Jingxue

Jingxue (literally Chinese Classical Studies) refers to the study of the Confucian classics. Jingxue interprets the literal meaning of Confucian texts and clarifies the reasoning and principles they imply. Jingxue is the main body of ancient Chinese academics. It preserves a wealth of valuable historical records and materials and is a core component of Confucianism.

Content of Jingxue

Jingxue's main research is on classical Confucian texts, such as the Four Books and Five Classics, and the primary task of Jingxue scholars is to add commentaries or annotations to the texts. Some of the best commentaries or annotations become parts of the classics themselves. For the important commentaries left by previous renowned scholars, later scholars would need to provide secondary or even tertiary commentaries. The purpose of this type of annotating is to unify the understanding of classical texts.

In addition, Jingxue scholars were responsible for propagating the explanations of Confucian classics in order to monopolize the right to interpret Confucian doctrine. This helped the monarch to control the ideology. When the dynasties changed, the new monarch would also ask Jingxue scholars to promote the values of the new dynasty and to look to the Confucian classics for legitimacy to overthrow the old dynasty. Thus, Jingxue scholars often assisted new dynasties to install the Mandate of Heaven.

The scholars would often influence the ideology of the rulers by creating new interpretations of the classics to achieve political goals. The rulers were also happy to stay close to scholars in exchange for a good reputation of respecting talents. Thus, Jingxue became a political medium for interactions between monarchs and scholars.

History of Jingxue

Confucianism was established in the Spring and Autumn Period. In the Han dynasty, Emperor Wu promoted Confucianism to be the official ideology of the empire. Scholars then began to study and compile the Confucian classics available at the time. This was the beginning of Jingxue. Due to the burning of books in the previous Qin dynasty, many old documents were destroyed. After the fall of the Qin dynasty, some scholars restored these old books on the basis of their memories, but the details might be different from the original versions. During the reign of Wang Mang, some of the surviving original books were discovered in the old home of Confucius in Qufu. Therefore, two factions of Jingxue, namely Old Texts and New Texts, gradually emerged.

Distribution of philosophical ideologies (Jingxue and Xuanxue) during the Northern and Southern Dynasties

After the collapse of the Han dynasty, Jingxue also went into decline and disintegration. During the Jin dynasty, academic debates between Confucian scholars of different factions took place and later evolved into political conflicts. They all wanted to compete for the right to interpret the Confucian classics and thus influence politics and ideology. One of these schools introduced elements of Taoism into the interpretation of Confucianism, thus creating another discipline known as Xuanxue. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, Jingxue was split along with the empire, and two streams were formed in the north and south respectively.

After the reunification of China in the Sui and Tang dynasties, the emperors resumed the promotion of Jingxue and in doing so united the majority of scholars. The landmark event was the compilation by Kong Yingda of Wujing Zhengyi, a summary and re-annotation of five classic works in accordance with the ideology of the Tang dynasty. The publication of this book provided scholars with a standard textbook on the one hand and symbolized the legitimacy of the newly established Tang dynasty on the other.

In the Song Dynasty, Neo-Confucianism (also known as Lixue), represented by philosopher Zhu Xi, emerged. In order to promote Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi and others carried out a massive re-annotation of the previous classical texts. Scholars have taken sections from the older texts to form new classics such as the Great Learning and the Doctrine of the Mean. These two books, along with the Analects and Mencius, became known as the Four Books and were required texts for scholars in the following dynasties.

Neo-Confucianism continued to develop during the Ming dynasty and gave birth to masters such as Wang Yangming. They also promoted their thoughts through Jingxue. But in the late Ming dynasty, Jingxue became a weapon for the party struggle. Officials of different factions united with some scholars and then attacked each other by way of creating extreme public opinions. This contributed in part to the downfall of the Ming dynasty.

The Qing dynasty implemented a strict literary inquisition, which had a considerable impact on Jingxue. Scholars stopped engaging in politics by exegeting the classics and turned to relatively safe content, such as sound and rhyme, exegesis, and writing styles. By the late Qing dynasty, with the spread of Western ideologies in China, the traditional Jingxue gradually declined. The Confucian classics were no longer used as a vehicle for ideology but were studied more as literary works.

References

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