Hundred Schools of Thought - History and Origins

History and Origins

The Yi Wen Zhi of the Book of Han claims that the officials working for the government during the early Zhou Dynasty lost their position when the authority of the Zhou rulers began to break down in the Eastern Zhou period. In this way, the officials spread all over the country and started to teach their own field of knowledge as private teachers. In this way the schools of philosophy were born. In particular, the School of Scholars (i.e. the Confucian School) was born from the officials of the Ministry of Education; the Taoists came from the historians; the Ying Yang School was born from the astronomers; the Legalist School from the Ministry of Justice; the School of Names from the Ministry of Rituals; the Mohist School from the Guardians of the Temple; the School of Diplomacy from the Ministry of Embassies; the School of Miscellaneous from the government counselors; the School of Agriculture from the Ministry of the Soil and Wheat; the School of Minor Talks from the minor officials. Although the details are unclear, the Burning of books and burying of scholars during the Qin was the end of the period of open discussion.

It should be stressed that only the Ru, or Confucians and the Mohists were actual organized schools of teachers and disciples during this period. All the other schools were invented later to describe groups of texts that expressed similar ideas. There was never an organized group of people describing themselves as "Legalists," for example, and the term "Daoist" was only coined in the Eastern Han after having succeeded the Western Han's Huang-Lao movement.