MUZIChinese Matrix
Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Southern Qi scholar-official and Buddhist thinker, author of the Treatise on the Three Doctrines, who kept a retreat on Mount Zhong.
A thatched pavilion open on three sides stands among tall bamboo; one person sits with their back turned at the veranda rail beside a zither and a stack of bamboo slips, while a stone path runs to a calm pond reflecting clouds and distant hills.
Also known as Zi Yanlun
Zhou Yong, courtesy name Yanlun, of Ancheng in Runan, served both the Liu Song and Southern Qi, holding posts such as magistrate of Shanyin, where he pleaded for lighter corvee, Erudite of the National University and Supervising Secretary. Learned in Buddhism as well as the Laozi and Changes, he wrote the Treatise on the Three Doctrines on emptiness and kept a hermitage on the west of Mount Zhong for his days off. Kong Zhigui's Proclamation of Mount Beishan mocks a 'Master Zhou' who feigned reclusion to win office, traditionally taken as Zhou Yong, but its details do not match his recorded career and some read it as a jest among friends.
Dates Dates unknown; active from the late Liu Song to the Yongming era of Southern Qi
The Southern Qi History says Zhou Yong read widely in the hundred schools and was skilled in Buddhist doctrine, was also good at the Laozi and the Changes, and spoke eloquently and without running dry; in his Sanzong lun he set up three positions, empty names, non-empty names and names as empty, each posing objections to the others.
The Southern Qi History says Zhou Yong was early noticed by his clan grandfather Lang and began his career as attendant in the household of the Prince of Hailing; in the early Yuanhui years he went out as magistrate of Shan, where he was kind and the people remembered him; he later became steward to the heir apparent while keeping the editing post and compiling the diary of activity and rest, then drafter in the secretariat, and then erudite of the Imperial University, still holding the editing post.