or Tung Chung-shu
born 0441; 179 BC, Guangchuan, China
died 0441; 104 BC, China
Confucian scholar.
As chief minister to Wudi of the Han dynasty, he dismissed all non-Confucian scholars from government. He established Confucianism as the empire's unifying ideology (136 BC) and set up an imperial college, instrumental in the later establishment of the Chinese civil service. As a philosopher, he made the theory of the interaction between heaven and humanity his central theme. He merged the yin-yang concept with Confucianism and believed that one of the emperor's duties was to preserve the balance of yin and yang. His Chunqiu fanlu is one of the most important philosophical works of the Han period.