The Textual History of the Huai-nan Tzu (review)

Reviews 243 their absence. It is no wonder they disagree over the solution when they have such fundamentally different notions ofwhat the problem is. Whether or not the community exists and whether cultural rules have independent normative force remain open questions at the end of the book and are left to the readers unresolved. The points at which the thinkers in this volume argue past one another are as informative as the points on which they clash. In their conflicting agendas and assumptions, particularly in their collective ambivalence toward traditional culture, readers recognize the forces that have shaped the study of Chinese thought in the West over the last several decades. At the same time, too, they are likely to recognize tensions that motivate and inform their own understanding of these subjects. Readers ofthe "Critics and Their Critics" series see more than just philosophy recorded; they see it happen. Paul Kjellberg Whittier College Harold D. Roth. The Textual History ofthe Huai-nan Tzu. AAS Monograph Series. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. xvi, 470 pp. Hardcover $36, Paperback $20. Required reading for anyone interested in the study of the Huai-nan Tzu, this work will serve as the authoritative historical and textual analysis of the Huai-nan Tzu for years to come. This book will be of interest to students of textual analysis, interpretation, publishing, and history. Roth's work is based on a critical application ofVinton Dearing's theoretical examinations of textual analysis, namely, A Manual ofTextualAnalysis (Berkeley, 1959) and Principles and Practice ofTextual Analysis (Berkeley, 1974). The text we know as the Huai-nan Tzu was one of three works completed under fhe patronage of Liu An, prince of Huai-nan, and was completed by 139 b.c. The essays were probably written by Liu An and a group of eight scholars. At least one copy, but possibly two copies, of the Huai-nan Tzu were placed in the imperial library before Liu Hsiang collated them in circa 10 b.c. Only two of the four, possibly five, commentaries written in the Han dynasty survived, diose of Hsu© 1994 by University shen and Kao Yu. These two commentaries represent the two lines of transmisofHawai ?PresssjQn untij ^6 fourm œniurytwhen a recension was made by combining thirteen chapters of the Kao Yu edition with eight chapters from the Hsü Shen edition. The composite recension served as die basis for the three oldest extant redactions 244 China Review International: Vol. 1, No. 2, Fall 1994 of the Northern Sung, the Tao-tsang, and the Liu Chi texts, and has continued down to the present day. In part 1, Roth discusses in great detail "The History of the Huai-nan Tzu before the Extant Editions." After a brief introduction oudining his approach, he presents four chapters: (1) "The Origins and Nature of the Huai-nan Tzu" (2) "The Origins and Nature of the Commentaries," (3) "The Transmission of the Huai-nan Tzu" and (4) "The Merging of the Commentaries." In these chapters Roth presents in direct and succinct language nearly every important historical fact concerning the Huai-nan Tzu. In chapter 1, "The Origins and Nature of the Huai-nan Tzu" Roth first briefly discusses the nature of the text as a syncretic work representing Taoist and "five phases" (wu hsing) thought, possibly the highest development of fhe Huang-Lao philosophy. He describes the life and times of Liu An, and discusses die authorship of the Huai-nan Tzu in detail. Roth argues convincingly that the Huai-nan Tzu was in fact written by Liu An and eight other scholars; he criticizes C. LeBlanc's interpretation that Liu An was the sole author. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Liu An's other writings and his essays on the Chuang Tzu. In chapter 2, "The Origins and Nature of the Commentaries," Roth begins with a brief outline of the history of the commentaries and their interpretation from antiquity to modernity. Then, Roth discusses the five minor commentaries and concludes that "only those of Ma Jung and his student Lu Chih are supported by historical evidence, although the latter may have never existed as a formal composition. Ying Shao and...