| Chapter 1: | The Rationale for Reading the Analects Existentially |
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survived. In the cases of the first two versions, memory played a very important role in preserving the work. The Lu version was preserved in the state of Lu and was written in contemporary lishu (
; clerical script). The text has twenty sections, the titles of which have been retained in the received version. The Qi version was preserved in the state of Qi and was also written in the contemporary clerical script; it has twenty-two sections—that is, two more sections than the Lu version. The two extra sections are called Wen Wang (Asking the prince) and Zhi Dao (Knowing the Way).17 The Old Script version was discovered when a Lu prince demolished the wall of Confucius’s former residence. It was written in zhuanshu (
; seal script), common in the Eastern Zhou era (770–256 BCE). The Old Script version contains twenty-one sections and basically concurs with the Lu version except that what is the last section in the Lu version is divided into two sections in the Old Script text. The second of these begins with the words “Zizhang said.” The name of the extra section, Zizhang, is identical to the title of section 19 in the received version. Kong Anguo wrote a commentary on the Old Script version, but it did not enjoy wide circulation; some glimpse of it can be had in the Lunyu Jijie (
; Collected commentaries on the Lunyu) of He Yan (
; ?–249 CE).18
The Analects as extant today is basically the work of Marquis Zhang Yu (
; d. 4 BCE), who compared and synthesized the Lu and Qi versions. This collation became the basis for the received version. An eminent scholar, Zheng Xuan (
; 127–200 CE) produced a new commentary after comparing all three extant versions in the second century, but unfortunately, the complete text has not survived.19
Records of the Master’s Sayings Before the Han
Scholars have no knowledge of the form in which the Analects as a text was circulated in the period between its first compilation and the book burning by the first emperor of Qin (r. 246–210 BCE). But the words and activities of Confucius are recorded in several other works dating to the Warring States period (475–221 BCE)—works such as the Chunqiu
(
; the Annals of Spring and Autumn), the Mozi (
), the Mencius