武威漢簡‧丙本喪服

Wǔwēi Hàn Jiǎn‧Bǐng Běn Sāngfú 武威漢簡‧丙本喪服

Wuwei Han Bamboo Slips — Version C: Mourning Dress

Excavated text; no attributed author.

About the work

This text is the transcription (shìwén 釋文) of Version C (丙本 bǐng běn) of the Sāngfú 喪服 (“Mourning Dress”) chapter as preserved on bamboo slips from the Mózuǐzǐ 磨嘴子 tomb 6 excavation, Wūwēi 武威, Gānsù (1959). Unlike Versions A (KR2p0102) and B (KR2p0107), which contain the Zhuàn 傳 (explanatory commentary), Version C preserves the main normative text of the Sāngfú chapter itself — the listing of mourning grades and their associated relationships — without the Zhuàn. Part of the broader Wuwei Han bamboo slips (Wǔwēi Hànjian 武威漢簡) corpus.

Abstract

The Sāngfú 喪服 (“Mourning Dress”) chapter of the Yílǐ 儀禮 specifies the five grades of mourning garments (wǔfú 五服) required for different categories of relative and defines who owes which grade of mourning to whom. The main text consists of terse normative rules listing each relationship and the corresponding mourning grade. The Zhuàn 傳, present in Versions A and B but absent here, provides the explanatory “because” for each rule.

The Wuwei Version C opens: ●喪服：斬衰常，苴絰，杖，絞帶，冠繩纓，菅屢者。父 諸侯為天子。君父為長子。為人後者 (“Mourning dress: Unhemmed sackcloth skirt, hemp cord headband, staff, twisted sash, rope-string cap-cord, rush sandals. [For:] Father; Princes [mourning] for the Son of Heaven; Lord-fathers for [their] eldest sons; Those who succeed another as heir”). The normative format — listing the mourning outfit first and then the relationships that require it — is the main-text (jīng 經) format, distinct from the Zhuàn’s interposed question-and-answer explanations.

The existence of three distinct manuscript witnesses to the Sāngfú complex within a single tomb is unusual and important. The editors of 《武威漢簡》 suggest that Versions A and B (containing the Zhuàn) were used for study and instruction, while Version C (without Zhuàn) may have served as a reference copy of the normative text alone. Alternatively, all three may simply reflect the intensive ritual copying activity of a local ritual instructor or student. The Wuwei find as a whole constitutes the earliest datable multi-copy manuscript witnesses to any Yili chapter.

The brevity and sparseness of Version C relative to Versions A and B allows important observations about which variant readings are consistent across all three copies and which arise only in one or two.

Translations and research

• Steele, John, tr. The I-li, or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial. 2 vols. Probsthain, 1917.
• 陳夢家 Chén Mèngjiā, ed. 《武威漢簡》. 文物出版社, 1964; repr. 中華書局, 2005. Contains synoptic presentation of all three versions.
• Loewe, Michael. “I-li.” In Michael Loewe, ed. Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide. SSEC/IEAS, 1993, pp. 234–43.

Links

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