Confucius

A student once asked Confucius for one word to live by. He chose shu, "consideration," and explained it: what you do not want for yourself, do not do to others. The exchange is in Sayings on learning, friends and family, from the Analects.

Confucius is the Latin form of Kongfuzi, "Master Kong." His personal name was Kong Qiu. He is traditionally dated 551–479 BCE. The year 551 comes from the historian Sima Qian. Two early commentaries on the Spring and Autumn Annals, a chronicle of the state of Lu, record the birth under 552, and the translator James Legge followed them. Confucius was born in Zou, in what is now Shandong Province, south of Lu. His father, of noble family, died when Confucius was small, leaving the family poor. Sources disagree about which offices he held in Lu. The Zuo Commentary and the Mencius call him Director of Corrections, and the Mencius also names minor posts, such as a scribe in charge of food stores. Sima Qian adds high posts, among them Minister of Works and acting chancellor. Legge, following later tradition, says he wandered for about thirteen years, from about 497 to 484 BCE, seeking a ruler who would take his advice, then came home to teach. Sima Qian, writing more than three centuries later, names 77 disciples, and tradition speaks of 3,000 students.

Confucius did not write the Analects. Tradition says his followers compiled it. Legge thought the followers' own students did the work, in the fifth or fourth century BCE. In 1986 the scholar Zhu Weizheng noted that writers before the second century BCE hardly quote or name it. Texts dug up in modern times show that many sayings of Confucius circulated before the Analects took its final form. Scholars debate which sayings go back to Confucius. Many early stories about his life were told to teach a lesson, not as plain history.

The sayings in the library deal with everyday conduct: how to learn, how to treat a friend, and how children should care for their parents with a cheerful face. They describe the junzi, the "gentleman," a person of fine character whatever his birth. By the Han dynasty (202 BCE–220 CE) Confucius was an authority in government and learning. For centuries his teachings helped train China's officials, and later scholars made the Analects one of the "Four Books" studied in China, Korea, and Japan.