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銀雀山漢墓竹簡‧儒家者言（乙本）

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Text ID
KR2p0146
Date
-350–-200
Dynasty
周

Yínquèshān Hànmù Zhújiǎn‧Rújiā Zhě Yán (Yǐ Běn) 銀雀山漢墓竹簡‧儒家者言（乙本）

Han Tomb Bamboo Slips from Yínquèshān — “Words of Confucians” (Version B)

(anonymous compiler; Confucian anecdote collection)

About the work

A fragmentary Confucian anecdote collection recovered from Yínquèshān 銀雀山 Han Tomb 1, Línyí, Shandong, sealed ca. 118 BCE. Designated here as “Version B” (Yǐ Běn 乙本) to distinguish it from the closely related Dìngxiān Rújiā Zhě Yán (see KR2p0120). The text preserves twenty-seven numbered sections of Confucian anecdotes. It belongs to the zhě yán 者言 (“words of”) genre — compilations of exemplary sayings and dialogues attributed to Confucius and his disciples.

Abstract

Provenance. Yínquèshān Tomb 1 was sealed ca. 118 BCE and excavated in 1972. The Yínquèshān Rújiā Zhě Yán was published in the first or second volume of the Yínquèshān Hànmù Zhújiǎn (文物出版社, 1985/2010). The Dìngxiān Rújiā Zhě Yán (from Tomb 40 at Bājiǎolóng, Dìngxiān, Hebei, sealed ca. 55 BCE) represents a parallel but independently transmitted version of related material; see KR2p0120.

Content. The digital text preserves twenty-seven numbered sections. Key episodes include:

  • Section 1: “The enlightened ruler has three fears (míng zhǔ yǒu sān jù 明主有三懼)…” — an apophthegm on self-criticism and ruler virtue (parallels KR2p0120).
  • Section 2: Zǐgòng 子貢 asks Confucius about how to conduct oneself in a subordinate position; Confucius replies with the analogy of earth (tǔ 土), which nourishes all things.
  • Section 3: Zēngzǐ’s father beats him with a large stick (zéng zhé yuán mù jī Zēng Zǐ 曾折援木擊曾子); Zēngzǐ submits to a light stick but flees a heavy one — an episode on filial piety and self-preservation.
  • Section 5: Duke Huán 桓公 and Guǎn Zhòng 管仲 on proper governance and not transgressing borders.
  • Section 8: A tilting-vessel (qī qì 欹器) inscription in the Grand Temple (dà miào 大廟), warning against excess.
  • Section 9: Duke Jǐng of Qí 齊景公 asks Zǐgòng 子貢 about Confucius’s height — an anecdote also preserved in KR2p0120.
  • Section 10: Xiāngzǐ 襄子 asks Confucius about the accessibility of his Way.
  • Sections 12–14: Episodes at Wèi 衛 and Pǔ 匡, including the incident where Zǐlù draws his halberd when Confucius is mistaken for Yáng Hǔ 陽虎.
  • Sections 22–24: Extended discussions of filial piety, including the Confucian dictum on body, hair, and skin (fū 膚), received from parents.

Relationship to received texts and parallels. The Yínquèshān Rújiā Zhě Yán shares several episodes with the Dìngxiān version (KR2p0120) — notably the “three fears,” the Zǐgòng-earth analogy, the Zēngzǐ stick anecdote, and the Duke Jǐng-Zǐgòng dialogue. Both versions draw on a common reservoir of Warring States Confucian anecdotal material that also underlies the received Shuōyuàn 說苑 and Xīnxù 新序 of Liú Xiàng 劉向. Textual comparison between the two bamboo-slip versions and the received texts is a key method for studying the editorial history of early Chinese anthology compilation. The Yínquèshān version, from a tomb sealed about sixty years earlier than the Dìngxiān tomb, is in many respects the earlier witness.

Dating. The composition date bracket (notBefore: −350, notAfter: −200) reflects the probable Warring States period of compilation; the manuscript was deposited no later than 118 BCE.

Translations and research

  • 銀雀山漢墓竹簡整理小組, 《銀雀山漢墓竹簡》(壹), 文物出版社, 1985; (貳), 2010 — editio princeps.
  • 定縣漢墓竹簡整理組, 「定縣40號漢墓出土竹簡簡介」, 《文物》 1981.8, pp. 11–31 — introduces the Dìngxiān Rújiā Zhě Yán for comparison.
  • Defoort, Carine, and Nicolas Standaert, eds. The Mozi as an Evolving Text: Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought. Brill, 2013 — includes comparative methodology for anecdotal corpora.
  • Kern, Martin. “The Odes in Excavated Manuscripts.” In Martin Kern, ed., Text and Ritual in Early China. University of Washington Press, 2005 — methodology applicable to the zhě yán genre.

Other points of interest

The parallel between the Yínquèshān and Dìngxiān versions of the Rújiā Zhě Yán provides a rare opportunity to study textual transmission across a sixty-year gap in the same genre. Where the two versions diverge, one can observe processes of condensation, expansion, and rearrangement that characterize the fluid textual culture of early Han China. Both versions likely reflect the same broader corpus of “Master Kong said” (Kǒngzǐ yuē 孔子曰) anecdotes that circulated independently before being compiled into received works by Liú Xiàng.

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