On The Coordination Of Ritual And Law In The Book Of Rites

The Chinese culture and tradition is rich in content and profound in history. It can be discovered, discussed, and elucidated from different fields and various aspects. From the aspect of state government, the coordination of ritual and law(????),and the proposal of morality given priority over penalty(????), are important contents of Chinese culture and tradition.The Book of Rites (????, also called the Ritual Book by Dai Junior??????)is one of the most important Chinese Confucian classics. The thought on coordination of ritual and law in the Book of Rites absorbs up and carries forward state governing thought by previous Confucians. It is a profound summary of pre-Qin Confucianists'experience and lessons on state governing in spring and autumn period and the warring state period, an ideal design of country and social administration in future by pre-Qin Confucianists, and a representative of pre-Qin Confucians'thought on state governing to some extent.This dissertation intends to explore thought on coordination of ritual and law in the Book of Rites, based on its whole text, especially its main chapters, such as Summary of the Rules Property, Royal Regulations, Proceedings of Government in the different Months, The Converyance of Rites, The Doctrine of the Mean, and The Great Learning, etc. On the basis of the analysis and distinction between ritual and law along with related concepts, the dissertation intends to systematically study the origin of the thought on ritual and law and their relationship in pre-Qin Confucian's tradition, explain, explore and tease out its rich connotation, analyze its main features, its value, significance, its limitation and its influence on the later generations, and invest its ideological factor with contemporary value, in the hope of expanding and deepening the research on the Book of Rites and thought on the coordination of ritual and law in pre-Qin Confucianism, in order to provide some inspiration for the construction of civilization and the rule of law in contemporary China.This dissertation consists of three parts:the introduction, the text, which includes five chapters, and the conclusion.The introduction mainly discusses the value and significance of the dissertation topic, the status of domestic and foreign study, the definition and analysis of ritual and law, as well as other relevant concepts. It also explains the research approach, methodology, primary coverage, the emphases, difficulties and the innovation points of the selected subject, along with the basic structure of the dissertation.The first chapter briefly discusses the origin of pre-Qin Confician's thought on ritual and law, including brief introduction of civil administration in the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou Dynasty, Duke Zhou's(??)formulation of the system of rites and constitutions; thought on ritual and law in the Book of Records(????)Book of Odes(????),and Master Zuo's Spring and Autumn Annals(????)?thought of ruling the country by ritual in the Dialects of Confucius(????),policy of benevolence and kingly way in Mencius(????),and enhancing ritual while taking law seriously in Xun Zi(????).The second chapter mainly expounds the social ideal of "great harmony'(??)and "well-off"(??)in the Book of Rites, along with the policy platform of the coordination of ritual and law, including the content of social ideal of great harmony and well-off as well as its influence on later generations; the administrating principle of rule by ritual; the origin of ancient Chinese ritual and law the discrimination of relationship between them; the way of "ritual"(?),�'music"(?),"punishment"(?)and "politics"(?)cooperating in state governance; the system design of ritual and law in the Book of Rites along with its ideal and implication.The third chapter mainly discusses thought on enlightenment by ritual and music, including its social function; ritual and music's status and function in state and social administration; the content, purpose, principle and methods of enlightenment by ritual and music.The fourth chapter focuses on the juridical idea in the Book of Rites, including the content of punishment and how it is distributed in the Book of Rites; the function of punishment on asserting authority, guarding against evil, prohibiting violence, and eliminating chaos; discussion on pre-Qin Confucian's thought of the relationship between morality and punishment; the juridical object, procedure design and its features in the Book of Rites; and four main juridical principle in the Book of Rites, besides their influence on later generations.The fifth chapter mainly discusses benevolent rule in the Book of Rites, including the connotation of politics, as well as its status and effect in state governing; the basic principle and the main content of administration; the principle of gentlemen and their ideal personality; the content of cultivating gentlemen's moral character and its impact on state governing.The conclusion mainly analyzes and expounds several features of the coordination of ritual and law in the Book of Rites and its historical limitation, in addition to its value and enlightenment of the combine effort of ritual and law in ancient China.This dissertation's basic idea and conclusion is as follows:First, the thought on coordination effort of ritual and law in the Book of Rites is rich in content and profound in meaning, which forms a relatively complete system of administration on state and society in ancient China. The ultimate social political idea of the thought is to realize "great harmony", while achieving "well-off" is a social political aim to a lesser extent at some time, its ultimate principle and guiding ideology on state governing is rule by ritual, the way of state governing is ritual, music, politics and punishment cooperating together; its system vehicle is the state system design, the content of which reflects rule of virtue and benevolent policy; its state administrating measure is emphasizing both ritual and music enlightenment, and at the same time controlling over by punishment and politics; the key of state governing is cultivating gentlemen's virtue and their administrating by virtue. All of these reflect the state governing thought on the coordination of ritual and law and the proposal of morality given priority over penalty in ancient China.Second, there are four distinct characters of the thought on the coordination of ritual and law in the Book of Rites:First of all, the goal of state governing, both ideally and realistically, is yearning for "great harmony" with a view to "well-off'. It set up not only great social political idea, but realistic political aim, as well. Secondly, the guideline and mode of state governing, is promoting rule by virtue, while ritual, music, politics and punishment cooperating together at the same time. Thirdly, on the relationship between men and system, while policy design of benevolent government and rule by virtue is promoted, as well as ethics and hierarchical order, the effect of gentlemen's virtue in social governing is paid also attention to, with an emphasis on men's virtue in state administration, cultivating moral character, and having morality priority over penalty. Fourthly, the relationships between human beings and nature, within human beings, and between self-enrichment and state administration, contain the idea of humanism as the central idea, along with the ideal of God-centeredness, people-orientatedness and moral centered working parallel, which reflect pre-Qin Confucian's entirety and interconnecting way of thinking and their value orientation of pursuing universal harmony.Third, both coordination of ritual and law, and giving morality priority over penalty are a kind social governing idea, which had been carried out in ancient Chinese society for about 2000 years, especially since Han Dynasty. As a precious historical heritage, it played an important role in maintaining a stable and prosperous society. Nowadays, as Chinese society is working on deepening the reforms in an all-round way, promoting the country's governance system, broadly advancing rule of law, and building a country which embodies the ideals of socialist law-based countries, the ancient social governing thought on coordination of ritual and law brings not only great enlightenment for us, but also useful reference and further thought on practical problems such as the construction of civilization and the rule of law in contemporary China.