The Functions of Shujing’s Earliest Chapters in Socio-Political Communication

Abstract

This paper examines the earliest textual layers of the ancient Chinese Classics Shujing 書經. Analyzing the form and content of its chapters we determine their functions in the context of socio-political communication between different groups of ancient Chinese society and political class. While studying the formal properties of the shu, we come to reconstruct different types of its basic elements. This formal heterogeneity of early shu differentiates them greatly from the poetic hymns of Shijing 詩經, thus contradicting the well-spread hypothesis of the texts liturgical nature and functions. Exploring the main elements of narrative reveals the main recipient of its message, that being not the relatives of the royal lineage, but the servants, stewards and wardens of Luoyang, which is the spatial and chronological centre of narration. Thus we can reconstruct the main function of the texts, and that is to legitimize the communication and interaction between such groups of Zhou society and ruling class, which are not connected by kinship. This once again contradicts the liturgical hypothesis, as the stewards and servants were not connected to the cult of royal ancestors.