Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 4, 2022

Changes in the Six Arts and the Emergence of Classical Chinese Scholarship

(Abstract)

Wang Xiuchen

The concepts, texts, and canonization of the Six Arts (liuyi六艺) have all undergone a long process of evolution. The knowledge of the “six disciplines” (liuke 六科) of the Western Zhou court gradually evolved into the ritual and music education of the nobility in the Spring and Autumn period. In the period of contending schools of thought, they were elevated into the philosophical expression of the Way and thereafter became the spiritual canon of the Confucian school, where they were constantly universalized and sublimated into a mature system of classical Chinese scholarship. We use “the teaching of the Six Arts,” “the scholarship of the Six Arts,” “the language of the Six Arts,” and “the Way of the Six Arts” to outline the mental trajectory of the changes in the Six Arts, constructing a systemic framework of classical Chinese scholarship in terms of disciplinary evolution, generative mechanisms, linguistic characteristics and value content so as to highlight the way classical Chinese scholarship was generated. The Six Arts grew from a continuous flux to become the canon and the gene pool of Chinese classical scholarship.