The Judgment (pan 判) as a genre of literature

Following a brief discussion of my disqualifications as a scholar of Chinese law, I will discuss the "judgment (pan 判)" as a genre of literature. My starting point will be the negative assessment of the genre by Arthur Waley in his The Life and Times of Po Chü-i (1949). Basing myself on the growing body of recent Chinese scholarship on the genre, I will try to show that Waley's characterization of the genre is not so much based on the judgments by Bai Juyi (772-846) as on the Longjin fengsui pan 龍筋鳳髓判 (Dragon-sinews and Phoenix-Marrow Judgments) by Zhang Zhuo 張鷟 (ca. 660-ca. 740). This collection, however, was written not so much as examples of judgments but as a repository of allusions for use in writing judgments. In the remainder of my talk, I will follow the development of the pan as an independent genre of literature outside the examination practice and end my talk with a brief presentation of the parodic use of the form by You Tong 尤侗 (1618-1704).