Historical background of the Shu Ching. The so-called "Five Classics" in the early Confucian orthodoxy.
The so-called "Five Classics " in the early Confucian orthodoxy were:
1. Shih-ching (Book of Poetry or Odes) ----- This work contains some three hundred pieces of folk ballads, court poetry, and religious hymns. Most of these are from early Chou times. It was believed that the Chou king wished to understand the customs of his people in various parts of the kingdom and thus established a Bureau of Music (Yueh-fu) to collect the folk songs from his various vassel states. These folk ballads constitute the first part of the Shih. These ballads were later interpreted morally by the Confucians. For instance, the first ballad in the Shih was originally a love song. These Confucians accepted its content of tender human love but suggested that such love between man and woman should culminate in proper marriage, which constituted the foundation of the family, which in turn constituted the foundation of the state. This, they explained, was why a love song was put in the primary first place of the Book. In this collection there are also some overtly erotic pieces which, the Confucian argued, were included to serve as warning examples of corrupted customs.
2. Shu-ching (Book of Historical Documents) --- This is a collection of government ordinances, counsels, and proclamations, supposedly handed down from the time of the Sage-rulers Yao (legendary, 2342-2257 B.C.) and Shun (legendary, 2256-2207B.C.), rulers of the Hsia dynasty (legendary, 2206-1766) B.C.], through the reigns of the Shang (ca. 1766- 1111 B.C.) and Chou dynasties. Modern Scholars generally suspect the authenticity of those documents claiming to be of pre-Chou dates, but differ in their assessments of those documents pertaining to Chou times.
3. I-ching (Book of Changes) --- This is a manual of divination based on the binary yin-yang system. Yin (the even number, the shadow, the female, the weak, the fluid, the receptive, the negative) is symbolized by the broken line. Yang (the odd number, the shining, the male, the strong, the solid, the creative, the positive) is symbolized by the unbroken line. The various combinations of three lines make the eight trigrams: Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Wiind, Water, Fire, Mountain, Valley. The different combinations of any two trigrams make the sixty-four hexagrams from the first, the "All-creative" to the 64th, the "Not-yet-achieved". These would represent different cosmic and human conditions. The subtlety of the system lies mainly in the complicated manipulation of the symbols of conflict and concord in the expanding diagrammatic structure of inter-diagram relationship. This involves the conflict or concord between each line (or group of lines) and any other line (or group of lines), or between the component line (or lines) and the trigram (or hexagram) as a whole, or between any two diagrams in part or in whole, and so forth. There are 4096 different possible ways of relating two hexagrams in the series representing the archetypes of dynamically related situations. The emphasis on changes is suggested by the last hexagram which symbolizes "the not-yet-accomplished" and signifies further change. The system is further complicated by the contradictory imageries, judgments, interpretations, and moralizations attached to the linear symbols. These allow the user of the I a great freedom to project his own mind into an enticing sphere and get his own meaning from the exploration.
Traditionally, it was believed that the simpler linear trigrams were devised by the Sage-ruler Fu-hsi (legendary, fifth millennium B.C.), who taught people how to fish and worship the gods. The system was subsequently improved by many Sage-rulers until it was perfected by Confucius in mid-Chou times. Modern critics differ greatly in their opinions on the nature and the dates of the origin of the I-ching. Many agree that it took a long time (probably more than a thousand years) for it to develop into such a sophisticated system.
The Shang bone and tortoise-shell divination differed from the I-ching milfoil number divination. As far as is known, the Shang oracle bone records made no reference to the I- ching. However,the Shang temple and tomb sites, as well as the succession of the Shang kings, show a pattern of dualism. The oracle questions were often formulated in clustered pairs of affirmative-negative sentences, such as: "Rain?", "No rain?"; "Attack?", "Not attack?". The texts were often inscribed with symmetrically opposite running lines and in opposite positions on the tortoise-shell. And the interpretation of oracle answers in the positive or negative by the cracks on the bone or tortoise-shell might have involved a complex linear or numerical mysticism. All this may have fore-shadowed and influenced the development of the yin-yang system of the I-ching. Many Shang traditions underwent great changes in early Chou times. The I-ching system represents a tradition of the Chou people, as distinct from that of the Shang people, although its date of origin and the part Confucius played in it can not be ascertained.
4. Li (Book of Rites) --- The meaning of the Chinese word li is so complex that no English word can be employed as its equivalent. The character for li originally signified religious offering. It evolved to include semi-religious rituals and etiquettes. Eventually li meant what was considered appropriate in a particular situation, i.e. the formal expression of the goodness in man (jen, humanity) and in society (i. justice). As rites, rituals, or etiquettes, li involves actions rather than words. What survives in the literature (even if its authenticity could be proved) seems to be verbal exposition of an essentially non-verbal tradition. It was believed that anciently there was a Canon of Rites consisting of 300 sections and 3000 items, which had long since been lost. There are three Classics of li in the Confucian orthodoxy. The most important is the Li-chi which contains mainly the Confucian scholars' exposition of the meaning, the significance, and the ideal of li. The other two are the Chou-li which supposedly describes the organization of the Chou government and its control over various aspects of the people's life, and the I-li which depicts the etiquettes of the lesser nobility.
5. Ch'un-ch'iu (Spring-and-Autumn Annals) --- This contains short chronological entries of important events of the Eastern Chou period from 721 to 482 B.C.. Within the cycle of a year, the events were noted by the months and the dates, as well as by the seasons: spring, autumn, etc. Hence it is known as the Spring-and-Autumn (Ch'un-ch'iu) Classic. This period of Eastern Chou reign is also called the Spring-and-Autumn period.
The entries in the Spring-and-Autumn Annals were based on records kept by the important old Chou vassal state of Lu (in present Shantung province). Hence, the Duke of Lu is referred to as "our Duke", and an attack on Lu is referred to as "an attack on our state". Since Confucius was a native of Lu, it was believed that he had written or compiled the Spring-and-Autumn Annals to record his criticism of this "age of turmoil and degeneration" and to proffer a warning lesson to later generations. It was said that when Confucius wrote the last entry recording the capture of a unicorn (a holy animal) in 482 B.C., he believed this symbolized the rejection and victimization of a great worthy by a degenerated world; he was so disillusioned that he ended the Annals right there, and he himself died soon after this..
Around the short entries in the Spring-and-Autumn Annals there evolved the Kung-yang and the Ku-liang Commentaries by those Confucian scholars who tried to find the "hidden meaning" of Confucius in these terse records. According to their interpretations, Confucius, in criticizing the degenerated age, had projected the obverse ideal of an age of "great peace" (t'ai-p'ing) and "Grand Unity" (ta-i-t'ung), which presaged the rise of the great Han empire. Although it is true that Confucius hoped for a peaceful union of mankind, it is doubtful that he had anything to do with writing, compiling, or editing the Spring-and-Autumn Annals.
A more useful historical commentary to the work is the Tso-chuan, which presents some detailed factual accounts on most of the events mentioned in the Spring-and-Autumn Annals. It was believed that the author of the Tso-chuan had been a close friend or disciple of Confucius. But modern critics point out that the Tso-chuan was written from a perspective different from that of the Spring-and- Autumn Annals and was probably based on the records preserved by a leading state other than the Lu.
Thus the Five Confucian Classics are all Chou traditions in one sense or another. The Spring-and-Autumn Annals records the history of a degenerated age in the Eastern Chou, while the others are supposed to depict the traditions of a "Golden Antiquity" in China culminating in the Western Chou period.
The so-called "Five Classics " in the early Confucian orthodoxy were:
1. Shih-ching (Book of Poetry or Odes) ----- This work contains some three hundred pieces of folk ballads, court poetry, and religious hymns. Most of these are from early Chou times. It was believed that the Chou king wished to understand the customs of his people in various parts of the kingdom and thus established a Bureau of Music (Yueh-fu) to collect the folk songs from his various vassel states. These folk ballads constitute the first part of the Shih. These ballads were later interpreted morally by the Confucians. For instance, the first ballad in the Shih was originally a love song. These Confucians accepted its content of tender human love but suggested that such love between man and woman should culminate in proper marriage, which constituted the foundation of the family, which in turn constituted the foundation of the state. This, they explained, was why a love song was put in the primary first place of the Book. In this collection there are also some overtly erotic pieces which, the Confucian argued, were included to serve as warning examples of corrupted customs.
2. Shu-ching (Book of Historical Documents) --- This is a collection of government ordinances, counsels, and proclamations, supposedly handed down from the time of the Sage-rulers Yao (legendary, 2342-2257 B.C.) and Shun (legendary, 2256-2207B.C.), rulers of the Hsia dynasty (legendary, 2206-1766) B.C.], through the reigns of the Shang (ca. 1766- 1111 B.C.) and Chou dynasties. Modern Scholars generally suspect the authenticity of those documents claiming to be of pre-Chou dates, but differ in their assessments of those documents pertaining to Chou times.
3. I-ching (Book of Changes) --- This is a manual of divination based on the binary yin-yang system. Yin (the even number, the shadow, the female, the weak, the fluid, the receptive, the negative) is symbolized by the broken line. Yang (the odd number, the shining, the male, the strong, the solid, the creative, the positive) is symbolized by the unbroken line. The various combinations of three lines make the eight trigrams: Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Wiind, Water, Fire, Mountain, Valley. The different combinations of any two trigrams make the sixty-four hexagrams from the first, the "All-creative" to the 64th, the "Not-yet-achieved". These would represent different cosmic and human conditions. The subtlety of the system lies mainly in the complicated manipulation of the symbols of conflict and concord in the expanding diagrammatic structure of inter-diagram relationship. This involves the conflict or concord between each line (or group of lines) and any other line (or group of lines), or between the component line (or lines) and the trigram (or hexagram) as a whole, or between any two diagrams in part or in whole, and so forth. There are 4096 different possible ways of relating two hexagrams in the series representing the archetypes of dynamically related situations. The emphasis on changes is suggested by the last hexagram which symbolizes "the not-yet-accomplished" and signifies further change. The system is further complicated by the contradictory imageries, judgments, interpretations, and moralizations attached to the linear symbols. These allow the user of the I a great freedom to project his own mind into an enticing sphere and get his own meaning from the exploration.
Traditionally, it was believed that the simpler linear trigrams were devised by the Sage-ruler Fu-hsi (legendary, fifth millennium B.C.), who taught people how to fish and worship the gods. The system was subsequently improved by many Sage-rulers until it was perfected by Confucius in mid-Chou times. Modern critics differ greatly in their opinions on the nature and the dates of the origin of the I-ching. Many agree that it took a long time (probably more than a thousand years) for it to develop into such a sophisticated system.
The Shang bone and tortoise-shell divination differed from the I-ching milfoil number divination. As far as is known, the Shang oracle bone records made no reference to the I- ching. However,the Shang temple and tomb sites, as well as the succession of the Shang kings, show a pattern of dualism. The oracle questions were often formulated in clustered pairs of affirmative-negative sentences, such as: "Rain?", "No rain?"; "Attack?", "Not attack?". The texts were often inscribed with symmetrically opposite running lines and in opposite positions on the tortoise-shell. And the interpretation of oracle answers in the positive or negative by the cracks on the bone or tortoise-shell might have involved a complex linear or numerical mysticism. All this may have fore-shadowed and influenced the development of the yin-yang system of the I-ching. Many Shang traditions underwent great changes in early Chou times. The I-ching system represents a tradition of the Chou people, as distinct from that of the Shang people, although its date of origin and the part Confucius played in it can not be ascertained.
4. Li (Book of Rites) --- The meaning of the Chinese word li is so complex that no English word can be employed as its equivalent. The character for li originally signified religious offering. It evolved to include semi-religious rituals and etiquettes. Eventually li meant what was considered appropriate in a particular situation, i.e. the formal expression of the goodness in man (jen, humanity) and in society (i. justice). As rites, rituals, or etiquettes, li involves actions rather than words. What survives in the literature (even if its authenticity could be proved) seems to be verbal exposition of an essentially non-verbal tradition. It was believed that anciently there was a Canon of Rites consisting of 300 sections and 3000 items, which had long since been lost. There are three Classics of li in the Confucian orthodoxy. The most important is the Li-chi which contains mainly the Confucian scholars' exposition of the meaning, the significance, and the ideal of li. The other two are the Chou-li which supposedly describes the organization of the Chou government and its control over various aspects of the people's life, and the I-li which depicts the etiquettes of the lesser nobility.
5. Ch'un-ch'iu (Spring-and-Autumn Annals) --- This contains short chronological entries of important events of the Eastern Chou period from 721 to 482 B.C.. Within the cycle of a year, the events were noted by the months and the dates, as well as by the seasons: spring, autumn, etc. Hence it is known as the Spring-and-Autumn (Ch'un-ch'iu) Classic. This period of Eastern Chou reign is also called the Spring-and-Autumn period.
The entries in the Spring-and-Autumn Annals were based on records kept by the important old Chou vassal state of Lu (in present Shantung province). Hence, the Duke of Lu is referred to as "our Duke", and an attack on Lu is referred to as "an attack on our state". Since Confucius was a native of Lu, it was believed that he had written or compiled the Spring-and-Autumn Annals to record his criticism of this "age of turmoil and degeneration" and to proffer a warning lesson to later generations. It was said that when Confucius wrote the last entry recording the capture of a unicorn (a holy animal) in 482 B.C., he believed this symbolized the rejection and victimization of a great worthy by a degenerated world; he was so disillusioned that he ended the Annals right there, and he himself died soon after this..
Around the short entries in the Spring-and-Autumn Annals there evolved the Kung-yang and the Ku-liang Commentaries by those Confucian scholars who tried to find the "hidden meaning" of Confucius in these terse records. According to their interpretations, Confucius, in criticizing the degenerated age, had projected the obverse ideal of an age of "great peace" (t'ai-p'ing) and "Grand Unity" (ta-i-t'ung), which presaged the rise of the great Han empire. Although it is true that Confucius hoped for a peaceful union of mankind, it is doubtful that he had anything to do with writing, compiling, or editing the Spring-and-Autumn Annals.
A more useful historical commentary to the work is the Tso-chuan, which presents some detailed factual accounts on most of the events mentioned in the Spring-and-Autumn Annals. It was believed that the author of the Tso-chuan had been a close friend or disciple of Confucius. But modern critics point out that the Tso-chuan was written from a perspective different from that of the Spring-and- Autumn Annals and was probably based on the records preserved by a leading state other than the Lu.
Thus the Five Confucian Classics are all Chou traditions in one sense or another. The Spring-and-Autumn Annals records the history of a degenerated age in the Eastern Chou, while the others are supposed to depict the traditions of a "Golden Antiquity" in China culminating in the Western Chou period.
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Text source: Professor Chi-yun Chen, Professor Emeritus of Chinese History, University of California at Santa Barbara. Selections.
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