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| Confucius (By Wu Daozi) |
This question has apparently been a vital one for centuries, considering that the Kong (family name of Confucius) genealogy has been mapped for 83 generations. Wikipedia reports that this is the “longest recorded extant pedigree in the world today.” It is currently estimated that there are two to three million Kong descendants. By no means do all of them live in China. An estimated 34,000 of them live in Korea - most are descendants of a
Kong family member who migrated to Korea in the 14th century. Another part of the lineage fled to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War of the 1940s.
Now that DNA testing is readily available, there had been a proposed project in China to test the DNA of male Kong descendants. Scientists would have been looking for a common Y chromosome with only slight variations over time. This would have allowed them to identify the
biological descendants of Confucius. However, Wikipedia reports that the project was stopped in 2009 because “the family authorities decided not
to agree to DNA testing.”
Along with biological data, biographical data is also lacking. Many alleged facts about the life of Confucius
are prefaced with the phrase “according to tradition…” Even his written teachings were authored for centuries after his death, and Wikipedia reports that “no texts survive that are demonstrably authored by Confucius.”
Therefore, when we speak of the “descendants” of Confucius, perhaps we should instead speak of the
philosophical and spiritual “descendants” of Confucianism. It is they – the ones who have been profoundly influenced by these teachings – who have kept the seeds of Confucian truth viable for all these generations.
Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Confucius/
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/eoc/eoc09.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_Confucius_in_the_main_line_of_descent
Copyright September 30, 2011 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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