Dong Zhongshu (; 179–104 BC) was a Chinese philosopher, politician, and writer of the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

. He is traditionally associated with the promotion of

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China, and is variously described as a tradition, philosophy, Religious Confucianism, religion, theory of government, or way of li ...

as the official ideology of the Chinese imperial state, favoring heaven worship over the tradition of cults celebrating the five elements. Enjoying great influence in the court in the last decades of his life, his adversary Gongsun Hong ultimately promoted his partial retirement from political life by banishing him to the Chancellery of

Weifang Weifang ( zh, s=潍坊, t=濰坊, p=Wéifāng) is a prefecture-level city in central Shandong province, People's Republic of China. The city borders Dongying to the northwest, Zibo to the west, Linyi to the southwest, Rizhao to the south, Qingdao ...

, but his teachings were transmitted from there.

Biography

Dong was born in modern Hengshui, Hebei, in 179 BC. His birthplace is associated with Wencheng Township (, now located in Jing Country), so in the '' Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals'' he is once mentioned as Lord Dong of Wencheng (). He entered the imperial service during the reign of Emperor Jing of Han and rose to high office under

Emperor Wu of Han Emperor Wu of Han (156 – 29 March 87BC), born Liu Che and courtesy name Tong, was the seventh Emperor of China, emperor of the Han dynasty from 141 to 87 BC. His reign lasted 54 years – a record not broken until the reign of the Kangxi ...

. His relationship with the emperor was uneasy though. At one point he was thrown into prison and nearly executed for writings that were considered seditious, and may have cosmologically predicted the overthrow of the

and its replacement by a Confucian sage, the first appearance of a theme that would later sweep Wang Mang to the imperial throne. He appears to have been protected by the emperor's chief counselor, Gongsun Hong. Dong Zhongshu's thought integrated Yin Yang cosmology into a Confucian ethical framework. He emphasised the importance of the '' Spring and Autumn Annals'' as a source for both political and metaphysical ideas, following the tradition of the '' Gongyang Commentary'' in seeking hidden meanings from its text. He is also considered the originator of the doctrine of Interactions Between Heaven and Mankind, which lays down rules for deciding the legitimacy of a monarch as well as providing a set of checks and balances for a reigning monarch. Dong expressed the idea of "three heritages", through which "a new king must keep safe the heritage of the two arlierkings as a means of maintaining the connection".

Bibliography

There are two works that are attributed to Dong Zhongshu, one of which is the ''Ju Xianliang Duice'' in three chapters, preserved under the '' Book of Han''. His most significant text is the '' Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals'', which is a commentary on the canonical Confucian text ''Spring and Summer Annals''. The ''Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals'' bears many marks of multiple authorship. Whether the work was written by Dong himself has been called into question by several scholars including Zhu Xi, Cheng Yanzuo, Dai Junren, Keimatsu Mitsuo, and Tanaka Masami. Scholars now reject as later additions all the passages that discuss five elements theory, and much of the rest of the work is questionable as well. It seems safest to regard it as a collection of unrelated or loosely related chapters and shorter works, which could be subdivided into five categories. Most are more or less connected to the ''Gongyang Commentary'' and its school and written by a number of different persons at different times throughout the Han dynasty. Other important sources for Dong Zhongshu's life and thought include his ''fu'' ''The Scholar's Frustration'', his biography included in the ''Book of Han'', his Yin Yang and stimulus-response theorizing noted at various places in the ''Book of Han'' "Treatise on the Five Elements," and the fragments of his legal discussions. Dong Zhongshu's theory of 'original qi' (yuanqi or 元氣), the five elements and on the development of history, were later adopted and modified by the late Qing reformer Kang Youwei in order to justify his theories of progress via political reform. (See Kang Youwei 1987: Kang Youwei Quanji: Volumes one and Two. Shanghai Guji Chubanshe). It has been questioned, however, how correctly Kang Youwei understood Dong Zhongshu's thought. (Kuang Bailin 1980: Kang Youwei de zhexue sixiang. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe).

References

Citations

Works cited

* Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (ed.) (1999) ''Sources of Chinese Tradition'' (2nd edition), Columbia University Press, 292–310. * * * David W. Pankenier (1990). "The Scholar's Frustration" Reconsidered: Melancholia or Credo?, ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 110(3):434-59. * Arbuckle, G. (1995). Inevitable treason: Dong Zhongshu's theory of historical cycles and the devalidation of the Han mandate, ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 115(4). * Sarah A. Queen (1996). ''From Chronicle to Canon: The Hermeneutics of the Spring and Autumn Annals according to Tung Chung-shu'', Cambridge University Press. {{DEFAULTSORT:Dong Zhongshu 179 BC births 104 BC deaths 2nd-century BC Chinese philosophers Chinese Confucianists Han dynasty government officials Philosophers from Hebei Politicians from Hengshui Taoist immortals Writers from Hebei Chinese reformers Han dynasty classicists 2nd-century BC Confucianists