Challenging authority through textual criticism in 18th-century China

Abstract

Commentary can use the authority of a canonical text to give sanction to new ideas. Textual criticism, however, can openly challenge this authority. The accusation of forgery is a powerful tool to justify the de-canonization of a text. When looking at 18th-century China, however, it becomes obvious that far more fine-grained operations were possible with this tool. Instead of arguing for the spuriousness of the whole work, one could single out individual passages or chapters that were supposedly pseudepigraph. Thus, the authority of the text could be selectively challenged. Taking into consideration that through a long history of transmission these texts were often in a less than pristine state – a fact of which contemporaries were fully aware – and that in some cases the texts were known to be the product of many hands, the margin for textual criticism was considerably widened. Such a situation granted scholars many opportunities to manipulate the text according to their doctrinal preferences. It so happened that forgeries were most often identified in those parts that contained ideas not to the liking of the person working on the text. By taking a closer look at what philologists were capable of, the subversive and crafty aspects of this respectable trade come to light.