Chinese Thinkers Through the Ages by Philosophical Library

Author:Philosophical Library
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Philosophical Library/Open Road
Published: 2017-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Tung Chung-shu

Tung Chung-shu (177-104 B.C.). One of the most renowned Confucianists of his time, Tung Chung-shu served as chief minister to two feudal princes and as adviser to a Han emperor. He defended orthodox Confucianism against its rivals, Tâoism and Legalism, and succeeded in establishing it as the state doctrine and the basis of education. Combining the cosmology of the Yin Yang school and Confucian ethics, he formulated his famous system of correspondence between nature and man.

The official records indicate that he was a diligent student of the Spring and Autumn Annals (“so devoted that for three years he did not look at his own back garden”), a competent teacher with many disciples (“giving his lectures from behind a curtain, and exacting a strict attention to propriety”), and a wise counselor to Wu, whom he futilely urged “to the adoption of vigorous measures of reform.” After a rival caused him to lose favor with the emperor, he “went back to his books and disciples, and spent the rest of his long life in studying, teaching, and writing.”

It was in 213 B.C. that the Ch‘in dictatorship, which lasted only fourteen years, sought to control thought by burning all books except those in the royal archives and works on agriculture, medicine, and divination. During its early years the Han dynasty (202 B.C.—221 A.D.) first favored Legalism and Tâoism, but after hidden copies of the Confucian texts reappeared, rituals assumed more and more importance in official functions. Modified by Tung Chung-shu in such a way as to glorify the ruler, Confucianism became the state cult (136 B.C.) and the basis of all education (124 B.C.).

A firm believer in retribution, Tung Chung-shu dealt severely with rival schools, strongly advocating the “science of catastrophes and anomalies” and the doctrines of the Five Agents and the Three Standards. He held that the cosmic order results from the harmony of the positive universal principle in nature (yang) and its negative counterpart (yin). Similarly, the moral order results from the harmony of yang and yin in man. The Five Agents through which the two principles operate (water, fire, wood, metal, and earth) have direct correspondence with the five senses, tastes, colors, tones, atmospheric conditions, virtues, ancient emperors, etc. According to the doctrine of the Three Standards, the ruler is the standard of the minister, the father of the son, and the husband of the wife; for the active or male cosmic principle corresponds to the ruler, father, and husband, while the passive or female cosmic principle corresponds to the minister, son, and wife. His system provided an explanation of human affairs and natural events in terms of a macrocrosm-macrocosm relationship. In setting forth his ideas, he drew from his knowledge of cosmology, political theory, history and ethics.

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