From Childhood Reading Materials to Classic Filial Piety Governance:The Revival of the Study of The Book of Filial Piety in the Late Ming Dynasty
The Book of Filial Piety was neglected in the Song and Ming dynasties,but it flourished again in the late Ming period.At the beginning of the revival of The Book of Filial Piety,through the same teacher-student rela-tionship between Confucius and Zengzi that resulted in The Great Learning and in combination with The Great Learn-ing,it formed a mutually external and internal relationship with"The Four Books"in terms of righteousness.But this is still limited to"The Four Books"system,and the real breakthrough to Song-Ming-Neo Confucianism be-gan with the matching of The Book of Filial Piety and The Spring and Autumn Annals.Based on Confucius'state-ment that"my aspiration is in The Spring and Autumn Annals,and my actions are in The Book of Filial Piety",The Spring and Autumn Annals and The Book of Filial Piety were once again combined in the mid to late Ming Dynasty,forming a relationship between penalty and moral education.As a result,The Book of Filial Piety further comple-mented"The Six Classics"and returned to its classic position as"the synthesis of The Six Classics".At the same time,this was also the process of The Book of Filial Piety breaking away from being childhood reading materials and returning to the classic of filial piety.This process began with the critique of WANG Anshi's dismissal of The Book of Filial Piety and the reflection on the scope of the concept of filial piety,with the aim of transcending the family'sinternal rituals and returning to the great classics and laws of the previous kings who ruled the world with filial piety.Among them,it reflected the high affirmation of filial piety by late Ming Confucians,and implied the imagination of the governance of"Er Di"and"San Wang".
The Book of Filial PietyThe Four BooksThe Six Classicschildhood reading materialsEr Di and San Wang