圣王与真人:《庄子·内篇》对帝尧传说的重构

Sage King and True Man:Reconstructing the Myths of Yao in the Inner Chapters of Zhuangzi

在先秦儒家的思想谱系中,尧通常被视为至高无上的圣王。《庄子》中的尧则不然,多以彷徨不宁的形象登场,尤以内篇为甚。通观内篇中与尧相关的五则政治寓言,庄子对上古历史和尧舜传说中“让天下”“除四罪”“单均刑法”这几个母题进行了改造,重构了尧的圣王形象。通过这一改造,庄子一方面揭示了人伦秩序的局限性,从而牵引出更为博大的“道”的本体论;另一方面,庄子并没有否弃尧所代表的方内秩序,而是建立了一种“道”的循环论,使圣王代表的方内之路与神人代表的方外之路并行不悖。“道”不即不离的特质体现于真人这一游走于方内与方外的理想人格上。

In the thinking of pre-Qin Confucians,Yao was usually regarded as a sage king of supreme authority and virtue.But this figure appears in Zhuangzi differently.It is so especially in the inner chapters of Zhuangzi,where Yao is described as a disturbed figure.Through the five political fables relating to Yao,Zhuangzi transforms three motifs visible in the traditional accounts of the time of Yao and Shun,which are“the abdication of Yao”,“ridding four offenders”,“ensuring justice with punishments and laws”.Through its transformation,Zhuangzi on the one hand reveals the limits of worldly morality,brings to light an ontology of Tao on a larger scale,on the other hand by no means abandons Yao’s path,rather,setting it side by side with the otherworldly path of“Divine Man”in a framework of Tao conceived as something circular.Such conception of Tao is embodied in the ideal of“True Man”,who wonders both in the worldly and in the other-worldly spheres.