An Analysis of the Burial of the Lü Xing in the Chu Region during the Warring States Period

Abstract: The discovery of bamboo slips containing the Lü Xing（《吕刑》,a chapter from the Zhou Shu）in Warring States period tombs in the Chu region is a phenomenon in intellectual and institutional history,woven from multiple historical threads. Legal and ritual texts of the Zhou dynasty,represented by the Lü Xing,were systematically transmitted to Chu through channels such as political subordination,personnel mobility,and the migration of classical texts. The people of Chu were not passive recipients;they selectively absorbed and creatively transformed these texts. Examples include the localized interpretation of the “severing of communication between heaven and earth” myth in the Guoyu:Chuyu Xia and the “re-creation” of the Lü Xing in the Tsinghua bamboo slip text Cheng Ren,both of which incorporated specific ideologies and contemporary needs. The practice of burying the Lü Xing is primarily found in tombs of mid-to-low-ranking scholar-officials （“士”）. This act served as a carrier for their intellectual identity and political ideals under the concept of “treating death as life”,and it also reflects the historical process by which the shi stratum in Warring States Chu actively identified with and participated in constructing the mainstream ritual and legal civilization of Huaxia.