Confucianism

The Origins of Confucianism

The Western term Confucianism stems from the name of Confucius (551–479 BCE). This term is misleading because Confucius is not, at any rate, the founder of the doctrine. The correspondent Chinese term is Ru Xue, meaning the doctrine of scholars, and the origins of the doctrine go further back than Confucius's lifetime. The earliest classic work of Confucianism is I Ching (The Book of Change), a book with sixty-four diagrams of divination supposedly drawn by Fu Xi, a legendary figure living about five thousand years ago. Philosophical and political explanations of these diagrams were given by Wen Wang, the founding father of the Zhou Dynasty (eleventh century–256 BCE), his son Zhou Gong, and later by Confucius. The essence of Confucianism is already clearly there in I Ching: the significance of every human life, as well as the goal of society, can be achieved only in the harmonic unity between self and others, and between human beings and nature. All Confucian opinions on leadership are based on this belief. Confucius once said about himself that “I am fond of ancient culture and faithful to it; I transmit out yet never innovate randomly.” (Analects, 7:1). The two figures often taken by Confucius as the best examples of leaders were Yao and Shun, both of whom lived in the twenty-first century BCE, [Page 252]and Confucius's hero was Zhou Gong, who established the Zhou Li, namely, the ritual system of the Zhou Dynasty.

There were hundreds of feudal states under the central court of Zhou Dynasty, organized by the feudal ritual system. Central and local leadership was maintained, and social solidarity was achieved neither by military force nor by legal constraint but by ritual observance. When it came to Confucius's time, the ritual system had been shaken. The rulers of powerful feudal states no longer respected or obeyed the authority of the central court, and they fought against each other in wars and plots to expand their own power and territory. Some dominant ministers in these feudal states, in turn, had overthrown their masters and taken over or divided the states. This is why Confucius considered reestablishing the ritual system li of the first priority in restoring social order and leadership, and he made great efforts, although unsuccessfully, to achieve it.

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