some centuries after the Christian era. But it was not until some time
after the introduction of Buddhism from Corea during the reign of the
Emperor Kimmei, in 552 A.D., that Confucianism and Chinese learning
began to take firm root and make their influence felt among us.
Paradoxical as it looks, it is Buddhism that so greatly helped the
teaching of the Chinese sage to establish itself as a ruling factor in
Japanese society. This curious state of things came about in this way.
The gospel of Shâkya-muni has, ever since its introduction into our
country, been made accessible only through the Chinese translation,
which demanded a considerable knowledge of the written language of the
Middle Kingdom. The keen and far-reaching spiritual interest aroused by
Buddhism gave a fresh and vigorous impulse to the study of Chinese
literature, already increasingly cultivated for some centuries. Now, the
knowledge of Chinese in its written form has, until quite recently,
always been imparted by a painful perusal of the Chinese classics and
Chinese books deeply imbued with Confucianism. It was only after a
considerable amount of knowledge of this difficult language had been
obtained in this unnatural way, that one came in contact with the works
of authors not strictly orthodox. This way of teaching Chinese through
Confucian texts, which we adopted from China's faithful agent, Corea,
necessarily led from the very beginning to an intimate acquaintance with
the main aspects of the Confucian morals in our upper classes, among
whom alone the study was at first pursued with any seriousness. Although
skilled in warlike arts, gentle and loyal in domestic life, our
forefathers were simple in manners and thought in those olden days when
book-learned reasons of duty had not yet superseded the naïve observance
of the dictates of the heart and of responsibility to the ancestral
spirits. They possessed no letters of their own, and consequently no
literature, except in unwritten songs and legendary lore sung from mouth
to mouth, telling of the gods and men who formed the glorious past of
the Yamato race. So it is not difficult to imagine the dazzling effect
which the Chinese learning, with its richness and its pedantry, with its
elaborate system of civil government and its philosophy, produced upon
our untrained eyes. Gradually but steadfastly it had been gaining
ground, and making its slow way from the topmost rung to the bottom of
the social ladder, when the introduction of Buddhism quickened the now
resistless progress. The would-be priests and advocates of the Indian
creed felt a fresh impulse and spiritual need to learn the Chinese
language, for which they had long entertained a high estimation. Owing
to the extremely secular character of the Confucian ethics on the one
hand, and on the other, to the fact that Buddhists deny the existence of
a personal god, and are eager to minister salvation through any adequate
means so long as it does not contradict the Law of the Universe upon
which the whole doctrine is based, Buddhism found in the teaching of the
Chinese sage and his followers not only no enemy, but, on the contrary,
a helpful friend. It found that the sacred books of Confucian doctrine
contained only in a slightly different form the five commandments laid
down by Shâkya-muni himself for the regulation of the conduct of a
layman, viz.:--
1. Not to destroy life nor to cause its destruction.
2. Not to steal.
3. Not to commit adultery.
4. Not to tell lies.
5. Not to indulge in intoxicating drinks; or the Buddhist warning
against the ten sins; three of the body--taking life, theft, adultery;
four of speech--lying, slander, abuse, and vain conversation; three of
the mind--covetousness, malice, and scepticism.
It saw also that Confucian writings embraced its fifty precepts[8]
detailed under the five different secular relationships of
1. Parents and children.
2. Pupils and teachers.
3. Husbands and wives.
4. Friends and companions.
5. Masters and servants.
Our early Buddhists therefore did not see why they should try to
suppress the existing Confucian moral code and supplant it with their
own which breathed the same spirit, only because it had not grown on
Indian soil.
[8] Cp. Rhys Davids' _Buddhism_, p. 144.
Thus encouraged by the now influential advocates of the teaching of
Buddha, themselves admirers of the Chinese learning, Confucianism began
with renewed vigour to exercise a great influence on the future of the
Japanese. This took place during the seventh century, when the
reorganisation of the Japanese government after the model of that of the
Celestial Empire made our educational system quite Chinese. In addition
to a university, there were many provincial schools where candidates for
the government service were instructed. Medicine, mathematics, including
astronomy and law, taught through Chinese books, along with the
all-important teaching in the Confucian ethics and in Chinese literature
generally, were the branches of study cultivated under the guidance of
professors whose calling had become hereditary among a certain number of
learned families. In the course of the next two centuries we see several
private institutions founded by great nobles of the court, with an
endowment in land for their support. The native system of writing which
had gradually emerged out of the phonetic use of Chinese ideographs made
it possible for Japanese thought, hitherto expressed only in an
uncongenial foreign garb, to appear in purely Japanese attire. Thus we
find the dawn of Japanese civilisation appearing at the beginning of the
tenth century after Christ. The air was replete with the Buddhist
thought of after-life and the Confucian ideas of broad-day morality. The
sonorous reading of the Book of Filial Piety was heard all over the
country, echoing with the loud recital of the _Myôhô-renge-kyô_ (or
_Saddharma Pundarika Sûtra_).
During the dark and dreary Middle Ages which followed this golden
period, and which were brought about by the degeneration of the ruling
nobles and by the gradually rising power of the military class, Chinese
learning fled to the protecting hands of Buddhist priests; and in its
quiet refuge within the monastery walls it continued to breathe its
humble existence, until it found at the beginning of the sixteenth
century a powerful patron in the great founder of the Tokugawa
Shogunate. The education of the common people, too, seems to have been
kept up by the monks--a fact still preserved in the word _tera-koya_,
'church seminary,' a term used, until forty years ago, to express the
tiny private schools for children. It must be remembered that the
education thus given was always of an exclusively secular character,
basing itself on the Confucian morals.
Before passing on to the consideration of Laoism, let me say something
about the so-called orthodox form of the teaching of Confucius, which is
one of the latest developments of that doctrine. Orthodox Confucianism,
as represented by the famous Chinese philosopher and commentator of the
Confucian canon, Chu-Hsi (1130-1200), found its admirer in a Japanese
scholar, Fujiwara-no-Seigwa (1560-1619), who in his youth had joined the
priesthood, which however he afterwards renounced. He gave lectures on
the Chinese classics at Kyôto. He was held in great esteem by Tokugawa
Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa line of Shoguns, who embraced the
Chinese system of ethics as preached by Chu-Hsi. During the two hundred
and fifty years of the Tokugawa rule, this system, under the hereditary
direction of the descendants of Hayashi Razan (1583-1657), one of the
most distinguished disciples of Seigwa, was recognised as the
established doctrine.
According to the somewhat hazy ideas of Chu-Hsi's philosophy, which I
ask your permission to sketch here on account of the high public esteem
in which we have held them for the last three centuries, the ultimate
basis of the universe is Infinity, or _Tai Kieh_, which, though
containing within itself all the germs of all forms of existence and
excellence, is utterly void of form or sensible qualities. It consists
of two qualities, _li_ and _chi_, which may be roughly rendered into
'force-element' and 'matter-element.' These are self-existences, are
present in all things, and are found in their formation. The
'force-element,' or _li_, we are told, is the perfection of heavenly
virtue. It is in inanimate things as well as in man and other animate
beings, and pervades all space. The 'matter-element,' or _chi_, is
endowed with the male and the female principles, or positive and
negative polarities, as we might call them. It is, moreover,
characterised by the five constituent qualities of _wood_, _fire_,
_earth_, _metal_, and _water_. Hence its other name, _Wu-hsieng_, or
'Five Qualities.'
Things and animals, except human beings, get only portions of the
force-element, but man receives it in full, and this becomes in his
person _sing_, or real human nature. He has thus within him the perfect
mirror of the heavenly virtue and complete power of understanding. There
is no difference in this respect between a sage and an ordinary man. To
both the force-element is uniformly given. But the matter-element, from
which is derived his form and material existence, and which constitutes
the basis of his mental disposition, is different in quality in
different men.
Man's real nature, or _sing_, although originally perfect, becomes
affected on entering into him, or is modified by his mental disposition,
which differs according to the different state of the matter-element.
Thus a second nature is formed out of the original. It is through this
second and tainted human nature that man acts well or ill. When a man
does evil, that is the result of his mental disposition covering or
interfering with his original perfect nature. Wipe this vapour of
corrupted thought from the surface of your mental mirror and it will
shine out as brightly as if it had never been covered by a temporary
mist.[9]
[9] Cp. T. Haga's _Note on Japanese Schools of Philosophy. T.A.S.J._,
vol. xx. pt. i. p. 134.
Synoptically expressed and applied to the microcosm Chu-Hsi's system
will be as follows:--
MAN
{Force-Element=_Original Nature of Man_.
Different Human Characters.
Infinity
{Male-Principle }Wood-quality.
}Fire- "
{Matter-Element }Earth-"
}Metal-"
{Female-Principle}Water-"
_Dispositions latent in Matter._
Such is, in its outline, Chu-Hsi's view, which received the sanction of
the ruling Tokugawa family. But it was not without its opponents in
Japan as well as in China. Already in his own time, Lu-Shang-Shan (b.
1140 A.D.) maintained, in opposition to the high-sounding erudition of
Chu-Hsi, that the purification of the heart was the first and main point
of study.[10] The same protest was more systematically urged against it
by his great follower, Wang Yang-ming (1472-1528 A.D.), who found warm
and able admirers in Japan in such scholars as Nakae Tôju (1603-1678),
Kumazawa Hanzan (1619-1691), and Oshio Chûsai (1794-1837). Among other
great opponents of the orthodox philosophy, such names as Itô Jinsai
(1625-1706) and his son Tôgai (1670-1736), Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714),
Ogyû Sorai (1666-1728), are to be mentioned. These scholars, getting
their fundamental ideas from other Chinese thinkers, and eager to remain
faithful to the true spirit of Confucianism itself, pointed out many
inconsistencies in Chu-Hsi's theory, and were of the opinion that more
real good was to be achieved in proceeding straight to action under the
guidance of conscience which was heaven and all, than in indulging in
idle talk about the subtlety of human nature.
[10] Faber's _Doctrines of Confucius_, p. 33.
The philosophy of Chu-Hsi, although he calls himself the true exponent
of Confucianism, is not at all Confucian. It is greatly indebted to
Buddhism and Taoism, or better, Laoism, that is to say, to the
philosophy originated by Lao-tze (b. 604 B.C.), one of the greatest
thinkers that China has ever produced. Since Laoism, through the
wonderful _Tao-teh-king_, a small book by Lao-tze himself, but
especially through _Chwang-tze_, a work in ten books by his famous
follower Chwang-chow, has exercised considerable influence on our
thought for twelve centuries, a word about it may not be out of place
before we go on to consider the doctrine of Shâkya-muni.
In Lao-tze we find the perfect opposite of Confucius, both in the turn
of his mind and in his views and methods of saving the world. Lao-tze
endeavoured to reform humanity by warning them to cast off all human
artifice and to return to nature. This may be taken as the whole tenor
of his doctrine: Do not try to do anything with your petty will, because
it is the way to hinder and spoil the spontaneous growth of the true
virtue that permeates the universe. To follow Nature's dictates, while
helping it to develop itself, is the very course sanctioned and followed
by all the sages worthy of the name. Make away with your 'Ego' and learn
to value simplicity and humiliation; for in total 'altruism' exists the
completion of self, and in humble contentment and yielding pliancy are
to be found real grandeur and true strength. Under the title 'Dimming
Radiance' he says:[11]--
'Heaven endures and earth is lasting. And why can heaven and earth
endure and be lasting? Because they do not live for themselves. On
that account can they endure.
'Therefore the True Man puts his person behind and his person comes
to the front. He surrenders his person and his person is preserved.
Is it not because he seeks not his own? For that reason he
accomplishes his own.'
Again we hear him 'Discoursing on Virtue':--
'Superior virtue is non-virtue. Therefore it has Virtue. Inferior
virtue never loses sight of virtue. Therefore it has no virtue.
Superior virtue is non-assertive and without pretension. Inferior
virtue asserts and makes pretensions.'
[11] Cp. Dr. P. Carus's _Lao-tze Tao-teh-king_.
He talks about 'Returning to Simplicity':
'Quit the so-called saintliness; leave the so-called wisdom alone;
and the people's gain will be increased by a hundredfold.
`Abandon the so-called mercy; put away the so-called righteousness;
and the people will return to filial devotion and paternal love.
`Abandon your scheming; put away your devices; and thieves and
robbers will no longer exist.'
Such is the general purport of the doctrine expounded by Lao-tze. It is
well to remember that this doctrine, which we may call for distinction's
sake Laoism, has intrinsically very little to do with that form of
belief now so prevalent among the Chinese, and which is known under the
name of Taoism. Although this name itself is derived from Lao-tze's own
word _Tao_, meaning Reason or True Path, and although the followers of
Taoism see in the great philosopher its first revealer, it is in all
probability nothing more than a new aspect and new appellation assumed
by that aboriginal Chinese cult which was based on nature- and
ancestor-worship. Ever since their appearance in history the Chinese
have had their belief in Shang-ti, in spirits, and in natural agencies.
This cult found, at an early date, in the mystic interpretation and
solution of life as expressed by Lao-tze and his followers, the means of
fresh development. The philosophical ideas of these thinkers were not
properly understood, and words and phrases mostly metaphorical were
construed in such a manner that they came to mean something quite
different from what the original writers wished to suggest. Such an
idea, for instance, as the deathlessness of a True Man by virtue of his
incorporation with the grand Truth _Tao_ that pervades Heaven and Earth,
breathing in the eternity of the universe, was easily misinterpreted in
a very matter-of-fact manner, _e.g._, anybody who realised _Tao_ could
then enjoy the much-wished-for freedom from actual death. You see how
easy it is for an ordinary mind to pass from one to the other when it
hears Chwang-tze say:--
'Fire cannot burn him who is perfect in virtue, nor water drown
him; neither cold nor heat can affect him injuriously; neither bird
nor beast can hurt him.'[12]
Or again:--
'Though heaven and earth were to be overturned and fall, they would
occasion him no loss. His judgment is fixed on that in which there
is no element of falsehood, and while other things change, he
changes not.'[13]
[12] Cp. _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxix.
[13] Cp. _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xxix.
We want no great flight of imagination therefore to follow the traces of
development of the present form of Taoism with its occult aspects. The
eternity attributed to a True Man in its Laoist sense begot the idea of
a deathless man in flesh and blood endowed with all kinds of
supernatural powers. This in turn produced the notion that these
superhuman beings knew some secret means to preserve their life and
could work other wonders. Herbalism, alchemy, geomancy, and other magic
arts owe their origin to this fountain-head of primitive superstition.
There is little room for reasonable doubt that in this way Taoism,
although the name itself was of later development, has been in its main
features the religion of China _par excellence_ from the very dawn of
its history. It has from the beginning found a congenial soil in the
heart of the Chinese people, who still continue to embrace the cult with
great enthusiasm, and in whose helpless credulity the Taoist priests of
to-day, borrowing much help from the occult sides of Buddhism and
Hinduism, still find an easy prey for their necromantic arts.
Not so with Laoism. One may well wonder how such an uncongenial doctrine
ever came to spring from the soil of materialistic China. Some suggest
that Lao-tze was a Brahman, and not a Chinese at all. Another
explanation of this anomaly is to be found in the attempted division of
the whole Chinese civilisation into two geographically distinct groups,
the rigid Northern and the more romantic Southern types: Laoism
belonging to the latter, while Confucianism belongs to the former. In
any case, the resemblance in many respects between the doctrine
introduced by Lao-tze and the higher form of Buddhism is very striking.
Let me take this opportunity of saying something about the religion of
Shâkya-muni, which has occupied our mind and heart for the past fifteen
centuries.
But, first of all, let me say that I am not unaware of the absurdity of
trying to give you anything like a fair idea of a many-sided and
extremely complicated system of human belief such as Buddhism in the
short space which is at my disposal. Very far from it. Even a brief
summary of its main features would take an able speaker at least a
couple of hours. So I humbly confine myself to giving you some hints on
the belief, about which most of you, I presume, have already had
occasion to hear something, the religion which took its origin among the
people who claim their descent from the same Aryan stock to which you
yourselves belong. Those who would care to read about it will find an
excellent supply of knowledge in two little books called _Buddhism_ and
_Buddhism in China_, written respectively by Dr. Rhys Davids and the
late Rev. S. Beal, not to mention the late Sir Monier Williams' standard
work. A perusal of the Rev. A. Lloyd's paper read before the Asiatic
Society of Japan in 1894, entitled 'Developments of Japanese Buddhism,'
is very desirable. There are also two chapters devoted to this doctrine
in Lafcadio Hearn's last work, _Japan_. This enumeration might almost
exempt me from making any attempt to describe it myself.
Buddhism has, to begin with, two distinct forms, philosophical and
popular, which may practically be taken as two different religions.
Philosophical Buddhism--or at least the truest form of it--is a system
based upon the recognition of the utter impermanency of the phenomenal
world in all its forms and states. It believes in no God or gods
whatever as a personal motive power. The only thing eternal is matter,
or essence of matter, with the Karma, or Law of cause and effect,
dwelling incorporated in it. Through the never-ceasing working of this
law innumerable forms of existence develop, which, notwithstanding the
appearance of stability they temporarily assume, are, in consequence of
the action and reaction of the very law to which they owe their
existence, constantly subject to everlasting changes. Constancy is
nowhere to be found in this universe of phenomena. It is therefore an
act of unspeakable ignorance on the part of human beings, themselves a
product of the immutable Karma, to attach a constant value to this
dreamy world and allow themselves to lose their mental harmony in the
quest of shadowy desires and of their shadowy satisfaction, thus
plunging themselves into the boundless sea of misery. True salvation is
to be sought in the complete negation of egoism and in the unconditional
absorption of ourselves in the fundamental law of the universe.
Shâkya-muni was no more than one of a series of teachers whose mission
it is to show us how to get rid of our fatal ignorance of this grand
truth, an ignorance which is at the root of all the discontent and
misery of our selfish existence.
Very different from this is the aspect assumed by the popular form of
Buddhism. This is a system built up on the blind worship of personified
psychic phenomena, originally meant merely as convenient symbols for
their better contemplation, and in the transformation of the human
teachers of truth into so many personal gods. This is the reason why
Buddhism, so essentially atheistic, has come to be regarded by the
ordinary Christian mind as polytheism, or as a degraded form of
idolatry.
Now, in all the many sects of Buddhism which have been planted in the
soil of Japan since the middle of the seventh century, some of which
soon withered, while others took deep root and grew new branches, these
two phases have always been recognised and utilised in their proper
sphere as means of salvation. For the populace there was the lower
Buddhism, while the more elevated classes found satisfaction in the
higher form and in an explanation of that True Path which lies hidden
beneath the complicated symbolic system.
Of the sects which have exercised great influence on Japanese mentality,
the following are specially to be mentioned: the Tendai, the Shingon,
the Zen, the Hokke, and the Jodo, with its offspring the Ikkô sect. Each
of these chose its own means of reaching enlightenment from among those
indicated by Shâkya-muni, but did not on that account entirely reject
the means of salvation preferred by the others. Some give long lists of
categories and antitheses, and seek to define the truth with a more than
Aristotelian precision of detail, while others think it advisable to
realise it by dint of faith alone. But among these means of salvation
the practice advocated by the Zen sect is worthy of special
consideration in this place, as it has exercised great influence in the
formation of the Japanese spirit. _Zen_ means 'abstraction,' standing
for the Sanskrit Dhyâna. It is one of the six means of arriving at
Nirvâna, namely, (1) charity; (2) morality; (3) patience; (4) energy;
(5) contemplation; and (6) wisdom. This practice, which dates from a
time anterior to Shâkya himself, consists of an 'abstract
contemplation,' intended to destroy all attachment to existence in
thought and wish. From the earliest time Buddhists taught four different
degrees of abstract contemplation by which the mind frees itself from
all subjective and objective trammels, until it reaches a state of
absolute indifference or self-annihilation of thought, perception, and
will.[14]
[14] E. J. Eitel's _Handbook of Chinese Buddhism_, p. 49.