包山楚简“集箸”、“集箸言”性质再辨

THE REEXAMINATION OF THE NATURE OF THE BOOKS JIZHU AND JIZHU YANIN THE BAOSHAN CHU BAMBOO SLIPS

包山楚简于1986年出土于湖北荆门包山二号墓。墓主是担任楚国左尹的邵佗，发掘报告推断其下葬年代为公元前316年。出土的文书简中有被称为“集箸”、“集箸言”。

Among the legal or administrative documents in the bamboo slips unearthed from Baoshan Chu Tomb No.2,there are some ones titled as 'Jizhu' and 'Jizhu yan',which are greatly meaningful for the researches on the household and/or population registers of the Chu State in the Warring-States Period.However,there have been controversies and arguments among the scholars on their natures.Actually,to judge the natures of the books titled as'Jizhu(collected register)'and'Jizhu yan(collected register cases)',first of all their original statuses must be restored.Through the restoration,it can be seen that behind the signatures of the registrars,the characters of 'XX(the name of the registrar)na YY(something)'usually appeared.The na(put into)is a verb and its objects are usually the legal documents whose contents included household registers as well as lawsuits,of which the zhong 中,dian典 and deng等(zhi志)would have belonged to bushu(account books).Therefore,the concrete contents of the'Jizhu'and'Jizhu yan'are the records of the population register,but they were closely related to the shangji(submitting and auditing of the reports of the revenue,population,natural and social disasters and related issues of an administrative region to the central government)system,because of which they were called as'Jizhu'and'Jizhu yan'.Seen from the titles,the'Jizhu'and'Jizhu yan'are similar to the'bushu'in Zhou Li(the Rites of Zhou)and the'jibu(collected bookkeeping)'of the Han Dynasty,the nature of which is basically a kind of outlining and summarizing statistic documents used for shangji.These estimations on the natures of the 'Jizhu'and 'Jizhu yan'match that on the status and duties of Shao Tuo,who was the zuoyin(left prime minister)of the Chu State,the important central judicial official and the link between the royal court and the local officials.The local officials submitted the'Jizhu'and 'Jizhu yan' to the zuoyin,and the parts related to the king of the Chu State ought to be submitted by the zuoyinto the king.