Study Of Chenwei' Views On Hevean Of Han Dynasty

Chenwei(谶) is one kind of social ideological trend that emerges in the Western Han Dynasty and is widely popular to the Eastern Han Dynasty, is a product that organically combines politicalization of New Text study of Confucian classics(今文经学) with the Han Dynasty theology, the mystic techniques. The main content has the Constellation, the natural calamities and unusual phenomena and respond, fulfilled prophecy and Fu Ming (符命), the astronomical geography, the writing explanations of words in ancient books, the myth fantasy and so on, it may be said is grotesque and gaudy, strange things of every description. But the core idea is the heaven' theory of Chenwei which maintains these contents, the phenomenon, it also is the soul of the studies of Chenwei. The basic content of the heaven' theory of Chenwei includes the deity thought, the interaction between mankind and heaven, the auspicious omen natural disasters and unusual phenomena. It gave then social politics life to get the special brand mark, also has had the profound influence to the Han Dynasty' thought and academic evolution.Most of this paper is divided into three the heaven' theory of Chenwei for the analysis and research: The first part is a brief description of the Han Dynasty' Chenwei, from the name, the academic ideological reasons of emerging, the items, main contents, as well as the impact on other areas, which is the general explanation of Chenwei. Next has been in detail reviewed to the Chenwei' analysis, the research and edits which is lost by all times and in all countries scholar since the Han Dynasty, it mainly includes: the scholars give the Chenwei collection and reorganization from Han Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, mainland China and Taiwan' scholars on the research Chenwei in 20th century, Japanese scholars' studys of Chenwei after World War II. Finally, it is significance and methodology of researching in Chenwei.The second part is the main body of paper, it mainly elaborates academic traditional inheritance, main source of ideological and content and performance of the heaven' theory of Chenwei. Discussing of the heaven' study is a tradition in philosophy and thought' circle of ancient times in China, the philosophers extremely attach great importance to relation between mankind and heaven in ancient times, they often make a discussion and the opinion on relation between mankind and heaven when they cant explain the origin of everything on earth, the emerging of some special phenomena, reasons of disaster; when they cant discover the answers to happening of the significant historic incidents in realistic life of society, in order to find a indubitable theoretical foundation for own explaination. This article in detail traced the contents of the cosmogony from pre-Qin period to Double-Han period, there were few views of principle on the heaven and the earth: the first is theory of Creating the World by deity; the second is taking "the Daoism" as representative's spiritual entity principle theory; the third is principle of specifically visible material; the forth is principle of Qi(气). Then the heaven has four kinds of meanings under these theories of Creating the World: the first is the supreme personification deity who transcend natural; the second is the natural sky; the third is the laws and rules of heaven' moving; the forth is moral heaven. Although original deity heaven still exists in common peoples' ideas on realistic society, its property of deity has gradually decreased, the colour of nature has increased. The understanding of heaven has reverted from divinity to perceptual and realistic nature, and developed toward ethics, human nature direction. One hand, comprehending the doctrine of heaven by realizing the human being' essentiality, on the other hand, illuminating the human being' essentiality by the doctrine of heaven. The relationship between mankind and heaven has developed from divinity to natural, philosophical. Study of Chenwei in Han Dynasty has succeeded this academic tradition, the ideas such as divinity,Yin Yang(阴阳),Wu Xing(五行),the Eight Diagrams(八卦), the interaction between mankind and heaven have been entirely taken up by Chenwei, and unified under the name of the deity. The heaven has been a mulriple meanings concept, it not only is a supreme deity who dominate everything of universe, but also is natural heaven that exhibits own natural visage before mankind and moves according to own law of nature, but also is a moral heaven that gives the source of ethic and moral of the world. Chenwei specially emphasize the divinity heaven, which is a supreme deity who dominate everything of universe. There is an interaction between the divinity heaven and emperor of world. Chenwei puts forward more elaborate theory of matching between heaven and mankind. First, the sacred king has been given birth and awarded power by the heaven, because the scared king is borned by the divinity heaven, so the king of world have the extraordinary and super ability to take on the important task of planning profit for all people and be supported, loved and esteemed by the people. Second, the heaven showed auspicious sign and disaster. Chenwei considered that the God of heaven select the sacred king for the people in the world, what the sacred kings and their successors manage the country is benevolence,rightness and probity or violence, corruption, the God of heaven learned those situation as plain as daylight. The God of heaven has displayed the auspicious sign if the kings and their successors respected heaven virtues and carried on benevolence, and showed the abnormal celestial phenomenon and natural disasters if the kings and their successors carried out violence and tyranny, in order to warn the monarches and expect them to mend their administration. The interaction between the divinity heaven and emperor of world has formed by entired succeeding the theory of Yin Yang, Wu Xing and interaction between heaven and mankind since pre-Qin period.The third part of paper mostly discusses the relationship of theory of Chenwei' heaven and various configuration of Han Dynasty' culture. The theory of Chenwei' heaven is the core thought of study of Chenwei, it gives birth to magnitude influence on the politics, belief, thought, learning culture of Han Dynasty. Managing according to the heaven' providence is the guiding idea of the monarch governing kingdom in the building of state' political system. The backbone bureaucracy has a tremendous change which the system of prime minister has transfer to the Three-Duke from the foundation to later stage of Western Han Dynasty. The change of duty on prime minister and the origin of Three-Duke' name were influenced by the theory of interaction between heaven and mankind. The government of Han Dynasty resolve the government affairs by Chenwei, courtiers and scholar-bureaucrats submit a written statement and offer a piece of an opinion to the emperor by virtue of speech of heaven, rectify and assist the sate affairs, carry out the government affairs and correct maladministration, expound and prove the rationality of Han Dynasty' regime by the theory of Chenwei' heaven. Chenwei play a role of political ideology by continuing as Confucian doctrine, Chenwei possesses attribute of proving political power to be legitimism and validity from this light, proclaim the political power of Han Dynasty to be a fate and not to strive for wisdom and stratagem. The theory of Chenwei' heaven also is the important content of national belief in Han Dynasty, the emperors resign themselves to be mandate of heaven, extremely worship and embrace the heaven, they take state politics by the heaven and expect to get the protection from the heaven. The government preside the rites of sacrificing Tai Yi God(太一), Five celestial God (五天帝), Sun God(日神), the Queen of night(月神), God of stars, local god of the land and God of mountains and rivers, indicate worship and embrace of these deities.The Confucians of Han Dynasty research the study of Confucian classics, Chenwei combine with not only the New TEXT study of Confucian classics(今文经学) but also Old TEXT study of Confucian classics(古文经学),in order to look for the pythonic bases of explaining the Confucian classics. It had been a social mood to research and study Confucian classics at that time. Chenwei assimilate and develop the ideas of interaction between heaven and mankind, Yin Yang and Wu Xing, auspicious sign and disaster since Dong'zhongshu, attach himself to the Confucian classics, deify the monarch by virtue of the speech of heaven and sage, foretell the peace or unrest of realistic society in future. It gradually play impact on the national politics and be used as a tool of dynastic change. Chenwei had been national constitution in Eastern Han Dynasty because it was used as means to seize the regime. Bai hu tong (白虎通义) entiredly combined deified idea of Yin Yang, Wu Xing with the Confucian doctrine and system of national administration, fixated it by way of national code, indicated the accomplishment of building national ideology. The theory of Chenwei' heaven infiltrated in the study of Confucian classics, New Text and Old Text study of Confucian classics(今古文经学) derived the core thought of theory of Chenwei' heaven, established the sanctity and absoluteness the Five Confucian classics in the process of explaining and annotating the Confucian classics, it is unassailable that the Five Confucian classics were looked upon as the speech of heaven and sage. So, the superorganic rationality of the Confucian doctrine accomplished ultimately.