Explore
Compare
Life
He persuaded the Han emperor to make Confucianism the law of the land, and rewrote the cosmos to prove it was always meant to be that way.
He wove the cycles of yin and yang together with five elemental phases into a single cosmology of change, then used it to predict which dynasty must inevitably rise, conquer, and eventually fall next.
Connection
Zou Yan yin-yang cosmology fused with Confucianism Dong Zhongshu — Dong Zhongshu built his synthesis of Confucian ethics with cosmic order directly on the yin-yang and five-phases framework Zou Yan had systematized over a century earlier, giving Han dynasty Confucianism its cosmological architecture.
Ideas
Words
“Whenever a new dynasty is about to arise, Heaven exhibits auspicious signs to the people below, matched to the power of one of the five phases.”
“What the Confucian scholars call the Middle Kingdom occupies but one part in eighty-one of the whole world.”
Key Moments
c. 270s BCE
Teaches at the Jixia Academy
c. 260s BCE
Proposes the Nine Continents cosmography