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上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書‧緇衣

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Text ID
KR2p0160
Date
-450–-300
Dynasty
周

Shànghǎi Bówùguǎn Cáng Zhànguó Chǔ Zhúshū‧Zīyī 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書‧緇衣

Warring States Chu Bamboo Texts at the Shanghai Museum — “Black Jacket” (緇衣 Zīyī)

(anonymous Confucian disciple tradition)

About the work

The Shanghai Museum Zīyī 緇衣 (“Black Jacket”) is a bamboo-slip text from the Shanghai Museum’s Warring States Chu collection (上博楚竹書), published in Volume 1 (2001) of Shànghǎi Bówùguǎn Cáng Zhànguó Chǔ Zhúshū 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書. It closely parallels the Guodian 郭店 version of the same text (KR2p0150) and the received Lǐjì 禮記 chapter of the same name. It is one of two manuscript traditions of the Zīyī recovered from Warring States tombs; the existence of both versions demonstrates that the text circulated widely in pre-Qin Confucian communities and antedates the canonical consolidation of the Lǐjì.

Abstract

Provenance. The Shanghai Museum slips were purchased from a Hong Kong dealer in 1994, originally from Jiangling 江陵, Hubei. This Zīyī appeared in Volume 1 of the nine-volume editio princeps (2001), alongside the KR2p0159 Kǒngzǐ Shīlùn 孔子詩論 and the Xìngqíng lùn 性情論. The slips are in Chu script and datable paleographically to c. 300 BCE or slightly earlier.

Content. The text is structured as a series of aphoristic pronouncements attributed to “Master” (夫子曰 or 子曰), typically followed by a confirming quotation from the Shī 詩 (Odes), the Shū 書 (Documents), or other classical sources. The text opens: “The Master said: Loving the good is like loving the black jacket (Zīyī); hating evil is like hating the Xiàng Bó 巷伯 [a poem about slander]; then the people will all exert themselves and punishments will not be blunted.” (好美如好緇衣，惡惡如惡巷伯，則民咸力而刑不頓.) This is followed by the quotation “Emulate the conduct of King Wén; the myriad states will be made trustworthy” from the Dàyǎ 大雅. The subsequent sections (running to 23+ numbered divisions in this manuscript) discuss the ruler’s responsibilities to manifest his likes and dislikes clearly so that the people are not misled; the mutuality of ruler and people (“the ruler takes the people as his body, the people take the ruler as their heart”); the weight of kingly speech; the duty to learn from good example; the necessity of consistency between word and deed; and the importance of correct demeanor and trust.

Comparison with Guodian and received versions. The Guodian Zīyī (KR2p0150), excavated in 1993, and the Shanghai Museum version share the same basic structure and content, with numerous textual variants. Both predate and differ in ordering and wording from the received Lǐjì 禮記 chapter Zīyī (chapter 33 in the modern numbering). The existence of two independent manuscript witnesses, both from Jiangling-area Chu tombs of roughly the same period, confirms the text’s pre-Qin origin and wide circulation. The Shanghai Museum version preserves section headings as ordinal numbers (一, 二, 三 …) and cites a wider range of classical texts including 《尹誥》, 《君牙》, 《君陳》, 《呂刑》, 《康誥》, and 《君奭》.

Dating. The received Lǐjì chapter is attributed to the Confucian tradition broadly; the manuscript versions push the text back firmly into the Warring States period. notBefore -450 / notAfter -300 is a defensible bracket.

Translations and research

  • 馬承源主編. 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》第一冊. 上海古籍出版社, 2001. (editio princeps)
  • 俞紹宏、張青松主編. 《上海博物館藏戰國楚簡集釋》第一冊. 社會科學文獻出版社, 2020.
  • Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006.
  • Cook, Scott, tr. The Bamboo Texts of Guodian: A Study and Complete Translation. 2 vols. Cornell East Asia Series, 2012. (Includes the Guodian Zīyī; directly relevant for comparison.)
  • Holloway, Kenneth. Guodian: The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy. OUP, 2009. (Contains translation and analysis of the Guodian Zīyī.)
  • Meyer, Dirk. Philosophy on Bamboo: Text and the Production of Meaning in Early China. Brill, 2011.

Other points of interest

The Zīyī text tradition is one of the best-documented cases of a pre-canonical Confucian work existing in multiple manuscript versions. The availability of three witnesses — Guodian, Shanghai Museum, and received Lǐjì — enables philological analysis of how Confucian texts were copied, modified, and eventually canonized. The Zīyī’s emphasis on the ruler’s sincere display of moral preferences as the mechanism of popular governance links it to the broader Warring States discourse on the efficacy of de 德 (virtue/potency) in political leadership.

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