Sun Tzu’s The Art of War
by: Samuel B. Griffith.
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Ssu-Ma Ch’ien, whose monumental Shih Chi (Historical Records or Records of the Historians) was completed shortly after 100 BC, tells us that Sun Wu was a native of Chi’ State who presented his “Art of War” to Ho-lu, King of semi-barbarous Wu, in the closing years of the sixth century BC. But for hundreds of years Chinese scholars have questioned the reliability of this biography; most agree that the book could not possibly have been written when Ssu-ma Ch’ien said it was. My study of the texts supports this opinion and indicates a date of composition during the fourth century BC.
Sun Tzu’s series of essays does not merit our attentive interest simply as an antique curiosity. “The Art of War” is much more than that. It is a thoughtful and comprehensive work, distinguished by qualities of perception and imagination which have for centuries assured it a pre-eminent position in the canon of Chinese military literature.
This first of the “martial classics” has received the devoted attention of several hundreds of Chinese and Japanese soldiers and scholars. Among the most distinguished was Ts’ao Ts’ao (155-220 AD), the great general of the Three Kingdoms period and founder of the Wei Dynasty. During the eleventh century his comments on the text together with the remarks of ten respected T’ang and Sung commentators were collated in an official edition. In the last quarter of the eighteenth century this was revised and annotated by Sun Hsing-yen, a versatile scholar and celebrated textual critic. His edition has since been considered standard in China and my translation is based on it.
Sun Tzu was first brought to the attention of the Western world by a Jesuit missionary to Peking, Father JJM Amiot, whose interpretation of the “Art of War” was published in Paris in 1772, towards the close of a period during which the imagination of French artists, intellectuals, and craftsmen had been significantly influenced by the newly discovered and exciting world of Chinese Arts and letters. Contemporary journals published favourable reviews and Amiot’s work was widely circulated. It was again published in an anthology in 1782. Possibly this was read by Napoleon, as one Chinese editor has recently affirmed. As a young officer the future emperor was an avid reader; it is unlikely that these unique essays would have escaped his attention.
Sun Tzu realized, that war, “a matter of vital importance to the State”, demanded study and analysis; his is the first known attempt to formulate a rational basis for the planning and conduct of military operations. Unlike most Greek and Roman writers, Sun Tzu was not primarily interested in the elaboration of involved stratagems or in superficial or transitory techniques. His purpose was to develop a systematic treatise to guide rulers and generals in the intelligent prosecution of successful war. He believed that the skillful strategist should be able to subdue the enemy’s army without engaging it, to take his cities without laying siege to them, and to overthrow his State without bloodying swords.
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Bibliography:
Tzu, Sun. Griffith, Samuel B. (translator), (1971). The Art of War. London: Oxford University Press.
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