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郭店楚墓竹書‧唐虞之道

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Text ID
KR2p0153
Date
-400–-300
Dynasty
周

Guōdiàn Chǔmù Zhúshū‧Táng Yú Zhī Dào 郭店楚墓竹書‧唐虞之道

Chu Tomb Bamboo Books from Guōdiàn — “Táng Yú Zhī Dào” (The Way of Tang [Yao] and Yu [Shun])

(anonymous; early Confucian political philosophy)

About the work

A philosophical treatise in ten sections arguing for the moral superiority of voluntary abdication (shàn 禪) of rulership over hereditary transmission (chuán 傳), recovered from Guōdiàn 郭店 Chu Tomb 1, Jīngmén, Húběi (sealed ca. 300 BCE). The text opens with the programmatic statement: “唐虞之道，禪而不傳” (“The Way of Táng [Yáo] and Yú [Shùn]: to abdicate, not to transmit by descent”). It is one of the most philosophically significant of the Guōdiàn texts for the history of early Chinese political thought.

Abstract

Provenance. Guōdiàn Tomb 1, Jīngmén, Húběi, ca. 300 BCE. For archaeological background see KR2p0148.

Content. The text advances a sustained argument that the abdication practiced by Yáo 堯 and Shùn 舜 — surrendering power to a worthy rather than transmitting it to a son — represents the highest expression of both sagely virtue (shèng 聖) and benevolence (rén 仁). Key points developed across the ten sections include:

  • Section 1: The core thesis — abdication (shàn 禪) is the height of sage virtue; ruling for the benefit of the people rather than for oneself (lì tiānxià ér fú lì yě 利天下而弗利也) is the perfection of benevolence.
  • Section 2: The sage ruler serves heaven above, earth below, mountains and rivers, and the ancestral temple — teaching the people reverence, affection, respect, filial piety, and fraternal deference through his own ritual conduct.
  • Section 3: The unity of filial love (xiào 孝) and abdication: Yáo and Shùn loved their kin and honored the worthy — filial love leads to filial piety (xiào); honoring the worthy leads to abdication (shàn). “孝，仁之冕也；禪，義之至也” (“Filial piety is the crown of benevolence; abdication is the culmination of righteousness”).
  • Section 4: An explicit comparison: loving kin while neglecting the worthy is benevolence without righteousness; honoring the worthy while neglecting kin is righteousness without benevolence. Shùn achieved both. Yǔ 禹, Yì 益, and Hòu Jì 后稷 served their various domains.
  • Section 6: Shùn’s equanimity — unmoved whether in a thatched hut or on the throne, holding all things lightly: “有天下弗能益，亡天下弗能損。極仁之至，利天下而弗利也” (“Possessing the empire does not add to him; lacking the empire does not diminish him. This is the extreme of utmost benevolence — benefiting the world without seeking benefit for oneself”).
  • Section 7: Definition of abdication: “禪也者，上德授賢之謂也” (“Abdication means: those of superior virtue bestowing [power] on the worthy”). Abdication enables the people to be transformed by teaching and civilized by the Way.
  • Section 9: A life-stage argument: the sage rules from fifty and abdicates at seventy, when his four limbs grow weary and his senses dim, retiring to nourish his life (yǎng qí shēng 養其生).
  • Section 10: A poetic citation attributed to Yú Shī 虞詩 (“Ode of Yú [Shùn]”): “大明不出，萬物皆訇。聖者不在上，天下必壞” (“When the great light does not emerge, all things are dark. If the sage is not above, the world must collapse”).

Significance. The Táng Yú Zhī Dào is of exceptional importance for several reasons. First, it preserves a coherent early Confucian argument for abdication as a positive political institution, at a time when the discourse of abdication was politically live — the Warring States period saw several instances of kings attempting or contemplating abdication (notably King Xuān 宣 of Qí proposing to abdicate to the Confucian scholar). Second, it engages directly with issues of the relationship between benevolence, righteousness, filial piety, and political legitimacy in a way that anticipates and illuminates Mèngzǐ’s discussions of the same themes. Third, the text’s references to the Yú Shī (an otherwise unknown “Ode of Shùn”) preserve a quotation from a lost classical source.

Dating. The manuscript was copied ca. 300 BCE; composition is probably fourth century BCE. The bracket notBefore: −400, notAfter: −300 applies.

Translations and research

  • 荊門市博物館, 《郭店楚墓竹書》, 文物出版社, 1998 — editio princeps.
  • Cook, Scott. The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete Translation. 2 vols. Cornell East Asia Series, 2012.
  • Allan, Sarah. Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts. SUNY Press, 2015 — the most thorough English-language study of the abdication texts from Guōdiàn and beyond.
  • Holloway, Kenneth. Guodian: The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2009.
  • Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006.
  • Pines, Yuri. Envisioning Eternal Empire. University of Hawai’i Press, 2009 — discusses abdication discourse in the Warring States context.

Other points of interest

The Táng Yú Zhī Dào and the related text Chéng Zhī Wén Zhī 成之聞之 from the same tomb engage with the same discourse on sage kings and political virtue. Together they represent what may be a specifically Zǐsī-school contribution to Warring States political philosophy — one that emphasizes voluntary restraint, self-negation, and the welfare of the people as the defining marks of true kingship, in contrast to both Legalist emphasis on institutional power and the Mòist emphasis on utility.

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