On the date of confucius’ birth

The article deals with the problem of dating the time of Confucius’ birth. Taking the case of Mozi’s birth as an example, the paper begins with an outline of the typical difficulties in establishing birth dates of historical figures of ancient China. The author further analyzes the main sources on the issue and highlights the most authoritative versions (both Chinese and Western) of Confucius’ birth date. It is concluded that the most adequate source to clarify the issue is the commentary to «The spring and autumn annals» entitled «Gongyang Zhuan» and the most convincing version on Confucius’ birth date is October 3, 552 BC.