Dong Zhongshu, a "Confucian" Heritage and the Chunqiu Fanlu

xii abbreviations
TP T’oung 
Pao
TPYL Taiping 
yulan 
WW Wen 
wu
XTS 
Xin Tang shu 
YTL Yantie 
lun 
Zhangjiashan Zhangjiashan Han mu zhujian 
ZZTJ 
Zi zhi tong jian

INTRODUCTION
On arrival to take up my first academic appointment fifty years ago 
I had had but little personal acquaintance with historians of China, 
let alone specialists in the early empires. Very shortly I found myself 
listening to colleagues and graduate students who were quite certain 
that the key to understanding the whole of China’s history lay in its 
economic developments; that the many centuries that preceded the 
foundation of the Republic in 1912 were all to be characterised by an 
unquestioned predominance of Confucianism; and that the immedi-
ate means of understanding China, past and present, lay in a study of 
the ‘gentry’.
In such circumstances a raw newcomer to the profession preferred 
not to display his shortcomings by asking directly what a speaker 
meant by ‘Confucianism’; rather did he hearken carefully to what his 
learned colleagues let slip during seminars; and he soon came to the 
conclusion that there was no acknowledged agreement as to what the 
term implied; and that vague descriptions, loose references or nega-
tive statements such as ‘different from Daoism, Legalism’ were being 
voiced in place of attempts at positive or precise definitions. Nor was 
there any attempt to explain how Confucianism of the later centu-
ries was dependent on the man known as Confucius. It seemed that a 
blanket assumption ‘Chinese empires were Confucian’ was being used 
imprecisely and with as little validity as a statement that ‘Western 
Europe was Christian’.
When, in later stages, it became possible to look more closely at 
the history of China’s early empires I found that great emphasis was 
being placed on the part played by Dong Zhongshu 
董仲舒, the ‘great 
Confucian’. Such assumptions were at times coupled with a nodding 
reference to doubts regarding his authorship of the Chunqiu fanlu, the 
major work that bears his name; but no such doubts inhibited some 
senior scholars from quoting that work as testimony of a strong Con-
fucianism that prevailed in Han times and of which Dong Zhongshu 
was a major protagonist. Clearly these subjects aroused questions; the 
general statements and conclusions that were to be read required care-
ful scrutiny; and equally clearly such investigations would have to be 
grounded in wide reading. It is only in later years that I have felt ready 

2 introduction
to ask in what ways ‘Confucianism’ existed in Han times and how far 
Dong Zhongshu’s reputation as a ‘Confucianist’ may be validated. In 
doing so, in no way do I wish to assert that some of the ideas and prac-
tices that may be regarded as integral elements of a ‘Confucianism’ 
of Song, or even Tang, times did not exist in some measure in Han 
times. Such elements included a belief in the overall powers of heaven; 
the performance of religious services to ancestors; the importance 
attached to hierarchies and their requisite rules of conduct; a respect 
for the ideals of Kongzi; and an idealised view of Western Zhou. But it 
is too early to conceive of these ideas as forming a systematic, let alone 
‘orthodox’ framework for living or thinking in Western Han.
For such reasons I have attempted as far as possible to avoid using 
terms such as Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism and Huang-Lao.
1
Other writers are ready to assume the existence of such identifiable 
and mutually exclusive schools of thought with their pronounced 
antagonisms from Western Han times, but such an assumption eludes 
me.
2
Nor can I see the existence of an interplay of imperial policies 
and decisions that rested on the rise or fall of officials who were tied 
inextricably to one or other of these modes of thought. This difference 
in opinion is of particular significance as against the view that Huang-
Lao was in favour during the reign of Jingdi (reigned 157–141 BCE),
3
rather than the more restricted recognition of, or even devotion to, its 
ideals by some persons, including the Empress Dowager Dou; nor do 
I suppose that Dong Zhongshu and others of his time were propagat-
ing ‘Confucianism’, whatever that term may imply. As in many writ-
ings, a straight translation of ru 
儒 or ruzhe 儒者—which signifies 
specialists in traditional writings—as ‘Confucian’ has begged too many 
questions.
4
1
By way of exception, see the title of an article published in 1990 ‘The failure of the 
Confucian ethic in Later Han times’, reprinted in Loewe, Divination, mythology and 
monarchy in Han China (1994). I argued there that it is difficult to see how the ideals 
associated with ‘Confucianism’ were being put into practice in Eastern Han.
2
For select contributions and views that have been expressed by recent writers, see 
the Appendix below, pp. 6–18.
3
Sarah A. Queen, From chronicle to canon: the hermeneutics of the Spring and 
Autumn, according to Tung Chung-shu (1996), pp. 19, 76.
4
Lionel M. Jensen, in Manufacturing Confucianism (1997) writes of Confucianism 
as a ‘largely Western invention’ (p. 5), and considers the growth of a cult of Kongzi 
or Confucius, the creation of ‘Confucianism’ and the various purposes to which such 
concepts have been put. In his review article of that book, Nicolas Standaert points 
out that the Jesuits did not invent the term or concept of ‘Confucianism’, which seems 

 introduction 
3
Sima Tan’s 
司馬談 well known list of six specialities of contem-
poraneous thought has normally been interpreted as naming estab-
lished groups or schools or ‘parties’, held together by their members’ 
shared devotion to a particular set of beliefs or ideals, but it has yet 
to be shown that cohesive groups of such a type existed in Western 
Han times. Nor was there a circulation of tracts or ‘pamphlets’ that set 
out such a group’s attitudes in relation to the cogent and ever present 
problems of the day. For the nature and importance of those problems 
we can turn to a few imperial pronouncements, or the essays of Lu Jia 
陸賈 (ca. 228–ca. 140 BCE) or Wang Fu 王符 ca. 90–165 CE), and the 
memorials that officials presented to the throne; and it is from such 
incomplete sources that we may draw our inferences.
There was a need to assert and support a claim that Qin or Han 
emperors stood possessed of a right to rule in succession to rulers 
depicted in mythology or featuring in history; and this right must be 
strong enough to withstand the claims of others. To some, this ques-
tion might bring with it the one of how far a ruler should take an active 

tải về 2.61 Mb.

Chia sẻ với bạn bè của bạn: