Archives of Peking University News - PKU English - 北京大学

北京大学英语新闻网/Peking University News
Confucianism Sutra: PKU‘s
Tremendous Academic Project
PKU NEWS
http://ennews.pku.edu.cn/news.php?s=72160331
In Chinese history, Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism are always mentioned
together. However, they stand at unequal positions. Confucianism is the main body
of Chinese culture. The ―Six Classics‖ constructed before Confucius are essence of
the Xia, Shang, Zhou Dynasties. Chinese ancient culture demonstrated by the ―Six
Classics‖ have developed until today as a result of the continuous efforts of
Confucians. In each dynasty, many Confucians sorted out, explained and developed
the ideas of Shangshu, Book of songs, the Spring and Autumn annuals and Book of
Changes, which constitute the vital content of Confucian classics. However,
Buddhism sutra and Taoism sutra have been compiled in history but there is no such
a sutra of Confucianism. This condition does not match its important position.
Confucianism has long and distant cultural origins, an active and pragmatic spirit, a
profound feeling of history and morality and its awareness of delivering the
Confucian thoughts to future generations. Therefore, the governors of each dynasty
put great emphasis on the political and culture functions of Confucianism, thus the
view of value of Confucianism gradually became the main body Chinese people‘s
sense of value. Thus, Confucianism became the mainstream of Chinese culture. It
has deep influence on Chinese philosophy, literature, art, ethics, religion, science,
technology, medicine and nearly all walks of politics and economy. In the Ming and
Qing dynasties, some scholars had suggest to compile a collection of Confucian
classics, but this suggestion could not be carried out owing to the difficulty of hard
work. Nowadays, China is on the threshold of its great national revitalization, so the
retrospect of Chinese cultural origins and history will definitely play a significant role
in this process of revitalization. In order to do a systematic, comprehensive and deep
research on Confucianism, it is necessary for us to compile an encyclopedia of
Confucianism which contains Confucian classics, the annotations or the works of
Confucian scholars and other documents about Confucianism. This project has great
historical and practical significance on the rise of Chinese culture in the world
civilization.
As for Confucianism sutra, the complete set should not neglect the important
1502