The Study On Exegesis Of Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu

Yu Chang, as an academic scholar occupied an important place in the late Qing Dynasty academic history. Learning from Qianjia scholars, he collated many kinds of Confucian classics and philosophers’ works, corrected and complemented former notes. In the book Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu, he exerted a variety of exegetical methods to interpret the ancient books and made great achievements.This paper comprehensively researches Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu from the aspects of exegetics. Conclude the exegetical content of this book and the exegetical methods used by Yu Chang. Summarize his exegetical thoughts and briefly analyze his exegetical features and shortcomings. The full text contains six chapters:Chapter one:Introduction. Introduce Yu Chang’s life and writings. Summarize the current research situation of the study of Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu and discuss the research significance.Chapter two:The exegetical contents of Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu. Yu Chang checked and annotated dozens of philosophers’works in Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu, which contained extensive content. In addition to correcting the text, explain the words, he also paid much attention to summarizing the writing ordinance, analyzing syntax, researching and identifying historical facts or ancient things.Chapter three:The exegetical theory of Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu. In this book, he expressed his views about the general meaning and specific meaning of Chinese words, the relationship between sound and meaning, meaning development and differentiation of cognate words and so on. From these views, we can roughly summarize Yu Chang’s exegetical thoughts and exegetical theory.Chapter four:The exegetical methods in Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu. Yu Chang exerted many kinds of exegetical methods to collate and interpret the text, such as seeking meanings through sounds, finding the meanings out of the context, arranging and comparing sentence or phrases of the same type, etc.Chapter five:The exegetical characteristics of Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu. Yu Chang inherited the academic achievements of his predecessors in the late Qing Dynasty when China’s door had been opened. He not only inherited these predecessors’exegesis experience, but also expressed his characteristics:be careful to collate text errors; one problem is given two or more explanations; be open-minded to cite Western academic achievements, etc.Chapter six:The shortcomings in Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu. Confined to the restriction of times and personal qualities, there are two points of shortcomings, which are mistakenly getting meaning according to the form of Chinese characters, be too eager to propose different interpretations to be consistent with the context, etc.The paper roughly studies Xiang Cao Xu Jiao Shu from these six aspects and we hope to be able to objectively express the exegetical characteristics and exegetical achievements of Yu Chang, and also hope to lead scholars to conduct more in-depth study of Yu Chang.