Overview

Central to the study of Chinese civilization at its widest extension is the thought of the great sage K'ung, usually known in the West by the Latinized form of his name, Confucius. His works form the core of more than two thousand years of Oriental civilization, and even today, when he has been officially discarded, his thought remains important for understanding the present as well as the past. Yet Confucius is the property of not only the Orientalists: his ideas stood behind much of the rational social thought of the European Enlightenment, as great philosophers from Leibnitz on seized with delight the perfect ethic without supernaturalism: that China offered them. The present edition of the wisdom of Confucius is certainly the best edition ever prepared in the West. The results of many years of study in China by the great Sinologist James Legge, it contains the entire Chinese text of the Analects (or sayings) of Confucius in large, readable characters, and beneath this Legge's full translation, which has been accepted as the definitive, standard English version. The book also includes The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean. In addition to the texts and translation, a wealth of helpful material is offered to the reader: countless notes embodying textual studies, commentators' opinions, interpretation of individual characters, disputed meanings, and similar material. More than 125 pages of introduction cover the Chinese classics, the history of the texts in this volume, and the life and influence of Confucius. Most useful, too, is a complete dictionary of all the Chinese characters in the book, with meanings, grammatical comments, place locations, and similar data. Subject and name indexes enable you to find material easily. Over the past few weeks I considered, meditated upon and read the classic translation of Confucius by James Legge entitled, Confucian Analects, The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean. All works distilled over centuries from the teachings of Confucius who lived from 551 to 479 B.C. Elias Canetti summed it up neatly: The Analects of Confucius are the oldest complete intellectual and spiritual portrait of a man. It strikes one as a modern book. It also strikes this reader as a very un-western book and difficult to decipher. In spite of that there is a lot that Confucius' thought has in common with the wisdom of the west. One of the most famous doctrines is that of reciprocity. 15.24 Zigong asked: Is there any single word that could guide one's entire life? The Master said: Should it not be reciprocity? What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others. (Simon Leys trans., p 77) That is complementary to the more familiar Golden Rule that says one should do unto others as one would have them do unto you. From reading the aphorisms one comes away with an appreciation for culture, family and what seems to be a conservative view of man. It also is a very humane, even humanistic, view of society. Apparently this was just what was needed during the lifetime of Confucius as there was great change in his society. He lived during a period of acute cultural crisis. Confucius, like thinkers in the West from Socrates to Gandhi, demonstrated a confidence that in turn drew followers to him and his thought. We can thank them for what little of Confucius' thought that we have. In these books and fragments we have the distillation of his thought and it impresses me as worth meditating on. It is a treasure of humanity. ABOUT CONFUCIUS: Confucius was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese thought and life. Died 479 BC (aged 71-72).

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