Some aspects of Shang administration : a survey based solely on the evidence available in the oracle bone texts

Abstract

Although this survey is particularly concerned with aspects of administration in Shang times and is essentially historical in scope, it has nevertheless become considerably involved with problems of presentation, not the least of which is the rendering in English both the content of the oracular texts and notes on individual characters and phrases. It is the first attempt in English or in any other Western language substantial number of oracle bone texts in translation. Accordingly, the first problem - which has been found an especially difficult one - concerns the transcription of the archaic graph into a modern character equivalent or into a modern character form. To the Chinese or Japanese reader this is not regarded as a particularly important matter, but once it becomes necessary to render archaic text into an entirely different language, transcription becomes an unexpectedly significant matter - of this there will be more to discuss shortly. Secondly, meanings must be carefully investigated and especial care taken when they are to be expressed in an alien language - when writing in his own language a Chinese and also a Japanese, can sometimes side-step a problem because there exists an intrinsic element of a partial understanding - an emotional assessment - but one which perhaps does not always really amount to an actual understanding. Only when the precision required in translation arises do we come to appreciate that the problem has unconsciously been side-stepped. For one who has, at one stage or another during the compilation of this survey, had to reconsider various long accepted view-points then to revise a longcherished understanding of them, it has necessitated considerable readjustment in interpretation.