;

Of old, those skilled at defense

Critical Text

©õ	µ½	¦u	ªÌ	ÂÃ	¤E
xi	shan	shou	zhe	cang	jiu
old	good	defend	ones	hide	nine

¦a	¤§	¤U	°Ê	¤E	¤Ñ
di	zhi	xia	dong	jiu	tian
earth	's	below	move	nine	heaven

¤§	¤W	¬G	¯à	¦Û	«O
zhi	shang	gu	neng	zi	bao
's	above	thus	able	self	preserve

¥þ	³Ó	¤]
quan	sheng	ye
complete	victory	(period)

Yinqueshan Text -- A

Yinqueshan Text -- B

Shiyijia zhu Text

Translation

Of old, those skilled at defense hid below the nine earths and moved above the nine heavens. Thus they could preserve themselves and be all-victorious.

Annotations

This passage in the received texts contains a more complete parallelism between the first two clauses, rewriting them so that the sentence reads, "Those skilled at defense hide below the nine earths, those skilled at attack move above the nine heavens." As with the previous section, it seems clear that the Yinqueshan versions are earlier.

Wu Jiulong (p. 57, n.2) goes to considerable lengths to distinguish these "nine heavens" from similar references in the Li Sao and the Lushi chunqiu (and other texts, for example, the Guanzi [1:78]), arguing that "nine" simply indicates a large number and "heavens" a faraway place. That is, he is uncomfortable that the Sunzi appears to be participating in the religious (i.e. superstitious) culture of its time. However, it is hard to find evidence to support his views.