This thesis constitutes a part of a larger investigation into the history of Law Codification in traditional China. As former research puts tremendous emphasis on proper nouns which are supposed to be chapter headings of Law Codes and takes them as proof for the existence of already lost ancient law codes in case of absence of other direct evidence, in this thesis a reconsideration of those proper nouns will be conducted.
The reconsideration first starts with the chapters of the Wei-Lü, which is the first Chinese Law Code for which we have still access to contemporary source material on the compilation process, viz. an excerpt of the preamble. Because of difficulties in interpreting this source there is an old controversy about which of the embedded proper nouns constitute the eighteen chapters of the Code, the number of which is specified in the preamble. This thesis will show that those difficulties stem from the inappropriate import of hypotheses on chaptering from non-contemporary sources (mostly from the Tang) and that these difficulties can be avoided easily by focusing on inherent formal features of the preamble. Next, a reconsideration of the chapters of Han-Lü based on the Wei-Lü preamble will give proof that former knowledge of Han -Lü chapters was misled by later sources, too. The Han-Lü chapters will be reconstructed newly by our insights on the reading of the Wei-Lü preamble, which constitutes the oldest available source on chapters of the Han- Lü as well as on the Wei-Lü, despite of general scholarly negligence of this fact.
Finally, an investigation is conducted into the transmission process of Jin-Lü to the Tang, in reply to misleading endeavours of former scholars to extract collateral evidence for particular Wei-Lü chapters from chapters of the Jin-Lü, which is supposed to have been preserved as an original text at least until the Northern Song. It will be shown that the preservation theory is based merely on requotations in encyclopaedias of the Northern Song of quotations of commentaries to the Jin-Lü in encyclopaedias of the Tang. The Jin-Lü Law code itself was scattered and lost during the turbulences at the beginning of the Period of North and South Dynasties. The commentaries, on the other hand, are products of scholarly work on contemporary and recollected ancient legal materials throughout the North and South Period. Partly, they contain private compilations of Law codes of dynasties which, as a well-known fact, never compiled any Law Code.
Founded on the results of this inquiry, the author urges for more textual criticism when handling non-contemporary sources which are supposed to contain components of lost ancient Law Codes.