Author ｜
Masayuki Sato
Abstract ｜
In Chinese thought from the Warring States into the Han period, the concept of zhong 忠 (loyalty/sincerity) had a wide range of meanings and associations, rather than serving, as is often held, to express the notion of a virtue which ministers, or subjects, had towards their rulers. On the basis of received texts such as The Analects, The Book of Mencius, Liji, and Da Dai Liji, as well as on the basis of recently excavated materials such as the bamboo manuscripts from Guodian Chu tomb (郭店楚簡), the present article attempts to illustrates this claim and argues that the concept of zhong could refer to fictive kinship relationships, the filial attitude held toward the dead in ancestral sacrifice, and a “latent princely virtue.” By means of focusing upon these three characteristics in the early meanings of the concept of zhong, the author suggests that, for elucidation of the contextual meaning of the concept of zhong in the Warring States’ Chinese thought, it would not be a good way only to ask whether the concept of zhong would be the virtue of ruler or that of ministers/subjects.
keywords ｜
zhong (loyalty/sincerity), zhongxin (loyalty/sincerity and trustfulness), the virtue of ruler, the virtue of ministers/subjects