Self-searched To T'ao: The Life Course And Thought World Of Zhou Rudeng

Zhou Rudeng (1547-1629) was born in Sheng County in Zhejiang Province. In the 5th year of the reign of Emperor Wanli in Ming Dynasty, he became a Jinshi and later held the post of Minister of Works. However, during most of the time in his life, he focused on academic studies rather than the official circles, and made himself an influential Confucianist of Wang Yangming's School of Mind (WYSM) in late Ming Dynasty at last. As early as the reign of Emperor Wanli, Zhou had actively taken part in the academic activities like the symposiums in the local area while holding his post in Nanjing, and finished the renowned Nine Panchreston, according to which, the later generations drew the conclusion that he had inherited and carried forward the "Four-Nihility Theory" of Wang Ji, and energetically promoted the development of WYSM in central Zhejiang Province. In regard to the "integrate" tendency of WYSM popular in that period, Zhou was also an earnest practitioner. Apart from constantly communicating with Buddhists in the late Ming Dynasty and including the concepts of "emptiness" and "digestion" of Buddhism into all the levels of the ontology, Kong Fu and self-integrity of Wang Yangming's Innate Knowledge, he also wrote Authentic Pedigree of Confucianism for the purpose of establishing the system of the study of mind, so as to reflect the "orthodoxy" of Confucianism he accepted. However, after the great criticism against WYSM in late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, the prestigious masters like Sun Qifeng and Huang Zongxi fiercely criticized either the thought of Zhou itself or the academic orientation of Authentic Pedigree of Confucianism. This thesis tries to take Zhou as a typical sample and explore his life experience and spiritual world, in order to picture the academic ecology and even the social ecology of WYSM during his contemporary period.