A Study On Meng Zi Jie Wen

In 1394, Zhu Yuanzhang朱元璋(1328~1398), the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, ordered the scholars of Imperial Academy to make a new revision of Meng Zi《孟子》,which was called Meng Zi Jie Wen《孟子节文》. In the following seventeen years, the new revision which omited more than eighty chapters of Meng Zi, became the standard textbook for civil examinations from 1394 to 1411.In chinese history, it was the only time that an emperor destroyed Confucian classics by his political authority after Qin dynasty. The application and the abolition of Meng Zi Jie Wen reflected the change of the relation between intellectuals and political authority from Hongwu洪武to Yongle永乐period. Meng Zi Jie Wen gave us a new perspective for the study of early Ming intellectual history.In the first part of this article, I will review and rethink the former study of Meng Zi Jie Wen. In chapter two, the writer will probe the process of Meng Zi Jie Wen's compilation. In next part, I will hypothesize the effect of this book in early Ming society according to its edition and record in ancient bibliography, and try to solve some textual problems. In chapter four, I will trace the intellectual source of Meng Zi Jie Wen which dated from Northen-Song dynasty, and discuss the early Ming social context relative to the compilation of Meng Zi Jie Wen. In the end, we will study how the book was abolished in Yongle period, and attempt to find some reason for its abolition.