The Study Of Wang Tong And His Confucianism

Wang Tong is a famous Confucian scholar at the end of the Sui Dynasty. His courtesy name is Zhong Yan. After he died, he was given the posthumous title “Wen Zhong Zi” by his students. At the time of his life, Confucianism was beset with troubles internally and externally and faced the serious crisis. Internally, the academic shortcomings of official Confucianism gradually revealed. The north learning was too complicated and the south learning was too mystery. Both of them had deviated from the purpose of saving the society and helping people. Externally, Confucianism was constantly being challenged by Buddhism and Taoism, and had gradually lost its leading position. In this context, Wang Tong inherited the Confucian orthodoxy and shouldered the historical responsibility of the revival of Confucianism. In academic form, he realized Confucius' s intentions about collecting “Six Classics”, continuing to write “Six Classics”. In academic style, he inherited his family literature and devoted to cultivate talents for society. He thought that Confucianism should be used for reference. In Confucianism, he criticized the theory of heaven-human induction. He also proposed a new idea trying to solve the dispute between Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Besides, Wang Tong is also the first person who put forward a lot of core concept of neo-Confucianism. So Wang Tong is certainly a essential Confucian scholar in the transitional process from Confucianism of Han dynasty to neo-Confucianism. He also occupy an important position in the Confucianism revolution of Sui and Tang Dynasties.In this paper, we sort out two major trends of Wang Tong's Confucianism including returning to the ancients and innovation through the study of his Confucianism. Returning to the ancient means the inheritance of pre-Qin Confucianism; Innovation means the enlightenment to neo-Confucianism. Both of this two trends was based on breaking through the Confucianism system of Han dynasty and creating a new Confucianism system. Besides, this paper also involves some other problems about the study of Wang Tong, such as: Wang Tong's time of birth; The doubts of Wang Tong's students; The evaluation of later generations. This paper also put forward my own views on these issues.