Book of Charges

The Book of Charges (命, m.ringh) is a collection of 180 documents of purported "charges" by various rulers to their subordinates, granting them lands, slaves, and goods, with or without expected returns. The book's editor is unknown but believed to have lived in the early 1st century CE, based on the language of the preface added to the collection and contemporary events cited. The documents are all very short, never exceeding five sentences, and reveal little about the history of the period.

While the book is considered a canonical document dating from before the Treaty of Five Kings in 256, it has long been considered difficult to understand and unprofitable to study by Themiclesian scholars due to archaic language, severely wanting context, and limited historical information. However, combined with excavated bronzes found in the 19th century onwards, the book has seen renewed attention as primary records of an era prior to true historical writing. In the early 20th century, the Shinasthanologist Erwin G. Shutter called it "the most valuable document of the nation's antiquity", but subsequent investigations have casted doubt on some of the documents' authenticity or interpretation.

Contents

The book is divided into a preface and ten parts, corresponding to ten states that existed prior to the Hexarchy.

Chapter		Documents
Book of Tsjinh	晉典	91
Book of Ngak	鄂典	8
Book of ′Judh	尉典	10
Book of Sjing	辛典	15
Book of L′ja	舒典	22
Book of Leng	廷典	7
Book of Kem	甘典	11
Book of L′jin	申典	9
Book of Ngjon	原典	3
Book of Lem	滕典	4

Preface

The preface opens with a lament about how modern princes have betrayed cadet lines and "old families" that have defended and supported the princes for their private greed for money and power. The editor says that he has gone into each state's temples to retrieve the "old tablets granted" that will guide a wise ruler to the "old path" that have created a harmonious society before the current epoch of war and atrocity.

Book of Tsjinh

The Book of Tsjinh is by far the longest of the entire collection, holding 91 or just over half of all documents.

Analysis

Dating

The question of dating was not extensively addressed by pre-modern scholars in Themiclesia, most choosing to say they were written by "scribes" (史) at different times. Only two attempts have been made to date documents to specific rulers, by Hraw in 979 and Njet in 1224, but most scholars both traditional and modern dismiss their conclusions as untenable.

One major problem with attempts to date the Book is the absence of broadly-accepted chronologies in Themiclesian antiquity, and some scholars working with archaic religion have stated that Themiclesian people followed a cyclical chronology rather than a linear one until the Hexarchy. The compilers of the Six States' Springs and Autumns complained that "in Tsjinh, from the Six Princes there are dates and years; before that time, there are but names and genealogies" (自六公子有厥年其至惟名于諸世). Modern scholars have applied linguistic and astronomical knowldege in addition to archaeologal and epigraphic data to reconstruct particulars of some of the documents, with some degree of acceptance.

Many of the documents themselves contain references to time. The Book of Tsjinh is characterized by a consistent appeal to oracles taking place at various temples, and these oracles are dated to the day of sacrifice within a numbered sacrificial cycle. However, the ruler's identity is not mentioned. Thus, if a document refers to a high-numbered cycle, e.g. the elder's 40th cycle (白亖十巳), then rulers with short reigns could be excluded. The identities of the temples where the oracles were taken are also useful to show that a document could not be older than a certain ruler's reign, and the sacrificial days themselves, named for the sacrifice performed, obliquely connect the document with the period in which that sacrifice was frequent or even at all attested. Individual names can be associated with bronze epigraphy, which in turn provide, through artistic progression in morphology, of that individual's period of activity.

While considerable success have been achieved with these methods, they also exhibit certain shortcomings relative to the establishment of absolute chronology. Scholars do not dispute that sacrificial cycles must occur in sequence, i.e. the second cycle must follow the first, and the third the second, etc., but the length or date of these cycles are still not conclusive, especially in the more remote part of antiquity. The names of temples are stable but not unchanging: a temple named "new temple" can be renamed to something else if a newer one is subsequently completed, and there are several temples all suspected to have been called "new temple" at some time. A "west temple" can also appear as "right temple", assuming a south-facing orientation. The names of individuals can be problematic if it is interpreted as a familial name, rather than personal name, since families can use the same name for many generations.

The linguistic line of investigation has revealed that there are substantial differences between chapters, ascribed to dialects of the ten states. In terms of dating, it is agreed that a considerable part of the corpus is of "true antiquity", given parallels with oracular and epigraphic language not seen in other genres of texts. Some of the texts exhibit SOV (subject-object-verb) word order, considered a conservative feature in the broader Meng language family but subsequently evolved into SVO in both Menghean and Themiclesian dialects. On the other hand, certain texts also appear to have been edited to appear more archaic than they actually are, though traces of this editorial activity is identifiable.

Historical information

The identity of the diviner, or the officer who interprets the oracle, has been subject to a variety of interpretation in modern times. At times, the elder (伯, brak) is the sole diviner, but other individuals may also participate in the process. These individuals may or may not be mentioned by name: the text sometimes provides that "the rest divined" (貞率既).  There are instances where the elder's interpretation is rejected by "the rest".

See also

• Themiclesia