The Warring States and Ch'in-Han periods witnessed not only an efflorescence of cosmological speculation but along with it the growth of intricate systems of divination, astrology, geomancy, and magic. The internal structure of the cosmos, elaborated in terms of Yin-Yang and Five Phase theories, was treated as something which could be manipulated to the advantage of a person who was initiated into the secret operations of the universe. Thus the Yin-Yang and Five Phase cycles, the trigrams of the Book of Changes, the sexagenary cycle of Celestial Stems and Earthly Branches, as well as various calendrical and astronomical observations, all served as the raw material for a diverse array of esoteric arts.

The study of the economic views of the eminent Han statesman and thinker Sang Hung-yang (152-80 B.C.) permits various approaches. One tendency has been to examine his ideas within the context of the general history of economic thought. T'ang Ch'ing-tseng, for instance, has attempted to find modern European parallels in his analysis of the Yen t'ieh lun (especially those theories attributed to Sang). Later attempts, however, which examine Sang's economic ideas in the context of the history of Chinese economic thought itself seem more fruitful. For example, V. M. Stein has convincingly established the connection between the Kuan-tzu and Sang's views in the Yen t'ieh lun. Stein concluded first that Sang was “a Legalist of a new formation” who “approved of any source of income,” even of the kind of “profiteering” which was later endemic to the society of Peter the Great of Russia; and, second, that he was a practical financier, who borrowed the theoretical basis for his measures to regulate the economy from the Kuan-tzu, but disregarded the “deep-laid ethical basis” of this work.

The recent attempt by Professor David S. Nivison to show that (= yu )/ yu in early Archaic Chinese functioned as a “pronominal” word encourages one to think that the language of bone inscriptions, though arcane and difficult, is, after all, manageable, and that it may be used to understand the later, more evolved language, rather than the other way around. The various arguments in his theory are both well presented and accompanied by rich and meticulous documentation from inscriptions and from pre-Classical texts.

Nivison takes the word yu as a pronominal adjective, variously rendered, according to the context, as “his,” “her,” “our,” “your,” “their,” “the,” “there,” “some,” “of it/them,” “about it,” and “in this matter.” These context-sensitive renditions are possible because yu is construed as a word whose grammatical functions, rather than its fixed meaning, are realized in these various readings. One major contribution of Nivison is that he has shown that the word yu, in certain contexts, functioned attributively. Whether it also did or did not function “pronominally” is the topic with which this paper is concerned primarily.