Chu His's Study On Ancient Chinese Books

Chu His is a great master in the history of ancient Chinese books study who serves as a link between past and future. He inherits the findings of Confucius and absorbs the findings of his days, His studies on ancient Chinese books was carried on by the researchers in Qing Dynasty. The forming of "Guo Xue" and "Jiao Chou Xue" is closely related with Chu His. The study on ancient Chinese books before Chu His was in an unconscious state. It is Chu His's findings and thoughts that initiate a new stage in the history of ancient Chinese books study.Chu His's main findings on ancient Chinese book study lies in summarizing the main ideas of Six Books and systematizing the Six Books according to the requirements of different times. Chu His systematizes about sixty books in his life time, his theory of New Confucianism is based on his work of systematizing the ancient Chinese books. His achievements on systematizing the ancient Chinese books, on the one hand benefit from his family education ,one the other hand is due to the prosperity of the study on the ancient Chinese books in Song Dynasty, however, the most important reason is that he read a great number of ancient Chinese books intensively. Chu His's career in systematizing ancient Chinese books can be divided into four stages. On the first stage he systematizes Four Books and the works of Zhou's ,Zhang's and Cheng brothers', by doing these work he compiled new editions of Four Books and other ancient Chinese books with his interpretation on those books. Chu His finishes systematizing "The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean" when he was sixty years old., it symbolizes that Chu His's study on the ancient Chinese books, especially on Four Books has reached a new height, it is also the ending of his persisting on the moral of The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean.From Chu His point of view, ancient books records the behaviors of the great men in ancient China, and the function of these books is carrying on the ideas of the great men. Chu His not only thinks highly of the books of Confucianism, but also pays his attention to the books of other scholars .He attaches importance to the spreading and disappearance of both written forms and spoken forms of the ancient books. Chu His's understandings on systematizing the ancient books focus on the following three aspects: firstly, the purpose of his study is setting up New Confucianism, secondly, his study aims at education about New Confucianism, thirdly, the principle of his study is emphasizing New Confucianism, not giving up explanations of words in ancient books and textual research. Chu His's study on the ancient books consists of explaining of words in ancient books, compiling and collating the ancient books, textual research, identifying the true books, cutting and printing books, recognizing the edition of the books. In this thesis the author focuses his study on Chu His's explaining of words in ancient books, compiling and collating the ancient books and textual research on ancient books, and pays less attention to Chu His's study on identifying the true books, cutting and printing books, recognizing the edition of the books. Chu His not only discusses the value and the methods of explaining words in ancient books but also points out the shortcomings of explaining words in ancient...