『석명』 해석에 보이는 음양 오행론적 인식 고찰

Abstract

Han dynasty is a country that succeeded Qin dynasty, which unified the chaotic Warring States period and perished in less than two decades. Along with a sober assessment on the causes of the collapse of Qin dynasty, Han Wudi(漢武帝) tried to highlight Han’s legitimacy and solidify the political order through stronger centralization. Therefore, a large number of intellectuals were recruited to suppress local hojok(豪族, powerful families) forces and seek new governance ideologies through them. At the center of this work was a man named Dong Zhongshu(董仲舒, B.C.179-B.C.106), whose representative book is 『春秋繁露(Chunqiufanlu)』. He studied the "Chunchu Gongyangjeon" and proposed several key ideas, including 陰陽五行(theory of Yinyang-Wuxing), 天人感應(theory of sensation between heaven and man), 災異說(theory of natural calamity) and 性三品論(theory of the three grades of human nature), which presented theoretical grounds for the political cause and the establishment of royal order of Han dynasty. From this perspective, this study looked into LiuXi(劉熙)’s interpretations of characters(字釋), compared with those of 『春秋繁露(Chunqiufanlu)』 by the three distinctive aspects among theories of Dong Zhongshu(董仲舒) in 『Seok-myeong』 : Yinyang-Wuxing(陰陽五行說), qi(氣) and natural calamity(災異), revered Yang despised Yin(陽尊陰卑). After all, LiuXi(劉熙) accepts and stays in such system of reasons of Dong Zhongshu(董仲舒)’s theories of Yinyang-Wuxing(陰陽五行說), qi(氣) and natural calamity(災異) and revered Yang despised Yin(陽尊陰卑). However, when it comes to the interpretation of each letter itself, he rather uses the 'realism(唯實論)' method of Guwenjingxue(古文經學) to adopt the 'a general definition(通釋語義)' method. This indicates that Yu-hee had a convergent perception of the languages of both 古文經學 and 今文經學 of the late Han period. LiuXi's such reasoning system is also considered as a valuable material in Confucian history that can be compared to that of the Confucian scholars of Song dynasty.