(A recent conversation between the author and Prof. Nathan Sivin of MIT onthe correct translation of the term hsiu was followedup by a thoughtful letter from Prof. Sivin which is quoted at length below.It seemed appropriate to broaden the discussion to include the term wu-hsing, to provide some lexical-historicalbackground, and to share the sense of the conversation with ourcolleagues.)

Technical terms in any language cannot be understood correctly when renderedin another language unless commonly accepted and precise translations, whichevoke neither more nor less than the meaning of the original term, can beachieved. Yet that is a difficult task, bounded by prior connotations of thetranslations chosen, and by differences in general cultural context that maybe very great. The task is made more difficult still because any scholarlydiscipline that relies heavily on translation as one of its methods is oftenheir to “standard” translations of technical terms. Some of these haveachieved general currency through long use, but might not have been, whenthey were first proposed, well thought out or based on adequate scholarlyunderstanding. Others may be, in some cases, just plain wrong. An example ofa standard translation that is not well thought out is “five elements” for wu-hsing; one that is clearly wrong is “lunarmansion” for hsiu.

The iconography of Han Dynasty pictorial cycles has become a subject of someinterest to historians of early Chinese art. Such pictorial cycles orprograms consist of series of related or unrelated scenes from history,legend, and daily life. The problem posed by such iconographic cycles is oneof interpretive method. Should these scenes be taken as relatingspecifically to the lives of the persons they honor or should they be viewedmore simply in terms of the general context of Han life? Is there anyalternative to these two views? My feeling is that there is an alternative,one which suggested itself after a close examination of the intimately tiedgroup of offering shrines referred to by the catch-all Wu Liang T'zu . I willargue below that the iconographic cycle designed for the earliest of thethree reconstructed shrines at this site was adhered to in the later oneswhose architectural structure is similar though more elaborate, but that theiconographic specificity of the earliest shrine was substantiallygeneralized in the others.

A surprisingly large number of texts, many heretofore lost to us, werediscovered in a lacquer box in Tomb Three at Mawangdui. (For a summary ofthe excavation and contents of the tomb see Early China 1[1975]:10-15.) Thescrolls had fused together as a result of being tightly packed in thelacquer box; after separation, two of the scrolls were found to contain sixseparate treatises on medicine as well as a set of illustrations oftherapeutic calisthenics.

Among the other documents discovered in the lacquer box found at MawangduiTomb were three maps. To date, six articles have appeared in Wenwu which discuss the discovery and restorationof two of the maps as well as their significance to the study of Chinesecartography and historical geography. The articles are of uneven quafity,but all six have been summarized for the sake of completeness.