Study On Zhong Lun

The length of Zhong Lun is not long, and its existing versions include 20 pieces in two volumes.The content of Volume 1 includes doing scholarship, deportment, oneself cultivation, being modest about ethics, being precious experience, being precious words, art, verifying debates, intellectual faculties, and peerage and salary. The content of Volume 2 includes exposing camouflage, criticizing excursion, calendar and destiny, death and longevity, focusing on principal things, auditing ministers, following the views of others discreetly, the extinction of a country, rewards and punishments, and number of people. The content of Zhong Lun involves politics, philosophy, jingxue, education, ethics and so on. Zhong Lun plays an importmant pole in thought history of ancient China. Study on Zhong Lun firstly can help us to clarify its course of development. Secondly, study on Zhong Lun can make us know the thought it contained more comprehensively and deeply, and thus help us to study traditional Chinese culture.The text is divided into nine parts:The first part introduces the author of Zhong Lun– Xu Gan. It primarily introduces Xu Gan's family, major life experiences,making friends and literary achievements. The ancestors of Xu Gan keep house by integrity and criticism. This excellent family tradition has a profound influence on Xu Gan. In addition to the short-term experiences serving as an official, Xu Gan focuses on reading and writing by most time of his life. He leads a secluded life. Xu Gan makes friends with the gentlemen whose sentiments are very noble. In the literature , Xu Gan has obtained some achievements, but most of his works are not handed down. Through the introduction, the author seeks to showing a complete Xu Gan to readers.The second part discusses the formation and spreading of Zhong Lun. Zhong Lun was formed in Eastern Han dynasty, which is a special period in Chinese history. Economy, politics, ideology, atmosphere and so on have undergone tremendous changes in this period. The rise of social critical thought is represented by Wang Fu, Zhong Changtong and Xun Yue. All of these have significant impacts on formation of Zhong Lun. After formation of Zhong Lun, many scholars study it , promoting the spreading of it. The third part deals with the central ideology of Zhong Lun. With regard to the central ideology of Zhong Lun, or its dominant ideology, a majority of scholars believe that it should belong to Confucianism. But also a minority of scholars think that it is miscellaneous. I think the central ideology of Zhong Lun is Confucianism. From the ancient catalogue, most of catalogues list it as Confucian books, only Song Shi list it as a miscellany.The fouth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth part respectively describe the political thought, the philosophical thought, the jingxue thought, the personality theory of gentleman and the educational thought embodied by Zhong Lun. All of these are focuses of the text. Xu Gan gives harsh criticism to the social reality of Eastern Han dynasty and gives some solutions around the issues. He focuses mainly on the monarch. He think that the monarch should focus on principal things and know about ethics, elect and assign sage ministers, follow the views of others correctly, deal with rewards and punishments correctly, deal with peerage and salary correctly, know about the number of people and limit the number of slaves. Zhong Lun was formed in the transitional period from Han dynasty's Confucianism to Wei Jin's metaphysics. It explores many problems which not only embody humanist tendencies, but also rise to a high degree of philosophical thought. Zhong Lun not only inherits the predecessors'thought, but also has creative results. So far, the study of Zhong Lun don't involve jingxue thought. In fact, Zhong Lun contains abundant jingxue thought It draws heavily on The Book of Songs, Collection of Ancient Texts, The Rites, The Book of Changes, The Spring and Autumn Annuals and other Confucian classics to express author's opinions. Relating to the discussion of the personality of gentlemen in Zhong Lun, it has contact with author's own emphasis on self-cultivation and life skills as well as the view about life and death and so on. It also relates with author's own experience and it performances the author's character best. The educational thought embodied by Zhong Lun is also closely related to the social reality of that time. Zhong Lun reiterates the importance of education, and advocates that we should educate the students with Confucianism. It thinks that teachers should guide students by right way and the students also study hard to perfect themselves constantly. Conclusion gives a whole evaluation to the thought reflected by Zhong Lun. Zhong Lun reflectes profound and unique thought, but there are also inadequacies. We should have dialectical cognition, learning the essences and correcting the inadequacies.