| dc.description.abstract | From ancient times to the present, human being has been paying close attention to life arrangement. Most Chinese classical literature started with the motif of life. On the basis of concerning about life, I re-peruse Tso-chuan to explore what it wants to say about life arrangement. Via considering the concept of virtue and destiny and analyzing the calamity and happiness incidents in Tso-chuan, I intend to interpret how people in Spring and Autumn Period collect their thoughts when facing different situations in life. Further, to probe the historical meaning that Tso-chuan conveys.
The thesis contains four parts. In the first part, the origin of concepts of destiny will be inspected by the historical sequence. Ancient Chinese businessman thought that calamity and happiness were controlled by Divinity. One who supported by Divinity became the ruler. People in Zhou Dynasty followed this idea, but called the supreme deity ”sky” instead of “Divinity”, and brought out the concept of virtue on which the transfer of providence rested. The purpose of second part is to study the connotation and influence of “virtue”. By inspecting the origin of “virtue”, I found that the primal meaning of “virtue” signifies “political power” and the implication of moral was developed at the beginning of Zhou Dynasty. From the record of “virtue” in Tso-chuan, the people in Spring and Autumn Period continued and deepened the concept of virtue, launched the connotation of virtue in accordance with courtesy, and emphasized political consciousness which should be regulated by moral. It showed that people respect for virtue at that time generally. The third part of the thesis is to explore the form of Destiny emerged in Tso-chuan. Because the prediction of “calamity” or “happiness” incident is the direct presentation of “destiny” in Tso-chuan, I will expound in five directions: observing weather and horoscope, divining by means of the stalks of the milfoil and tortoise-shell, interpreting signs in dream, physiognomy reading and ones words and deeds to explain the relation between omen and “calamity” and “happiness” of destiny. Further, I will dig out the interlace situation between religious belief and humane spirit. The forth part is to discuss the interaction between “Destiny” and “Virtue” in Tso-chuan. Following by the viewpoint that the omen could be used to predict the “calamity” or “happiness” of “destiny”, first, I would like to study how human being’s moral and courtesy affect omen; secondly, to study the “calamity” or “happiness” incidents in Tso-chuan to figure out the relations between “Destiny” and “Virtue”-consistent, inconsistent or irrelevant, then to comb out the thought of people in Spring and Autumn Period; finally to explain the philosophy of life and values caused by three kinds of relation mentioned above.
Via analyzing the incidents in Tso-chuan, it’s found that there are three thoughts describing “calamity” or “happiness” phenomenon: “Destiny decided by sky”, “Destiny decided by virtue” and “Destiny and virtue are irrelevant”. However, the pectoral idea of the incidents is to convey the concept of respecting nature law and making what is humanly possible, deliver the purpose of punishing evil and encouraging good and show out Tso-chuan’s typical idea and its historical meaning which is to see through life, interpret attitude toward human life.
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