Author ｜
Chi-li Huang
Abstract ｜
As a representative of contemporary New Confucianism, Mou Tsungsan (1909-1995)’s understanding of life before and after he identified himself with Confucianism is extremely worth digging into throughout modern Confucianism history. In this article, We will mainly discuss “The World of The Water Margin” written by Mou Tsungsan at the age of 39 in 1947 in terms of his concerns in that period and see how Mou Tsungsan projected his young and middle-aged experiences onto the heroes in The Water Margin in order to know what kind of personal understanding he had regarding this negative koan. As noted in this article, “the state of The Water Margin” which Mou Tsungsan mentioned refers to the state of mind of “primitive life,” sometimes also known as “natural essence,” which consists of “sentiment and knowledge.” Mou Tsungsan not only conveyed the wildness, brotherhood, regret and desolation of “primitive life” via the images of heroes in The Water Margin, such as Wu Song, Lu Zhi-shen, Li Kui, but also made good use of the strategies of “positive interpretation” and “negative interpretation” by using terms such as “thus,” “right here, right now,” “straightforward,” and the paradox “The Water Margin will be real if you don’t place too much focus on it,” to describe the forthright characteristic of “primitive life.” To summarize Mou Tsungsan’s life since his young age, “the state of The Water Margin” can be taken as the state of mind he experienced from age 20 to 34 (1928-1942), and “The World of The Water Margin” is the epitome of this period. Reading The Water Margin allowed Mou Tsungsan to look back on his “primitive life” at the times when he hadn’t identified himself with Confucianism and helped him to “comprehend” his previous fault resulted from being “straightforward.” Readers are able to witness the mental journey of a wholehearted philosopher from Mou Tsungsan’s self-review.
keywords ｜
Mou Tsungsan, The Water Margin, sentiment and knowledge, primitive life, straightforward