A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (34 page)

Ho Hsiu s account of the way in which Confucius, working out from his own state, ideally brought the entire world to peace and order, is similar to the stages in acquiring world peace that are expounded in the Great Learning. In this respect, therefore, the Ch'un Ch iu becomes an exemplification of the Great Learning.

This theory of the three stages of social progress is also found in the Li Yiin or "Evolution of Rites,"

one of the chapters in the Li Chi. According to this treatise, the first stage was a world of disorder, the second was that of small tranquility, and the third that of great unity. The Li Yiln describes this final age as follows: When the great Too was in practice, the world was common to all; men of talents, virtue and ability were selected; sincerity was emphasized and friendship was cultivated. Therefore, men did not love only their own parents, nor did they treat as children only their own sons. A competent provision was secured for the aged till their death, employment was given to the able-bodied, and a means was provided for the upbringing of the young. Kindness and compassion were shown to widows, orphans, childless men, and those who were disabled by disease, so that they all had the wherewithal for support.

Men had their proper work and women had their homes. They hated to see the wealth of natural resources undeveloped, L so they developed it, but this development] was not for their own use. They hated not to exert themselves, [ so they worked, but their work ] was not for their own profit....This was called the great unity. (Li Chi, ch. 7-)

Though the author of the Li Yiin put this great unity into a golden age of the past, it certainly represented a current dream of the Han people, who would surely have liked to see something more than simply the political unity of the empire.

* See Ho Hsiu's Commentary un ikn hung Yang CtmimenUiry to the Ch'un Ch'in. I st year of Duke Yin. 722. B.C.

332. THEORIZER OF THE HAN EMPiKE:TUNG CHUNG-SHU

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1 HE Han dynasty was not only the chronological successor of the Ch' in, but in many ways was its continnator as well. It stabilized the unification which the Ch'in had first achieved.

The Unification of Thought

Among the many policies adopted by Ch'in for this purpose, one of the most important had been that for the unification of thought. After it had conquered all the rival states, Li Ssu, its Prime Minister, submitted a memorial to the Ch'in First Emperor (Ch'in Shih-huang-ti) which said: "Of old, the world was scattered and in confusion....Men valued what they had themselves privately studied, thus casting into disrepute what their superiors had established. At present, Your Majesty has united the world....Yet there are those who with their private teachings mutually abet each other, and discredit the institutions of laws and instructions....If such conditions are not prohibited, the imperial power will decline above and partizanships will form below. {Historical Records, ch. 87.) Then he made a most drastic recommendation: All historical records, save those of Ch' in, all writings of the "hundred schools " of thought, and all other literature, save that kept in custody of the official Erudites, and save works on medicine, pharmacy, divination, agriculture, and arboriculture, should be delivered to the government and burned. As for any individuals who might want to study, they should "lake the officials as their teachers. (Ibid., ch. 6.)

The First Emperor approved this recommendation and ordered it carried out in 213 B.C. Actually, sweeping though it was, it was nothing more than the logical application of an idea that had long existed in Legalist circles. Thus Han Fei Tzu had already said: "In the state of the intelligent ruler, there is no literature of books and records, but the laws serve as teachings. There are no sayings of the former kings, but the offcials act as teachers. (Han-fei-tzu, ch. 49.)

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The purpose of Li Ssu s recommendation is apparent. He wanted to be sure that there should be but one world, one government, one history, and one way of thought. Books on medicine and other practical subjects were therefore exempted from the general destruction because, as we should say now, they were technical works and so had nothing to do with "ideology."

The very violence of the Ch in dynasty, however, led to its speedy downfall, and following the rise of the Han dynasty,^ good deal of the ancient literature and the writings of the "hundred schools'came to light again. Yet though they disapproved of the extreme measures of their predecessors, the Han rulers came to feel that a second attempt along different lines should be made to unify the thought of the empire, if political unity were to be long maintained. This new attempt was made by Emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.), who in so doing was following a recommendation made by Tung Chung-shu.

In a memorial presented to the Emperor around the year 136 B.C., Tung wrote: The principle of Great Unification in the Ch un Ch iu is a permanent warp passing through the universe, and an expression of what is proper extending from the past to the present. But the teachers of today have diverse Ways, men have diverse doctrines, and each of the philosophic schools has its own particular position and differs in the ideas which it teaches. Hence it is that the rulers possess nothing whereby they may effect general unification. And he concluded his memorial by recommending: All not within the field of the Liu Yi [Six Classics] should be cut short and not allowed to progress further." (History of the Former Han Dynasty, ch. 56.)

Emperor Wu approved this recommendation and formally announced that Confucianism, in which these Six Classics held a dominant place, was to be the official state teaching. A considerable time was needed, to be sure, before the Confucianists consolidated their newly gained position, and in the process they adopted many ideas from the other rival schools, thus making of Confucianism something very different from the early Confucianism of the Chou dynasty. We have seen in the last chapter how this process of eclectic amalgamation operated. Nevertheless, from the time of Emperor Wu onward, the Confucianists were given a belter chance by the government to expound their teachings than were the other schools.

The principle of Great Unification referred to by Tung Chung-shu is also discussed in the Kung Yang Commentary on the Ch'un Ch iu. Thus the opening sentence of the Ch un Ch iu is: "First year |_of Duke YinJ, spring, the King's first month.' And on this the Commentary remarks: "Why does [the Ch'un Ch'iu] speak of 'the King's first month'? It has reference to the Great Unification." According to Tung Chung-shu and the Kung Yang school, this Great Unification was one of the programs that Confucius set up for his ideally established new dynasty when he wrote the Ch un Ch iu.

The measure carried out by Emperor Wu at Tung Chung-shu s recommendation was more positive and yet more moderate than that suggested by Li Ssu to the First Emperor of Ch in, even though both equally aimed at an

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intellectual unification of the entire empire. Instead of rejecting all schools of philosophy [ffi

indiscriminately, as did the Ch in measure, thus leaving a vacuum in the world of thought, the Han measure selected one of them, Confucianism, from among the "hundred schools," and gave it pre-eminence as the state teaching. Another difference is that the Han measure decreed no punishment for the private teaching of the ideas of the other schools. It only provided that persons who wished to be candidates for official positions should study the Six Classics and Confucianism.

By thus making Confucianism the basis of government education, it laid the foundation for China's famed examination system used to recruit government officials. In this way the Han measure was in fact a compromise between the Ch in measure and the previous practice of private teaching, which had become general after the time of Confucius. It is interesting to see that China's first private teacher now became her first state teacher.

The Position of Confucius in Han Thought

As a result, the position of Confucius became very high by the middle of the first century B.C.

Aboul this time, a new type of literature came into existence known as the wei shu or apocrypha. Shu means book or writing, and wei literally means the woof of a fabric, and is used in apposition to ching, a word which is usually translated as classic, but literally means warp. It was believed by many people of the Han period that Confucius, after writing the Six Classics, that is, the six warps of his teaching, had still left something unexpressed. Hence, they thought, he then wrote the six woofs, corresponding to the six warps, by way of supplement. Thus the combination of the six warps and six woofs would constitute the entire teaching of Confucius. Actually, of course, the apocrypha are Han forgeries.

In the apocrypha the position of Confucius reached the highest level it has ever had in China. In one of them, for example, the Ch un Ch iu Wei: Han Han Tzu, or Apocryphal Treatise on the Spring and Autumn Annals: Guarded Shoots of the Han Dynasty, it is written: Confucius said: I have examined the historical records, drawn upon ancient charts, and investigated and collected cases of anomalies, so as to institute laws for the emperors of the Han dynasty.'" And another apocryphal treatise on the Spring and A utumn Annals, known as the Expository Charts on Confucius, states that Confucius was actually the son of a god, the Black Emperor, and recounts many supposed miracles in his life. Thus in these apocrypha we find Confucius being regarded as a super—human being, a god among men who could foretell the future. If these views had prevailed, Confucius would have held in China a position similar to that of Jesus Christ, and Confucianism would have become a religion in the proper sense of the term.

Soon afterwards, however, Confucianists of a more realistic or rationalistic way of thinking protested against these "extraordinary and strange views"

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about Confucius and Confucianism. According to them, Confucius was neither a god nor a king, but simply a sage. He neither foresaw the coming of the Han Dynasty, nor did he institute laws for any dynasty. He simply inherited the cultural legacy of the great tradition of the past, to which he gave a new spirit and transmitted for all ages.

The Controversy of the Old and New Text Schools

These Confucianists formed a group known as the Old Text school. This school was so called, because it claimed to possess texts of the Classics which went back before the fires of Ch in, that is, the burning of the books of 2.13 B.C., and hence were written in a form of script that had already become archaic by the time of their recovery. In opposition to this group, Tung Chung -shu and others belonged to the New Text school, so called because its versions of the Classics were written in the form of script that was generally current during the Han dynasty.

The controversy between these two schools has been one of the greatest in the history of Chinese scholarship. It is not necessary here to go into its details. All that need be said is that the Old Text school arose as a reaction or revolution against the New Text school. Al the end of the Former Han dynasty, it received backing from Liu Hsin (ca. 46 B.C.-A.D. 2.3), one of the greatest scholars of the time. Indeed, so great was his enthusiasm that at a much later time he was accused, quite falsely, by followers of the New Texl school, of having single-handedly forged all ihe classics written in the old script.

In recent years it has occurred to me that the origin of these two schools may perhaps go back to the two wings of Confucianism that existed before the C h i n dynasty. The New Text school would ihus be a continuation of the idealistic wing in early Confucianism, and the Old Text of the realistic wing. In other words, the one would derive from the group headed by Mcneius and the other from that headed by Hsiin Tzu.

In the Hsun-tzu, there is a chapter titled "Against the Twelve Philosophers," one passage of which says: "There were some who in a general way followed the former kings but did not know their fundamentals....Basing themselves on ancient traditions, they developed theories which were called those of the Five Elements. Their views were peculiar, contradictory, and without standards; dark and without illustrations; confined and without explanations. Tzu-ssu [grandson of Confucius] began these and Meng K'o [Mencius] followed." (Ch. 4.)

This passage has long puzzled modern scholars, because both in the Chung Yung, supposedly the work of Tzu-ssu, and in the Mencius, there is no mention of the Five Elements. Nevertheless, we do find in the Chung Yung one passage which reads: "When a nation is about to flourish, there are sure to be happy omens; when it is about to perish, there are sure to be

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unlucky omens." Likewise the Mencius states at one point: "In the course of five hundred years, it is inevitable that a LtrueJ king will arise. (Vllb, 13.) These passages would seem to indicate that both Mencius and the author of the Chung Yung (who, if not Tzu—ssu himself, must have been one of his followers) did believe to some extent that an interaction exists between Heaven and man and that history operates in cycles. These doctrines, it will be remembered, were prominent in the Yin—Yang or Five Elements school.