An Exegetic Study On Yu Xingwu's Xin Zhengs

Xin Zhengs by Yu Xingwu stand in an important post in the Chinese exegetics of the 21st century, even in the history of Chinese exegetics, while the studies and evaluations of Xin Zhengs are not systematic and concrete. By analyzing 15 Xin Zhengs, this thesis chiefly deals with the exegetic style, exegetic content, exegetic methods, meanwhile, judges the achievements and deficiencies in Chinese exegetics.As is shown that Xin Zhengs belong to the reading-note in the style of textual criticism, which involve 15 ancient books written in pre-Qin and Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, consisting of 42 volumes, 2309 items(2518 words and sentences, etc.) in which include 2046 items of textual criticism and 480 items of collation. The items of textual criticism contain criticizing incorrect annotation, producing proofs to the correct annotation, explaining the meanings directly, resolving doubts and leaving doubtful points unquestioned. The items of collation contain collating the texts of the books and the explanatory notes. This thesis emphasis on 2046 items of textual criticism.The exegetic content of Xin Zhengs has three aspects: observing and studying the old annotation, explaining the words and sentences, collating the writings of the ancient books. This thesis discusses the exegetic methods from the angles of philosophical concept, logical method and specialized method which includes two levels—the level of linguistics and philology which reveals the paradigmatic relation from the angle of entity and sound of the writing, and reveals the combinatorial relation from the angle of the specific context, the level of document which contains citing the documents handed down from ancient times and the objects unearthed.The achievements of Xin Zhengs by Mr Yu embodies four aspects—practice, material, method and theory. In practice, Mr Yu examined and corrected the meanings of 2019words, 191 names and descriptions of things, 145 phrases, 1270 sentences. In material, he made full use of the latest achievements in Chinese paleography and archeology in the course rectification. In method, he carried forward the good tradition of down-to-earth learning, and used dual attestation in exegetics successfully. In theory, he differentiated the significance between the documents handed down from ancient times and the objects unearthed and thought that the objects unearthed were more important than the other. The Xin-zheng Exegetic School in the 20th century, such as Yu Xingwu, successfully achieve a change from linking writing forms in the same plane to revealing origin and development in the history in the method of "meaning from form" in Chinese exegetics, which undoubtedly carried this traditional method to a new rational stage. Through confirming between the ancient books and the objects unearthed, The Xin-zheng Exegetic School, in a sense, carried the synchronic study of the traditional philology to the diachronic study of modern linguistics.Mr Yu achieved great successes in Chinese exegetics because of the academic background in the first half of the twentieth century, his solid learning and cultivation and his meticulous scholarship.