| Lüshi Chunqiu | |
| Author: | Lü Buwei |
| Country: | China |
| Language: | Chinese |
| Genre: | Chinese classics |
| Lüshi chunqiu | |
| W: | Lü3-shih4 Ch'un1-ch'iu1 |
| P: | Lǚshì chūnqiū |
| L: | "Mr. Lü's Spring and Autumn [Annals]" |
| Buc: | Lṳ̄-sê Chŭng-chiŭ |
| Wuu: | Liu-zy Tshen-chieu |
| Poj: | Lū-sī Chhun-chhiu |
| J: | Leoi5-si6 Ceon1-cau1 |
| Y: | Léuih-sih Chēun-chāu |
| Mc: | Ljó-d͡ʒjé tɕʰwin-tsʰjuw |
| Oc-Bs: | *pronounced as /[r]ˤa k.dəʔ tʰun tsʰiw/ |
The Lüshi Chunqiu, also known in English as Master Lü's Spring and Autumn Annals,[1] [2] is an encyclopedic Chinese classic text compiled around 239BC under the patronage of late pre-imperial Qin Chancellor Lü Buwei. In the evaluation of Michael Carson and Michael Loewe, "The Lü shih ch'un ch'iu is unique among early works in that it is well organized and comprehensive, containing extensive passages on such subjects as music and agriculture, which are unknown elsewhere. It is also one of the longest of the early texts, extending to something over 100,000 words."[3]
The Shiji (chap. 85, p. 2510) biography of Lü Buwei has the earliest information about the Lüshi Chunqiu. Lü was a successful merchant from Handan who befriended King Zhuangxiang of Qin. The king's son Zheng, who the Shiji suggests was actually Lü's son, eventually became the first emperor Qin Shi Huang in 221BC. When Zhuangxiang died in 247BC, Lü was made regent for the 13-year-old Zheng. In order to establish Qin as the intellectual center of China, Lü "recruited scholars, treating them generously so that his retainers came to number three thousand".[4] In 239BC, he, in the words of the Shiji:[5]
According to the Shiji, Lü exhibited the completed text at the city gate of Xianyang, capital of Qin, and above it a notice offering a thousand measures of gold to any traveling scholar who could add or subtract even a single word.
The Hanshu Yiwenzhi lists the Lüshi Chunqiu as belonging to the Zajia (; 'mixed school'), within the philosophers' domain, or Hundred Schools of Thought. Although this text is frequently characterized as "syncretic", "eclectic", or "miscellaneous", it was a cohesive summary of contemporary philosophical thought, including Legalism, Confucianism, Mohism, and Daoism.
The title uses chunqiu to mean 'annals; chronicle' in a reference to the Confucianist Spring and Autumn Annals, which chronicles the State of Lu history from 722 - 481 BC.
The text comprises 26 juan in 160 pian, and is divided into three major parts. The first is the Ji : books 112 correspond to the months of the year, and list appropriate seasonal activities to ensure that the state runs smoothly. This part, which was copied as the Liji chapter Yueling, takes many passages from other texts, often without attribution. The Lan comprises books 13 - 20, which each have 8 sections. This is the longest and most eclectic part, giving quotations from many early texts, some no longer extant. The last part is the Lun, which comprises books 21 - 26 and mostly deals with rulership, except for the final four sections about agriculture. This part resembles the Lan in composition.
The composition's features, measure of completeness (i.e. the veracity of the Shiji account) and possible corruption of the original Annals have been subjects of scholarly attention. It has been mentioned that the Almanacs have much greater integrity and thematic organization than the other two parts of the text.
The Yuda chapter of the Examinations, for example, contains text almost identical to the Wuda (務大) chapter of the Discourses, though in the first case it is ascribed to Jizi (季子), and in the second to Confucius.
Admitting the difficulties of summarizing the Lüshi Chunqiu, John Knoblock and Jeffrey Riegel list 18 major points:
The Lüshi chunqiu is an invaluable compendium of early Chinese thought and civilization.
Scholar Liang Qichao (1873–1929) stated: "This book, through the course of two thousand years, has had no deletions nor corruptions. Moreover, it has the excellent commentary of Gao You. Truly it is the most perfect and easily read work among the ancient books."[7] Liang's position, mildly criticized afterwards, was dictated by the lack of canonical status ascribed to the book.
The Shiji tells that after Lü Buwei presented the finished Lüshi Chunqiu for the public at the gate of Xianyang and announced that anyone could correct the book's content would be awarded 1000 taels of gold for every corrected word. This event lead to the Chinese idiom "One word [is worth] a thousand gold" .
None of the contemporary scholars pointed out any mistakes in the work, although later scholars managed to detect a number of them. It is believed that Lü's contemporaries were able to detect the book's inaccuracies, but none dared to openly criticize a powerful figure like him.