Traditional Chinese culture is "three pillars and two floors", "three pillars" refers to Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism respectively; "upstairs" in "two floors" refers to the elite culture with words as the carrier, and "downstairs" refers to the intangible cultural heritage with oral inheritance as the main carrier.
INTERVIEWER TASEI
Now everyone is talking about promoting traditional culture, but when we talk about traditional culture, we often make a lot of jokes. Today, carrying forward the excellent traditional culture is an important task. Therefore, before we carry forward the excellent traditional culture, we must first strive to have the qualifications to carry forward the excellent traditional culture, have a process of cultural self-consciousness, and be very familiar with our own culture. The study of excellent traditional culture by our generation is fragmented, and the schools we attend are new schools, and the knowledge learned is similar in today's textbooks. When I was in school, traditional culture had already suffered the impact of "May Fourth", and later experienced the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution, and our generation was relatively unfamiliar with traditional culture, and the study of traditional culture was self-taught and not systematic.
What is gratifying is that we now finally regard the excellent traditional culture as a foundation for our cultural self-confidence, and the Party Central Committee is also vigorously advocating cultural construction; the worry is that we all want to carry forward traditional culture, but we cannot "make people obvious with their dimness", if they do not understand traditional culture, how to carry it forward? And who will promote it? Now there is a tendency, many people equate traditional culture with Guoxue, Equate Guoxue with Confucianism, and simplify Confucianism into the "Three Character Classic", "Disciple Rules", and "Hundred Family Names". Everyone seems to think that letting children memorize the "Disciple Rules" in kindergartens seems to be promoting traditional Chinese studies and promoting traditional culture.
Is traditional culture called "Sinology"? In fact, the word "Guoxue" appeared very late, and it is even more wrong to equate Guoxue with Confucianism, and to talk about Guoxue, we must at least talk about Confucianism, Interpretation, and Taoism. We have fifty-six nationalities, if it is only Sinology, what about Tibetan Studies? Are the cultures of the other fifty-five nationalities counted as Sinology?
The theme of my lecture today is Buddhist music, and Buddhist culture is also an important part of China's excellent traditional culture. So does the theory of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism constitute traditional Chinese culture? I once said in an article that traditional Chinese culture is "three pillars and two floors", and "three pillars" refers to Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, respectively; the "upstairs" in "two floors" refers to the elite culture with words as the carrier, including the classics of Confucianism and Taoism, the subset of the history of Confucianism, the Tang poems and Song Ci, and all the classics written in Chinese characters or other ethnic languages, which have been handed down to this day. The common carrier of these classics and documents is writing, and the reason why Chinese culture can be inherited is due to the merits of Chinese characters, if there is no Chinese character, there will be no Chinese cultural achievements. The existence of Chinese characters has made China consistent and developed to this day. "Downstairs" refers to the intangible cultural heritage with oral transmission as the main carrier, which is the basis of traditional culture and has extensiveness, richness and essence.
Although Confucius advocated "teaching without class", the tradition in the past was that literati went to private schools. Therefore, in China's traditional society, there are 80 or 90% of illiterate people. These ordinary peasants are illiterate, and they do not even have a scientific name, only small names such as two dogs and big cattle. Although they have no cultural knowledge, they have practical knowledge of production and life, know how to be loyal and filial and benevolent, righteous, courteous, wise, and faithful, can be filial to their parents, and even stand up at a time of national crisis, give up their small family to protect everyone, and will also learn from Yue Fei to be loyal to the country. However, no teacher had ever told them the story of their mother-in-law's tattoo, so how did they know the words "jing loyal to the country"? It turned out that this was because they had heard books, drums, and plays since childhood. In China, all these cultural activities, including pasting Spring Festivals and hanging New Year paintings, are intangible cultural heritage.
Unlike elite culture, the carrier of elite culture is writing, while the carrier of intangible cultural heritage is oral, that is, word of mouth. For example, traditional handicrafts such as porcelain and clay pots have hardly been written about how porcelain is fired, and all of them have been passed down by word of mouth. At present, there are 194 national intangible cultural heritage dramas in China, many of which have a history of hundreds or even hundreds of years. For example, Peking Opera, known as "National Opera", has a rich accumulation of repertoire, which has been passed down by word of mouth. There is also The outstanding Chinese folk musician Ah Bing, who not only does not know the staves, nor does he know the simple score, but he can widely absorb the music tunes passed down by folk word of mouth and create more than two hundred exquisite folk music.
The reason why I have talked about so much in the front is that I want everyone to know that these all belong to traditional Chinese culture, and the scope of traditional Chinese culture is relatively broad. At the same time, I also want to give Buddhism a proper name. Therefore, everyone must be clear that traditional culture also includes our Buddhist culture. General Secretary Xi Jinping once told the world from the UNESCO podium that Buddhism originated in India, but after it entered China, it and Chinese Confucianism and Taoism together constituted traditional Chinese culture. Then, General Secretary Xi jinping also mentioned China's popular novel Journey to the West, which talked about how Chinese Buddhism in China affected Southeast Asia and spread to Korea and Japan. The significance of this speech is very significant, it is the first time in more than a hundred years that China's top national leaders have affirmed Buddhism as an integral part of traditional Chinese culture. You know, in the hundred years before General Secretary Xi Jinping made this speech, China basically suppressed Buddhism as a decadent, decadent, and even reactionary thing.
Therefore, when we become enlightened, we must learn traditional culture, revive traditional culture, and continue traditional culture. Although Chinese traditional culture has experienced many catastrophes in China's modern development history, please do not underestimate the vitality of Chinese traditional culture, let alone underestimate the determination and ability of people from all walks of life in China to use their own strength to protect traditional Chinese culture.
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Researcher of China Academy of Arts, doctoral supervisor. Director of the Music Research Institute of the China Academy of Arts, Deputy Director of the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, Director of the Religious Art Center of the China Academy of Arts, Honorary Editor-in-Chief of Art Review, Member of the Expert Committee for the Protection of The National Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Member of the Art Discipline Review Panel of the Academic Degree Committee of the State Council. He has long been engaged in the research, creation and criticism of Chinese ethnic music, mainly committed to the excavation, collation and research of Buddhist music, and his music criticism has a great influence on China's music industry and the public. He also writes essays, essays, and film and television scripts. His major works include "Chinese Religious Music", "Pure Land Tianyin", "Gender in History" and so on.
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Editor: Niu Yajie
Review: Gao Qiaoyan
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