Zhu Xi

Zhu Xi (1130-1200), eminent figure in Chinese philosophy and founder of Neo-Confucianism. The son of a local official in Youxi, Fujian province, Zhu Xi passed the highest grade of the government civil service examination at 18—half the average age of his fellow candidates. He ended his first term of duty in 1158 and for the next ten years deepened his knowledge of Confucianism, building on the existing rationalistic School of Principle and writing voluminously. In 1177 he completed his tremendously influential commentaries on Mencius and the Lun Yu (Analects) of Confucius. Reappointed to office in 1179, Zhu Xi persistently criticized government corruption, and remained low in the bureaucratic hierarchy. He refounded the Confucian White Deer Grotto Academy, which became a model for all East Asia. He transformed Confucianism, restructuring it around the metaphysical doctrine of the two elements, principle (li) and mass/energy (qi), developed by his predecessors in the School of Principle. He died in disgrace, barred from politics as a result of his enemies' intrigues, but in the 14th century his curriculum was adopted as standard for the government examinations, and his reformed Confucianism became the dominant creed of China and Korea, and exercised considerable influence in Japan and elsewhere.