Establishing the text of theOdes: the Anhui University bamboo manuscript

In this article we review the newly published fourth-centurybcemanuscript of the Book of Odes (Shi jing詩經) in the collection of Anhui University. We describe the preservation and material features of the manuscript, discuss issues of provenance, and compare the text with the received version of theOdes. We conclude that the text of theOdeswas already fundamentally stable by the date of the manuscript, and that written versions like the Anda manuscript provided important support for the stability of the text. However, we also argue that the manuscript shows signs of having been produced from memory, rather than sight-copying from another manuscript. We suggest that the function of the Anda manuscript was to support the learning and memorization of theOdes.