The six wooden tablets unearthed from Shuxiuhe蜀秀河 tomb no. 1 of the Western Han dynasty in Yangzhou, are official documents that detail the dealings between Liu Jian 劉建 (?–121 BCE), prince of Jiangdu, and Sui遂, a contemporary official and occupant of the tomb. Based on these documents, the present article furthers our understanding of the institution of Han imperial edicts. From the form of the prince’s reply, namely ming yue wen命曰聞 (the command says, “known”), the existence of the emperor’s similar reply form of zhi yue wen制曰聞 (the edict says, “known”) can be inferred. Within everyday government affairs, the basic meaning of this reply form is, just as the word implies, “known,” which in itself carries no negative meaning; its negative meaning, however, is a derivative connotation that originated in the operation of imperial power. These wooden tablets exhibit two forms of documents, namely distinguishing statements and petitions, which may correspond to the classification of commands in the Qin dynasty as well as Du duan獨斷. The document format of recording presented memorials includes the date on which the memorial was presented, official position and name of the presenter, and the place from where it was presented, a practice which was adopted in the official document systems of the Western and Eastern Han dynasties. The records of presented memorials of other similar texts in wooden slips or stone carvings, including “Wuji shan bei” 無極山碑, “Sishi yueling zhao tiao” 四時月令詔條, “Yi ying bei” 乙瑛碑, “San wang shijia” 三王世家 from Shiji史記, and “Yuan Kang wu nian zhaoshu ce” 元康五年詔書冊, can correspondingly be supplemented, restored, or further understood, as well as improving the restoration of imperial edict formats. The presence of a presented memorial record may even be used as one of the bases for determining the original document. The reason for the general absence of both the reply form of zhi yue wen and memorial records in certain documents and wooden slips is related to the omissions of characters and limitations of the slips themselves. Ultimately, original documents written on wooden slips which may be unearthed from tombs and await our attention can fill in lacunas concerning document formats and imperial edicts.
wooden tablets; Shuxiuhe tomb no. 1; imperial reply form of “known” (wen); presented memorial records; official document formats
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