The Global Context of a Modern Chinese Quandary

Abstract

This is a study of the background, impact, and cost of the “doubting antiquity” (yigu 疑古) current associated with the Gushi bian 古史辨 (Debates on Early History) collection of the 1920s to early 1940s. This current followed a strongly political agenda of using the authority of scholarly criticism to the orthodox “Confucian” view of Chinese history and open this history to a critical revaluation. The key propositions were that the narratives about sage rulers from Chinese antiquity were invented myths without basis in actual historical figures and that these narratives could be dated on the basis of the details they offered. Against the claims by Gu Jiegang, the initiator and editor of this collection, that his inspirations all came from a purely scholarly Chinese tradition, this study traces the background of the yigu current to a transcultural adaptation of elements from Western classical philology, biblical scholarship, and anthropology/ethnology. The current’s key propositions had their origin in a transcultural adaptation of. Ignored in the Chinese discussion, the same arguments had been rehearsed decades earlier in China by the newly forming Western Sinological community. The Chinese “leaving the age of doubting antiquity” trend since the 1990s following the discovery of early manuscripts followed a similar politicized agenda. The conclusion discusses the cost of this politization in terms of questions not asked concerning the methodology of editing these manuscripts.