Warring States Confucian from Zhao who led the scholars of Qi as libationer, served as magistrate of Lanling in Chu and argued that human nature is bad
Mural guide
Mural of the event “Hundred Schools Contention”, which this person took part in.
At the turn of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods the rites collapsed and the old patrilineal social order gradually fragmented. The rise of private academies offered commoner scholars an unprecedented public arena to debate politics and life.
Xunzi, personal name Kuang, was honored in his time as Xun Qing and in Han times also called Sun Qing, by one account to avoid Emperor Xuan's name; he came from the state of Zhao. His biography in the *Records of the Grand Historian* (*Shiji*) says he first came to Qi to study at fifty, became the most senior teacher among the Jixia scholars under King Xiang and served three times as libationer. Slandered in Qi, he moved to Chu, where Lord Chunshen made him magistrate of Lanling; after Chunshen's death he lost the post, stayed on writing at Lanling and was buried there. His teaching put ritual and law first: the chapter 'Human Nature Is Bad' holds that goodness is the product of deliberate effort, and 'Discourse on Heaven' urges people to master Heaven's mandate and use it. Han Fei and Li Si both studied under him. Liu Xiang of the Western Han edited his writings into thirty-two chapters, and the Tang commentator Yang Liang renamed the book *Xunzi*.
500 BCEHundred Schools ContentionTook partConfucian, Mohist, Daoist, Legalist, and other thinkers debated ethics, human nature, and government across the rival states.
c. 238 BCEDied
Works
Literature · Prose33
XunziZhouLate Warring States Confucian Xun Kuang's 32 chapters on ritual and the badness of human nature
Xun Qing, three times chief libationer, magistrate of Lanling, author of tens of thousands of words
Late Warring States period
The Shiji says Xun Qing was a man of Zhao who came to study in Qi at fifty and three times served as chief libationer, then went to Chu, where Lord Chunshen made him magistrate of Lanling. Disgusted with the age's misrule, he traced how Confucian, Mohist and Daoist practice had risen and fallen and set down tens of thousands of words; Li Si had been his pupil. The chapter Human Nature Is Bad opens with the claim that human nature is bad and its goodness comes from deliberate effort.
The Fu chapter's five pieces: ritual, knowledge, cloud, silkworm, needle
Late Warring States period
The Fu chapter of the Xunzi holds five pieces on ritual, knowledge, cloud, silkworm and needle. The last three open with the words that there is a thing here and describe its shape and habits, then name it at the close, as short riddle-poems.
Zhou
Literature · Prose
