A Study On The Colloquial Annotation Of Chuang Tzu

The Colloquial Annotation of Chuang Tzu was composed by Lin Xiyi, a neo-Confucianistbelonged in Aixuan School of neo-Confucianism in South Song dynasty. On the level ofinterpreting the ideas and contents, this work for the first time harmonized out of good willthe conflictions between Confucianism and Taoism on the basis of conscious awareness of“three religions as one”. As to the prose comments, this book initiated in the appreciation andanalysis of Chuang Tzu, the classic in Taoism, focusing on prose writing skills. Additionally,this book also ruminated over Chuang Tzu for the awareness of its author’s spiritual featureand realm, thus interacting with the main persona structure of Lin Xiyi. All of the above are ofinitial significance in the history of research on Chuang Tzu.Song scholars to some extent neglected the explanations of words whereas endeavored tofocus on the annotation of ideas and contents in their research of classics. Moreover, theschool of neo-Confucianism Lin Xiyi belonged in held open and tolerating attitudes towardsthe borders between different schools of thought. Influenced by the two elements listed above,Lin Xiyi, based on the text of Chuang Tzu, inducted liberal and plain methods in explainingthe words and sentences of the classic. He attempted at the realization of Chuang Tzu’soriginal intentions. Additionally, Lin Xiyi used the idea of sympathetic interpreting when hebecame aware of the similarity among Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in terms ofelucidations of important concepts and aims of theories, by which harmonized the conflictionsamong the three religions out of good will.The prose comments on Chuang Tzu by The Colloquial Annotation of Chuang Tzu weremainly focused on prose writing skills. The commenting mode also seemed more ofsubjective intuition than theoretic exposition. The "five difficulties" listed in the Forward ofthe book generally covered the phenomena that would be generated in the reading of ChuangTzu caused by the abnormalized linguistic structures of Chuang Tzu’s literary discourses. LinXiyi inducted keywords like “prose technique”,”brush tendency”,”word using”, as wellas”starting and ending” in his analysis and comments on Chuang Tzu， which made great contribution in directing the research on Chuang Tzu from philosophical dimension to literarydimension in the context of the history of research on Chuang Tzu.Lin Xiyi’s mental outlook and humanistic temperament expressed in the interpreting textswas also a miniature of the mental mode of scholars in the Aixuan School, and even of thegentry in late Song dynasty. The concern with the literary elements objectively subduedacademic seriousness by literary aestheticism, taking Chuang Tzu as a literary paradigm morethan a philosophical classic. The Colloquial style of annotation also reflected the book’sproperties similar to a lecture note and correspondence to the rising popular literature.Moreover, as the situation of the society was marching toward desperation, scholars generallytended to be introspective, because of which intense social critical elements and tragedies oflife in Chuang Tzu was interpreted in Lin Xiyi’s work obscurely but more of universality.Also, the unique grace and pride to transcend sorrow and tragedy in life of the gentry, waspresented repeatedly in his work.