TAOISM--THE “TAO-TÊ-CHING”
[Sidenote: TAO-TÊ-CHING]
The reader is now asked to begin once more at the sixth century
B.C. So far we have dealt almost exclusively with what may
be called orthodox literature, that is to say, of or belonging to or
based upon the Confucian Canon. It seemed advisable to get that well
off our hands before entering upon another branch, scarcely indeed as
important, but much more difficult to handle. This branch consists of
the literature of Taoism, or that which has gathered around what is
known as the Tao or Way of LAO TZŬ, growing and flourishing
alongside of, though in direct antagonism to, that which is founded
upon the criteria and doctrines of Confucius. Unfortunately it is quite
impossible to explain at the outset in what this Tao actually consists.
According to Lao Tzŭ himself, “Those who know do not tell; those who
tell do not know.” It is hoped, however, that by the time the end of
this chapter is reached, some glimmering of the meaning of Tao may have
reached the minds of those who have been patient enough to follow the
argument.
[Sidenote: LAO TZŬ]
Lao Tzŭ was born, according to the weight of evidence, in the year
B.C. 604. Omitting all reference to the supernatural phenomena
which attended his birth and early years, it only remains to say that
we really know next to nothing about him. There is a short biography
of Lao Tzŭ to be found in the history of Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien, to be dealt
with in Book II., chapter iii., but internal evidence points to
embroidery laid on by other hands. Just as it was deemed necessary by
pious enthusiasts to interpolate in the work of Josephus a passage
referring to Christ, so it would appear that the original note by
Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien has been carefully touched up to suit the requirements
of an unauthenticated meeting between Lao Tzŭ and Confucius, which has
been inserted very much _à propos de bottes_; the more so, as Confucius
is made to visit Lao Tzŭ with a view to information on Rites, a subject
which Lao Tzŭ held in very low esteem. This biography ends with the
following extraordinary episode:--
“Lao Tzŭ abode for a long time in Chou, but when he saw that the State
showed signs of decay, he left. On reaching the frontier, the Warden,
named Yin Hsi, said to him, ‘So you are going into retirement. I beg
you to write a book for me.’ Thereupon Lao Tzŭ wrote a book, in two
parts, on Tao and Tê,[3] extending to over 5000 words. He then went
away, and no one knows where he died.”
It is clear from Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien’s account that he himself had never seen
the book, though a dwindling minority still believe that we possess
that book in the well-known _Tao-Tê-Ching_.
It must now be stated that throughout what are generally believed
to be the writings of Confucius the name of Lao Tzŭ is never once
mentioned.[4] It is not mentioned by Tso of the famous commentary, nor
by the editors of the Confucian Analects, nor by Tsêng Ts‘an, nor by
Mencius. Chuang Tzŭ, who devoted all his energies to the exposition and
enforcement of the teaching of Lao Tzŭ, never once drops even a hint
that his Master had written a book. In his work will now be found an
account of the meeting of Confucius and Lao Tzŭ, but it has long since
been laughed out of court as a pious fraud by every competent Chinese
critic. Chu Hsi, Shên Jo-shui, and many others, declare emphatically
against the genuineness of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_; and scant allusion would
indeed have been made to it here, were it not for the attention paid to
it by several more or less eminent foreign students of the language.
It is interesting as a collection of many genuine utterances of Lao
Tzŭ, sandwiched however between thick wads of padding from which little
meaning can be extracted except by enthusiasts who curiously enough
disagree absolutely among themselves. A few examples from the real Lao
Tzŭ will now be given:--
“The Way (Tao) which can be walked upon is not the eternal Way.”
“Follow diligently the Way in your own heart, but make no display of it
to the world.”
“By many words wit is exhausted; it is better to preserve a mean.”
“To the good I would be good. To the not-good I would also be good, in
order to make them good.”
“Recompense injury with kindness.”
“Put yourself behind, and you shall be put in front.”
“Abandon wisdom and discard knowledge, and the people will be benefited
an hundredfold.”
These last maxims are supposed to illustrate Lao Tzŭ’s favourite
doctrine of doing nothing, or, as it has been termed, Inaction, a
doctrine inseparably associated with his name, and one which has ever
exerted much fascination over the more imaginative of his countrymen.
It was openly enunciated as follows:--
“Do nothing, and all things will be done.”
“I do nothing, and the people become good of their own accord.”
To turn to the padding, as rendered by the late Drs. Chalmers and
Legge, we may take a paragraph which now passes as chapter vi.:--
CHALMERS:--“The Spirit (like perennial spring) of the valley
never dies. This (Spirit) I call the abyss-mother. The passage of the
abyss-mother I call the root of heaven and earth. Ceaselessly it seems
to endure, and it is employed without effort.”
LEGGE:--“_The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain._”
One more example from Chalmers’ translation will perhaps seal the fate
of this book with readers who claim at least a minimum of sense from an
old-world classic.
“_Where water abides, it is good for adaptability.
In its heart, it is good for depth.
In giving, it is good for benevolence.
In speaking, it is good for fidelity._”
That there was such a philosopher as Lao Tzŭ who lived about the time
indicated, and whose sayings have come down to us first by tradition
and later by written and printed record, cannot possibly be doubted.
The great work of Chuang Tzŭ would be sufficient to establish this
beyond cavil, while at the same time it forms a handy guide to a nearer
appreciation of this elusive Tao.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CHUANG TZŬ]
CHUANG TZŬ was born in the fourth century B.C., and
held a petty official post. “He wrote,” says the historian Ssŭ-ma
Ch‘ien, “with a view to asperse the Confucian school and to glorify the
mysteries of Lao Tzŭ.... His teachings are like an overwhelming flood,
which spreads at its own sweet will. Consequently, from rulers and
ministers downwards, none could apply them to any definite use.”
Here we have the key to the triumph of the Tao of Confucius over the
Tao of Lao Tzŭ. The latter was idealistic, the former a practical
system for everyday use. And Chuang Tzŭ was unable to persuade the
calculating Chinese nation that by doing nothing, all things would
be done. But he bequeathed to posterity a work which, by reason of
its marvellous literary beauty, has always held a foremost place.
It is also a work of much originality of thought. The writer, it is
true, appears chiefly as a disciple insisting upon the principles of
a Master. But he has contrived to extend the field, and carry his own
speculations into regions never dreamt of by Lao Tzŭ.
The whole work of Chuang Tzŭ has not come down to us, neither can all
that now passes under his name be regarded as genuine. Alien hands have
added, vainly indeed, many passages and several entire chapters. But
a sable robe, says the Chinese proverb, cannot be eked out with dogs’
tails. Lin Hsi-chung, a brilliant critic of the seventeenth century, to
whose edition all students should turn, has shown with unerring touch
where the lion left off and the jackals began.
The honour of the first edition really belongs to a volatile spirit of
the third century A.D., named Hsiang Hsiu. He was probably the
founder, at any rate a member, of a small club of bibulous poets who
called themselves the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Death, however,
interrupted his labours before he had finished his work on Chuang Tzŭ,
and the manuscript was purloined by Kuo Hsiang, a scholar who died
A.D. 312, and with some additions was issued by the latter as
his own.
Before attempting to illustrate by extracts the style and scope of
Chuang Tzŭ, it will be well to collect from his work a few passages
dealing with the attributes of Tao. In his most famous chapter,
entitled Autumn Floods, a name by which he himself is sometimes spoken
of, Chuang Tzŭ writes as follows:--
“Tao is without beginning, without end.” Elsewhere he says, “There is
nowhere where it is not.” “Tao cannot be heard; heard, it is not Tao.
Tao cannot be seen; seen, it is not Tao. Tao cannot be spoken; spoken,
it is not Tao. That which imparts form to forms is itself formless;
therefore Tao cannot have a name (as form precedes name).”
“Tao is not too small for the greatest, nor too great for the smallest.
Thus all things are embosomed therein; wide, indeed, its boundless
capacity, unfathomable its depth.”
“By no thoughts, by no cogitations, Tao may be known. By resting in
nothing, by according in nothing, Tao may be approached. By following
nothing, by pursuing nothing, Tao may be attained.”
In these and many like passages Lao Tzŭ would have been in full
sympathy with his disciple. So far as it is possible to deduce anything
definite from the scanty traditions of the teachings of Lao Tzŭ,
we seem to obtain this, that man should remain impassive under the
operation of an eternal, omnipresent law (Tao), and that thus he will
become in perfect harmony with his environment, and that if he is
in harmony with his environment, he will thereby attain to a vague
condition of general immunity. Beyond this the teachings of Lao Tzŭ
would not carry us. Chuang Tzŭ, however, from simple problems, such as
a drunken man falling out of a cart and not injuring himself--a common
superstition among sailors--because he is unconscious and therefore
in harmony with his environment, slides easily into an advanced
mysticism. In his marvellous chapter on The Identity of Contraries, he
maintains that from the standpoint of Tao all things are One. Positive
and negative, this and that, here and there, somewhere and nowhere,
right and wrong, vertical and horizontal, subjective and objective,
become indistinct, as water is in water. “When subjective and objective
are both without their correlates, that is the very axis of Tao. And
when that axis passes through the centre at which all Infinities
converge, positive and negative alike blend into an infinite One.”
This localisation in a Centre, and this infinite absolute represented
by One, were too concrete even for Chuang Tzŭ. The One became God, and
the Centre, assigned by later Taoist writers to the pole-star (see
Book IV. ch. i.), became the source of all life and the haven to which
such life returned after its transitory stay on earth. By ignoring the
distinctions of contraries “we are embraced in the obliterating unity
of God. Take no heed of time, nor of right and wrong; but passing into
the realm of the Infinite, make your final rest therein.”
That the idea of an indefinite future state was familiar to the mind of
Chuang Tzŭ may be gathered from many passages such as the following:--
“How then do I know but that the dead repent of having previously clung
to life?
“Those who dream of the banquet, wake to lamentation and sorrow. Those
who dream of lamentation and sorrow, wake to join the hunt. While they
dream, they do not know that they dream. Some will even interpret the
very dream they are dreaming; and only when they awake do they know
it was a dream. By and by comes the Great Awakening, and then we find
out that this life is really a great dream. Fools think they are awake
now, and flatter themselves they know if they are really princes or
peasants. Confucius and you are both dreams; and I who say you are
dreams,--I am but a dream myself.”
The chapter closes with a paragraph which has gained for its writer an
additional epithet, Butterfly Chuang:--
“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzŭ, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering
hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was
conscious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was
unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and
there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man
dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I
am a man.”
Chuang Tzŭ is fond of paradox. He delights in dwelling on the
usefulness of useless things. He shows that ill-grown or inferior trees
are allowed to stand, that diseased pigs are not killed for sacrifice,
and that a hunchback can not only make a good living by washing, for
which a bent body is no drawback, but escapes the dreaded press-gang in
time of war.
With a few illustrative extracts we must now take leave of Chuang Tzŭ,
a writer who, although heterodox in the eyes of a Confucianist, has
always been justly esteemed for his pointed wit and charming style.
* * * * *
(1.) “It was the time of autumn floods. Every stream poured into the
river, which swelled in its turbid course. The banks receded so far
from one another that it was impossible to tell a cow from a horse.
“Then the Spirit of the River laughed for joy that all the beauty of
the earth was gathered to himself. Down with the stream he journeyed
east, until he reached the ocean. There, looking eastwards and seeing
no limit to its waves, his countenance changed. And as he gazed over
the expanse, he sighed and said to the Spirit of the Ocean, ‘A vulgar
proverb says, that he who has heard but part of the truth thinks no one
equal to himself. And such a one am I.
“‘When formerly I heard people detracting from the learning of
Confucius, or underrating the heroism of Po I, I did not believe. But
now that I have looked upon your inexhaustibility--alas for me had I
not reached your abode, I should have been for ever a laughing-stock to
those of comprehensive enlightenment!’
“To which the Spirit of the Ocean replied, ‘You cannot speak of ocean
to a well-frog, the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of
ice to a summer-insect,--the creature of a season. You cannot speak
of Tao to a pedagogue: his scope is too restricted. But now that you
have emerged from your narrow sphere and have seen the great ocean,
you know your own insignificance, and I can speak to you of great
principles.’”
(2.) “Have you never heard of the frog in the old well?--The frog said
to the turtle of the eastern sea, ‘Happy indeed am I! I hop on to
the rail around the well. I rest in the hollow of some broken brick.
Swimming, I gather the water under my arms and shut my mouth. I plunge
into the mud, burying my feet and toes; and not one of the cockles,
crabs, or tadpoles I see around me are my match. [Fancy pitting the
happiness of an old well, ejaculates Chuang Tzŭ, against all the water
of Ocean!] Why do you not come, sir, and pay me a visit?’[5]
“Now the turtle of the eastern sea had not got its left leg down ere
its right had already stuck fast, so it shrank back and begged to be
excused. It then described the sea, saying, ‘A thousand _li_ would
not measure its breadth, nor a thousand fathoms its depth. In the
days of the Great Yü, there were nine years of flood out of ten; but
this did not add to its bulk. In the days of T‘ang, there were seven
years out of eight of drought; but this did not narrow its span. Not
to be affected by duration of time, not to be affected by volume of
water,--such is the great happiness of the eastern sea.’
“At this the well-frog was considerably astonished, and knew not
what to say next. And for one whose knowledge does not reach to the
positive-negative domain, to attempt to understand me, Chuang Tzŭ,
is like a mosquito trying to carry a mountain, or an ant to swim a
river,--they cannot succeed.”
(3.) “Chuang Tzŭ was fishing in the P‘u when the prince of Ch‘u sent
two high officials to ask him to take charge of the administration of
the Ch‘u State.
“Chuang Tzŭ went on fishing, and without turning his head said, ‘I
have heard that in Ch‘u there is a sacred tortoise which has been dead
now some three thousand years. And that the prince keeps this tortoise
carefully enclosed in a chest on the altar of his ancestral temple. Now
would this tortoise rather be dead, and have its remains venerated, or
be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?’
“‘It would rather be alive,’ replied the two officials, ‘and wagging
its tail in the mud.’
“‘Begone!’ cried Chuang Tzŭ. ‘I too will wag my tail in the mud.’”
(4.) “Chuang Tzŭ one day saw an empty skull, bleached, but still
preserving its shape. Striking it with his riding whip, he said, ‘Wert
thou once some ambitious citizen whose inordinate yearnings brought
him to this pass?--some statesman who plunged his country in ruin, and
perished in the fray?--some wretch who left behind him a legacy of
shame?--some beggar who died in the pangs of hunger and cold? Or didst
thou reach this state by the natural course of old age?’
“When he had finished speaking, he took the skull, and placing it under
his head as a pillow, went to sleep. In the night, he dreamt that the
skull appeared to him, and said, ‘You speak well, sir; but all you say
has reference to the life of mortals, and to mortal troubles. In death
there are none of these. Would you like to hear about death?’
“Chuang Tzŭ having replied in the affirmative, the skull began:--‘In
death, there is no sovereign above, and no subject below. The workings
of the four seasons are unknown. Our existences are bounded only by
eternity. The happiness of a king among men cannot exceed that which we
enjoy.’
“Chuang Tzŭ, however, was not convinced, and said, ‘Were I to prevail
upon God to allow your body to be born again, and your bones and flesh
to be renewed, so that you could return to your parents, to your wife,
and to the friends of your youth--would you be willing?’
“At this, the skull opened its eyes wide and knitted its brows and
said, ‘How should I cast aside happiness greater than that of a king,
and mingle once again in the toils and troubles of mortality?’”
(5.) “The Grand Augur, in his ceremonial robes, approached the shambles
and thus addressed the pigs:--
“‘How can you object to die? I shall fatten you for three months. I
shall discipline myself for ten days and fast for three. I shall strew
fine grass, and place you bodily upon a carved sacrificial dish. Does
not this satisfy you?’
“Then speaking from the pigs’ point of view, he continued, ‘It is
better perhaps after all to live on bran and escape the shambles....’
“‘But then,’ added he, speaking from his own point of view, ‘to enjoy
honour when alive one would readily die on a war-shield or in the
headsman’s basket.’
“So he rejected the pigs’ point of view and adopted his own point of
view. In what sense then was he different from the pigs?”
(6.) “When Chuang Tzŭ was about to die, his disciples expressed a wish
to give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzŭ said, ‘With heaven and
earth for my coffin and shell, with the sun, moon, and stars as my
burial regalia, and with all creation to escort me to the grave,--are
not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?’
“‘We fear,’ argued the disciples, ‘lest the carrion kite should eat the
body of our Master’; to which Chuang Tzŭ replied, ‘Above ground I shall
be food for kites, below I shall be food for mole-crickets and ants.
Why rob one to feed the other?’”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: LIEH TZŬ]
The works of LIEH TZŬ, in two thin volumes, may be procured at
any Chinese book-shop. These volumes profess to contain the writings
of a Taoist philosopher who flourished some years before Chuang Tzŭ,
and for a long time they received considerable attention at the hands
of European students, into whose minds no suspicion of their real
character seems to have found its way. Gradually the work came to be
looked upon as doubtful, then spurious; and now it is known to be a
forgery, possibly of the first or second century A.D. The scholar--for
he certainly was one--who took the trouble to forge this work, was
himself the victim of a strange delusion. He thought that Lieh Tzŭ, to
whom Chuang Tzŭ devotes a whole chapter, had been a live philosopher of
flesh and blood. But he was in reality nothing more than a figment of
the imagination, like many others of Chuang Tzŭ’s characters, though
his name was less broadly allegorical than those of All-in-Extremes,
and of Do-Nothing-Say-Nothing, and others. The book attributed to him
is curious enough to deserve attention. It is on a lower level of
thought and style than the work of Chuang Tzŭ; still, it contains much
traditional matter and many allusions not found elsewhere. To its
author we owe the famous, but of course apocryphal, story of Confucius
meeting two boys quarrelling about the distance of the sun from the
earth. One of them said that at dawn the sun was much larger than at
noon, and must consequently be much nearer; but the other retorted that
at noon the sun was much hotter, and therefore nearer than at dawn.
Confucius confessed himself unable to decide between them, and was
jeered at by the boys as an impostor. But of all this work perhaps the
most attractive portion is a short story on Dream and Reality:--
“A man of the State of Chêng was one day gathering fuel, when he came
across a startled deer, which he pursued and killed. Fearing lest any
one should see him, he hastily concealed the carcass in a ditch and
covered it with plaintain leaves, rejoicing excessively at his good
fortune. By and by, he forgot the place where he had put it, and,
thinking he must have been dreaming, he set off towards home, humming
over the affair on his way.
“Meanwhile, a man who had overheard his words, acted upon them, and
went and got the deer. The latter, when he reached his house, told his
wife, saying, ‘A woodman dreamt he had got a deer, but he did not know
where it was. Now I have got the deer; so his dream was a reality.’ ‘It
is you,’ replied his wife, ‘who have been dreaming you saw a woodman.
Did he get the deer? and is there really such a person? It is you who
have got the deer: how, then, can his dream be a reality?’ ‘It is
true,’ assented the husband, ‘that I have got the deer. It is therefore
of little importance whether the woodman dreamt the deer or I dreamt
the woodman.’
“Now when the woodman reached his home, he became much annoyed at the
loss of the deer; and in the night he actually dreamt where the deer
then was, and who had got it. So next morning he proceeded to the place
indicated in his dream,--and there it was. He then took legal steps to
recover possession; and when the case came on, the magistrate delivered
the following judgment:--‘The plaintiff began with a real deer and an
alleged dream. He now comes forward with a real dream and an alleged
deer. The defendant really got the deer which plaintiff said he dreamt,
and is now trying to keep it; while, according to his wife, both the
woodman and the deer are but the figments of a dream, so that no one
got the deer at all. However, here is a deer, which you had better
divide between you.’”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: HAN FEI TZŬ]
HAN FEI TZŬ, who died B.C. 233, has left us fifty-five essays of
considerable value, partly for the light they throw upon the connection
between the genuine sayings of Lao Tzŭ and the _Tao-Tê-Ching_, and
partly for the quaint illustrations he gives of the meaning of
the sayings themselves. He was deeply read in law, and obtained
favour in the eyes of the First Emperor (see Book II., ch. i.); but
misrepresentations of rivals brought about his downfall, and he
committed suicide in prison. We cannot imagine that he had before him
the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. He deals with many of its best sayings, which may
well have come originally from an original teacher, such as Lao Tzŭ is
supposed to have been, but quite at random and not as if he took them
from an orderly work. And what is more, portions of his own commentary
have actually slipped into the _Tao-Tê-Ching_ as text, showing how
this book was pieced together from various sources. Again, he quotes
sentences not to be found in the _Tao-Tê-Ching_. He illustrates such a
simple saying as “To see small beginnings is clearness of sight,” by
drawing attention to a man who foresaw, when the tyrant Chou Hsin (who
died B.C. 1122) took to ivory chopsticks, that the tide of luxury had
set in, to bring licentiousness and cruelty in its train, and to end in
downfall and death.
Lao Tzŭ said, “Leave all things to take their natural course.” To
this Han Fei Tzŭ adds, “A man spent three years in carving a leaf out
of ivory, of such elegant and detailed workmanship that it would lie
undetected among a heap of real leaves. But Lieh Tzŭ said, ‘If God
Almighty were to spend three years over every leaf, the trees would be
badly off for foliage.’”
Lao Tzŭ said, “The wise man takes time by the forelock.” Han Fei Tzŭ
adds, “One day the Court physician said to Duke Huan, ‘Your Grace is
suffering from an affection of the muscular system. Take care, or it
may become serious.’ ‘Oh no,’ replied the Duke, ‘I have nothing the
matter with me;’ and when the physician was gone, he observed to his
courtiers, ‘Doctors dearly love to treat patients who are not ill, and
then make capital out of the cure.’ Ten days afterwards, the Court
physician again remarked, ‘Your Grace has an affection of the flesh.
Take care, or it may become serious.’ The Duke took no notice of
this, but after ten days more the physician once more observed, ‘Your
Grace has an affection of the viscera. Take care, or it may become
serious.’ Again the Duke paid no heed; and ten days later, when the
physician came, he simply looked at his royal patient, and departed
without saying anything. The Duke sent some one to inquire what was
the matter, and to him the physician said, ‘As long as the disease
was in the muscles, it might have been met by fomentations and hot
applications; when it was in the flesh, acupuncture might have been
employed; and as long as it was in the viscera, cauterisation might
have been tried; but now it is in the bones and marrow, and naught
will avail.’ Five days later, the Duke felt pains all over his body,
and sent to summon his physician; but the physician had fled, and the
Duke died. So it is that the skilful doctor attacks disease while it is
still in the muscles and easy to deal with.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: HUAI-NAN TZŬ]
To clear off finally this school of early Taoist writers, it will be
necessary to admit here one whose life properly belongs to the next
period. Liu An, a grandson of the founder of the Han dynasty, became
Prince of Huai-nan, and it is as HUAI-NAN TZŬ, the Philosopher
of that ilk, that he is known to the Chinese people. He wrote an
esoteric work in twenty-one chapters, which we are supposed still to
possess, besides many exoteric works, such as a treatise on alchemy,
none of which are extant. It is fairly certain, however, that alchemy
was not known to the Chinese until between two and three centuries
later, when it was introduced from the West. As to the book which
passes under his name, it is difficult to assign to it any exact date.
Like the work of Lieh Tzŭ, it is interesting enough in itself; and
what is more important, it marks the transition of the pure and simple
Way of Lao Tzŭ, etherealised by Chuang Tzŭ, to the grosser beliefs
of later ages in magicians and the elixir of life. Lao Tzŭ urged his
fellow-mortals to guard their vitality by entering into harmony with
their environment. Chuang Tzŭ added a motive, “to pass into the realm
of the Infinite and make one’s final rest therein.” From which it is
but a step to immortality and the elixir of life.
Huai-nan Tzŭ begins with a lengthy disquisition “On the Nature of Tao,”
in which, as elsewhere, he deals with the sayings of Lao Tzŭ after the
fashion of Han Fei Tzŭ. Thus Lao Tzŭ said, “If you do not quarrel, no
one on earth will be able to quarrel with you.” To this Huai-nan Tzŭ
adds, that when a certain ruler was besieging an enemy’s town, a large
part of the wall fell down; whereupon the former gave orders to beat a
retreat at once. “For,” said he in reply to the remonstrances of his
officers, “a gentleman never hits a man who is down. Let them rebuild
their wall, and then we will renew the attack.” This noble behaviour so
delighted the enemy that they tendered allegiance on the spot.
Lao Tzŭ said, “Do not value the man, value his abilities.” Whereupon
Huai-nan Tzŭ tells a story of a general of the Ch‘u State who was fond
of surrounding himself with men of ability, and once even went so far
as to engage a man who represented himself as a master-thief. His
retainers were aghast; but shortly afterwards their State was attacked
by the Ch‘i State, and then, when fortune was adverse and all was on
the point of being lost, the master-thief begged to be allowed to try
his skill. He went by night into the enemy’s camp, and stole their
general’s bed-curtain. This was returned next morning with a message
that it had been found by one of the soldiers who was gathering fuel.
The same night our master-thief stole the general’s pillow, which was
restored with a similar message; and the following night he stole the
long pin used to secure the hair. “Good heavens!” cried the general at
a council of war, “they will have my head next.” Upon which the army of
the Ch‘i State was withdrawn.
Among passages of general interest the following may well be quoted:--
“Once when the Duke of Lu-yang was at war with the Han State, and
sunset drew near while a battle was still fiercely raging, the Duke
held up his spear, and shook it at the sun, which forthwith went back
three zodiacal signs.”
The end of this philosopher was a tragic one. He seems to have mixed
himself up in some treasonable enterprise, and was driven to commit
suicide. Tradition, however, says that he positively discovered the
elixir of immortality, and that after drinking of it he rose up to
heaven in broad daylight. Also that, in his excitement, he dropped the
vessel which had contained this elixir into his courtyard, and that
his dogs and poultry sipped up the dregs, and immediately sailed up to
heaven after him!
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Tê is the exemplification of Tao.
[4] The name Lao Tan occurs in four passages in the Book of Rites, but
we are expressly told that by it is not meant the philosopher Lao Tzŭ.
[5] “To the minnow, every cranny and pebble and quality and accident of
its little native creek may have become familiar; but does the minnow
understand the ocean tides and periodic currents, the trade-winds,
and monsoons, and moon’s eclipses...?”--_Sartor Resartus_, Natural
Supernaturalism.
BOOK THE SECOND
_THE HAN DYNASTY_ (B.C. 200--A.D. 200)
CHAPTER I
THE “FIRST EMPEROR”--THE BURNING OF THE BOOKS--MISCELLANEOUS WRITERS
Never has the literature of any country been more closely bound up with
the national history than was that of China at the beginning of the
period upon which we are now about to enter.
The feudal spirit had long since declined, and the bond between
suzerain and vassal had grown weaker and weaker until at length it had
ceased to exist. Then came the opportunity and the man. The ruler of
the powerful State of Ch‘in, after gradually vanquishing and absorbing
such of the other rival States as had not already been swallowed up
by his own State, found himself in B.C. 221 master of the
whole of China, and forthwith proclaimed himself its Emperor. The Chou
dynasty, with its eight hundred years of sway, was a thing of the past,
and the whole fabric of feudalism melted easily away.
This catastrophe was by no means unexpected. Some forty years
previously a politician, named Su Tai, was one day advising the King
of Chao to put an end to his ceaseless hostilities with the Yen State.
“This morning,” said he, “when crossing the river, I saw a mussel open
its shell to sun itself. Immediately an oyster-catcher thrust in his
bill to eat the mussel, but the latter promptly closed its shell and
held the bird fast. ‘If it doesn’t rain to-day or to-morrow,’ cried the
oyster-catcher, ‘there will be a dead mussel.’ ‘And if you don’t get
out of this by to-day or to-morrow,’ retorted the mussel, ‘there will
be a dead oyster-catcher.’ Meanwhile up came a fisherman and carried
off both of them. I fear lest the Ch‘in State should be our fisherman.”
[Sidenote: LI SSŬ]
The new Emperor was in many senses a great man, and civilisation made
considerable advances during his short reign. But a single decree has
branded his name with infamy, to last so long as the Chinese remain
a lettered people. In B.C. 13, a trusted Minister, named Li
Ssŭ, is said to have suggested an extraordinary plan, by which the
claims of antiquity were to be for ever blotted out and history was
to begin again with the ruling monarch, thenceforward to be famous
as the First Emperor. All existing literature was to be destroyed,
with the exception only of works relating to agriculture, medicine,
and divination; and a penalty of branding and four years’ work on
the Great Wall, then in process of building, was enacted against all
who refused to surrender their books for destruction. This plan was
carried out with considerable vigour. Many valuable works perished;
and the Confucian Canon would have been irretrievably lost but for the
devotion of scholars, who at considerable risk concealed the tablets
by which they set such store, and thus made possible the discoveries
of the following century and the restoration of the sacred text. So
many, indeed, of the literati are said to have been put to death for
disobedience that melons actually grew in winter on the spot beneath
which their bodies were buried.
LI SSŬ was a scholar himself, and the reputed inventor of
the script known as the Lesser Seal, which was in vogue for several
centuries. The following is from a memorial of his against the
proscription of nobles and others from rival States:--
“As broad acres yield large crops, so for a nation to be great there
should be a great population; and for soldiers to be daring their
generals should be brave. Not a single clod was added to T‘ai-shan
in vain: hence the huge mountain we now behold. The merest streamlet
is received into the bosom of Ocean: hence the Ocean’s unfathomable
expanse. And wise and virtuous is the ruler who scorns not the masses
below. For him, no boundaries of realm, no distinctions of nationality
exist. The four seasons enrich him; the Gods bless him; and, like our
rulers of old, no man’s hand is against him.”
The First Emperor died in B.C. 210,[6] and his feeble son, the
Second Emperor, was put to death in 207, thus bringing their line to an
end. The vacant throne was won by a quondam beadle, who established the
glorious House of Han, in memory of which Chinese of the present day,
chiefly in the north, are still proud to call themselves Sons of Han.
So soon as the empire settled down to comparative peace, a mighty
effort was made to undo at least some of the mischief sustained by the
national literature. An extra impetus was given to this movement by
the fact that under the First Emperor, if we can believe tradition,
the materials of writing had undergone a radical change. A general,
named Mêng T‘ien, added to the triumphs of the sword the invention of
the camel’s-hair brush, which the Chinese use as a pen. The clumsy
bamboo tablet and stylus were discarded, and strips of cloth or silk
came into general use, and were so employed until the first century
A.D., when paper was invented by Ts‘ai Lun. Some say that
brickdust and water did duty at first for ink. However that may be, the
form of the written character underwent a corresponding change to suit
the materials employed.
Meanwhile, books were brought out of their hiding-places, and scholars
like K‘UNG AN-KUO, a descendant of Confucius in the twelfth
degree, set to work to restore the lost classics. He deciphered the
text of the Book of History, which had been discovered when pulling
down the old house where Confucius once lived, and transcribed large
portions of it from the ancient into the later script. He also wrote a
commentary on the Analects and another on the Filial Piety Classic.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CH’AO TS’O--LI LING]
CH’AO TS’O (perished B.C. 155), popularly known as
Wisdom-Bag, was a statesman rather than an author. Still, many of his
memorials to the throne were considered masterpieces, and have been
preserved accordingly. He wrote on the military operations against the
Huns, pleading for the employment of frontier tribes, “barbarians, who
in point of food and skill are closely allied to the Huns.” “But arms,”
he says, “are a curse, and war is a dread thing. For in the twinkling
of an eye the mighty may be humbled, and the strong may be brought
low.” In an essay “On the Value of Agriculture” he writes thus:--
“Crime begins in poverty; poverty in insufficiency of food;
insufficiency of food in neglect of agriculture. Without agriculture,
man has no tie to bind him to the soil. Without such tie he readily
leaves his birth-place and his home. He is like unto the birds of the
air or the beasts of the field. Neither battlemented cities, nor deep
moats, nor harsh laws, nor cruel punishments, can subdue this roving
spirit that is strong within him.
“He who is cold examines not the quality of cloth; he who is hungry
tarries not for choice meats. When cold and hunger come upon men,
honesty and shame depart. As man is constituted, he must eat twice
daily, or hunger; he must wear clothes, or be cold. And if the stomach
cannot get food and the body clothes, the love of the fondest mother
cannot keep her children at her side. How then should a sovereign keep
his subjects gathered around him?
“The wise ruler knows this. Therefore he concentrates the energies of
his people upon agriculture. He levies light taxes. He extends the
system of grain storage, to provide for his subjects at times when
their resources fail.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: LI LING]
The name of LI LING (second and first centuries B.C.)
is a familiar one to every Chinese schoolboy. He was a military
official who was sent in command of 800 horse to reconnoitre the
territory of the Huns; and returning successful from this expedition,
he was promoted to a high command and was again employed against
these troublesome neighbours. With a force of only 5000 infantry he
penetrated into the Hun territory as far as Mount Ling-chi (?), where
he was surrounded by an army of 30,000 of the Khan’s soldiers; and when
his troops had exhausted all their arrows, he was forced to surrender.
At this the Emperor was furious; and later on, when he heard that
Li Ling was training the Khan’s soldiers in the art of war as then
practised by the Chinese, he caused his mother, wife, and children to
be put to death. Li Ling remained some twenty years, until his death,
with the Huns, and was highly honoured by the Khan, who gave him his
daughter to wife.
With the renegade Li Ling is associated his patriot contemporary,
SU WU, who also met with strange adventures among the Huns. Several
Chinese envoys had been imprisoned by the latter, and not allowed to
return; and by way of reprisal, Hun envoys had been imprisoned in
China. But a new Khan had recently sent back all the imprisoned envoys,
and in A.D. 100 Su Wu was despatched upon a mission of peace to return
the Hun envoys who had been detained by the Chinese. Whilst at the
Court of the Khan his fellow-envoys revolted, and on the strength of
this an attempt was made to persuade him to throw off his allegiance
and enter the service of the Huns; upon which he tried to commit
suicide, and wounded himself so severely that he lay unconscious for
some hours. He subsequently slew a Chinese renegade with his own
hand; and then when it was found that he was not to be forced into
submission, he was thrown into a dungeon and left without food for
several days. He kept himself alive by sucking snow and gnawing a
felt rug; and at length the Huns, thinking that he was a supernatural
being, sent him away north and set him to tend sheep. Then Li Ling was
ordered to try once more by brilliant offers to shake his unswerving
loyalty, but all was in vain. In the year 86, peace was made with
the Huns, and the Emperor asked for the return of Su Wu. To this the
Huns replied that he was dead; but a former assistant to Su Wu bade
the new envoy tell the Khan that the Emperor had shot a goose with
a letter tied to its leg, from which he had learnt the whereabouts
of his missing envoy. This story so astonished the Khan that Su Wu
was released, and in B.C.. 81 returned to China after a captivity of
nineteen years. He had gone away in the prime of life; he returned a
white-haired and broken-down old man.
Li Ling and Su Wu are said to have exchanged poems at parting, and
these are to be found published in collections under their respective
names. Some doubt has been cast upon the genuineness of one of those
attributed to Li Ling. It was pointed out by Hung Mai, a brilliant
critic of the twelfth century, that a certain word was used in the
poem, which, being part of the personal name of a recent Emperor, would
at that date have been taboo. No such stigma attaches to the verses
by Su Wu, who further gave to his wife a parting poem, which has been
preserved, promising her that if he lived he would not fail to return,
and if he died he would never forget her. But most famous of all, and
still a common model for students, is a letter written by Li Ling to
Su Wu, after the latter’s return to China, in reply to an affectionate
appeal to him to return also. Its genuineness has been questioned by Su
Shih of the Sung dynasty, but not by the greatest of modern critics,
Lin Hsi-chung, who declares that its pathos is enough to make even the
gods weep, and that it cannot possibly have come from any other hand
save that of Li Ling. With this verdict the foreign student may well
rest content. Here is the letter:--
“O Tzŭ-ch‘ing, O my friend, happy in the enjoyment of a glorious
reputation, happy in the prospect of an imperishable name,--there is
no misery like exile in a far-off foreign land, the heart brimful of
longing thoughts of home! I have thy kindly letter, bidding me of good
cheer, kinder than a brother’s words; for which my soul thanks thee.
“Ever since the hour of my surrender until now, destitute of all
resource, I have sat alone with the bitterness of my grief. All day
long I see none but barbarians around me. Skins and felt protect me
from wind and rain. With mutton and whey I satisfy my hunger and slake
my thirst. Companions with whom to while time away, I have none. The
whole country is stiff with black ice. I hear naught but the moaning of
the bitter autumn blast, beneath which all vegetation has disappeared.
I cannot sleep at night. I turn and listen to the distant sound of
Tartar pipes, to the whinnying of Tartar steeds. In the morning I sit
up and listen still, while tears course down my cheeks. O Tzŭ-ch‘ing,
of what stuff am I, that I should do aught but grieve? The day of thy
departure left me disconsolate indeed. I thought of my aged mother
butchered upon the threshold of the grave. I thought of my innocent
wife and child, condemned to the same cruel fate. Deserving as I might
have been of Imperial censure, I am now an object of pity to all. Thy
return was to honour and renown, while I remained behind with infamy
and disgrace. Such is the divergence of man’s destiny.
“Born within the domain of refinement and justice, I passed into
an environment of vulgar ignorance. I left behind me obligations to
sovereign and family for life amid barbarian hordes; and now barbarian
children will carry on the line of my forefathers. And yet my merit
was great, my guilt of small account. I had no fair hearing; and when
I pause to think of these things, I ask to what end I have lived? With
a thrust I could have cleared myself of all blame: my severed throat
would have borne witness to my resolution; and between me and my
country all would have been over for aye. But to kill myself would have
been of no avail: I should only have added to my shame. I therefore
steeled myself to obloquy and to life. There were not wanting those who
mistook my attitude for compliance, and urged me to a nobler course;
ignorant that the joys of a foreign land are sources only of a keener
grief.
“O Tzŭ-ch‘ing, O my friend, I will complete the half-told record of
my former tale. His late Majesty commissioned me, with five thousand
infantry under my command, to carry on operations in a distant country.
Five brother generals missed their way: I alone reached the theatre
of war. With rations for a long march, leading on my men, I passed
beyond the limits of the Celestial Land, and entered the territory of
the fierce Huns. With five thousand men I stood opposed to a hundred
thousand: mine jaded foot-soldiers, theirs horsemen fresh from the
stable. Yet we slew their leaders, and captured their standards, and
drove them back in confusion towards the north. We obliterated their
very traces: we swept them away like dust: we beheaded their general. A
martial spirit spread abroad among my men. With them, to die in battle
was to return to their homes; while I--I venture to think that I had
already accomplished something.
“This victory was speedily followed by a general rising of the Huns.
New levies were trained to the use of arms, and at length another
hundred thousand barbarians were arrayed against me. The Hun chieftain
himself appeared, and with his army surrounded my little band, so
unequal in strength,--foot-soldiers opposed to horse. Still my tired
veterans fought, each man worth a thousand of the foe, as, covered
with wounds, one and all struggled bravely to the fore. The plain was
strewed with the dying and the dead: barely a hundred men were left,
and these too weak to hold a spear and shield. Yet, when I waved my
hand and shouted to them, the sick and wounded arose. Brandishing their
blades, and pointing towards the foe, they dismissed the Tartar cavalry
like a rabble rout. And even when their arms were gone, their arrows
spent, without a foot of steel in their hands, they still rushed,
yelling, onward, each eager to lead the way. The very heavens and the
earth seemed to gather round me, while my warriors drank tears of
blood. Then the Hunnish chieftain, thinking that we should not yield,
would have drawn off his forces. But a false traitor told him all: the
battle was renewed, and we were lost.
“The Emperor Kao Ti, with 300,000 men at his back, was shut up in
P‘ing-ch‘êng. Generals he had, like clouds; counsellors, like drops of
rain. Yet he remained seven days without food, and then barely escaped
with life. How much more then I, now blamed on all sides that I did
not die? This was my crime. But, O Tzŭ-ch‘ing, canst thou say that I
would live from craven fear of death? Am I one to turn my back on my
country and all those dear to me, allured by sordid thoughts of gain?
It was not indeed without cause that I did not elect to die. I longed,
as explained in my former letter, to prove my loyalty to my prince.
Rather than die to no purpose, I chose to live and to establish my good
name. It was better to achieve something than to perish. Of old, Fan Li
did not slay himself after the battle of Hui-chi; neither did Ts‘ao Mo
die after the ignominy of three defeats. Revenge came at last; and thus
I too had hoped to prevail. Why then was I overtaken with punishment
before the plan was matured? Why were my own flesh and blood condemned
before the design could be carried out? It is for this that I raise my
face to Heaven, and beating my breast, shed tears of blood.
“O my friend, thou sayest that the House of Han never fails to reward a
deserving servant. But thou art thyself a servant of the House, and it
would ill beseem thee to say other words than these. Yet Hsiao and Fan
were bound in chains; Han and P‘êng were sliced to death; Ch‘ao Ts‘o
was beheaded. Chou Po was disgraced, and Tou Ying paid the penalty with
his life. Others, great in their generation, have also succumbed to the
intrigues of base men, and have been overwhelmed beneath a weight of
shame from which they were unable to emerge. And now, the misfortunes
of Fan Li and Ts‘ao Mo command the sympathies of all.
“My grandfather filled heaven and earth with the fame of his
exploits--the bravest of the brave. Yet, fearing the animosity of an
Imperial favourite, he slew himself in a distant land, his death being
followed by the secession, in disgust, of many a brother-hero. Can this
be the reward of which thou speakest?
“Thou too, O my friend, an envoy with a slender equipage, sent on that
mission to the robber race, when fortune failed thee even to the last
resource of the dagger. Then years of miserable captivity, all but
ended by death among the wilds of the far north. Thou left us full of
young life, to return a graybeard; thy old mother dead, thy wife gone
from thee to another. Seldom has the like of this been known. Even the
savage barbarian respected thy loyal spirit: how much more the lord
of all under the canopy of the sky? A many-acred barony should have
been thine, the ruler of a thousand-charioted fief! Nevertheless, they
tell me ’twas but two paltry millions, and the chancellorship of the
Tributary States. Not a foot of soil repaid thee for the past, while
some cringing courtier gets the marquisate of ten thousand families,
and each greedy parasite of the Imperial house is gratified by the
choicest offices of the State. If then thou farest thus, what could I
expect? I have been heavily repaid for that I did not die. Thou hast
been meanly rewarded for thy unswerving devotion to thy prince. This
is barely that which should attract the absent servant back to his
fatherland.
“And so it is that I do not now regret the past. Wanting though I
may have been in my duty to the State, the State was wanting also in
gratitude towards me. It was said of old, ‘A loyal subject, though not
a hero, will rejoice to die for his country.’ I would die joyfully even
now; but the stain of my prince’s ingratitude can never be wiped away.
Indeed, if the brave man is not to be allowed to achieve a name, but
must die like a dog in a barbarian land, who will be found to crook the
back and bow the knee before an Imperial throne, where the bitter pens
of courtiers tell their lying tales?
“O my friend, look for me no more. O Tzŭ-ch‘ing, what shall I say? A
thousand leagues lie between us, and separate us for ever. I shall live
out my life as it were in another sphere: my spirit will find its home
among a strange people. Accept my last adieu. Speak for me to my old
acquaintances, and bid them serve their sovereign well. O my friend,
be happy in the bosom of thy family, and think of me no more. Strive
to take all care of thyself; and when time and opportunity are thine,
write me once again in reply.
“Li Ling salutes thee!”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: LU WÊN-SHU]
One of the Chinese models of self-help alluded to in the _San Tzŭ
Ching_, the famous school primer, to be described later on, is LU
WÊN-SHU (first century B.C.). The son of a village gaoler, he was sent
by his father to tend sheep, in which capacity he seems to have formed
sheets of writing material by plaiting rushes, and otherwise to have
succeeded in educating himself. He became an assistant in a prison,
and there the knowledge of law which he had picked up stood him in
such good stead that he was raised to a higher position; and then,
attracting the notice of the governor, he was still further advanced,
and finally took his degree, ultimately rising to the rank of governor.
In B.C. 67 he submitted to the throne the following well-known
memorial:--
“May it please your Majesty.
“Of the ten great follies of our predecessors, one still survives in
the maladministration of justice which prevails.
“Under the Ch‘ins learning was at a discount; brute force carried
everything before it. Those who cultivated a spirit of charity and duty
towards their neighbour were despised. Judicial appointments were
the prizes coveted by all. He who spoke out the truth was stigmatised
as a slanderer, and he who strove to expose abuses was set down as a
pestilent fellow. Consequently all who acted up to the precepts of our
ancient code found themselves out of place in their generation, and
loyal words of good advice to the sovereign remained locked up within
their bosoms, while hollow notes of obsequious flattery soothed the
monarch’s ear and lulled his heart with false images, to the exclusion
of disagreeable realities. And so the rod of empire fell from their
grasp for ever.
“At the present moment the State rests upon the immeasurable bounty and
goodness of your Majesty. We are free from the horrors of war, from the
calamities of hunger and cold. Father and son, husband and wife, are
united in their happy homes. Nothing is wanting to make this a golden
age save only reform in the administration of justice.
“Of all trusts, this is the greatest and most sacred. The dead man
can never come back to life: that which is once cut off cannot be
joined again. ‘Rather than slay an innocent man, it were better that
the guilty escape.’ Such, however, is not the view of our judicial
authorities of to-day. With them, oppression and severity are reckoned
to be signs of magisterial acumen and lead on to fortune, whereas
leniency entails naught but trouble. Therefore their chief aim is to
compass the death of their victims; not that they entertain any grudge
against humanity in general, but simply that this is the shortest cut
to their own personal advantage. Thus, our market-places run with
blood, our criminals throng the gaols, and many thousands annually
suffer death. These things are injurious to public morals and hinder
the advent of a truly golden age.
“Man enjoys life only when his mind is at peace; when he is in
distress, his thoughts turn towards death. Beneath the scourge what is
there that cannot be wrung from the lips of the sufferer? His agony is
overwhelming, and he seeks to escape by speaking falsely. The officials
profit by the opportunity, and cause him to say what will best confirm
his guilt. And then, fearing lest the conviction be quashed by higher
courts, they dress the victim’s deposition to suit the circumstances of
the case, so that, when the record is complete, even were Kao Yao[7]
himself to rise from the dead, he would declare that death still left
a margin of unexpiated crime. This, because of the refining process
adopted to ensure the establishment of guilt.
“Our magistrates indeed think of nothing else. They are the bane of
the people. They keep in view their own ends, and care not for the
welfare of the State. Truly they are the worst criminals of the age.
Hence the saying now runs, ‘Chalk out a prison on the ground, and no
one would remain within. Set up a gaoler of wood, and he will be found
standing there alone.’[8] Imprisonment has become the greatest of all
misfortunes, while among those who break the law, who violate family
ties, who choke the truth, there are none to be compared in iniquity
with the officers of justice themselves.
“Where you let the kite rear its young undisturbed, there will the
phœnix come and build its nest. Do not punish for misguided advice,
and by and by valuable suggestions will flow in. The men of old said,
‘Hills and jungles shelter many noxious things; rivers and marshes
receive much filth; even the finest gems are not wholly without flaw.
Surely then the ruler of an empire should put up with a little abuse.’
But I would have your Majesty exempt from vituperation, and open to the
advice of all who have aught to say. I would have freedom of speech
in the advisers of the throne. I would sweep away the errors which
brought the downfall of our predecessors. I would have reverence for
the virtues of our ancient kings and reform in the administration of
justice, to the utter confusion of those who now pervert its course.
Then indeed would the golden age be renewed over the face of the glad
earth, and the people would move ever onwards in peace and happiness
boundless as the sky itself.”
* * * * *
LIU HSIANG (B.C. 80-89) was a descendant of the
beadle founder of the great Han dynasty. Entering into official life,
he sought to curry favour with the reigning Emperor by submitting
some secret works on the black art, towards which his Majesty was
much inclined. The results not proving successful, he was thrown into
prison, but was soon released that he might carry on the publication of
the commentary on the Spring and Autumn by Ku-liang. He also revised
and re-arranged the historical episodes known as the _Chan Kuo Ts‘ê_,
wrote treatises on government and some poetry, and compiled Biographies
of Eminent Women, the first work of its kind.
His son, LIU HSIN, was a precocious boy, who early
distinguished himself by wide reading in all branches of literature.
He worked with his father upon the restoration of the classical
texts, especially of the Book of Changes, and later on was chiefly
instrumental in establishing the position of Tso’s Commentary on
the Spring and Autumn. He catalogued the Imperial Library, and in
conjunction with his father discovered--some say compiled--the Chou
Ritual.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: YANG HSIUNG]
A well-known figure in Chinese literature is YANG HSIUNG (B.C.
53-A.D. 18). As a boy he was fond of straying from the beaten track
and reading whatever he could lay his hands on. He stammered badly,
and consequently gave much time to meditation. He propounded an
ethical criterion occupying a middle place between those insisted
upon by Mencius and by Hsün K‘uang, teaching that the nature of man
at birth is neither good nor evil, but a mixture of both, and that
development in either direction depends wholly upon environment. In
glorification of the Book of Changes he wrote the _T‘ai Hsüan Ching_,
and to emphasise the value of the Confucian Analects he produced a
philosophical treatise known as the _Fa Yen_, both between A.D. 1 and
6. On completion of this last, his most famous work, a wealthy merchant
of the province was so struck by its excellence that he offered to
give 100,000 _cash_ if his name should merely be mentioned in it. But
Yang answered with scorn that a stag in a pen or an ox in a cage would
not be more out of place than the name of a man with nothing but money
to recommend him in the sacred pages of a book. Liu Hsin, however,
sneeringly suggested that posterity would use Yang Hsiung’s work to
cover pickle-jars.
Besides composing some mediocre poetry, Yang Hsiung wrote on
acupuncture, music, and philology. There is little doubt that he did
not write the _Fang Yen_, a vocabulary of words and phrases used in
various parts of the empire, which was steadily attributed to him until
Hung Mai, a critic of the twelfth century, already mentioned in Chapter
I. of this Book, made short work of his claims.
* * * * *
A brilliant writer who attracted much attention in his day was WANG
CH’UNG (A.D. 27-97). He is said to have picked up his education at
bookstalls, with the aid of a superbly retentive memory. Only one of
his works is extant, the _Lun Hêng_, consisting of eighty-five essays
on a variety of subjects. In these he tilts against the errors of the
age, and exposes even Confucius and Mencius to free and searching
criticisms. He is consequently ranked as a heterodox thinker. He
showed that the soul could neither exist after death as a spirit nor
exercise any influence upon the living. When the body decomposes, the
soul, a phenomenon inseparable from vitality, perishes with it. He
further argued that if the souls of human beings were immortal, those
of animals would be immortal likewise; and that space itself would not
suffice to contain the countless shades of the men and creatures of all
time.
MA JUNG (A.D. 79-166) was popularly known as the Universal Scholar. His
learning in Confucian lore was profound, and he taught upwards of one
thousand pupils. He introduced the system of printing notes or comments
in the body of the page, using for that purpose smaller characters cut
in double columns; and it was by a knowledge of this fact that a clever
critic of the T‘ang dynasty was able to settle the spuriousness of an
early edition of the _Tao-Tê-Ching_ with double-column commentary,
which had been attributed to Ho Shang Kung, a writer of the second
century B.C.
[Sidenote: TS’AI YUNG--CHÊNG HSÜAN]
TS’AI YUNG (A.D. 133-192), whose tippling propensities earned for him
the nickname of the Drunken Dragon, is chiefly remembered in connection
with literature as superintending the work of engraving on stone the
authorised text of the Five Classics. With red ink he wrote these out
on forty-six tablets for the workmen to cut. The tablets were placed
in the Hung-tu College, and fragments of them are said to be still in
existence.
The most famous of the pupils who sat at the feet of Ma Jung was CHÊNG
HSÜAN (A.D. 127-200). He is one of the most voluminous of all the
commentators upon the Confucian classics. He lived for learning. The
very slave-girls of his household were highly educated, and interlarded
their conversation with quotations from the Odes. He was nevertheless
fond of wine, and is said to have been able to take three hundred
cups at a sitting without losing his head. Perhaps it may be as well
to add that a Chinese cup holds about a thimbleful. As an instance of
the general respect in which he was held, it is recorded that at his
request the chief of certain rebels spared the town of Kao-mi (his
native place), marching forward by another route. In A.D. 200 Confucius
appeared to him in a vision, and he knew by this token that his hour
was at hand. Consequently, he was very loth to respond to a summons
sent to him from Chi-chou in Chihli by the then powerful Yüan Shao. He
set out indeed upon the journey, but died on the way.
It is difficult to bring the above writers, representatives of
a class, individually to the notice of the reader. Though each
one wandered into by-paths of his own, the common lode-star was
Confucianism--elucidation of the Confucian Canon. For although,
with us, commentaries upon the classics are not usually regarded as
literature, they are so regarded by the Chinese, who place such works
in the very highest rank, and reward successful commentators with the
coveted niche in the Confucian temple.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] An account of the mausoleum built to receive his remains will be
found in Chapter iii. of this Book.
[7] A famous Minister of Crime in the mythical ages.
[8] Contrary to what was actually the case in the Golden Age.
CHAPTER II
POETRY
At the beginning of the second century B.C., poetry was still composed
on the model of the _Li Sao_, and we are in possession of a number
of works assigned to Chia I (B.C. 199-168), Tung-fang So (_b._ B.C.
160), Liu Hsiang, and others, all of which follow on the lines of Ch‘ü
Yüan’s great poem. But gradually, with the more definite establishment
of what we may call classical influence, poets went back to find
their exemplars in the Book of Poetry, which came as it were from the
very hand of Confucius himself. Poems were written in metres of four,
five, and seven words to a line. Ssŭ-ma Hsiang-ju (_d._ B.C. 117), a
gay Lothario who eloped with a young widow, made such a name with his
verses that he was summoned to Court, and appointed by the Emperor to
high office. His poems, however, have not survived.
MEI SHÊNG (_d._ B.C. 140), who formed his style
on Ssŭ-ma, has the honour of being the first to bring home to his
fellow-countrymen the extreme beauty of the five-word metre. From him
modern poetry may be said to date. Many specimens of his workmanship
are extant:--
(1.) “_Green grows the grass upon the bank,
The willow-shoots are long and lank;
A lady in a glistening gown
Opens the casement and looks down
The roses on her cheek blush bright,
Her rounded arm is dazzling white;
A singing-girl in early life,
And now a careless roué’s wife....
Ah, if he does not mind his own,
He’ll find some day the bird has flown!_”
(2.) “_The red hibiscus and the reed,
The fragrant flowers of marsh and mead,
All these I gather as I stray,
As though for one now far away.
I strive to pierce with straining eyes
The distance that between us lies.
Alas that hearts which beat as one
Should thus be parted and undone!_”
[Sidenote: LIU-HÊNG--LIU CH’Ê]
LIU HÊNG (_d_. B.C. 157) was the son by a concubine
of the founder of the Han dynasty, and succeeded in B.C.
180 as fourth Emperor of the line. For over twenty years he ruled
wisely and well. He is one of the twenty-four classical examples of
filial piety, having waited on his sick mother for three years without
changing his clothes. He was a scholar, and was canonised after death
by a title which may fairly be rendered “Beauclerc.” The following is a
poem which he wrote on the death of his illustrious father, who, if we
can accept as genuine the remains attributed to him, was himself also a
poet:--
“_I look up, the curtains are there as of yore;
I look down, and there is the mat on the floor;
These things I behold, but the man is no more._
“_To the infinite azure his spirit has flown,
And I am left friendless, uncared-for, alone,
Of solace bereft, save to weep and to moan._
“_The deer on the hillside caressingly bleat,
And offer the grass for their young ones to eat,
While birds of the air to their nestlings bring meat_
“_But I a poor orphan must ever remain,
My heart, still so young, overburdened with pain
For him I shall never set eyes on again._
“_’Tis a well-worn old saying, which all men allow,
That grief stamps the deepest of lines on the brow:
Alas for my hair, it is silvery now!_
“_Alas for my father, cut off in his pride!
Alas that no more I may stand by his side!
Oh, where were the gods when that great hero died?_”
The literary fame of the Beauclerc was rivalled, if not surpassed, by
his grandson, LIU CH’Ê (B.C. 156-87), who succeeded in B.C. 140 as
sixth Emperor of the Han dynasty. He was an enthusiastic patron of
literature. He devoted great attention to music as a factor in national
life. He established important religious sacrifices to heaven and
earth. He caused the calendar to be reformed by his grand astrologer,
the historian SSŬ-MA CH’IEN, from which date accurate chronology
may be almost said to begin. His generals carried the Imperial arms
into Central Asia, and for many years the Huns were held in check.
Notwithstanding his enlightened policy, the Emperor was personally
much taken up with the magic and mysteries which were being gradually
grafted on to the Tao of Lao Tzŭ, and he encouraged the numerous quacks
who pretended to have discovered the elixir of life. The following are
specimens of his skill in poetry:--
“_The autumn blast drives the white scud in the sky,
Leaves fade, and wild geese sweeping south meet the eye;
The scent of late flowers fills the soft air above.
My heart full of thoughts of the lady I love.
In the river the barges for revel-carouse
Are lined by white waves which break over their bows;
Their oarsmen keep time to the piping and drumming....
Yet joy is as naught
Alloyed by the thought
That youth slips away and that old age is coming._”
The next lines were written upon the death of a harem favourite, to
whom he was fondly attached:--
“_The sound of rustling silk is stilled,
With dust the marble courtyard filled;
No footfalls echo on the floor,
Fallen leaves in heaps block up the door....
For she, my pride, my lovely one, is lost,
And I am left, in hopeless anguish tossed._”
A good many anonymous poems have come down to us from the first century
B.C., and some of these contain here and there quaint and
pleasing conceits, as, for instance--
“_Man reaches scarce a hundred, yet his tears
Would fill a lifetime of a thousand years._”
The following is a poem of this period, the author of which is
unknown:--
“_Forth from the eastern gate my steeds I drive,
And lo! a cemetery meets my view;
Aspens around in wild luxuriance thrive,
The road is fringed with fir and pine and yew.
Beneath my feet lie the forgotten dead,
Wrapped in a twilight of eternal gloom;
Down by the Yellow Springs their earthy bed,
And everlasting silence is their doom.
How fast the lights and shadows come and go!
Like morning dew our fleeting life has passed;
Man, a poor traveller on earth below,
Is gone, while brass and stone can still outlast.
Time is inexorable, and in vain
Against his might the holiest mortal strives;
Can we then hope this precious boon to gain,
By strange elixirs to prolong our lives?...
Oh, rather quaff good liquor while we may,
And dress in silk and satin every day!_”
[Sidenote: THE LADY PAN]
Women now begin to appear in Chinese literature. The Lady PAN
was for a long time chief favourite of the Emperor who ruled China
B.C. 32-6. So devoted was his Majesty that he even wished her
to appear alongside of him in the Imperial chariot. Upon which she
replied, “Your handmaid has heard that wise rulers of old were always
accompanied by virtuous ministers, but never that they drove out with
women by their side.” She was ultimately supplanted by a younger and
more beautiful rival, whereupon she forwarded to the Emperor one of
those fans, round or octagonal frames of bamboo with silk stretched
over them,[9] which in this country are called “fire-screens,”
inscribed with the following lines:--
“_O fair white silk, fresh from the weaver’s loom,
Clear as the frost, bright as the winter snow--
See! friendship fashions out of thee a fan,
Round as the round moon shines in heaven above,
At home, abroad, a close companion thou,
Stirring at every move the grateful gale.
And yet I fear, ah me! that autumn chills,
Cooling the dying summer’s torrid rage,
Will see thee laid neglected on the shelf,
All thought of bygone days, like them bygone._”
The phrase “autumn fan” has long since passed into the language, and is
used figuratively of a deserted wife.
FOOTNOTE:
[9] The folding fan, invented by the Japanese, was not known in China
until the eleventh century A.D., when it was introduced
through Korea.
CHAPTER III
HISTORY--LEXICOGRAPHY
[Sidenote: SSŬ-MA CH’IEN]
So far as China is concerned, the art of writing history may be said
to have been created during the period under review. SSŬ-MA CH’IEN,
the so-called Father of History, was born about B.C. 145. At the age
of ten he was already a good scholar, and at twenty set forth upon a
round of travel which carried him to all parts of the empire. In B.C.
110 his father died, and he stepped into the hereditary post of grand
astrologer. After devoting some time and energy to the reformation of
the calendar, he now took up the historical work which had been begun
by his father, and which was ultimately given to the world as the
Historical Record. It is a history of China from the earliest ages down
to about one hundred years before the Christian era, in one hundred and
thirty chapters, arranged under five headings, as follows:--(1) Annals
of the Emperors; (2) Chronological Tables; (3) Eight chapters on Rites,
Music, the Pitch-pipes, the Calendar, Astrology, Imperial Sacrifices,
Watercourses, and Political Economy; (4) Annals of the Feudal Nobles;
and (5) Biographies of many of the eminent men of the period, which
covers nearly three thousand years. In such estimation is this work
justly held that its very words have been counted, and found to number
526,500 in all. It must be borne in mind that these characters were,
in all probability, scratched with a stylus on bamboo tablets, and that
previous to this there was no such thing as a history on a general and
comprehensive plan; in fact, nothing beyond mere local annals in the
style of the Spring and Autumn.
Since the Historical Record, every dynasty has had its historian, their
works in all cases being formed upon the model bequeathed by Ssŭ-ma
Ch‘ien. The Twenty-four Dynastic Histories of China were produced in
1747 in a uniform series bound up in 219 large volumes, and together
show a record such as can be produced by no other country in the world.
The following are specimens of Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien’s style:--
(1.) “When the House of Han arose, the evils of their predecessors had
not passed away. Husbands still went off to the wars. The old and the
young were employed in transporting food. Production was almost at a
standstill, and money became scarce. So much so, that even the Son of
Heaven had not carriage-horses of the same colour; the highest civil
and military authorities rode in bullock-carts, and the people at large
knew not where to lay their heads.
“At this epoch, the coinage in use was so heavy and cumbersome that
the people themselves started a new issue at a fixed standard of
value. But the laws were too lax, and it was impossible to prevent
grasping persons from coining largely, buying largely, and then holding
against a rise in the market. The consequence was that prices went up
enormously. Rice sold at 10,000 _cash_ per picul; a horse cost 100
ounces of silver. But by and by, when the empire was settling down to
tranquillity, his Majesty Kao Tsu gave orders that no trader should
wear silk nor ride in a carriage; besides which, the imposts levied
upon this class were greatly increased, in order to keep them down.
Some years later these restrictions were withdrawn; still, however,
the descendants of traders were disqualified from holding any office
connected with the State.
“Meanwhile, certain levies were made on a scale calculated to meet
the exigencies of public expenditure; while the land-tax and customs
revenue were regarded by all officials, from the Emperor downwards,
as their own personal emolument. Grain was forwarded by water to the
capital for the use of the officials there, but the quantity did not
amount to more than a few hundred thousand piculs every year.
“Gradually the coinage began to deteriorate and light coins to
circulate; whereupon another issue followed, each piece being marked
‘half an ounce.’ But at length the system of private issues led
to serious abuses, resulting first of all in vast sums of money
accumulating in the hands of individuals; finally, in rebellion, until
the country was flooded with the coinage of the rebels, and it became
necessary to enact laws against any such issues in the future.
“At this period the Huns were harassing our northern frontier, and
soldiers were massed there in large bodies; in consequence of which
food became so scarce that the authorities offered certain rank and
titles of honour to those who would supply a given quantity of grain.
Later on, drought ensued in the west, and in order to meet necessities
of the moment, official rank was again made a marketable commodity,
while those who broke the laws were allowed to commute their penalties
by money payments. And now horses began to reappear in official
stables, and in palace and hall signs of an ampler luxury were visible
once more.
“Thus it was in the early days of the dynasty, until some seventy years
after the accession of the House of Han. The empire was then at peace.
For a long time there had been neither flood nor drought, and a season
of plenty had ensued. The public granaries were well stocked; the
Government treasuries were full. In the capital, strings of _cash_ were
piled in myriads, until the very strings rotted, and their tale could
no longer be told. The grain in the Imperial storehouses grew mouldy
year by year. It burst from the crammed granaries, and lay about until
it became unfit for human food. The streets were thronged with horses
belonging to the people, and on the highroads whole droves were to be
seen, so that it became necessary to prohibit the public use of mares.
Village elders ate meat and drank wine. Petty government clerkships
and the like lapsed from father to son; the higher offices of State
were treated as family heirlooms. For there had gone abroad a spirit of
self-respect and of reverence for the law, while a sense of charity and
of duty towards one’s neighbour kept men aloof from disgrace and shame.
“At length, under lax laws, the wealthy began to use their riches for
evil purposes of pride and self-aggrandisement and oppression of the
weak. Members of the Imperial family received grants of land, while
from the highest to the lowest, every one vied with his neighbour in
lavishing money on houses, and appointments, and apparel, altogether
beyond the limit of his means. Such is the everlasting law of the
sequence of prosperity and decay.
“Then followed extensive military preparations in various parts of
the empire; the establishment of a tradal route with the barbarians
of the south-west, for which purpose mountains were hewn through
for many miles. The object was to open up the resources of those
remote districts, but the result was to swamp the inhabitants in
hopeless ruin. Then, again, there was the subjugation of Korea; its
transformation into an Imperial dependency; with other troubles nearer
home. There was the ambush laid for the Huns, by which we forfeited
their alliance, and brought them down upon our northern frontier.
Nothing, in fact, but wars and rumours of wars from day to day.
Money was constantly leaving the country. The financial stability of
the empire was undermined, and its impoverished people were driven
thereby into crime. Wealth had been frittered away, and its renewal
was sought in corruption. Those who brought money in their hands
received appointments under government. Those who could pay escaped
the penalties of their guilt. Merit had to give way to money. Shame
and scruples of conscience were laid aside. Laws and punishments were
administered with severer hand. From this period must be dated the rise
and growth of official venality.”
(2.) “The Odes have it thus:--‘We may gaze up to the mountain’s brow:
we may travel along the great road;’ signifying that although we cannot
hope to reach the goal, still we may push on thitherwards in spirit.
“While reading the works of Confucius, I have always fancied I
could see the man as he was in life; and when I went to Shantung I
actually beheld his carriage, his robes, and the material parts of his
ceremonial usages. There were his descendants practising the old rites
in their ancestral home, and I lingered on, unable to tear myself
away. Many are the princes and prophets that the world has seen in
its time, glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius, though
only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains among us
after many generations. He is the model for such as would be wise. By
all, from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest student, the supremacy
of his principles is fully and freely admitted. He may indeed be
pronounced the divinest of men.”
(3.) “In the 9th moon the First Emperor was buried in Mount Li, which
in the early days of his reign he had caused to be tunnelled and
prepared with that view. Then, when he had consolidated the empire,
he employed his soldiery, to the number of 700,000, to bore down to
the Three Springs (that is, until water was reached), and there a
foundation of bronze[10] was laid and the sarcophagus placed thereon.
Rare objects and costly jewels were collected from the palaces and from
the various officials, and were carried thither and stored in vast
quantities. Artificers were ordered to construct mechanical cross-bows,
which, if any one were to enter, would immediately discharge their
arrows. With the aid of quicksilver, rivers were made, the Yang-tsze,
the Hoang-ho, and the great ocean, the metal being poured from one into
the other by machinery. On the roof were delineated the constellations
of the sky, on the floor the geographical divisions of the earth.
Candles were made from the fat of the man-fish (walrus), calculated to
last for a very long time.
“The Second Emperor said, ‘It is not fitting that the concubines of
my late father who are without children should leave him now;’ and
accordingly he ordered them to accompany the dead monarch to the next
world, those who thus perished being many in number.
“When the interment was completed, some one suggested that the workmen
who had made the machinery and concealed the treasure knew the great
value of the latter, and that the secret would leak out. Therefore,
so soon as the ceremony was over, and the path giving access to the
sarcophagus had been blocked up at its innermost end, the outside
gate at the entrance to this path was let fall, and the mausoleum was
effectually closed, so that not one of the workmen escaped. Trees and
grass were then planted around, that the spot might look like the rest
of the mountain.”
The history by Ssŭ-ma Ch‘ien stops about 100 years before Christ. To
carry it on from that point was the ambition of a scholar named Pan
Piao (A.D. 3-54), but he died while still collecting materials
for his task. His son, PAN KU, whose scholarship was extensive
and profound, took up the project, but was impeached on the ground that
he was altering the national records at his own discretion, and was
thrown into prison. Released on the representations of a brother, he
continued his work; however, before its completion he became involved
in a political intrigue and was again thrown into prison, where he
died. The Emperor handed the unfinished history to PAN CHAO,
his gifted sister, who had been all along his assistant, and by her it
was brought to completion down to about the Christian era, where the
occupancy of the throne by a usurper divides the Han dynasty into two
distinct periods. This lady was also the author of a volume of moral
advice to young women, and of many poems and essays.
[Sidenote: HSÜ SHÊN]
Lexicography, which has since been so widely cultivated by the Chinese,
was called into being by a famous scholar named HSÜ SHÊN (_d._
A.D. 120). Entering upon an official career, he soon retired
and devoted the rest of his life to books. He was a deep student of the
Five Classics, and wrote a work on the discrepancies in the various
criticisms of these books. But it is by his _Shuo Wên_ that he is now
known. This was a collection, with short explanatory notes, of all
the characters--about ten thousand--which were to be found in Chinese
literature as then existing, written in what is now known as the Lesser
Seal style. It is the oldest Chinese dictionary of which we have any
record, and has hitherto formed the basis of all etymological research.
It is arranged under 540 radicals or classifiers, that is to say,
specially selected portions of characters which indicate to some extent
the direction in which lies the sense of the whole character, and its
chief object was to exhibit the pictorial features of Chinese writing.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Variant “firm,” _i.e._ was firmly laid.
CHAPTER IV
BUDDHISM
The introduction of Buddhism into China must now be considered,
especially under its literary aspect.
So early as B.C. 217 we read of Buddhist priests, Shih-li-fang and
others, coming to China. The “First Emperor” seems to have looked upon
them with suspicion. At any rate, he threw them into prison, from
which, we are told, they were released in the night by a golden man
or angel. Nothing more was heard of Buddhism until the Emperor known
as Ming Ti, in consequence, it is said, of a dream in which a foreign
god appeared to him, sent off a mission to India to see what could be
learnt upon the subject of this barbarian religion. The mission, which
consisted of eighteen persons, returned about A.D. 67, accompanied by
two Indian Buddhists named Kashiapmadanga and Gobharana. These two
settled at Lo-yang in Honan, which was then the capital, and proceeded
to translate into Chinese the Sûtra of Forty-two Sections--the
beginning of a long line of such. Soon afterwards the former died, but
the seed had been sown, and a great rival to Taoism was about to appear
on the scene.
Towards the close of the second century A.D. another Indian
Buddhist, who had come to reside at Ch‘ang-an in Shensi, translated
the _sûtra_ known as the Lotus of the Good Law, and Buddhist temples
were built in various parts of China. By the beginning of the fourth
century Chinese novices were taking the vows required for the Buddhist
priesthood, and monasteries were endowed for their reception.
[Sidenote: FA HSIEN]
In A.D. 399 FA HSIEN started on his great pedestrian journey from the
heart of China overland to India, his object being to procure copies
of the Buddhist Canon, statues, and relics. Those who accompanied him
at starting either turned back or died on the way, and he finally
reached India with only one companion, who settled there and never
returned to China. After visiting various important centres, such as
Magadha, Patna, Benares, and Buddha-Gaya, and effecting the object of
his journey, he took passage on a merchant-ship, and reached Ceylon.
There he found a large junk which carried him to Java, whence, after
surviving many perils of the sea, he made his way on board another
junk to the coast of Shantung, disembarking in A.D. 414 with all
his treasures at the point now occupied by the German settlement of
Kiao-chow.
The narrative of his adventurous journey, as told by himself, is still
in existence, written in a crabbed and difficult style. His itinerary
has been traced, and nearly all the places mentioned by him have been
identified. The following passage refers to the desert of Gobi, which
the travellers had to cross:--
“In this desert there are a great many evil spirits and hot winds.
Those who encounter the latter perish to a man. There are neither birds
above nor beasts below. Gazing on all sides, as far as the eye can
reach, in order to mark the track, it would be impossible to succeed
but for the rotting bones of dead men which point the way.”
Buddha-Gaya, the scene of recent interesting explorations conducted by
the late General Cunningham, was visited by Fa Hsien, and is described
by him as follows:--
“The pilgrims now arrived at the city of Gaya, also a complete waste
within its walls. Journeying about three more miles southwards, they
reached the place where the Bôdhisatva formerly passed six years in
self-mortification. It is very woody. From this point going west a
mile, they arrived at the spot where Buddha entered the water to bathe,
and a god pressed down the branch of a tree to pull him out of the
pool. Also, by going two-thirds of a mile farther north, they reached
the place where the two lay-sisters presented Buddha with congee made
with milk. Two-thirds of a mile to the north of this is the place where
Buddha, sitting on a stone under a great tree and facing the east, ate
it. The tree and the stone are both there still, the latter being about
six feet in length and breadth by over two feet in height. In Central
India the climate is equable; trees will live several thousand, and
even so much as ten thousand years. From this point going north-east
half a yojana, the pilgrims arrived at the cave where the Bôdhisatva,
having entered, sat down cross-legged with his face to the west, and
reflected as follows: ‘If I attain perfect wisdom, there should be
some miracle in token thereof.’ Whereupon the silhouette of Buddha
appeared upon the stone, over three feet in length, and is plainly
visible to this day. Then heaven and earth quaked mightily, and the
gods who were in space cried out, saying, ‘This is not the place
where past and future Buddhas have attained and should attain perfect
wisdom. The proper spot is beneath the Bô tree, less than half a yojana
to the south-west of this.’ When the gods had uttered these words,
they proceeded to lead the way with singing in order to conduct him
thither. The Bôdhisatva got up and followed, and when thirty paces from
the tree a god gave him the _kus’a_ grass. Having accepted this, he
went on fifteen paces farther, when five hundred dark-coloured birds
came and flew three times round him, and departed. The Bôdhisatva went
on to the Bô tree, and laying down his _kus’a_ grass, sat down with
his face to the east. Then Mara, the king of the devils, sent three
beautiful women to approach from the north and tempt him; he himself
approaching from the south with the same object. The Bôdhisatva pressed
the ground with his toes, whereupon the infernal army retreated in
confusion, and the three women became old. At the above-mentioned place
where Buddha suffered mortification for six years, and on all these
other spots, men of after ages have built pagodas and set up images,
all of which are still in existence. Where Buddha, having attained
perfect wisdom, contemplated the tree for seven days, experiencing the
joys of emancipation; where Buddha walked backwards and forwards, east
and west, under the Bô tree for seven days; where the gods produced
a jewelled chamber and worshipped Buddha for seven days; where the
blind dragon Muchilinda enveloped Buddha for seven days; where Buddha
sat facing the east on a square stone beneath the nyagrodha tree, and
Brahmâ came to salute him; where the four heavenly kings offered their
alms-bowls; where the five hundred traders gave him cooked rice and
honey; where he converted the brothers Kasyapa with their disciples to
the number of one thousand souls--on all these spots stûpas have been
raised.”
The following passage refers to Ceylon, called by Fa Hsien the Land
of the Lion, that is, Singhala, from the name of a trader who first
founded a kingdom there:--
“This country had originally no inhabitants; only devils and spirits
and dragons lived in it, with whom the merchants of neighbouring
countries came to trade. When the exchange of commodities took place,
the devils and spirits did not appear in person, but set out their
valuables with the prices attached. Then the merchants, according
to the prices, bought the things and carried them off. But from the
merchants going backwards and forwards and stopping on their way,
the attractions of the place became known to the inhabitants of the
neighbouring countries, who also went there, and thus it became a great
nation. The temperature is very agreeable in this country; there is
no distinction of summer and winter. The trees and plants are always
green, and cultivation of the soil is carried on as men please, without
regard to seasons.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: KUMARAJIVA--HSÜAN TSANG]
Meanwhile, the Indian Kumarajiva, one of the Four Suns of Buddhism, had
been occupied between A.D. 405 and 412 in dictating Chinese
commentaries on the Buddhist Canon to some eight hundred priests. He
also wrote a _shâstra_ on Reality and Appearance, and translated the
Diamond Sûtra, which has done more to popularise Buddhism with the
educated classes than all the material parts of this religion put
together. Chinese poets and philosophers have drawn inspiration and
instruction from its pages, and the work might now almost be classed as
a national classic. Here are two short extracts:--
(1.) “Buddha said, O Subhūti, tell me after thy wit, can a man see the
Buddha in the flesh?
“He cannot, O World-Honoured, and for this reason: The Buddha has
declared that flesh has no objective existence.
“Then Buddha told Subhūti, saying, All objective existences are
unsubstantial and unreal. If a man can see clearly that they are so,
then can he see the Buddha.”
(2.) “Buddha said, O Subhūti, if one man were to collect the seven
precious things from countless galaxies of worlds, and bestow all these
in charity, and another virtuous man, or virtuous woman, were to become
filled with the spirit, and held fast by this _sûtra_, preaching it
ever so little for the conversion of mankind, I say unto you that the
happiness of this last man would far exceed the happiness of that other
man.
“Conversion to what? To the disregard of objective existences, and to
absolute quiescence of the individual. And why? Because every external
phenomenon is like a dream, like a vision, like a bubble, like shadow,
like dew, like lightning, and should be regarded as such.”
* * * * *
In A.D. 520 Bôdhidharma came to China, and was received with
honour. He had been the son of a king in Southern India. He taught that
religion was not to be learnt from books, but that man should seek and
find the Buddha in his own heart. Just before his arrival Sung Yün had
been sent to India to obtain more Buddhist books, and had remained two
years in Kandahar, returning with 175 volumes.
Then, in 629, HSÜAN TSANG set out for India with the same object,
and also to visit the holy places of Buddhism. He came back in 645,
bringing with him 657 Buddhist books, besides many images and pictures
and 150 relics. He spent the rest of his life translating these books,
and also, like Fa Hsien, wrote a narrative of his travels.
This brings us down to the beginning of the T‘ang dynasty, when
Buddhism had acquired, in spite of much opposition and even
persecution, what has since proved to be a lasting hold upon the masses
of the Chinese people.
BOOK THE THIRD
_MINOR DYNASTIES_ (A.D. 200-600)
CHAPTER I
POETRY--MISCELLANEOUS LITERATURE
The centuries which elapsed between A.D. 200 and 600 were not
favourable to the development and growth of a national literature.
During a great part of the time the empire was torn by civil wars;
there was not much leisure for book-learning, and few patrons to
encourage it. Still the work was carried on, and many great names have
come down to us.
The dark years between A.D. 196 and 221, which witnessed the
downfall of the House of Han, were illumined by the names of seven
writers, now jointly known as the Seven Scholars of the Chien-An
period. They were all poets. There was HSÜ KAN, who fell under
the influence of Buddhism and translated into Chinese the _Pranyamûla
shâstra tikâ_ of Nâgârdjuna. The following lines are by him:--
“_O floating clouds that swim in heaven above,
Bear on your wings these words to him I love...
Alas! you float along nor heed my pain,
And leave me here to love and long in vain!
I see other dear ones to their homes return,
And for his coming shall not I too yearn?
Since my lord left--ah me, unhappy day!--
My mirror’s dust has not been brushed away;
My heart, like running water, knows no peace.
But bleeds and bleeds forever without cease._”
[Sidenote: K‘UNG JUNG--WANG TS’AN]
There was K‘UNG JUNG, a descendant of Confucius in the twentieth
degree, and a most precocious child. At ten years of age he went with
his father to Lo-yang, where Li Ying, the Dragon statesman, was at the
height of his political reputation. Unable from the press of visitors
to gain admission, he told the doorkeeper to inform Li Ying that he
was a connection, and thus succeeded in getting in. When Li Ying asked
him what the connection was, he replied, “My ancestor Confucius and
your ancestor Lao Tzŭ were friends engaged in the quest for truth,
so that you and I may be said to be of the same family.” Li Ying was
astonished, but Ch‘ên Wei said, “Cleverness in youth does not mean
brilliancy in later life,” upon which K‘ung Jung remarked, “You, sir,
must evidently have been very clever as a boy.” Entering official life,
he rose to be Governor of Po-hai in Shantung; but he incurred the
displeasure of the great Ts‘ao Ts‘ao, and was put to death with all his
family. He was an open-hearted man, and fond of good company. “If my
halls are full of guests,” he would say, “and my bottles full of wine,
I am happy.”
The following is a specimen of his poetry:--
“_The wanderer reaches home with joy
From absence of a year and more:
His eye seeks a beloved boy--
His wife lies weeping on the floor._
“_They whisper he is gone. The glooms
Of evening fall; beyond the gate
A lonely grave in outline looms
To greet the sire who came too late._
“_Forth to the little mound he flings,
Where wild-flowers bloom on every side....
His bones are in the Yellow Springs,
His flesh like dust is scattered wide._
“‘_O child, who never knew thy sire,
For ever now to be unknown,
Ere long thy wandering ghost shall tire
Of flitting friendless and alone._
“‘_O son, man’s greatest earthly boon,
With thee I bury hopes and fears.’
He bowed his head in grief, and soon
His breast was wet with rolling tears._
“_Life’s dread uncertainty he knows,
But oh for this untimely close!_”
There was WANG TS’AN (A.D. 177-217), a learned man who wrote an _Ars
Poetica_, not, however, in verse. A youth of great promise, he excelled
as a poet, although the times were most unfavourable to success. It
has been alleged, with more or less truth, that all Chinese poetry is
pitched in the key of melancholy; that the favourite themes of Chinese
poets are the transitory character of life with its partings and other
ills, and the inevitable approach of death, with substitution of the
unknown for the known. Wang Ts‘an had good cause for his lamentations.
He was forced by political disturbances to leave his home at the
capital and seek safety in flight. There, as he tells us,
“_Wolves and tigers work their own sweet will._”
On the way he finds
“_Naught but bleached bones covering the plain ahead,_”
and he comes across a famine-stricken woman who had thrown among the
bushes a child she was unable to feed. Arriving at the Great River, the
setting sun brings his feelings to a head:--
“_Streaks of light still cling to the hill-tops,
While a deeper shade falls upon the steep slopes;
The fox makes his way to his burrow,
Birds fly back to their homes in the wood,
Clear sound the ripples of the rushing waves,
Along the banks the gibbons scream and cry,
My sleeves are fluttered by the whistling gale,
The lapels of my robe are drenched with dew.
The livelong night I cannot close my eyes.
I arise and seize my guitar,
Which, ever in sympathy with man’s changing moods,
Now sounds responsive to my grief._”
But music cannot make him forget his kith and kin--
“_Most of them, alas! are prisoners,
And weeping will be my portion to the end.
With all the joyous spots in the empire,
Why must I remain in this place?
Ah, like the grub in smartweed, I am growing insensible to
bitterness._”
By the last line he means to hint “how much a long communion tends to
make us what we are.”
There was YING YANG, who, when his own political career was
cut short, wrote a poem with a title which may be interpreted as
“Regret that a Bucephalus should stand idle.”
There was LIU CHÊNG, who was put to death for daring to cast an eye
upon one of the favourites of the great general Ts‘ao Ts‘ao, virtual
founder of the House of Wei. CH’ÊN LIN and YÜAN YÜ complete the tale.
[Sidenote: TS’AO TS’AO]
To these seven names an eighth and a ninth are added by courtesy:
those of TS’AO TS’AO above mentioned, and of his third son,
Ts‘ao Chih, the poet. The former played a remarkable part in Chinese
history. His father had been adopted as son by the chief eunuch of the
palace, and he himself was a wild young man much given to coursing and
hawking. He managed, however, to graduate at the age of twenty, and,
after distinguishing himself in a campaign against insurgents, raised
a volunteer force to purge the country of various powerful chieftains
who threatened the integrity of the empire. By degrees the supreme
power passed into his hands, and he caused the weak Emperor to raise
his daughter to the rank of Empress. He is popularly regarded as the
type of a bold bad Minister and of a cunning unscrupulous rebel. His
large armies are proverbial, and at one time he is said to have had so
many as a million of men under arms. As an instance of the discipline
which prevailed in his camp, it is said that he once condemned himself
to death for having allowed his horse to shy into a field of grain,
in accordance with his own severe regulations against any injury to
standing crops. However, in lieu of losing his head, he was persuaded
to satisfy his sense of justice by cutting off his hair. The following
lines are from a song by him, written in an abrupt metre of four words
to the line:--
“_Here is wine, let us sing;
For man’s life is short,
Like the morning dew,
Its best days gone by.
But though we would rejoice,
Sorrows are hard to forget,
What will make us forget them?
Wine, and only wine._”
After Ts‘ao Ts‘ao’s death came the epoch of the Three Kingdoms, the
romantic story of which is told in the famous novel to be mentioned
later on. Ts‘ao Ts‘ao’s eldest son became the first Emperor of one of
these, the Wei Kingdom, and TS’AO CHIH, the poet, occupied an
awkward position at court, an object of suspicion and dislike. At ten
years of age he already excelled in composition, so much so that his
father thought he must be a plagiarist; but he settled the question
by producing off-hand poems on any given theme. “If all the talent of
the world,” said a contemporary poet, “were represented by ten, Ts‘ao
Chih would have eight, I should have one, and the rest of mankind one
between them.” There is a story that on one occasion, at the bidding
of his elder brother, probably with mischievous intent, he composed an
impromptu stanza while walking only seven steps. It has been remembered
more for its point than its poetry:--
“_A fine dish of beans had been placed in the pot
With a view to a good mess of pottage all hot.
The beanstalks, aflame, a fierce heat were begetting,
The beans in the pot were all fuming and fretting.
Yet the beans and the stalks were not born to be foes;
Oh, why should these hurry to finish off those?_”
The following extract from a poem of his contains a very well-known
maxim, constantly in use at the present day:--
“_The superior man takes precautions,
And avoids giving cause for suspicion.
He will not pull up his shoes in a melon-field,
Nor under a plum-tree straighten his hat.
Brothers- and sisters-in-law may not join hands,
Elders and youngers may not walk abreast;
By toil and humility the handle is grasped;
Moderate your brilliancy, and difficulties disappear._”
[Sidenote: LIU LING]
During the third century A.D. another and more mercurial set
of poets, also seven in number, formed themselves into a club, and
became widely famous as the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Among
these was LIU LING, a hard drinker, who declared that to a
drunken man “the affairs of this world appear but as so much duckweed
on a river.” He wished to be always accompanied by a servant with wine,
followed by another with a spade, so that he might be buried where
he fell. On one occasion, yielding to the entreaties of his wife, he
promised to “swear off,” and bade her prepare the usual sacrifices of
wine and meat. When all was ready, he prayed, saying, “O God, who didst
give to Liu Ling a reputation through wine, he being able to consume a
gallon at a sitting and requiring a quart to sober him again, listen
not to the words of his wife, for she speaketh not truth.” Thereupon
he drank up the sacrificial wine, and was soon as drunk as ever. His
bias was towards the Tao of Lao Tzŭ, and he was actually plucked for
his degree in consequence of an essay extolling the heterodox doctrine
of Inaction. The following skit exhibits this Taoist strain to a marked
degree:--
“An old gentleman, a friend of mine (that is, himself), regards
eternity as but a single day, and whole centuries as but an instant
of time. The sun and moon are the windows of his house; the cardinal
points are the boundaries of his domain. He wanders unrestrained and
free; he dwells within no walls. The canopy of heaven is his roof; his
resting-place is the lap of earth. He follows his fancy in all things.
He is never for a moment without a wine-flask in one hand, a goblet in
the other. His only thought is wine: he knows of naught beyond.
“Two respectable philanthropists, hearing of my friend’s weakness,
proceeded to tax him on the subject; and with many gestures of
disapprobation, fierce scowls, and gnashing of teeth, preached him
quite a sermon on the rules of propriety, and sent his faults buzzing
round his head like a swarm of bees.
“When they began, the old gentleman filled himself another bumper;
and sitting down, quietly stroked his beard and sipped his wine by
turns, until at length he lapsed into a semi-inebriate state of placid
enjoyment, varied by intervals of absolute unconsciousness or of
partial return to mental lucidity. His ears were beyond the reach of
thunder; he could not have seen a mountain. Heat and cold existed for
him no more. He knew not even the workings of his own mind. To him,
the affairs of this world appeared but as so much duckweed on a river;
while the two philanthropists at his side looked like two wasps trying
to convert a caterpillar” (into a wasp, as the Chinese believe is done).
Another was HSI K‘ANG, a handsome young man, seven feet seven
inches in height, who was married--a doubtful boon--into the Imperial
family. His favourite study was alchemistic research, and he passed his
days sitting under a willow-tree in his courtyard and experimenting
in the transmutation of metals, varying his toil with music and
poetry, and practising the art of breathing with a view to securing
immortality. Happening, however, to offend by his want of ceremony
one of the Imperial princes, who was also a student of alchemy, he
was denounced to the Emperor as a dangerous person and a traitor, and
condemned to death. Three thousand disciples offered each one to take
the place of their beloved master, but their request was not granted.
He met his fate with fortitude, calmly watching the shadows thrown by
the sun and playing upon his lute.
[Sidenote: HSIANG HSIU--YÜAN CHI]
The third was HSIANG HSIU, who also tried his hand at alchemy,
and whose commentary on Chuang Tzŭ was stolen, as has been already
stated, by Kuo Hsiang.
The fourth was YÜAN HSIEN, a wild harum-scarum fellow, but a
performer on the guitar and a great authority on the theory of music.
He and his uncle, both poverty-stricken, lived on one side of the road,
while a wealthier branch of the family lived on the other side. On the
seventh of the seventh moon the latter put out all their grand fur
robes and fine clothes to air, as is customary on that day; whereupon
Yüan Hsien on his side forked up a pair of the short breeches, called
calf-nose drawers, worn by the common coolies, explaining to a friend
that he was a victim to the tyranny of custom.
The fifth was YÜAN CHI, another musician, whose harpsichords became
the “Strads” of China. He entered the army and rose to a high command,
and then exchanged his post for one where he had heard there was a
better cook. He was a model of filial piety, and when his mother died
he wept so violently that he brought up several pints of blood. Yet
when Chi Hsi went to condole with him, he showed only the whites of
his eyes (that is, paid no attention to him); while Chi Hsi’s brother,
who carried along with him a jar of wine and a guitar, was welcomed
with the pupils. His best-known work is a political and allegorical
poem in thirty-eight stanzas averaging about twelve lines to each. The
allusions in this are so skilfully veiled as to be quite unrecognisable
without a commentary, such concealment being absolutely necessary for
the protection of the author in the troublous times during which he
wrote.
The sixth was WANG JUNG, who could look at the sun without
being dazzled, and lastly there was SHAN T‘AO, a follower of
Taoist teachings, who was spoken of as “uncut jade” and as “gold ore.”
Later on, in the fourth century, comes FU MI, of whom nothing
is known beyond his verses, of which the following is a specimen:--
“_Thy chariot and horses
have gone, and I fret
And long for the lover
I ne’er can forget._
_O wanderer, bound
in far countries to dwell,
Would I were thy shadow!--
I’d follow thee well;_
_And though clouds and though darkness
my presence should hide,
In the bright light of day
I would stand by thy side!_”
We now reach a name which is still familiar to all students of poetry
in the Middle Kingdom. T‘AO CH’IEN (A.D. 365-427), or T‘ao Yüan-ming
as he was called in early life, after a youth of poverty obtained an
appointment as magistrate. But he was unfitted by nature for official
life; all he wanted, to quote his own prayer, was “length of years and
depth of wine.” He only held the post for eighty-three days, objecting
to receive a superior officer with the usual ceremonial on the ground
that “he could not crook the hinges of his back for five pecks of rice
a day,” such being the regulation pay of a magistrate. He then retired
into private life and occupied himself with poetry, music, and the
culture of flowers, especially chrysanthemums, which are inseparably
associated with his name. In the latter pursuit he was seconded by his
wife, who worked in the back garden while he worked in the front. His
retirement from office is the subject of the following piece, of the
poetical-prose class, which, in point of style, is considered one of
the masterpieces of the language:--
“Homewards I bend my steps. My fields, my gardens, are choked with
weeds: should I not go? My soul has led a bondsman’s life: why should I
remain to pine? But I will waste no grief upon the past; I will devote
my energies to the future. I have not wandered far astray. I feel that
I am on the right track once again.
“Lightly, lightly, speeds my boat along, my garments fluttering to the
gentle breeze. I inquire my route as I go. I grudge the slowness of the
dawning day. From afar I descry my old home, and joyfully press onwards
in my haste. The servants rush forth to meet me; my children cluster
at the gate. The place is a wilderness; but there is the old pine-tree
and my chrysanthemums. I take the little ones by the hand, and pass in.
Wine is brought in full jars, and I pour out in brimming cups. I gaze
out at my favourite branches. I loll against the window in my new-found
freedom. I look at the sweet children on my knee.
“And now I take my pleasure in my garden. There is a gate, but it is
rarely opened. I lean on my staff as I wander about or sit down to
rest. I raise my head and contemplate the lovely scene. Clouds rise,
unwilling, from the bottom of the hills; the weary bird seeks its nest
again. Shadows vanish, but still I linger around my lonely pine. Home
once more! I’ll have no friendships to distract me hence. The times are
out of joint for me; and what have I to seek from men? In the pure
enjoyment of the family circle I will pass my days, cheering my idle
hours with lute and book. My husbandmen will tell me when spring-time
is nigh, and when there will be work in the furrowed fields. Thither
I shall repair by cart or by boat, through the deep gorge, over the
dizzy cliff, trees bursting merrily into leaf, the streamlet swelling
from its tiny source. Glad is this renewal of life in due season; but
for me, I rejoice that my journey is over. Ah, how short a time it
is that we are here! Why then not set our hearts at rest, ceasing to
trouble whether we remain or go? What boots it to wear out the soul
with anxious thoughts? I want not wealth; I want not power; heaven is
beyond my hopes. Then let me stroll through the bright hours as they
pass, in my garden among my flowers; or I will mount the hill and sing
my song, or weave my verse beside the limpid brook. Thus will I work
out my allotted span, content with the appointments of Fate, my spirit
free from care.”
The “Peach-blossom Fountain” of Tao Ch‘ien is a well-known and charming
allegory, a form of literature much cultivated by Chinese writers.
It tells how a fisherman lost his way among the creeks of a river,
and came upon a dense and lovely grove of peach-trees in full bloom,
through which he pushed his boat, anxious to see how far the grove
extended.
“He found that the peach-trees ended where the water began, at the
foot of a hill; and there he espied what seemed to be a cave with
light issuing from it. So he made fast his boat, and crept in through
a narrow entrance, which shortly ushered him into a new world of
level country, of fine houses, of rich fields, of fine pools, and of
luxuriance of mulberry and bamboo. Highways of traffic ran north and
south; sounds of crowing cocks and barking dogs were heard around; the
dress of the people who passed along or were at work in the fields was
of a strange cut; while young and old alike appeared to be contented
and happy.”
He is told that the ancestors of these people had taken refuge there
some five centuries before to escape the troublous days of the “First
Emperor,” and that there they had remained, cut off completely from
the rest of the human race. On his returning home the story is noised
abroad, and the Governor sends out men to find this strange region, but
the fisherman is never able to find it again. The gods had permitted
the poet to go back for a brief span to the peach-blossom days of his
youth.
One critic speaks of T‘ao Ch‘ien as “drunk with the fumes of spring.”
Another says, “His heart was fixed upon loyalty and duty, while his
body was content with leisure and repose. His emotions were real, his
scenery was real, his facts were real, and his thoughts were real. His
workmanship was so exceedingly fine as to appear natural; his adze and
chisel (_labor limae_) left no traces behind.”
Much of his poetry is political, and bristles with allusions to events
which are now forgotten, mixed up with thoughts and phrases which are
greatly admired by his countrymen. Thus, when he describes meeting
with an old friend in a far-off land, such a passage as this would be
heavily scored by editor or critic with marks of commendation:--
“_Ere words be spoke, the heart is drunk;
What need to call for wine?_”
The following is one of his occasional poems:--
“_A scholar lives on yonder hill,
His clothes are rarely whole to view,
Nine times a month he eats his fill,
Once in ten years his hat is new.
A wretched lot!--and yet the while
He ever wears a sunny smile._
_Longing to know what like was he,
At dawn my steps a path unclosed
Where dark firs left the passage free
And on the eaves the white clouds dozed._
_But he, as spying my intent,
Seized his guitar and swept the strings;
Up flew a crane towards heaven bent,
And now a startled pheasant springs....
Oh, let me rest with thee until
The winter winds again blow chill!_”
PAO CHAO was an official and a poet who perished, A.D. 466, in a
rebellion. Some of his poetry has been preserved:--
“_What do these halls of jasper mean,
and shining floor,
Where tapestries of satin screen
window and door?
A lady on a lonely seat,
embroidering
Fair flowers which seem to smell as sweet
as buds in spring.
Swallows flit past, a zephyr shakes
the plum-blooms down;
She draws the blind, a goblet takes
her thoughts to drown.
And now she sits in tears, or hums,
nursing her grief
That in her life joy rarely comes
to bring relief...
Oh, for the humble turtle’s flight,
my mate and I;
Not the lone crane far out of sight
beyond the sky!_”
The original name of a striking character who, in A.D. 502,
placed himself upon the throne as first Emperor of the Liang dynasty,
was HSIAO YEN. He was a devout Buddhist, living upon priestly
fare and taking only one meal a day; and on two occasions, in 527 and
529, he actually adopted the priestly garb. He also wrote a Buddhist
ritual in ten books. Interpreting the Buddhist commandment “Thou shalt
not kill” in its strictest sense, he caused the sacrificial victims to
be made of dough. The following short poem is from his pen:--
“_Trees grow, not alike,
by the mound and the moat;
Birds sing in the forest
with varying note;
Of the fish in the river
some dive and some float.
The mountains rise high
and the waters sink low,
But the why and the wherefore
we never can know._”
Another well-known poet who lived into the seventh century is HSIEH
TAO-HÊNG. He offended Yang Ti, the second Emperor of the Sui
dynasty, by writing better verses than his Majesty, and an excuse was
found for putting him to death. One of the most admired couplets in the
language is associated with his name though not actually by him, its
author being unknown. To amuse a party of friends Hsieh Tao-hêng had
written impromptu,
“_A week in the spring to the exile appears
Like an absence from home of a couple of years._”
A “southerner” who was present sneered at the shallowness of the
conceit, and immediately wrote down the following:--
“_If home, with the wild geese of autumn,
we’re going,
Our hearts will be off ere the spring flowers
are blowing._”
An official of the Sui dynasty was FU I (A.D. 554-639), who became
Historiographer under the first Emperor of the T‘ang dynasty. He
had a strong leaning towards Taoism, and edited the _Tao-Tê-Ching_.
At the same time he presented a memorial asking that the Buddhist
religion might be abolished; and when Hsiao Yü, a descendant of Hsiao
Yen (above), questioned him on the subject, he said, “You were not
born in a hollow mulberry-tree; yet you respect a religion which
does not recognise the tie between father and son!” He urged that at
any rate priests and nuns should be compelled to marry and bring up
families, and not escape from contributing their share to the revenue,
adding that Hsiao Yü by defending their doctrines showed himself
no better than they were. At this Hsiao Yü held up his hands, and
declared that hell was made for such men as Fu I. The result was that
severe restrictions were placed for a short time upon the teachers
of Buddhism. The Emperor T‘ai Tsung once got hold of a Tartar priest
who could “charm people into unconsciousness, and then charm them
back to life again,” and spoke of his powers to Fu I. The latter said
confidently, “He will not be able to charm me;” and when put to the
test, the priest completely failed. He was the originator of epitaphs,
and wrote his own, as follows:--
“_Fu I loved the green hills and the white clouds...
Alas! he died of drink._”
[Sidenote: WANG CHI]
WANG CHI of the sixth and seventh centuries A.D., was a wild and
unconventional spirit, with a fatal fondness for wine, which caused his
dismissal from office. His capacity for liquor was boundless, and he
was known as the Five-bottle Scholar. In his lucid intervals he wrote
much beautiful prose and verse, which may still be read with pleasure.
The following is from an account of his visit to Drunk-Land, the story
of which is told with all due gravity and in a style modelled upon that
which is found in ordinary accounts of strange outlandish nations:--
“This country is many thousand miles from the Middle Kingdom. It is a
vast, boundless plain, without mountains or undulations of any kind.
The climate is equable, there being neither night, nor day, nor cold,
nor heat. The manners and customs are everywhere the same.
“There are no villages nor congregations of persons. The inhabitants
are ethereal in disposition, and know neither love, hate, joy, nor
anger. They inhale the breeze and sip the dew, eating none of the five
cereals. Calm in repose, slow of gait, they mingle with birds, beasts,
fishes, and scaly creatures, ignorant of boats, chariots, weapons, or
implements in general.
“The Yellow Emperor went on a visit to the capital of Drunk-Land, and
when he came back, he was quite out of conceit with the empire, the
government of which seemed to him but paltry trifling with knotted
cords.
“Yüan Chi, T‘ao Ch‘ien,[11] and some others, about ten in all, made a
trip together to Drunk-Land, and sank, never to rise again. They were
buried where they fell, and now in the Middle Kingdom they are dubbed
Spirits of Wine.
“Alas, I could not bear that the pure and peaceful domain of Drunk-Land
should come to be regarded as a preserve of the ancients. So I went
there myself.”
* * * * *
The period closes with the name of the Emperor known as Yang Ti,
already mentioned in connection with the poet Hsieh Tao-hêng. The
murderer, first of his elder brother and then of his father, he mounted
the throne in A.D. 605, and gave himself up to extravagance
and debauchery. The trees in his park were supplied in winter with
silken leaves and flowers, and birds were almost exterminated to
provide a sufficient supply of down for his cushions. After reigning
for thirteen years this unlikely patron of literature fell a victim to
assassination. Yet in spite of his otherwise disreputable character,
Yang Ti prided himself upon his literary attainments. He set one
hundred scholars to work editing a collection of classical, medical,
and other treatises; and it was under his reign, in A.D. 606,
that the examination for the second or “master of arts” degree was
instituted.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Here the poet makes a mistake. These two were not contemporaries.
CHAPTER II
CLASSICAL SCHOLARSHIP
In the domains of classical and general literature HUANG-FU MI
(A.D. 215-282) occupies an honourable place. Beginning life
at the ploughtail, by perseverance he became a fine scholar, and
adopted literature as a profession. In spite of severe rheumatism he
was never without a book in his hand, and became so absorbed in his
work that he would forget all about meals and bedtime. He was called
the Book-Debauchee, and once when he wished to borrow works from the
Emperor Wu Ti of the Chin dynasty, whose proffers of office he had
refused, his Majesty sent him back a cart-load to go on with. He
produced essays, poetry, and several important biographical works. His
work on the Spring and Autumn Annals had also considerable vogue.
SUN SHU-JAN, of about the same date, distinguished himself by
his works on the Confucian Canon, and wrote on the _Erh Ya_.
HSÜN HSÜ (_d._ A.D. 289) aided in drawing up a Penal Code for the
newly-established Chin dynasty, took a leading part in editing the
Bamboo Annals, which had just been discovered in Honan, provided a
preface to the _Mu T‘ien Tzŭ Chuan_, and also wrote on music.
KUO HSIANG (_d._ A.D. 312) occupied himself chiefly with the philosophy
of Lao Tzŭ and with the writings of Chuang Tzŭ. It was said of him
that his conversation was like the continuous downflow of a rapid, or
the rush of water from a sluice.
KUO P‘O (_d._ A.D. 324) was a scholar of great repute. Besides editing
various important classical works, he was a brilliant exponent of the
doctrines of Taoism and the reputed founder of the art of geomancy as
applied to graves, universally practised in China at the present day.
He was also learned in astronomy, divination, and natural philosophy.
FAN YEH, executed for treason in A.D. 445, is chiefly famous for his
history of the Han dynasty from about the date of the Christian era,
when the dynasty was interrupted, as has been stated, by a usurper,
down to the final collapse two hundred years later.
SHÊN YO (A.D. 441-513), another famous scholar, was the son of a
Governor of Huai-nan, whose execution in A.D. 453 caused him to go
for a time into hiding. Poor and studious, he is said to have spent
the night in repeating what he had learnt by day, as his mother,
anxious on account of his health, limited his supply of oil and fuel.
Entering official life, he rose to high office, from which he retired
in ill-health, loaded with honours. Personally, he was remarkable for
having two pupils to his left eye. He was a strict teetotaller, and
lived most austerely. He had a library of twenty thousand volumes.
He was the author of the histories of the Chin, Liu Sung, and Ch‘i
dynasties. He is said to have been the first to classify the four
tones. In his autobiography he writes, “The poets of old, during the
past thousand years, never hit upon this plan. I alone discovered its
advantages.” The Emperor Wu Ti of the Liang dynasty one day said to
him, “Come, tell me, what are these famous four tones?” “They are
whatever your Majesty pleases to make them,” replied Shên Yo, skilfully
selecting for his answer four characters which illustrated, and in the
usual order, the four tones in question.
[Sidenote: HSIAO T‘UNG]
HSIAO T‘UNG (A.D. 501-531) was the eldest son of Hsiao Yen, the
founder of the Liang dynasty, whom he predeceased. Before he was five
years old he was reported to have learned the Classics by heart, and
his later years were marked by great literary ability, notably in
verse-making. Handsome and of charming manners, mild and forbearing,
he was universally loved. In 527 he nursed his mother through her
last illness, and his grief for her death impaired his naturally fine
constitution, for it was only at the earnest solicitation of his father
that he consented either to eat or drink during the period of mourning.
Learned men were sure of his patronage, and his palace contained a
large library. A lover of nature, he delighted to ramble with scholars
about his beautiful park, to which he declined to add the attraction of
singing-girls. When the price of grain rose in consequence of the war
with Wei in 526, he lived on the most frugal fare; and throughout his
life his charities were very large and kept secret, being distributed
by trusty attendants who sought out all cases of distress. He even
emptied his own wardrobe for the benefit of the poor, and spent large
sums in burying the outcast dead. Against forced labour on public works
he vehemently protested. To his father he was most respectful, and
wrote to him when he himself was almost at the last gasp, in the hope
of concealing his danger. But he is remembered now not so much for his
virtues as for his initiation of a new department in literature. A
year before his death he completed the _Wên Hsüan_, the first published
collection of choice works, whole or in part, of a large number of
authors. These were classified under such heads as poetry of various
kinds, essays, inscriptions, memorials, funeral orations, epitaphs, and
prefaces.
The idea thus started was rapidly developed, and has been continued
down to modern times. Huge collections of works have from time to
time been reprinted in uniform editions, and many books which might
otherwise have perished have been preserved for grateful posterity.
The Record of the Buddhistic Kingdoms by Fa Hsien may be quoted as an
example.
BOOK THE FOURTH
_THE T‘ANG DYNASTY_ (A.D. 600-900)
CHAPTER I
POETRY
[Sidenote: POETRY]
The T‘ang dynasty is usually associated in Chinese minds with much
romance of love and war, with wealth, culture, and refinement, with
frivolity, extravagance, and dissipation, but most of all with
poetry. China’s best efforts in this direction were chiefly produced
within the limits of its three hundred years’ duration, and they have
been carefully preserved as finished models for future poets of all
generations.
“Poetry,” says a modern Chinese critic, “came into being with the
Odes, developed with the _Li Sao_, burst forth and reached perfection
under the T‘angs. Some good work was indeed done under the Han and
Wei dynasties; the writers of those days seemed to have material in
abundance, but language inadequate to its expression.”