Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t2.17

v1.c7.s9.t2.17

Sima Qian, the greatest historian of China of all the times, who follows school of Master Zhuangzi in his formative years, nevertheless, made comments in the chapter Confucius Family of his works, The Historical Records: The Verse has a saying, “a lofty mountain inspires a great awe from the beholders and great thoroughfare of virtue attracts people to emulate.” Though an ordinary folk cannot reach such towering high, he is forever longing for it… there are so many kings and lords, even sages, and they used to be honored and venerated at their life time, but too many sank into oblivion after their death. Whereas Confucius was just an ordinary commoner, but his thoughts and works have been passed down to a dozen generations, avidly followed by the later scholars. From the Son of the Heaven, princes and marquises downwards, there are so many who alleged to have perusal of the Six Classics, but only at the hands of Confucius, The Six Classics are finalised and enriched. One may well say that Confucius is the greatest sage of sacrosanctity!” The appraisal of Sima Qian reveals the lofty position of Confucius as a towering mountain in the mind of then contemporary. Worship of him by common people is not out of power and influence but out of his theory passed down to later generations, which is urging people to be benevolent and popular with and supported by the common people. And thereby the posterities adopted his thoughts as criterion for scholarly pursuit. Sima Qian showed his particularly high regard for Confucius by choosing a particular stylistic rules and layout in his Record of History, ie placed the biography within the category of aristocratic family. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism was made as a single authoritative official doctrine, and since then, voices to praise him highly are too numerous to mention. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty once said of him, “If heaven did not give us Confucius, eons would be in total eternal night” which shows his high esteem towards Confucius. Ma Yifu, a contemporary scholar, quoting from *Record of Art and Culture - History of Han Dynasty* by saying that “the sublime words would be extinguished if Confucius did not exist”, considers Confucius’ position irreplaceable since his times to the present days in that his wise thought and theory are profound and penetrating.