Sun Fu "the Spring And Autumn Period And The Statue Of Wang Fawei" Research

Sun Fu was a distinguished expert on classics in early Song Dynasty and wasknown as one of the "Three Masters in early Song". He had a profound knowledgeand inventive understanding on the classic "Spring and Autumn Annals". Heexplained the work focusing on the concept "honoring the King" and wrote a book"Detailed Annotation on Spring and Autumn Annals". His principle on study, which isnever believe books in blind, was an outstanding example of the new change in thestyle of study at that time. He was a leading figure in the renaissance of Confucianismin Song Dynasty and first one to paid tribute to for the revival of the study on "Springand Autumn Annals".This paper takes Sun Fu’s work, "Detailed Annotation on Spring and AutumnAnnals", as its subject and does a in-depth study on this book on the basis of formerstudies. It pays special attention to the concept "honoring the King" proposed in thisbook and analyzes it more deeply and systematically in the perspective of classicstudy. There are four parts in this paper.The first part is an introduction of Sun Fu, including his life and academicthinking. Sun was not successful in gaining a career in his early days and thenretreated in Mount Tai to wrote books and teach students. In his late years, because ofhis outstanding knowledge on "Spring and Autumn Annals", he was recommended tothe government. After several setbacks he finally got a position in the government.According to the book "Notebooks in Eastern Study", Sun was helped economicallyby Fan Zhongyan. It is widely believed and quoted by many scholars. But this paperquestions its authenticity and finds it’s not real after challenging it in five aspects.Chapter Two focuses on the settings of this book, including political environment,social atmosphere and academic source of "Spring and Autumn Annals".Chapter Three probes into the work "Detailed Annotation on Spring and AutumnAnnals" throughly. It first extinguishes the difference of the number of volumes ofthis book in all Directorys in history. Then, it elaborates Sun’s understanding on "Spring and Autumn Annals", focusing on his purpose and orientation. It followed byan in-depth analyzation and conclusion of the ultimate explanation on "honoring theKing" in Sun’s book. It is the core content of this paper. The fourth part in this chapteris to summarize the other major concepts of "Spring and Autumn Annals" in "DetailedAnnotation on Spring and Autumn Annals". Finally, the paper compares Sun’sexplanation with that in the Three Commentaries on the "Spring and Autumn Annals"and praises it for initiated the principle of "abandoning the traditional way to explainclassics".The last chapter concludes the influence of "Detailed Annotation on Spring andAutumn Annals" in three aspects, the positive effect of the principle of "abandoningthe traditional way to explain classics" on classic study in Song Dynasty, theimportant meaning of the spirit of questioning in the academic circle in Song Dynastyand the insufficiency of this book, criticized by scholars in Qing Dynasty as"interpreting classics in his own will".