The Day Of The Dong Taoist Temple

The Confucian system established by Dong Zhongshu catered to the needs of theearly Han Dynasty rulers, making it the official orthodoxy for its superiorityto the other doctrines of Confucianism. This system sets the concept of Heavenas its foundation and the starting point. This paper intends to expound his viewson the origin of the universe and its operating pattern by analyzing Dong’s speechand people’s treatise on his theory. What’s more, this paper also demonstratesthe important role of the concept of Heaven in Dong’s whole ideological system.Dong inherits his predecessors a lot to develop his concept of Heaven,especially the Taoism and Mohism, on the premise of which Dong systematicallydemonstrates the origin of the universe and its operating pattern and theheaven-human induction. According to his theory, the origin of the universe isyuan rather than heaven and yuan qi. Yuan as a kind of existence of tao, has comeinto being before the birth of heaven and earth and it gives birth to all thingson earth through qi. The gas of the heaven and the earth evolves into gas ofyin-yang. By the means of interweaving with each other, they together produce fourseasons, the five elements and everything else. Man is created by the heaven andclosely related to it; the countable parts are equal in terms of number while theuncountable ones are similar in terms of quality. With the heaven and man belongingto the same community, things of the same variety complying with each other, theheaven and man become a unity and this is Dong Zhongshu’s cognitive process ofestablishing his Heaven-Human Induction.The concept of Heaven is the theoretical basis of Dong Zhongshu’s ideologicalsystem, from which the rest ideas can find their theoretical support. This paperputs great emphasis on the justice view, the treatise of human nature, social andpolitical thought as well as many other aspects. Meanwhile, it also illustratestheir relationships with the concept of Heaven and highlighted the importance ofthe latter. Kindheartedness, justice, temperament, affection, social order and moral thoughts are all prescribed by the heaven. Conversely, they fully reflectthe heaven’s willpower and requirements. As a result, people should strictly abideby the doctrines such as self-governed and self-restrained by justice, taught tobecome better, the Three Cardinal Guides and Five Constant Virtues and otherrequirements.At the end of this paper, the writer makes a brief comparison between theconcept of Heaven of Dong Zhongshu and that of the school of Zisi-Mencius to exhibittheir relationship and exemplify the theoretical values and significance of theconcept of Heaven. Dong Zhongshu assimilates some ideas from the school ofZisi-Mencius and on this basis he makes some breakthroughs and innovations, whichare of great theoretical values and have huge influence on the future generations.