Kong Anguo

Kong Anguo
Born	ca. 156 BC
Died	ca. 74 BC
Other names	Kong Ziguo
Occupation(s)	Classicist, philosopher, politician
Academic background
Influences	Fu Sheng Shen Pei
Academic work
Era	Ancient philosophy
School or tradition	Confucianism
Main interests	Shangshu
Notable works	Shangshu Kongshi Zhuan
Influenced	Sima Qian

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisKong.

Fragment from the manuscript ofLunyu,text by Kong Anguo with commentary byZheng Xuan.This fragmentary manuscript has been found atMogao Caves.It is dated era Longji, 2nd year (i.e. 890 CE), but it could be copied in the middle of the 8th century.Bibliothèque nationale de France

Kong Anguo(Chinese:Khổng An quốc;Wade–Giles:K'ung An-kuo;ca. 156 – ca. 74 BC),courtesy nameZiguo(Tử quốc), Kong Anguo was a Chinese classicist, philosopher, and politician of theWestern Han dynastyof ancient China. A descendant ofConfucius,he wrote theShangshu Kongshi Zhuan,a compilation and commentary of the "Old Text"Shangshu.His work was lost, but a debated fourth-century forgery was officially recognized as aConfucian classicfor over a millennium.

Background

Kong Anguo was a native ofQufuin Lu, one of the manysemi-autonomous kingdomsof the Western Han dynasty. He was the second son of Kong Zhong (Khổng trung) and an eleventh-generation descendant ofConfucius.He studied theClassic of PoetryandShangshu(Book of Documents) from the famous Confucian scholars Shen Pei andFu Sheng.Kong also served in the court ofEmperor Wu of Hanas the Grand Master of Remonstrance (Gián đại phu).

Old TextShangshu

According to tradition, the local rulerPrince Gong of Ludemolished a building of the Kong family complex in the process of enlarging his palace, and some ancient texts were discovered hidden in a wall, includingShangshu.They had apparently been hidden there in order to escape thebook burningof EmperorQin Shi Huang.This version ofShangshucontained 16 more chapters than the one transmitted by Fu Sheng. As the hidden texts were written in the ancientseal script,this newly discovered version is called "Ancient Script" or "Old Text"Shangshu,whereas Fu Sheng's version is called the "Modern Script" or "New Text".Kong Anguo compiled and wrote a commentary to the Old Text calledShangshu Kongshi Zhuan( thượng thư khổng thị truyền, literallyKong's Commentary of Shangshu), and the famous historianSima Qianstudied the text from him.The documents had a foreword added by Kong.

However, theShangshu Kongshi Zhuanwas later lost during theEastern Han dynasty(25-220 AD).In the early fourth century, during theEastern Jin dynasty,a purported copy of Kong's work suddenly reemerged. ScholarMei Zesubmitted a copy of the Old TextShangshutoEmperor Yuan of Jin,along with a preface supposedly written by Kong Anguo. The Jin court accepted Mei's version as authentic. In 653, during theTang dynasty,Mei Ze's Old Text further became the official version of the Confucian classic. Although many scholars had questioned the authenticity of Mei's version over the centuries, it maintained its official status for more than 1000 years until theQing dynasty.Mei Ze's version is now recognized as a forgery.The "ancient character" edition falsely attributed to Kong is fake.

References

• Declercq, Dominik (1998).Writing Against the State: Political Rhetorics in Third and Fourth Century China.Brill.ISBN9789004103764.
• Underhill, Anne P. (2013).A Companion to Chinese Archaeology.Wiley.ISBN9781118325728.