Fan Zhongyan's Charity Estate: When Goodwill Becomes an Institution, a Family Gains a Real Fallback
When a family encounters hardship, what is the most reliable support? Is it the help of a kind person, or a set of rules that can keep working even when the founder is no longer present? Fan Zhongyan was not a king. But the responsibility of the “great household head” discussed in the fifth line of the Family hexagram found a concrete expression in his work. In 1049, he established charitable fields in Suzhou. The following year, written rules were set down and the Fan clan charity estate began to operate.
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