Confucianism In The Tang Dynasty

The confucianization of law is to blend the Confucian ethical thoughts and the Confucian legal thoughts into feudal country’s codes and laws, making the Confucianism to be the feudal law’s guiding thoughts and legislative instructive principals. Since Dong Zhongshu who was the Han Dynasty scholar raised the idea of ‘paying supreme tribute to Confucianism while rejecting all other schools of thought’, the ancient Chinese laws were gradually penetrated by the Confucian thoughts, and the meanwhile the Confucian thoughts became the orthodoxy in feudal society. Originally started with the judging the prisoners in spring and autumn,then deeply developed in the Han Dynasty and Wei-Jin and the Northern and Southern Dynastie, the confucianization of law reached the climax in Sui and Tang Dynastis. The confucianization of Chinese ancient laws was the uppermost and the most characteristic symbol of the Chinese legal system. Tang Dynasty was the important period when the confucianzation became mature. Especially Exposition of the Tang Penal Code was the classic work of Chinese ancient laws, dramatically affecting the later dynasties and the current socialist legal system building.