The Classic Of Filial Piety In Ancient China

Filial piety has been one of the most important virtues of Ancient China; even now, the Chinese still hold it in high regard. It encourages one to pay respect towards one’s parents and elders, including the deceased. Though it may seem like tending to those who nurtured you from the beginning of time is an instinctive ability, the Chinese took it even further than that. Ebrey relays in one of the sections in her collection of translated works, namely The Classic of Filial Piety, that filial piety was the key to maintaining peace and harmony in the world. Without it, the world would be in chaos.

The Classic of Filial Piety is a Confucian classic, written possibly in the Han dynasty, that ascribes conversations between Confucius and his disciple,

Respect for the ancestors was also an important feature of ancient Chinese customs. During the Shang dynasty, the Chinese would give out offerings and hold ceremonies to communicate with the deceased as well as to pay their respects. Judging from their use of oracle bones, a form of the earliest written records, the worship of the ancestors was very important. Inscriptions on the bones provided valuable information on the worship of the gods and ancestors. The burning of bones and the carving of sentences served as their form of divination, and was the way to communicate with ShangDi, the supreme deity. In order for the Shang to achieve good harvests, weather and win battles, they had to worship the gods and grant them offerings and sacrifices. However, they had to transmit these messages through their ancestors, as it was impossible to communicate directly with the gods. The kings during the Zhou dynasty acquired this procedure of worshipping ancestors but instead used bronzes, like bronze bells. These texts that were encrypted were written for the sake of their ancestors, hoping that “the messages would be conveyed to the dead when the bells were struck” (Hansen, 48). These are examples of the earliest signs of filial piety and how it was utilized even before Confucianism began. After the Shang conquest, the Zhou also incorporated filial piety

With the ancestors, the Chinese believed that if they did not provide for their ancestors regularly, their spirits would be angered and thus cause misfortunes to the living. Also, without rulers treating their people kindly, there would be more wars than times of stability. There were also evils that, unless were eliminated, would result in one’s inability to be filial. Confucius lists these evils as: when a man is quarrelsome with those with equal status, if he is rebellious when he is in an inferior position, or if he is of high status but is overconfident. According to laws during the Han dynasty, if children were found to be disrespecting their parents by swearing or even attacking them, they would be punished severely usually by decapitation or a hanging. In other words, children had to always defer to their parents, or else they would be labeled unfilial, “and to decry filial piety is to renounce kinship ties” (Ebrey, 67). All of these are roads to