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Mandarin Manuscripts

Confucius

The man widely known in the English language as Confucius was born around 551 BCE in today’s southern Shandong Province. Confucius is the phonic translation of the Chinese word Kong fuzi , in which Kong was his surname and fuzi is an honorific for learned men.Widely credited for creating the system of thought we now call Confucianism, this learned man insisted he was “not a maker but a transmitter,” merely “believing in and loving the ancients.” In this, Confucius could be seen as acting modestly and humbly, virtues he thought of highly.

Confucius looked nothing like the great sage in his own time as he is widely known in ours. To his contemporaries, he was perhaps foremost an unemployed political adviser who wandered around different fiefdoms for some years, attempting to sell his political ideas to different rulers — but never able to strike a deal. It seems Confucius would have preferred to live half a millennium earlier, when China — according to him — was united under benevolent, competent, and virtuous rulers at the dawn of the Zhou dynasty. By his own time, China had become a divided land with hundreds of small fiefdoms, often ruled by greedy, cruel, or mediocre lords frequently at war.

But this frustrated scholar’s ideas have profoundly shaped politics and ethics in and beyond China ever since his death in 479 BCE. The greatest and the most influential Chinese thinker, his concept of filial piety remains highly valued among young people in China despite rapid changes in the country’s demography.

Confucius wanted to restore good political order by persuading rulers to reestablish moral standards, exemplify appropriate social relations, perform time-honored rituals, and provide social welfare.

Confucianism

Confucianism is a religious and philosophical tradition dating back 2500 years in China, which later spread throughout East Asia. Although the man we know as Confucius said he was not a creator but rather a transmitter of older values and traditions, it is fair to consider him the founder. His actual name was Kong Qiu, and he was generally known as Master Kong (Kongzi). A more honorific variant of that name, Kong Fuzi, was Latinized by 17th -century Jesuit missionaries as Confucius.

Master Kong was born in 551 BCE in eastern China, during the period known as the Eastern Zhou dynasty. The Zhou political structure had been disintegrating for over 200 years during his lifetime, and Confucius' mission was to restore social and political harmony by reviving the moral character of the ruling class and the literate elite. The three major virtues he felt were the basis of morality were humanity/humaneness (ren), ritual propriety (li), and filial respect (xiao). Humanity/humaneness, he said, was the essential goodness and love for others that distinguishes us from other animal species.

As his later follower, Mencius, put it, "To be human is to be humane." Ritual propriety (li) is the necessary outward expression in behavior of that humanity, and must be consistent with culturally specific norms. Filial respect (xiao), or respect for elders, is a naturally-occuring virtue that is the building block of the other virtues.

In later centuries filial respect would become by far the best-known Confucian virtue, with both good and bad results Confucius' followers were known as ru or "scholars," because they came to be the experts in the rituals and arts thought to be necessary for good governance and a cultured life.

There was never until modern times a Chinese equivalent for the term "Confucianism;" the tradition was called the "teaching of the ru" (rujiao) or the learning of the ru (ruxue). After Confucius' death, three or four generations of his followers compiled his oral teachings into a book called the Lunyu, or Analects of Confucius.

The Zhou Dynasty

1046-256 BCE

During the Zhou dynasty, the origins of native Chinese philosophy developed, its initial stages of development beginning in the 6th century BC. The greatest Chinese philosophers, those who made the greatest impact on later generations of Chinese, were Confucius, founder of Confucianism, and Laozi, founder of Taoism. Other philosophers, theorists, and schools of thought in this era were Mozi, founder of Mohism; Mencius, a famous Confucian who expanded upon Confucius' legacy.