TEXTUAL TRANSFORMATION OF CONFUCIAN CANONICAL LITERATURE: FROM THE STABILITY OF THE CLASSICS TO THE DYNAMISM OF COMMENTARIES

Abstract

The article offers a comprehensive philological analysis of Confucian canonical literature as a specific textual system that combines a high degree of stability of the canonical corpus with the historical dynamism of the commentary tradition. The object of the study is the corpus of the “Thirteen Classics” (十三经), which was formed through a long historical process and for centuries functioned as a normative foundation of China’s intellectual, ethical, and educational culture. The main focus is placed on the mechanisms of interpretation of the Classics as realized through the system of commentaries (注), subcommentaries (疏), phonetic-semantic glosses (音义), and their various textual combinations within canonical–commentarial editions. It is demonstrated that the textual fixity of the Classics does not imply semantic immobility: the historical vitality of the Confucian tradition was ensured precisely by the development of commentarial practices, which performed the function of adapting canonical texts to changing intellectual, social, and cultural contexts. The study traces the evolution of major types of commentaries, from early “ancient annotations” (古注) to the system of officially sanctioned Correct Meanings (正义) and the later philological scholarship of the Qing period. Particular attention is paid to the methodological differences between the Han Learning (汉学) and Song Learning (宋学) traditions, which represent distinct strategies of engaging with canonical texts. The results of the research substantiate the thesis that textual transformation within the Confucian tradition occurred not through modification of the canonical texts themselves, but through the accumulation and reinterpretation of successive layers of commentary. This approach makes it possible to conceptualize Confucian Classics and their commentaries as mutually dependent elements of a single yet internally dynamic textual complex, a perspective that is of particular relevance for contemporary philological and Sinological studies.