The Ritual Study Of Xuncius And The Influence In Western Han Dynasty

The kernel of Xuncius thoughts was the ritual study.He explained a lot of connotations of rites and developed the thoughts of Confucius and Mencius. But the most important development of rite made by Xuncius was making rites to be political institutions,not only moral rules. He realized that rites had complicated structure and poor effects, so he tried to adopting some Legalists politics. Then he also realized the flaw of legalism. So Xuncius made Rite to be the principle of law. This is the key feature of Xuncius ritual study.However, if we need to conduct an in-depth study of Xuncius ritual study, we must learn about the effect of it.The main issue studied in the essay is that, how Xuncius ritual study affect the West Han Dynasty. The paper is to start with the main content of Xuncius ritual study. It will provide basic theoretical precondition for comparative analysis. And next, I will take literatures of the West Han Dynasty as strong evidence to prove the relationship between Xuncius and Confucians of the West Han Dynasty. Whereafter, I want to make a further argument on the rule of virtue made by emperors and Confucians to prove the relation. Xuncius ritual study was appropriated to the social situations of the early West Han Dynasty. So his ritual studies accepted by lots of Confucians of the early West Han Dynasty were conscious choices. Lu Jia and Jia Yi were typical characters among them. To the middle period of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Han paid attention to Confucianism. But in fact strict law ideology still been cherished by Emperor Wu of Han, and continue developed under Confucianism. So Emperor Wu of Han didn’t achieve the ritual study suggested by Xuncius. At the same time, Dong Zhongshu inherited the ritual study made by Xuncius, besides achieved a great theoretical system which named "Three Principles of Kingcraft". In fact, he laid the foundation of the Rule of Virtue and propelled the advancement of the ritual study made by Xuncius. During the later Western Han Dynasty, etiquette and ethics thoughts of Confucians were still clearly affected by Xuncius. Lots of them began to use the thought to serve for politics. Wang Mang even made many ancient etiquette and ethics thoughts to be ture. But these erroneous policies undermined the peace of society in a very short time. Throughout the history of the Western Han Dynasty, Xuncius ritual study had a tremendous impact on Confucians. And this influence lasted in successive dynasties. So the Rule of Virtue made by Xuncius failed to come true in the Western Han Dynasty.