Sūnzǐ 孫子
Master Sūn — The Art of War by 孫武 (Sūn Wǔ, zì Chángqīng 長卿, ca. 544–496 BCE, 周)
About the work
The foundational Chinese military classic, in 13 篇 — the most translated and most influential work of pre-modern Chinese military thought, alongside being a major work of Chinese philosophy and rhetoric. Universally attributed to Sūn Wǔ, who according to the Shǐjì (j. 65) served Hélǘ 闔閭 of Wú in the late 6th c. BCE. The Yínquèshān 銀雀山 bamboo-strip find of 1972 (Western Hàn, ca. 130 BCE) preserved a substantial portion of the text in close agreement with the received version, confirming both the work’s pre-Hàn antiquity and the substantial textual stability of the Sūnzǐ across two millennia. The 13 篇: Jì 計, Zuò zhàn 作戰, Móu gōng 謀攻, Xíng 形, Shì 勢, Xū shí 虛實, Jūn zhēng 軍爭, Jiǔ biàn 九變, Xíng jūn 行軍, Dì xíng 地形, Jiǔ dì 九地, Huǒ gōng 火攻, Yòng jiān 用間.
The standard premodern integrated commentary is the Sūnzǐ shíjiā jízhù (KR3a0015 in this corpus); see that entry for the ten-commentator tradition (Cáo Cāo, Mèngshì, Lǐ Quán, Dù Mù, Chén Hào, Jiǎ Lín, Dù Yòu, Méi Yáochén, Wáng Xī, Zhāng Yù).
Abstract
The Sūnzǐ is the most influential pre-modern Chinese military work. Composition window: traditional dating ca. 544–496 BCE per the Shǐjì biography of Sūn Wǔ; modern critical scholarship places the received 13-篇 form somewhat later (5th–4th c. BCE), allowing for an editorial development of an earlier nucleus. The frontmatter brackets to ca. -500 to -380.
The substantive content has been the subject of unbroken scholarly attention from the Hàn (Cáo Cāo’s commentary, ca. 200 CE) through to twentieth-century military and management theory. Modern Western reception via the Lionel Giles (1910), Samuel Griffith (1963), Roger Ames (1993), and Ralph Sawyer (1993) translations is unmatched in scope.
The bibliographic record: Hàn shū yìwén zhì (孫子兵法 82 piān + tú 9 juan); Suí shū jīngjí zhì (Sūnzǐ bīngfǎ 13 juan); Wǔ jīng qī shū canonisation (1080, by Shénzōng); SKQS Zǐbù — Bīngjiā lèi.
Translations and research
- Lionel Giles, Sun Tzu on the Art of War, London, 1910. The classic English translation.
- Samuel B. Griffith, Sun Tzu: The Art of War, Oxford UP, 1963. The post-WWII standard.
- Roger T. Ames, Sun-tzu: The Art of Warfare, Ballantine, 1993. Translation incorporating the Yín-què-shān bamboo strips.
- Ralph D. Sawyer, The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China, Westview, 1993 — including Sūn-zǐ with extensive apparatus.
- Eric L. Hutton, Sūnzǐ: The Art of War, Hackett, 2017 — the most recent major Western translation.
- Yáng Bǐng-ān 楊丙安, Shí-yī jiā zhù Sūn-zǐ jiào lǐ 十一家注孫子校理, Zhōnghuá Shūjú, 1999 — the standard modern Chinese critical edition.
- Yín-què-shān 銀雀山 Hàn-jiǎn studies (1972 onward) — fundamental for textual reconstruction.
Links
- Sūnzǐ shíjiā jízhù (KR3a0015) — the standard premodern integrated commentary.
- Cáo Cāo’s commentary (Wèi Wǔdì zhù Sūnzǐ — the principal earliest layer).
- Yínquèshān bamboo strips (1972).
- Kyoto Zinbun, Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào
- Wikipedia
- Wikidata