Confucianism And Folk Charity Research In The Han Dynasty

Confucianism has always been the mainstream consciousness of traditional thoughts in China. Since “rejecting the other schools of thought and respecting only Confucianism” of the Han Dynasty, Confucianism became the official school, and what’s more, Confucian thought specification has influenced to different levels of society. Natural disasters and social incidents frequently happened in Han Dynasty, and all levels of society actively used own way to cope with and reduce the impact of disasters on the vulnerable groups. Although the government level of charitable activities was still the subject of charitable activities, in the atmosphere of respecting Confucian in Han Dynasty, Confucianism provided ideological source for folk charity activities, and had a clear guidance for civil charity activities, which made its continuous development and become an important complement to official charity events in Han Dynasty. It strongly assisted the unfortunate population to alleviate their misfortunes.This paper combines history and sociology, makes a study on the close relations of Confucianism and folk charity activities of Han Dynasty specially and systemically from the origin of thought of folk charity activities, the folk charity initiatives in Han Dynasty, folk charity characteristics in Han Dynasty and other different aspects. Specifically, it can be roughly divided into the following sections:First of all, it introduced the origin of Confucianism of folk charity in the Han Dynasty. The thought origin of folk charity activities in Han Dynasty can be traced back to the Confucian thought. The theory of good nature of Confucianism constitutes the human nature foundation of folk charity. The filial piety thought explained the consanguinity of folk charity, the benevolence ideas laid the foundation of the ethics for folk charity, the sympathy found the psychological reasons for folk charity, and the righteousness and benefit view thought pointed out the value orientation of folk charity activities.Secondly, it focused on the analysis of the profound influence of Confucianism to the specific folk charity activities in Han Dynasty. The folk charitable activities in the society of Han Dynasty, namely the folk spontaneous or organized relief activities aiming at predicament can be roughly divided into three main types. These specific relief activities embody the basic spirit of Confucianism, such as the clan assistance activities of Confucian view of clan basing on consanguine, the mutual charitable activities of neighboring relations basing on the geo-relation, and the spontaneous personal rescue activities of “Pan-loving masses”.Finally, it revealed the historical features of folk charitable activities in Han Dynasty under the time background of Confucianism-only ideology. The folk charitable activities in Han Dynasty have strong patriarchal blood color. It focuses on humane care and has characteristics of diversity in the type and implementation methods. The folk charitable relief activities in Han Dynasty involve all levels of society to form a broad range of characteristics in the range of relief object. However, the main body in Han Dynasty that implemented the charitable activities tended to accept the Confucian education, and deeply influenced by Confucianism or the Confucian to itself, which made the folk charitable activities in Han Dynasty form the characteristic of confucianization of the main body.