The Essentials of Sage Learning (Seonghak jibyo)

Introduction

Yi I (Yulgok), one of the two leading Neo-Confucian thinkers of Joseon Korea alongside Yi Hwang (Toegye), presented this compendium to King Seonjo in 1575. Modelled on Zhen Dexiu’s Extended Meaning of the Great Learning, it arranges excerpts from the Confucian classics and the Song masters, with his own comments, under the steps of the Great Learning: self-cultivation, ordering the family and governing the state. Yi I intended it as a textbook for a ruler: a king must cultivate his own mind before he can reform government. Together with Yi Hwang’s Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning (1568) it became one of the standard works of royal education in Joseon.

Connections

Builds on

• Commentaries on the Four Books1190 · Zhu Xi

Responds to

• Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning1568 · Yi Hwang