Historical and Cultural Backgrounds of the Emergence of Philosophy in China and its Relations with Ancient India and Iran
Subject Areas :
1 - Assistant Professor, Department of Political Sciences, Research Institute of Hawzah and University, Qom, Iran
Keywords: ancient Chinese philosophy, socio-political backgrounds of philosophy, Mandate of Heaven, Iran–India–China interactions, Silk Road, transmission of Buddhism,
Abstract :
This study examines the historical, cultural, social, and political backgrounds underlying the emergence and development of philosophy in ancient China, from the Shang and Zhou dynasties to the fifth century AD, with particular emphasis on its conceptual interactions with the civilizations of ancient India and Iran. Chinese philosophy was developed in the context of the crises of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. The socio-political structures of the Shang (a ritual theocracy characterized by ancestor worship and the worship of Shangdi) and the Zhou (the feudal fengjian system and the concept of the Mandate of Heaven) constituted the principal context for the emergence of the “Hundred Schools of Thought.” Myths (Pangu and Nüwa), rituals (ancestor worship and li), and pre-philosophical texts (the Yijing) provided foundational concepts concerning cosmic order, the balance of yin and yang, the Five Phases (wuxing), and the harmony between human beings and nature. Adopting a comparative approach, the present study demonstrates that Chinese philosophy did not develop in isolation; rather, it remained in continual interaction, through the Silk Road and the routes of Central Asia, with India (as evidenced by the transmission of Buddhism from the first century AD, conceptual parallels with dharma and ahimsa, the translation of texts, and the emergence of Chinese schools such as Chan) and with ancient Iran (as reflected in the correspondence between asha and the Dao, the Mandate of Heaven and xvarənah (divine glory), the Han–Parthian and Sasanian diplomatic exchanges, and the shared cosmological and ethical concepts). While Chinese philosophy was predominantly human-centered, practical, and oriented toward social harmony and cosmic order, these characteristics were enriched through engagement with the Buddhist Indian concerns with individual liberation and profound metaphysics, as well as with ancient Iran’s conception of ethical responsibility and divine order (asha). These exchanges enriched the concepts of duality, cosmic legitimacy, political ethics, and liberation, and contributed to syncretic developments such as Neo-Confucianism. Ultimately, it can be said that ancient Chinese philosophy represents a form of human-centered, practical, and cosmological thought that, through reciprocal dialogs with Asian civilizations, has become one of the major pillars of Eastern thought and continues to offer considerable potential for perceiving the diversity and cultural interconnectedness of Asia.
جعفرزاده، یوسف (۱۳۸۴) «مفهوم جامعه از دیدگاه کنفوسیوس»، فلسفه تحلیلی، سال ۲، شمارۀ ۳، ص79ـ۴۱.
رجایی، فرهنگ (۱۳۷۲) تحول اندیشه سیاسی در شرق باستان، تهران: قدس.
زینر، رابرت چارلز (۱۳۸۸) طلوع و غروب زردشتیگری، ترجمه تیمور قادری، تهران: مهتاب.
عالم، عبدالرحمن (۱۳۷۷) اندیشه سیاسی چین باستان، تهران: دفتر مطالعات سیاسی و بینالمللی.
کریل، هرلی گلسنر (۱۳۹۳) تاریخ اندیشه در چین از کنفوسیوس تا مائو تسهدونگ، ترجمۀ مرضیه سلیمانی، تهران: ماهی.
میرحسینی، زینب؛ دهقانزاده، سجاد (۱۴۰۲) «تأملی در سیر تاریخی مکتب فکری یین یانگ»، معرفت ادیان، شمارۀ ۵۴، ص124ـ۱۰۷.
ناکامورا، هاجیم (۱۳۷۷) شیوههای تفکر ملل شرق، ترجمه مصطفی عقیلی و حسین کیانی، تهران: حکمت.
ون، هایمینگ (۱۴۰۱) تاریخ اندیشه فلسفی چین، ترجمه امین بذرافشان، تهران: ققنوس.
هارتس، پائولا آر (۱۴۰۲) آیین دائو، ترجمه حجتالله جوانی، تهران: دانشگاه الزهرا.
هان، جن (۱۳۹۸) مفاهیم بنیادی در اندیشه و فرهنگ چینی، ترجمه ابوالقاسم اسماعیلپور مطلق، تهران: مدید.
Adler, J. (2002). Chinese religions. London & New York: Routledge.
Beckwith, C. I. (2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A history of central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the present. Princeton University Press.
Chakravarthi, R. -P. (2007). Indian philosophy and the consequences of knowledge: Themes in ethics, metaphysics and soteriology. Routledge.
Chen, S. (2024). Doing Chinese philosophy: A focus on philosophical methodology. Springer Nature Singapore.
Confucius. (1979). The analects (D. C. Lau, trans.). Penguin Books.
Confucius. (2016). The analects, (S. Leys, trans.; M. Nylan, ed.). W. W. Norton & company.
Cook, C. A. (2017). Ancestors, kings, and the Dao. Harvard University Asia Center.
Creel, H. G. (1970). The origins of statecraft in China. Vol. 1. University of Chicago Press.
Du, H. (2020). The mastery of miscellanea: Information management and knowledge acquisition in the “Chu shuo” chapters of the Hanfeizi. Journal of the American Oriental Society, 140(1), 117–143.
Fairbank, J. K., & Goldman, M. (2006). China: A new history (2nd enlarged ed.). Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Funayama, T. (2005). The beginnings of Sino-Iranian cultural contact. Journal of Asian History, 39(1), 1–30.
Fung, Y.-L. (1948). A short history of Chinese philosophy (D. Bodde, Ed.). Free Press.
Garver, J. W. (2006). China and Iran: Ancient partners in a new world order. University of Washington Press.
Goodrich, L. C. (1957). A short history of the Chinese people (3rd ed.). Harper & Brothers.
Hsiao, K.-C. (1979). History of Chinese political thought. vol. 1. From the beginnings to the sixth century A.D. (F. W. Mote, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
Keightley, D. N. (1978). Sources of Shang history: The oracle-bone inscriptions of Bronze Age China. University of California Press.
Keightley, D. N. (2000). The ancestral landscape: Time, space, and community in late Shang China, ca. 1200–1045 B.C. Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California.
Kern, M. (2001). Ritual, text and the formation of the canon: Historical transitions of “Wen” in early China. T’oung Pao, 87(1), 43–91.
Kotyk, O. (2023). Religious identity and cultural memory in ancient Iran. Institute for Religious Studies.
Li, F. (2006). Landscape and power in early China: The archaeology of the Western Zhou, 1045–771 BC. Cambridge University Press.
Lin, Y. (1945). The wisdom of China. Michael Josepd, London.
Lin, Y. (1974). The evolution of the pre-confucian meaning of Jen and the Confucian Concept of moral autonomy. Monumenta Serica, 31, 172–204.
Loewe, M. (2005). Everyday life in early imperial China during the Han period, 202 B.C.–A.D. 220. Hackett Publishing.
Luo, G. (2023). Traditional ethics and contemporary society of China. Springer.
Redmond, G., & Hon, T.-K. (2014). Teaching the I Ching (Book of Changes). Oxford University Press.
Roberts, J. A. G. (2006). A history of China (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Schwartz, B. I. (1985). The world of thought in ancient China. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Shaughnessy, E. L. (2006). Rewriting early Chinese texts. State University of New York Press.
Smart, N., & Leaman, O. (2008). Asian philosophies (5th ed.). Routledge.
Tan, C. (2016). A Confucian conception of critical thinking. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 51(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12228.
Theobald, U. (2019). The Zhou dynasty. Chinaknowledge, de.
von Falkenhausen, L. (2006). Chinese society in the age of Confucius (1000–250 BC): The archaeological evidence. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, University of California.
Watson, B. (1993). Records of the Grand Historian: Han dynasty (Rev. ed.). Columbia University Press.
Xunzheng, S. & Hu H., & Jian B. (1981). A concise history of China. (2nd ed.). Foreign Languages Press.
Yevhen, S. (2023). Ancient Indian philosophical tradition. Philosophy of Ancient China and India. https://nexphilo.com/history/6.html