The Study On Legalization Of Confucian Scriptures Argumentation In Han Dynasty

Former and Eastern Han period was the period when the study of Confucian scriptures became prevalent and was finally acknowledged as authoritative ideology,palying a significant role in the politics.After Emperor Wudi's "Rejecting All Kinds of Schools to Keep Confucianism Dominant ",studying Confucian scriptures became the qualification to be step into politics and trusted with major responsibilities,which resulted in Confucian scriptures craze in society during that time.,affecting senior officers(Gongqing Dafu)as well.In this historical trend,emperor,scholars and officers cooperated with each other to fulfill classical politics,leading to the gradual rise of Confucian scriptures' status and occuemce of its socialization and normativity.Thus,Confucian scriptures became binding legal texts in some way.In judicatory practice,Confucianism was dominant,and Confucian scriptures argumentation(Jingyi)can not only gloze and interpret Han law,but also replace or even reject provisions of Han law,which is usually known as the supreme norm,or Super-law.Although the emperor of Han,deeply influenced by Confucian scriptures,was unable to break the lagal system derived from Qin dynasty in lawmaking process,he successfully made Confucian scriptures argumentation penetrate into legislation and become the theoretical basis of several administrative measures by issuing edicts that is more flexible than making laws.Due to emperor's behavior,the senior officers also quote Confucian scriptures argumentation when reporting and remonstrating,in order to make their ideas more reasonable and acceptable.The governors promulgated local rules(Tiaojiao)in his jurisdiction to expand moral education.Confucian scriptures argumentation was popular in politics because of the interaction among upper class,and had appearnt effect on the shape of commom people's values via governors' cultivation.Finally,it was acknowledged and accepted by all classes in society.The deep interaction between Confucian scriptures argumentation and Han law began after the rise of lagal experts who were specialized in both scriptures and legal texts.Owing to their effort to annotate law according to Confucian scriptures and annotate Confucian scriptures according to law.The emergence process between Confucian scriptures and law accelerated.As a result,scriptures became code in some way,and code became scriptures.This phenomen started in the late Eastern Han though,it did not vanished with the overturn of Eastern Han dynasty.On the contrary,it lasted till the whole Wei Jin and southern and Northern Dynasties.For example,Bayi,Punishment according to Wufu,Guandang,Shi'e were all exised legal institutions written in Confucian scriptures.Besides,the legalization of Confucian scriptures argumentation had a great influence on judges' legal thinking and legal style.Tang code is completely the combination of Ritual and Law,so as to its imitators,the code of Song,Yuan,Ming and Qing.Until the amendment to laws in late Qing period,there were still scholars faithful in Confucian moral code blaming new criminal law on the basis of Confucian scriptures argumentation,who were called the Ethic Faction and won many people's support.So we can conclude that Confucian scriptures is of great importance in Chinese legal history.If we do not take Confucian scriptures argumentation into consideration while studying and not treat it as influential binding norm in legal practice or even in whole political practice,any conclusion about Chinese legal history is unconvincing.So this dissertation focuses on legalization of Confucian scriptures argumentation in Han period and describles legalization at that time in particular from various aspects,so as to review the relationship between Confucian scriptures argumentation and Han law systematically and comprehensivelly,and restate the view about ritual and law,which may be benificial to legal construction in China today.As to the structure,this dissertation has six chapters in addition to Preface and Conclusion:The first chapter aims at the cultural background of Legalization of Confucian Scriptures Argumentation,which is the domination of Confucian scriptures in Han period.The formationg of scriptures(Jing)lasts quite a long time from Pre-Qin to Han period.In this progress,the concept of Jing changes continously.It is until Emperor Wudi that six scriptures becomes a common sense.Therefore,I shall first define the meaning of what we named Jing,discuss its change and development from Pre-Qin to Han,and review its occurrence in Pre-Qin times.As we all know,it is not easy for Confucian scriptures to become the carrier of official ideology.,and after that,its development isn't all plain.So I shall classify its development into four phases,early Han,Emperor Wudi's period,the period from Emperor Zhaodi to Xin dynasty,Eastern Han,to study,and try my best to describle each phase's feature.By doing this,I believe I can better understand the historic situation and context of legalization of Confucian scriptures argumentation.The second chapter is the internal incentive of Legalization of Confucian Scriptures Argumentation,concerning the legality of Confucian scriptures.Confucian scriptures often have sublime words with deep meaning,which can be concluded as loyalty(Zhong)and filial piety(Xiao).So the Confucian scriptures argumentation itself can be seen as a universal norm.In specific,it is socialized and normative.In order to review its socialization,I shall study the role Confucian scriptures argumentation played in emperor,the local official,the scholar and the common people's political lives.As to normativity,I use Chunqiu and Xiaojing as examples to demonstrate Confucian scriptures'banding effects.Specificly speaking,Chunqiu is the theoretical basis of lawmaking,which is often treated as the hidden code and provides prime norm in Han's politics,especially in legal practice.Xiaojing is the teaching text that suits every person.Its theory is also the basis of Han government's policy about Filial piety.In this chapter,I shall discuss and analyse several ritual ceremonies of social classes and some Han scholar's comments on the legalization of Confucian scriptures argumentation recorded in Shiji,Hanshu,Hou Hanshu as well as works of famous Han scholars.The third chapter focuses on the intellectual support of Legalization of Confucian Scriptures Argumentation,which is the intergration of Confucianists and legalists.In general,Ruli is the outcome of their intergration,who usually handle government affairs by using Confucian scriptures argumentation.As for the judicial field,the legalists includes Three Excellencies(Sangong),Court Officer(Tingwei)and Local Officer,all of whom are acquainted with Confucian scriptures due to government's policy to keep Confucianism dominant.After mid Eastern Han,with the deep intergration of Confucianists and legalists,There comes a special group called legal experts.Their annotating law according to scriptures and annotating scriptures according to law makes the relationship between scriptures and law tighter than before,which leads to the interaction and communication between those two.The fourth chapter is mainly about the practice approach of Legalization of Confucian Scriptures Argumentation,usually expressed as Confucian scriptures'infiltration in legal practice.It is known to us all that legal practice can be a wider concept including Judicature,legislation and legal explaination.In judicial field,its domination means judging cases by norms revealed in Confucian scriptures,particularly Chunqiu.In this process,law is usually glozed,replaced or even rejected by scriptures.In lawmaking field,its domination concerns issuing edicts according to scriptures.By doing this,the authority and theorization of the edict is improved than before,and classic politics is fulfilled.In legal explaination field,scriptures and law gradually merges into each other.In this chapter,I shall review the Yi of Chunqiu,treated as the legal principle,on the basis of history documents of Han dynasty and Gongyang Chunqiu,to reveal the effect Judging cases by scriptures has in legal practice as well as the relationship among Confucian scriptures argumentation,cases(Bi)and stories(Gushi).Then I shall study edicts to find the role issuing edicts according to scriptures plays in classical politics,while figuring out the effect of Zuiji Zhao on maintaining the impieral authority under the influence of the viewpoint of disaster.Last but not least,I shall find a clue about the intergration between scriptures and law to further reveal their relationship.The fifth chapter concentrates on the compelling protection of Legalization of Confucian Scriptures Argumentation,which are about behaviors that are not in line with Confucian scriptures argumentation.In Han times,such behaviors will either be punished by law or be condemned by social opinion.There are two curcumstances:violating Confucian scriptures argumentation and abusing Confucian scriptures.As to the former one,I shall discuss crimes that do harm to monarchy,emperor's regime and Traditional Family Ethics as well as the penalty of these crimes,by referring to law provisions recorded in documents handed down and documents on bamboo slips and silk books.As to the latter one,I shall review the crime of Yaoyan and Fake Tuchen as well as the behavior of Guoli and Yingshao's criticism on the basis of Hanshu,Hou Hanshu and Fengsu Tongyi respectively.The sixth chapter involves the effect of the legalization of Confucian scriptures argumentation.I shall discuss that in two aspects:historical and modern.The former one concerns legal institution,legal thinking and legal style while the latter one involves the role moral played,judges' personal abilities and the acceptance of common people.