Preface to the Xunzi

In ancient times, the Duke of Zhou examined the governance methods of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, adding to and subtracting from the institutions of the Xia and Shang dynasties, establishing rites and music, and governing the world with benevolence and righteousness. His moral teachings, punishments, and decrees were preserved in the Classic of Poetry. By the time of Kings You and Li of Zhou, who defied the Way of Heaven, the poetic tradition shifted from the proper tones of the Airs and Odes to aberrant ones. After King Ping of Zhou moved the capital eastward, the feudal lords contended with military force, and following the era of the Five Hegemons, the kingly Way persisted only as faint as a gossamer thread. Thus, Confucius revised the rites and music and compiled the Spring and Autumn Annals. Thereafter, the lingering customs of the Three Dynasties, though once relaxed, were revived, yet Confucius lacked the proper time and position to implement his achievements throughout the world; they could only be passed down and recorded by his disciples. This decline continued into the Warring States period, when Shen Buhai and Shang Yang implemented harsh and cruel governance, Sun Wu and Wu Qi exalted deceit and stratagem, punishing with clan extermination and slaughtering entire cities. Wandering persuaders took Shen Dao, Mo Di, Su Qin, and Zhang Yi as their masters, and Confucius’s teachings were nearly extinguished. This is why men of ambition gnashed their teeth in grief! Therefore, Meng Ke expounded them in the earlier period, and Xun Qing revived them later. Observe their writings and discussions of principles: they were rooted in the crux of righteousness and principle, extensively expounded on ancient deeds, and closely connected to contemporary realities, correcting disorder and restoring order with such ease that it seemed like turning over one’s hand. Truly they were renowned figures of their age and teachers to emperors and kings. Moreover, their works served to support the Six Classics and enhance the brilliance of Confucius’s teachings—they were not merely the pronouncements of the Hundred Schools. Roughly speaking, the Duke of Zhou established the rites and music, Confucius followed and transmitted them, and Xunzi and Menzi assisted in completing them, so that the kingly Way was made solid and complete, reaching its deepest and most meticulous form. Even though the Spring and Autumn period saw incursions from the Four Barbarians on all sides and the Warring States period witnessed the collapse of the Three Bonds, this Way never fell. I, Yang Jing, in the leisure of my humble official post, have managed to read many texts, privately lamenting that the customs since the age of Yan and Huang had not fully harmonized with the sagely era, and I believed that Xunzi and Menzi had merit in the governance of their time, holding them in particular reverence and admiration. Yet Mencius had Zhao Qi’s Commentary, and during the Han dynasty a professorship was established, with transmission and study never ceasing, so that gentlemen of today mostly delight in that book. Only Xunzi lacked annotations; moreover, its bamboo slips were damaged and incomplete, and errors from copying were numerous. Even if the curious occasionally read it, the text and meaning were not smooth, and often the book was closed repeatedly. When principles are clear, one is satisfied; when the text is disordered, one is displeased. Those who did not understand it regarded it as heterodox and did not read it; those who did read it, because of omissions and errors, could not finish it. Thus, Xunzi’s work had not flourished for a millennium. I therefore set forth my own shallow views, exploring and elucidating its principles, and as for the evidence I cited, I broadly searched through various texts. Only because ancient and modern words differ, and the dialects of Qi and Chu vary, matters required comparison and reference, so I could not avoid extensive inquiry. Sometimes I used characters with similar radicals, sometimes those with similar sounds and rhymes; where characters were few, I added them; where they were redundant, I deleted them; sometimes I sought from ancient forms, sometimes I verified from dialects. Added to my own limited knowledge and lack of like-minded associates, I am foolish and obstructed—how could I escape the blame of forced interpretations? This is still insufficient to roughly illuminate the intentions of the former sages; it merely adds to the jumble. It is perhaps only for my own perusal and reference, and I dare not pass it on to later generations. Because the text was extensive, I divided the original twelve scrolls and thirty-two chapters into twenty scrolls, and also changed the name from Sun Qing’s New Writings to Xun Qingzi, and rearranged the sequence of chapters somewhat, grouping them by category. Written in the year wuxu, the thirteenth year of the Yuanhe reign of the Great Tang’s Sagely Civil and Martial Emperor, in the twelfth month.