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Confucianism (traditional Chinese: 儒學; simplified Chinese: 儒学; pinyin: Rúxué [ Listen ], literally "The School of the Scholars"; or 孔教 Kŏng jiào, "The Teachings of Confucius") is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of the early Chinese sage Confucius. It is a complex system of moral, social, political, and religious thought which has had tremendous influence on the history of Chinese civilization up to the 21st century. Some people in the West have considered it to have been the "state religion" of imperial China because of the Chinese government's promotion of Confucianist values.
Confucianism as passed down to the 19th and 20th centuries derives primarily from the school of the Neo-Confucians, led by Zhu Xi, who gave Confucianism renewed vigor in the Song and later dynasties. Neo-Confucianism combined Taoist and Buddhist ideas with existing Confucian ideas to create a more complete metaphysics than had ever existed before. At the same time, many forms of Confucianism have historically declared themselves opposed to the Buddhist and Taoist belief systems.
