Book burning in Qin Dynasty

This purpose of this article is to examine the book burning mandate issued by Qin Shi Huangdi, at the recommendation of his advisor Li Si. It will do so by first looking at when and why the book burning took place. Next, it will examine support for book burning and the advancing of Legalism as evidenced in the writings of Han Feizi, and why it was a reasonable undertaking. Then, it will briefly look at the extent of the damage caused by book burning. Finally, it inspects whether or not book burning had its desired effect.

The book burning mandate occurred in 213 B.C. at the height of Li Si’s power. This event created a lot of drama and put the Qin dynasty as a whole in a bad light. This event, as well as the burying of scholars alive the following year, is often criticized by men of later times, but in the context of the time period and the nature of the Qin state, they are not particularly outrageous events. The act of burning books and burying scholars alive are instances of extreme control exercised by the First Emperor due to the strong encouragement of his Legalist advisor, Li Si. Qin Shi Huangdi and Li Si wanted to control the flow of information and reduce the threat of negative responses to the way the government was being run.

In the context of Legalism, at least that which was supported by Han Feizi, burning books seemed like an appropriate path to keeping the government in control. In describing the pitfalls of looking to the past for advice on the present, Han Feizi says, “In the state of an enlightened ruler there are no books written on bamboo slips; law supplies the only instruction. There are no sermons on the former kings; the officials serve as the only teachers,” (Han Fei 112). He goes on to say, “These are the customs of a disordered state: Its scholars praise the ways of the former kings and imitate their benevolence and righteousness, put on a fair appearance and speak in elegant phrases, thus casting doubt upon the laws of the time and causing the ruler to be of two minds,” (Han Fei 117).

Looking at these two excerpts, Han Feizi makes book burning seem like a reasonable undertaking. In an effort to reduce ill-informed criticisms that arose from too much emphasis on past historical achievements, Li Si recommended the burning of books. After all, the sage kings of ancient times were no longer in power so they must have done something wrong to loose their power. In order to find the correct path for the future, according to Legalist thought, one must look at the present and examine the current situation.

Li Si did not want all the books to be burned. In his memorial, he states, “books concerned with medicine, pharmacy, divination by tortoiseshell and milfoil, the sowing of crops, and the planting of trees,” should be saved (Qian 29). He goes on to state that books with Qin records would be saved, but any book that preserved the records of other states were to be destroyed. Ouellette suggests this is important in that the record of the Qin state is more likely to be reliable than information surviving from previous states and other states during the same time period. The goal of burning books was not to eliminate knowledge, but to keep the knowledge, and power, in the hands of a select few. This would in turn inhibit people from using the past to criticize the present (Ouellette 2010, 19-22).

How much damage did Li Si and the First Emperor cause? According to Francis Hammit in his article The Burning of Books, the destruction under Qin Shi Huangdi was not as great as is generally supposed. In addition to those who defied the order to burn their books, certain officials were allowed to retain books, and the emperor had his own collection. A few scholars disobeyed the orders for the destruction of books by concealing old Confucian tablets and other writings. It is said that the fire caused by Hsiang Yu in the capital a few years later in 207 B.C., caused more damage to books than by the implementation of the book-burning orders of Qin Shi Huangdi (Hammitt 1945, 300-12).

Not everyone feels that the book burning had the desired effect. In his article Western Theory and Chinese Reality, Zhang Longxi suggests that the burning of books did not have the desired effect and described the event as a complete failure. According to Zhang, “The spiritual edifice of ideas and theories cannot be destroyed by material fires, and that is bad news for all thought police and controllers of ideas, whether they are the first emperor of China, the Roman Catholic Index compilers, Adolf Hitler, or Mao and his Red Guards,” (Zhang 1992, 105-30).

Through this act of book burning, we can see what happens when two moral theories collide, in this case, Confucianism and Legalism. Tong and Barry, in their article Confucius and the Cultural Revolution, summarize Qin Shi Huangdi and Li Si’s actions well. They say it is no coincidence the first systematic anti-Confucius campaigns took place during the Qin dynasty. They discuss how Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi took control in the third century B.C. under the influence of Legalist reforms that rivaled Confucianism. As opposed to Confuciusianism that emphasized rule through righteousness and benevolence, the Legalist emphasized government by formal rules and centralized administration. This act is known as Fenshu Kengru, which literally means the burning of books and the burying of Confucians (Tong and Barry 1997, 189-212).

References

Fei, Han,. Han Feizi basic writings. New York: Columbia UP, 2003. Print.

Hammitt, Frances. 1945. The Burning of Books. The Library Quarterly 15, no. 4 (Oct): 300-12.

Ouellette, Patrick. 2010. Power in the Qin Dynasty: Legalism and External Influence over the Decisions and Legacy of the First Emperor of China. East Asian Studies (Feb): 19-22.

Qian, Sima,. Records of the grand historian. Hong Kong: Research Centre for Translation, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Renditions-Columbia UP, 1993. Print.

Tong, Zhang, and Schwartz Barry. 1997. Confucius and the Cultural Revolution: A Study in Collective Memory. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 11, no. 2 (Winter): 189-212.

Zhang, Longxi. 1992. Western Theory and Chinese Reality. Critical Inquiry 19, no. 1 (Autumn): 105-30.