Jiaoxun Mencius Justice Research

Jiao Xun was the core member of Yangzhou School in Qing dynasty. He was born in Jiangdu village and his family had the tradition of doing academic researches. Under ancestors’influences, Jiao Xun owned good foundation of academic research since young age. And he communicated with many famous scholars of Yangzhou School later on and gradually knew his research direction which was to combine textual researches and meaning analysis.Since Song dynasty, the researches of Mencius孟子had been mainly focused on meaning explanations rather than textual researches. This situation was changed by scholars of Han School in Qing dynasty and textual researches of Mencius made great progress which provided enough knowledge foundation for Jiao Xun.Jiao Xun was interested in Mencius since childhood. Because of many mistakes in Explanations of Mencius written by Song people, he decided to write new explanations of Mencius. When he failed in national examination, he devoted his whole life to academics. He did his researches in several subjects such as study of Confucian classics, philology, history and mathematics. Studying of Confucian classics is the most important part for him. The book Explanations of Yi易通释fully used material from Zhou Yi周易to find out the basic principles and methods of Zhou Yi周易Jiao Xun also spent lots of energy and time to collect related materials of Mencius. The book Commentary of Mencius孟子正义’s literature citing were amounted to450kinds and selected different theories from more than120academic schools. This book was not finished until his last three years.Commentary of Mencius孟子正义explained Mencius in different aspects. Jiao Xun strived to clarify the exact truth about Mencius himself and the book Mencius. There had been arguments about Mencius’s hometown and his age. Jiao Xun thought Zou邹was the original character. He deduced that ancestor of Mencius was called Meng Sun in Lu country. According to Mencius and The Explanations of Mencius孟子注by Zhao Qi, Jiao Xun pointed out that Mencius’s age was just as Zhang Xu said in an article. Speaking of Mencius’s teacher, Jiao Xun said that he could not be the student of Zi Si子思Jiao Xun also thought Mencius owned a great many students. There have been also different opinions about the writer of Mencius. Jiao Xun absorbed these ideas and claimed that some parts was written by Mencius while others’by his disciples but the final book was formed by Mencius. Jiao Xun also thought that the columns of Mencius can not be counted precisely.Many scholars had collated Mencius before Jiao Xun. Among them, Collations of Mencius’s explanations孟子注疏校勘记by Ruan Yuan阮元was the extraordinary one. Jiao Xun studied Ruan’s book and made many corrections. Jiao Xun learned other experts’ experiences like Wang Niansun王念孙and was likely to collect materials from ancient books which were before Tang dynasty. Moreover, he paid much attention to judge the qualities of different explanations. He thought Zhao Qi’s赵岐book Zhang zhi章指was creative and very important in studying Mencius’s thoughts, but it had been deleted by Lu Shanjing陆善经So Jian Xun adopted some of Zhao Qi’s minds to do some clarification work. It was controversial about punctuations of Mencius. Jiao Xun also made it clear.Scholars in Qing dynasty commonly thought there was no good explanation of Mencius. Jiao Xun thought there were ten difficulties of explaining Mencius and textual researches was one of them. He learned other researchers’ experiences and analyzed meanings by the characters’ shapes, pronunciations and discourses. When he explained texts, he also emphasized things related to social life and tried to glorify Confucianism. There were also different kinds of textual researches, like rites, history and geography. His rites’ researches were a completely new part in Mencius’s researches.Jiao Xun clearly knew the academic trends of classics’ researches. He highly emphasized the exploration of meanings. He used sentences of Zhou Yi周易to explain Mencius. This was partly inspired by Zhao Qi at the beginning but mostly original innovation of Jiao Xun later. He found three common aspects of both two classics. Firstly, good nature theory. Secondly, humaneness idea. Thirdly, minds of changing. Jiao Xun also chose from contemporary researches, like Dai Zhen戴震.Dai’s theories about reason理，Tao道and nature性were all chosen by Jiao Xun as the main principles of Mencius’s minds. Jiao Xun inherited from Gu Yanwu颐炎武the thoughts of using Confucianism to save the world. So he claimed rulers to become examples for citizens, asked learners to improve morals and keep good virtues. The goal was to realize the value of Mencius.Jiao Xun indulged in researches of Mencius and improved the academic level of this subject. The book Commentary of Mencius孟子正义reconstructed the knowledge foundations of Mencius’ explanations and was full of the though saving society. It totally changed the lagging situation of Mencius’s researches, comparing to other classics. Generally speaking, following Zhao Qi and Zhu Xi朱熹,this book was another milestone in Mencius’s researches.