20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

How texts survive. Some considerations on text structure... 79Around 544-496 BC, Sun Wu, known as Sunzi, the general, strategistand philosopher lived during a most turbulent period of Chinese history.Nearly 200 years later, he was followed by a decendant, Sun Bin, who alsowrote on military strategy. For a long time, many scholars were convincedthat these two persons are in fact one. Around 140 BC, the owner of theYinqueshan Tomb in Shandong was buried, and among the goods placedin the tomb were two texts, one being “Art of War”, the other the treatiseby Sun Bin. These texts were written on bamboo stripes strung together bythreads.Around 155-220 AD, Cao Cao, the notorious warlord, military rulerand writer left his trace in history. He is also the first author of whom weknow that he annotated and commented the “Art of War”. 100 years later,in the 4 th century AD, the transition from bamboo stripes to paper wasmade, greatly simplifying the acts of writing and storing texts.Over centuries, the interest in the text never ceased, and we are aware oftranslations into Tangut made during the 12 th century AD and translationsinto Manju, later into French 2 , during the 18 th century AD. A new wave ofinterest was sparked at the beginning of the 20 th century AD. Major moderntranslations into Western languages (English, Russian, etc.) appeared.However, it was not until 1972 that the Yinqueshan tomb was unearthedand the oldest existing versions of the “Art of War” were discovered. Thisdiscovery also clarified the perplexing riddle of how many authors andhow many texts should be counted: two authors, namely Sun Wu and SunBin, and two texts, namely the “Art of War” (Sunzi Bingfa) and Sun Bin'smilitary treatise (Sun Bin Bingfa).During the last decades of the 20 th century AD, a broad adaptionof Sunzi's teachings into fields other than warfare could be observed,popularizing author and oeuvre well beyond military circles.The AuthorThe Historical Annals (Shi Ji) by Sima Qian record the biographicalsummary of a certain Sun Wu, native of Qi. It is disputed today that thisfigure is indeed an individual person, and much more, that this Sun Wu isthe genuinely the sole author of the text, as at least one Chinese scholarargues that the ‟Art of War” was compiled by Sun Bin. Other opinionsincluded the assumption that Cao Cao is the first compiler of these teachingsand attributed them to a fictitious historical figure.Relevance of the TextThe ‟Art of War” is universally acknowledged to be the first theoretical2Published by the Jesuit missionary Jean Joseph Marie Amiot in 1772.