by Ying-shih Yü
particularly singled out the following
view for severe criticism: “ There cannot be two Ways in the world. Nor can the
sages possess two Minds. Though Confucianism and Buddhism are diff er ent,
both of them nevertheless talk about the same Princi ple ( 1i).”50 This seems to
be exactly the type of “noncompartmentalization” that the author says “had
been inconceivable” before the late Ming (15).
In support of his argument for Jiao Hong’s originality in syncretism, the
author devotes several pages (110–113) to a discussion of two concepts in the
Analects that were interpreted by Jiao Hong in Buddhist terms. The fi rst con-
cept is about birth and death based on the saying of Confucius already men-
tioned above in connection with Zhang Shangying’s Discourse on Protecting the
Dharma: “If a man in the morning hears the right way, he may die in the eve-
ning without regret.” According to the author, Jiao Hong took this saying “as an
example of the Confucian counterpart of the Buddhist doctrine of birth and
death.” The second concept is the term kong
(emptiness), which appears
twice in the Analects (9.8, 40.19). Jiao Hong also gave it a Buddhist reading
and considered “emptiness” to be a designation for the “original substance of
Heaven’s decree.” Based on these two examples, the author then jumps to the
conclusion that “Jiao Hong’s practice of concept- matching is produced on
the condition of a type of syncretic consciousness which is no longer consti-
tuted by the logic of compartmentalization.” As has been shown earlier, how-
ever, Zhang Shangying of the Northern Song had already matched the concept
of “morning Way” in the Analects with the Buddhist concept of bodhi— the “en-
lightenment” leading to “knowing the Mind and seeing the Nature” ( shixin ji-
anxing
). Here it is clear that Zhang Shangying was using this passage
to argue for the case that the prob lem of “birth and death” was “a shared con-
cern of Buddhism and classical Confucianism,” exactly as the author says of Jiao
Hong (112).
From the point of view of intellectual history, however, it is necessary to
point out that in practicing this kind of concept- matching, Jiao Hong most cer-
tainly did not, as the author suggests, depart from any tradition (113). One may
argue, though, without being very convincing, that Zhang Shangying was too
early to bear signifi cantly on Jiao Hong’s practice of concept- matching. Yet the
infl uence of Wang Ji cannot possibly be ignored. It so happened that the two
concepts in the Analects were also Wang Ji’s favorite examples when he argued
for the oneness of Confucianism and Buddhism on the philosophical level. In
his commentary on the Analects (4.8), Wang Ji says:
The Way ( Dao ) has neither birth nor death. Having heard the Way, one
can therefore sweep through the barrier between day and night as well as
unify birth and death. [With one’s mind] being vacuous, tranquil, and
t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed 335
full of light, one then leaves the world as if transcending it. There is nei-
ther birth nor death to be spoken of. Hence the saying, “he may die in the
eve ning without regret,” which means that he has experienced the state
of neither birth nor death.51
This is indeed a Buddhist reading of the Analects to the highest degree. With
regard to the concept of kong in the Analects, Wang Ji’s Buddhist point of view is
equally unconcealed. He insisted that when Confucius described himself as
“empty- like” ( kongkong ruye
) or spoke of Yan Hui as “often empty”
( lükong
), he was invariably defi ning “the substance of the Way” ( Daoti
) in terms of “emptiness.”52 Thus, in both cases, we see Jiao Hong follow-
ing Wang Ji very closely. The identifi cation of his “original substance of Heav-
en’s decree” with Wang Ji’s “substance of the Way” is singularly unmistakable.
Jiao Hong once argued for the oneness of the Way on the ground that “stillness”
( ji
) and “vacuity” ( xu
) are equally characteristic of the “wondrous princi-
ples” of Confucianism.53 In this case, he was again following the paradigm of
Wang Ji who, in his famous debate with Nie Bao
(1487–1563), further identi-
fi ed Confucius’s kong with “vacuity” and “stillness.” “To be empty is to be vacu-
ous and still,” said he, “and here lie the vital arteries of [the Confucian] Learn-
ing.”54 Undoubtedly, Jiao Hong was an active participant in the philosophical
movement of Sanjiao heyi in the late Ming. It is also evident, however, that most
of his syncretic ideas were derivative, particularly from Wang Ji. Nevertheless, to
say this is not to underrate his importance. Like any other thinker in history—
great or ordinary—he can be truly understood only when the historian fi nds the
exact place that he actually occupied in his intellectual world.
“ E V I D E N T I A L R E S E A R C H ” W I T H O U T E V I D E N C E
Speculation on “evidential research” ( kaozheng
) constitutes an impor tant
part of this study of Jiao Hong. The author is apparently unfamiliar with the
actual practice of “evidential research,” about which he nevertheless philoso-
phizes a great deal. His dialogical interest in intellectual history is even more
pronounced in this part than elsewhere in the book. It is particularly revealing
that in his discussions on the relationship between Qing “evidential research”
and Han classicism, the author relies wholly on the authority of Tang Junyi and
ignores all the critical refl ections on the subject by scholars since the nine-
teenth century. With all my re spect for the erudition and originality of my for-
mer teacher, I must emphatically point out that the late phi los o pher is hardly
the best guide for “evidential research.” His general observations as summa-
rized by the author (184–185) raise more questions than they can answer. In this
section, however, I prefer not to discuss the philosophical implications of Qing
“evidential research,” which will be dealt with toward the end of this essay.
336 t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed
Instead, I shall focus on the prob lem of theoretical construction in relation to
the textual basis of Chinese intellectual history. I have found it very disturbing
that the author often resorts to an extreme procrustean method to make the
evidence fi t his theories.
A major thesis of this study, as we shall see later, is that Jiao Hong and “eviden-
tial” scholars actually belonged to the same “discursive” tradition. To show that
the latter also shared Jiao Hung’s “linguistic skepticism,” which “implies the be-
lief in the necessity of going beyond language to apprehend the Dao through ex-
periential realization,” the author cites Dai Zhen as evidence. He says:
Even Dai Zhen, who was a towering fi gure in the Qing world of “eviden-
tial research” and who proclaimed that “when the language of the past is
made clear, t
he old Classics will become clear,” did not consider the
“hearing of the Dao” to be simply a matter of mastering language. Rather,
he said that one “must empty” one’s “dependence” on language and “ex-
perientially comprehend” ( tihui
) the Classics as texts. (192)
This alleged view of Dai Zhen’s is based on Dai’s “Letter to Someone.”55 It is a
total distortion of the original message in the letter. The distortion is made
through the following three steps. First, the sentence “one must empty one’s
dependence” is taken out of context. As the sentence that immediately follows
makes abundantly clear, what Dai Zhen urged his fellow scholar to “empty” his
“dependence” on are the authorities of latter-
day commentators, including
those of the Han, the Jin, and, particularly, the Song Confucians. Here, in his
En glish translation, the author surreptitiously replaces “ later commentaries”
with the general term “language.” As a result, Dai Zhen is misrepresented as if
he held that one can study the classics without depending on language at all.
In fact, the point Dai Zhen really wanted to make is that the true meaning of a
classical text must be grasped through the language of its own age, not that of
the later commentators. Hence, the sentence immediately preceding “the hear-
ing of the Dao” says: “In the study of the Classics, one must fi rst investigate the
meaning of each and every word and then master the grammar.” The author’s
quoting Dai Zhen out of context is thus complete, as he deliberately ignores the
sentences both immediately preceding and following it.
Second, an undue emphasis is given to the compound verb tihui
, which
is then literally translated as “to experientially comprehend.” In the original
letter, Dai Zhen only urged his friend “to comprehend the classical texts thor-
oughly and with an unbiased mind” ( pingxin tihui jingwen
) . By
playing up the verb tihui and manipulating it in En glish translation, the author
creates the impression that Dai Zhen was a religious mystic who believed that
one must go beyond language to comprehend the Dao through some sort of
intuition or pure experience.
t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed 337
Third, Dai Zhen’s view is distorted not only through commission but through
omission as well. The above- quoted phrase involving tihui is not a complete sen-
tence in the original text; the second half of the sentence runs as follows: “for
even a slight departure from the correct reading of a single word will inevitably
pervert the meaning [of the entire text] and, consequently, the Dao will be lost.”
With these words, Dai Zhen made it perfectly clear what he meant by “compre-
hending the classical text thoroughly and with an unbiased mind.” It is indeed
a far cry from “linguistic skepticism.”
Distortions of this kind are also often found in the author’s treatment of Jiao
Hong’s writings. In the rest of this section, however, I shall focus on one par tic-
u lar document that the author has used as the textual basis to build a variety of
theories about Jiao Hong’s thought such as his criticism of Zhu Xi, his theory
of language, and, above all, the philosophical background of his interest in “evi-
dential research.” This document is the long note entitled “Zhuzi” in the Jiaoshi
bicheng
(Miscellaneous essays of Jiao Hong) . 56 In discussing Jiao
Hong’s conception of the relationship between language and the Dao, the au-
thor begins by summarizing a passage in this note as follows: “[Jiao Hong] said
that the Dao as the Ancestor or zong
is the source of speech. [A person who]
establishes a doctrine without the Ancestor is like a blind man on a journey.
He will run into obstacles wherever he turns (125).” Based on this paraphrase, the
author then generously imputes the following grand theory of language to Jiao
Hong: “This conception of language as a human activity to represent the Dao as
real ity means not only that mimesis has a share in the construction of language as
a human creation, but that language as a human creation to render a mimetic
repre sen ta tion of the Dao as real ity, is not self- possessing.” Unfortunately, how-
ever, when we check this beautiful theory against the original text, there is ab-
solutely nothing that can give it even the slightest support. To substantiate this
very serious charge against the author, I must give a full account of the passage
in question.
The whole question of this passage arises out of Xunzi’s criticism of Men-
cius. In Xunzi’s view, Mencius “followed the early kings, in a general way, but
did not know their fundamentals ( tong ).”57 In defense of Mencius, the writer
of this note on “Zhuzi” says:
As regards the criticism that [Mencius] “did not know their fundamen-
tals,” I defi nitely would not dare to agree with Xunzi. Why? Because the
so- called tong (fundamentals) constitutes the central purpose ( zong )
of the Dao as well as the source of all the doctrines ( yan
) [of the later
thinkers]. To say that [someone] establishes a doctrine ( yan) without a cen-
tral purpose ( zong) is to liken him to a blind man on a journey who will
run into obstacles wherever he turns. How can this be the proper way of
talking about Mencius? Clearly, the central purpose ( zong) of Mencius’s
338 t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed
[doctrine] consists in [what he spoke of as] “taking hold of the will and
cultivating the qi
.”58
Now we can proceed to see exactly how the author distorts this passage. To be-
gin with, the entire passage says nothing about the relationship between “the
Dao as real ity” and “language as a human creation.” It deals, generally, with the
prob lem of the “fundamentals” ( tong
) established by the sage- kings in pre-
Confucian antiquity vis- à- vis the vari ous doctrines ( yan
) developed by later
thinkers and, specifi cally, with the Mencian doctrine in relation to the “funda-
mentals” ( tong) of the “early kings.” The focus of the passage is clearly on the
tong, not the Dao. Here the tong is the fi rst- order concept from which the Dao
derives its “purpose” ( zong) and in which all the later “doctrines” ( yan), if wor-
thy to be so- called at all, are variously rooted. The author’s one- sentence sum-
mary that “The Dao as Ancestor or zong is the source of speech” is but a garbled
quotation combined with manipulations in translation. Allow me to show how
this is done and why.
As we have seen, the original statement in the text on which the above quo-
tation is based is this: “The tong constitutes the purpose ( zong) of the Dao as
well as the source of [all the later] doctrines ( yan).” When the author uses the
phrase “the Dao as Ancestor or zong,” he has dropped the word tong altogether
and put Dao in its place. Even if we follow his translation, we can only say “the
tong as the Ancestor of the Dao” but defi nitely
not “the Dao as Ancestor.” Next,
he manipulates the En glish translation by rendering zong
as “Ancestor” and
yan
as “speech” to justify “the Dao as real ity” and “language as a human
creation” in his theory. He is inconsistent in translation, however, for elsewhere
he also renders zong and yan in the same text as “purpose” and “doctrine,” re-
spectively. For example, on page 69 he quotes the sentence “[they] each had a
purpose ( zong ) in their learning” from the same note on “Zhuzi” and identi-
fi es the translated word “purpose” explic itly with the original Chinese charac-
ter zong. As for the Chinese character yan , it appears twice in the author’s
quotation. Without a word of explanation, he quietly renders the fi rst yan as
“speech” (in “source of speech”) and the second one “doctrine” (in “a doctrine
without Ancestor”). Since the two identical characters run continuously right
in the middle of an argument, it is impossible to justify this inconsistency in
translation on the ground that the meaning of yan takes a sudden change from
“speech” to “doctrine” or vice versa.
Now the question is why must the author go to such a length to falsify this
text and manipulate his translation? My conjecture is that it has resulted from
the author’s procrustean determination to make the evidence fi t his theory, in
this case, the theory about Jiao Hong’s conception of language in relation to the
Dao. First, the author cannot possibly follow the original statement and say
that, in his translation, “the tong is the Ancestor ( zong) of the Dao.” In the origi-
nal text, tong (fundamentals) is supposedly something created by the “early
t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed 339
kings.” If the tong turns out to be the Ancestor of the Dao, it would certainly
make the Dao also a “ human creation” and, even worse, a derivative one at that.
Therefore, the word tong must go so that the Dao can take its place as “Ances-
tor.” Second, zong must be rendered as “Ancestor” not only because it makes no
sense to say that “the Dao as purpose is the source of speech,” but because,
more importantly, the Dao identifi ed as Ancestor suggests something of an
entity that is ultimate and self- generated. Fi nally, yan must also be translated as