Confucius was believed to have been born in 551 BC., in the
state of Lu, known today as the Shandong province. His
parents, who died while he was a child, named him Kong Qui.
Confucius was derived from the Latin word Kongfuzi which
means Great Master Kong. Confucius was the most influential
and respected philosopher in Chinese history. His ideas
were the single strongest influence on Chinese society from
around 100 BC. to the AD. 1900's. The Chinese government
made his ideas the official state philosophy and many
nearby countries honored his beliefs.
 
 Confucius wanted to gain the position as an adviser to a
wise ruler, but he failed. He hoped to do this in order to
be able to employ his ideas for reforming society. If it
wasn't for the disciples of Confucius his teachings would
have never been spread around China, and he would have
never been made known. His teachings were never written
down by him, but his conversations and sayings were written
down by his disciples in the analects. 
 
CONFUCIANISM 
 
Confucianism was the single most important thing in Chinese
life. It affected everything in China; education,
government, and attitudes toward behavior in public and
private life. Confucianism is not a religion, but it is
more a philosophy and a guide to morality and good
government. At the time Confucius was born, China was in a
constant state of war, and rapid political change altered
the structure of Chinese society so much that people no
longer respected the established behavioral guidelines.
Confucius stated that the ideal person was one of good
moral character. The ideal person was also truly reverent
in worship and sincerely respected his father and his
ruler. He was expected to think for himself, guided by
definite rules of conduct. As Confucius said, he was
expected to take "as much trouble to discover what was
right as lesser men take to discover what will pay".
Confucius believed that this type of behavior by rulers had
a greater effect on the people than did laws or codes of
punishment. So when these types of people were rulers,
their moral example would inspire the people to lead good
lives. Confucius died sometime around 479 B.C., and his
philosophy was not very well known. If it weren't for his
disciples his ideas would probably still be unknown.
Confucius never wrote anything down himself; his disciples
wrote all of his sayings down in a collection of books
called the Analects. These contain all that modern day man
knows about Confucius. There existed two important
Confucian philosophers- Mencius (390-305 BC) and Xunzi (mid
200's B.C.). They held beliefs similar to Confucius but
they were somewhat different. Mencius's viewpoint was that
people were born good, and that they had to "preserve the
natural compassion of the heart". Xunzi opposed this by
saying that people could be good and live peacefully only
if their minds were shaped by education and conduct. Both
of these ideas parallel Confucius's, in that they both
state that people can be good. Confucianism was concerned
primarily with the needs of society, and unlike Buddhism
and Taoism, not the ability for a person to live in harmony
with nature. Beginning in the 200's B.C. Buddhism and
Taoism began to affect and reshape the standards of
Confucianism, and things such as nature came into play.
Around A.D. 200 to 600, there was a rapid decline in the
Confucian Beliefs in China. This was partly because
Confucianism now had to compete with Buddhism and Taoism,
which were developed around this time. These religions were
to Confucianism as night is to day, in other words, they
were exact opposites. Buddhism and Taoism were largely
concerned with the meaning of suffering and death, while
Confucianism largely ignored these. The revival of
Confucianism began around the 600's and was fully revived
by the 700's. In the 1100's, there was a movement lead by
Zhu-Xi called the Neo-Confucianism movement. He developed a
branch of this movement known as the rational-wing, it
dealt with the study of Li, the relationship between humans
and nature. Another branch was called the intuitional-wing
and it dealt mostly with enlightenment by a combination of
meditation and moral action. In the 1900's there was a
clash between Confucianism and Western beliefs such as
Communism. For many years after the Communist change in
China, the Government greatly opposed Confucianism because
it tended to look into the past rather than to the future.
However, all government opposition ended in 1977.