How Confucius and his Followers Systematically Tamper with China’s Classical Documents

EDITOR’S NOTE: Confucianism was originally an ethical thought system focusing on personal moral self-cultivation, with much less attention on the management of the macro society, and, until much later, no attention on the metaphysical philosophy behind its thoughts. It advocated one-man autocracy in familial-social power relationship, laissez-faire policy in social economy, and “morality-does-all” doctrine in running social affairs. This essay by Mr. Yuzhong Zhai shows convincingly with facts from historiy that, to push their parochial ideology, Confucius and his followers tried all means to falsify classical records of Chinese culture.

Confucianism was wrongly regarded for too long as representing Chinese culture. Now it is time to restore the facts of history: Confucianism was but one of the many schools of thought of ancient China, and it was the Huang-Lao (Daoist-Legalist) school who integrated all into one.

Confucius and his later followers have had tremendous negative impact on the development of traditional Chinese culture. One major manifestation has been their systematic tampering with the texts of Chinese original classics: the Book of Poetry (《诗经》), the Book of History (《尚书》), the Book of Rites (《礼记》), the Book of Music (《乐记》), the Spring and Autumn Annals (《春秋》), and the Book of Changes (《易经》). The tampering is in three forms:

First about the Book of Poetry. The earliest mention of Confucius bowdlerizing the Book of Poetry is seen in Sima Qian’s Records of the Grand Historian • The House of Kongzi (《史记·孔子世家》). He says that there had been more than 3000 poems handed down from antiquity and Confucius, besides deleting redundant pieces, selected over 300 pieces that comply with his principles of propriety and righteousness. But in fact there is not much evidence except the above showing Confucius deleting so many poems from the book.

The most tangible evidence showing Confucius and his followers castrating classics is the Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty(《逸周书》). Yan Shigu (颜师古) in his commentary on the History of the Former Han Dynasty •Treatise on Literature (《汉书·艺文志》) says “The History of the Zhou Dynasty (《周书》) consists of 71 chapters, ’a collection of decrees of the Zhou dynasty, that has been left out by Confucius from his hundred-piece edition of the Classic of History [quoting Liu Xiang (刘向), a Western Han scholar]’.” The Book Of Sui·Classic Records·Miscellaneous History (《隋书·经籍志·杂史类》 says directly “The History of the Zhou Dynasty, in ten volumes, is part of the “Ji tomb books” [i.e., books inscribed on bamboo-slips excavated in c. 280 ad from ancient tombs in Ji county, Henang province] and appears to be what Confucius had deleted from the classics he compiled.”

Why, then, did Confucius and his later followers ignore the Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty? The reason is simple. That is because its content is mostly in discord with their ideological principles. This is the fundamental reason for their chopping it off from the Classic of History. Due to the conventionality of academic thought, the Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty has never received sufficient attention from scholars and never attained the same status as the New Text Classic of History (《今文尚书》), not even today in the 21^st century.

Prof. Xueqin Li (李学勤) writes (in his preface to黄怀信:《逸周书校补注译》): “The Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty is one of the important ancient classics of China. There are abundant records of historical events in the book, as Liu Zhiji of Tang dynasty says in his Shitong (刘知几:《史通》), covering the time period from King Wen and King Wu through King Ling and King Jing. If we read the Chronicle of Zuo (《左传》) and Zhan Guo Ce (《战国策》), we can see that scholars in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States period often cited chapters that we now see in the existing Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty, referring as their source to The Book (《书》), or History of the Zhou Dynasty (《周书》) and not distinguishing them from chapters in what was later called Classic of History.”

In the History of the Former Han Dynasty·Treatise on Literature, the Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty is still listed under the title “周书” [without the word “逸” - “discarded”], specified as “historical records of the Zhou dynasty” and positioned right after the various editions of the Classic of History, thus showing its important status as belonging to the “six classics”.

Later on, however, the book came to be ignored and finally fell under the category of “privately compiled history” in Qing dynasty’s imperial collection Siku Quanshu (《四库》), as far apart from the Classic of History under the category of “classics” as between heaven and earth.

In a sense, the Discarded History of the Zhou Dynasty has a higher academic value than the New Text version of the Classic of History, especially for the study of indigenous Chinese political economy. We should no longer cast aside like an old shoe such important original classics.

According to some statistics, there are 53 unrepeated quotations from the Classic of History in the Chronicle of Zuo (《左传》) and the Guoyu (《国语》), of which as many as 33, or three fifths, cannot be found, while only 20 can, in the New Text version of the Classic of History. （黄开国、唐赤蓉：《诸子百家兴起的前奏：春秋时期的思想文化》，巴蜀书社，2004年11月，第190~196页。）Obviously, quite a big portion of the classic has been deleted by Confucius and later Confucian scholars.

Confucius, as a specialist in rites, played a sort of important role in the shaping up of the Book of Rites. But, however, being too complicated with trivial in details and, therefore, basically not practicable, the rites Confucius pushed for were objected to by his contemporary Yanying (晏婴), the famous minister of Qi, and rejected by his own grandson Zisi (子思).

Besides the standardization of language, currency measurement system etc, the Qin dynasty also standardized ritual system based on that of the formerly Qin state and assimilating from those of the other six states what was consistent with ancient rites. During the reign of Emperor Gao of Han, Shusuntong (叔孙通), who was familiar with Qin ritual system as he had formerly held the position of reserve court academician at the Qin court, worked out Han ritual system based on that of Qin (《史记·礼书》;《史记·叔孙通传》). He won a generally positive appraisal from Sima Qian, though accused later by Wang Anshi (王安石) of Northern Song for tarnishing the purity of Confucianism by adopting Qin rituals. No matter whether Shusuntong was praised or accused, the fact in history is that the Han system was a continuation of that of Qin, not only with the legal institution but with the ritual as well. It was not a Confucian scholar but Qin prime minister Li Si (李斯) who laid down the basis for Han ritual system and that the Han system had a direct impact on that of later dynasties.

Now about the Book of Music. A question that has perplexed the Chinese for long is: Has there ever existed such a book? The answer is: No, there never has. What has existed is some record of voice music with related notes. For instance, the Chu (楚) bamboo inscription of “folk lyric titles” of the Warring States period kept in Shanghai Museum lists 40 titles of folk lyrics with some notes about the range of pitches for the matching tunes. This is not what the Book of Music is supposed to be — a classic of music theories.

What is most ridiculous is that the Confucianists put the blame on the First Emperor of Qin for the nonexistence of the Book of Music. Since Ban Gu (班固) of Eastern Han, it has been alleged that the Book of Music was destroyed among books burned by the First Emperor of Qin. As a matter of fact, neither ritual codes nor music could be extinguished by burning because they could survive through people’s daily practice, not necessarily in written texts like poetry or records of history. Even if such a Book of Music should have existed once, copies of it under the care of the court academician as part of official book collection could not have been banned. Qin’s book censorship decree was repealed in the 4^th year of Emperor Hui (191 bc). Before that, books of all pre-Qin schools of thought were well kept in the Han royal collection, with the only exception of the Book of Music. This is hard evidence showing that there had never existed a classic book on music theory.

In Western Zhou, there were only four subjects for higher learning: poetry, history, rites and music. Not until the Warring States period did there begin to appear occasionally talk of “six classics” as of equal status. It was only after Confucius paid special attention and did some editing to the above two books that they finally secured that status as classics.

In the Spring and Autumn period, the Book of Changes was only a divining book of little importance, as its divining by stalk had far less popularity and influence than divining by tortoise shell at that time. (黄开国、唐赤蓉：《诸子百家兴起的前奏：春秋时期的思想文化》，巴蜀书社，2004年11月，第104~115页。) As late as the Warring States period, the Book of Changes was still paid little attention by Confucianists. As an ordinary divining book, it was not banned by the Qin court from circulation. That is why it was able to be passed down by Confucianists and finally came to rank first among the “five classics” during Han dynasty. （History of the Former Han Dynasty • Biographies of the Forest of Literati,《汉书·儒林传》。）

The reason why the Book of Changes came to rank first among the classics is because of the moralizing commentaries added to it by Confucius. The divinatory interpretations of the trigrams and their constitutive lines in the book are ambiguous and elusive. Hence, Confucius and later Confucianists added a group of commentaries, called Yi Zhuan (《易传》).

Today, few people really believe that Yi Zhuan was authored by Confucius himself, but it is undeniable that the moralizing interpretation of the book is his, as can be clearly seen from Analects (《论语》), Lüshi Chunqiu (《吕氏春秋》), Silk Manuscript of Zhou Yi · Yao (《帛书周易·要》) of Western Han, and other ancient books. In the chapter “Yao” of Silk Manuscript of Zhou Yi, Confucius says, “With regard to the book Zhou Yi, I bypass the divination and pay attention to the moral themes.” (“子曰：《易》，复其祝卜矣，我观其德义耳也。”) This historically became the orientation for later Confucian scholars’ studies of Zhou Yi. Without Yi Zhuan, Zhou Yi could not have become a Confucianist classic, still less to rank among the five classics. During Han dynasty, Confucian scholars accorded extreme importance to it, making it even more important than the Book of History. This is quite evident in the History of the Former Han Dynasty •Treatise on Literature.

Confucius’ moralizing interpretation of Zhou Yi can be seen as a step forward towards human rationality, but it is irrational for Han Confucian scholars to place it at the top of all classics. To them, classics of political economy were no longer important, at least not as important as the metaphysical assumptions implicit in the divining statements. Furthermore, over-elaboration of a divining book would inevitably lead to mystification, which was already evident in Han dynasty. Today in the 21^st century, some scholars are even pretending to apply it to computing system and to the stock market, but nobody ever sees any help from the book for the secure operation of the financial market and for innovation and progress in China’s science and technology.

All ancient Chinese history books were edited by court historians and all Zhou dynasty history books were generally called Spring and Autumn Annals. But after Confucius made some seemingly minor alterations to Lu history book, the Confucianists did not only accredit Confucius with its authorship but also assume that every word of the book edited by Confucius is loaded with some special political-ideological implication.

Mencius was the first person who explicitly stated that the book was authored by Confucius. (《孟子·滕文公下》,《孟子·离娄下》) But historical records show that the Spring and Autumn Annals had already existed before Confucius: Once Confucius quoted from the book (《礼记·坊记》); Another time, Duke Ai of Lu (鲁哀公) and Confucius talked about the content of the book (《韩非子·内储说上》).

Later followers of Confucius tried to dig out from every word of the book deeply implied political-philosophical meanings supposed to be intended by Confucius. Their far-fetched association of ideas sometimes led to obvious inconsistencies. Hence, Zeng Qiao (郑樵) of Southern Song criticized them by saying: ”To judge things by the Spring and Autumn Annals is to distort the book itself.” (《春秋考•自述》) And his younger but better-known contemporary Zhu Xi (朱熹) also explicitly pointed out that the Spring and Autumn Annals is only a Lu history book: “The supposed judgments of good and evil read from between lines may not be really meant by the Sage.” （《朱子五经语类•卷十七统论经义》）

The purpose of canonizing the adulterated Book of Changes and Lu history book the Spring and Autumn Annals was to elevate Confucianism as an authority in ideology, but the result has been the mystification of Chinese culture. How many scholars have wasted their whole lives in seeking “divine intelligence” from the Book of Changes or “profound meanings in everyday words” from the Spring and Autumn Annals! How many important Chinese classical works on politics, economy and culture have been branded as heresies just because they disagreed with Confucianist orthodoxy! Among such “heresies” there was the great theory on balance-keeping in economic management (轻重之术), which had direct bearing on people’s livelihood.

It is now time to shun those systematically adulterated and distorted versions of classical works and return to Western Zhou royal court scholarship and its successor the Huang-Lao (Daoist-Legalist) school of thought, which has comprehensively integrated all pre-Qin schools of learning. As all prejudices die hard, there is a long way to go to achieve a revaluation of the relative position of Confucius and Confucianism in the history of Chinese culture and to restore the original Chinese tradition.