Abstract
One of the most prominent features of early Confucianism is its attention to “the Way of zhong” 中道 (zhongdao). By itself, the character zhong 中is often translated as “centrality,” but since it has a wider range of meanings that I will explore in this paper, I leave it in its transliterated form
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Notes
- 1.
Zhongyong is the title of one of the most important classical texts of Confucianism, often translated as “The Doctrine of the Mean.” Since this translation is not completely accurate, others have been put forth, such as Yutang’s (1938) “Central Harmony,” Wei-ming’s (1989) “Centrality and Commonality,” and Ames and Hall’s (2001) “Focusing the Familiar.” Ku (1906) even translated it more freely as “The Universal Order of the Conduct of Life.”.
- 2.
This phrase, yun zhi qi zhong (or yun zhi jue zhong, see next) can still be found on the horizontal tablet in the Hall of Central Harmony in the center of the Forbidden City.
- 3.
The transcription of the Baoxun text was first published in Cultural Relics (Wenwu文物) in 2009 (Qinghua 2009). Since then, much research has been conducted; for detailed interpretation and explanation on this text, see Li (2009a, 2009c, 2009d, 2009e), Ziju (2009), and Wen (2010). For my part, I rely on the original text and character comparisons published by Liao and Chen (2010), A collection and contrasting of the major different interpretations of the Baoxun text was prepared by Professor Sarah Allan and her students; see Wang et al. (2011).
- 4.
- 5.
This final member represents an unusual interpretation of zhong 中 in the Baoxun text, taking itas a homophone for zhong 众, which means “a crowd of people or group of soldiers” (see Ziju 2009).
- 6.
In his Commentary to the Zhongyong (Zhongyong Zhangju 中庸章句), Zhu Xi said: “Zhong is the name for what is without inclination or deflection, which neither exceeds nor comes short.” He also quoted Cheng Yi as saying: “Being without inclination to either side is called zhong” (Zhu 1936).
- 7.
There are different readings of this and the next citations of the Baoxun, but I adopt the reading of Li (2009b).
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Xu, K. (2017). Zhong and the Language of Clustered Meanings: A Synthetic Exploration of the Way of Zhong in Early Confucian Philosophy. In: Yao, X. (eds) Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4000-9_14
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