Four Books

The Lúnyǔ (論語), known as the Analects in English, is a collection of internal "discussions" (論) "spoken" (語) at Ru school. The teacher and students engage in conversations on a wide range of topics, from character development to government. Hundreds of years later, these sayings were "selected" (a more distant secondary meaning of 論) and compiled into this book.

According to the traditional account, after Kongzi's death in 479 BC, the individual family records and oral tradition kept by the descendants of his students were eventually collected and edited together in the early Han Dynasty around 200 BC. There were three main versions circulating at that time: the Lu version, the Qi version, and the Old Text version. However, two were lost. The surviving Old Text version (古文經) is believed to have been compiled during the early Han Dynasty and is characterized by its straightforwardness, with fewer embellishments and use of older characters, and is thus considered by scholars to be the closest to the original sayings. This received version of these compiled discourses is organized into 20 chapters, with approximately 500 verses in total.

Once we understand this history, the fragmented nature of the book becomes understandable. It is a compiled dialogue between the original group of thinkers in the Ru School. Perhaps in modern terms, it can be thought of as the "meeting notes of a think tank," four decades worth of notes, that were then passed down for three centuries before being collated! It's important to note that these are not "the sayings of Confucius," which shows Western bias for an individual figure, but rather the thoughts of a group of people working together under his guidance. Due to its fragmented nature, it has always been studied through commentaries by later scholars and philosophers, most notably for a thousand years by Han Dynasty's He Yan and then for another thousand years by Song Dynasty's Zhu Xi.

While these sayings taken in total do form a philosophy, it's difficult for a reader to form it for themselves, and again, always required referencing commentaries. At some point these passed-down discussions needed to be synthesized into a coherent philosophy, and that was done by the school's descendant Mengzi in short essay format, who lived from 372 to 289 BC, as well as by Xunzi. So rather interestingly, the Analects actually achieved final form in the Han Dynasty after Mengzi had already done the difficult work of synthesizing circulating sayings and practices, as well as evolving them further, into a widely understandable philosophy. For this, read the Mengzi.

Therefore, the surviving "Old Text" version of The Discussions offers us a look backward into the early thoughts of the Ru School and its line of descendants who shaped the final text. It is written in a highly terse, straightforward, and yet poetic style, on the topics of ethics, politics, education, and personal development. It's an interesting mix, which is both straightforward yet difficult. Many of its passages are open to multiple interpretations and have been studied by scholars, government officials, and commoners for over 2,000 years. The text has set the direction and shaped the thinking of over 1.6 billion people in East Asia, Vietnam, and Singapore, who practice a later-day form of what is codified herein.

References

Regarding the title of this book, Lúnyǔ 論語, we must begin, in accordance with Ru School philosophy itself, with a rectification of names. If names are not correct, then meaning will not be understood.

From the Han Dynasty dictionary, the Shuowen, the definition of our first character Lùn is "to discuss.” The definition of our second character Yǔ is actually given as Lùn, thus also to discuss. From the Song Dynasty dictionary, the Guangyun, the definitions of Lùn are “words having reason, to explain, to discuss, to think.”

From the Analects itself, Lùn 論 is used 2 times and both times as "discussion." Yì 議, the definition given by the Han Dynasty dictionary for Lùn 論, is used 2 times and also both times as "discussion." Yǔ 語 is used 16 times, usually meaning "to speak; oral language” or sometimes “to tell.”

Given all this, "Discussion (on) Sayings (of Kongzi)" or "Discussions Spoken (at Ru School)" seem like the most literal and likely translations. However, the latter is more vague and broad, which can accommodate all meanings, fit the wide variety of verses, and does not make assumptions. My abbreviation here, "The Discussions of Ru School," retains the critical word "discussions," which is the narrative style of the entire text, and adds the implied context “at a school.”

For more on this, see The Analects of Confucius, a Rectification of Names.