Review Of Chapter Real Vegetarian, "" Spring And Autumn "the World" Concept

Zhang Shi-Zhai's study is ascribed to the interest of "statecraft"; he said himself that his lifelong writings consisted of two:to argue about the righteousness and types in literature and history; to distinguish the origin and the thread in collation. To distinguish the origin and the thread was intended to establish the principle and discipline for worldwide scholarship, to separate their origins and threads, to examine their gain and loss, success and failure, and to do some saving and supplementing; thus, it must trace their origins to the entirety of Dao (道).In contrast to ordinary traditional scholars, Zhang Shi-Zhai should be said to have in mind supremely sober scholarly thread, and his scholarly life, which consciously depended on the study of history, was owing to his totally new recognition of the essence of the "study of history", i.e., the subtle interest that only the "study of history", which included all "writings and narratives" that especially contributed to mastership, could be called the study of statecraft.The Spring and Autumn Annals in the Six Books is the origin of all later histories. Since the late Songian study honored moral nature solely, did not engage in solid inquiries and overlooked rhetoric, Zhang criticized that the Songian study put aside books without reading them, tried to defeat each other with vain words, and not only did no good to worldly cultivation but also engendered conflicts of schools. In the Qian-Jia time, in which Shi-Zhai lived, the atmosphere of Hanian study was strong, and those who were better, on the pretext that Dao was in the Six Classics, the understanding of which presupposed clear exegesis, wearily occupied themselves with trivialities of literal and specialized techniques such as compilation, collecting idle materials, inquisition, etc.; those who were worse bothered themselves with inquiries for factuality, not hesitating to betray and destroy the grand interest of writing. Against the former, Zhang Shi-Zhai contended that the Six Classics were not adequate to exhaust the Dao of predicament, change, openness and lastingness; rather, its timely disclosure by historians was valued. Against the latter, Shi-Zhai contended that good reading was valued by "peculiar knowing and judging with heart", i.e., knowing books'sense with heart, capability of forgiveness when talking about the ancient and intellectually comprehending peculiar studies, which was "the righteousness of history".History as the esoteric study of The Spring and Autumn Annals does not value that historical affairs and historical writings have certain rules but values "the righteousness of history". Previous historians all understood "the righteousness of history" as praising the good and blaming the bad, and Qian-Jia Textology School, though criticizing behaviors of praising, blaming, entitling and divesting at one's own will, did not like Zhang Shi-Zhai reflect in depth with respect to the characteristics of the study of history per se. Zhang not only denied that a historian could evaluate history according to his/her own taste but emphasized that, even though a historian had basic judgment on right and wrong, his/her "minor wisdom" was not adequate to be appealed to; therefore, he prudently raised the question of the "virtue of history" holding that, though the writings of history came from the pens of historians, the righteousness of history descended from Tian (天), and that a historian was bound to carefully discern the correlation of Tian and men and stick to the "interest of factual record and evident abridgment in The Spring and Autumn Annals". Consequently, the questions of the "virtue of history", the "knowing of history" and the "moral intention" of historians were prudently raised, and the traditional righteousness of history accentuating that "The Spring and Autumn Annals regards the good as good and the bad as bad, praises, blames, entitles and divests" was transformed into accentuating that "The Spring and Autumn Annals rigidifies", thus attempting a just and unbiased balance point between the textological study of history and the historians of philosophical connotations.Accordingly, standing in the grand position of the "statecraft" of study, Zhang got a bird's-eye view on threads of scholarship from ancient times to the present, estimated their advantages and disadvantages, hence gave constructive critical advices to the Songian study, the Hanian Study and the rhetoric in the Qing Dynasty, and ascribed himself to the study of history.