{"id":68,"date":"2021-01-27T17:41:38","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:41:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understandingreligion\/chapter\/confucian-thought\/"},"modified":"2024-08-20T21:18:46","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T21:18:46","slug":"confucian-thought","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understandingreligion\/chapter\/confucian-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"3.1 Confucian Thought"},"content":{"raw":" \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_849\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"320\"]\"Confucius<\/a> Confucius Sculpture, Nanjing at Confucian Temple Area[\/caption]\r\n\r\nConfucianism was the official religion of China from 200 BCE until it was officially abolished when communist leadership discouraged religious practice in 1949. The religion was developed by \u201cConfucius\u201d, which is the name by which English speakers know Kong Qiu\u00a0 \u5b54\u4e18,\u00a0 born near a small ducal state on the Shandong Peninsula in 551 BCE.\u00a0 His teaching encouraged personal and governmental morality and the importance of correct social and familial relationships. These ideals, if followed, would lead to a world of peace, justice, kindness and order.\r\n
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Meeting the Master<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

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\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWe have open access materials from Robert Eno[footnote]https:\/\/ealc.indiana.edu\/people\/eno-robert.html[\/footnote] of the University of Indiana, made available for educators.\r\n\r\n\"Confucius\u2019s father was a member of the low aristocracy of the medium sized state of Lu \u9b6f. According to our best sources, he was an important aide to a major aristocratic, or \u201cgrandee\u201d family. During his prime, this family had served the greatest power holders in Lu by controlling a domain assigned to them on Lu\u2019s southern border, near a small, non-Zhou cultural area called Zou \u9139. Shortly before Confucius\u2019s birth, the family\u2019s domain was relocated to the north, but Confucius\u2019s father, having by his primary wife and his concubines produced no healthy sons to carry on his line, and being now an older man, chose at this time to take as a concubine a woman of Zou. She soon gave birth to Confucius. Three years later, Confucius\u2019s father died, and Confucius apparently grew up with his mother\u2019s family in the border region between Lu and Zou. Reaching adulthood, he traveled to the feudal center of Lu to seek social position, based on his father\u2019s standing and connections.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\"Portrait<\/a>\r\n\r\nWhen Confucius sought his fortune in Lu, he probably appeared there as a semi-outsider, the son of a \u201cmixed\u201d union between a man of Lu, who had long resided in Zou, and a woman of that non-Zhou place. But Confucius made his reputation as a strong advocate of a puristic revival of Zhou traditions in court conduct, religious ceremony, and every aspect of ordinary life. He became expert in these traditions, and it was on the basis of this knowledge and the persuasiveness of his claim that the way to bring order back to \u201cthe world\u201d was to recreate early Zhou society through its ritual forms, or \u201cli,\u201d that Confucius became known. The details of what Confucius saw as legitimate Zhou culture and why he thought its patterns were tools for building a new utopia are the principal subjects of the Analects.\r\n\r\nHis mastery of Zhou cultural forms allowed Confucius to become a teacher of young aristocrats seeking polish, and through their connections, he was able to gain some stature in Lu. Ultimately, he and some of his followers attempted to implement a grand restorationist plan in Lu that would have shifted power back to the ducal house. Shortly after 500 BCE, when Confucius was about fifty, the plan failed, and Confucius was forced to leave his home state. For about fifteen years, he traveled with a retinue of disciples from state to state in eastern China, looking for a ruler who would employ him and adopt the policies he advocated. The Analects<\/em> pictures some key moments in these travels, which ultimately proved fruitless. A few years before his death, one of Confucius\u2019s senior disciples, a man named Ran Qiu, arranged to have Confucius welcomed back to Lu, where he lived out his days as a teacher of young men, training them in the literary, ritual, and musical arts that he saw as central to the culture of the Zhou.\r\n\r\nAn extraordinary teacher, his lessons\u2014which were about self-discipline, respect for authority and tradition, and jen<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0(the kind treatment of every person)\u2014were collected in a book called the\u00a0Analects<\/em>.\"\r\n

Some religious scholars consider Confucianism more of a social system than a religion because it focuses on sharing wisdom about moral practices but doesn\u2019t involve any type of specific worship; nor does it have formal objects.\u00a0 In fact, its teachings were developed in context of problems of social anarchy and a near-complete deterioration of social cohesion. Dissatisfied with the social solutions put forth, Confucius developed his own model of\u00a0 morality to help guide society.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

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Additional Reading<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nFor more detail, read Columbia University's page on Confucius and the Confucian Tradition, part of their materials on Living in the Chinese Cosmos: The Three Teachings\r\n