Sung Hsiang-Feng

One of Chuang Shu-tsu's lesser-known students, Sung Hsiang-feng never went beyond chü-jen degree status, which he achieved at age twenty-four in 1800. Sung thus never held high office beyond county magistrate and is primarily remembered for his classical studies, which were closely tied to Ch'ang-chou New Text studies. According to his biographers, Hsiang-feng was a specialist in etymology (hsun-ku ming-wu ); his research efforts included a work on the Erh-ya (Progress toward correctness) dictionary, the chief repository of Han dynasty glosses on the Classics.

Sung complemented his etymological interests with research aimed at reconstructing the "schools system" of the Former Han dynasty so that the original "esoteric words containing great meanings" (wei-yen ta-i )—by this time a code expression for New Text studies of the Former Han—would again achieve preeminence in Confucian discourse. In this effort, Sung transmitted the scholarly teachings of Chuang Ts'un-yü and Chuang Shu-tsu to students such as Tai Wang, who carried the New Text position into the late nineteenth century.^[37]

"Meanings" in the Annals

Affirming the priority of Kung-yang Confucianism, Sung Hsiang-feng contended that "meanings" (i), and not "precedents" (li), were central in the chronicles of the Spring and Autumn Annals. By continuing a line of criticism on the Annals that dates back to the Ming dynasty, Hsiang-feng rejected as misguided Tu Yü's long-admired Tso chuan -based itemization of historical precedents in the Annals (see chapter 5). "As the list of precedents piled up," Sung claimed, "the meaning of the Annals became increasingly obscured, reaching the point that all understanding [of the intent of the Annals] was lost." Such tedious interpretations of the Annals, according to Sung Hsiang-feng, had led directly to calls by Sung dynasty scholars to remove the Annals from official authorization in the examination system. Wang An-shih had gone so far as to label the Annals as "irrelevant reports" (tuan-luan ch'ao-pao) precisely because of Tu Yü's relegation of the Annals to a casebook of historical precedents.^[38]

[37] See Sung Hsiang-feng's biography, which is kept at the Palace Museum, Taipei, under Liu Feng-lu, Chuan-kao , no. 4455(1). See also T'ang Chih-chün, "Ch'ing-ta Ch'ang-chou ching chin-wen hsueh-p'ai yü Wu-hsu pien-fa," pp. 73-76.

[38] Sung Hsiang-feng, P'u-hsueh-lu wen-ch'ao , pp. 3a-3b.

The triumph of historical erudition had brought in its wake a loss of historical meaning. This emphasis on precedents in the Annals required a level of knowledge that, for ali its precision, missed the forest for the trees. Seeking to strike a balance between classical erudition and classical meanings, Sung Hsiang-feng called for a synthesis of Han Learning philology and Sung Learning theory:

If one orders the Classics and does not order the Histories, then one understands principles [li ] but not affairs [shih ]. If one orders the Histories but not the Classics, then one understands affairs but not principles. If one can unify the [two different approaches], then no harm will result from the division.

In antiquity, those who studied the Classics did not drown in etymological glosses. They did not wind up in farfetched explanations. Neither were they deluded by debates and theories, nor did they get stuck in airy and distant [irrelevancies]. In this way, they knew the constant Tao of the sages and thus were outstanding scholars.

The study of etymology became prominent in the Hah and was completed in the T'ang. Study of theory began in the T'ang and became prominent in the Sung. Both [traditions] went a little too far, however. Etymologists, if they reach farfetched explanations, and theorists, if they wind up in airy and distant studies, must both be criticized.^[39]

Sung Hsiang-feng's call for a synthesis of Hah and Sung Learning was emblematic of the nineteenth-century social and political context for Confucian scholars. They were faced with questions and problems from which eighteenth-century Confucians for the most part had been spared. For instance, the introductory essay to Confucian scholarship (Ju-lin ), included in the 1814 Wu-hsi-Chin-k'uei county gazetteer, stressed the centrality of textual studies for Confucian discourse while also calling for a balance between Sung and Han Learning approaches.

Like his Chuang lineage relatives in Ch'ang-chou, Sung called for an encompassing vision of Confucianism that would reassert the moral principles proclaimed in Confucius's Annals. In the Ch'ang-chou New Text agenda, k'ao-cheng research was informed by theoretical and ethical issues and was not an end in itself. By taking a strident position that linked scholarship to social and political order, Sung Hsiang-feng made his commitment to Confucian practice very clear: "Accordingly, if the Tao is not put into effect, then the empire will not be ordered. The blame will fall on no one else but on scholars.^[40]

[39] Ibid., pp. 5Aa-5Ba (original mistakes in pagination).

[40] Ibid., pp. 5Ca-SDa (original mistakes in pagination). See Wu-hsi Chin-k'uei hsien-chih, (1814), 21.1b. See also my Philosophy to Philology , pp. 233-48.

New Text studies contributed to the general nineteenth-century reaction against what Ch'ang-chou scholars had long considered sterile philological studies. In addition, increased interest in the Kung-yang Commentary helped to stimulate a nationwide revival of the seven-teenth-century statecraft orientation, which in Ch'ang-chou, the home of Tung-lin activism, had never really been lost. Ch'ang-chou's intimate links with the Tung-lin legacy in Wu-hsi and Wu-chin counties placed the Chuang and Liu lineages, among others in Ch'ang-chou, in a better position to appreciate the statecraft sensibilities of their seventeenth-century predecessors.

Reconstructing the New Text Confucius

Both Sung Hsiang-feng and Liu Feng-lu sought to demolish the Old Text image of Confucius by reconstructing New Text interpretations of the Analects (Lun-yü ). They turned from the Kung-yang chuan to Confucius's Analects to confirm their grandfather Chuang Ts'un-yü's reliance on Ho Hsiu. For Ts'un-yü, Ho Hsiu was the most dependable Later Han transmitter of the New Text "schools system." In chapter 7 we shall discuss Liu Feng-lu's reconstruction of Ho Hsiu's lost commentary on the Analects. But we will first evaluate Sung Hsiang-feng's parallel demonstration that the Analects itself was replete with doctrines that confirmed the Kung-yang "meanings" in the Annals.

Like Liu Feng-lu, Sung Hsiang-feng sought to overturn prevailing interpretations of the Analects that had been inspired by Old Text studies. According to Hsiang-feng, in the Analects Confucius had presented his views in esoteric form (wei-yen ) for transmission by his most trusted followers. According to this point of view, the Analects elaborated the "great meanings" (ta-i ) in the Annals. Sung used the Analects as collateral evidence for understanding the Kung-yang interpretation of the Annals. Controverting the traditional belief that the "esoteric words and great meanings" had been lost after the deaths of Confucius and his immediate disciples, Sung Hsiang-feng concluded:

After Confucius perished, the "esoteric words" were still not cut off. After [his] seventy disciples passed away, the "great meanings" were still not betrayed. Confucius's intent was complete in the records of the commentaries. For hundreds and thousands of generations, [his intent] was not covered up. Its [recovery], therefore, is the duty of all who love learning and think profoundly.

The vision had not been lost; it had been whitewashed.^[41]

In order to controvert the Old Text position on the Analects and Annals, both of which were based on historical accounts given in the Tso chuan, Sung Hsiang-feng worked from the Kung-yang Commentary. He asserted it was the repository of the true teachings bequeathed by Confucius himself in the Annals and then by his disciples in the Analects. Reappearing in Sung's reassessment of the Analects was the apocalyptic and messianic picture of Confucius dating from the Former Han. Tai Wang, Sung's student and a follower of Liu Feng-lu, described the implications of this reinterpretation of the Annals vis-à-vis the Analects:

Confucius himself was an "uncrowned king." He wished to serve as the ruler of the empire like Yao, Shun, T'ang [r. 1766?-1744? B.C. ], and Wu [r. 1122?-1116?] and to achieve [like them] an era of great peace [t'ai-p'ing ]. Therefore, he made the "Sayings of Yao" the final chapter [of the Analects ]. Similarly, the text of the Spring and Autumn Annals concluded with the lesson of the coming of the lin [unicorn]. It is clear that Confucius respectfully discoursed on Yao and Shun . . .. The reason for his straightforward writings [in the Annals], such as "the institutional reform of the three dynasties" [san-rai kai-chih ], was to extend the lessons that Yao had enunciated.

For the Former Han Confucian Tung Chung-shu (1797-1047 B.C. ), the capture of the lin was a concrete omen of Confucius's status as an "uncrowned king." In his Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu (The Spring and Autumn Annals' radiant dew), Tung wrote that shortly before his death in 479 B.C. Confucius had received from heaven (t'ien ) its mandate (or decree [ming ]):

When Yen Yuan died, Confucius said: "Heaven has caused me this loss." When Tzu-lu died, the master said: "Heaven is cutting me off!" When a lin was captured in a hunt in the west, Confucius said: "My way has come to an end! My way has come to an end!" Three years later he was dead. From this [omen] we see that the sage knows the efficacy of Heaven's mandate and that there are situations in which one cannot escape one's fate.

According to Tung Chung-shu, heaven granted Confucius its mandate to correct the faults of his age and to establish the institutions of a new ruler and new dynasty. Although the mandate could not be effected during his own lifetime, Confucius was nonetheless able to speak as a ruler and to prophesize "a great unity" (ta i-t'ung )—that is, the Han

[41] Sung Hsiang-feng, Lun-yü shuo-i, 398.3b.

dynasty—to come. New Text studies were moving from complicated philological debate to reaffirmation of an older vision of Confucius and of the classical legacy.^[42]

Freeing the Analects from its Later Han Old Text interpretive moorings, Sung Hsiang-feng argued that the words of Confucius recorded by his closest disciples in the Analects were best evaluated in light of the "meanings" encoded in the Annals. In effect, Sung was grounding the interpretation of the Analects in the Kung-yang tradition of the Annals. The Kung-yang Commentary and the Analects, when taken together, gave overlapping clues to the holistic vision of the sage as "uncrowned king." The Old Text portrait of Confucius was pointedly redrawn in New Text strokes:

The Analects represents the theories of the New Text [tradition]. New Text school members transmitted the Annals and Analects as the means to grasp the intent of the sage. As erudites, what the New Text school members transmitted was derived from [Confucius's] seventy disciples through direct transmission. Reaching back to the [Former] Hah, this link had still not been broken.

Hsiang-feng argued that the direct transmission from Confucius to the officially appointed New Text erudites (via the seventy disciples) had been interrupted by the confusion brought on by the Wang Mang interregnum. Championed by Liu Hsin, the Old Text Classics briefly displaced the New Text Classics in official circles:

Ever since the Old Text school members recovered the Classic "Offices of Chou" [Chou-kuan , that is, the Chouli ] from the wall [in Confucius's former] residence, what had been a trivial record [mo-lu ] in the archives of the Western Hah [suddenly] was attributed to the Duke of Chou [himself]. Whatever was found in the other Classics to disagree with the "Offices of Chou" was all dismissed as derivative from the Hsia and Shang dynasties. In reality, the Annals was finalized by Confucius. It is true to the intent of Yao, Shun, and King Wen and discoursed upon the institutions of the Three dynasties [Hsia, Shang, and Chou].^[43]

Here Sung has clearly linked New Text studies to the history of skepticism concerning the provenance of the Rituals of Chou. And in so doing Sung brought together what had been two parallel but disparate

[42] Tai Wang, Lun-yü chu , 20.3b. See the biography of Tai Wang, included after Liu Feng-lu and Sung Hsiang-feng at the Palace Museum, Taipei, Chuan-kao , no. 4455(1). See Su Yü's edition of Tung's work entitled Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng, 5.4a, 6.4b. For a discussion see Fung, History of Chinese Philosophy , vol. 1, pp. 71-72. Cf. Wakeman, History and Will, pp. 105-106.

[43] Sung Hsiang-feng, Lun-yü shuo-i, 389.1b, 389.3a.

problems. Where Chuang Ts'un-yü in the eighteenth century had seen the Annals and Chou-li as compatible and complementary, Sung Hsing-feng in the nineteenth saw them as just the opposite. Though Yang Ch'un and others had earlier dismissed the Rituals of Chou as a forgery first manipulated by Wang Mang and then by Wang An-shih, they had not linked the forgery to the Old Text tradition. Although Sung pointed to Liu Hsin as the betrayer of the Annals, he did not accuse him of forging the Chou-li. Sung's contribution to the evolution of the New Text position on the Annals and Chou-li was nevertheless important.^[44]

The differentiation of the Former Han from Later Han classical "schools system" now began to center on distinguishing the Annals from the Rituals of Chou. Henceforth, champions of New Text and defenders of Old Text would disentangle the two Classics from their supposed web of compatibility; two competing classical visions would now be read into the Annals and the Rituals of Chou. The questionable provenance of one of the "Nine Classics"—which according to Sung Hsiang-feng, "had no transmission of teachings"—was now used to increase the legitimacy of Confucius over the Duke of Chou and, concomitantly, of the Annals over the Chou-li. For Hsiang-feng, Later Han chia-fa was inferior to the tightly spun threads of transmission that bound together the "schools system" of the Former Han.^[45]

New Text Exotericism

Sung's reaffirmation of Confucius as an "uncrowned king" gained additional support from the efforts of his contemporaries to reconstruct the ch'an-wei apocrypha texts of the Former Han dynasty. During the Han New Text theory had been combined with prognostication and prophecy. An affirmation of Confucius as an "uncrowned king" was an implicit reaffirmation of Confucius as heaven's choice, in a time of chaos and decline, for receiving the mandate of heaven. Sung Hsiang-feng noted: "Contemporary rulers and officials all did not know Confucius. Only Heaven knew Confucius, causing him to receive the Mandate of Heaven as an uncrowned king." Such rhetoric was neither reducible to the rational principles of Sung Learning nor to the empirical verifications of evidential research. Instead, it harkened back to belief in the prophetic meaning of Confucius's life. The mysterious circumstances

[44] Ibid., 396.3a.

[45] Ibid., 389.3b-4a.

under which Confucius composed the Annals now competed for scholarly attention with the rational historical accounts of Confucius in the Tso chuan.

The capture of a marvelous creature known as a lin, coming as it did at the very end of the Annals, took on special significance for New Text scholars. The Kung-yang Commentary (appended as one of two orthodox New Text commentaries [the other was the Ku-liang ] on the Annals during the Former Han dynasty) discussed the capture of the lin in apocalyptic terms:

Why was this entry made? In order to record an extraordinary event. What was extraordinary in this? It was not an animal of the central states. Who was the one who hunted it? Someone who gathered firewood. One who gathers firewood is a man of mean position. Why does the text use the term "hunt" in this context? In order to magnify the event. Why magnify it? It was magnified on account of the capture of the lin .Why so? The lin is a benevolent [jen ] animal. When there is a true king it appears. When there is no true king it does not appear. Someone informed [Confucius] saying: "There is a fallow-deer and it is horned!" Confucius said: "For whose sake has it come?" He turned his sleeve and wiped his face. His tears wet his robe. When Yen Yuan [Confucius's chief disciple] died, the master said: "Alas! Heaven has caused me this loss." When Tzu-lu [another disciple] died, the master said: "Alas! Heaven is cutting me off!" When a lin was captured in a hunt in the west, Confucius said: "My way has come to an end!"^[46]

In the Han apocrypha, Confucius as uncrowned king took on touches of divinity that startle those more accustomed to conventional portrayals of the sage. In the Apocryphal Treatise on the Spring and Autumn Annals: Expository Chart on Confucius (Ch'un-ch'iu-wei yen-K'ung-t'u ), he was apotheosized in the following manner:

On Confucius' breast there was writing which said: "The act of instituting fa new dynasty] has been decided and the rule of the world has been transferred." Confucius was ten feet high and nine spans in circumference. Sitting, he was like a crouching dragon, and standing, like the Cowherd [in the sky]. As one approached him he was like the Pleiades, and as one gazed upon him, like the Ladle. Sages are not born for nothing; they must surely institute something in order to reveal the mind of Heaven. Thus, Confucius, like a wooden-tongued bell, instituted the laws for the world . . ..

After the lin was caught, Heaven rained blood which formed into writing on the main gate [of the capital] of La, and which said: "Quickly prepare

[46] Ibid., 389.1b, 389.13b. See Ch'un-ch'iu ching-chuan yin-te , 487/Ai/14. See also Malmqvist, "Gongyang and Guuliang Commentaries," p. 218, and the account by Ssu-ma Ch'ien, Shih.chi, vol. 6, p. 1942 (chüan 47), which is a summary of this position. For a discussion see Shimada, "Shinkai kakumeiki no Koshi^[*] mondai," pp. 5-8.

laws, for the sage Confucius will die; the Chou [ruling house], Chi, will be destroyed; a comet will appear from the east. The government of the Ch'in [dynasty, 221-207 B.C. ] will arise and will suddenly destroy the literary arts. But though the written records will then be dispersed, [the teachings of] Confucius will not be interrupted."

Although the so-called superstitious elements of ch'an-wei apocrypha remained anathema for most Han Learning scholars, the provenance of such texts in the Former Han dynasty justified their use in reconstructing more reputable, but contemporaneous, classical writings of the Former Han. As Kondo Mitsuo explains, most k'ao-cheng scholars knew apocryphal texts were useful in research dealing with the Han dynasties. In fact, leading k'ao-cheng scholars such as Ch'ien Ta-hsin and Wang Nien-sun (1744-1832) frequently referred to apocrypha for textual corroboration. Consequently, the Han Learning legitimacy that carried over from the Later Han Old Text tradition to the New Text Classics of the Former Hah also carried over to Former Han ch'an-wei apocryphal texts.^[47]

Huang Shih, among others, made serious efforts in the nineteenth century to reconstruct the apocryphal texts in toto and to reestablish the links between the Confucian Classics and the prophecies contained in the wei texts. The ch'an-wei revival eventually transcended its limited philological purposes and influenced the less rationalistic and more messianic tendencies that characterized New Text Confucianism in the late Ch'ing, when K'ang Yu-wei and others were appealing to a more religious Confucian agenda. Philology had reopened the door to ideas and doctrines that Later Han and post-Han Confucians had long since avoided as inappropriate for serious consideration among educated Chinese.^[48]

Sung Hsiang-feng's use of Kung-yang interpretations of the Annals to establish a New Text reading of the Analects coincided with efforts

[47] Fung, History of Chinese Philosophy , pp. 129-30. See also Su Yü, Ch'un-ch'iu fan-lu i-cheng , 7.13a-14b; Dull, "Apocryphal Texts of the Hah Dynasty," pp. 28-29, 524-26. The Cowherd, Pleiades, and Ladle belong to the twenty-eight constellations. The "wooden-tongued bell" is an allusion to the Analects. See Lun-yü yin-te , 5/3/24. "Destroying the literary arts" refers to the "burning of the books" carried out in 213 B.C. during the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B.C. ). Cf. Kondo, "Shincho^[*]   keigaku to isho," pp. 251-69.

[48] See Harada, "Shimmatsu shisoka^[*] no isho kan," pp. 273-99. See also Li Hsin-lin, "Ch'ing-tai ching chin-wen-hsueh shu," pp. 156-57. The usual view of Old Text as "rationalistic" and New Text as "superstitious" is simplistic. Liu Hsin, for example, extensively used the apocrypha for his Old Text position, as did Cheng Hsuan during the Later Hah. See Tjan Tjoe Som, Po Hu Tung, vol. 1, pp. 141-54, and Yang Hsiang-k'uei, Ching-shih-chai hsueh-shu wen-chi , pp. 139-42.

to fill in the apocryphal elements in Han dynasty classical studies. Sung, for example, elucidated the connection between the omissions (pu-shu ) in the Annals and Confucius's silence (wu-yen ) on many issues in the Analects. Sung argued that the omissions and silences were evidence of the esotericism of Confucius's "subtle words" (wei-yen ).^[49]

Old Text scholars had maintained that Confucius's silence in the Analects on such theoretical constructs as "nature" (hsing ) and "external necessity" (ming ) demonstrated his aversion to pure speculation and useless discussion. In Old Text interpretations of the Analects, then, Confucius appeared skeptical and disinclined to theorize. This portrait of Confucius, painted with powerful rationalistic strokes, has been the most influential one in Western scholarship—so much so that Herrlee Creel and others have argued that there is no evidence to support the claim that Confucius even compiled the Annals because the Analects makes no mention of such a work. Creel carried the Old Text position further than its original proponents had intended, with Confucius emerging as an "agnostic" scholar who steered clear of superstitions.^[50]

By reversing the Old Text priority, Sung Hsiang-feng made the Analects subject to the Annals. If used in conjunction with the Analects, the Annals, Sung thought, revealed that the "silence" in the former was equivalent to the "omissions" in the latter. The "subtle words" and "esoteric meanings" in the Annals, accordingly, could be used to understand the doctrines encoded in the Analects. Far from being skeptical, Confucius had presented his views in esoteric form for transmission by his most trusted disciples. Han Learning scholars, by following the Old Text tradition, had, according to Hsiang-feng, misrepresented not only the Analects and Annals but also, by implication, the Five Classics as well:

There are those who say that Confucius did not speak of nature [hsing ], external necessity [ming ], or the Heavenly Way. Scholars mistakenly say that Confucius's sayings represented the unity of nature [tzu-jan ] and the Heavenly Way. They err not merely in terms of the words and sentences, but in reality are also badly misrepresenting Confucius's intent and lessons.^[51]

To demonstrate the esoteric doctrines that Confucius included in the Annals and his disciples recorded in the Analects, Sung Hsiang-feng made reference to the intellectual climate in the middle of the first mil-

[49] Sung Hsiang-feng, Lun-yü shuo-i , 391.6a.

[50] Herrlee Creel, Confucius and the Chinese Way, 103-104. See also Creel's "Was Confucius Agnostic?"

[51] Sung Hsiang-feng, Lun-yü shuo-i , 391. 6a.

lennium B.C., when the two texts had been compiled. Remarkably, Sung also referred to the Taoist philosopher Lao-tzu, putatively a contemporary of Confucius, who like the sage had drawn on the naturalistic teachings of the Yellow Emperor (Huang-ti, tr. r. 2697-2597?? B.C. ). Such teachings, Sung contended, were included in the Kuei-tsang dj-vination texts, which furnished much of the underlying cosmology seen in the Change Classic. According to Hsiang-feng, Confucius's inclusion of the Change in his syllabus demonstrated that Confucius, like Lao-tzu, was interested in the theoretical vision bequeathed from antiquity. Therefore, Sung concluded, the " Annals was the locus for the esoteric words" Confucius derived from the Change Classic .^[52]

In arguing that "the Tao of Lao-tzu and Confucius derives from a common source," Sung Hsiang-feng controverted Han Learning scholars of the Ch'ing who used Confucius's "silence" in the Annals in order to reject speculation in favor of moral practice. By turning Han Learning inside out, Sung could reverse the k'ao-cheng rejection of Sung Learning moral theory. Confucius's "silence" demonstrated the theoretical poverty of Old Text Confucianism. Sung commented on a passage in the Analects in which Confucius's disciple Tzu-kung said: "One can get to hear about the Master's accomplishments, but one cannot get to hear his views on human nature and the Way of Heaven." Hsiang-feng noted that the Old Text interpretation missed the point of Confucius's efforts to compile the Five Classics. The Master's teachings were confirmed, not repudiated, by his silence.^[53]

Even his disciples had misunderstood Confucius's intent: "The Master said, 'I am thinking of giving up speech.' Tzu-kung said, 'If you do not speak, what would there be for us your disciples to transmit?' The Master said, 'What does Heaven ever say? Yet there are the four sea-

[52] Ibid., 392.1b-3a. Cf. Shchutskii, Researches on the I-ching, pp. 95-98. Sung Hsiang-feng's use of Lao-tzu to demonstrate that Confucius was not an "agnostic" rationalist—at first sight eccentric—was not at all so. Wei Yuan, the New Text statecraft scholar, later reevaluated the quietistic, Buddhistic elements that had dominated Taoism since the fall of the Later Han dynasty in an effort to restore the reachings of Lao-tzu to their pre-Hah naturalism and statecraft—traditions that were derived from the Yellow Emperor and encoded in the Change. Confucian and Taoist naturalism and statecraft, in the hands of nineteeneth-century New Text scholars, became complementary rather than antagonistic elements in New Text Confucianism. This reconstructed synthesis of ancient Confucianism and Taoism should not surprise us if we recall that the New Text Confucian orthodoxy forged by Tung Chung-shu in the Former Han represented an extraordinary confluence of Confucian, Taoist, and Legalist doctrines that formed a viable ideological legitimation for the Han Confucian state.

[53] Sung Hsiang-feng, Lun-yü shuo-i , 391.6a-8b, 393.1a-2a. See also Lau, trans., Confucius , p. 70; Lun-yÿ yin-te 8/5/13.

sons going round and there are the hundred things coming into being. What does Heaven ever say?'" Sung added that Confucius meant by "giving up speech" (wu-yen ) "esoteric words" (wei-yen ) that transcended normal discourse. Thus, discussion of "nature" and "external necessity" were esoteric doctrines that could not be grasped in normal terms. Confucius "spoke" as Heaven "spoke"—for those who could "listen."^[54]

The Taoist overtones of this remarkable passage were not missed by New Text scholars, who saw in the Analects confirmation of the vision of the Annals. As retrievers of the esoteric teachings, New Text Confucians such as Sung Hsiang-feng could claim an intimacy with the Han classical legacy. Referring to the capture of the lin at the close of the Annals and to the sense of cultural crisis in the Analects, Sung concluded that both texts had been encoded with "esoteric words," which, in a time of depravity and chaos, an "uncrowned king" was bequeathing to posterity. After centuries of dormancy, the voluntarist image of Confucius as sage-king was reemerging just in time for a new period of chaos.

[54] Sung Hsiang-feng, Lun-yü shuo-i, 397.5b-6a. Cf. See also Lun-yü yin-te, 36117/ 17, translated in Lau, Confucius , p. 146.