Two short books and the people named on them

This course reads two of the most translated books in Chinese: the Tao Te Ching (Dàodéjīng, 道德經), traditionally credited to Laozi, and The Art of War (Sūnzǐ bīngfǎ, 孫子兵法), traditionally credited to Sunzi. Both are short. The received Tao Te Ching has 81 chapters and a little over 5,000 characters. The Art of War has 13 chapters and is roughly 6,000 characters long. You can read either one in English in an afternoon. Tao Te Ching is the older Wade-Giles spelling of the title; pinyin, the system this course uses for Chinese words, writes it Dàodéjīng. In Wade-Giles an unmarked t stands for the sound pinyin writes d, so "Tao" and "Dao" are the same word, pronounced with a d. People keep coming back to them for years because the lines are compressed: a phrase of four characters can carry a whole argument.

If you have taken Eastern Wisdom: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism & Zen, you met Taoism as one tradition among several. If you have taken Decisive Battles: Strategy & the Warrior's Mind, you met strategic ideas in historical battles. If you have started Mandarin Foundations: From the Training Hall to Daily Life, you already know tones and some characters. This course does not require any of them. Each lesson gives you the Chinese, a pinyin line and a gloss for every character. A gloss is a short, literal meaning written beside a word, before it is smoothed into English. The marks over the pinyin vowels show the four tones of Mandarin; lesson 3 explains them, so for now just read the letters.

The oldest surviving biographies of both men come from the Shiji (史記, Records of the Grand Historian), finished by Sima Qian around 90 BCE. Here are three short excerpts. The first two come from chapter 63 (Laozi), the third from chapter 65 (Sunzi). Lines marked …… are omitted.

Simplified characters: 姓李氏，名耳，字聃，周守藏室之史也。或曰儋即老子，或曰非也，世莫知其然否。孙子武者，齐人也。以兵法见于吴王阖庐。 (The text above writes the personal name Dān with the older form 耼; most modern books write 聃.)

These short Shiji lines are given in the course's own plain English, since Legge and Giles translated the two books, not these biographies.

Plain English: "His surname was Li, his given name Er, his courtesy name Dan. He was the archivist of the Zhou court." "Some say [the historian] Dan was Laozi, some say he was not. No one in the world knows whether it is so." "Master Sun, named Wu, was a man of Qi. Because of his methods of war he was received by King Helu of Wu."

Notice what Sima Qian does in the second excerpt. He records more than one story about Laozi and then says plainly that nobody knows which is right. In the same chapter he mentions a Lao Laizi from Chu who also wrote a book, and a Zhou historian named Dan who met a Duke of Qin long after Confucius died. Our earliest biographer was already unsure.

The traditional account places Laozi as an older contemporary of Confucius (traditionally 551 to 479 BCE). Most modern scholars think the Tao Te Ching grew over time from sayings and was compiled by more than one hand. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Laozi summarizes one widely held view: the sayings were gradually consolidated during the fourth century BCE, and the text probably reached a fairly stable form by the middle of the third century BCE. The Guodian bamboo slips, from a tomb dated to about 300 BCE, prove that a good portion of the text existed by then. You will look at those manuscripts in the next lesson.

Sunzi has a similar problem. Sima Qian says Sun Wu served King Helu of Wu, who reigned in the late sixth century BCE, and tells a story in which Sun Wu drills the king's palace women. Many historians doubt the details. Sun Wu does not appear in the Zuozhuan, a large chronicle of that period. The text speaks of warfare on a scale that many scholars associate with the Warring States period (475 to 221 BCE). A common modern view places the text in the fifth or fourth century BCE, possibly with later layers. Bamboo slips found in 1972 at Yinqueshan, in tombs closed in the second century BCE, contain fragments of all 13 chapters, about 40 percent of the received wording, and also a separate work by a later strategist, Sun Bin.

Two interpretations are worth stating fairly:

• Traditional view. Laozi and Sun Wu were real individuals who wrote these books, roughly as Sima Qian reports. Many readers in China held this view for two thousand years, and some scholars still defend an early date for parts of the Tao Te Ching.
• Compilation view. Each book is a collection that took shape over generations and was attached to a famous name. Under this view "Laozi" and "Sunzi" are partly labels for a body of teaching.

You do not have to choose. In this course "Laozi" and "Sunzi" also serve as short names for the books. We write "the text says" instead of "Laozi believed", and we say "traditionally attributed to" when naming an author.

A student writes: "Laozi wrote the Tao Te Ching in 500 BCE after meeting Confucius." Here is how to fix it with the evidence above.

1. The date: no reliable source gives 500 BCE. Replace it with "traditionally dated to the sixth century BCE; most scholars date the text later."
2. The author: Sima Qian himself reports doubt. Replace "Laozi wrote" with "the text traditionally attributed to Laozi."
3. The meeting with Confucius is a story in the Shiji. Keep it, labeled as a story.

Revised: "The Tao Te Ching is traditionally attributed to Laozi, who in Sima Qian's account advised Confucius; most modern scholars think the text was compiled over time, and a large portion existed by about 300 BCE."

Write two sentences about The Art of War that a careful historian would accept. Use the words "traditionally" and "manuscript" once each.

Expected result: Something like: "The Art of War is traditionally attributed to Sun Wu, who in Sima Qian's account served King Helu of Wu. A manuscript from the Yinqueshan tombs, closed in the second century BCE, shows that the 13-chapter text existed by then." Check that you did not give an exact year for the author.

• Sima Qian, Shiji, chapter 63, Chinese Wikisource: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B7063
• Sima Qian, Shiji, chapter 65, Chinese Wikisource: https://zh.wikisource.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B2%E8%A8%98/%E5%8D%B7065
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Laozi": https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laozi/
• Overview of the Yinqueshan slips: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yinqueshan_Han_Slips
• Chinese Text Project, for checking both texts: https://ctext.org/dao-de-jing and https://ctext.org/art-of-war