Abstract

In traditional times, the emperor of China was assumed to be a morally upright person who, as Son of Heaven, ruled an empire that was arranged beneath him in hierarchical order and that functioned as a harmonious and self-consistent whole. His own conduct was believed to influence the working of the natural order of all "under heaven." The essays in Imperial Rulership and Cultural Change in Traditional China examine the relationship between emperors and culture, and ask how effective emperors were in generating cultural change. Collectively, they find that although an image of rulership as an ideal persisted throughout Chinese history, there is a great discrepancy between the image of the Chinese ruler as an all-powerful, benevolent, sovereign figure and the actual practice of this rulership. Arranged chronologically by subject matter, the essays cover historical periods ranging from the third century B.C. to A.D. 1900, and reflect the disciplines of history, literature, religious studies, and philosophy. Jack L. Dull's essay, "Determining Orthodoxy: Imperial Roles," examines the extent to which Chinese emperors attempted to and were successful in determining orthodoxy; Stephen Durrant's "Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Portrayal of the First Ch'in Emperor" shows how the author of the Shih-chi (the first comprehensive history of China) deals with the controversial Ch'in Shih-huang; in "The Emperor and Literature: Emperor Wu of the Han," David R. Knechtges explores the important role of Han Wu-ti in actively supporting literature; Chen Jo-shui's "Empress Wu and Proto-Feminist Sentiments in T'ang China" analyzes the use of Buddhism by China's only woman ruler to legitimize the idea of a female emperor and examines the influence of her ideas on history; Thomas H. C. Lee's "Academies: Official Sponsorship and Suppression" explores how and when intellectuals associated with early Chinese academies sought to achieve independence from imperial rulership; in "Imperial Rulership and Buddhism in the Early Northern Sung," Huang Chi-chiang focuses on the promotion of Buddhism by the four emperors who reigned from 960 to 1063; Huang Chun-chieh, in "Imperial Rulership in Cultural History: Chu-hsi's Interpretation," discusses the great Sung Neo-Confucian philosopher's insistence on the need for education of the ruler; Frederick P. Brandauer's "The Emperor and the Star Spirits: A Mythological Reading of the Shui-hu chuan" shows how the earliest complete version of the novel presents a mythological frame promoting loyalty and support for the emperor (in contrast to the seventeenth-century truncated version used by Marxist critics); "Ku Yen-wu's Ideal of the Emperor: A Cultural Giant and a Political Dwarf," by Ku Wei-ying, analyzes the views on rulership of a leading seventeenth-century Chinese scholar; and R. Kent Guy's "Imperial Powers and the Appointment of Provincial Governors in Ch'ing China, 1700-1900" examines the way in which emperors used their power of appointment to impose their own vision and effect cultural change.