中英雙語話中國歷史名人 第38期:紹雍
Shao Yung (1011~1077) was a Chinese philosopher who greatly influenced the development of the idealist school of neo-Confucianism.
紹雍(1011~1077），哲學家，對唯心主義新儒學的發展有很大的影響。Shao Yung's mathematical ideas also influenced the 18th-century European philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the development of a binary arithmetical system—i. e., one based on only two digits.
紹雍的數學思想在二進制的發展方面也影響了is世紀歐洲哲學家哥特弗裏德·威爾海姆·萊布尼茲。
Originally a Taoist, Shao refused all offers of government office, preferring to while away the hours in a humble hermitage outside Henan, conversing with friends and engaging in mystical speculation.
最初紹雍信仰道家學說，拒絕當官，寧願住在河南之外一個偏遠樸實的寺院裏，通過朋友交談以及做一些神祕的思索來消磨時光。
He became interested in Confucianism through his study of the great Confucian Classic and work of divination, the Yi Ching (“Classic of Changes"). Through the Yi Ching, Shao developed his theories that numbers are the basis of all existence. To him, the spirit that underlies all things could be comprehended if one understood the division of the different elements into numbers.
紹雍通過研究儒家經典和預言書《易經》對儒學產生了興趣。通過《易經》，紹雍發展了一切存在均建基於數字的理論對紹雍而言，如果能理解不同元素分成數字的方法，那麼決定一切事物的精神就可以理解了。But unlike most previous Chinese numerologists, who usually preferred the numbers two or five, Shao believed the key to the world hinged on the number four; thus the universe is divided into four sections (Sun, Moon, stars, and zodiac), the body into four sense organs (eye, ear, nose, and mouth), and the Earth into four substances (fire, water, earth, and stone).
但是不像中國原來大多數數字命理學家更喜歡二或五那樣，紹雍認爲世界的關鍵在於四。所以宇宙分爲四個部分(太陽、月亮、星星和黃道帶)，身體分四個感官(眼、耳、鼻、口)，地球分爲四種物質(水、火、土、石)。In a similar way, all ideas have four manifestations, all actions four choices, and so forth.
以此類推:所有的思想都有四種表現，所有的行動都有四個選擇等等。Although this complicated system was outside the basic concerns of Confucianism and exercised only a peripheral influence on the development of Chinese thought, what was important was the basic theory behind the system: there is an underlying unity to existence, which can be grasped by the superior man who understands its basic principles.
儘管這一複雜體系不在儒學關注之內，並且對中國思想的發展影響也不大，但是這一體系背後的理論是很重要的：任何存在背後都有決定因素，而能夠理解存在的基本原理的高人是可以掌握存在的。The idea that the underlying principle behind the unity of the universe exists in man's mind as much as in the universe was the basis of the idealist school of neo-Confucianism.
萬物背後的決定原理不但存在於萬物中，也存在於人腦中，這一思想就是唯心主義宋明理學的基礎。Moreover, Shao brought into Confucianism the Buddhist idea that history consists of series of repeating cycles. These cycles, known to Buddhists as kalpas, were called yüan by Shao and reduced from an astronomical length to a comprehensible duration of 129,600 years.
而且紹雍還把佛教的循環學說融入了儒學裏，他將佛教叫做劫的這些循環叫做緣，井且把龐大得無法估計的長度縮減至人們可以理解的129,600年。This theory was later accepted by all branches of neo-Confucianism and made part of the official state ideology by the 12th-century Song scholar Zhu Xi.
這一理論後來被宋明理學的各個分支接受，並且被12世紀宋代學者朱熹發展成國家官方思想意識的一部分。
