Shànghǎi Bówùguǎn Cáng Zhànguó Chǔ Zhúshū‧Cóng Zhèng 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書‧從政
Warring States Chu Bamboo Texts at the Shanghai Museum — “On Governance” (從政 Cóng Zhèng)
(anonymous Confucian governance text)
About the work
The Cóng Zhèng 從政 (“On Governance” or “Following the Way of Governance”) is a bamboo-slip text from the Shanghai Museum’s Warring States Chu collection, published in Volume 5 (2005) of Shànghǎi Bówùguǎn Cáng Zhànguó Chǔ Zhúshū 上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書, edited by 馬承源. Volume 5 contains eight Ruist (Confucian) texts. The Cóng Zhèng is a series of aphoristic pronouncements on the art of governance, organized under repeated headings “聞之曰” (“It is heard that…”), and covers topics from the proper conduct of officials to the qualities that distinguish noble men from petty men.
Abstract
Provenance. The Shanghai Museum slips were purchased from a Hong Kong dealer in 1994, originally from Jiangling 江陵, Hubei. This text was published in Volume 5 (2005), one of eight Confucian-oriented texts in that volume. The Chu-script paleography dates the manuscript to approximately 300 BCE.
Content. Each section opens with the formula “聞之曰” (“It is heard that…”), marking these as transmitted wisdom — a common rhetorical device in Warring States texts that implies authoritative but non-attributed teachings. The text opens: “It is heard that among the brilliant kings of the three dynasties who possessed the realm, none had it given to them; rather they took it all — and the people all regarded this as righteous. For this reason they guarded it with trustworthiness (xìn 信), taught with righteousness (yì 義), and acted through ritual (lǐ 禮).” (聞之曰：昔三代之明王之有天下者，莫之予也，而盡取之，民皆以為義，夫是則守之以信，教之以義，行之以禮也.)
Subsequent sections address: the value of worthy officers (gaining one worthy officer earns praise throughout the four quarters; losing one brings criticism equally); the importance of cultivating a reputation through constant virtuous practice rather than seeking it directly; the equivalence of speech and action for the noble man; the three essential qualities of governance: respect (jìng 敬), care (jǐn 謹), and trustworthiness (xìn 信); the five virtues of governance — forbearance (huǎn 緩), respectfulness (gōng 恭), beneficence (huì 惠), humaneness (rén 仁), and reverence (jìng 敬) — with explanations of why each is indispensable; three structural principles (sān zhì 三制): holding firm to one’s conduct, looking up to superiors, and managing food and clothing; and ten sources of resentment (shí yuàn 十怨) to be avoided. Further aphorisms discuss the contrasting responses of the noble man and the petty man to joy, anxiety, anger, fear, and shame; and the maxim that in governance one must always have a surplus of virtue (dé) but never exhaust it.
Relationship to other texts. The Cóng Zhèng has no direct received-text parallel, though its content overlaps with passages in the Lúnyǔ 論語 (Analects), Lǐjì 禮記, and Xúnzǐ 荀子 on the qualities of good officials. It represents the genre of practical governance advice that circulated widely in Warring States Confucian communities.
Dating. Paleographic evidence dates the manuscript c. 300 BCE. notBefore -450 / notAfter -300.
Translations and research
- 馬承源主編. 《上海博物館藏戰國楚竹書》第五冊. 上海古籍出版社, 2005. (editio princeps)
- 俞紹宏、張青松主編. 《上海博物館藏戰國楚簡集釋》. 社會科學文獻出版社, 2020.
- Shaughnessy, Edward L. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. SUNY Press, 2006.
- Allan, Sarah. Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts. SUNY Press, 2015.
Links
- Wikipedia (Shanghai Museum bamboo texts): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Museum_bamboo_texts