Guodian Laozi Yi Taiyi Sheng Shui

Author: Xing Wen (Compiler)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-07-01
Features: This book is a dialogue between Eastern and Western scholars on the bamboo slips of the Laozi and other documents found in the Guodian Chu Tomb during the Warring States period. The content is based on an international symposium held at Dartmouth College in the United States in May 1998. The purpose of the conference was to bring together two to three dozen scholars from various fields in China and the West to read newly discovered materials related to the Laozi. Our goal was not to complete a definitive interpretation but to clarify some key points of contention, thereby laying a foundation for future research. The book reflects an academic process rather than a mature study. It is a "record"—a genuine dialogue among approximately 30 scholars from Eastern and Western backgrounds with differing perspectives, backgrounds, and academic norms. The questions raised by the Guodian Chu Tomb slips do not have simple answers. As the reader will discover, there are as many viewpoints as there are participants. Even the fundamental questions—what are these materials? What is their relationship to the current Laozi Daodejing?—cannot be answered easily. Much like the purpose of our symposium was not to draw conclusions about this newly discovered literature but to clarify some key points of contention and learn from others' methods, we placed equal emphasis on posing questions and answering them when preparing the content of this book. In any case, many of these answers are preliminary inferences, but they may provide insights into the possibilities and challenges of further research for others. Readers may wonder why we chose to focus on the materials related to the Laozi and Taiyi Shengshui rather than the other documents found in the Guodian No. 1 Tomb. As mentioned earlier, the planning of this symposium was inspired by the possibility of a newly discovered version of the Laozi. The other documents were previously unknown, and their significance can only be understood once they are published. Some of these documents hold remarkable significance—they are the canonical texts of the Confucian school and were completely unknown to the world before their discovery in this tomb. The research value of these documents is no less than that of the Laozi materials, and perhaps even greater. We hope that this academic symposium will lead to more collaborative conferences in the future, where other materials can be studied more carefully.
—Excerpted from the Preface to the Chinese Translation and Introduction by [American] Edward L. Shaughnessy, from the book.