MUZIChinese Matrix
Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Cao Wei thinker and zither player of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, executed under Sima Zhao after refusing office and defending his friend Lu An
Mural of the event “Flourishing of Neo-Daoist Thought”, which this person took part in.
Following the collapse of Han Confucian scholasticism amid bloody political purges, literati sought ontological truth and existential refuge from rigid orthodoxy.
Also known as Zi Shuye · Ji Zhongsan
Ji Kang, courtesy name Shuye, came from Zhi county in the state of Qiao, married into the Cao imperial house and held the title grand master of palace leisure. Devoted to Laozi and Zhuangzi, he kept company with Ruan Ji, Shan Tao, Xiang Xiu, Liu Ling, Ruan Xian and Wang Rong, a group later called the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. When Shan Tao proposed him as his successor in office, he replied with a letter breaking off their friendship. After his friend Lu An was falsely accused by his own brother Lu Xun, Ji Kang spoke in his defense, was slandered by Zhong Hui and put to death with Lu An on Sima Zhao's order. The *Book of Jin* (*Jinshu*) says three thousand students of the Imperial Academy asked in vain to have him as teacher, and that before his death he played the tune 'Guangling San', lamenting that it would now be lost. His essays 'On Nourishing Life' and 'Music Has No Sorrow or Joy' survive.
Dates 223 CE–262 CE
The Book of Jin says Ji Kang had loved the Laozi and Zhuangzi since youth, wrote the Yangsheng lun, and composed the Sheng wu ai le lun, which it calls well organised, and that he could write with lofty feeling. He married into the Wei imperial house and was made grand master of the palace.
The Book of Jin says Ji Kang played the zither and chanted poems for his own pleasure. When he was about to be executed in the eastern market, three thousand students asked to take him as teacher and were refused; he looked at the sun's shadow, asked for his zither and played, and sighed that the Guangling san was now lost. He was forty.