Chapter Six
Chinese Worldview Expressions
The oldest existing artistic traditions come from the Far
East. Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Minoan Crete had earlier starts,
but none of them have survived into the modern period. Only in
Eastern Asia survive worldviews which can trace their origin to
prehistoric times and display continuous development. The start is
in the Neolithic period, when in both China and Japan, and somewhat
later in Korea, a remarkable pottery culture developed which
displayed the great talent for ceramics that characterizes the
artistic expression of the Far East.
The first of these prehistoric cultures to use metal, develop
a written language, and maintain urban centers was that of China
under the Shang dynasty. This civilization which developed in the
Yellow River valley almost four thousand years ago, has continued
in unbroken succession to the present day. The most remarkable
creation of the Shang people was the magnificent bronze vessels,
which were used as ritual objects in worshiping the forces of
nature and the spirits of the dead. They express the first great
artistic achievement of the Far Eastern worldviews, and today are
considered among the finest bronzes ever produced. Jade, a stone
which the Chinese regarded as both precious and auspicious, was the
only other medium used in Shang culture.
Andrew Boyd demonstrated that
When the ziggurats were being built in Mesopotamia and the drainage systems laid
out at Mohenjodaro, China like Europe was deep in the stone age. Bronze, which was
in use before 3000 B.C., appears in China about 1600 B.C., that is actually
later than it appears in Britain. Iron, which began to be effectively used in the
Mediterranean area about 1l00 B.C., developed in China from the fifth to the
third centuries B.C. -- about the same time as in Britain.
There are not even many old buildings remaining in China as in Europe... --no
building of the age of the Parthenon or of the Pantheon, practically none of the
age of San Vitale or Santa Sophia, few even of the age of Salisbury Cathedral. The
Great Wall itself is lost beneath successive rebuildings. What there has been
however is, straight from the brilliant flowering of the bronze age in about 1500
B.C. right up to the present, a completely continuous, individual and
self-conscious civilization of an extremely high level...1
The Shang dynasty was followed by the Chou, who ruled China
throughout most of the first millennium. Chou art expressed a
continuation of the Shang, although as the centuries passed,
changes both in the shapes of the bronze vessels and their
ornamentation were made. Painting and sculpture which had been
minor arts emerged as significant forms from the sixth to the third
centuries B.C.E.
While China was producing the first classical statement of
ancient Eastern art, Japan and Korea continued on the Neolithic
level. It was not until the beginning of the common era that metal
culture penetrated those countries. In Japan a new period of art
arose with the advent of the Yayoi civilization, which had been
brought to the Japanese islands from the mainland in 200 B.C.E.
Both the Japanese and the Koreans derived metal culture from China,
where, under the Han dynasty, a great empire arose.
The next major event was the introduction of Buddhism. This
not only transformed the art of China but also that of Korea and
Japan. Nearly all artistic expression during the first millennium
of the common era was created under Buddhist inspiration. Inspired
by a common worldview and using the same Indian iconography, the
Buddhist art of China, Korea, and Japan is similar in style,
showing the universal character of this worldview expression.
Magnificent temples with striking images and wall paintings were
constructed everywhere, reflecting the fervor of faith of the time.
Under the Sung dynasty in China, the Koryo in Korea, and the
Heian in Japan, an aesthetic sensibility developed that created
some of the greatest art to come from the Far East. This
corresponds to the medieval period in Europe. The most remarkable
achievement of this period is the landscape painting of China.
Executed largely in ink on silk or paper and forming either a
horizontal or a vertical scroll, these landscapes express Taoist
ideas and employ an iconography which gives expression to the
mystery of the cosmos and the nature of the Tao. Using towering
mountain peaks, gnarled trees, and misty atmosphere, the painter
suggests not just the appearance but the spirit of nature. Humans,
if represented at all, are reduced in size, indicating how
unimportant they are relative to the grandeur of the cosmos. The
viewer is supposed to identify with the tiny figure and thus become
one with nature.
Jacques Maritain in a series of lectures delivered at the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. explained that the
inner principle of dynamic harmony grasped by Chinese contemplative
artists should be thought of as a "sort of interpenetration between
Nature and Man." Through this interpenetration things are
spiritualized. When the artist reveals the reality hidden within
things, he sets it free and liberates and purifies himself. This
process, fundamental to Chinese art, is the action of Tao. Maritain
drew this distinction between Oriental and Occidental art. The
former is intent on objectivity, while the latter on subjectivitiy.
Yet at the root of their creative activitiy there is a common
experience that has no parallel in logical reason, by means of
which objectivity and subjectivity are "obscurely grasped
together.2
This is the nondifferentiating awareness of creative
intuition that gives Maritain's restatement of the principle of
Chinese painting a modern interpretation. "What does the first of
the famous six canons of Hsieh Ho prescribe?-- To have life-motion
manifest the unique spiritual romance that the artist catches in
Things, inspired by his communion with the spirit of the cosmos."3
Maritain argued that the principle of k'ai-ho, expanding and
gathering up, based on Taoist paradoxes, is universally applied
because it is essential to the structure of a painting.
Another way of explaining this principle is the metaphor of
the "countenance of the Great Achievement" expressed in the Tao Te
Ching:
The countenance of the Great Achievement
is simply a manifestation of Tao.
That which is called Tao
is indistinct and ineffable.
Ineffable and indistinct,
yet therein are forms.
Indistinct and ineffable
yet therein are objects.
Deep-seated and unseen,
therein are essences.
The essence is quite real,
therein is the vivid Truth.
From ancient times until the present,
that which is called Tao has never ceased to exist.
Through it we see manifestations of all the admirables.
How do we understand the way in which
the admirables become admirable?
It is through Tao. (ch. xxi).
Frederick Mote has suggested that the Chinese may be
"unique in having no creation myth,"4 and Mote reminds us of Hu
Shih's observation "that centuries of Christian missionaries had
been frustrated and chagrined by the apparent inability of Chinese
to take sin seriously. For in the Chinese, organically conceived
world; there can be no parts wrongfully present... The question of
man's immortality in a future that "really counts" -- if he is
lucky enough or good enough to transcend the material present
reality -- does not even arise. This being true in the Great
Tradition, countertendencies in the popular religion in China's
highly congruent culture were correspondingly weakened.5
Yet there are creation myths as part of a rich cosmogeny. Some
illustrations demonstrate how they fit into the pattern of creation
myths developed in other worldviews.
Pan Gu Creates Heaven and Earth
Eons ago, long before heaven and earth were separated, the universe was
nothing but dark chaos in the shape of an egg. The progenitor of the universe, Pan
Gu, an enormous giant, was being nurtured in the dark chaos of that egg. Nurtured
and growing in a sound sleep, he spent more than eighteen thousand years there.
Then one day he awoke and stretched himself, shattering the egg-shaped chaos
into pieces. The pure lighter elements gradually rose up to become heaven and the
impure heavier parts slowly sank down to form the earth.
After heaven and earth had completely separated, Pan Gu began to worry that
they might come together again so he stood between them, with his head supporting
heaven and his feet on the earth. In this way, he grew nine times a day with each
expansion of heaven and earth. Every day, as heaven rose ten feet higher and earth
grew ten feet thicker, Pan Gu grew taller with them. This process continued for
another eighteen thousand years until heaven had risen high, earth had grown
thick, and Pan Gu had grown extremely tall. Finally heaven and earth were more
than 90,000 li (about 30,000 miles) apart.
He stood there alone, like a huge pillar between heaven and earth to keep them
from merging together into dark chaos again. Many more ages passed in this way
until heaven and earth both seemed to be securely established in their places.
Eventually he collapsed and died.
After Pan Gu died, great transformations occured in him; his breath turned into
winds and the clouds; his voice became the clapping thunder; his left eye turned
into the sun and his right eye became the moon; his four limbs and his trunk turned
into the cardinal directions and the mountains; his blood became the rivers and his
veins the roads and paths; his flesh turned into fields and soil; the hair on his
head became the stars in heaven; his skin and the hair on his body became grass,
trees, and flowers; his teeth and bones turned into metals and rocks, his marrow
into pearls and jade, and his perspiration became the dew and the rain; the various
bugs on his body changed into the many peoples of the world. This is how the
ancestor of the universe turned this newly created world into a rich and beautiful
place.6
Nu Wa Mends the Firmament
One year, no one knows exactly why, a great disaster befell the universe: half
the firmament collapsed, leaving ugly holes in the sky, and the earth cracked,
making deep chasms in all directions. During this great disturbance, flames spat
up in the forests and waters gushed forth from the ground in great waves, turning
the whole world into a vast ocean. Fierce animals came down out of the forests,
terrorizing the people who were left with few means to survive.
Nu Wa, distresssed to see her own creatures suffer this way, hurriedly set
about mending this disastrous rift in the firmament. She chose some colorful rocks
from the river, made a bonfire and melted them into a glue-like liquid. Using this
substance, she gradually mended the ugly holes in heaven, doing such a fine job
that no one could tell where the holes had been.
Nu Was was worried that the firmament might collapse again so she slaughtered
a giant turtle, severed its legs, and positioned them as pillars to prop up the
four corners of heaven. This is how the sky above came to be supported securely in
the air.
Also at the time there was a fierce black dragon who stirred up enormous
waves, causing floods that brought harm to humankind. Nu Wa slew this dragon to
stop the waves, burnt reeds and piled the ashes by the riverbank to curb the flood,
and banished the vicious beasts so that they could no longer devour her people.
Thus human beings again began to live a happy, peaceful life and the universe
returned to its original order. Spring, summer, autumn and winter began to come and
go in proper sequence again. Fierce animals mostly died away, and those few that
remained were domesticated. Foods grew naturally in the wilds and people were left
with few cares.
After having mended heaven and done much more work for the sake of humanity,
Nu Wa was exhausted and she too lay down to die. Her body, like that of Pan Gu,
transformed into many different things for the enrichment of the universe. Some
also say that there were ten gods standing guard in a line west of the Great
Wasteland and that they were transformations of Nu Wa's bowels.
Once, the gods Gong Gon and Zhuan Xu fought each other to determine who was
the superior. Gong Gong lost in the end and he became so furious that he crashed
into Buzhou (Imperfect) Mountain, breaking the heavenly pillar and breaking off
one corner of the earth. The firmament tilted to the northwest and the sun, the
moon and the stars started to drift in that direction. This created a void in the
southeast, and as a result the rivers with all their sand and silt began to rush in
that direction.7
The story of the flood is one of the oldest in Chinese
mythology. A flood myth from the Shu ching (c. 1000 B.C.E.)
expresses a nonmystical sense of the gods.
Everywhere the tremendous flood waters were wreaking destruction. Spreading afar,
they embraced the mountains and rose above the hills. In a vast flow they swelled
up to Heaven. The people below were groaning. In response to their appeals, a
being who in the Shu ching is referred to simply as Ti, "lord," rather reluctantly
(Because he had reservations about his ability) commanded Kun to deal with the
flood. (By the commentators this "Lord" is equated with the sage ruler Yao; in all
probability, however, he was none other than the supreme divinity, Shang Ti, the
"Lord on High.")
For nine years Kun labored without success to dam up the waters. At the end
of that time either Yao or his successor Shun (the texts differ) had Kun executed
at the Feather Mountain, and ordered Kun's son, Yu, to continue the task. The
latter, instead of trying to dam up the waters in the manner of his father, adopted
the new technique of channeling passages for them to drain off to the sea. In this
way he eventually conquered the flood and made the land fit for habitation. As a
reward, he was given the throne by Shun and became founder of the Hsia dynasty.
On being ordered to deal with the flood, Kun stole from the Lord the "swelling
mold", a magical kind of soil which had the property of ever swelling in size. With
this he tried to build dams which, through their swelling, would hold back the
waters. When his efforts failed, the Lord, angered by his theft, had him executed
at Feather Mountain, a sunless place in the extreme north. There his body remained
for three years without decomposing, until somebody cut it open with a sword,
whereupon Yu emerged from his father's belly. Following Yu's birth, Kun was
transformed into an animal, said to be at times a yellow bear, black fish,
three-legged turtle, or yellow dragon, and plunged into the Feather Gulf. Yu came
down to continue his father's work. He was helped by a winged dragon which, going
ahead of him, trailed its tail over the ground and so marked the places where
channels should be dug. Yu labored some eight or ten years so intensely that,
though several times passing the door of his home, he had no time to visit his
family within. He wore the nails off his hands, the hair off his shanks, and
developed a lameness giving him a peculiar gait which came to be known as the "walk
of Yu." He eventually succeeded in draining the great rivers to the sea, expelling
snakes and dragons from the marshlands, and making the terrain fit for cultivation.8
Han Period as Example
Let us begin a major illustration of expressions of Chinese
worldview by focusing on the Han dynastic period (202 B.C.E.--9
C.E.). In this period a number of fascinating events took place.
The adoption of a new calendar from 104 C.E. followed the evolution
of a new type of water clock, which could measure time continuously
instead of for short, defined period. Poets such as Ssu-ma
Hsiang-ju (d. c. 177 B.C.E.) were experimenting with the new
literary form, of the fu. Writers such as Tung Chung-shu (c.
179-104 B.C.E.) and the anonymous authors of the Huai-nan-tzu were
developing philosophical treatises of a new kind of sophistication.
Han mathematicians produced a systematic textbook of algebra.9
Other developments in astronomy and medicine were being recorded.
Three particular worldview issues recur: the problem of evil, the
authority of government, and the question of life after death.
These issues are reflected in artistic expressions, and Han artists
often united the first and last.
The problem of evil was concerned with calamities which
seemed to be without cause. The question arose of what steps could
be taken, if any, to avert such calamities. One direction looked to
Taoism; a second looked to the force of destiny and its
arbitrariness; the third looked to the human being's role in
determining the cosmic order. This recognized a controlling
influence exercised by heaven and may be loosely described as
Confucian. This Confucian scheme conceived the cosmos as consisting
of the three estates of heaven, earth, and man, whose activities
were ordered by the two basic powers of Yin and Yang working
through five phases. The scheme drew on a tradition dating back to
the fourth century B.C.E. or possibly even earlier. Its adoption as
the view of the state exercised a paramount influence on China's
subsequent intellectual and political development, and its theme
appears in the work of Han artists from perhaps 50 B.C.E.
The forces of Yin and Yang permeate all aspects of the
spiritual, natural, and animal worlds, accounting for growth and
decay, and being evident in material and abstract forms alike. The
alternation of the two forces were traced in five phases: in the
first two, Yang achieves its zenith and then declines to its point
of origin. The third phase is one of equilibrium; Yang's force is
spent, and has come to rest, while Yin has yet to rise. In the
fourth and fifth phases Yin in her turn rises to her zenith and
then declines. This rhythm underlies the natural and regular
changes of the universe, whether involving the birth and death of
organic creatures, the rise and fall of temporal powers, the waxing
and waning of the moon, or the daily traversing of the sun. Long
before the Han dynasty the Chinese denoted these five phases
symbolically:
- Wood: for Yang rising to his peak
- Fire: for Yang at his full brilliance
- Earth: for the central point of balance
- Metal: for Yin growing to her sharpest point
- Water: for Yin at her most receptive and coldest point.
Because the three estates of heaven, earth, and man are
interconnected, human actions could provoke reactions in heaven
and earth. Heaven regulates the movements of the constellations;
it deputes to its son the power and authority to guide the
activities of man on earth; and the effective exercise of that
authority takes its place as one of the ordered rhythms of the
universe. These rhythms produce the balance and condition of cosmic
harmony. From 31 B.C.E. the practice of sacrifice to heaven by the
emperor lasted until 1915 C.E. From 50 B.C.E. the motif of Yin and
Yang and the Five Elements are represented with increasing
frequency. The animals which symbolized four of the Five appear on
the designs of mirrors and as guardian talismans in tombs. The
individual must conduct his life so as to conform to the order of
the Five. In death the individual must be surrounded by appropriate
symbols which serve to keep her in the proper context, lying in the
proper place, and set in proper direction within the cosmos.
At death the spiritual element (hun) was thought to be
separated from the body. The following citation expresses the fears
that were felt on behalf of the deceased's hun, and the attempt to
induce it to return to the body:
O soul, come back! In the south you cannot stay.
There the people have tattooed faces and blackened teeth;
They sacrifice flesh of men, and pound their bones to paste.
There are coiling snakes there, and the great fox that can run
a hundred leagues,
And the great Nine-headed Serpent who darts swiftly this way
and that,
And swallows men as a sweet relish.
O soul, come back! In the south you may not linger.
....
There are giants there a thousand fathoms tall, who seek
only for souls to catch,
And ten suns that come out together, melting metal, dissolving stone.
The folk that live there can bear it; but you, soul, would be
consumed.
O soul come back! In the east you cannot abide.10
The Book of Songs, an anthology of early Chinese poetry
contains hymns of the Chou kings and apart from being the earliest
poetry in the Chinese language, they have an importance as the
first literary expression of Chinese aesthetics. The hymns are
made up of invocations and confessions addressed to the royal
ancestors, and recitals to the gods of heroic deeds. A sense of the
temple rituals can be seen in the following extracts.
With stately calm and reverent accord,
The ministers and attending knights
Record the virtues of their founding Lord
Our heavenly ministrant, the great King Wen.
O Lord, may you in your great majesty
Find in measured art and formal word
Praise not displeasing from mere mortal men.
Majesty, never ending
Is the Charge of Heaven,
Your virtue descending,
Oh, illustrious King Wen,
Overwhelms with blessing
Your servants on earth.
We have only to receive your favor,
May it be preserved by those who come after.
Our offerings
Of oxen, sheep
We humbly bring.
May from these spring
Heaven's keep
And the favor of the King.
May we always
Fear the wrath of Heaven
So to keep his favor
And our ways even.
To bring peace to the land we must
Follow the precepts of King Wen, and trust
To his statutes, from afar he will watch and approve.
His robes of brightest silk,
His cap encrusted
With precious stones,
The wine so mellow and soft;
He moves without sound
In reverent modesty among
The sacred tripods and the drinking horns;
He moves from Hall to Threshold with measured pace,
And for the aged brings at last the gift of grace..11
In pre-Buddhist China, immortality was to be achieved, if at all,
by an appeal to cosmic forces or by the symbolic use of certain
cosmic patterns. Once Buddhism had taken root, it brought a
different concept: that of personal transformation by means of
spiritual disciplines and devotions, of types previously unknown in
China.
The Myth of the Queen Mother of the West
This myth seems to have influenced Chinese worldview
expressions most strongly at a time well after the acceptance of
the Yin-Yang theory. The emphasis on the narratives of the Queen
Mother and her partners, on her gift of immortality, and on the
meetings of the Weaver and the Oxherd assumes a place among the
series of answers that tried to account for what happens after
death. The Queen Mother of the West features in literature and
iconography from the Chan-kuo period onwards. One version of the
myth begins:
South of the western lake, by the shores of the flowing sands, behind
the Red River and before the Black river, there is a great mountain called "The
heights of K'un-lun." There are spirits there with human faces and the bodies of
tigers, striped and with tails, white in all cases. Below, there are the depths of
the Jo River which encircles the spot. Without, there is the mountain of the
flaming fire, and when an object is cast therein it is immediately burnt. There is
a person who wears a sheng on the head, with the teeth of a tiger and the tail of
a leopard; she dwells in a cave and is named "Queen Mother of the West." On this
mountain there are found all manner of living creatures.12
Of all the attributes of the Queen Mother of the West, perhaps the
sheng, or characteristic headdress is the most important, in so far
as the literary and artistic evidence for this feature combines to
identify certain figures as the Queen.
The suggestion that the Queen Mother of the West became
invested with powers to control the destiny of the cosmos probably
derives from a passage from the Book of Songs:
In Heaven there is a River Han
Looking down upon us so bright.
By it sits the Weaving Lady astride her stool,
Seven times a day she rolls up her sleeves.
But though seven times she roles up her sleeves
She never makes wrap or skirt.
Bright sines that Draught Ox,
But can't be used for yoking to a cart..13
The next reference is later, in one of the "Nineteen Old Poems" of
the Han period.
Far away twinkles the Herd-boy star;
Brightly shines the Lady of the Han River.
Slender, slender she plies her white fingers;
Click, click go the wheels of her spinning loom.
At the end of the day she has not finished her task;
Her bitter tears fall like streaming rain.
The Han River runs shallow and clear;
Set between them, how short a space!
But the river water will not let them pass,
Gazing at each other but never able to speak.14
By the sixth century C.E. the myth appears with greater detail and
some explicit features.
On the seventh day of the seventh month it is the night of the meeting of the
Oxherd and the Weaving Maid. That evening the women of the household reel their
finest silk yarn and thread their seven holed needles, sometimes making their
needles of gold, silver, or copper. They set out tables and mats in the house with
wine, preserves, gourds and fruit, and with these they pray for skill. If a spider
spins his web upon a gourd this is taken as the answering token that their prayers
will be granted.
East of the River of Heaven was the Weaving Maid, daughter of the God of Heaven.
Year by year she toiled at her loom and shuttle, weaving the cloth of Heaven,
embroidered with a pattern of clouds. The God of Heaven took pity on her lonely
state and promised that he would match her with the Oxherd swain from the west side
of the river. But once the two were married the Weaving Maid abandoned her work of
weaving. The God of Heaven grew angry; he charged her with neglect and commanded
her to cross back to where she belonged on the east side of the river; and now only
once a year does she cross the river to meet her swain, on the night of the seventh
day of the seventh month.15
The next form of the myth of the Queen Mother of the West in the
early texts is expressed in this following version:
On K'un-lun there rests a copper pillar whose heights reach unto the very heavens;
it is named the Pillar of Heaven. It is three thousand li wide in girth and it
curls around like unto a crooked knife. Below there are the meandering houses, the
establishments of the nine courts of the immortal beings. Above there is the great
bird whose name is "Seldom seen;" he faces south; he stretches his left wing to
cover the Prince of the East; and he stretches his right wing to cover the Queen
Mother of the West. On the back of the bird there is a small plot that has no
feathers and that is one myriad and nine thousand li large. Once each year the
Queen Mother of the West climbs upon the wing to go unto the Prince of the East...
An inscription that is engraved for the bird says: "The bird `Seldom seen'
flashes brightly in emerald and scarlet hues; he sings not neither does he eat; in
the east he covers the Prince of the East, in the west he covers the Queen Mother
of the West. When the Queen Mother desires to go east, she climbs upon the bird
and herself makes her passage. Yin and Yang are then partnered together, and only
when the twain do meet is their work fully accomplished.16
Compare now the stages in the development with a modern
compilation of the myth:
It was said that Weaving Maid was the daughter of a celestial god, and tht
she could weave exquisite colorful clouds on her loom. These clouds would change
colors according to the time and season of the year and they were called "celestial
garments." She had six sisters who were also engaged in weaving.
On the west bank of the Silver River lived Cowherd who had lost his parents
when he was a mere child. He lived with his older brother and sister-in-law but
they finally chased him out of the house, allowing him to take nothing but an old
cow. He was able to make a simple living, but his days were lonely.
One day, the old cow suddenly opened her mouth and began to talk like a
human. She told him that Weaving Maid and other fairy maidens would soon come to
the Silver River to bathe themselves and, if he could snatch away her clothes while
they were bathing, she would become his wife. The startled Cowherd did as he was
told and hid himself in a clump of reeds near the Silver River, waiting for the
fairy maidens to arrive. After a short while, Weaving Maid and her sisters did
arrive. After they had taken off their silk gowns and jumped into the river.
Cowherd rushed out among the reeds and snatched Weaving Maid's clothes. The fairy
maidens, taken by surprise, dashed onto the bank, put on their clothes and flew
away like little birds. All, that is, except one, who was left behind, unable to
come out of the river. Cowherd told her that he would not return her clothes until
she agreed to become his wife. Weaving Maid modestly nodded her head in agreement.
After the marriage, the wife did weaving, the husband farmed the land and
they lived a happy and loving life. Soon, a daughter and a son were added to their
family and they lived peacefully together until the whole affair became known to
Weaving Maid's father, who was enraged that his own daughter had married a mortal
and ordered her brought back to heaven.
The whole family was saddened by this news and, when Weaving Maid was
abducted, Cowherd gave chase with the children in two baskets hung from each end
of a pole across his shoulder. However, when he arrived at the bank of the Silver
River, it had already been raised up into the sky together with his wife. The
Silver River (Milky Way) flowed with the same shimmering blue, but now high up in
the sky.
Cowherd and his children were desperately disappointed after this failure.
For the second time, then, the old cow talked to him: "I am going to die very
soon. After I die, you may strip off my skin. Wrap it around your body and you can
ascend to heaven." The cow passed away after saying this, and Cowherd wrapped the
skin around himself and flew up to heaven, carrying his children in the baskets on
the pole. When he reached the Silver River, he saw Weaving Maid on the opposite
shore. Just at that moment, however, it turned into a wide and raging river,
impossible for anyone to cross.
Weaving Maid's father, touched by the love of this family, finally decided
to allow Cowherd and Weaving Maid to meet once each year on the seventh day of the
seventh lunar month. On that day, all the magpies in the world would form
themselves into a bridge, and husband and wife would meet on it.
From then on, Cowherd and his children lived in heaven on one side of the
Silver River, Weaving Maid on the other. To this day, we can see the Cowherd Star
(Altair) on one side of the Silver River and the Weaving Maid Star (Vega) on the
other shore.17
Burton Watson argued that "the great majority of Chinese in
ancient times unquestionably felt a profound attachment to their
native region, the place where their ancestors were buried and
where they themselves prayed to be buried in turn.... A Chinese
could not help feeling that he was moving away from all that was
good and beautiful in life as he moved away from the geographical
centers of traditional learning and culture."18 With respect to the
classical T'ang poets (seventh and eighth centuries C.E.) the bond
between literature and politics was strong and in more than one
way. The poet was usually a public servant and expected to
demonstrate the skills of a man of letters. The literary official's
first appointments were usually in the distant praovinces, but he
would usually succeed in obtaining a position near one of the
imperial centers: "assignment to outlying areas does occur...as
punishment."19 Even the great poet Li Po and the famous Tu Fu were
exiled at one time or another. The more heinous the offense, the
further south they would be sent, where they would experience the
discomfort of the heat and cultural deprivation.
The pact with nature would be broken and Liu Ch'ang-ch'ing,
for example, bemoans his separation:
The sky is cold at cassia holm, but cassi flowers are sprouting.
There is no place herein not fit for dejection.
Strangers from the Chiang look at each other, their tears like rain.20
Tu Fu expressed his homesickness in "Lament by the River":
A man who has feelings must weep upon his breast.
But you, river waters, river flowers, do you never care?
In the evening the Tatar cavalry fill the city with dust.
As I go to the southern city, I gaze longingly to the north.21
In "Moonlight Night," which he wrote in 756 C.E. Tu Fu imprisoned
in Ch'ang-an thought on his wife:
From her room in Fu-chou tonight
All alone she watches the moon.
Far away I grieve that her children
Can't understand why she thinks of Ch'ang-an.
Fragrant mist in her cloud hair damp,
Clear lucence on her jade arms cold --
When will we lean by chamber curtains
And let it light the two of us, our tear stains dried?22
The poet's link with the moon, clouds, or stars can assume a number
of implications. There are times when it is difficult to determine
whether the willow tree, the pine, the lotus blossom, in the rich
tradition of Chinese nature poetry, evokes solidarity with the
harmonious cosmos or the contemplation of isolated beauty.
Liu Tsung-yuan (seventh century) wrote landscape essays and nature
poems in which the object in its self-enclosed being, may be read
as correlate of isolation, remoteness, and fractured experience.
Late blooming (bananas) at the end of the year,
Glossy green cherishing vermilion rays--
Here, in this southern summer hue.
Deep and delicate, purer than pure frost,
Distant things are what the world admires.
The traveler's heart alone feels the pain.
The reflecting sun gazes at the rim of the woods,
Grieving, grieving, no blossoms left behind.23
In such poems the negative tensions of separation from one's native
place are voiced: flowing rivers and dew-wet flowers signify the
insensitivity of the world to the poet's dislocation. The yearning,
the confessional posture, the personal notes illustrate Chinese
worldview expression.
The Chinese created the image of the laughing pot-bellied
Buddha that is found in most Chinese Buddhist temples.23 The
laughing Buddhas of China illustrate what the Zen masters taught:
We could not care less what the Buddha himself was like or what he
taught.
Mo-tze gave two essential reasons for his insistence on
universal love. The first argument, found in chapter four of his
book, states:
Motse said: To accomplish anything whatsoever one must have standards. ... Thus
all artisans follow the standards in their work. Now the government of the empire
and that of the large states do not observe their standards. This shows the
governors are even less intelligent than the artisans.
What, then, should be taken as the proper standard in government? How will it
do for everybody to imitate his parents? There are numerous parents in the world
but few are magnanimous. For everybody to imitate his parents is to imitate the
unmagnanimous. Imitating the unmagnanimous cannot be said to be following the
proper standard.
How will it do for everybody to follow his teacher? There are numerous
teachers....
How will it do for everybody to imitate his ruler? There are many
rulers....So then neither the parents nor the teacher nor the ruler should be
accepted as the standard in government.
What then should be taken as the standard in government? Nothing better than
following Heaven. Heaven is all-inclusive and impartial in its activities,
abundant and unceasing in its blessings, and lasting and untiring in its guidance.
And so, when the sage-kings had accepted Heaven as their standard, they measured
every action and enterprise by Heaven. What Heaven desired they would carry out,
what Heaven abominated they refrained from.
Now what is it that Heaven desires and what does it abominate? Certainly
Heaven desires to have men benefit and love one another and abominates to have them
hate and harm one another. How do we know that Heaven desires to have men love and
benefit one another and abominates to have them hate and harm one another? Because
it loves and benefits men universally.25
Huai-nan-tze summarized the views of Confucius, Mo-Tze and
Yang-tze this way:
The orchestra, drum and dance for the performance of music; obeisances and
bowing for the cultivation of good manners; generous expenditure in funerals and
protracted mourning for the obsequies of the dead: these were what Confucius
established and were condemned by Mo-tze. Universal love, exaltation of the
worthy, assistance to the spirits and anti-fatalism: these were what Mo-tze
established, aand were condemned by Yang-tze. Completeness of living, preservation
of what is genuine, and not allowing outside things to entangle one's person: these
were what Yang-tze established and were condemned by Mencius.
Mencius summarized,"Yang's principle as, Each one for himself, which is to be
without (the allegiancce due to) a sovereign. Mo's principle is universal love,
which is to be without (the peculiar affection for) a father. Without sovereign and
without father: this is to be the same as a beast." (IIIb:9,9)
The Taoist worldview is expressed in its primary myth, the Tao
te Ching. Let us consider some elements in its composition as
illustrating both the problems and rewards of trying to understand
this Eastern worldview based on its expressions.
Like the Bible, the Tao Te Ching grew out of a transition
between oral culture and a writing and reading culture. Thus the
work is probably a compilation of oral traditions. This explains
some features of the Tao Te Ching. The work consists of eighty-one
brief, numbered "chapters," usually divided into two books (1-37;
38-81), but arranged without any obvious ordering principle. Each
chapter consists of three or more short sayings, each of which
could stand alone.
For example:
People begin life Soft and Weak
when they are dead they
are hard and firm.
Among the thousands of things:
Grass and trees being life Soft and tender
when they are dead they are withered and brittle.
Yes, strength and hardness accompany death
Softness and Weakness accompany life.
And so:
With a battle axe too hardened, you cannot win
when a tree becomes hard, then comes the axe.
The strong and the great stand lowest
the Soft and Weak stand highest.
(74[76])
Probable Origin of the Tao Te Ching
The majority of scholars today situate the Tao Te Ching's
origins in the Warring States period (463-222 B.C.E.) of Chinese
history. The people of that time believed in a hierarchical
society, an empire presided over by a single emperor at the top.
Next came the class of nobles who presided feudally over smaller
states. The base was made up of the peasants. But at this time
there was mobility both up and down and social status and power
came to depend less on birth than on ambition and struggle.
Out of this situation a new class called shih, drawn from the
downwardly mobile, dispossessed nobility, and the upwardly mobile
peasants. Traditionally, shih had served in minor roles as soldiers
and scribes, but as states grew in complexity and rulers could not
rely on fellow nobles for support, the powerful came more and more
to rely on shih to strengthen their power bases.
Within this class of shih was a smaller group which Michael
Lafargue26 calls shih idealists. It was this small group, Lafargue
argues, who are responsible for the Tao Te Ching. The Mencius, a
book almost contemporary with the Tao Te Ching provides a detailed
picture of such individual's conception of themselves and the
leadership role to which they aspired. They offered a new basis
for Chinese culture and politics, but in the person of people like
themselves. They thus emphasize a cult of self. But this differs
from developing "virtue" in a Western sense. It involves a
complete internationlization, so that the personal qualities
cultivated become part of one's impulses. This is expressed in the
saying attributed to Confucius: "At fifteen I set my heart on
learning; at thirty I attained a firm position...at seventy I
followed my heart's desire without overstepping the line."
(Analects 2,4)