Meng Wentong

Meng Wentong

Mengwentong (1894-1968), formerly known as Erda, was named Wentong in Sichuan Province

Yanting County

A native of Shiniu temple, he is an outstanding historian in modern China. Mr. Meng Wentong has great attainments and achievements in the research of ancient Chinese history and ancient academic culture.

Introduction of experts

essential information

Mr. Meng Wentong (1894-1968) is a native of shiniumiao, Yanting County, Sichuan Province. He is an outstanding modern historian in China. Since the 1920s, he has been teaching in Chengdu University, Chengdu Normal University, Chengdu National College, Central University, Henan University, Peking University and Hebei women's normal university. In the 1940s, he has been the director of Sichuan Provincial Library and professor of West China University and Sichuan University. After the founding of the people's Republic of China, he was a professor of West China University and Sichuan University, a researcher and an academic member of the Institute of history of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and successively served as the people's representative of Chengdu, member of the Municipal Committee of the Chinese people's Political Consultative conference, member of the Chengdu Municipal Committee of the China Democratic League and member of the Sichuan Provincial Committee. Mr. Meng Wentong has worked hard all his life in the field of ancient Chinese history and ancient academic and cultural research, with profound attainments and high achievements. Mr. Meng Wentong is also highly accomplished in Buddhism. According to cloud, he is one of the successors of Mr. Zhu De's Neng Hai Shi.

His main works include: Zhen Wei of ancient history, collation of Li Rong's notes on Laozi, collation of Cheng Xuanying's notes on Laozi, studies on the ethnic minorities of Zhou and Qin Dynasties, and Jingxue qieyuan

Life experience

Meng Wentong's education was carried out under the careful instruction of the masters of traditional Chinese culture. In his early years, he was educated by Liao Ping and Liu Shipei, the masters of traditional Chinese culture in the late Qing Dynasty. He began his long academic career from studying traditional Confucian classics. Later, he asked Ouyang Jingwu, the master of modern Buddhism, about Buddhism and ancient academic thoughts.

In 1927, Mr. Meng Wentong wrote his famous work "ancient history Zhenwei", which put forward the theory that the ancient Chinese nation could be divided into three groups: Jianghan, Haidai and Heluo, with different tribes, surnames and regions, and different economic and cultural characteristics. After that, he enriched and perfected this theory from the perspective of academic culture with the book "jingxueqiyuan". The "three systems theory" is quite different from the views of the school of ancient history at that time, but it can be compared with it in terms of its extensive and far-reaching influence on the academic circles.

Chengdu University, Chengdu Normal University and public Sichuan University were merged into national Sichuan University. The Japanese puppet government repeatedly "invited" him to write political and academic articles. Although there were seven members in the family of mengwentong, they were in financial difficulties. In addition, the war of resistance against Japan broke out and their families were increasingly in difficulties. Later, the whole family moved to Sichuan and taught in Sichuan University. However, his attitude towards Hu Shi was almost "bull". During his stay in Peking University, he never visited Hu Shi's home. Mr. Qian Mu also called it "a rare thing.". This made Hu Shi very embarrassed. Hu Shi even ignored the fact that there was no one to teach the history of Sui and Tang dynasties at Peking University, and he did not continue to employ mengwentong. Mengwentong took it calmly and went his own way. Later, he transferred to a female teacher in Tianjin, and his communication with Xu Xiyu and others remained the same.

Mr. Meng Wentong hasn't been away from the lecture for decades. He has been tireless in teaching and has cultivated a large number of academic talents for the country.

In 1968, after finishing the first draft of Yueshi congkao, mengwentong passed away with the world at the age of 74. Sleep in the beautiful Changsong Temple cemetery.

Course of study

Different from Xu Zhongshu's self-study, Meng Wentong's education was carried out under the careful guidance of the masters of traditional Chinese culture. Mengwentong entered a private school at the age of five. In 1906, he joined Sichuan higher school with his uncle and set up a middle school. Five years later, he was elected to Sichuan Cungu school, the highest institution of Chinese culture at that time. Sichuan Cungu school was founded by Zhao Qilin in imitation of Zhang Zhidong in Hubei Province as a national institution. It has high requirements for candidates, most of them are Juren, Gongsheng and top talents in the new school. Its purpose is to "preserve traditional Chinese culture and respect Shu sages". After entering the school, mengwentong was still "deaf to the world's affairs, and only read the classics and history books". He always studied the traditional Chinese culture, and did not stick to what the masters usually said. After class, he bought a large number of books on his own, covering a wide range of classics, history, books and collections. He also began to involve the complete works of Sikuquanshu. His extensive knowledge in the early years enabled mengwentong to show a deep foundation in later studies of classics, history and Buddhism.

research findings

Buddhism

Mongolian Tongzhi Buddhism originated from the debate of modern and ancient Chinese in the early 1920s. After graduating from Sichuan Cungu school in 1918, mengwentong returned to his hometown Yanting to make a living by running a private school. He continued to work in the temple for three years. After the May 4th movement, China set off a new cultural revolution. The new culture cadres represented by Lu Xun and Chen Duxiu had a fierce debate with Xueheng School such as Wu Mi and Zhang Shizhao. In this dispute, mengwentong was hard to choose, so he resigned from the Chongqing Federation of government and the second women's normal school of Chongqing Province. "He traveled between Wu and Yue, visited the major classics and historians, talked with Zhang Taiyan about the changes of ancient and modern times, and Ouyang did not care about the influence of Buddhist scriptures.". In the long journey of traveling, Mongolian language still can not be chosen between the two. But the deep unconscious influence of Buddhism in Chinese thought has been confined to the study of Buddhism in Ouyang's unfounded "China's Academy", which lasted for four years from 1923 to 1927 * *. In this period, mengwentong and Tang Yongtong, Xiong Shili, LV Cheng, etc. get along day and night, and argue with each other. Although they have different opinions, they are quite different, and even there are tit for tat opponents, but it plays a very important role in the study of mengwentong Buddhism.

During the long period of "gossiping" and "arguing", Meng Wentong was able to sidestep the foundation of each school's argumentation and the process of its argumentation, thus making his system more precise and rigorous, so that few people could compare with him in the study of Buddhism at that time. Ouyang didn't place his hope on mengwentong, hoping that he would inherit the mantle and study Buddhism. "I'll send it to you first. This only my brother can know, the person talks about its matter, wants its quick to also It's a pity that if we continue to face great difficulties, we will be lonely and have few neighbors. " "Confucius, talking about the end of its end, unlimited events, I hope that my brother will continue to record things." After leaving the "Sina Institute", Ouyang had no * * and wrote to inquire. He hoped to "cut the candles in the West and share the talks".

As a result, Meng Wentong has made great breakthroughs in the study of Buddhism. Ouyang was so overjoyed that he reread his Chinese Zen study and new Jueluo. Sometimes he was angry with the original manuscript, and sometimes he wrote ink on the manuscript. Later, two articles written by mengwentong were published in the first issue of neixue, followed by Ouyang Jingwu's two articles Buddhism and Xinxue.

History and Literature

In the field of classics, history and literature, Mongolian communication has shown its deep foundation as early as in Sichuan Cungu school. In 1914, Meng Wentong wrote the theory of Kong's ancient prose, which goes deep into the foundation of the old history and the six classics, so as to distinguish their differences and solve the crux of the argument between the two. The unique insight of Mongolian literary communication has won the praise of its teacher Liao Ping: "literary communication is like the bottom of a barrel. admire! admire! It's going to be everybody. " After that, Meng Wentong successively wrote such monographs as Pingyi of Sinology in recent 20 years, the origin of Confucian classics, Tianwen itself, the history of Zhou and Qin nationalities, the history of Chinese historiography, archaeology, the development of Confucian political thought, and the evolution and principles of Mohism.

As for the classics and history, Mongolian scholars always regard them as the longitude and latitude of history, and they overlap with literature to form a historical torrent. In his argumentation of works, he often used classics to govern history and annotated classics with history. The two overlapped each other and made each other interesting. More than 130 kinds of ancient documents are quoted in detail in the book "a study of the history of Yue" written by Meng Wentong in 1968. This paper explores the origin, development, expansion and weakening process of Vietnam from twelve perspectives. The argument is rigorous, the data is detailed and convincing. In the early 1980s, the Vietnamese authorities instructed their domestic scholars to write "ancient history of Vietnam" in order to find an excuse for public opinion to invade China. In 1984, Zhonghua Book Company was about to publish the materials of "a study of the history of Vietnam" written by mengwentong, and the public opinion effect of the book "ancient history of Vietnam" disappeared.

Mr. Meng Wentong's most important historical thought is "to have a comprehensive view of knowledge, to understand its changes". He thinks that history is developing and changing. The task of historians is to point out the traces of historical changes and reveal the reasons for development. In practice, Mr. Meng Wentong pays attention to exploring the reasons of historical development from the study of social and economic history. The article "the expansion of agricultural production and the evolution of tax and servitude system and academic thought in Chinese history" is the representative work of the viewpoint of "history changes with clarity". In his later years, Meng Wentong devoted himself to the study of national history and local history, and proposed that Kunlun should be a cultural center in ancient times. He believed that Bashu culture should be spread from west to East, and Chu culture was also influenced by Bashu culture. Shanhaijing is a famous academic viewpoint of Bashu Chu ancient cultural products. Here, it is worth a big book. As a historian, Mr. Meng Wentong, with a sense of responsibility to safeguard the lofty interests of the Chinese nation, spent the last four years of his life writing a monograph on the history of the ancient Baiyue nation, the history of Yue. This is a book full of real patriotic spirit, and its achievements mark a new level of the study of ancient national history in China. In addition, there are dozens of monographs and academic papers, such as ancient land Zhenwei, five theories of Confucianism, ten kinds of Taoist books, ancient history of Bashu, and Research on pre Qin ethnic minorities. He has made great achievements in many fields, such as ancient history, ancient geography, ancient nationality, ancient academy, ancient religion and so on. In addition, there are a few

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