K?ang Yu-wei

views updated

Kʾang Yu-wei (1858–1927). Leading figure in the Chinese Reform Movement which followed defeat in the Sino-Japanese war, 1894–5. His Chronological Autobiography shows that he was early dissatisfied with maintaining traditional ways and ideas. He had an enlightenment experience of the one nature of all appearances (including his own), and withdrew into isolation where a sense of mission formed to offer a way of salvation to the world. He wrote Ta tʾung shu and Kʾung Tzu kai-chih kʾao ( Confucius as a Reformer). In 1898 he was invited to take charge of government by the emperor. He set about reform, but his twenty-seven reform edicts provoked a conservative coup dʾétat in favour of the empress dowager, Tzu Hsi. Forced overseas, he continued to oppose the Republic, but lived circumspectly when he returned to China.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions