46-865: The Gongyang Zhuan , also known as the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals or the Commentary of Gongyang , is a commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals , and is thus one of the Chinese classics . Along with the Zuo Zhuan and the Guliang Zhuan , the work is one of the Three Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals . In particular, Gongyang Zhuan is
92-456: A benevolent ruler whose legitimacy is based on the Mandate of Heaven . According to contemporary scholar Jiang Qing's Introductory Treatise on Gongyang Scholarship ( 公羊學引論 ), Gongyang Zhuan includes the following themes: Gongyang Zhuan' argues that human society evolves over time and could be divided into three phases. The first stage (據亂世) is marked by political chaos and social anomy,
138-471: A central work to New Text Confucianism ( 今文經學 ), which advocates Confucius as an institutional reformer instead of a respected scholar, and Chunqiu as an embodiment of Confucius' holistic vision on political, social, and moral issues instead of a merely chronicle. Gongyang Zhuan significantly influenced the political institution in Han dynasty . It fell out of favor among elites and was eventually replaced by
184-663: A description of the Triple Concordance Calendar System 三統曆 developed by Liu Xin in fascicle 21. This is translated to English by Cullen. Ban Gu's history set the standard for the writings of later Chinese dynasties, and today it is a reference used to study the Han period. It is regarded as one of the "Four Histories" 四史 of the Twenty-Four Histories canon, together with the Records of
230-480: A leading Confucian scholar in the Western Han dynasty, and was regarded as an authority on Gongyang Zhuan . Dong advocated According to Qing dynasty scholar Kang Youwei 's summary, some of Gongyang Zhuan' s political agenda including the establishment of a well-ordered hierarchical regime ( 明尊卑之分 ), a strong and centralized political authority ( 強幹弱枝 ), and a merit-based civil government ( 論賢才之義，別所長之能 ), and
276-525: A major source of inspiration for later Gongyang scholars. Huan Kuan (桓寬), author of the Confucian political treatise Discourses on Salt and Iron , was another notable Gongyang Scholar. In his Confucian work Discourse on the Six Arts (六藝論), the Han scholar Zheng Xuan makes the following comment: The Eastern Jin dynasty scholar Fan Ning [ zh ] (grandfather of Fan Ye , author of
322-462: A number of the entries are only a single character long. There are 11 entries that read simply *tung 螽 ( zhōng ), meaning 'a plague of insects'—probably locusts . Some modern scholars have questioned whether the entries were ever originally intended as a chronicle for human readers, and have suggested that the Annals entries may have been intended as "ritual messages directed primarily to
368-400: A total of 100 fascicles 卷, and included essays on law , science , geography , and literature . Ban Gu's younger sister Ban Zhao finished writing the book in 111, 19 years after Ban Gu had died in prison. An outstanding scholar in her own right, she is thought to have written volumes 13–20 (eight chronological tables) and 26 (treatise on astronomy), the latter with the help of Ma Xu. As with
414-427: Is a succinct scribal record that has around 18,000 total words, with terse entries that record events such as the accessions, marriages, deaths, and funerals of rulers, battles fought, sacrificial records observed, natural disasters, and celestial phenomena believed to be of ritual significance. The entries/sentences average only 10 characters in length; the longest entry in the entire work is only 47 characters long, and
460-519: Is also the Chunqiu shiyu from the Mawangdui tombs detailing less information and some say shiyu was the teacher's name who wrote it. The Annals is one of the core Chinese classics and had an enormous influence on Chinese intellectual discourse for nearly 2,500 years. This was due to Mencius ' assertion in the 4th century BC that Confucius himself edited the Annals , an assertion which
506-522: Is now widely referred to as the Spring and Autumn period . Book of Han The Book of Han is a history of China finished in 111 CE, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. The work was composed by Ban Gu (32–92 CE), an Eastern Han court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao , continuing
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#1732765282081552-517: The Book of Han and the Records of the Grand Historian provide detailed accounts of the origins of the three texts. The Gongyang and Guliang commentaries were compiled during the 2nd-century BC, although modern scholars had suggested they probably incorporate earlier written and oral traditions of explanation from the period of Warring States . They are based upon different editions of
598-560: The Book of the Later Han ( 後漢書 ; Hòu Hàn shū ) which covers the Eastern Han period (25–220 CE), and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye (398–445 CE). This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qian 's Records of the Grand Historian , initiated by Ban Gu's father, Ban Biao , at the beginning of the Later Han dynasty. This work is usually referred to as Later Traditions (後傳), which indicates that
644-600: The Book of the Later Han ), in his commentary on works relating to the Spring and Autumn Annals said that the Zuo Zhuan was colorful and rich in content but contains too much wizardry, the Guliang Zhuan was clear and elegantly written but too short whilst the Gongyang Zhuan seemed argumentative, judgmental and vulgar in style. In the opinion of the Han scholar and official He Xiu [ zh ] ,
690-455: The Annals , and Song dynasty prime minister Wang Anshi famously dismissed the Annals as "a fragmentary court gazette" ( 斷爛朝報 ; duànlàn cháobào ). Some Western scholars have given similar evaluations: the French sinologist Édouard Chavannes referred to the Annals as "an arid and dead chronicle". The Annals have become so evocative of the era in which they were composed that it
736-491: The Gongyang Zhuan among modern political theorists. Spring and Autumn Annals The Spring and Autumn Annals is an ancient Chinese chronicle that has been one of the core Chinese classics since ancient times. The Annals is the official chronicle of the State of Lu , and covers a 242-year period from 722 to 481 BCE. It is the earliest surviving Chinese historical text to be arranged in annals form . Because it
782-611: The Gongyang Zhuan' s achievement is its appraisal of the Spring and Autumn Annals to expound the "great way of Confucianism" through the use of subtle and profound language. In the period between the Eastern Wu and the end of the Southern and Northern dynasties (229-589 CE), the official He Xiu School was established. During the Tang dynasty , study of the Gongyang Zhuan gradually declined with very few academics concentrating on
828-611: The Records of the Grand Historian , Zhang Qian , a notable Chinese general who travelled to the west, was a key source for the cultural and socio-economic data on the Western Regions contained in the 96th fascicle. The "Annals" section and the three chapters covering the reign of Wang Mang were translated into English by Homer H. Dubs . Other chapters have been rendered into English by A. F. P. Hulsewé , Clyde B. Sargent, Nancy Lee Swann , and Burton Watson . The text includes
874-454: The Spring and Autumn Annals , and are phrased as questions and answers. The Zuo Zhuan , composed in the early 4th century BC, is a general history covering the period from 722 to 468 BC which follows the succession of the rulers of the state of Lu . In the 3rd-century AD, the Chinese scholar Du Yu interpolated the Zuo Zhuan with the Annals so that each entry of the Annals
920-596: The State of Qi during the Warring States period (475–221 BCE). An oral commentary at first, it was written down and edited during the early Han dynasty by Gongyang Gao's decedent Gongyang Shou (公羊壽) and his collaborator Humu Sheng (胡母生). Humu Sheng later became a boshi ("erudite") in the Han court in charge of the studying and teaching of Gongyang Zhuan . Along with him was another Gongyang Zhuan authority Dong Zhongshu . With Emperor Wu of Han 's adoption of Dong's proposal to formally establish Confucianism as
966-402: The Warring States period (475–221 BCE), a number of commentaries to the Annals were created that attempted to elaborate on or find deeper meaning in the brief entries in the Annals . The Zuo Zhuan , the best known of these commentaries, became a classic in its own right, and is the source of more Chinese sayings and idioms than any other classical work. The Spring and Autumn Annals
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#17327652820811012-517: The Zuo Zhuan . Gongyang Zhuan scholarship was reinvigorated in late Ming dynasty and became a major source of inspiration for Chinese reformers from the eighteenth to early twentieth century. Sima Qian states that Mencius , Gongsun Gu , Xunzi and Han Fei often drew on the Gongyang, while actually they drew on commentaries similar to what we now call the Zuozhuan ; for him the distinction
1058-480: The Grand Historian , Records of the Three Kingdoms and History of the Later Han . Ji (紀, annal), 12 volumes. Emperors' biographies in strict annal form, which offer a chronological overview of the most important occurrences, as seen from the imperial court. Biao (表, tables), 8 volumes. Chronological tables of important people. Zhi (志, memoirs), 10 volumes. Each treatise describes an area of effort of
1104-467: The Jizhuanti ( 紀傳體，纪传体 ) format for dynastic histories that was to remain the model for the official histories until modern times. For the periods where they overlapped, Ban Gu adopted nearly verbatim much of Sima Qian's material, though in some cases he also expanded it. He also incorporated at least some of what his father had written, though it is difficult to know how much. The completed work ran to
1150-567: The ancestral spirits". Since the text of this book is terse and its contents limited, a number of commentaries were composed to annotate the text, and explain and expand on its meanings. The Book of Han vol. 30 lists five commentaries: No text of the Zou or Jia commentaries has survived. The surviving commentaries are known collectively as the Three Commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals ( 春秋三傳 ; Chūnqiū Sānzhuàn ). Both
1196-479: The elder Ban's work was meant to be a continuation. Other scholars of the time, including Liu Xin and Yang Xiong also worked on continuations of Sima's history. After Ban Biao's death, his eldest son Ban Gu was dissatisfied with what his father had completed, and he began a new history that started with the beginning of the Han dynasty. This distinguished it from Sima Qian's history, which had begun with China's earliest legendary rulers. In this way, Ban Gu initiated
1242-458: The events and historical figures of the Spring and Autumn period according to a coherent philosophy. Based on this assumption, Gongyang Zhuan strives to undercover what it claims to be the deeper meaning behind layers of subtle texts. Gongyang Zhuan' s interpretation of the Spring and Autumn Annals is more voluntarism than that advocated by the Old Texts scholars. Dong Zhongshu was
1288-416: The later years of the Han dynasty, He Xiu [ zh ] became the most ardent defender of Gongyang School. He combated vigorously with scholars who prefer Zuo Zhuan and Guliang Zhuan . After spending seventeen years, he wrote a hermeneutics work on Gongyang Zhuan , which is largely survived into modern days. He Xiu's work became the primary source for textual reconstruction of Gongyang Zhuan and
1334-423: The ocean from Lelang Commandery , are divided into more than one hundred tribes, and come to offer tribute from time to time." It is later recorded that in 57, the southern Wa kingdom of Na sent an emissary named Taifu to pay tribute to Emperor Guangwu and received a golden seal . The seal itself was discovered in northern Kyūshū in the 18th century. According to the Book of Wei , the most powerful kingdom on
1380-461: The politics of his time and set a constitutional guideline for future generations. Moreover, Confucius is not merely a transmitter of ancient scholarship but a charismatic sage ( 聖 ) who should have received the Mandate of Heaven and become a King himself. But since Confucius did not receive the kingship due to the political circumstances at the time, he compiled the Spring and Autumn Annals based on official chronicles, in which he criticized ( 褒貶 )
1426-470: The profound meanings behind the subtle words of the Spring and Autumn Annals and was brief in explaining the historical context. Because of its emphasis on the theoretical interpretation of the Annals, Jiang Qing (b. 1953) dubbed it "the political theory wing of Confucianism ( 政治儒學 )." The primary assumption of Gongyang Zhuan is that Confucius authored the Spring and Autumn Annals in order to criticize
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1472-500: The second stage ( 昇平世 ) is characterized by the reestablishment of legitimate political order, and the third stage (太平世) is when the world as a whole experiences great harmony and every individual is able to fully realize their potential. The genealogy of Gongyang Zhuan has been a contested issue among scholars. According to the Book of Han , Bu Shang (Zixia), one of the top disciples of Confucius , taught Confucius' class notes to his disciple Gongyang Gao [ zh ] of
1518-591: The state ideology, the power and influence of the Gongyang School increased significantly. Later, Dong Zhongshu authored Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals , Interactions Between Heaven and Mankind and Strange Calamities of Yin and Yang , in which he popularized his mysticism interpretation of Gongyang Zhuan . Along with the widespread adoption of divination practices, the Han intelligentsia became shrouded in an atmosphere of superstition and mystery. Nonetheless, among officials, Gongyang School
1564-403: The state. Zhuan (傳, exemplary traditions, usually translated as biographies), 70 volumes. Biographies of important people. The biographies confine themselves to the description of events that clearly show the exemplary character of the person. Two or more people are treated in one main article, as they belong to the same class of people. The last articles describe the relations between China and
1610-486: The trivia of Chunqiu . At the end of Western Han dynasty, scholar Liu Xin proposed to establish professorship for Zuo Zhuan and ‘’Guliang Zhuan . Once his advice was adopted, Gongyang school no longer monopolized the official interpretation of Spring and Autumn Annals. From the time of the Eastern Han dynasty onwards, more and more people criticized Dong Zhongshu's interpretation of the Gongyang Zhuan . During
1656-413: The various peoples at and beyond the frontiers, including the contested areas of Ba in present-day Yunnan; Nanyue in present-day Guangdong, Guangxi, and Vietnam; and Minyue in present-day Fujian. The people of Japan make their first unambiguous appearance in written history in this book ( Book of Han , Volume 28, Treatise on Geography), in which it is recorded, "The people of Wo are located across
1702-521: The work of their father, Ban Biao . They modelled their work on the Records of the Grand Historian ( c. 91 BCE ), a cross-dynastic general history, but theirs was the first in this annals-biography form to cover a single dynasty. It is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics such as literature in this period. The Book of Han is also called the Book of the Former Han ( 前漢書 ; Qián Hàn shū ) to distinguish it from
1748-667: The work was probably a response to the massive social and political changes of the period which caused scholars to reassess the dominant official interpretation of Confucianism. Gongyang Zhuan played an important role in the works of the Changzhou School of Thought proponents. The school held an important position during the late Qing dynasty as a mainstream center of learning with scholars such as Kong Guangsen [ zh ] , Zhuang Cunyu , Liu Fenglu [ zh ] , Gong Zizhen , Wei Yuan and Kang Youwei amongst others. The school's main target for criticism
1794-476: The work. Gongyang scholarship was introduced to Japan. Notable scholars include Hayashi Razan and his son Hayashi Gahō . Hayashi Gahō later published a commentated version of Gongyang Zhuan in 1688, attributing the comments to his father. During the Qing dynasty the study of textual criticism flourished with successive scholars researching the Gongyang Zhuan and reinvigorating its ideas. This re-evaluation of
1840-471: Was accepted by the entire Chinese scholarly tradition and went almost entirely unchallenged until the early 20th century. The Annals' terse style was interpreted as Confucius' deliberate attempt to convey "lofty principles in subtle words" ( 微言大義 ; wēiyán dàyì ). Not all scholars accepted this explanation: Tang dynasty historiographer Liu Zhiji believed the Commentary of Zuo was far superior to
1886-452: Was followed by the corresponding passages of the Zuo Zhuan . Du Yu's version of the text was the basis for the "Right Meaning of the Annals " ( 春秋正義 Chūnqiū zhèngyì ) which became the imperially authorised text and commentary on the Annals in 653 AD. During the late Han dynasty, there was a saying that the Guoyu was an "Outer Commentary" to the Spring and Autumn Annals . There
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1932-422: Was likely composed in the 5th century BC. By the time of Confucius , in the 6th century BC, the term 'springs and autumns' ( chūnqiū 春秋 , Old Chinese *tʰun tsʰiw ) had come to mean 'year' and was probably becoming a generic term for 'annals' or 'scribal records'. The Annals was not the only work of its kind, as many other Eastern Zhou states also kept annals in their archives. The Annals
1978-418: Was meaningless. Gongyang Zhuan argues that the Spring and Autumn Annals is not merely a history, but a magnum opus of Confucius ' ideas regarding sociopolitical order. Unlike Zuo Zhuan , a later favorite among many scholars for its vivid narrative of historical events, Gongyang Zhuan was compiled in a dialogistic style resembling a class conversation between a Confucian scholar and his student discussing
2024-469: Was seen as a vital political classic that provided ideological basis and historical precedents in governing, and was cited during policy debates. Dong Zhongshu's two students, Yan Pengzu [ zh ] and Yan Anle (顏安樂) became the leaders of Gongyang School after Dong's death. Some exegesis monographs by Gongyang scholars mounts to over one million characters in length, that scholars from other schools accused Gongyang school for being too fixated on
2070-527: Was the Old Texts . In particular, Kang Youwei's interpretation helped facilitated the widespread doubt on the Old Texts among intellectuals, and thus creating a sympathetic audience for his reformist ideas, which later became well known in Hundred Days' Reform . In 1995, Chinese scholar Jiang Qing published his work Introductory Treatise on Gongyang Scholarship , which marked the revived interest in
2116-693: Was traditionally regarded as having been compiled by Confucius —after a claim to this effect by Mencius —it was included as one of the Five Classics of Chinese literature. The Annals records main events that occurred in Lu during each year, such as the accessions, marriages, deaths, and funerals of rulers, battles fought, sacrificial rituals observed, celestial phenomena considered ritually important, and natural disasters. The entries are tersely written, averaging only 10 characters per entry, and contain no elaboration on events or recording of speeches. During
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