Unified Interpretation of Law and Unparalleled Flourishing of “Lv Xue”

Abstract

As an epitome of ancient Chinese jurisprudence, “Lv Xue” (the study of statutory laws) had been a miracle in the garden of ancient Chinese legal culture, and the forms and achievements of its development had become a key criterion to measuring the ancient Chinese legal culture. In the ancient Chinese “Lv Xue” (the study of statutory laws), the constraint of religious theology had been cast off in quite an early time, but the direction and level of development were still strictly controlled by the autocratic state. Thus, “Lv Xue” (the study of statutory laws) was basically conducted by the official authorities and the private commentaries on law were only regarded as supplements to the official commentaries. The major task of “Lv Xue” (the study of statutory laws) in ancient China was to expound the legislative intents and legal principles of a nation, to annotate the conceptual terminologies of law, to comment on the origin, the success and failures and the evolution of legal provisions, and to reveal the relationships between “Lv” (criminal laws) and “Li” (precedent) and between other forms of law, in an attempt to achieve a uniform application of law so that a highly unified national legal system and political rule could be maintained.