Gong Pengcheng: There is no fame, but Chen Yinke’s knowledge is regrettable

Author: Kung

recent years, Chen Yinque prestigious. But what I want to talk about now is not Chen Yinke as a political symbol, Chen Yinke as a slogan label of "spirit of freedom, independent thought", and Chen Yinke as a medium for obscene Liu Rushi, but his knowledge.

Mr. Chen Yinke’s knowledge is actually very remote, mainly in the history of Chinese and foreign cultural communications, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and the history of Sui and Tang Dynasties. In the middle age, there were "A Brief Discussion on the Origin of the Sui and Tang System", "A Discussion on the Political History of the Tang Dynasty", and "An Evidence Draft on Yuan Bai Poems", all of which belong to this field. In the last years of life experience, there are many feelings, so there are "On Rebirth Fate", "Liu Rushi's Biography" and so on. Of these, the former belongs to professional historiography, while the latter is even unpopular in historiography.

However, Mr. Chen is different from ordinary scholars, and he admires his reputation both inside and outside the industry. This is also an odd number.

In recent years, there are quite a few special books on Chen's family, which make the reputation lasting and even better than before. He is known as a son, and is good at multiple languages. He has to work alongside Liang Rengong and Wang Guowei as a tutor of Chinese Studies at Tsinghua University. He is a favorite at home and abroad. At the same time, he writes about the rich and prosperous, which is recommended by the world. Hou Ying has eye problems and has not been able to get out of the mainland. In his last years of life, there are many injuries. His experience and academics have gradually become a legend in the academic world, even called a "myth", which has been narrated repeatedly, almost without reason.

However, purely academically speaking, Mr. Chen is untenable.

He claims to be proficient in dozens of languages, but there are not many people who really use it in research to make a difference. Occasionally, he uses his Sanskrit knowledge to study and interpret historical materials in the Middle Ages, and there are many traces nearby, or it is irrelevant.

In terms of research methods, Mr. Chen certainly has methodological awareness, but he still mainly uses historical data for research, and lacks mystery and cannot handle philosophical issues. The specific research of

can often be discussed. For example, he talked about the history of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, on "Qie Yun" and Si Tones, insisting that the Si Tone system was influenced by Buddhism and "Qie Yun" was a local dialect. People who talk about phonology recently may disagree. He talked about the origin of the Sui and Tang system, saying that the official system of the Tang Dynasty was based on the Sui Dynasty and the Sui Dynasty was based on the Northern Qi. However, the three-province system set by Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty actually adopted the old Liang system, which was not the Northern Dynasty system at all. Mr. Mou Runsun has been refuted. All this is because Mr. Chen himself has some knowledge of cultures other than Han, so he likes to talk about extraterritorial influences on the history of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and he likes to talk about the origins of the Northern Dynasties when he talks about the history of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, but he does not know the bias of his words.

His research on Tang history has more questions. He believes that the early Tang Dynasty adopted the "Guanzhongli standard policy", and later Wu Empress adopted the literary imperial examination, which gradually became the disaster of the late cronyism, the family and the imperial scholars succumbed to each other, and the Tang family declined. This whole description is wrong.

The argumentation and textual research on individual cases cannot withstand scrutiny. For example, he textually verified the "Eternal Sorrow Song", saying that Bai Juyi's poems and Chen Hong's biography should be an inseparable whole; that the prosperous Tang legend is due to the gentle volume of scholars; that the development of Tang novels is closely related to the ancient literature movement, etc., Later studies have proved that he has misled many scholars.

I once wrote a small article criticizing Mr. Chen's "Relationship between Tianshidao and the Coastal Area". Chen's article first examines the origin of the Yellow Turban, which is said to have originated from the eastern coastal area; secondly, discusses the rebellion of Sun En in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, and the main reason is that the central figure of the royal family is the Taoist figure; the third test is Liu Shao's rebellion, knowing that he also has a Taoist background; Four discerning the ways of the Northern Dynasties Kou Qianzhi and Cui Hao’s family are also related to the coastal area; five chapters list the celestial family of the Northern and Southern Dynasties; six discuss the relationship between celestial master’s Tao and calligraphy. This article is the masterpiece of Mr. Chen, and Li Yumei's "Chen Yinque's History" (1997, Hong Kong Sanlian Bookstore) is an example of this article to illustrate the mystery of Chen's history. Du Zhengsheng's "Subjects and Methods of Historical Research: Research on the History of Religion" also praised the article for its special path and unique vision.

However, none of them knew: Mr. Chen's great writing was fundamentally wrong. Because he regarded all the Taoists in the Southern and Northern Dynasties as celestial masters and Taoist disciples, and all Taoist activities were involved in the coastal area for discussion. It completely ignores that there are many Taoist schools besides the Tianshi Tao in the Southern and Northern Dynasties; besides Taoism in the coastal area, Taoism is also being established and developing in other regions. Therefore, most of the examples in his article to illustrate the relationship between Celestial Master Tao and calligraphy are not examples of Celestial Master Tao. The Yellow Turban Taiping Dao, Zhengtian Teacher Dao, Shangqing Dao, Xintian Shi Dao, etc. are confused. Isn't this a joke?

But although Mr. Chen made a mistake, this article is still very valuable. It uses a cultural geography approach, using the "coastal area"This geographical factor is used to explain many Taoist beliefs and activities in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. This method is extremely useful. The research orientation of the function of religious politics and social operation shown by it is also related to the historical emphasis on ideological origins, religious changes, and religious rebels. Special interest. This is enough to inspire people’s minds and guide the future.

Some gentlemen write papers, which only prove one thing and explain one truth. Although they are also well-organized and good, they are not helpful to researchers. Great use. Except for letting people know something that may not be worth knowing, methods and opinions cannot be extended. In contrast, Mr. Chen is wrong, but the value is actually more important than that of good ones. Higher. So even though he has many mistakes, I don’t think he is worthless. This should be viewed separately. Mr. Chen's other papers, I dare not say the same, but they have similar tastes. Based on Tang history, Cen Zhongmian always disagrees with what Chen said. I also agree with Mr. Cen. I think his skill is better than that of Mr. Chen. But Mr. Cen is a scholar, and his skill is not as good as Mr. Chen. It happens not to be the place where ordinary people call the reward (what is learned, can "possess" information, proficient in different words, etc.), but in the selection of the topic is strange and sharp, and the testimony is ingenious. This is a spiritual thought, a brocade of heaven and sun, and good It’s not what mechanics can do.

It is said that it was proved to be wrong in the end. In fact, it also shows that when I originally wanted to discuss that problem, I originally came up with strange ideas. The fantasy is amazing and moving. Therefore, it can be sensational to watch and listen, which makes people seek it. Although it is worthwhile, this field of discussion has been opened up, and related topics have to be postulated. It is its fantastic idea, even if it is false, but also for academics Development is a great achievement. Others have a deep research and research, and they can certainly correct the Chen family’s failures. Therefore, they will not be able to match the Chen family.

This is called "talent and learning." In the early days, talents were used to control learning, drive historical materials, and self-directed. His cultural outlook; in the evening, he used learning to express his emotions, and his historiography became a poetic study with the use of ancient wine glasses.

With this basic understanding, I want to talk about the style of study represented by Chen Yinke.

Chen Yinke He was born in a family, but he went east to Japan at the age of 13. He returned to Nanjing two years later. He went to Japan to study for official fees, and then went to Japan to study. A year later, he returned to China due to illness and was admitted to Wusong Fudan Public School. After graduating in 1909, he went to study abroad at the University of Berlin in Germany. Then he studied abroad in Switzerland. He entered the University of Paris in 1913. He returned to China in 1913. He went abroad in 1918 and entered Harvard University in the United States to major in Sanskrit and other subjects. Three years later, he transferred to the University of Paris. Institute of Berlin University, studying Sanskrit and Eastern ancient literature, etc. Classmates and friends at Harvard, such as Tang Yongtong, Mei Guangdi, Wu Mi, etc.; classmates and friends in Berlin, such as Fu Sinian, Yu Dawei, Mao Zishui, etc.

studied in Europe and America , I have been transferred to many teachers, but mainly focus on language studies. At Harvard, I studied Sanskrit and Pali with Lanman. In Berlin, I followed Henrich LÜeder. s) Read Sanskrit and Pali. Chen is more proficient in foreign languages, and in fact it is nothing more. Therefore, his "Book with Luo Xianglin" once said: "Foreign languages, brothers can't write essays." It can be seen that he only knows and reads other foreign languages. Be proficient. Later, Chang Yan, a friend and student of the Chen family, said that he was capable of foreign languages, saying that he knew 20 or 30 foreign languages. In fact, Kyrgyz, Caucasian, Tocharian, Jiankun, etc., Mr. Chen's so-called "understanding" is probably just lack of knowledge. It can neither be written nor used in its research. What really played a role in his research was neither English, German, French, Japanese, nor the languages ​​of Central Asian countries, but Sanskrit, Tibetan, and Pali.

The study of these languages ​​is exactly a trend of European and American oriental studies (including Sinology and Indian studies) at that time. At that time, the famous European Sinologists Gao Benhan, Sha Wan, Bo Xihe, Ma Lebo, and Wei Lixian were all good at using this method of studying Mongolia, Tibet, Central Asia, and even Chinese history and folk customs through Chinese textual research. Chen Yinke was undoubtedly affected by it. Dai Miwei even said: Chen Yinke might have been to various courses taught by Percy and when he was in Paris.

Therefore, the main style of study at Tsinghua National University back then was the twists and turns from traditional classics and historiography to European and American Sinology studies. Another tutor, Zhao Yuanren, is also the same way of language research. He studied mathematics and music, received a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard, went to Europe to study Chinese Studies at Gaoben, and after translating his "Research on Chinese Phonetics", he has been focusing on phonetics and dialect investigations. LanguageHis characteristics, combined with his own scientific background, have become more scientific.

The research institute named "Guoxue" uses or prevails in this way of "Sinology" that Westerners look at Eastern China. Of course, it is a paradox, falling into Orientalism without knowing it. But at that time, Chen Yinke didn’t realize that there was anything wrong. Instead, he said in a letter to his sister: “If you use the method of Western linguistic science and the study of the comparison of Chinese and Tibetan cultures, the effect should be better than that of the elders. Level.” Although this is for Chinese and Tibetan, it is also applicable in other fields, and it represents the main ambitions and opinions of the monarchs at that time.

Chen Yinke's later research is not limited to this view and method. However, when he first returned to China and taught at Tsinghua University, it can be said that this is the basic situation. During this period, the class mainly focused on Sanskrit and Western "Oriental studies", and the study also focused on the history of medieval Buddhism. The textual research on the history of Buddhism in the Middle Ages focused on the application of language methods. Jiang Tianshu’s "Mr. Chen Yinke Chronicles" tastes that Chen's work was the most diligent in Buddhist scriptures between 1927 and 1935, and used dense dots to identify the essentials of Buddhist scriptures. The eyebrows and the lines are almost full. The small characters are densely lined. …The notes in the eyebrow between the lines are mixed with Pali, Tibetan, Sanskrit, etc., to verify the ancient translated language." This is the basic status of his scholarship. The specific research of

, such as "The Book of the Mahayana Yizhang", criticizes the wise masters of the Tiantai Zong for conflating "Xitan" with "Tanshi". It is not known that Xitan is the transliteration of Siddhanta, and the free translation is Li or Zong; Tan Shi It is Dana's translation, and the two have nothing to do.

"The Biography of Cao Chong Hua Tuo and Buddhism Story of Three Kingdoms", it is called Hua Tuo, the ancient sound is similar to Indian Gada (sacred medicine). ".

Also, "The Postscript of the Biography of Sima Zhi from the Book of Wei" examines Cao Hong's work with the waiter of Princess Linfen as the "God of No River", which is the corruption of the God of Immortality. Infinite is the transliteration of Sanskrit Avici, and the free translation is Abi hell.

The article "The Evolution of the Story of Xuanzang's Disciples in Journey to the West" also proves that Monkey King's troubles in the Heavenly Palace are two originally unrelated Indian folk tales: Naotian Temple is based in India's "The Fate of the King Ascended to Heaven", and Monkey King comes from Indian chronicle poems The story of Zhongqiao Ape Nala building a bridge to cross the sea and reaching the Lengga. As for Zhu Bajie's recruiting relatives in Gao Laozhuang, Chen Yinke also suspects that it evolved from the story of a cow lying down and offending a court lady. All of this is to use his familiar knowledge of Sanskrit and Indian stories to break the past and identify the traces of influence between China and India. At that time, Chinese people were very unfamiliar with such language knowledge, so what he said made him startled and bowed his head. Lan Wenzheng recalled: "During class, we often didn't understand. He wrote, oh! Only then did he know that it was German, it was Russian, and it was Sanskrit, but it was necessary to tap its sound and meaning before it was completely complete. Understand."

This is probably what people felt when reading Chen Yinke's articles. There is no corresponding knowledge of Indian history, documents and language, and there is no way to judge whether he is right or not.

However, after crossing the language barrier, the value of these researches is actually quite dubious. Whether Hua Tuo's ancient sounds are really similar to Gada is worth discussing. Even if the orders are similar, how can it prove that Hua Tuo is not his original name, but that the folks compare with Indian myths and take the name of the magic medicine to call him? What's more, this textual research assumes that the story of Indian magical medicine was widely popular in the society at that time, and it is deeply popular, so Hua Tuobi was attached to this story. This hypothesis not only lacks argumentation in the article, but even turns the hypothesis into a conclusion. Z1z

also tried to prove that "the teaching of Sakyamuni was quite popular in the forbidden women's room in the Caowei Palace", just like its textual research on Cao Hong's service to the God of Infernal Affairs. It is also completely untenable in terms of methods.

The Wujian God worshipped by Cao Hong, after his textual research, said that it is the God of Infinity, which seems very reasonable. But what kind of god is Infernal? If Yun is the god of Abi hell, then there is no god in Abi hell in Buddhism. If the cloud is what the folks say is the Taishan Mansion, the Ten Temple Yama, and so on, the world has many worshippers, and why is it that just because they worship such gods, they must be imprisoned?

Besides, the story of Monkey King and Zhu Bajie, and The Indian stories are just similar, but Chen Yinque said that they are influential. It seemed that A was eating, and I also ate, and Mr. Chen came out to prove: It turns out that A was eating, It is because of my influence. Does this make sense? Not to mention that those stories are really not very similar to "Journey to the West".

is obviously Monkey King's trouble in the Heavenly Palace, but it is a patchwork of two Indian stories that are irrelevant and not similar to the story of Journey to the West. Obviously it is Zhu Ba Jie beckoning relatives, but it is the distortion of the cow lying down. This is not a textual research, it is just that there is nowhere for Indian knowledge to spread the emperor, so it is nothing more than to catch the wind in the historical novels.

In these textual researches, Mr. Chen did not tell us: why the Chinese must not think of stories like Monkey King's uproar in the Heavenly Palace and Zhu Bajie's beckoning relatives. They must be inspired by India. When did the Indian "The Marriage of the King Ascend to Heaven" and the story of Qiao Yuan building bridges, and the stories of cows stalking the court ladies spread widely among the Chinese people, so that the literati involved in writing? Z1z

Mr. Chen from this period Textual research shows that methods and practice are often untenable, which can be said to be very obvious. However, as mentioned in the previous article, people at that time were shocked by his knowledge of language and questioning, and most of these institutions have not been scrutinized.

can't break this layer. In fact, it can only stay in the comparison between language knowledge and historical data. It may not be able to focus on the "historical interpretation" part; or it can only be explained indiscriminately to explain its origin and influence like Mr. Chen. Many of the scholars trained by Mr. Chen or Tsinghua National University have shown this phenomenon.

may not have caused this phenomenon because of the fault of Chen Yinke or the scholars of his time, but the prevailing customs.

At that time, German historiography was popular in historical language textual research. Rank said "wie es-eigentich gewesen" (wie es-eigentich gewesen), and what Barthold Georg Niebuhr (Barthold Georg Niebuhr) advocates: exclude myths and false records from historical records, and allow the cryptic truth to be re-established, And the method of establishment, that is, Chinese textual research, is a popular method.

Fu Sinian was in Germany at the time, and he also learned this method. Therefore, after returning to China, he devoted himself to building the Institute of History and Language, advocating the reconstruction of historical facts, and hoping to build history into science history research like biology and geology. mechanism. The special label is "Institute of History and Language", which shows the importance of Chinese textual research methods. The ambition of

to build history into a science also shows the ideal of that generation of historians who attempted to objectively reconstruct historical facts. This ideal and its method of textual research have been passed down from generation to generation through the history education institutions of Tsinghua National University and its influence has been so far.

But Rank represents the historiography of the 19th century. The objective history of "reconstructing the past as it happened at the time" has been criticized in the 20th century. Historians gradually discovered: Although objective historical facts have happened in the past time and space, they are things that have disappeared. Now that people were not present at the time, how to perceive this disappeared thing constitutes an epistemological problem. Objective historians believe that as long as they rely on evidence (documentary or material), the past can be reconstructed without subjectiveness. Now it seems really naive.

Because the "evidence" is actually just "material." The material needs to be interpreted and put into the historical context (the reconstructed context) before it can be regarded as evidence. The same document, or bricks and woods and other material materials, different people will have different explanations, and thus also show different evidence.

Secondly, since history has disappeared, what people say about history today is actually about people's understanding and knowledge of the past. In other words, the objective history not only exists in the past time and space, nor is it graspable by people today; the history that people talk about today is the current thinking, imagination, and interpretation of the past. This is what Croce meant by "All history is contemporary history" or Collingwood said "All history is history of thought."

In this sense, objective history cannot be sought, and it is meaningless to seek.

After Rank, the critical philosophy of history has been reviewed by Heinrich Rickert, Max Weber, G. Simmel, Edmund Husserl, and Martin Hei- degger), Karl Jaspers, Haus Georg Gradagger and Frankfurt SchoolPromoted, quite developed in Germany. In France, Jean-Paul Satre, Raymond Aron, Paul Ricoeur and others have advocated, and they have long been a huge trend. Not only does no one believe that historical facts can be reconstructed, they also point out that historians' claims that they can "eliminate self-subjectivity" are just false. Historical facts and materials can't speak, and people must explain them. Because of this, history is different from science, or it is different from natural science, but should be spiritual science or human science or something. These discussions are beyond the knowledge of Chen Yinke's generation, and they have not thought about these issues. Therefore, based on the current historical understanding, perhaps Mr. Chen’s textual research is not just about the various errors or difficulties I pointed out above in the details or methods, but it is regrettable that the effort has been used for nothing. An unachievable ideal, through Chinese textual research, weaves many "drama".

These theories can be regarded as Mr. Chen’s own narrative of history if viewed from the current historical narrative school. He is telling a story he made up and expressing his feelings (historical research of Mr. Chen in his later years, It can be grasped from this perspective), so it is of special significance. However, from the perspective of Mr. Chen’s return to China to advocate scientific empirical research in history, and then following Fu Sinian to establish the Institute of History and Language of the Academia Sinica, it is a fundamental and overall problem that is deeply regrettable.

Gong Pengcheng, born in Taipei in 1956, is a famous contemporary scholar and thinker. More than 150 books have been published.

runs universities, publishing houses, magazines, academies, etc., and plans urban construction and theme parks. He has lectured around the world and is currently the director of the World Sinology Center and the director of the China Intangible Cultural Heritage Promotion Center. Good at poetry, writing diligently, combining knowledge and action, and possessing both Taoism and Qi.