Confucius

Confucius. The Lat. rendering of K'ung Futzu (Master K'ung), whose name was K'ung Ch'iu and also styled Chung-ni. Little can be established about his life, forebears, and family, although legends (including very early ones) are abundant. The best source is probably the Analects (Lun-yu). He became a ssu-kʾou (police commissioner?) at about the age of 50, but only for about a year. It was the highest public position he ever occupied. In over ten years of travel (497–484 BCE), Kʾung visited many other feudal states of his time, seeking a ruler who would use his services, but never finding one. According to the Annals of Tso, he himself died aged 73, in the sixteenth year of the reign of Duke Ai (479 BCE). His political ambitions remaining unfulfilled, Kʾung was remembered especially as a teacher, and by many as the great moral teacher of E. Asia. Above all, he was interested in the difficult art of becoming a perfectly humane (jen) person, and regarded those who made efforts in that direction as the real gentlemen, rather than those born of high rank. His teachings give primary emphasis to the ethical meaning of human relationships, grounding the moral in human nature and its openness to the transcendent. Although he was largely silent on God and the after-life, his silence did not bespeak disbelief. His philosophy was clearly grounded in religion—the inherited religion of the Lord-on-high or Heaven, the supreme and personal deity. He made it clear that it was Heaven which gave him his message and protected him.