Scholarship

The scholarly activities Wang and Ssu-ma pursued during these years gave further support to their political visions. Here I shall only note the larger outline. Wang oversaw the preparation of commentaries on the three Classics, writing that on the Rites of Chou himself. More than any other work from antiquity, he claimed, this text revealed what it was like when "The Way was present in the affairs of government" and true order prevailed; it was "the best source for the policies that can be applied to later ages."^[129] Wang's commentary does make the Classic support the New Policies, but it does more. It provides students with a model for finding meaning through envisioning the coherence of the text as a whole. Wang's Explanations for Characters was a unique work. Surviving explanations, and examples from his Rites of Chou commentary, illustrate his method of integrating the parts into a coherent whole as a means of defining values. Here too he adduced later knowledge to achieve that coherence (in a manner that seems quite ad hoc), just as he brought later knowledge to bear on the Classics to illuminate their great system. His confidence that his book had set out normative values for all affairs is evident: "Is it not that Heaven intends to revive this culture of ours (ssu wen ) and has used me to aid in its beginning? Therefore instruction and learning must begin with this [book]. Those able to know this [book] will have nine-tenths of the meaning of morality."^[130] In retirement, as is well known, Wang turned to spiritual interests. Although their exact nature remains vague, Wang's interest in Buddhism suggests that he was still intent on seeing the unity of Way with his own mind.

Ssu-ma Kuang finished the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid of Government in 1084. It was massive evidence for his views on the timeless principles of government. Those views were succinctly stated in the first of his interjected comments, which serves as introduction to the entire work. It tells

[127] SMK 54.661-67; 55.671-75; 57.685-90, 51.641-42; 50.638-40. These all date from 1086.

[128] SMK 49,624-26.

[129] LCC 84.878. On the connection between the Rites of Chou commentary and the New Policies, see Liu K'un-t'ai, "Wang An-shih 'Chou kuan hsin i' ch'ien-chih," Ho-nan ta-hsueh hsueh-pao , 1985, no. 4:87-92. The best edition of this commentary is Ch'ien I-chi's edition in the Ching yuan .

[130] LCC 84.879; cf. 56.608.

how the Chou order finally fell apart when, in 403 B.C. , the Chou king Weilieh allowed the three ministers (ta-fu ) of Chin to divide their state into three. Chou's failure to maintain the correct forms of political authority set the stage for its own destruction; the fault lay with the king himself. The first part of his comment will suffice to show that Ssu-ma's understanding of the correct form of the state was not the same as Wang An-shih's:

Your Minister Kuang says, "Your Minister has heard that of the Son of Heaven's responsibilities (chih ) none is greater than ritual (li ), that in ritual nothing is greater than roles (fen ), and that for roles nothing is greater than names (ming ). What is ritual? It is rules (chi-kang ). What are roles? They are ruler and minister. What are names? They are duke, lord [of a subordinate state], grand minister, and minister.

Now, that the broad land within the four seas and the multitude of people took direction from a single man, so that even those of exceptional strength and extraordinary talent dared not but rush to serve, was because that man used ritual to make rules for them. For this reason the Son of Heaven brought together under his control the Three Dukes, the Three Dukes led the Feudal Lords, the Feudal Lords directed the Grand Ministers and Ministers, and the Grand Ministers and Ministers ordered the shih and common people. The noble ruled the humble and the humble served the noble. Superiors' directing inferiors was like the heart's employing the limbs and the root and trunk's ordering the branches and leaves. Inferiors' serving superiors was like the limbs' guarding the heart and the branches and leaves' screening the root and trunk. Only then was it possible for superiors and inferiors to guard each other and for the state to be ordered and secure. Therefore I say that among the Son of Heaven's responsibilities nothing is greater than ritual.^[131]

Ssu-ma's commitment to a hierarchy of delegated authority extending from the ruler down to the lower officials is also evident in what he says about the Way in his commentaries on the Book of Change and Yang Hsiung's T'ai hsuan .^[132] Although he treated heaven and man, number and principle as parallels, his conclusion had more to do with "man" than with "heaven" and self-consciously avoided mysticism.^[133]

Ssu-ma did have spiritual interests as well, or at least an interest in "mind." He concluded that when men devoted to learning and acquiring knowledge succeeded in keeping their thinking mind undisturbed by external things, the mind would see all sides of a matter and find the mean. Achieving this state of mind he called arriving at chung or chung-ho (glossed as neither exceeding nor falling short). Men who attained it could keep the body healthy without medicine (and thus control their "destiny") and know

[131] Tzu-chih t'ung-chien 1.2-3.

[132] I shuo (SKCS ), "Tsung lun." SMK 67.834-35. His interest in numerology dated back to the 1040s; see T'ai hsuan (SPPY ), preface.

[133] SMK 74.913-16.

which choices were necessary to bring order to all under heaven.^[134] Perhaps we can see in Ssu-ma's ideas about chung his conviction that harmony arose from balancing opposing parts and interests.