Sun Qinshan: How to read the Analects of Confucius by Guoxue.com?

The Analects of Confucius is a book that records the words and deeds of Confucius and his main disciples. It is the original document of Confucianism and one of the important classics reflecting the traditional culture of China. It has ideological value, linguistic value, literary value and historical data value, and has far-reaching historical influence at home and abroad, and has positive practical significance. So it is very important to read The Analects, especially to really understand it.

As a Confucian classic, reading The Analects of Confucius must follow the general laws and methods of reading Confucian classics. In this respect, Dai Zhen, a textual research scholar and thinker in Qing Dynasty, gave us a good enlightenment. He wrote in "On Learning from Zhong Ming": "When the servant was young, his family was poor and there was no teacher. Those who heard that Confucius was among the saints, and those who decided to show the Six Classics, asked for it once and read it after enlightenment, but he didn't know. After thinking for a long time, I thought: people who have studied the classics are also Taoists, so Ming Dow's ci is also poetic, so people who have become ci are also poetic. From word to word, from word to word, there must be step by step. " Confucian classics embody Tao, explain the relationship between language (traditional so-called primary school) and Tao (thought), and emphasize that the study of Confucian classics must start with language. His so-called "word" refers to language; The so-called "word" refers to "writing". As for "Tao", it belongs to the category of thinking, which is manifested in concepts, definitions, reasoning and so on. And it is the reflection of thoughts on objective things. Thus formed such a chain: "Tao" reflects things, "word" expresses "Tao", and "word" is the symbol to record words. Classics (even all documents) are written texts recorded in words, and the words written by Dai Zhen accurately reflect the scientific way of reading classics. However, the accuracy of the sentence "therefore, words are also words" needs to be examined. In fact, "word" is not a part of "word", but a symbol to record words. Then, in the above words, Dai Zhen talked about how he solved the problem of "word" and "word" when reading the Bible. For example, he said, "Seek the so-called characters, test the seal scripts, and get Xu Shi's" Explaining Words ". After knowing its procedure for three years, I gradually saw the word-making of ancient sages (referring to Cang Xie). It is also suspected that Xu did not do his best in the old teaching (that is, exegetics refers to the meaning of words) (that is, Shuo Wen Jie Zi is limited to explaining the original meaning of words). If you read it from a friend's fake annotation book of Thirteen Classics, you will know the meaning of a word, and when you pass the Classics, you will know six books (six books refer to things, pictographs, sounds, meanings, annotations and borrowings). It can be seen that he used three methods, one is dictionary reference books, the other is the text and old notes of the Thirteen Classics, and the third is the theory of "Six Books". The so-called "Guan Qun Jing" has two meanings: First, Zujing is equivalent to a walking dictionary, and all the meanings of words are completely expressed in Zujing, and there are many explanations in the old notes; Secondly, the word is often polysemy, which runs through the context in the group classics, and its specific meaning is always certain. The former point breaks through the limitation of word book interpretation, and the latter point is the method of "paraphrasing with the text" to determine the meaning of words according to the context. The Chinese interpretation methods summarized here are both scientific and comprehensive, and are still in use today.

In Dai Zhen's letter, after he finished explaining Chinese, he went on to talk about the specific contents of the classics, such as names, classics, astronomy, geography, arithmetic, music and so on. He said: "Classics are hard to understand, but there are still some things to do: recite a few lines of Yao Dian, which is He's life. I don't know why the Seven Houses of the Stars are running, so I can't leave school (I don't know the astronomical calendar, so it's difficult to read the Book of History Yao Dian). Reciting "Nan Zhou" and "Zhao Nan" has gone from "Guanju", and I don't know the ancient sound. If I try to coordinate with Ye Yun, I will lose reading (if I don't understand the ancient sounds of the pre-Qin period, I can't understand the rhyme of the Book of Songs). It is said that this is a language problem, not a content test). Reciting the ancient book of rites (that is, the book of rites) begins with the housekeeper's book. If you don't understand the system of ancient palaces and clothes, you will be fascinated by it and don't distinguish its purpose (if you don't understand the orientation of palaces and the purpose of clothes, it is difficult to understand the Book of Rites, which has rich laws and regulations). If we don't understand the evolution of ancient and modern place names, Yugong (the geography special article of Shangshu) and Paper Workshop (the geography special article of Zhou Li) will lose their place. If you don't know Pythagorean Theorem, you can't infer the system of Kao Gong (Zhou Li Kao Gong Ji) from words. I don't know the names of birds, animals, insects, fish and plants, but I am interested. ..... China geodetic use sentence stock. Today, westerners change their names to trigonometric eight lines (collectively known as trigonometric functions). Its triangle is composed of eight lines (ancient astronomical calculation method). But if the triangle method is poor, it must be defended by the sentence stock. Those who know the phrase "stock" should be fully prepared, worthy of the name. Guan (Guan Zi) and Lu (Lu Chunqiu) speak pentatonic (tone) and twelve rhythms (musical rhythm). The palace is in the middle, and the Huangzhong Palace is four inches and five minutes, which is the foundation of the law. Scholars should cover up the clock rhythm after it is lost, and should not trace it back before it is lost. Confucianism should not ignore the incomprehensible and the correct. The servant wants to investigate its source, and after another ten years, he will gradually understand the classics, and then know the way of saints, such as the county (hanging) cable (measuring vertical) tree (standing) (standing on the ground to measure the shadow of the sun), there will be no difference. " Here, Dai Zhen believes that the Tao contained in Confucian classics depends not only on language and writing, but also on the specific content of Confucian classics, such as name, object and code system. Without textual research, it is difficult to understand the Tao in Confucian classics.

In a word, in this letter, Dai Zhen put forward China people's interpretation, textual research of contents, and a scientific way of reading classics based on it. This is the general law of reading classics, and reading The Analects of Confucius is no exception.

However, the Analects of Confucius, as a quotation document, has its particularity and must be read specifically. For example, I once said in the introduction of my humble work The Analects of Confucius: "The Analects of Confucius is an ideological work. The language of this book seems dull in ancient literature, but its meaning is profound, and the specific context of each quotation is not clear. It is necessary to make a comprehensive annotation and textual research on its language, ideological content and even historical background to help us truly understand it. " He also said: "The reason why this book is called' Modern Interpretation' is to refer to the positive achievements of predecessors, try to combine the interpretation of language with the analysis of ideological justice on the basis of personal independent research, and combine the analysis of ideological justice with the investigation and description of the background of the times to make an original interpretation of the Analects of Confucius as much as possible, and then make a realistic analysis and evaluation of Confucius and The Analects of Confucius to avoid subjective dependence." He also said: "Annotations not only indicate specific contents such as uncommon words, historical facts, canon system and famous things, but also collect evidence from various sources and analyze ideological contents, striving to combine exegetics, textual research and semantic analysis, paying special attention to using materials to verify each other, especially before and after the Analects of Confucius, in order to accurately clarify the original intention of Confucius' words and thoughts. " ~