A brief overview of the unearthed “Analects” documents in East Asia over the past 50 years

Abstract

From the perspective of newly unearthed inscriptions of the “Analects” of Confucius in East Asia over the past 50 years, it can be seen that it is a “living” text (活体) or “hypertext” (超文体) that is constantly developing and changing in time and space, often filtered and reconstructed due to subjective and objective needs. By the middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the differentiation and standardization of the “Qi Analects” (齐论语), “Gu Analects” (古论语), and “Lu Analects” (鲁论语) had not been completed, indicating that the compilation of the “Analects” had not been finalized. With the expansion of the Han and Tang empires and external exchanges, the “Analects” had spread to regions such as the Western Regions, Xinjiang, and Yunnan, as well as the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago. This also marked the gradual formation and establishment of the East Asian Sinicized cultural sphere centered around Confucianism and its ideological concepts with the “Analects” as the core.