The Art of War | Page 9

military commanders, but they seem to have
treated it as a work of mysterious import, and were unwilling to
expound it for the benefit of posterity. Thus it came about that Wei Wu
was the first to write a commentary on it.

As we have already seen, there is no reasonable ground to suppose that
Ts`ao Kung tampered with the text. But the text itself is often so
obscure, and the number of editions which appeared from that time
onward so great, especially during the T`ang and Sung dynasties, that it
would be surprising if numerous corruptions had not managed to creep
in. Towards the middle of the Sung period, by which time all the chief
commentaries on Sun Tzu were in existence, a certain Chi T`ien-pao
published a work in 15 CHUAN entitled "Sun Tzu with the collected
commentaries of ten writers." There was another text, with variant
readings put forward by Chu Fu of Ta-hsing, which also had supporters
among the scholars of that period; but in the Ming editions, Sun Hsing-
yen tells us, these readings were for some reason or other no longer put
into circulation. Thus, until the end of the 18th century, the text in sole
possession of the field was one derived from Chi T`ien-pao's edition,
although no actual copy of that important work was known to have
survived. That, therefore, is the text of Sun Tzu which appears in the
War section of the great Imperial encyclopedia printed in 1726, the KU
CHIN T`U SHU CHI CH`ENG. Another copy at my disposal of what
is practically the same text, with slight variations, is that contained in
the "Eleven philosophers of the Chou and Ch`in dynasties" [1758]. And
the Chinese printed in Capt. Calthrop's first edition is evidently a
similar version which has filtered through Japanese channels. So things
remained until Sun Hsing-yen [1752-1818], a distinguished antiquarian
and classical scholar, who claimed to be an actual descendant of Sun
Wu, [36] accidentally discovered a copy of Chi T`ien-pao's long-lost
work, when on a visit to the library of the Hua-yin temple. [37]
Appended to it was the I SHUO of Cheng Yu-Hsien, mentioned in the
T`UNG CHIH, and also believed to have perished. This is what Sun
Hsing-yen designates as the "original edition (or text)" -- a rather
misleading name, for it cannot by any means claim to set before us the
text of Sun Tzu in its pristine purity. Chi T`ien-pao was a careless
compiler, and appears to have been content to reproduce the somewhat
debased version current in his day, without troubling to collate it with
the earliest editions then available. Fortunately, two versions of Sun
Tzu, even older than the newly discovered work, were still extant, one
buried in the T`UNG TIEN, Tu Yu's great treatise on the Constitution,
the other similarly enshrined in the T`AI P`ING YU LAN encyclopedia.

In both the complete text is to be found, though split up into fragments,
intermixed with other matter, and scattered piecemeal over a number of
different sections. Considering that the YU LAN takes us back to the
year 983, and the T`UNG TIEN about 200 years further still, to the
middle of the T`ang dynasty, the value of these early transcripts of Sun
Tzu can hardly be overestimated. Yet the idea of utilizing them does
not seem to have occurred to anyone until Sun Hsing-yen, acting under
Government instructions, undertook a thorough recension of the text.
This is his own account: --
Because of the numerous mistakes in the text of Sun Tzu which his
editors had handed down, the Government ordered that the ancient
edition [of Chi T`ien-pao] should be used, and that the text should be
revised and corrected throughout. It happened that Wu Nien-hu, the
Governor Pi Kua, and Hsi, a graduate of the second degree, had all
devoted themselves to this study, probably surpassing me therein.
Accordingly, I have had the whole work cut on blocks as a textbook for
military men.
The three individuals here referred to had evidently been occupied on
the text of Sun Tzu prior to Sun Hsing-yen's commission, but we are
left in doubt as to the work they really accomplished. At any rate, the
new edition, when ultimately produced, appeared in the names of Sun
Hsing-yen and only one co- editor Wu Jen-shi. They took the "original
edition" as their basis, and by careful comparison with older versions,
as well as the extant commentaries and other sources of information
such as the I SHUO, succeeded in restoring a very large number of
doubtful passages, and turned out, on the whole, what must be accepted
as the closes approximation we are ever likely to get to Sun Tzu's
original work. This is what will hereafter be denominated the "standard
text." The copy which