20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

How texts survive.Some considerations on text structure andcommunicative function of Sunzi's “Art of War”Oliver CorffChina Counsellor – BerlinIntroduction“The Art of War” (Sunzi Bingfa 1 ) by the Chinese general, strategist andmilitary thinker Sun Wu (later known as “Master Sun“, Sun Zi or Sunzi)who is supposed to have been born approx. 540 BC, is an universallyacknowlegded, timeless masterpiece of the study of strategy, warfare andhuman behaviour. With regard to the history of the text and its tradition,it is most notable to observe that the “Art of War” is not preserved in anyversion which can be traced back to an original author. The oldest textversions we are aware of today came centuries after the historical periodSun Wu lived in. It is even more remarkable to know that the oldestversion of this text is not preserved in a library but was unearthed froma tomb. It is hence legitimate to ask why this text could survive at leastone huge historical purge during the Qin dynasty, how it could survivewithout any uninterrupted physical recording and which properties of thetext contributed to its vigourous survival over more than two millenia intothe 21 st century.TimelineA short timeline will help to realize the historical scope in which the“Art of War“ should be appreciated.1Various spellings for this name exist. The romanization given here uses the Pinyinsystem. Traditional spellings include „Sun Tzu“, Sun Tsu“, etc.