Detail of a scroll painting of the Song Dynasty about dos and don’ts for women; the author is anonymous.

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Cultural Diversity and Prosperity. The Song Dynasty promoted Confucianism and worshipped Buddhist and Taoist gods. Ideologically the empire emphasized the juxtaposition of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism with Confucianism playing the central role. This special policy brought fundamental changes to the traditional Confucianism. Scholars in the Song Dynasty no longer confined themselves to classics of Confucianism only. They studied works of other ancient thought schools and even ancient works concerning medical diagnosis and pharmacy. As scholars broadened their perspectives and pushed back their horizons, they began to seek answers to questions concerning manufacturing and agriculture. Eventually scholars of the Song attained an encyclopedic range of knowledge. The cultural diversity and multiplicity of the Song Dynasty gave birth to the idealist philosophy, a new branch of Confucianism, whose influence is widespread even today.

The relatively liberal atmosphere of the Song Dynasty gave scholars rooms to explore a great range of subjects and topics. They dared to speak, they dared to think and dared to explore. Zhang Zai (1020-1077), a philosopher of the Northern Song, is best remembered for a mission statement he proposed for and embraced by all the scholars in his time and in subsequent centuries: to identify the essence of Heaven and Earth, to build up good life for the populace, to carry on past sages’ endangered scholarship, and to open up eternal peace. It was in the Song that over 100 schools of Confucianism emerged and flourished across the country, not only inputting dynamism into academic circles, but also bringing prosperity to studies; they questioned the ancient classics, they debated vigorously, and they respected different schools; they learned from each other to make their own system sound, solid and complete. The previous academic flourishing period in ancient China occurred during the Warring States (403-221BC). From numerous scholars of more than 100 schools of the Song Dynasty emerged four masters: Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi, Lyu Zuqian, and Lu Jiuyuan.

The Idealist Philosophy they created and promoted is characterized by theoretical depth, systematic soundness, content profundity, and conceptual clarification. Their thoughts had profound impacts on scholars in the following Yuan (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644), and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. It is said that the scholars of the Song Dynasty contributed to the rise of Wang Yangming and his followers in the Ming and the East Zhejiang School in the Qing. Liu Zijian, a scholar of modern times, points out that the Chinese culture in the following eight hundred years in the wake of the Southern Song was patterned after the legacy of the Southern Song and was essentially based in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, shaping and conditioning the national culture as we see today.

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International Cultural Exchanges. The Tang Dynasty (618-907) witnessed the flourishing of trade and cultural exchanges between China and the neighboring countries and regions. What’s known as the Porcelain Road started from China and reached Africa via the Indian Ocean. In the Song Dynasty, the Maritime Silk Road branched out and reached more than 60 countries and regions, forty more than in the previous centuries. Large quantities of porcelain, tea, silk and books made in China reached the Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, and the coast of East Africa. Dongjing (present-day Kaifeng in central China’s Henan Province), the capital of the Northern Song, and Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province), the capital of the Southern Song, were the world’s biggest metropolises respectively, where international influences could be seen in fashion, cuisine, languages, entertainment. As international exchanges boomed, Confucianism in China gave birth to nationalized variations of Confucianism in Japan, Korea and Vietnam, forming a sphere of Confucianism in East Asia. Chinese culture spread to these Eastern Asian countries in the form of cuisine, literature, art, science and technology.

Science and technology from China impacted the west during the Song Dynasty. Gun powder, printing and the compass from the Song changed European countries and then changed the course of the world history.

Marx wrote in The Use of Machinery, Natural Forces and Science: "Gunpowder, Compass, Printing - these are the three great inventions predicting the arrival of bourgeois society. Gunpowder shattered the knight class, the compass opened up the world market and established colonies, and printing became a tool of Protestantism, a means of scientific Renaissance in general, and the strongest lever to create the necessary prerequisites for spiritual development.”