延續不朽: 郭店楚簡的書寫與權威

2.Chan, Shirley. “,” (). HKU Journal of Chinese Studies, 2025, Vol. 3, Issue 1.Writing and Authority in the Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts,”Accepted on 13/2/2025).
The discovery and publication of Chu bamboo manuscripts have significantly enriched our understanding of early Chinese writing materials while offering new perspectives on the relationship between writing and authority. These manuscripts—encompassing divination records, ritual texts, administrative and legal documents, and pre-Qin classics— serve as tangible manifestations of the political, religious, and philosophical dimensions of the Chu state. As material artifacts, they demonstrate how writing played a critical role in legitimizing authority and shaping cultural identity. Despite their significance, scholarly engagement with the interplay between writing culture and authority remains limited, underscoring the need for further exploration.
The majority of Chu slips date to the middle and late Warring States period (475-221 BCE) and represent some of the earliest surviving bamboo manuscripts. Among the most significant discoveries are the Guodian Chu slips, unearthed in October 1993 from Tomb No. 1 in Guodian Village, Jingmen, Hubei Province. This remarkable find yielded 731 bamboo slips, including 18 pre-Qin texts, comprising early Daoist works, such as Laozi A, B, and C, as well as Confucian texts like Black Robe, The Duke Mu of Lu Enquired Zisi, and The Five Elements. These texts reflect the coexistence and integration of Daoist and Confucian thought in Chu, highlighting its intellectual pluralism and cultural adaptability. Writing, as embodied in these slips, functioned as a mechanism for transmitting and institutionalizing ideologies attributed to figures like Laozi (fl. 6th C BCE) and Zisi (483BCE-402 BCE).
Expanding on Mark Edward Lewis’s seminal work Writing and Authority in Early China (1999), this article examines how the Guodian Chu manuscripts illustrate the intersection of writing and authority by intertwining the physical and ideological. These slips reveal how the tangible qualities of writing materials—such as durability, craftsmanship, and aesthetic refinement—elevated the symbolic power of texts and reinforced cultural transmission, transforming them into authoritative objects that perpetuated intellectual influence beyond their owner’s lifetime.