The father-to-son family tree, now in its 83rd generation,[87] has been recorded since the death of Confucius. Emperor Xuanzong of Tang first bestowed the title of "Duke Wenxuan" on Kong Suizhi of the 35th generation. "[98] The DNA testing was originally proposed to add new members, many of whose family record books were lost during 20th-century upheavals, to the Confucian family tree. The biography was not altogether elegant or persuasive, but it was the earliest attempt to thread together into a continuous narrative the fragments in the Analects and the stories about Confucius that had been circulating through the works of historians and philosophers in the 300 years since his death. Confucius thought that the rites, or ritual (li)—encompassing and expressing proper human conduct in all spheres of life—could steady a man and anchor a government and that their practice should begin at home. [4][5], The name "Confucius" is a Latinized form of 孔夫子; Kǒng Fūzǐ (Master Kǒng), and was coined in the late 16th century by the early Jesuit missionaries to China. September 28 is widely observed in East Asia as Confucius’s birthday. Posts about When was Confucius born written by Lloyd Lofthouse. Confucius said, "Those who are born with the possession of knowledge are the highest class of men. An invitation to come back to Qufu was extended to the southern Duke Yansheng Kong Zhu by the Yuan-dynasty Emperor Kublai Khan. The music Confucius loved best was the ancient music known as shao. At once Zigong proved his talent in diplomacy, and Ran Qiu did the same in warfare. The self-exile took Confucius on a long journey: first to Wei, the state just west of Lu, then southward to the state of Song, and finally to the states of Chen and Cai. “Be gentle when trying to dissuade them from wrongdoing,” Confucius advised. A virtuous disposition without knowledge is susceptible to corruption, and virtuous action without sincerity is not true righteousness. The clan then received an aristocratic rank during the succeeding Joseon Dynasty. His father Kong He (or Shuliang He) was an elderly commandant of the local Lu garrison. The success of Zigong and Ran Qiu must have enhanced his reputation as a person who could prepare young men for political careers. Confucius’ teaching principals are focused on benevolence-仁. He is said to have worked as a shepherd, cowherd, clerk, and a book-keeper. Confucius was emboldened to think that he could set things right in the world, because he was born at a time when such aspirations were within the reach of men living in circumstances similar to his. Confucius serves not as an all-powerful deity or a universally true set of abstract principles, but rather the ultimate model for others. [29] Even though Viscount Meng Yi gave his word not to interfere with an attempt, he went back on his earlier promise to dismantle the walls. But Confucius still had faith in professional advisers like himself, who, in the tradition of the great counselors of the past, were able to make rulers great with their hard work, discernment, and deft ways of moral suasion. Confucius was born in the state of Lu. A major clash took place in 498 BCE. Still, Confucius took Zilu in, for he was someone “who did not feel ashamed standing next to a man wearing fox or badger fur while himself dressed in a tattered gown padded with silk floss” and who was so reliable that “by speaking from just one side of a dispute” in a court of law he could “bring a legal dispute to a conclusion” (Analects, 9:27; 12:12). [56], Yang Hu, who was a subordinate of the Ji family, had dominated the Lu government from 505 to 502 and even attempted a coup, which narrowly failed. His mom kept the family from becoming hungry by working very often, and he sometimes had to stay in his home all by himself. [103], See also: Nine Schools of Thought and Hundred Schools of Thought, Chinese teacher, editor, politician and philosopher, New Confucianism (Modern Neo-Confucianism), Family tree of Confucius in the main line of descent, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee, "China Confucianism: Life of Confucius, Influences, Development", "Temple and Cemetery of Confucius and the Kong Family Mansion in Qufu", "Descendants and Portraits of Confucius in the Early Southern Song", "AAS Abstracts: China Session 45: On Sacred Grounds: The Material Culture and Ritual Formation of the Confucian Temple in Late Imperial China", "The Ritual Formation of Confucian Orthodoxy and the Descendants of the Sage (PDF Download Available)", "Quzhou City Guides – China TEFL Network", "Descendants of Confucius in South Korea Seek Roots in Quzhou", "South Korea home to 80,000 descendants of Confucius – People's Daily Online", "China Exclusive: Korean Confucius descendants trace back to ancestor of family tree", "Debra Paget Weds Oilman, Nephew of Madame Chiang", "DNA Testing Adopted to Identify Confucius Descendants", "Study finds single bloodline among self-claimed Confucius descendants", "Confucius Descendants Say DNA Testing Plan Lacks Wisdom", "Confucius Family Tree to Record Female Kin", "Confucius' Family Tree Recorded Biggest", "Confucius family tree revision ends with 2 mln descendants", "DNA test to clear up Confucius confusion", "Updated Confucius family tree has two million members", Multilingual web site on Confucius and the Analects, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Confucius&oldid=994656168, Articles with Latin-language sources (la), Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from March 2012, Articles with dead external links from August 2017, Articles with permanently dead external links, Wikipedia pages semi-protected against vandalism, Articles containing Chinese-language text, Articles containing Vietnamese-language text, Articles containing Japanese-language text, Articles containing simplified Chinese-language text, Articles containing traditional Chinese-language text, Articles needing additional references from September 2017, All articles needing additional references, Articles needing additional references from August 2018, Articles with Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy links, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2005). The rulers of his time did not mind listening to his remonstrances because, despite his reproving voice, he always included a positive message about their moral potential. [23] However, Confucius relied solely on diplomacy as he had no military authority himself. Confucius' life as a child was sad. [56] As a likely consequence, it was after this that the first disciples of Confucius were appointed to government positions. [44] These efforts spread Confucian ideals to students who then became officials in many of the royal courts in China, thereby giving Confucianism the first wide-scale test of its dogma. He did not actively recruit them when he was a counselor in Lu. His original name was Kong Qiu or Zhong Ni. Each warlord ruled a feudal state. His critics included the three or four of his disciples who accompanied him on his exile. Confucius was born in a Chinese era that was highly problematic because the country had been going through an ideological crisis. He told his son, “Unless you learn the Odes, you won’t be able to speak” (Analects, 16:13). His teachings require examination and context to be understood. A second work that is central to the study of Confucius and his thought is the Zuo Zhuan (“Zuo Commentary”). Once he grew up, he worked as a state official who handled farms and cattle. Two of Confucius's most famous later followers emphasized radically different aspects of his teachings. [45][46] François Noël, after failing to persuade Clement XI that Chinese veneration of ancestors and Confucius did not constitute idolatry, completed the Confucian canon at Prague in 1711, with more scholarly treatments of the other works and the first translation of the collected works of Mencius. I love antiquity and have faith in it” (Analects, 7:1). [54] Under Confucius's teachings, the disciples became well-learned in the principles and methods of government. Do not openly challenge them. Xunzi, who followed Mencius by about a century, severely criticized his predecessor. The means to power also became more violent and sophisticated. Qiū. According to Chinese tradition, his ancestors had migrated from the Song state to the Lu state and Confucius was a descendant of the Shang dynasty Kings. This, in part, explains what Confucius was trying to teach. His ideals have become intrinsically entwined with the national identity of China and the civilization of East Asia. In a similar vein, Confucius said of himself, “I am the sort of man who forgets to eat when trying to solve a problem, who is so joyful that I forget my worries and do not become aware of the onset of old age” (Analects, 7:19). Few people knew how to reform themselves in Confucius’s time, and there was nearly no one among their rulers for them to look up to. He was second eldest among his siblings [and hence the name “Old Number Two”]. In time, their writings, together with the Analects and other core texts came to constitute the philosophical corpus of Confucianism. Hometown: Qufu, China. The area was notionally controlled by the kings of Zhou but effectively independent under the local lords of Lu, who ruled from the nearby city of Qufu. His father, Kong He, died when he was only three years old and he was brought up by his mother, Yan Zheng. [29] Through Confucius' actions, the Bi officials had inadvertently revolted against their own lord, thus forcing Viscount Ji Huan's hand in having to dismantle the walls of Bi (as it could have harbored such rebels) or confess to instigating the event by going against proper conduct and righteousness as an official. However, in 2009, many of the collateral branches decided not to agree to DNA testing. And even the authority he possessed was transient, depending on whether he had a government job. Soon after their encounter, the ruler died, and Confucius saw no further reason to remain in Wei. [23] This way, he could establish a centralized government. Thus, he speculated on ways of extending the heart’s potential and on how the larger world would be affected if that potential were fulfilled. He would say, for example, that the man “did his best” in fulfilling his public duty, “had administrative talents,” or “wanted nothing to defile him”—but such virtue, he would add, did not imply that the man was humane (Analects, 5:8; 5:19). He observed that Emperor Shun was able to order the world simply by perfecting his own humanity and by cultivating a respectful demeanour. Confucius appeared, often with an interlocutor, in eight of the published texts from the Shanghai Museum collection. He was born in northern China in the Lu province into a family of humble circumstances. They were honored with the rank of a marquis 35 times since Gaozu of the Han dynasty, and they were promoted to the rank of duke 42 times from the Tang dynasty to the Qing dynasty. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. The sections contain descriptions of his character, deportment, and moments of his life in exile or at home in Lu; bits of conversations he had with his disciples and other people he knew; and remarks spoken in his voice but often in the absence of a context. [23] In 500 BC, Hou Fan—the governor of Hou—revolted against his lord of the Shu family. (Book) : Burgan, Michael : "Born in 551 BC, Confucius was a young man when he set his heart and mind on learning as much as he could. Even though later scholars did not find all his stories believable and saw logistical problems in his account of Confucius’s travels, they were willing to overlook such questions because of Sima Qian’s rare talent for improving the records imaginatively and reconstructing the interior lives of his subjects. A good example is found in this famous anecdote: By not asking about the horses, Confucius demonstrates that the sage values human beings over property; readers are led to reflect on whether their response would follow Confucius's and to pursue self-improvement if it would not have. It was these three—Zigong, Zilu, and Yan Hui—who followed Confucius on his long journey into the unknown. The journey took more than three years, and, after reaching Wei, Confucius stayed there for another two years. [85] Many descendants of Confucius still live in Qufu today. A Brief Note On Confucius: According to tradition, Confucius was born in 551 BC.Spring and Autumn Period, at the beginning of the Hundred Schools of Thought philosophical movement. In his major work, now called the Xunzi, he accused Mencius of misleading “the dim-witted scholars of the vulgar age,” letting them believe that Mencius’s own “aberrant” and “esoteric” doctrines are the “true words” of Confucius (Xunzi, Chapter 6, “Contra Twelve Philosophers”). Been the superiority of personal exemplification over explicit rules of behavior Confucian community they formed became the most impoverished them. Speakers and the promise of becoming a fine diplomat or a universally true set of abstract principles, but was. By Lloyd Lofthouse during the late Ming dynasty she and Confucius was born in Lu, Confucius buried... Humans are born with good impulses diplomacy as he could the best of excavated... Period ( 770–481 BCE ) and families but also career opportunities in Lu I. 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