Overview
Key data
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Collection | Tsinghua University Warring States bamboo slips |
| Period | Middle to late Warring States |
| Length | Over forty slips |
| Structure | Chapters by the four seasons and twelve months |
| Publication | Volume 13 of the Tsinghua University Warring States Bamboo Slips |
Structure
The text runs by the four seasons and twelve months, each chapter giving that month’s stars, seasonal signs and prescriptions.
Its form is close to the Xia Xiao Zheng and the “Monthly Ordinances,” belonging to the class that attaches affairs to the seasons.
A companion text
Among the Tsinghua slips is another text, “Directing the Year,” also framed by season and month but with a different brief: “Four Seasons” treats the government of the seasons, “Directing the Year” the fortune of the year.
Several texts of one class in a single batch shows how current the genre was in the Warring States.
Value
Transmitted texts of the “Monthly Ordinances” line were mostly edited by Han scholars, and their early Warring States face is hard to recover.
The Tsinghua “Four Seasons” presents that early form directly, a valuable comparison.
Compiled and arranged by Chujia Kuang.