A summary of the international symposium on Duan Yucai and Qing Dynasty.
Recently, the International Symposium on Duan Yucai and Qing Dynasty, sponsored by the Chinese Culture Research Institute of Nanjing University and the People’s Government of Jintan City, Jiangsu Province, and undertaken by the Propaganda Department of Jintan Municipal Committee of Jiangsu Province and Jiangsu Hongde Culture Publishing Foundation, was held in Jintan City, Jiangsu Province, the hometown of Duan Yucai, which is known as a blessed land in the east of the river. During the meeting, experts and scholars attending the meeting exchanged views on Duan Yucai’s academic contribution, the Confucian tradition in Duan Zhu’s Shuowen, Duan Yucai in the perspective of ideological history, Western Sinology and Duan Yucai studies, and achieved rich academic achievements, which can be summarized as follows:
On Duan Yucai’s Linguistics and Philology
Duan Yucai’s most important academic achievement in his life was in philology, and his main achievements were concentrated in the book Notes on Explaining Words and Characters. Annotation is an important genre of ancient writing. If Xu Shen’s Shuo Wen Jie Zi in the Eastern Han Dynasty focuses on revealing the original meaning of Chinese characters through their glyphs, Duan Yucai in the Qing Dynasty focuses on revealing the extended meaning of Chinese words with handed down documents. Today, we talk about the contribution of paragraph notes to semantics and lexicology, which is mainly based on the extension of paragraph notes. Duan Zhu connects the ancient and modern glyphs, pronunciations and meanings, which makes it more thoughtful.
Another important contribution of Duan Zhu is that more than 9,000 Chinese characters are placed in the new ancient phonological system, and the rhymes of each character are marked one by one. Attached to Duan’s annotated book, Liushu Phonology Table is the position system of more than 9,000 words, that is, the ancient rhyme system. Duan Yucai’s achievements in ancient phonology can be summarized into two aspects: first, he put forward a series of principles of ancient phonology, became a master of ancient phonology, and especially opened up a new way and a new method system to study the division of ancient phonology from the perspective of harmonic radicals. Second, it is divided into six categories and seventeen parts, which surpass the predecessors and enlighten the later. Duan Yucai and Dai Zhen talked about rhyme for fifteen years, which became a much-told story in academic history. After discussion, the two sides reached a consensus on the part of the three rhymes of "Zhi, Zhi and Zhi" in ancient times. However, Dai has never accepted Duan’s opinion on the separation of ancient truth and literature. Today, the division of ancient truth and literature has become a conclusion and Duan is correct.
Another important contribution of Duan Zhu is that, in addition to pointing out the meaning relationship between the related Chinese characters in the radicals of Shuowen, Xu Shen Shuowen has become orderly and "like a text", and it has also been constantly checking instructions on the meaning-related words in the whole book, making them combined and classified.
What are the new ideas for studying paragraph notes today? To sum up, there are four kinds: one is to absorb the essence of paragraph notes to serve the compilation of contemporary dictionaries, the other is to make a deeper study of paragraph notes by using the sound and meaning of Buddhist scriptures, and the other is to use the "waste words" regulation of paragraph notes to include the study of waste words in the standardization of Chinese characters, so that the International Organization for Standardization can officially publish the Universal Multi-octet Coded Character Set (number ISO10646) as an open mode for editing.
Some scholars combine the study of Duan Zhujin’s folk characters with the study of dialect characters, which is also very innovative and valuable.
On Duan Yucai’s Confucian Classics
First, Duan’s extensive and profound primary school is the methodological support of Duan’s Confucian classics. In the early Qing Dynasty, when Gu Yanwu answered the question of what is Confucian classics, he once said, "Neo-Confucianism is also Confucian classics." That is, "there is no neo-Confucianism without Confucian classics". Similarly, we can also say that there is no Confucian classics without primary school. Duan’s primary school serves the interpretation of classics, and primary school is a tool for studying classics. Duan’s primary school is magnificent, and his achievements in Confucian classics are therefore rich. In Duan Yucai’s view, the history of Confucian classics is really a history of the logical application of pragmatic tools around the group classics, and the history of Confucian classics is a history of the annotation of Confucian classics.
The second is the language logic of reading classics in Zhou Lihan’s Reading Test (1794). Duan Yucai’s most important contribution to Zhou Lihan’s Reading Test is that he put forward the style of Han Dynasty’s annotation on Zhou Li in order to understand Zhou Li: the preface to Zhou Lihan’s reading test put forward three forms of "Chinese annotation is correct reading". Duan said: "Chinese is a note, and there are three examples: one is to read if, and the other is to read if; Second, read as, read as; Three times. " This passage, also found under the word "read" in Shuo Wen Duan Zhu, can be regarded as an independent ancient philology transferred to Confucian classics as an example of speech. Reading Ru, Reading Ruo: "Imitating its pronunciation" is used to imitate homophones and homonyms. Read for, read for: mainly used to indicate the change of meaning. When: Duan said: "A word error or a sound error is correct, all of which are called when."
The third is the meritorious service in the field of Shangshu. In the early Qing Dynasty, it was enlightening to denounce the fake ancient prose Shangshu, and Liang Qichao’s Academic Introduction in Qing Dynasty called it "one of the great liberation of sincere ideological circles". Shangshu is one of the thirteen classics, and the thirteen classics are the orthodox guiding ideology of feudal society. It is of course an impact on feudal ruling ideology to expose the forgery of Shangshu. During the Qianlong period, Duan Yucai’s research and verification of the ancient Chinese text Shangshu was of great significance to expose the aftermath of Mei’s pseudograph.
The fourth is natural science and reading classics. Duan Yucai attaches great importance to the introduction of natural science into the Confucian Classics. Zhang Binglin’s A Review of Confucianism once said that there are fewer Thirteen Classics in Duan Yucai, and it is advisable to add Da Dai Li Ji, Mandarin, Historical Records, Han Shu, Zi Zhi Tong Jian, and Shuo Wen Jie Zi, Zhou Bian Shu Jing and Nine Chapters of Arithmetic. In this way, two of the eight classics added by Duan are mathematical books, which shows that Duan’s theory of classics attaches importance to natural science.
Fifthly, it is also worth noting that Duan Yucai’s tolerant attitude towards modern classics. Duan Yucai once asked his grandson Gong Zizhen to learn from Cheng Yaotian, a scholar of ancient Chinese classics. Later, Gong Zizhen, a scholar of Confucian classics, wrote four articles on Ming Liang, exposing the corruption of bureaucratic politics in the Qing Dynasty. When Duan Yucai was 80 years old, he read this article and praised it as "a disease in China and today" and "an outstanding one"! I don’t hate (regret) to die when I still see this. "
On Duan Yucai’s Philosophical Thought
There are many contents in the paragraph notes that are close to the philosophy of language. Generally speaking, Duan Zhu’s explanation of the righteous examples in Shuowen, the righteous examples, literary examples and regulations are all the logic of the book itself, and Duan Zhu’s invention of the book permission regulations is an extremely important content of language philosophy. The generalization of the logical and semantic order of the words received by the Ministry after the paragraph notes, and the classification and comparison of similar semantics in different radicals are typical philosophical problems of language. A series of principles of ancient phonology when divided into six categories and seventeen parts of ancient rhymes, especially the deep-seated principle and composition of "the homophonic sounds are the same, and the ancient rhymes are the same", the metalinguistic characteristics in the interpretation of the extended meanings in the paragraph notes, and the examples of the interpretation of Duan’s Confucian classics, are all philosophical problems of language.
There is a problem here, that is, the ontology of language philosophy. The ontology of China’s ancient philosophy of language is Chinese and Chinese characters. Modern cognitive linguistics also believes that the words of a national language can be used to understand the culture, thought and national spirit of the nation. Duan Yucai devoted his whole life to explaining Chinese language, revealing phonology and semantic categories, which is precisely the ontological research of language philosophy. The deeper value of this research lies in carrying forward the national cultural spirit. Whenever we study Shuo Wen Duan Zhu with awe, we are certainly attracted by the knowledge treasure in it, but what fascinates us even more is the cultural spirit of Duan Zhu’s Chinese characters, which is the spiritual implication conveyed by Duan’s explanation. Duan’s research is, in a word, the study of the meaning of language. Our study of the meaning system revealed by Duan Yucai is of general world outlook and scientific understanding significance.
In recent years, the academic circles have mentioned the modernity of traditional academics, that is, the modern transformation of traditional academics. Different fields have their own academic transformations. For example, in the above-mentioned field of linguistics and philology, from three segments: extended meanings, ancient phonology and analogical characters, from dictionary compilation, Buddhist phonology and meanings, from compiling Chinese character "attribute dictionary" to developing paragraph notes by using the "waste words" regulation of paragraph notes, and from supplementing Xu Shu and paragraph notes with ancient characters. In the field of Confucian classics, it is all aspects of modernity to construct the philosophy of language and philology of China’s ancient philosophy of language in the field of philosophy from the aspects of practical learning, style, enlightenment thought and natural science view.
The more important aspect of "modern transformation" is to inherit Duan’s rigorous and realistic academic spirit. Duan spent nearly 40 years (1776-1815) creating a book "Notes on Explaining Words", which shows that Duan’s academic and cultural spirit is the most valuable spiritual wealth.
(Author: College of Literature, Nanjing University)