Old Texts

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The Old Texts (Chinese: 古文经; pinyin: Gǔwén Jīng; Wade-Giles: Kuwen Ching) refer to a series of discovered texts after burning of the books, which were writtern in the old writing characters, as oppose to the Modern Texts or New Texts in the new orthography.

The last half of the 2nd century BC saw the period when new versions of the Confucian classics being discovered. Most of these new versions were found in the walls of Confucius’s old residence in Qufu, the old capital of State of Lu, when, Prince Liu Yu (d.127 BC) attempted to expanded it into a palace upon taking the throne there. In the course of taking the old wall apart, the restorers found old versions of the Classic of History, Classic of Rites, Analects of Confucius and Classic of Filial Piety, all written in the old orthography used prior to the reforms of Clerical script. Hence they were called the “old texts” even though scholars had been laboriously transliterating them into the new orthography for more than a century. These new editions had an effect on later Confucianism and their discoverers claimed that all existing texts had suffered from an interrupted pedigree. Earlier to the discovery, the existing texts had been written down from memory by scholars who had survived the Qin burning of the Six Classics. However, this proscription had likely not even attempted to do more than symbolically burn a few copies of the Confucian books conveniently at hand in their capital. Many other copies survived elsewhere, and these were available for copying into the new orthographic standard set by Qin, and its clerkscript successor which evolved under Han. It was the change in orthography which divided the Warring States and early imperial period textual traditions, and in this respect the newly discovered texts were no different than those employed as the basis for new transcriptions soon after the fall of Qin Dynasty, the results labeled as the “modern texts” by the old texters.

[edit] Controversy among new schools

By the time of 1st century, a new controversy had began among this two texts. The labels here are confusing, the new texts are the ones that had been transliterated into the new orthography back in the beginning of 2nd century BC either from memory or from texts that had survived the Qin’s burning of the books and the Han Dynasty's rescuing of some of these books in the provinces. Surviving scholars in the direct line of transmission of these books got hold of surviving copies and transliterated them into the new orthography. The old texts were the ones that off and on since the late 2nd and during the 1st century BC had turned up, some allegedly discovered in the walls of Confucius’s residence, or in Warring States period graves. They were called the “old texts” because they were written in the pre-Qin writing, and were only transliterated into the new style writing a century or so later than the new texts. These “old texts” had a peculiarly archaist bent. They emphasized the sage-like as opposed to the philosopher-like characteristics of Confucius, thereby making him look more like the earlier sages who founded and ruled Zhou Dynasty or even the still more archaic states which preceded it. And yet, these archaic sage-kings are shown ruling China with a bureaucratic apparatus peculiarly like that available to Han Dynasty rulers, and hence by methods which strikingly echoed those of putative enemies of Wang Mang, the modernists.

[edit] See also

[edit] Sources and external links

The History of Classical Scholarship. Arthur F. Wright. (PDF)
Nylan, Michael, 'The Chin wen/Ku wen Controversy in Han Times' in: T'oung Pao, 80 (1994), p.83-145. A thorough and detailed study of the jinwen/guwen designation, distinction, and related topics.
Ess, Hans Van, 'The Old Text/New Text Controversy. Has the 20th Century Got It Wrong?' in: T'oung Pao, 80 (1994), p.146-170. A study that addresses the views of modern scholars.