The Jizhong discovery () was the accidental rediscovery in 279 AD of a corpus of

bamboo and wooden slips Bamboo and wooden strips ( zh, s=简牍, t=簡牘, first=t, p=jiǎndú) are long, narrow strips of wood or bamboo, each typically holding a single column of several dozen brush-written characters. They were the main media for writing documents ...

, as attested in the ''

Book of Jin The ''Book of Jin'' is an official Chinese historical text covering the history of the Jin dynasty (266–420), Jin dynasty from 266 to 420. It was compiled in 648 by a number of officials commissioned by the imperial court of the Tang dynasty, ...

''. The slips were found by a grave robber named Biao Zhun () who had broken into the tomb of

King Xiang of Wei King Xiang of Wei (; died 296 BC), personal name Wei Si (), was king of the Wei state from 318 BC to 296 BC. He was the son of King Hui. In 318 BC, at the suggestion of the Wei minister Gongsun Yan, he entered into an alliance against the Qin ...

(318–296 BC). The rediscovered texts enabled philological study among scholars that had been impossible since the editorial work of Han-era scholars Liu Xiang and Liu Xin. The importance of the discovery has been compared to that of the

Guodian Chu Slips The Guodian Chu Slips () were unearthed in October 1993 in Tomb no. 1 of the Guodian tombs in Jingmen, Hubei Province and dated to the latter half of the Warring States period. Scott Cook completed a study and translation of all the manuscript of ...

for modern scholarship.

Provenance

The initial editorial work on the slips was done by Xun Xu (d. 289), who was the director of the Jin imperial library, though its quality was questioned by his successors. Among his editions, only two have survived; the large number of quotations shows the extent of Xun Xu work's influence. Among the works retrieved, collectively known as ''Jizhongshu'' (), the most important were the ''

Bamboo Annals The ''Bamboo Annals'' ( zh, t=竹書紀年, p=Zhúshū Jìnián), also known as the ''Ji Tomb Annals'' ( zh, t=汲冢紀年, p=Jí Zhǒng Jìnián), is a chronicle of ancient China. It begins in the earliest legendary time (the age of the Yellow E ...

'', but other works of interest include manuscripts of the '' Guoyu'', the ''

I Ching The ''I Ching'' or ''Yijing'' ( ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. The ''I Ching'' was originally a divination manual in ...

'', the '' Tale of King Mu'', the ''Suoyu'' ( 'Minor Sayings'), an anthology of '' zhiguai'', and several

Warring States The Warring States period in Chinese history (221 BC) comprises the final two and a half centuries of the Zhou dynasty (256 BC), which were characterized by frequent warfare, bureaucratic and military reforms, and struggles for gre ...

-era glossaries. Though the majority of the collection have subsequently been lost, the restoration work, which involved identifying a great number of variant scripts as well as collating fragmented bamboo strips and finding parallels in the received literature of the time, sparked renewed interest in ancient texts and epigraphy among Xun Xu's contemporaries, such as Lü Chen (), who wrote his '' Zilin'' dictionary by extending the ''

Shuowen Jiezi The ''Shuowen Jiezi'' is a Chinese dictionary compiled by Xu Shen , during the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE). While prefigured by earlier reference works for Chinese characters like the ''Erya'' (), the ''Shuowen Jiezi'' contains the ...

'';

Guo Pu Guo Pu (; AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun (), was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer during the Eastern Jin period, and is best known as one of China's foremost commentators on ancient texts. Guo was a Taoist mystic, geomancer, collec ...

, who annotated the ''

Erya The ''Erya'' or ''Erh-ya'' is the first surviving Chinese dictionary. The sinologist Bernhard Karlgren concluded that "the major part of its glosses must reasonably date from the 3rd century BC." Title Chinese scholars interpret the firs ...

'', '' Sancang'', '' Fangyan'', the ''

Classic of Mountains and Seas The ''Classic of Mountains and Seas'', also known as ''Shanhai jing'' (), formerly romanized as the ''Shan-hai Ching'', is a Chinese classic text and a compilation of mythic geography and beasts. Early versions of the text may have existed si ...

'', and the '' Tale of King Mu''; and Zhang Hua, who wrote the encyclopedic ''

Bowuzhi ''Bowuzhi'' ( zh, c=博物志, tr=Records of Diverse Matters) by Zhang Hua (c. 290 CE) was a compendium of Chinese stories about natural wonders and marvelous phenomena. It quotes from many early Chinese classics, and diversely includes subject ...

''. Since the ''

Book of Sui The ''Book of Sui'' () is the official history of the Sui dynasty, which ruled China in the years AD 581–618. It ranks among the official Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written by Yan Shigu, Kong Yingda, and Zhangsun Wuji, ...

'', the Jizhong cache is broadly referred as the source of the ''

Yi Zhou Shu The ''Yi Zhou Shu'' () is a compendium of Chinese historical documents about the Western Zhou period (1046–771 BCE). Its textual history began with a (4th century BCE) text/compendium known as the ''Zhou Shu'' ("Book of Zhou"), which was possib ...

''. However, this statement should be accepted with caution. Its source, the ''

'', indeed lists it among the titles of the Jizhong finds. However, some of the chapters presently contained in this compendium evidently postdate King Xiang’s era.

Provenance

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited