It is natural for most people to call Wang Xizhi a book saint. But have you ever wondered who wrote this book "The Sage" to Wang Xizhi? Why did you give him this title?
In order to verify this matter, I found a lot of information. Without exception, I said that Wang Xizhi was a book sage and generally had the words "recognized by later generations"
However, I don't think a concept, especially a title with historical significance like The Sage, will come into being casually. It must have been slowly presented to the world in the evolution of several years.
Just as we say that Confucius is a saint, it is not an idea that comes out of thin air, but the result of the rulers' continuous strengthening of identity in the whole society.
For example, the feudal emperors of past dynasties kept sealing Confucius, and his name became bigger and bigger. They also sealed some official positions for Confucius' descendants to show their obedience and respect for Confucian culture.
It can be said that this move is very effective. Therefore, Confucius gradually moved from an ordinary person to an altar and began to become a god-like existence.
Those pedantic Confucian scholars often say: Zhong Ni was not born in heaven, and eternity is like a long night. In other words, without Confucius, these thousands of years of civilization would be like a long night. Without Confucius, it would be dull, lifeless and bright. This shows the great influence of Confucius.
And Confucius is so influential, which is also related to the title. So it is very important for Wang Xizhi to understand this.
Let's take a look at what Wang Xizhi said in The Book of Jin, The Biography of Wang Xizhi. First of all, this paper introduces Wang Xizhi's life, so I won't go into details, and then begins to describe Wang Xizhi's childhood:
It is not surprising that people are young and speak slowly.
This sentence vividly describes the image of Wang Xizhi who was shy, modest and cautious in his childhood. Then, began to discuss his slightly bigger things:
And long, argumentative, known as bone, especially official script, is the highest in ancient and modern times. Critics call it a gesture, thinking it is like a cloud and agile.
The information density of this passage is very high, which not only tells the great changes in his juvenile character from wooden and shy to fickle and ungrateful, but also gives high praise to his artistic achievements.
Please note that this is only a little bit of growth (and length), and it has won such praises as: the crown of ancient and modern times, floating like a cloud, and agile like a dragon. It is really not to be underestimated!
Then it discusses in detail the allusions of Wang Xizhi's "Dong Chuang Son-in-law". Then it discusses Wang Xizhi's situation in the imperial court at that time. His concern for the general trend of the world and the sufferings of the people showed the image of a scholar-bureaucrat who loved the country and the people, so I won't go into details here.
Then, around some anecdotes about Wang Xizhi's life, this paper finally ends the whole article, which is the overall discussion of Wang Xizhi in the biography of Wang Xizhi in the Book of Jin. In the whole article, the word scholar is not mentioned at all.
Therefore, the title of book saint does not come from official history books. We can only look for the answer from other arguments. However, the evaluation of Wang Xizhi in the Book of Jin is still very high, as can be seen from the following sentences:
The crown of ancient and modern times, floating like a cloud, agile like a dragon.
Obviously, these discourses are viewed from a historical perspective. They are the best in ancient times, that is, the first invincible in ancient times. However, we don't need to understand what he means in the last two sentences. We only need to look at the two images of Yunlong to know how high this evaluation is.
The ancients thought that clouds were the product of dragons and breath. The so-called "clouds are not fake, but have their own breath." It can be seen that clouds and dragons are one. In the image of China culture, dragon means power, nobility and supremacy. Therefore, for a long time, the dragon was the symbol of the emperor. Used to describe Wang Xizhi's calligraphy, that is to say, Wang Xizhi's calligraphy is the highest, which shows his high artistic achievements.
Therefore, such an evaluation established Wang Xizhi's position in history. This is the absolute role of his self-proclaimed holy spirit.
Next, let's look at the Tang Dynasty, which can be said to be the most critical period for Wang Xizhi's sages.
In the Tang Dynasty, Zhang Yanyuan's Book of Dharma and Zhang Huaiguan's Book of Breaking ranked and discussed the calligraphers before and after Wang Xizhi, among which Wang Xizhi was particularly favored. The book said:
To be as good as God, Li Si, Du Du, Cui Yuan, Huang Xiang and Suo Jing each get one; Shi Yan, Cai Yong and Zhong You won the second place; Zhang zhi won the third place; Shao Yi and Amethyst each won the fifth place.
What do you mean? In other words, you asked me to grade these people, and I gave them one point, while Wang Xizhi and his son were different, so they had to score five points. In this way, the gap is obvious.
When discussing Wang Xizhi separately, he said:
Wang Xizhi ... you are good at calligraphy, calligraphy, calligraphy, eight points, flying white, composition, lines and preparation ... He has achieved magical works, and he has never reached the peak since he was not inspired by nature. However, it is a shame to cut the grass and compromise with the crude fiber. The gain and loss of The Servant of Zhong Jun, though using Ceng Hua, is quaint. Studying the essence of the body, you will do anything, and you will still be fascinated by elegance and praise ... Li, Xing, Cao Shu,,, these are very attractive.
I don't use vernacular translation, I just look at the words used in individual sentences, such as "God", "Miao", "Jing" and "Ji", which are not ordinary words. In our words today, Wang Xizhi is a bad cow, and the cow has gone to heaven.
In addition, in this book, a more shocking fact is revealed. That is, the book sage that people thought at first was actually not Wang Xizhi.
In this book, a passage from Yang Xin is recorded. Who's Yang Xin? He is Wang Xianzhi's nephew, so this relationship is complicated enough. His argument goes like this:
Yang Yunxin: "Zhang Zhi, Huang Xiang, Zhong You and Suo Jing are sometimes called' book saints', but they are strong and muscular, and they are the heads of sages."
Zhang Huaiguan and Zhang Yanyuan both insisted that:
Take it for granted
What do you mean? That's why we agree with you, and so do we. This sentence is attached to Zhang Zhi's calligraphy, so the following sentence is the key point:
Its running script is two kings of Asia.
But his running script is much worse than that of Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi, and he can only rank second. On the surface, we cater to you first, yes, yes, in fact, we all know you. ...
So, although Yang Xin in the Southern Dynasties felt that the book saints were not his uncles Wang Xianzhi and Wang Xizhi, people in the Tang Dynasty still quietly stole the book saints' hats and settled on Wang Xizhi:
You said that Zhang Zhi, Huang Xiang, Zhong You and Suo Jing are all great scholars, and I have no problem with them. But as book saints, they can't even compare with Wang Xizhi's running script. The implication of this sentence is that Wang Xizhi and Wang Xianzhi and his son are worthy of being book saints.
Therefore, unconsciously, the book saint is Wang Xizhi. In addition, people in the Tang Dynasty didn't like Rainbow Xianzhi very much, so they gave this hat to Wang Xizhi.
If you are interested, you can just open a book and look at the words of the Tang people, and you will find that Wang Xizhi is a mythical existence for them. But the question is, why did Rainbow people learn so much in the Tang Dynasty? Is there anyone behind this?
The answer is yes, that is, Emperor Taizong. So how did Emperor Taizong support Wang Xizhi? Write an article next time and talk about it in detail. That is another wonderful story.