Jiang, Yonglin, The Mandate of Heaven and the Great Ming Code
This book,which analyzes the underlying spirit of the Great Ming Code,is by the translator (2005) of the Code itself,Jiang Yonglin.Jiang starts by posing a set of questions:“What was the relationship between the legal establishment and belief in the cosmic order? Was the concept of the Mandate of Heaven merely a tool manipulated by the ruling elite to justify state power,or was it an essential aspect of the belief system shared by the ruling elite that became the intellectual foundation of Ming legal culture? What role did law play in imperial efforts to carry out social reform programs? Was it simply a device utilized by the imperium to exercise oppressive power or was it intended to educate the people and transform society as well” (p.4)? In challenging Western scholarship”s prevalent assumption that traditional Chinese law was simply an arm of the state to maintain social control and a secular tool to exercise naked power,Jiang also wants to prove that the Great Ming Code contained a cosmological view that could be called religious and that it was an instrument which manifested the Mandate of Heaven and was used as a tool to educate the people and transform society.
carry out
07
K2(中国史)
2012-10-29（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）
161-163
