Mencius

Meng Ke, known as Mengzi, “Master Meng”, and in the West as Mencius, lived in the fourth century BCE, in the Warring States period; his traditional dates are 372–289 BCE. He was born in the small state of Zou, near Confucius’s home state of Lu, and is said to have studied with disciples of Confucius’s grandson. Stories of his mother, who moved house three times to find a good environment for his education, became proverbial.

Like Confucius, he travelled among the courts of the warring states, offering advice to rulers, urging them to govern humanely and to care for the welfare of the people, and warning that a ruler who oppresses the people loses the mandate of heaven. He had little more success in office than Confucius.

The book that bears his name, the Mencius, records his conversations and arguments, including debates with rival thinkers. Neglected for centuries, it was raised by the Neo-Confucians to the status of a classic, one of the Four Books that formed the core of Chinese education from the fourteenth century to the twentieth.

Mencius is also remembered for his political teaching: that the people are the most important element of a state and the ruler the least, and that a tyrant who has lost the people’s trust is no longer a true king. These ideas made his book both treasured and, at times, suspect to later emperors.