The Gongyang Commentary on The Spring and Autumn Annals: A Full Translation

321 Pages·2015·1.69 MB·English

by  Harry Miller

The Gongyang Commentary on
The Spring and auTumn annalS

The Gongyang Commentary on
The Spring and auTumn annalS
A Full Translation
Harry Miller
the gongyang commentary on the spring and autumn annals
Copyright © Harry Miller, 2015.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United
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New York, NY 10010.
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ISBN: 978- 1- 137-49763- 5
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Gongyang, Gao.
[Gongyang zhuan. English]
Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals : a full
translation by Harry Miller.—First edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-137-49763-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Confucius.
Chun qiu. I. Miller, Harry, 1966– II. Title.
PL2470.Z6G66 2015
895.18'107—dc23
2014037141
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Amnet.
First edition: March 2015
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 Duke Yin, Part I: Duke Yin’s Reign, Year 1 (722 BCE) 7
2 Duke Yin, Part II: Duke Yin’s Reign, Years 2–4
(721–719 BCE) 11
3 Duke Yin, Part III: Duke Yin’s Reign, Years 5–11
(718–712 BCE) 19
4 Duke Huan, Part I: Duke Huan’s Reign, Years 1–6
(711–706 BCE) 27
5 Duke Huan, Part II: Duke Huan’s Reign, Years 7–18
(705–694 BCE) 35
6 Duke Zhuang, Part I: Duke Zhuang’s Reign, Years 1–7
(693–687 BCE) 47
7 Duke Zhuang, Part II: Duke Zhuang’s Reign, Years 8–17
(686–677 BCE) 55
8 Duke Zhuang, Part III: Duke Zhuang’s Reign,
Years 18–27 (676–667 BCE) 63
9 Duke Zhuang, Part IV: Duke Zhuang’s Reign, Years
28–32; Duke Min’s Reign, Years 1–2 (666–660 BCE) 71
10 Duke Xi, Part I: Duke Xi’s Reign, Years 1–7
(659–653 BCE) 81
11 Duke Xi, Part II: Duke Xi’s Reign, Years 8–21
(652–639 BCE) 93
12 Duke Xi, Part III: Duke Xi’s Reign, Years 22–33
(638–627 BCE) 107
vi Contents
13 Duke Wen, Part I: Duke Wen’s Reign, Years 1–9
(626–618 BCE) 123
14 Duke Wen, Part II: Duke Wen’s Reign, Years 10–18
(617–609 BCE) 133
15 Duke Xuan, Part I: Duke Xuan’s Reign, Years 1–9
(608–600 BCE) 145
16 Duke Xuan, Part II: Duke Xuan’s Reign, Years 10–18
(599–591 BCE) 155
17 Duke Cheng, Part I: Duke Cheng’s Reign, Years 1–10
(590–581 BCE) 165
18 Duke Cheng, Part II: Duke Cheng’s Reign, Years 11–18
(580–573 BCE) 177
19 Duke Xiang, Part I: Duke Xiang’s Reign, Years 1–11
(572–562 BCE) 187
20 Duke Xiang, Part II: Duke Xiang’s Reign, Years 12–24
(561–549 BCE) 197
21 Duke Xiang, Part III: Duke Xiang’s Reign, Years 25–31
(548–542 BCE) 207
22 Duke Zhao, Part I: Duke Zhao’s Reign, Years 1–12
(541–530 BCE) 217
23 Duke Zhao, Part II: Duke Zhao’s Reign, Years 13–22
(529–520 BCE) 227
24 Duke Zhao, Part III: Duke Zhao’s Reign, Years 23–32
(519–510 BCE) 235
25 Duke Ding, Part I: Duke Ding’s Reign, Years 1–5
(509–505 BCE) 247
26 Duke Ding, Part II: Duke Ding’s Reign, Years 6–15
(504–495 BCE) 253
27 Duke Ai, Part I: Duke Ai’s Reign, Years 1–10
(494–485 BCE) 263
28 Duke Ai, Part II: Duke Ai’s Reign, Years 11–14
(484–481 BCE) 273
Index 277
Acknowledgments
I continue to be very grateful to Clarence Mohr and all my colleagues at the
University of South Alabama for their support. Kathryn Jones and Deborah
Cobb, of my university library, continue to do wonders in the tracking down
of rare books.
At Palgrave Macmillan, I would like to thank Chris Chappell and Brigitte
Shull for their interest in my work, as well as Kristin Purdy and Mike Aperauch
for their help in getting it to print. I am grateful to the independent scholar
Hugo Lopez for letting me use his map.
Thanks to my peer reviewers for their helpful suggestions and encourage-
ment. Of course, all flaws in this book are my own responsibility.
Finally, thanks to my wife, Yuka, for bearing with the pile of books on the
dining room table.

Introduction
T
his project was inspired by a phrase in Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of
Modern China, in which Joseph Levenson claimed that The Gongyang Com-
mentary “supplied texts which might seem to order drastic social change.”1
However, aside from the obvious preference for moral over hereditary
leadership shown in the book, I am not sure that it applauds social mobil-
ity in general. Most of the historical characters it depicts seem to be drawn
from a rather constricted ruling class, and the common people scarcely appear
at all.
Although my search for the roots of Chinese liberalism in The Gongyang
Commentary thus seems to have failed, I have nonetheless greatly enjoyed
the process of trying to make sense of the text. It is, in essence, a fascinating
collection of rationalizations, from the tellingly profound to the risibly—and
tellingly—convoluted. While it is tempting to hype the text as a primer of
“Chinese logic” or “Confucian logic,” it is actually best characterized as an
example of the broadly human tendency to seek meaning in everything. As
such, it is broadly meaningful.
The Gongyang Commentary is an analysis of The Spring and Autumn
Annals, which chronicles the history of China’s Eastern Zhou period from
the perspective of the feudal state of Lu, from 722 to 481 BCE. The Spring
and Autumn Annals were first compiled shortly after this time, by unknown
persons, from a variety of fragmentary sources, and they were extremely
cryptic. To help make sense of them, Chinese readers almost immediately
came to rely upon a set of commentaries, which incorporated the original
text and some form of explication. The three surviving commentaries are The
Zuo Commentary, The Guliang Commentary, and The Gongyang Commen-
tary. The Zuo Commentary greatly supplemented the historical narrative only
vaguely suggested in the original Annals and ultimately became the preferred
version. The Guliang and Gongyang commentaries focused not so much on
the history per se but probed other meanings, with the former stressing the
1Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 36.