The Characteristics And Evolution Of Zi Gong From Pre-Qin To Han Dynasty

Zi gong, whose hyphenated name is Duan mu, was always called Ci, or Zi gan. He was born in 520 BC, 31 years younger than his teacher Confucius. He had a great master of language, skillful in communicating with others, and was the most special disciple among the others. Another proof of his importance among the disciples was the high frequency of recording about him in the dialects of Confucius, ranking the second place after Zi lu, another important disciple of Confucius. The academic studies on him were focus on three parts since 1979. Firstly, it was of high quality of analyzing the talents and his achievements, which can divided into two sorts: one was monograph on Zi gong,the other was treating him as a part of the study. Secondly, focus on one of his achievements. Thirdly, there were studies on comparing him with other disciples.According to the previous studies, the research on Zi gong will be done in the following four parts in this assay:Firstly, Zi gong was quite talented, he learned a lot from Confucius by his skillful asking on all aspects of questions. Through his independent thinking and distinguishing, he was also skeptical on the sayings, thoughts or behavior of Confucius, which made him absorb the doctrines of Confucius selectively. After his successful studying from Confucius, he did a great job on many fields, such as business, foreign affairs and political activities, which made him the richest disciple among all the followers of Confucius, the highest reputation among the vassal states. The power of the vassal states was re-ranked after his lobbying those five states.Secondly, Zi gong had possessed many skills. As a wiser, he did a great help to forming the idea of wisdom. The benevolent never worry, the wise never can be perplexed, and the brave never fear. Zi gong worked hard to become a wiser. Comparing with Yan hui, another disciple of Confucius, he emphasized on practice and behaved to realize the wisdom of Confucius.Thirdly, basing on the characteristics of Zi gong in the dialects of Confucius, summarize the evolutional characteristics of Zi gong through the analysis from the meaningful literature classics, such as Mencius, Chuang Tzu, and Records of the Historian.In the end, things would be done on analyzing the historical status and influence of Zi gong by comparing him with other disciples, summarizing his importance to Confucius, and his doings on establishing the sage image of Confucius and spreading Confucius' thoughts.