Topic
Philosophy &
Intellectual History
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Great Minds of the Eastern
Intellectual Tradition
Course Guidebook
Professor Grant Hardy
University of North Carolina at Asheville
Professor Grant Hardy is Professor of History and Religious
Studies at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.
He received his Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Literature
from Yale University. A published author and editor,
Professor Hardy has received numerous acknowledgments
for his engaging and informative teaching style. Among
these are UNC Asheville’s Distinguished Teacher Award
for the Arts and Humanities Faculty and a Ruth and Leon
Feldman Professorship.
Cover Image: © Peter Horree/Alamy.
Course No. 4620 © 2011 The Teaching Company.
PB4620A
Guidebook
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Subtopic
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The Teaching Company.
Grant Hardy, Ph.D.
Professor of History
and Religious Studies
University of North Carolina at Asheville
P
rofessor Grant Hardy is Professor of History
and Religious Studies at the University of
North Carolina at Asheville. After serving
two terms as the chair of the History Department,
he is currently the director of the Humanities
Program. He has a B.A. in Ancient Greek from
Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Chinese Language and Literature
from Yale University.
Dr. Hardy is the author or editor of six books, including Worlds of Bronze
and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History; The Establishment of the
Han Empire and Imperial China, coauthored with Anne Kinney of the
University of Virginia; and Understanding the Book of Mormon. His most
recent book is the ¿rst volume of the Oxford History of Historical Writing,
coedited with Andrew Feldherr of Princeton University.
Professor Hardy won UNC Asheville’s 2002 Distinguished Teacher Award for
the Arts and Humanities Faculty and was named to a Ruth and Leon Feldman
Professorship for 2009–2010. He has participated in scholarly symposia on
Sima Qian and early Chinese historiography at the University of Wisconsin–
Madison, Harvard University, and the University of Heidelberg. He also
received a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Professor Hardy was raised in Northern California and has taught at Brigham
Young University, BYU-Hawaii, Elmira College, and UNC Asheville. He
lived in Taiwan for two years in the 1980s. He and his wife, Heather, have two
children. One of the things he is most proud of is that he has written or rewritten
most of the articles on imperial China for the World Book Encyclopedia, so his
name is in every elementary school library in the country. Ŷ
i
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
Professor Biography ............................................................................i
Course Scope .....................................................................................1
LECTURE GUIDES
LECTURE 1
Life’s Great Questions—Asian Perspectives ......................................3
LECTURE 2
The Vedas and Upanishads—The Beginning.....................................6
LECTURE 3
Mahavira and Jainism—Extreme Nonviolence ...................................9
LECTURE 4
The Buddha—The Middle Way ........................................................12
LECTURE 5
The Bhagavad Gita—The Way of Action ..........................................15
LECTURE 6
Confucius—In Praise of Sage-Kings ................................................18
LECTURE 7
Laozi and Daoism—The Way of Nature ...........................................21
LECTURE 8
The Hundred Schools of Preimperial China .....................................24
LECTURE 9
Mencius and Xunzi—Confucius’s Successors .................................27
LECTURE 10
Sunzi and Han Feizi—Strategy and Legalism ..................................30
ii
Table of Contents
LECTURE 11
Zarathustra and Mani—Dualistic Religion ........................................33
LECTURE 12
Kautilya and Ashoka—Buddhism and Empire ..................................36
LECTURE 13
Ishvarakrishna and Patanjali—Yoga .................................................39
LECTURE 14
Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu—Buddhist Theories ............................42
LECTURE 15
Sima Qian and Ban Zhao—History and Women ..............................45
LECTURE 16
Dong Zhongshu and Ge Hong—Eclecticism ....................................48
LECTURE 17
Xuanzang and Chinese Buddhism ...................................................51
LECTURE 18
Prince Shotoku, Lady Murasaki, Sei Shonagon ...............................54
LECTURE 19
Saicho to Nichiren—Japanese Buddhism ........................................58
LECTURE 20
Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva—Hindu Vedanta ..............................62
LECTURE 21
Al-Biruni—Islam in India ...................................................................65
LECTURE 22
Nanak and Sirhindi—Sikhism and Su¿sm ........................................68
LECTURE 23
Han Yu to Zhu Xi—Neo-Confucianism .............................................71
iii
Table of Contents
LECTURE 24
Wang Yangming—The Study of Heart-Mind.....................................74
LECTURE 25
Dogen and Hakuin—Zen Buddhism .................................................77
LECTURE 26
Zeami and Sen no Rikyu—Japanese Aesthetics..............................81
LECTURE 27
Wonhyo to King Sejong—Korean Philosophy ..................................84
LECTURE 28
Padmasambhava to Tsongkhapa—Tibetan Ideas ............................87
LECTURE 29
Science and Technology in Premodern Asia ....................................90
LECTURE 30
Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore ....................................93
LECTURE 31
Mohandas Gandhi—Satyagraha, or Soul-Force ..............................96
LECTURE 32
Fukuzawa Yukichi and Han Yongun .................................................99
LECTURE 33
Kang Youwei and Hu Shi ................................................................102
LECTURE 34
Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong ........................................................106
LECTURE 35
Modern Legacies ............................................................................ 110
LECTURE 36
East and West ................................................................................ 113
iv
Table of Contents
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL
Timeline .......................................................................................... 116
Bibliography ....................................................................................148
Credits ............................................................................................160
v
vi
Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition
Scope:
T
he men and women whose ideas have shaped the traditional cultures
of Asia still have an impact on most of the world’s inhabitants
to this day; therefore, a basic understanding of Asian thought is
indispensable for anyone traveling to that part of the globe, trying to make
sense of international politics, or interacting with people and products with
roots in Asia, or even for those who simply want a fuller picture of the
human condition. It is not possible anymore to study only Western thought
and history and then claim one knows everything necessary. The world is a
smaller place than it used to be, and the variety and richness of the Eastern
intellectual tradition is breathtaking.
This course is therefore an introduction to the most signi¿cant thinkers in
Asian history. It is eclectic, with attention given to inÀuential ¿gures in
philosophy, religion, history, literature, political science, and technology,
from ancient times until the coming of the West. I will be talking about
people and ideas that are relatively familiar such as Sunzi and his Art of
War, Daoism, Yoga, Zen, Gandhi, and Mao, but also some that are virtually
unheard of in the West, though they are all celebrated in their own lands (and
deserve to be better known elsewhere).
The lectures are arranged in roughly chronological order as they track the
intellectual development of the three major Asian civilizations—India,
China, and Japan—with side trips to Persia, Tibet, and Korea. They provide
some basic historical background so these great thinkers can be understood
within their political and social contexts. Although we will jump from
country to country, there are enough cross-cultural connections, particularly
those provided by Buddhism and Confucianism, that the course as a whole
will tell a coherent story.
After meeting foundational ¿gures such as Mahavira, Laozi, and Prince
Shotoku, we will examine the ways their ideas were developed and contested
in subsequent centuries. In later lectures, we meet some of the people who
1
¿rst tried to synthesize Western and Asian ideas, usually pairing prominent
intellectuals who represent either a more open versus a more critical
perspective toward foreign values and the possibility of adapting them to
Asian sensibilities. In the last few lectures, we will see some of the ways in
which traditional Asian thinkers are still important in the modern world and
why all this might matter to Westerners today.
Scope
Although the Eastern intellectual tradition is historically quite distinct from
the West’s, it is not entirely strange or exotic. The basic questions the great
thinkers of Asia tried to answer are similar to those that have occupied
philosophers and religious leaders in Europe and America: What is the
nature of reality? How do we know what we know? How should society
be organized? Why do people suffer? How can we ¿nd happiness? These
questions will provide a constant theme throughout the course. In some
instances, the search for answers came through practices such as meditation
or yoga or aesthetic experience, but Asian thinkers also employed the sort of
careful observation, vigorous debate, and logical analysis that we value in
our own tradition. Whatever their sources, the insight and wisdom offered by
the sharpest minds of the East often challenge our own assumptions and also
provide opportunities for dialogue and deeper understanding. Ŷ
2
Life’s Great Questions—Asian Perspectives
Lecture 1
Is there an Eastern intellectual tradition and, if so, does it matter to
people in the West today? In the West, nearly all thinkers and writers
knew about their contemporaries and their predecessors; not so in the
East, where two major but relatively distinct traditions developed—
one in India, the other in China. Both addressed the same major
questions that occupied Western thinkers. A person must understand
the approach and the answers offered by Eastern thought to be a truly
educated citizen of the world.
A
The ¿rst eight lectures cover the
origins of Eastern thought, including
the Vedas and Buddhism in India and
Confucianism in China. The next 10
lectures cover the major intellectual
developments of the early empires
of India, China, Persia, and Japan,
followed by 10 on the great minds of
the medieval era, where we will see
how ideas moved from India to China
and Tibet and from China to Japan
and Korea. After one lecture on the
science and technology of premodern
Asia, we will conclude with seven
lectures on the philosophy of the
© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
sia has a 2,000-year written record of intellectual speculation
and analysis in philosophy, religion, politics, literature, history,
psychology, and science, from the anonymous Indian Vedas to the
th
20 -century texts of Mao Zedong and Mohandas Gandhi. Over the course
of these lectures, you will meet these
and several dozen more of the East’s
most important thinkers, spanning the
entire continent.
Confucius was indisputably the
founder of Chinese philosophy.
3
modern era, including those thinkers who sought to integrate Western ideas
into Asian traditions.
Lecture 1: Life’s Great Questions—Asian Perspectives
So, the ¿rst major question we must ask is, is there an Eastern intellectual
tradition? The of¿cial answer is “sort of.” Most scholars agree on the core of
the Western intellectual tradition, limited as it may be to the perspectives of
the proverbial dead white males. These thinkers and their writings have been
tremendously inÀuential in shaping the world we live in, even if most people
don’t read them anymore. They are the origins of our “mental furniture.”
The Eastern intellectual tradition, by comparison, is more diffuse; there
is no equivalent to the West’s “great conversation.” Instead, we ¿nd two
more-or-less parallel Asian traditions, independent in origins and outlook,
although both were inÀuenced by Buddhism: In India, we ¿nd a system of
thought rooted in Hinduism and based on the idea of darshana—insight or
understanding. In China, the tradition
originated with Confucius and Laozi and
focused on the idea of dao, a “way” or In many ways, Eastern
“path” to right living.
thought is not particularly
mysterious or exotic.
In many ways, Eastern thought is not
particularly mysterious or exotic to
Westerners. Asian thinkers are interested in the same sorts of questions that
have engaged philosophers in the West: What is the nature of reality? How
do we know what we know? How should society be organized? How should
people treat each other? What is the cause of pain and sorrow? Can it be
stopped? How can we ¿nd happiness? How can we give our lives meaning?
Whether you are still seeking answers to such questions or just curious about
others’ conclusions, a study of Eastern thought will no doubt enrich your
intellectual life. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Carr and Mahalingam, eds., Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy.
Collinson, Plant, and Wilkinson, Fifty Eastern Thinkers.
Koller, Asian Philosophies.
4
McGreal, ed., Great Thinkers of the Eastern World.
Smart, World Philosophies.
Questions to Consider
1. How are the major intellectual traditions of Asia connected to each other?
2. What are the most important questions of existence?
3. What is the value of turning to the Eastern intellectual tradition for
several independent perspectives on the nature of being human and the
meaning of life?
5
The Vedas and Upanishads—The Beginning
Lecture 2
Nothing is known about the authors of the Vedas and the Upanishads,
the oldest surviving texts of Indian thought. The Vedas are a collection
of hymns to an ancient pantheon; the Upanishads contain the
collected wisdom of the Aryan sages. Together, they describe the core
metaphysical and ethical beliefs that would become Hinduism, as well
as many aspects of the Indo-Aryan civilization that produced them.
T
Lecture 2: The Vedas and Upanishads—The Beginning
he Indo-Aryans (commonly called Aryans) were the second great
civilization of the Indus River Valley. These nomadic cattle herders
entered the area sometime after 1500 B.C., mingling with the
descendents of the previous Harappan civilization and eventually taking up
agriculture there. Most of what we know about their culture comes from the
Vedas and the Upanishads.
The Vedas are collections of hymns and ritual texts that were preserved orally
for centuries before being written down between the 4th and 6th centuries
A.D. (Hindus today refer to their most sacred texts as shruti, “that which is
heard.”) The most important Veda is the Rigveda, containing 1,028 hymns
to a multitude of gods. Most were gods of natural phenomena, with humanlike personalities and foibles, like the gods of Olympus or other European
pantheons. In fact, the Aryans were
originally from a region in the modern
Ukraine, and their language, Sanskrit, is The Vedic religion is often
called Brahmanism, to
related to modern European languages.
distinguish it from its
Most Vedic hymns were written to
descendant, Hinduism.
accompany rituals, but some address
creation, the order of the universe, and
the origins of social conventions, including the caste system, with its four
major divisions, or varnas: the priestly Brahmins, the warrior Kshatriyas,
the common Vaishas, and the laboring Shudras. The Vedic religion is often
called Brahmanism, to distinguish it from its descendant, Hinduism.
6
The Brahmins developed a set of texts called the Brahmanas that speci¿ed
how rituals were to be performed in excruciating detail; ritual kept the
universe running smoothly and ensured human prosperity. Some Indians
began to wonder if this focus on ritual and material concerns wasn’t missing
the point. A few began to live as ascetic hermits, devoting their lives to
understanding the nature of ultimate reality through rituals of the mind. These
sages’ teachings became the Upanishads. The word upanishad means “to sit
close to,” connoting leaning in close to a guru to hear some secret teaching.
There are 13 major Upanishads and about 108 total, dating from about 900
to 500 B.C. Most take the form of debates about principles like samsara
(reincarnation), karma (cosmic justice), dharma (right behavior), moksha
(liberation from the cycle of samsara), Atman (the unchanging, eternal
self), and Brahman (the ultimate external reality that creates and sustains
the universe).
The sages’ great breakthrough is the equation Atman = Brahman—the
essence of you is identical to the essence of everything else. In the West, this
idea is called monism. Our experience of being separate from everyone and
everything is an illusion. Moksha comes when we realize this and can be
reabsorbed into Brahman, the great world-soul. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds., A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Questions to Consider
1. How can religion give rise to philosophy?
2. Why might reincarnation be an attractive concept?
7
3. Is there anything permanent in the changing, multi-faceted world we see
Lecture 2: The Vedas and Upanishads—The Beginning
around us?
8
Mahavira and Jainism—Extreme Nonviolence
Lecture 3
India gave rise to faiths besides Hinduism, the most inÀuential of which
are Jainism and Buddhism. Jainism accepts the basic ideas of samsara,
karma, and moksha but also teaches that all material objects have
souls and that moksha comes from working off bad karma through
self-sacri¿ce. Although Jainism has always been a minority faith, the
Jain principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, would affect people the world
over through the life and work of Mohandas Gandhi.
T
he founder of Jainism, Vardhamana, was born into the Kshatriya caste
in northeastern India in the mid-6th century B.C. It is believed he was
raised in luxury and wealth but gave up his possessions at the age of
30 to live as a wandering ascetic. After 12 years of fasting and meditation,
he attained enlightenment, became a jina (“conqueror”), and was thereafter
known as Mahavira (“the great hero”). Jains revere him as the 24th and last
tirthankara—“ford ¿nder”—the founders of their faith. For the remaining 30
or so years of his life, he was a spiritual teacher.
Mahavira’s teachings made several signi¿cant departures from mainstream
Brahmanism. He taught that nearly everything—animate and inanimate—
has a soul; these souls are not part of Brahman but are distinct entities
caught in the agonizing cycle of samsara. Karma was almost a material
quality; cruel acts attracted heavy karma that dragged the soul down to the
lower levels of existence. Through an arduous process of self-puri¿cation,
one could permanently break free of samsara to achieve nirvana, a state of
in¿nite knowledge, perception, energy, and bliss.
According to Mahivira, one could only rid oneself of bad karma through
self-sacri¿ce and refusing to harm other entities. He took this principle of
ahimsa (nonviolence) to its logical extreme; by refusing to harm even plants,
he eventually starved himself to death at 72.
All Jains take ¿ve great vows: no violence, no stealing, no sexual immorality,
no falsehood, and no grasping. Those on the ordinary spiritual path practice
9
Lecture 3: Mahavira and Jainism—Extreme Nonviolence
vegetarianism, monogamy, meditation, occasional fasting, and generally
lead lives of material simplicity. The extraordinary path is a solitary,
monastic lifestyle, including celibacy, wandering, traveling only by foot (and
barefoot), nudity, and begging for food or self-starvation, which is seen as
the highest good.
Although Jainism is very strict, there is much to admire in the faith; for one
thing, its extremism is voluntary and directed against the self, not against
others. The emphasis on ahimsa gives Jains a keen awareness of suffering and
the obligation to alleviate it. Interestingly,
there is no creator god in Jainism; its ethics
are derived not from divine decree but Although Jainism is very
rational argument.
strict, there is much to
admire in the faith.
The familiar tale of the blind men and
the elephant is used in Jainism to critique
ordinary epistemology—how we know what we know. Their concept of
many-sidedness acknowledges that the world is complex and that there is
no single perspective from which reality can be completely comprehended.
Combined with ahimsa, this gives Jains little reason to argue heatedly over
faith and motivation to agree to disagree.
In terms of our big questions, Jainism asks us to consider whether our
happiness depends on the suffering of others and to make an effort to correct
this problem. It is an impressive way of life, disciplined, rational, and even
noble, but it was too much for many people, which is why Mahavira’s
followers were eventually outnumbered by those of his near contemporary,
the Buddha. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds., A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
10
Questions to Consider
1. When is our happiness directly connected to the suffering of others?
2. What kind of life results when religious principles are taken to their
logical conclusions?
3. What is the connection between metaphysics and ethics?
4. Given human limitations, is there ever such a thing as impartial,
absolute knowledge?
11
The Buddha—The Middle Way
Lecture 4
The second major heterodox school in India is Buddhism, which bills
itself as “the middle way” between extreme asceticism and ordinary life.
Buddhists practice mindfulness—intentional, rather than accidental,
karma. The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism lay out both a diagnosis
of the ills of the world and a prescription for their cure, known as
the Eightfold Path. The aim of Buddhist practice is not to live with
suffering but to learn to eliminate it.
S
Corel Stock Photo Library.
Lecture 4: The Buddha—The Middle Way
iddhartha Gautama was born in what is now Nepal around the year
563 B.C. Like Mahavira, he was a prince, born to luxury in a time
of political and social turmoil. Miraculous legends surround his
conception and birth; what is more certain is that, at about 29 years of age,
he abandoned his life of privilege for that of a wandering ascetic.
The Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama) experienced the extremes of wealth and
poverty, power and humility, and settled on a “middle way” as an ideal.
12
After six years, Siddhartha found the extremes of the ascetic life were
hampering his spiritual progress. He resumed washing and eating but spent
the bulk of his time in deeper and deeper states of meditation. At last, he
achieved enlightenment, coming to a full understanding of the human
condition and how to eliminate suffering. Adopting the title of Buddha
(meaning “the awakened one”), he began to teach. After 45 years as a
wandering teacher, he fell ill from eating offered food and died, escaping the
cycle of samsara and passing into nirvana.
The Four Noble Truths
x
Suffering is universal.
x
Desire is the cause of suffering.
x
Letting go of desire—including the desire for nirvana—
can minimize or eliminate suffering.
x
The Eightfold Path is the way to eliminate desire: right
views and right intention (achieving wisdom); right
speech, right action, and right livelihood (ethical conduct);
and right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration
(mental development).
Buddhist practice focuses on the process, not the goal. It retains ideas
of samsara, karma, dharma, and moksha, but unlike Brahmanism and
Hinduism, which teach that
people and animals have souls,
and Jainism, which teaches Nirvana is achieved by overcoming
that everything has a soul, the the illusion that there is a self.
Buddha taught that nothing has
a soul. All sentient beings are
transient; any grasping at permanence ends in failure and suffering. Nirvana
is achieved by overcoming the illusion that there is a self.
13
A lay Buddhist is expected to avoid greed, hatred, and delusion; to try to
practice vegetarianism and avoid intoxicants; and to avoid doing harm
through violence, theft, and sexual immorality. Buddhist monks and nuns—
known collectively as the sangha—follow a much stricter lifestyle, including
celibacy and mendicancy.
The Buddha didn’t claim to have any special status or divine authority; his
path to salvation was empirical, practical, and available to anyone. It was
demanding but not extreme and therefore held a lot of appeal for both his
contemporaries and for many people today. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds., A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Lecture 4: The Buddha—The Middle Way
Questions to Consider
1. Why is there so much suffering in the world? Is there any reliable way
to escape it?
2. Are there more aspects to human beings than the familiar duality of
mind and body?
3. How stable is our sense of self? Why do we cling to it?
14
The Bhagavad Gita—The Way of Action
Lecture 5
The Bhagavad Gita is a section of the Hindu epic Mahabharata that
recounts a conversation between a prince and a god on the necessity
of duty. It puts forth the idea of karma yoga: that one should focus on
action, not on the fruits of the action. Karma yoga combines the religious
sensibilities of the Upanishads with concerns of ordinary life, including
obligations to one’s family and community. It argues that moral action
is only possible if there is no concern for reward or punishment.
T
Set against the background of an Indian
war of succession, the Bhagavad Gita
is a didactic dialogue between Prince
Arjuna, who is concerned about causing
suffering, accumulating bad karma,
and destroying his family, and the god
Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, who
responds with ¿ve reasons to ¿ght:
Dover Pictura Electronic Design.
he authorship of the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata is uncertain,
but it was composed sometime between 400 B.C. and A.D. 200 and
inÀuenced nearly all subsequent
Indian literature and philosophy,
including the work of Gandhi, as well as
Western thinkers such as Ralph Waldo
Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
It argues that a person can live a
spiritually meaningful life without
becoming an ascetic and champions a
life of action.
The god Vishnu appears as the
charioteer Krishna in the Gita.
x
Atman, the self, is eternal, so no one is ever really killed.
x
It is sinful to reject one’s caste duty; in Arjuna’s case, the duty
of a warrior is war.
15
Lecture 5: The Bhagavad Gita—The Way of Action
x
Withdrawing from action is still an act, with karmic consequences.
x
The source of evil, and thus bad karma, is desire, not action
in itself.
x
There are several ways one can act without attracting bad
karma: jnana yoga, the recognition of the eternal nature of the
soul; bhakti yoga, dedication of one’s actions to Krishna, who
will absorb the karmic consequences; and karma yoga, acting
without attachment.
Karma yoga requires a person to focus on their actions without regard for
the results of the action. In situations of anxiety or high emotion—such as
public speaking, test taking, and so forth—emotions such as fear, desire, and
embarrassment can interfere with our performance. Practicing karma yoga
allows us to be “in the moment,” acting without concern for the outcome.
This can improve both our performance
and ease our minds; in Hindu theological
terms, it also frees us from the karmic Karma yoga requires a
person to focus on their
consequences of the action.
actions without regard for
When divorced from desire for the
the results of the action.
consequences, a person’s sole motivation
for action is duty; thus karma yoga
emphasizes social responsibility. It also emphasizes the actor’s state of mind,
as the same actions can have very different karmic consequences depending
on attitude.
Given recent Western history, not to mention much of its philosophy and
religion, the idea of ignoring the consequences of one’s actions might seem
dangerous, if not horrifying. But there is also value in decisive, emotionless
action: Think of the duties of a ¿re ¿ghter or emergency room doctor. Even
parents, for example, can be more effective in correcting their children when
they can act calmly, without feeling anger, disappointment, or guilt.
Karma yoga is not entirely foreign to Western thought. Jesus, in the Sermon
on the Mount, derided hypocrites who prayed or gave alms only to ensure
16
God’s blessings or glorify themselves. Some have even argued that the only
truly moral actions are desireless, selÀess actions. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds., A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Questions to Consider
1. Is it possible to make ordinary life sacred?
2. In what circumstances can emotion interfere with effective action or
with doing one’s duty?
3. What are the differences between the way of knowledge, the way of
devotion, and the way of works? Do other religions offer a similar
variety of paths to enlightenment?
17
Confucius—In Praise of Sage-Kings
Lecture 6
Confucius was the ¿rst Chinese philosopher and one of the most
inÀuential thinkers in world history. His central idea was to address
contemporary lawlessness and social disintegration by looking to the
sages of the past. He was a strong advocate of education, ritual, and
social hierarchies, as well as government that leads by moral example,
not the threat of punishment. More than simply a master of aphorisms,
Confucius offered the world a comprehensive program for personal
ethical development.
C
Lecture 6: Confucius—In Praise of Sage-Kings
onfucius (in Chinese, Kongfuzi: “Revered Master Kong”) is probably
the most signi¿cant thinker in Chinese history, yet he considered
himself a failure, having never occupied a signi¿cant political post
where he could implement his ideas—although several of his students did,
and within a few centuries of his death, most Chinese people had accepted
his analysis of what was wrong with the world and how to remedy it.
Confucius, like the Buddha and Mahavira, lived in a time of political
turmoil, social breakdown, and tremendous suffering. Born around 551 B.C.
to a minor, impoverished aristocratic family,
he received a good education. He spent most
of his life as a teacher of culture, ritual, ethics, Confucius’s answer to
and statecraft, with only a brief, unsuccessful his world’s problems
tenure as a government magistrate.
was a return to the
morals of the past.
Confucius did not write down his own ideas,
but his followers collected them after his death
in a volume called the Analects (Chinese lunyu, “conversations”), a jumbled
collection of stories, sayings, and answers (sometimes without questions).
The advice is practical and concrete but not systematic. A common theme is
to practice lin, or reciprocity—as a certain Western thinker would later say,
to treat others as we wish to be treated.
18
Confucius’s answer to his world’s problems was a return to the morals of the
past; ethics come from sages, not revelation or innovation.
Values of the Analects
x
Education, especially in the classic texts.
x
Moral behavior of those in government.
x
Proper performance of ritual, including basic etiquette.
x
Individual effort at morality, including the practice of ren
(kindness or benevolence).
x
Awareness of one’s place in the social hierarchy.
To Confucius, all relationships were unequal—ruler/subject, parent/child,
husband/wife—and obedience to authority was absolutely crucial. To those
in the modern West, this focus on hierarchy might smack of oppression, but
Confucius’s point was that there are no autonomous individuals; each of
us exists within a web of relationships that de¿nes our identities. As in the
Bhagavad Gita, duty to one’s station and community is a prime moral virtue.
The Confucian model for government, unsurprisingly, is the family, the
relationships where we ¿rst learn the ethics and traditions we carry into the
wider world; even in modern China, guanxi (relationships) are central to
the function of business and bureaucracy. Confucian rulers lead by example
and enforce the law not through the threat of punishment but by instilling
proper attitudes in its citizens. Similarly, Confucian ethics are not based on
the promise of individual reward—earthly or heavenly—but on a desire to
bene¿t humankind in general.
Any system that emphasizes knowing one’s place can be turned to
oppressive ends, but this is a gross distortion of Confucianism. In the web
of relationships, respect and ren move in both directions. Confucius didn’t
19
advocate rules for rules’ sake but to better society and ensure individual
happiness through mutual respect, personal responsibility, and striving for
wisdom and justice. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
Chin, The Authentic Confucius.
Confucius, The Analects of Confucius.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Ivanhoe and Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy.
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Lieberthal, Governing China.
Reid, Confucius Lives Next Door.
Lecture 6: Confucius—In Praise of Sage-Kings
Questions to Consider
1. What are the keys to social harmony? How can morality best be taught?
2. To what extent is a person’s life de¿ned by his or her relationships?
When might hierarchical distinctions have value?
3. What role do music and ritual play in a full life?
20
Laozi and Daoism—The Way of Nature
Lecture 7
Daoism is the second of the three major philosophies of China. Laozi’s
Daodejing (“the way and its power”) responds to the political, familycentered morality of Confucius with a poetic, cryptic treatise rejecting
man-made hierarchies and arguing the value of simplicity and humility
over power and ambition. The dao (way) is the way of nature in a
universe that consists of opposites in harmony, and de (virtue, integrity)
is an innate human strength. Following the dao brings humans freedom,
serenity, and longevity.
I
n many ways, Confucius established the baseline for all later Chinese
philosophical debates. Among the ¿rst to dispute Confucius’s system
was a person or persons known as Laozi—a name that means “old
master”—whose philosophy is collected in the late 4th-century B.C. book of
poetic proverbs called the Daodejing. Much of its advice is cryptic, even
paradoxical; its enigmatic nature has inspired more than 350 commentaries
in Chinese over the past two and a half millennia. Composed during China’s
Warring States period, it offers a solution to the current turmoil not in the
wisdom of the past but in a return to the way of nature.
The Daodejing consists of two parts. Chapters 1–37 focus on the dao, or
“way,” while chapters 38–81 discuss de, an innate human strength, often
translated as integrity or virtue. The dao is hard to de¿ne; it is sometimes
described as “the mother of the world,” not unlike the Upanishads’ Brahman.
The universe itself is described in terms of binary distinctions: “When
everyone knows goodness, this accounts for badness. / Being and nonbeing
give birth to each other / Dif¿cult and easy complete each other.” This
is related to the notion of yin and yang, but it is a mistake to reduce the
idea of white and black to good and evil; both elements are necessary, and
everything in creation has its share of both.
Following the dao means rejecting man-made distinctions, including
Confucius’s esteemed hierarchies. Politically, Laozi recommends
nonintervention and effortless action—avoiding whatever doesn’t come
21
Lecture 7: Laozi and Daoism—The Way of Nature
naturally. The universe enforces a law of unintended consequences: Every
action brings its opposite; emphasizing any virtue highlights a corresponding
vice: “When knowledge and wisdom appeared, / There emerged great
hypocrisy. … When a country is in disorder,
/ There will be praise of loyal ministers.”
Rather than great, wealthy empires, the dao Every action brings its
leads to small countries and simple lifestyles. opposite; emphasizing
any virtue highlights a
Laozi offers several pieces of practical advice corresponding vice.
to both rulers and individuals. Individuals
should live in unity with nature, be humble
and shun ambition, embrace material simplicity, and generally go with the
Àow. Governments should be as minimal and unobtrusive as possible. One
might ask, if each quality inherently brings its opposite, wouldn’t humility
bring power, and so forth? Yes, but that’s the point: We should embrace what
comes to us and not struggle against the universe. Forceful action always
brings a backlash; better to practice nonaction.
In summary, Confucianism is associated with hierarchy, order, social
responsibility, conformity, moralism, activism, service, and seriousness.
Daoism prefers individualism, freedom, nonconformity, nature, retirement,
tranquility, mysticism, and wit. Both are wary of competition, confrontation,
and coercion; both are attractive and have much to teach us about how to live
the best life. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
More than any other text mentioned in this course, students will bene¿t from
reading multiple versions of the Daodejing. Fortunately it is quite short, and
there are a few dozen reputable translations. I recommend the following:
Hendricks, Lao-Tzu: Te-Tao Ching.
Ivanhoe, The Daodejing of Laozi.
Lau, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching.
22
Mair, Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way.
———
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Barry and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Graham, Disputers of the Dao.
Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy.
Kirkland, Taoism.
Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture.
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Moeller, The Philosophy of the Daodejing.
Questions to Consider
1. Is nature an appropriate model for human behavior?
2. Are making distinctions and judgments necessary for progress?
For happiness?
3. Why would it be useful to base a philosophy or even a religion on a text
that is open to multiple interpretations?
23
The Hundred Schools of Preimperial China
Lecture 8
The Warring States era (475–221 B.C.) brought a great deal of chaos
and suffering to China, which, paradoxically, also allowed for a
remarkable degree of social mobility. Talented, ambitious men vied for
political appointments and often wrote about their ideas. Collectively
called the Hundred Schools, these philosophies represent a golden age
of thought and intellectual freedom in China. Here we will discuss
the founders of three of them from the 4th century B.C.: Mozi, Huizi,
and Zhuangzi.
Lecture 8: The Hundred Schools of Preimperial China
A
lthough Confucius and Laozi were by far the most inÀuential
thinkers in China’s premodern history, they were by no means the
only great philosophers of ancient China. About 100 years after the
end of the Warring States period, a historian named Sima Tan divided the
Hundred Schools of Chinese philosophy into six major schools: Naturalists,
Confucians, Mohists, Terminologists, Legalists, and Daoists. Only two of
these (the Confucians and Mohists) were self-identi¿ed schools; the rest are
amalgams of schools with similar teachings.
The Mohists followed Mozi, the ¿rst great rival of Confucius. He wrote
formal, extended arguments, rather than Confucian-style insights. His main
idea was impartial caring, sometimes translated as universal love. He argued
that large states attack small ones, great families overthrow the lesser, and
the strong oppress the weak because of partiality; peace can be brought
about by striving to love everyone equally.
Mozi’s primary criterion for moral judgment was utility, followed by
precedent and veracity. Things that met people’s material needs—food,
clothing, and shelter—are good; everything else is wasteful, including
the beloved Confucian rituals. He condemned war as the greatest waste
of all. He felt that social standing should be based on merit and stressed
yi (righteousness) over ren. Where Confucius refused to speculate on
the afterlife, Mozi promoted a religious vision where fear of ghosts and
punishment from heaven kept people in line.
24
Huizi is categorized as a Terminologist, or logician. He composed a series
of paradoxes that point to the relativity of time and space; for example, he
writes that the moment a being is born, it begins dying. His paradoxes are
often compared to those of the Greek philosopher Zeno, who lived a century
earlier, especially his observation that if you take a foot-long stick and
cut it in half every day, you won’t use it up in ten thousand generations.
Unfortunately, this list is all that remains of Huizi’s work.
Zhuangzi was a great Daoist thinker, second only to Laozi, and unlike Laozi,
we are con¿dent that he was a single, real person. He was an elegant, witty
writer whose ideas are similar to but more extreme than those found in the
Daodejing. Laozi argued that ordinary distinctions were meaningless, but
he generally had a preference for the less
valued. Zhuangzi really has no preference,
even between life and death or dreams and
Zhuangzi … is famous
reality; he is famous in the West for being
in the West for being
unsure whether he is a man dreaming he is a
unsure whether he is a
butterÀy or a butterÀy dreaming he is a man.
man dreaming he is a
Laozi argues for radical skepticism, saying all
butterÀy or a butterÀy
judgments are based on limited, incomplete
dreaming he is a man.
perspectives. He is particularly wary of the
limitations of language. He sees no point in
fearing death nor in clinging to life; how can we be sure which is the better?
Rather than present reasoned arguments, he prefers to illustrate his points
with clever stories, some of which feature himself and his friend Huizi the
logician as the main characters. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Graham, Disputers of the Tao.
Ivanhoe and Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy.
Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture.
25
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Zhuangzi, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu.
Questions to Consider
1. Why does social chaos sometimes lead to intellectual vitality?
2. Is a universal ethics possible? Can it be based on utilitarian principles?
Religious principles? Or both at the same time?
Lecture 8: The Hundred Schools of Preimperial China
3. How can philosophers use words to explore the limits of language?
26
Mencius and Xunzi—Confucius’s Successors
Lecture 9
Mencius’s and Xunzi’s relationships to Confucius have been
compared to Plato’s and Aristotle’s to Socrates. Both philosophers
had much in common with Confucius and each other, including
beliefs in the importance of education, perfectibility of humans, moral
responsibilities of rulers, and centrality of ritual. But Mencius was
an idealist who believed human nature was essentially good, whereas
Xunzi was a naturalist who believed it was essentially evil. Ultimately,
Mencius’s optimism had more appeal for the Chinese people.
M
encius lived during the 4th century B.C. and the time of the
Hundred Schools, and his life story is quite similar to Confucius’s.
He served only brieÀy as a government of¿cial but was a ¿ne
teacher who had been taught by students of Confucius’s grandson. His
writings consist of extended arguments with his philosophical opponents,
including followers of Mozi.
Mencius’s most famous debate is with the philosopher Gaozi over whether
human nature is good or evil. Gaozi says it is neither but can be channeled
one way or another. Mencius contends that human nature is essentially good,
“just as water naturally Àows downhill.” Evil is a consequence of not acting
on our natural good impulses, which is why education is essential to moral
development. Anyone can become a sage through proper moral cultivation,
which involves both qi (vital energy) and xin (heart/mind).
Mencius re¿ned Confucius’s political ideas; for example, he said rebellion is
justi¿ed when rulers neglect their responsibilities. He also performed some
of the ¿rst economic analysis in Chinese history, arguing for a free market
and encouraging trade, but he also said that rulers must put righteousness
before pro¿t.
Xunzi belonged to the next generation of Confucians. He was a prominent,
respected political advisor and essayist, as well as a teacher, and lived to
see most of China conquered by the rising state of Qin. Xunzi believed that
27
Lecture 9: Mencius and Xunzi—Confucius’s Successors
direct observation and the historical record left no doubt that human nature is
evil, or at least sel¿sh, but that enlightened self-interest can motivate people
to choose virtue and cooperation. Since morality must be learned, Xunzi
agrees with Mencius and Confucius on the importance of education.
Xunzi’s outlook is primarily secular. For him, morality is a human construct,
not an inheritance from heaven. Rituals work, but they are the products of
sages’ minds, not revelation, and foster goodness through psychological
satisfaction. Nor are natural disasters messages from the beyond; they are
natural phenomena. If the government is good, it will be prepared for Àoods,
droughts, and so on, and the people won’t go hungry. But if the government
is corrupt, when natural disaster strikes, the people will suffer. Disasters are
natural, but the outcomes are man-made.
Also, if Mencius is one of the earliest
economic thinkers, we can recognize Xunzi Since morality must
as one of the ¿rst environmentalists. He be learned, Xunzi
urges rulers to adopt laws that conserve
agrees with Mencius
plants and wildlife.
and Confucius on the
Mencius’s ideas eventually overshadowed importance of education.
Xunzi’s, perhaps because their inherent
optimism was better suited to the mood of
China under the Qin dynasty. In the 12th century A.D., Mencius’s writings
were included alongside the Analects as the core texts of imperial civil
servants’ education for the next 800 years. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Graham, Disputers of the Tao.
Knoblock, Xunzi.
Mencius.
28
Nivison, The Ways of Confucianism.
Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought.
Questions to Consider
1. Are humans by nature good or bad? Is this even the right question to ask?
2. Is education necessary to moral development?
3. Is a secular approach to nature and ritual compatible with morality?
4. Are ethics derived from nature or revelation, or are they human
inventions? And if the latter, can they ever be seen as authoritative?
29
Sunzi and Han Feizi—Strategy and Legalism
Lecture 10
Out of the chaos of the Warring States era, China’s Han dynasty (202
B.C.–A.D. 220) built a powerful empire. Legalism and military strategy
emerged from the Hundred Schools to join Confucianism and Daoism
as leading ideologies of the new Chinese state. Sunzi’s militarist Art of
War reÀects the changing nature of warfare in the period and a Daoistlike approach to the world. The Legalists argued for the consolidation
of state power through practical means and rejected almost all of
earlier Chinese moral philosophy and statecraft.
Lecture 10: Sunzi and Han Feizi—Strategy and Legalism
T
he major military development of the Warring States period was a
shift from one-on-one ¿ghting between aristocrats driving chariots to
massive battles between armies of peasant conscripts. This new kind
of warfare demanded a new kind of military theory, which was supplied by
thinkers like Sunzi.
Sunzi was said to have been a contemporary of Confucius, but the book
attributed to him, Art of War, was probably written during the Warring States
period in the 4th century B.C. It was likely written by one of his descendents,
named Sun Bin. The principles espoused in the text seem akin to Daoism
in many ways, advocating reversals, going with the Àow, and defying
conventional morality: A skilled general relies on deception, hiding his
true power and intention from his foes; he
takes advantage of weather and terrain; he
expends the fewest resources to the greatest Legalism’s basic tenet is
effect. The only thing a general can be that people can be made
certain of in war is change.
to do anything through
reward and punishment.
But it was Legalism that consolidated the
Chinese empire. Legalism was not a uni¿ed
school but a loose group of thinkers who shared an interest in strengthening
the state through rational, practical means. Legalism’s basic tenet is that
people can be made to do anything through reward and punishment. It
30
rejects the Confucian idea that human nature is essentially good, as well as
its reverence for tradition.
Legalists recommended the use of a code of law, punishments, and rewards
as the best way to motivate citizens. This is not the same as a rule of law;
law should be a tool for rulers, who are above the law. Ideally, laws should
be objective, even quanti¿able, and punishment should be harsh and public.
Somewhat surprisingly, Legalism was also often associated with Daoism,
because rulers could practice wuwei, or nonaction, while the state governed
itself through laws.
Han Feizi represents the epitome of Legalist thought. His central argument
was that a ruler must be careful not to allow his ministers too much power.
Punishment and reward were the “handles” of government, which the leader
must hold tightly. Rulers should watch their ministers carefully, hold them
accountable for their failures, and take credit for their accomplishments.
An ideal ruler is also mysterious, like a Daoist sage; even a weak ruler can
control his ministers through keeping them guessing.
The Qin consolidation of China in 221 B.C. was the founding of the ¿rst
truly Legalist state, but the dynasty barely outlasted its ¿rst emperor. The
emperor’s rule was too harsh, his power too centralized. The Qin dynasty
was succeeded by the Han, which combined Legalist government structure
with Confucian ideology. This proved a solid foundation for the government
of the long Han Empire and beyond. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Ivanhoe and Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy.
Lieberthal, Governing China.
Sunzi. Sun Tzu: The Art of War.
31
Questions to Consider
1. How important are laws in ordering a society or governing a state?
2. Can techniques of management be separated from morality?
3. Why would the mystical, quietist ideas of Daoism come to be associated
with militarism and Legalism?
4. Would you consider yourself more Confucian, more Daoist, or more
Lecture 10: Sunzi and Han Feizi—Strategy and Legalism
Legalist? Why?
32
Zarathustra and Mani—Dualistic Religion
Lecture 11
The Persian Empire gave rise to two religious ¿gures—Zarathustra and
Mani—whose ideas spread along the Silk Road. Zarathustra preached
dualism (not monism), with good and evil locked in cosmic conÀict.
Mani attempted to synthesize the faiths of Adam, Zoroaster, Buddha,
and Jesus—all true prophets but with incomplete knowledge. Although
Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism did not last as major world religions,
they affected the lives of millions both directly and indirectly through
their inÀuence on other faiths.
T
he ¿rst Persian Empire, often called the Achaemenid Empire,
controlled Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, and
Pakistan—the entire western expanse of the Silk Road, which
transported both goods and ideas across the Asian continent. Although
usually considered a part of the Western world, Persia bridged East and West
in several signi¿cant ways.
Zarathustra (in Greek, Zoroaster) was a Persian priest who lived sometime
between 1400 and 1000 B.C. Little is known about his life; all that remains
of his writings are 17 brief hymns, called the
Gathas. They are composed in Old Avesta,
which is related to the Sanskrit of the Vedas, Zarathustra’s teachings
and Zoroastrianism and Brahmanism have had a profound effect
some deities in common.
on the development
Where Brahmanism is monistic, however, of Greek thought, as
Zoroastrianism is dualistic: Good and evil, well as on Judaism,
as represented by the great god Ahura Christianity, [and] Islam.
Mazda and the minor deity Angra Mainyu,
are locked in a perpetual struggle for control
of the cosmos. Individual human beings are free to choose between good and
evil, but Ahura Mazda’s triumph is an article of the faith, so Zoroastrians
worship him alone. Zoroastrians also believed in a Last Judgment after
Ahura Mazda’s victory and eternal paradise for the good. Zoroastrian
33
practices include prayer ¿ve times a day, seven yearly feasts, puri¿cation
rituals, and sacri¿ces.
Mani was a 3rd-century A.D. successor to Zarathustra and one of the most
inÀuential ¿gures you’ve never heard of. Manichaeism, now extinct, was
once one of the most widespread, popular religions in the world, blending
the ideas of East and West. Mani’s ideas rested
on Zoroastrian dualism but added concepts
probably borrowed from Christian Gnosticism
and Buddhism: Human beings were created by
dark cosmic forces, but each person contained
spiritual light, which could be released via
asceticism. His followers were divided into
hearers (ordinary believers) and the elect,
who strove for purity through nonviolence,
vegetarianism, and celibacy. Hearers might
someday be reincarnated as one of the elect.
Manichaeans spread the faith westward to
Spain and eastward to China. It thrived in Marco Polo encountered
China from the 7th to 12th centuries, where Manichaeans in China.
Mani was known as the Buddha of Light and
was thought by some to be an avatar of Laozi. In the West, Mani was seen
as a Christian heretic, yet one of Christianity’s most inÀuential theologians,
Augustine of Hippo, was a Manichaean for nine years before converting to
Christianity and may have been inÀuenced by Mani’s ideas.
Manichaeism died out in the Roman Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate
around the 9th century A.D. and survived in China until at least the 14th;
34
© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
Lecture 11: Zarathustra and Mani—Dualistic Religion
Zoroastrianism was the of¿cial religion of the Sassanid Empire (A.D.
224–651), the last pre-Islamic regime in Iran. Under Muslim rulers,
Zoroastrianism was tolerated but discouraged. There are fewer than 200,000
Zoroastrians left in the world today, and almost all of them live in India.
Yet Zarathustra’s teachings had a profound effect on the development of
Greek thought, as well as on Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Western
popular culture.
scholars believe Marco Polo identi¿ed a group of Manicaeans living near the
southern Chinese port of Fuzhou in 1292. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Boyce, Zoroastrians.
Questions to Consider
1. Why is dualism a natural way of making sense of the world?
2. How is it that a religion few have heard of has nevertheless managed to
inÀuence the lives of most of the people in the world today?
3. What makes the difference between religions that survive and grow and
those that decline and eventually become extinct?
35
Kautilya and Ashoka—Buddhism and Empire
Lecture 12
The Mauryan Empire’s conquest of the Indian subcontinent gave rise to
two of India’s most renowned political thinkers: Kautilya and Ashoka.
Kautilya was an advisor to the ¿rst Mauryan ruler and wrote on war,
economics, administration, trade, and espionage; his cold pragmatism
has been compared to Machiavelli’s. Ashoka was the third Mauryan
emperor and one of Buddhism’s most famous converts. He de¿ned
Buddhist kingship by governing with compassion, ending military
aggression, and proselytizing the faith.
Lecture 12: Kautilya and Ashoka—Buddhism and Empire
K
autilya (c. 350–275 B.C.) was a Brahmin advisor and prime minister
to Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of Mauryan Empire. His ideas
can be found in the Arthashastra (“the science of politics” or “the
science of material gain”). He advises on many matters, from agriculture
and manufacturing to law and its enforcement, but about a third of the book
concerns diplomacy and war. He was also a
stickler for time management: The model king
followed a schedule divided into 90-minute Ashoka’s role in
periods of meetings, audiences, inspections, Buddhism is similar to
prayer, eating, and sleeping.
that of Constantine’s
in Christianity.
Kautilya identi¿ed seven elements of the state:
king, ministers, lands, forti¿cations, treasure,
army, and allies. Good statecraft involved strengthening these elements in
one’s own kingdom and weakening them the enemy’s. He also identi¿ed six
methods of foreign policy: peace, war, neutrality, preparing for war, seeking
protection, and duplicity (pursuing peace and war with the same state at the
same time). He writes openly of espionage and assassination, even fratricide,
yet speaks of the dharma and moral duty of a king as well and says, “The
happiness of the subjects is the happiness of the king.” Like the Legalists in
China, Kautilya attempted to combine ethics and pragmatism.
Two generations later, Chandragupta Maurya’s grandson Ashoka became the
third ruler of the Mauryan Empire. His rise to the throne was legendarily
36
brutal, but in the eighth year of his reign, in the aftermath of the conquest
of Kalinga, he took stock of the massive devastation caused by his war and
converted to Buddhism.
Although there are few
Buddhists in India today, you
can see evidence of Ashoka
everywhere. India’s national
emblem of four seated lions
comes from Ashoka’s court,
as does the spoked wheel
of
dharma—the
Ashoka The quadruple lion, the national emblem of
chakra—that appears on the India, can be traced to Emperor Ashoka.
Indian Àag. Despite Ashoka’s
inÀuence, Buddhism virtually died out in India in the 13th century A.D. The
Mauryan Empire lasted only 130 years, and both Ashoka’s and Kautilya’s
works were lost for centuries as the subcontinent dissolved into smaller
warring kingdoms. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
37
© Hemera/Thinkstock.
Ashoka’s role in Buddhism is similar to that of Constantine’s in Christianity.
He established monasteries, built 84,000 stupas (reliquaries), sent
missionaries abroad, abolished animal sacri¿ce, and took up vegetarianism.
He even traveled as a teacher throughout his empire. While Ashoka was
committed to his faith, he
practiced tolerance and was
one of the ¿rst proponents of
religious pluralism in world
history. He considered “the
welfare of the whole world”
his mission.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds., A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Thapar, AĞoka and the Decline of the Mauryas.
Questions to Consider
1. When is ruthlessness in politics a virtue?
2. How might a person balance various aims in life that seem contradictory?
Lecture 12: Kautilya and Ashoka—Buddhism and Empire
3. What is the role of political patronage in spreading new religions?
38
Ishvarakrishna and Patanjali—Yoga
Lecture 13
The practices the West knows as yoga are a relatively modern
development; in India, Yoga is a school of Hinduism based on dualist
metaphysics. Two thinkers supplied the core of orthodox yogic
philosophy: Ishvarakrishna codi¿ed its metaphysics, which divides the
universe into prakriti (matter) and purusha (spirit), while Patanjali, the
semi-legendary author of the Yoga Sutra, provided a sort of handbook
to the meditative practices for disentangling spirit and matter.
S
cholars divide Hinduism into six orthodox schools (Nyaya,
Vaisheshika, Mimamsa, Vedanta, Samkhya, and Yoga) and three
unorthodox schools (Jainism, Buddhism, and Carvaka). The six
orthodox schools developed between the 3rd century B.C. and the 4th or 5th
century A.D. All accept the authority of the Vedas and the Brahmin priests,
along with samsara, karma, dharma, and moksha, but they have different
ideas about the ultimate reality and engage in respectful debate.
The foremost proponent of Samkhya was Ishvarakrishna, a philosopher of
the late 4th century A.D. His Verses on the Samkhya is the oldest surviving
complete text of the Samkhya school.
Ishvarakrishna believed that the entire
universe can be divided into two entities: If purusha becomes
prakriti (primordial matter) and purusha entranced by what it
(pure consciousness or spirit).
sees, it can mistakenly
Prakriti is the source of the physical and identify with prakriti and
psychological universe—everything we become entangled in
perceive both inside and outside our selves, samsara and suffering.
but it cannot comprehend itself or the world.
Purusha, on the other hand, cannot act; it
simply observes prakriti. If purusha becomes entranced by what it sees, it
can mistakenly identify with prakriti and become entangled in samsara and
suffering. Liberation—which Ishvarakrishna calls kaivalya (isolation), rather
39
than moksha—comes from making a clear distinction between purusha
and prakriti.
Lecture 13: Ishvarakrishna and Patanjali—Yoga
The Yoga school, in essence, is the practical response to Samkhya’s
metaphysics. Patanjali is known as the founder of the Yoga school, but
scholars debate whether he lived in the 2nd century B.C. or the 3rd century
A.D. His Yoga Sutra is the ¿rst systematic treatment of the topic. “Yoga”
comes from a Sanskrit word meaning “to join” or “to yoke,” here implying
yoking body and mind to a spiritual discipline. According to Patajali, you
cannot think your way out of suffering; thoughts are part of the buzzing,
churning world of prakriti. Instead, one must use meditation to still the mind
completely and detach the purusha self from the physical-mental world
of prakriti.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra consists of 195 aphorisms organized into four chapterlength books on meditation, yogic practices, psychic powers, and liberation.
His ideas are drawn from several different traditions. He identi¿es ¿ve
“turnings of thought”—valid judgment, error, conceptualization, sleep, and
memory—along with various ways to stop these turnings. He describes eight
stages, or limbs, of Yoga: restraint, observances, posture, breath control,
withdrawing the senses, concentration, meditation, and absorption.
All Indian philosophical schools, both orthodox and heterodox, have adopted
some form of yoga. In all cases, the program of improvements starts with
ethical practices, then physical practices, and ¿nally mental practices.
The purusha/prakriti dualism of Samkhya and Yoga is not exactly like
Western mind/body dualism. Here, mind is a part of the body and prakriti,
so the thinking self is not the real purusha self. Memory is acknowledged
not simply as recollection of the past but a complex process that affects our
perception. Even false or distorted memories are real because they have real
effects in our lives. But still, our memories are not our true self. Ŷ
40
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Miller, Yoga.
Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Questions to Consider
1. Is your thinking self your real self?
2. How did Yoga originally offer a method of liberation from the suffering
brought about by the entanglement of consciousness and matter, as
expounded in the Samkhya school?
3. Is it possible that insight can be acquired through a step-by-step process?
Why does morality come before physical techniques, which are then
followed by mental discipline?
41
Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu—Buddhist Theories
Lecture 14
Lecture 14: Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu—Buddhist Theories
Mahayana (or “greater vehicle”) Buddhism arose in the 1st century
A.D., driven by new scriptures said to be secret teachings of the Buddha.
Two major ¿gures in Mahayana’s development were Nagarjuna and
Vasubandhu. Nagarjuna’s commentaries on the Perfection of Wisdom
Sutras propose a metaphysical middle way between existence and
nonexistence. Vasubandhu taught that the only things that exist are
mental constructs. Both schools teach that meditation is the best way
to understand reality.
T
he Buddha discouraged philosophy, yet in the four centuries following
his death, 18 Buddhist schools developed, only one of which survives
today: Theravada (the way of the elders). Theravada teaches that
the Buddha is not a savior, only an example of bene¿cial behavior, and
that enlightenment requires the sort of extensive study and meditation only
available to monks and nuns. Today, Theravada is the main Buddhist school
of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka.
Mahayana Buddhism developed later than Theravada and diverges from it in
signi¿cant ways. Based on sutras compiled in the 1st century A.D. (but likely
transmitted orally for some time before), Mahayana holds that the Buddha
is a god and in some sense still exists to worship and pray to. Mahayana
Buddhists believe lay people can achieve enlightenment, becoming
bodhisattvas, and emphasize the role of compassionate service. This is the
Buddhism of East Asia.
The Buddha taught the theory of dependent origination, or conditioned
arising. In brief, this means that nothing exists independently; every “thing”
in nature is an event, and every event has a cause. The human problem is
rebirth, which is caused by existence, which is caused by attachment, which
is caused by ignorance of no-self, so for the Buddha, this doctrine is a tool
for liberation. For Nagarjuna, it was a tool for understanding reality.
42
Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka (“middle way”) school of Mahayana Buddhism
explained how the world around us is ultimately empty but that “empty”
is not the same as “nonexistent.” Rather, between the notions of permanent
external reality and total nonexistence is the idea that everything that exists
is temporary. He also concluded that there is no real difference between
samsara and nirvana, since neither can exist unconditionally. The ultimate
truth, he suggested, is beyond all logical analysis. By exposing these
contradictions, Nagarjuna hoped to free us to
experience emptiness through meditation.
“Empty” is not the
th
same as “nonexistent.” Vasubandhu was a 4 -century writer who
lived in present-day Pakistan. His Yogacara
school teaches a form of metaphysical
idealism—that the only things that exist are mental constructs. Other
Buddhists had argued that we have no direct access to the external world,
only to our perceptions; Vasubandhu further argued that our perceptions
could exist entirely within our own minds. The world we think we observe is
simply a projection of our desires and habits of thought.
In Yogacara, karma is also a sort of mental construct; our suffering is created
by our own mind out of guilt. There are eight levels of consciousness,
of which the storehouse consciousness is the most basic: a collective
subconscious where the seeds of your previous experiences are stored
to later sprout and ripen into perceptions. Nirvana comes when no more
seeds are deposited. Mental processes, such as yoga and meditation, allow
us to “wake up” from our perceptions and stop planting those seeds, thus
attaining enlightenment.
Buddhism died out in India by the 13th century A.D. due to a combination
of social and political forces, yet it grew and Àourished in other lands. For
Buddhism, like everything else in existence, the only constant is change. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism.
43
Kasulis, Zen Action, Zen Person.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Nagarjuna, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Williams, Mahayana Buddhism.
Questions to Consider
1. If everything in the world is caused by something else, which is in turn
the result of earlier factors, what sort of reality does the world have?
2. How dependent are we on our senses for our knowledge of the world?
Lecture 14: Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu—Buddhist Theories
Is there any form of knowledge that comes apart from our perceptions?
3. Are there limits to what we can know? Are some things beyond language
and logical analysis?
44
Sima Qian and Ban Zhao—History and Women
Lecture 15
Sima Qian and Ban Zhao were the ¿rst thinkers in Chinese thought
to deal systematically with history and women, respectively. Neither
would be part of a traditional course on Asian philosophy, but their
ideas have profoundly shaped the lives of millions of people. Sima
Qian’s Shiji is a breathtakingly comprehensive, exquisitely edited
treatment of China’s history from its legendary beginnings to his own
day. Ban Zhao’s most famous piece is the brief “Lessons for Women,”
the ¿rst work to pay speci¿c attention to women and women’s issues
from a Confucian perspective.
I
n Chinese culture, where history writing is a crucial part of cultural
identity, all history writing follows Sima Qian’s Shiji (“the Grand
Scribe’s records”), the ¿rst systematically composed work of Chinese
history by a named author. The project was started by his father, Sima
Tan, and taken up by Sima Qian on Sima Tan’s death in 110 B.C. A decade
later, faced with a choice between death and castration as punishment for
his unfortunate political loyalties, Sima Qian chose castration, seen as a
shameful option, out of duty to his father and the work.
On its completion, the Shiji was comparable in length to the Bible. It covered
the history of the entire world as Sima Qian knew it, beginning with China’s
legendary Yellow Emperor. It is not a linear narrative but is organized into
¿ve sections: 12 basic annals, each devoted to a dynasty; 10 chronological
tables; 8 treatises on ritual, music, the calendar, astronomy, economics, and
so forth; 30 “hereditary houses,” which recount state histories of the late
Zhou dynasty and family histories from the Han dynasty; and 70 biographies
of signi¿cant people or groups, from poets and philosophers to doctors and
politicians. It also includes chapters on the nomadic border peoples and Sima
Qian’s autobiography.
Several characteristics mark the Shiji as a breakthrough in world
historiography. It is a masterpiece of literary style, demonstrates meticulous
devotion to accuracy and critical historiography, and offers multiple
45
Lecture 15: Sima Qian and Ban Zhao—History and Women
perspectives on events and people. Later dynastic histories—of which there
were dozens—all followed Sima Qian’s model; the Shiji is the ¿rst of the 24
so-called standard histories that cover 18 centuries of Chinese civilization.
Ban Zhao, like Sima Qian, began her career in history writing by taking
over the work of a late relative, her brother, the 1st-century historian Ban
Gu. Born into a prominent family, Ban Zhou
was probably the most educated woman of her
time, and she trained several important male The Shiji is the
scholars. Widowed at an early age, she devoted ¿rst of the 24 soher remaining life to scholarship, becoming a
called standard
teacher, poet, tutor to the royal family, advisor to
histories that cover
the Dowager Empress, and historian.
18 centuries of
In light of such a biography, readers are often Chinese civilization.
surprised by how reactionary and anti-woman the
advice in her “Lessons for Women” seems. Full
of references to Confucian classics, it advises young women about marriage
and family—namely, that wives should always be humble and submissive to
an extent that most modern Western readers would ¿nd extreme.
So was this remarkably independent woman a hypocrite? Not exactly. Ban
Zhao is giving practical advice for a very particular time, place, and kind
of family. Chinese marriage is patrilocal, meaning brides always join their
husbands’ families and worship their husbands’ ancestors. Having sons is
the only form of social security, and a daughter-in-law, by de¿nition, comes
between a mother and son. Ban Zhao’s advice is geared toward smoothing
the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship for the bene¿t of both. Ban
Zhao is also trying to give attention to women’s issues from a Confucian
perspective—a daunting task, since Confucius more or less ignored women
altogether. Finally, the true purpose of her essay may have been subversive:
She argues that girls should be given the same education as boys—to make
them better wives, of course. In any case, she is a fascinating early female
voice in Chinese history and an inÀuential one. Ŷ
46
Suggested Reading
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror.
Hardy, Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo.
Sima Qian, The First Emperor.
Swann, Pan Chao.
Questions to Consider
1. What makes history an important source of values and understanding?
If cultures have little interest in history, what other genres might provide
these ideas?
2. Is the presentation of multiple perspectives truer to history itself, or just
to our perceptions of it?
3. Would Ban Zhao be a role model for women today? What sorts of
constraints did she have to deal with, and how did those inÀuence her
advice to her daughters?
47
Dong Zhongshu and Ge Hong—Eclecticism
Lecture 16
Confucianism became the of¿cial ideology of Imperial China during the
Han dynasty, transformed from a movement about culture and ethics
into one including cosmological speculation, thanks to Dong Zhongshu,
prime minister to Emperor Wu. When the Han dynasty fell, many
scholars turned toward Daoism. In this chaotic time between empires,
an alchemist named Ge Hong brought together several strands of NeoDaoism and reconciled them with Confucianism.
The ¿fth Han emperor, Wu, enacted
educational reforms that returned
Confucian thought to the fore on the
advice of Dong Zhongshu, a minister,
philosopher, and one of Sima Qian’s
teachers. Dong’s ideas stressed synthesis
and unity. He argued that heaven,
earth, and humankind were intimately
connected and proposed a macrocosmic/
microcosmic model of the universe—the
human body is a model of the cosmos—
supported by numerology (i.e., your four
limbs correspond to the four seasons, and
so forth).
48
The Teaching Company Collection.
Lecture 16: Dong Zhongshu and Ge Hong—Eclecticism
B
y the founding of the Han dynasty around 200 B.C., Daoism was
the prominent school of Chinese thought. The Naturalists saw the
world as composed of two complementary forces in ever-shifting
balance and saw the Yijing (“classic of change”), a book of divination, as
not only a predictor of the future but a guide for the present. Other thinkers
tried to categorize natural and human phenomena in terms of the ¿ve phases
of existence: ¿re, metal, wood, earth, and water, trying to ¿t phenomena into
categories rather than establish cause and effect.
Emperor Wu’s government
returned China to Confucianism.
Dong’s arguments may seem silly from a modern, scienti¿c perspective, but
his point was that morality is based in the natural world. Heaven provided
a model for human action and (Confucian) human relationships: Emperors
rule ministers, fathers rule sons, and husbands rule wives. His philosophy
offered a rationale for strong, centralized rule and synthesized Daoism,
Legalism, the Naturalism, and Confucianism.
Later thinkers reined in the wilder speculations of the Han Confucians.
Wang Chong offered an early Chinese example of rational skepticism and
suggested that heaven has no consciousness, no will, and no perception;
everything happens spontaneously and naturally. On the other hand, New
Text philosophers virtually dei¿ed Confucius.
Four forms of Neo-Daoism
x Confucian commentaries on the Daodejing and Zhuangzi.
x
A life of hedonism and disregard for social convention.
x
Several organized religious Daoism movements.
x
A search for immortality through yoga-like practices and
alchemy. (Incidentally, this alchemy movement led to the
invention of gunpowder.)
Ge Hong, the most famous of China’s medieval alchemists, fused several
strands of Neo-Daoism and reconciled them with Confucianism. His book,
the Baopuzi (“master who embraces simplicity”) is divided into two parts:
one about the quest for Daoist immortality and the other a Confucian
perspective on government and social issues.
Ge Hong describes a Daoist immortal as someone so spiritually pure that
they can Ày, subsist on air and dew, walk on water, and live forever. To attain
this rari¿ed state, Ge Hong recommends living in harmony with nature and
49
avoiding excess, along with incantations and alchemical elixirs to re-create
within one’s body the longer-term processes of the natural world.
Although he was a Daoist, Ge Hong did
not entirely withdraw from the world.
He was a successful militia commander,
and he alternated between periods of
government service and Daoist reclusion
throughout his life. In fact, he saw
scholars turned to Daoism. Confucian morality as the foundation for
Daoist immortality, saying, “Those who
seek to become immortals must regard
loyalty, ¿liality, peacefulness, obedience, benevolence, and trustworthiness
as fundamental.” Thinkers like Ge Hong showed the Chinese that it is
possible to be both Daoist and Confucian at the same time. Ŷ
Confucianism was
somewhat discredited
when the Han dynasty
fell, and many 3rd-century
Lecture 16: Dong Zhongshu and Ge Hong—Eclecticism
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Graham, Disputers of the Tao.
Kohn, Daoism and Chinese Culture.
Questions to Consider
1. What is the role of synthesis in the development of philosophy?
2. Can ethics be rooted in natural processes? Should they be?
3. What is the connection between political circumstances and intellectual
movements? Must a thinker ¿t his or her times to be successful? What is
the relationship between intellectuals and the state?
50
Xuanzang and Chinese Buddhism
Lecture 17
In some ways, Buddhism’s success in China is surprising, with its
foreign origins and abandonment of political and familial obligations.
Its rise can be attributed to its arrival during a period of turmoil,
its parallels with Daoism, and Xuanzang’s program to translate
Buddhist texts. Four Mahayana schools dominated Chinese Buddhism,
including Chan, or Zen. By the 9th century, Confucianism had shifted
to accommodate Buddhist insights, and Buddhism declined among the
elite but remained popular among common people.
I
ntroduced in the 1st century A.D. by foreign merchants, Buddhism
became popular in the tumultuous period after the fall of the Han
dynasty. Although it got off to a slow start, by the mid-6th century, there
were some 2 million Buddhists in China and 30,000 monasteries. The ¿rst
bridges for Buddhism in China were laid by Daoists, who were attracted to
Buddhist cosmology, meditation, and yoga but ignored a lot of differences
between themselves and Buddhists.
The Buddhist conquest of China involved dozens of important ¿gures, but
a great deal of credit can be given to Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk living
under China’s late Sui and early Tang dynasties. Frustrated by the lack of
complete Buddhist texts available in China, he went to India in 629 A.D. and
discovered just how much Buddhist thought the Chinese were missing. After
16 years traveling and studying, he returned to China with 657 texts and,
with the emperor’s patronage, set up one of the most ambitious translation
projects in Chinese history.
Xuanzang’s preferred school of Buddhism, Yogacara, had little appeal
in China. Instead, four schools came to prominence: Tiantai, Huayan
(“Àower garland”), Pure Land, and Chan (Zen). Tintai and Huayan focus
on doctrine and are related to Nagarjuna’s middle way between existence
and nonexistence, as well as a sort of monism that appealed to the Chinese
intellectual tradition of synthesis. These doctrines were also attractive to the
51
Lecture 17: Xuanzang and Chinese Buddhism
Chinese because they are optimistic, like Mencius’s belief that all people can
become sages (or, in this case, can achieve enlightenment).
Pure Land and Chan Buddhism are more focused on practice than doctrine.
Pure Land says the world is hopelessly corrupt and enlightenment in this
life is impossible. Adherents practice bhakti (devotional) yoga and chanting
to ensure rebirth into the Western Paradise, or Pure Land. Although there is
scant evidence, some scholars think Pure Land Buddhism shows Zoroastrian
inÀuence. Chan emphasizes the importance of direct transmission of
knowledge and eschews ritual and scholasticism. In the 7th century, Chan
split into Northern and Southern schools,
which disagreed on the speed of enlightenment.
The Northern took the position that it was The Southern
always gradual; the Southern claimed sudden school was led
enlightenment was possible. The contrast here
by Huineng,
is between Confucian-like self-cultivation and
probably the most
Daoist-like sudden transformation.
important ¿gure in
The Southern school was led by Huineng, probably Chan Buddhism.
the most important ¿gure in Chan Buddhism.
He used unconventional teaching methods, such
as shouting at or striking students and teaching through koans. He taught
that enlightenment is beyond ordinary thought and meditation is the
crucial method.
Buddhism’s prominence among the political and cultural elite faded
throughout the Tang dynasty, although it was inÀuential in the formation of
Neo-Confucian thought. It remained popular among the common people,
however. By that time, it was a truly Chinese faith, with Chinese texts,
Chinese heroes, and even Chinese bodhisattvas: Avalokitesvara, known as
the bodhisattva of compassion in Indian Buddhism, was transformed into the
female Guanyin in the Chinese tradition. The Maitreya Buddha, the future
Buddha, became the laughing, fat Buddha, the antithesis of the notion that
all life is suffering, but perhaps a better ¿t for Chinese culture. Ŷ
52
Suggested Reading
Aldiss, Zen Sourcebook.
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism.
Kasulis, Zen Action, Zen Person.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Wriggins, The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang.
Questions to Consider
1. What made Buddhism attractive in China, despite its obvious
foreign origins?
2. Why did the Buddhist tradition in China fragment into different
schools? What did they have in common, and what were their
underlying differences?
3. What are some of the dif¿culties faced by religions or philosophies as
they cross national and cultural borders?
4. How far would you go to ¿nd the truth?
53
Prince Shotoku, Lady Murasaki, Sei Shonagon
Lecture 18
The earliest Japanese civilization was built on three gifts from the
Chinese: Buddhism, a writing system, and the idea of a uni¿ed empire.
Prince Shotoku, a 7th-century regent and devoted Buddhist, adapted
Confucian principles to create a bureaucracy for the Japanese state.
Lady Murasaki and Sei Shonagon were two of the ¿rst great writers
in the Japanese language—contemporaries (and perhaps rivals) who
produced two very different but nonetheless classic books.
One of the foremost advocates of
Chinese-style political reform was
Prince Shotoku, the nephew and
regent of the Empress Suiko in the
late 6th and early 7th centuries. Shotoku
set up Chinese-style court ranks,
adopted the Chinese calendar, and
sent diplomatic missions to China,
famously (and perhaps accidentally)
insulting the Chinese emperor with
the greeting “From the ruler of the
land where the sun rises to the ruler of
the land where the sun sets.”
Shotoku is credited with composing
the Seventeen-Article Constitution—
54
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-jpd-01141.
Lecture 18: Prince Shotoku, Lady Murasaki, Sei Shonagon
P
eople inhabited the Japanese islands for thousands of years, but it
wasn’t until the 6th century A.D. that they developed what we would
call a civilization, inspired by contact with the Chinese mainland via
Korea. The ruling clans of Japan adopted Chinese models of scholarship,
religion, and governance, but they did
so selectively, ignoring some aspects
of Chinese culture and merging others
with Japanese traditions.
Prince Shotoku advocated Buddhist
and Confucian ideals.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-jpd-00065.
Sei Shonagon’s witty, amusing observations in the Pillow Book exemplify the
aesthetic ideal of okashi.
not a constitution in the democratic sense but a list of governing principles
combining Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Legalism. Its central
principle is harmony, or wa, from which right views will grow. Like a good
Confucian, Shotoku said that rulers should lead by moral example and
believed in clear hierarchies; like a good Daoist, he emphasized harmony
and smooth conÀict resolution. He was also a Buddhist and wrote an
important commentary on the Lotus Sutra. His belief in collective decision
making, consensus, teamwork, and community remain important in Japanese
management practices today.
By the Heian period (794–1186), Chinese culture dominated Japanese
politics and art. At court, male aristocrats were expected to learn Chinese
well enough to compose Chinese-language poetry. Writing in Japanese
was strictly for women. As a result, men wrote mediocre Chinese poetry,
while a few women wrote spectacular Japanese-language literature. Two of
the greatest are known as Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon. (Their real
names are unknown.)
55
Lecture 18: Prince Shotoku, Lady Murasaki, Sei Shonagon
Murasaki Shikibu, commonly called Lady Murasaki, was a young widow
and lady in waiting to Empress Shoshi at the turn of the 11th century. Her
Tale of Genji, probably the ¿rst novel in world history, is a romance between
the ideal gentleman Prince Genji and his true love, Murasaki. Murasaki
belongs to a lower social station; he can only take her as a secondary wife.
But Genji’s other marriages, his dalliances, and his political intrigues take
their toll on Murasaki. She dies young, and Genji is devastated. He comes
to realize his own failings, the unhappiness
he has caused others, and the inevitable
passing of all things—a distinctly Buddhist Men wrote mediocre
message. This novel is still worth reading for Chinese poetry, while
its realistic, nuanced observations of emotion
a few women wrote
and psychology.
spectacular JapaneseSei Shonagon was a contemporary of language literature.
Murasaki and lady in waiting to Empress
Shoshi’s co-wife, Empress Teishi. Her Pillow
Book is a collection of wry observations, complaints, lists, and musings on
court life and culture, often very humorous ones. (Appropriately, a pillow
book is a notebook kept at one’s bedside to capture stray thoughts.) Her
work is a celebration of re¿nement and taste.
Aware and okashi are two of the key terms in Japanese aesthetics. Aware
is “sensitivity to things” or “a capacity to be moved by things.” It is a
primary characteristic of the Tale of Genji. Okashi is something that brings a
smile to one’s face, either in delight or amusement. This is the mood of the
Pillow Book. Although from the same time and place, the books are striking
opposites, but each is a jewel of Japanese culture. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
De Bary et al., eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Morris, The World of the Shining Prince.
Varley, Japanese Culture.
56
Questions to Consider
1. How are cross-cultural borrowing and adaptations signi¿cant in the
development of traditions?
2. Can literary works be judged by universal principles, or must they
be assessed by the standards of their own culture? What is the role of
beauty in an intellectual tradition?
3. How do later generations appropriate and reinterpret earlier thinkers and
ideas for their own needs?
57
Saicho to Nichiren—Japanese Buddhism
Lecture 19
Japanese Buddhists took the faith in new directions. Monks traveled
to China and brought back Tiantai and Shingon Buddhism, as well as
Pure Land, which became more popular in the 10th century as the clan
warfare spread throughout Japan. Nichiren Buddhism, named for its
founder, was the ¿rst native Japanese school of Buddhism. Interestingly,
developments in Japanese Buddhism seem to independently parallel
religious history in the West.
B
© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
Lecture 19: Saicho to Nichiren—Japanese Buddhism
uddhism ¿rst entered Japan from Korea in the 6th century and very
quickly received imperial patronage. But by the 7th century, the
Japanese realized how complex and confusing Buddhism was.
Rather than travel all the way to India, Japanese monks visited China for
mentorship and to obtain new texts.
The Tendai temple on Mount Hiei was the heart of medieval Japanese Buddhism.
Many of the period’s most signi¿cant philosophers studied there.
58
Saicho was a monk who founded a temple at Mount Hiei, northeast of
Kyoto, in 788. He traveled to China in 804 and brought back Tiantai (Tendai)
Buddhism, which proclaims three levels of truth (emptiness, temporary
existence, and the middle way) and holds the Lotus Sutra as its highest
scripture. Saicho established a 12-year training course at Mount Hiei, which
fostered several of the most important ¿gures in Japanese Buddhism.
Kukai was a contemporary and traveling companion of Saicho. He studied
Sanskrit and brought back Shingon (True Word) Buddhism. Shingon
emphasized mantras, mandalas, and mudras, along with direct transmission
of knowledge from master to disciple. Kukai was famous for his scholarship,
artistic talents, and calligraphy. He invented the kana syllabary, but he felt
Buddhist teachings de¿ed expression in writing; they could, however, be
revealed through painting.
In the 10th century, political stability crumbled and clan warfare increased,
accompanied by a string of natural disasters. As a result, Pure Land
Buddhism, with its emphasis on rebirth into paradise, grew in popularity.
A Pure Land monk named Kuya traveled throughout Japan, repairing
infrastructure, cremating abandoned corpses, and reciting the name of
Amida Buddha, Pure Land’s savior ¿gure, spreading the school by setting an
example. The teachings of Honen, a 12th-century
monk trained at Mount Hiei, said that reciting
the Nembutsu (“namu Amida Butsu”) invoking The monk Nichiren
founded the ¿rst
Amida is the only path to salvation.
native Japanese
Shinran, another Mount Hiei monk who later
school of Buddhism.
became Honen’s follower, believed that all
people, himself included, were inherently,
irrevocably sinful but that chanting the Nembutsu just once with true faith
was enough to ensure salvation. Shinran’s disciples founded the True
Pure Land sect, Jodo Shinshu. Its relationship to other Pure Land sects is
interestingly similar to Lutheranism’s relationship to Catholicism, both in
doctrine and in its clerical lifestyle, which allows priests to marry.
In the 13th century, the monk Nichiren founded the ¿rst native Japanese
school of Buddhism. Educated at Mount Hiei, he developed an apocalyptic
59
Lecture 19: Saicho to Nichiren—Japanese Buddhism
Corel Stock Photo Library.
worldview: Japan must repent or be
destroyed. Other forms of Buddhism
were not just misguided but false
and evil. He replaced faith in Amida
with faith in the Lotus Sutra; the
Nembutsu became “namu myoho
rengekyo”—“Praise to the Lotus
Sutra of the wonderful law.” He was
an ardent nationalist who believed
that Japan had a mission to spread
the truth to the world, but he was also
highly critical of the contemporary
government.
He
was
exiled,
pardoned, arrested, and sentenced
to death, then pardoned again when
his prediction of a Mongol invasion
came true. Nichiren Buddhism lives
on in one of the most prominent
Buddhist movements in Japan today,
the Soka Gakkai.
Shinran, a Mount Hiei monk, was the
founder of Pure Land Buddhism.
We can draw several parallels between the development of Buddhism in
Japan and the development of Christianity in Europe: the faith-versus-works
debate, the conÀuence of religion and the ¿ne arts, apocalyptic theology, and
nationalist- and missionary-minded movements. Such parallels may indicate
deep, nearly universal human longings, whether one wants to call them
social, psychological, or spiritual. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Aldiss, Zen Sourcebook.
De Bary et al., eds, Sources of Japanese Tradition.
Earhart, Japanese Religion.
Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism.
Juniper, Wabi Sabi.
60
Kasulis, Zen Action, Zen Person.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Varley, Japanese Culture.
Questions to Consider
1. Can art play a role in spirituality? Or is it more likely to be a distraction
from religious concerns?
2. How might nationalism become connected to religion?
3. Why might religions with no historical connection nevertheless develop
along parallel lines, with regard to the tension between faith and works,
for example?
61
Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva—Hindu Vedanta
Lecture 20
T
he term “Hindu” does not describe a single Indian religion; rather, it
is a catch-all term for the tremendous variety of beliefs and practices
of the Indian subcontinent. This includes the so-called six orthodox
Hindu schools, of which Vedanta is the most important.
© Hemera/Thinkstock.
Lecture 20: Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva—Hindu Vedanta
The Vedanta school is the most important and inÀuential of the six
orthodox schools of India. Shankara, Ramanuja, and Madhva were
three Vedanta thinkers with very different, sophisticated conceptions
of the relationship between Atman and Brahman. Shankara was the
champion of monism, Ramanuja of quali¿ed nondualism, and Madhva
of dualism and fully Àedged theism. All three thinkers are considered
not just philosophers but saints, and their ideas have been inÀuential
into the present day.
Although all of the schools of Hinduism revere the same texts, such as the
Bhagavad Gita, they differ in interpretation, sometimes dramatically.
62
Shankara (788–822) was probably the most famous of all Vedanta
philosophers. He established four monasteries and wrote commentaries on
the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the
Brahma Sutra. Shankara’s philosophies are the
foundation of most Indians’ understanding of It is only through the
the Upanishads.
lower truth that one
reaches the higher.
Shankara summarized his philosophy in three
points: Only Brahman is real, the world is an
illusion, and the self is not different from Brahman. The ultimate reality is
a god without qualities—pure existence, beyond names and forms. Jnanya
yoga (“the way of knowledge”) is the key to correct understanding, but
there are limits to what the mind can accomplish because it operates in the
conventional world. Still, it is only through the lower truth that one reaches
the higher.
Ramanuja (1017?–1137?) wrote commentaries on the same books as
Shankara but came to different conclusions. He thought Shankara’s Brahman
was too remote and abstract. Ramanuja af¿rms the reality of individual
selves and the physical world: Atman and Brahman are the same substance,
but with different qualities. Change and multiplicity happen, but within
Brahman. The world is not an illusion. Souls are distinct from and beneath
God, although not entirely independent. Moksha is reaching a state where
one can simply bask in God’s love.
Madhva (1197–1276) also wrote commentaries on the same texts as
Shankara and Ramanjuna. He founded dualistic Vedanta, which separates
the cosmos into Brahman on the one hand and matter and individual souls on
the other—although matter and souls are also different from one another. He
said God is actually separate from creation; to think that everything is part of
God is to diminish his holiness. Matter and souls exist, but their continuing
existence depends on God’s will.
Madhva’s school focuses on difference rather than unity. Souls have
different natures: Some are free; others are capable of liberation; others
will suffer eternally in samsara—a new idea in Hinduism. Liberation comes
from scripture study and detachment, which lead to devotion, which leads to
63
God lifting the veil of ignorance and revealing himself to those who make
themselves worthy. Salvation is possible for anyone of any caste, but not for
everyone. Madhva’s ideas also lend themselves to theism. His is a personal
god with clear characteristics.
All three of these thinkers remain inÀuential in Hinduism today, but
Shankara, in many ways, seems to have been responding to the challenge
of Buddhism. His contemporaries accused him of being a crypto-Buddhist,
and his monasteries were based on Buddhist models. It appears that
Shankara was undercutting the appeal of Buddhism by borrowing some of
its most successful ideas, and then reading them back into the classic texts
of Hinduism. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Lecture 20: Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhva—Hindu Vedanta
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Puligandla, Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy.
Radhakrishnan and Moore, eds. A Source Book in Indian Philosophy.
Questions to Consider
1. Does a religious perspective always require something permanent and
unchanging to be the basis for reality?
2. What are the differences between nondualism, quali¿ed nondualism,
and dualism? Why do they matter to Hindus?
3. In what ways was medieval Hinduism in dialogue with Buddhism?
Are there patterns in how different religions learn from and shape
each other?
64
Al-Biruni—Islam in India
Lecture 21
During the 12th century, Muslims conquered most of northern India;
by the 16th century, the Muslim Mughal emperors controlled nearly all
of the subcontinent. The Muslim and Hindu faiths have many points of
conÀict, causing a great deal of interpersonal strife in this era, which is
why Al-Biruni’s work Researches on India is so astonishing. A Persian
Muslim polymath, he set out to understand Indian culture on its own
terms and produced a magni¿cent encyclopedia of medieval Indian life.
I
slam is a faith of strict monotheism and rejection of idolatry. Founded
by the prophet Muhammad in A.D. 610, Islam had spread throughout the
Arabian Peninsula by the 630s. After Muhammad’s death, four orthodox
caliphs led Islam for 30 years and conquered Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Iraq,
and Persia (modern-day Iran). Next, the Umayyad clan took power and
established their capital at Damascus. They expanded Islam to North Africa,
Spain, and southwestern Pakistan.
As Islam expanded, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Hindus were not
forced to convert; they were allowed to worship in their own manner if
they paid a small tax. Hinduism’s polytheism, idol-centered worship, caste
system, and so forth were quite contrary to Muslim belief, yet the cultures
lived in relative harmony until the 11th century, when the Turkish king
Mahmud launched 17 annual military campaigns into India. Mahmud wasn’t
interested in holding territory; he raided for plunder.
Al-Biruni (973–1048) was already a respected scholar when Mahmud
conquered his homeland in modern Uzbekistan and brought him to court as a
prisoner and pet scholar. Al-Biruni had already been exposed to some Indian
science and math via translated texts and suspected there was much more
to be learned, so he was eager to investigate Indian culture when Mahmud
brought him along on raids.
From Al-Biruni’s surviving 22 books, we know he studied astronomy,
astrology, chronology, geography, mapping theory, mathematics, mechanics,
65
Lecture 21: Al-Biruni—Islam in India
medicine, pharmacology, mineralogy, history, philosophy, and literature.
He even performed modern-style scienti¿c experiments based on proper
measurement and observation, as well
as analysis of others’ experiments.
We know [Al-Biruni]
In 1030, Al-Biruni wrote Researches studied astronomy,
on India, based on his own experiences, astrology, chronology,
conversations with Indian scholars,
geography, mapping theory,
and Indian texts. He focuses his keen
mind on Indian culture, religion, mathematics, mechanics,
science, and history, and produces a medicine, pharmacology,
virtual encyclopedia of medieval India. mineralogy, history,
Throughout, he is alert to comparisons philosophy, and literature.
from Persian and Greek culture, even
Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism.
What is most astonishing, however, is his attitude: He tries to understand
Indian culture on its own terms and to present Hindu ideas fairly, without
defending or refuting them. He learned Sanskrit—without a dictionary—to
translate key Hindu texts, allowing the Indian sages to speak for themselves
in his work. Al-Biruni sees Hinduism as monotheistic: one god, eternal
and beyond all comparisons, which is certainly a fair description of some
schools’ beliefs.
When we think of Islam today, it is easy to focus on the most negative
examples. But Al-Biruni was a devout Muslim as well as a thoughtful student
of religion and culture and one of the world’s great scientists. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Al-Biruni, Alberuni’s India.
Questions to Consider
1. How did Islam spread through India, a region very different from the
lands of Islam’s origins?
66
2. Are science and religion opposed to each other? How is the Muslim
version of this story different from or similar to the Christian experience?
3. Is it unusual for a single person to exhibit brilliance in several different
intellectual areas? Why or why not?
67
Nanak and Sirhindi—Sikhism and Su¿sm
Lecture 22
The Muslim Delhi Sultanate controlled most of northern India by
the 12th century, and Muslims and Hindus settled into an uneasy
coexistence. Nanak, the great 15th-century poet, suggested a third way
to God, Sikhism—neither Hindu nor Muslim, though it had points
in common with both. A century later, the Muslim Emperor Akbar
founded a new religion to integrate Hinduism and Islam. The Su¿
master Sirhindi challenged this mixing.
G
Lecture 22: Nanak and Sirhindi—Sikhism and Su¿sm
uru Nanak (1469–1530) was a Punjabi Hindu who as a young adult
worked for his local Muslim ruler. Around the age of 30, he had a
profound religious experience and declared, “I shall follow God’s
path. God is neither Hindu nor Muslim.” He then left his family to become a
wandering singer and preacher.
Nanak preached the oneness of God and the equality of all humanity, similar
to Islam, but denied the authority of Muhammad and the Qur’an. He also
taught doctrines similar to samsara and moksha but rejected idols, avatars,
the Vedas, and the caste system. He preached a strict morality but not
asceticism; practicing meditation, honesty, and generosity would overcome
ego, greed, and attachment. Poetry can also help one draw closer to God.
Unfortunately, a faith that was neither Hindu nor Muslim tended to attract
persecution from both. After the martyrdom of the ¿fth Sikh guru in 1606,
the Sikhs organized themselves into a strict, militarized community. There
are about 26 million Sikhs in the world today.
The Mughal emperor Akbar the Great (1542–1605) was a remarkable
example of premodern religious tolerance. He married a Hindu princess,
abolished the traditional tax on non-Muslims, and commissioned Persian
translations of texts like the Vedas and the Bahgavad Gita. He built a “house
of worship” where scholars of many faiths were invited to debate spiritual
matters and eventually turned from Sunni Islam toward Su¿sm.
68
In brief, Su¿sm began as a rejection of the politicization of Islam, speci¿cally
of the worldliness of the 8th-century Umayyad rulers. Su¿s practice
asceticism and spiritual exercises to rid themselves of attachments and
experience direct, ecstatic union with God.
Al-Bistami, a Persian Su¿ of the 9th century,
for example, spoke of the “annihilation of Toward the end of
the self in God.” This form of Islam had his life, Akbar tried to
tremendous appeal to ordinary Indians.
start a new religion
Toward the end of his life, Akbar tried to combining Islamic
start a new religion that combined Islamic monotheism with
monotheism with elements of Hinduism, elements of Hinduism,
Zoroastrianism, Jainism, and Christianity— Zoroastrianism, Jainism,
with himself as a divine ruler. Sirhindi
(1564–1624), a Su¿ master at Akbar’s and Christianity—with
court, challenged the new religion and was himself as a divine ruler.
concerned about the growing acceptance
of “the unity of being,” a form of monism,
by Indian Muslims, which he believed denied the critical separation of
creator and creation. The path he advocated, called Naqshbandi, featured the
calm and focused recitation of the names of God under the guidance of a
Su¿ master.
Today, Sikhism is still a vibrant religion, small but Àourishing worldwide.
Sirhindi’s attempts to keep Muslim and Hindu communities distinct was very
inÀuential in the creation of Pakistan. But the mixing of Muslim traditions
with other faiths has quietly continued, particularly the further one gets
from Mecca. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Embree, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
McLeod, The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society.
69
Questions to Consider
1. What is the role of poetry in bringing people closer to God?
2. Why do scholars now tend to view Sikhism as a third religious path,
rather than simply an offshoot of either Islam or Hinduism?
3. Which aspects of Su¿sm resonated with Hinduism or traditional Indian
society? In what ways did some fear that the cultural accommodation
had gone too far?
4. Is union with God a desirable goal? Is it even possible? And in
Lecture 22: Nanak and Sirhindi—Sikhism and Su¿sm
what sense?
70
Han Yu to Zhu Xi—Neo-Confucianism
Lecture 23
Neo-Confucianism, like its ancestor Confucianism, is less concerned
with metaphysical matters than with issues of ethics and culture.
Arising in the 9th century A.D. in the wake of the devastating An Lushan
Rebellion, it became the dominant philosophy in China for nearly 700
years. Han Yu was a sort of founding father to the Neo-Confucian
movement, but Zhu Xi synthesized and systematized the tradition.
B
uddhism and religious Daoism became popular in China after the fall
of the Han dynasty in the 3rd century and were dominant by the rise
of the Tang dynasty in the 7th century. In this era, China expanded
westward and controlled the Silk Road all the way to Samarkand, in modern
Uzbekistan, and the Tang capital at Xi’an was a center of learning and
philosophy from all over Asia.
Han Yu (768–824), born
shortly after the An
Lushan Rebellion, was a
government of¿cial and
extraordinary writer who
tried to re-create the simple
and direct literary style of
ancient Chinese. In 805,
he wrote “Essentials of the
© 2011 JupiterImages Corporation.
The An Lushan Rebellion
(755–763) shattered Tang
rule, and Chinese culture
turned
insular.
Many
scholars looked to the
Confucian past as a model
for a better way of life, just
as Confucius had looked to
his ancestors for inspiration.
Zhu Xi’s philosophies gave Neo-Confucianism
its Chinese name, lixue—the study of li.
71
Moral Way” (or “An Inquiry on the Dao”), an essay that suggested Chinese
civilization should be de¿ned by Confucianism.
Lecture 23: Han Yu to Zhu Xi—Neo-Confucianism
Han Yu criticized both Daoism and Buddhism: The world is real; there are
absolute standards of right and wrong; and people have responsibilities to
family, nation, and society. The real dao is the way of the ancient sage-kings.
Buddhism was a superstitious religion that brought chaos to Chinese culture.
Han Yu was exiled for his beliefs.
The Tang dynasty fell in 907, followed by 50 years of chaos. Finally, under
the Song dynasty (960–1279), China became peaceful and prosperous
again thanks to urban and commercial expansion; better seeds and
agricultural methods; and innovations in ship building, tea processing,
porcelain manufacture, and iron working. Scholarship Àourished, and in
the 11th century, scholars such as Zhou Dunyi, Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, and
Cheng I sought to give Confucian ethics a
metaphysical foundation from Daoism and
Buddhism. Meanwhile, a whole string of [After] the An Lushan
talented statesmen put Confucianism into Rebellion, many
practice and vigorously debated how best
scholars looked to the
to help the common people and strengthen
Confucian past as a
the nation.
model for a better way
Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was a government of life.
of¿cial, teacher, and writer. Synthesizing the
work of his predecessors, he taught that li
is the ultimate reality, the pattern of the universe, and qi is the substance
that embodies it. Zhu Xi wants to agree with Mencius that human nature is
good, so he explains that li is always good and pure, but qi can be impure
and corrupt, and qi is shaped by experience and interaction. This idea was
so inÀuential that the Chinese name for what we call Neo-Confucianism is
lixue—the study of li.
Zhu Xi not only synthesized the cosmological ideas of li, qi, and the
great ultimate; he also brought the key Confucian ideals of sincerity and
benevolence into the mix. Ren is not only a human virtue but a cosmic,
universal force. Ultimately, Zhu Xi combined Confucius’ ideas, Mencius’
72
ideas, 11th-century Neo-Confucian thought, and a bit of Daoism and
Buddhism into a rational, consistent, satisfying whole. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
Chung, The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi T’oegye and Yi Yulgok.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Questions to Consider
1. Why did Chinese thinkers look back 1,700 years to Confucius for
answers to contemporary problems? How often do people reinterpret the
past in response to new challenges?
2. In what ways was Neo-Confucianism like and unlike traditional
religions? What desires and needs did it meet?
3. Why did the Neo-Confucians adopt Mencius rather than Xunzi as their
second great sage after Confucius?
73
Wang Yangming—The Study of Heart-Mind
Lecture 24
Zhu Xi was a controversial thinker in his own day, but his ideas
were the new orthodoxy a century later, when the civil service exams
were updated to focus on his Four Books of Confucianism and his
commentaries on them. But wherever there is orthodoxy, there will be
people who question it. Wang Yangming found Zhu Xi’s emphasis on the
investigation of things unsatisfying and declared that true knowledge
was innate and could best be recovered though introspection.
Lecture 24: Wang Yangming—The Study of Heart-Mind
Z
hu Xi’s practical accomplishments as a government minister
involved the improvement of agriculture and famine relief, as well as
administration of justice. But his lasting legacy is in education. Not
only did he condense and update the ancient Confucian text Record of Ritual
into Family Rituals for the needs of his contemporaries, he also advocated
replacing the Five Confucian Classics with what he called the Four Books:
the Analects, Mencius, the Doctrine of the Mean, and the Great Learning.
Zhu Xi’s commentaries on the Four Books indicate that the crux of all
ethics is “the investigation of things”—not a form of scienti¿c analysis but
a deep investigation of history and morality.
He also recommended periods of “quiet
sitting,” which was not a Buddhist attempt The exams … allowed
to empty the mind but focus on a single fact social mobility to
or situation.
anyone who had access
Zhu Xi’s canon formed the basis of the to the texts and the
Chinese civil service exams from 1313 drive to master them.
until 1905. (This was thanks in part to the
fall of the Song dynasty to the Mongol Yuan
dynasty in 1279 and the Yuan emperors’ need to create a new bureaucracy.)
The exams were designed to ensure that the nation’s bureaucrats were the
most intelligent, most diligent, most educated men in the country, as well
as the most moral and public-minded. They also allowed social mobility to
anyone who had access to the texts and the drive to master them.
74
Zhu Xi had argued that there was a
difference between li (principle) and
one’s mind (perfect li combined with
imperfect qi, or material force), but
Wang Yangming said principle and
heart-mind were actually the same Wang Yangming believed that true
thing. Wang Yangming’s version of knowledge comes from within.
Neo-Confucianism became known as
xinxue (the study of heart-mind), as opposed to Zhu Xi’s lixue (the study of
li). To this he added Mencius’s idea that human nature is ultimately good and
that knowledge and action are inseparable. Wang Yangming did not consider
his ideas complete until he had realized them in action.
It is worth noting that Wang Yangming is one of the most personally
admirable of all the great minds of this course. He was a great scholar and
thinker but also a dedicated, capable of¿cial who worked hard to make life
better for the common people, even risking his life to protect the weak and
criticize the powerful.
Because Chinese culture has such a deep respect for history, the slogan
“brand-new” is not really a selling point. Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, and the
other Neo-Confucians said they were recovering the lost, original meaning
75
The Teaching Company Collection.
Wang Yangming (1472–1529), a scholar-of¿cial of the Ming Dynasty (1368–
1644), studied Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism as well as Buddhism, Daoism,
and military affairs. He passed Zhu
Xi’s civil service exams and became
a provincial governor and a military
commander. Despite his grounding
in Neo-Confucianism, he found
Zhu Xi’s emphasis on knowledge
and contemplation dissatisfying and
ultimately came to the conclusion
that true knowledge is innate. It
can be recovered through study and
overcoming desire, but it can be more
directly accessed though introspection.
of Confucius and Mencius, but what they really did was devise a new,
holistic worldview that provides meaning for individuals, explains the nature
of the world, and offers an ideology that is suited for government service.
Their achievement is even relevant to the Western world, in that it offers the
potential for reason- and science-based ethics independent of metaphysics as
well as some challenging ideas about human nature. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
Chung, The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi T’oegye and Yi Yulgok.
De Bary and Bloom, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Questions to Consider
Lecture 24: Wang Yangming—The Study of Heart-Mind
1. What impact did the metaphysical theories of li and qi have on ethics,
education, and government?
2. Are exams a good way to ¿ll government positions? If you answered
“yes,” what subjects do you think those exams should cover?
3. Is there such a thing as innate knowledge? Do knowledge and action
always have to go together?
4. How would our assumptions about the world be different if we, like the
Chinese, had a single word that meant both “heart” and “mind”?
76
Dogen and Hakuin—Zen Buddhism
Lecture 25
The most famous form of Japanese Buddhism, Zen, came into
prominence in the later medieval period. Zen Buddhism says that
meditation, under the guidance of an enlightened master, is the only
practice that leads to liberation. Everything else is a distraction.
Enlightenment results from overcoming ordinary thinking and the
perception of subject/object. The two major schools of Zen, Soto and
Rinzai, are associated with farmers and warriors, respectively.
M
© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
ost forms of Buddhism include meditation among their practices,
along with scripture study, chanting, reciting the Nembutsu,
making vows, and so forth. Zen Buddhism relies on meditation
exclusively. The path to enlightenment is transmitted directly from mentor to
student, without dependence on language.
Meditation is a part of most Buddhist and Hindu traditions, but it is the central
practice of Zen Buddhism.
77
Feng Youlan, a 20th-century Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher, says that
Zen is based on ¿ve precepts: The highest truth is inexpressible; spiritual
cultivation cannot be cultivated; in the last resort, nothing is gained; there is
nothing much in the Buddhist teaching; and in carrying water and chopping
wood, therein lies the wonderful Dao.
Lecture 25: Dogen and Hakuin—Zen Buddhism
There are two types of Japanese Zen: Rinzai, related to the Southern school
of sudden enlightenment; and Soto, related to the Northern school of
gradual enlightenment.
Dogen (1200–1253) brought the more rigorous Soto Zen from China
to Japan. It teaches that the practice of zazen (sitting meditation) and the
experience of enlightenment (satori) are one and the same. Satori is not a
matter of gaining something; it’s a letting go of the self to let the Buddha
nature unfold. Dogen’s Shobogenzo (“Essence of the Buddha’s True
Dharma,” or “True Dharma Eye
Treasury”) was the ¿rst major Buddhist
text to be composed in Japanese. His Koans … are meant to jolt
ideas have been compared with those a person out of rational or
of Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Sartre.
logical thinking habits so he
Rinzai was brought to Japan from or she can perceive things
China in 1191 by Eisai, a Tendai monk directly, beyond language.
who had visited China in search of
“true” Buddhism. (Eisai also brought
tea to Japan.) Rinzai focused on the achievement of enlightenment as a
sudden breakthrough, an event you could push toward and achieve. Koans—
unsolvable riddles—are central to that effort. They are meant to jolt a
person out of rational or logical thinking habits so he or she can perceive
things directly, beyond language. The most famous Zen koan in the West is
probably “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”
Hakuin (1686–1769) was probably the most signi¿cant of the Rinzai
Zen masters. In a period of decline, Hakuin revitalized the tradition by
systematizing and categorizing hundreds of koans and establishing a clear,
rigorous training program in meditation and koan study. All modern Rinzai
Zen masters trace their spiritual lineage through Hakuin.
78
Hakuin had studied under a number of Zen masters, starting at age 15; he did
not achieve enlightenment until age 41. His spiritual journey was marked by
extremes: He spent four years in intense and devoted meditation on the koan
of the dog and the Buddha nature; he experienced a hint of enlightenment
when an old woman was beating him with a broom and another when he
heard the snow falling. His experience was not gradual so much as a series
of major and minor awakenings. Hakuin said that three things are necessary
for the study of Zen: a great root of faith, a great ball of doubt, and great
determination. Anyone who lacks one of these is like a three-legged kettle
with one leg broken.
Today, the Japanese sometimes distinguish the Soto and Rinzai schools as
“farmer Zen” and “warrior Zen.” Dogen’s sitting meditation seems calm,
almost passive, versus Hakuin’s take-charge process. Indeed Rinzai Zen
has long been associated with the samurai, who admired the singleness of
purpose, ¿rmness of will, and indifference to life and death that Zen taught. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Aldiss, Zen Sourcebook.
Dogen, Moon in a Dewdrop.
Earhart, Japanese Religion.
Hakuin, Wild Ivy.
Juniper, Wabi Sabi.
Kasulis, Zen Action, Zen Person.
Keene, Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion.
Varley, Japanese Culture.
Questions to Consider
1. What makes Zen different from other forms of Buddhism? Why has this
particular school been more accepted in the West?
79
2. How is a koan like a riddle? How is it not exactly like a riddle? What is
the purpose of koans?
3. What are the different appeals of “warrior Zen” and “farmer Zen”? What
Lecture 25: Dogen and Hakuin—Zen Buddhism
are the main obstacles to enlightenment, according to Zen thinkers?
80
Zeami and Sen no Rikyu—Japanese Aesthetics
Lecture 26
Yoshimasa, the eighth Shogun of the Ashikaga Shogunate, was an
incompetent ruler but had an astonishing artistic sensibility, and his
15th-century court fostered some of the greatest artists in Japanese
history. Known as the Higeshiyama period, this high point of
Japanese medieval culture adapted Confucianism, Daoism, and
Buddhism for aesthetic purposes and continues to inÀuence Japanese
aesthetics today.
T
he court of Lorenzo de’ Medici in late 15th-century Florence offers
an interesting point of comparison to its Japanese contemporary, the
court of Shogun Yoshimasa. Lorenzo gathered around him a number
of outstanding artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli,
and Michelangelo Buonarroti, who produced extraordinary works of art,
sculpture, literature, and architecture. They were the core of Europe’s High
Renaissance. Meanwhile, Yoshimasa did much the same thing at the other
end of the Eurasian continent.
During Japan’s medieval era, roughly the 12th to the 16th century, the
emperor ruled in name only while the shoguns operated a feudalized military
government. Consequently, Japan suffered almost constant internal warfare
throughout the period. The Ashikaga clan held the shogunate from 1333 to
1573. Ashikaga Yoshimasa was shogun from 1449 to 1473.
Yoshimasa was more interested in art than war and built the Temple of the
Silver Pavilion east of Kyoto as a sort of colony for the greatest artisans of
the day. Here some of Japan’s most characteristic art forms developed: Noh
drama, Àower arranging, linked-verse poetry, monochrome ink painting,
and the tea ceremony. Zen Buddhism had a powerful inÀuence on the
development of all these traditions, as well as Japanese aesthetics as a whole.
Noh drama reached its maturity with Zeami (c. 1363–1443), an actor,
playwright, and critic. Imperial patronage enabled Zeami to re¿ne his craft
and write 30 or 40 of the most famous Noh plays. Noh is an unusual dramatic
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Image Copyright Laitr Keiows, 2011. Used under license from Shutterstock.com.
Lecture 26: Zeami and Sen no Rikyu—Japanese Aesthetics
Ashikaga Yoshimasa built the Temple of the Silver Pavilion as a haven and
workshop for the greatest artists of 15th-century Japan.
form, sometimes compared to Greek drama in its use of a chorus, stylized
(versus realistic) performances, and use of masks. Zeami said yugen, “subtle
mystery,” was at the core of Noh drama. This is similar to the aesthetic of
monochrome Japanese ink paitings and haiku’s minimalism and related to
the idea of aware seen in the Tale of Genji.
The tea ceremony as an art form reached its height about a century later, with
Sen no Rikyu, Japan’s greatest tea master. Sen no Rikyu emphasized two
aesthetic ideals: sabi—associated
with
age,
wear,
chilliness,
obscurity—and wabi—a feeling of Yugen, “subtle mystery,” …
solitude and tranquility fostered by [is] related to the idea of aware
rustic, simple, serene surroundings. seen in the Tale of Genji.
Wabi-sabi is the opposite of slick
and polished. So rather than using
shiny, new silver tea sets, Sen no Rikyu and his disciples favored plain,
sometimes misshapen ceramic teacups. The preparation of the tea was slow,
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every movement deliberate and ritualized, virtually without words, so that
host and guest alike could fully concentrate on and savor each moment.
Both Noh drama and the tea ceremony combine Confucian ritual, restraint,
and harmony with Buddhist ideals of contemplation, emptiness, and a
profound truth beyond words. Similarly, ink drawings differ from Western oil
paintings in that they cannot be retouched; when the brush leaves the paper,
the line is ¿nished. Landscape gardening, Àower arranging, calligraphy, even
martial arts, in their impermanence, can all be paths toward meditation and
perceiving ultimate reality.
Although Yoshimasa became a Zen monk after twelve years in the Silver
Pavilion, and the pavilion itself is now a Zen temple, living a re¿ned, tasteful
life in this world was more important to him and his friends than escaping
the bonds of samsara. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
De Bary et al., Sources of Japanese Tradition.
Juniper, Wabi Sabi.
Keene, Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Varley, Japanese Culture.
Questions to Consider
1. How is Noh drama different from Western theater? What emotions does
it try to evoke in its audience?
2. What do calligraphy, rock gardens, haiku, monochrome ink paintings,
and the tea ceremony all have in common?
3. How might the aesthetic principles of wabi-sabi be applied in the
contemporary world?
83
Wonhyo to King Sejong—Korean Philosophy
Lecture 27
Lecture 27: Wonhyo to King Sejong—Korean Philosophy
Korea has been inÀuenced by Japan and China but has its own
vibrant culture that inÀuenced those nations in turn. Wonhyo, one
of Korea’s greatest Buddhist scholars, wrote commentaries that
inÀuenced China’s Fazang and Huayan schools. King Sejong was an
ideal Confucian ruler whose most important contribution to Korean
culture was promotion of Hangul, one of the most scienti¿c, rational
writing systems ever devised. All the great thinkers of this lecture share
a common cultural preference for harmonizing contradictions and
universalizing applications.
C
hina conquered Korea during the early Han dynasty and held it until
A.D. 313. After this, Korea remained independent until the Japanese
invasion in the early 20th century. Buddhism came to Korea during
th
the 4 century A.D., with Madhyamaka, Yogacara, Tiantai, Pure Land,
and Zen the most popular schools. In the 7th century, the Silla kingdom
conquered the peninsula and created a centralized government based on a
Confucian model.
Wonhyo (617–686) was one of the most inÀuential Buddhists in Korean
history. He found the profusion of Buddhist texts and teachers confusing,
so he tried to visit China to get the truth. During his second attempt, he had
an epiphany regarding the nature of human perceptions: Responses such
as delight and disgust are not inherent in the objects that supposedly evoke
them but depend on our state of mind.
Wonhyo returned to Korea to write and preach his insight: Everything
depends on perspective. His writings were taken to China, and one may have
reached India. But he was not just a scholar; he was also a popularizer of
Buddhism who sometimes stepped over the bounds of acceptable behavior,
singing, dancing, and preaching in taverns and brothels.
Buddhism was Korea’s dominant religion under the Koryo dynasty (918–
1392), but the doctrinal school (combining Huayan and Tiantai) and the
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meditation school (Seon, or Zen) disputed the “true” Buddhism. Chinul
(1158–1210), a Zen monk, tried to bridge that divide. First, he harmonized
Northern and Southern (gradual versus sudden) schools of Zen by proposing
that enlightenment began with a sudden realization of one’s potential that
must be followed by an effort to achieve full awakening. Chinul himself
had three awakenings. Through his writings and his reform of Buddhist
monasticism in Korea, Chinul became a major force in revitalizing the faith.
The Choson, or Yi, dynasty governed Korea from 1392 until 1910 with
a Neo-Confucian philosophy. Sejong the Great (r. 1418–1450) was the
Choson’s fourth king, who achieved fame as an innovative military planner,
a sponsor of new agricultural techniques and calendar reform, and a patron
of inventors. He also devised the ¿rst system of
musical notation in East Asia and promoted the
Hangul script still used today.
From a linguistic
perspective,
From a linguistic perspective, Hangul is a triumph,
Hangul is a
but it is also breakthrough in social values: The
triumph, but it is
idea of universal literacy was a radical notion in
also breakthrough Sejong’s time; Hangul was designed to be simpler
than Chinese and thus available to those who could
in social values.
not devote a whole lifetime to study. The shapes
of the Hangul alphabet were created from scratch,
but with connections to Chinese philosophy. The vowel signs comprise
horizontal lines that represent earth (yin), dots that represent heaven (yang),
and vertical lines that represent humans, who walk upright between the two.
In a similar way, the Korean Àag (now South Korean) borrows symbols from
Chinese thought, combined and harmonized in a Korean fashion. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Aldiss, Zen Sourcebook.
Chung, The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi T’oegye and Yi Yulgok.
Lee, Sourcebook of Korean Civilization.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
85
Questions to Consider
1. Korean philosophy is often characterized by harmonization and
syncretism. In which other cultures have we also seen these phenomena?
2. What is the relationship between philosophy and religion? Why does
Buddhism seem to lend itself to both?
3. Why was Neo-Confucianism adopted by other, non-Chinese cultures in
East Asia?
Lecture 27: Wonhyo to King Sejong—Korean Philosophy
4. How are virtues and emotions connected?
86
Padmasambhava to Tsongkhapa—Tibetan Ideas
Lecture 28
Tibetan Buddhism is its own unique tradition with many great thinkers.
Padmasambhava, among the faith’s founders, taught that the key to
liberation is controlling one’s mind by a step-by-step process. Atisha
later revitalized the tradition by introducing ideas from Nagarjuna.
Tsongkhapa wrote philosophical commentaries and practical manuals
for meditation and spiritual progress; the ¿rst Dalai Lama was one of
his students.
T
here are three common misconceptions about Tibet in the West:
1) that it has always been a peaceful, Buddhist nation, 2) that it is
basically a part of China, and 3) that the Buddhism practiced there—
the religion of Dalai Lama—is typical of world Buddhism. Tibet was an
independent, militaristic empire from the
7th century until the Mongol conquest
of Tibet and China in the 13th, and until Padmasambhava is a
the Dalai Lama was forced to Àee from ¿gure of legend, so it
Chinese troops in 1959, was more often
is dif¿cult to determine
separate from China than part of it.
the exact origins of the
Mahayana Buddhism was adopted as practices ascribed to him.
the of¿cial religion of Tibet in the 8th
century. Tibetans practiced tantric,
esoteric elements from India—mantras, mudras, and mandalas—but there
was also strong inÀuence from Bon, the native Shamanistic religion. In time,
Tibetan Buddhism had diverged enough from Theravada and Mahayana
to be classi¿ed as its own form: Vajrayana. Today, there are about 124
million Theravada, 185 million Mahayana, and 20 million Vajrayana
Buddhists worldwide.
Padmasambhava, or Guru Rinpoche (Precious Teacher), was an 8thcentury Indian monk who helped bring Buddhism to Tibet and found its
¿rst monastery. His followers established the Nyingma school (Adherents
of the Old Scriptures), popularly known as the Red Hats. Padmasambhava
87
is a ¿gure of legend, so it is dif¿cult to determine the exact origins of the
practices ascribed to him. He taught that the key to liberation from samsara
is overcoming illusion and controlling one’s mind, which is identical to total
reality. The path to liberation involved many steps, including study under a
guru and rigorous meditation.
The Geluk school (Order of Virtue, also known as the Yellow Hats) was
founded by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). He founded the great Ganden
Monastery near Llasa in 1409, known for its high standards of monastic
discipline, scholarship, and practice. Tsongkhapa tried to recon¿gure
Nagarjuna’s ideas so that they didn’t
negate everything, leaving basis for
action in our everyday experience of the
world. He also sought to systematize
Madhyamaka metaphysics and reconcile
them with tantric practices. By the end
of the 16th century, the Geluk School was
dominant in Tibet. One of his disciples was
retrospectively recognized as the ¿rst Dalai
Lama (Ocean Teacher), the leader of the
of¿cials of the Geluk school.
The current Dalai Lama, the 14th, has been
a remarkable spokesman for Buddhism
in general and Tibetan Buddhism in
particular. Tibetan Buddhism was severely
persecuted during the Chinese Cultural
Revolution (1966–1976), and as many as a
88
Corel Stock Photo Library.
Lecture 28: Padmasambhava to Tsongkhapa—Tibetan Ideas
In the centuries after Padmasambhava, Buddhism declined in Tibet. A
second dissemination occurred at the end of the 10th century. Atisha (980–
1052), born in modern-day Bengal, was invited by the king of Tibet to come
and clarify the teachings of Buddhism. Atisha primarily transmitted the
Madhyamaka theories of Nagarjuna, but he also wrote a small book, A Lamp
for the Path to Enlightenment, that combined Theravada ethics, Mahayana
views on wisdom and compassion, and pursuit of awakening through tantric
practices. It is a core text of Tibetan Buddhism.
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th
Dalai Lama.
million Tibetans were killed. Yet the Dalai Lama has always urged Buddhist
solutions to terrible political problems, and in 1989 he was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize. Although it is too early to tell, he may one day be
regarded as a great mind of the Eastern intellectual tradition. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Nagarjuna, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way.
Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism.
Questions to Consider
1. How is Tibetan Buddhism different from Buddhism elsewhere in
the world?
2. Which is more important to cultural transformation: a few great minds
or popular culture? How might great thinkers try to spread their ideas
among the people?
3. Who is the Dalai Lama, and how does he ¿t into traditional Tibetan
culture?
89
Science and Technology in Premodern Asia
Lecture 29
Why didn’t a Western-style scienti¿c revolution ever occur in Asia,
despite India’s and particularly China’s vast head start in mathematics,
navigation, engineering, and many other disciplines? Historians
have suggested many reasons, from an attitude of living in harmony
with (rather than dominating) nature to Asia’s vast labor surpluses
negating any demand for ef¿ciency. Others have suggested that our
assumptions about the nature and inevitability of scienti¿c progress
need reexamining.
Lecture 29: Science and Technology in Premodern Asia
I
n 1620, the British philosopher Francis Bacon identi¿ed three inventions
that drove European progress: printing, gunpowder, and the magnetic
compass, not realizing each of these had originated in China. The devices
and processes invented in China are myriad, but the great minds behind them
are often unknown to us, their names lost to history. When their names are
known, usually little else is. For example, Cai Lun, a court eunuch of the 1st
century A.D., is known as the inventor of paper, but we know nothing else
about his life or other ideas.
Also, what these intelligent, observant people were doing in Asia was
not exactly science as we de¿ne it today—not systematically derived or
empirically supported. Take the work of Zhang Heng (78–139)—astronomer,
inventor, cartographer, poet, and statesman—for example. Among his many
works was the invention of the world’s ¿rst seismograph in 132. Unlike a
modern device, it didn’t measure the strength of an earthquake but the
direction to the epicenter. This was not important (or not only important)
for sending disaster relief; since earthquakes were regarded as portents from
heaven, the government needed to ¿nd the quake’s origin and root out the
corruption there that evoked heaven’s wrath.
Aryabhata (476–550) was a great Indian mathematician who wrote terse
sutras on arithmetic, algebra, and plane and spherical trigonometry. He
proposed the solution of a general quadratic equation and estimated pi to
3.1416. Although he accepted a geocentric model of the universe, he was the
90
¿rst known thinker to suggest that the earth rotates, accurately estimating
both the daily (23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds) and yearly (365 days, 6
hours, 12 minutes, 3 minutes too long) motion of the planet. This is closer to
modern science: Aryabhata is doing mathematical, veri¿able astronomy. Yet
his book begins with an invocation of Brahman and an estimation of the long
Hindu cycles of creation and destruction. His interest in astronomy is based
on the Hindu ritual calendar and driven by a desire to perfect it.
Shen Gua (1031–1095), a government economist and engineer of the
Song dynasty, was also interested in astronomy, geography, geology, and
optics. The ¿rst person to describe a
magnetic needle compass, he discovered
the difference between true north and Aryabhata is doing
magnetic north as well as the procession mathematical, veri¿able
of the equinoxes. He discovered fossils astronomy. Yet his book
and correctly guessed their origins. Yet he
begins with an invocation
wrote these scienti¿c notions alongside
notes on supernatural occurrences and of Brahman and an
estimation of the long
court gossip.
Hindu cycles of creation
Given so much advanced math, careful
and destruction.
observation of the natural world, and
technological achievement, why didn’t the
scienti¿c and industrial revolutions happen in Asia instead of Europe? Some
suggest that Western science was a response to the Judeo-Christian idea that
nature has rational laws. Others say the centralized Chinese government
lacked the regional competitiveness that motivated the nations of Europe.
Some have argued that mechanization wasn’t required in societies with
large populations and a surplus of labor, or that Asia had a more harmonious
approach toward nature rather than an instrumental Western attitude. But
scholars can’t even agree on what caused the scienti¿c revolution in the West,
let alone what didn’t cause it elsewhere. Perhaps our unspoken assumption
that the scienti¿c revolution was inevitable is mistaken.
When Europeans started showing up regularly in Asia in the 16th century, they
didn’t have much to offer, technologically speaking. Yet by the 19th century,
Europeans had military and industrial capacities far beyond anything that
91
Asian empires had ever seen. This came as quite a shock and presented new
intellectual challenges to the great minds of the East. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Cohen, The Scienti¿c Revolution.
Selin, Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in
Non-Western Cultures.
Sivin, “Why the Scienti¿c Revolution Did Not Take Place in China—Or
Didn’t It?”
Questions to Consider
1. What is the relationship between math and science? Can you have one
Lecture 29: Science and Technology in Premodern Asia
without the other?
2. How is it that some discoveries in Asian history that we would
today classify as scienti¿c were originally derived from religious or
philosophical principles? Was this true in the West as well?
3. Given its long advantage in technological innovation, why didn’t China
develop modern science before the West?
92
Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore
Lecture 30
Once East met West, the primary challenge to Eastern thinkers was
whether to accept, reject, or adapt to the political and economic
changes contact had wrought. Among Indian intellectuals, Muhammad
Iqbal, a Muslim, suggested humans could best reach their potential
within religious communities and tried to move Islam toward freedom,
equality, and solidarity. In contrast, Rabindranath Tagore, a Hindu,
saw the divisions of religion and nationality as obstacles to progress and
human Àourishing.
Both of the great minds in this
lecture—Muhammad
Iqbal
and
Rabindranath Tagore—grew up in
India under British rule. Both wanted
to hold on to some of their traditions
while adopting selectively from the
West, but Iqbal’s tradition was Islam,
while Tagore’s was Hinduism.
Rabindranath Tagore was a poet,
philosopher, and reformer.
Muhammad Iqbal (1873–1938), a poet and philosopher, was the ¿rst
person to propose a separate Muslim homeland in the subcontinent. He
93
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-95518.
A
lthough we have seen cultural exchanges between the civilizations
of Asia, their differences have still been quite pronounced. In the
modern era, each will respond
to the challenge of the West in its own
speci¿c way. In general, however,
they had four choices: reassert the
superiority of their own tradition,
hold on to some of that tradition while
selectively adopting from the West,
try to employ tradition to reshape the
West, and reject tradition and embrace
Western modernity wholeheartedly.
Lecture 30: Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore
was inÀuenced by Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Bergson, but his primary
inspiration was the Qur’an and Persian literature, including the Su¿ poet
Rumi. To him, Western science represented progress but had also brought
exploitation of the weak and the poor. He looked to Islam for elements that
could be built on to meet the challenge of the West.
Iqbal found Western notions of tolerance admirable, yet he was critical of
restricting religion to the private sphere and thought religion should play
a role in public life. His most inÀuential yet
accessible work is a collection of seven lectures
entitled The Reconstruction of Religious Iqbal found Western
Thought in Islam (1934). Many consider this notions of tolerance
the most important philosophical work in
admirable, yet
modern Islam.
he was critical of
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a major restricting religion to
literary ¿gure in India and the ¿rst Asian to the private sphere.
win a Nobel Prize in Literature (1913). He is
most famous for his English translations of
Bengali poetry, published as Gitanjali (Song Offerings). His religious ideas
are based on the Upanishads, but he was not an orthodox Hindu. He saw
Brahman, or absolute being, as manifest in a personal God who created
nature as a way to evoke love in human beings. Tagore rejected asceticism
and urged a full engagement with life, and his mysticism transcended narrow
religious distinctions.
Tagore believed both Western and Eastern civilizations had gotten off track:
The West was consumed with materialism and power, while India was mired
in empty spiritualism and cruel tradition. He was constantly involved in
rural development programs and educational reforms. He believed deeply
in freedom and equality and thought universal education was essential to
ful¿ll these ideals. In his experimental school, called Shantiniketan (Abode
of Peace), he encouraged students to learn their own Indian traditions and
those of other cultures. Ŷ
94
Suggested Reading
Hay, ed., Sources of Indian Tradition.
Mir, Iqbal.
Sen, The Argumentative Indian.
Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology.
Questions to Consider
1. Consider the different possible reactions to the West: One might be a
traditionalist, an adopter, a proselytizer, and a Westernizer. What makes
some tactics effective in certain contexts, while others seem to work
better elsewhere?
2. What admirable qualities of modern Western civilization did Iqbal ¿nd
precedents for in his own Muslim tradition?
3. Are human values best nurtured within like-minded communities
or in reaching out to different cultures (and perhaps losing that close
connection to one’s heritage)? Can a person be cosmopolitan and still be
deeply rooted to his or her traditions?
95
Mohandas Gandhi—Satyagraha, or Soul-Force
Lecture 31
Mohandas Gandhi is rightfully one of the best-known of Asian
thinkers. Sometimes called Mahatma (“great soul”), he caught the
world’s attention as a leader in India’s quest for independence and
profoundly inÀuenced later political ¿gures worldwide. Gandhi was a
proselytizer who wanted to show the West a better way to live based on
his own traditions. He preached an ethic of self-sacri¿ce, was resistant
to modern technology, and he truly wanted to change the whole world.
Lecture 31: Mohandas Gandhi—Satyagraha, or Soul-Force
M
ost people in the West know at least a little something about
Mohandas Gandhi (1869–1948) and his pioneering work in
nonviolent resistance and human rights. Gandhi was actually
a pretty complicated fellow, more of a spiritual and political leader than a
systematic thinker or philosopher. His ideas were sometimes vague and they
changed over time, often in response to particular situations. In many ways,
his life was his philosophy.
The 1982 ¿lm Gandhi offers a good introduction to his life. The cornerstone
of his philosophy was Satyagraha. Satyagraha is connected to the Jain
ideal of ahimsa (nonviolence), and the Bhagavad Gita ideal of conquest,
reinterpreted as a spiritual struggle. It is not passive but active resistance, and
it’s not for the weak; it takes great courage to be insulted, beaten, or jailed
and not ¿ght back. Nor is the idea to emotionally blackmail one’s opponent;
rather, it’s to awaken his sense of justice through your behavior.
Gandhi originally taught that God is Truth, just as Christians say God is
Love, but later he decided that Truth is God, too. Reality is spiritual, all
people are interconnected (Atman = Brahman), and everyone has a share of
divine goodness within. So to do harm to anyone is to harm God, and to serve
others is to serve God. God was not a person to Gandhi but “an inde¿nable,
mysterious power that pervades everything.” From this perspective, all the
great religions of the world are true, “different roads converging to the same
point.” But in his personal practice, Gandhi remained Hindu.
96
Although Gandhi is celebrated today, many of his ideas are still controversial.
He was very critical of European civilization. He felt that modern life was
unnatural, unhealthy, and spiritually empty. Gandhi worried that many of his
fellow Indian nationalists wanted “English rule without the Englishmen.”
His goal was a more humane way of life, based on self-governing, selfsuf¿cient, traditional Indian villages, where
small is beautiful, the pace is slow, people
Although Gandhi is
are connected by family and community, and
celebrated today,
everyone has enough because they keep their
desires in check.
many of his ideas are
still controversial.
Many of Gandhi’s associates, including
Tagore, found his ideas too extreme, too
religious. Still, Gandhi pushed himself, experimenting with renunciation and
self-sacri¿ce, from fasting to sexual abstinence to long periods of silence.
He founded ashrams where men and women from different castes and
even different religions could live and work together in manual labor and
voluntary simplicity.
Perhaps the greatest objection to Satyagraha is that it is too idealistic. It can
only be successful if one’s enemy has some sense of decency, if news can
travel freely, and if public opinion can be mobilized. Gandhi encountered the
limits of Satyagraha in his own life; his public example did not extinguish the
Hindu/Muslim conÀicts that escalated as India moved toward independence,
and he was ¿nally assassinated by a Hindu fanatic who was upset about his
outreach to Muslims.
Where Tagore was an adopter, Gandhi was a proselytizer—he wanted to
change the West and bring it more in line with his own values. Gandhi is
more rigorously moral, while Tagore is more practical and accommodating.
Gandhi was a nationalist; Tagore was more of an internationalist. Yet Gandhi
was able to tap into deep roots of Indian culture that allowed him to connect
with the masses in a way that Tagore could never have done. And Gandhi’s
impractical, uncompromising morality has been an inspiration around
the world. Ŷ
97
Suggested Reading
Brown, Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope.
Gandhi, The Penguin Gandhi Reader.
Hay, Sources of Indian Tradition.
Sen, The Argumentative Indian.
Questions to Consider
1. What is Satyagraha? In what circumstances is it effective? When might
it not work?
2. What were Gandhi’s criticisms of modern Western civilization? Do they
Lecture 31: Mohandas Gandhi—Satyagraha, or Soul-Force
have any validity today?
3. Whose response to the world do you ¿nd most appealing—Gandhi’s
or Tagore’s?
4. Is your life your message?
98
Fukuzawa Yukichi and Han Yongun
Lecture 32
Fukuzawa Yukichi and Han Yongun represent two different ways of
responding to the West. Fukuzawa Yukichi was a Japanese educator
and diplomat who advocated a complete reform of Japanese culture
along Western lines. Han Yongun was a Korean poet and monk who
thought Buddhism should become more socially engaged to help reform
Korean society, albeit along traditional Eastern lines.
J
apan’s Warring States period ended when Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated
his rivals to take the shogunate in 1603. After more than a century of
turmoil, Tokugawa wanted to stabilize Japan, and he did so by freezing
its social structure: Social classes were made hereditary. Trade with the
outside world came to a halt. Christianity was outlawed, and foreigners
were expelled, except for a few Dutch traders con¿ned to an island in
Nagasaki harbor.
This shaky embargo came to an end in July 1853 when Commodore Matthew
Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay with four U.S. warships and demanded the
opening of trade. A treaty between the United States and Japan was followed
by treaties with Britain, France, Holland, and Russia. In 1868, samurai-class
bureaucrats seized control of the government in the name of the emperor, and
the Tokugawa Shogunate collapsed. The following Meiji Restoration was
probably the most successful, most rapid modernization in world history.
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) was the most inÀuential, most widely
read intellectual of the Meiji period. At 19, he began studying the Dutch
language. Four years later, he founded Keio University in Edo (Tokyo). Soon
he discovered that English was more useful than Dutch for international
trade and politics and learned that language as well. He visited the United
States and Europe as a diplomat and made notes on Western economics,
infrastructure, and family life.
Publishing his observations as Conditions in the West, Fukuzawa urged his
countrymen to adopt Western science, technology, values, and institutions.
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© iStockphoto/Thinkstock.
Lecture 32: Fukuzawa Yukichi and Han Yongun
Fukuzawa Yukichi was an ardent Japanese nationalist and one of the foremost
Westernizers of the Meiji period.
He attacked hierarchy, authoritarian government, and traditional education;
he even made fun of Confucian values. All this is in contrast to other Japanese
thinkers who rejected everything Western out of hand. Toward the end of
his career, Fukuzawa shifted his energies to nationalism. He suggested that
Korea and China didn’t have what it took to
become modern. He thought Japan should
join in the Western exploitation of China and Fukuzawa … thought
Korea, which it did, seizing Korea in 1905.
Japan should join
in the Western
Han Yongun (1879–1944) had received
a traditional Korean education in the exploitation of China
Chinese classics, but the turmoil of Japan’s and Korea, which it did,
annexation led him to a deeper engagement seizing Korea in 1905.
with Buddhism, and he was ordained a monk
in 1905. Han was curious about the West and
visited Vladivostok, Russia, and later Japan. In 1913, he published On the
Revitalization of Buddhism in Korea, arguing, like Muhammad Iqbal, that
equality and freedom were the key modern values but ¿nding his precedents
in Buddhism rather than Islam.
Han Yongun felt compassion was sorely lacking in the modern world. He
emphasized compassionate action and laid the groundwork for a more
100
socially engaged form of Buddhism. Although these are clearly reformist
ideas, they are based in Buddhism, not Western society, so Han can still be
labeled a traditionalist.
Han is remembered as one of the 33 signers of the Korean Declaration of
Independence announced on March 1, 1919, in de¿nance of the Japanese
occupation. He is also remembered for his poetry, particularly The
Silence of Everything Yearned For, a book of love poems whose object of
devotion can be interpreted as a human lover, the Korean nation, or even
Buddhist enlightenment. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Blacker, The Japanese Enlightenment.
De Bary et al., Sources of Japanese Tradition.
Han, Everything Yearned For.
———, Selected Writings.
Lee, ed., Sourcebook of Korean Civilization.
Varley, Japanese Civilization.
Questions to Consider
1. How have the fates of Japan and Korea been intertwined in the
modern era?
2. Why is it that great thinkers sometimes have dif¿culty taking their own
advice? Is consistency between words and actions important, or can a
person’s ideas outrun his or her own life-choices?
3. How are religious and political reforms connected? And what do they
have to do with love poetry?
101
Kang Youwei and Hu Shi
Lecture 33
China had the most dif¿cult transition to the modern world of any Asian
nation, in part because it had the farthest to go. Kang Youwei argued
that Confucianism could still lead the way to an Age of Great Peace
and rule by the people, but his reforms were quashed by the imperial
elite. Hu Shi was an American-educated pragmatist philosopher who
advocated gradual reform, but his most important contribution to
modernization was his advocacy of vernacular Chinese writing.
I
Chinese Westernizers began to argue that
Confucianism was holding China back.
But Kang Youwei (1858–1927) argued
that Confucius could still be China’s
salvation. A civil servant with a traditional
Confucian education, he suggested
(incorrectly) that the recovered Ancient
Text versions of the Confucian classics—
the basis of Neo-Confucianism—were
forgeries and urged a return to the New
Text versions.
Kang suggested that Confucius had
foreseen human history as progressing
through three ages: Disorder (absolute
monarchy),
Approaching
Peace
(constitutional monarchy), and Great
102
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-35721.
Lecture 33: Kang Youwei and Hu Shi
n 1644, the Manchus, a pastoral Korean people from north of Korea,
conquered China and established the decidedly Confucian and highly
successful Qing dynasty (1661–1796). But by the mid-19th century, the
Qing were in decline, in part because of a disastrous treaty with the British
that forced China to keep importing opium. After the Taiping Rebellion, the
Sino-French and Sino-Japanese wars, and the Boxer Rebellion, it looked like
China would soon be carved up by foreign powers.
Kang Youwei was a great modern
champion of Confucius’s ideas.
Peace (rule by the people) and supported a British-style constitutional
monarchy for China. During the Hundred Days’ Reform (1898), Emperor
Guangzu, guided by Kang, ordered government modernization and the
creation of popularly elected local assemblies. But the Dowager Empress
and several conservative generals staged a coup, and Kang Àed to Japan.
In 1912, the last emperor of China abdicated the throne, and a republic
was proclaimed, but the real power was held by regional warlords. Kang
was involved with two attempts to restore the emperor to power, in 1917
and 1924. Both failed miserably. His defense of a constitutional monarchy
steadily lost ground to Sun Yatsen’s appeals for revolution.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-DIG-hec-27227.
Most people never realized how radical Kang’s thinking was until his Book
of Great Unity was published in 1935, eight years after his death. He wrote
of a one-world utopia with no nations, classes, or races; the family would
be obsolete, with government-sponsored nurseries, schools, and retirement
homes. There would be perfect equality between the sexes, and marriage
would be replaced by one-year renewable contracts. This Age of Great Peace
sounds like a Communist paradise, yet Kang’s ideas were derived not from
Marx but from Mozi, Mencius, and
Buddhism. Not surprisingly, Kang was
admired by Mao Zedong.
Hu Shi (1891–1962) was a Shanghaiborn and American-educated pragmatist
philosopher who studied at Columbia
University and taught at Beijing
University. The progressive thinkers on
Beijing’s faculty were promoting the
New Culture movement to bring science,
democracy, and women’s rights. They
also notoriously attacked Confucianism.
Hu Shi fought for education in
vernacular Chinese.
Hu Shi was best known as a champion of
vernacular Chinese. For more than 2,000
years, all serious Chinese literature and
thought had been written in classical
103
Chinese—equivalent to Latin in the West. Hu argued that the Chinese should
write what they spoke. This would make it easier to express new ideas and
make basic literacy possible for many
more people. Elementary schools
began teaching written colloquial The students in Tiananmen
Chinese in 1920.
Square on May 4, 1989, knew
The galvanizing event in the New this history, although their
Culture movement came in 1919, now own protest ended tragically.
called the May 4th movement. Some
3,000 university students gathered in
Tiananmen Square to protest the Versailles Peace Treaty, which gave Japan
control of part of China. Hundreds of sympathetic strikes, demonstrations,
and boycotts followed all over the country, and the government backed
down. (The students in Tiananmen Square on May 4, 1989, knew this
history, although their own protest ended tragically.)
Lecture 33: Kang Youwei and Hu Shi
Hu believed education, careful study, and gradual change were more
promising than impetuous revolutionary action. As early as 1921, Hu
broke with some of his more radical colleagues, particularly those
favoring Communism.
Hu Shi went on to serve as China’s ambassador to the United States from
1938 to 1942 and served as chancellor of Beijing University from 1946 to
1948. When the Communists took control of China in 1949, he went to New
York. In the 1950s, he joined the Taiwanese Nationalist movement. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary, and Lufrano, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Questions to Consider
1. How do radical ideas become conservative, or even reactionary,
over time?
104
2. Which is the better way to bring about substantive governmental change:
working within the system or trying to overthrow the institution? When,
if ever, is revolution a good idea?
3. What is the connection between a particular writing system and the
culture in which it operates? How important is popular culture to longterm social change?
105
Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong
Lecture 34
Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong were likely the two most important
thinkers in 20th-century China. Sun, regarded as a hero in both
mainland China and Taiwan, was a prominent revolutionary who
advocated for nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood. Mao
was without a doubt the most inÀuential Chinese leader of the century;
he kept China uni¿ed and independent of Western domination, but at
a tremendous social cost.
S
Sun set forth his basic political ideas
under the rubric “The Three Principles
of the People”: nationalism (China
should be uni¿ed, free from foreign
interference, and treated as an equal
in world affairs), democracy (a
constitutional government of elected
representatives), and the people’s
livelihood (an ambiguous term
sometimes translated as “socialism,”
but generally advocating adequate food,
clothing, and housing for all citizens).
Sun was pushed out of the presidency
in a military coup only two months
after his election. Soon, local warlords
asserted their own authority. In 1917,
106
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-5972.
Lecture 34: Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong
un Yat-sen (1866–1925) was a modern-style politician, organizer, and
revolutionary, an adopter who wanted to import some Western ideas
but build on the foundation of traditional Chinese culture. A Christian
educated in Hawaii and China, he devoted most of his early career to raising
money from Chinese living abroad. When the emperor was overthrown
(without Sun’s involvement) in 1911, Sun was elected the provisional
president of the newly established Republic of China.
Sun Yat-sen did not live to see the
fall of the Nationalist movement.
Sun formed his own government in Guangdong and planned a military
campaign with his protégé Chiang Kai-shek to reunite China. But Sun died
of cancer in 1925 before his goals could be accomplished.
Sun Yat-sen is famous for his revision of the traditional Chinese slogan “to
know is not dif¿cult, but to practice is dif¿cult.” He said that was backwards:
It’s easy enough to take action, but knowing what to do is the hard part.
Today Sun Yat-sen is considered
the father of modern China by
Communists and Taiwanese The ideas of Mao Zedong (1893–
Nationalists alike, sometimes 1976) have affected more people,
compared to George Washington. to a larger extent, than almost
anyone else in modern history.
The ideas of Mao Zedong (1893–
1976) have affected more people,
to a larger extent, than almost anyone else in modern history. He was a
founding member of the Chinese Communist Party, and his armies defeated
Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists in 1949.
Perhaps at the beginning Mao was an adopter, but he later repudiated
both traditional China and the modern West. He took concepts from Marx
and Lenin and modi¿ed them to ¿t China’s rural economic situation. The
proclamation of the People’s Republic was quickly followed by violent
land redistribution and the persecution of “undesirables,” such as capitalists
and counterrevolutionaries.
In 1957, Mao issued a call to let “a hundred schools of thought contend,” an
invitation for citizens to step forward with constructive criticism. When the
outpouring of complaints was more than anticipated, Mao launched the AntiRightist campaign, which purged and exiled 300,000 intellectuals. Next, the
Great Leap Forward organized the people into massive communes, a utopian
experiment carried out on a scale never before seen in world history. The
results were catastrophic. Industrialism stalled, agriculture was ruined, and
the ensuing famine led to the deaths of tens of millions.
In 1966, Mao urged the people to rise up against government of¿cials in
the Great Cultural Revolution. This brought government operations to
107
a standstill, emptied universities, and pitted citizens against each other in
antitraditionalist fervor. Hundreds of millions were persecuted. The conÀicts
nearly became a civil war; the turmoil only subsided after Mao’s death
in 1976.
It is hard to de¿ne Mao’s thought precisely, but consistent themes include
ideology, or right thinking (namely Mao’s thinking) as essential to
right action; volunteerism of the masses as key to modernization; antiintellectualism; and a focus on contradictions and class struggle, which led
to Mao’s notion of perpetual revolution.
How did a foreign ideology like Marxism capture the imagination of the
Chinese populace? Arguably, it seemed to offer a relief from imperialism
and capitalist exploitation as well as the authoritarian excesses of traditional
Chinese culture. But the appeal was that Mao’s ideas were familiar. Old
habits were redirected. Mao’s “Little Red Book” was a new Analects.
Lecture 34: Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong
Despite Mao’s worst excesses, people recognize his role in creating a
uni¿ed China with a strong government free of foreign interference. People
continue to honor him in the abstract, even if China is moving forward along
different lines. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy.
De Bary, and Lufrano, eds., Sources of Chinese Tradition.
Lieberthal, Governing China.
Schram, The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung.
Terrill, Mao: A Biography.
Questions to Consider
1. How did Sun Yat-sen manage to retain the respect of both the
Communists and the Nationalists?
108
2. Which has had the greater impact in China, Mao’s ideas or his actions?
3. How did a foreign ideology—Marxism—manage to win over the
Chinese? Which elements of traditional China did it connect to?
109
Modern Legacies
Lecture 35
We have now met more than 70 great minds of the Eastern intellectual
tradition. Now we turn to the signi¿cance of these thinkers in modernday India, China, and Japan, as well as in the West. Asian customs
that seem strange to Westerners usually have historical roots that make
sense within their own cultural context. Quite often, there is some great
mind behind the attitude or practice as well.
T
Lecture 35: Modern Legacies
he great minds in this course offer you a basic understanding of Asian
intellectual history and a solid foundation for further study. None of
the people discussed are trivial or obscure, at least not to people who
grew up in Asian countries. They are still studied and debated, but their ideas
have penetrated deeply into society and culture.
Most Indians are Hindus, and the concepts of samsara, karma, dharma,
and moksha continue to affect everyday life in India, from the prevalence
of vegetarianism to the emphasis on familial and caste obligations.
Unfortunately, cross-caste discrimination still exists. More positively,
respect for family members, particularly one’s elders, is a key social value,
as commonly seen in the plots
of Bollywood ¿lms. Formal
education is highly valued, Thus the ideas of our great thinkers
yet direct insight, as offered are still very much in play today, as
through yogic practices, is
they are challenged, adapted, and
also widely sought.
revised in light of changing social
India is still a land of holy and political circumstances.
men, and asceticism is still
common among the devout.
There is a great love in India for the auditory arts—epic, drama, poetry,
and music—which can be traced to the oral transmission of the Vedas and
Upanishads. Although today India is the world’s largest democracy, and
India has an of¿cial policy of religious freedom and tolerance, politics
often pit Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs against each other. Thus the ideas of
110
our great thinkers are still very much in play today, as they are challenged,
adapted, and revised in light of changing social and political circumstances.
In China, 3,500 years of documented history and civilization remain a point
of pride for many people. The Chinese have a rich storehouse of historical
precedents and narratives to draw on in facing modern challenges. Even
Confucius, who stands at the beginning of the Chinese intellectual tradition,
claimed to be a transmitter rather than an innovator. Great Chinese thinkers
have always turned back to Confucius for guidance and inspiration, even as
they were radically reinterpreting his teachings.
Because of this Confucian inÀuence, Chinese philosophy has always
emphasized the practical and material over the supernatural. Harmony,
balance, and social order remain the highest values. Confucius’s inÀuence
is everywhere, from showing respect to teachers, to elaborate funeral
ceremonies, to gift-giving, to family relations, to business practices.
That said, the Daoist legacy is a keen appreciation of nature and its cycles as
well as spontaneous, effortless action. Chinese are often enthusiastic about
visiting scenic sites, and the ideals of retirement, tranquility, and simplicity
continue to resonate with many Chinese, even those living in the midst of
hectic cities. In addition, the Daoist concepts of yin and yang are essential to
Chinese medicine and even Chinese cooking.
The complexity of Chinese etiquette may puzzle outsiders, and it requires
a great deal of subtlety and patience to master. But the entire system can
be traced to Confucius and his ideas of ritual, deference, and hierarchy. So
an understanding of Chinese history is vital to an understanding of how the
Chinese live today. Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Reid, Confucius Lives Next Door.
111
Questions to Consider
1. What aspects of modern India and China are due to the heritage of great
thinkers in those civilizations?
2. In what situations might visitors to those countries encounter those
traditional ideas?
3. Give some examples of customs that make sense in their own cultural
Lecture 35: Modern Legacies
context, but which might be puzzling to outsiders.
112
East and West
Lecture 36
Continuing our exploration of modern manifestations of our great
thinkers’ ideas, we look at the effects of Confucian philosophy on the
civilizations of Korea and Japan, as well as some of the other ideas
that inÀuenced all three civilizations. We also revisit the three reasons
for Westerners to learn about the Eastern intellectual tradition laid
out at the start of the course and look at the best ways to embark on
further studies.
I
n Chinese thought, the family is often regarded as the model for social
relations and the incubator of morality. Government authority has also
often been rather paternal, which at its best means concern for the
well-being of the common people but at its worst can be highly controlling
and intrusive.
Mencius’s optimistic approach to human nature has led to the assumption in
Confucian countries that every child can succeed at math and science, if they
are willing to work hard, and comparative international test scores seem to
bear this out.
In contrast to India, China has had a strong central government for most of
its history. There are no longer civil service exams on the Confucian classics,
but there is a highly competitive national higher education entrance exam,
administered by the government.
Daoists like Laozi and Zhuangzi argued that there were multiple valid
perspectives and were suspicious of absolute claims and values. This meant
someone could be both Daoist and Confucian, or both Theravada and
Mahayana. Today the Chinese feel a strong cultural urge toward syncretism
and harmony.
Chinese has the oldest continuously used writing system in the world, and
high rate of literacy in a dif¿cult script is one of the great achievements of
113
modern China. Yet there has long been an awareness that words, written or
verbal, can be deceptive.
Lecture 36: East and West
In Japan, we have seen Confucianism adapted and transformed. From
hierarchy to ritual to deference, Japan is like China, but more so, and
etiquette can be incredibly nuanced. Confucianism was once viewed as
inimical to capitalism, but the astonishing economic growth of Japan, South
Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan has led some observers to suggest a Confucian
work ethic as an Asian counterpart to the Protestant work ethic posited by
the sociologist Max Weber.
Harmony, or wa, was an important part of Prince Shotoku’s 17 Article
Constitution and survives in Japan today, from business-management
practices to the peaceful coexistence of the Shinto and Buddhist faiths.
Japan’s Confucian formality is tempered by profound emotion and a keen
aesthetic sensibility of ancient lineage, and there is still a close connection
between art and religion, a restraint and understatement inÀuenced by Zen.
Even with such a rich heritage to draw
from, Japanese culture remains open
to foreign inÀuences and selective The Eastern tradition
adaptation, particularly from the West.
stresses the oneness or
interrelatedness of all of
In the ¿rst lecture, I proposed that
the Eastern intellectual tradition was nature, yet the self may be
worth studying for three reasons: It is seen as eternal, a social
interesting in its own right, it is a large construct, or an illusion.
part of our ever-shrinking world culture,
and it addresses the same questions that
captivated great Western thinkers but from a different perspective, placing
more emphasis on community, family, harmony, consensus, simplicity, and
nature, than the West does. The Eastern tradition stresses the oneness or
interrelatedness of all of nature, yet the self may be seen as eternal, a social
construct, or an illusion. Some Eastern thinkers point to logic and historical
precedent as the root of all knowledge, others to introspection and insight,
and still others to action and experience. The ever-present tension in Asian
society is family or community versus individual needs, from Confucian
¿lial piety to Jain and Buddhist monasticism.
114
Although the Persian Zoroastrians proposed an evil divinity, most of Asian
thought on the nature of evil looked inward, to our own behaviors and habits
of mind: karma, ignorance, putting oneself at odds with nature, materialism,
and sel¿sh desire. Finally, The Eastern tradition offers many instances of
practical advice for dealing with life and death, as well as thinkers who took
delight in virtue, nature, community, art, and learning.
Now that you have a good sense of the sweep and variety of Asian
intellectual history, you may want to read some of the key texts mentioned
in this course. I would particularly recommend the Analects, the Daodejing,
the Bhagavad Gita, the Tale of Genji, and the Pillow Book. If you want to go
deeper, try the Yoga Sutra and Hakuin’s autobiography. From the modern
era, consider Iqbal’s Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (though
you should ¿rst read the Qur’an), the Penguin Gandhi Reader, and Han
Yongun’s Everything Yearned For.
Of course, your most important next step is to try to make use of some
the ideas you’ve encountered. Remember Confucius’s words: “To learn
something and then to put it into practice at the right time—Is this not
a joy?” Ŷ
Suggested Reading
Kupperman, Classic Asian Philosophy.
Mitchell, Buddhism.
Reid, Confucius Lives Next Door.
Questions to Consider
1. What major themes in Chinese and Japanese culture are most different
from the West?
2. Which ones might be useful for our society to adopt?
3. Which ideas from the Eastern intellectual tradition might be applicable
in your life?
115
116
The Middle
East and
the West
Hebrew
migration from
Ur to Canaan
c. 2000
B.C.
c. 2000–
1500 B.C.
Rise of the
Sumerian
Empire
Development
of the Chinese
writing system
Korea
c. 2350
B.C.
c. 25001500 B.C.
Harrapan
civilization
in the Indus
Valley
Japan
Construction
of the
Pyramids
at Giza
China
c. 2575–
2465 B.C.
Tibet
Earliest
civilizations in
Mesopotamia
India
c. 3500
B.C.
Year
Timeline
Timeline
117
Life of Uddalaka, history’s
¿rst known
philosopher
c. 800 B.C.
c. 680
The Upanishads are
composed
The Vedas are
composed
India
900–500
B.C.
1020–721
B.C.
1045 B.C.
1400–1000
B.C.
c. 1500–
1000 B.C.
c. 1760–
1122
Year
Tibet
The Yijing is
composed
The Zhou
dynasty is
founded
The Shang,
China’s ¿rst
historical
dynasty, rules
the North
China Plain
China
Japan
Korea
Kingdom
of Israel
Zoroastrianism
is founded
The Middle
East and
the West
118
Life of Plato
Roman Republic founded
Achaemenid
Empire
founded in
Persia
The Middle
East and
the West
427–327
B.C.
Korea
Life of
Socrates
Japan
470–399
B.C.
Life of Mozi
480–390
B.C.
Life of
Confucius
China
Life of Laozi;
composition
of the
Daodejing
Tibet
c. 500 B.C.
509 B.C.
540–468
B.C.
550 B.C.
Life of
Mahavira
Life of the
Buddha
563–483
B.C.
c. 551–479
B.C.
India
Year
Timeline
119
Life of
Zhuangzi
369–286
B.C.
330 B.C.
350–275
B.C.
Life of
Mencius
372–289
B.C.
Sunzi (Sun
Wu) writes
The Art of War
China
Life of Huizi
Tibet
380–305
B.C.
384–322
B.C.
Life of Kautilya
The
Mahabharata,
including the
Bhagavad
Gita, is
composed
c. 400–200
B.C.
4th century
B.C.
India
Year
Japan
Choson
civilization
established
Korea
Alexander
the Great
conquers the
Achaemenid
Empire
Life of Aristotle
The Middle
East and
the West
120
247 B.C.–
224
269–232
B.C.
280–233
B.C.
2nd century
B.C.?
Reign of the
Mauryan
emperor
Ashoka;
spread of
Buddhism
throughout
India and
Sri Lanka
Composition
of the Yoga
Sutra
The Mauryan
Empire unites
the Indian
subcontinent
322–185
B.C.
300–c. 210
B.C.
India
Year
Timeline
Tibet
Life of Han
Feizi
Life of Xunzi
China
Japan
Korea
Parthian
Empire rules
Persia
The Middle
East and
the West
121
The Three
Kingdoms
(Koguryo,
Paekche, and
Silla) arise
in the lower
peninsula
Sima Qian
begins writing
the Shiji
110 B.C.
57–18 B.C.
Life of Sima
Qian
c. 145–86
B.C.
Korea
China overthrows the
Choson ruler
Life of Dong
Zhongshu
c. 195-105
B.C.
Japan
108 B.C.
The Han
dynasty
China
200 B.C.–
200
Tibet
China is united
under the ¿rst
Qin emperor
India
221 B.C.
Year
The Middle
East and
the West
122
Zhang Heng
invents the
seismograph
132
216–276
Cai Lun
invents paper
Life of Nagarjuna; development of the
Madhyamaka
school of Buddhism
Life of
Ban Zhao
Buddhism is
introduced
into China
105
2nd century
45–116
1st century
Development
of Mahayana
Buddhism
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
Life of Mani
Life of Jesus
of Nazareth
China
c. 4 B.C.–
A.D. 30
Tibet
The Roman
Republic
becomes
the Roman
Empire
India
27 B.C.
Year
Timeline
123
The Vedas are
written down
4th–6th centuries
354–430
c. 313
mid-4th
century
Life of
Vasubandhu;
development
of the Yogacara
school of
Buddhism
India
4th century
283–343
224–651
Year
Tibet
Life of
Ge Hong
China
First uni¿ed
Japanese
state founded
Japan
The Three
Kingdoms
break free
of Chinese
dominance
Korea
Life of
Augustine
of Hippo
Edict of
Milan legalizes
Christianity
in Rome
Sassanid
Empire rules
Persia
The Middle
East and
the West
124
597
573–621
570–632
c. 499
476
Aryabhata
composes his
treatise on
mathematics
Life of Ishvarakrishna
late 4th
century
552
India
Year
Timeline
Tibet
China
Life of Prince
Shotoku
Korean
monks bring
Buddhism
to Japan
Japan
Korea
Augustine of
Canterbury
reestablishes
Christianity
in England
Life of
Muhammad
Fall of the
Roman
Empire in
the West
The Middle
East and
the West
125
629
622
617–686
610
604
600-664
Year
India
Songtsän
Gampo
crowned;
beginning of
Tibet’s
recorded
history
Tibet
Life of
Xuanzang
China
Shotoku
issues the
17-Article
Constitution
Japan
Life of
Wonhyo
Korea
The Hijirah
(Àight from
Mecca);
Muslim
calendar
begins
Muhammad
receives his
¿rst revelation;
Islam founded
The Middle
East and
the West
126
750–1258
711
c. 670s
668
661–750
c. 640s
Year
Timeline
Umayyad
Muslim army
conquers Sind
(southwestern
Pakistan)
India
Tibet
Development
of Chan (Zen)
Buddhism
China
Japan
Silla
overthrows
Koguryo and
Paekche and
uni¿es the
peninsula
Korea
Abbasid
caliphate
Development
of Su¿ Islam
Umayyad
caliphs spread
Islam throughout North
Africa and
into Spain
The Middle
East and
the West
127
788
775
768–824
763
755–763
Year
India
Padmasambhava (Guru
Rinpoche)
arrives from
India to found
Tibet’s ¿rst
monastery
King Khrisong
Detsen invites
Chinese
and Indian
monks into
his kingdom;
start of Tibet’s
conversion to
Buddhism
Tibet
Life of
Han Yu
An Lushan
Rebellion
China
Mount Hiei
Buddhist
temple
founded
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
128
Life of
Shankara
788–822
843–845
804
800
9th century
794–1186
India
Year
Timeline
Tibet and
China agree to
a peace treaty
Tibet
Daoist emperor Wuzong
persecutes
Chinese
Buddhists,
Christians, and
Zoroastrians
China
Saicho and
Kukai visit
China to study
Buddhist
doctrine
Heian period
Japan
Korea
Charlemagne
is crowned
Holy Roman
Emperor
The Middle
East and
the West
129
Japan
Reign of
Mahmud
in Ghazna
(Afghanistan)
997–1030
The Middle
East and
the West
Life of
Al-Biruni
Koryo
dynasty
Korea
973–1048
Life of
Murasaki
Shikibu
Song dynasty;
urban and
commercial
expansion
throughout
China
China
973–1014
Life of Atisha;
second
dissemination
of Buddhism
to Tibet
Tibet
Life of Sei
Shonagon
Mahmud’s
raids and AlBiruni’s visits
to India
India
966–1017
960-1279
918–1392
980–1052
Year
130
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
Life of
Al-Ghazali
Norman
Conquest
of England
1058–1111
1066
1130–1200
Pope Urban
II calls for the
First Crusade
Life of Zhu Xi
Rise of NeoConfucianism
China
1095
Life of
Milarepa
Tibet
Al-Biruni
writes
Researches
on India
Life of Ramajuna
India
1030
1017–
1137?
1012–1096
c. 1000
Year
Timeline
131
Life of Honen;
establishment
of Pure Land
Buddhism
Japan
1225–1274
1222-1282
1197–1276
Life of Nichiren
Eisai brings
Rinzai (sudden
enlightenment)
Zen to Japan
China
1191
Tibet
Life of Shinran
Life of
Madhva
India
1173–1263
1160
1158–1210
1133–1212
Year
Life of
Chinul; reform
of Buddhist
monasticism
Korea
Life of Thomas
Aquinas
The University
of Paris
is founded
The Middle
East and
the West
132
1274–1281
1236–1251
1231
1227
Year
Timeline
India
Mongol
conquest;
Tibet is
of¿cially a
province of
Yuan dynasty
China
Tibet
China
Failed Mongol
invasions of
Japan
Dogen brings
Soto (gradual
enlightenment)
Zen to Japan
Japan
Monks
undertake
the printing
of the entire
1,512-volume
Buddhist
canon
Korea
Pope Gregory
IX establishes
the Inquisition
The Middle
East and
the West
133
1363–1443
1357–1419
1333–1573
Life of
Tsongkhapa;
Geluk school
and the
line of the
Dalai Lama
established
Zhu Xi’s
commentaries
on the Four
Books are
added to the
civil service
exam
curriculum
China
1313
Tibet
Marco Polo
arrives in
Fuzhou, China
India
1292
Year
Life of Zeami;
Noh drama
comes to
maturity
Muromachi
period
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
134
Shogunate
of Ashikaga
Yoshimasa;
Àowering of
Japanese
aesthetics,
called the
Higeshiyama
period
Japan
Korea
1449–1473
Reign of
Sejong the
Great;
development
of the Hangul
writing system
China
1418–1450
Mongol Yuan
dynasty
collapses;
Tibet regains
independence
Tibet
Choson (Yi)
dynasty
India
1392–1910
1368
Year
Timeline
The Middle
East and
the West
135
1472–1529
1469–1530
Life of
Guru Nanak
Life of Wang
Yangming
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
Lorenzo de’
Medici’s
patronage of
the great
artists of
Europe sparks
the High
Renaissance
China
1469–1492
Tibet
Fall of the
Byzantine
Empire
(the Roman
Empire in
the East)
India
1453
Year
136
16th century
c. 1499
1492
Year
Timeline
Guru Nanak
founds
Sikhism
India
Tibet
China
Japan
Lives of
Yi Hwang
(Yi T’oegye)
and Yi I (Yi
Yulgok); rise
of the FourSeven debate
Korea
Spanish
Christians
complete the
Reconquista,
driving the
Muslims from
Spain;
Christopher
Colombus
embarks on
his Atlantic
crossing
The Middle
East and
the West
137
Life of Akbar
the Great
Life of Sirhindi
Akbar
constructs
the House of
Worship as
a center for
open religious
debate
1564–1624
1575
India
1542–1605
1522–1591
1517
Year
Tibet
China
Life of Sen
no Rikyu;
re¿nement of
wabicha (tea
ceremony)
as a Zen
art form
Japan
Korea
Martin Luther
issues the
95 Theses;
Protestant
Reformation
begins
The Middle
East and
the West
138
Tokugawa
Ieyasu
becomes
shogun and
unites Japan
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
Johannes Kepler develops
the laws of
motion; Galileo
Galilei
discovers
Jupiter’s
moons
China
1609–1610
Tibet
First
permanent
English
colonies
(Virginia and
Plymouth)
founded in
the Americas
India
1603–1620
1603
Year
Timeline
139
1775–1783
1686–1769
1644–1911
1644
Year
India
Treaty
between the
Dalai Lama
and the
Manchu
emperor
of China,
establishing
each other’s
spheres of
authority
Tibet
Manchu (Quin)
dynasty, the
last Chinese
dynasty, rules
China, Tibet,
and Mongolia
China
Life of Hakuin
Japan
Korea
American
Revolution
The Middle
East and
the West
140
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
Life of
Fukuzawa
Yukichi
1835–1901
1848
Dogen’s
Shobogenzo
is ¿rst
published,
almost 600
years after its
composition
1816
Karl Marx
publishes The
Communist
Manifesto.
French
Revolution
China
1787–1799
Tibet
Charles
Wilkins
creates the
¿rst English
translation
of the
Bhagavad
Gita
India
1785
Year
Timeline
141
1866–1925
1861–1941
1861–1865
1858–1927
1858
1853–1854
1850–1864
Year
Life of
Rabindranath
Tagore
British crown
of¿cially takes
control of India
India
Tibet
Life of Sun
Yat-sen
Life of Kang
Youwei
Taiping
Rebellion
China
Commodore
Matthew Perry
forces Japan
to open itself
to European
trade
Japan
Korea
American
Civil War
The Middle
East and
the West
142
1893
Life of Hu Shi
China
1891–1962
Tibet
Life of Chiang
Kai-shek
Life of Muhammad Iqbal
Life of
Mohandas
(Mahatma)
Gandhi
India
1887–1975
1873–1938
1879–1944
1869–1948
1868
Year
Timeline
The Meiji
Restoration
begins
Japan
Life of Han
Yongun
(Manhae)
Korea
Parliament
of World
Religions;
Vivekananda’s
plea for
religious
tolerance
The Middle
East and
the West
143
The Hundred
Days’ Reform
Boxer
Rebellion
Confucian
civil service
exams are
discontinued
China is
declared
a republic;
Sun Yat-sen
is elected
provisional
president but
is overthrown
two months
later
1898–1901
1905
1912
China
1898
Tibet
Life of
Mao Zedong
India
1893–1976
Year
Japan
Japan claims
Korea as a
protectorate
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
144
Tibet
China
Japan
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
The May 4th
Movement
protests the
Treaty of
Versailles in
Tiananmen
Square
Schools begin
teaching colloquial, as well
as classical,
written Chinese
1920
Sun Yat-sen
and Chiang
Kai-shek
establish the
Nationalist
government
and begin
a military
campaign to
retake China
Korean declare
independence
from Japan,
followed by
massive but
unsuccessful
uprisings
Russian
Revolution
establishes
the Bolshevik
government
-------------------------------------------- World War I ---------------------------------------------
Gandhi
organizes the
indigo workers’
Satyagraha,
the ¿rst
of his ¿ve
major Indian
Satyagrahas
India
1919
1917
1914–1918
Year
Timeline
145
1945
1939–1945
1937
1935
1929–1939
1921
Year
India
Japan invades
China,
Chinese
Communist
Party founded
China
Japan
Korea
The Great
Depression
The Middle
East and
the West
NationalistCommunist
civil war;
Communists
establish
the People’s
Republic of
China under
Mao on the
mainland, and
the Nationalist
government
under Chiang
retreats to
Taiwan
-------------------------------------------- World War II --------------------------------------------
Birth of Tenzin
Gyatso, 14th
Dalai Lama
Tibet
146
India and
Pakistan are
established
as separate,
independent
states
1947
1958-1961
1950–1953
1950
India
Year
Timeline
Chinese
invasion
reestablishes
China’s rule
Tibet
The Great
Leap Forward
reorganizes
Chinese
agriculture,
leading to
massive
famine
China
Japan
Korean War;
division of
Korea into the
communist
North and
republican
South.
Korea
The Middle
East and
the West
147
1989
Persecution
of Buddhists
during China’s
Cultural
Revolution
1966–1976
Tibet
The Dalai
Lama and his
government
Àee to India
India
1959
Year
Student
protests in
Tiananmen
Square on the
anniversary
of the May
4th Movement
protests
The Cultural
Revolution,
ending with
the death of
Mao and the
ascension of
Deng Xiaoping
China
Japan
Korea
The Dalai
Lama is
awarded the
Nobel Peace
Prize
The Middle
East and
the West
Bibliography
Al-Biruni. Alberuni’s India. Abridged ed. Translated by Edward C. Sachau.
New York: Norton, 1993. This edition is a shortened version of Sachau’s
1888 translation, and it is hard to overstate how much fun it is to look
through, whether one is interested in science, history, comparative religion,
or culture. Al-Biruni was obviously interested in all aspects of the medieval
Indian world that he visited.
Aldiss, Stephen, ed. Zen Sourcebook: Traditional Documents from China,
Korea, and Japan. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2008. This ¿ne collection includes
writings by Huineng, Chinul, Dogen, and Hakuin, among many others.
Highly recommended.
Blacker, Carmen. The Japanese Enlightenment: A Study of the Writings of
Fukuzawa Yukichi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964. This is
a classic work, which I think is still one of the best introductions to Japan’s
most famous Westernizer, a man who sometimes uneasily bridged two very
different cultures.
Boyce, Mary. Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices. 2nd ed.
London: Routledge, 2001. The religion of Zarathustra can be a puzzling faith
to outsiders, but Boyce provides clear explanations of its origins, scriptures,
and later history.
Bibliography
Brown, Judith M. Gandhi: Prisoner of Hope. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1991. There are many biographies of Gandhi, but Brown’s
work remains a towering achievement. Brown is especially good at
connecting Gandhi to the broader context of Indian culture and thought.
Carr, Brian, and Indira Mahalingam, eds. Companion Encyclopedia of Asian
Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 1997. A ¿ne collection of essays dealing
with most of the philosophical traditions in this course. Sometimes a bit
detailed, but always worth consulting.
148
Chan, Wing-tsit, trans. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1969. If you go with only one book of
Chinese philosophy in translation, this should be it. Chan covers the entire
range of Chinese thought from Confucius to Maoism. He includes the entire
Daodejing and is particularly thorough with the texts of Chinese Buddhism.
His introductions alone make this a classic in the ¿eld.
Chin, Ann-ping. The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics.
New York: Scribner, 2007. A biography that attempts to sort the legendary
from the historical Confucius and in the process provides a good introduction
to his ideas in their original context.
Chung, Edward Y. J. The Korean Neo-Confucianism of Yi T’oegye and
Yi Yulgok: A Reappraisal of the “Four-Seven Thesis” and Its Practical
Implications for Self-Cultivation. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1995. This is an authoritative account of the most famous
philosophical controversy in Korean history as conducted by two of Korea’s
most esteemed thinkers (who are also known as Yi Hwang and Yu I). It is
also an example of how Neo-Confucianism spread from China throughout
East Asia.
Cohen, H. Floris. The Scienti¿c Revolution: A Historiographical Inquiry.
Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. A comprehensive study
of one of the most signi¿cant events in world history, with a whole chapter
devoted to a review of various explanations that have been put forward for
why modern science did not emerge from the technologically sophisticated
civilizations of China and Islam.
Collinson, Diané, Kathryn Plant, and Robert Wilkinson. Fifty Eastern
Thinkers. NewYork: Routledge, 2000. Brief synopses of the major ideas of
the great Asian philosophers. Very useful for beginners.
Confucius. The Analects of Confucius. Translation and notes by Simon Leys.
New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. This is one of my favorite translations, It
renders Confucius’ words into modern, colloquial English, then provides
notes to explain the original cultural details.
149
De Bary, William Theodore, and Irene Bloom, eds. Sources of Chinese
Tradition, Vol. 1: From Earliest Times to 1600. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2000. This is one of the most comprehensive collections of
excerpts from Chinese intellectual history available. It was a classic when
it was ¿rst published in 1960, and it has since been updated with the most
recent archaeologically recovered texts. The translations and introductions
set the standard for Chinese studies.
De Bary, William Theodore, and Richard Lufrano, eds. Sources of Chinese
Tradition, Vol. 2: From 1600 through the Twentieth Century. 2nd ed. New
York: Columbia University Press, 2001. The second volume of de Bary’s
updated 1960 tour de force. Remarkable in the breadth of the sources that
it includes.
De Bary, William Theodore, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley,
eds. Sources of Japanese Tradition. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: Columbia
University Press, 2001–2005. In similar manner to their sister volumes in
the Sources series, these two books provide a comprehensive overview of
Japanese history as recorded in primary sources. The Japanese great minds
in this course are all well represented, along with dozens and dozens or
additional thinkers.
Dogen. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen. Translated and
edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi. New York: North Point Press, 1995. Dogen’s
writings are both philosophically and religiously rich. This book offers
translations of a wide variety of his works, including poetry.
Bibliography
Dundas, Paul. The Jains. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. An authoritative
yet accessible introduction to the thought of Mahavira and the religion
he founded.
Durrant, Stephen W. The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and ConÀict in the Writings
of Sima Qian. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Durrant
draws connections between Sima Qian’s history and the story of his life, in
particular Sima’s relationship with the Confucian tradition.
150
Earhart, H. Byron. Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity. 4th ed. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth, 2003. Much of the history of Japanese thought is focused
on religion, and Earhart’s textbook covers many great Japanese minds in
relationship to each other and also in their historical contexts.
Embree, Ainsley T., ed. Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. 1: From the
Beginning to 1800. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. This
is an anthology of fairly short excerpts (with wonderful introductions) of
primary sources in Indian philosophy. Along with the other volumes in the
series, this collection offers an excellent introduction to the actual writings
of Asian thinkers.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. The Penguin Gandhi Reader. 2nd ed. Edited by
Rudrangshu Mukherjee. New York: Penguin, 1995. I have found this to be the
most accessible and engaging of the many anthologies of Gandhi’s writings.
Graham, A. C. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient
China. La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989. Of the many introductions to
classical Chinese philosophy, this is the best, written by an acknowledged
master in the ¿eld. The scope of his insights and eloquence of his translations
are breathtaking.
Hakuin. Wild Ivy: The Spiritual Autobiography of Zen Master Hakuin.
Translated by Norman Waddell. Boston: Shambhala, 1999. A masterpiece
of both Zen Buddhism and Asian autobiography, Hakuin’s work is a
psychologically astute approach to spirituality and enlightenment.
Han Yongun. Everything Yearned For: Manhae’s Poems of Love and
Longing. Translated by Francisca Cho. Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2005.
This is a marvelous translation of Han Yongun’s most famous book, a work
of Buddhist verse that is often read as political allegory or love poetry. Han
is also known by his Buddhist name Manhae.
———. Selected Writings of Han Yongun: From Social Darwinism to
Socialism with a Buddhist Face. Translated by Vladimir Tikhonov and Owen
Miller. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008. The best anthology of
Han Yongun’s prose available.
151
Hardy, Grant. Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of
History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. A study of Sima
Qian’s Shiji that ¿nds meaning in the unusual, fragmented structure of that
early Chinese history.
Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History, and
Practices. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990. This text will
guide you through all three of the major Buddhist traditions: Theravada,
Mahayana, and Vajrayana (basically, Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Tibet).
Hay, Stephen N., ed. Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol 2: Modern India and
Pakistan. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. Along with
the other volumes in the Columbia Introduction to Oriental Civilizations
series (Sources of India, China, and Japan), this collection offers an excellent
introduction to the actual writings of Asian thinkers.
Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds. Readings in Classical
Chinese Philosophy. 2nd ed. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2001. New translations
of most of the key early Chinese thinkers. A great place to start reading the
philosophers themselves.
Juniper, Andrew. Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence. Boston:
Tuttle, 2003. This exploration of a key concept in Japanese aesthetics
includes material on Zen, design, the tea ceremony, and Sen no Rikyu.
Bibliography
Kasulis, T. P. Zen Action, Zen Person. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
1985. An engaging philosophical treatise that brings together Nagarjuna,
Daoism, Dogen, and Hakuin.
Keene, Donald. Yoshimasa and the Silver Pavilion: The Creation of the Soul
of Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. Donald Keene, one
of the eminent scholars of Japan, introduces readers to the artistic Àowering
in the medieval court of the Shogun Yoshimasa and then demonstrates how
those sensibilities have informed Japanese culture ever since. The topics he
covers include theater, painting, architecture, sand gardens, poetry, the tea
ceremony, and Zen.
152
Kohn, Livia. Daoism and Chinese Culture. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines
Press, 2001. Kohn offers not just an introduction to Laozi and Zhuangzi but
also an exploration of how their ideas were adopted by and adapted to later
generations of Chinese thinkers, including people like Ge Hong.
Kupperman, Joel. Classic Asian Philosophy: A Guide to the Essential
Texts. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford, 2006. Kupperman offers essays that are
philosophically accurate but also accessible, insightful, and useful for those
seeking for practical applications in their own lives. His chapters include
discussions of the Upanishads, the Dhammapada (an early Buddhist text),
the Bhagavad Gita, Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Zen.
Laozi. Daodejing. More than any other text mentioned in this course, students
will bene¿t from reading multiple versions of the Daodejing. Fortunately,
Laozi’s book is quite short, and there are many reputable translations. I
recommend four: D. C. Lau, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (Penguin, 1964), Victor
Mair, Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way (Bantam,
1990), Robert G. Hendricks, Lao-Tzu: Te-Tao Ching (Ballantine, 1992), and
Philip J. Ivanhoe, The Daodejing of Laozi (Hackett, 2003).
Lee, Peter, ed. Sourcebook of Korean Civilization. 2 vols. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1993–1996. A groundbreaking collection of
primary sources in translation from throughout Korean history.
Lieberthal, Kenneth. Governing China: From Revolution to Reform. 2nd
ed. New York: Norton, 2003. A masterful survey of political thought and
practice in China, from the Confucian ideology of the early empire to Mao
Zedong’s inÀuence in the modern era.
McGreal, Ian P., ed. Great Thinkers of the Eastern World. New York:
HarperCollins, 1995. This is probably the book that best mirrors the contents
of this course. Highly recommended.
McLeod, W. H. The Sikhs: History, Religion, and Society. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1989. An excellent introduction to the religion
founded by Guru Nanak, with a focus on Nanak’s own life and thought.
153
Mencius. Mencius. Translated by Irene Bloom. Edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. A recent, readable translation
of the second greatest Confucian thinker after Confucius himself.
Miller, Barbara Stoller, trans. The Bhagavad-gita: Krishna’s Counsel in
Time of War. New York: Bantam Books, 1986. A lovely translation with a
lucid introduction that will help readers make sense of the concepts behind
the poetry.
———. Yoga: Discipline of Freedom. New York: Bantam, 1998. This is
a full translation, with commentary, of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. It’s hard to
imagine a more lucid, engaging rendition, particularly given the sometimes
cryptic nature of the sutra genre in Indian philosophy.
Mir, Mustansir. Iqbal. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006. The best concise
introduction to Iqbal’s life and thought, with equal attention given to his
prose and poetry.
Mitchell, Donald W. Buddhism: Introducing the Buddhist Experience. 2nd ed.
New York: Oxford, 2007. If you want an overview of Buddhism in India,
China, Japan, Korea, and the modern world, and if you’re still not sure about
the differences between Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism,
this is the book for you. Mitchell puts the major thinkers into their historical
contexts and shows the connections between them.
Bibliography
Moeller, Hans-Georg. The Philosophy of the Daodejing. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2006. This brief work features all sorts of
wise insights about a text that has puzzled readers for millennia. Moeller
is particularly good at suggesting what Laozi’s book might mean for
modern readers.
Morris, Ivan. The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan.
New York: Kodansha, 1994. Originally published in 1964, this classic study
offers a fascinating glimpse into the unique historical setting that made
possible both Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji and Sei Shonagon’s Pillow
Book. In fact, those two works are primary sources for Morris’s historical
reconstruction of the era.
154
Nagarjuna. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna’s
Mulamadhyamakakarika. Translation and commentary by Jay L. Gar¿eld.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. There’s no getting around it;
this is a dif¿cult text. But it is worth taking a look at to get a sense of the
philosophical sophistication of the Buddhist tradition. This translation, from
Tibetan sources, is in some ways easier to follow than earlier renditions from
the original Sanskrit.
Powers, John. Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Rev. ed. Ithaca, New York:
Snow Lion Publications, 2007. The subject of Tibetan Buddhism can be
frustratingly complex and confusing. Powers does a ¿ne job in identifying
major themes and ¿gures in a comprehensive, yet accessible manner.
Puligandla, Ramakrishna. Fundamentals of Indian Philosophy. Fremont,
CA: Jain Publishing, 2007. This is one of the best overviews available of the
entire range of Indian intellectual history, and Puligandla’s explanations of
sometimes rather dif¿cult concepts are remarkably clear.
Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, and Charles Moore, eds. A Source Book in Indian
Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957. It might seem
strange to recommend a book that is more than 50 years old, but this classic
anthology is still in print, and for good reason. Radhakrishnan was one of the
great Indian philosophers of the 20th century, and his collection of primary
sources in Indian thought—particularly the six orthodox schools—is still a
great place to begin an in-depth study of the subject.
Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught, Rev. and exp. ed. New York:
Grove Press, 1974. A classic introduction to the ideas of the Buddha, with
translations from major sutras (or suttas, as they are known in Pali).
Reid, T. R. Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us
about Living in the West. New York: Vintage, 1999. A humorous, intriguing
investigation of the continuing inÀuence of Confucianism in modern East
Asia and how that social system compares with Western culture.
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Schram, Stuart. The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1989. A detailed analysis of the ins and outs of Mao’s everchanging ideology, which continues to be prominent in contemporary China,
at least in theory.
Selin, Helaine. Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and
Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. 2nd ed. 2 vols. New York: Springer, 2008.
You will probably need access to a university library to ¿nd this reference
work, but it is phenomenal in its coverage and insight.
Sen, Amartya. The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History,
Culture, and Identity. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. Sen is a
Nobel Prize winner in economics, and this collection of essays offers a great
deal of insight into Indian civilization, but chapter 5, “Tagore and His India,”
is particularly useful. It is an ideal introduction to Tagore and Gandhi.
Sima Qian. The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records.
Translated by Raymond Dawson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
If you are new to Sima Qian, or even to Chinese history, these engaging
chapters concerning the uni¿cation of the China under the ¿rst emperor in
221 B.C. are a great place to begin.
Swann, Nancy Lee. Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China. Ann
Arbor, MI: Center for Chinese Studies, 2001. This biography of Ban Zhao
(formerly spelled Pan Chao) was ¿rst published in 1932, but it is still the
best study available, in part because it includes an annotated translation of
all her extant works.
Bibliography
Sunzi. Sun Tzu: The Art of War. Translated by Samuel B. Grif¿th. London:
Oxford, 1963. This is the classic version of the text, though Ralph D.
Sawyer’s translation, The Complete Art of War (Boulder, CO: Westview,
1996) includes a related, recently discovered manuscript as well.
Tagore, Rabindranath. Rabindranath Tagore: An Anthology. Edited by
Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
This collection offers a wide sampling of Tagore’s extensive literary output
from drama to ¿ction, letters to essays, and poetry to songs.
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Terrill, Ross. Mao: A Biography. Rev. and exp. ed. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2000. Mao remains a very controversial ¿gure, but Terrill
offers one of the more balanced and readable biographies available. For a
shorter introduction, see Jonathan Spence’s 1999 book Mao Zedong, in the
Penguin Lives series.
Thapar, Romila. Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. Rev. ed. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998. This study, by one of India’s most prominent
historians, places Emperor Ashoka’s rule and ideas into their original
historical contexts. A classic work updated.
Varley, Paul. Japanese Culture. 4th ed. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2000. More than just a series of essays, this is a comprehensive history of
Japan with a focus on culture, art, and thought. It is an ideal introduction to
a unique civilization.
Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. New
York: Routledge, 1989. This overview will help place the achievements of
Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, and Fazang into their proper intellectual context, so
that readers can trace the development of the schools represented by those
thinkers. Williams offers clear explanations of sometimes dif¿cult concepts.
Wriggins, Sally. The Silk Road Journey with Xuanzang. New York: Basic
Books, 2003. This is a fun example of popular history that still takes care to
get the facts straight. Xuanzang’s was an amazing pilgrimage that took him
from China to India, and Wriggins (who actually retraces his steps) tells his
story in an engaging fashion.
Zhuangzi. The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. Translated by Burton
Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1968. One of the most
entertaining philosophical works ever written, translated with verve by one
of the greatest translators of the 20th century.
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Series
For those looking for brief overviews, the Very Short Introductions series
published by Oxford University Press has volumes devoted to Buddhism,
Hinduism, Gandhi, Buddha, Indian Philosophy, Buddhist Ethics, Sikhism,
Modern China, and Modern Japan.
In addition, there are several short biographies in the Library of World
Biography series (Pearson/Longman; edited by Peter N. Stearns) that are
useful for this course, including those of Fukuzawa Yukichi, Sun Yat-sen,
and Zheng He (the Ming dynasty admiral who commanded Chinese Àeets
that sailed to Southeast Asia, India, and even Africa).
The Penguin Classics series offers excellent translations (often with
insightful introductions) to many of the texts that are discussed in the course,
including Kautilya’s Arthashastra, Sunzi’s Art of War, the Bhagavad Gita,
Buddhist Scriptures, the Analects, Laozi’s Daodejing (or Tao Te Ching),
Japanese No Dramas, the Mahabharata, Mencius, Sei Shonagon’s Pillow
Book, the Rig Veda, Murasaki Shikibu’s Tale of Genji, the Upanishads, and
Zhuangzi (they spell it Chuang Tzu).
Internet Sources
Diamond Sutra Recitation Group. King Sejong the Great. http://www.
koreanhero.net/kingsejong/index.html. A 112-page pamphlet, this is not
a critical biography by any means, but it provides a quick overview of the
achievements of one the most admired ¿gures in Korean history.
Bibliography
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu. An online
collection of articles on philosophers and philosophical movements, with
special attention given to Chinese and Indian thought.
Sivin, Nathan. “Why the Scienti¿c Revolution Did Not Take Place in
China—Or Didn’t It?” University of Pennsylvania. http://ccat.sas.upenn.
edu/~nsivin/scirev.pdf. This is a 2005 revision of an article ¿rst published in
1982. It’s a classic in the ¿eld.
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.
html. A massive database of philosophical essays written by experts. Many
of the great minds in this course have articles devoted to them.
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Text permissions
© Francisca Cho, 2004. Reprinted from Everything Yearned For with
permission from Wisdom Publications, 199 Elm Street, Somerville, MA
02144 USA. www.wisdompubs.org
Chan, Wing-Tsit. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1963. © Princeton University Press. Used by permission.
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