Cheng Hao

Family

His father was Cheng Xiang and his mother was surnamed Hou; his fourth-generation ancestor was Cheng Yu, and his wife's grandfather was Cao Liyong. His younger brother was Cheng Yi (1033–1107). His affinal relatives included Li Xiaoji; his children and other kin included his eldest son Cheng Duanyi, second son Cheng Duanben, son-in-law Zhu Shengzhi, grandnephew Cheng Wei, and cousin Hou Shiyu.

Life and career

Having passed the jinshi examination in the second year of Jiayou (1057), he first served as assistant magistrate of Hu County and Shangyuan, and later as magistrate of Jincheng in Zezhou. In early Xining, recommended by Lü Gongzhu, he was appointed Taizi Zhongyun and Acting Investigating Censor in Attendance; Emperor Shenzong summoned him repeatedly, and he argued for rectifying the mind, restraining desire, seeking worthy men, and cultivating talent. In the second year of Xining, at the request of the Regulations Commission of the Three Offices, he and seven others toured the circuits to assess agricultural water control, tax quotas, and the burdens of corvée.

In the third year of Xining, because his views diverged from Wang Anshi's New Policies, he sought an external appointment. He was first named Acting Commissioner for Judicial Review of the Western Capital Circuit, declined the post, and was reassigned as signatory judge of the Zhenning Army military-governor's office. He later supervised tax collection at the Western Capital's Luo River timber office; in the first year of Yuanfeng (1078) he became magistrate of Fugou, in the third year returned to Luoyang to lecture, and in the sixth year served as supervisor of the Ruzhou wine tax (elsewhere, salt tax). He was also appointed to judge the Military School and was penalized after a prisoner escaped from custody. After Zhezong's accession, he was summoned as Assistant Administrator of the Court of the Imperial Clan, but died before taking up the post, aged fifty-four.

Learning and thought

In his early years he and Cheng Yi studied under Zhou Dunyi. They became known as the Cheng brothers and were regarded as foundational figures of Neo-Confucianism. The two taught for a long period in Luoyang, and Cheng Hao's learning became known as Luoxue. His philosophy treated tianli, or Heavenly Principle, as the highest principle in the natural world and society; held that Heaven, principle, and mind were identical and that Heaven and humanity were not two; and, in ethics, emphasized the Three Bonds and Five Constant Virtues. He also advanced the propositions “Heaven is principle” and “the mind itself is Heaven; when it is fully realized, one's nature is known.”

You Zuo and Yang Shi studied with him; Lü Dalin and Xie Liangzuo were among those who followed him, and Yang Shi later studied under Cheng Yi after Cheng Hao's death.

Works

His collected writings include 《明道先生文集》, also catalogued as 《明道文集》; 《定性書》, also 《論定性書》, and 《識仁篇》 were later incorporated into 《二程全書》. With Cheng Yi, he co-authored 《河南程氏遺書》 in twenty-five volumes, 《河南程氏外書》 in twelve, 《河南程氏經說》 in eight, and 《河南程氏粹言》 in two; there is also a four-volume 《文集》. Disciples arranged his daily lectures and explanations of the Classics, and later editors compiled these with Cheng Yi's works as 《二程全書》. Bibliographical listings also preserve 《二程遺書二十五卷附錄一卷》, 《二程外書十二卷》, 《二程語錄二十七卷》, and 《二程語錄文集》. His poetry includes 《明道先生詩集》; an edited collection adds three poems outside the collection and brings them together in one volume.

Posthumous standing

After his death, Wen Yanbo inscribed his tomb “Mingdao xiansheng” and called him “the one person after Mencius”; later compilers gathered his surviving prose and recorded sayings. In the seventh year of Jiading, Wei He, then assistant magistrate of Shangyuan, established a shrine to him, for which Zhen Dexiu wrote a commemorative account. In the thirteenth year of Jiading, he was posthumously given the title Chun; in the first year of Chunyou, he was enfeoffed as Earl of Henan, later posthumously made Duke of Yu, and enshrined in the Temple of Confucius. Zhu Xi wrote prefaces and postscripts for related works and composed a shrine account.