Spreading the Word of Zhu Xi: Xu Heng's Vernacular Confucianism under Mongol Rule and Beyond

Abstract

The thirteenth century scholar and teacher Xu Heng began as a peasant and a refugee from the chaos of war, but rose to the highest levels of the Yuan dynasty court. He helped to facilitate the translation of neo-Confucian ideas for the Mongol rulers, a translation that had to be carried out on multiple levels of language and culture. In particular, he advocated the universality of Confucian models across both ethnicity and class. In so doing, he helped to set a cultural pattern that would persist beyond the Mongol rule and become a foundational aspect of traditional China’s legacy. Show more