ABSTRACT
Zhang Binglin (1869-1936), also known as Zhang Taiyan, has been persistently regarded as the last great torchbearer of the Old Text Confucian School. His debate with Kang Youwei, a prominent New Text scholar, was thus considered the final round of factional battles between the Old Text and New Text partisans. 1 But a closer look at Zhang’s scholarly works may reveal that he had little interest, if any, in upholding the factional line, and did not intend to reject the New Text Classics out of hand. For him, “New Text and Old Text Classics could no longer be clearly distinguished.” 2 In a letter to his disciple Wu Chengshi, he remarked that—thanks to Zheng Xuan of the Eastern Han’s effort at reconciliation, the Old Text had become really the same as the New Text. 3 As a matter of fact, Zhang was tired of factional disputes, whether Old Text versus New Text, South versus North, Han versus Song, or Wu (Jiangsu) versus Wan (Anhui), all of which he saw as redundant and verbose. 4 Hence it was impossible for him to fall in line with the traditional pattern of the Old-Text New-Text dispute. Even more importantly, Zhang Binglin’s view of the classics was very different from his predecessors. He did not consider the time-honored Thirteen Classics (Shisan jing) to be true classics. By considering that the Six Classics were six different sorts of classical works, he had indeed injected an element of modernity into the classical Chinese learning.
