READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH
G 9060 12782 September 2011 – Jan 2012
Edmund Ryden SJ
SL 314 (Tel 2696)
Mondays 13:40-15:30
Purpose: To enable students to consult material in English in the field of religious
studies, with a focus on four areas: comparative religion, Buddhism, Christianity and
Daoism. The course will involve reading key texts in English from the religions and
also in reading articles about the said religions. To help learning to read there will also
be demands on writing English, however the course will not teach conversation or
listening.
This year special emphasis will be put on Robert Bellah’s Tokugawa Religion.
Assessment: By final exam at the end of each semester. Students will also be expected
to prepare each week’s reading before class and may be examined on their preparation.
Semester 1: Buddhism & Daoism
[1 19 Sept
An introduction to English grammar and etymology
Buddhist Terminology]
2 26 Sept
Text: The Layman’s Social Ethics (Ling 131-5)
3 03 Oct
Buddhism in Japan (Bellah 66-69)
4 17 Oct
The Philosophy of Emptiness (Chan 357-60)
5 24 Oct
A Memoir of Our Teacher, Ishida (Bellah, 209-10, 213-4)
6 31 Oct
Shingaku 心學 (Bellah 134-48)
7 07 Nov
The Thought of Ishida Baigan (Bellah 150-65)
8 14 Nov
Religious Diversity (Dikotter 67-73)
9 21 Nov
The Chinese Pantheon (Birrell 27-32)
10 28 Nov
Translating the Daodejing
11 12 Dec
Yoga and Daoism (Mair 146-8)
12 19 Dec
The cult of the dragon (Loewe 146-8)
13 26 Dec
Two Types of Religious Action (Bellah 73-74)
14 02 Jan
Rituals of the Native Americans (Wilson 25-28)
Exam 11 Jan
Texts used:
Bellah, Robert, Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan, New York:
Free Press, 2nd ed. 1985 [1957]. (若可能我建議你們買這本書)
Birrell, Anne, Chinese Myths, London: The British Museum, 2000.
Chan Wing-tsit, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1963.
Dikötter, Frank, The Age of Openness: China before Mao, Hong Kong: HK UP, 2008.
Ling, Trevor (ed.), The Buddha’s Philosophy of Man: Early Indian Buddhist
Dialogues, London: J.M. Dent, 1981.
Loewe, Michael, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China, Cambridge:
University of Cambridge, 1996.
Mair, Victor H., Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, New York:
Bantam, 1990.
Ryden, E. (ed. tr.), Laozi: Daodejing, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Wilson, James, The Earth Shall Weep: A History of Native America, New York:
Atlantic Monthly, 1998.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
English Grammar
English grammar is best when it is simple. The basic construction is Subject-VerbObject.
Mary loves Peter. (S-V-O)
Only in imperative sentences (orders, eg. Come!, Go!), is the subject omitted.
Every verb must have a subject.
*loves Peter (*=incorrect grammar): Mary loves Peter.
The word which marks the subject of a verb can never be the object of another verb.
*Mary loves Peter loves cats. : Mary loves Peter, who loves cats.
Active, transitive verbs have a direct object.
Mary loves Peter. (S-V-O)
Intransitive verbs have no object.
Mary dreams. (S-V)
The verb ‘to be’ has a complement.
Mary is pretty. (S-V-C)
Sentences may be joined together in various ways giving rise to Main Clauses and
Subordinate Clauses. Each clause has its own subject, verb and (when necessary)
object or complement.
Main clause
S
V
O
Mary loves Peter,
Subordinate Clause
S
V
O
who loves cats.
Main clause
Subordinate Clause1
Clause2
S
V
C
S
V
Life is not only a fight for survival,
where one part only wins
Subordinate
S
V
if the other part
loses.
Main Clause
S
V
C
The encounter of faith with scientific discovery is not a new experience for the church.
A phrase does not have a verb but it can have a noun formed from a verb (often
ending in –ing) and this verbal noun can have an object, eg more and more intelligent
babies is the object of the verbal noun ‘producing’ but altogether the phrase describes
‘price’ and so is part of the subject of the main verb ‘was’:
The price of producing more and more intelligent babies was (and is) the pain of
squeezing their heads through a birth canal that leads, for historical reasons, through
a rigid pelvis.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
English is a Germanic language that has been heavily influenced by Romance (French
and Latin) languages. There are also traces of Celtic and Nordic languages. English
also borrows many new words from all over the world, including from Taiwanese: tea.
Germanic words express the simple ideas:
The cat came into the house.
Romance (Latin words that come via French) words express more high class ideas:
The student entered the university.
Words borrowed into English directly from Latin and Greek are used only for abstract
ideas eg
The thoughts of the wise gladden the heart. (All Germanic words).
The reflections of the sages are a delight for the spirit. (French words in italics).
The cogitations of the philosophers are ambrosia for the psyche. (Greek and Latin
words.)
These three sentences all mean exactly the same thing. The first is the easiest to
understand; the second is not too difficult, but the third is very difficult. Therefore,
when writing English try always to use Germanic words. Unfortunately, many
religious books like to use Greek and Latin, which makes them much more difficult to
understand.
Here is an example of a theological text and below is a translation into Germanic
English:
The temporary estrangement between the sciences and theology is now over. It
began when the sciences emancipated themselves from cosmology and reduced it to
a personal belief in the divinity as Creator. The two disciplines established their own
identities on either side of accepted demarcation lines and achieved a peaceful
coexistence based on mutual irrelevance.
The brief hostility between the sciences and theology is now over. It began when the
sciences freed themselves from cosmology and reduced it to a personal belief in God
as Creator. The two fields of learning grounded themselves on either side of accepted
borders and stayed peacefully side by side whilst not bothering about each other.
The words in italics are difficult to replace with Germanic words. The Germanic text
is much easier to understand. However, it perhaps goes too far in cutting out all
romance words. English still likes to use some romance words for abstract ideas.
Nordic words are also Germanic but sometimes differ. They also express everyday
ideas often of a violent nature: die, start, stare.
Eg 開始 in English=commencement (French), beginning (German), start (Norse)
Please use a dictionary that indicates the etymology of a word.
Germanic words: Anglo-Saxon (AS), Old English (OE), Middle English (ME)
Germanic words from Old Norse (ON) are found in Middle English or in AngloSaxon
Romance words may come in via Middle English, or later from French or Latin.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Buddhist terminology: Sanskrit and Pali
Chinese
Sanskrit
Pali
Siddhartha
悉達多
Sakyamuni
釋迦牟尼
Tathāgata
如來
佛教
Bhiksu
Bhikkhu
比丘
Bhiksuni
Bhikkhunī
Sramana
沙門
Śravaka
聲聞
Pratyeka
緣覺
無上正等正覺
Samyaksam
Buddha, Dharma, Samgha
三寶
Dukkha
Dukkha-dukkha
Viparināma-dukkha
Samkhāra-dukkha
色
受
想
行
識
無常
痴
愛
取
有
生
八正道
正見
正思
正語
正業
正命
正精
正
正定
English
Name of Gautama Buddha
The sage of the Sakya Clan
Thus come OR Thus gone
Buddhism
Buddhist monk
Buddhist nun
Buddhist monk, ascetic
Listening Buddha
Self-enlightened Buddha
Fully-enlightened Buddha
Three Jewels
Suffering
Physical and mental suffering
Suffering produced by change
Suffering
produced
by
contingencies
5 khandas
5 aggregates
Rūpa
Form
Vedanā
Sensations
Sannā
Perceptions
Samkhāra
Mental formations
Vinnāna
Consciousness
Anattā / Anātmavāda Non-susbstance / doctrine of no
soul
Anicca
Impermanence
Pratiya samutpāda Paticcasamuppāda Nexus of conditioned origination
Avidyā
Avijjā
Ignorance
Samkhāra
Volitional activities
Nāma-rūpa
Name and form
Trsnā
Tanhā
Thirst
Upādāna
Clinging
Bhava
Becoming
Jāti
Birth
Jarā-marana
Decay,death, lamentation
Nirodha
Cessation
Ariya-Atthangika Magga
The Noble Eightfold Path
Sammā ditthi
Right understanding
Sammā sankappa Right thought
Sammā vācā
Right speech
Sammā kammanta Right action
Sammā ājīva
Right living
Sammā vāyāma
Right effort
Sammā sati
Right mindfulness
Sammā samādhi
Right concentration / meditation
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Pannā
智慧
Sīlā
持戒
Stupa
塔
Ānanda
阿難陀
Kāsyapa
Kāssapa
迦葉波
Mahāyāna
大乘
Hinayāna
小乘
Dhyana
禪那
禪宗
Tantrayana
密宗
淨土宗
西方淨土
蓮花宗
法華經，妙法蓮花經 Saddharma-pundarikasūtra
阿彌陀佛 Amitabha
菩堤薩埵
Bodhisattva
阿羅漢
觀音菩薩
Arhat
Avalokiteśvara
蓮花手
文殊菩薩
維摩詰
普賢菩薩
Padmapani
Manjusri
Vimalakirti
Samantabhadra
地藏菩薩
佈施
忍辱
指進
般若
菩提達摩
涅槃
彌勒佛
手印
施無畏
與願
轉法輪
Ksitigarbha
Dāna
Ksānti
Virya
Prajnaparamita
Bodhidharma
Nirvāna
Maitreya
Mudrā
Abhaya
Vara
Dharmacakrapravatana
Bodhi
Jataka
Mandala
Sunyā
菩提樹
本生
曼荼羅
空
Wisdom
Morality
Pagoda (Tibetan: dagoba)
Disciple of Sakyamuni Buddha
Disciple of Sakyamuni Buddha
Great Vehicle OR Greater Vehicle
Little Vehicle OR Lesser Vehicle
Meditation
Zen School (also Chan School)
Esoteric Buddhism
Pure Land Sect
Pure Land of the West
Lotus Sect = Pure Land Sect
Lotus Sūtra
Buddha
of
Immeasurable
Splendour
One who vows to save all sentient
beings
Buddhist saint (Hinayana)
The Bodhisattva who hears the
cries
The Jewel in the Lotus = Guanyin
Bodhisattva of Wisdom (on a lion)
Bodhisattva
of
Benevolence
(elephant)
Bodhisattva who frees from hell
Generosity
Patient endurance
Strength
Intuition
First Patriarch of Zen School
Blowing-out
Future Buddha
Position of the hand:
Assurance from fear (hands lifted)
Bestowing (Hand dropped, open)
Turning the wheel of the law
(Hands touching)
The bodhi tree
Story about earlier Buddhas
Mandala
Empty
Nibbana
NB: Sanskrit and Pali names are not necessarily accurately transcribed.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
The Layman’s Social Ethics (Sigalavada Sutta) Ling, 131-135
The Master was once staying near Rajagaha in the Bamboo Wood at the Squirrels’
Feeding-ground. Now at the this time young Sigala, a householder’s son, rising early,
went forth from Rajagaha, and with wet hair and wet garments and clasped hands
uplifted , paid worship to the several quarters of earth and sky: to the East, the South,
the West and the North, to the depths and to the heights. The Master early that
morning dressed himself, took bowl and robe, and entered Rajagaha seeking alms.
Seeing young Sigala worshipping he spoke to him: “Young householder, why do you,
rising early and leaving Rajhagaha, with wet hair and clothes, worship the several
quarters of earth and sky?”
“Sir, my father, when he was dying, said to me: ‘My dear son, you should worship the
quarters of earth and sky.’ So I, sir, honouring my father’s word, reverencing,
revering and holding it sacred, rise early and, leaving Rajagaha, worship in this way.”
“But in the religion of an Aryan, young householder, the six quarters should not be
worshipped like this.”
“How then, sir, in the religion of an Aryan, should the six quarters be worshipped? It
would be an excellent thing, sir, if the Master would teach me the doctrine according
to which, in the religion of an Aryan, the six quarters should be worshipped.”
“Listen then, young householder, pay attention, and I will tell you.”
“Please do, sir,” replied young Sigala. The Master then said: “Inasmuch, young
householder, as the Aryan disciple has put away the four vices in conduct, inasmuch
as he avoids the four evil actions, inasmuch as he does not follow the six ways of
dissipating wealth, avoiding evil things, then he is thereby honouring all six quarters;
his practice is such as will enable him to overcome both worlds; he has initiated his
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
success both in this world and in the next. At the dissolution of the body, after death,
he is reborn to a happy destiny in heaven.
What, then, are those four vices of conduct that he has put away? They are: the
destruction of life, the taking of what is not given, sexual misconduct and lying
speech. These are the four vices that he has put away…
What four motives lead to evil deeds? Evil deeds are done from motives of partiality,
enmity, stupidity and fear. Inasmuch as the Aryan disciple is not led away by these
motives, he does no evil deed,” said the Master…
“And which are the six channels for dissipating wealth? Being addicted to
intoxicating liquors, frequenting the streets at unseemly hours, haunting fairs, being
infatuated by gambling, associating with evil companions, and habitual idleness.
There are, young householder, these six dangers connected with being addicted to
intoxicating liquors. They are: actual loss of wealth, increase of quarrels,
susceptibility to disease, loss of good character, indecent exposure, impaired
intelligence.
And there are six perils from frequenting the streets at unseemly hours: the one who
does so is without guard or protection and so also are his wife and children; so also is
his property; moreover, he becomes suspected of crimes, false rumours fix on him,
and many are the troubles he begins to encounter.
There are six perils from the haunting of fairs. He is ever thinking, “Where is there
dancing? Where is there singing? Where is there music? Where is recitation? Where
are the cymbals? Where are drums?”
There are six perils for him who is infatuated with gambling: as winner he attracts
hatred; as loser he mourns his lost wealth; his actual substance is wasted; his word has
no weight in a court of law; he is despised by friends and officials; he is not
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
considered by those who would give or take in marriage, for they will say that a man
who is a gambler cannot afford to keep a wife.
There are six perils from associating with evil companions: any gambler, any libertine,
any tippler, any cheat, any swindler, any man of violence is his friend and companion.
There are six perils associated with the habit of idleness: he says, “It is too cold,” and
does no work. He says, “It is too hot,” and does no work. He says, “It is too early,”
and does no work. He says, “It is too late,” and does no work. He says, “I am too
hungry,” and does no work. He says, “I am too full,” and does no work. And while all
that he should do remains undone, he has no income, and such wealth as he has
dwindles away. …
There are four friends who should be reckoned as good-hearted: the helper, the friend
who is the same in happiness and adversity, the friend of good counsel, the friend who
sympathizes. On four grounds the friend who is a helper is to be reckoned as goodhearted. He guards you when you are off your guard; he guards your property when
you are off your guard; he is a refuge to you when you are afraid; when you have
tasks to perform he provides a double supply of what you may need. On four grounds
the friend who is the same in happiness and adversity is to be reckoned as goodhearted. He tells you his secrets; he keeps secret your secrets; in your troubles he does
not forsake you; he lays down even his life for your sake. On four grounds the friend
who declares what you need to do is to be reckoned as good-hearted. He restrains you
from doing wrong; he encourages you to do what is right; he informs you of what you
had not heard before; he reveals to you the way to heaven. On four grounds the friend
who sympathizes is to be reckoned as good-hearted. He does not rejoice over your
misfortunes; he rejoices over you prosperity; he restrains anyone who is speaking ill
of you; he commends anyone who is praising you.” (992)
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Buddhism in Japan (Bellah 66-69)
Though there were undoubtedly from the first a certain number of sincere
Buddhist monks who understood something of the more philosophical forms of their
religion, it would be hard to deny that the importance of Buddhism in the early
centuries of its development in Japan was largely magical. Sutras were read often not
for their intrinsic content but for the magical results such reading was thought to bring.
For example, in the 7th century we have records of sutras read to bring rain, the Mahamegha-sutra being thought especially suitable for this purpose. Other sutras were read
to stop rain when floods were feared. Ritual vegetarian feasts were given for large
numbers of monks to gain various ends such as restoring the health or lengthening the
life of some noble patron or for the benefit of some departed soul. Large convocations
were held to read certain sutras in various special ways, that is, facing certain
directions or speaking with a certain degree of loudness or softness, to obtain various
magical results. The Sutra of the Benevolent Kings 仁王經 ninnōkyō was often read in
such convocations. Its principal aim was to ensure peace and prosperity to the empire,
but it was also read to bring rain, to stop pestilences of smallpox, leprosy or other
epidemics and to avert the evil consequences of bad omens such as eclipses and
comets. Virtuous acts, such as the granting of a general amnesty, or issuing a
prohibition against the killing of animals, or having some pure person retire from the
world, were also employed to obtain results like the ending of a drought or the
recovery of a sick emperor.
At the personal level, Buddhism in these early years was largely a matter of
spealls and charms and devotions to especially favoured Bodhisattvas. Certainly a
considerable amount of this sort of thing continued in general practice right down to
modern times, but nevertheless the 12th and 13th centuries marked a great turning
point in Japanese Buddhism during which a strong trend to free the religion from
magic took hold. This is most markedly shown in the three great sects or congeries of
sects which arose in those centuries: the Zen 禪, Nichiren 日蓮 and Jōdō 淨土 or Pure
Land sects.
Eisai 單西 (1141-1215), founder of the Rinzai 臨濟 school of Zen in Japan,
taught that knowledge of the Buddha-mind could only be gained intuitively through
meditation, and not be worshipping Buddhas, reciting sutras or other such religious
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
practices. He held that no physical media could express or symbolize the Buddhamind. It could only be found within one’s own mind through meditation. “Find
Buddha in your own heart, whose essential nature is the Buddha himself,” he said.
Zen did not consider the older religious practices as ‘abominations’ but merely
as inefficacious, and so did not lead a drive to eliminate them. Among its own
adherents, however, and these numbered among the more important intellectual and
military figures of the upper classes, it did serve as a definite force in breaking the
hold of the old magical religious attitudes.
Nichiren (1222-1282), founder of the sect which bears his name, taught
worship to only one Buddha, the Buddha of the Lotus Sutra. Worship of any other
Buddha he felt was not merely inefficacious but wicked and disloyal to the true
Buddha. He urged the repression of all other sects on these grounds. His message was
primarily ethical and he did not stress performing rituals or engaging in mystical
contemplation as proper means for worshipping the Buddha. Rather he taught that
faith should be reposed in the Buddha, to be signified by the repetition of a brief
phrase in praise of the Lotus Sutra, sacred above all other sutras and in some way
identical with the Buddha himself. Faith ought to be actualized in life through ethical
actions, chief of which are, he held, reverence for sovereign, teacher and parents.
The Pure Land sects went in some ways the farthest of any of the new currents
in Buddhism in the direction of freeing religion from magic, superstition and ritual.
The Jōdō Shinshū 淨土真宗, founded by Shinran Shōnin 親鸞上人 (1173-1262),
went farther than any other of the Pure Land sects in this direction and, since it is
much the largest not only of the Pure land sects but of all the sects of Japanese
Buddhism, the following remarks will be confined to it.
The core of the Shinshū belief was that only faith in Amida could bring
salvation. Shinran wrote:
Two things are essential to Faith. The first is to be convinced of our own
sinfulness; from the bondage of evil deeds, we possess no means of
emancipating ourselves. The second is, therefore, to throw our helpless souls
wholly upon the Divine Power of Amida Nyorai in the firm belief that his
forty-eight vows were for the express purpose of saving all beings who should
put their trust in him without the least doubt or fear. Such souls will be born
surely into his Pure Land.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Since faith in Amida alone is efficacious it follows that all ceremonies, charms and
worship of other Buddhas is in vain. Shinran said:
An evidence of the increasing degeneracy of the world is visible in the
religious life of both priests and laymen of the present time. They are
Buddhists in outward appearance, but in reality followers of a false religion.
How sorrowful it is that they look for ‘lucky days’, worship other gods on
earth and in heaven, indulge in fortune-telling and practice ‘charms.
The stress on faith alone made many of the older Buddhist practices seem to be
outmoded superstitions. The prohibition on clerical marriages was dropped, as was the
prohibition on eating meat. Consequently occupations which were formerly held in
disrepute were now exonerated. Shinran said:
There is no difference among those who are living upon fishing with a line or
net from ocean or river, those who are dragging out an existence with hunting
game or fouling on field and mountain, and those who are getting along in
trade or tilling the soil. Man may to anything whatsoever, if moved by his
karma.
(69)
Rennyo Shōnin 蓮如上人 (1415-1499), often called the second founder of the
Shinshū because of his great influence on its development, extended the work of
Shinran. He opposed the practice of austerities and meditation as merely giving the
mind an opportunity for evil thoughts. He insisted on the practice of the Confucian
virtues in daily life and on obedience to state authorities, while at the same time one’s
inner life was to be wholly given up to Amida. Rennyo opposed any worship of
Shintō deities and it is due to him that there are no kamidana 神棚 (household Shintō
shrines) in Shinshū homes to this day. (1126)
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Chan Wing-tsit 陳榮捷, The Philosophy of Emptiness (Chan, 357-9)
The Three-Treatise School, called Mādhyamika in Sanskrit, was founded in
India by Nāgārjuna (c. 100-200 AD). Kumārajīva (344-413) introduced it into China
by translating Nāgārjuna’s two most important treatises, the Mādhyamika śāstra
(Treatise on the Middle Doctrine) and the Dvādaśanikāya śāstra (Twelve Gates
Treatise) and his disciple Āryadeva’s Śata śāstra (One Hundred Verses Treatise).
Hence the school is called the Three-Treatise School.
The central concept of the school is Emptiness (Śūnyata) in the sense that the
nature and characters of all dharmas, together with their causation, are devoid of
reality. Thus all differentiations, whether being or non-being, cause or effect, or
coming-into-existence or going-out-of-existence are only temporary names and are
empty in nature. The only reality is Emptiness itself, which is the Absolute, Ultimate
Void, the Original Substance, or in Chinese terminology, the correct principle. As
such it is equivalent to Nirvāņa and the Dharma-body.
The doctrine was transmitted in China through Kumārajīva’s pupil, Bhiksu
Zhao 僧肇 (384-414), and played a dominant role there from the fourth to the seventh
century. It had a tremendous attraction for the Chinese because its philosophy of
Emptiness suited the temper of Chinese intellectuals of Wei-Jin times (220-420), who
were then propagating the Daoist doctrine of non-being. Its highly developed and
systematic method of reasoning was a stimulating novelty to the Chinese. Its spirit of
criticism and refutation gave the rebellious Chinese philosophers, including the NeoDaoists, a sense of emancipation. Its nominalism reinforced the Chinese opposition to
the Confucian doctrine of ranks and names, especially in the sixth century. In addition
to all this, it had the great fortune of having as its systematiser the outstanding figure,
Ji Zang 吉藏 (549-623).
This thinker, who had a Parthian father and a Chinese mother, joined the
Buddhist order when he was seven, and eventually became one of the greatest
systematisers of Chinese Buddhist thought and one of the most outstanding Chinese
commentators on Buddhist texts. In him the Three-Treatise School reached its highest
development. He wrote in excellent prose. His literary activity, including
commentaries on the three treatises, is unparalleled in his age or before, and it is
remarkable that all this was achieved during a period of continuous warfare.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Ironically, Ji Zang’s success was at the same time the failure of his school, for
it became less and less Chinese. Bhiksu Zhao was still a bridge between Daoism and
Buddhism. He combined the typical Chinese concept of identity of substance and
function, for example, with the Buddhist concepts of temporary names and emptiness.
In Ji Zang, substance and function are sharply contrasted instead. In that, he was
completely Indian in viewpoint, although he quoted Daoists. As a systematiser and
transmitter of Indian philosophy, he brought about no cross-fertilisation between
Buddhist and Chinese thought. And it happened that the Indian thought which he
promoted was so utterly unacceptable to the Chinese that the school declined in the
ninth century…
The reason for its decline is not so much its metaphysics as its approach to it.
Its goal of Emptiness is not essentially different from that of other Mahāyāna schools.
Its distinction rather lies in its three basic doctrines, namely, the Two Levels of Truth,
refutation of erroneous views, and Eightfold Negation. According to the theory of
Two Levels of Truth, it is worldly truth (laukikasatya) or common or relative truth
that things exist provisionally as dependent beings or temporary names, but it is
absolute truth (paramārthasatya) that all dharmas are empty. The doctrine is by no
means unique to this school. What distinguishes it is that while the ConsciousnessOnly School, for instance, affirms dependent existence as real, this school insists that
it is unreal. Actually this school denies bopth existence and nonexistence, for both are
results of causation and as such are regarded as empty. The theory of being is looked
upon as one extreme and that of non-being is looked upon as another. This opposition
must be synthesised but the synthesis itself is a new extreme which has its own
antithesis. At the end only the highest synthesis, the True Middle, or Emptiness, is
true. Hence the school was originally known as Mādhyamika.
This is the inevitable outcome of the logical methods developed by the school,
namely, those of refutation and negation. To this school, refutation of erroneous views
is essential for and indeed identical with the elucidation of right views. But when a
right view is held in place of a wrong one, the right view itself becomes one-sided and
has to be refuted. It is only through this dialectical process that Emptiness can be
arrived at, which alone is free from names and character and is “inexplicable in
speech and unrealisable in thought.” The specific method in this dialectical process is
Nāgārjuna’s Middle Path of Eightfold Negations, which denies that dharmas come
into existence or go out of existence, that they are permanent or come to an end, that
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they are the same or different, and that they come and or go away. The basis of all
argument is the so-called Four Points of Argumentation. By the use of this method of
argument, a dharma as being, as non-being, as both being and non-being, and as
neither being nor non-being are all refuted and proved to be untrue. Ji Zang illustrates
this method fully in his refutation of causation.
It is obvious that this approach is as nihilistic as it is destructive. The school
had little new substance to offer and nothing constructive. It is true that Emptiness as
the Absolute is as pure and perfect as anything conceivable, but being devoid of
specific characters and divorced from mundane reality, it becomes too abstract for the
Chinese. It might be hoped that its novel and radical method of reasoning at least
aroused the Chinese mind and led to a new approach to life and reality, but it did not.
That opportunity was left to the Zen School.
(360)
“When it is said that dharmas possess being, it is ordinary people who say so. This is
worldly truth, the truth of ordinary people…
Next comes the second stage, which explains that both being and non-being belong to
worldly truth, whereas non-duality (neither being nor non-being) belongs to absolute
truth. It shows that being and non-being are two extremes…
Next comes the third stage in which both duality and non-duality are worldly truth,
whereas neither-duality-nor-non-duality is the highest truth. Previously it has been
explained that the worldly and the absolute and the cycle of life-and-death and
Nirvana are both two extremes and one-sided and therefore constitute worldly truth,
whereas neither-the-worldly-nor-the-absolute and neither-the-cycle-of life-and-deathnor-Nirvana are the Middle Path without duality and therefore constitute the highest
truth. But these two are also two extremes. Why? Duality is one-sided while nonduality is central. But one-sidedness is an extreme and centrality is also an extreme.
One-sidedness and centrality, after all, are two extremes. Being two extremes, they
are therefore called worldly truth. Only neither-one-sidedness-nor-centrality can be
regarded as the Middle Path or the highest truth.”
(Ji Zang, Treatise on the Two Levels of Truth)
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A Memoir of Our Teacher (Bellah 209-210; 213-4)
Nature
Our teacher said, “Although loyalty and filial piety are not in my person, I
always wish to reform the lack of loyalty and filial piety in others, and the desire to
teach and guide even one person is my passion.”
A certain person inquired of our teacher, saying, “Do you criticise present-day
scholars for not basing themselves on the principle of nature (seiri 性理) because your
own position is correct? [If you do] if there is anything in you even slightly incorrect,
you cannot [criticise them].”
Our teacher replied, “I do not criticise others. I lament the fact [that there are
those who] do not know the basic meaning of learning (gakumon 學問). Let us say,
for example, that there are here today many retainers whose lords have been murdered.
The present-day scholars, however, are like men who have the strength but are
without the aspiration to avenge the injury. Though I have the aspiration to revenge
the injury, I am like a person whose loins are unslung. This is because I am a late
starter in learning and untalented. I am weak and without virtue and my actions are
not valiant. It is only furtively that I know the goodness of nature. Alas though I have
the aspiration to cause others to know this, since I am called a low person there are
few people who will really listen [to me]. This is as if a coward wills to avenge the
injury to his lord, but he cannot do it
The present-day scholars, however, study from youth and become of broad
learning and much knowledge, or they enter government service and are notable men
because of being known in the world. But absorbed in literature (bungaku 文學), they
do not know that Yao and Shun, with the principle of nature (seiri) as the basis of
their learning, governed the empire and only followed nature. Their not knowing this
is like having the strength but not being willing to avenge the injury. Knowing that
these men, if they knew the nature, could revive the Way, I lament.”
Though our teacher always said to the pupils that they should know their own
nature, there were only two or three who believed this. Among these Saitō Zemmon
齊藤全門 deeply believed it, and day and night concentrated on meditation (kufu) as
much as possible. One night, unexpectedly hearing the sound of a drum, he knew
nature. Hereupon, more and more, conviction arose, was daily nourished and finally
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became complete. Thereupon, Zemmon from the depth of his conviction helped his
friends, but still their aspiration was weak.
Kimura Shigemitsu 木村重光 from the beginning strongly believed and after a
lapse of time his meditation bore fruit. One winter while covering shōji 障子, he
suddenly knew his own nature. Greatly rejoicing he came to our teacher’s home to
show what he had attained, “Wonderful! Marvellous! This, well, this, ah…” Our
teacher, on this occasion, granted that Shigemitsu knew nature.
From this the pupils really believed that nature could be directly known. When
they concentrated their minds in meditation, and faith penetrated to the marrow, they
each forgot to eat and sleep and either engaged in quiet sitting (seiza 靜坐) or
earnestly enquired. Those who shortly came to know their natures were many.
Our teacher, speaking to a pupil who had come to know his nature, said,
“What learning creates is that one reflects on righteousness and unrighteousness so
that one will only follow righteousness. To cultivate nature without accumulating
righteousness is not the Way of the sages.” He often made this point….
Mind and Nature (213)
… Mr Yukifuji 行藤 asked, “Are mind (kokoro 心) and nature (sei) different?”
Our teacher replied, “When you say mind, it contains both nature and feelings
(jō 情), there is motion and rest (dōzei 動靜), essence and function (taiyō 體用). When
you say nature, since it is is essence, it is at rest. Mind, being in motion, is function. If
we talk about the essence of the mind, it is what resembles nature. The essence of the
mind is that, with respect to changing, it is no mind (mushin 無心). Nature is also no
mind. The mind belongs to substance (ki 氣), nature belongs to principle (ri 理).
Principle is included in everything and is not something manifest. The mind, however,
is manifest, and changes as it contacts things. When we are speaking from the point of
view of man, substance is before and nature is after. When we are speaking from the
point of view of heaven and earth, there is principle and afterwards substance arises.
When we speak of the whole (zentai 全體), principle is one thing.
To illustrate the fact that principle is in everything but is not manifest, there is
an uta 歌 of the monk Dōgen 道光 (1200-1253):
To what shall we compare the world?
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Moonlight reflected in the drops shed by a waterfowl.1
“It is like the fact that all the moonlight is reflected in even the smallest fragment of
the falling drops. Though we say that principle does not appear, we must know that it
exists within. When we perceive our own nature with enlightenment, there is not
anything like the kami, the Supreme Limit, or the Buddha. Therefore, if we
comprehend this nature, we can say that even Confucians, Daoists, Buddhists, the
hundred schools and the myriad talents, are branch shrines of this, our land of the
gods. A certain book says, ‘If we say that Japan alone is a land of the gods, being
broad, it is [actually] narrow [that is, limited]. But if we say that there is a land of the
gods in even the smallest particle, being narrow [limited in space] it is actually
limitless.”
Mr. Yukifuji, saying, “It is so,” noted down this uta.
Marriage (213-4)
Mr. Yukifuji asked, “In instructing your pupils do you teach making the mind the
whole of it?”
Our teacher replied, “It is not thus. I teach by means of conduct.”
Mr. Yukifuji inquired, “If it is thus, then do you teach making the five relations the
whole of it?”
Our teacher replied, “It is so.”
Mr. Yukifuji asked, “The teacher has no wife. Why is that?”
Our teacher relied, “My aspiration is to propagate the way. But if I were encumbered
with a wife I fear I would lose the Way so I live alone.” (1057)
1
Yo no naka wa nani ni tatoen mizutori no / hashifuru tsuyu ni yadoru tsukikage.
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Shingaku 心學 (Bellah, 134-148 selections)
(134) Shingaku 心學 is a movement which began when Ishida Baigan 石田梅巖
(1685-1744) hung out his shingle and gave his first public lecture in 1729. After
Baigan’s death the movement grew decade by decade until by the early nineteenth
century there were scores of Shingaku lecture halls all over Japan. Its chief appeal was
to the city classes, thousands of whom thronged its halls for over one hundred years,
but it also made inroads among the peasantry and samurai. Many Japanese scholars
consider it to have been one of the greatest influences on the morality of the common
people in the Tokugawa 德川 Period. Its influence was spread not only through its
public lectures, but through the sermons and tracts which were printed in vast
numbers and very widely read, through the house codes (kakun 家訓), many of which
were drawn up by Shingaku preachers, and through charitable acts which the
movement undertook.
(138) Baigan developed the lecture, the question and answer meeting and the
practice of meditation as three methods for his teaching, each useful for a somewhat
different purpose. They remained the three basic teaching methods of Shingaku
throughout its history. He also began the acts of charity which became a characteristic
of the movement by such deeds as taking food to a village which had burned down in
the dead of winter, and organising the distribution of alms in a period of widespread
distress.
(139-) Baigan was engaged in a lifelong struggle to overcome what he felt was his
bad disposition. His seeking the way must be seen in this context—it was “throwing
away the self and practising the Way.” This throwing away self and practising the
way helps to explain a number of features of his personality… This need to renounce
certain features of his personality is reflected in the asceticism which characterised his
life. He did not normally go to theatres or go sight-seeing. He slept only the necessary
minimum. For many years he ate only two meals a day and these of the simplest
fare… Asceticism does not for him seem to have been an end in itself. When it
reached the point where it endangered the carrying out of his actual worldly
obligations it had to be curtailed.
(140) Another aspect of his personality which may be seen as related to his inner
struggles is his excessive concern for the welfare of others. This can be viewed as an
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attempt to compensate for the excessively hostile impulses he felt for others, and
which he so strongly regretted. For example, when he was head clerk, instead of
taking the warmest spot on cold winter nights he took the coldest one for his bed and
left the warmer places for his inferiors.
(141) Both asceticism and brotherly love have an important part in Baigan’s
religious teaching. The above attempt to delineate psychological bases for these
attitudes is by no means an effort to impugn his sincerity. Rather I wish to show that
he was motivated by inner needs and sought a religious solution for those needs. He
was not in the first instance a conscious social ideologist. His social teachings were of
course influenced by his social milieu but they were primarily motivated by his
religious concerns. This is an important point which we shall return to later as there
have been those who have viewed Baigan as an apologist for the merchant class who
merely used religion as a convenient means. This would make his religious interests
mere window dressing, mere epiphenomena. The evidence of his life and character
which has been presented above refutes this motion.
(142) His initial interest was in Shintō. This remained important, being expressed in
a high veneration for the emperor, for the Sun Goddess and for her shrine at Ise 伊勢.
He gives expression to the kokutai 國體 idea in outline, saying that Japan is a land of
the gods superior to all other lands and that other doctrines are merely helps and aids
to Shintō. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that his teaching was primarily Shintō.
Rather Confucianism seems to have been the greatest influence on his thinking.
The concepts of heart and nature which are at the basis of his system are directly
taken from Mencius and the explanations of them are derived largely from Song neoConfucianism…. Under the influence of his teacher, Oguri Ryōun 小栗了雲, he
became familiar with the doctrines of Laozi and Zhuangzi and of Zen Buddhism.
These influenced his thinking on enlightenment and meditation, though the Song
Confucians, who themselves were influenced by Buddhism and Daoism, had ideas on
these subjects and may have pushed him in the same direction.
(143) Baigan’s approach to these various books and doctrines was not, as we have
seen, that of abstract interest. He was seeking a Way which could answer to his own
inner needs. But in finding his way, in reaching his personal solution, he universalised
his own problems and transcended them. From a seeker he became a giver. He freely
utilised the religious thought of his day to construct a relatively simple doctrine which
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brought meaning and harmony into his own life and into the lives of many others as
well. He taught a method of attaining enlightenment within, and he taught that such
enlightenment must be expressed in ethically rigorous action without. In doing so he
reworked traditional religious ideas in accordance with his own needs and the needs
of his time. Once it became his intention to bring others to the same happiness he had
attained, Baigan thought carefully about the sort of people to whom he was appealing
and their spiritual and ethical needs. He was not an original thinker if one thinks of
basic religious ideas. His originality rather lay in the sphere of adapting these ideas to
the people of his own time.
(148) A consideration of the concept of gakumon will project us into the centre of
Baigan’s system. Literally the word means study or learning or scholarship, but here
the meaning is much broader. This broader meaning was already present in Mencius,
and it is relatively clear that the most profound single influence on Baigan’s thought
was Mencius.
We may distinguish two main directions of process covered by the term
gakumon. One is that leading to enlightenment (kenshō 見性), or ‘knowing nature’ or
‘knowing the heart’. The other is the ethical practice following from that
enlightenment or knowledge. There is a sense in which the first, to use Tillich’s term,
‘vertical’ direction is primary and the second ‘horizontal’ direction is consequent, and
quotations can be extracted to support this view. However, there are also other
interpretations of the relations between these two processes which can be supported
from the text.
One of these makes knowledge 知 and action 行 identical. The two processes
are not really two but one. The other makes ethical behaviour a condition for and part
of the process of gaining enlightenment. Though logically these various positions may
seem contradictory, I do not think they would have been felt to be so by Baigan or his
disciples. Each position is an aspect of the truth. Each is true and yet the others are
also true. There is a sense in which his mission was to bring other men to the
happiness of enlightenment, of union with heaven and earth. There is also a sense in
which practice, ethical action, always retained primacy. (1228)
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The Thought of Ishida Baigan (Bellah, 150-165 selections)
(150) [T]he union of one’s own heart and the heart of heaven and earth is a phrase
indicating some sort of mystical experience… As in mysticism generally, what is
indicated is some dissolution of the boundary between self and non-self; one becomes
united with the universe. This union is accompanied by a feeling of great happiness
and tranquillity, but also with a great feeling of power…
(151) The experience in question cannot be conveyed in words, so we may rest
content with a dim idea of it… It is possible to say more, however, about the process
by which one comes to this experience. In essence this process involves getting rid of
that which obscures the heart which is identical with the heart of heaven and earth.
What is doing the obscuring is called the human heart or the selfish heart or the
desirous heart. Baigan uses simply the one word ‘heart’ on most occasions to indicate
what is being obscured, which leads to some terminological complications. Teshima
Toan 手島堵菴 (1718-86), his pupil, solved this difficulty by using the term honshin
本心, which means basic heart or original heart or true heart in contrast to the selfish
or desirous heart. One can then say that it is one’s true heart which is being obscured
by one’s selfish heart. At any rate, the point is to eliminate the selfish heart. The
selfish heart which contains human desires is constantly being aroused by external
things. These desires keep the true heart clouded and it cannot be known until they are
eliminated. There are several ways to eliminate them.
First, and the most formal, is the practice of meditation. One ‘exhausts the
heart’ and then one ‘knows nature’. This exhausting the heart had, with the Song
Confucians, already become a clearly defined technique. Baigan calls it kufu or seiza.
Kufu implies the expenditure of effort and seiza simply means quiet sitting. What is
involved is a sort of concentration of the will. Words and all external things ae as
much as possible abandoned. Baigan’s technique of meditation was, in fact, strongly
influenced by that of the Zen sect of Buddhism.
(160) Baigan takes as model for the chōnin ethic that of the samurai. He is quite
explicit on this point. Out of such thinking comes a very important principle
embodied, for example, in the following quotation:
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How can the ‘way of the merchant’ differ from the way of the samurai, farmer
or artisan? Mencius said, there is only one way. Samurai, farmer, artisan and
merchant are each creatures of heaven. Are there two ways in heaven?
In such a statement it is not hard to see a strong element of universalism. Of course
Baigan would say that it is in principle that all are the same, while in form they differ.
Form means concretely occupation, and Baigan does not question the principle of
inherited occupational classes (though he indeed moved from one to another). Even
with these limitations the universal element remains considerable. It is an important
aspect of his teaching on profit, honesty and frugality.
Baigan refuses to allow any special stigma to be attached to the profit of the
merchant. Not taking a profit is not the Way of the merchant. The merchant’s function
from of old has been “to take what is in excess and exchange it for what is lacking,”
and it is thus a service for the empire. “The master of wealth is the people of the
empire.” The merchants are merely the clerks for the empire. The wealth is not theirs;
they are but stewards. A just reward for their services is, however, perfectly
permissible. By assimilating merchants to the role of retainer and equating profit to
the stipend of the samurai Baigan gave a moral justification to the merchant
occupation and to the profit derived from it. His theory served to tie the economy in to
the central political values in a peculiarly close way…
Though Baigan gives a powerful justification to the idea of profit, he at the
same time has very strong ideas as to what is a just profit and as to the evils of unjust
profit. It is with respect to this problem primarily that he discusses the importance of
honesty (shōjiki 正直), though this universal value had the widest significance in his
thought. While taking an honest profit will lead to prosperity, taking an unjust one
will lead to ruin.
(163) In its broadest sense ‘honesty’ means for Baigan correct and upright behaviour,
and especially behaviour in accordance with one’s situation. Extravagance is always
relative to one’s position but it is always wrong, whether practised by ruler or
merchant. ‘Economy’ (kenyaku 儉約) is always in accordance with one’s proper
situation and thus is an expression of honesty… Though economy is a universal
principle, Baigan is chiefly interested in its application to the merchant class… He
advises strong measure to cut down on expenditure for food, clothing, and furniture in
chōnin families… The institution of rigid economy in the family may cause disputes
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but it also ill have a good effect in the end. Baigan places economy in the largest
moral context and praises it as the basis of benevolence. If one is poor one cannot help
other people. Only if one has a sufficiency of material goods can one really be
charitable.
(164) One of the themes on which Baigan is most insistent is knowing one’s
occupation (shokubun 職分) and practising it diligently… One’s occupation is what
heaven has decreed. It is the basis of one’s service to one’s nation and its ruler and it
is the basis for continuing the family. It is within the context of occupation that a just
profit, honesty and economy have meaning.
(165) It is quite clear that the idea of occupation is closely linked to the central
values of loyalty and filial piety. It is in Baigan’s ethical thought perhaps the primary
means by which loyalty and filial piety are expressed… He compares the head of the
family among the common people to the samurai, the governing officials of the nation.
Thus our discussion of Baigan’s social and ethical teaching has brought us full
round. It was a description of society as based on the lord-follower relation that we
began and it is with that relation as fulfilling the sum of moral virtues that we end.
Here then is the kernel of the received morality which the enlightened person who is
free from selfish desires and united with the heart of heaven and earth will find
perfectly natural and will perform without the least hesitation or doubt. In
understanding the social implications of the Shingaku movement we must emphasise
both the religious and ethical aspects. Each is necessary if we are to really understand
the meaning of the other. If we looked only at Baigan’s mysticism we would not see
the great implications for social action which become clear when we view the ethical
imperatives which that mysticism implies. If we looked only at the ethical teaching,
we could say that it was an interesting sort of exhortation but we would understand
little of the intense motivation to fulfil these exhortations which the religious teaching
aroused. It is the religious aspect which appealed to all the deep inner needs of
troubled people for salvation from their misery. This religious appeal reaches to the
profoundest depths of human motivation. It is the linking of such motivation as this—
of the weary for succour, of the troubled for repose, of the guilty for absolution—to
the fulfilment of certain practical, ethical duties in the world which gives that ethic a
dynamism which it could never have if it were mere exhortation. (1200+)
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Frank Dikötter, “Religious Diversity” 67-73 (extracts)
Any visitor to Shanghai today can see relics of a more open age in some of the
churches, temples, mosques and synagogues which have somehow survived
destruction under communism: the Eastern Orthodox Church with its five domes in
peacock blue, the Zikawei 徐家匯 Church of St Ignatius, the Small Peach Garden
Mosque, the Ohel Moishe Synagogue, the ivy-covered Tudor-style Community
Church constructed in 1924 as a non-denominational church for Protestants, or the
Jade Buddha Temple, erected in 1882 and lavishly reconstructed in 1918-28 to house
jade statues brought from Burma by an overseas Chinese, are but a few of the many
religious sites which were scattered all over Shanghai before 1949…
Far more significant, however, was the revival of Buddhism. Yang Wenhui
(1837-1911), called the ‘Father of the Modern Buddhist Renaissance’, established a
publishing house for Buddhist texts in Nanjing in the 1860s, travelled to England and
France in 1878, imported several hundred sutras and sutra commentaries from Japan,
sent surviving texts from China to Nanjo Bunyu, a leading Buddhist in Japan, and
collaborated with the missionary Timothy Richard on a translation of the Treatise on
Awakening the Faith in the Great Vehicle in English in 1894 (it was eventually
published in 1907).
Others followed, for instance Taixu (1890-1947), who was exposed not only to
the writings of influential reformers such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, but also
to foreign philosophers such as Bakunin, Proudhon and Marx, and attempted to make
Buddhism more compatible with modern trends of thought. Taixu toured Europe, the
United States and Japan for nearly nine months in 1928-9, encountering scholars of
Buddhism as well as proponents of Christianity. He helped set up chapters of a World
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Buddhist Institute in Paris, and on his return promoted the Library of the World
Buddhist Institute at Wuchang as a centre for the collection of Buddhist literature in
different languages, trying to close the gap between foreign and local scholarship.
Later, during World War II, he organised Buddhist delegations to Burma, India,
Singapore, Malaya and Vietnam. Some of his disciples moved to Taiwan after 1949,
from where centres of Chinese Buddhism were established worldwide. Taixu was part
of a trend: dozens of periodicals appeared in the republican era, many directly
engaging with global issues related to science, medicine, philosophy and theology,
presenting themselves as the modern face of Buddhism.
Buddhism was reinforced rather than weakened by its inclusion in a modern
world, as millions were both ‘Buddhist’ and ‘modern’. Holmes Welch may have
expressed doubts about the actual vigour of Buddhism in his study entitled The
Buddhist Revival in China, but other contemporary observers were quite impressed by
the expansion of religious activities, both during the 1920s and 1930s and after World
War II. Over a quarter of a million Buddhist temples still dotted the landscape after
the disaster of a protracted world war from 1937 to 1945, and even if many were in a
state of disrepair, some having been put to military uses in wartime, the extent of
worship was easy to underestimate because so many devotees worshipped at their
own household shrines.
Foreign travellers frequently mentioned Buddhist building activity in
republican China, although, as Welch has underlined, much of this may have been
mere replacement of what had been destroyed in the Taiping Rebellion. Whether or
not there was more religious activity than during the nineteenth century may be open
to debate, but there is little doubt that the ‘stirrings of new life under the impact of
new conditions’ in Buddhism were such that few observers thought, on the eve of the
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communist takeover, that it would quickly become an insignificant factor in ‘new
China’. The Buddhist religion, in short, used newly acquired freedoms of press and
association to project its activities further inland and abroad, adjusting to a new world
in a way which made it as vibrant as ever…
Chinese Buddhists observed how Christians spread the gospel by visiting
prisons and also set up programmes to propagate the faith among convicts in the early
1920s. Some prisons even acquired shrines with the image of Bodhidharma, recited
mantras with chimes, wooden fish and flutes and followed the dietary restrictions of
Buddhism. High Courts also expressed their appreciation to temples which made
contributions to local prisons by giving them votive tablets. Buddhists were also
spurred on by Christians in pursuing charitable enterprises, including the
establishment of hospitals, orphanages and schools.
Interfaith cooperation was perhaps best illustrated by the creation of an
Association of Chinese Religious Believers in 1943 by Buddhist, Protestant, Catholic
and Muslim representatives ‘to advance freedom of religion with special emphasis on
spiritual enrichment and social service’. Also noteworthy was the appearance of
syncretic religions, some combining Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, others
adding Islam and Christianity. Some of these would have a lecture on the scriptures
by a Norwegian Christian and a dancing ceremony by Daoist priests on the same day.
While most of these were admittedly confined to privileged elites in the large cities,
others were quite popular, for instance the Church of the Five Religions (五教道原),
founded in Shandong in 1921, purporting to harmonise Daoism, Confucianism,
Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, and spreading rapidly enough to report seventyfive societies with a membership mounting into the tens of thousands a mere two
years later.
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The Chinese Pantheon (Birrell, 27-29)
There is no fixed pantheon in Chinese mythology. The category of orthodox
texts which focus on masculine figures generally mentions a limited sequence of
about ten major deities and mythical figures which forms a loosely structured
pantheon. The following sequence is typical: Prostrate Victim (fu Xi), the Farmer God,
the fire god Flame (Yan Di), the Great God Yellow (Huang Di), the god of light
Young Brightsky (Shao Hao), the sky god Fond Care (Zhuan Xu), the Great God
Tellswift (Ku), and the semi-divine ideal rulers Lofty, Hibiscus and ReptilianPawprint (Yao, Shun and Yu).
In contrast, the more comprehensively mythological texts are teeming with
deities. The supreme gods mentioned in the Classic of Mountains and Seas are the
god Foremost (Jun), and then Fond Care, but the major deity of the masculine
tradition, Prostrate Victim, does not even appear in that book. Its other major deities
include Queen Mother of the West, the sun-mother Breath Blend (Xi He) and the
moon-mother Ever Breath (Chang Xi), and it is true to say that this text gives greater
emphasis to the feminine.
The divine functions of male deities relate to cultural benefits, such as
agriculture through the Farmer God, Sovereign Millet and Sovereign Earth (Hou Tu),
fire through the great god Flame, writing and divination through Prostrate Victim, the
hunt through Yi the Archer and war through Jest Much, besides the benefits of
weaponry, musical instruments, transport and craftsmanship which are all gifts of
male gods.
The divine functions of female deities involve cosmogony, calendrical systems,
nurturing roles, paradisal bliss and sacred violence. The goddess Breath Blend gave
birth to the ten suns of the archaic calendrical week and nurtured them. The goddess
Ever Breath (Chang Xi) gave birth to the twelve moons and nurtured them. Woman
Gua created the cosmos, rescued the world from the catastrophes of fire and flood in
her role as the divine smith and the saviour of humankind, and she created humankind.
The Queen Mother of the West has two functions: she sends plagues and punishments
down to earth, but she also presides over the western mountain paradise.
Male and female deities are theroanthropic, that is, having animalian features,
such as serpentine tails, tiger fangs, bovine horns and avian wings, which are
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emblems respectively of fertility, ferocity, aggression and aerial flight. Queen Mother
of the West is represented with wild hair, the fangs of a tigress, and a panther’s tail.
Three bluebirds bring her food. In the later tradition she is accompanied by a ninetailed fox and guarded by a leopard. Many deities are represented with snakes in their
ears and riding dragons through the sky. The deities and mythical figures in the
orthodox, masculine tradition, especially in classical Confucian texts, are represented
as humanized beings who bear functional emblems, such as the human figure of the
Farmer God with his plough and Reptilian-Pawprint the flood-queller with his dredger.
The names of many deities indicate their rnak in a divine hierarchy and also
their function and gender. The term Di is generally attached to male deities, such as
Huang Di or Di Ku, and has the meaning of ‘great god’, giving the Great God Yellow
and the Great God Tellswift. Frequently the term Di appears without a name: this does
not refer to a God Almighty, but to some unknown great god. The names of great
goddesses often include ‘stopgap’ titles such as Nu (Woman), Huang (Grace), and E
(Sublime), as with Woman Gua and Sublime Grace. Otherwise they are known by
their function, such as Breath Blend, the sun goddess, and Woman Droughtghoul (Nu
Ba), the female bringer of drought. Lesser divinities are known as Shen (Divine or
Holy Being, or god). Ling means divine power. Gui refers to a ghostly divinity. Shi
with a name is used for a corpse deity, such as the Corpse of Prince Night and the
Corpse of the Yellow Giantess. Then there are motley demons, imps and bogies that
live in the mountains and streams or guard the gates of Heaven.
There are many differences between the gods and goddesses of other
mythologies and those of Chinese myths, but none is so striking as the treatment of
divine sexuality and procreation. Chinese myths do not include episodes of savage
lust inspired by demonic energy. Instead they either refer to sex in a minor way or
relate no sexual episodes at all. For example, the Great God Tellswift was the consort
of two major goddesses who bore divine sons, but Tellswift was not their father. One
of his goddess wives was Bamboo-Slip Maid, who swallowed the divine egg of the
dark bird and was miraculously fertilized, giving birth to the male founder of the
Shang dynasty. The other wife of Tellswift was Jiang Yuan who stepped in the big
toeprint of a great god and was miraculously impregnated, giving birth to the founder
of the Zhou dynasty. The myth of the divine birth of Reptilian-Pawprint (Yu), the
flood hero, relates that he was born from the belly of the corpse of his father Gun,
who had been executed by God. The story of the birth of Reptilian-Pawprint’s own
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son is equally miraculous. Yu mated with the daughter of a person from the mountains,
but one day he revealed himself in his divine aspect as a bear. His pregnant wife fled
in terror and turned into a stone. Yu followed her and commanded the stone mother to
give forth his son. The stone split open and Yu’s son, Open, was born.
The children of virgin birth are usually male. It is possible that by the time the
archaic oral tradition of myths was set down in writing they were often told in the
idiom of a patriarchal culture. The myth of the Country of Women is the only one that
narrates the survival of female infants; the males are left to die before they reach their
third year. In this myth the fertilization of virginal women comes from bathing in a
miraculous yellow pool.
Many myths of miraculous birth narrate stories of a virgin birth through the
egg of a divine bird. This has been seen in the myth of the origin of the Shang people
and their dynasty. Besides this form of ornithomorphous hierogamy, birth also occurs
through other similar means. The semi-divine founder of a southern ethnic people, the
Yao, was born as a worm in the ear of an old palace lady. The worm grew into a dog
and became a hero in time of war.
Although many myths relate narratives of virgin birth from divine goddesses
or semi-divine female figures, in the latter tradition it is the male gods who give birth
through parthenogenesis, without female agency. Many such myths are genealogical
foundation myths that relate the lineage of a country, a people or a notable family.
(1139)
Some specialised Greek words:
Archaic
from the beginning
Cosmos
universe
Cosmogony
the birth of the universe
Genealogy
the study of family descent
Hiero-gamy
sacred marriage
Myth
sacred story used to convey truth
Mythology
the study of sacred stories
Ornitho-morphous
in the shape (morphe) of a bird
Pan-theon
all the gods
Partheno-genesis
virgin birth; the woman bears a child without a man
Thero-anthropic
wild-beast and human
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Translating the Daodejing (Extracts from a talk given in 2008)
See Ryden, E. (ed. tr.), Laozi: Daodejing, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
…
A good example of this kind of problem faces us in the first chapter with the
phrase ‘heng/chang Dao’(恆/常道). The term Dao is one we shall address later, but
let us first look at ‘heng/chang’. After Emperor Liu Heng 劉恆 of the Han, the
Daodejing observed the taboo on his name and hence has come down to us in the
form ‘chang’. This is not important, however, for translation purposes. The problem is,
rather, how to find an equivalent for this term. We naturally turn to words like
‘eternal’ or ‘everlasting’. But in doing so we transfer the concept into the realm of
Judeo-Christian/Greek notions of eternity. In short, we move into the realm of
Western metaphysics and Judeo-Christian religion.
This is even more so when we encounter words such as ‘Dao’( 道 ) and
‘Wu’(無). One option to deal with such words is to simply transcribe the modern
mandarin Chinese sound of these words. Of course, it is unlikely that this sound is the
same as that used when the text was first written but at least the modern sound is
derived from the ancient sound. The problem with this kind of ‘translation by
transliteration’ is that we simply give the reader an algebraic term ‘a’ or ‘x’, which
she will interpret in her own way or simply retain as a blank term.
If transliteration is one extreme of the translation process, the other is
represented by Richard Wilhelm’s translation of ‘Dao’ as ‘Der Sinn’. This reading
was based on Goethe’s version of the opening line of St John’s Gospel:
‘. What Goethe seems to have forgotten here is that St John was
certainly working in a Hebrew-Aramaic background, where ‘stood for the
Hebrew ‫ ד ב ר‬. The Hebrew context is naturally quite different from the Greek
context of and its translation into German as ‘Sinn’. But to then bring all this
Western metaphysics into the Daodejing is surely to import too much extra baggage
along with the word.
Sometimes it is almost impossible to avoid such connotations. I do not see for
instance how to retranslate ‘you’(有) in such a way as to avoid reference to the verb
‘to be’ and still less how to do so neatly without the rather awkward English
substantive ‘Being’. But one can try to avoid shades of Sartre by not opting for
‘Nothing’ or ‘Non-being’ for ‘wu’(無), preferring ‘beingless’ instead as in Chapter 40:
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Being is generated from beingless. (天下萬物生於有)，有生於無。
Of course, even this is not wholly satisfactory, but then nothing ever will be.
Another term which can easily have the wrong connotations in English is that
of ‘virtue’. The ‘De’(德) of the Daodejing is traditionally translated as ‘virtue’. For
those educated in classical Latin where ‘virtue’ has the sense of power this may work
but for most English speakers, ‘virtue’ can only refer to moral virtue and hence the
text as whole will be read as composed of a metaphysical (Dao) and a moral section
(De). This has to be avoided and hence I coined the term ‘life force’ and even, with
some question marks from the editors, the term ‘knife force’(失者) to contrast with it
(Chapter 23). In older Chinese dialects, the terms De 德 and Shi 失 rhyme (entering
tone) and hence I sought a word that kept the rhyme rather than the usual equivalent
of ‘loss’.
Mention of this term ‘life force’ brings me to what I felt to be one of the most
important tasks of my translation: to rethink the text in terms not of abstract ontology
but of concrete images. I take Dr Sarah Allan’s idea that the ‘Way’ is primordially a
‘watercourse’ and her further suggestion that this watercourse is the ‘Silver River’ or
‘Milky Way’ in English.2 Allan shows how the metaphor of water flows into that of
plant growth, the principal meaning of the term ‘De’, which in the original script is
basically the same word as the word for plants, ‘Zhi’植.3 This is not to say that the
Way is simply the Milky Way. Rather we must imagine that Chinese thinkers seeing
the Silver River 銀河 flowing out of the Pole Star (Tai Yi 泰一), took this as the basic
metaphor from which they conceived of a Way running through the whole universe,
giving life to everything.
Along with the notion of the Silver River, is the image of weaving which I
make explicit in Chapter 6. This image is present in the Chinese characters 綿綿 but it
rarely appears in translation and yet when one has watched a woman (never a man of
course) weave in the ancient way, with a loom held by her feet and the cloth emerging
from her body like a newborn child, one can easily see how this can be transposed to
Allan, S., The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue, Albany: SUNY Press, 1997 and Allan, S., “The
Great One, Water and the Laozi,” T’oung Pao 89.4-5 (Dec 2003), 237-285. Allan’s book explains the
metaphors of water and plant growth, whilst her article in T’oung Pao introduces the Silver River.
3
Look for example at the following: 德、恴、直. The loss of the radicals ㄔ and 心 does not affect the
basic word, which is thus reduced to the common element of both 德 and 植, the one expressing
upright growth in the human person, the other the same growth in the world of plants.
2
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the flowing of the river from the Pole Star, especially as it appears in the Chinese
character Tai 泰. True, mixing weaving and water is a case of mixed metaphors, but it
is a happy mix and one that the text seems to use.
To recapture these elemental metaphors of the text is essential if we are to
understand it and hence my notes try to put the reader back in this pre-industrial age. I
do not want to deny the metaphysical possibilities of the text but I think that unless we
grasp the essential metaphors that lie behind any metaphysics we will fall into the
error of misreading the text.
The genius of English lies in alliteration and cadence. It is not enough just to
translate the meaning accurately, one needs also to do something about the cadence.
Let me just compare my version of the first line of Chapter One with two other recent
attempts. Here I shall not be looking at the vocabulary but at the cadence. Victor Mair
uses the traditional grammar:
The ways that can be walked are not the eternal Way.4
This is correct but overloaded by the English relative clause “that can be walked”.
Moss Roberts avoids this:
The Way as “way” bespeaks no common lasting Way.
He has a neater turn of phrase but only by using a rare verb ‘bespeaks’. My version
runs:
Of ways you may speak, /but not the Perennial Way.
I have avoided the relative clause but without sacrificing the meaning or using any
obscure terminology.
Another aspect that is central to the genius of English is that it derives from
both Germanic and Romance languages. In the following passage in Chapter 41 I
remain consistent to Romance etymology:
Utmost vitality… Great purity… Expansive vitality… Affirmative vitality…
substantive authenticity.
Mair mixes the two:
Superior integrity… The greatest whiteness… Ample integrity… Robust
integrity… Plain truth….
Roberts uses ‘virtue’ each time except to once where he has ‘pure white’ but he has
moved this to the end of the list and combined it with what follows. I do not feel at
4
Mair, V.H., Tao Te Ching, New York: Bantam Books, 1990, p. 59.
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liberty to move the text around but deliberately chose three Romance words (vitality,
purity and authenticity) for reasons of sound. Even the last three adjectives (expansive,
affirmative and substantive) are chosen for reasons of similarity in sound, which helps
to keep the unity of the whole.
Let us look at three versions of Chapter Six. Arthur Waley’s shows how the
femininity is denied by the use of neuter pronouns:
The Valley Spirit never dies. / It is named the Mysterious Female.
And the Doorway of the mysterious Female / Is the base from which Heaven
and Earth sprang.
It is there within us all the while; / Draw upon it as you will, it never runs dry.5
Moss Roberts shifts the first line into the plural and brings out the feminine
aspect by the use of the word ‘womb’ but as the last line shows, ‘it’ is still ‘it’, neuter:
The valley’s daemons never die, /The valley called the dark world womb;
The portal of the dark world womb / They call tree root of sky and land.
A hidden yet seeming presence, / Use it and stay strong.6
Now I turn to my version:
The gully’s spirit does not die; / She is called ‘the mysterious cleft’.
The gate to the mysterious cleft / Is called ‘the root of heaven and earth’.
Weaving on, continuously existing, / Use of her shall never end.
The second line opens with the feminine pronoun ‘she’ which immediately affects the
tone of the passage. It becomes more personal. The last word of this line is translated
directly by Waley as ‘female’, whilst Roberts elaborates as ‘world womb’. Since I
have moved the femininity into the pronoun I am at greater liberty to translate this last
word. I do not need an explicitly feminine term such as ‘female’ or ‘womb’. Hence I
can dwell more on the preceding ‘mysterious’ and so chose the word ‘cleft’ which
suggests the opening to the womb.
While it is true that in Hebrew the figure of wisdom is personified in female
form, in Greek metaphysics it is unthinkable that the highest categories could be
anything but ‘it’. This influences our reading of the Chinese but I think it distorts the
basic Chinese metaphors and hence to recover them and turn us away from neutered
metaphysics I have deliberately opted for feminine pronouns.
5
6
Waley, A., The Way and its Power, New York: Grove Press, 1958, p. 149.
Roberts, op. cit., p. 41.
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Translating the Dao De Jing
1
道可道，非恆道也。名可名，非恆名也。
無名、天地之始也，有名、萬物之母也，
故
恆無欲，以觀其妙。恆有欲，以觀其徼。
此兩者同出而異名。
同謂「之玄」。玄之又玄，眾妙之門。
Arthur Waley
The Way and its Power, New York: Grove Press, 1958, p. 141.
The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way;
The names that can be named are not unvarying names.
It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang;
The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.
Truly, ‘Only he that rids himself forever of desire can see the Secret Essences’;
He that has never rid himself of desire can see only the Outcomes.
These two things issued from the same mould, but nevertheless are different in name.
This ‘same mould’ we can but call the Mystery,
Or rather the ‘Darker than any Mystery’,
The Doorway whence issued all secret Essences.
D.C. Lau
Lao-Tzu: Tao Te Ching, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, p. 49.
The way can be spoken of
But it will not be the constant way;
The name can be named,
But it will not be the constant name.
The nameless was the beginning of the myriad creatures;
The named was the mother of the myriad creatures.
Hence constantly rid yourself of desires in order to observe its subtlety;
But constantly allow yourself to have desires in order to observe what it is after.
These two have the same origin but differ in name.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
They are both called dark,
Darkness upon darkness
The gateway to all that is subtle.
Wing-Tsit Chan 陳榮捷
A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, p. 139.
The Tao (Way) that can be told of is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the mother of all things.
Therefore, let there always be non-being so we may see their subtlety,
And let there always be being so that we may see their outcome.
The two are the same,
But after they are produced, they have different names.
They both may be called deep and profound.
Deeper and more profound,
The door of all subtleties!
Angus Graham
Disputers of the Tao, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1989, p. 219.
The Way that can be ‘Way’-ed
Is not the constant Way.
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name.
What has no name is the beginning of heaven and earth.
What has a name is the mother of the myriad things.
Therefore by constantly having no desire observe the sublimest in it,
By constantly having desire observe where it tends.
The two have the same source but different names:
Call it the same, the ‘Dark’.
The darkest of the dark
Is the gate of the sublime in everything.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Robert Henricks
Lao-Tzu: Te-Tao Ching, New York: Ballantine Books, 1989, p. 53.
As for the Way, the Way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way;
As for names, the name that can be named is not the constant name.
The nameless is the beginning of the ten thousand things;
The named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Therefore, those constantly without desires, by this means will perceive its subtlety.
Those constantly with desires, by this means will see only that which they yearn for
and seek.
These two together emerge;
They have different names yet they’re called the same;
That which is even more profound than the profound –
The gateway of all subtleties.
Victor H. Mair
Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way, New York: Bantam Books, 1990, p. 59.
The ways that can be walked are not the eternal Way;
The names that can be named are not the eternal name.
The nameless is the origin of the myriad creatures;
The named is the mother of the myriad creatures.
Therefore,
Always be without desire in order to observe its wondrous subtleties;
Always have desire so that you may observe its manifestations.
Both of these derive from the same source;
They have different names but the same designation.
Mystery of mysteries,
The gate of all wonder!
Michael LaFargue
Tao and Method, Albany: State University of New York, 1994, p. 436.
The Tao that can be told is not the invariant Tao
the names that can be named are not the invariant Names.
Nameless, it is the source of the thousands of things
(named, it is ‘Mother’ of the thousands of things).
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Yes:
Always: being desireless,
One sees the hidden essentials.
Always: having desires,
One sees only what is sought.
These two lines are about The Merging –
it is when things develop and emerge from this
that the different names appear.
The Merging is something mysterious –
mysterious, and more mysterious,
the abode of all the hidden essences.
Moss Roberts
Laozi: Dao de Jing, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, p. 27.
The Way as “way” bespeaks no common lasting Way,
The name as “name” no common lasting name.
Absent is the name for sky and land’s first life,
Present for the mother of all ten thousand things.
Desire ever-absent:
Behold the seed germs of all things;
Desire ever-present:
Behold their finite course.
Forth together come the two
As one and the same
But differ in name.
As one, a dark recess
That probed recedes
Past that portal whence
The milling seed germs teem.
Oxford Classics
Of ways you may speak,
but not the Perennial Way;
By names you may name,
but not the Perennial Name.
The nameless is the inception of the myriad things;
The named is the mother of the myriad things.
Therefore,
Be ever without yearning so as to observe her obscurity;
Be ever full of yearning so as to observe what she longs for.
Both come forth alike and yet are named as opposites,
Alike they are called elusive.
Elusive on elusive, the gate to all obscurity.
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Yoga and Daoism (Mair 146-8)
There are so many correspondances between Yoga and Daoism—even in the
smallest and oddest details—throughout the history of their development that we
might almost think of them as two variants of a single religious and philosophical
system. Both conceive of conduits, tracts, channels or arteries through which the vital
breath, or energy, flows. They view the main channel as originating in the ‘root’, or
‘tail’, region of the body, then passing through the spinal column and flnaked by two
subsidiary channels. At death, the energized soul of both the Yogin and the Daoist
emerges from the top of the skull to merge with the world-soul (Brahman, Dao). This
is called the Way to Brahman by Yogis and the Marrow Way by Daoists.
Both Yoga and Daoism maintain that there are certain points in the body
where energy is held, or bound, and that there are supports that guide the vital breath.
Both envisage wheels or fields where this energy generates heat. Practitioners of both
disciplines are said to possess an outer radiance that reflects a refined inner essence.
In their esoteric forms, both are obsessed with semen retention (this is said to repair
the brain)—not a preoccupation of religious practitioners that one might expect to find
springing up spontaneously in two such different cultures.
Yoga and Daoism also share a close association with internal and external
alchemy. Both resort to the use of various charms, sacred syllables, and talismans as
aids in meditation and for conveying secret knowledge. And both maintain that
advanced accomplishment in their respective disciplines affords the practitioner
special powers such as the ability to walk on water without sinking or on fire without
getting burned. Claims of levitation have also been announced by those who style
themselves Daoists and Yogins. These are only a few of the more obvious analogies
between Daoism and Yoga….
By the time of the Yoga Sutras and Yoga Upanisads (the earliest layers of
which date to no later than the second century B.C.E.), the complete pre-Tantric
Yogic system had received explicit and elaborate codification in written form.
Patanjali, who wrote the first three books of the Yoga Sutras around the second
century BCE, recognizes that he was not the creator of Yogic techniques but only
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
wanted to present them in a rigorously systematic fashion. Those who take the trouble
to read attentively the early Indian texts just cited, particularly the classical Upanisads,
will realize that they foreshadow the entire philosophical, religious, and physiological
foundations of Daoism, but not its social and political components, which are
distinctively Chinese.
Still further back in time, the Atharva Veda (900 BCE or before) has a very
long chapter dealing exclusively with the vital breath and its circulation… I have
space to present only nine stanzas here:
“When breath with thunder roars at the plants, they are fertilised, they receive
the germ, consequently they are born abundantly.
Rained upon, the plants spoke with breath, saying: You have extended our life.
You have made us all fragrant.
Homage, breath, be to you breathing up, homage to you breathing down;
homage to you turning away; homage to you turning hither; here is homage to
all of you.
Your dear form, breath, and your ever dearer form, also the healing power that
is yours, of that put in us, that we may live.
Breath is the shining One, the Queen, breath the Directress. All revere breath.
Breath is the sun and the moon. Breath, they say, is the Lord of Creatures.
Man, while still in womb, functions with nether and upper breath. When you,
breath, quicken him, then he is born again.
When breath has rained with rain upon the great earth, plants are generated,
and all herbs that exist.
Who is lord over all this of every source, over all that moves. Whose bow is
swift among the unwearied ones:--O breath, homage be to thee.
O breath, turn not away from me. You shall be no other than myself. I bind
you to myself, breath, like the child of the waters, that I may live.”
The next piece of evidence from the Chinese side is quite well known and has
been cited by most competent authorities as providing crucial data for the origins of
Daoist physical exercises. It comes from one of the later chapters of the Zhuangzi and
may be dated to roughly 250 BCE, just about the time when the Daodejing came to be
written down:
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
Blowing and breathing, exhaling and inhaling, expelling the old and taking in
the new, bear strides and bird stretches—[these activities are designed] to
achieve longevity and that is all. They are favoured by those who [through]
channelling [of the vital breath] and flections [of the muscles and the joints,
wish to emulate] the longevity of Methuselah. (Zhuangzi 15)
The odd expression ‘bear strides’ is illustrated on a recently unearthed
document from Mawangdui. A silk manuscript from the same Han tomb that yielded
the manuscripts of the Daodejing consists of painted designs of gymnastic exercises
that date to 168 BCE or before. Originally the manuscript showed over forty exercises,
but only twenty-eight survive intact in its present fragmentary condition.
One striking feature of the twenty-eight exercises depicted on the fragmentary
silk manuscript is that many of them are named after birds and animals (wolf, kite,
sparrow hawk, ape, crane, and so on). This immediately reminds us of Yogic asana
(postures) that are patterned after the movements or poses of similar (and sometimes
even identical) creatures: eagle, swan, peacock, crane, heron, cock, pigeon, partridge,
tortoise, fish, monkey, lion, camel, frog, horse, cow, dog, crocodile, snake, locust,
scorpion, and so on. One might say it is natural for man to imitate animals when
devising physical exercises, but there are other grounds for believing that Daoist
gymnastics and Yogic postures have a common origin. 975
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READINGS IN RELIGIOUS ENGLISH 2011-2012 Ist Semester
The Cult of the Dragon (Loewe, 148-50)
The use of earthenware dragons to induce rain to fall may be set in context in
several ways. It must be considered along with other measures thought to procure this
result, and with other ways in which dragons took part in prayers for rain. In addition
the manufacture of clay dragons should be compared with that of other images used
for other purposes by way of sympathetic magic.
The use of clay dragons is mentioned in a small treatise entitled Dao yu za ji
禱雨雜記, compiled by Qian Qi 錢琦, with a prefatory note dated 1545. The work
includes an account of a number of incidents in which invocations were offered
together with a whole host of other methods. The use of clay dragons is recorded here
for as late as the eleventh century. Other devices included the offering of
supplications to deities, often of a local type, and the performance of the religious or
magical dance known as the Steps of Yu.
From some of the manuscripts found at Mawangdui, we know that the Steps of
Yu took their part among incantations designed to exorcise evil influences that had
caused illness. As a means of inducing rainfall, they feature in other texts as follows:
Specialists from the western regions who are capable of uttering spells and
incantations stand at the side of a deep pool and perform the Steps of Yu. As
soon as they breathe out, a dragon emerges, floating on the water, measuring
several tens of feet in length. When the specialist breathes out again, the
dragon promptly shrinks to a few inches, and it is then collected and placed
inside a vessel. There may be as many as four or five and they are fed with
water, sparingly. When there is news of an area that is afflicted by drought, the
dragons are taken there to be sold, and a single one may fetch some tens of
units of gold. When the vessel is opened, a dragon is let loose into a pool. The
specialist performs the Steps of Yu once more; as he breathes out, a dragon
measuring several tens of feet in length emerges, and shortly the rainclouds
rise up from all directions.
A further means of inducing the rain to fall was that of exposing a suppliant or
shaman to the full heat of the sun, or to man-made fire. A reference to the practice is
recorded in China for 639 BCE. At a time of severe drought the Duke of lu proposed
to burn a shaman and an emanciated person, but was dissuaded from doing so. Similar
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practices are cited by Frazer, who writes of the exposure of a deity named Dragon
King near canton, in 1888, and of the Japanese custom of casting a guardian dog into
an arid rice-field, with the exhortation that he should suffer the heat himself.
A number of explanations are offered for this practice. Yoshinami suggests
that it derived from the self-sacrifice that a ruler was ready to make by way of
propitiation, and that responsibility for self-sacrifice in times of drought was
transferred to a shaman. Elsewhere there is an instance of the same principle, where a
local magistrate, being responsible for the welfare of his flock, is alleged to have been
ready to make the supreme sacrifice by throwing himself upon a flaming pyre. In this
way he would bring moral pressure to bear on a local god so that he would relent and
provide rain.
The reference to this practice is in a text that is dated after the Han period, but
it cannot be said how old the custom may have been or how prevalent it was in
different parts of China. Possibly intermediaries were exposed to the heat of the sun,
or of a man-made fire, in order to induce them to redouble their efforts at intercession,
as a result of severe personal suffering.
Other methods of bringing pressure to bear on the gods are also recorded. As a
first step, their titles were revoked as a means of showing them that they had forfeited
the right to such symbols of power and dignity, and that they must take positive action
so as to regain them. As a further step, threats could be uttered to damage the
precincts of their shrines. If the local gods were still obdurate, their very images could
be exposed; and, as a final and desperate step, these images could be smashed.
If dragons were not used in the form of clay models, they sometimes featured
as paintings. Wang Chong refers to an early instance of this in the state of Chu 楚.7
Much later, at a time of drought in the Kaiyuan period (713-41), we hear of an official
who had a single white dragon painted on the walls of his office; immediately a
dragon arose from the lake and mounted the clouds, and the wind and rain duly
followed. In addition, Frazer gives the following account of the use of an artificial
dragon in Japan:
Wang Chong 王充, Lun Heng 論衡(Balanced Discourses) 47 luan long 亂龍(Troublesome Dragons)
楚叶公好龙，墙壁盂樽皆画龙象，真龙闻而下之。夫龙与云雨同气，故能感动，以类相从。叶
公以为画致真龙，今独何以不能致云雨？(http://www.guoxue.com/zibu/lunheng/lh016.htm)
7
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In Okunomura, a Japanese village not far from Tokyo, when rain is wanted, an
artificial dragon is made of straw, reeds and bamboo and magnolia leaves.
Preceded by a Shinto priest, attended by men carrying paper flags, and
followed by others beating a big drum, the dragon is carried in procession
from the Buddhist temple and finally thrown into a waterfall.
There is also a reference to the performance of a dance with dragons that is of
some interest in view of the occurrence of this rite in the Luxuriant Gems of the
Spring and Autumn Annals 春秋繁露. There can be little means of assessing the
antiquity of the allusion, and in so far as it ascribes a custom to the remote past, the
reference may be suspect as being an anachronism. We read that no less a person than
the Divine Farmer resorted to this device once, when he had suffered a drought that
had lasted for nineteen days. In addition to ordering the manufacture of Yellow
Dragons, he had an outsize dragon made with which dances were performed by fully
grown men.
The use of clay dragons may also be compared with the use of images of other
types. Reference will follow below to the use of earthernware suns, made as a means
of preventing rainfall. We also hear of a stone full that was used for inducing rainfall.
This image stood within a pool to the south-east of the mountains of Yulin
commandery, in south-west China. At times of drought, the inhabitants would
slaughter a bull in order to pray for rain; the bull’s blood would be mixed with mud,
and the mixture was then daubed on to the back of the stone bull. When the prayers
had been completed, the rain would start to fall, and then to pour down, ceasing only
when the mud on the stone bull’s back had been cleared off.
The motive for this practice was presumably to induce the god to remove
something which was both polluted and polluting. The mixture of blood and mud
could be nothing but offensive to a deity, particularly if it was placed deliberately on a
sacred image; and it could be hoped, or even expected, that the god would take
immediate steps to purify the spot. (1232)
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Two Types of Religious Action (Bellah, 73-4; 77; 82; 38 edited)
First Type
Religious action conceived as return for blessings from a benevolent
superordinate is based on a view of man as weak and helpless by himself. Only with
the help of benevolent beings can he live, and the blessings he receives are so much
greater than his ability to return them, that actually he can only return an infinitesimal
amount. By devoting himself utterly to returning these blessings he assures to himself
their continuation, and in some sense he is thereby saved from his weakness. But he
can never repay; he always stands in debt.
This theory, it would seem, has some of the dynamic potentialities of the idea
of original sin. It presents a fundamental flaw in human nature which cannot be
overcome by man alone but only by some intervention from above. It is only in this
sense that they are similar. In other respects they are quite different. It is interesting to
note that the theory of on 恩 holds for superordinates within the social system, such as
parents or political superiors, in exactly the same terms as it holds for entities above
the social system, gods or Buddhas…
Second Type
The second major type of religious action is that which seeks to attain unity
with the divine conceived as the Great Ultimate or the Dao, or whatever the term may
be. We can distinguish within this second major type two main divisions. The first
attempts to attain this unity through private religious exercises or experiences, through
withdrawal from the world. Elaborate techniques of breath control or meditation may
be devised to attain this end or it may be considered that only giving oneself up to a
life of pure experience and waiting for enlightenment to burst forth at some
unexpected moment can attain it. Stated theoretically, this approach seems to be an
attempt to destroy the self as an ontological entity, to destroy the dichotomy between
subject and object.
The second major division attempts to attain unity with the divine through the
accumulation of ethical acts or works of love, through participation in the world rather
than withdrawal from it. The ethical acts may be relatively specific acts of charity or
they may merely be those acts which make up a good life. Stated theoretically this
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approach seems to be an attempt to attain unity through the destruction of the self as
an ethical entity, by destroying the division between self and other, mine and thine, in
a word by destroying selfishness.
Reciprocity of the Two Types
(77)
It is interesting, I think, to view the two main types of religious action…not
merely as two parallel types but as reciprocals, as two sides of the same coin. The first
type, that concerned with the return of on, focuses primarily on the relation of the
individual to objects outside himself. The second, that concerned with self-cultivation,
focuses more on the integration of the individual’s personality within itself. For both,
selfishness is the great sin. It disrupts the proper repayment of obligations without,
and it disrupts the true harmony of one’s nature within. Selfless devotion, on the one
hand, establishes a perfect relation with the benevolent superordinate and at the same
time allows the individual to identify with him, lose himself in the divine. Through
this identification he finds his own inner nature fulfilled, because his own inner nature
in its essence is identical with the divine.
Religious Action and Ultimate Meaning
(82)
We have seen how the two types of religious action—the first derived
primarily from Buddhism and the other primarily from Confucianism, especially from
Mencius—have come to reinforce the central [Japanese] values of achievement and
particularism.1 They establish the particularistic relations to superiors as sacred and
insist on a high level of performance of obligations to them as necessary for religious
justification or salvation. They provide a metaphysical basis, a view of the nature of
man and deity, which makes these central values meaningful in some ultimate sense.
They promise some ultimate salvation or enlightenment, the victory of meaning over
ultimate frustration if the values are adhered to, and misery in the abyss of selfishness
if they are not. It is quite possible that it was on the level of religious action that these
values first received their clearest and simplest formulation…
(83)
In the view of deity which sees it as a benevolent superordinate we may say
that the values of performance and particularism are seen as defining the religious
object. The deity performs benevolent acts with respect to those who stand in a
particularistic relation to him. This involves the reciprocal obligations of loyalty and
the return of gratitude. The view of the divine as the ground of being defines the
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religious object by the values of particularism and quality. The religious object does
not ‘act’. In fact it is not really an object because it is beyond subject and object. It is
an identity of self and other which can be attained by the religious actor. Performance
norms are built into this process of attainment, but are perhaps so greatly stressed due
in part to the great influence of the concept of deity of the first type. At any rate the
importance of this second concept of the divine may indicate that integrative values
are very important in the Japanese value system and that the need for some form of
personal resolution beyond any demand for performance may be a compelling result
of the strains inherent in the particularistic-performance pattern.
1
Note on particularism in Japan
(38) The Japanese concern for nicety and order reflects the predominance of
particularism in the Japanese value system. It is more aesthetic than cognitive. With
respect to nature its concern… is to find order in that which unites man and nature, in
the relation of outer form to inner feeling, in the creation of a harmonious communion
between my soul and the ‘soul’ of the universe… In art, the Japanese are concerned
with catching the particularity of an object, not in revealing its subjection to general
categories… Even in the philosophical art of the Zen painters the attempt is to show
through a single swift glimpse that the nature of the world is its particularity, and that
each particular is a total consummation. (1023)
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Rituals of the Native Americans (Wilson 25-28)
Native Americans negotiated this uncertain but marvellous universe by the
help of ritual and ceremony. Ritual was usually the gift of a benign deity who had
brought it to ‘the people’ ‘in the beginning’, or it was acquired by a culture hero on a
journey to some other dimension or level of reality. (Many cultures believed that an
upper and a lower world existed in parallel to this one and that they could be visited
by someone with the necessary power.) By following the prescribed instructions, ‘the
people’ were able to secure the favour and assistance of powerful spiritual forces. But
there was far mor at stake here than simply gratifying immediate physical needs.
Because everything in the universe was interrelated, and because ‘the people’ were at
the centre of it, their rituals not only regulated their own relationship with the sacred
and with other living beings but also ensured that the whole natural order was
properly maintained.
One of the central concepts, found among peoples all the way down the East
coast and, in various forms, in many other parts of the continent as well, was the
animals’ spiritual ‘masters’ (or ‘keepers’ or ‘owners’) who controlled the game on
which hunters depended for food. Killing a deer or a partridge did not in itself reduce
the stock of game, because—as the anthropologist Ruth Underhill says—the animals
“did not really die. They simply sloughed off fur or feathers and went back to their
original home.” But if game was killed in the wrong way or without the proper ritual,
if the meat was treated disrespectfully, wasted or not shared generously among the
whole group, then the animal masters would become angry and withhold food in the
future. As an elderly Innu hunter in Labrador, whose family still lives largely by
hunting, explains: “When a kill is made, the hunter gives away what he has killed.
Then the same type of animal will be killed again… I have been a hunter all my life,
and I have always taken care of what I killed. I have always shared what I killed. It
has to be that way—the animal masters want it. It is how the Master of all the animals
wants it.”
For groups like the Innu and their neighbours the Cree, who depended entirely
on hunting, pleasing the masters through rituals like mukushan (a sacred meal made
from the bone marrow and fat of game animals) and securing their aid through dreams
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and visions was absolutely crucial to survival. And even among peoples like the
Cherokee and the Iroquois, who lived primarily by farming, preserving a proper
connection with the animal world was considered essential not only for food but for
the spiritual well-being of the community.
Agriculture also had its own rituals. Where hunting was generally the domain
of men, cultivation was usually the realm of women, who in many cases controlled
the land as well as doing most of the work. Native American agriculturalists saw a
strong association between female fecundity and the fruitfulness of the earth. The
Pueblo culture-heroes who first brought maize to the people and are commemorated
in a host of different rituals and dances, are mirrored in the mythologies of many other
farming tribes. The Cherokee Corn Woman, Selu, for instance, who could scrape corn
from her armpits and loins, was killed by her sons as a witch. But before she died, she
promised to stay with them in the form of corn, as long as they honoured her with the
Green Corn Dance and other ceremonies.
In many societies, particularly among the agricultural tribes, the worlds of men
and women were kept strictly separate: mingling them, especially when a woman was
menstruating, could sap or pollute their respective powers. There were other
boundaries, too, which could only be crossed by ritual: the rites of passage—birth,
puberty, marriage and death—and the transition between peace and war, when men
became warriors and gained access to the sources of power. In a world without fixed
borders, where identity was conferred by culture rather than by race or national
frontiers, ritual could also be used to transform outsiders into members of the group.
Many societies formally adopted captives, particularly women and children, into their
own communities, sometimes giving them the names and roles of individual
tribespeople who had died.
At the heart of this ritual universe was the idea of interdependence and
equilibrium. People took from the animal world, but reciprocated with gestures of
respect and, ultimately, returned their bodies to the ground to help sustain new
generations of living things. Social life, and particularly dealings between different
groups, revolved around the carefully calculated exchange of gifts, which symbolized
mutual acceptance and goodwill but also subtly expressed the relative power of both
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sides. The same preoccupation with balance seems, generally, to have governed
warfare, which was seldom undertaken either to exterminate or to dispossess an
enemy.
Preserving all the elements of this complex order in proper relation to each
other demanded constant effort and attention. Almost every group had specialists—
shamans or priests—who through experience or training had acquired the ability to
see deeply into the heart of reality, to prescribe new, more effective means for
attaining power and to diagnose the cause when things went wrong. Frequently,
problems such as disease, famine or defeat in war were directly attributed to a failure
to carry out the necessary rituals, and spiritual leaders would demand that the whole
community should return to the original instructions it had received ‘in the beginning’.
Anthropologists point to the many similarities of belief, mythology and ceremony
among different peoples as proof that, far from being becalmed in a kind of
changeless, timeless prehistory, Native American societies were open, vital and
dynamic, pragmatically accepting new cultural practices from each other. This
appears to be borne out by the evidence of extensive trade networks, linking areas as
far apart as present-day Mexico and Canada, which carried not only materials and
artefacts but people and ideas back and forth across the continent. (1014)
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