Asian Religions, page 4
Figure 2.1 “Travelers among mountains and streams” by Fan Kuan 范寬 (fl. 990–1020). National Palace Museum, Taipei. © Corbis.
Recall that the Chinese word for “language,” 文 wen, refers specifically to writing, the heart of Chinese culture. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty (the last of the imperial dynasties), paper containing writing could not be disposed of idly – to trample on written words was a punishable offense.
Chinese written characters are a cultural unifier. Because they are pictographic rather than phonetic, they mean the same however they might be pronounced.3 Using our earlier example, even if two businessmen from Hong Kong and Beijing are unable to communicate orally, they can simply write a letter or email in Chinese and be readily understood. They will “sound out” their communication in their own languages (or dialects), but the meaning will be the same regardless of what the characters sound like in the mind's ear. Throughout Chinese history, written communication has made linguistic diversity irrelevant to social cohesion and political rule. The common written language has allowed China to remain unified for more than two millennia; because of its written language, China is the oldest extant culture in the world.
Sanskrit is the classical language of India. While not strictly a “dead” language (like Latin), it is a spoken language for only a tiny few communities in India; principally it is the priestly language of religious scriptures. The written script of Sanskrit has been adopted in almost all of the Indo-Aryan languages, including Hindi, the official language of India. Like the Roman alphabet (and, obviously, in contrast to Chinese), this system is phonetic: each symbol represents a sound. The script is called, in Sanskrit, devanāgarī, “the script of the gods.” A Sanskrit dictionary is organized in a way that emphasizes the symbols' sounds: 11 vowels followed by 33 consonants. The sound corresponding to the first letter – equivalent to the English a but pronounced more like a-u or the ou- in the word “out” – is formed at the back of the throat and comes from deep within one's vocal range. Similarly, the first of the consonants, an unaspirated k (it is not breathed but vocalized, and resembles the English sound of a hard g), also begins at the back of the throat. The last letter of the Sanskrit alphabet is like an m – it is the last because it is formed at the front of the mouth, that is, with the lips. So, by representing all the sounds that can be made by the human voice, beginning at the back of the throat and ending with the lips, Sanskrit represents the oral basis of language – and of culture.
When a Hindu yogin (that is, a practitioner of yoga) meditates on the sound om (or, more accurately, aum), as represented in Figure 2.2, he or she is beginning at the back of the throat and ending at the front of the mouth – vocalizing, in abbreviated form, all of the sounds that the voice can produce. This is believed to replicate the sounds of the gods, the sounds of the cosmos.
Figure 2.2 The Sanskrit word om, composed of the first and last letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, and thus representing “all of the sounds of the universe.”
This oral basis of Indian languages, and especially of their root language, Sanskrit, illustrates that India is primarily an oral and aural culture. For centuries, the scriptures of Hinduism were not even written down at all, but passed on from teacher to student, generation after generation. To be a student requires being in the presence of a teacher, and to be a devotee or a worshipper requires invoking and being in the presence of a god. In Sanskrit this is called darśan. It means “being present” or “being in direct contact” – Hindus talk about “giving” or “receiving” darśan. In Buddhism, a disciple is an upāsaka (male, a monk) or an upāsikā (female, a nun), one who “sits at the feet” of one's teacher. Both Hinduism and Buddhism emphasize this immediate and intimate relationship between teacher and student.
Just as China is primarily a visual culture, based on its pictographic written system, India is primarily an oral/aural culture, based on its phonetic written system. So much follows from this. Whereas Chinese education emphasizes reading and writing, classical Indian education emphasizes hearing and reciting. Whereas Chinese arts are primarily two-dimensional (painting and calligraphy), Indian arts are primarily three-dimensional (sculpture and architecture – as well as music, which moves three-dimensionally through space). Whereas Chinese culture is vertically oriented (moving through time, with a conception of history that is linear), Indian culture is spatially oriented (moving through space, with a conception of history that is circular). For India, the universe has no beginning or end, but “vibrates” and “hums” like a spinning wheel. The idea of “creation” in Hinduism (an idea we will explore later in this book) entails an originating sound, the thrumming of a drum.4 In short, China is a culture of the eyes, of what can be seen; India is a culture of the ears, of what can be heard.
To be sure, Indian influence on China has been significant, but always exotic and foreign. China did not develop sculptural arts until it imported Buddhism, and the most accomplished forms of Chinese sculpture are Buddhist statuary. Moreover, the tradition of recitation of scripture, which is now very common in China and Japan, came from India. Indeed, the emphasis on sound is so important in Buddhism that the chanting of scripture is more religiously important than its meaning. Recitation alone has spiritual efficacy, regardless of whether or not the devotee knows the meaning of what he or she is reciting. Recall our discussion in the last chapter about belief: belief, which requires understanding the meaning of words, is relatively unimportant when it comes to Buddhist practice, even though it is religious texts – scriptures – that are being recited.
Throughout this book we will examine terms in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Japanese, and we will often have to leave them untranslated – as they entail a cluster of meanings that can be used to explain them. Here too, knowing the etymology of terms (their origins and structure) will be beneficial to understanding their religious significance. While I have reproduced in this book the terms as they are actually written, we will also see and discuss them in Romanized or transcribed form, in order to help with pronunciation. But bear in mind that, from a Chinese, Indian, or Japanese point of view, our Roman alphabet also looks foreign and exotic. In fact English words are often used because they are “eye-catching” and “modern,” sometimes without concern for their meaning. I have a marvellous collection of t-shirts that I have purchased over the years with all kinds of strange English words and phrases, some unintentionally humorous. One of my goals in this book is to take the “strangeness” out of the religious language of Asia and to penetrate religious teachings and practices through the terms that they themselves employ.
Notes
1 For these and other data, see http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp (accessed August 29, 2013).
2 Why is the official language called “Mandarin”? In English, “mandarin” was the old name for a Chinese official – it was a term coined in the British colonial period. It is a direct translation of the Chinese word guan (官), which designates an official of the imperial court. Indeed, the old name in Chinese for this dialect was guan-hua (官話), “the language of the officials.” They needed a common dialect to be able to communicate with one another, since they had come to court from different parts of the country and thus had different native tongues. Today Chinese people simply refer to Mandarin as the “common” language.
3 A small number of Chinese characters have a phonetic element. However, these “phonetic lexigraphs” represent fewer than 5% of all Chinese characters.
4 Contrast this with the Abrahamic traditions (Christianity is especially “visual” in orientation), which conceive of creation as an originating light.
Part II
The Confucian Tradition
3
Defining “Religion”
The Confucian Response
The first test of our definition of religion is Confucianism. Ask any ordinary Chinese, Japanese, or Korean (residents of the East Asian cultural area), and they are likely first to deny that they are “Confucian” and second to deny that “Confucianism” is a religion! There is an historical reason for this: the very idea of religion as a general category, which could be applied to a multiplicity of diverse cultural traditions, is relatively new in East Asia and was imported from the West. In fact the English word “religion” is one of the few foreign words that were first translated into Japanese and only then into Chinese. This is unusual, because most of the major religious concepts of East Asia first arose in India or China, and then were transmitted to Korea and Japan. In seeking a translation of the English word religion, Japanese scholars of the nineteenth century coined the word shūkyō (宗教); it was adopted by Chinese scholars only later, with the same characters, and pronounced zongjiao in Mandarin.1
Why would the Chinese be reluctant to define Confucianism as a religion? And why would most Japanese, even today, describe themselves as mushūkyō (無宗教), “non-religious”? It is not because they are not religious in our understanding of the word “religion,” but rather because they understand religion as shūkyō (宗教), a term that literally means “institutional teaching” or “school of instruction” and connotes a religious “sect,” institution, or organization (such as a Buddhist monastery or a Protestant seminary). Since Confucianism is pervasive and diffused – it is the air that Chinese and Japanese breathe, as opposed to a “church” that one joins – Chinese and Japanese do not see Confucianism as a religious entity.
This discussion is further complicated by the fact that not only Chinese and Japanese deny the “religious status” of Confucianism, but so do many Western scholars of religion! Here are some reasons why:
Confucianism does not have a specific founder or date of founding, even though it appears to be named after a single individual (Confucius).
Confucianism does not profess belief in God. In fact a major stream of Confucianism denies the existence of gods altogether.
Confucians venerate or respect ancestral spirits without “worshipping” them. It is a common misdescription of Chinese religion to refer to it as “ancestor worship.”
Confucians generally see belief as having less importance than practice. Confucianism emphasizes orthopraxy (right action) over orthodoxy (right belief).
Confucianism does not have a closed canon. Confucian texts continue to be written and to be incorporated into the historical tradition.
Confucianism has no specific institutional identity. There is no Confucian “pope” and no religious headquarters or governing body.
Confucianism has no fixed religious services and can be practiced anywhere, from shrines and temples to private studies and mountain peaks.
Rather than saying that these are “criteria” for what a religion is – and concluding that Confucianism is not a religion – it may make more sense to conclude that they are unserviceable criteria, in other words that our understanding of “religion” needs to be broadened so as to include the Confucian tradition. By our definition of religion from Chapter 1, we can say confidently that Confucianism aims toward the ultimate transformation of self and society and provides the means for achieving perfection in Confucian terms. Confucian norms and values permeate East Asian cultures to the core – even in Communist China, which explicitly repudiated Confucianism during its revolutionary period but has now embraced Confucianism as the highest expression of Chinese cultural identity.
Confucian Cultures in East Asia
The English word “Confucianism” is a relatively late invention (one scholar has found no occurrence of the term before 1687), and Confucius himself was not known in Europe until Jesuit missionaries visited China in the 1600s. The Christian missionaries saw a strong link between the cultural values that they observed among Chinese officials and the classical texts attributed to Confucius and his followers, so they named this tradition Confucianism.2
Interestingly, the word Confucianism does not exist in the Chinese language. Of course, there is the name “Confucius” – pronounced in Chinese Kongfuzi (孔夫子), “the Grand Master or Great Teacher surnamed Kong” (our word “Confucius” is a Latinized, imperfect representation of “Kongfuzi”). But there is no “religion of Kong,” no 孔教, Kong-jiao in Chinese, and in a very real sense the tradition we are discussing in this chapter has no name. This is partly because Confucian values and behaviors pre-date Confucius himself. Confucius' contribution was to collect, organize, and highlight the beliefs and practices that had been definitive of his culture for several centuries. He is recorded as saying: “I transmit but do not create. I place my trust in the teachings of antiquity.”3 As a transmitter or systematizer of values, Confucius was certainly important, but the values and behaviors of Confucianism were central to Chinese culture even before the beginning of recorded history, some one thousand years before Confucius. Neither Confucius nor his followers considered the First Sage to be a religious founder.
The terms that are more specifically related to Confucianism in Chinese are Ru jia (儒家), Ru jiao (儒教), or Ru xue (儒學) – the Ru school, the Ru tradition, or Ru studies. In Confucius' time, the Ru (儒) were “scholars,” but at a much earlier date, 1000 bce or before, the Chinese character Ru referred to religious priests or shamans who were ritual experts – masters of religious music and dance – especially skilled in summoning good spirits, exorcising evil spirits, and bringing rain and other blessings. By the time of Confucius, the Ru were also historians, because the shamanic rituals of the past had fallen into disuse and were known only from the historical records. Confucius was an exemplary Ru scholar, as he was especially interested in cultural history (the history of music, dance, and other arts) and in ritual. One of his major contributions was to codify and advance the ritual traditions of the early Zhou Dynasty. Consequently “Confucianism” refers to all of the values and practices of the Ru tradition; it does not refer simply to the “religion of Confucius.”
For Chinese, then, Confucianism is the general term for the religious and ethical ideals, values, and behaviors that have shaped Chinese culture for the past three to four thousand years. These include:
the veneration of ancestors;
education in history and culture (poetry, music, painting, and calligraphy);
the cultivation of harmonious, hierarchical relations in one's family and social life; and
the grounding of moral teachings and ethical principles in a religious or cosmic reality.
These are Confucian behaviors and values in the sense that Confucians value them, and not because Confucius “invented” them. In fact they are so much part of the “cultural DNA” of East Asians (a phrase coined by Bill Moyers in a PBS interview with Tu Weiming)4 that most people would not recognize them as “Confucian” – they are simply “our” values, practices, and commitments, which have been with us for centuries.
Originating in China, the Confucian cultural sphere extends throughout East Asia. Figure 3.1 shows four waves of Chinese cultural influence: a first wave to Southeast Asia (especially Vietnam), in the first centuries of the Common Era; a second wave to Korea and Japan, beginning in the fourth century but having its greatest impact from the eighth century onward; a third wave to Hong Kong (here singled out because of its admixture of Western cultural influences during the 150 years of British colonial rule); and a fourth wave to Taiwan, one of the provinces of China but now functioning autonomously: because of the disruption of tradition brought about by China's revolutionary period after the “Liberation” of 1949, Taiwan is often regarded as a repository of traditional Confucian values. The history of this cultural migration is fascinating in itself, but it is beyond the scope of this book. What the map indicates is that today “Confucianism” is not in any way limited to China but is the underlying religious system of the East Asian cultural region as a whole. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam (not to mention Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines, all of which have large Chinese communities that have brought Confucian values with them) – all can be described as Confucian cultures.
Figure 3.1 China's cultural diaspora: Confucian cultures in East Asia.
The Confucian Program
There are many adequate biographies of Confucius in English, and I will not repeat one here. Moreover, as we have seen, Confucianism is not limited to the teachings of Confucius. The troubles that the Confucian tradition was facing and responding to were not unique to his time or that of his immediate followers (the sixth and fifth century bce), but may simply be basic to the human condition:
warfare and strife, driven by selfish, greedy, and acquisitive impulses;
disharmony in families and communities, caused by interpersonal conflict and social inequalities;
religious and moral decline (has there ever been a time in history when prophetic voices, like those of Moses, Socrates, or Confucius, did not warn that things were getting progressively worse – and haven't they usually been right?);
the manipulation of religious beliefs and values for political gain;
a fracturing of the world while religion is trying to hold things together (legere, the Latin verb that religio derives from, means “to bind together”).
These problems, certainly with their specific forms at the time of Confucius and the early Confucian tradition, are with us in the present day. So the Confucian solution, the Confucian prescription for an ultimate transformation, should be of real interest to us today – whether or not we are of Chinese, Korean, or Japanese ancestry. Indeed there are some non-Asian Westerners who see in Confucianism a viable alternative to Western religious responses to the crises of our age.
