Zhāng Zài 張載
Style name Zǐhòu 子厚; conventionally Master Héngqú 橫渠先生 from his late residence at Héngqú 橫渠 in Mèi xiàn 郿縣. Native of Mèi xiàn in Fèngxiáng fǔ 鳳翔府 (modern Méi xiàn 眉縣 in Shǎnxī). Lifedates 1020–1077 (Northern Sòng). Founder of the “Guānxué” 關學 (“Guān-region Learning”) school and one of the four canonical Běi Sòng wǔzǐ 北宋五子 (“Five Masters of the Northern Sòng”) together with Zhōu Dūnyí 周敦頤, Shào Yōng 邵雍, Chéng Hào 程顥, and Chéng Yí 程頤.
Jìnshì of 1057 (Jiāyòu 2). Held a series of court and provincial appointments — including Zhùzuò zuǒláng 著作佐郎 and Yǔ jīng dà fū 宇京大夫 — but spent most of his life teaching at his Héngqú farmhouse in Mèi xiàn, where he ran an academy of dedicated students that included Lǚ Dàlín 呂大臨 (呂大臨), Lǚ Dàfáng 呂大防, the brothers Sū Bǐng 蘇昞 and Sū Yùn 蘇昱, and Lǚ Tāo 呂陶. The Sòngshǐ Dào xué zhuàn (juan 427) gives him a substantial biography.
His foundational doctrines:
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The reduction of all reality to qì 氣 (“psycho-physical stuff”). Against Wáng Bì’s wú 無 (“non-being”) metaphysics, Zhāng argues that qì — never created and never destroyed, oscillating perpetually between jù 聚 (“condensed”) and sàn 散 (“dispersed”) states — is the underlying substance of all reality. The doctrine is articulated programmatically in his Zhèng méng 正蒙 (“Correcting the Unenlightened,” posthumously edited by Lǚ Dàlín and others).
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The doctrine of “the people my siblings, all things my companions” (mín wú tóng bāo, wù wú yú yě 民吾同胞，物吾與也). Articulated in his short Xī míng 西銘 (“Western Inscription”), the manifesto of universal-ethical Confucianism that Chéng Yí canonized as the foundation of Sòng Dào xué. Together with the Dōng míng 東銘, incorporated as a chapter of the Zhèng méng.
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The four-fold civil-philosophical mission of wèi tiāndì lì xīn, wèi shēngmín lì mìng, wèi wǎngshèng jì juéxué, wèi wànshì kāi tàipíng 為天地立心，為生民立命，為往聖繼絕學，為萬世開太平 (“to establish one’s heart for Heaven-and-Earth, to establish destiny for the human masses, to continue the lost learning for the past sages, to open peace and stability for ten thousand generations”). The single most-cited Confucian programmatic line of the SòngMíng millennium, conventionally called the Hèngqú sì jù 橫渠四句 (“Master Héngqú’s four sentences”).
His surviving works on the canon include the present Héngqú Yì shuō 橫渠易說 (KR1a0014) on the Yì; the Jīng xué lǐ kū 經學理窟 (“Storehouse of Classical-Learning Principles,” covering Shī, Shū, Lǐ across multiple chapters); and the cosmological-philosophical Zhèng méng and Xī míng / Dōng míng.
His reception in the SòngYuán mainstream is principally through Chéng Yí (who visited his Héngqú academy in his youth and absorbed substantive teaching from him) and through Zhū Xī, who wove Zhāng’s Xī míng, Zhèng méng, and Jīng xué lǐ kū into the Jìnsī lù 近思錄 (1175). Lǚ Dàlín’s xíngzhuàng of Master Héngqú — appended to the WYG of Héngqú Yì shuō — is the primary biographical source.
name: 張載 pinyinName: Zhāng Zài alternateNames: [孟陽, Mèngyáng] dynasty: 晉 birthDate: deathDate: cbdbId: dilaAuthorityId: created: 2026-05-19 updated: 2026-05-19
Zhāng Zài 張載 (Western Jin poet)
Style name Mèngyáng 孟陽. Native of Ānpíng 安平 (modern Hebei). Western Jin official and poet, fl. ca. 270–305 CE. Younger brother of the poet Zhāng Xié 張協. Multiple CBDB records carry this name without dates (ids 149243, 159716, 513213, 578484); none can be definitively matched to this poet, so no CBDB id is given.
Zhāng Zài and his brother Zhāng Xié appear together in a joint biography in Jìnshū 晉書 juǎn 55 among the wénxué literary men of the Western Jin. He held official posts and traveled to Sichuan, which furnished material for his most famous poem 〈登成都白菟樓〉 (Dēng Chéngdū Báitù lóu, Ascending the White Rabbit Tower in Chengdu). That poem is remarkable for an early literary celebration of chá 茶 (tea) as a refined beverage surpassing the classical “six pure drinks” (liù qīng 六清), and for its panoramic evocation of Chengdu’s prosperity, landscape, and famous sites (the homes of Yáng Xióng 揚雄 and Sīmǎ Xiāngrú 司馬相如, the commercial wealth of the Chéng 程 and Zhuō 卓 families). The poem was widely cited in Tang-Song encyclopaedias. His literary remains are gathered in KR4b0082.