Invincibility is defense

Critical Text

Yinqueshan Text--A

不可勝守可勝攻也守則有餘攻則不足

Yinqueshan Text--B

。。。礑守則有餘攻則不足

Shiyijia zhu Text

不可胜者守也可胜者攻也守則不足攻則有餘

Translation

Invincibility is defense. Vincibility is attack. Defend and one has a surplus. Attack and one is insufficient.

Annotations

The received texts say, "Defend when one is insufficient. Attack when one has a surplus." This is the first time we have seen the Yinqueshan materials significantly invert the meaning of a well-known passage from the received text. Or, we could say that this is the first example of the received text significantly distorting an earlier tradition. For a brief discussion of the military implications of this difference, see The Art of War, Commentary, p. 147. Note that the A and B versions of the Yinqueshan text are identical in this difference.

The received text adds two "zhe" 者 in the opening sentences to help the reader parse an otherwise slightly confusing sentence. Certainly these graphs were not present in the earliest versions of the text.