Abstract
This article reexamines the history of the title xiangbang 相邦 (“Chancellor of State”) and the meaning of bang 邦 (“state”) in Warring States bronze inscriptions. By comparing transmitted historiography with excavated inscriptions on weapons, measuring devices, vessels, and other objects, it demonstrates that xiangbang, rather than xiangguo 相國 or simply xiang 相, was the contemporaneous designation of the highest nonhereditary administrative office. Inscriptions mentioning Chancellors of State and such institutions as the State Arsenal (bang ku 邦庫) and the state supervisor of robbers (bang sikou 邦司寇) point to the growing importance of the state as an actor in that epoch’s political economy. Further inscriptions reflect ongoing institutionalization, territorialization, and even personification of the state (bang). Excavated inscriptions and manuscripts demonstrate that before the Han tabooing of bang, the concepts bang and guo 國 coexisted in the preimperial political vocabulary but were semantically distinct.
Keywords
Chancellor, state, xiangbang, bang, xiangguo, chengxiang, taboo, weapons, inscriptions
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