú 喪服 chapter of the Yílǐ 儀禮. It is the longest and most philosophically rich portion of the Wuwei Yili manuscripts. Version A (this entry) should be read alongside Version B (KR2p0107) and Version C (KR2p0108).

Abstract

The Sāngfú 喪服 (Mourning Dress) chapter is the twenty-fourth and most substantial chapter of the received Yílǐ 儀禮. It specifies the five grades of mourning garments (wǔfú 五服): zhǎncuī 斬衰 (unhemmed coarse hemp, three years), zīcuī 資衰 (hemmed coarse hemp, one year or less), dàgōng 大功 (coarse hemp, nine months), xiǎogōng 小功 (medium hemp, five months), and sīmá 緦麻 (fine hemp, three months), and defines in detail which mourning grade is owed to each category of relative. Appended to the main text of rules is the Zhuàn 傳 (Commentary), a question-and-answer exposition explaining the rationale of each rule.

The Wuwei Version A (甲本) of the Fú zhuàn is among the most important pre-Tang manuscript witnesses to this text. It opens: ■斬衰常，苴絰，杖，絞帶，冠繩纓，菅屢者。斬者？不䌌也 (“Unhemmed sackcloth skirt, hemp cord headband, staff, twisted sash, rope-string cap-cord, rush sandals. What does zhǎn [unhemmed] mean? It is not hemmed”). The text proceeds through all five mourning grades, employing the characteristic question-and-answer format of the Zhuàn: 為父、何以斬衰也？至尊也 (“Why does one wear zhǎncuī for one’s father? Because he is the supreme revered one”). It includes the famous passage on the social gradation of understanding from animals to commoners to gentlemen to nobles, culminating in the Son of Heaven tracing ancestry back to the primal ancestor 天子，及其始祖之所自出.

The text contains numerous interlinear lacunae marked ⺀ (representing elisions in the original slips, likely scribal abbreviations) and a number of damaged or unclear graphs. Comparison with the received Yili text and with Version B (KR2p0107) reveals variant readings that are significant for reconstructing the pre-Han transmission of the Sāngfú text and its Zhuàn. The attribution of the Sāngfú zhuàn to Confucius (in certain early sources) or to his disciple Zǐxià 子夏 is not supported by any internal evidence in the Wuwei slips; the question of authorship remains unresolved.

The presence of multiple manuscript copies of the Sāngfú and its Zhuàn at a frontier garrison site in Gānsù during the early first century CE documents the active transmission of ritual learning on the Han periphery. Wilkinson (§59.7.2, III #2) notes that the Wuwei Yili text departs at points from the received version; the Sāngfú versions are the most studied in this regard.

Translations and research

• Steele, John, tr. The I-li, or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial. 2 vols. Probsthain, 1917. Covers the Sāngfú chapter in vol. 2.
• 陳夢家 Chén Mèngjiā, ed. 《武威漢簡》. 文物出版社, 1964; repr. 中華書局, 2005.
• Loewe, Michael. “I-li.” In Michael Loewe, ed. Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. SSEC/IEAS, 1993, pp. 234–43.
• Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC): The Archaeological Evidence. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 2006. For broader context of Zhou–Han mourning ritual.

Links

• Wuwei Han bamboo slips — Wikipedia
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §59.7.2 (III Wuwei, #2).