R ELIGIONS OF THE W ORLD BUDDHISM CHRISTIANITY CONFUCIANISM HINDUISM ISLAM JUDAISM R ELIGIONS OF THE W ORLD CONFUCIANISM Rodney L. Taylor Professor of Religious Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder Series Consulting Editor Ann Marie B. Bahr Professor of Religious Studies, South Dakota State University Foreword by Martin E. Marty Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago Divinity School DEDICATION For Megan,Annika,and Dylan,my children: May they further the next generation oflearning FRONTIS This map shows some ofthe places in which Confucianism had its strongest influence,including China,Taiwan,and Vietnam. CHELSEA HOUSE PUBLISHERS VP,NEWPRODUCTDEVELOPMENT Sally Cheney DIRECTOROFPRODUCTION Kim Shinners CREATIVEMANAGER Takeshi Takahashi MANUFACTURINGMANAGER Diann Grasse Staff for CONFUCIANISM EXECUTIVEEDITOR Lee Marcott SENIOREDITOR Tara Koellhoffer PRODUCTIONEDITOR Megan Emery ASSISTANTPHOTOEDITOR Noelle Nardone SERIESANDCOVERDESIGNER Keith Trego LAYOUT 21st Century Publishing and Communications,Inc. ©2004 by Chelsea House Publishers, a subsidiary ofHaights Cross Communications. All rights reserved.Printed and bound in the United States ofAmerica. www.chelseahouse.com 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Taylor,Rodney Leon,1944– Confucianism :Rodney L.Taylor. p.cm.—(Religions ofthe world) Includes index. ISBN 0-7910-7857-4 1.Confucianism.I.Title.II.Series. BL1852.T38 2003 299.5'12—dc22 2003023920 CONTENTS Foreword vi Preface xi 1 Introduction 2 2 The Story of Confucius 18 3 Confucian Scripture 30 4 Confucian Teachings 44 5 A Visit to the Confucian Temple 60 6 Growing up Confucian 72 7 Cultural Expressions and Popular Culture 84 8 Social Reinforcement of Confucian Values 96 9 Defining Moments in Confucian History 106 10 Confucianism in the World Today 120 130 Chronology and Timeline 135 Bibliography 138 Further Reading 141 Index Foreword O n this very day, like all other days, hundreds of millions of people around the world will turn to religion for various purposes. On the one hand,there are purposes that believers in any or all faiths, as well as unbelievers, might regard as positive and benign.People turn to religion or,better,to their own particu- lar faith, for the experience of healing and to inspire acts of peacemaking.They want to make sense of a world that can all too easily overwhelm them because it so often seems to be meaningless and even absurd. Religion then provides them with beauty,inspires their souls,and impels them to engage in acts of justice and mercy. To be informed citizens of our world, readers have good reason to learn about these features of religions that mean so much to so many.Those who study the faiths do not have to agree with any of them and could not agree with all of them, different as they are.But they need basic knowledge ofreligions to understand other people and to work out strategies for living with them. On the other hand—and religions always have an “other hand”—believers in any ofthe faiths,and even unbelievers who are against all of them, will find their fellow humans turning to their religions for purposes that seem to contradict all those positive features.Just as religious people can heal and be healed, they can also kill or be killed in the name offaith.So it has been through history. vi Foreword vii This killing can be literal: Most armed conflicts and much terrorism today are inspired by the stories, commands, and promises that come along with various faiths. People can and do read and act upon scriptures that can breed prejudice and that lead them to reject other beliefs and believers. Or the killing can be figurative, which means that faiths can be deadening to the spirit.In the name of faith,many people are repressed,oppressed,sometimes victimized and abused. If religion can be dangerous and if it may then come with “Handle with Care” labels, people who care for their own security, who want to lessen tensions and inspire concord, have to equip themselves by learning something about the scriptures and stories of their own and other faiths. And if they simply want to take delight in human varieties and imaginings,they will find plenty to please them in lively and reliable accounts of faiths. A glance at television or at newspapers and magazines on almost any day will reveal stories that display one or both sides of religion.However,these stories usually have to share space with so many competing accounts,for example,of sports and enter- tainment or business and science,that writers and broadcasters can rarely provide background while writing headlines.Without such background,it is hard to make informed judgments. The series RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD is designed to provide not only background but also rich illustrative material about the foreground,presenting the many features of faiths that are close at hand.Whoever reads all six volumes will find that these religions have some elements in common. Overall, one can deduce that their followers take certain things with ultimate seriousness:human dignity,devotion to the sacred,the impulse to live a moral life.Yet few people are inspired by religions in general. They draw strength from what they hold particularly. These particulars of each faith are not always contradictory to those of others, but they are different in important ways. It is simply a fact that believers are informed and inspired by stories told in separate and special ways. viii Foreword A picture might make all this vivid:Reading about a religion, visiting a place ofworship,or coming into the company ofthose who believe in and belong to a particular faith,is like entering a room.Religions are,in a sense,spiritual “furnished apartments.” Their adherents have placed certain pictures on the wall and moved in with their own kind of furnishings,having developed their special ways of receiving or blocking out light from such places. Some of their figurative apartments are airy, and some stress strength and security. Philosopher George Santayana once wrote that,just as we do not speak language,we speak particular languages,so we have religion not as a whole but as religions “in particular.” The power ofeach living and healthy religion,he added,consists in “its special and surprising message and in the bias which that revelation gives to life.” Each creates “another world to live in.” The volumes in this series are introductions to several spiritual furnished apartments, guides to the special and surprising messages of these large and complex communities of faith, or religions.These are not presented as a set of items in a cafeteria line down which samplers walk,tasting this,rejecting that,and moving on.They are not bids for window-shoppers or shoppers of any sort,though it may be that a person without faith might be drawn to one or another expression of the religions here described.The real intention ofthe series is to educate. Education could be dull and drab.Picture a boring professor standing in front ofa class and droning on about distant realities. The authors in this series, however, were chosen because they can bring readers up close to faiths and, sometimes better, to people of faith; not to religion but to people who are religious in particular ways. As one walks the streets of a great metropolis, it is not easy and may not even be possible to deduce what are the faith- commitments ofthose one passes unless they wear a particular costume,some garb or symbol prescribed by their faith.There- fore, while passing them by, it is not likely that one can learn Foreword ix much about the dreams and hopes,the fears and intentions,of those around them. These books,in effect,stop the procession ofpassersby and bid visitors to enter those sanctuaries where communities worship. Each book could serve as a guide to worship.Several years ago, a book called How to Be a Perfect Strangeroffered brief counsel on how to feel and to be at home among worshipers from other traditions. This series recognizes that we are not strangers to each other only in sanctuaries.We carry over our attachments to conflicting faiths where we go to work or vote or serve in the military or have fun.These “carryovers”tend to come from the basic stories and messages ofthe several faiths. The publishers have taken great pains to assign their work to authors of a particular sort. Had these been anti-religious or anti–the religion about which they write, they would have done a disservice. They would, in effect, have been blocking the figurative doors to the faiths or smashing the furniture in the sanctuaries.On the other hand,it would be wearying and distorting had the assignment gone to public relations agents, advertisers who felt called to claim “We’re Number One!” concerning the faith about which they write. Fair-mindedness and accuracy are the two main marks of these authors. In rather short compass, they reach a wide range ofsubjects,focusing on everything one needs to advance basic understanding.Their books are like mini-encyclopedias, full of information. They introduce the holidays that draw some neighbors to be absent from work or school for a day or a season.They include galleries of notable figures in each faith-community. Since most religions in the course of history develop different ways in the many diverse places where they thrive,or because they attract intelligent,strong-willed leaders and writers,they come up with different emphases.They divide and split offinto numberless smaller groups:Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox Christians, Shiite and Sunni Muslims,Orthodox and Reform Jews,and many kinds of Buddhists and Hindus. The writers in this series do