Vo Truong Toan, a Vietnamese scholar of Yang Ming studies

The theory of “Understanding words, nourishing spirit” was first suggested by the Chinese scholar Mencius (孟子) and then, was explained differently by various later Confucian scholars. Annotations given by Zhu Xi (朱熹) and Wang Yang Ming (王 陽 明) exerted the largest and strongest influence on later generations of Confucianist followers in East Asian countries. In Vietnam, the Confucian scholar Vo Truong Toan dug deeper into that theory and transferred it to his students in Gia Dinh. The paper sets the first step into studying the theory of “Understanding words, nourishing spirit”, Yang Ming Studies as well as their influence on the Confucian educational thoughts and on the scholar tradition of Southern Vietnam, which were initiated and first built up by Vo Truong Toan.