Zengzi

Also known as Zeng Shen · Zi Yu · Zong Sheng

Zengzi, personal name Shen and courtesy name Ziyu, came from Nanwucheng, son of the disciple Zeng Dian. The biographies of Confucius's disciples in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) make him forty-six years younger than the Master, say Confucius taught him because he understood filial duty, and credit him with the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing). The Analects quote his habit of examining himself three times a day and describe him on his deathbed asking his pupils to uncover his hands and feet to show them unharmed. Zhu Xi argued that the opening of the Great Learning (Daxue) records Confucius's words as passed on by Zengzi and the commentary was written by his followers. The Han bibliography lists a Zengzi in eighteen chapters, ten of which survive in the Elder Dai's Record of Rites. The Yuan court made him Duke of Cheng, Ancestral Sage, and from 1530 he was honoured as one of the Four Correlates beside Confucius in the temple.