墨子生卒年新考

A New Textual Research on the Year of Birth and Death of MO-tse

墨子的生活年代,司马迁说:或曰并孔子时,或曰在其后。此后数千年人们存在种种揣测。文章就此对各种文献进行综合研究,推断出墨子的生卒年。因为墨子与鲁阳文君的年龄相当,鲁阳文君又与楚平王的太子建之子白公胜的年龄相近,白公胜生于公元前525年至公元前520年之间,故可由此确定墨子的生年。墨子最后一次来到楚国,当在楚惠王四十二年(公元前447年)至四十四年(公元前445年)之间,时年七十二岁以上,故孙诒让所谓墨子"年寿必逾八十"之说是可以成立的。墨子八十岁时,约当楚惠王五十一年(公元前438年)。这个卒年,约与孔子弟子曾参(曾参卒于公元前436年)相近;和子思(子思约卒于公元前402年)则相距稍远。

About MO-tse’s living time,SIMA Qian said:“Perhaps the same age as Confucius,or later.”There has been a variety of speculation for thousands of years thereafter.This article makes a comprehensive study of various documents to deduce MO-tse’year of birth and death,because MO-tse’s age matches that of Wenjun of Luyang,who was of the same age as BAI Gongsheng,the son of the king of Chuping,born between 525 B.C.and 520 B.C.So it was possible to determine the year of MO-tse’s birth.MO-tse came to the state of Chu for the last time between Chu Hui forty-two years(447 B.C.)and forty-four years(445 B.C.),when he was over seventy-two years old,SUN Yirang said that“MO-tse’s life must be over eighty”,which could be established.The year when MO-tse was eighty years old was about Chu Hui fifty-one years(438 B.C.).MO-tse’s death year was similar to that of Confucius’s disciple ZENG Shen,who died in 436 B.C.And MO-tse’s death year was a little farther from ZI Si’s death year,ZI Si died in 402 B.C.