Pre-Qin ritual books are rediscovered! The “Tsinghua Bamboo Slips” are the first to discover such documents from the Warring States Period →

Recreating the original appearance of the ritual book of the Warring States Period! my country discovered the "Pre-Qin ritual book" for the first time in the "Tsinghua Bamboo Slips".

There are new research results on the precious bamboo slips of the Warring States Period collected by Tsinghua University. On December 10, at the "Tsinghua University Collection of Warring States Bamboo Slips (No. 13)" results release conference held at Tsinghua University, it was reported that 5 new bamboo books were sorted out from the "Tsinghua Bamboo Slips", all of which are handed down documents and have not been lost. It is reported that two of the bamboo books reproduced the original appearance of the ritual books of the Warring States Period, which is the first discovery of the lost pre-Qin ritual books in the bamboo books of the Warring States Period.

The picture shows the book "Warring States Bamboo Slips in the Collection of Tsinghua University (No. 13)". Photo courtesy of Tsinghua University

In 2008, nearly 2,500 precious bamboo slips from the Warring States Period were collected by Tsinghua University, and researchers have since conducted research on them. Since the first series of research results was released in 2011, Tsinghua University has released a report on the compilation of the "Tsinghua Bamboo Slips" every year, and has successfully published 13 series so far, covering classics of history, books on governance, astronomy, mathematics and other documents. This series of compilation reports published five bamboo books, including "The Etiquette of the Doctor's Food", "The Record of the Etiquette of the Doctor's Food", "The Five Tones", "The Wind of Music", and "Fearing the Heaven and Using the Body", providing new materials for the study of rituals, music and thoughts in the Pre-Qin period. Among them, "The Etiquette of the Doctor's Food" and "The Record of the Etiquette of the Doctor's Food" are compiled into one volume, with 51 and 14 bamboo slips respectively. The former records the etiquette of the host and the guests and the bridesmaids in the Etiquette of the Doctor's Food, and the latter records the specific etiquette of the deacons during the Etiquette. "This is the first discovery of the lost pre-Qin ritual book. It not only reproduces the original appearance of the ritual book from the Warring States Period, but also reflects some characteristics of the food rituals of the officials in Chu. It has important reference value for the study of the pre-Qin ritual system and the Book of Rites." said Professor Huang Dekuan, director of the Center for Research and Conservation of Excavated Documents at Tsinghua University.

The picture shows the bamboo slips of "Wuyintu". Photo courtesy of Tsinghua University

This study also discovered for the first time music documents in the bamboo and silk documents of the Warring States Period - "Wuyintu" and "Yuefeng", which provide important materials for the study of China's early music theory system and pre-Qin music history. Among them, there is a five-pointed star in the center of the "Wuyintu", the upper corner of which corresponds to the name of the Gong group, and the other four corners correspond to the Shang, Jiao, Zheng, and Yu groups, which are distributed in a counterclockwise direction. The five-pointed star figure is composed of five connecting lines: "Gong-Zhi", "Zhi-Shang", "Shang-Yu", "Yu-Jiao", and "Jiao-Gong", which shows the law of the generation of the five tones. In addition, "Fearing the Heaven and Using the Body" is an ideological document with complete content, which discusses the relationship between heaven and man and the subjective initiative of people. The text of the bamboo slip promotes people's subjective consciousness, shows the positive and enterprising spirit of the Warring States Period, and provides new documents for the study of pre-Qin ideological history. It is reported that the "Tsinghua Bamboo Slips" compilation report will be published in a total of 16 volumes, and the compilation work is currently coming to an end. The research team said that it will ensure the publication progress of one volume per year and announce this batch of important materials to the society and academia as soon as possible.

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Source: Xinhua News Agency

Editor: Wang Mengru