以孔释佛还是以佛释孔——康有为、谭嗣同孔教观比较

Interpreting Buddhism with Confucianism or Interpreting Confucianism with Buddhism

在对传统文化的梳理中,康有为、谭嗣同将诸子百家都归为孔子之学,致使孔子之学成为中国传统文化的代名词,并被称为孔教,以与佛教、耶教(基督教)分庭抗礼。另一方面,他们对孔教与佛教位次的排序截然不同:康有为坚持孔教立场,谭嗣同将佛教置于孔教之上。这使两人所讲的孔教演绎出以孔释佛与以佛释孔的原则性区别。这种分歧在对孔教内容的理解上充分展示出来,致使孔教具有了两个不同的版本。作为孔子之学现代化转换的最初尝试,康有为、谭嗣同的做法发人深省,孔教称谓引发的儒学是否是宗教的争论至今仍在继续。

During the summary of the traditional culture, Kang Youwei and Tan Sitong categorized the various schools of thoughts and their exponents during the period from pre-Qin times to the early years of the Han Dynasty in the school of Confucian, which made it a pronoun for Chinese traditional culture and called Confucianism to confront with Buddhism and Christian on equal terms. On the other hand, the two scholars ranked Confucianism and Buddhism in different orders, i.e., Kang insisted on his standing point in Confucianism, while Tan put Buddhism top on Confucianism, which led to their difference when teaching the starting principles of Confucianism. Such disagreement was fully displayed in the study and understanding later which led to two different versions of Confucianism. As a preliminary test in converting Confucianism to modem way, Kang and Tan＇s ways of interpretation are thought-provoking and the debate on whether Confucianism belongs to religion which was triggered by them remains Nowadays.