兼收并蓄(兼收幷蓄)

Pronunciation: jiān shōu bìng xù Literal meaning: Gather all store together

Origin & Usage

This inclusive approach advocates gathering (收) comprehensively (兼) while storing (蓄) everything together (并), originating from Tang Dynasty intellectual movements. It gained prominence through scholar-officials like Liu Zongyuan who advocated synthesizing Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist wisdom rather than rigid adherence to a single tradition. The phrase reflected a cosmopolitan philosophy emerging during Tang China's international golden age. During the Song renaissance, it became a methodological principle for encyclopedic scholarship that sought to preserve diverse knowledge systems. Modern usage celebrates intellectual openness and cross-disciplinary integration, particularly in research contexts where innovative solutions emerge from combining seemingly unrelated approaches.

When to Use

Situation: Her research methodology incorporated diverse approaches from multiple disciplines

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