Age of Confucius and the Buddha
▶ Explore on the mapBetween the sixth and fifth centuries BCE two of Asia's most influential teachers lived within a few thousand kilometres of each other, one in the Chinese Spring and Autumn period and one in the kingdoms of the Ganges plain. Confucius, born in the state of Lu in 551 BCE, served briefly as an official and then travelled for years seeking a ruler who would apply his ideas of ren, li and virtuous government; he taught a small band of disciples and edited the traditional texts later known as the Five Classics, and his sayings were collected in the Analects by his followers. Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, was born into a Shakya clan in what is now southern Nepal and, after leaving palace life, attained enlightenment and taught the four noble truths and the eightfold path until his death around 480 BCE. Both taught in an age of interstate war and social change, when the Zhou order was breaking up in China and the Indian mahajanapadas were competing for power. Their traditions organised religious life in new ways: Confucian temples and academies in China, and the sangha with its monasteries and discipline across South and East Asia. Both shaped ethics, ritual and education for two millennia.