A SELF-REFLEXIVE PRAXIS: CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARDS MANUSCRIPT AND TEXT IN EARLY CHINA

Abstract This article examines the attitudes of Warring States textual witnesses to the increase in presence of and reliance on bamboo manuscripts in communicating knowledge. Based on a rereading of transmitted materials and four manuscript texts ( *Wuwang Jianzuo A and B, *Baoxun , and the Zhou Wuwang you ji ) from the Warring States period, I analyze how contemporaries dealt with questions about the status of (manuscript) texts, their use and transmission, their trustworthiness, and their ability to preserve knowledge. These are texts that talk about themselves. They remark upon the physicality of text and the act of writing, the problem of oral and written transmission, and the differences in the ability of memory and manuscripts to store, hide, and reveal knowledge. I argue that these different reflections reveal a change in the predominant medium of communicating knowledge towards an increased reliance on bamboo manuscripts gradually and partially replacing traditional knowledge practices.