Confucianism and its effect Over East Asia

Confucianism and its effect Over East Asia

Thesis Statement

The Confucianism is still playing a vital role in the countries of East Asia in different prospects of the society.

Outline

At the end of the sixteenth century, an Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552 - 1610) came to China. Ricci soon realized that the first task he should not win over large numbers of people to conversion and baptism, but instead of seeking a stable and respectable position for itself within society china. Therefore, Ricci and his fellow missionaries tried to forcefully integrate into the community. The Jesuits saw the similarity between Christianity and Buddhism - both were religions of the West - and therefore presented themselves as "monks of the West" by shaving their heads and change their clothes Buddhist robes to win support the Chinese, like the Buddhist thinking has made a thousand years before. However, it was not too long before the missionaries came to realize that Buddhists are not as highly regarded, as at first imagined. They found that, in fact, scholars of Confucianism are that they were the true elite of the society china. Therefore the Jesuits changed their habits, once again, wearing more clothes and long hair Confucian. Thus formed a new image of "scholars of the West."1 Ricci continued his studies in Chinese, to pay close attention to the Confucian texts, and began to be regarded as a highly respected academic western (xi shi).

Stages of Evolution of Confucius

Confucianism is essentially a Chinese, or more precisely, in Eastern Asia, the tradition. To understand Confucianism as a way of life or as a traditional system of values, we have to go to their homeland and find out how it came into effect and how it is processed. A popular method that is used in the presentation of the Chinese Confucian tradition is to divide its history into periods as there are so many Chinese dynasties. In this way, Confucianism became part of a much more complicated history and progress of Confucius are blended with general changes in political, social, economic, religious and cultural. On many occasions, Confucianism gained strength and the positive influence of these changes, but on other occasions he suffered from the breakdown of social fabric and responded well to be more flexible or more dogmatic. Throughout the history of Chinese dynasties, Confucianism has changed and adapted to new political and social demands, and these changes and adjustments are as important as the lessons of the first teachers of Confucius.2

Focusing on the development of modern Confucianism, Mou Zongsan (1908-95), another modern New Confucian master, made a different model for the history of Confucianism, dividing it into three periods or "epochs" (Fang and Li, 1996: 486 -- - 95). His disciples, including the Tu Wei-ming presents a persuasive argument has been further developed this theory. According to this theory, three terms, Confucianism has so far through three periods. The first time of Confucius (551-479 BC), Mengzi (371-289 BC) and Xunzi (310? -211? ACS) Dong ...