In the West, the fundamental aim of classical studies is to trace the roots of European culture, which originated in ancient Greece and Rome. It is not a closed discipline confined to a single nation or country, but a field of study concerned with Europe as a regional whole. In China, if the disciplinary concept of “Chinese classical studies” is adopted merely to give the traditional notion of guoxue (national studies) another name, it has little substantive significance. The concept of “Chinese classical studies” should instead imply the transcendence and renewal of traditional guoxue.

Traditional guoxue research, it should be acknowledged, has a certain inward-looking and conservative orientation. Although some scholars have adopted modern academic methods such as comparative literature and cross-cultural studies, many others still adhere to a narrowly defined guoxue standpoint. Research conducted entirely within the framework of guoxue belongs to guoxue in the narrow sense rather than to “classical studies.” The fundamental distinction between classical studies and guoxue lies in whether the scholarly horizon is open, cross-disciplinary, transnational, and regional.

If “classical studies” is understood as an open field concerned with regional cultural identity, then the scope of “Chinese classical studies” should encompass three components: Chinese guoxue research, Chinese “Western classical studies,” and Chinese “Eastern classical studies.” Among these, guoxue serves as the center, core, and point of departure of “Chinese classical studies,” while “Western classical studies” and “Eastern classical studies” constitute its natural extensions and broaden its scholarly horizon.

The so-called “Oriental studies from the perspective of Chinese classical studies” is, in essence, Eastern classical studies through the lens of Chinese classical studies. In fact, “Oriental studies” is itself an imported disciplinary concept. Just as the West and Japan have their own Oriental studies, China also has its own tradition of Oriental studies. What needs to be emphasized is that while a closed form of guoxue may ignore “Oriental studies,” Oriental studies cannot be ignored within the framework of Chinese classical studies. If Chinese classical studies is to achieve renewal and breakthrough on the basis of earlier guoxue, it must be grounded in China while looking outward to the world—including Asia and other Eastern countries—a perspective that naturally gives rise to Eastern classical studies from the perspective of Chinese classical studies.

By moving beyond traditional guoxue, Oriental studies from the perspective of Chinese classical studies first turns to the foreign dissemination and influence of ancient Chinese texts. Once scholars of Chinese classical studies begin examining the circulation, translation, and impact of ancient Chinese texts in other Eastern countries, they have in fact entered the field of Oriental studies. When they compare ancient Chinese texts with related ancient texts from other Eastern countries, and through such comparison make value and aesthetic judgments about ancient Chinese texts, while characterizing and positioning them, they have likewise entered the field of “Chinese Oriental studies.”

The reason China’s “Eastern classical studies” is regarded as a key component of Chinese classical studies is that the “Eastern canon” and the “Chinese canon” overlap or coincide to a considerable extent. For example, China’s Confucian classics are in fact ancient texts shared by East Asian countries. China’s classical literature, or its “literary canon”—including Chinese characters themselves, as well as Chinese poetry and prose—also constitutes a common literary canon for East Asian countries. Meanwhile, Buddhist scriptures translated into Chinese from Indian Buddhist texts enabled the Sinicization of Indian Buddhist literature. Together with the translated scriptures of Theravada Buddhism, this process also “Easternized” Indian Buddhist texts, transforming the Buddhist canon into the “Eastern canon.”

Within this coexistence and mutual transformation, the classics of Eastern peoples became regional classics of the East. Once these national classics became Eastern classics, their canonical status was further reinforced. Moreover, such “classics,” though ancient, are not rigid or lifeless—they are living cultural forms that retain their vitality through continual dissemination and evolution. They allow those capable of accessing and interpreting the classics to “recount the classics while remembering their ancestors,” to understand the shared history of the East, and to identify with a common Eastern culture.

Wang Xiangyuan is a professor from the Faculty of Japanese Language and Culture (Institute of Oriental Studies) at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.