Zhu Xi

Zhu Xi (Chinese朱熹, Pinyin Zhū Xī, Chu Hsi W.-G. ) (* 1130, † 1200) was the most significant Neo-Confucians of China. He taught during the Song Dynasty in the famous academy of the White Deer Grotto and was a teacher and advisor to the Song emperor.

Zhu Xi wrote more than 70 works. In addition, in the Wuyi Mountains and other places, he founded more than 50 private institutions of higher learning and formed as a private teacher approach several thousand students. Quite a few of his students were famous theorist. In every city in which he worked, he founded an educational institution.

Among the works of Zhu Xi his book The family standards of Zhu family is an important work on the settlement of family affairs. Shortly before his death, he corrected his comments on the book The Great Learning (大学Chinese, Pinyin Daxue ), which served as a standard for the civil service exam until the 20th century. Zhu Xi added The Great Learning, together with the Analects of Confucius, the book center and measure and the Book of Mencius to the so-called four books together.

Its importance to the Chinese intellectual history recognized the Life magazine, as it put him in the hundred most important people of the last millennium to the 45th place.