Inquiry Into View Of The Ruling Of The Rite On Comments On Laws Of Tang Empire

Political practice of human history shows that state ruling and management aremajor issues in political life, They are also important subjects in political scienceresearch. China and western countries have a different concern and evolution path onthe state ruling and management because of their environmental and culturaldifferences. The difference manifested as following：Ancient China focused onrunning the country with the rite. It managed the state and society by rite as theprimary means with combining law in order to achieve the benevolent politics,however ancient western countries emphasized on ruling the country by law, theymanaged the state and society by law and related political systems as the main meansin order to achieve the democratic politics. In Ancient China, the rite played thesame role with law, it had its inherent strengths and characteristics. Basing on thepattern of home and country is isomorphic to the society, the moral significance ofrite which was associated with the political principles developed a characteristic ofsetting norms, systems and concepts together. It not only cultivate a person’s moralquality, but also standardize people’s external behavior, thus it made the "heart" and"action" together. It was suitable for the needs of China’s traditional political rule andbecame the guiding principles of governmental practice of the state because of thischaracteristic of rite, In the country’s political practice, rite with the moralsignificance rose to the height of the state ruling. Thus rule of rite became not onlythe China’s traditional political characteristics, but also the core of traditional cultureof China’s politicsThe basic spirit of the rite is to safeguard the hierarchical social relations andPatriarchal system Rite was gradually expanded and became more prominent respectfor the monarch by mode of governing changing from rule of rite of the WesternZhou dynasty, rule of law of Qin dynasty to the Taoism ruling of early Han dynastywith the development of social. Rule of rite beat the rule of law after a long timecontest. Rule of rite was finally selected by the ruling class to establish the basic ruling pattern of the national governance. Coinciding to the political practice, rule ofrite thinking gained the theoretical form from Spring and Autumn Period and afterthat was developed and improved by Pre-Qin Confucian. The basic framework ofrule of rite thinking was initially formed from Xunzi’s thinking of “advocating ritesand emphasizing on Devoting Much Attention to Propriety and Law. Until the periodof early Han dynasty, rule of rite was processed and reformed by Dongzhongshu andwas made as a thought system which combined with rite, law and Taoism and so on.It was integrated constantly with the contents of other ideological ingredients inorder to adapt to the requirement of the absolute Great Unification monarchy. Then itbecame the dominative thought of the country. Its impact on the national governancepractices of Ancient China lasted until the late Qing Dynasty.The subject of the traditional Chinese political culture is Confucianism. Thecore of Confucianism is rule of rite which essence is to maintain a hierarchical socialorder and to achieve ruling of the absolute monarchy. As the thought of ruling thecountry, the influence of the rule of rite is widespread. Especially the Confucianthought penetrated in the law gradually after the Han dynasty. It made traditionallegal have ethics feature. The combination of rite and law is the basic characteristicsof rule of rite thinking and also is institutionalization performance of rule of rite.Comments on laws of Tang Empire was a model of the Chinese Legal System and itrepresents the political and legal culture and legislative level of Ancient China, Inparticular, rite and law combined with harmony mature and it also represented themature form of rule of rite thinking of Ancient China, that was rule of rite thinkingwas the base of the political and religious and the penalty was the purpose ofpolitical and religious”. This was System Summary of the country’s rulingexperience and thinking in Ancient China and was also the concentrated expressionof the feudal political and legal culture in the Tang dynasty. So making Commentson laws of Tang Empire as researching object and researching rule of rite thinkingfeatures became an indispensable content in researching on the traditional politicalculture.This thesis uses the political and cultural research methods, to do acomprehensive and in-depth study of rule of rite thinking in Comments on laws of Tang Empire From the politics to look at a traditional law, and from the law torefract politics, reflected the perspective of cultural and institutional unity. Based onthe full use of existing research results, rule of rite thinking was systematicallyanalyzed and inspected on the basis of a long history period of traditional society andthe article illustrates the historical process that how it was established and it alsoanalyzed the basic spirit of this political and cultural phenomenon, and further morerevealed the relationship of rule of rite thinking and legal system in Ancient China. Itpoints out that "rule of rite thinking was the base of the politics and religion,however penalty was the purpose of politics and religion " which was the basicprinciple to govern state in Ancient China, also was the guidance of the ancient lawsand implementation of standards. On this basis, the article focuses especially on ruleof rite thinking among Comments on laws of Tang Empire This article points out thatrule of rite thinking of Comments on laws of Tang Empire had developed with thedevelopment of history and had become an intrinsic logical structure and basiccontent of the ideological system, that was, the view of royal supremacy was thevalue of its political orientation, and family selfishness was its social ethical basis,realism concept was its political values, the grade difference was its basic kernel,ethical humanism was its external features and the combination of ceremony andpunishment was the way of realization. These contents interrelated and influencedeach other to form a whole system. After analyzing in the rule of rite thinking ofComments on laws of Tang Empire, combining with the historical status ofComments on laws of Tang Empire and the actual situation of political society ofTang dynasty, the article interprets the practical effect and the social impact on ruleof rite thinking, to do all these in order to achieve a more comprehensiveunderstanding about rule of rite thinking in Ancient China.This article gave a modern interpretation to rule of rite thinking of AncientChina and points out that rule of rite thinking are the product of certain society,history and culture. It is political and cultural patterns which combining with AncientChina’s economy and politics.We can learn something from it in constructingmodern society. Rule of rite thinking not only provided legitimacy for the ancientpolitical rule and made itself adapt to the small-scale peasant basis, but also had a great heritage and solid character that made the absolute monarchy political practiceof the ancient unity remain unchanged. So rule of rite thinking which guided theancient political practice played a very important role in maintaining authoritarianpolitical rule. However, rule of rite thinking had very obvious limitations, it was therule culture of the feudal landlord class in nature, it was an instrument of oppressionand slavery means for people, it existed just for upholding the interest of the feudallandlord class. It was the backward political culture. It used ethical way to solvepolitical problems and to simplify the complex political problems, but it actuallyrestricted social development. To compare rule of rite thinking to western legalthought, we found that rule of rite thinking was related to the ethical politics andlegal thought was related to legal politics. It had more ethics political color,obviously it was lack of the spirit of the modern legal thought and the latter wasmore involved in legal political ideas. Nevertheless, as same as the rule of lawthought, it also contained some common values that transcended time and space,racial rreligious. beliefs and cultural differences, such as norms agree, sprit ofcoming, harmony between human and nature, complementary of moral and law.These ideas still have some degree of reference to build socialism politicalcivilization and a harmonious society, they are worth our study and attention.