Study On Xiong Shi-li’s Method Of Detecting Of Forgeries And Interpretion Of The Confucian Classics

It is indispensable in works of study of Confucian classics by Xiong Shili about distinguishing about the six Classics after Discussion on the Six Classics. We need to probe how Xiong Shili distinguishes the false firstly if we want to truly understand thought of Confucianism of Xiong Shili. On this theme, The article consists of three parts:The first part mainly focuses on origin of method of detecting of forgeries and interpretion of the Confucian Classics. Although Xiong Shili thought we could not read Confucianism in an attitude which is easy to doubt, but he did not deny the following Confucian scholars made false in the Six Classics. He did not have specific sense of distinguishing at that time. Xiong Shili attached much importance to Spring and Autumn Annals, and in his exploration to the process of forming of the Classic, he realized Han Confucianism had made great changes to Spring and Autumn Annals. His attitudes began to rock, which pulled open prelude to systematic distinguishing to the Six Classics.The second part mainly focuses on contents of method of detecting of forgeries and interpretion of the Confucian Classics of Xiong Shili. Xiong Shili thought Confucius wanted to show “devalue the emperors, recede the feudal princes, and mooch doctors” to make Spring and Autumn Annals. And he was abominated by governors. Xiong Shili used the matter that Confucius wanted to response to Gongshanfurao’s call in The Analects of Confucius·Yanghuo as the proof that Confucius did “deeds of revolution”. Through former people’s discussion on this thing, it was found that “Xinzhou” could explain well the deed that Confucius wanted to response to call. So called “Xinzhou” meant to devalue the emperors. To prove that people made false in the Six Classics was not his own point of view, Xiong Shili thought that the Six Classics were burnt once and were changed by Han Confucianism in Discussion on the Six Classics. Burning books made quantities of the Six Classics on earth decreased to rather low extent. Power of explanation to scriptures was controlled by a few Confucian scholars during Qin-Han dynasties. The two proofs made falsification to the Six Classics become possible. Although distinguishing has began to take shape in Discussion on the Six Classics, Xiong Shili was not content this, and he developed his method of detecting of forgeries and interpretion of the Confucian Classics into Dadao and Xiaokang. To solve the contradiction between sublime words and righteous cause, Xiong Shili abandoned difference between sublime words and righteous cause, and he thought the Six Classics were all sublime words of Confucius. He divided thought of Confucius into early period and late period, Xiaokang school who inherited early period thought of Confucius changed the Six Classics after Confucius died, which brought forward the change to the Six Classics to Warring States Period, thus becoming sophism which cannot be confirmed.The third part mainly discusses the theoretical plight of Xiong Shili method of detecting of forgeries and interpretion of the Confucian Classics. The distinguishing from Xiong Shili is not only the methods of explaining the Six Classics, but also a new method for him to use inner sageliness of the Confucian tradition to develop new outer kingliness. The academic circles also have some discussion about it,like Ding Yun thinks that the reason for using Confucian tradition to develop new outer kingliness is due to Confucian tradition incapable of compatibility with democracy. Philip Kuhn thinks that China has the discussions about expanding political participation before Opium War. Through the analysis of the Huang Zongxi and Cheng Hao’s articles, we can discover that the requirements for expanding political participation exist in Confucian tradition and these requirements have appeared since reform of Tang and Song dynasties, but the expansion of such political participation has its limit. This limit is differentiation of sage and fool. The appearance of sage breaks equality of people’s political participation, which is violation of democratic politics. This makes transformation to Confucianism by Xiong Shili’s who is deeply affected by Confucian tradition be in trouble. The biggest contradiction of Xiong Shili to outer kingliness lies that its confucianist highly praise sage’s tradition, such tradition originates from doctrine of kingcraft of confucianist, which is the reason for missing top level design by Xiong Shili.