Chu Hsi’s Thought of Charity and Practice of She-cang

Abstract

Charity activities have a long history in China. As an epitome of Neo-Confucianism, Chu Hsi thought charity is an explosion of benevolence, and a process from loving their relatives to expanding their own love to others, and emphasized that it is the most important national affair to be concerned about the people’s suffering. For the shortcomings of establishing She-cang in city, Chu Hsi first established She-cang in the rural area, which used food allotted by the government as funds, was self-managed by rural officer and gentry, under the proper supervision of government. It mainly used a reasonable way of interest-bearing to ensure mobile appreciation of funds, effectively made up for the lack of government charity, and demonstrated the function of rural non-government charity organization. The successful practice of Chu Hsi was popularized by the emperor throughout the country and became the Chu His She-cang method, which was followed by later generations, was the good example of non-government charity organization in Chinese ancient time. But later, it showed some shortcomings. These have the important historical enlightenment and reference significance for development of today’s non-government charity organization.