4 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
make it shorter. There exist no documents outlining the purpose of the several editors. All that we know is the curious fact that a famous novel, once believed to run into several volumes (although no multi-volume edition of the novel is extant), was being abridged from generation to generation. The only abridgement which could be explained away was the juvenile edition of 64 chapters. This particular abridgement is naturally quite easy to understand. A children's story has to be brief. A lot of complicated details could be omitted. But what was the explanation for other abridgements?
It was argued by many in the columns of Giangmin Ribao, the "intellectual" daily of the People's Republic of China, that these various abridgements were a result of the fiat of the then ruling classes. The ruling classes wanted to and Hid tamper with what the novel had to say. The fact that the novel had to say a lot can be gathered from the following passage from Mao Zedong:
In the novel Shui Hu Ghuan (Water Margin), Suag Chiang thrice attacked Ghu village. Twice he was defeated because he was ignorant of the local conditions and used the wrong method, Later he changed his method .... And on the third occasion he won. There arc many examples of materialist dialectics in Shui Hu Ghuan of which the episode of the three attacks on Ghu Village is one of the best.1 Role of Art and Literature in Society
It should be clear from the above how this classic was found to be particularly relevant by Mao in recent history to make a point in his discussion of contradictions. Water Margin must have played a similar role throughout China's history. It is small wonder then if the rulers of medieval China found it necessary to edit the novel in such a way as to make its "message" conducive to the feudal order they were presiding over. Naturally they liberally used censorship to make the novel say what they would have liked it to say.
Nothing explains better the role art and literature play in society than the debate over Water Margin in China. There has been considerable writing on the role of art in society in the western world. Asian debates in this regard have either not taken place or if they have, not much note has been taken of them. The Chinese experience is particularly relevant in this regard.
The debate during the Cultural Revolution on the play Dismissal of Hai Rui was likewise both instructive and interesting. It raised the general problem of the relationship between the