Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Yi Zhou Shu
The Yi Zhou Shu (traditional Chinese: 逸周書; simplified Chinese: 逸周书; Wade–Giles: I Chou shu; lit. 'Lost Book of Zhou') is a compendium of Chinese historical documents about the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE). Its textual history began with a (4th century BCE) text/compendium known as the Zhou Shu ("Book of Zhou"), which was possibly not differentiated from the corpus of the same name in the extant Book of Documents. Western Han dynasty (202 BCE–CE 9) editors listed 70 chapters of the Yi Zhou Shu, of which 59 are extant as texts, and the rest only as chapter titles. Such condition is described for the first time by Wang Shihan (王士漢) in 1669. Circulation ways of the individual chapters before that point (merging of different texts or single text's editions, substitution, addition, conflation with commentaries etc.) are subject to scholarly debates.
Traditional Chinese historiography classified the Yi Zhou Shu as a zashi (雜史) or "unofficial history" and excluded it from the canonical dynastic Twenty-Four Histories.
This early Chinese historical text has four titles: Zhou zhi, Zhou shu "Documents/Book of Zhou", Yi Zhoushu "Lost/Leftover Documents/Book of Zhou", and Jizhong Zhou shu "Ji Tomb Documents/Book of Zhou".
Zhou zhi 周志 appears once throughout the transmitted texts: in the Zuo zhuan (Duke Wen of Lu's 2nd year - 625 BCE), along the quote presently found in the Yi Zhou Shu. The reference is valuable since it differentiates the Yi Zhou Shu from the corpus of other documents called shu and possibly refers to its educational function.
Zhoushu (or Zhou shu) – combining Zhou 周 "Zhou dynasty" and shu 書 "writing; document; book; letter" – is the earliest record of the present title. Depending upon the semantic interpretation of shu, Zhoushu can be translated "Book(s) of Zhou" (cf. Hanshu 漢書 Book of Han) or "Documents of Zhou" (cf. Shujing 書經 Book of Documents). In Modern Standard Chinese usage, Zhoushu is the title of the Book of Zhou history about the later Northern Zhou dynasty (557–581).
Yizhoushu (or Yi Zhou shu) adds yi 逸 "escape; flee; neglect; missing; lost; remain" to the title, which scholars interpret in two ways. Either "Lost Book(s) of Zhou", with a literal translation of yi as "lost" (cf. yishu 逸書 "lost books; ancient works no longer in existence"). Or "Remaining Book(s) of Zhou", with a reading of yi as "remnant; leftover" (cf. yijing 逸經 "classical texts not included in the orthodox classics"). This dubious tradition began with Liu Xiang (79–8 BCE) describing the text as: "The solemn statements and orders of the Zhou period; they are in fact the residue of the hundred pian [chapters] discussed by Confucius." McNeal translates differently, "[The Yi Zhou shu] may well be what remained after Confucius edited the hundred chapters [of the Shang shu]". Since the canonical Shang shu in circulation had 29 chapters, McNeal proposes,
Perhaps sometime during the early Western Han the transmitted version of the Zhou shu was expanded so as to produce a text of exactly seventy-one chapters, so that, added to the twenty-nine chapters of the Shang shu, the so-called "hundred chapters of the shu" could be given a literal meaning. This would account for those chapters of the Yi Zhou shu that seem entirely unrelated or only tentatively related to the main themes of the work.
Jizhong Zhoushu (or Jizhong Zhou shu, 汲冢周書) derives from a second tradition that the text was found among the manuscripts on bamboo slips unearthed in the (c. 279 CE) Jizhong discovery of the tomb of King Xiang of Wei (衛襄王, r. 311–296 BCE). Shaughnessy concludes that since "both of these traditions can be shown to be without foundation", and since all the earliest textual citations refer to it as Zhoushu, there is now a "general scholarly consensus" that the title should in fact read simply as Zhou shu. However, since Zhou shu also figures as the section of the Book of Documents, the name "Yizhoushu" has obtained broad currency as safely marking the differentiation.
Hub AI
Yi Zhou Shu AI simulator
(@Yi Zhou Shu_simulator)
Yi Zhou Shu
The Yi Zhou Shu (traditional Chinese: 逸周書; simplified Chinese: 逸周书; Wade–Giles: I Chou shu; lit. 'Lost Book of Zhou') is a compendium of Chinese historical documents about the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE). Its textual history began with a (4th century BCE) text/compendium known as the Zhou Shu ("Book of Zhou"), which was possibly not differentiated from the corpus of the same name in the extant Book of Documents. Western Han dynasty (202 BCE–CE 9) editors listed 70 chapters of the Yi Zhou Shu, of which 59 are extant as texts, and the rest only as chapter titles. Such condition is described for the first time by Wang Shihan (王士漢) in 1669. Circulation ways of the individual chapters before that point (merging of different texts or single text's editions, substitution, addition, conflation with commentaries etc.) are subject to scholarly debates.
Traditional Chinese historiography classified the Yi Zhou Shu as a zashi (雜史) or "unofficial history" and excluded it from the canonical dynastic Twenty-Four Histories.
This early Chinese historical text has four titles: Zhou zhi, Zhou shu "Documents/Book of Zhou", Yi Zhoushu "Lost/Leftover Documents/Book of Zhou", and Jizhong Zhou shu "Ji Tomb Documents/Book of Zhou".
Zhou zhi 周志 appears once throughout the transmitted texts: in the Zuo zhuan (Duke Wen of Lu's 2nd year - 625 BCE), along the quote presently found in the Yi Zhou Shu. The reference is valuable since it differentiates the Yi Zhou Shu from the corpus of other documents called shu and possibly refers to its educational function.
Zhoushu (or Zhou shu) – combining Zhou 周 "Zhou dynasty" and shu 書 "writing; document; book; letter" – is the earliest record of the present title. Depending upon the semantic interpretation of shu, Zhoushu can be translated "Book(s) of Zhou" (cf. Hanshu 漢書 Book of Han) or "Documents of Zhou" (cf. Shujing 書經 Book of Documents). In Modern Standard Chinese usage, Zhoushu is the title of the Book of Zhou history about the later Northern Zhou dynasty (557–581).
Yizhoushu (or Yi Zhou shu) adds yi 逸 "escape; flee; neglect; missing; lost; remain" to the title, which scholars interpret in two ways. Either "Lost Book(s) of Zhou", with a literal translation of yi as "lost" (cf. yishu 逸書 "lost books; ancient works no longer in existence"). Or "Remaining Book(s) of Zhou", with a reading of yi as "remnant; leftover" (cf. yijing 逸經 "classical texts not included in the orthodox classics"). This dubious tradition began with Liu Xiang (79–8 BCE) describing the text as: "The solemn statements and orders of the Zhou period; they are in fact the residue of the hundred pian [chapters] discussed by Confucius." McNeal translates differently, "[The Yi Zhou shu] may well be what remained after Confucius edited the hundred chapters [of the Shang shu]". Since the canonical Shang shu in circulation had 29 chapters, McNeal proposes,
Perhaps sometime during the early Western Han the transmitted version of the Zhou shu was expanded so as to produce a text of exactly seventy-one chapters, so that, added to the twenty-nine chapters of the Shang shu, the so-called "hundred chapters of the shu" could be given a literal meaning. This would account for those chapters of the Yi Zhou shu that seem entirely unrelated or only tentatively related to the main themes of the work.
Jizhong Zhoushu (or Jizhong Zhou shu, 汲冢周書) derives from a second tradition that the text was found among the manuscripts on bamboo slips unearthed in the (c. 279 CE) Jizhong discovery of the tomb of King Xiang of Wei (衛襄王, r. 311–296 BCE). Shaughnessy concludes that since "both of these traditions can be shown to be without foundation", and since all the earliest textual citations refer to it as Zhoushu, there is now a "general scholarly consensus" that the title should in fact read simply as Zhou shu. However, since Zhou shu also figures as the section of the Book of Documents, the name "Yizhoushu" has obtained broad currency as safely marking the differentiation.