Tāng Bīn 湯斌 (1627–1687), zì Kǒngbó 孔伯, hào Jīngxiàn 荊峴 and Qián’ān 潛庵, posthumously Wénzhèng 文正, of Suīzhōu 睢州 (Hénán, modern Suīxiàn 睢縣). CBDB id 34836; lifedates firm.
A leading early-Qīng Lǐxué official, jìnshì of Shùnzhì 9 (1652). Tāng’s intellectual filiation went through his teacher Sūn Qíféng 孫奇逢 (Sūn Zhēngjūn 孫徵君) of Róngchéng 容城, who had drawn from the late WángYángmíng tradition of Yáojiāng but who, like Tāng after him, repaired the Wáng xué by combining it with the ChéngZhū line of Xīnān 新安 (Wǎnzhōu / Anhui) and Jīnxī 金谿 (Jiāngxī). The result was an early-Qīng synthesis that the Sìkù tíyào explicitly contrasts with the contemporary 陸隴其 Lù Lóngqí’s strict ChéngZhū orthodoxy: “Lù’s learning rigorously held to ChéngZhū and attacked LùWáng without sparing effort; Tāng’s learning sourced from Sūn Qíféng of Róngchéng, with its root in Yáojiāng, yet could hold the balance of Xīnān and Jīnxī — the great aim was to practice strenuously in actual conduct and to seek practical use, without the boundless drift of pure Wáng-learning. The two had different bearings yet arrived at the same goal.”
Major posts: governor of Jiāngsū (Kāngxī 23–25, 1684–1686, where he is famous for the suppression of the Yín 淫 cí — popular religion shrines — at Shàngfāngshān 上方山 and elsewhere), then Lǐbù shàngshū 禮部尚書 (Minister of Rites) and Tàizǐ tàibǎo (Senior Tutor to the Heir Apparent). Author of the Luò xué biān 洛學編 (KR3a0094), the standard early-Qīng prosopographic-history of the Luòxué (Northern-Sòng Lǐxué) tradition from the Chéng brothers down to the late Míng. The Tāngzǐ yíshū 湯子遺書 (KR4f0014) preserves his lecture-records (yǔlù), memorials (zòuyì), prefaces (xù), records (jì), letters (shūdú), fù and sòng, and miscellaneous prose, edited posthumously by his disciple 王廷燦 in 1703 guǐwèi on the basis of Tián Kuìshān’s 田簣山 first imprint and Péng Shàochéng’s 彭少司成 jiéyào Sūzhōu imprint.