A Research on the Aspect of Respecting Zhu Xi(朱熹) Appeared in “Questioning on the Four Books”(Saseoui, 四書疑) of the Civil Service Examination in the Joseon Period

6. Confucianism in practice

Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction ◽

10.1093/actrade/9780195398915.003.0006 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 87-111

Author(s):

Daniel K. Gardner

Keyword(s):

Social Norms ◽

Moral Education ◽

Family Life ◽

Civil Service ◽

Chinese Society ◽

Zhu Xi ◽

Frequent Change ◽

Civil Service Examination ◽

Four Books ◽

The Government

‘Confucianism in practice’ shows how Confucianism was played out in everyday family life, in the moral education of peasants and elite alike, and in the administration of the state. Premodern Chinese society and politics were heavily guided by Confucian principles. Prior to the thirteenth century, civil service examination candidates were expected to demonstrate mastery of the Five Classics. In 1313, with the growing influence of the Zhu Xi school, the government decreed the Four Books would now serve as the basis of the examinations. Despite undergoing frequent change and reform, the system remained intact for nearly fifteen hundred years and was a powerful force in shaping and sustaining China's cultural and social norms.

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Daxue

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-g053-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Tu Wei-Ming

Keyword(s):

Civil Service ◽

East Asian ◽

Confucian Tradition ◽

Zhu Xi ◽

Great Learning ◽

Doctrine Of The Mean ◽

The Status ◽

Four Books ◽

The Mean ◽

Civil Service Examinations

Originally a chapter in the Liji (Book of Rites), one of the Five Classics in the Confucian tradition, the Daxue (Great Learning) has for centuries attained the status of a canon, arguably the most influential foundational text in East Asian Confucian humanism. When the great neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi grouped the Daxue with the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean), another chapter in the Liji, the Confucian Analects and the Mengzi as the Four Books, its prominence in the Confucian scriptural tradition was assured. Since the Four Books with Master Zhu’s commentaries became the required readings for the civil service examinations in 1313, and since Master Zhu insisted that the Daxue must be studied first among the Four, it has been widely acknowledged as the quintessential Confucian text.

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