zhú 竺

### Migration and Distribution (Information not available) The Zhu surname is not ranked among the top 100 surnames in the Chinese mainland and Taiwan. The Zhu surname has the same origin as the Zhu (竹) surname. It is said that during the time of King Tang of the Shang Dynasty, Yu enfeoffed Mo Taishi, a descendant of Emperor Yan, in the Guzhu State (south of present-day Lulong County, Hebei Province). Some descendants of the Guzhu State's rulers took one character of the state name as their surname, becoming the Zhu (竹) clan. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zhu Yan, the Marquis of Zongyang, believed that the origin of the Zhu (竹) surname came from two sages of the Guzhu State, namely Boyi and Shuqi (two sages in the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties who starved to death on Shouyang Mountain because they refused to eat the food of the immoral officials). So he added the character "二" under the character "竹", thus forming the surname "Zhu". In addition, in ancient times, India was called Tianzhu State. When some Buddhist monks came to China to spread Buddhism, in order to adapt to Han - Chinese cultural customs, they took a single character as their surname. Since they were called Tianzhu monks, they mostly adopted the surname Zhu. Later, some of these monks settled in China, and some Han - Chinese Buddhist monks also adopted the surname Zhu after taking these monks as their teachers. In this way, the Zhu surname spread among the Han people. There is also another case. Because Zhu and Zhu (竹) are homophones, a man named Zhu Yan in the Han Dynasty changed his surname to Zhu, and his descendants followed suit, as verified by *The Western Regions in the Han Dynasty* in *History of the Han Dynasty*. However, according to another ancient Chinese surname book *Xing Yuan*: "The Zhu surname originally was Zhu (竹), and it was not until Zhu Yan of Zongyang in the Han Dynasty that it was changed to Zhu." According to the verification in *Xing Yuan*, regarding the origin of the Zhu (竹) surname in China, according to *The Biographies of Famous Clans*, "The Lord of Guzhu was of the Jiang surname. King Tang of the Yin Dynasty enfeoffed him in western Liaoning, Lingzhi. From Boyi and Shuqi onwards, their descendants took Zhu as their surname, in Dongguan." The prominent family was from the Donghai Commandery (southeast of present-day Yanzhou, Shandong Province).