Mei Ze
Mei Ze | |
|---|---|
| Other names | Mei Yi |
| Academic background | |
| Influences | Shangshu |
| Notable works | Old Text Shangshu (received) |
| Influenced | Kong Yingda |
Mei Ze (
Confucian classic for over a millennium.[1] However, Mei Ze's version of the Shangshu has been proven a forgery.[2]
Background
The Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 AD).[2]
"Rediscovery" of the Old Text Shangshu
After the
Western Jin Dynasty in 311 AD, the Jin court fled southeast to Jiankang. Emperor Yuan, the first emperor of Eastern Jin, asked the public to submit books to the court in order to replenish the imperial library which had been destroyed in the war.[1] Mei Ze presented a "rediscovered" copy of Kong Anguo's Old Text Shangshu to the emperor, along with a preface purportedly written by Kong.[3] Explaining the discovery, Mei Ze claimed that he acquired the documents from a certain Zang Cao (臧曹), who had previously obtained them from Liang Liu (梁柳), a cousin of the famous physician-scholar Huangfu Mi, and that he had salvaged the text from destruction in the warfare that ended the Western Jin. Zang Cao and Liang Liu had both been dead by the time Mei Ze presented the scripture to the emperor.[3] The Jin court accepted Mei's version as authentic,[4][2] and it became widely disseminated throughout the empire.[5]
Mei Ze's version of the Shangshu includes Fu Sheng's New Text, which was redivided into 33 chapters, along with 25 extra chapters purportedly from Kong Anguo's lost Old Text, for a total of 58 chapters.[5]
Legacy
Mei Ze's Old Text Shangshu became highly influential. In the seventh century, during the early
Qing Dynasty,[4] when the 17th-century scholar Yan Ruoqu devoted much of his lifetime to the study of the Shangshu and conclusively proved that Mei Ze's version was a forgery.[5] Analyses of the recently discovered Tsinghua Bamboo Slips have further bolstered Yan's now widely accepted conclusion.[6][2]
Notes
- ^ a b "Mei Ze". Chinaknowledge.de. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
- ^ a b c d e f Underhill 2013, p. 454.
- ^ a b Declercq 1998, p. 169.
- ^ a b Declercq 1998, p. 170.
- ^ a b c 伏胜 [Fu Sheng] (in Chinese). Guoxue.com. 2012-06-25. Retrieved 2013-05-21.
- ^ Ed Zhang (2012-08-15). "Oldest Confucian classic is fake in parts". South China Morning Post. Retrieved 2013-05-19.
References
- Declercq, Dominik (1998). Writing Against the State: Political Rhetorics in Third and Fourth Century China. Brill. ISBN 9789004103764.
- Underhill, Anne P. (2013). A Companion to Chinese Archaeology. Wiley. ISBN 9781118325728.