ABSTRACT
The moral teachings can be traced back to the time of Confucius, who lived from about 551 to 479 BC in China. One surprising fact about Confucianism is that it has gained greater traction, power and influence outside mainland China than in its country of origin. Confucius taught his ideas of ethics and morality to a band of students who would later disseminate his ideas to their own students and so on and so forth. Many years later after Confucius’s death, Confucianism was developed further by Mencius, who was arguably influential than Confucius because he taught the rulers on how to govern using Confucian beliefs to become a virtuous and benevolent ruler, and popularised Confucius’s concept of duties and relationships within society that Asians are familiar. Confucianism was adopted as state ideology—albeit in different forms to accommodate legalism, a political system where laws have to be strictly observed or else law-breakers will be dealt with by severe punishment.
