< Page:Sun Tzu on The art of war.djvu
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XVII
INTRODUCTION

Tzŭ stands beyond the reach of carping criticism. My contemporaries,

however, have failed to grasp the full meaning of his instructions, and while putting into practice the smaller details in which his work abounds, they have overlooked its essential purport. That is the motive which has led me to outline a rough explanation of the whole.[1]

   One thing to be noticed in the above is the explicit statement that the 13 chapters were specially composed for King Ho Lu. This is supported by the internal evidence of I. § 15, in which it seems clear that some ruler is addressed.

   In the bibliographical section of the Ham Shu,[2] there is an entry which has given rise to much discussion: 吳孫子八十二篇圖九卷 “The works of Sun thi of Wu in 82 p‘ien (or chapters), with diagrams in 9 chüan.” It is evident that this cannot be merely the 13 chapters known to Ssfi-ma Ch‘ien, or those we possess to-day. Chang Shou-chieh in his 史記正義 refers to an edition of Sun Tzŭ‘s 兵法 of which the “13 chapters” formed the first chüan, adding that there were two other chüan besides.[3] This has brought forth a theory, that the bulk of these 82 chapters consisted of other writings of Sun ~Tzu — we should call them apocryphal — similar to the 問答 Wén Ta, of which a specimen dealing with the Nine Situations[4] is preserved in the 通典 T‘ung Tien,

and another in Ho Shih’s commentary. It is suggested

  1. ↑ 吾觀兵
  2. ↑ 漢書藝文志、兵權謀。
  3. ↑ 宋藝文志 孫武孫子 朱服校定孫子。
  4. ↑ See chap. XI.
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