Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals
Encyclopedia
The Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals is one of the work that has survived to the present that was attributed to Dong Zhongshu
, but compilation might had lasted until 4th century. It is 82 chapters long and about 72,000 words, although 3 of the chapters within the present text have been lost and there is considerable textual confusion in other chapters. In its current form, the book deals with issues such as the five elements
, and their relation to politics. One of the chapters in this book presents the concept of the "source" (元), which became important to later Neo-Confucianism
.
, which did not happen until a century after the death of Dong. The title Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals is not listed in the Book of Han
, and there are no references whatsoever to any book of that name before 4th century mentioned by Ge Hong
, 500 years after Dong's death.
Whether the work did written by Dong himself has been called into question by several scholars including Zhu Xi
, Cheng Yanzuo, Dai Junren, Keimatsu Mitsuo, and Tanaka Masami. Scholars now reject as later additions all the passages that discuss five elements
theory, and much of the rest of the work is questionable as well. It seems safest to regard it as a collection of unrelated or loosely related chapters and shorter works, which could be subdivided into five categories. Most more or less connected to the Gongyang Commentary
and its school, written by a number of different persons at different times throughout the Han Dynasty
.
Indeed, it may be nothing more than the mislabeled remains of a book listed in the Book of Han, the 82-chapter Miscellaneous Records of the Gongyang School (公羊雜記). Nevertheless, the Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals should not be cast aside, especially since it seems to be a misattribution rather than an outright forgery. It remains a valuable compendium of early and mid-Han Confucian thought, if properly interpreted and contextualized, and it had a certain amount of influence on later thinkers.
Section A, the Annals group, chapters 1-17, is characterized by a concentration on the meaning of Annals texts, or on more general principles extracted from the canon.
Section B is the "Huang-Lao
" or "Daoist" group. This is one of the better-recognized subdivisions in the text. It is composed of the chapter titles from 18 to 22 and the chapter texts from 19 to 22. (The text of Chapter 18, for reasons discussed elsewhere, should be repositioned in Section G2). One can underestimate the amount of Confucian thought in these essays, some of it displayed in a very subtle manner, but on the whole the spirit is Huang-lao and the canon and Confucian norms are taken lightly here.
Section C concerns political and ethical theory, and once again the chapters can be subdivided into three smaller groupings:
Section D, from 38, "Reply on the Five Forces" to 57, "Things of the same kind stimulate each other," discuss the stimulus-response relationship between Heaven and man. Most chapters in the group make extensive use of Yin-Yang and Five Forces concepts, separately or in combination. There is little evident order in the sequence they are presented, and three of the chapters (39, 40, and 54) are missing.
Section E, which runs from Chapter 58, "The mutual production of the Five Forces," to 64, "The Five Forces and the Five Affairs," also discusses stimulus-response cosmology. However, the overwheming influence in these chapters is from Five Forces theory: the words "Five Forces" appear in each of the chapter titles, and Yin-Yang is in a very subordinate position when used at all. As Tanaka Masami and Sarah Queen have pointed out (echoing Su Yu), many close parallels to the Huang-lao Daoist work Huai nanzi can be found here.
Section F, the twelve chapters from 65, "A discourse on the suburban sacrifice," to 76, "The significance of sacrifices," discusses sacrificial services. Most of the first half of this section is devoted to discussion of the suburban sacrifice, but the texts are in bad shape and the damage seems to be very early. Other topics covered include the four seasonal sacrifices and the starting and stopping of rain (chapters 74 and 75). There is also Chapter 73, the "Praise-ode to mountains and rivers," which can be confidently dated to the last few decades of Former Han at the latest.
Section G is a mixed bag of sometimes rather dull political texts and documents from the yangsheng "nourishing life" school. Only two of the chapters, 79, "The birthplace of severity and moral power," and 80, "Like the doings of Heaven," have proper titles. Chapters 77, "Following the Way of Heaven," 78, "The actions of Heaven and earth," 81, "Heaven, earth, Yin, and Yang," and 82, "The Way of Heaven acts," all lack their own titles and pass under the first few characters of their text. The "Chapter 18" text, minus its title, also belongs in this group. (The only other chapters in the book with disturbed or irregular titles are Chapter 1, "King Zhuang of Chu," where the original title "Luxuriant Dew" (Fanlu) was appropriated as part of the book title, and Chapter 67, "The suburban sacrifice," where the copyist omitted removing the original title from the head of the essay when the text was recopied.)
The chapters in Section G fall into two groups:
Dong Zhongshu
Dong Zhongshu was a Han Dynasty Chinese scholar. He is traditionally associated with the promotion of Confucianism as the official ideology of the Chinese imperial state.-History:...
, but compilation might had lasted until 4th century. It is 82 chapters long and about 72,000 words, although 3 of the chapters within the present text have been lost and there is considerable textual confusion in other chapters. In its current form, the book deals with issues such as the five elements
Five elements (Chinese philosophy)
The Wu Xing, also known as the Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, and the Five Steps/Stages, are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, in many traditional Chinese fields....
, and their relation to politics. One of the chapters in this book presents the concept of the "source" (元), which became important to later Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism is an ethical and metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, that was primarily developed during the Song Dynasty and Ming Dynasty, but which can be traced back to Han Yu and Li Ao in the Tang Dynasty....
.
Authorships
The work cannot be considered an authentic work by Dong or even a work where the majority of the writing is by him. It bears many marks of multiple authorship, and is both externally contradictory with other material on Dong's thought, and inconsistent with itself. Different chapters espouse mutually contradictory cosmological schema, and there even seem to be references to the rise of Wang MangWang Mang
Wang Mang , courtesy name Jujun , was a Han Dynasty official who seized the throne from the Liu family and founded the Xin Dynasty , ruling AD 9–23. The Han dynasty was restored after his overthrow and his rule marks the separation between the Western Han Dynasty and Eastern Han Dynasty...
, which did not happen until a century after the death of Dong. The title Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals is not listed in the Book of Han
Book of Han
The Book of Han, Hanshu or History of the Former Han Dynasty |Fan Ye]] . Various scholars have estimated that the earliest material covered in the book dates back to between 206 and 202 BCE...
, and there are no references whatsoever to any book of that name before 4th century mentioned by Ge Hong
Ge Hong
Ge Hong , courtesy name Zhichuan , was a minor southern official during the Jìn Dynasty of China, best known for his interest in Daoism, alchemy, and techniques of longevity...
, 500 years after Dong's death.
Whether the work did written by Dong himself has been called into question by several scholars including Zhu Xi
Zhu Xi
Zhū Xī or Chu Hsi was a Song Dynasty Confucian scholar who became the leading figure of the School of Principle and the most influential rationalist Neo-Confucian in China...
, Cheng Yanzuo, Dai Junren, Keimatsu Mitsuo, and Tanaka Masami. Scholars now reject as later additions all the passages that discuss five elements
Five elements (Chinese philosophy)
The Wu Xing, also known as the Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, and the Five Steps/Stages, are chiefly an ancient mnemonic device, in many traditional Chinese fields....
theory, and much of the rest of the work is questionable as well. It seems safest to regard it as a collection of unrelated or loosely related chapters and shorter works, which could be subdivided into five categories. Most more or less connected to the Gongyang Commentary
Gongyang Zhuan
The Gōngyáng Zhuàn is a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals and one of the classic books of ancient Chinese history. It is believed to have been written by Zi-xia disciple Gongyang Gao of the State of Qi during the Warring States Period of Chinese history...
and its school, written by a number of different persons at different times throughout the Han Dynasty
Han Dynasty
The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
.
Indeed, it may be nothing more than the mislabeled remains of a book listed in the Book of Han, the 82-chapter Miscellaneous Records of the Gongyang School (公羊雜記). Nevertheless, the Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals should not be cast aside, especially since it seems to be a misattribution rather than an outright forgery. It remains a valuable compendium of early and mid-Han Confucian thought, if properly interpreted and contextualized, and it had a certain amount of influence on later thinkers.
Content and structure
Several subdivisions have been put forward in the past in an attempt to impose some sort of order on the contents of the Luxuriant Dew of the Annals. One can divide the text into seven main sections, some of which can be further divided into subsections, based on features of both content and structure. These sections are:- The Annals group;
- The "Huang-lao" or "Daoist" group;
- The politico-ethical group;
- The cosmological group;
- The Five Forces or Five Elements group;
- The sacrifices group;
- The miscellaneous group.
Section A, the Annals group, chapters 1-17, is characterized by a concentration on the meaning of Annals texts, or on more general principles extracted from the canon.
Section B is the "Huang-Lao
Huang-Lao
Huang-Lao or Huanglao was the most influential Chinese school of thought in the early 2nd-century BCE Han Dynasty, and is generally interpreted as encompassing Daoism and Legalism...
" or "Daoist" group. This is one of the better-recognized subdivisions in the text. It is composed of the chapter titles from 18 to 22 and the chapter texts from 19 to 22. (The text of Chapter 18, for reasons discussed elsewhere, should be repositioned in Section G2). One can underestimate the amount of Confucian thought in these essays, some of it displayed in a very subtle manner, but on the whole the spirit is Huang-lao and the canon and Confucian norms are taken lightly here.
Section C concerns political and ethical theory, and once again the chapters can be subdivided into three smaller groupings:
- Section C1, the first six chapters, all address the order of rank in government and society. Chapter 23, "The three dynasties changed regulations from simple to refined" is a theoretical statement of historical change, complete with prescriptions for proper ritual in each of the cosmic periods. Chapters 24, "Official regulations take Heaven as image" and 28, "Ranks and states," discuss official hierarchies and feudal rankings, respectively. Chapter 25, "Yao and Shun did not abdicate on their own authority, Tang and Wu did not presume to kill," clarifies the rightness of some alleged violations of the order of rank charged to the sage-kings. Finally, 26 "Clothing regulations" (lost except for its first sentence) and 27 "Measured regulations" lay down sumptuary rules.
- Section C2 is made up of the six chapters 29, "The standard of selflessness and right," 30, "It is necessary to be both selfless and wise," 31, "Emphasize the right in the nourishment of the self," 32, "Reply to the King of Jiaoxi [sic]: The great officers of Yue were incapable of selflessness," 33, "Examining moral power," and 34, "Reverencing the root." The chapters as a whole center around ethical questions, particularly casuistryCasuistryIn applied ethics, casuistry is case-based reasoning. Casuistry is used in juridical and ethical discussions of law and ethics, and often is a critique of principle- or rule-based reasoning...
, the interplay, and possible or apparent interference, between ethical norms. Most have a political relevance, more or less distant, and there is a great deal of reference to the canon.
- Section C3 contains three chapters dealing with epistemology. Chapter 35, "A profound examination of names and appellations" takes up the subject at length, including a concerted attack on Mencius for stating that the xing, "natural tendency," is intrinsically good. Chapter 36, "The real meaning of 'nature'," is either a summary of 35 or a much briefer text from which 35 was developed. Su Yu, the late Qing dynasty editor, believes it is the former, but it is very hard to be sure one way or the other. Chapter 37, "Feudal lords," is a very short treatment of the words that form its title, with the intent of explaining their "real" meaning.
Section D, from 38, "Reply on the Five Forces" to 57, "Things of the same kind stimulate each other," discuss the stimulus-response relationship between Heaven and man. Most chapters in the group make extensive use of Yin-Yang and Five Forces concepts, separately or in combination. There is little evident order in the sequence they are presented, and three of the chapters (39, 40, and 54) are missing.
Section E, which runs from Chapter 58, "The mutual production of the Five Forces," to 64, "The Five Forces and the Five Affairs," also discusses stimulus-response cosmology. However, the overwheming influence in these chapters is from Five Forces theory: the words "Five Forces" appear in each of the chapter titles, and Yin-Yang is in a very subordinate position when used at all. As Tanaka Masami and Sarah Queen have pointed out (echoing Su Yu), many close parallels to the Huang-lao Daoist work Huai nanzi can be found here.
Section F, the twelve chapters from 65, "A discourse on the suburban sacrifice," to 76, "The significance of sacrifices," discusses sacrificial services. Most of the first half of this section is devoted to discussion of the suburban sacrifice, but the texts are in bad shape and the damage seems to be very early. Other topics covered include the four seasonal sacrifices and the starting and stopping of rain (chapters 74 and 75). There is also Chapter 73, the "Praise-ode to mountains and rivers," which can be confidently dated to the last few decades of Former Han at the latest.
Section G is a mixed bag of sometimes rather dull political texts and documents from the yangsheng "nourishing life" school. Only two of the chapters, 79, "The birthplace of severity and moral power," and 80, "Like the doings of Heaven," have proper titles. Chapters 77, "Following the Way of Heaven," 78, "The actions of Heaven and earth," 81, "Heaven, earth, Yin, and Yang," and 82, "The Way of Heaven acts," all lack their own titles and pass under the first few characters of their text. The "Chapter 18" text, minus its title, also belongs in this group. (The only other chapters in the book with disturbed or irregular titles are Chapter 1, "King Zhuang of Chu," where the original title "Luxuriant Dew" (Fanlu) was appropriated as part of the book title, and Chapter 67, "The suburban sacrifice," where the copyist omitted removing the original title from the head of the essay when the text was recopied.)
The chapters in Section G fall into two groups:
- Section G1 is the yangsheng "nourishing life" group. This includes chapters 77 and 78. They present techniques for living out one's full lifespan.
- Section G2 is made up of the political essays from Chapters 79 to 82, plus the untitled material from Section B (Chapter 18 text), rather dull and generic material on the whole. They are far more tolerant of punishment, and establishing the right to punish, than better attributed Gongyang material usually is.
External links
- 春秋繁露 Original text in Chinese