The Spring And Autumn Annals And The Legal Records Of The Qin-Han Transition

There have been a number of debates throughout history over the authorship of the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋) and how this ostensible history text should be interpreted. Whatever the truth of their origins may be, the view that this text was the only part of the Confucian canon personally authored by Confucius has allowed it to wield a large amount of influence over China’s philosophical development. With the growing influence of scholars supporting the Gongyang Zhuan(公羊傅)interpretation of the Annals during the Western Han Dynasty, which argued that the Annals contain hidden messages of praise and criticism by Confucius leveled against various figures of the Spring and Autumn Period, a number of intellectuals sought to use the text’s doctrines to support their ideas for governmental reform. Perhaps the most famous of influential of these scholars was Dong Zhongshu, whose theories based upon the text provided the basis for Emperor Wu of Han’s decision to make Confucianism the Han Dynasty’s leading state doctrine.Often overlooked in describing this process, however, is the question of how the ideas of the Gongyang Zhuan came to influence the legal reforms carried out during this period. This was seen to be necessary because the Han legal codes were largely known as being the inheritors of their Qin forbears. Thus, during this time frame, Dong Zhongshu decided that the ideas of the Gongyang Zhuan could become the basis for determining how a variety of difficult legal cases should be decided. In this process, the historical events recorded in the Annals and the praise or criticism hidden behind the original text as teased out by the Gongyang Zhuan could be applied to analogous contemporary legal disputes. Although some authors have written about this phenomenon of adjudicating on the basis of the Spring and Autumn Annals(Chun Qiu Jue Yu,春 秋决狱), they oftentimes have had a tendency to overlook both how the legal ideas of Dong fit into the wider state building and transitional process of the Han Dynasty, as well as precisely how the cases drew upon and modified the original ideas of the Gongyang tradition. This essay thus fits the questions posed by Chun Qiu Jue Yu into a wider historical and philosophical context, showing how these cases influenced and were different from legal codes and philosophy in the following centuries. Due to the lack of complete evidence concerning the law codes of the Han Dynasty, it is also through these cases that we can see what legal issues were at the forefront of Dong’s mind as he tried to create a state philosophy upon the foundational idea that a state should simultaneously govern with the tools of both education and law.This essay thus argues that the ideas of the Gongyang Zhuan in general, and Chun Qiu Jue Yu, in particular, were useful to the philosophies and governing tactics of both Emperor Wu of Han and Dong Zhongshu, though in different ways to each one. To Emperor Wu, creating a set of model legal cases and commentaries based upon the Spring and Autumn Annals allowed him to bolster his claim for governing on the basis of Confucian benevolence even though his legal code mostly continued the practices of the reviled Qin Legalists. For Dong, the ideas of the Annals allowed him to create a set of model legal cases that took supporting familial relationships at its basis. It is in the realm of redefining these relationships and their concomitant obligations according to Confucian values that Dong had his greatest success in influencing Han and Tang Law and departing from Qin precedent. While ostensibly using the doctrines of the Gongyang Zhuan to influence contemporary legal philosophy in realms outside of interpersonal relations, in actuality Dong’s practices did not differ much from his forbears. Ultimately, however, though Dong can be said to have "Confucianized" the law to some extent, it is also the case that Confucianism became increasingly entangled with the need for some form of law and punishment, ultimately departing from the legal philosophy of Confucius himself.