Fan Zhen
Fan Zhen
Fan Zhen (about 450-515), Zizhen, Han nationality, was born in Nanxiang Wuyin. He was a famous materialist thinker, philosopher, politician, writer and outstanding atheist in the southern and Northern Dynasties.
Fan Zhen was born in the fan family of Shunyang. When he was young, he lost his father and was filial to his mother. Before he was weak, he paid homage to a famous teacher to study. After entering the Southern Qi Dynasty, he became an official. He successively served as ningman chief, Shangshu Dian Zhonglang, Lingjun commander Shi, and Yidu Taishou. After the establishment of Nanliang, Xiao Yan served as the prefect of Jin'an and the minister Zuo Cheng. Later, he was exiled to Guangzhou due to the incident of Wang Liang, and finally became the official of Shulang and Guozi.
Fan Zhen had a rough life, but he was upright and not afraid of threats and inducements. His philosophical work on the destruction of God inherits and carries forward the materialism of Xun Kuang and Wang Chong. It is an immortal work with epoch-making significance in the history of ancient Chinese ideological development.
Life of the characters
Early experience
Fan Zhen was born in Wuyin, Nanyang (now in the ancient city of yangce Town, Biyang County, Henan Province). His ancestor was fan Di, a famous minister in the Western Jin Dynasty, and moved to the south of the Yangtze River until fan Wang, a general of Anbei in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. After the northern and Southern Dynasties, the fan family in Nanyang began to decline, and almost no one had high-ranking officials.
His grandfather, fan Hongzhi, was an official of zhongshulang in the Song Dynasty. His father, fan Meng, was invited by the imperial court in Liu Song Dynasty. He died soon after he was born. Therefore, fan Zhen's family was poor since he was a child and depended on his mother. He was famous for his filial piety.
Youth Learning
Fan Zhen was a little lonely, poor and eager to learn. When he was a teenager, he went to Peijun Xiang county (now Suxian County, Anhui Province) thousands of miles away to study, and worshipped the famous Confucian Liu Yu as his teacher. Fan Zhen is diligent and good at independent thinking, and his grades are far better than those of his classmates. Liu Zhen loves him very much and gives him a personal gift.
Liu has a very high academic status and reputation. Most of his students are the children of the powerful and influential people, who are well-dressed and arrogant. During his years of study, fan Zhen often studied cloth clothes and straw shoes on foot, but he didn't feel inferior and ashamed. On the contrary, he was stubborn and upright, refused to bow to the dignitaries, and dared to make "dangerous remarks". His classmates were afraid of him, so he was alienated and neglected by the public.
As an adult, fan Zhen was well versed in Confucian classics and had profound attainments in "three rites" (Zhouli, Yili and Liji). Among many scholars, he only fell in love with his younger brother Xiao Chen. Xiao Chen is well-known for his eloquence, and he is often convinced by fan Zhen's concise and clear-cut comments.
The road of official career
In the third year of Taishi (467), the Northern Wei Dynasty invaded the South on a large scale, Peijun was occupied, and the northern people fled south one after another. Fan Zhen also left Xiangxian County for Jianye (now Nanjing). After his arrival in Jianye, fan Zhen once proposed political reform to the authorities, but failed to get a response. In the period of Liu Song Dynasty, fan Zhen was very unsuccessful and had no place to display his intelligence and wisdom. When he was twenty-nine years old, he had white hair, so he wrote the poem of sad evening and the poem of white hair to express his indignation and hope that he would not yield to bad luck.
In the first year of Jianyuan (479), Xiao Daocheng, who had military and political power, seized the Liu Song regime and established the Southern Qi Dynasty. In order to consolidate his rule, the Xiao Qi regime employed a group of new people, and fan Zhen embarked on his official career. He served as the commander of ningman in the Qi Dynasty, and later moved to Zhonglang in the palace of Shangshu.
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Qi Yongming (483-493), Xiao Qi made peace with the Northern Wei Dynasty. Fan Zhen visited the Northern Wei Dynasty as an envoy. His profound knowledge and smart wisdom won the respect and praise of the Northern Wei Dynasty.
Anti Buddhist debate
In the southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhism flourished. The religious thought of reincarnation and retribution existed in every corner of the society. Xiao Ziliang, king of the jingling Mausoleum of Qi Dynasty, is a Buddhist. He often meets famous monks and talks about Buddhist scriptures. At the same time, he pays homage to sages and scholars in the official residence of Jilong Shanxi mansion in Kyoto, makes friends with guests and meets literary celebrities. The eight friends of jingling, such as Xiao Yan and Shen Yue, and the scholars, such as fan Zhen, all swam in the gate. Most of these celebrities are Buddhists and believe in karma. Only fan Zhen sneers at this and plays the opposite role.
In 489, the Buddhist followers headed by Xiao Ziliang, king of jingling, had a big debate with fan Zhen. Xiao Ziliang asked fan Zhen, "if you don't believe in the theory of karma, why is there a distinction between rich and poor?" Fan Zhen replied: "life is like a flower on a tree that opens at the same time and falls with the wind. Some petals fall in the hall and stay on the mat because of the wind. Some petals fall into the cesspit because of the fence. Your highness is just like the petals on the mat, and the lower official is the petals in the cesspit. Although the noble and the humble are different, how can there be retribution? " Xiao Ziliang didn't think so, but he couldn't refute fan Zhen's reasoned reply, and he had nothing to say.
After this confrontation, fan Zhen thought that it was necessary to systematize and elaborate his own views, so he wrote the article on the destruction of God, and put forward the atheist view of "the form exists and the spirit exists, the form thanks and the God dies". On the destruction of God catches the current malady and hits the pain of Buddhism. As soon as it came out, scholars scrambled to copy it, and the government and the public were in an uproar. Xiao Ziliang mobilized all the monks and celebrities to attack fan Zhen in turn.
Wang Yan, a famous Buddhist in Taiyuan, borrowed Confucian filial piety as a weapon to write an article in an attempt to make fan Zhen unable to answer. He said in a sarcastic tone: "Oh! Mr. Fan, you don't know where the gods of your ancestors are! " Fan Zhen asked: "Oh! Mr. Wang, since you know where the gods of your ancestors are, why don't you commit suicide and follow them? " This rhetorical question left Wang Yan speechless and defeated. Because it was difficult to argue against fan Zhen, Xiao Ziliang intended to use his power to win over him, so he sent Wang Rong, a famous scholar, to fan Zhen to try to use his official position to lure him, but fan Zhen was not moved.
Rough old age
In the middle period of emperor Qi Ming's Jianwu (494-498), fan Zhen left Shangshu Province, moved to lead the history of military commander, and became the prefect of Yidu. Yiling (today's Yichang, Hubei Province) has Wuxiang Temple, three temples of Tang and Han Dynasties, and Huli temple. Local people believe that there are gods in the three temples and often offer sacrifices. During his term of office, fan Zhen ordered to cut off his incense and forbid sacrificial activities. Shortly after that, fan Zhen resigned from his official post because of his mother's death. From then on to the beginning of Liang Dynasty, he never became an official and lived in Nanzhou.
In the third year of Yongyuan (501), Xiao Yan, Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty, took advantage of the extremely chaotic political situation in the Southern Qi Dynasty. He moved eastward from Xiangyang to Nanzhou, where he was welcomed by fan Zhen in mourning clothes. Xiao Yan and fan Zhen had the same old feeling of working together at Xiao Ziliang's West residence. They were very happy to see fan Zhen greet them. After calming down Jiankang, they appointed fan Zhen as the governor of Jin'an. Fan Zhen was honest and thrifty during his four years in office. He got nothing but his salary.
In the third year of Tianjian (504), Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty issued an edict to respect Buddhism, and Buddhism in the Southern Dynasty entered its heyday. In the fourth year of Tianjian (505), the court appointed fan Zhen as the minister Zuo Cheng. Before fan Zhen left his post and returned to Beijing, he gave all his property to Wang Liang, the former minister. Wang Liang is the sixth grandson of Wang Dao. In the Southern Qi Dynasty, he and fan Zhen were both the Zhonglang of Shangshu hall. They became good friends. Later, because of their disrespect to Emperor Wu, they were cut into common people. Fan Zhen was also involved in the incident and was banished to Guangzhou. During his exile, regardless of his dangerous situation, fan Zhen once again enriched and perfected the book, revised it into a manuscript, and spread it among his relatives and friends.
In the sixth year of Tianjian (507), fan Zhen was transferred back to the capital as zhongshulang and Guozi. After fan Zhen returned to Beijing, he was pushed to the top of the wave again because of his anti Buddhism. Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty issued "the theory of the imperial edict in reply to the death of the gods under his ministers". The great monk zhengfayun copied the imperial edict of Emperor Wu to the prince Chaogui and wrote "the book with the prince Chaogui". The responders were Xiao Hong, king of Linchuan and other 64 people. Xiao Chen, Cao Siwen and Shen Yue also wrote a refutation. Fan Zhen did not show any weakness in this regard, so he rewritten the theory of God's destruction into a question and answer style, with a total of 31 questions and answers. In this debate, fan Zhen "defeated all the people and convinced thousands of people every day", and finally appeared as a winner.
In 515, fan Zhen died of illness and lived about 65 years.
Philosophical thought
Form and spirit
On the relationship between form and spirit, fan Zhen grasped the opposition between "namely" and "different". "Difference" refers to "separation". Buddhists say that "form and spirit are different" and "form and spirit are not one". They say that human soul can exist independently without form. After death, human soul will "wander" because of form and death. Spirit (soul) will run to Buddhism or be attached to other forms. Soul and spirit will become the subject and object of retribution. The emphasis on the separation of form and spirit is the main basis for Buddhists to demonstrate "immortality of God".
In this regard, fan Zhen proposed that "form and spirit are the same", he said: "God is form, and form is God. It is to keep the form and the spirit, and to thank the form and the spirit The so-called "form" is the body, "spirit" is the spirit, "namely" is inseparable. Fan Zhen thinks that the relationship between the two is "the name is different but the body is one", "the form and the spirit are not two", which can not be separated, the body exists, the spirit exists; the body decays, the spirit is destroyed.
Form, quality and function
On the basis of "form and spirit are the same" and "can not be different", fan Zhen further put forward the famous argument of "form, quality and spirit", that is, form is the essence of spirit, spirit is the function of form, and it is derived from form. It can never exist alone without the subject of form. This overcomes the limitations of the previous theoreticians who regarded spirit as a kind of essence and did not understand that spirit is the property of material and derived from material.
In order to further explain the reason that the spirit must depend on the body, fan Zhen uses a very popular metaphor of "blade" and "benefit", comparing the relationship between the spirit and the body to the relationship between the blade and the sharpness of the blade. Sharpness is not the blade, and the blade is not sharpness. However, it doesn't matter if you leave the blade, and it doesn't matter if you leave the blade. This metaphor properly illustrates the inseparability of form and spirit, and correctly deals with the relationship between material entity and its attributes
Chinese PinYin : Fan Zhen
Fan Zhen
