What factors have contributed to Chinas political and cultural unity Confucians never gave up the idea that the aim of political power and activity is the fulfillment of individuals and the welfare of society. To achieve these ends, Confucians resorted to the supreme authority of Heaven with theological implications. In the Sung era, the concept of the Mandate of Heaven was rationalized to a greater extent than before, being transformed into the innate voice of conscience, the very nature of human beings. Choson Confucianism was loyal to this credo, which means that man was viewed spiritually rather than as an earthling. Thus, the meaning of life lay in fulfilling mans metaphysical nature to which all social rules and institutions were applied, i.e. the system of Rites based on Rituals. The Shu Jing, or Classic of History, is the oldest complete work among what are known as the five Confucian classics.
The five classics were canonized as the basic elements of the Confucian educational system during the second century BCE., when the books were reconstructed by order of several emperors of the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE).
Although Han scholars probably refashioned elements of the Shu Jing, the work was already ancient in Confucius’s day, and the book, as we have received it, is probably essentially the same text that Confucius (551-479 BCE) knew, studied, and accepted as an authentic record of Chinese civilization. The Mandate of Heaven was a political-social philosophy that served as the basic Chinese explanation for the success and failure of monarchs and states down to the end of the empire in 1912 CE. Whenever a dynasty fell, the reason invariably offered by China’s sages was that it had lost the moral right to rule which is given by Heaven alone. In this context heaven did not mean a personal god but a cosmic all-pervading power. Most historians today agree that the theory the Mandate of Heaven was an invention of the Zhou to justify their overthrow of the Shang.
The Essay on confucian
Confucianism, the philosophical system based on the teaching of Confucius (551-479 BC), dominated Chinese sociopolitical life for most of Chinese history and largely influenced the cultures of Korea, Japan, and Indochina. The Confucian school functioned as a recruiting ground for government positions, which were filled by those scoring highest on examinations in the Confucian classics. It also ...
The king, after all, was the father of his people, and paternal authority was the basic cement of Chinese society from earliest times. Rebellion against a father, therefore, needed extraordinary justification. The Han dynasty is divided into two periods: the Western Han, with its capital in Changan (206 B.C. – A.D. 8); and the Eastern Han, with its capital in Luoyang (A.D. 25 – 221).
There was an interregnum of 17 years from A.D. 8 to 25, during which Wang Mang, a rebellious usurper to the throne, held sway. Contemporaneous with the Roman Empire, the Han dynasty was generally strong, powerful, stable, and prosperous. The political and military might of the Han dynasty so impressed the outside world at the time that the Chinese have been known as the Han people ever since. By the same token, the study of Chinese history, art, and literature (known in the West as Sinology) is known in Chinese as “Han hsueh,” meaning “Han studies.” The Han dynasty inherited from the previous regime all of its political institutions, but eliminated its totalitarian measures and policies. The political institutions of the Ch’in and Han dynasties were typical of those in medieval China.
The Nine-Chapter Legal Code, drawn up by Prime Minister Hsiao Ho in the early days of the Han dynasty, served as a model for all later Chinese legal codes. Education flourished in both the Western and Eastern Han, with as many as 30,000 students attending the national higher learning institute in the capital at the peak of its development. Two important trends that occurred during the Han dynasty are worthy of special mention. One was the encouragement of academic studies, and the other, the expansion of Chinese culture to wider geographic areas, coinciding with the opening of trade routes between East and West. The Han dynasty reached its apogee during the 54-year reign of Wu Ti (140 – 87 B.C.), who devoted his inexhaustible energies to the promotion of scholarly studies and military expansion. He was as ambitious and aggressive as Ch’in Shih Huang, but tempered harshness with mercy by adopting the “kingly way.” Han Confucianism was inextricably tied to the imperial government, and thus the philosophy suffered a severe setback following the collapse of the Han.
The Term Paper on Pre-Han Classical Chinese Thought: Confucianism and Daoism
1. Confucianism is a system of ideological beliefs and ethical philosophy that is developed from the teachings and thoughts of ancient Chinese teacher Confucius. Confucianism originated during the Spring and Autumn period (770 to 476 BC). Confucius emphasized the morality of an individual and the government, the importance of how social relationships should be and how it affects social order and ...
Weaknesses in Imperial Confucianism in the post-Han period created conditions ripe for a brief flourishing of Taoist culture and the eventual widespread..
