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44 J. Liu and X. Tong

4.2.2 Bibliography and Edition Studies

Bibliography and edition studies are certainly a necessary component of classics
scholarship, for further studies requires the genealogy of the canonical texts, but I
shall not elaborate on the subject here.

4.2.3 Historiography

Classics scholarship takes the constant Dao as the central theme and its
application in history must be addressed. How do we use the “constant” to
cope with the “variable”? Some branch of learning has to be there to give it
support.
In classics scholarship, The Spring and Autumn Annals deals with history, as
does The Book of History (《尚书》). The Ya (Odes) and Songs (Hymns) in The
Book of Songs are also history. Qian Mu (钱穆 1895–1990) said that The Book of
Songs and The Book of History are both history books. Hence there is the saying
4
that "The Six Confucian Classics are all about history.” Zhang Xuecheng (章学诚
1738–1801) of the Qing Dynasty was the representative scholar to systematically
expound this proposition. This view challenged the sacred status of the classics
of Confucianism and marked a self-conscious and independent trend in Chinese
historiography.
Historiography is both constant and variable. If it contains only the variable
without anything constant, it is no longer historiography. The Records of the Grand
Historian (《太史公书》), the original name of Records of the Historian (《史记》)
was cataloged as a sub-branch of The Spring and Autumn Annals in the “Biblio-
graphic Treatise” of The History of the Han Dynasty.
In Sima Qian’s “Autobiographical Postscript” to Records of the Historian, the
Grand Historian said:

“My father said to me: ‘It was five hundred years after the death of the Duke of Zhou that
Confucius was born. It is another five hundred years since Confucius died. Who is there to
inform us of the past ideal dynasties, who can make emendations to The Commentary on The
Book of Changes, who can continue the work of The Spring and Autumn Annals, and bring
together The Book of Songs, The Book of History, The Book of Rites, and The Book of Music?” He
had pinned his hope on me. He was asking me to take on the task! How could I dare disappoint
him?” (Sima, 1959, p. 3296)

4 The Six Confucian Classics are The Book of Changes, The Book of History, The Book of Songs, The
Book of Rites, The Book of Music, and The Spring and Autumn Annals. An important proposition put
forward by scholars of Late Imperial China was that those are all historical texts. According to
these scholars, the Six Classics are all concerned with the social and political realities of the Xia,
Shang, and Zhou dynasties rather than the teachings left by ancient sages.