Abstract

The “study of ancient words and phrases” of Ogyū Sorai is not merely a method for writing and reading literary treatises or prose and poetry in Classical Chinese. It is also important as a methodology that helped Sorai to interpret the primary corpus of “ancient words and phrases”, which includes the Classics, i.e., the canonical texts of Confucianism. It gave Sorai his grasp on the “ancient language” and allowed him to create the classical scholarship he displayed in Bendō 弁道, Benmei 弁名, Rongo-chō 論語徴, etc. In this article, I shall, within the context of the history of Chinese studies in East Asia, present one possible solution to the question, how the study of ancient words and phrases as a method of interpreting texts in classical Chinese was re-applied by Sorai as a methodology for the study of the Classics, and how this enabled him to rejuvenate the study of these Classics.