Research On The Tsinghua Bamboo Slips "Heart Is Saying China"

Xin Shi Wei Zhong is a document created by Pre Qin philosophers which is collected in Bamboo slips of the Warring States period in Tsinghua University(Eighth)and published in 2018.The document hasn't found in handed down literature and without any information of the writer.Meanwhile,the document has only contents about ideological without any background.Scholars have different opinions in the examinations of words in the document,the period of when the document was created and the connotation of the document.The incomprehensible words and sentences in Xin Shi Wei Zhong are concentrated.We can reach some more appropriate explanation about these words and sentences and get a more appropriate version about the document with the help of reference book like Shuo Wen Jie Zi.Both of the work are the basic of research into the time when it was written and ideological connotation of Xin Shi Wei Zhong.There are still controversies on the issue of the time when Xin Shi Wei Zhong was written in academic circles.These different opinions can be roughly divided into four categories,for example,the period Pre Confucius,the period between Confucius and Mencius,the period between Mencius and Hsun Tzu,and the period later than Hsun Tzu.By comparing between Xin Shi Wei Zhong and unearthed documents like Bamboo Slips of Guodian Wu Xing,Xing Zi Ming Chu etc and handed down literature like Yi Zhou Shu,Mencius,Hsun Tzu,Guan Zi,Lv Shi Chun Qiu etc,we can come to a serise of conclusions: the first paragraph of Xin Shi Wei Zhong is one of general knowledge in the period of Pre Qin.Meanwhile,the second and third paragraph of Xin Shi Wei Zhong show us a obvious tendency of Confucianism.Although we can't identify specific author of the document,we can infer that the time when this document was written is between Confucius and his seventy disciples.Xin Shi Wei Zhong has a rich connotation although it has a short space.The first paragraph of this document elaborates the relationship between the concept of “xin” and the concept of “zhong”.The concept“zhong” has four meanings,including inside the body,justice,measure and center.The concept “xin” also has four meanings,including heart organ,integrity,cognition and center.The combination of the concept “xin”and “zhong” is to explain the thought of social governance named the theory of the monarch is the heart.The second paragraph of this document put forward the thought of separate between man and nature.This opinion aims to guide people to succeed by exerting their subjective initiative,planning actively and practicing actively.The last paragraph of this document elaborates the thought of destiny.The characteristics of dividing destiny into the destiny of nature and the destiny of body can be used as the key to understand Confucius' view of destiny.Combined with the idea of Confucianism,through the comparative analysis of Xin Shi Wei Zhong and Yi Zhou Shu,Kong Zi Jia Yu and Bamboo Slips of Guodian related content,it can be seen that the development of ideological history shows the trend of gradual refinement,introversion and human culture from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Sping and Autumn Period.