Zhou Dunyi (1017-1073) of the Northern Song Dynasty (1017-1073) has been admired by scholars throughout the Song Dynasty since the Southern Song Dynasty, and has become a classic recited by children and men since the Ming and Qing dynasties. The canonization of "Ai Lian Shuo" was not well known during Zhou Zi's lifetime, and its classicization has undergone a complex process, with the help of many factors such as the solidification of the text by stone carving, the determination of value by commentary, and the expansion of dissemination by selected texts.
"Ai Lian Said" on the stone carving
The text of "Ailian's Sayings" is hardly controversial. Because Zhou Dunyi condensed the text of "Ai Lian Shuo" in the form of stone carvings at the beginning of his creation, this provided the basis for its classicization. "Ai Lian Said" is first cherished by Zhou Dunyi himself. Zhu Xi's "After Mr. Lianxi's "Ai Lian Said" cloud: "The right "Ai Lian Said" article, Mr. Lian Xi's work is also, Mr. tastes the name of "Ai Lian" in the hall of his residence, but it is said to be engraved. Youyun: "Mr. Hui's great-grandson Zhiqing is from Jiujiang, and he is a gift from this inkbook." "The ink is the rubbings of the inscriptions. This shows that when Zhou Zi lived in Qianzhou, he named the room after "Ai Lian Tang", and made "Ai Lian Said" carved in front of the hall.
The "Synopsis of the Four Libraries" said that Zhou Zi "did not pay attention to the words and chapters, so there was no anthology at that time", so that none of his poems and essays existed. Zhou Dunyi did not pay attention to collecting words and chapters, but he was happy to carve stone poems. By searching the Lianxi Chronicles, Jinshi classics and local chronicles, it can be counted that Zhou Dunyi copied at least 7 travelogue poems and 15 travelogue titles in his hometown of Yongdao and various places in Renguan. This is not a minority compared with the 28 poems and 5 articles in the "Lianxi Collection".
However, what needs to be screened is that the stone inscriptions in the mountains and wilderness are very different from the stone inscriptions bought at home, the former is mostly improvised, and the latter must be the result of careful consideration. "Ai Lian Said" clearly belongs to the latter. Zhou Dunyi carved "Ai Lian Said" in front of the hall, which has both self-encouragement and self-satisfaction. This mentality inevitably led Zhou Zi to be very cautious about the texts carved in stone at the beginning of his creation.
The carved stone of "Ai Lian Said" played a crucial role in the beginning of its classicization. First of all, it shows that Ai Lian Shuo is a serious text that has been treated carefully, and after the author's repeated scrutiny and condensation, its diction, structure, and intention have reached the best state. Secondly, "Ai Lian Shuo" was engraved into stone after creation, forming a condensed text in time, almost eliminating the error and distortion of ordinary paper texts in the process of copying. Third, when later generations of literati accepted Ai Lian Shuo, they continued to translate and imitate it, which deepened the condensation and dissemination of its text. In addition, because of its carved stones, "Ai Lian Said" can be preserved and passed on to Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty, and is widely known to the world by Zhu Zi's recommendation.
"Ai Lian Said" in Interpretation
Among later scholars, Zhu Xi was the first to pay attention to the value of "Ai Lian Shuo". According to his "After Mr. Shulianxi's "Ai Lian Said", in the sixth year of Chunxi (1179), Zhu Xi was in charge of the Zhinan Kang Army, set up Lian Xi Temple, engraved "Tai Ji Tu" in the stone, engraved the "Tongshu" posthumous text in the edition, and named the Inner Pond Pavilion of the Ancestral Hall with "Ai Lian Tang", and re-engraved "Ai Lian Said" in the wall. This move is tantamount to putting "Ai Lian Shuo" on the same level as Zhou Zi's classic physical works "Tai Ji Tu" and "Tong Shu", and its significance cannot be ignored. Although Zhu Xi did not directly evaluate, he said that with this "Ai Lian Said", "the virtue of Mr. Shuji's heart is to be examined", indicating that Zhu Zi believes that "Ai Lian Said" can fully reflect Zhou Dunyi's mental virtue, and is of exemplary significance to later generations of scholars, so it needs to be re-engraved to show the comers.
After being recognized by Zhu Xi, "Ai Lian Shuo" immediately received widespread attention from Song Ru and became a warmly sought after text. Zhu Xi wrote "Continuing to Love the Lotus", along Zhou Zi's line of thought of using the lotus as a gentleman, pointing out that the lotus has six beauties, and the hundred flowers cannot be the same as them; Lin Xiyi's "Song of Lotus" poem paved the abundance and purity of the lotus, and the end of the cloud "because of the thought of "Ai Lian Said", the head of the hundred masters", "who takes the Si, there is a Taoist like it"; Huang Zhen's "Huang's Daily Notes" said that "Ai Lian Said" "makes people know that the richest and noblest in the world, the lovely and seekable are not moral, and the mustard looks at the crown and the dust looks at the pearl and jade"; Wang Yishan built his own study hall, engraved "Ai Lian Said" on the wall, and made "Junzi Tang Ji" to explain the four gentlemen's qualities of Lian, etc., all of them made a very high evaluation of the moral significance of "Ai Lian Said" from different angles. Shi Shenzu's "Zhou Zi's "Ai Lian Said" is like Qu Yuan's "Ode to Orange"" cloud: "Lianxi Zhou Zi's "Ai Lian Said" said that the lotus is the gentleman of flowers, and it is also in line with Qu Yuan's eternal situation...... Yong Tang and Yong Lian can all fulfill the nature of things, the wonder of things, and there is no residual accumulation. Cover the sincerity of the heart, the more all things are prepared in the form of my writings. Linking the cultivation of the mind with the exhaustion of physical and material properties in literary creation, a new interpretation of "Ai Lian Shuo" is made from the perspective of literary creation.
"Ai Lian Said" in the anthology
The compilation and bibliographies of the classics of the past dynasties also confirmed the academic community's evaluation attitude towards "Ai Lian Shuo", and also expanded and deepened the dissemination of "Ai Lian Shuo". Since the Southern Song Dynasty, a large number of anthologies have recorded "Ai Lian Said", which has several details worth noting: First, before the Southern Song Dynasty, most of the major categories of books and flower poems were listed in chronological order, and the Southern Song Dynasty compiled and selected "Ai Lian Said" of "Quanfang Bei Zu" and "Things Prepared", and "Shi Lin Guangji" chose "Ai Lian Said" as the representative of lotus poetry, although the lotus gate of "Things and Texts Gathering" was miscellaneous, it was also headed by "Ai Lian Said", and this situation was even worse in the Ming and Qing dynasties, "Ai Lian Said" has become a representative work of Fu Yong Lotus, The lotus became synonymous with a gentleman, and the previous meaning of beauty was almost gone, and the image of a gentleman of the lotus flower was firmly established. Second, there have been scholars in the Southern Song Dynasty who have compiled "Ai Lian Shuo" into the selection of training courses for Tong Meng, such as Xiong Gangda's annotated "Explanation of the Sentences of the Sexual Theory Group Book" is quite concise, that is, it was written by Tong Zi, and then in the Ming and Qing dynasties, "Ai Lian Shuo" is a common text in the Tong Meng textbook from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the present. The third is the selection of books such as the Ming Dynasty's "Selected Articles Identification" and "Song Sizi Copying and Interpretation", etc., all of which are selected "Ai Lian Said", and the collection of gold and stone such as the Qing Dynasty's "Baqiong Room Jinshi Supplement" and "Jinshi Wen Compilation" and other works recorded the "Ai Lian Said" tablet engraved in various places, and the chronicles such as the Southern Song Dynasty "Fang Yu Shenglan", "Yu Di Ji Sheng" and the local chronicles of the Ming and Qing dynasties not only recorded the text of "Ai Lian Said", but also described the related scenery of Ai Lian Pond, Ai Lian Hall, Ai Lian Pavilion, Ai Lian Xuan, etc., and the anthologies of the past dynasties on "Ai Lian Shuo" are innumerable. Of course, most of the scholars who interpreted, compiled, and recorded "Ai Lian Shuo" were physicists, and with their efforts, "Ai Lian Shuo" finally completed its canonization in the Ming and Qing dynasties.
"Ai Lian Said" of "Wen Yi Carries the Dao"
The creation and stone carving of "Ai Lian Shuo" is Zhou Dunyi's practice of his "text carries the Tao", and the high evaluation and selection of "Ai Lian Shuo" by later generations is the recognition of Zhou Zi's "text carries the Tao".
The Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties are often regarded as the era of self-consciousness and independence of Chinese literature, and this independence is mainly manifested in the emphasis on literary form in the debate of writing and the discussion of sound and rhythm. The emphasis on the "independence" of literature and the purification of creative content have objectively formed a narrower and narrower restriction on literary creation. Literature is understood one-sidedly as the pursuit of pure aesthetic meaning, and the weakness and softness of literary style are inevitable. Therefore, there was a long discussion and correction of this in the Tang and Song dynasties, the most representative of which was the discussion of the "concept of literature and Taoism". Because the development of literature encountered difficulties, Confucianism fell into a "crisis" under the attack of Buddhism and Taoism, so Han Yu of the Middle Tang Dynasty put forward the theory of "Taoism" and "Wen Yi Ming Dao", while Zhou Dunyi in the early Song Dynasty pioneered science and put forward the theory of "Wen Yi Dao".
Zhou Dunyi's "Tongshu" "Words" cloud: "Text, so the Tao is also ...... Rhetoric, art; Morality, truth. In fact, the artist writes, beauty is love, and love is spread...... I don't know how to do morality, and the first person who is capable of writing is just art. Belch! The disadvantages are also long-lasting! Scholars mostly believe that "literature carries the Tao" is heavy on the Tao and light on literature, but this theory criticizes the "disadvantages" of "literary diction" since the Wei and Jin dynasties, specializing in "art" (i.e., form), and affirms that the beauty of "art" has the function of stimulating readers' "love" and then "transmitting". Zhou Zi emphasized that "morality" and "literature and art" should not be discarded, which is fundamentally different from the theory of "writing harms the way" mentioned by Ercheng later. Zhu Xi realized this, so he defended it in the "Notes on the General Book": "If you are suspected of being virtuous, you must have words, and then the text can be passed on without waiting for the art." In this chapter of Zhou Zi, it seems that he should not use words as a matter and use force. Why? Said: People's talents and virtues have long and short points, and they may be in their minds, but they are not enough to send them, and they cannot be passed on far away. recognized Zhou Zi's affirmation of literature and art. Later, although the Southern Song Dynasty Aixuan School originated from Ercheng, it still traced back to Zhou Zi's concept of "Wen Yi Dao" in the concept of literature and Taoism. Because it is sent, and the one who knows it exists, then the text cannot be ignored. It is another commentary on the "text to carry the way". Zhu Xi, Lin Xiyi, etc. were all late to Zhou Zi and Ercheng, and their literary and Taoist views were obviously inclined to Zhou Zi and corrected Ercheng.
Zhou Dunyi's "Ai Lian Shuo" is a practice of his literary and Taoist concept, using "art" to carry "morality", and Zhu Xi and later scholars re-engraved, interpreted, and edited "Ai Lian Shuo", which also liked the unity of morality and literature and art in "Ai Lian Shuo", and regarded it as a model of Confucian literary creation. The process of canonization of Ai Lian Shuo is actually a process in which the Confucian concept of "literature carries the Tao" is constantly recognized, selected and maintained by scholars.
(Author: Peng Min, Associate Professor, Center for Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, Southwest Petroleum University)
Source: Guangming Daily