The Fayan, also known in English as the Model Sayings or Exemplary Figures, is a Classical Chinese text by the Han dynasty writer and poet Yang Xiong that was completed c. AD 9. It comprises a collection of dialogues and aphorisms in which Yang gives responses to a wide variety of questions relating to philosophy, politics, literature, ethics, and scholarship.[1]
| Author | Yang Xiong |
|---|---|
| Original title | 法言 |
| Language | Classical Chinese |
| Genre | Philosophy |
Publication date | c. AD 9 |
| Publication place | China |
| Fayan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese | 法言 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Model sayings | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Contents
editThe text of the Fayan is divided into 13 chapters. It is presented in the form of dialogues between Yang and an anonymous interlocutor, whose questions which Yang responds with terse, authoritative pronouncements that rely more on wit and puns than on logical exposition. The style is deliberately modeled on the Analects, and was intended to counter the ideas of the "syncretic" philosophical school, which Yang believed was contrary to the orthodox teachings of Confucianism and the ancient Chinese sages.[2]
Translations
edit- 法言 (in Japanese), translated by Suzuki, Yoshikazu, Tokyo: Meitoku shuppansha, 1972
- "Yang Hsiungs Fa-yen (Worte Strenger Ermahnung)" [Yang Xiong's Fayan (Words of Strict Admonition)], Sinologische Beitrage [Sinological contributions] (in German), vol. 4, pt. 1, translated by von Zach, Erwin, 1939
- Exemplary Figures: Fayan 法言, translated by Nylan, Michael, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013, ISBN 978-0-295-99289-1
- Yang Xiong, Philosophy of the Fa Yan: A Confucian Hermit in the Han Imperial Court, translated by Bullock, Jeffrey S., Mountain Mind Press, 2011 – via Chinese Text Project
References
edit
- Yangzi Fayan 揚子法言 (in Literary Chinese and English), translated by Bullock, Jeffrey S., retrieved 2024-02-29 – via Chinese Text Project
Citations
edit- ^ Knechtges (2010), p. 213.
- ^ Knechtges (1993), p. 100; Knechtges (2010), p. 213.
Works cited
edit- Knechtges, David R. (1993), "Fa yen" 法言, in Loewe, Michael (ed.), Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, Society for the Study of Early China; Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley, pp. 100–104, ISBN 1-557-29043-1
- ——— (2010), "Fa yan" 法言, in Knechtges, David R.; Chang, Taiping (eds.), Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature: A Reference Guide, Part One, Leiden: Brill, pp. 213–217, ISBN 978-9-004-19127-3