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穆天子傳

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Text ID
KR3l0092
Date
-350–-280
Dynasty
戰國

Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn 穆天子傳

Account of Mù, Son of Heaven by 郭璞 (注)

About the work

A six-juàn travelogue-cum-romance of King Mù 穆王 of Zhōu’s (trad. r. 976–922 BCE) mythical westward expedition to meet the goddess Xīwángmǔ 西王母, recovered from the Jízhǒng 汲冢 bamboo-slip tomb-cache opened in Tàikāng 2 (281 CE) at Jíxiàn 汲縣 (modern Hénán). The received text is an Eastern-Jìn recension: the slips were collated and arranged into juan by 荀勖 Xún Xù 荀勖 and his colleagues at the imperial library shortly after the discovery, and given a running annotation by 郭璞 Guō Pú 郭璞 (276–324). The text is one of the principal pre-Qín mythographic-geographic works preserved in China, frequently paired with the Shānhǎijīng 山海經 (KR3l0090) as a major source for early Chinese mythology, sacred geography, and the Xīwángmǔ cult. It is the only one of the Jízhǒng finds (alongside the much-debated Zhúshū jìnián 竹書紀年 and a fragmentary Yìzhōushū-related corpus) that survives in continuous, unreconstructed form.

Tiyao

Your servants report: Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn in 6 juàn, annotated by the Jìn Guō Pú, with a preface by Xún Xù in front. According to the Shù Xī biography (Jìnshū), in Tàikāng 2 (281) the Jíxiàn man Bù Zhǔn 不準 unlawfully opened the tomb of King Xiāng of Wèi 魏襄王 and obtained the bamboo-book Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn in 5 piān, together with miscellaneous documents in 19 piān: Zhōu shítián fǎ, Zhōushū lùn Chǔ shì, and the Zhōu Mùwáng měirén Shèngjī shì. Now the Shèngjī affair is borne in juàn 6 of the present Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn: this is to say, what the Shù Xī biography called one piān of the miscellaneous documents. From its literary form it properly belongs to this zhuàn; the Shù Xī biography’s separating it off was a mistake.

This book records events with day and month but no year; further, its text is much broken and lacunose. Collating it against the current Zhúshū jìnián, the jìnián records “year 12, winter, the king made the northern xúnshǒu tour, thereupon campaigning against the Quǎnróng” — this matter is in juàn 1 of the zhuàn; “year 14, summer, the king hunted at Jūnqiū; in the 5th month he built the Fàn palace and made the Hǔláo” — this is in juàn 5; “year 15, he built the Chóngbì terrace; in winter the king observed at Yánzé” — this is in juàn 6; “year 17, the king campaigned westward to Mount Kūnlún and met the Xīwángmǔ” — this is in juàn 2, 3, and 4. The two books came out from the same source at the same time and were jointly collated by Xún Xù and the rest; their texts should not contradict one another like this. The present Zhúshū jìnián must be a Míng-era pastiche from various books, not the Jízhǒng original — even the jìnián-passages quoted in Guō Pú’s annotation here have not yet been fully gathered into it; let alone investigating the proper sequence. This is yet one more proof that the current jìnián is a forgery. Some hold that the 5th and 6th juàn should be moved before the 2nd to match the Zhúshū’s sequence — but that is whittling the toes to fit the shoe.

The matters recorded, though much given to exaggeration and short on substance, are still such that the so-called Xīwángmǔ is merely a ruler of one western state; the so-called Xuánpǔ (the “Hanging Gardens”) is merely a vast wilderness garden-pond where flying birds and the hundred beasts came to drink and feed — there is nothing of spirit-immortals or strange marvels. The so-called Hézōngshì is also merely a state-name — no nonsense of fish-dragon transformations. Compared with the Shānhǎijīng and the Huáinánzǐ, it is still relatively close to fact. Guō Pú’s annotation on the Ěryǎ phrase “Xīwángmǔ” says only “a state of the western murk-wilderness”; and on the phrase “the river issues from Mount Kūnlún”, although he cites the Dàhuāng xījīng, he does not speak of its numinous strangeness; but his annotation here is rather full of the talk of marvels — for in glossing classics one dares not but be strict, while in annotating miscellaneous books one is bound to display broad learning. The Lièzǐ ZhōuMùwáng chapter records material overlapping with this zhuàn — the same popular tale of the time existed, like the later xiǎoshuō and yěchéng genres, so Liè Yùkòu was able to draw on its text.

Of the Jízhǒng writings transmitted to the world: Shī Chūn’s miscellany and the like are already lost; the Yìzhōushū belongs to later persons’ transmitted error; the jìnián is a manifest forgery; of those surviving today there is only this zhuàn. Yet the script is ancient, and corruption and lacunae are severe — scholars mostly have not examined it carefully. “Fēng Mòzhòu at the northern bank of the river” — see juàn 2: Mòzhòu is itself a person’s name, fēng meaning to enfeoff him with a fief; but Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s Lìdài mínghuà jì, misreading the character zhòu 晝 as huà 畫, thereupon made Fēngmò into the ancestor of painters. “Shānjiá zìchū” — juàn 3: this is the Xīwángmǔ’s song; but Fāng Huí’s Yíngkuí lǜsuǐ commentary on Chén Zǐáng’s poem (“the mounds and hills túzìchū”) thereupon says “the two characters zìchū are perhaps an error”. Juàn 2 says “thereupon engraved an inscription on Xuánpǔ”; juàn 3 says “thereupon recorded his traces on the stone of Mount Yǎn” — the wording is perfectly clear; but Zhū Guī’s Míngjì lù says it takes Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn as “making a míngjì on the stone of Yǎnzī” — utterly off. So the transmission of this work has been in a state of “now-existing, now-perishing”; truly something to be treasured by the antiquaries. Respectfully checked, Qiánlóng 43 (1778), 9th month. Chief Compilers: Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì. Chief Collator: Lù Fèichí.

Abstract

The Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn is the principal surviving Warring-States (or possibly early-Hàn) bamboo-slip text recovered in the Jízhǒng discovery of 281 CE — a date which is itself one of the great moments of Jìn-era Chinese textual scholarship. The tomb, at Jíxiàn 汲縣 in Hénán, belonged either to King Xiāng of Wèi 魏襄王 (d. 296 BCE) or to King Anlí of Wèi 魏安釐王 (the Sìkù and Xún Xù follow King Xiāng / Lìngwáng; some modern scholarship prefers King Anlí). The slips were transferred to the imperial library at Luòyáng, sorted and copied onto silk and then paper by a commission under the librarian 荀勖 Xún Xù (d. 289) and the polymath 束晳 Shù Xī (c. 261–c. 303), with the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn presented in 5 piān; a sixth piān on the Shèngjī 盛姬 affair (King Mù’s beloved consort) — originally classed as one of the záshū — was attached as juàn 6 to the received text. The annotation is by 郭璞 Guō Pú (276–324), the leading early-medieval philologist-commentator, who also annotated the Shānhǎijīng (KR3l0090), the Ěryǎ, and the Fāngyán. The Sìkù preface preserved at the head of WYG is by Xún Xù in his capacity as imperial librarian; a Yuán-era Zhìzhèng 10 (1350) preface by Wáng Jiàn 王漸 of Běiyuè records the text’s collation at Jīnlíng under the patronage of the Nántái dūshì Liú Zhēn 劉貞 of Hǎidài.

Dating. The textual stratification is debated. The bamboo slips were buried by 296 BCE at the latest (if the tomb is King Xiāng’s); the work itself must therefore predate that date. The standard modern view, following Rémi Mathieu’s 1978 study, is that the core of the text is a Warring-States composition (4th–3rd century BCE) drawing on older legendary material — possibly reflecting genuine memories of Western-Zhōu xúnshǒu tours filtered through several centuries of legendary accretion. The frontmatter here therefore brackets the work c. 350–280 BCE (the received recension as it would have entered the Wèi tomb), with the understanding that the legendary content reaches back into early Zhōu memory and the received six-juàn form is Jìn-era. Catalog meta and traditional bibliographies vary: the Hànshū Yìwén zhì does not list the work (it was not in circulation before 281 CE); the Suíshū Jīngjí zhì records it under shǐbù záshǐ in 6 juàn; the Sìkù places it under zǐbù xiǎoshuōjiā yìwén. The dynasty bracket “戰國” used in the frontmatter follows current scholarly consensus rather than the received attribution to Western-Zhōu (which would place the events of the book c. 950 BCE but is universally rejected as the composition date).

Content. Juan 1–4 narrate King Mù’s western progression with his charioteer Zàofū 造父 driving the eight legendary stallions (Dàolí 盜驪, Lùěr 騄耳, Chìjì 赤驥, Báiyì 白義, Yúlún 渝輪, Shānzǐ 山子, Qúhuáng 渠黃, Huāliú 驊騮), past the Hézōngshì 河宗氏 of the upper Yellow River, across the Liúshā 流沙 desert, up to Kūnlún qiū 崑崙邱, and to the audience with Xīwángmǔ 西王母 at the Jade Pond (Yáochí 瑤池), with their celebrated poetic exchange. Juan 5 narrates the eastern return and a hunt at Jūnqiū 軍邱. Juan 6 — separately classed in the Jízhǒng finds as “Zhōu Mùwáng měirén Shèngjī shì” — narrates the death of Mù’s consort Shèngjī 盛姬 and her elaborate funeral, providing one of our earliest detailed accounts of Zhōu high-status mortuary ritual. The Sìkù tíyào notes the substantive overlap with the Zhōu Mùwáng chapter of Lièzǐ 列子, treating it as a common pool of Warring-States legend rather than direct borrowing.

Transmission. The work was lost in the post-Hàn libraries and recovered only in 281 CE — making it, along with the Zhúshū jìnián, one of the two great rediscoveries of early Chinese text-history. Unlike the jìnián, which the Sìkù compilers correctly diagnose as a Míng forgery (the genuine Jízhǒng chronicle is now lost), the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn survived in continuous transmission with Guō Pú’s commentary intact. The Sìkù tíyào emphasises the text’s relative naturalism: the Xīwángmǔ of the zhuàn is a foreign queen, not the immortal goddess of the later cult; the Xuánpǔ is a wildlife reserve, not a paradise; the Hézōngshì is a polity, not a spirit. The mythographic-fantastic readings (familiar from Shānhǎijīng and Huáinánzǐ) are attributed by the Sìkù compilers to Guō Pú’s annotation rather than to the original Warring-States text — an insight modern scholarship has largely confirmed.

Translations and research

  • Mathieu, Rémi. 1978. Le Mu tianzi zhuan: traduction annotée, étude critique. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des hautes études chinoises. The definitive critical edition and translation, with extensive apparatus on the Jí-zhǒng discovery, the Xī-wáng-mǔ cult, and the geography of the journey.
  • Porter, Deborah Lynn. 1996. From Deluge to Discourse: Myth, History, and the Generation of Chinese Fiction. Albany: SUNY Press. Partial translation and major mythographic reading of the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn as a foundational text in the genealogy of Chinese narrative fiction.
  • Lewis, Mark Edward. 2006. The Construction of Space in Early China. Albany: SUNY Press. Cites the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn extensively as a witness to early Chinese sacred geography and the Kūn-lún / Xī-wáng-mǔ complex.
  • Yuán Kē 袁珂. 1992. Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn jí shì 穆天子傳集釋. Shàng-hǎi: Shanghai Guji. Critical collation with comprehensive jí-shì-style commentary, drawing on the full pre-modern annotative tradition.
  • Wáng Yī-liáng 王貽樑 / Chén Jiàn-míng 陳建敏. 1994. Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn huì-jiào jí-shì 穆天子傳彙校集釋. Shàng-hǎi: Huá-dōng Shī-fàn dàxué chūbǎn-shè. The standard modern Chinese critical edition.
  • Cohen, Alvin P. 2005. “Brief Note: A Possible Source for the Western Origin Theme in the Mu Tianzi zhuan.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 125: 87–91.
  • Birrell, Anne M. 1993. Chinese Mythology: An Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Extensive use of the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn as a primary source for Xī-wáng-mǔ and Kūn-lún mythography.
  • Cahill, Suzanne E. 1993. Transcendence and Divine Passion: The Queen Mother of the West in Medieval China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Treats the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn as the foundational textual locus for the Xī-wáng-mǔ cult.
  • Shaughnessy, Edward L. 1994. “The Composition of the Zhouyi”. Reviews and discusses the Jí-zhǒng discovery’s implications for early Chinese text studies. See also his Rewriting Early Chinese Texts (SUNY, 2006), which devotes a chapter to the Jí-zhǒng finds and the historiography of their reconstruction.

Other points of interest

The Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn is unique in being a Warring-States text recovered from an archaeologically attested Warring-States tomb — even though that recovery happened in 281 CE rather than in the 20th century. The discovery prefigures the modern rediscoveries at Mǎwángduī (1972–74), Guōdiàn (1993), and the Shanghai Museum and Tsinghua bamboo-slip caches. Its transmission for seventeen centuries from Xún Xù’s collation to the Sìkù preserves what is in effect a Warring-States text in its substantially original form — a status enjoyed by very few other pre-Qín works.

The interpretive question of whether King Mù’s journey reflects (a) a genuine historical xúnshǒu expedition heavily mythicised, (b) a Warring-States political fantasy projected onto a half-legendary Western-Zhōu ruler, or (c) the literary distillation of a Zhōu-era oral tradition of long-distance western contact with Central Asian polities, remains unresolved. The “western origin theme” — that the journey records garbled Chinese memories of early Eurasian steppe contact — has been recurrently revived (Cohen 2005), but cannot be settled on present evidence.

The textual error tradition flagged by the Sìkù tíyào (Zhāng Yànyuǎn’s Lìdài mínghuà jì misreading zhòu 晝 as huà 畫, inventing the painter-ancestor “Fēngmò”) is a celebrated cautionary tale among Qīng textual critics about the Mù Tiānzǐ zhuàn’s frequent corruption and the danger of citing it carelessly.

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