by Confucius
• • •
Much of Confucius’ thought and character can be gleaned from the Analects, but without the more formal commentaries and the private ruminations scholars kept in their notebooks or let slip into their essays, we would not have been able to get close to Confucius. Take, for instance, 14.39. Here we learn that Confucius “was playing the stone chimes when a man, carrying a bamboo basket, went past his door” and said, “How squalid this kengkeng sound! If no one understands him, then he should just keep what he believes to himself and that’s all: ‘If the water is deep, just wade across it. If the water is shallow, lift your hem and cross it.’” To this, Confucius replied, “If [this man] is so resolute, he should not have any difficulties.” We would not have known how to approach this record if the commentaries did not tell us that the man carrying a bamboo basket was a recluse, someone who had had enough of this world and wanted out, and that the poem he declaimed was a reflection of his feelings and his stance. There are several such men in the Analects, but this one is the most inscrutable; equally opaque is Confucius’ response, which, as some scholars point out, is not just aimed at the recluse—it also allows us an entry into Confucius’ secret self. If this man is resolute, Confucius says, then, unlike himself, “he should not have any difficulties.”
Commentaries explain not only who the man “carrying a bamboo basket” was but also the point of his message to Confucius. Collected commentaries, however, do a lot more. They give us a group of exegetical materials on any particular question and point out competing interpretations, when they exist, each with its supporting evidence. We are not told in most cases the choicest reading, but if we are patient and are willing to work at it ourselves, we may learn to sort out the plausible from the suspect, the judicious from the ideological; and in the process we are introduced to scholars we would not have known if not for the editors’ erudition and acumen. The collected commentaries, I feel, are a testimony to the moral weight of scholarship—to the all-consuming labor of searching through the knowledge in one’s library and in one’s head to find a reasonable, and perhaps even an exact, explanation of a word or of a statement attributed to a venerated man or someone in his circle.
The nineteenth-century scholar Liu Baonan was the first to attempt a collected commentary on the Analects with a very broad scope. He gave his work a modest disguise as a subcommentary to the Han dynasty exegesis. This was the convention of his time, to acknowledge Han learning as the foundation of Qing scholarship. But one only needs to open Liu Baonan’s Collected Commentaries of the Analects (Lunyu zhengyi) to realize how generous his vision was and how rigorous were his techniques. There have been other attempts since his, most notably that of Cheng Shude, but I decided to follow Liu because of my respect for the Qing scholars, for their polymathic minds and their trust in evidential research.
It took Liu Baonan twenty-seven years to draw together Collected Commentaries of the Analects, and it was not quite finished when he died. I often wondered what spurred him on during those years. What possessed him as he pored over the Analects? Was it Confucius? Was it the scholarship? Was it the moral conundrums in this book? Did he know? Could he have singled out one thing? Liu Baonan did not make such distinctions, I decided, and this was the final lesson I learned from him: Scholarship draws you closer to someone from the distant past and to the difficult questions he asked, and, in the end, everything obsesses you—the scholarship, the man, and his questions.
I have known old scholars who had memorized the Analects when they were children and had then forgotten about the book as their interests took them to questions in history or geography, philology or cosmology. But then, one day, after they had lived for many years, they found themselves reciting what Confucius says in 14.31: “Not to anticipate deception and not to expect bad faith and yet to be the first to be aware of such behavior—this is proof of one’s worthiness.” Or what he says in 1.16: “Do not worry that other people do not know you. But be concerned that you do not know them.” The words in the Analects, having been dormant for so long, suddenly sprang to life for them and became a source for reflection and self-understanding. But, they would add, this knowledge also “bolsters them up” and “gets them on their way.”
Suggestions for Further Reading
The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 B.C. Edited by Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Chin, Annping. The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics. New York: Scribner, 2007.
Falkenhausen, Lothar von. Chinese Society in the Age of Confucius (1000–250 BC). Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, 2006.
Fingarette, Herbert. Confucius—the Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
Graham, A. C. Disputers of the Tao. La Salle: Open Court, 1989.
Li, Wai-yee. The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.
Makeham, John. Transmitters and Creators: Chinese Commentators and Commentaries on the Analects. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.
Mencius. Mencius. Translated by D. C. Lau. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970.
Pines, Yuri. Foundations of Confucian Thought: Intellectual Life in the Chunqiu Period, 722–453 B.C.E. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2002.
Schaberg, David. A Patterned Past: Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001.
Schwartz, Benjamin. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985.
Shaughnessy, Edward. Rewriting Early Chinese Texts. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006.
Xunzi. Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works. Translated by John Knoblock. 3 vols. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988–1994.
A Note on the Translation
This translation inherits nearly two thousand years of Chinese scholarship and four hundred years of Western attempts to span the language. In order to produce a version that is both new and true to the original, we must build on the scaffolding erected by scholars and readers of many kinds with a wide range of personal and historical circumstances.
Translations of all the passages cited in the commentaries are my own unless otherwise noted. Translations of titles of Chinese books are in the bibliography, not, for the most part, in the endnotes.
CHINESE CHARACTERS AND ROMANIZATION
Chinese characters in traditional form are provided in the appendices for Chinese terms and Chinese proper names. The more widely adopted pinyin romanization is used throughout this work.
Chronology of Chinese Dynasties
There are variants to the dates of early Chinese dynasties and opposing views about whether the Xia dynasty existed at all. I have followed the dates in The Cambridge History of Ancient China and K. C. Chang’s argument in that volume about the Xia. Chang describes Xia as one among many contemporary states but the dominant polity, which explains why the early Chinese historians refer to it as a dynasty. Archaeological discoveries since 1959 seem to support the broad and sustained influence of a culture centered in northwestern Henan province. This culture could have been that of the Xia.
Legendary Emperors
Yao
Shun
Yu
The Three Dynasties
Xia
c. 1900–c. 1600 BC
Shang
1570–1045 BC
Zhou
1045–221 BC
Western Zhou
1045–771
Eastern Zhou
771–221
Spring and Autumn Period
770–481
Warring States Period
481–221
Qin Dynasty
221–207 BC
Han Dynasty
202 BC–AD 220
Western Han
202–AD 9
Eastern Han
9–220
Three Kingdoms
220–280
Six Dynasties
220–589
Wei
220–265
Jin
265–420
Northern and Southern Dynasties
386–589
Sui Dynasty
581–618
Tang Dynasty
618–906
Five Dynasties
907–960
Song Dynasty
960–1279
Northern Song
960–1126
Southern Song
1127–1279
Yuan Dynasty
1279–1368
Ming Dynasty
1368–1644
Qing Dynasty
1644–1911
The Analects (Lunyu)
BOOK ONE
1.1 The Master said, “Is it not a pleasure to learn [xue] and, when it is timely, to practice what you have learned? Is it not a joy to have friends coming from afar? Is it not gentlemanly not to become resentful if no one takes notice of your learning?”
An alternative translation of the first sentence might be: “Is it not a pleasure to learn and to repeat often what you have learned?” The differences in reading depend on how one understands the phrase shixi. The character shi could mean “timely” or “time and time again”; the character xi could mean “to practice” or “to repeat [like a bird flapping its wings] what one has learned.” The Qing scholar Jiao Xun, for instance, cites the Analects 7:8, 6:21, and 11:22 to support his reading of shi as “timeliness.” He says, “To be able to act in a timely way signifies a higher stage of learning” and so “gives one pleasure.” Most scholars from the Six Dynasties and the Song prefer the other interpretation. Huang Kan, for instance, thinks that shi here means that “one should review daily what one has learned [each year and throughout his life], not letting a moment go to waste.” My decision to side with Jiao Xun has to do with Confucius’ fourth-century BC follower Mencius’ characterization of Confucius as “a sage whose action was timely.” Mencius believes that such a sage is superior to those who are merely “beyond defilement” or “politically responsible,” and he regards timeliness in action as the culmination of learning—not just learning as a pile of knowledge but learning, xue (), as Confucius instructed, to fulfill one’s humanity both at home and in the broader world and learning to cultivate one’s moral and aesthetic sensibilities. A man of this kind of learning will draw even people from afar to his side, but if others “do not take notice of” what he possesses, he will not mind, because he has done it for himself.
1.2 Master You [Youzi] said, “It is rare for a person who is filial to his parents and respectful to his elders to be inclined to transgress against his superiors. And it has never happened that a person who is not inclined to transgress against his superiors is inclined to create chaos. A gentleman looks after the roots. With the roots firmly established, a moral way will grow. Is it not true then that being filial to one’s parents and being respectful to one’s elders are the roots of one’s humanity [ren]?
Master You (Youzi) is You Ruo, one of the younger disciples of Confucius. He, along with Zengzi, Zixia, Zizhang, and Ziyou, was probably responsible for drawing together an early version of the Analects to help these disciples transmit the teachings of Confucius. The Book of Mencius says that after Confucius died, “Zixia, Zizhang, and Ziyou wanted to serve You Ruo as they had served Confucius because of his resemblance to the sage;” and that “they tried to force Zengzi [Master Zeng] to join them” but Zengzi refused because for him no one could surpass the “immaculate” character of Confucius. Although Mencius’ story is about loyalty, it also suggests disagreement among the disciples after Confucius’ death as to how to interpret and how to enlarge Confucius’ teachings. In fact, a comparison between what Youzi says here and what Zengzi says in 1.4 and 8.7 shows that Youzi sees familial rites as central to attaining social harmony while Zengzi focuses on introspection as the way to self-realization. They seem to be taking Confucius’ teachings in two different directions, yet, in the end, both are trying to understand the source of our humanity, ren ().
There are several ways of reading 1.2, the most obvious of which is to say that Youzi advocates submission to one’s superiors as the most expedient way of bringing about peace and harmony, but this simplifies what he is trying to convey about the moral efficacy of the rites. Deeper understanding can be gained from reading the commentaries of the Han, the Six Dynasties, and the Qing, where scholars give more attention to the individual words in this passage. Of the word hao (to be inclined to or to have a liking for), for instance, Huang Kan from the Six Dynasties, quoting an earlier scholar, says, “When parents make mistakes now and then, the son must admonish them but in a way that does not violate their self-respect [bufan]. And even if he has to repeat this a number of times, how could he have a liking for [hao] what he does? . . . A person who is filial to his parents and respectful to his elders [xiaoti zhi ren] will speak up for what is right when he has to, but since it is not his intention to transgress against his superiors [fanshang], it is certainly not his purpose to throw the existing social hierarchy into chaos.” Such a reading is consistent with what Confucius says in 4.18.
1.3 The Master said, “A man of clever words and of a pleasing countenance is bound to be short on humanity.”
The Qing scholar Liu Baonan points out that the early classics do not always use qiao (clever) and ling (pleasing) in a negative sense. But if clever words and a pleasing countenance are all that a man possesses, then he must be lacking in humanity; and, in fact, he could be a glib man, which was what Confucius detested and feared the most, because such a man could manufacture a semblance of humanity without possessing one, and he could be more menacing than those Youzi has in mind, men who have a liking for transgressing against their superiors.
1.4 Master Zeng [Zengzi] said, “Every day I examine myself on three points. When I worked to benefit someone else, did I do my best? In my relationship with my friends, did I fail to be trustworthy? Did I pass on any knowledge I myself had not put into practice?”
Master Zeng (Zengzi) was Zeng Can, the youngest of Confucius’ disciples and someone who could not have been under Confucius’ tutelage for very long. Of this man Confucius says only that he was “slow,” held back, perhaps, by his constant self-examination. Yet it was Zengzi’s understanding of Confucius—further refined and expanded by Confucius’ third-generation disciple Mencius—that dominated later Confucian thought. Here Zengzi lays the groundwork for Mencius’ own teaching on the virtue of introspection, which Wang Yangming in the sixteenth century took to even a deeper level, arguing for introspection regarding not just one’s action but also one’s intention. The title of Wang’s major work, Chuanxilu (A Record of Knowledge Learned through Practice), is also a direct reference to the question Zengzi asks himself: “Did I pass on any knowledge I myself had not put into practice?”
1.5 The Master said, “In guiding a state of a thousand chariots, handle all matters with care and respect, and be trustworthy; take a measured approach in your spending, and cherish the people. Employ the common people only at the right time.”
Scholars over the centuries could not agree on just how large a state of a thousand chariots was in the Spring and Autumn period. The contemporary scholar Yang Bojun, using the Zuo Commentary (the most reliable source of this period) and Analects 11:26 as his support, argues that in the early Spring and Autumn this would refer to a powerful state with considerable land, but by Confucius’ time this was no longer true. (The Zuo Commentary says that in the thirteenth year of Duke Zhao [529 BC, twenty-two years before Confucius was born], the state of Jin had in its possession four thousand chariots.) Both Han and Qing scholars point out that the word jing (), “respect,” suggests jing (), “vigilance”—that if a person is attentive to the affair put in his charge f
rom beginning to end, he is bound to be successful. To “employ the common people at the right time” means to employ people for state projects or military service only at a time when they can be spared from their own work on the land. The Song thinker Cheng Yi observes that the guidelines Confucius sketched out may seem “elementary,” but “even the rule of the sage emperors Yao and Shun was no more than a fulfillment of these principles.”
1.6 The Master said, “A youngster should be filial to his parents when he is at home and respectful to his elders when he is away from his home. He should be prudent in action and trustworthy in words. He should cherish all people but should stay close to the most humane. And if he has energy left to do more, he should devote himself to the arts.”