劉歆「上山海經表」をめぐって

Abstract

Liu Xin 劉歆 was the first person to collate Shan Hai Jing 山海經. His "Shang Shan Hai Jing Biao 上山海經表" ("Presenting Shan Hai Jing to the emperor") praised Shan Hai Jing, and said it was an excellent ancient text that was equal to Yu Gong 禹貢. But the collating of Shan Hai Jing with the signature by Liu Xin is cruder compared with other books that Liu Xin and his father Liu Xiang 劉向 collated. Why was this so poorly done? When Liu Xin was collating Shan Hai Jing, a political struggle of the party who supported Wang Mang 王莽 and the party who protected the Han 漢 royal family became more and more heated. Wang Mang and his party aroused social unrest by various predictions, and were holding the real power of Han dynasty. Liu Xin, he was a member of Han royal family, advocated the Gu-wen-xue 古文學 (ancient text study) whose principle is rationalism, in order to oppose Wang Mang. For him, Shan Hai Jing was an ancient text that can supplement Yu Gong. So, he collated it, presented to Ai di 哀帝, and asked courtiers for supporting the Gu-wen-xue. However, because of the political turmoil, the collating was not properly done. Thus, it was criticized by the courtiers who suppoerted Wang Mang, and Liu Xin and his party were driven out the capital. At the same time, he succeeded his father and finished editing Qi-lüe 七略, but cculd not collate it properly, either. Therefore there were errors about the number of the volumes, which are in conflict with those of Shan Hai Jing. In the present paper, I examine the social context of his collations in detail.