"Dream Of Red Mansions," The Ethics Of Confucianism, Buddhism And Taoism

"A Dream of Red Mansions" is a great human science works which units art and ideology. It not only shows a panoramic display of aristocratic life in the real situation from the Kangxi Dynasty to Qianlong Dynasty and deeply reflects the social cultural trend, but also shows Cao Xueqin’s philosophy thoughts about the Confucian, Daoism and Buddhism. The academic circles have paid more attention to studying "A Dream of Red Mansions", but they study less about the philosophical thinking and ethics thoughts of the text. While there are not only few special books researching the works’s ethical thoughts, but also few papers appear. This article writes under this kind of background and attempts to classify works’Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism ethics thoughts. And by combining academic circles’study about the author Cao Xueqin and culture of today’s times thoughts of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, the paper tends to make a preliminary analysis about works’moral spirit.Cao Xueqin wrote this great book "A dream of Red Mansions" after the dynasty vicissitudes, political changes and under the influence of individual fate and the anti-science enlightenment thought between late Ming and early Qing Dynasty. The author did not limited to lament about his individual sentiment about his fate, but expressed deep anxiety about the country through depicting the crisis and contradiction of the society, as well as reflected profoundly the orthodox thought of Buddhism, Taoism and especially Confucianism. This reflection is always around the themes of Confucian "Li", Buddhist "Kong" Taoist "Wu", which is not only a reflection of the ethical problems but also thinking of ethics order and morals freedom existing in three religions.The study of this paper is around the three themes. This paper is divided into four parts. The first part is the Confucian ethics of "A Dream of Red Mansions", discussing in the Confucian spirit of personality image in the works and respect to the author’s introspection on the traditional Confucian thought through the novel writing. The second part is the ethical thoughts of Buddhism, discussing the Buddhism thoughts in "dreamland" and author’s free life way. The third part is Taoist ethical thoughts, discussing how the Daoism’s life style embodies in the works. The fourth part is combination of the three religions ethics and works’humane spirit structure, discussing Cao Xueqin’s analysis of the philosophical thinking of contradictions and conflicts of freedom and order, and ultimate concern about humane spirit in the works by Cao Xueqin’s reflection on the three religions’ethics under his times’background.