Looking back at history, among the thousands of historical and cultural celebrities in Nanjing in the past dynasties, Wang Anshi, a famous politician, writer, reformer of the Northern Song Dynasty and one of the eight great masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties, is a very important one. The beginning and end of his life are inextricably linked to Nanjing.
Is Wang Anshi's "draining the lake into the field" really a thing, or is it an anecdotal deduction? Does Wang Anshi have a real sense of transcendence over the "Confucian tradition of human nature"? Such percussions have risen and fallen on the occasion of the 1,000th anniversary of Wang Anshi's birth, "Wang Anshi and Nanjing, the Capital of World Literature – An academic seminar to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of Wang Anshi's birth." Scholars who knew the sage's thoughts well used 25 high-quality research papers to push the symposium into a boom.
On November 20th, nearly 50 well-known scholars and people from all walks of life in China gathered together, guided by the Nanjing Federation of Social Sciences, the Nanjing Municipal Local History Office, the Sun Yat-sen Cemetery Administration, and sponsored by the Nanjing Zhongshan Cultural Research Association, the School of History of Nanjing University, the Nanjing City of Literature Promotion Center, and the Ming Xiaoling Museum, which lasted for half a year. Scholars from Jiangsu, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangxi, Henan, Zhejiang, Fujian, Hubei, Hebei and other places either actively write papers or attend conferences.
Leaving a thousand years of context,
It is inseparable from Jinling
Present at the seminar were Cao Jinsong, chairman of the Nanjing Federation of Social Sciences; Wang Dongming, director of the Sun Yat-sen Cemetery Administration; Tang Linping and Yao Weiguo, deputy directors of the Nanjing Local History Office; Liao Jinhan, deputy director of the Sun Yat-sen Cemetery Administration; Wang Tao, vice dean of the School of History of Nanjing University; Xia Weizhong, professor of the School of History of Nanjing University; and Wang Pengshan, honorary president of the Nanjing Zhongshan Cultural Research Association. The meeting was presided over by Dai Zhongli, president of the Nanjing Zhongshan Cultural Research Association.
Wang Anshi spent his youth in Nanjing, and after entering the army, he served three prefects, kept filial piety twice, resigned twice, and then lived in Nanjing for nearly 20 years, and was buried at the foot of Zhongshan Mountain after his death. More importantly, Nanjing's profound history and culture have cultivated Wang Anshi's broad sense of home and country and political ambition to take the world as his own responsibility; while Nanjing's beautiful natural scenery has cultivated Wang Anshi's poetic and humanistic feelings.
Wang Dongming said in his speech: "Nanjing not only witnessed the rise and fall of the Six Dynasties, but also attracted countless literati and scholars, university Hongru, to recite poems and write books here. Wang Anshi is the most representative of the historical and cultural masters related to Zhongshan, and he and Zhongshan have established a continuous life connection and emotional fit, which is the place of a hundred years behind him and the spiritual home in his life. The seminar was held as scheduled, and through exchanges, we will certainly be able to push the publicity and research of Wang Anshi to a new height. ”
Tang Linping said, "Today, 1,000 years later, we commemorate Wang Anshi here, which is a necessary measure to enhance cultural self-confidence, enhance the influence of historical and cultural cities, highlight the world literary capital, and enrich the connotation of Nanjing Studies, which is particularly meaningful and valuable." Wang Anshi's spirit of home country, innovation, professionalism, self-discipline and excellence in learning are all worth learning, researching, inheriting and carrying forward today. ”
Cao Jinsong believes that "the 1,000th anniversary of Wang Anshi's birth has left a thousand-year context for future generations. Wang Anshi is also a representative figure of China's excellent traditional culture, and the study of his cultural heritage is of great benefit to today's cultural development. At present, whether it is a spatial narrative or a historical narrative, a good retrospective can be done, and this kind of retrospection is a kind of wealth in Nanjing. ”
The Wang Anshi family has a deep relationship with Jiangning. After the death of his parents, he accompanied his brothers to guard the system in Jiangning, and after entering the army, he served in Jiangning. During his life and work in Jiangning, he also wrote poems recording Jiangning's landscapes or personnel affairs, witnessing their close relationship with Jiangning and feeling their love for Jiangning. After their deaths, they were buried in Jiangning and buried in this land. Their poems add color to Nanjing culture and make their own contributions to Nanjing culture, which is worth sorting out and studying.
Zhao Hongye, a doctoral student at the Institute of Ancient Book Collation of Fudan University, said in his interpretation of the paper "Zhong Shan Imagery and Jinling Writing in Wang Anshi's Poetry" that Wang Anshi and Jinling have an inseparable fate, and a large number of poems with Jinling as the object of chant constitute an important part of his poetry creation. "Zhongshan" is a frequent occurrence in Wang Anshi Jinling's poetry, and with the connotation of "Zhongshan" imagery from historical symbols to details of life, and then to the continuous enrichment and deepening of hometown consciousness, Jinling has gradually shown different faces as cultural imagery, life scenes and spiritual destinations. Wang Anshi's use of the imagery of "Zhongshan" and his writing of Jinling reflect to a certain extent the development trajectory of his poetic creation.
Zhang Xuncai, former political commissar of the Air Defense Command College, started from "Wang Anshi and Jinling Mountain Stone Culture" and told the indissoluble relationship between Wang Anshi and Jinling Mountain Stone Culture. There is a stone character in his name, and the first name is related to the stone. "Because of a mountain, fall in love with a city" Wang Anshi chose to settle in Zhongshan because he had a special love for Zhongshan, and eventually grew old in Zhongshan. During his settlement in Nanjing, Wang Anshi came into contact with many humanistic artists, and had contacts with Su Dongpo, Mi Fu, Lu You, and Ouyang Xiu. Wang Anshi's stone-viewing verse of "looking at the mountain all day long and not tired of the mountain", the ugly stone view of "thin, transparent, leaky, and wrinkled" put forward by Su Dongpo that "the garden has no stone and no show, the zhai has no stone, the water is not clear, and the people are not stone", Lu You's "if the flower is still troublesome, the stone cannot be said to be the most deplorable", and the "rice worship stone" known as the stone fool has been passed down as a good story.
Sex cannot be said of good or evil,
"Draining the lake into the field" is indeed true
During the seminar exchange, Wei Fuming, associate professor of the School of Humanities of Southeast University, elaborated on the viewpoint of "Sex Cannot Be Good and Evil"--On Wang Anshi's Transcendence of the Confucian Tradition of Human Nature", and believed that Wang Anshi's theory of human nature is different from the historical theory of sexual goodness, sexual evil, sexual good and evil, sexual sanpin theory, and sexual good and evil theory, which is first manifested as the difference in thinking mode. Wang Anshi's ontological mode of thinking transcends the traditional Confucian humanistic cosmological mode of thinking; secondly, in terms of ideological content, there is also a fundamental difference between Wang Anshi's theory of human nature and the traditional Confucian theory of human nature, and Wang Anshi's theory of sexuality without good and evil transcends the Confucian tradition of human nature that has always regarded good or evil as innate human nature. Wang Anshi's theory of human nature is not only a critical summary of the previous Confucian theory of human nature, but also has an important impact on the development of later human nature theory.
During the Song Dynasty and the early Yuan Dynasty, the vast Xuanwu Lake was once turned into a farmland, which is an enlightening historical legacy left to us by the Northern Song Dynasty politician and writer Wang Anshi. Lu Haiming, president of Nanjing Publishing House, put forward an independent opinion on whether "draining the lake is a field" in his paper "The Revelation of Wang Anshi Draining Lake as a Field" is indeed a matter or an anecdotal deduction. Although Wang Anshi's measure to drain the lake and make the land was based on the actual situation of the society at that time, it solved the urgent needs of the people who were in the "land where the poor had no place to go", which not only maintained the stability of social order, but also reduced government expenditures, fully reflecting his love for the people and his feelings of reform.
However, it objectively destroyed the ecological environment of Nanjing and affected the ecological balance of Nanjing. Due to the transformation of the function of Xuanwu Lake, for more than 200 years, Nanjing lost the space to regulate rainwater, and the floods in Nanjing continued to flood, which deeply affected the lives of the people of Nanjing. After that, during the Yuan Dynasty, the local officials of Nanjing dredged Xuanwu Lake twice, which changed the situation of flooding in Nanjing. Although the pearl of Xuanwu Lake has regained its luster, the lake surface has been greatly reduced compared with before the Northern Song Dynasty. "No one is perfect. We cannot harshly demand Wang Anshi, the 'reformer of China's eleventh century', but we can draw lessons from history, respect nature, respect nature, and build a community of common destiny in which man and nature coexist in harmony. ”
In addition, Lu Xunjian, a doctoral candidate in the School of Humanities of Southeast University, pointed out in his thesis "Wang Anshi's Public Thought- An Investigation of the Center" that "'Fadu' is the core of Wang Anshi's public thought." Professor Zou Zizhen of the School of Humanities of Minjiang University, Professor Sun Junheng of the Research Center for Chinese Studies of Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Hu Kai of Nanjing Xuanwu Lake Park Management Office, and Wang Xiaole, lecturer of the School of Marxism of Nanjing University of Science and Technology, also made keynote speeches.
In the afternoon of the same day, the "Exhibition of Calligraphy and Paintings commemorating the 1,000th Anniversary of Wang Anshi's Birth" echoing the seminar was unveiled at the Ming Xiaoling Museum, and nearly 60 works of old leader Fang Zuqi and calligraphers Yu Jigao, Xiao Ping, Yan Gongda, Song Yulin, Zhang Jianhua, guan Jun, as well as Yang Yuwen, Wu Guoping, Huang Zhengming, Liu Canming, Yan Yu, Lü Shaoqing, Shang Rong, Cheng Wanli, Xiong Daiping, Wei Jin, Guo Qianqian, Xu Lijun and others appeared in the exhibition, attracting a group of tourists to stop and watch.
The exhibition is sponsored by Nanjing Zhongshan Cultural Research Association, Nanjing Jiangyou Calligraphy and Painting Institute, Ming Xiaoling Museum, and co-organized by the School of History of Nanjing University, Nanjing Literary Capital Promotion Center, Institute of Botany of Jiangsu Academy of Sciences, Jiangsu Zhongshan Institute of Calligraphy and Painting, Xuanwu Lake Park Management Office, Jiuhua Art Museum, and Nanjing Mengcheng Chamber of Commerce. The album is designed and published by Nanjing Rice Culture.
It is reported that the Zhongshan Cemetery Administration Bureau is planning to carry out the "Research on the Protection and Display Project of The Upper and Lower Dinglin Temple" around the historical and cultural landscape of the "Wang Anshi Reading Office" of The Dinglin Villa in Zhongshan.
Yangtze Evening News/Purple Cow News reporter Zhang Nan
Photography / Fan Suli
Source: Purple Cow News