文景之治与孟子仁政思想的汉初践行--以汉文帝诏令对《孟子》的传承为例

Relationship between Implementation of Mencius’s Benevolence and the Prosperity in the Reign of Emperor Wen and Jing

汉代“文景之治”源于对黄老思想的践行,这一观点几为学界共识。然而系统梳理汉文帝诏令发现,其对《孟子》中记载的仁政思想却多有言及,并且这一特点贯穿了汉文帝整个执政时期,甚至官方对汉文帝一生功绩的定位也与《孟子》中的仁政记载若合符节。这表明汉文帝对孟子的仁政思想存在高度认可,“文景之治”或是汉初儒术治国的一次成功践行,而这次尝试的成功又成为汉武帝“罢黜百家”的先声。同时此说也可以合理解释,孟子学史上的诸多标志性事件在汉文帝时代的集中出现并非偶然,而恰恰是政治与学术互动的必然结果。这也提醒我们,对孟子“政治之学”的关注不应仅集中在学术层面,在汉代孟子学史的梳理过程中,统治阶层对孟子仁政思想的态度和立场同样不容忽视。

The“reign of Wen and Jing in the Han Dynasty was the result of implementing Huang Lao’s thoughts,and this view was almost the academic consensus.However,a systematic study of the imperial edicts finds that Emperor Wen quoted many times Mencius’s thoughts of benevolent governance written in Mencius and this feature continued throughout his reign.Even the official evaluation of Emperor Wen’s lifetime achievements completely matched the records of benevolent governance in Mencius.This clue suggests that Emperor Wen had a high regard for Mencius’s thoughts of benevolent governance,and“the reign of Emperor Wen”may be a successful implementation of the reign of Confucianism in the early Han Dynasty,and the success of this attempt also became the prelude for Emperor Wu to pay“respect only for Confucianism”.At the same time,this comment can be reasonably explained that in the history of Mencius studies,the swarming occurrences of symbolic events in the period of Emperor Wen were not accidental but the inevitable result of the interaction between politics and academia.It also reminds us that attention to Mencius study of politics should not be paid only at the academic level,while in the process of combing up the history of Mencius study in the Han Dynasty,the attitude and stance of the ruling class to Mencius’s thoughts of benevolent governance should not be ignored.