The Lunyu Shu: The Appearance and Public Exhibition of a 6th-Century Chinese Manuscript

From October 7 to 13, the 32nd Keio University Library Rare Book Exhibition was held at the 4th-floor gallery of the Maruzen Main Store in Marunouchi, Tokyo. The theme this time was "Reading Habits of Ancient and Medieval Japanese," focusing on how Japanese people before the Muromachi period studied Chinese classics brought from China. Placed at the beginning of the one hundred exhibited items was the 6th- or 7th-century Chinese manuscript introduced here: Volume 6 of the Lunyu Shu (Commentary on the Analects). Regarding this manuscript, Keio University issued a press release on September 10 of this year titled "Mita Media Center (Keio University Library) to Publicly Exhibit the Oldest Extant Manuscript of the Analects," which was subsequently reported by the Asahi Shimbun, Yomiuri Shimbun, and NHK. Therefore, some may have already visited the Maruzen exhibition venue to see the actual item, but from the perspective of the exhibition supervisor, I would like to briefly explain the overview, historical value, and the circumstances of its public release once more.

The Lunyu Shu is a work in which Huang Kan (488–545) of the Liang dynasty re-annotated the Lunyu Jijie (Collected Explanations of the Analects) by He Yan of the Wei dynasty; its formal title is the Lunyu Yishu. The character "Shu" (sub-commentary) in the title means to further annotate an existing annotation. Because the Analects, which records the words and deeds of Confucius, consists of fragmentary descriptions, commentaries have been necessary to understand its content since ancient times. Countless commentaries have been written in China, but He Yan's Jijie was the most widely read representative of the "Old Commentaries" (commentaries established from the Han to Tang dynasties) until Zhu Xi's Lunyu Jizhu (Collected Commentaries on the Analects) appeared in the Song dynasty. However, because the Jijie also had deficiencies in interpretation, many shu (commentaries on He Yan's commentary) were created, and among them, Huang Kan's Yishu received the highest evaluation.

The Lunyu Yishu was, of course, brought to Japan. Its name appears in the Nihonkoku Genzai Sho Mokuroku, a catalog of Chinese books in the Imperial Court compiled in the early Heian period (late 9th century), and more than 30 old manuscripts from the Nanboku-cho to Muromachi periods (14th–16th centuries) exist in Japan today. However, contrary to this state of preservation in Japan, the Yishu disappeared from China shortly after the start of the Song dynasty (the reasons for its disappearance are omitted here due to space constraints).

The Lunyu Shu manuscript released this time is recognized as having been transcribed during the period from the Northern and Southern dynasties to the Sui dynasty in China, based on its calligraphy, format, and paper. It consists of a single handscroll made by joining twenty sheets of hemp paper and contains two chapters, "Zi Han" and "Xiang Dang," out of the twenty chapters of the Analects. When was this manuscript brought to Japan? A clue to estimating the period is the two types of "sewing seals" (nuin) stamped across the seams of the paper to prevent misordering. One is a seal used by the Fujiwara clan in the early Heian period (early 9th century) with the inscription "Fuji." The other has an unclear inscription but predates the "Fuji" seal. Therefore, it can be inferred that this manuscript was brought to Japan during the Nara period or earlier (7th–8th centuries).

Now, where does the value of this manuscript lie? In my view, it can be summarized in the following three points. First is its antiquity as a "densei" (handed-down) book. "Densei" means it has been passed down from person to person. While older manuscripts of the Analects exist in China and North Korea as excavated items, no other handed-down item is this old. Great value is recognized in the fact that it is an actual manuscript from before the Sui dynasty. Furthermore, although this manuscript contains only one-tenth of the total work, it includes the entire main text (jing) of the Analects and the commentary (zhu) of the Jijie for those sections. Therefore, it can be called the oldest manuscript of the Yishu, the oldest manuscript of the Jijie, and the oldest manuscript of the Analects excluding excavated items.

Second, it possesses a text that is extremely close to the original Lunyu Yishu. As mentioned earlier, many manuscripts of the Yishu from the Nanboku-cho and Muromachi periods exist in Japan. Comparing those manuscripts with this one reveals several textual differences. This suggests that in the nearly 1,000 years between when Huang Kan wrote the Yishu and the Nanboku-cho/Muromachi periods in Japan, impurities such as post-Yishu commentaries (text that is helpful for interpretation but was not in the original Yishu) were slightly interpolated during the transcription process. On the other hand, this manuscript was written only a few decades after the Yishu was established and is thought to have a text extremely close to Huang Kan's original. Through a comparison of the two, the original form of the Yishu will become clear, and it will undoubtedly provide clues for tracing the development of Analects commentaries.

Third, it maintains its original form in terms of format as well. In this manuscript, the texts of the jing (scripture), zhu (commentary), and shu (sub-commentary) are mixed, but the characters are all written in the same size. They are distinguished by adding red punctuation: side dots for the jing text, hook marks at the upper right of the starting point for the zhu text, and symbols like "三" at the right side of the starting point for the shu text. In later periods, such as in Muromachi period manuscripts, the format was modified to write the jing in large characters, the zhu in large characters indented one space, and the shu in small characters. This format allows one to distinguish the three at a glance and was a measure taken for the convenience of readers in later generations. While the timing of this format change is unknown, the original format of the Yishu has been clarified by the appearance of this manuscript.

Finally, I would like to mention the circumstances that led to the public release of this book. It was in March 2016 that I received word from an antiquarian bookstore in Tokyo that they had acquired an old manuscript of the Lunyu Yishu. The book was successfully acquired by the Mita Media Center (Keio University Library) in February of the following year, but the road to that point was not necessarily smooth. I believe the fact that we managed to add it to the collection was the result of three elements happening to come together. First, the library (the director at the time was Professor Kanji Akagi of the Faculty of Law) recognized the book as a precious cultural property and made the bold decision to purchase it. Second, the owner of the antiquarian bookstore, an alumnus of the Juku (who asked to remain anonymous), sold it at an exceptionally low price based on his conviction that such a book should be housed in a public research institution. Third, a joint research system centered on Professor Tomohiko Sumiyoshi of the Institute of Oriental Classics (Shido Bunko) and Professor Kazufumi Tanemura of the Faculty of Business and Commerce was already in place within Keio. If even one of these had been missing, this book would not have been released as the centerpiece of this book exhibition. I wish to celebrate this triple stroke of good fortune.