DONG ZHONGSHU was a native of Guangchuan. When he was a youth, he mastered the
Spring and Autumn. During the reign of Emperor Jing, he was made an Erudite.
1 [From behind] a lowered curtain, he lectured to and recited for his disciples, who in turn transmitted [his teachings] from those with greatest seniority to those with least seniority, so that some of his disciples never even saw his face. His concentration was such that for three years he did not even glance at his garden. His movements were composed and self-effacing. If something was not in keeping with propriety, he would not do it. Students and scholars all revered him as a teacher.
After the present emperor assumed the throne, he appointed Dong Zhongshu to be the administrator to Jiangdu. By consulting ominous changes such as natural disasters and strange events recorded in the Spring and Autumn, Zhongshu deduced the causes of disorderly interactions between yin and yang. Therefore when inducing rain, he repressed yang and released yin; when stopping rain, he reversed these techniques. When he carried out these techniques in this single state, he never failed to obtain the desired results. In the midst of his tenure as administrator to Jiangdu, he was dismissed from his post and appointed as a grand master to the palace.
Residing at home, Zhongshu composed the
Record of Disasters and Anomalies. At this time, there was an ominous fire in the temple of Emperor Gao in Liaodong. Zhufu Yan, being jealous of Zhongshu, stole his composition [on portents] and sent it to the Son of Heaven with a memorial.
2 The Son of Heaven summoned an audience with various scholars and showed them the composition, which was roundly criticized and satirized. Zhongshu’s disciple Lü Bushu, who was unaware that it was his teacher’s composition, pronounced it “utterly foolish.” Subsequently, Zhongshu was remanded to the legal officials, who sentenced him to death, but an imperial instruction pardoned him. After this incident, Zhongshu did not dare speak again of disasters and anomalies.
Zhongshu personally was incorruptible and frank. At that time, the four tribes that lived beyond the limits of the empire were being pressured to submit to the emperor. Gongsun Hong’s mastery of the
Spring and Autumn did not compare with that of Zhongshu, yet Hong put himself forward on every possible occasion and so rose up the ladder of officialdom to achieve high ministerial rank. Zhongshu considered Hong to be an obsequious toady, and Hong, for his part, despised [Dong Zhongshu]. [Now it happened that] the king of Jiaoxi, an elder brother of the emperor, was particularly unrestrained, having mistreated his two-thousand-bushel officials numerous times.
3 Hong consequently spoke to the emperor and said: “Only Dong Zhongshu is up to the task of being appointed administrator to the king of Jiaoxi.”
4 Having heard that Zhongshu was a great Confucian, the king of Jiaozi treated him well, [but] Zhongshu feared that if he remained long [in this post], he would be [falsely] accused of some crime. So he retired on the grounds of illness.
When Zhongshu retired from his post and returned home to live, for the rest of his life he did not pay attention to [enhancing] his family’s livelihood but instead occupied his time cultivating his scholarship and writing books. Thus from the time the Han arose and across a span of five [imperial] generations, only Dong Zhongshu gained a reputation for elucidating the Spring and Autumn and transmitting the interpretations of Master Gongyang.