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The Wang Bi Recension of the Laozi 25 twice. That his text had zhu instead of jun is not only supported by the two “Old Manuscripts” but also by a statement in Wang Bi’s LZWZLL which paraphrases the present passage: ⤵ʃ⳵શ ʶʃदʙ.55 One passage often quoted to determine what “school” the Laozi belongs to shows some of the problems in reconstructing the Wang Bi Laozi. Laozi 57.3, 4 Wang Bi Laozi Receptus: ːघ̃ణ म᧎ᝫ⬚ᘍ˪ᝫച Heshang gong: " " " " " " " " "᧎ " " Huainanzi 12/106/5: "˪ " " Shiji 62.3131: " " " " Zhuang (Yan) Zun: " " " " " " " " " " " " Wenzi 1/5/15: ᖁ "ᇜ⋱ " " " " " " "ὁ Old MSS (Fu and Fan): ᖁ "ᇜ๬≟jʶ " " " " " " Guodian A: ː " " टkխ๔§ "խ๔ " Mawangdui A: ː "ᵧ ≟̬᧎⑩߆߆߆߆߆ Mawangdui B: ߆߆߆߆߆߆߆߆߆߆᧎⑩ὁ Wang Bi Comm.: ᖁ "ᇜ "ԅణϸᮝణϸᮝԅ⴬ʶ⬚ Wang Bi in LZWZLL: ෉ᛐ߱ʢ‫׏‬ⓧʃ߱ᝫὁ The reading fa ling ᘍ˪, shared by the versions given in the Huainanzi, Shiji, Wenzi, and Zhuang Zun directly attacks the Legalists. The Mawangdui manuscripts come from a Legalist milieu and thus do not transmit this version, but the Guodian A also has the reading ᘍխ [᧎]. Wang Bi attacked the legalism of the Wei court. If, however, Wang Bi’s text had the ᘍ˪, why should he have missed out on the occasion to attack the concept of running the state by laws? He did not, however, comment on this term at all. The statement in the LZWZLL is further evidence that he had a text that had to do with hua ⓧ, luxury, and the “beautiful objects,” fawu ᘍ ᧎, clearly fit this better. Accordingly, Wang’s text followed the GuodianA/ Mawangdui reading and had ᖁघᇜ๬≟⴬ʶᝫ⬚ᘍ᧎ᝫὁ. THE DIVISION INTO ZHANG AND PIAN Wang Bi read the Laozi as divided into zhang ὁ. There are three passages where he refers to a “later” or “earlier” zhang.56 In two of these, the zhang referred to is found within the same pian ῇ of the current editions, while in the third case the reference is to a zhang in the other pian.57 The division into zhang also is evident in the Guodian and Mawangdui manuscripts , where it is not only indicated on occasion by dots,58 but where 26 A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing the zhang are ordered in a sequence different from the received texts but remain intact as units. For the Mawangdui manuscripts this is true for zhang 38 (marked by its being the beginning), 39, 41, 40, 42, 66, 80, 81, 67, 79, 1, 21, 24, 22, 23, and 25 (in the sequence in which they appear in the Mawangdui manuscripts). A similar situation prevails in the Guodian manuscripts, however, there are neither numbers nor titles to mark the borders between zhang. Their beginnings and endings are marked by stylistic and argumentative features with occasional punctuation. The Tang dynasty stone engraving of the Laozi shows this same feature. In his short history of the transmission of the Laozi, Xie Shouhao writes: The manuscripts which are put together today are based on textual links (wenlian ᄽⳐ). [Some] copyists have also given separate headings to each of the 81 zhang. But, as with the stanzas of the Old Poems where each stanza is separated from the next through its literary cohesion, one can determine the [Laozi’s] subsections without the need for a separate heading for each zhang.59 Thus Wang Bi saw the text as consisting of many zhang, but it is not clear whether the zhang were separated in his edition by any means similar to those employed in the Guodian and Mawangdui manuscripts. It seems that the earlier habit of marking zhang and occasionally even phrase limits with dots which we see in the Guodian manuscripts, was gradually discontinued, considered unnecessary for an increasingly “literate”—that is, writing-oriented—elite. Already in the Mawangdui manuscripts there is much less and much more irregular interpunctuation. We might assume that Wang Bi’s text looked more like the Xiang Er Commentary, which has no formal separations between the zhang or even between the Laozi text and the commentary. In the LZWZLL, Wang Bi describes each zhang (without using the term) as an argumentative unit. This also is evident in his Commentary, where he rarely explains the conclusion contained in the last phrase of a zhang, since it is deemed to be self-evident.60 For the separation of the text into two or more pian, the evidence is more complex. Assuming that the internal references to other zhang have survived unscathed in Wang Bi’s Commentary, his original text evidently did not follow the de/dao sequence of the two Mawangdui manuscripts. The received Wang Bi editions come in two pian (the four-pian arrangement in the Zhengtong...

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