Origin 551 BCE to 479 BCE
Confucius, born around 551 BCE in Zou in the state of Lu, taught more than three thousand students across a private teaching career begun around age thirty, some seventy of whom later chroniclers considered outstanding. He served briefly in Lu's government, reaching Minister of Crime around 501 BCE and attempting to curb the power of fortified noble houses, before leaving Lu around 497 BCE. He died around 479 BCE; his disciples compiled his sayings into the Analects, and the moral and political philosophy that bears his name would not become an organized tradition with a documented spread of its own until centuries after his death.
Facts
Dates
Start YearSourced to the subject's own account StatusSourced to the subject's own account Learn More
How Confucius Taught in the State of Lu
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Confucius was born around 551 BCE in Zou, in the state of Lu, and began teaching privately around the age of thirty, eventually instructing more than three thousand students over the course of his career. Later chroniclers singled out roughly seventy of them as outstanding, the disciples who would go on to carry his teaching forward after his death.
Teaching was not the whole of his life in Lu. He entered government service and rose to Minister of Crime around 501 BCE, using the position to try to curb the power of Lu's fortified noble houses, families whose private strongholds had come to rival the state's own authority. That effort failed to hold, and Confucius left Lu around 497 BCE, spending years afterward away from the state where he had taught and served before his death around 479 BCE.
His disciples compiled his sayings into the Analects after he died, preserving a teaching that had circulated, until then, only among the students who had heard it directly from him in Lu. What his death changed for Confucianism's spread was the shape it would have to take without him: a private teaching career confined to one state and one generation of students left behind a text rather than an institution, and the philosophy that bears his name would not become an organized tradition with a spread of its own to record until centuries had passed.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Confucius directly: "Confucius, born around 551 BCE in Zou in the state of Lu, taught more than three thousand students across a private teaching career begun around age thirty, some seventy of whom later chroniclers..."
Occurred In
The state of Lu, in what is now Shandong province, China; anchored to China, the nearest real place entity, since no dedicated Lu or Spring-and-Autumn-period entity exists in this catalog.
Spread Event Of
The founding episode of Confucianism's own spread history, previously entirely absent: the existing earliest event was Confucianism reaching Joseon Korea in 1392, 1943 years after Confucius's own death.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.