While evidence for a more precise date is scarce, it shows that the Wénzǐ is not a pre- Qín text. Various clues in the Dìngzhōu Wénzǐ point to the early Former Hàn dynasty, more precisely, to the reign periods of Emperor Wén 漢文帝 (r. 179-157 BCE), Emperor Jǐng 漢景帝 (r. 156-141 BCE) or Emperor Wǔ漢武帝 (r. 140-87 BCE).
One element in the text strongly suggests a Former Hàn date. Strip 2212 speaks of “court invitations” 朝請, which, as Ho Che-wah [1998: 156-157] points out, is a Hàn dynasty custom:
45 Pines mentions the compound “humaneness and righteousness” on his list of seven criteria and
explains that although “humaneness” and “righteousness” were already semantically connected by the late Springs and Autumns 春秋 (722-481 BCE) period, the compound “humaneness and righteousness”
[2212]46 [朝]請不恭，而不從令，不集。”平王
the court invitations are not revered; and not following orders, they do not gather.” King Píng
The Chinese etymological dictionary The Origin of Words 辭源 explains “court invitations” as a Hàn dynasty rule:
漢律，諸侯春朝皇帝叫朝，秋朝叫請。47
Hàn dynasty regulation. Feudal lords’ audiences with the emperor in spring were called visits to the imperial court; those in autumn were called invitations to the imperial court.
Zhāng Fēngqián [2005] notes that references to “court invitations” are absent in extant pre-Hàn literature, though some texts speak of “court appointments” 朝聘 or “court presentations” 朝覲. These resemble “court invitations” in name, but differ from it in application and strictness. The appointments and presentations, according to Zhāng, also apply between feudal lords and appear to be voluntary, whereas the invitations are mandatory semi-annual imperial audiences. The Hàn apparently renamed an existing system and reinforced its rules. The absence of references to “court invitations” in pre-Hàn writings and the ubiquity of references afterwards confirms that the Wénzǐ, which also mentions the ceremony, was composed in the Hàn dynasty.
A second element in the bamboo manuscript likewise points to an early Former Hàn date. Although the Dìngzhōu Wénzǐ, as mentioned before, dwells on a multitude of philosophical concepts, one essential concept stands out by its absence: “law” 法.48 Given the scope and repeated usage of philosophical terminology in the
Wénzǐ, this can hardly be a coincidence. The striking absence of this concept seems to imply specific avoidance of the Legalist outlook, in which law plays a pivotal role. Implicit disregard for Legalist principles is made explicit on one bamboo strip:
46 The graph 朝, placed between square brackets, used to be present on the bamboo strip, but is broken
off or no longer legible after the Tángshān earthquake of 1976.
47 Commercial Press Editorial Office 商務印書館編輯部 [1992: 2.1490].
48 The graph 法fǎ appears four times as the verb ‘to emulate’ (once on strips 0871 and 0912 and twice
on 0689) and once as a noun in the combination 義法yìfǎ ‘models of righteousness’ (on strip 2208). It does not occur as a distinct philosophical concept in its own right. The possible counter-argument that the Dìngzhōu Wénzǐ is a fragmentary manuscript and that this concept may have been present on now- lost strips, would ignore the frequent occurrences of other concepts, such as the Way or virtue.
[2243] [主]國家[安]寧，其唯化也。刑罰不足
The stability and safety of the ruler’s realm depends only on transformation. Punishments and penalties are inadequate This claim bespeaks explicit criticism of Legalist ideas.
Implicit and explicit criticism of ideas now collectively labeled Legalist indicates that the author of the Wénzǐ may have witnessed the time when this current of thought was most influential: the Qín dynasty. The author appears to be aware of the disastrous effects of Qín rule, whose strict laws and severe punishments were perceived as the main causes for the collapse of the dynasty after merely two decades. Although modern research on newly discovered manuscripts shows that Qín rule was neither exclusively Legalist nor exceptionally harsh, this was the view of early Hàn intellectuals, who analyzed the faults of the Qín to ensure that their own young dynasty would avoid the same fate.49 Hence, the anti-law sentiments in the Wénzǐ are reminiscent of early Hàn author-politicians. For example, Lù Jiǎ 陸賈 (c. 228-c. 140 BCE), author of New Discussions 新語, maintains that the Qín Dynasty failed because its rulers set up too many laws and their punishments were too harsh.50 His contemporary Jiǎ Yì 賈誼 (201-169 BCE) claims in his celebrated essay Faults of the Qín 過秦論, that the Qín became a laughing stock because “it failed to rule with humanity and righteousness and to realize that the power to attack and the power to retain what one has thereby won are not the same.”51 Vankeerberghen [2001: 123] observes that both authors explicitly
attributed the fall of the Qín dynasty to its overemphasis on law and punishment and its consequent neglect of benevolence and duty. They believed that appeals to the people’s sense of fear and greed (i.e., rule by punishment and reward) were less effective than educating the people.
The author of the Wénzǐ concurs with Lù Jiǎ and Jiǎ Yì in their opposition of laws and punishments and their advocacy of education, which seems to indicate that the three authors are roughly contemporaneous. Notably, they all use the same term to describe as the preferred method for subduing the populace: “educative transformation” 教化. This term is highly uncommon in pre-Hàn writings. It gained currency in the Xúnzǐ
and was adopted by Lù Jiǎ, Jiǎ Yì and other Hàn dynasty intellectuals. That the Wénzǐ
49 See Hulsewé [1985] for an annotated translation of the unearthed bamboo texts on Qín law. 50 See Ku [1988: 84-85].
also repeatedly avails itself of this concept (see Chapter 4) is yet another indication of its Hàn dynasty provenance.
Comparison of the writings of the three Former Hàn authors potentially leads to a more precise dating of the Wénzǐ. At the risk of oversimplifying complex philosophies, I would say that Lù Jiǎ and Jiǎ Yì are essentially oriented towards what is now known as Confucianism, but they also espouse elements of Daoism and other currents of thought.52 The Wénzǐ has a similarly eclectic outlook, but with a different emphasis. In essence a Daoist text, it does not eschew Confucian notions such as humaneness and righteousness. This possibly signals a later trend, a further development of the ideas of Lù Jiǎ and Jiǎ Yì in a laissez-faire direction. In other words, the Wénzǐ shares Lù Jiǎ and Jiǎ Yì’s aversion to Legalist ideas, but its strong reliance on Daoist notions makes it the youngest of the three. Whereas Lù and Jiǎ
were active until the early years of Emperor Wén and their views dominated intellectual circles of the time, the Wénzǐ was probably composed in latter part of Emperor Wén’s reign or even under subsequent rulers, when the intellectual world is known to have been receptive to the type of ideas found in the Wénzǐ.
We would expect the Wénzǐ, with the Way and non-action as key concepts and the Lǎozǐ as its main source of inspiration, to date from a time when the authority of the Lǎozǐ was widely acknowledged and its ideas were popular. In historiographical sources, such as Historical Records and Hàn History, the reigns of Emperor Wén and Jǐng and the early years of Emperor Wǔ are described as a time of great enthusiasm for Daoism, or to be precise, for the trend of thought that Sīmǎ Qiān 司馬遷 (ca. 145- ca. 86 BCE) labels “Huáng-Lǎo” 黃老, which refers to the teachings and techniques attributed to the Yellow Emperor 黃帝 and Lǎozǐ老子. The most fervent promoter of this trend was the wife of Emperor Wén, Lady Dòu 竇后, who forcefully instituted these practices and ideas at the imperial court. Huáng-Lǎo apparently served as the unofficial state ideology when Lady Dòu held sway over the imperial palace, as Empress, Empress-dowager and Grand Empress-dowager, until her death in 135 BCE.
This period of the Former Hàn also witnessed the creation of the Huáinánzǐ, a text written under the auspices of Liú Ān 劉安, King of Huáinán 淮南王, and reportedly presented to Emperor Wǔ in 139 BCE. Similar to the Wénzǐ, the Huáinánzǐ
takes the Way and virtue as key concepts, it draws mainly on the Lǎozǐ and it
52 Lù Jiǎ is proponent of a laissez-faire type of government and chooses “Non-Action” as the title of
promotes a quietist form of transforming the populace. The ideological link between both texts is strong and there are some textual correspondences. Compare Wénzǐ
bamboo strip 2243, which states that “punishments and penalties are inadequate” and that “the stability and safety of the ruler’s realm depends only on transformation”, to these phrases in the Huáinánzǐ:
刑罰不足以移風，殺戮不足以禁姦，唯神化為貴。53
Punishments and penalties are inadequate to change customs. Killings and executions are inadequate to end wickedness. Only spiritual transformation is valuable.
There are demonstrable ideological differences and few direct quotations between the Ancient Wénzǐ and the Huáinánzǐ, which suggests that they were written parallel to and unaware of each other. But their similarities indicate that they respond to some of the same problems and situations with comparable tools, in other words, that they are roughly contemporaneous.
Following the death of Lady Dòu, tensions between adepts of Huáng-Lǎo and those described as Confucians 儒者 rapidly increased in vigor. Once in office, the new chancellor of the Confucian faction immediately
絀黃老﹑刑名百家之言，延文學儒者數百人。54
rejected the doctrines of the Daoists, the Legalists, and the other philosophical schools, and invited several hundred Confucian scholars and literary men to take service in the government.55
These and other pro-Confucian measures are said to have effectively ended the popularity and political influence of Huáng-Lǎo. Even if the distinction between Huáng-Lǎo and Confucianism is not as sharp as historiographical sources describe it, it is scarcely conceivable that the Wénzǐ was written long after the death of Lady Dòu, when the intellectual world apparently no longer welcomed the type of ideas it promotes. We may therefore take the early years of Emperor Wǔ’s reign as an approximate and tentative terminus ante quem for the composition of the Wénzǐ.
53Huáinánzǐ 9.
54Historical Records 121.3118. 55 Translation by Watson [1993c: 358].
Of course, authors may be ahead of their time or well behind it; and texts may be written before or after the ideas they contain are en vogue. Still, a political manifesto makes most sense if it aptly voices the problems of its time and employs contemporary politico-philosophical terminology, that is, if the text matches its historical context. If we follow this principle in the complex matter of dating ancient texts, and compare the Wénzǐ to the writings of contemporary authors (Lù Jiǎ, Jiǎ Yì, Liú Ān) and to retrospective descriptions in later historiographical sources (Historical Records, Hàn History), the “Huáng-Lǎo period” of the early Former Hàn would have been the most favorable time for the composition of the Wénzǐ. The author’s choice of protagonists for his text, King Píng and Wénzǐ, vindicates this hypothesis.