Wang Yangming - Influence

Influence

• Wang Yangming is regarded one of the four greatest masters of Confucianism in history along with Confucius, Mencius and Zhu Xi (孔孟朱王).

• Wang Yangming founded "Yaojiang School" (Chinese 姚江學派) or "Yangming School of Mind" (Chinese" 陽明心學), which became one of the dominant Confucian schools in the mid-late Ming period and Qing period China. The typical figures came from this school after Wang were Wang Ji (王龍溪), Qian Dehong (錢德洪), Wang Gen (王艮), Huang Zongxi (黃宗羲), Li Zhuowu (李卓吾) and Liu Zongzhou (劉宗周). Wang Gen formed Taizhou School (泰州學派), which went left of Wang Yangming's thought. During the late Ming period, Wang Yangming's thought became notably popular and influential in China.

• The Japanese Admiral of the Russo-Japanese War, Tōgō Heihachirō, was influenced by Wang, and made a stamp which read, "One's whole life followed the example of Yangming" (一生低首拜陽明). In Japan, many scholars and politicians (this group of people is named in Japanese as: 陽明学者) came from Wang Yangming's school (Ōyōmei-gaku) in history, including Kumazawa Banzan (熊沢蕃山), Saigō Takamori (西郷隆盛), Takasugi Shinsaku (高杉晋作) and Nakae Tōju (中江藤樹). Toju Nakae is regarded as the founder of Japanese Ōyōmei-gaku.

• Chiang Kai-shek named a national attraction in Taiwan, Yangmingshan, after Wang. And a road in Nanchang is also named Yangming Road after Wang by Chiang-influenced local officials.

• The teachings of Wang Yangming were credited with inspiring many Japanese reformers and revolutionaries during the nineteenth century. This led to a great increase in interest in his thought in Japan at the end of the Meiji period, when many Chinese activists such as Liang Qichao and Chiang Kai-Shek were staying in Japan. Some Chinese and Korean thinkers believed that Wang Yangming's teachings strongly influenced the development of modern bushido (the "way of the warrior") in Japan, and promoted both ethics in their countries to strengthen the spirit of their respective peoples.

• Wang's interpretation of Confucianism has been influential in China into modern times. The twentieth-century Chinese warlord Yan Xishan attempted to revive Confucianism in Shanxi largely on the model of Wang's philosophy.