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

 introduction 
11
bureaucracy. Though this new philosophy of Tung Chung-shu and his 
successors is commonly described as Confucian, it is far removed from 
the simple ethical doctrines of Confucius and his immediate followers. 
Its inspiration and the core of its ideas undoubtedly derive from the 
Confucian school of Chou times, but these have been expanded by bor-
rowings from other schools to embrace many areas of speculation that 
were hardly touched upon in early Confucianism. For only by offering 
a complete philosophy of man and the universe was Han Confucianism 
able to supplant its rivals and achieve, as it did, a position of state-
supported orthodoxy.
De Bary cites from the Chunqiu fanlu to illustrate Dong’s political 
ideas and discusses his views on creation and Yin Yang (p. 191), and 
Wu xing (pp. 201–6).
26
For land reform he quotes from his memorial 
that is included in Han shu 24, but he does not mention Dong’s three 
responses. In a later volume he writes of Dong with fulsome praise as 
‘a key figure in the establishment of the Confucian classics as the basis 
of public instruction, but he was also widely respected as a person of 
great integrity and as an outspoken advocate of political and economic 
reforms’.
27
Wing-tsit Chan (1963) likewise evidently saw no reason to ques-
tion the validity of the Chunqiu fanlu as expressing Dong’s views; and 
he takes the conventional view of Confucianism being one of several 
schools and Dong as being its protagonist. In his major study of Chi-
nese philosophy (1963) he wrote:
28
On the surface, Tung Chung-shu (c. 179–c. 104 BC) seems to be of only 
minor philosophical interest, but historically he is of the utmost impor-
tance. He was chiefly instrumental in making Confucianism the state 
doctrine in 136 BC. This supremacy excluded other schools, and lasted 
until 1905.
Wing-tsit Chan then gives credit to Dong for his treatment of the uni-
verse as an organic whole and writes of his view of history as ‘going in 
a cycle of three periods, symbolized by black, white and red. This in 
26
CQFL 18, 19, 43, 44, 35, 30 (for political ideas); 58 and 59 for Yin yang and 
Wu xing. 
27
Wm. Theodore de Bary, East Asian Civilizations: a Dialogue in Five Stages (1988), 
p. 15; pp. 16–7 for citation from CQFL 19.
28
Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963) pp. 271–2; see also 
p. 287, for translation of a part of Chunqiu fanlu, pian 23 ‘San dai gai zhi zhi wen’, 
and p. 279 for part of pian 42 ‘Wu xing zhi yi’.

12 introduction
itself is not much different from Tsou Yen’s (305?–240 BC?) theory of 
the revolution of the Five Powers’.
The view that these two systems were ‘not much different’ can hardly 
be acceptable, as is apparent from a comparison of the classic state-
ment of Zou Yan,
29

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