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Kung Fu Tsu, better known as Confucius, was born in 551 B.C. in China. Even as a young man, he had an ardent thirst for knowledge. When still in his youth, he met and talked with Lao-tse who was then a famous figure. Struggling through poverty, Confucius first became a minor civil servant and later rose to be the magistrate of a state. His brilliant administration evoked the Jealousy of others, who conspired to bring about his dismissal in 496 B.C. Thereafter he wandered about penny-less and home less, until in 478 B.C. he died, aged seventy-three.
After his death, his sayings were collected in the analects and he was honoured throughout China, as a deity ranking with the deities of Heaven and Earth. Confucious was a moralist rather than the founder of a religion. He conserved, systematized and taught the oage-old teachings of China. He advocated regularity in life, temperance in food and drinks and emphasized the importance of learning, loyality and truthfulness. He formulated a golden rule of reciprocity, "what you do not want done to your self, do not do to others" – just a step short of the Laotsean and Christian doctrine of returning good for evil. Peking is the city sacred to the adherents of both Taoism and Confucianism.
