Around the fifth century BCE in China, the teachings attributed to Confucius set out an ethics of social order built on ritual propriety, filial duty, hierarchy and the cultivation of virtue in rulers and officials. In counterpoint, the Daoist tradition associated with the Daodejing emphasised the Way (Dao), natural spontaneity and minimal interference. The two strands developed as complementary rather than simply opposed currents within Chinese thought, the one governing public conduct and administration, the other a more contemplative relation to nature. Both were later interwoven with Buddhism in East Asian culture.
Together they supplied the moral, administrative and cosmological framework of imperial China and much of East Asia for over two thousand years, shaping statecraft, social order and ideas of harmony that informed how capitals and dwellings were ordered.