Chongzhen revived the Ming Dynasty

Is Chapter 838 of the Ancient Text Book of Documents a Forged Classic?
The compilation of the Book of Rites was decided in just a few words, which surprised all the officials.

They had expected further debate on whether or not the Four Books and Five Classics needed to be collated and annotated, but to their surprise, the emperor's words put the collation and annotation of the Five Classics into implementation.

Furthermore, the compilation of *Lijing Zhengyi* went beyond mere collation and annotation; it involved the deletion and revision of classics such as the *Book of Rites*.

The terms "required" and "elective" sound nice, but in reality, they simply mean selective cuts.

If it weren't for the fact that few people study the *Book of Rites*, and that the *Complete Collection of Rites* was annotated by Chen Hao of the Yuan Dynasty and compiled from various other commentaries, thus distancing itself from Zhu Xi's original teachings, they would certainly have vehemently opposed it and defended the original *Book of Rites*.

Now, they can only watch as the content of "The Correct Meaning of the Book of Rites" is finalized, waiting for its completion and for it to become the standard for the imperial examinations.

Those ministers who believed in Neo-Confucianism and had been holding back their anger finally erupted when the emperor discussed the collation and annotation of the Book of Documents.

Lu Weiqi, the Right Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review who believed in Neo-Confucianism, said:
"Your Majesty, the Book of Documents was compiled by Confucius."

"The Cai family of Jiufeng was entrusted by their teacher Zhu Xi to write the 'Collected Commentaries on the Book of Documents' and received corrections from Zhu Xi."

"The Book of Documents became greatly illuminated at this point, just as the sun and moon were revealed."

"I believe that adding punctuation and sentence breaks is sufficient; there is no need for new annotations."

This view was echoed by many of the ministers.

Although the Book of Documents was not annotated by Zhu Xi, it was annotated by his favorite disciple.

This commentary is indeed excellent, so much so that the number of people studying the difficult and obscure Book of Documents is even greater than that studying the Spring and Autumn Annals and the Book of Rites.

Zhu Youjian's understanding of the Book of Documents was far from profound, and he could not possibly overturn Cai's commentary.

However, he did know one thing: the ancient text of the Book of Documents was proven false by the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips unearthed in later generations.

This was a matter of life and death for Confucianism.

The famous sixteen-character Heart Sutra, "The human heart is perilous, the moral heart is subtle; be refined and unified, and hold fast to the mean," comes from the ancient text of the Book of Documents, specifically the "Great Plan of Yu."

Modern Confucian scholars regard these sixteen characters as the secret teachings passed down from Yao, Shun, and Yu. Zhu Youjian even wrote them on the two pillars of the Zhongji Hall. If they are proven false in the future, it may cause a great uproar.

This problem must be solved to ensure that the status of the Sixteen-Character Heart Sutra is not affected regardless of whether the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents is proven false.

Therefore, after careful consideration, Zhu Youjian addressed his ministers:
The Zhu Xi’s Collected Sayings states: “Confucius’s book only appeared in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Before that, no scholar had ever seen it, which is highly questionable.”

"He also said: How could something that has been in the wall for hundreds of years not have a single character corrupted or damaged?"

"I wholeheartedly agree and believe that the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents is unreliable."

"Therefore, the Ming Dynasty adopted the 'Modern Text Shangshu' as its standard text."

"Based on Cai Jiufeng's annotations of the Modern Text Shangshu, we have corrected the omissions and errors in them."

"The ancient text of the Book of Documents and its commentaries are abandoned and not used."

This attitude left the courtiers speechless with astonishment.

They never expected that the emperor would abolish the "Ancient Text of the Book of Documents".

Of the fifty-eight chapters of the Book of Documents that are still in circulation today, twenty-five have been discarded, leaving only the thirty-three chapters of the Modern Text Book of Documents, or more accurately, the twenty-eight chapters, as the classics of the Ming Dynasty.

Even Liu Zongzhou disagreed with such a drastic change and advised against it:
"Your Majesty, although Zhu Xi and other sages had many doubts about the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents, they did not call it a forgery."

"The Cai family biography has also been revised by Zhu Xi, who distinguished between the ancient and modern texts and deleted and modified the text, making it quite complete."

The Zhu Xi Says states: "If all the doubtful passages in the book are disbelieved, the Six Classics may be overturned."

Clearly, there were more than a few who doubted the "Ancient Text of the Book of Documents," but in order to uphold the authority of the Book of Documents, Liu Zongzhou believed that it should still be accepted.

The courtiers all echoed this sentiment, and even Qian Qianyi remarked:
"Your Majesty, the reign title used by Emperor Zhengde of the Wuzong era originated from the 'Great Yu's Plan'."

"The Ancient Text of the Book of Documents may contain inaccuracies, but it is impossible for it to be a complete forgery."

"Kong Anguo and Mei Ze could not have written this kind of scripture."

Zhu Youjian listened to the thoughts of his ministers, pretending to be deep in thought, and said to them:
"So you believe that the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents is authentic?"

"How does Mei Zhuo address Jin Cheng's doubts?"

"This place name appeared after Kong Anguo died."

How should this be explained?

Some officials had not heard of this claim, but others had read *Shangshu Kaoyi* (A Study of the Book of Documents). The author, Mei Zhuo, was a *juren* (a successful candidate in the provincial civil service examination) in the eighth year of the Zhengde reign and served as an assistant instructor at the Nanjing Imperial Academy. He meticulously examined the origins of the *Guwen Shangshu* (Ancient Text Book of Documents) from aspects such as sentence structure, style, historical facts, and transmission history, thus grounding the doubts of the Song dynasty scholars in academic rigor.

After Zhu Youjian ordered someone to bring out the "Shangshu Kaoyi" (a textual criticism of the Book of Documents) for his ministers to read together, they all frowned and realized the contradictions in the ancient version of the Book of Documents.

While questioning this point cannot completely overturn the ancient text of the Book of Documents, no one would believe that the ancient text of the Book of Documents is without any problems.

Qian Qianyi tried to explain:
"These errors and omissions may have been added by later generations when they were passed down."

"The source of the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents should be the ancient bamboo slips."

They still uphold the ancient version of the Book of Documents and do not consider it a forgery.

Zhu Youjian also did not want to completely deny the ancient text of the Book of Documents, because it had been fully integrated into Confucianism and had become a part of contemporary Confucianism.

The reason he separated the ancient text of the Book of Documents was simply to avoid the impact on the new Confucianism he wanted to establish if it were to be proven false in the future.

Therefore, he agreed with Qian Qianyi's statement, and said with a calm and thoughtful expression:
"In that case, the ancient text of the Book of Documents should have come from scattered ancient bamboo slips, or from the content of the Book of Documents quoted in pre-Qin classics."

"Kong Anguo, Mei Ze and others re-edited it and added some text, which is why there are errors and omissions."

"Where do you think these sixteen characters, 'The human heart is perilous, the Dao heart is subtle; be refined and single-minded, and hold fast to the mean,' come from?"

Qian Qianyi happened to have explored this question.

Because he was ordered to extract the essence of Legalism and integrate it into practical learning, he studied Xunzi's teachings.

At this point he replied:

"The saying 'Human nature is perilous, and the moral nature is subtle' must have originated from Xunzi."

The Xunzi states: "In the past, when Shun ruled the world, all things flourished without being commanded by decree. When one is in a precarious situation, glory surrounds one's side; when one nurtures the subtle aspects of the world, glory arrives without one's knowledge. Therefore, the Daoist classic says: 'The human heart is perilous, the Dao heart is subtle.'"

"This is what the ancient Daoist classic says, and it was quoted by Xunzi. Confucius should have included it when he compiled the Book of Documents, as the ancient text of the Book of Documents, the Great Plan of Yu, contains this statement."

Liu Zongzhou added:
“The four characters ‘允执厥中’ must come from the Analects.”

Yao said: "Alas! You, Shun! The mandate of Heaven rests upon you; hold fast to the middle way. If the four seas are in distress, Heaven's favor will come to an end."

"The sixteen-character Heart Sutra of the Great Yu's Plan corroborates this."

These words resolved the issue of how the Sixteen-Character Heart Sutra would be affected if the ancient text of the Book of Documents were proven false.

This also shows that the ancient text of the Book of Documents is not entirely a forgery; at least it quotes the words of the ancients.

Zhu Youjian said with great satisfaction:
"It seems that the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents cannot be entirely a forgery!"

"Zhu Xi's approach is indeed very reasonable."

After praising Zhu Xi's approach of questioning the ancient text of the Book of Documents while simultaneously preserving it, Zhu Youjian changed the subject, saying:

"However, the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents is still controversial. The chapters compiled by Kong Anguo and others may not be entirely consistent with the compilation by Confucius."

"Therefore, I believe that it is acceptable to quote parts of the text that have been verified by other ancient books, but they should not be studied as complete chapters."

"The Ancient Text of the Book of Documents and its commentaries, like the Great Commentary on the Book of Documents, are listed as optional readings and references."

"The twenty-eight chapters of the Modern Text Book of Documents are the essential reading."

"This will also reduce the burden of studying the Book of Documents, and hopefully there will be more students studying the Book of Documents in the future."

It partially retains the status of the ancient text version of the Book of Documents, but is placed below the modern text version.

In this way, even if the ancient text of the Book of Documents is proven to be false in the future, it will not cause too much of a stir.

Even because of today's debate, people may agree that even if the ancient text of the Book of Documents is a forgery, its text is partly derived from fragmented bamboo slips and pre-Qin works, and the study of the ancient text of the Book of Documents still has some significance.

From now on, the status of the Ancient Text of the Book of Documents will be similar to that of the Great Commentary on the Book of Documents, serving as a classic text second only to the Four Books and Five Classics.

This approach of partially negating the ancient text of the Book of Documents drew frowns from many officials.

However, Zhu Xi had doubts about the ancient text of the Book of Documents, and they could not explain Mei Zhuo's doubts.

Many people, like Zhu Xi, even suspected that the Ancient Text Shangshu might be a forgery. They could only grit their teeth and acquiesce to the emperor's decision to lower the status of the Ancient Text Shangshu.

The Book of Documents of the Ming Dynasty was eventually designated as the "Modern Text Book of Documents," based on Cai's "Collected Commentaries on the Book of Documents," and was re-edited and annotated.

(End of this chapter)