Confucius

Confucius’s Early Life

He spent the greater part of his life in preaching, lessoning and disabusing. Up till now, there are still many folk legends and stories about Confucius traveling with his disciples. Confucius is named Qiu, and his courtesy name is Zhongni. In 551 B.C., he was born in Changping Township, Zouyi in the State of Lu, i.e., Nanxin Town, Qufu City, Shandong Province today. The family of Confucius once enjoyed a high social status in the State of Song. Like his ancestor, Kong Fujia was killed in an internal disorder of the State of Song, Confucius, and his family escaped to the State of Lu. Since then, the status of Confucius’s family had declined. Confucius was aware of his low status in what’s called the era of Propriety-Music Disintegration. Then he studied even more strenuously. When he was 20, he had already become a man of very profound knowledge.

Confucius felt that it was quite difficult to establish an official career, so he began to gather disciples and give lectures. He became the pioneer in large-scale private education in the Spring and Autumn Period of China. Confucius had cultivated many disciples in succession. His thought has made a profound impact on various dynasties of China.

Portraits of Confucius

Through the ages, people always pay homage to the portraits of Confucius. The portraits of Confucius in different times of China are not quite similar. There is a mural painting discovered in a tomb of the Han Dynasty in Dongping County, Shandong province. The content of this mural painting is “A Painting of Confucius’s Learning Rites from Lao Tzu.” In the painting, Confucius is dressed like a commoner in cotton clothes. It can be seen that people in the Han Dynasty thought that Confucius was a scholar in cotton clothes.

In the National Library of China, there is a set of rubbings of “The Portrait of Confucius.” It is said that the author of the original painting is the famous painter in the Tang Dynasty of China, Wu Tao-tzu. The rubbing is 194 cm long and 62.1 cm wide. Confucius in the painting is dressed in a loose garment with a large girdle and a kind look. He is leaning forward slightly, with two hands grasping each other and a saber hanging in the waist. This painting portrays an image of a saint of the generation who is well versed in both polite letters and martial arts. According to experts, most of the Confucius portraits created by people after Wu Tao-tzu has taken this painting of Wu Tao-tzu as the original version.

The “Portrait of Confucius” collected in the Beijing Palace Museum is the extant earliest portrait of Confucius in silk scroll in China. It’s created by Ma Yuan, the painter in the Southern Song Dynasty of China. The whole portrait is 27.7 cm long and 23.1 cm wide. Confucius in the painting is dressed in a gown, standing with one hand cupping in the other one in front of his chest. He seems to be calm and solemn, with awe-inspiring righteousness reveling from his forehead. A well-learned Confucius is portrayed vividly both in the body and spirit by Ma Yuan with only a few strokes.

There is another characteristic of this painting of Ma Yuan, which is that the forehead of Confucius has been portrayed quite prominently. At first glance, he looks like “The God of Longevity” in fairy tales somewhat. The prominent forehead may be used to express the appearance of intelligent scholars who do not have many hairs on the head. Therefore, most of the saints are all portrayed with such an extraordinary image, to show their intelligence and a store of knowledge.

In the Ming and Qing Dynasties of China, the portraits of Confucius changed again. The half-length portrait of Confucius created in Mid-period of Ming Dynasty, named as “Portrait of Confucius Being the Minister of Justice in the State of Lu,” is collected in the Confucian Temple of Qufu City, Shandong Province. It portrays the image of Confucius as an official in the State of Lu at that time. He is dressed in a vest, showing a majestic air with round, glaring eyes. Compared to it, in another “Portrait of Confucius Being the Minister of Justice in the State of Lu” created in Ming Dynasty of China, Confucius portrayed by the painter is dressed in a vest and full of kindness, showing an air of exercising government by means of virtue.

Why Nobody Knows What Confucius Really Looks Like

There are differences between the portraits of Confucius in different periods of China. While in ancient literature handed down, there is an only partial and general record about the appearance and posture of Confucius. So, for a scholar that is world-famous, learned and clever, why are there so few records about his facial features? Experts explain that it may be associated with an incident in the Qin Dynasty—burning books and burying Confucian scholars alive. Shortly after the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, the prime minister, Li Si said to the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty that someone criticized current social maladies and slandered affairs of the state with Confucian Classics and expressions of ancient saints.

After hearing that, the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty was quite angry. He thought that the idea of unifying the original six states was very important. So he ordered to burn down all the historical records of the six states, except the “Historical Records of Qin Dynasty” and some literature collected by people privately, such as “The Book of Songs” and “The Book of History.” Many books of Confucianism could not escape from this incident of burning books. In the last years of the Qin Dynasty, the troops of Xiang Yu attacked Xianyang successfully and burnt Epang Palace down. A large number of books collected there were burnt to ashes, and Confucian Classics suffered another disaster. Some experts speculated that the books that recorded the facial and postures features of Confucius may have been burned during these two incidents of burning books.

Disciples of Confucius

After the establishment of the Han Dynasty, in order to strengthen centralized domination, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty adopted the suggestion of Dong Zhongshu, which is to ban hundreds of schools of thought and give exclusive dedication to Confucianism and took Confucianism as the orthodox ideas. So the founder of Confucian School, Confucius was respected as the greatest sage and teacher, and people were desperate to pay homage to his portraits.

Due to the lack of historical records and portraits handed down, people at that time only had to create portraits of Confucius depending on their imagination. This kind of imagination was based on the records of literature, in some of which there were relatively detailed descriptions of appearance. Without the record, his image would be created with imagination according to his quality, behavior, reputation and so on. It is said that there were 3,000 disciples of Confucius, 72 of whom were relatively famous, and were known as the “Top 72 Disciples of Confucius”. They were the steady adherents and practitioners of Confucianism and the theory.

The ancient Chinese had described their appearance for us. “Painting Scroll of Confucius’s Disciples” collected by the Beijing Palace Museum describes the image of Confucius and his 36 disciples. This painting was created in the Northern Song Dynasty of China. Although the author of the painting didn’t write his name, the profound painting skills of the painter could be seen from the lively appearances and full embellishment of figures in the painting. The painting portrays 36 most famous disciples of Confucius, including Ziyuan, Zhonggong, Ziyou, Zilu, Zigong, Jici, Zizhou and so on. Although the painting portrays a large number of figures, everyone has distinctive features. For example, Zilu and Zihua don’t look like scholars, but doughty soldiers. Compared with them, other disciples of Confucius, such as Zhonggong, Ziyu, and Zimu, look sedate and have a lofty appearance resembling a king.

The characters of these disciples differ greatly. Some of them were born in noble families. But after they received education from Confucius, they gradually became more like saints.

Zilu Inquiring the Ferry

After finishing their studies, these disciples of Confucius became famous scholars of various kingdoms. During the process of learning from Confucius, they left a lot of thought-provoking stories. The story of Zilu Inquiring the Ferry is one of them.

It is said that Confucius traveled through all the kingdoms with his disciples, including Zilu. In the last years of the Spring and Autumn Period, they were travel-worn and weary. On their way, Confucius noticed that there were two people farming on the field aside from the road. They were hermits Changju and Jieni. Confucius said to Zilu. “Go and ask them where the ferry is?” Zilu then got off immediately and walked to Changju and Jieni. Zilu asked reverently, “Sir, could you please tell me where the ferry is?” Changju asked back, “Who is the old man sitting in the carriage?” Zilu answered, “he is my teacher, the famous Kong Qiu.” Then Changju replied with a tinge of irony, “Kong Qiu should know it.” His hidden meaning was that how Confucius, the person who traveled all the Kingdoms and preached, wouldn’t know the way.

After saying that, Changju continued farming. Having no alternative, Zilu had to ask Jieni about the direction of the ferry. However, Jieni said “The world is turbulent and unsafe everywhere, and the filth goes everywhere like the floods. Could your teacher change this situation? I think it is better to forget this world and merely farm on the field like us than to follow him and be busy traveling.” While saying that, Jieni was continuously busy with farming. Zilu returned to Confucius and conveyed their words to him. After hearing that, Confucius was quite desolate in his heart. He said sadly that it was because of such messy morals that I needed to do good to the world.

“Characters Story Painting,” collected in Beijing Palace Museum and created by the painter in Ming Dynasty, Qiu Ying, vividly portrays the scene in which the disciple of Confucius—Zilu is inquiring hermits in the field about the direction of the ferry. Confucius in the painting is smiling and sitting up on the carriage. Zilu is respectfully meeting a hermit holding a hoe. The hermit is pointing at Confucius and seems to ask who the person is sitting in the carriage.

Summary

It was because of upheavals in the society and the lack of principles of truth and right that Confucius rushed about with his disciples and work hard, to make some changes to the society. Qiu Ying created this painting based on the story of Zilu Inquiring the Ferry. He greatly admired Confucius’s valuable awareness of social development and a sense of historical responsibility. Confucianism preached by Confucius enjoyed great respect in ancient times of China. His activities of preaching, lessoning and disabusing were complimented by the people. The portraits of Confucius have been worshiped by later generations. Even if 2,000 years have passed, Confucius Mansion and Confucian Temple are still regarded as the revered shrines of Confucian.