What is Confucianism?

“About 2,500 years ago, a man was born to a once aristocratic family in a small state called Lu in East China. During his lifetime, the man endeavored to…carrying forward the old tradition in a chaotic environment and opening up a new horizon in a dark age. By the time he died at the age of seventy-three, his teachings had spread throughout the state and beyond…But there was one thing that neither [his students and disciples] knew: that Chinese culture, and to some extent, East Asian culture, would be forever linked with his name, that the tradition he loved…would rank with the greatest in the world” (Yao – Author of An Introduction to Confucianism). This tradition is Confucianism- the Western English word coined by the Jesuits from the 16^th century.