Canonical Analysis Of The Four Books In Earlier Song Dynasty

Confucianism was revived and gradually developed during the Northern Song Dynasty.Exploring the content of the Confucian classics was the development trend of Confucianism.In this development trend,Neo-Confucianism developed the heart space of "Four Books",excavated the contents of the "Four Books" and lifted the status of "Four Books" in classics.Therefore,"Four Books" stood out from many Confucian classics,and its status gradually increased,only after "Five Classics" in the classics.The main content of this paper can be divided into five parts: The first part mainly dealt with three theories.Zhou Dunyi’s discussion of "Benevolence" opened up Song Confucianism’s deep understanding on the "Benevolence" in the Analects of Confucius;Shao Yong certainly confirmed "Confucius regarded the enlightenment as his own business",and explained “The sage can give people a lot of benefits”;Zhang Zai believed that "Learning" can reach the realm of saints,which has an important revelation to the teaching of Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao’s “Learning benevolence first”.The second part explained the reason that Song Confucianism respected Mencius,and respectively arranged Zhou Dunyi,Zhang Zai,Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao’s valuation and interpretation of Mencius.The third part discussed Zhang Zai,Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi’s expansion of the heart space on The Great Learning.Zhang Zai thought The Great Learning is no doubt the holy book.Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao adjusted the chapter order of The Great Learning and explained "Contentment" to promote the establishment of its classic position.The fourth part put the "Sincerity" at the first to explore the true meaning of The Doctrine Of The Mean.In the efforts of Neo-Confucianism,"Sincerity" had two identities: the universe ontology and moral origin,to guide people to cultivate the heart.The last part of this paper explained the two-way construction of "Four Books".The "Four Books" is the main classic of Neo-Confucianism,and Neo-Confucianism deepened and enriched the content of "Four Books",so that the form "Four Books" was built,and affected future generations far.This paper tries to establish a development route of canonization of "Four Books",and clearly show the efforts of Neo-Confucianism for canonization of "Four Books".