In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Meaning 01 Hsing-te John S. Major The study of traditional Chinese intellectual history depends fundamentally on understanding exactly what every word and phrase of classical Chinese means in its own context.1 In these pages 1 propose to discuss a phrase that occurs in texts of the Warring States and Han periods. Perhaps because its meaning seems so obvious, it has often been interpreted in ways that are inadequate or inaccurate.2 Hsing-te 刑德 is usually understood to mean 'punishments and rewards'. In most cases, it means precisely that. In ancient China, it was widely accepted that Yin 陰 ， Yang 陽 and the Five Phases (wu-hsing 五行) went through an annual cycle such that Nature was life-giving for the first six months of the year, and life-denying for the latter half of the year. Rulers who wished to conform to the Tao as it was understood inγin-yang/Five Phase cosmology (and most of them prudently chose to do so) commonly bestowed rewards during the life-affirming, Yang portion of the year, and meted out punishments during the life-denying, Much of the work of Derk Bodde has been devoted to this task. In his recently-collected Essays on Chinese Civilization (ed. Charles Le Blanc and Dorothy Borei; Princeton, 1982), both the earliest essay and the latest but one are dedicated to explaining a troublesome word or phrase. 2 The title of this essay deliberately echoes that of H.G. Creel's well-known article The Meaning of Hsing-Ming 汁'1 名 '(in S. Egerod and E. Glahn, eds., Studia Serica Bemhαrd Karlgren Dedicata. Copenhagen, 1959, pp. 199-211; reprinted in Creel, What is Taoism? And Other Essays in Chinese Cultural History. Chicago, 1970, pp. 79-91). Hsing-ming and hsing-te, despite their apparent similarity, have little in common except that both contain the word hsing, and both are composed of 'easy' characters, being thus all too easily misunderstood. 1 wish to express my thanks to Dr. Robin Yates, Prof. Robert Henricks, and Prof. Edward Bradley for their helpful suggestions. 281 John S. Major Yin portion. Punishments and rewards allotted in accordance with this understanding were commonly referred to as hsing and te. In some cases, however, this simple and widely-followed practice in modern studies of ancient China of equating hsing-te and 'punishments and rewards' cannot but give rise to a certain feeling of intellectual unease. Consider these examples: 'The east-west dimensions of earth are called weft, the north-south dimensions are called warp. Mountains are its accumulated rewards [叫， streams are its accumulated punishments [hsing].'3 Or again, 'The sword of the Son of Heaven [is the cosmos itself]. It is governed by the Five Phases, directed by punishments and rewards, brought into action by yin and yang, held in readiness in spring and summer, wielded in autumn and winter.'4 What, one may ask, are such concrete, human-centered concepts as punishments and rewards doing in the context of lists of attributes that define thé shape, temporality, and operating principles of the cosmos itself? The anomaly is inescapable; to dispel it, we must enquire more deeply into the meaning of hsing and te. Neither word eχpresses a single, simple meaning; instead, both are surrounded by a constellation of concepts. Hsing 刊IJ 5 consists of ching 井 'well' (GSR #819, *tsieng) as a phonetic, plus 'knife'. It is phonetically identical to hsing 形. The usual meaning of hsing 刑 is 'punishment'; it is commonly glossed by commentators as sha 殺， 'to kill'. In contexts in which the meaning 'punishment' clearly is called for, it usually seems to imply mutilating punishment (the severing of an extremity, for example), or death by decapitation, etc. This is exactly as one would eχpect on a common-sense basis from the presence of the signifier 'knife'. A secondary set of meanings for hsing involves the concept of criminal law in general, producing 'model', 'imitate', 'behavior'. (lt is this last meaning that is stressed by Creel in 'The Meaning of Hsing-Ming 刑名， .) This set of meanings impinges on the closely-related character hsing 7衫， 'shape', and provides a clue to the root-meaning of hsing 刑 Hsing involves altering the shape (hsing 形) of something by cutting part of it away; thus hsing 刑 means 'to cut oH, to slice away, to pare'. The meaning of te 德 is more complex. Te 德 is an exact homophone of te 得 (GSR 抖 919， 90S, *tak); the two words are widely accepted by ear1y Chinese lexicographers and commentators as...

Share