Yang Bojun (; 1 September 1909 − 1992) was a Chinese
philologist
Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...
best known for his ''Chunqiu Zuozhuan Zhu'' (), an annotated commentary of the ancient Chinese historical text and
Confucian classic
Chinese classic texts or canonical texts () or simply dianji (典籍) refers to the Chinese texts which originated before the imperial unification by the Qin dynasty in 221 BC, particularly the "Four Books and Five Classics" of the Neo-Confucian ...
''
Zuo Zhuan''. The work took him more than twenty years to finish.
His commentaries of the ''
Analects of Confucius
The ''Analects'' (; ; Old Chinese: '' ŋ(r)aʔ''; meaning "Selected Sayings"), also known as the ''Analects of Confucius'', the ''Sayings of Confucius'', or the ''Lun Yu'', is an ancient Chinese book composed of a large collection of sayings a ...
'' and the ''
Mencius'' are also highly influential.
[
]
Early life and education
Yang Bojun was born in September 1909 in Changsha
Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the Capital city, capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a popul ...
, Hunan
Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...
province.[ He was the eldest son of Yang Shugu (), and was also known as Yang Dechong ().] Starting in childhood, he was taught by his grandfather to read Confucian classics such as the ''Analects'', the '' Book of Poetry'', and the '' Zuo zhuan''.
In 1926, he passed the examination to enter the Chinese department of Peking University, where he studied under prominent scholars such as Qian Xuantong
Qian Xuantong (1887—January 17, 1939) was a Chinese linguist and writer. He was a professor of literature at National Peking University, and along with Gu Jiegang, one of the leaders of the Doubting Antiquity School.
Biography
Born in Huzhou ...
, Chen Yuan
Chen Yuan (, born in January 1945) is a Chinese economist who served as the Chairman of the China Development Bank from March 1998 to April 2013. Chen Yuan then served as Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Politica ...
, and the philologist Huang Kan
Huang Kan (Chinese: 黃侃; 1886 – 8 October 1935), courtesy name Jigang (季剛), born into a family of Hubei ancestry in Chengdu, Sichuan province, was a Chinese phonologist, philologist and revolutionary.
As a teen, he tested into Wuchang ...
. He graduated in 1932. However, the person who influenced him the most was his uncle Yang Shuda ( 杨树达), also a well-known philologist.[
]
Career
In 1953, Yang became an associate professor at the Chinese department of Peking University. He began writing ''Lunyu Yizhu'' (论语译注, "Translation and Annotation of the Analects"), which was published in 1958 by Zhonghua Book Company
Zhonghua Book Company (), formerly spelled Chunghwa or Chung-hua Shu-chü, and sometimes translated as Zhonghua Publishing House, are Chinese publishing houses that focuses on the humanities, especially classical Chinese works. Currently it has ...
.[
When the ]Anti-Rightist Movement
The Anti-Rightist Campaign () in the People's Republic of China, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged "Rightists" within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the country as a whole. The campaign was l ...
began in 1957, Yang and three of his cousins (sons of Yang Shuda) were labelled "Rightists".[ Yang was transferred to ]Lanzhou University
Lanzhou University () is a major research university in Lanzhou, Gansu, China. Founded in 1909, it is one of the key universities under China's Ministry of Education (Double First Class University Plan, former Project 985 and Project 211). It ...
in remote Gansu province, where he continued to teach in the Chinese department. In Lanzhou he wrote ''Mengzi Yizhu'' (孟子译注, "Translation and Annotation of the Mencius"), which was published by Zhonghua Book Company in 1960.[
In 1960 he moved back to Beijing to work for Zhonghua Book Company, where he edited the '']Book of Jin
The ''Book of Jin'' is an official Chinese historical text covering the history of the Jin dynasty from 266 to 420. It was compiled in 648 by a number of officials commissioned by the imperial court of the Tang dynasty, with chancellor Fang ...
'', and began working on ''Chunqiu Zuozhuan Zhu'' (Annotated Zuo Zhuan).[ '' Zuo Zhuan'' was the most monumental work of the ]Thirteen Classics
The Thirteen Classics () is a term for the group of thirteen classics of Confucian tradition that became the basis for the Imperial Examinations during the Song dynasty and have shaped much of East Asian culture and thought.
It includes all of th ...
, comprising almost 200,000 characters
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
of Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 ...
. For the annotation Yang studied many related works including the ''Shiji
''Records of the Grand Historian'', also known by its Chinese name ''Shiji'', is a monumental history of China that is the first of China's 24 dynastic histories. The ''Records'' was written in the early 1st century by the ancient Chinese his ...
'', '' Gongyang Zhuan'', and '' Guliang Zhuan''. He also consulted older commentaries and notes on the ''Zuo Zhuan'' by scholars such as Hong Liangji, Liu Wenqi ( 劉文淇), Liu Shipei
Liu Shipei (; 24 June 1884 – 20 December 1919) was a philologist, Chinese anarchist, and revolutionary activist. While he and his wife, He Zhen were in exile in Japan he became a fervent nationalist. He then saw the doctrines of anarchism as ...
, and Zhang Binglin
Zhang Binglin (January 12, 1869 – June 14, 1936), also known by his art name Zhang Taiyan, was a Chinese philologist, textual critic, philosopher, and revolutionary.
His philological works include ''Wen Shi'' (文始 "The Origin of Writing"), ...
, as well as oracle bone
Oracle bones () are pieces of ox scapula and turtle plastron, which were used for pyromancy – a form of divination – in ancient China, mainly during the late Shang dynasty. '' Scapulimancy'' is the correct term if ox scapulae were used for ...
records and bronze inscriptions.[ Many of his notes were destroyed during the turmoil of the ]Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
(1966–76), which he only partially recovered from memory.[ The book was finally published in 1981, more than 20 years after he started the work. A revised edition was published in 1990.][ In 1985, the ''Zuo Zhuan Dictionary'', compiled by Yang and his wife Xu Ti (), was published.][
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yang, Bojun
1909 births
1992 deaths
Educators from Hunan
Writers from Changsha
Peking University faculty
Lanzhou University faculty
National University of Peking alumni
People's Republic of China historians
People's Republic of China philosophers
20th-century Chinese historians
Historians from Hunan
Chinese philologists
20th-century philologists