Confucius

Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.) Latin for the Chinese name K'ung-fu-tzu, "Master K'ung"; a profoundly infl uential Chinese moral teacher whose thought gave rise to CONFUCIANISM Confucius was born in China at a time of unrest in the middle of the Chou period. Little is known for certain about his life, and many details that follow are legendary. It is said that Confucius's family had some status but little wealth. Despite the family's poverty, he received an education and hoped for a political career. He served the government in some minor posts, such as overseeing sheep and cattle. Perhaps around the age of 40, he also began to teach. With time Confucius rose to a position of some responsibility, but he became disillusioned because he was unable to infl uence the duke of Lu, his home state. He resigned around the age of 54, and for the next 13 years he traveled around China, looking for a ruler who would put his ideas into practice. He was unsuccessful, perhaps because his teachings emphasized virtue at a time when rulers were looking for action. About fi ve years before his death he returned to Lu, where he taught and may have held another offi ce. During his lifetime, then, Confucius's infl uence was minimal. After his death, his teachings came to exercise a profound infl uence on the Chinese state. Some suggest that Confucius should be seen as a moral rather than a religious teacher. Indeed, Confucius's teachings redirected to the living the respect and li (RITUALS) that Chinese had traditionally given to dead ancestors. Confucius also made revolutionary innovations in the institution of teaching. Before his time, education was available only to those with the means to buy it. Confucius taught that education should be open to all who had interest and intellectual ability, regardless of whether they could pay. Despite these radical innovations, Confucius saw himself not as an innovator but as a restorer of Chinese traditions. In keeping with this self-image, he is said to have edited fi ve traditional Chinese classics (see I CHING). As a teacher, Confucius did not aim to impart knowledge or foster intellectual ability but to nurture a quality of the inner person known in Chi-nese as jen. The term is diffi cult to translate but means something like "genuine humanity." Confucius taught that people could realize this internal quality by means of external observances: They could become genuinely humane by performing their duties without thought of reward (yi) and by observing the rules of propriety (li) that govern relations between human beings. When applied to specifi c roles, Confucius referred to the process of cultivating virtue as a "rectifi cation of names," that is, making reality conform to the names. For example, Confucius taught that if one is called a parent or a child, one ought to behave like a parent or child. In Confucius's teaching, family relationships are the cornerstone of society, and the respect of children for parents is a cardinal virtue. Within society, Confucius advocates the principle of reciprocity: "Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire" (Analects 15.24). He also teaches that the best way to govern is not with rules and punishments but through propriety and the moral example of the rulers. After Confucius died, followers gathered sayings attributed to him into a volume known as the Analects (see ANALECTS OF CONFUCIUS). It is the major source for Confucius's ideas. Beginning with the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.), Confucianism became offi cially established in China. Civil servants were required to pass a grueling examination in the fi ve Confucian classics. Imperial offi cials maintained the cult of Confucius as part of their offi cial duties. Eventually every prefecture (a political unit something like a county) in China—over 2,000 in all—had its temple to Confucius. Although the specifi c fortunes of Confucianism varied, Confucius's teachings shaped offi cial Chinese life until the Communist Revolution under Mao Tse-tung in 1949. It is likely that they continue to shape unoffi cial life today.