Confucius, the founder of Confucianism, was born in 551 B.C. to a noble but poor family in the small feudal state of Lu within the territory of Qufu, China. Confucius was born in answer to his parents' prayers for a child that they uttered on the sacred hill (qui) of Ni. Confucius was born Kong Qui Zhongni; the name Confucius was only recently coined by the Europeans in the 18th century to replace the founder’s birth name because the birth name’s sounds were too harsh and unnatural for the Europeans, so they simplified it for themselves.
Confucius endured a poverty-stricken and humiliating youth; his father died when he was just three years old. Despite his poor, fatherless upbringing, Confucius rose from the ashes of poverty with the help of education. He was an assiduous learner by his teen years, and he quickly mastered the six arts—ritual, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and arithmetic. At some point during the course of his studies, Confucius began to realize the values of education and respect for your ancestors, values that would shape the philosophy Confucius soon discovered during his studies.
Confucius traveled through China from court to court so he could spread his philosophy. The ruler who until now had been mainly concerned with the harsh, punishing, pessimistic philosophy of Legalism often refused Confucius’s teachings, but Confucius eventually persuaded the emperor of Lu to accept his teachings; Confucius became first a magistrate in Lu, then an assistant minister of public works, and eventually a minister of justice.
However, Confucius’ morality and disinterest with sensual pleasures that the emperor and his officials indulged in isolated Confucius within the government, and Confucius soon embarked on a twelve-year long, self-imposed exile through China to spread his teachings where they would be more widely accepted.
As Confucius’ reputation of wisdom grew, so did the number of his disciples. Confucius never wrote down his ideas, but his students respected them so highly that they recorded his key teachings in the Analects. However, even though Confucius’ popularity was quickly growing, it was not until the rule of the Han Emperor Wu (r. 140-87 B.C.) that Confucianism became accepted as the state ideology and orthodoxy across China.