Wang Ying-lin Academic Thought

Wang Ying-lin was a profound scholar lived in the end of the Song Dynasty and the early of the Yuan Dynasty, however, his scholarship wasn't praised highly until the early of the Qing Dynasty. Many scholars thought that the reason is the scholars of the Qing Dynasty attaching great importance to the Wang textual research. So nowadays learners think all of the Wang scholarship is the textual research. Actually, they can't get the true essence of the Wang scholarship. The purpose of this article is to inquire into the true essence of the Wang scholarship, and to give the Wang scholarship a correct location.This article is made up of four parts:In the first part, I mainly investigate Wang Ying-lin's life, his scholarship origin and his works. Firstly, I analyze that Wang Ying-lin taking the examination of "Boxuehongci" and meeting with the dynastic change produced a great effect on his scholarship. Secondly, I inspect Wang Ying-lin's teachers and his scholarship characteristics, point out that Wang Ying-lin actually carried out Zhu Xi's and Lv Zu-qian's scholarship viewpoint, not learned from Lu Jiu-yuan. Thirdly, I investigate the spread situation of the editions of "kunxuejiwen" carved in the Yuan Dynasty, point out that the true edition carved in the Yuan Dynasty is in Japan now, our country only have the edition carved in the Ming Dynasty.In the second part, I mainly study Wang Ying-lin's academic thought obout adopting the Han school and the Song school. In the academic circle of the end of the Song Dynasty, the scholars indulged in empty talking moral principle, the academic atmosphere is very empty. In order to bring the scholars out of empty, on the one hand, Wang Ying-lin suggested the scholars not doubt the Confucian classics and commentaries on them, should pick up the notes and commentaries of the scholars from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, and attach importance to their method in commenting the Confucian classics. He encouraged the scholars should do well in the textual research. On the other hand, Wang Ying-lin maintained prizing the Six Classics and despising the Four Books, followed in Zhu Xi's steps to study the phenomena of nature in order to acquire knowledge, objected the philosophy of the mind advocated by Lu Jiu-yuan, emphasized that reading and studying is very important to comprehend the feudal ethics, and carried on Lv Zu-qian's theories on historical study. All of these show that Wang Ying-lin chose the details of the scholarship from the Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, and chose the simplicity of the scholarship of the Song Dynasty.In the third part, I mainly study Wang Ying-lin's academic thought about studying in order to apply it. Wang Ying-lin has a great aversion to the empty academic atmosphere in the end of the southern Song Dynasty after meeting with the dynastic change, so he stood for studying in order to apply it. On the one hand, Wang Ying-lin usually apply the meaning of the Confucian Classics to conduct himself in society, sum up the historical experience and analyze the realistic politics. On the other hand, Wang Ying-lin studied history to express his political point view, and search for the reason that the southern Song Dynasty was destroyed.In the fourth part, I mainly investigate the spread situation of Wang Ying-lin's scholarship. After Wang Ying-lin died, his scholarship was main handed down by his sons and grandsons and his students. Among his sons and grandsons, Wang Chang-shi, Wang Ning-sun and Wang Hou-sun are very outstanding. One of their contributions to the spread of Wang Ying-lin's scholarship is in saving and straightening up Wang Ying-lin's works. The other is making Wang Ying-lin's scholarship spread to the Ming Dynasty by teaching the two brothers Zheng Ju and Zheng Zhen. Among Wang Ying-lin's students, Hu San-xing, Shi Meng-qing and Yuan Jue are very outstanding, but their scholarships were usually misconstrued in the later years. In the early of the Qing Dynasty, Wang Ying-lin's scholarship began to be given attention by most scholars because the background characteristic of times and the acadmic atmospYhere are similar. Among these scholars, there is a scholar named Gu Yan-wu is very similar with Wang Ying-lin in the scholarship. But after the year of Qian Jia, the academic atmosphere changed, Wang Ying-lin was only prized for his well-known knowledge and his textual research, his true scholarship thoughts was buried.