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

 introduction 
9
Qin empire onwards, or even earlier, of certain distinct and exclusive 
schools of thought that included Confucianism, Legalism and Daoism, 
with their defined principles and professional adherents. This could 
result in the ability of a Confucian ‘party’ to control the government 
and may be considered along with the views expressed by Hu Shih 
on the control of absolute monarchy. At the same time Dubs implies 
that Wudi and indeed other emperors should be credited with the 
power of implementing their own personal ideas and initiatives; such 
an assumption may not necessarily be valid.
16
More recently Michael 
Nylan published a notable challenge to the concept of a ‘victory of 
Confucianism’.
17
Dubs mentions the effect of Dong Zhongshu’s responses to Wudi’s 
rescripts and, probably correctly, omits mention of the Chunqiu 
fanlu. However, his statement that ‘Emperor Hsüan [r. 74–48 BCE] 
was undoubtedly reminded of Tung Chung-shu’s proposal and cer-
tainly recognized the advantages of this policy’—i.e., of intellectual 
unification—is a proposition that requires support.
18
Yet before blaming pioneer scholars such as Hu Shih or Dubs for 
writing in generalities we may reflect that they were in many ways 
re-iterating elements of a long tradition that was embedded in Chi-
nese scholarship. To some extent they were drawing on the divisions 
and categories seen in Sima Tan’s writings and elaborated in those of 
Liu Xiang 
劉向 and Liu Xin 劉歆. How far Sima Tan had in mind 
the writers of his own time rather than those of the past may not be 
known; and the prime purpose of the lists that Liu Xiang and Liu Xin 
produced was not that of analyzing Han ways of thought. It may be 
remembered that the expressions used by these writers are ru zhe 
儒者 
and ru jia 
儒家, but not ru jiao 儒教, which is seen but once in the 
Shiji and Han shu without implying a coherent set of views.
19
In his fine introduction to his translation of the Baihu tong of 1949, 
Tjan Tjoe Som wrote of Dong Zhongshu as bringing ‘the new Confu-
cian system to its fullest development’ and as making ‘the speculation 
on the yin and the yang the principle for Confucian studies’. On the 
16
See Loewe, The Men Who Governed Han China Companion to A Biographical 
Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (2004), Chapter Seventeen.
17
Nylan, ‘A Problematic Model: The Han “Orthodox Synthesis,” Then and Now’ 
(1999).
18
Dubs, op. cit., p. 353.
19
SJ 124, p. 3184, HS 92, p. 3699.

10 introduction
basis of the Chunqiu fanlu and the three responses,
20
he saw Dong as 
the first great Chinese theologian, thanks to his view that the Chunqiu 
included a ‘sacred message that was valid for all times’; and he wrote of 
him as constructing an impressive system which combined cosmology, 
ethics, history and a political programme, as applied to the interpreta-
tion of the Classics. In addition, and presumably on the basis of the 
Chunqiu fanlu alone, Tjan saw the Chunqiu as ‘revealing the order of 
the Five Elements, and therewith the principle of heaven’.
21
In the first of his volumes, published in 1954, Needham accepted the 
concept of the ‘victory of Confucianism’, quoting a passage from the 
biography of Dong Zhongshu in the Han shu. In his volume on the his-
tory of scientific thought, published in 1956, he refers repeatedly to Dong 
Zhongshu whom he once categorises as a ‘Confucian greatly influenced 
by Taoism’. Throughout he calls on the evidence of the Chunqiu fanlu and 
expresses no reservations regarding its authenticity, dating it to Dong’s 
own lifetime.
22
In an account of the government of the Ming dynasty, 
Hucker writes about the supremacy of Confucianism ‘as expounded 
originally by such ancient thinkers as Confucius and Mencius, [and] 
as related systematically to government by Tung Chung-shu in the 
second century B.C. . . .’
23
In the brief terms that are suitable for a chronological table, de Bary 
(1960) described Dong Zhongshu as ‘leading Confucian philosopher’. 
He amplifies this in his main text, where he writes of the growth of 
Confucianism during Wudi’s reign, accepting the idea of its ‘victory’ 
over other schools.
24
This was largely due to the efforts of scholars like Tung Chung-shu who, 
equally eclectic
25
in their ideas, were able to produce a system better 
suited to the needs of the imperial government and its rapidly expanding 
20
For the three responses, probably delivered in 134 BCE, see Chapter Two below 
Appendix (1) and Chapter Three below pp. 86–100 and Appendix 1.
21
Tjan Tjoe Som, Po Hu T’ung the comprehensive discussions in the White Tiger 

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