The ‘Li yun’ 禮運 (Movement of Ritual), from a chapter in a Han ritual compendium to an universal sacred text: Kang Youwei’s 康有爲 (1857-1927) hermeneutical technics

Résumé En

Kang Youwei’s Liyun zhu 禮運注 (Commentary of the “Liyun”) takes the shape of a classical commentary, intended to explain the meaning of the “Liyun” chapter, paragraph by paragraph. This chapter, which articulates through a loose dialogue between Confucius and his disciple Ziyou 子游 a general reflection on the evolution and the necessity of ritual, and more technical notes on sacrifices, had been relatively neglected until the Qing dynasty. Yet, Kang Youwei turns it into a central text in the intellectual and political history, if not a prophecy, and in the course of his commentary develops some key notions of his reformist and universalist vision: progress (jinhua 進化), equality (pingdeng 平等), autonomy (zili 自立). Why and how did Kang Youwei make use of the commentary genre in order to introduce and develop his modernist ideal of “Grand Unity” (Datong 大同)? Or put it more metaphorically, why and how did he pour new wine in old skins? As a reader of Han and Tang commentaries of the “Liyun,” I will try in this article to read Kang’s text with a specific attention to the “old skins,” that is to the diverse hermeneutical technics he puts into practice: philological notes, quotations of ancient commentaries, reorganization of the text, reference to other classical texts, combined with the use of recently imported concepts and comparison with other civilizations.