The Chʼu silk manuscript: translation and commentary

:6

THE CH'USILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION ANV COMMENTARY

and encouragement of serious study by allowing discreet 'a c c e s s to the FGA fil es. T h e r e is an . amusing side t o Shang's polemi cs.

7

He sta tes in his article that he

had in his own possession "a set of na tural , s i z e photographs" of the Manus cript as from

1947.

more t h a n

His hand- copy reproduced in We n-Wu

16

years"

(1964. 9)

was based upon t h e s e .

For

therefore, his c o l l e a g u e s were similarly denied a ccess t o this

even closer source of s tudy available throughout this period wi thin Mainland Ch i n a i tself!

As to t h e source of t h e s e four photographs Shang gives no details but

com-

parison of h is Pl. 2 (where masking along t h e right-hand and bottom edges is no t excessive as in t h e o ther thre e Pla tes) with an unmasked print from t he nega tive c overing the same ar ea , the b o tt o m right-hand c o r ne r . masking ,

so

Freer~Gallery

shows similarly a black triangular-shap ed object in

Al though shorte r

in Shang's Plate 2 as

th is remnan t match es pre cisely the shap e,

posi tion,

a result

of

and a ngle of t h e mount-

ing b o a r d c l i p whi ch appears in unmasked prints from the FGA negative's.

I t

ma y be

r e garded a s an amaz ing coinciden c e t h at t h e Chinese photographer should apparen t ly haveemplo yeaan identical mounting board and have s et the same kind of re taining clip in exactly t h e s ame angl e! cl ea r

From o ther aspects of t h e .s i t u a t i o n it is abundantly

t h at Shang's prints would have been

n e ga t Lve s; 'n o t

der~ved,

alb eit indirectly, from the FGA

only are t he s e t he only panchromati c pho tographs t h a t

hav e been made

of t h e Manusc r i pt b ut · also t h e date that Shang speaks of t h e prin ts in q u e st i o n having c o me into his possession

(19 47) ,

c o i n c i d e s remarkably closely wi th the date that

Ch ' e n Meng- chia returned to Peking af ter an ex tensive field- trip through t h e USA , '

,

' E u r o p e , e tc.

7

8

It is fully e vi d e nt upon s tudy o f many of the photographs of vess els

Several of usattempted,by writing .directly to Mr John Hadley Cox (or through others) , t o obtain . e>-(

p.,.

mission to have the FGA photographs reproduced but there being no response at all, no further steps , could be 't a ke n to provide the scholarly world with the urgently needed reproductions.

1i f'F

~,

i n his "Lun Ch' ang~sha ch' u-t' u chd.h tseng-shu" lifL&ij,' tJ:',

Ilf ?iii 1t , 10.6, 1955) says, for instance:

±

z:

~ if

Tung Tso-pin

(Ta-lu tzse-ctii b :*

"In winter 'o f the following year .(1948 ) I returned in hast. '

[to China] but left the book [by Ts' ai Chi-hsiang] in Chicago.

Having heard then that ~he original

Manuscript had long before reached Washington and that·:the person in whose possession it it and would not s how it to anyone, I wa s not even able to find · out its whereabouts thus never satisfaction of seeing it with my own eyes ... "

Thanks to the FGA's 'cooperation, however, the h;imd-

copies published by Professors J aO, Hayashi, Shang (indirectly), and myself have individually appeared together with an extensive literature on the CSM .

.Reproductions d fa l l these' studies and others effea

prior to 1967 have been assembled in the Suppl ementary .Vo l ume of my major survey - this compilation of stUdies, pr e p a r ed at the request of the p r es e nt owner of the Ch'u Silk Manuscript, will be found ient and useful for reference purposes when the work is eventually published. 8

One further set of photographs of the Manuscript wa s made;

and this as a result of my prompting to

the late Mr Alan Priest, Curator of Oriental Art, MetroPolitan Museurn, New York . end of 1961 (or possibly a little .later).

This was towards thl

During tne ' fall ,of 1961 MrPriest kindly allowed me access

to the CSM which at the time, was "under consideration for purchase" and in storage at .the Muse.urn. . I did not k no w, ho wever, until late in 1965 that these photographs had a ctually been taken when a set four contact prints were pas s ed on to me. ed for me by the Museum photographer. and have a particular value.'

Upon my request four very fine enlargements were then prep4

These photographs are the fir st infrared versions made oftheC '

The point be elaborated later ,(p o 8 3 et al.).

THE VISCOVERY OF THE CH'U SILK MA~~SCRIPT

7

Ind'rubb ings reproduced in Ch 'en' s v a l u a b l e series of ins cription etucties ( K' ao- k u

hsue h- pa o ,19 5 5- 1956 ; Vols .. 9- 14 ) t h a t t he s e ma terials are the pro ceeds o f' ac tive r es e a r c h and collection such as we all seek to . accumulate when studying a b ro a d . That he might als o have o b tain ed a se t o f the FGA photographs o f t he CSM when in the USA is t o be exp e c t ed; I as sume Shang o btained t he prints (or the c o p i e s of t h o s e l tha t h e work ed on) f r o m Ch' en. Ac cording t o his pos t -"Liberation" informant, th e tomb c omp r i s i n g a coffin and • sar cophagus (both made e nt i r e l y of wood) was no t large .

The black la c qu e r e d coffin

was pla c ed aga i n st 'on e side of t he sarcophagus and the space c ont a i n i n g the burial ob jec ts formed an "L " shape .

Her e again, t h e ' theme of an imbalance in t h e tomb

I t ru c t u r e , is t o b e inferred from t h e des crip tion whi ch Shang o btained.

In all

pro babi lity detail s of the actua l CSM t omb became fa irly generally known amongst the lo cal li t t erati shortly af ter i t s discovery; t h e s e deta ils soon became i n t er mi n g l e d Wit h d e s c r i pt i on s o f o t h e r plunder ed t omb s ; gradually a g en e r a l

stat e of c on f u s i on

ob t a i ned i n t h e c a s e of descriptio~s o f par ti cular tombs . T he Manuscrip t, folded in e i gh t se gments, was earlier supposed to have been found in a b a mb o o c a s k et approxima tely 2) em in length and 1J em in width . does no t

Shang

t hink t h i s s tory i s reliable a n d sta t es t h at t he wid th of t h e Manuscript

f olds wa s great er than t h e wi dth o f

t h e ca s k et .

Although he is c o r rec t in doubting

, t h e c a s k et s to ry t he origina Z f olds of the .Ma nus c r-Lp t do, on t h e c ont r a ry , a·llow it to fit the c a s k e t measurements hi s mea ~urements,

qui~e

comfortably - Shang has mistakenly followed in

the folds that have o ccurred since th e mounting of the Manus cript

follo wing excava ti on .

The c a s k et wa s s upp o s e d l y dis c ov ~red in t h e nor th-south

align ed spa c e a t t he head o f t he coffin wh i l e i n t h e ar ea t o t he righ t of the c o f f i n wer e found, he wa s t o l d :

~~

a la c querp'an-basin

~

; a lacquer pei-cup with

l~gs

1f

; a bronze sword enc l os ed in a wooden case; a bronze k O-dagger-ax e jG ; 24 round-

bodied tomb- f i gures ; an ea rt h enwa re ting- cauldron

hu-vase

-:b"

~tiB -~ff ,-

a tui - cauldron

:¥t ,

and a

Al ongsid e t h e a bo~ e -men ti oned c a s k e t was a pil e of b l a c k funereal clay

~

t a b let s whi ch were unins cribed. Shang goes into considerabl e detail in describing t h e nature of tombs found in the Changsha ar ea.

Ther e a r e two type s , t ho se wi th an accumula ti on of mud and water

wherein t he c ontent s hav e l ar g ely p erished and t h o s e unpolluted by muddy wa ter but nevertheless in a c o mp a r at iv e ly damp s ta t e. found well preserved .

In the la t ter, t he c ontent s are usually

T h e "und er takers" c a l l e d t h e m

1< 11llJ f-

h uo - t ung - t z u , "fi re-

h ol e s " on ac count of the inflammable gases whi ch seeped out when the ce i l i n g planks of : t h e sarcophagus we r e removed . perienced grave

j, ~.

~

robb ~~ who a t tempted t o use a ligh ted can d l e t o eXPlor~ t h e in terior

of the t omb i s c ited . 9

~, ManuscriPt

A c a s e of s eri ous injury which befell one inex-

I t was from a tomb of this type, Shang sugges ts,

tha t

the

was unearthed.

- - - - - - ----9 Cf. Ts'ai Chi-hsiang 's account as reproduced in Shang' s Ch'ang-sha ku-wu wen-chien-chi , A.5b-6a.

I,

THE CH'U SILK 'MANUSCRIPT • TRANSLATION ANO COMMENTARY

8

Throughout; his description o f

the tomb and the details of i ts c o n t e n t s Shang

emphasizee the point 'c h a t he -has based his information upon data provid ed since the "Libera 'cion" by parties who were present at the time of excavation.

W'ith due caution

he observes that there might b e some errors in re collection. In

1942

*

Shang received a n offer of sale of "brush-written silk 'pieces" from a

certain T I ang Chien-ch' {ian

~ ~~

known locally as "Tailor

1-1 angv ,

Shang was in-

formed by a friend whom h e had requested ,t o act on his beh~lf t h at when Tailor Tlang showed him the "Manuscript" i t

was rolled up fragment upon fragment in white paper

and this in turn was rolled in newspap er.

There were n9t many large pieces and the

piles of small fragments would, h e thought, original posi tions.

be very diffi cult to restore t o their

This was in t h e "winter of

1942"

but by the time Shang had

replied, Ts'ai Chi-hsiang had already c o mp l e t e d purchase of the "Manuscript". 10 This part of Shang's ac count is interesting because the Ch'u Silk Manuscript in its original (i.e. unmounted)

state upon recovery c o u l d not have been the same high~y

fragmented collection of "brush-written silk pieces" as just described. in places,

stretched and folded,

It is torn

and with some small fragmen tary pieces pasted around

t h e peripheries but for the most part still comprises a practically continuous piece of fabric except for the centre vertical folded area. Sha.ng t.a dates,

of course,

From the point of view of

the Ch' u Silk Manuscript was already in the USA three to

four years before he received Tailor T'ang's offer of sale.

Possibly all the con-

fusion is due not only to an entirely different silk manuscript but also one from some o ther tomb. 10

11

Chiang Hsiian-yi ~

however:

Y: fs (Ch'ang-sha !it ¥Y ,

1950, Vol. 2, p. 1) in his note on the Manuscript> states,

" .... when [the Manuscript] was excavated at Changsha it came into the hands of a

tailo ~who

attempted to sell it to dealers' agents from various parts of our country but without success.

It was

not until I came to Changsha again from Canton that I learnt he had accepted a small deposit from an American who had taken the Manuscript 'on approval' to the USA and all that was left in the owner's hands was a foreign promissory note".

Jao Tsung-yi observes that there are two stories current on this

matter and that the account concerning the Manuscript comirig into Ts'ai Chi-hsiang's possession related also that he sold it to Cox ("Cllang::'sha Ch'u""!l\u shih-chan shen-wu-t'u-chiian k'ao-shih" j$ !j:JI; ~ !!5 ~

f', Journal of Oriental Studies, , Hon g Kong,

!it ¥Y

~;il ~ .!:i

1954, Vol. I, Pt. 1, p. 67). ' Tung Tso-pin

(loc. cit.) repeats the two stories and settles for the second of these, namely, that Ts'ai actually sold the Manuscript to Cox.

Ts'ai was a friend of Tung's and naturally Tung observes that the second

account is the more creditable one.

However, the source thereof (apparently verbal) is not disclqsed

and we have only Chiang's statement above "in writing" from someone actually "on the spot", cf. also my observations in note 13 below which demonstrate, that the Manuscript was apparently never in Ts'ai's possession at all. 11

It is important to keep in mind, too, that Shang had long before made himself unpopular amongst the

local "undertakers", as he sarcastically refers to the people concerned

- and accordingly few would

volunteer accurate information to him, and seldom could he gain direct access to many of the items unearthed.

So, the participant informed me.

Such points ,mat c h well Shang's own published statements:

if unearthed in the east, they would say:

, Wen-wu 1964.9, p. 8).

in the west •.•. " ("Chan-kuo Ch'u-po-shu shu-liieh"

Such lack of 'reliability amongst the accounts Shang

Ch'eng-tso assembled since "Liberation" would, of course, be of more serious proportions - obviously Shang would then be told only what the "undertakers" thought safe to tell him.

Somet ime after

;:ir go od

t he f i r st dra f t

T h i s r ar e publi c a tion p r i nt e d part ly i n mo v abl e typ e ( ,.;ith ma ny

~ 'p e o i a l ly engra v ed type),

print ing o f

s ev ~ral

p artly by p hoto - lithogr aphy , and with woo d-b l oc k colour

of t h e i l l u s t r a t i o n s i s b oth t e c h n i c a l ly and intrinsi cally a

'Orlt of c o n s i derab le i n tere s t. f'i rs t

l nl our, ,or:l.pt

s e c tion of my surve y wa s wr-Lt t en i t wa s

fortune t o o b t a i n a c ce..ss t o a c o p y of Ts'a i Chi-hsiang's Wan -Cho u ts e n g-s h u

l'ao- ah ' e n g. 12

'h'

of t hi s

As the fi r st p ub lishe d s tudy of t h e Ma n u s c r i pt and

p u b lication cont a ini ng a r eproduc ti o n of t h e Manu s cri p t -

to o, ' -

i t is,

o f' course , a mos t

and i t s backg round .

impor t ant s o urc e fo r

a n d t hi s i n

the study of t h e Manu-

T h e ' t i t l e - p a g e bears t h e da te 19 45 a nd t h e author's

Figu:t'e 3 " Left: The c ov er tit leIt rip ( ~ ~ t 'ai - ah 'i en) o f Ts'ai Chi-hsiang's Wan-Chou ts eng-shu k 'ao oh'eng written by Ts ' ao Tien- ch 'iu . Ri ght:

The t i tle-page written i n ~ s cript by Huang Mien probably a si st er o r niec e o f Ts'ai' s wife. The relationship i s not entirely c lear and l itt l e r e l e vant i nf ormati on a pp e ars either in Ts ' ai ' s p r e f ac e , or i n the Ueh-fu-ahuan r.!l J!lii f~ memor ial i s ing h i s wi fe ( t he two con cluding page s of t h e bpok). His wife I S IIX>ther h a d been marr ied a s e cond time t h us t he p h r as e i.'f T hun -

hsi ao-ahuan /J'

..

'li ng.

~,

preface 1944.

I n t h e P refa c e T s'ai ment i ons aft e r

de t ailing v arious family mis-

tor 'tun es a r i sing fr om t he Japa nese en t ry in t o, Ch a ngsh a in t he summer of 1944, fAmi l y' s i l l -fat e d s e arch f or r efuge i n liddle , of autumn of' that year,

t h e country ,

t hei r

ret u rn t o t he ci t y i n t he

etc., how upon s o rt i n g through hi s luggage he "came

loro ss s e veral s heets of v al u a b l e fa csimile c o p i e s of t h e bamb o o casket;

-l.

the

t he bronze

Mr Fritz , Low-Beer who is well known for his work on Chinese lacquer and as the owner of a choice

tDllection very generously permitted me to take his copy of this book back to Canberra for the preparalion of photographs with the view of r eproducing it in the Supplemen tar y Vol ume of the major survey .

, this volume of reproductions of all studies conducted on the CSM prior to 1967 has ~en in the printer's

,I t

hands for nearly three years awaiting the present owner's instructions regarding the printing of this

end

the major survey.

f;l h hed

r..

I t is, accordingly, most fortunate ' that a facsimile copy ha s ,me a nt im e been pub-

by Yi - wen yin- s hu -kua n ,

~)(

J'lJ if til , Ta i p e i ; ' the scholarly world will, indeed,

be indebted to

Yen' Yi-p' ing for his sympathetic interest 'i n r e p r od ucing such wo r ks of rarity i n ' fac simi l e form, thus

:: lIki ng them generally available.

IV

s wo r-d and s c abbard, Changsha , edi ted ,

e t c.

t h e la cqu er ba s i ns ,

and the la te Ch o u

Whi ch [fac si mi le co p i e s] had earlier ,been hidden away.,,1

e xplana tions co mp i l e d , and a

commentary on the Manuscript t e x t

{I~ i~

then "order ed his elde st son Hsiu-huan d e ta i l followin g

J added.

to p rep a r e drawings perfe c t

He

in e very

t h e original [ f a c s i mi l e ] c o pi e s " and thus ca me in to being ' th H Wan -

, 14 Chou tseng -:shu k ' ao -ch 'e ng . tha t ' the Ma n u sc r i pt wa s occ a s ion

silk writing exc a v at e d , at

There is accordingly,

ev er o wned b y T s ' a i

se ems t o have b een mer e l y th e

-

wha t

a remarkable lack of evidence

he had p ack ed a way on a n

e a r l i er

shee ts of fa csimile c o p i e s which were made

either b y h imself or by som e p ar t y whos e name is no t

r e c orded.

Ts'ai ' s wri tings con fi r m also other de t ails t o u c h e d upon in t h i s c h a p t e r

as tht

f o l l owing p assa ge d em on s tra t es: In r e c ent y ear s many Changsha as a

t h e c ity wal l s . 13

t om bs of C h o u and Ch' i n d ate have been e xc a vat e d a t

r esul t of wid ening and levelling of t h e te r r i t o r y outside T h i s La te Chou silk manus crip t

wi t h bla ck ink wri t ings

So far as I can ascertain it can b e no other than the results of a rather hurried a nd

reading o f the present sentence which has given rise, either d i r e c t l y or indirectly, t o the statemen'i tha t the Ch' u silk Manuscript was in TS' ai's possession (see Ch' en P' an

1Jc

po-shu k'ao','

~ F¥j ~~ ~

i!f

~, BAS Vol. 24, p. 193;

ch ' ang~sha ch'u-t'u Chan-kuo tseng-shu hsin-;hih

Ilt M

"Hsien-Ch' in Liang-Han

Jao Tsung-yi, op. ai ti ; , p . 67, also in his

* i:l' lli ± ¥J. '* ill' ~

duction, or bac kgr ou nd , paragraphs of most other surveys. of the CSM having been in his collection, or possession.

~ f~ , p , l ;

and in

Nowh e re , however, does Ts'ai The earliest published statement to the

effect that Ts'ai had the Manuscript i s in Ch'an P'an's article (loc. cit.) above.

But Ch'en did

have access to Ts'ai's book thus the transmission of the present sentence in a slightly c o u l d easily have given ris e to the error.

It has been followed by succeeding writers.

never possessed the Manuscript or the o t h e r artifacts he refers to - but merely f a c s i mi l e copies of them - the story, apparently originating in Jao's first survey, which relates his selling the Manuscript to Cox would seem to have little or ~o b a s is .

14

According to J a o Tsung-yi (op. cit. 'p. 67 ) Ts'ai had taken photographs of the Manuscript

these made into colour plates;

ch'ang-sha (Vol. 2, PI. 27). graphs of the original ... "

later on a tracing was made by Chiang Hslian-yi and published in his Jao c omme n t s :

"What a pity Chiang did not also incorporate the photo-

So far as I can discover there i s no r ecord of Ts'ai having actually

taken photographs - Ts' ai's own words would s eem to b e fai~ly clear on thi s point ( f;~ :.$: JJ( ~& ) not- ;: wi t hs tand i ng the ambiguity that sometimes attends ying-pen (cf. Mor ohas hi 10019 :55) "a rubbing"

( :h,

'* ) or a

"photographic [printing] plate" ( ~ ~

J:&:

~~ IOn

2J>: ) ~~r !t chiao-p'ien is,

of course, the more usual term for "p hotograph" so far as the significance c oncerned. reasons:

which may mean

Of the character ying is

I believe, furthermore; Ts'ai does not u s e ying-pen in the , s e n s e of ,photograph for threl , (1) t he classifier cheng is generally glossed in dictionaries as the classifi er for "[shes

ofl writing or artwork"

(Morohashi 898 2 ( i!!'

m~

JJ( '" ~

1ii t'L ),

"scrolls" ( iJ· It

the term ying-pen is shortly after referred to by Ts' ai as yUan-pen ( W,l,

fJR 2J>:

{,

i~IJ ~ Q\t

lation above) which does not app ear to be an a pp rop r i a t e way to r efer to "photographs" ,

- see trans'"

(3)

i ng s which Ts'ai's eldest son p r e p a r e d are obviously derived from sketches or drawings made at some ; earlier stage directly from the original items and executed in Chinese style "perspective". photographs were available and copied the results would have been different. so in the case of the CSM hand-copy.

And this is

An Chih-min ~ ~ ~ , who had access to Ts'ai's book and cites

it c op i ou s l y , correctly classified this hand-copy as one made "directly from the original Manuscript (i. e. not from photographs) see his "Ch' ang-sha Chan-kuo tseng-shu ch' i ch' i yu-kuan wen-t' i"

~

'* i!!' :&. J:t;:

1i BM M

m (Wen-wu

1963.9, p , 49).

question in terms of facsimile hand-copies.

* ry '"

It is well evident that he has read the sentences

THE VISCOVERY OF THE CH'U

MANUSCRIPT

~ILK

11

was [amongst several] found in a late Chou tomb containing a wooden sarcophagus [excavated somewhere] in the Eastern Suburbs. were neatly folded and stored in a bamboo casket. people did not know how to take care of them, came damaged.

The 'ma n u s c r i p t s

Unfortunately the Local

so that more than half

be~

Consequently, many broken fragments of silk fill.ed the Only the present Manuscript is complete and without mis~

bamboo casket.

sing pieces . •.• (op.

cit.

1. t a },

The existence of more than one silk manuscript was realized only re c ,ently and independently of information ob tained from the participant. thus valuable

f~rther

support although it

w~s

15

Ts'ai's account

recorded long ago - many of the

"levant details being unnoticed by other scholars who had access to the book,

except

tor An Chih-min who has cited the present passage amongst others (Wen-wu, 1963.9,

48).

The passage c o n t i n u e s significantly:

•••• and furthermore effectively demonstrates the fact that the [ground of the] document is silk. years,

it has turned

int~

As it has been buried i n the soil for many a Gdeep brown colour which to some extent inter-

mingles and blends with the [colour of the] characters. It is 15 inches 16 in width . and 18 inches in length. The writing is in black ink (amongst some of the broken fragments of silk,

there were instances also of charac-

ters written in red ink) and the characters executed as small as flyheads.

The brush-strokes are uniform and orderly; in every respect the

calligraphic style is that of the Liu-kuo [the Six S ta tes of the Chan-kuo period] ••••• (l.lb) Tl1ai's record of red characters on some of the fragmentary pieces would. seem to l\lggest that loose pieces of the Second Manuscript were also withdrawn together with

the

CSM in addition to the ink and fibre remnants presently bonded to its . surface.

Unfortunately, however, being unaware that Second Manuscript fragments were, adhering to the surface of the CSM,

indeed,

it did not occur to me to question the partici-

pant thoroughly as t o whether any appreciable number of fragmen tary pieces of the other"Manuscripts l

he reported seeing were also retrieved.

Query was,

of course,

See details in Jean Mailey's contribution in Early 'Chinese Art and its Possible Influence in the

"Qific Basin (Noel Barnard, Editor):

"Suggestions Concerning the Ground of the Ch'u Silk Manuscript

&1'1 ~lation to Silk.,.wei;iving in Pre-Han and Han China" and also my survey scientific Examination •... ~.

16).

It was not until some time after my interviews with the participant that the results of

"C1hnical 'examination conducted in the Metropolitan Museum revealed that traces of both ink and fabric Itmnants of a further silk document were adhering to the surface.

Hitherto, all of us who had studied

Manuscript simply assumed that the character remnants were the result of someone writing over Man~script.

original surface - or perhaps, the characters were on the under surface of the

I use .the terms "width" and "length" here .for Ts I ai I s WE tsung and tfi huang so as to accord with the I,levant data presented in Scientific Examination •••. (p. 13).

Upon comparison it will be observed

,hat Ts I ai's measurements are approximately 1/2" more for. both width and length.

possible this varia-

'Lon may indicate shrinkage or it may merely be due to rough and ready measurement.

As to Ts'ai's

.'.cription of the deep brown colour of the silk ground in terms of this being the consequence of ~~rial

and the colour as observed after excavation, this, too fits in with the details

Jlrticipant.

give~by

the

Also it supports well the doubts I raised (op.cit. p. 19) regarding T .H. TSien's state-

'Int that the colour change took place since its recovery from burial (Written on Bamboo and Silk, pp. U2-l23) •

THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY mad e i n res p ec t of oth er comp lete "Manus cript s" b e i ng re covered.

,.

Ts'a i's re cord a bove may thu s b e fai rl y r eliable insofar as o f t he other

" Ha n u scr i pts " migh t,

indeed, ha ve come to light to g e th er wi th t he CSM _

a ll · p robably a dhe r i ng to t h e CSM t og eth e r with pi e c es of t h e Se cond Manu scr i pt . wou l d have be e n d e ta ched d u ring c l e an i n g an d moun t i n g op era tions. On e impressi o n t ha t r e i gn s st r on g ly in my mi n d after d u e c o n s i der at i on o f s uc h informa t i on as T S'a i h as r ec o r d e d wh ich h as beari ng u pon t h e dis co v e ry of t heC h ' u Silk Manusc ript i s t h a t he wa s no t h ims elf ent i r e ly , le t alone dir e c tly, c o nv e r s ant wit h t he d e t ails o ~ t h e f ind.

I t wo u l d s eem e viden t eno u g h fr om b o th t he c o n t e n t

and t he manner of his present a tion t h at he wa s mainl y working upon se cond-hand informa t ion.

In his remar ka bly b r ief accoun t o f

t h e to mb s truc tur e h e expands his

tex t wi th elaboration s based upon passages sele c ted from t h e traditi onal li terature. TS' ai was, however, one o f t he bes t informe d p ersons in r egard to t he f inds made in Chang sha during the p eri od of exc a v a t i o n and levelling for road con st r uc t ion and building programmes out s i de t he c ity wall.

Sha n g mak es f r e q u e nt r ef erence in his

Ch 'a ng -sha ku -wu wen -chi e n -chi to t he ar t object s whic h came in to Ts ' a i's h and s and r ei ies a g reat d eal u pon . h i s desc ri pt i on s of bur ial con d iti o n s .

Ts I ai wr i t ing sev e n

o r mor e yea r s la ter probabl y d re,,, upon h i s n o tes and re c olle c ti ons · of det ai l s sp e cifically c o ncer ned wit h t h e CS M tomb wh ic h h e simply e laborated wi t h r el e van t info rmat ion d eriving from oth er t o mbs of c omparab le s t yl e and d a te .

1~~f>1

r-

I

I!

I if

~t

~

I I 1

, I

I I I

JD

I I

... ~

0.

1\ t

,I I

I I I

I I-----~;.D'I:- ..

---

-.:- - --+ -;;~ "'--=-1

I Figure 4 Plan , s ec tion , and general reconst ruct i on of a Changsha tomo of t he type in which t he CSM was sa i d t o have b een f oun d (a ccording to Ts 'ai Chi -hs iang) . One of t he two large r ect angle s i n t he plan represent s the coffin and the other , a box of identical s i ze i n which the ming-o h 'i were s upposedly stored. The lat t er i tem is very much open t o ques t ion. I n t he r i ght-hand drawi ng i t i s i nteresting to observe t he artist 's misapprehens i on .of t he nature of corner j oi ns. The dome-like s hape surmounting the s tructure compri s e s lime ; bamboo mat t i ng covers t he cei l i ng boards of t he tomb . So f a r as t h e early his tory of t h e Manus crip t a nd i ts dis co very is c o nc e r ned t h e r e appears to be little i nf o r~at i o n avail able o v e r and above t h at recorded in the pre c eding pages.

It wa s unearthed in 1934; apparen tly remained in t h e possession of

a t a i l o r namedT'ang Chien- ch'uan until circa 1938 wh en it came into th e hands of

THE VISCOVERY OF THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT Hadley Cox.

13

In this year it was taken from Changsha to the USA and practically

:Lng seems to have been known of its existence either Cin Changsha or in Washington ")

New Haven) until Ts'ai's survey and its illustration of this unique treasure was Curiously Ts'ai makes no mention of the whereabouts of the Manuscript and entirely unaware that it had been taken to the USA some five or years before.

It is conspicuously absent amongst the fine objects d'art from

Oox collection exhibited in the Gallery of Fine Arts at Yale id'1939.

Only in

when the two volumes of Chiang Hsuan-yi's Ch'ang-aha were published did it known that the CSM was in private hands in the USA. 17 It would be sheer speculation on my part to attempt any explanation regarding lack of information and the secrecy attending the existence of the Manuscript ~

1945.

It is, however, common knowledge amongst museum staff, collectors,

and others interested in such matters that for some time after this date • Manuscript was on offer to various Institutes in the USA for a. considerable s~ Owing to its illegible appearance and the fact that it was not a work of suitable for display purposes , it apparently was not considered attractive to warrant any appreciably large outlay to secure it.

Other

were, no doubt, instrumental in creating the generally cool reception CSM concern the primitive manner in which' this valuable document was r,served" during the long period it was off~red to various Museums; the general '/il"tment and storage methods are not, unfortunately, of a level calculated to elicit One of the two previous owners had pasted it to a sheet of thick, coarse This was kept in a roughly made folder of two equally thick and coarse It was in this condition that I first saw the in late 1961 in the Metropolitan Museum. "

lurface abrasion.

So far as I

18

The major danger here was

t~t

can judge from detailed examination of the "Met."

I'otographs against those prepared by Acto Scientific Photographic Laboratory Inc.

Ihere ~'h'

does not, however, appear to have been appreciable surface damage caused to

fabric. 19

The method of storage had, of course,

the advantage of allowing easy

<~

~I'

Strangely, amongst several early studies touching upon the CSM and citing Ch'ang-sha (some even Chiang's hand-copy of the CSM), the association of the Manuscript with Cox and the fact in the USA seems to have missed each author's attention.

E.G . Alfred Salmony's "Antler

Tongue" (Artibus Asiae, Supplementum XIII, 1954) wherein various items in the J.H. Cox collection noted but the several references to and illustrations from the CSM are derived from Ts'ai and lng's books.

Similarly, Michael Sullivan in his "Pictorial Art and the Attitude ' Towa r d Nature in

.Lent China"(The Art Bulletin, Vol. XXXVI, No,

1, March, 1954;

p. 115, Fig. I}, William Willetts in

I Chinese Art (Pelican Books, 1958, p. 534), etc . It should be appreciated that the details noted here describe the condition of the Manuscript as itted to the

Metropolitan~Museum; ~f

in no way is this record to be inferred as criticism of the

storage and its general care of the CSM - this I found to be eminently satisfactory

indeed, one would expect it to be. Some pigment from the ink . of the characters seems, however, to have suffered slight abrasion and

THE CH'USILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION ANV COMMENTARY

14

ventilation owing to warpage of. the cardboard; its porosity,

too, wouLd doubtless

have been an important consideration, particularly on occasions when the Manuscript was withdrawn from the museum environment of regulated temperature and humidity. Such happy aspects attending the rough and ready nature of the folders used, were accidental pieces of good fortune;

to what extent, however, friction between the

Manuscript surface and the rough folder surface may have damaged the coloured pigments of the Peripheral. Figures and the character ink pigment prior to 1961 (when the Met. photographs were made) cannot be ascertained.

A very disconcerting featur, ;

requiring comment in this connection is, of course, the rust imprints of Westernstyle drawing pins (thumb-tacks) in each corner of t h e modern silk backing. . . .

These

bear witness to a remarkably primitive and careless mode of display adopted, in all probability, by the second owner; the rusty nature of the imprints would appreciably long period of indoors exposure under humid conditions. In mid-1964 the several years' long seclusion of the Manuscript in the Metropoli·tan Museum came to an end and it was placed in a dealer's hands for sale. stripping away the cardboard backing he sandwiched the Manuscript between

t~o

of glass, the .b o t t o m sheet being frosted glass while the top sheet was clear glass. The two. glass sheets were secured tightly together with strips of selo tape. 20 ,

A

wooden stand was constructed with grooves into which the glass-enclosed Manuscript was inserted.

A desk lamp surmounted the structure and on one side was

a humidity meter.

Heath-Robinson himself would have been hard put to create a con- ;

traption better able to ensure the slow but certain deterioration of an archaeologiQ

5).

document of known swamp origin (Figure truction, even in a Museum storeroom, obvious enough.

The great danger of its immediate des-

through accidental breakage of the glass,

is

Assuming, however, that no such accident should eventuate we may

imagine with equal concern the effect of prolonged subjection to an agreeable tempe ature and constant humidity,

such as is maintained in the museum environment, upon

?nventilated organic material of this kind.

Associated with this avenue

deterioration of the Manuscript was the equally evident possibility that within a matter of months some areas of the Manuscript pressed in direct contact with the glass surface would gradually come to adhere to the impervious surface.

When this

in some cases the Met. · photographs present a clearer and more complete-appearing version of a of characters.

In the later stages of my work on the CSM text and the characters, I made detailed

comparisons with the Met. photographs and found in a few cases the effort involved was of value. evant observations are presented from time to time in rtr:l conment.ary later. 20

Before its enclosure between the sheets of glass, the Manuscript was taken to Acto scientific

Photographic Laboratory Ind., New York, where a rush order for photographs was made, 5" x 7" infrared negatives were prepared and from these, enlargements to almost natural size Because of the hurried work demanded by the dealer, focus was not particularly sharp.

A set

photographs was sent to Heibonsha by one of the dealer's staff and was later forwarded to Hayashi Mi who prepared his short revised survey upon the basis of these photographs: hakusho kc3 hosei" ~ til ill

±

~ ~

r'fi i!' "!r *ill 1£

(Toho gakuhO )it

13

* fli,

"Chosa shutiaudo Senkoku

Vol. 37, 1966).

THE VIStOVERY OF THE CH'U

SILKMANUSC~IPT

15

r e a ch ed an advanced stage a t tempts to free it from t h e glass would almost in irremedi a ble damage t o ar eas of t h e Manus cript In January, lupervision.

surface.

19 6 6, a preliminary programme of photographi c work commenced under Acto S c ientifi c Pho to graphi c Labora tory Inc. undertook t h e te chni cal

of the project as described in S c i e n ti fic Exami na ti o n ... (p. 2J ) .

It may

be regarded as a matter of g o od for tune i n view of the preceding observa tions pI: removal o f

t h e Marru s c r-Lp t

from the glass she e ts "as no t permit t ed a t t h i s s tage.

of pho to graphy was co n d ucted wi th t he glass sheets s till in place , t h u s case o f p o tent ial pi gme n t d a mage tha t mi ght o c cur during t he ultima te the g l a s s she ets.

So far as a c ur s o ry insp ec ti on wi l l allow, I could

li t tl e evidence t o indi cate t h a t a c tual damage had occurred when I the o r igi n a l Manus cript -

las t

the glass shee ts had been removed - late in 19 6 9.

apprai sal would, however, require the preparation o f a new set of photo,rAphs a n d inter- comparis on wi t h t h o s e made in 19 6 6 and 19 61.

Figure 5 Stand made f or t he CSM wit h a l amp and humidity met er . The manuscript was sandwiched between gl as s sheets which were held together wi th se.l.o tape as s hown on t.he ri ght; the l ower sheet of glas s was f rost ed and the upp er sheet cl ear . (Redrawn after aut hor ' s sk etch made f rom memory) .

During this las t o c casion wh en I wa s able to examine t h e Ch'u Silk Manus cript

It close quar ters, i t was most pleasing to obs erve that every possible means of .nluring its pr eservation had been tak en.

It was t h en ( and hopefully i t still is)

in t h e Met ropoli tan Mu s e um wh ose staff had spared n o effort in des igning a c ont a i n e r for i t. Having surveyed t h i s s par s e

~nd

r ather he terogeneous array of dat a i t remains

t o a t temp t a n assessmen t of t h e significance of the Ch'u Silk Manuscript in · ' or ms of the provenance details that have come to our at tention.

In earlier studies

the Manus cript the opinion has been advanced that it had a magical purpose such to "quieten t he grave" (Jao Tsung-yi), to "pro tect the dead" (An Chih-:-min), etc.

THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION ANV COMMENTARY

16

/ '

A.F. P. Hulsewe writing on these points ("Texts in Tombs", Asiatisahe Studien

XVIII!

XIX: 7 8-79) poncludes that such was indeed the function of the Manuscript which "with its pictures or

[= of) the good spirits or gods fulfilled the role played in

other cases by images of some of these spirits, like the goggle-eyed and horned creature found in another Ch'ang-sha tomb".

~7(~1~

ahuan

ft

may have been placed (together with the other texts) in the Wei

tomb reported to have been discovered in 279 A.D.

Other World ll

21 •

that the Mu-t'ien-tzu

He suggests, too,

"to serve as a guide to the

These are the only two instances of seemingly appropriate "archaeo-

logical" texts which might give rise to specuj.a t t on on the existence of such customs attending burial practices in ancient China.

The .l a t t e r , however, is surely to be offere~ >

regarded as a doubtful case because, in addition to such guidance as might be by the Mu-t'ien-tzu ahuan,

so many and varied are the other literary materials said

to have been incorporated in the Wei tomb that their presence, Assuming that a

tomb containing literary remains was,

explaine~,:

too, must be

indeed, discovered in 279 A.D.

we may now the better assess the significance of its alleged contents in terms of the well known Wu-wei find.

No one,

it may be recollected, has attempted to see any

special magical or mystical motives behind the placement of the Yi-ti

~mt

tablets

on the male tomb-occupant's coffin-lid; a quite realistic interpretation in terms 'of

'*

the ancient worthy being a specialist on the Books of Ceremony and possibly also an official in the commandery seminary (ahun-wen-hsueh kuan the excellent survey by Ch'en Meng-chia Wu-wei Han-coh i en

WJt '§[) appears lEt.oo<; ~M(p. 9).22

in A

similar assessment would seem possible in respect of the Chi-chUn tombs to which Hulsewe refers;

in this instance,

the tomb-occupant might surely appear as a scholar

of exceptionaIly extensive interests. 21

Amongst the numerous titles supposedly found

For details relating to the Chi-chun 7~ ~ find in the 5th year of Hsien-ning ~ ~ reign-period as

reported in the Chin-shu ~ :§ and 'other sources, see my forthcoming "Some Further Thoughts on the Chronology of Western Chou".

tT

chi-nien

:§

*c.

-'¥ "The

A particularly interesting appraisal on the authenticity of the Chu-shu

Bamboo Annals", one of the best known texts purporting to have been recovered

from the same tomb, has been recently published:

tt 'i!t

~

-'¥

(J)

~&

it '11:

(Kokugakuin zasshi ~

&! i>.it

Yamada Suberu LlJ EB *1f. ~ ~

"Chikushokinen no kodaisei"

Vol. 61, pp. 1-21).

actually the continuation of his earlier study in Chllgoku kodaishi kenkyu


In this paper, which is ~

ti 1"1;

~

m:

~ (see Bib-

liography), doubts as to there having been Wei tombs in the area of the alleged discovery seem to be implied.

This matter is not only of immediate interest but it is also particularly important in

to the unreliability of the 1027 B.C. dating system for Western Chou (see my survey in Monumenta Vol. XIX,

[1960] pp. 489-515 and also my recently published The First Radiocarbon Dates from China,

No.8 in the present Monograph series). paper above. 22

Yamada's investigation will receive further attention in my '-""

In the Bibliography Ch'en is recorded as "author" of theWU-rarei Han-chien.

It would seem to me to

be right and proper practice that true scholarship should be unconditionally recognised and not rele-

gat~d to a me~ postscript as on p. 198 in this sumptuously printed Report.

That Ch'en Meng-shia's

authorship and name should be denied its rightful place 'on the title-page and positioned thus in descending order 'of ' cre.;lits after a brief listing of the authorship of the four pp. archaeological the name's of the photographer and the calligrapher - no less than 187 pages of the total of 198 pages of text were written by Ch'en - is surely a situation that can hardly be considered fair.

THE

DISCOVERY OF THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT

t h e Bamboo Anna ls , t h e Y i- ~ h i ng

17

, t h e Shi h- ah'u n

ahuan , etc . i •.e. b o o ks on hist ory, d ivination, t r ave l s , and va r i ou s T o singl e out mere l y t h e Mu - t 'ien -tzu ahuan a s a basi s o f as s e s s ment

As t o t h e Ch'u Silk Man uscrip t, howe ver , t he s i t uat i on is now be t t er unders t ood i t wa s when Hulsek e wro te.

I t wa s n ot some hi ghly revered li terary o r

pla ced i n a ca s k et a n d s e t i n a n honoured posi tion wi thin the tomb . 2J

G th e

so le manuscript

in . t he t o mb -

rel i gious I t wa s

on t h i s po in t we have not only the participan t'p

t ake i nto a c count, and T s 'ai Chi - hs ian g 's des crip t i ve notes also t he f act t h at p o r tions o f another silk documen t wi th red c h a r ac t e r s ar e s till

li•• • ..· - - - - - · · · · · ·

lJ'igure 6 Inci sed characters amon gst t h e prefabric.ated planks o f Tomb 406; the graphs shang "top", · hsi a "below", yu "right-hand", t zu- yu "from the right", et c . are easily recognis ed. The plan and end elevation alongsi de ill us t r at e the locations of the ch aracters. (After Ch ' ang- sha fa-a hueh pao-kao.p. 20). Idhering t o t he surfa ce o f

Ira 1

t he Ch ' u Silk Manuscript.

I t was t h u s simply one of sev-

brush-wri t ten do cumen t s whi ch had been roughly fold ed and placed between t h e

WOOd en planks de s c r i b e d earli er.

Perhaps the folded silk pie ces had been insert ed

the p l a n k s me rely t o l evel wa rped sec tions?

Or poss ibly t h e foreman and

who h ad b e e n consul t ing t he manuscripts during a recess pla ced t h e m th ereunder forgot to re trieve them? our

a.

If we may indulge in spe culations regarding this situ-

guess es will t e n d largely towa r d s such explanat ions.

Although of Han date, the r ecently excavated · painted silk banner 'f r om the well known Ma-wang-tui find

., Changsha, wi th its colourful representations of various mythical dieties and legendary events, would

, ••m to provide an example of the practice of including pictorial "guides" to the other World o'f the discussed by HUlsew~ and Jao above.

The relevant significance of this important find is discussed

detail in my survey entitled The Origin and the Nature of ,t he Art of Ch'u, Monographs on Far History No.6.

Lo. )f

d

THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATION ANV COMMENTARY

18 The very ~olded

~act

that the Manuscript and the companion silk pieces were found in

state i6 a point of major importance.

have been rolled into scroll form

~or the deceased. 24

i~

Documents of this kind would surely

placed in the tomb as part of the furnishings

Because the manuscripts were folded and placed between buildin,

materials, probably left as an oversight during the course of the tomb's prob~

we may assume with some degree of confidence that materials of this kind would ably have meant little more to people

o~

that period than does a newspaper or

to a modern artisan in a mausoleum construction company.

maga~i

If this interpretation ia

correct in principle the implications in respect of the extent of literacy and the volume of literature that must have been current in the state of Ch'u aircq 500-400 B.C. are obvious.

One would not, of course, seek to press the point

too far.

are, of course, other grounds upon which we may make assessments as to the extent literacy amongst the merchant and artisan classes: stamping of pottery, tombs,

etc.

the inscribing of coins,

the

the inventories of grave goods sometimes left (accidentally?)

So far as ordinary workmen are concerned, some knowledge of characters

may be ascribed to them, as evidenced in the practice of numbering the individual planks of wood prefabricated for t h e tombs.

In foundry remains are sometimes to be

noted identifying graphs on mould-sections; iron founders often incorporated graphs which seem to comprise a name plus a sort of title.

Data of this kind (Figure 7)

would certainly not only indicate literacy amongst merchants where it surely would expected but also in workshops it is thus evident that at least the more responsibll employees had a knowledge of writing.

24

One example of what was be'Ld.eved to be a scroll containing writing is described by Shang {Ch" ang-o

ku-wu wen-chien -chi, A.46al:

~'A

tied-up scroll of silk excavated from the Ch'u tomb in the

- 35 ern in length, diameter 7-8 ern.

O~~hanag.

A wooden roller with both ends lacquered in red was in

[i.e. the silk being rolled around it], the roller was 44 ern in length.

Ta'ai Chi-hsiang was madly

happy when he got this item believing it would pzobabf.y be found to contain written characters. he returned home with it it in kerosene

[~nd

attempted to] unroll the silk it started to drop off in flakes.

[* ?mJ but still could not release

the silk.

in colour and had shrunken and fallen away from the roller. might have been."

He

By the end of the day it had turned In the end he did not know what the con

2 THE CHARACTERS ANV THE CALLIGRAPHY OF THE

CH'USILK MANUSCRIPT <

the least explored amongst. the various possible avenues of investigation to the Ch'u Silk Manuscript is that concerned with the characters and t h e Chinese and Japanese scholars barely discuss t h e subject probably ~.cause

the art and practice of calligraphy is so thoroughly familiar to them that

they find little of particular importance to comment upon. photographs may possibly appear to be a reason. ,

Lack of access to clear

Bu t notwithstanding the fact that

the infrared photographs have been made available to several prominent scholars of the Manuscript, the subject of calligraphy still remains essen,tially untouched. R.cently, for instance, Jaq Tsung-yi has published a beautifully executed 'h a n d - c op y

of almos t photographic exactitude of the entire text

pp. 6-7)

(Ku-~ung

chi-k'an, 18 68, 3.2, .

which is reproduced in 'the present volume together with the severalearl~er

Versions in Appendix A.

Yet with access to the infraFed photographs only minimal

comment is given to calligraphic matters.

Amongst Westerners who have a ttemp ted

Appraisals only William Willet ts (Chinese Art, Vol. 2, p. 534) has offered comment in lome detail and this made at an early stage upon the basis of the limi ted data then available: A piece of plain white silk excavated at Ch'ang-sha together with objects apparently dating from the third century B.C. is inscribed in a black pigmen t with what is perhaps a scribe's copy from some other manuscript.

As far as can be told from the pho tographs, the line is

not modulated, which suggests that it may have been done with some form of wooden stylus rather than with a brush. Willetts' observation on the lack of line modulation provides reasonable ground for bis suggestion that a stylus was employed in the writing.

Although he was mistaken

in believing the reproductions in Ch ' an g- s h a to be "photographs" of the original Manuscript, it may sur~ly be claimed that Chiang Hsuan-yi's hand-copy does not really .ucceed in simulating brush-stroke calligraphy.

1

In recent decades archaeological materials suitable for the study of pre-Han calligraphy have come to light in considerable quantities. of documents containing brush-written characters.

Amongst these is a number

The ground of the documents ranges

through bone, ceramics, jade, bamboo, and silk - the .CSM and the Second Manuscript remnants being the sole examples of brush-writing on silk unearthed to date. logically, the range is likewise e~tensive though not comprehensive: 1

The caption relating to the two-page spread of the CSM reproduction states:

on silk; purple (

[the figures] around the peiipherary are rendered in three colours:-

*,

Chrono-

brush-writing

"Plate 27:

Paintings

crimson, blue, and

M , ¥I: ' ); spaces left. open amongst the characters indicate smudged and indistinct graphs

- there is no way to trace or copy' them."

(Vol. 2, p. 2 at back of book).

19

THE CH'U SILK MANUSCRIPT - TRANSLATioN AND COMMENTARY

20

on o r-a c Le bones and ceramics of Shang date, ' and on jade, bamboo tablets, ceramics, and silk of Chan-kuo times.

Examples of Western Chou and Ch'un-ch'iu period brush-

writing, however, have not yet appeared.

Unfortunately, available reproductions of

the·original .documents are not always clear ·a n d the overall quality is poor, thus detailed study of nuances Ln the calligraphy is often not .p o s s i b l e .

Nevertheless.',

consultation ' of such sources is necessary and some information of value is to be noted.

Attention mus t be extended also to early Han brush-writing which, not unex-

'p eo t ed Ly , still preserves both structural and calligraphic features that are obviou.J, of Chan-kuo, or earli er, origin although the scrip t is otherwise distinctly Han in character. A small selection of such brush-written documents is reproduced in Plate 1 together with a part of Text B from the Ch'u Silk Manuscript.

2

The general contrast

techni cal execution of the brush-strokes immediately catches the eye:

the. marked

t e n d e ncy ' towards angularity where curvature previously held ~way, e.g. the "silk" element in the

Chan~kuo

period examples B:

1-7,

as against fhe sharp-cornered Han cases in E: against F; B:

1-6,; the "mea t " element in B:

1-8, .1..,.28,

1-29; C:

1; D:. 8, 9; etc.

1, 2; the "month" graph in B: 1-5

2-28 against E: 8; etc.

In the graphs

1-27, 5-25 and in F: . 1:-19 the two back-to-back "L" shaped upper-strokes in the

Chan:-kuo version become simple straight horizontal strokes in the Han version; 's i mi larly 'note the curved · cross-stroke in "five" inB: F:

1-3:

4-8 which is straightened out in

Many and various other such technical changes in the execution of strokes,

and i11: the writing of combinations of strokes forming elements, might be investigated more extensively and methodically t h r ou gh ou t writ teI1 ,'docw:ilen ts to good effect.

the presently available corpus or brush-

The resulting observations ass embled together in

systematic groupings may be expected to demonst,rate, furthermore,

the effect of a

marked change that occurred in late Chan-kuo times in the nature and the construction of the writing brush (see Figure 7) ,

The influence of the new type of brush upon

execution of character strokes may be observed not only in respect of the "shape" of the character stroke, oro£ the .c omb i n a t i o n s of strokes (i.e. elements), but also in Lts effect upon the "structures" of strokes and of individual elements.

The latter

coric epf Lnvo Lve s fundamental considerations in both the method of writing and the manner in which an element is constructed by an orderly combination of individual strokes -

2

i.e. stroke order.

Referencen~ers alongside

·the

In Figure 8 below a simple exposition of the concept

character~

in the incomplete section of TextB here accord

used throughout my papers in this series of surveys; B.1-5, and so on.

the first character in line 1 is B.1-4, the

Sources of the individual texts in Plate 1 may be conveniently recorded here.

pottery shetd.with the character ~ ssu (after Li Chi, 1956:

Pl. XXII, ElBl).

B:

The CSM.

brush-written bamboo tablets from Yang-t'ien::-hu fCjJ 11: iM (after K'ao-ku hsUeh-pao, 1957.1:

A,

C,D: ' Pl. 4 Iopp,

p , 103]) . ..' E: Wood tablet with brush writing of Han date from Chii-yen, Inner Mongolia (after Maspero, . 1953: pien)

PI. I , 1 [b]).

r.s-

~

F:

A further example from Chii-yen of Han date . (after Cllii-yen Han-chien [chia-

il M [!f' Iilil ], PI. 17, 97A).

For full bibliographical data see Bibliography.