| "Destiny" is an extremely important and original concept in the history of Chinese Thought.The word "destiny" can be seen in the inscriptions on bronze in the Western Zhou Dynasty at the latest.According to Mr.Fu Sinian's viewpoint of"destiny" and "command",it has appeared frequently in oracle bone inscriptions.We can also see that in the early natural religious society,the expression of "destiny" was always combined with the concept of "heaven" and "emperor",which became an important source and basis of Chinese early cosmology.In the Western Zhou Dynasty,with the awakening of people's value rationality,their cognition and expression of the concept of destiny became more and more clear.However,"destiny",as a huge dominant force,still firmly occupied people's world outlook,and dominated the operation of human affairs with its strong will and rules.This is mainly reflected in the political field,and " The sovereign power is granted by heaven" is a significant expression.Before the Spring and Autumn period,the concept of "gentleman" was mainly a general term for a noble represented by the emperor who held the ruling power.Status was its dominant feature and its due meaning,which was significantly different from the concept of moral gentleman understood by later generations.From the perspective of literature,the perfection and establishment of moral meaning in the connotation of "gentleman" was attributed to Confucius' Analects of Confucius.It is also in the Analects that Confucius unfolded a very important proposition for us: "if you don't know your destiny,you can't be a gentleman”("the Analects of Confucius · Yao Yue"),which is also the starting point and foothold of this paper.Since "gentleman" knows "destiny" is Confucius' inevitable proposition that a gentleman is a gentleman,is this inevitability Confucius' creation or the continuation and transformation of tradition? From the initial connotation and development evolution of "gentleman " and "destiny",it is obviously the latter,because from the first meaning of the initial connotation of "gentleman",the emperor's power source is the emperor's destiny,which we can clearly see from the visible records of Yin and Zhou dynasties.For example,the myth of the origin of the Shang clan is " the mysterious bird of destiny comes down to give birth to Shang"(the book of songs · Shang song · Xuan bird),such as " Heaven ordered King Wen to destroy the state of Yin and rule the people of Yin"(Shangshu·Kanggao)and "Perpetually preserve the destiny"(Shangshu · Zhaogao).It can be seen that in the Yin and Zhou Dynasties,the power of the emperor was ordered by heaven,and it was the basic consensus of the society that the emperor inherited the destiny to control the people.In this sense,the destiny was the root of the legitimacy of the power of the emperor.Therefore,to know the destiny of the emperor is to accept the due meaning and inevitable choice of the destiny,and to know the destiny of the emperor is not to keep his own power and position.At the time of the revolution of Yin and Shang Dynasties,Zhou people had a profound reflection and summary on the old belief of destiny in the historical context of the alternation of Yin and Shang Dynasties.They put forward that "to match heaven with morality" and "to respect morality and protect the people" were the real "knowing destiny".Thus,they integrated heaven,human and destiny into the political expression of "heaven knowing destiny",constructed the inner channel of heaven respecting morality and protecting the people and showing "gentleman" The moral value of the inevitable proposition "knowing one's destiny".In the political context of the Western Zhou Dynasty,we can see that the statesmen represented by the Duke Zhou constructed a set of aristocratic hierarchy system with order and inferiority in the feudal patriarchal system in the early Zhou Dynasty.Therefore,in terms of the second level connotation of gentleman,a "gentleman" represented by princes and bureaucrats is their proper and inevitable choice of knowing the king's destiny,and knowing the king's destiny is to keep their own titles.In this sense,"status" and "destiny" present a consistent state,and knowing the king's destiny is knowing the king's position.The most important feature of Zhou's system is that it created a set of mature and complete rites system as the basic norms of social operation.It is suitable for funeral,sacrifice,shooting,imperial,crown,faint,court and appointment.Therefore,the sages show it with courtesy,so that the countries in the world can get it right.In the book of rites,Li Yun,the noble gentleman,the actual connotation of "destiny" is also internally consistent with the system of rites represented by the king's destiny.Knowing the destiny is keeping the rites.Down to the spring and Autumn period,with the rise of social humanistic rational thought,people's concept of destiny has changed greatly.Society's attention to "destiny" has gradually shifted from "heaven" to "human",and the connotation of "gentleman" has gradually enriched.The pre-Qin Confucians represented by Confucius,Mencius and Xunzi,on the basis of their predecessors' thoughts,consciously interpreted and transformed the connotation of the word "gentleman".Virtue became the primary feature of a gentleman,and virtue without position could also be called a gentleman.The connotation of the concept of "gentleman" broke through the narrow limitation of "status" in the Western Zhou Dynasty and got a new transformation.Therefore,the connotation of "the gentleman knows his destiny" also develops a new orientation.We can see that a hundred schools of thought,represented by Confucianism,have been discussing the connotation of "destiny" one after another.There are endless discussions on "virtue" and "destiny","righteousness" and "destiny","time" and "destiny","meeting" and "destiny","nature" and "destiny","strength" and "destiny",and the connotation of "destiny" has been greatly expanded.Among them,Confucianism,represented by Confucius,raised the banner of human nature,shouldered the responsibility and mission of "doing morality" in the constant struggle with "heaven" and "destiny",and implemented it on "gentleman",which became its unique value connotation and set up the personality model of gentleman image in later generations. |
PDF Full Text Request