Confucianism: An Overview

Confucianism is a way of life which was originally developed by Kong Fu Zi, a Chinese sage, through organizing the old teachings in 5th-6th centuries. This religion has persisted across China and its neighboring countries in a variety of forms for the past 2500 years. In order to become more familiar with Confucianism one can adopt a variety of methods and approaches to examining it. Before embarking upon any exploration into this religion an overview of it will help examine it well and give birth to cohesion of the study. Thus, the present paper tries to sketch out the main issues associated with Confucianism. This enterprise begins by going through the name and sign of Confucianism, its evolution and its social, demographical, political and sociological context; it deals then with its most outstanding manifestations and apparent features as well as its rituals, different ways of religiosity and the most important places and occasions; then it proceeds to briefly introduce its sacred and authoritative scriptures, denominations and its different schools of thought. Finally, the paper gives an overview of the present status of Confucianism as well as a prospect of its future status.