T oung Pao · 2003 · 111 citations · 0 references
HumanitiesHistoryAncient HistoryHistoriographyIntellectual HistoryAncient ChinaChinese StudiesAncient Chinese HistoryChinese Intellectual HistoryWarring States Period
Early Chinese historiography is hindered by persistent assumptions that the Warring States and Han periods were dominated by discrete, text-centered schools, by conflating separate accounts, by interpreting the term jia merely as “schools,” and by treating China as homogeneous and unchanging. This essay examines how lineages and traditions were constructed and invented through exemplary figures in early China, challenging conventional readings of Ru, Dao, and jia.
One major obstacle to understanding the early history of China is the still-prevalent notion that discrete schools of thought contended in the Warring States and Han periods, and that these schools of thought were text-centered. 2 A second is the propensity to conflate quite separate accounts of the same events, institutions, concepts, and taxonomies, for the purpose of devising a neater record. Some historians of early China, recognizing these obstacles, have sensed that the word jia 家 does not mean only “schools” or “scholastic lineages” (as it is typically translated). Still more argue against the notion of a China that is homogeneous and unchanging. A majority, however, continue to treat the terms “Ru” and “Dao” as direct and unproblematic references to two scholastic “isms,” Confucianism and Daoism, and to ignore discrepancies among the rhetorical constructions in the early sources.3 This essay aims