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The Nung-chia‘School of the Tillers’ and the origins of peasant Utopianism in China1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A. C. Geaham
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Extract

Among the philosophical schools of ancient China, the Nung-chia ‘School of the Tillers’ is the one of which we know least. The surviving information has been assembled by Feng Yu-lan , who identifies it as the one school which reflects the aspirations of the peasants. He finds only one recognizable spokesman, Hsü Hsing, the teacher of ‘the words of Shen-nung’ who came with his followers to settle in the small state of T‘eng , probably about 315 B.C. A disciple named Ch‘en Hsiang visited Mencius, and we have a report of the conversation from the Confucian point of view. Ch‘en Hsiang says of the Duke of T‘eng:

‘A worthy ruler feeds himself by ploughing side by side with the people, and rules while cooking his own meals. Now T‘eng on the contrary possesses granaries and treasuries, so the ruler is supporting himself by oppressing the people’.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , February 1979 , pp. 66 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1979

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References

2 Chung-kuo che-hsüeh-shih hsin-pien , Peking, 1963, 1/176–9Google Scholar.

3 For the date, cf. Lau, D. C. (tr.), Mencius (Penguin Classics), London, 1970, 9 fGoogle Scholar.

4 Mencius, 3A/4.

5 Han shu Peking, 1962, ch. 30, 1743/8–10Google Scholar.

6 The fragments are collected in Sheng-han, Shih, Fan Sheng-chih shu chin shih , Peking, 1956Google Scholar, and Kuo-ting, Wan, Fan Sheng-chih shu chi-shih , Peking, 1957Google Scholar.

7 Fan Sheng-chih, Shih 13, 68, Wan 49, 169; Han shu, ch. 24A, 1133; Lun heng , ch. 49, SPTK 16/10B/3, 5. The Han bibliography lists other books attributed to Shen-nung under the headings of ‘Yin-Yang’, ‘Five elements’, divination, and medicine; and nearly all the fragments of Shen-nung collected by Ma Kuo-han in his Yü-han shan-fang chi yi shu ch. 69, seem to be from a book of divination.

8 Cited on p. 73, below.

9 Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, SPTK 6/2B/2, 3; Li chi , ch. 6, SPTK 5/13A/6, 7.

10 Ku shih pien , I, Peking, 1926, 105–50Google Scholar.

11 ;Tso chuan, HY Hsi 25/fu 1; cf. Chao 17/3. Kuo yü, Chin 4, SPTK 10/9B/6–10A/-1.

12 Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, 26/5B/6, 7A/-3.

13 cf. pp. 89, 90, below.

14 His invention of the zither (Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 20/5B/3) belongs to such a scheme of musical history. Cf. Shih-pen , TSOG 105 f.

15 For the date of Shang-tzŭ, cf. Duyvendak, J. J. L., Book of the Lord Shang, London, 1928, 141–59Google Scholar; Heng, Kao, Shang-chün shu chu-yi , Peking, 1974, 6–11Google Scholar. The book is composite, and it is doubtful whether any of it was written by Lord Shang (died 338 B.C.), although Kao is inclined to credit him with ch. 2, 13, and perhaps 22. The chapters which can be dated by historical references are ch. 15 (between 260 and 229 B.C.) and ch. 20 (between 241 and 221 B.C.). But none of these refers to Shen-nung.

16 Mo-tzŭ , ch. 11–13. Hsün-tzŭ , HY 19/1–3, 10/1–10. Cf. also Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, ch. 20/1.

17 cf. pp. 84–86, below.

18 cf. pp. 89–91, below.

19 Shih chi, ch. 5, 192.

20 Shih chi, ch. 6, 255.

21 Kuan-tzŭ, ch. 64, 84: BSS, 3/39/11, 3/115/3.

22 cf. p. 79, below.

23 Kuan-tzŭ, ch. 35, BSS 2/61/3.

24 Shang-tzŭ, ch. 10, 15: Kao 93, 117, cf. Duyvendak, 244, 268.

25 Han shu, ch. 30, 1743, n. 1.

26 Han shu, ch. 30, 1735/2 f.

87 The Shih chi starts with the Yellow Emperor; in the opening pages Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien seems tempted to identify Yen-ti with the last emperor of Shen-nung's line but does not commit himself. Elsewhere Yen-ti is placed between Shen-nung and the Yellow Emperor (Shih chi, oh. 28, 1361). The final step of identifying Yen-ti with Shen-nung himself is made in Han shu, ch. 21B, 1012/4 f. and by Huang-fu Mi (A.D. 215–82) in his Ti-wang shih-chi , TSCC 3.

28 cf. p. 67, above.

29 There is another quotation from this document in Han shu, ch. 24A, 1133/7 f. ‘The “Teaching of Shen-nung” says: “If you have a city with stone walls a hundred feet high, a moat of boiling water a hundred paces wide, and a million armoured men, but no grain, you will not be able to defend it.’ It appears also in Fan Sheng-chih, Shih 68, Wan 169.

30 Li-chi, ch. 6, SPTK 5/2B/10–3A/6.

31 cf. p. 67, above.

32 cf. p. 78, below.

33 cf. Mencius, 2A/8, 6B/15.

34 cf. p. 82, below.

35 cf. p. 70, above.

36 Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 9/2A/2 f., 5.

37 cf. p. 70, above.

38 cf. p. 85, below.

39 The antiquity of the Liu t‘ao has been confirmed by the discovery of a manuscript in the Western Han tomb at Lin-yi (Wen-wu , 1974, 2, p. 33), not yet published at the time of writing. The passages used in the present study (cf. also pp. 70, 83) are all missing from the standard text, that of the Sung edition, as well as from the T‘ang manuscript fragment (Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris, Pelliot 3454).

40 cf. Mencius, 1A/3.

41 Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, ch. 19/4, SPTK 19/11A/3 f.; Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 12/13A/4 f.

42 cf. p. 74, above.

43 cf. pp. 81–83, below.

44 cf. p. 70, above.

45 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/30 f.

46 Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, ch. 7/2, SPTK 7/3A/8. Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 15/1A/12–1B/1.

47 Sun Pin ping-fa, Peking, 1975, 36Google Scholar; Chan-kuo-ts‘e, Ch‘in 1, BSS 1/16/7.

48 Han shu, ch. 30, 1759/8.

49 It is close to the Fu Yi text of Lao-tzŭ. cf. Hsü-lun, Ma, Lao-tzŭ chiao-ku , Peking, 1956, 198Google Scholar.

50 Waley, Arthur, The Way and its power, London, 1934, p. 242, n. 1Google Scholar.

51 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/31.

52 Mencius, 1B/4.

53 cf. p. 76, above.

54 cf. p. 72, above. Li K‘uei's policies are described in Han shu, ch. 24A, 1124 f.

55 For this difficult passage I follow Kuo Mo-jo and others, Knan-tzŭ chi-chiao , Peking, 1956, 1178Google Scholar, 1190 (, binome descriptive of fullness to the brim).

56 Yi ching , HY 45/Hsi B/2.

57 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/41.

58 Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 11/13B/11 f.

59 Han Fei tzŭ, ch. 14, SPTK 4/12B/5 f. cf. Chuang-tzŭ, HY 17/13.

60 Shih chi, ch. 61.

61 Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, ch. 12/4, Chuang-tzŭ, ch. 28. Feng, Kuan(in Chuang-tzŭ, Van-wen chi , Peking, 1962, 89–96)Google Scholar has convincingly argued that together with Chuang-tzŭ., ch. 29 (which I would date about 205 B.C., cf. p. 88, below) and 31, ch. 28 comes from late members of the school of Yang Chu . The parallels with the Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu include not only stories but comments on them which seem characteristic of the latter book.

62 Emended from the Chuang-tzŭ parallel.

63 cf. p. 75, above.

64 cf. p. 78, above.

65 cf. p. 74, above.

66 Liu t‘ao, ap. T‘ai-p‘ing yü-lan, SPTK 329/4B.

67 Mencius, 3A/4.

68 cf. p. 76, above.

69 cf. p. 76, above.

70 ‘Analects’, 5/23, 7/15.

71 cf. p. 74, above.

72 cf. p. 75, above.

73 cf. pp. 87–89, below.

74 cf. pp. 89–91, below.

75 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 1/28–30, 12/80–2, 16/5–7, 20/15–17.

76 Ut sup., 20/7.

77 Ut sup., 16/8.

78 cf. pp. 85, 90,91, below.

79 Yüeh chüeh shu ch. 11, SPTK 93B/3. The Yüeh chüeh shu is a miscellany of materials various in date, the compilers of which identified themselves, by covert allusions of a kind popular in the Eastern Han, as Yüan K‘ang and Wu P‘ing writing in A.D. 52 (Hsin-ch‘eng, Chang, Wei-shu t‘ung-k‘ao , Shanghai, 1957,636–40)Google Scholar. In a dialogue about swords it is remarked that ‘in the time of Hsien-yüan , Shen-nung, and Ho-hsü , they made their weapons out of stone’; they were made of jade from the time of the Yellow Emperor, of bronze from the time of Yü, and finally of iron (ch. 11, SPTK 93B/3–94A/3). ‘Hsien-yüan’ is given as the personal name of the Yellow Emperor in the opening sentence of the Shih chi; the dialogue must come from the earlier period when Hsien-yüan was not yet identified with him, as in Chuang-tzŭ, HY 10/30, Liu t‘ao ap. T‘ai-p‘ing yü-lan, SPTK 76/5A/7, cf. 9.

80 Shih-tzŭ, SPPY A, 15B/10. Yi-ching, HY 45/Hsi B/2. His invention of the ‘Eight trigrams’ in the latter source belongs to a schematism particular to the scholars of the ‘Changes’.

81 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/28; Han Fei tzŭ, ch. 49, SPTK 19/1A/4–7.

82 Han Fei tzŭ, as in n. 81; Shih-tzŭ, SPPY, A 15B/8.

83 cf. pp. 70, 76, above, and p. 86, below. Fu-hsi is first mentioned in the late fourth century B.C., in the ‘Inner chapters’of Chuang-tzŭ (HY 4/33, 6/31). Chuang-tzŭ does not mention his inventions; but he is not interested in the innovations of sages, only in their closeness to the beginning of things.

84 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 16/6 f.

85 Ut sup., 12/81.

86 Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 2/8B/8.

87 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 22/54.

88 Ch. 1, 18; Kao, 17, 136. cf. Duyvendak, 172, 284 f.

89 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 6/33.

90 Ut sup., 11/28–44.

91 Shih chi, ch. 47, 1947.

92 Ch. 1/2, 3; 2/2,3; 21/4. cf. Yu-lan, Feng, History of Chinese philosophy, tr. Bodde, Derk, Princeton, 1952, I, 137–40Google Scholar.

93 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 10/7 f.

94 cf. especially ut sup., 10/32—4, ‘At the present it has come to such a point that the people crane their necks and stand on tiptoe saying “At such-and-such a place there's a worthy one”, and pack their bags to head for him, so within the family they abandon their own parents and outside the family leave the service of their own lords; their footprints go on crossing at the borders of the feudal lords, their carriage ruts go on joining a thousand miles away’.

95 The story of Robber Chih discoursing on morality is used both by the Primitivist (ut sup., 10/10–13) and in Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu (ch. 11/4, SPTK 11/7B/6–9), but is not an example of literary borrowing. The parallelism is of the type in which there is little identity of phrasing except in the more pungent sayings, suggesting different written versions of a story in oral circulation.

96 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/27.

97 Ut sup., 29/19. cf. Mencius, 6B/2, where a visitor annoys Mencius by boasting that he is 9 ch‘ih 4 ts‘un tall.

98 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/63 f. cf. 10/19.

99 cf. p. 81, n. 61, above.

100 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 8/6 f.

101 Ut sup., 11/1–4.

102 Ut sup., 9/7–11, 16 f.; 10/29–32.

103 Ut sup., 10/30 f.

104 Ut sup., 9/16.

105 Ut sup., 11/19. There is another historical sketch of the decline which starts with the Yellow Emperor, ut sup., 14/60–73. This passage has two verbal parallels with the Primitivist essays, in lines 63, 72 f.; cf. 11/15, 10/39.

106 Ut sup., 10/29, 29/30.

107 Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, ch. 12/4, SPTK 12/7B/4.

108 Ut sup., ch. 17/6, SPTK 17/15B/9.

109 Huai-nan-tzŭ, SPTK 9/2A/2.

110 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 10/27.

111 9/16 f.

112 cf. pp. 84, 85, above.

113 cf. pp. 75, 83, above.

114 In the first sentence of Shang-tzŭ, ch. 7, it refers to the most ancient period, not the middle antiquity to which Shen-nung belongs. cf. p. 70, above.

115 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/2.

116 Yü-tzŭ, Tao-tsang , A, 6B/7 f.

117 Yü-tzŭ, ap. T‘ai-p‘ing yü-lan, SPTK 79/2B/3.

118 Ching fa, Peking, 1976, 451Google Scholar.

119 Shih-pen, TSCC 5 (but cf. its note).

120 Yi ching, HY 45, Hsi B/2. The appendixes to the ‘Changes’ are very probably part of the commentaries said in Han shu, ch. 88, 3597/3 f., to have been written by various Confucians soon after the rise of Han in 206 B.C. Cf. Peng (as p. 87, n. 92, above), I, 381 f. But the discovery of a manitscript of the ‘Changes’ including the ‘Great appendix’ in the Western Han tomb at Ma-wang-tui (described in Wen-wu, 1974, 9, p. 42) may require a new investigation of its date.

121 Ti-wang shih-chi, TSCC 3.

122 For this work cf. p. 84, above.

123 Reading for with the quotation from it in T‘ai-p‘ing yü-lan, 78/6B/2.

124 cf. pp. 70, 75, 76, above.

125 cf. Feng, as in p. 87, n. 92, above, I, 327–30.

126 Han Fei tzŭ, ch. 49, SPTK 19/1B/2 f.

127 cf. p. 70, above.

128 cf. p. 72, above.

129 Shih chi, ch. 110, 2900/3.

130 cf. p. 66, above.

131 cf. p. 68, above.

132 Ku shih pien, 4/300 f.

133 Hsün-tzŭ, HY 11/60. The opinion is found nowhere in the text of Mo-tzŭ.

134 That Mo-tzŭ was a craftsman, probably a wheelwright, was first argued by Shou-ch‘u, Fang, Mo-hsüeh yüan-liu , Taipei, 1957 (first ed., 1937), 15–17Google Scholar The evidence is assembled in my Later Mohist logic, ethics and science, London and Hong Kong, 1978, 6–8Google Scholar.

135 cf. pp. 79, 80, above.

136 ‘Canons’, B 30, 31. cf. Later Mohist logic (as n. 134, above), 8, 397 f.

137 Kuan-tzŭ, ch. 24, BSS 2/11/9–12. Translated by Rickett, W. Allyn, Kuan-tzŭ, Hong Kong, 1965, 107–16Google Scholar.

138 Shang-tzŭ, ch. 3, 18, 23: Kao, 37, 142, 171.

139 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 29/12.

140 For Shun‘s labours, cf. pp. 74, 75, above.

141 Mo-tzŭ, HY 49/40–54.

142 cf. pp. 73, 74, above. A second memorial on agriculture which lumediately follows Chia Yi's oontains a quotation from the ‘Teaching of Shen-nung’ (cf. p. 74, n. 29, above). Similarly the aphorism appears without being attributed to Shen-nung in Kuan-tzŭ, ch. 78, BSS 3/91/1 f., just four lines ahead of the reference to the ‘Numbers of Shen-nung’ (cf. p. 79, above).

143 Han shu, ch. 24A, 1128/1 f., 1130/5.

144 Mencius, 3B/10.

145 Shuo-yüan, SPTK l/3B/8–4B/l, 5B/2–7; Hsin-Hsü, SPTK 7/1A/3–1B/4.

146 Han shu, ch. 30, 1725/9, 1726/15.

147 Chuang-tzŭ, HY 12/33–7; Lü-shih ch‘un-ch‘iu, ch. 20/2, SPTK 20/4A/6–4B/3.

148 cf. Ku-liang chuan , HY Duke Yin 8/6.

149 cf. p. 78, above.

150 Chuang-tzü, HY 32/23 f.

151 Ut sup., 20/45–50.

152 Ut sup., 28/44–9.

153 ‘Analects’, 18/7.

154 Mencius, 1A/7, 2A/5.