The Place of Filial Piety in Ancient China

Abstract

A cursory look at the prehistory and the early texts concerning filial piety suggests that the latter has been important in the Chinese ethos since earliest times. The near unanimity of the philosophers of the Golden Age confirms this initial intuition. The Canonical Book of Filial Piety, the Xiaojing, probably assembled around the third or second century B.C., codified this universal belief in the validity of the virtue and, in spite of its mediocrity as a philosophical text, remained an important part of the Confucian canon until modern times. Filial piety is shown as an essential part of life in the early texts (Shangshu, Zuozhuan) and, at least as early as the end of the Former Han dynasty, enters more and more frequently into the dynastic histories and other historical works. The descriptions of filial behavior, particularly in the Hou Hanshu, show sons and daughters trying to surpass themselves in order to manifest their attachment to their parents. Their extraordinary actions, which sometimes caused their deaths, can best be explained by the fact that filial piety in China came to be seen as having absolute value and that the worship of one's parents (that is, one's creators) can be compared to the worship of God in the West.