Transforming Benevolence

Abstract

Kang Youwei 康有為 (1858–1927) is certainly not a minor figure in Chinese modern history. Best known for his unsuccessful participation in the Hundred Days Reforms of 1898, he was the last interpreter of the New Text School of Classicism – a progressive interpretation of the Confucian Canon, which praised political participation and institutional transformations. Kang’s adherence to this philosophical view and his subsequent personal elaboration of Classicism, is already visible in the lectures he gave to his students in Guangdong from 1891 to 1896, published in 1897 as the Wanmu caotang koushuo萬木草堂口說 (Instructions from the Hall of the Thousand Tree Cottage) and the  Nanhaishi chengji 南海师承记 (Records of Master Nanhai’s Lessons). This article sets out to analyse one of Kang’s lessons from the second collection:  Lecture on “Ren” 講仁字, in which the author provides the students with his own view of the Confucian value of “benevolence.” In his interpretation, ren 仁 becomes a form of universal empathy rather than the “old” value of traditional orthodoxy. This short text will be used as the departure point for a reflection on the formative process of the author’s thought, following its philosophical hints in order to address two issues in particular: first, the origins of Kang’s “reformism” and “progressivism” (underlying his subsequent political activism and finally flowing into the utopianism of the  Book of Great Concord), which may appear to be more rooted in a long-standing debate among Chinese Classicists than in the abrupt awakening caused by foreign influences; second, the presence of a pervading Buddhist undertone throughout Kang’s production, and its apparent contrast with his “Confucianist” intellectual endeavour.