The Reign of Wang Mang

In his review, T'oung Pao XL (I950) 216-227, of C. B. Sargent's, Wang Mang (Shanghai), a translation of the first part of Wang Mang's official biography, the lamented sinologue, Professor J. J. L. Duyvendak, took issue with the translator on the question of the name adopted by the usurper for his short-lived dynasty. Sargent had proposed that Hsin New might have been chosen because of its meaning. Duyvendak considered this to be out of the question. His stated reasons are essentially I) that Hsin was based on Hsin-tu (New capital), Wang Mang's marquisate, and that the practice of naming a dynasty after the fief of its founder was characteristic from Han to Ming times; and 2) that a semantic value for Hsin would have been contrary to the classical pretensions of Wang Mang. The following concession then occurs: might think of an allusion to the beginning of the Ta-hsiieh: hsin-min A J 'renovating the people' but such an allusion does not appear in the edict in which he founded the dynasty, and, moreover the Tahsiieh was not very much studied in his time. The explanation of Hsin as 'New' should definitely be discarded. (p. 226). In the lines which follow points are raised which suggest that Professor Duyvendak's opinion may have been too rigid here, and an alternative view is proposed, not as a definitive answer to the problem, but as a distinct possibility having certain consistent points in its favor. One must agree with Duyvendak that the edict establishing the new dynasty does not mention hsin. However, an equally important document, the charter setting aside the last Han puppet, Liu Ying, and enfeoffing him as Duke of Ting-an, contains an indirect reference to this word in a significant context. In this document, which dates from the first month of A.D. 9 and thus from the very beginning of his official reign, Wang Mang asserts that the Han has run its course, and that the empire has devolved upon himself. Then he asks

Political science · Politics · Reign · China's Ethnic Minorities and Relations · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law