Philosophy, Religion and Political Science
China had a common written language for over 2000 years. It didn’t matter what the spoken language was, generals, emperors and most educated people knew how to write and read properly to communicate with each other. In order to gain an official position in the government, the candidates who had to pass the Imperial Examinations had to be exceptionally intelligent and they had to be able to communicate in this extremely difficult literary language.
The government also wanted to ensure that officials understood their common political philosophy that encouraged submission to the emperor and one’s superior as well as following and maintaining their traditional roles in life. The advantage of this system was that it kept the court unified and ensured that the empire ran smoothly. Also, the bureaucrats all studied the same works on social behavior and philosophy and it promoted unity and normalization of behavior during times of change. Also, all the scholar- bureaucrats had a common base of understanding and they passed political and philosophical ideas on to the people under them so that the whole empire has a common philosophy of life. The disadvantage of system was that rulers restricted reform and political criticism as well as innovation and personal freedom. The political philosophy that most bureaucratic rulers needed to know in depth was the Neo- Confucian Classics. Those who did the best on the exams usually memorized all the texts.
The Neo-Confucian Classics are composed of Four Books and Five Classics that contained the slightly modified political and religious philosophy of Confucius and other philosophers. These nine books were compiled and codified and written in Classical Language in the Song era. Confucius wrote the Five Classics and the Four Books contained Confucian School-related material. The Five Classics include The Book of Changes, The Classic of Poetry, The Record of Rites, The Classic of History and The Spring and Autumn Annals (Record of Confucius’ native state). The Four Books include The Analects of Confucius (Famous and important sayings from Confucius), Mencius (Political dialogues attributed to Mencius), The Doctrine of the Men and The Great Learning (Education, self-cultivation and the Dao).
As time went on, Neo-Confucianism became much more popular among all classes and especially in the higher classes, Daoism and Buddhism were almost erased. Eventually, Neo-Confucianism became China’s main religious belief and political philosophy until the end of the Qing era in 1912 except for the Yuan era.
