An Exploration of the Ecological Wisdom in Kumazawa Banzan’s Confucian Thought

Abstract

Against the backdrop of an increasingly serious global ecological crisis, scholars have turned their attention to Eastern Confucianism in an attempt to find ecological wisdom in traditional Confucianism in order to seek a path of harmonious development between human beings and nature. Kumazawa Banzan, as a Confucianist and a realist with environmental consciousness who emerged in the context of the severe environmental destruction in the early Edo period, is very representative. In this paper, we will take Kumazawa’s Confucianism as an object of study and explore ecological wisdom in his Confucianism, taking his mountain and forestry thought as an example to understand its contemporary value.