Brief introduction of thirteen classics

Brief introduction of thirteen classics

The meaning of "static" is usually the opposite of "complete", which means flexible and temporary, while "static" means unchangeable and permanent. If this concept is applied to books, books that can be called "classics" are usually very important and their value remains unchanged, and the people who write these books are often very important sages in history. In the history of China, some of them were compiled after many twists and turns, which are still of great significance today, that is, the so-called Thirteen Classics.

Thirteen Classics, as the name implies, are the most important ones, namely, The Book of Songs, Shangshu, Zhou Li, Yili, Book of Rites, Yijing, Chunqiu Zuoshi Biography, Chunqiu Yanggong Biography, Chunqiu Guliang Biography, Analects of Confucius and Filial Piety. According to China's traditional classification of classics: classics, history, volumes and collections, classics are listed in the most important position. Thirteen Classics are very important, except for the categories and genres of several of them. For example, The Book of Songs is the earliest collection of poems in China, and Chunqiu is the earliest chronological history book in China. More importantly, the Thirteen Classics can represent the backbone of China culture and spirit. If anyone wants to know China's core thoughts, they can start with the Thirteen Classics. The following is a brief description of the content.

I. The Book of Songs (the following contents are slightly modified with the Five Classics)

The Book of Songs is the earliest collection of poems in China, and it can also be said to be the first collection of literary works. As a poem, it should have been enjoyable, but the score was lost, so we can only understand its style, literary talent and thought from the text content. The total * * * includes more than 500 years' works from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the mid-Spring and Autumn Period, including 305 poems, plus 6 poems with titles but no content. According to genre classification, there are Feng (the genre of fifteen countries), Ya (divided into Elegance and Xiaoya, which refer to court music) and Ode (divided into Zhou Song, Truffle and Ode to Shang Dynasty, which are sacrificial music for ancestral halls). Every poem in The Book of Songs has its own characteristics, or reflects local customs or records various events.

Two. Shangshu (the following contents are the same as the Five Classics)

Shangshu is the earliest history book in China. Compared with The Book of Songs, Shangshu is the earliest prose work. According to legend, it was compiled by Confucius, and originally there were 100 articles, which were divided into six styles: canon, ink, instruction, patent, oath and life. After Qin Shihuang burned books, there were only 29 articles left, of which "Qin Shi" had only one title and no content, and only 28 articles were actually left.

Because of burning books, Fu Sheng, a doctor in Qin Dynasty and a scholar in Han Dynasty, passed it on to students such as Ouyang Sheng and Zhang Sheng by memory and word of mouth, and later recorded it, which became the so-called "modern literature history".

At the end of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Duke Lu destroyed the residence left by Confucius at that time and found a history book on the wall of the house, the content of which was written by tadpoles of the Qin Dynasty. Later, Kong Anguo found that there were 16 pieces in this version by comparing it with the Jinwen Shangshu sent by Fu Sheng, and it was named "Ancient Essays Shangshu" after sorting it out. The history of ancient prose has been lost today, and the version that can be seen on the market now is the History of Jinwen. The content is mainly a compilation of documents in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties, including the dialogue records, letters and oaths between monarch and minister, and the records of historical events.

Third, "Zhou Li"

Zhou Li, Yi Li and The Book of Rites, collectively called "Three Rites", are important works to understand the pre-Qin etiquette, system, rituals, life norms and customs of China. As far as the main contents of the classics are concerned, Zhou Li records the laws and regulations, while Yi Li records the norms of ceremonies and festivals. The categories of The Book of Rites are more complicated and all of them are included.

Zhou Li recorded the laws and regulations in a sequential way, similar to the official list, and recorded the official system of the Zhou Dynasty. The six officials of heaven, earth, spring, summer, autumn and winter are the six departments of the imperial court, each performing its duties; In the later generations, it became six departments: officials, households, rituals, soldiers, punishments and workers. Among them, there are some details about the scope of each official position and the function of each detail, so I won't elaborate here. Rites of the Week rarely involves the discussion of ideas, but it is an ideal official system, especially at that time, it was really commendable to have such a complete system plan. With this book, we can not only study the culture and laws of the Zhou Dynasty, but also see China's ideal system scale, and regard this plan as the achievements made by ancient monarchs and ministers for the country and the people.

Four. "Yili" (the following content is the same as the Five Classics, with a slight modification)

Yili was originally named Yili, at least in the Western Han Dynasty. When to change it to Yili is unknown. The Book of Rites in the Five Classics should be the Book of Rites, not the Book of Rites. Originally, there were 56 * * * articles in Yili, but now there are only 17 articles in Yili, which are arranged in the following order: the first is the ceremony of the scholar's crown, the second is the ceremony of the scholar's fainting, the third is the ceremony of the scholar's meeting, the fourth is the ceremony of drinking in the countryside, the fifth is the ceremony of shooting in the countryside, and the sixth is the ceremony and gift of Li Yan.

From the title of the article, we can know its content, which mainly records the etiquette and norms of various official ranks and activities above the imperial court. Taking the well-known funeral as an example, according to the distance between relatives and friends, various funeral periods and regulations are set, such as "cutting off the decline", serving for three years, and etiquette that the closest person should wear when he dies. "CuO Ma", which lasts for three months, is one of the shortest mourning periods, such as the death of grandparents (cousins of ancient grandfathers were generally male) and parents (uncles). In addition to the records of relevant details, the presentation of these etiquette shows that in China culture, kinship and birthright are the basis for the establishment of various behaviors.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) The Book of Rites

The Book of Rites has a wide range of contents and a large scale, and records the rituals, life norms and moral thoughts. Liang Qichao once divided the contents of the Book of Rites into five categories, which can be used as an important expression to understand the Book of Rites. They are: (1) a general discussion of etiquette and learning; (2) Explain the great significance of the book Yili; (3) Remember Confucius' words and deeds, or Confucius' timely housework; (4) Records and textual research of ancient institutional etiquette; (5) Record ancient aphorisms and aphorisms. Because of the variety of recorded things, if we look at them separately, such as the introduction of funeral and sacrifice, we can let readers know the ancient etiquette style; If we want to run through the core ideas of the book, we will generally focus on the teaching of Confucianism and virtue. For example, the two articles "Da Xue" and "The Doctrine of the Mean", as well as the words and deeds of Confucius and his disciples recorded in many places, seem to reveal the value of these contents, because they are actions advocated by Confucianism.

Six, "Book of Changes" (the following content is the same as the "Five Classics" entry)

The Book of Changes is the earliest divination book in China, and its origin can only be based on legends. Generally speaking, ancient Fu founded the Eight Diagrams, which were compiled and arranged in Zhou Wenwang, so it is also called the Book of Changes. The content is to sort out a set of symbol system describing the state and change of the world through the observation of natural phenomena, collect and shoot eight hexagrams of Gan, Kun, Zhen, Hui, Gen, Li, Kan and Xun, which correspond to natural phenomena such as heaven, earth, thunder, Ze, mountain, fire, water and wind respectively, and then interpret world events with the results of various combinations.

The structure of Yijing consists of hexagrams, hexagrams, hexagrams and hexagrams. Hexagrams are represented by symbols, and a hexagram name is arranged by three solid lines and dotted lines, as shown in the following figure:

According to legend, hexagrams were written by Zhou Wenwang to explain them. Yi Ci is a text used to explain hexagrams, which is said to have been written by Duke Zhou. When Confucius arrived, he reinterpreted the contents of the Book of Changes and compiled ten annotations, which were called "Ten Wings". Later, Ten Wings was called The Book of Changes, which is usually considered to be inseparable from The Book of Changes. Today, the Book of Changes is often a combination of the two.

The Book of Changes originally responded to the changes of the world with natural phenomena, and its ideological connection was relatively direct. It seems to be similar to Taoism, Yin and Yang, and even later Taoism. This book is really often used to explain and calculate some mysterious and unknowable phenomena. However, due to the addition of hexagrams, Yi Zhuan and Yi Zhuan, words similar to moral persuasion often appear in the process of explaining hexagrams, and their ideological meanings are sorted out by later generations. Therefore, some people think that the core idea of Yijing is still dominated by Confucianism, similar to Taoism and Yin and Yang, and it is only used to conform to the Confucian method of persuading people to become sages.

Biography of Zuo's Family in the Spring and Autumn Period (the following contents are the same as the Five Classics, slightly modified)

Chunqiu is the earliest chronological history book in China, which records the history of the early Eastern Zhou Dynasty from the first year (49 years, 722 BC) to 14 years (39 years, 48 BC1year), mainly focusing on the relationship between Shandong and other countries. Since the original text of Chunqiu is not available for examination now, to understand the original text and general idea of Chunqiu, we usually start with three biographies of Chunqiu-Zuo's Biography, Yang Gong Biography and Gu Liang Biography, and cooperate with some pre-Qin works.

The Biography of Zuo's Family in the Spring and Autumn Period, also known as Zuo's Spring and Autumn Period, Zuo's Family in the Spring and Autumn Period, was originally thought to be written by Zuo Qiuming (whose birth and death date is unknown, so it should be earlier than Confucius). Later, it was gradually verified that this was not the case and there was no conclusion. Therefore, we might as well focus on understanding from the content. Because the content of Chunqiu is quite brief, Zuozhuan mainly focuses on the detailed account of the events recorded in Chunqiu. The book is about 6.5438+0.8 million words, which makes up for the unfinished details of Spring and Autumn Annals. For example, in the case of Zheng Boke Tong Yan, Spring and Autumn Annals only contains mixed sentences, while Zuo Zhuan describes the content and process in detail in 700 words. Without this annotation, it is difficult to understand the ins and outs of Zheng Boke's words. The same is true of other historical events, which shows the importance of Zuozhuan and its interaction with Chunqiu.

Eight, "Spring and Autumn Ram Biography"

Biography of Ram and Biography of Gu Liang are different from the style of Zuo Zhuan, mainly in expounding the ideas and truth of Spring and Autumn Annals. The date of completion of The Biography of the Ram is unknown. We only know that it may have been written by Xia Zi's disciple, Gongyanggao, but it is difficult to completely determine whether this is the case. The main content is to carry forward the truth contained in Spring and Autumn Annals. Because the author of Biography of the Ram thinks that every word in Chunqiu has profound meaning, the chronicle of Chunqiu is often mixed with the author's value judgment, such as discussing things with words like praise and criticism, while Biography of the Ram inherits this, and analyzes why Chunqiu made such judgment. For the usage of each word, we discussed in detail why we should use words like this instead of other words. For example, a passage in the biography of the ram explaining five years of seclusion: "I will respect my teachers and call them handsome teachers;" Will be less respectful to the teacher and say yes; Will humble the teacher and call it a teacher; If a person is not as good as his teacher, then he is a person. You won't say that you are a handsome teacher, only that you are the most important. This passage is to explain why and under what circumstances the concepts of "handsome teacher", "general", "teacher" and "man" are used in Chunqiu, and that "general monarch" has the meaning of "handsome teacher" and its status and value are higher than these titles, thus distinguishing "general monarch" from "handsome teacher". There are many related examples, from which we can know the main points of ram biography.

Nine, "Spring and Autumn Valley Liang Zhuan"

The author of Biography of Gu Liangzi in the Spring and Autumn Period is said to be Gu Liangzi. Because there are many theories about Gu Liangzi's identity, one of which is that he is a summer student, similar to Ramko, but the details are still difficult to determine. There is more than one sentence in the writing age. Therefore, to understand Gu Liang's biography, we may have to start with the content.

Biography of Gu Liang is quite similar in expounding the thought and principle of Biography of Ram, mainly expounding Confucian classics, and rarely describing them, but the teachers are different, and the techniques, words and styles are also different. Gu Liang's biography is presented in the form of question and answer, with word-for-word annotations, which is quite rigorous. Similar to the value comments in Biography of the Ram, the comments in Biography of the Spring and Autumn Valley will also supplement the value judgment of good, evil, beauty and ugliness, but the style is relatively dull, without gorgeous rhetoric and momentum. Only the period of Emperor Xuan Di (9 1-48 BC) was paid more attention to, and its value in history and research was far less than this.

The Analects of Confucius

The Analects of Confucius is a book that records the words and deeds of the most holy Confucius (about 5565438 BC+0-479 BC) and his disciples. Mainly written in quotations, with some short records. The age of the book may have been gradually compiled by Confucius' disciples after the early Warring States period. There are two opinions about the title of the book. One is a book that records Confucius' remarks. One is a book recording Confucius' ethics, and the other is more general. The book starts with "learning while learning" and ends with "Yaoyue", with a total of 20 articles, each named after the first two words of the first chapter. As Confucius was the pioneer of Confucianism in the Spring and Autumn Period and the initiator of education on rites and music, The Analects of Confucius was regarded as the most important book to understand Confucius' thoughts and Confucian spirit.

The content of the book takes "benevolence" as the core idea. According to Confucius and his disciples, "benevolence" can probably be understood as congenital. (1) The moral connotation that comes from the heart without false external requirements gradually shows various moral behaviors through situations or acquired learning. For example, Confucius said, "What is an unkind ceremony? What's the fun of being heartless? () That is to say, if you don't take benevolence as the root, you can't do the right thing in rites and music, so you can make the right behavior by taking everyone's inherent benevolence as the root.

The Analects of Confucius has far-reaching influence. All those who annotate or discuss righteousness in later generations, such as Neo-Confucianism and Confucianism in the Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties, or those who reflect on Mencius or other Confucian works, always put the Analects of Confucius in an unshakable position and regard the image of Confucius recorded in the book as a display of Confucian ideal personality.

XI。 Xiao Jing

Filial piety is only 1903, which is the shortest among the thirteen classics. According to legend, it was written by Confucius or Ceng Zi (505-435 BC), and some people said it was a forgery. This book may have been written during the Qin and Han Dynasties. The form of this book is formed by the question and answer between Confucius and Ceng Zi. * * * is divided into the first chapter, the second chapter of the emperor, the third chapter of the vassal, the fourth chapter of QingDafu, the fifth chapter of the scholar, the sixth chapter of Shu Ren, the seventh chapter of Sancai, the eighth chapter of filial piety, the ninth chapter of Sanzhi and the tenth chapter of Ji Xiaoxing. 18 chapters, such as chapter 17 of military affairs and chapter 17 of bereavement of relatives, all the conversations are centered on "filial piety", which can be regarded as an extension of many people asking Confucius for filial piety in the Analects of Confucius.

The Book of Filial Piety is short in length, with clear core ideas, taking "filial piety" as the general program, which is the top priority of all morality. As stated in the opening chapter, Confucius said, "Filial piety is the foundation of virtue, from which teaching is born." It is to point out this truth directly, and then discuss the importance, methods and steps, and effects of filial piety. Because it records the dialogue between Confucius and Ceng Zi, and the content does not leave the scope of The Analects, The Book of Filial Piety is also considered as an important work to express Confucian filial piety.

Twelve, "Erya"

Erya is the earliest special book on exegetics in China, which was written under the guise of Duke Zhou and Confucius in ancient times. However, as far as its content is concerned, it should be written later than the Five Classics, and it may be a ci book compiled by poetry creators in Qin and Han Dynasties. The book * * * is divided into 19 articles, namely, Shi, Shi, Shi Gong, Shi Qi, Shi Le, Shi Tian, Shi Di, Shi Qiu and Shi Shan.

Some comments will classify the articles to see which ones are similar, but it is not difficult to understand that the first three articles mainly explain words such as words and sounds, and the rest explain the meanings of birds, animals, insects and fish. Just note that the classification of words in the book is different from that in today's book. If you want to use Erya as a dictionary, you must take into account ancient concepts, such as the entry "Zombie, Yu Yi" in "Release Birds". If we use today's concept, we can see that zombies are not birds, and the ancients may be due to zombies. There are "leeches, cockroaches" in "Free Fish". "The word, roughly the same reason.

Thirteen. Mencius

Mencius is a book that records the quotations of the sage Mencius (372-289 BC). Like The Analects of Confucius, they were all compiled by his disciples and re-disciples, and they were all dialogues, which were divided into Liang, Gong Sunchou,,,, Gao Zihe. Mencius originally belonged to the ideological books of pre-Qin philosophers, but it did not reach the classic status. However, after the Tang and Song Dynasties, Mencius received more and more attention. In particular, Wang Anshi (102 1- 1086) took The Analects of Confucius and Mencius as trial readers, so he took them as trial readers. Southern Song Dynasty Zhu (1 130- 1200) compiled The Analects of Confucius, Mencius, The Doctrine of the Mean, and Daxue into Four Books, and Mencius became one of the most important Confucian classics.

The content of Mencius inherited Confucius' thought in The Analects of Confucius, and Mencius himself admired Confucius and claimed to be the successor of Confucius' thought. At that time, he declared the friendship of Yao, Shun, Wen, Wu and Confucius to the kings of Liang and other countries, advocated the moral concept of benevolence, righteousness, courtesy and wisdom, and took the "four-sided heart" that everyone had as the basis for people to do good at that time. His famous speeches, such as The Theory of Good Nature, The Debate of Human Nature, The Debate of Righteousness and Benefit, The Debate between Wang Ba and the People, are well-known and have had an important influence on later Confucianism and China culture.

As far as the ideological focus is concerned, it can be an extension or expansion of The Analects. For example, The Analects of Confucius emphasizes benevolence, while Mencius emphasizes four concepts of benevolence, righteousness, courtesy and wisdom, and develops into a relatively complete and detailed Confucian theory of human nature with four hearts of sadness, shame, rhetoric and right and wrong. The content of the dispute between Mencius and Gao Zi is good or bad, and it is also a topic that still causes extensive discussion.