Traditions and Sources on His Life
Confucius is the Latinized name of K'ung Fu-tzu (Great Master K'ung). His original name was K'ung Ch'iu; he is also known by the style name of K'ung Chung-ni. After he died, a large number of myths and legends grew up around his name, making difficult an accurate description of the historical Confucius. Traditionally, Confucius was venerated as a Chinese saint, and for a long time a critical, objective appraisal of his life was impossible. In more recent times both Chinese and Western scholars have ventured to discard some of the legends and myths and to reconstruct a biography from more reliable sources. As a result, a variety of new images of Confucius have emerged, many of them contradicting each other, and the demythologized picture of Confucius is as confusing as the traditional, mythical one.
The most detailed traditional account of Confucius' life is contained in the Records of the Historian (Shih chi) by Ssu-ma Ch'ien, who lived 145-86 B.C. Many modern scholars have dismissed this biography as a fictionalized, romanticized legend by a Confucian apologist.
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