FIVE LOST CLASSICS: Tao, Huang-Lao, and Yin-Yang in Han China.

By Robin D. S. Yates. Ballantine Books. 464 pp. $27.50

In 1973, Chinese archaeologists excavating tombs at a site named Mawangdui in Changsha, Hunan, made an incredible discovery. Along with many exquisite works of Han dynasty art and craftsmanship, the archaeologists found a large cache of manuscripts written on bamboo and silk. These included versions of the Laozi and the Yi jing (or Book of Changes). Evidently the tomb was sealed in 168 b.c.e., making these the oldest extant versions of two seminal works of Chinese philosophical literature.

The unearthing of the Mawangdui manuscripts not only revolutionized the international study of ancient Chinese philosophy and history; it sparked a renaissance in Chinese archaeology. Excavations at other sites have yielded a flood of new material that has set off major scholarly debates. To bring the texts to a broad audience and to allow English-speaking readers a window onto these debates, Ballantine Books began publishing translations of the recently discovered texts in 1989. The latest in this series is a translation of five key Mawangdui texts by Yates, a professor of East Asian studies at McGill University.

Four of the texts, written on silk and appended to Laoze B (the second version of the Laozi found at Mawangdui), promise to illuminate a mystery that has puzzled students of the Han dynasty for centuries. At the beginning of the Han, before Confucianism became the official ideology of the empire, the court was dominated by a form of Taoism known as Huang-Lao (a term that combines the names of Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, and of Laozi, the legendary founder of Taoism). The content of Huang-Lao was unknown until 1973, because there were no received texts clearly identified with it. Most scholars agree that the four texts appended to Mawangdui Laozi B will help to clarify Huang-Lao, but the consensus ends there.

Yates’s is the first complete English translation of the four Laozi B texts (and one other text from the same cache). Some of his interpretations are controversial, especially his theory that a distinct school of philosophy, Yin-Yang, existed prior to Huang-Lao and contributed significantly to it. Of course, no translator could avoid controversy in the midst of such fertile debate. These are exciting times for anyone interested in the fundamentals of Chinese thought, and this translation provides a welcome introduction.

—Andrew Meyer