Confucianism

Although more a philosophy than a religion, Confucianism (Rujia Sixiang) has become intertwined with Chinese religious beliefs.

Confucius was born of a poor family around 551 BC in the state of Lu in modern-day Shandong. His ambition was to hold a high government office and to reorder society through the administrative apparatus.

At most he seems to have had several insignificant government posts, a few followers and a permanently blocked career.

At the age of 50 he perceived his divine mission, and for the next 13 years tramped from state to state offering unsolicited advice to rulers on how to improve their governing, while looking for an opportunity to put his own ideas into practice. That opportunity never came, and he returned to his own state to spend the last five years of his life teaching and editing classical literature. He died in 479 BC, aged 72.

The glorification of Confucius began after his death. Mencius (372-289BC), or Mengzi, helped raise Confucian ideals into the national con- sciousness with the publication of The Book of Mencius.

Eventually, Confucian philosophy permeated every level of Chinese society. To hold government office presupposed knowledge of the Confu- cian classics, and his words trickled down to the illiterate masses.

Confucianism defines codes of conduct and patterns of obedience.

Women obey and defer to men, younger brothers to elder brothers, and sons to fathers. Respect flows upwards, from young to old, from subject to ruler. Certainly, "any reigning Chinese emperor would quickly see the merits of encouraging such a system.

All people paid homage to the emperor, who was regarded as the embodiment of Confucian wisdom and virtue - the head of the great family-nation. For centuries administration under the emperor lay in the hands of a small Confucian scholar class. In theory anyone who passed the examinations qualified, but in practice the monopoly of power was held by the educated upper classes.

In its early years, Confucianism was regarded as a radical philoso- phy, but over the centuries it has come to be seen as conservative and reactionary. Confucius was strongly denounced by the Communists as yet another incorrigible link to the bourgeois past. During the Cultural Revolution, Confucian temples, statues and Confucianists themselves took quite a beating at the hands of rampaging Red Guards. Confucian temples, particularly the ones at Qufu in Shandong province (pl98), have been restored.