On the Relationship between Interpretations of the Confucian Classics and Political Power in East Asia

Abstract

This article focuses on the complex relationship existing between the interpretation of Confucian classics and political power in China, Japan and Korea. A wide range of materials is contained for discussion, namely East Asian scholars’ commentaries on the Analects and Mencius, questions extracted from the Book of Mencius in the civil service examinations in the Ming (1368–1644) China, reminders which a Tokugawa Japanese scholar marked on Mencius against imperial reading, and quotations from Confucian classics appearing in the dialogues between emperors and courtiers in the Han (206 BCE–220 CE) and Tang (618–907) dynasties. It is pointed out that the dual roles played by the interpreters—as Confucian scholars and as administrators—had closely connected the interpretation of classics to political power. Briefly speaking, three forms of relationship are observed: inseparability, competition, and the balance to be struck between the interpretation of the classics and political power. To sum up, the East Asian Confucians read and understood the classics through their own ‘existential structures’, at the same time endowing the classics with new strategic content; they were not just playing ‘intellectual games’