An Interpretation of the Confucian Classics as Scripture
06/03/2007 (All day)
6 March 2007
Leiden, the Netherlands
By Prof. Yen-zen Tsai, European Chair for Chinese Studies
The Confucian Classics, a collection of ancient books complied under the name of the most venerated sage, Confucius, have been the main source of intellectual formulations and guideline for personal and social behaviors for over two thousand years in Chinese history. The Jesuits, when first encountering these jing texts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, entitled them "classics." They commended them highly, attributing them a lofty status akin to that of the ancient Greek and Roman classics. The Confucian Classics hence inspired many European intellectuals to search for Chinese humanistic wisdom and generated popular enthusiasm to understand Chinese culture in general. As well, they marked the beginning of Western Sinology that has been continued to our days.
Partly because of this Sinological heritage which sees the Confucian Classics primarily as the corpus of a humanistic tradition, Sinologists have seldom studied them from a religious perspective. While some Western scholars, motivated by theological interest or evangelical purposes, might have compared them with the Bible for specific topics, very few would juxtapose them with other sacred books such as the Vedas, the Torah, and the Qur'an. The Confucian Classics have been thus lingering on the border of the field of world religions for a long time.
Recent theories on "scripture," however, may shed new light on our understanding of religious texts in general and on our reinterpretation of the Confucian Classics in particular. Initiated by Wilfred C. Smith and elaborated by William A. Graham, Mariam Levering, and some others, the theories proposed that we treat "scripture" as a relational, generic concept. It is, they argued, essentially a human activity rather than a reified literary object. Its authority and sacredness as such involves interactions of the text(s), a faith community, and cumulative, changing historical contexts. Therefore "scripture" is a dynamic process; it is a symbol the understanding of which requires one to go behind and beyond its textual dimension.
To many Sinologists today, the Confucian Classics are cultural relics due to the fact that Imperial China has long demised and the mechanism of national examination, through which traditional Confucians ascended to officialdom, has ceased to function since 1905. The aforementioned understanding of "scripture" may heuristically prompt us to rethink this received impression. Indeed, if one takes into account the endeavors by many Chinese intellectuals to revive the Confucian tradition in 1910-20s, 1980s and, more significantly, the current mass "movement of reading the ©zConfucian©{scriptures" (dujing yundong) in China and Taiwan, the Confucian Classics deserve our reevaluation from a different perspective.
Venue: PJ Veth building
Nonnensteeg 1-3
2311 VJ Leiden
Room 329
Time: 16.00-17.00
Information:
Marise van Amersfoort, Fellowship Coordinator
International Institute for Asian Studies
P.O. Box 9515, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
T +31-71-527 4159