The semantic change of the word min 民 in texts of the Eastern Zhou Period (771–221 BC)

Abstract

Abstract This paper is a follow-up to a previous study whose results suggest that the term min 民 in texts of the Western Zhou Period (ca. 1045–771 BC) primarily refers to subjected lineages and rulers outside of the ancestral homeland of the Zhou kings. The assumption derived from this, namely, that min might have served to distinguish populations of peripheral territories that were supposedly formally subjected to the royal house from those directly controlled by the Zhou kings, will be further examined in this article with regard to later texts of the Eastern Zhou Period. As the first two sections of this article reveal, in texts such as the Zuozhuan and the Guoyu, min continues to be used in a comparable way as it frequently addresses lineages of the dafu 大夫 rank, which in every single “country” (guo 國) could be similarly considered as subordinated “external” (wai 外) entities separated from the central ruling house. In relation to the phenomenon that in texts of the fourth and third centuries BC the semantic content of the word min appears to have shifted to addressing lower population strata, I conclude by arguing that this new usage of min to refer to “the common people” was born out of the political and social changes that occurred during the early Warring States Period and should not easily be projected onto earlier documents as it might lead to crucial misunderstandings in regard to the basic intentions and reasoning of these texts.