Dong Zhongshu | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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![]() Portrait of Dong Zhongshu (National Palace Museum) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Chinese | 董仲舒 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dong Zhongshu (Chinese: 董仲舒; Wade–Giles: Tung Chung-shu; 179–104 BC) was a Chinese philosopher, politician, and writer of the Han dynasty. He is traditionally associated with the promotion of Confucianism as the official ideology of the Chinese imperial state, favoring heaven worship over the tradition of cults celebrating the five elements.[1] Enjoying great influence in the court in the last decades of his life,[2] his adversary Gongsun Hong ultimately promoted his partial retirement from political life by banishing him to the Chancellery of Weifang, but his teachings were transmitted from there.[1]