From The Analects To Three Schemes About Heaven And People

Confucian Confucianism, as part of the early Confucianism, is the consequence of decayed official study in the ancient Spring and Autumn period (770BC- 476BC) and the scattering of the academic resources among the folk. Confucius Confucianism is the colleting, processing and spreading to these scattering academic resources. What's more, it is a criticism to the social political culture at that time, and the pursuit to a more ideal society beyond that social reality. Therefore, it inevitably and independently surpasses that social political reality. From the perspective of "the purpose of running the school", "the form of running the school", and "the teaching content" etc, the nature of the private teaching of Confucianism can be affirmed further. It is unsupported to say that the learning of Confucianism is official teaching. However, the spirit that Confucius Confucianism should be actively put into universal use determines that Confucianism would not be just in the "private teaching" and marginal position. The Confucians after Confucius continuously insist on the interventions to the real-life politics through personal endeavors. In this process, it is sure to split between Confucian Thinking and the Confucians. Different schools came into being among the Confucians. The present The Analects mainly records the words and deeds of Confucius and besides, partly draws in some deeds of his students. The existence of the contradictions in the opinions, in fact, is the concentrative taking-on of the different Confucian thoughts before and after Confucius, and is also and indirect evidence for the "private teaching" of the early Confucianism. The historical tragedy event "Burning the Books and Burying the Confucian Scholars Alive" can not be regarded simply as the persecution to the Confucians by the ruling class in Qin Dynasty (221BC—206BC) .It undeniably exerted great influence on the development of Confucianism, which led to the overt and fierce conflict between the school of Law and school of Confucianism, in which process, school of Confucianism had been suppressed and suffered great damage, and meanwhile resulted in the further differentiation. Some of the Confucian members became centering on the ruling class and correspondingly began to improve some of the Confucian thought. There existed a problem about a group of Confucians who were persecuted by the power and their opinions were suppressed and finally made them fight against; there also existed a problem that the Confucians self-consciously avoided the conflict with the authority and actively developed the early Confucianism to adjust to the politics at that time, under which the nuclear of the Confucianism was gradually having some changes. From the end of Qin Dynasty (221BC—206BC) to the beginning of Xihan Dynasty (207BC-25AD), some figures such as Shusun Tong, Lu Jia, Jia Yi and Yuan Gusheng etc, exerted great effect on the social influence of Confucianism through their political practice. Among them, some thinkers, Lu Jia and Jia Yi as their representatives, integrated the doctrines of different schools. In the process of fighting against its main enemies such as School of Huang and Lao (Taoism) and School of Law, they took in the best part of different schools, and enriched and developed Confucius Confucianism. Therefore, with the establishment and consolidation of Han Dynasty (206 BC—220 AD) participated by Confucianism, the people in the lower level and the upper ruling class all felt disgusted with the ideological framework, in which the School of Law took the lead and led the Qin Dynasty (221BC—206BC) to the final perdition. Naturally, they showed their strong favor and need in the revival of the Confucianism which was once persecuted and prohibited at Qin Dynasty (221 BC—206BC), which ensured the progress of burgeoning Han Dynasty (206 BC—220 AD) and Confucianism .Based on this, it created a trend for the mutual cooperation and improvement. Under such favorable circumstances, with many political struggles, it finally led to the phase that Confucianism had the breakthrough about the domination of School of Law closely connected with the School of Huang and Lao (Taoism) in the beginning of Han Dynasty (206 BC—220 AD) for a time, and created the new phase that Confucianism became the mainstream ideology among both the official and the mass people. From then on, Confucianism not only became the only authorized ideological classics which was only a branch of the schools in the early Qin Dynasty (221BC—206BC), but also got the eminent position of "Confucianism, The Highest" in theory from the Emperor Han Wudi.Synthesizing the vicissitude of teaching of ideologies in the period from the early Qin Dynasty (221BC—206BC) to the early Han Dynasty (206 BC—220AD), the conclusion that the developing process of the Confucianism was a process from the private teaching to the officially-appointed teaching can be reached. The process that Confucianism becomes the officially-appointed teaching is also the process that the Confucian works became doctrinized. The doctrinized of the Confucianism is affirmed or "authorized" as the only "sutra", namely the carrier of the perpetual truth. It has the authoritative property of being only embraced without being doubted, which had a deep and complicated influence on Chinese social ideology and style of study for the later two thousands of years. The process of officially-appointed teaching of Confucianism is also the process of being political .The ideological framework "New Confucianism" constructed by Dong Zhongshu and some others, clearly has the feature of being political Confucianism.All in all, the process that Confucianism changes from private teaching to official teaching speaks volume for the spirit that Confucianism should be actively put into practical use, also show that the Confucianism thinking is an open theoretical system. At the very beginning procedure, Confucianism was updating with the change of society, but, part of the "New Confucianism" has the utilitarian trend, and limited to the science knowledge of the world at that time .It absorbs some content of mysticism and displays the characters melting with the other schools such as Taoism, School of In homogeneity, and School of Yin and Yang and become the more complicated theoretical system in its colors. Therefore, the officially-appointed teaching of "New Confucianism" has been far away from the Confucius Confucianism in the past.