Title

Another Look at the Problem of Inheritance in Liu Xiang’s Scholarship on the Book of Odes and Its Relationship with the Political Realities of the Western Han

Author

Chen Chih-feng

Genre

Article

Pages

203-243

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202306_53(2).0001

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Liu Xiang 劉向, Book of Odes, Biographies of Exemplary Women, Garden of Anecdotes, New Prefaces, Lu Odes

Abstract

In academic circles, Liu Xiang’s 劉向 (77 B.C.-6 B.C.) conception of the Book of Odes is mostly regarded as belonging to the tradition of the Lu Odes. However, there are no works specifically devoted to the Book of Odes in Liu’s extant literary corpus. His discussions of the Odes are scattered throughout his Biographies of Exemplary Women, Garden of Anecdotes, New Prefaces and the memorials he submitted to the throne. On the basis of the positions expressed in these writings, he became the most frequently praised scholar of the Odes in the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. This study of his views on the Odes is divided into three parts:

I. An inquiry into whether Liu Xiang refers to the Book of Odes as the Lu Odes and related questions about the three books he authored.

II. The political realities involved in Liu’s composition of the three books and the problems connected with identifying his tradition of scholarship on the Odes.

III. An analysis of Liu Xiang’s memorials that cite the Odes recorded in the Han History’s “Biography of Chu Yuanwang.”

The findings of this article cast doubt on the theory that Liu Xiang wrote the Lu Odes, arguing that it is more appropriate to view this issue from a broad perspective. Among the three books written by Liu Xiang, only the Biographies of Exemplary Women focuses on contemporary problems and has a strong practical political purpose. The content of the Biographies of Exemplary Women differs from the comprehensive discussions of kingship found in the Garden of Anecdotes and the New Prefaces. Ultimately, this study argues that the memorials sent by Liu Xiang to Emperor Yuan and Emperor Cheng, which discuss the Odes in connection with yinyang 陰陽 correlative theory, are different from the views of the text he expressed in his three books. The position he adopts in his memorials is in line with contemporary scholarly trends and the practices of remonstrance officials at the time.