A three-part BBC series. Historian Bettany Hughes travels to India, Greece and China on the trail of three giants of ancient philosophy - Buddha, Socrates and Confucius. All three philosophers lived between the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, during a period of unprecedented and intense intellectual development.

Trailblazers whose radical ideas signalled a key change in human consciousness, each embodied the shift from a reliance on the supernatural, as the sole way to explain humankind’s place in the cosmos, to one where rational argument and logical reasoning offered new, exciting possibilities.

Drawing on archaeology and expert opinion, Bettany Hughes follows in the footsteps of these great figures, in her quest to unpack their philosophy in the context of their age. She reveals how, even though their ideas came about two and a half thousand years ago, their thinking still shapes, and continues to provide solutions to, our own lives.

Genius of the Ancient World: Episode 3 – Confucius | ( Click here to watch )
(59:01 min; 2015; English)
In the third and final episode, Bettany Hughes investigates the game-changing ideas of Confucius. Confucius is considered the first Chinese thinker to take a systematic, philosophical approach to the social, political and moral challenges of his world.

Born in a chaotic, violent age, he believed that harmony could be restored through the example of the sage rulers of history. A great innovator, he commandeered rituals and traditions of the past, to form a compelling philosophical vision. A pioneer in education, he attracted a loyal band of students, and tried to instil his principles of moral excellence and self-cultivation in China's rulers.