China Heritage Glossary on Lun 論

China Heritage Glossary On Lun 論 Christopher G. Rea China Heritage Quarterly Nos. 30/31 (June/Sept. 2012), online at: http://chinaheritagequarterly.org/glossary.php?searchterm=030_lun.inc&issue=030 論者，輪也。言此書義旨周備，圓轉無窮，如車之輪也。 To discourse [lun] is to be [like] a wheel [lun]. This means that the purport of this book [The Analects] is complete, well rounded and can revolve endlessly, like the wheel of a chariot. —Huang Kan (皇侃, 488-545), Preface to Elucidation of the Meaning of the Analects 論語義疏•敘[1] 蓋棺論定 The time to pronounce the last word on a man's character is after his death. —Lin Yu 林幽, The China Critic, vol.10, no.1[2] I have been a nudist all my life without my knowing it. —Lin Yutang 林語堂, 'Confessions of a Nudist', The China Critic, vol.9, no.12[3] Fig.1 A cartoon from the second issue of Shanghai Puck 上海潑克 (October 1918) depicting devilish Peking authorities wielding the sword of 'force' 武力 in arresting fifteen journalists (labeled 'free speech advocates' 言論家) and suspending eight dailies for having reported on a secret loan to the cash-strapped government. Lun 論 straddles the boundaries of speech and writing, verb and noun, activity and genre. Lunyu 論語, a collection of texts often collectively called the Analects of Confucius, is literally the 'ordered sayings' of the Master.[4] It is also an oral record: a discourse (lun 論) that was spoken (yu 語), heard by multiple ears, and then written down and edited by many hands. Like the Analects, the character 論 lun has been subject to a variety of interpretations. Among other things, it is a motif of cyclicality that has propelled cultural revolutions from Confucius's time to our own. Zheng Xuan (鄭玄, 127-200) of the Han dynasty, one of the most influential early commentators on the Analects, wrote: 論者，綸也，輪也，理也，次也，撰也。 To discourse (lun) is to weave (lun), to revolve (lun), to organize (li), to put in sequence (ci), and to compile (zhuan).[5] Huang Kan, another important Analects commentator of the Southern and Northern Dynasties period (420-589), expanded on the multiple positive connotations of the verb lun 論. As John Makeham describes, Huang 'proposed an interpretation of this word to support his claim that the Analects defies attempts at reductionist classification'. Huang followed Zheng Xuan both in making associations based on the common pronunciation of lun and in 'disregarding the pronunciation in order to derive its meaning solely from its written form'. Huang's commentary suggests that the passages of the Analects follow an intentional 'order' or 'sequence' (ci 次); that it is philosophically comprehensive in containing all 'patterns' (li 理); that it binds the past and present with a 'silk cord' (lun 綸); and that it is 'complete and perfect like a round wheel [lun 輪], which can be rotated endlessly'. The logical extension of this parsing of lun is that the Analects itself is 'a metaphor for perfection'. Huang was thus at pains to account for the text's repetitions and inconsistencies.[6] Dictionary definitions, though not always as detailed as Zheng's or Huang's glosses, confirm that lun has for hundreds of years been understood to encompass a wide variety of expository and persuasive modes of discourse. The Han-dynasty dictionary Commentary on and Analysis of Characters (說文解字, ca. second century CE), for example, defines lun 論 simply as yi 議 (to discuss, confer, or opine), which in turn is glossed more broadly as yu 語 (to speak). We find more extensive discussions of lun in pre-modern works of literary theory and philosophy. As one might expect of one of the two title characters in the collected sayings of the Sage, lun 論,in these works, is a genre marker with a moral dimension. Their explanations of the term consequently tend to be prescriptive, describing not just what the term means, but what values the genre it denotes should embody and how the writer should realize them. In Chapter 18 of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons 文心雕龍, an important pre-modern work of literary and rhetorical theory, for example, Liu Xie (劉勰, ca.465-522 CE) writes: The principles propounded by the Sage are known as jing 經, or Classics, and the works which explain the Classics and set forth their underlying ideas are known as lun 論, or Treatise or Discourse. Lun 論, or to discourse, literally means lun 倫, or to set in order.[7] Liu's definition, like those of Zhang and Huang, followed a longstanding practice of explaining the meaning of characters by resort to paronomasia (a play on words), whether homophonic or homographic. The Warring States philosopher Xunzi 荀子 even uses homophonic argumentation in his theory of the relationship between the names of things and the practice of naming: 名無固宜，約之以命 —《荀子》22.8 Names [ming] have no intrinsic appropriateness, [appropriateness] is agreed upon by designation [ming].[8] Fig.2 Lun in the Han dynasty dictionary, Commentary on and Analysis of Characters 說文解字 (ca. second century CE) To Xunzi, then, words gain meaning by conventions of use. While such putative associations can at times be misleading or far-fetched, or result in circular argumentation, they often imbue the term with the semantic richness of an evocative motif. Thus, in the early dictionary Erya (爾雅, ca. third century BCE) we have '"Ghost" [gui] is "that which returns" [gui] 鬼者，歸也',[9] which may be interpreted in multiple senses. To name just two: a ghost is a dead person who has returned to the numinous realm; ghost, as a metaphor, also represents the endless recall of human memory for a past that is 'dead' and gone. Similarly, in The Doctrine of the Mean 中庸 Confucius says: 'A "human" [ren] is "one who is humane" [ren] 人者，仁也.'[10] By implication, it is only through being humane that an individual realizes his or her essential human qualities and thereby distinguishes himself or herself from birds, beasts, and other living beings. Like the Italian traduttori traditori ('the translator is a traitor'), paronomasic resemblances can sometimes become canonized as truisms that radically influence conventional perceptions of the word and its meaning. In Liu Xie's discussion of lun 論, he goes on to describe the genre context of the lun 論 (Treatise) in relation to its various types: When it treats of government, its style is in harmony with that of the yi 議, or Opinion, and shuo 說, or Discussion; when it comments on the Classics, it has the same form as the zhuan 傳,or Commentary, and zhu 注, or Note; as a historical judgment, it is used together with the zan 讚, or Encomium, and the ping 評, or Critique; as an attempt to elucidate a certain text, it is treated like the xu 序, or Prologue, and yin 引, or Introduction. Thus, yi means to talk properly; shuo to speak; zhuan 傳, to transmit [chuan 傳] the master's instruction; zhu, to give explanatory notes; zan, to express one's judgment; ping, to evaluate the validity of arguments; xu, to give a preliminary arrangement of things; and yin, a preface, or foreword. They are eight distinct forms, but all have the same ultimate import as the lun.[11] Following a review of various historical examples, Liu states: 'As a genre, the lun performs the function of establishing what is true and what is not'.[12] Consequently, a lun should be to the point. Superfluous discussion, self-cleverness and meandering structure are contrary to its purpose. Shuo 說 (Speech, Discourse), the other genre Liu Xie discusses in this chapter, he equates with the homographic yue 悅 (to please), offering one injunction: lucid eloquence must not devolve into hypocrisy, flattery, or obfuscation. In modern Chinese, lun and shuo are often combined into the binome lunshuo 論説 (discourse). Liu Xie followed in the footsteps of Emperor Wen of the Wei dynasty, better known as Cao Pi (曹丕, 187-226). As David Knechtges writes in the introduction to the first volume of his translation of the Wen xuan 文選, a major sixth-century genre anthology compiled by Liu Xie's contemporary, Xiao Tong (蕭統, 501-531): 'In his essay "On Literature" ("Lun wen" 論文), which was a chapter of his only partially extant Classical Treatises (Dianlun 典論), Cao established "four classes" (sike 四科) of writing: As for literature, its roots are the same, but the branches are different. The Presentation (zou 奏) and Opinion (yi 議) ought to be elegant. The Letter (shu 書) and Treatise (lun 論) ought to be logical. The Inscription (ming 銘) and Dirge (lei 誄) should favor verisimilitude. Lyric Poetry (shi 詩) and the Rhapsody (fu 賦) should be ornate.[13] A later influential critic, Lu Ji (陸機, 261-303), prescribes that the lun be 'refined and subtle, lucid and smooth'.[14] The word lun not only described Confucian exegesis, but also in philosophical debates between proponents of Buddhism and Daoism conducted both in writing and as staged performances at court. Shortly after Liu Xie's time, for example, a courtier named Zhen Luan 甄鸞 presented On Mocking the Dao 笑道論 to Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou dynasty (557-581), which rebutted and scoffed at beliefs expressed in Daoist scripture. The treatise did not go over well: the emperor had it burned on the spot.[15] The use of lun to mean 'on' or 'regarding' or a 'discussion of', however, was a widely used convention in the medieval period both as the title for stand-alone polemical essays, and as chapter titles in anthologies of debates, such as the Hong ming ji 弘明集 and the Guang hong ming ji 廣弘明集, dating from the Liang and the Tang respectively, such as 'On the Spirit Never Perishing' 神不滅論 or 'On Disputations of the Way' 辯道論.[16] Lun 論 was thus part of a wide and ever-shifting canon of written and spoken discourses used to settle matters of practical as well as theoretical import.

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