The Study Of Wang Fu’s QianFuLun

Wang Fu was well-known because of his Qianfulun. According to his best friends’ dates of birth and death and the time that he paid a formal visit Huangfu Gui, we can think Wang Fu was born in about AD80and died in AD162years. The Qianfulun was not the only book of Wang Fu, ZhaoMing WenXuan LI Shan’s annotates mentioned Wang Fu’s Plume Hunting Ode, the records of Song Dynasty Luo Yuan’s Er Ya Yi showed that Wang Fu should have other books. The writing purpose of Wang Fu’s Qianfulun was aiming at the social decay scene since the late Eastern Han Dynasty, thirty-six chapters were gradually written, during the period of Han Emperor Huan compiled into the book. In the style of writing, Qianfulun’s articles were independent chapters, simple and vigorous, made up own conception according to Confucian classics argumentation, and gathered various classics, archaism, colloquialism, stories, using a variety of rhetorical devices such as metaphor, parallelism, antithesis and so on, the writing attitude was modest and prudent, on the whole reflected a strong criticalness. The Qianfulun’s article writing format and overall structural layout reflected Wang Fu’s careful design. He always first proposed the topics in the article format, followed by explanation and argumentation from the theoretical principle, then quoted current affairs, enumerated the phenomenon, carried on the criticism, finally made a conclusion. The Qianfulun’s first and last chapter writing apparently affected by Xunzi, Shih Chi, Hanshu. The book was divided into ten volumes which significantly affected by the number theory of The Book of Changes. The whole content of book also reflected the characteristics from shallow to deep, which closely related to Wang Fu’s own life experiences.The Qianfulun has begun to spread since it was written in book form, but special social conditions of the Wei, Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties resulted in the influence of Qianfulun was little. Tang and Song periods began, to the Yuan Ming and Qing Dynasties, the quoting, compiling and research for the Qianfulun began to heat up. Starting from the Tang Dynasty Sui Shu Jing Ji Zhi, some official compiled and private compiled library catalogs had many records about the Qianfulun. The version of Qianfulun was divided into unabridged version and selected version. The unabridged versions were divided into the versions of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing four periods, the selected versions mainly were later books’ excerpt research on Qianfulun’s sections and chapters. This paper selected four versions of Song version, the Yuan Dade new edition, the Ming Cheng Rong’s HanWei CongShu version, the Qing Wang Jipei’s annotation version to carry on the contrast and collation, thus study the similarities and differences among the various versions. Wang Jipei’s collation reflected his exquisite collation skill, but also there were some errors. There existed missing words and lost articles in the Qianfulun, the eight sentences were compiled from quoted passage of other ancient books could be regarded as the Qianfulun’s lost words.The paper carried on the analysis and summary on thirty-six chapters contents of Qianfulun by the way of informative abstract. The Qianfulun was not a simple compilation of thirty-six articles, but under the guiding ideology of pneuma primitive theory, taking thoughts of rule of virtue as the purpose of ruling the country to construct the Confucian ideology. There were two viewpoints on thought ascription of Qianfulun, namely, the Confucian and the Eclectics, studying its mainstream thinking, the Qianfulun was still vested in a class of Confucian. The differences on thought ascription had direct relationships with the extensive and miscellaneous characteristics of Qianfulun’s, thoughts, the bibliographic scholar’s knowledge level and academic attitude. Qianfulun reflected three characteristics. One of which, the extensive and miscellaneous characteristics of Qianfulun’s thoughts. There were three reasons, firstly, Wang Fu was affected by Hsun Tzu’s Confucianism. Secondly, affected by the academic atmosphere of the Han Dynasty. Thirdly, Eastern Han social reality, Wang Fu’s realistic conditions decided his Confucianism inevitably marked with the imprint of Han Dynasty Confucianism. Next, the social criticalness of Qianfulun’s, thoughts. The third, the transitivity of Qianfulun’s thoughts.The Qianfulun has been quoted by dozens of ancient books since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, this indicates that the Qianfulun had abundant in content and future generations’ approbation, has been spread in the hereafter without intermission. When later generations quoted Qianfulun textual sentences, most of quoted passages did not label title, took reducing textual sentences as the principle on the literal contents, simultaneously combining the difference in text using, such as the increase and decrease of substantive and function words, the usage of interchangeable words, changing the character because of taboo, the use of synonyms, which also fully embodied the ancients’ haphazardry in quoting various books contents. Such characteristics decided it was not sole or principal basis as collating the text of Qianfulun. Some characters of quoted passage could be corrected incorrect characters in existing version, also could correct some errors in the citation text by the comparison between these referenced textual and now version. By the contrast, could compile some lost articles beyond today’s version Qianfulun.The Qianfulun quoting books included Confucian classics, weishu, philosophical works, historical records, ancient records, proverbs. Qianfulun quoted a large number contents from The Chou Rituals, The Etiquette, The Book of Rites, The Book of Songs, Shangshu, The Book of Changes, Spring and Autumn Zuozhuan, Spring and Autumn Gongvangzhuan, The Analects, Book of Filial Piety. Wang Fu’s attention rate and emphasis was different to the contents of the various Confucian classics, the quoting frequencies of The Book of Songs, Shangshu, The Book of Changes, Spring and Autumn Zuozhuan, The Analects were higher, of which the influence of The Book of Changes, Spring and Autumn Zuozhuan were larger. The quotations of The Chou Rituals, The Etiquette, The Book of Rites and Book of Filial Piety were relatively less because of too single content and not apply to Wang Fu’s writing needs. The citation to Confucian classics reflected the development trend of integration of the pre-Qin script Confucian classics and clerical script Confucian classics in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, and showed the characteristics that the clerical script Confucian classics was main and pre-Qin script Confucian classics was supplemented. Qianfulun’s citation to Confucian classics was an inevitable result of academic development in Han Dynasty Confucian era, has a direct relationship with Wang Fu’s Confucian academic concept of "Mingdao, learning saints, learning classics", was Wang Fu’s understanding and annotation of Confucian classics. The citation means were mainly divided direct and indirect citation two forms, also existed the situations that only citing the names of the Confucian classics or specific chapter names without citing textual content. By the analysis on Qianfulun citing Confucian classics, we can understand varia lectio, different versions of Confucian classics in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Investigation and analysis of the Qianfulun citing the pre-Qin script Confucian classics and clerical script Confucian classics brought some enlightenment, namely, the complexity of analyzing the difference between pre-Qin script Confucian classics and clerical script Confucian classics:First, there were many editions of pre-Qin script Confucian classics and clerical script Confucian classics. Second, the contradiction between the ancients applied original text flexibly and the diversity of ancient editions of Confucian classics. Third, the ancient taboo issues bringing trouble to the pre-Qin script Confucian classics and clerical script Confucian classics. Fourth, Zheng Xuan’s The Etiquette annotation, Xu Shen’s Shuowenjiezi and the characters contained in the Han Dynasty Xiping stele, Lu Deming’s Jingdianshiwen and so on thought the pre-Qin script and clerical script were the product of a specific historical period, having generality, had a certain reference value for us to analyze the pre-Qin script Confucian classics and clerical script Confucian classics. Wang Fu did not get rid of the impact of weishu, and quoted extensively the contents of weishu when elaborating on some ancient historical figures. Wang Fu widely dabbled in various philosophers’ thoughts, such as Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, Military strategist in ancient China and Eclectics, of which Confucianism dominated, Taoism, Legalism, Military strategist in ancient China, Eclectics for auxiliary. For Yizhoushu, Guoyu, Strategies of the Warring States, Shiben, Shih Chi, Hanshu, ancient records, proverbs, many contents were cited, thereamong the references of Guoyu, Shih Chi, Hanshu were more. On the one hand, this showed Wang Fu was a well-read learned recluse, for the need of criticizing social reality, extensively citing pre-Qin and Two Han philosophers’books, on the other hand, reflected the Han Dynasty scholars striving for erudite and informed academic atmosphere. The specific citation means had direct citation and indirect citation towards the weishu, philosophical works, historical records, namely, direct citing the original text and citing original text flexibly. In addition, through the contrast between various philosophers’ citation and current version contents could find a number of different texts, different versions of various philosophers’ books circulating in the Eastern Han Dynasty, which had great significance to understand the development of various philosophers’ thoughts in the Eastern Han Dynasty.The Qianfulun had important literature value. In the research of ancient history, the Qianfulun provided the historical materials for writing Houhanshu, its contents could mutual prove with other history books, also could supplement the lack of historical records. All statement with "jin" were Wang Fu’s true reaction aiming at all kinds of social phenomena in the Eastern Han Dynasty. In some special literatures such as "Silie", Vanity and Luxury, Records of Attributes of Five Elements, Zhishixing recorded contents had special value. Some contents of Qianfuiun might be used for the analysis and textual research on the problems of ancient history. In aspect of ideological value, Qianfulun was the sole basis for understanding Wang Fu’s thought, hereby could understand Wang Fu’s political, economic, philosophical, ethical, educational, nomocracy, defense and military thinking. In aspect of literary value, Qianfulun was an outstanding representative of the Eastern Han essays of political comments, having a style of Wang fu’s own, for later generations leaving many classic famous aphorism such as "high position and great wealth","Listen to both sides and you will be enlightened; heed only one side and you will be benighted","One barking dog sets all the street a-barking" and so on.