A few lines from the “Pan Geng”: Portraying a “good king” of the archaic era

Abstract

The “Pan Geng” chapter of the “Book of Documents” is a unique example of an ancient Chinese text that portrays a king (Pan Geng) giving a speech to a large audience. With the oldest layers of the text probably dating back to the XI–VI cent. B. C., the language of the “Pan Geng” is in many instances abstruse, leading to multiple different interpretations of some of its passages. The hypothesis underlying my research is that in some cases, the interpreter’s choice may be affected by the need to portray Pan Geng as a “good king”, but there is a huge discrepancy between the interpreter’s “good” and the archaic Chinese aristocracy’s “good”. Through grammatical analysis and textual parallels I intend to provide an alternative reading for some of the passages, namely: “Let none of you dare to suppress anything that the small people say in remonstrance” > “Let none of you dare to admit what small people criticize”; “Toiling for your forefathers” > “Rewarding your forefathers”; “If the state is not good, it is because I, the One Man, commit mistakes and crimes” > “If the state is not good, it is because I, the One Man, have failed in applying the punishments” (the latter option, proposed by B. Karlgren, has not yet been accepted by Russian interpreters); “Do I overawe you? (No), by this I take care of and sustain you all” > “Do I not overawe you? [I should, for] by this I take care of and sustain you all”.