The general is wisdom

Critical Text

Yinqueshan Text

將者知 。　。　。

Shiyijia zhu Text

將者智信仁勇嚴也

Translation

The general is wisdom, trustworthiness, courage and strictness.

Annotations

The received texts all have the defining Confucian virtue jen 仁 , "humane," as the third term in their series of five qualities. The bamboo strip of the Yinqueshan text breaks off after the word "zhi 知 ," and another strip resumes only with the " quzhi 曲制 " of the subsequent passage. There is no room on the missing bamboo strip for more than four of these qualities, when interlarded with ye 也 . There is also too much room for five if the ye are omitted. (For these arguments, see Liu Chunsheng 劉春生 , "Jianben Sunzi canjian jiaodu 簡本孫子殘簡校讀 , in Sunzi xinlun jicui 孫子新論集粹 [Beijing: Changzheng, 1992], pp. 59-69.) Therefore, following Li Ling (in Wu Sunzi fawei ), we have adopted the reading of the Shuchao 書鈔 ( juan 113). This fits the spaces perfectly and is also consistent with attitudes that characterize the rest of the Sunzi.

The additional ye, which are not attested in the received texts, have another early witness in the Qianfu lun 潛夫論 (Discourses of a recluse) of Wang Fu 王符 (ca. A.D. 78-163). Chapter 21, "Quanjiang" 勸將 (Encouraging the general), cites this passage as follows: 將者智也仁也敬也信也勇也嚴也 ("As for the general, he is wise, he is humane, he is reverent, he is trustworthy, he is courageous, he is strict" [SPPY 5:13b].) Wang goes on to explain each of these terms, constituting thereby the earliest known commentary on the Sunzi. "Reverent" is another virtue not usually associated with the military. (Wang explains that the general is "reverent that he might summon worthies"--not at all a concern of the Sunzi, but a major topos in the political discourse of Wang's time.)

Clearly there were variant texts of the Sunzi available in Han and the Six Dynasties. Our hypothesis is that the Yinqueshan text represents the best early tradition and that "ren" was added soon enough in the Han that all later versions of the text now include it.