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An early commentary on one of the Chinese Five Classics
The
Documents classic (
Shangshu) was central to the political life of imperial China. This owed much to the lively commentarial activity surrounding the text in the first two centuries BCE. The
Great Commentary serves as a lens on this commentarial work and reveals how the
Documents classic was used to provide answers to pressing societal questions of the time.
In this first English translation of the
Great Commentary, Fan Lin and Griet Vankeerberghen engage with the historical realities that produced the work. They explore the complex relationship between the
Documents classic and its commentarial traditions at a time when neither classic nor commentary had acquired fixed form. They view Master Fu (260?-161? BCE), the Han court academician to whom the
Great Commentary is traditionally ascribed, not as the text's author but rather as the figure who lent his authority to subsequent generations of
Documents scholars. Lin and Vankeerberghen also trace how late imperial scholars reconstructed the text largely from fragments in collectanea. With facing pages of Chinese and English text, this volume provides a comprehensive introduction and detailed annotation that reveal the work's relevance to law, prognostication, and politics, along with its value as an important source for the study of the classical tradition and of early Chinese history.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Fan Lin is university lecturer in Chinese art and material culture at Leiden University.
Griet Vankeerberghen is associate professor of history and classical studies at McGill University. She is author of
The "Huainanzi" and Liu An's Claim to Moral Authority and coeditor of
Chang'an 26 BCE: An Augustan Age in China.
