The Study Of Hunan Confucian Classic In The Study Of Odes In The Late Of Qing Dynasty

The study of of Odes(hereinafter referred as Odes), which has occupied an important place in the 2000-year history of China, is a part of the traditional study of Confucian classics. The study of Odes is a kind of hermeneutics with various schools interpreting the classic from different study and political angle, leading people to endless confusion and not knowing what to believe. The Contention of a Hundred School of Thoughts happened in the pre-Qin period. Later in the Western Han Dynasty,Odes was associated with politics, which resulted in precedent that even a line of verse has deep meaning; however, it eventually proved to be irrational. By the period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the study of Odes tended to focus on the explanation of words and verses, ignoring the entirety of the classic. And Wei Jin metaphysics has been sarcasm for traditional Confucianism. In Tang Dynasty, Buddhism was introduced into Confucianism, which did not benefit the study of Odes. As for the Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasty, the scholars have been motivated purely by research but only gave rise to emptiness and shallowness. Three academic changes took place during the Qing Dynasty with practical learning at the beginning of the dynasty, the Han school of classical philology during Qianlong and Jiaqing period and the revival of Poetry in modern times. The late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China was a period of society transformation and the revival of Confucian classics seemed like a dead-cat bounce. The traditional study of Odes thus came to an end.Hunan province is an important place for the localization of the study of Odes in the Qing Dynasty. The study of Odes, either for the New Text Confucianism or Old Text Confucianism, was distinctive. New Text Confucianism was represented by scholars like Wei Yuan, Pi Xirui, Wang Xianqian and Wang Kaiyun while Old Text Confucianism was represented by Ye Dehui. Each of these scholars’ thinking has its own features and it is hard to differentiate them into different schools. The mentoring relationship was not obvious for the study of Odes in Hunan during the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. However, the scholars, as a whole, inclined to be pragmatic.The study of Odes in Hunan during the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China presented a feature of diversity with a combination of New Text Confucianism and Old Text Confucianism or different research focuses proposed by scholars from the New Text Confucianism. The study of Odes in Hunan could be firstdistinguished from the study in other places due to the geographical position, Huxiang culture and the goal of pragmatism. Besides, the spread of the study of Odes in Hunan,especially that of the New Text Confucianism, has integrated with the study in other places. The spread, to some extent, has facilitated the transformation of traditional scholarship in the modern times.A system of the study of Odes in Hunan, which received both praise and blame,did not take shape. Compared with the sheer motive for study in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang area, the study in Hunan was blamed for its lack of purity, being neglected for its diversity. Most of the Huxiang scholars, however, spared no effort to think highly of the local cultural characteristic of the study in Hunan. Actually, the comparison made no sense since the two schools of scholars did not focus on the same aspect. How to evaluate the study of Odes in Hunan should depend on the historical environment at that time so as to fully reflect its overall influence.