Chinese classics are known for their strong continuity in the world's classical forest, and this continuity is inseparable from the continuous renewal of Chinese classical traditions. As the core of Chinese classics, there have been at least three ways of updating the classics in its long history: the expansion of the scriptures, the new interpretation of the texts, and the recompilation of the scriptures.

Expand the scriptures

Today's classics have evolved over thousands of years, not since ancient times. The official study of the Western Zhou Dynasty took "poetry, calligraphy, rituals, and music" as the four techniques and four teachings, and was taught and supplemented by Confucius into the Five Classics and the Six Classics, which became the core original texts of the Chinese nation. In the Qing Dynasty, some scholars even advocated that the number of classics should exceed 20. In general, the scope of Chinese classics is constantly expanding, and there is a clear trend of changing from less to more.

This phenomenon best illustrates that Chinese classics are not closed and rigid, but constantly developing and full of vitality. The selection of classics with different contents and characteristics reflects the classic concepts that are different from each other. For example, Liu Chang's "Seven Classics" in the Song Dynasty refers to "Poems", "Books", "Spring and Autumn Ram Biography", "Zhou Li", "Rites", "Rites" and "Analects", and in the Qing Confucian Dai Zhen, the "Seven Classics" are "Poems", "Books", "Yi", "Li", "Spring and Autumn", "Analects" and "Mencius". Some of the different classics have been widely recognized, while others are just the words of an individual, which are not only in competition with each other, but also inspire and stimulate each other, and jointly enrich the scholastic thought that changes with the times. It must be pointed out that no matter how the scriptures change, the core classics of the Chinese classical system remain the same, the center of the classical system remains basically stable, and the new classic system of "Four Books" that appeared in the Song Dynasty still does not include the Analects, Mencius, and the Book of Rites. The expansion of the biblical selection takes place around the most central scriptures. There are also many contemporary scholars who have put forward their own ideas of a new classical system based on the core classics of Chinese culture, the most famous of which is the opinion of Mr. Jao Tsung-i in his article "The Proposal of New Classics: The Expected Work of the Renaissance" in 2001. According to Mr. Rao's opinion, classical classics such as "poems" and "books", which have long been recognized as classics by predecessors, should naturally be counted as scriptures, in addition, "Yizhou Shu" and "Chinese" should be included in the scriptures, long bronze inscriptions with the same era and historical value as the "Shangshu", as well as important excavated simple documents that reflect ideology, should also be included in the scriptures, and even Taoist classics such as "Laozi" and "Zhuangzi" should become important components of the classic selection, because Confucianism and Taoism complement each other, and the new classical system should be inclusive; However, the exegesis dictionary "Erya" in the traditional Thirteen Classics is not even listed as a scripture. Mr. Rao's family words represent an open classical idea, or will nurture a plan for the renewal of classics based on tradition and facing the future.

In addition, there have been a large number of scriptures and scriptures in history. In the traditional academic concept, the scriptures are the works of saints, and they can only be called virtuous. There are authors, sages and sages, who either wish to make up for the remnants of the ancient scriptures or write a new chapter in the new era, but the hoofs hanging high are all re-glorifying the spirit of the original scriptures, so they often follow the classical form. Although it is difficult for these works to be included in the list of scriptures in the strict sense of the word, and cannot have a substantial impact on the expansion of the purpose of the scriptures, it is undoubtedly a phenomenon that occurs under the shroud of Chinese scripture thought, and the works formed by supplementing the classics enrich the classic system and should also be taken into account when planning the scripture system. At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, Zhu Yizun wrote "Jingyi Examination", which was included in the thirteen volumes of the special compilation of "Proposed Scriptures", which was based on such a "great classic view".

Annotated classics

The annotation of the classics is a common feature of Eastern and Western classics. On the one hand, this is caused by the psychological mechanism of human beings to respect the authority of the classics, and on the other hand, nature is inseparable from the passage of time and the changes of ancient and modern times. In order to understand the ancient classics, generations of scholars have gone forward to interpret the classics using the language and concepts of their time, forming a variety of annotated texts. Although the exegetical texts are not equivalent to the classics themselves, they belong to the classical system and are the strong support for the classics to be classics, and are often regarded as scriptures in a broad sense, at least in the Chinese academic tradition. Especially when the antiquity is farther away, the commentary on the classics also needs to be explained, so the sparse literature is formed, that is, the "commentary of the commentary". As a result, Chinese classics have formed a fairly stable three-level posture of "classics, commentaries, and sparseness", which is one of the distinctive characteristics of Chinese classical hermeneutics, and has played a far-reaching political and religious function. In terms of influence, the four classics not only have general annotations, but also have emerged representative annotation works, such as the Qing Dynasty scholar Dong Zengling's "Chinese Justice", Gao Buying's "Wen Xuan Li Annotation Yishu" and Wang Liqi's "Lü's Spring and Autumn Annotations", which are famous representatives of the late "annotations of annotations" among the three parts of history, sub and collection. In contrast, such a powerful tradition of exegesis is less evident in Western classical studies.

Commenting on the classics should first pursue the original meaning of the classics, but the commentators will, consciously or unconsciously, give new meaning to the classics. The Han Dynasty and the Song Dynasty could read the same passage with very different meanings, the Qing Dynasty people also read it in different ways, and the contemporary people, out of their own concerns, produced new classical hermeneutics to interpret the ancient classics. There are multiple possibilities for the interpretation of the classics, which depend on the ambiguity of the classics themselves and the many changes brought about by the change of the times, as well as the differences in the intentions, learnings and realms of different interpretive subjects. Classical interpretation is a creative work, and even in the face of scriptures whose content is more empirical, the commentaries of the Confucian scholars cannot help but seep into the times or personal colors. Zheng Xuanzhu in the history of the Three Rites is famous for "quoting more Han laws to state Zhou affairs", Jia Shu is also accustomed to "using the Tang Dynasty to control the Zhou system", and even the Song and Yuan Dynasty Confucians also use current affairs and time systems to support the scriptures, and Sun Yirang of the late Qing Dynasty even compared the new Western law he just learned to "Zhou Guan". On the one hand, the new meaning of the classics shortens the distance between readers and the classics, so that future generations of students will not be too unfamiliar with the classics, and on the other hand, it can also make the classics closer to the current situation, so as to radiate a new life style in every era. In this way, the vicissitudes and constancy of the historical world are integrated into the interpretation of the classics.

Recompile the scriptures

The re-compilation of the classics to form new texts is another way to update the classics, but unfortunately it has not been taken seriously by scholars for a long time. The change of purpose is the dominant feature of the adjustment of the classical system, and it is the most easily recognized classic renewal path. Although the commentaries on the classics are mainly based on traditional interpretations, they slowly and imperceptibly integrate new knowledge and new meanings, which is the orthodoxy of Chinese classical studies and the most acceptable path for updating the classics. The recompilation of the classics is a rearrangement and adjustment within a single classic, which is often subtle, and many times it will be suppressed by the mentality of respecting the scriptures, and it has not been recognized in traditional scholarship for a long time, but it is also a path of classic renewal that cannot be ignored. In fact, it is not uncommon to recompile the scriptures, and in the "poems" and "books", scholars have changed and supplemented them since the Song Dynasty; In "Zhou Yi", the Northern Song Dynasty has Lu Dafang's "Zhou Yi Ancient Classics", and the Southern Song Dynasty has Wu Renjie's "Ancient Zhou Yi"; In Mencius, the most famous negative example is the Ming Dynasty's Mencius Verses, which reconstructs Mencius in an abridged form in an attempt to eliminate the spirit of populism from absolute monarchy. Due to the particularity of the texts of the rites, there are many and huge measures to recompile the classic texts.

Wei Zheng once broke up the order of the "Book of Rites", "follow the like, don't be the first article", and the title was "Similar Rites". Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty adjusted the title of the Book of Rites and recompiled it into a new book suitable for the time. Compared with the Tang Dynasty's adaptation focused on the "Book of Rites", Lu Dalin of the Northern Song Dynasty turned to the "Rites" as the basis, "taking the three rites and attaching them", and in the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi finally designed and compiled the "Interpretation of the Book of Rites", a large-scale and thoughtful scripture classic. Although this book was not completed during Zhu Xi's lifetime, in the following hundreds of years, a considerable number of works of similar nature were produced, and the Siku Quanshu General Catalogue refers to such classics as "Tongli". These works on etiquette have adopted different compilation styles, and behind them are actually supported by similar but colorful etiquette concepts. For example, Zhu Xi and Yuan Confucian Wu Cheng both used their own styles derived from the "Rites" to control the whole book, while Qin Huitian of the Qing Dynasty compiled the "Five Rites General Examination" with the concept of "Five Rites" derived from the "Zhou Rites" and stereotyped in the "General Dictionary". The recompilation of ancient ritual and ritual materials with the work of "Tongli" became an important academic trend in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties.

Historically, in fact, the compilation and revision of the pre-Qin classics by the Han Confucians, although different from the recompilation of the classics of later generations, is also a kind of recompilation in essence. Also for the "Rites", Liu Xiang and Dai and other Han Dynasty scripture teachers compiled different chapters, which has shown the difference in their academic concepts. In essence, Zhu Xi and other Tongli authors are also doing similar work as Liu Xiang's, such as "careful editing", "article titles", "deletion and repetition", "correction and error", "addition of texts", and "preservation of different meanings". If we go back to Confucius's deletion of "poems", "books", and "Dinglile", we can find that what Confucius did was actually a re-sorting of the civilization and classics of the Zhou Dynasty, and as a result, Chinese classics were deeply branded with Confucianism. In this regard, the importance of the recompilation of the Scriptures cannot be overlooked, much less hostile. Returning to the present, the adaptation, selection, and translation of the classics by scholars are still to some extent a contemporary continuation of the tradition of recompiling scriptures. This is where the enduring charm of classical studies lies. We should have a fuller understanding and attention to the role of the recompilation of scriptures in stimulating the vitality of the classics.

(Author: Zhang Tao, Associate Researcher, Think Tank Center, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University)

[Source: Guangming Daily]