TA HSEH

( (Chinese: Great Learning), ) Pinyin Da Xue, brief Chinese text generally attributed to the ancient sage Confucius (551479 Bc ) and his disciple Tseng-tzu. For centuries the text existed only as a chapter of the Li chi (Collection of Rituals), one of the Five Classics (Wu Ching) of Confucianism. When Chu Hsi, a 12th-century philosopher, published the text separately as one of the Four Books (Ssu shu), it gained lasting renown. Ta hseh states that world peace is impossible unless a ruler first regulates his own country. But no ruler can do this without first setting his own household in order. This action in turn presupposes that he has oriented his personal life by rectifying his heart and acquiring sincerity. These virtues are the natural consequence of expanded wisdom that results from investigating all things. Ta hseh thus views good government and world peace as inseparably bound up with a ruler's personal virtue that begins to flourish when study develops into wisdom. In a preface to Ta hseh, Chu Hsi explained that the treatise is a means to personal development. Each individual, he says, must cultivate benevolence (jen), righteousness (i), propriety (li), and wisdom (chih), but virtue will not be acquired in equal measure by all. Heaven, therefore, will see to it that the most virtuous man will ruleas was the case with Fu Hsi, Shen Nung, Huang Ti, Yao, and Shun (the five legendary rulers during China's prehistoric golden age). See also Ssu shu.