The Yin-Yang Texts from Yinqueshan: An Introduction and Partial Reconstruction, with Notes on their Significance in Relation to Huang-Lao Daoism

• Published in: Early China 1994, Vol.19, p.75-144
• Main Author: Yates, Robin D.S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abbreviations; Autumn; Bailiffs; Emperors; Prayer; Soldiers; Taijitsu; Warfare; Winter; Yin yang
• ISSN: 0362-5028; 2325-2324
• DOI: 10.1017/S0362502800003564

The 1970's was a decade of extraordinary discoveries of texts that transformed scholarly understanding of late Warring States, Qin, and early Han philosophy, society, and culture. This article is devoted to the least well-known of these finds, made in 1972 at Yinqueshan, Linyi, Shandong. Specifically, it provides for the first time in a Western language an introduction to the Yin-Yang texts recovered from this Western Han tomb, probably dated to the early years of the reign of Han Wudi (r. 140-87 B.C.). Based on the only transcription yet published (in 1985 by Wu Jiulong), the article provides a transcription, reorganization, and full translation of three of the texts, and fragments of a fourth, together with supplementary notes on the approximately seventeen other essays and a discussion of their significance within the context of late pre-imperial and early imperial thought. The essays are found to be of immense importance in understanding the various dimensions of Yin-Yang theorizing prior to Dong Zhongshu's development of new text Confucianism. Of special interest is the author's conclusion that the texts throw considerable light on those of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts that have been categorized by most scholars as belonging to the Huang-Lao school, the so-called Huangdi sijing (Four Classics of the Yellow Emperor). The author concludes, on the basis of his analysis of the form, language, and philosophical content of the Yinqueshan Yin-Yang texts, that many of the Mawangdui silk manuscripts are products of Yin-Yang specialists and may well not belong to the Huang-Lao tradition. 七十年代是文獻出土令人嘆爲觀止的十年.這十年間超乎尋常的重大發現改變了學界對戰國，秦,漢的哲學,社會,以及文化等方面的認識.本文將對一九七二年出土的山東臨沂銀雀山竹書中最鮮爲人知的一些篇章進行硏究.本文首次以西方語言來介紹西漢墓（該墓的年代約可定爲武帝早期）中出土的陰陽論著. 根據現已刊行的唯一隸定本,本文抄錄,整理,並翻譯了竹書前三章的全文及第四章中的部分文字,並對其餘的大約十七篇作了簡介； 此外還對這些篇章在秦漢之際思想體系結構中所起之重要作用進行了探討.本文認爲這些論著對認識董仲舒前的陰陽理論之諸方面均有極其重大的意義. 特別値得注意的是本文之結論部分.作者認爲,根據銀雀山漢簡陰陽書,我們可以判定目前不少學者歸類爲黃老學派的馬王堆帛書,亦即所謂《黃帝四經》等似不應爲黃老之作而均應出自陰陽家之手.