On Zhang Lei’s Thoughts Of Law

Zhang Lei was a famous writer of the Northern Song Dynasty. He was one of theSu Shi’ four famous students with Huang Tingjian, Qin Guan and Chao Buzhi. ZhangLei was famous in the filed of poem and he had o lot of commentary on law. Hiscommentary represented most of the people’s ideas in that dynasty. This paper is basedon the formers’ research on Zhang Lei’s poems.The author wants to discuss the sourceof Zhang Lei’s legal thoughts according to his experience and the background of thattime. Based on the papers of Zhang Lei’s, the author summarize his ideas about law,political reform and governance measures. Zhang Lei’s legal thoughts inherited fromthe Confucian’s thoughts mostly. On the other hand that time gave him a lot of ideas.In the Tang Dynasty, people were familiar with Buddhism. In the Northern SongDynasty, people absorbed a lot from the Buddhism. The Taoist effected theintellectuals in the field of thoughts. We can find the factor of Buddhism and Taoistfrom his poems. Zhang Lei thought that ceremony and law should be used duringgoverning the country and the ceremony must be the first. It is pity that he did not haveany words about the relationship between ceremony and law. He believed that moralwas necessary for the dominators. The law had disadvantages, so they should be simply.In the end, the author discusses Zhang Lei’s thoughts about law from traditional andcontemporary viewing angle. The paper confirms that the legal thoughts of Zhang Lei’sare far-reaching, having limitations. The author thinks that there are positive andnegative factors during Zhang Lei’s legal thoughts. The most important thing is that theauthor makes comments from four aspects according to his study. The first one is thatwhether Zhang Lei’s legal thoughts contains the factors of natural law. The second oneis what is the relationship between ceremony and law in modern time. The third one isthat wallflowers of the modern codes. The last one is what are the roles should thejudiciaries play during the modern time.