With the official publication of the "Collection of Music Classics", this "Music Classic", which is regarded by Confucianism as one of the classic "Four Books and Six Classics", reappeared in front of the world, and the "Four Books and Five Classics" became history. The successful publication of the Lejing Collection, one of the Confucian classics "Six Classics" that has been lost for more than 2,000 years, has become the most important event in the history of Chinese classical culture in the first half of the 21st century, and it is also a major event in the history of ancient Chinese music.
Photo caption: Linear satin "Le Jing Collection" Photo: Du Qinghua
Music is an inevitable product of the development of human civilization to a certain stage. The earliest Chinese blowing instrument bone flute was used 8,000 years ago and was unearthed in Jiahu Village, Wuyang County, Henan, also known as Jiahu Bone Flute. According to historical records, ancient music and dance have been produced in ancient times, and the famous ancient music and dance include "Cloud Gate" sacrificed to the gods of heaven during the Yellow Emperor period, "Xianchi" sacrificed to the gods of the earth in the Yao period, "Shao" (also known as "Xiao Shao" in the Shun period), "Great Xia" that sacrificed mountains and rivers during the Xia Dynasty Dayu period, "Dahao" that sacrificed ancestors in the Shang Dynasty, and "Dawu" that sacrificed ancestors in the Zhou Dynasty, collectively known as "Six Generations of Music and Dance". In the ancient period, there was also the first music school in China, "Zhenzong", which shows that people attached great importance to music in ancient times.
The "rituals" and "music" advocated by Confucius are mainly the "rituals" and "music" of the Western Zhou Dynasty. During the Western Zhou Dynasty, the world was governed mainly by a perfect system of ritual music, and "music" was subordinate to the system of "ritual" and served "ritual". In ancient times, after about a thousand years of development in the two generations of Xia and Shang, by the Zhou Dynasty music had developed very maturely, established a ceremonial music system, a gagaku system, and set up an official position responsible for music - The Great Sile. The development of musical instruments in the Western Zhou Dynasty has matured, and according to the material of the musical instruments, there has been an eight-tone classification method, namely "gold, stone, earth, leather, silk, wood, dagger, bamboo"
The period from the Eastern Zhou Dynasty to the unification of the Six Kingdoms by Qin Shi Huang is called the Spring and Autumn Warring States Period, and this period was a period of great liberation in the development of Chinese music. The gagaku system was destroyed, folk music was valued by various princely states, and music and love songs expressing folk love were widely circulated. The most famous is the "Voice of Zheng Wei". When Li Si was a guest secretary in the State of Qin, after being expelled, he wrote to the King of Qin on the road that "... The husband beats the urn and plays the kite, and the song whistles and whispers, and the voice of true Qin is also. Zheng, Wei, Sangjian, Shao, Yu, Wu, Elephant, Exotic Music" (excerpt from the Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House", "Selected Literary Works of Chinese Dynasties", The Second, Li Si's "Book of Expulsion"), it can be seen that "the sound of Zheng Wei" has been widely popular in Qindi, the so-called "happy at the moment, just look at it". For Confucius, the ritual music system of the Zhou Dynasty in the Spring and Autumn Period collapsed, and the gagaku system was destroyed. However, it was a great liberation for the development of Chinese music. Confucius paid great attention to the education of music, and personally compiled the Book of Music, which became a must-read book for his disciples, and it is said that the Book of Music was later destroyed by qin fire and lost.
Photo caption: The picture is a researcher at the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences,
Mr. Luan Guiming, Editor-in-Chief of Classical Chinese Digital Engineering, Lejing Collection (Photography Du Qinghua)
Reporter: The "Book of Music," one of the Confucian "Six Classics" that has been lost for nearly two thousand years, has finally been recovered, which is a major event in the history of traditional Chinese culture. What kind of book is the Book of Music? How was it determined to retrieve one of the "Six Classics" that had been lost for nearly two thousand years? What difficulties did you encounter in the search for the Book of Music?
Luan Guiming: Confucius deleted "Poems", "Books", "Rituals", "Music", praised "Zhou Yi", and repaired "Spring and Autumn", these "Six Classics" are the source of Chinese culture, which have always been respected as classics, and should be said to be the core backbone of Chinese culture and the cornerstone of human civilization. The "Book of Music" is one of them.
The age of Confucius's life is about 2500 years ago, which is certain. And his contribution to the literature is even more orderly and the evidence is conclusive. Of the "Six Classics", only the "Book of Music" belongs to the scope of "Loss". Because it is not recorded in the various existing public and private bibliographies, not even in the lost bibliographies.
In the mid-1980s, Mr. Qian Zhongshu took the lead in proposing the use of computers for classical Chinese infrastructure based on the necessity of parallel research on Eastern and Western cultures. Mr. Qian planned to start with the Analects and gradually extend it to all classical literature databases. As an ancient classic, the six classics of "poetry, books, yi, liturgy, music, and spring and autumn" are at the forefront. Mr. Qian has always insisted that as a component of Chinese culture, it is centered on the documents recorded in Chinese characters. It is a faithful carrier of our country's long-standing culture. Some of the content will definitely be lost in the process of cultural circulation, which mainly comes from the change and development of culture and the concept of the palm writer. Mr. Qian also firmly believes that any ancient book, as long as it has truly existed, will leave traces in the canopy of our culture. According to Mr. Qian, cultural traces "cannot be let go."
As early as the Han Dynasty, the search for the restoration of the Book of Music was carried out, and its representative result was the Book of Music. To this day, not only has the original "Book of Music" not been seen, but the recovery results of the Han Dynasty, the "Book of Music", have been lost. Mr. Qian Zhongshu has always believed that the efforts of his predecessors are worthy of admiration and should be inherited, not to mention the existence of the "Book of Music" in history, which is indisputable. Through the large-scale search of fine examination, according to Mr. Qian's view, it is necessary to maintain the "habitual old household" and apply "new tools" to achieve more with less. Therefore, when we carry out our work, we are convinced that we will be able to find unexpected discoveries and will not return empty-handed. Therefore, according to the goal of the "Collection of Ten Thousand People", of the nearly five hundred anthologies completed in the pre-Qin era, only the "Mencius Collection" could not be compiled and supplemented. The Book of Music is a must-have.
The biggest difficulty in finding the Book of Music is setting up clues. The Book of Music is lost and its specific contents cannot be known, so clues are important. The direct clue is the word "Le Jing", and the indirect clue is the Han Dynasty's search for the results of the restoration of the "Book of Music", "Music Record", "Music Book" and so on. Through these detailed, general and indirect and numerous clues, repeatedly with the help of "Classical Chinese Digital Engineering" big data, the accumulation of massive results, and then rely on manual, in the gradual refinement of the results of the equal emphasis, elimination, screening and other processes, set out new clues, so repeat three or five times, in order to preliminarily determine the content that belongs to the "Le Jing" category, and then put into the whole big data of the project for deep "checking" procedures, and strictly abide by the quotation source of the record, in order to be compiled into the "Le Jing Collection" For experts, scholars and readers to identify.
Reporter: What kind of position does the Le Jing occupy in Confucian culture? What are the main contents of the Book of Music? What influence has it had on the history of Chinese music?
Luan Guiming: As one of the "Six Classics", the Le Jing has the same status as the other Five Classics. Confucius said: "Etiquette is to save people, to be happy to make peace, to guide things with books, to achieve meaning with poetry, to be moralized, and to be moral in spring and autumn." Zhuang Ziyi said: "Poetry is based on Taoism, writing is based on Taoist deeds, etiquette is based on Taoism, Happiness is based on Tao harmony, Easy is based on Dao Yin Yang, and Spring and Autumn are distinguished by Dao." Emperor Jianyuan of the Han Dynasty set up the "Doctor of the Five Classics" at the beginning of the fifth year, and if it were not for the fact that the "Book of Music" had been lost, it should be the "Doctor of the Six Classics". As the oldest, most complete, most reliable, and most important document of our nation, the "Thirteen Classics" may be the "Fourteen Classics" if they are not lost. In this "Six Classics", the origin of the "Book of Music" should be the earliest. When editing the "Collection of Ten Thousand People", "Yandi Collection", "Yellow Emperor Collection", "Taigu Emperor Collection", and "Xia Shang Three Dynasty Emperor Collection", it was found that Taihao Fuxi made thirty-five strings of the Serpent, as the music of "Helping To come"; The Yan Emperor made the five-stringed violin, which is used as a "support" music; The Yellow Emperor ordered Linglun Law Lü to be the music of "Xianchi", "Cloud Gate" and "Big Scroll"; Emperor Shaohao made the joy of "Dayuan"; Emperor Huan made the pleasure of "Chengyun"; Emperor Zhao composed the music of "nine moves", "six columns" and "six ying"; Di Yao made the music of "Da Xian" and "Da Zhang"; Emperor Shun's music of "Dashao" and "Xiao Shao"; Emperor Yu made the joy of "Great Xia"; Shang Tang as the pleasure of "Da Hao"; King Wen of Zhou made the joy of "breaking the Yong" and so on. The emperors of the ancient dynasties must make "music". The ancients attached equal importance to "etiquette" and "music" and complemented each other. Confucius said: "Govern the people in peace, do not be good at etiquette; Change customs and customs, do not be good at fun. Therefore, in the "Collection of Music Classics", there are "happy and clean, the ears and eyes are wise, the flesh and qi are peaceful, the customs are changed, and the world is peaceful." " words. Therefore, Sima Qian summed it up in the "Book of History and Music": "Where there is pleasure, we care about guarding against desire and cultivating our hearts and minds." "Judge the sound of the government, and observe the customs and customs."
Photo caption: Chinese Classical Digital Engineering, Ms. Tian Yi, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Lejing Collection
(Photo by Du Qinghua)
Reporter: When studying and reading the Confucian cultural classic "Four Books and Six Classics", what problems should Chinese people pay attention to, especially when studying the "Book of Music"? Any good advice?
Tian Yi: When studying the "Four Books and Six Classics", we must first distinguish between the original text and the annotated text. For these classics, the annotations given to them by the scholars of the past generations can be called enormous. Without reading, familiarizing, and understanding the original text, reading the annotation will only disturb yourself. As far as the "Music Classic" is concerned, the newly compiled "Music Classics" can be roughly divided into "theoretical knowledge", "official instruments", "character events" and so on related to music in terms of content. In the process of reading word by word, you encounter words that you don't understand and some knowledge points and inherent nouns, such as "鞮鞻", "柷敔", "䈁", "Gong, Shang, Horn, Zheng, Yu", "Guan, Law", "Huang Zhong", "Lin Zhong", "Da Lu" Jia Zhong", "DaSi Le", "Musician", "Da Xu", "Xiao Xu", "Ling Lun", "Ji Zha", "Shi Kuang", "Dou Gong", etc., can be solved by consulting the dictionary by themselves. For example, Mr. Li Xingjian's "Student Standard Dictionary", "Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary", Mr. Wang Li's "Ancient Chinese Dictionary", "Commercial Press" "Ancient Chinese Dictionary", "Ciyuan", etc., can be selected. Not only to consult, but also to take notes, people are always forgetful. Mr. Qian Zhongshu, who has a talent for photographic memory, still has a notebook of equal height, not to mention that we are ordinary people. When you are familiar with the "Music Classic", you can also refer to modern music theory books, read and compare, you can form your own understanding. If you have your own understanding, and then read the comprehension text of others, you can improve and correct yourself, and the most important thing to avoid in this period is the explanation of others, if that explanation is available, it must be simple and clear. Those long-form proposals are often not to promote the classics, but tout themselves.
Reporter: In the past two thousand years, due to wars, changes in the imperial court, man-made destruction and other factors, there are many lost historical classics, is there any plan to find the lost classics in the future?
Tian Yi: The plan to find the lost classics has been included in the production of the "Ten Thousand People Collection". The "Classical Chinese Digital Project" has been in place for 36 years since it was initiated by Mr. Qian Zhongshu in 1984. The "Chinese Classical Digital Project" takes "people" as the core and builds four libraries of "people", "calendar", "place names" and "works". On the basis of these four libraries, we break through the limitations of the traditional "classics, histories, sub-collections", and gather the works of each character scattered in the vast literature under the name of the person, so as to achieve the ideal realm of one person and one episode. These collections of works were further proofread, compiled, and sorted out in detail, and gradually formed a "collection of ten thousand people". Take, for example, the "Jingshu Zhi" and "Yiwen Zhi" in the Twenty-Four Histories, "JingShu Zhi" and "Yiwen Zhi" are the bibliographies of ancient classics, many of which have been lost, but have left the author's name and the title of the book too important. The "10,000 People's Collection" will find the restoration of the works of these characters one by one in the order of the times. There is also the "Yongle Canon" Compilation and Restoration Project", which can be focused on today. The Yongle Canon is the most representative comprehensive collection of ancient China, and it is also a treasure of Chinese culture. The book consists of 22,937 volumes and 11,095 volumes. During the Ming Jiajing period, a copy was re-copied, calling it a copy of "Jiajing". At present, all the original copies of "Yongle" have been lost, and only more than 400 copies of "Jiajing" have survived in the world, that is, more than 800 volumes, accounting for 4% of the whole book, and they are seriously lost. The possibility of continuing to discover the "Canon" is very small, and the difficulty of retrieving the Canon can be imagined. After years of efforts, the "Chinese Classical Digital Project" takes advantage of its gradual completion, and the first batch of documents that can be confirmed as the Yongle Canon is about 150 volumes, and each volume can establish the location of the original "Classic", the precise text content and the layout format, and it is estimated that 70 volumes can be discharged. Printed in strict accordance with the original appearance of the "Canon": 8 folio, thread-bound (bag back), set red, with high-quality jade rice paper, called "Ji You Fu Yuan". This work will gradually be accepted by people, and it will be deeply understood that the correct and effective use of "classical Chinese digital engineering" is not the usual "big data" on the cloud.
Reporter: How much similarity does the "Collection of Music Classics" that have been found back have with the "Music Classics" in one of the "Six Classics" popular in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States Period?
Tian Yi: The Book of Music in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States Period has been lost, and it is impossible to know its original appearance, so it is impossible to compare its similarity. The newly compiled "Collection of Music Classics", the main sources of its content are the pre-Qin "Shang Shu", "Zhou Li", "Spring and Autumn Zuo Zhuan", "Xunzi", "Lü Shi Chunqiu", "Han Feizi" and so on; The Han Dynasty's "Book of Rites", "Records of History", "Book of Han", "White Tiger Pass", "Customs And Customs", "Shangshu Da Biography", "Da Dai Li" and so on. It can only be said that the pre-Qin and Han classics are related to the "Book of Music". After thousands of years of cultural circulation, its loss, regain, and loss, each process will leave its own traces, even if some may leave the corresponding era of the writing form, but they can let us see precious shadows. This shadow may also become clear step by step. For example, although we have no evidence at present, it is a great pity that the score part of the "Music Classic" has not yet been seen in our new edition. This is likely to be related to the instability of the recording form of the score, the development of the instrument and the slightly higher frequency conversion. We can only say today that the distance between the "Book of Music" and the "Book of Music" that we have compiled has taken a big step closer, and it is also the biggest step since the "Book of Music" was lost.
Photo caption: Mr. Wang Qi, Editorial Board Member of Classical Chinese Digital Engineering LeJing Collection
Photo: Du Qinghua
"The publication of "Le Qi" is a landmark event of hard technology and the contemporary application of Chinese classical culture, without Mr. Qian Zhongshu's far-sighted vision and the unremitting efforts of Mr. Luan, Teacher Tian and other leaf sweeping teams for more than 30 years, it is impossible to build a database of Chinese classical literature, without this database, such an anecdotal classics as Lexi cannot be compiled! Using this database, Saeye Culture Company has published more than 400 books, many of which have never been published in past history, such as "Li Chunfeng Collection", "Yao Guangxiao Collection" and so on; This database is a collection of ancient Chinese nation wisdom crystallization of the huge treasure house, before the database was built, all kinds of works, literature is vast, it is difficult to find, the database provides flexible use of convenience, its greater value, is to use this database to carry out research work in various fields, such as medicine, education, science and technology, sports, opera, involving all aspects of social life! For example, ice and snow sports, China is not modern, a database check, the Han Dynasty ice and snow sports have been very developed, a variety of sports equipment has been many! I look forward to more partners working together to develop and make full use of this database to make due contributions to the rejuvenation of Chinese culture!" Classical Chinese Digital Engineering, said Wang Qi, editorial board member of the Lejing Collection.
The Total Number of Words in the Book of Music is 60,000 words, and the content is five volumes, the first volume includes: Leben, Le theory, Leshi, Leyan, Leli, Leqing, Lehua, Lexiang, Binmujia, Shi Yi, Wei Wenhou, Song Music, Musical Instrument, Music Composition, Yi Shi, Le Mu, Shuo Lu, Ji Zha, Le Dao, Le Yi, Zhao Ben, Zhao Song, Dou Gong. The second volume includes: DaSi Le, Musician, Da Xu, Xiao Xu, Master, Xiao Shi, Xiao Shi, Xiao Shi, Zhen Shu, Dian Tong, Gong Shi, Zhong Shi, Sheng Shi, Si Gan, Wei Shi, Xu Ren, Shu Shi, Zhen Zhang, Dian Gong, Si Gan. The third and fourth volumes are the Book of Music, and the fifth volume is the appendix, LeWei. The Collected Works of Music also appends different texts to each section for the reader's convenience.
Du Qinghua Text/Photography
October 24, 2021