A supplement to the studies of tralatitious editions of Shangshu and the character issues (II): A version comparison of Yueming

Abstract

Four sources of the texts of Shangshu are referred to in this article: fragmented texts found on Chu Bamboo Slips of Warring States kept in Shanghai Museum, fragmented texts found on Bamboo Slips of Warring States kept in Tsinghua University, the transcript edition of Shangshu of the Tang Dynasty in ancient script kept in Japan, and the Gengwu edition of Shangshu kept in Korea. These editions represent, respectively, different tralatitious periods of Shangshu. The Tang transcript edition kept in Japan was written in ancient script; the Gengwu edition in Korea contains both ancient and modern scripts; the Bamboo Slips kept in Tsinghua University are regarded as a transcription of the Warring States period. Of the Yueming chapter (part one), many texts in the Bamboo Slips that are kept in Tsinghua University are not compatible with those in the tralatitious editions, or are in contradiction with historical records. Even on a single slip, the texts are often in disorder and unreadable. However, this does not mean that the readable and fluent texts in ancient transcript and print editions testify to the authenticity of the materials. From the level of document dissemination, if the bamboo slip texts are authentic, then we can conclude that there were errors, missing characters, and transcribing errors in the three parts of Yueming in the period as early as the later Warring States period. A comparative study of different editions shows the disagreement in paragraphing and characters in the Tang transcript edition kept in Japan and the Gengwu edition kept in Korea which reflects the version of Shangshu after the merging of the modern and ancient script editions.