| “The axis age” was terminated by the Great Empire, and human society entered “the post axis age”. In order to achieve ideological unity, the Qin Empire resorted to the violent way of prohibiting the dissemination of doctrines, which hindered the spread of academic ideas such as Confucianism. When the Western Han Dynasty was established, great Confucian scholars such as Lu Jia and Jia Yi strongly advocated Confucianism and promoted the revival of Confucianism. The theory of interaction between Heaven and Man established by Dong Zhongshu and other scholars, with the five elements of Yin-yang as its core, relied excessively on the regime, causing the Confucian classics to transform into the political services of the Han Dynasty. In particular, the establishment of the five classics doctorate system, using the exclusive Confucian classics as teaching materials, produced outstanding talents for the Han Dynasty. The interpretation of Confucian classics characterized by the “self-refining” of the five classics doctorate produced a new family law on the basis of the predecessors, which led to the emergence of a complex classics and a variety of schools of thought. The style of study in Han Dynasty also showed great changes from exegesis to chapter and sentence and to annotations. The archaist trend promoted by the Han Confucianism is not only the inheritance of Confucius’ thoughts, but also the continuation of rites and music civilization since Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. All these factors eventually prompt the ancient Chinese civilization to become “a continuous civilization”. |
