practice of shooting to pierce the target came to an end,”refers precisely to this.
Once the Zhou declined and ritual fell into disuse, however, the various states
turned again to military strife, and the practice of shooting to pierce the target was
revived. Hence Confucius’lament.
Edward Slingerland, the translator of these passages points out that Zhu
Xi paraphrased them from the“Record of Music.”In the“Record of
Music,”King Wu marks his shift to civil administration and culture by
not only putting away the chariots and armor, inverting the shields and
spears, appointing his generals to civil feudal positions, and swearing not
tofight again, but also by demobilizing the troops and holding an archery
contest where the officers put on civilian clothes, took off their swords,
and, while shooting to ritual music, no longer sought to penetrate the hide
of the target.^11
King Wu’s archery contest is described as a demilitarization of archery,
and, as a result of this, a rejection of war. This is an odd construction of
events, to say the least. While King Wu probably never rejected war, he
may well have ceremonially indicated that his war against the Shang was
over by putting away the implements of war and changing out of battle
dress. He could not do away with archery contests entirely, however, and
the only way to somewhat diminish the lethal aspects of archery was to
assert that the practical effect of a given shot was no longer the main point.
The skill of hitting the target, also part of the lethal requirement of archery,
presumably remained. Obviously before King Wu’s change in practice
both accuracy and penetration were critical. Archers were measured by
their ability to hit the target with a strong enough shot to inflict damage. As
we have already discussed, this skill with archery and the competition were
a central part of elite interaction.
Zhu Xi, for his part, inferred a considerable amount from the passage.
Confucius says nothing about accuracy, only the divorcing of archery
contests from the question of strength. I will discuss the issue of strength
in martial arts later, but here it is important to note that Zhu Xi inserts the
notion of accuracy as equated with virtue, something that is not indicated
by Confucius. For Confucius, the ceremonial aspects of the archery contest
served to distinguish the higher cultural mores of gentlemen and to rein-
force their group solidarity:
The Master said,“Surely archery can serve as an illustration of the fact that the
gentleman does not compete! Before mounting the stairs to the archery hall, gentle-
men bow and defer to one another, and after descending from the hall they
mutually offer up toasts. This is how a gentleman‘competes.’”^12
40 The Warring States Period