Social Theory in the Balance of Intercivilizational Dialogue
A Brief Anthology of Chinese Intellectual Thought
By: Seyed Javad Meynagh
Copyright: LONDON ACADEMY OF IRANIAN STUDIES
Table of Contents Preface
Seek Knowledge as far as China. (Prophet Muhammad)
It is always complex to conceptualize metaphysical, philosophical, social theoretical and intellectual questions. But this complexity becomes even more difficult when we attempt to focus on other societies than the one we are familiar with, without knowing the language of a particular culture or society. In this work, which is not a very scholarly one I have tried to give an account of China based on my own encounter through discussions with Chinese professors and students who could speak English and were kind enough to translate pieces for me, which ultimately provided me with enough material to put this essay together within the frame of intercivilizational dialogue. In other words, I have not given here an account on China based on profound scholarship but my own observations and dialogue with students and professors at Hunan and Harbin Universities respectively. Besides these conversations I tried to make extensive travels around China, which enabled me to capture something about the real people who make up the spirit of Chinese intellection, which is of great significance for intercivilizational dialogue generally and Indo-Iran (Turkey and Muslim thinkers) particularly. The reason I would like to publish this work is not the scholarly nature of this work, which I think it is next to nothing but the sentiment that it contains, namely a closer relationship between China, India, and Iran (and Muslim world in general) in this new century that hopefully will put an end to long-standing cruel colonialism of England, Russia, France, Germany and America. To overcome the colonialism of secular modernity we need to forge real alliances based on affinities that have been left to us by our ancestors. However those who can forge profound alliances are not politicians but people who know the nature of metaphysics that is expressed through religious sensibilities. I have tried to give a very personal account of my journey to China, which lacks the rigours of scientific analyses. In my view, Sinologists and Orientalists have produced vast literatures, which are of great importance for those who are interested in China or Orient along other motives but my own attempt is based on constructing an intellectual space for dialogue among Chinese, Indian, Iranian (and Muslims) and to certain extend and Russian thinkers and philosophers for this century that is surely the epoch of the people of the Third World. Last but not least, I would like to mention the metaphysical reason in choosing China as a Muslim intellectual for exploration. As any kid born into a Muslim family, the first thing I learned about China was through the golden saying of Prophet Muhammad, namely seek knowledge even in China. Later on in life I realized that the concept of ‘ilm’ is, to say the least, different than ‘secular’ understanding of science, as the former is more integral and existentially related to the whole of human practice qua insan or human being. To paraphrase Nagarjuna’s word, the limit of ‘ilm (knowledge) is the limit of the everyday world. In other words, the concept had fundamental implications for Muslim philosophical models of causation, substance ontology, epistemology, God, Self, conceptualizations of language, ethics and theories of world-liberating salvation, and proved seminal even for religious philosophies in India, Tibet, China and Japan very different from the Islamic own. Indeed it would not be an overstatement to say that Islam’s innovative concept of ‘ilm, though it was hermeneutically appropriated in many different ways by subsequent philosophers globally, was to profoundly influence the character of religious thought anthropologically, psychologically, sociologically, politically, theosophically, and in one word ideologically. Having this in mind, I assumed that if the idea of knowledge is related to redemption and the Prophet has encouraged us to seek it even in China, then again, I presume, to say the least, a glimpse of it must be in China and for this reason I attempted to travel there in person in order to acquire some. In following Prophet upon this saying I learned few things which I would like to share with you here in brief. I realized that wisdom is not a property of one singular nation or people but a universal reality, which could be found anywhere regardless of geography or race. Secondly I realized that if I am to acquire this wisdom from others I need to learn it from the other, which, in turn, it means I need to enter into a dialogue with the other respectfully in the spirit of education. Thirdly I realized that the sayings of the Prophet demonstrate their impressing magnitude when one applies them in all spheres of one’s existence tirelessly. In other words, I tried to imagine that I am sitting next to the Prophet and asking him about knowledge and this saying is personally addressed to me here and now. I wanted to see for myself in practice how these words work for me in this world here and now. In these words there are wonders and awes for those who take the sacred words for what they Are, i.e. spiritually transformative, cognitively enlightening and practically uplifting.
Setting the Scene: Genealogies and Possibilities
The question of conflict is one of the most perplexing issues that lie at the heart of any intercivilizational theoretical attempt. If one argues that the alpha and omega of intercivilizational theory is dialogue then what needs to be tackled in order to achieve a dialogical mode of coexistence globally as well as existentially is the question of ‘Conflict’. In other words, how best conflict could be overcome and peace restored within our communally global state of affairs. This is a question that any intercivilizationalist intellectual, as perceptively been alluded by Seyyed M. Xatami, should profoundly attend to. This intellectual attention could be cast into various fields of inquiry such as films, art, science, technology, poetry, literature, sign language, and great many other cultural products or even in the realm of religion. The debate could be additionally conducted between various cultural units. Here I would like to look at the question of social theory in the light of intercivilizational dialogue within the Chinese intellectual context. The contemporary historiographers of social sciences, as I have already mentioned elsewhere, have been deeply oblivious to the multi-polarity nature of human thought, which sadly affected the very essence of the emerging global system that has come deeply to shape our very terrestrial existence recently. However this is not to deny the very long history of intercivilizational intellectuals that have enriched our understanding about the very question of social and philosophical thinking prior to disciplinarization of thought that has brought great many kinds of myopic visions of reality. Briefly speaking one should start from Abu Reyhan Biruni, who was the first founder of intercivilizational intellectual dialogue through his approach to the question of ‘existential ground’ among Hindus. Al-Shahrestani is another thinker, who looked at the question of ‘existential ground’ among various denominations. In recent time we have had great many others, who followed in the footsteps of Biruni such as Dariush Shayegan (the Iranian philosopher, who has been working on intercivilizational issues since early fifties), Pitrim Sorokin, who did not confine the realm of social theory to disciplinary borders of reflection. The most recent example of this approach is Ayatullah Seyyed M. Xatami from Iran, who has proposed a theoretical framework for intercivilizational dialogue based on religious intellection. But it would be a grave mistake to think of intercivilizational dialogue only in terms of Islamic, Hindu or even disciplinary (secular) tradition, as the scope of intellectual tradition of humanity is more diverse and complex than what one might initially be able to comprehend. In this essay I would present a brief history of Chinese intellectual tradition, which hopefully would shatter the narrow understanding of disciplinary deans of social sciences and philosophy, which confine the vast complexity of human intellectual thought to secular modernity.
By focusing on Chinese context I am not suggesting that the practice of intercivilizational dialogue and the very subsequent intellectual engagement that it entails should be confined to one civilizational unit. On the contrary one should, for instance, take India with her complex religio-intellectual backgrounds into dialogical account as, for instance, Sufism in its higher form could prove very engaging for intellectuals, who look for common denominators among Iran, China, India, Russia (Sufism in Russia is of great intercivilizational dialogical significance) and Euro-America and finally the globe. These are issues, which need the attention of religious intellectuals of all traditions as Gnostic inclinations are not confined to geography or determined by politics. These are complex issues and the field has not grown into maturity yet but the attempts done by great many religious thinkers are promising and should encourage others to embark on this path of soul-discovery too. One of the most delicate questions that sadly are treated less seriously is the question of human self in relation to philosophy of life or to put it otherwise the importance of religion in the constitution of self and society. The disciplinary thinkers have become accustomed to consider religion in the context of Reformation and its aftermath without realizing the complexities of religious dynamism in the world of human reality. Syed Farid Alattas, for instance, has alluded to the problem of disciplinary thought in relation to religion, which is of profound intercivilizational significance. I would like to provide an illustration of the problem of disciplinary thought with recourse to the example of the concept of religion. This concerns the translation of cultural terms such as religion into scientific concepts. Social scientific concepts originate from cultural terms in everyday language. As such they present problems when brought into scientific discourse and used to talk about areas and periods outside of those of their origins. The result is a distortion of the phenomena that they are applied to.
The Latin religio, from which the English term religion is derived, was a collective term referring to diverse practices and cults in and around Rome, prior to the emergence of Christianity. When Rome became Christian, Christianity became the dominant belief and all other beliefs were absorbed or eliminated. But religio not applied to Christianity as there was no need to - it was the only legitimate belief, so it was just known as the Church. With Luther and the Protestant Reformation religio referred to Christian beliefs and a way of life separate from the institution of the Catholic Church. It was oppositional to the clergy, that is, it was the layman’s religion.
In 1593, the French philosopher, Jean Bodin published his Colloquium Heptaplomeres (Colloquium of the Seven about the Secrets of the Sublime). Here there was a generalized understanding of religion and included non-Christian faiths. By the 18th century "religion" came to be used as a scientific concept, referring to belief systems other than Christianity.
But while "religion" meant all beliefs, when European scholars wrote about religion critically, they had in mind Protestantism (as in Marx's reference to religion as the opium of the intellectuals) or the institutional religion (Catholicism) as opposed to the religion of the believers (Protestants).
When "religion" is applied to beliefs other than Christianity, for example, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism or Hinduism, there is an implicit or explicit comparison with Christianity, which results in an elision of reality. According to Alattas, the logic of comparison is such that the two things to be compared are subsumed under a third unit, which is at a higher unit of abstraction. For example, apples and pears are subsumed under fruits. "Fruits" becomes the tertium comparationis. Similarly, Christianity and Islam are subsumed under religion. The problem with this is that the characteristics of religion are derived from Christianity to begin with. Therefore, the supposedly general scientific concept "religion" is culturally defined by Christianity and Islam is looked at in terms of Christianity rather than compared to Christianity in terms of a tertium comparationis, a general concept "religion". Besides the very idea of Christianity has been fathomed under influence of what one might call the process of constriction in contrast to expansion.
What reality is lost, what is the distortion done to universal idea of transcendence? Religion as it is understood in the West is a private matter as opposed to state and church. Therefore there are such dualities as sacred versus profane, religious versus non-religious, and so on. Also, religion in West refers to the beliefs and private lives of believers. The danger is that Islam, for instance, is also seen in these terms when in fact there are no such dualities. For example, there is no distinction between secular and religious education. All knowledge and education is either about God or the creations of God.
Another example comes from the application of the concept of religion to Hinduism. A case in point is the study of Hinduism. The term "Hindu" was first used in the eighth century to refer to people who lived on the other side of the Sindhus or Indus River on the Indian sub-continent, a name which was imposed from the outside to encompass a wide variety of beliefs over a vast area of land. It originally had geographical connotations, which had been undergoing transformation since. The adherents of such beliefs did not always consider themselves as belonging to a single religious entity that we now know as Hinduism. Yet many textualist and essentialist studies of Hinduism, such as that of Max Weber, subscribed to such constructed myths.
These problems are of deep importance for those who are attempting to reshape the cultures of globe in the spirit of dialogue among civilizations. The purpose behind such an approach lies in the need to educate people about the multicultural origins of our contemporary globe, about the contributions of the Muslims, Indians and Chinese to modern Europe, about the positive aspects of all these civilizations, and about the common values and problems that humanity shares. Analysis is an important tool but illumination should not be neglected as both are of importance to the constitution of healthy self and harmonious society.
In other words, the intercivilizational dialogue is an extension of the concept of Tree in world religions where it is associated with Wisdom and Knowledge, for example, the revered Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. In this design one can realize that like a tree with many branches human civilizations are of great many branches but what unite all them together is the root, which without no tree, no matter how majestic it is would ever last. In this essay we cannot develop all the aspects of dialogue but will touch upon one single dimension, which would enable us to move forward in intellectually rewarding manner.
In any anthology there is a moment of arbitrariness that relates to the man who makes the choice of selecting out of a vast numbers of candidates. As the word anthology itself suggests, i.e. a collection of selected intellectual or literary works or excerpts this work could not but be incomplete in its demonstrative dimension but this should not be discouraging to those who have conviction in the power of dreams and visions and dialogue. Dialogue is a dream and men of dream are short in supply but they, nonetheless are. Their are-ness is not a matter of incident or accident but roots in the soil of Existenz and true expression of Vujud, which without the sky of humanity would look very gloomy indeed in our dark time. But exactly in times of darkness one should expect the emergence of men who dream while they are awake and sing one eternal song: Mis estimados or Do not lose heart. Because in a dark time eye begins to see and the heart starts to cherish the value of light. The religious taste at the heart of intercivilizational dialogue is like a Voyage in the dark by Jean Rhys, who is dealing with an estranged world and this estrangement could not be overcome unless by spirits who carry visions of The Beyond.
The climate has turned very nasty in the globe, with snowstorms of bigotry, hatred, ignorance, and enmity pounding the mountains of intellect, reason, love, kindness and truth. But there is still hope and planting the seeds of dialogue in the form of ideas is a sign of hope in the face of unknown. What is unknown? It is the path of discovery and a repository of becoming or unconscious turned conscious, myth turned reality; ideals aspired by those who, in the face of danger dare to walk the untrodden path and become a beacon of light in the stormy dark night of humanity. This path is like a universe with all its galaxies and a sky full of stars that are visible to those who endure the night and take on the pain of looking up and not always concerned with looking down.
The question of civilizations and the centres of intercivilizational importance are issues that should draw the attentions of intellectuals, who are interested in the meaning of religion in its universal sense and eager to preserve the ideals of tradition and orthodoxy in their respective lofty manners. That is a path that takes the whole existence of man within the context of life as it appears in the world of reality and does not confine the extension of this reality to the borders of accidents but looks beyond in an eschatological sense, which is represented in all Prophetic traditions. As far as the idea of Russia is concerned one could detect such a realization in her civilizational dimensions when she was true to her principles. The current Russia is far away from the idea of Russia as expressed by all three great traditional exponents of Buddhism Christianity and Islam in this vast land. The research has not brought forth the intellectual significance of Buddhist and Muslim thinkers of Russia to the outside world yet but scant references in Tolstoy (about Islam) and Dostoevsky (about Asia and Buddhism) are enough for students of intercivilizational dialogue to get engaged on intercivilizational issues.
Here I cannot explicate all the relevant issues in regard to Russia as a cultural pole but it is of importance to realize that we are faced with two versions of Russia whenever we look at Russia as a civilizational unit. One is a Russia that is evident in religious thinkers of Russia such as Solovyov and the other is a Russia that chose the path of Colonialism and ended up in ruins today. Our concern is mainly the primary notion of her and in this dimension religious thinkers, who are interested in intercivilizational dialogue could focus on along with Iran, China, and India. As far as Russia in religious intellectual tradition is concerned one should start with Solovyov as one who put the idea of Russian religious thought on the world map.
The
Crisis of Western Philosophy is the seminal
work in which Solovyov developed his religious philosophy. In it, he
undertakes a stunning critique of disciplinary thinking, by which he
understands the entire philosophy of secularism which he sees as setting up
a conflict between reason and faith, and reason and nature.
This last is one the most significant issues which the entire world of meaning could be established upon as it takes the whole of man into consideration and man as an embodied spirit attend in his prayers, as prayer, as elegantly put by Fritjof Schuon, fashions the man. Whatever that makes the man and constitutes his whole being is worth to cling on and re-appropriate it in the matrix of life.
In brief it should be mentioned that the religious thinking in Russia did not stop at Solovyov but developed into an ever-complex system of philosophies of life based around the key concept of Divine Sophia or as Solovyov puts it Bozhestvennaya Sofiya in the sophiological works of E. N. Trubestkoi, Semon Frank, L. Shestov, Lossky, Alexsandr Bogdanov, V. Rozanov, N. Fedorov, Sergius Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky and S. L. Frank who developed all-encompassing systems of religious thinking that, in terms of relevance and depth, went beyond the geographical and cultural borders of Russia.
However it should be noted that the contemporary Russia (as an Idea) is in a total shatter in relation to importance of religious sensibilities in the public square and in connection to the emergence of individual person. Here I cannot develop these problems but suffice to mention that the salvation of Russia as a nation is not divorced from the re-emergence of Russia as a religious idea in the consciousness of people and the body-politics of Russia. As long as they are divorced any debates on Russia’s health is mere talk and an utterly nonsensical statement, which are evident by the decline of her stature within Russia and without her on the political map.
My presentation of Chinese intellectual history, as indicated above, is a brief version of a very complex field of inquiry, which needs more research within the framework of intercivilizational dialogue. Unfortunately under the negative impact of disciplinary thought most of intellectuals within social sciences and philosophy as well as human sciences fields have been accustomed to see the rise of social reflections with the emergence of the Enlightenment Thought. But this is a mistaken approach to the rich of human thought, which has a more complex history than such a naïve historiography could ever fathom. It is sad to admit that even most modern Chinese intellectuals are unaware of the relevance of Chinese (Han) intellectual history, which could prove immensely instrumental in an intercivilizational perspective. In my estimation, the majority of contemporary (Han) Chinese intellectuals, thinkers, writers, or philosophers are unaware of the inherent distinctiveness of Chinese philosophy of life, which could not be framed within modernization theoretical frameworks. Although they have come to guard off the western colonial imperialistic intrusions by clinging to nationalistic sentiments nevertheless one should remember that the emotional sentiments would soon fade away in the face of real reasoning. In other words, one needs to equip mind and spirit by enlightening ideas and lofty ideals too. The widespread unawareness on behalf of Chinese thinkers today has not only depressed the creativity of China as a civilizational centre but had has adversary consequences for Eastern civilizations of India, Iran, Africa and Islamic civilizations in general.
Today we need a revolution but not in the realm of society, economy or politics. On the contrary, the most desired of revolutions in our contemporary context is the revolution of spirit or what sociologists call mindset. This revolution could not be accomplished by disciplinary thinkers or specialists and experts as they all lack vision about the nature of man as a reality of cosmological grandeur.
On the other hand, religious thinkers of various civilizations have potentially the ability to dialogue across intellectual boundaries, political divisions and geographical divides due to the fact that they work through a worldview that recognizes the reality of man as a transcendental being that has always been essentially one and the same in terms of being. The splintered world and the disintegrated man are in need of light and this light could not be found in places where illumination is a tale of past or considered as the faith of ancient folks. The intercivilizational dialogue at heart is an exercise of thirsty soul in the search of illumination, which could connect the terrestrial to celestial realm individually and collectively. This task is at the centre of Prophetic traditions, which work through unity and multiplicity, i.e. an aspiration to bring communion to the diversity of people as the meaning of human existence is based on dialectics of unity and multiplicity that finally should usher in Tawhid.
In preparing an anthology one needs to have a clear understanding of the filed of inquiry based on a thorough investigation of the subject in question within an innovative frame of analysis. On all three accounts we are still far from a satisfied state of affairs as we lack in-depth research based on intercivilizational dialogue and these two shortcomings affect, in turn, our understanding of Chinese intellectual traditions profoundly. In other words, the very notion of ‘anthology’ is jeopardized due to the lack of coherent strategy. Before an intercivilizational theorist there are two extreme options, one is to give up the idea wholly and the other is to work piece by piece. Due to the grave dangers of monological theorists and their myopic worldviews we are compelled to choose between ‘bad’ and ‘worse’ and here we will follow the worse option, which needs to be corrected deeply later on by three different approaches: philosophical, historical and social theoretical. This uncalculated venture into Chinese intellectual traditions here should be upgraded and re-interpreted along new rediscoveries, which would ultimately enable us to present a more accurate anthology of intellectual debates.
Colonialism did shatter the bonds between historical civilizations by remoulding them into dependent manageable entities for the benefits of metropolis. For example, four great civilizational spheres of China, Iran, India and Turkey (Ottoman Empire) have not yet found their organic modes of relations. In order to overcome the colonial mentality that has affected the psyches of these nations by crippling their present health we, as intercivilizational theorists, need to formulate, innovate, rediscover, and recreate the broken bonds by re-establishing bombarded bridges. This is a hope that lies in the heart of Religious Revolution of 1979 (elsewhere I have indicated that we have had four great revolutions and the last one, i.e. 1979 brought a new consciousness into our globe- but so far neglected by social theorists across the globe due to myopic outlooks and hostilities of various kinds) and it is a task, which requires our common efforts to bring the ideals of unity and brotherhood about. The faith in God is not only a metaphysical necessity but a political good, as it indicates that our humanity is One in origin and needs to be actualised accordingly in our human societies too.
In other words, intercivilizational dialogue based on religious or even transcendental concerns is the only way forward in a world that lacks faith in human potentialities for all, regardless of wealth, race, ethnicities, and so on and so forth. At the heart of intercivilizational theory one could easily discern a perennial message that bears resemblance to the Prophetic Message, i.e. in communion (with God as creator, Beings as creatures) one grows. In other words, the idea of Dialogue for religious thinkers is an obligation to the truth if this is not the same for other intellectuals.
Anybody interested in engaging with intellectuals in various world civilizations beyond the strictures of disciplinary thought should be aware that there are complexities in any civilizational contexts as those who carry any meaningful realities are not but complex human individuals. Although what they produce in the forms of arts, architecture, poems, literature, technology, temples, mosques, or sacred domains and so on and so forth could be studied independently nevertheless one needs to grasp the spirit that lies behind these complexities as any true-good-beautiful creation is a dialogical interplay between the Divine and Human. The study of Chinese thought is not any exception in this regard and an intercivilizational student should always heed to the question of wholeness of human existence in the matrix of Divine Presence and this could not be achieved if the researcher of meaning is not aware of the First Principles, not only in his thinking but in his whole life as life is only possible when it is lived fully, the rest is survival and a matter of analysis by neo-Darwinians. The parameters which we need to adjust our searching soul within are tremendously far away from the disciplinary strictures and best could be illustrated in the words of Shri Shankaracharya:
Control thy soul, restrain thy breathing, distinguish the transitory from the true, repeat the holy Name of God, and thus calm the agitated mind. To this universal rule apply thyself with all thy heart and all thy soul.
The quest in intercivilizational dialogue is an existential yearning in understanding the meaning of union and diversity in one of the most complex sites of theophany, i.e. human life. The questions of diversity and union have always been part and parcel of universal intellectual debates and religion has been the only locus where these universal ideals and ideas have been reflected upon. But it is an unfortunate fact that religious thinkers fell in a long slumber, which did affect the social role of religiosity in a global sense. However today the state of affairs are, due to awakening movement of Ayatullah Khomeini (the undisputed leader of contemporary religious movements in our global village), different and religious thinkers have realized the importance of a universal religious language that could enable all of us to debate the questions of difference and diversity as well as the unity and tolerance without fearing the loss of uniqueness that each tradition holds within its terrestrial form. Although the celestial fragrance is beyond all forms nevertheless we are men with forms and find solace in forms as well as contents. In looking at the Chinese context we are attempting to propose a way in looking at questions of life, time, space, religion, reality, world, existence, transcendence and all that makes up the very backbone of metaphysics relevant within the context of intercivilizational dialogue, as it is always joyful to hear how the other see (envision) this colossal beauty called life and how the other depict it (in language, paintings, art, society, ….). Because it is like reading a love poem, which takes you to the heights that you have never been and to sceneries of the spirit that you have never seen but still you can feel with all your heart and being.
This is not a minor realization in the era of Kali or in the period of Great Occultation. It is true that the Eternal Now is always accessible to the good-beautiful-truthful spirits but the same is true that we are in an era that is different than when the Noble Souls were walking on the same streets as the others. Each tradition in its noble sense is an attempt to express the reality of transcendence in the midst of perceived reality but all traditions are not of the same nature as all individuals are not of the same depth. The Total Transcendence is an intelligible idea that could be discerned in what has not been said and not said in what has been done. In approaching the Chinese tradition we are approaching our own other self that has not been already realized and the same applies to all other civilizations, as what distinguishes us, in a more sublime level is exactly that which could unite us and shed light on the questions of differences and diversities in the normal state of consciousness. To learn about Confucius, for instance, is not only an informative act in knowing a sage of the past, as wisdom does not know serial time but it is an exercise in discerning how far we could go or how short we have become. Or to put it differently:
Abba Lot went to see Abba Joseph and said to him, “Abba, as far as I can I say my little office, I fast a little, I pray and meditate, I live in peace, and as far as I can I purify my thoughts. What else can I do?” The old man stood up and stretched his hands toward Heaven. His fingers became like ten lamps of fire, and he said to him, “If you will, you can become all flame.”
In the mirrors hold by others we can see ourselves or the desired (Good, Beauty and True) selves, which could be achieved like the flame that is none but the soul endowed upon us by God the Al-love. In other words, at the heart of dialog in the religious tradition within intercivilizational parameters there is the quest for wisdom in its most traditional/perennial/Gnostic/philosophical/Irfanic sense that never left the sky of noble souls. This quest in exploring the Chinese tradition is not only a contribution in understanding of the Chinese philosophy of life within the frame of intercivilizational analysis, but will also make a lasting contribution to the multicultural philosophical synthesis required by global communities as we enter into a new era where nothing but a reflexive principle of sobornost or all-togetherness could guide our intellectual efforts by emancipating our localized minds and put them at the service of intelligible realities.
As abovementioned the Chinese tradition is both complex and spans over a long period of time, which requires a more profound engagement than what we can offer here. This is going to be a very brief anthology in the light of intercivilizational perspective and hopefully may entice a wider interest among scholars who take transcendence existentially seriously. Schematically one can divide the Chinese intellectual history into the following:
. Ancient and pre-Tang Dynasties (340 BC and onward) Sun Tzu (722 BC) Kong Zi or Confucius (551-479 BC) Mozi or Mo-tzu (470?-391? BC) Mencius, Mengzi (372-289 BC) Qu Yuan (340 ? -278 ? BC) Han Fei (d. 233 BC) Song Yu (3rd century BC) Sima Qian (145- ? BC) Sima Xiangru (179-117 BC) Ban Gu (32-92) Zhang Heng (78-139) Cao Cao (155-220) Cao Pi (187-226) Cao Zhi (192-232) Xi Kang (223-262) Lu Ji (261-303) Tao Yuanming (365 or 372-427) Xie Lingyun (385-422) Liu Xie (? -520 ?)
. Tang Dynasty (680 AC) Hanshan (680 ?-793 ?) Meng Haoran (689 or 691-740) Wang Wei (701-761) Li Bai (701-762) Du Fu (712-770) Han Yu (768-824) Bai Juyi (772-846) Liu Zongyuan (773-819) Yuan Zhen (779-831) Li He (791-817) Du Mu (803-852) Li Shangyin (812-858) Li Yu (937-978)
. Song Dynasty (11th Century)
Liu Yong (11th
century)
. Ming Dynasty (16th Century)
Wu Cheng'en
(1500 ?-1582 ?)
. Qing Dynasty (17th Century) Li
Yu (1611-1679 ?)
. Modern Period Ya Fu (1853-1924) Ku Hung-Ming (1857-1928). Liu E (1857-1909) Kang Youwei (1858-1927) Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925) Wang Guowei (1877-1927) Lu Xun (1881-1936) Ma Yinchu (1882-1982)
Su Manshu
(1894-1918) Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997)
Ba Jin (1905- ) Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998) Fei Xiaotong (1910 - 2005)
In each of these periods have China produced great many philosophers and thinkers of grand importance and here we can only name them in passing as it is beyond the scope of my ability to survey all of them in details. The abovementioned authors are of great significance within the history of Chinese thought but in this anthology we cannot explore them as the main purpose of this work is to present few selected philosophers of China within the framework of intercivilizational dialogue. However a complete understanding of Chinese intellectual traditions needs to be based on a more comprehensive approach both diachronically and synchronically as Chinese context is one of the most pluralist intellectual traditions that humanity has ever produced along with Iran, India, Turkey (Ottoman Cultural Spheres) and Russia. Here I only presented these authors by name in order to set the plan for future research which hopefully will lead to a thorough exploration of each and one of them along proposed framework of Seyyed Mohammad Xatami. The political significance of this intercivilizational engagement should not be disregarded either, as it is my firm belief that China along with Iran, India, Pakistan, Turkey (provided it regains its Muslim ethos), Russia (provided she renounces her colonial mentality), and the host of countries such as Malaysia (and many African and Latin American countries such as Venezuela) could stave off the neo-colonial aggressions of imperialistically oriented governments of England, America, France, Germany and American stooges such as Japan. The world is in need of such a force which could only come through extensive engagements of above-mentioned countries that all have suffered in the hands of colonial powers. The historical scars inflicted upon China, Iran, and India and so on and so forth are what could unite them in the struggle against global hegemony of Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialists. Students of humanities and philosophers of these countries should learn more about each other and re-establish the broken ties, which they enjoyed for centuries before British arrived in the scene as early as 18th century. The Silk Road, for instance, was not only a commercial path but a symbol of exchange of ideas between great civilizations of Iran (and Muslim world), India (both Muslim and Hindu traditions) and China (Confucian, Buddhist, Taoist, and Muslim).
ONE
Confucius
One of the most famous people in ancient China was a wise philosopher named Confucius (circa 551-479 BC). He sometimes went by the names Kong Zi though he was born - Kong Qiu - styled Zhong Ni. He was born in the village of Zou in the country of Lu. This Chinese sage was a well-known leader in philosophy and he also made great many contributions in various fields such as law, existentialicism, and the government. In his view, philosophy is a kind of a system of ideas and thoughts that is concerned about the human's behavior, the rules that you should follow to make a successful life, and about the government. In other words, it's about thoughts and theories that teach other human beings lessons about principles, or rules, about life and it also teaches you a moral. Confucius’s philosophy like the Chinese spirit is holistic as it talks about nature, the world, and the human self and its ultimate destiny. He did not fail to reflect over the sociological aspects of human life as well as the importance of political structures and the elites, who should run the affairs of the state.
Living as he did in the second half of the Zhou (Chou) dynasty (1027?-256 BC), when feudalism degenerated in China and intrigue and vice were rampant, Confucius deplored the contemporary disorder and lack of moral standards. He came to believe that the only remedy was to enlighten people once more to the principles and precepts of the sages of antiquity or what came to be known as the Perennial Philosophy. He therefore lectured to his pupils on the Prophetic Tradition. Confucius taught in his academy for many years. His theories and principles were spread throughout China, Iran, India and many parts of the ancient world by his disciples, and soon many thinkers adopted his intellectual principles in their own very diverse pursuits. One of his most significant principles reads as," If you governed your province well and treat your people kindly, you kingdom shall not lose any war. If you govern selfishly to your people, you kingdom will not only lose a war, but your people will break away from your kingdom." Like all true sage he had a keen eye on the moral dimension of human self, which without humanity cannot survive and in this regard he composed his golden rule as follows: "A man should practice what he preaches, but a man should also preach what he practices."
Confucius’ philosophy did not separate the realm of politics from morality and the latter from metaphysics but introduced them as a whole. He proposed that man is a part of cosmos and any teaching which sets to redeem man from vices should possess a profound understanding of man and cosmos, i.e. be of a great depth. One could summarize his teaching in this regard as follows:
To love others; to honour one's parents; to do what is right instead of what is of advantage; to practice "reciprocity," i.e. "don't do to others what you would not want yourself"; to rule by moral example instead of by force and violence; and so forth. Confucius thought that a ruler who had to resort to force had already failed as a ruler. Your job is to govern, not to kill is the epitome of his philosophy.
Confucius like many other sages before and after him did not put into writing the principles of his philosophy; these were handed down only through his disciples. The Lun Y¨ (Analects), a work compiled by some of his disciples, is considered the most reliable source of information about his life and teachings. One of the historical works that he is said to have compiled and edited, the Ch'un Ch'iu (Spring and Autumn Annals), is an annalistic account of Chinese history in the state of Lu from 722 to 481 BC. In learning he wished to be known as a transmitter rather than as a creator, and he therefore revived the study of the ancient books. His own teachings, together with those of his main disciples, are found in the Shih Shu (Four Books) of Confucian literature, which became the textbooks of later Chinese generations.
Perhaps the most important Confucian and by extension Chinese value is jen, once you have mastered this concept, all the remaining Confucian and Neo-Confucian values fall into place. As a crucial concept the word is immensely complex and so can't be translated easily into English; traditionally, it is translated either as "humaneness" or "humanity" or "benevolence." However, the foundational or etymological meaning of jen is "people," "human beings," or "common people," so the concept is rooted primarily in the social and the political. When combined with the concept of t'ien ming, the "mandate of Heaven", the moral order of the universe as encompassed by the imperative that the Emperor concern himself overwhelmingly with the welfare of the people¡ it's natural that jen as meaning "common people" eventually would come to include the moral obligations of the Emperor to the well-being of the common people. Jen as a cultural value originates with Confucius, the great teacher at the fountainhead of the Era of One Hundred Philosophies. Confucius makes jen the centrepiece of his philosophy, which is always and rigorously ethical and political in its concerns. By Confucius's time, the concept of t'ien ming had come to encompass more than just the Emperor's moral obligations to his people, but had begun to include more or less all the obligations people had to those that were near to them, such as family. In this sense, jen as "benevolence" is a fairly good translation, since the imperative of jen is to be concerned for the well-being of others.
In Confucius's thought, recorded by his students in a collection called The Analects, jen is a fairly sophisticated concept and is the base of all other aspects of Confucian thought. Although Confucius offers several definitions of jen, it is perhaps no exaggeration to consider the Confucian Analects as one long extended definition of the concept of je . What does jen consist of in The Analects? First of all, it is the quality that all superiors (those in ruling positions) should have in order to govern well; if the mandate of Heaven decrees that government is for the welfare of the people, and then all governors first and foremost should display the quality of jen. Principally, jen consists of shu and chung, "reciprocity or self-analogy" and "doing one's best." In the first instance, one should use oneself as an analogy when attempting to determine what is owed to others or what is beneficial to others: what you wish done for yourself, you should do for others, what you do not wish done for yourself, you should not do to others. But knowing this isn't enough; you should exert yourself to the best of your abilities (chung) to accomplish what you owe to others¡ this doesn't mean that you'll succeed: it is sufficient to have the right intent and make the right effort in order to have the quality of jen .
Secondly, jen consists of all those other qualities which are part of a moral life: li, or properly doing all the rituals that govern day to day life; yi, or right action; hsin, or making one's words conform to one's deeds (this includes speaking the truth and not speaking if one does not know the truth); ching, or "reverence," "seriousness," or "the sense of awe in the face of one's obligations to others."
When all these qualities are present, then one can truly be identified as a ch¨n tzu, or "superior man," which means both a man of superior rank in a government and a morally superior human being. In other words, ethically superior human beings, who concentrate solely on the welfare of the people they govern, ideally should run government.
Jen is something one learns rather than something one is born with. One learns morality by listening to moral precepts (hs¨eh) and by thinking through them in order to determine if they are applicable to the situation you find yourself in (ssu); the key to morality in Confucius is always thinking since the world is constantly changing. Unfortunately researchers of this great sage have failed to look at the religious dimensions of his metaphysics, which is profound, consonant with perennial philosophy and religious through and through. This is a domain, which requires more of research based on religious intercivilizational dialogue that would clarify the depth of Confucuis’ morality, which is diametrically different than secular notions of morality that does not attach transcendental values to ethicality. By looking at Confucuis one learns about the complexity of religious thinking that hitherto has been neglected even by religious thinkers themselves and understandably enough rejected by secular intellectuals in toto.
TWOMO Zi
Mozi or Mo-tzu (470?-391? bc), early Chinese philosopher and founder of the school of philosophy called Monism, who developed strict rationalistic tests for evaluating the truth and utility of all propositions. Mo Zi, more in line with the interest of the common people, some of his important theories were in direct conflict with those of Confucius. His ideas could be found in a book entitled Mo Zi. The suffix of zi (tzu) in ancient China was a respectful way of addressing a sagely writer. He lived in the State of Song during the Spring and Autumn Period. Mo Zi probably began as a follower of Confucius. In response to the violent civil disharmony of the period, philosophers attempted to discover the principles for creating order. Confucianism, unlike visionary spirit of Confucius, stressed the importance of filial piety, career advancement based on age and status, and absolute reverence for the past. Mo Zi countered the Confucians by emphasizing rationalistic standards, making Monism the most logically oriented school of Chinese philosophy. According to Mo Zi, government should be centralized, with advancement depending on merit, and standards should be applied uniformly. His aim was to benefit all people and classes in accordance with his creed, known as Universal Love. Mo Zi had a profound theological view of heaven (Tian). He also posited that, since God loves all human beings regardless of their position, people should act equally. For Mo zi, the highest possible good was to sacrifice oneself for the good benefit of community.
Compared with Confucius, the teachings of Mo Zi are more democratic and other-regarding. Today, two aspects of Mo Zi continue to be quoted in a largely Confucian China: universal love, and peace (no war). Mo Zi also strikes one as a socially conscious thinker. Mo Zi was sometimes associated with pragmatism due to his disinterest to art and music. Mo Zi, together with a number of others, constituted a strong counter-current to Confucianism, only to be partially absorbed into mainstream Confucian learning eventually. For centuries, the teachings of Mo Zi were on the periphery while Confucian learning constituted mainstream Chinese learning.
One could briefly summarize the main threads of his thoughts as follow:
1 Mo Zi believed in an ethical heaven and a practical attitude toward life. Social strength and prosperity would be the result of capable administrators bent on practical administration, universal love and peace. 2 Definitions of leadership: it was dedication to his job, which primarily was to fill the treasury, leading to grace from heaven and the state would become strong and prosperous (66-67). His focus is not on ruler/minister relationship, on ministers obeying rulers, but on rulers wisely employs capable ministers. The right policies for rulers were to use these worthy ministers properly, through exalting their names and giving them generous pay. 3 To Mo Zi, peace was central to the basic government policies of a state, and peace could be achieved through every one's following enlightened self-interest: treating other states as one did one's own. Thus the way to resolve warfare was to love others as one would love one's own state. 4 The greatest paradox perhaps comes in the form of Mo Zi's criticism of Confucius by charging the latter with no proper recognition of social hierarchy, with mourning of wife/son the same length as father/mother; and with the belief in fate and thus trusting little to human initiatives. If anything, Confucius is most remembered for the social hierarchy it created, and the emphasis on human agency (e.g. human individual initiative in social prosperity). Such criticism, however, directs us to the fact that a system of thought is very complex. Despite that Confucians emphasized social hierarchy, certain aspects of Confucian teachings perhaps did not quite achieve that goal; and despite Mo Zi's teachings emphasized less ritual and hierarchy, obviously it was not against hierarchy! 5 Mo Zi believed that "all men are equal before God" and that mankind should follow heaven by practicing universal love. Advocating that all action must be utilitarian, Mo Zi condemned the Confucian emphasis on ritual and music. He regarded warfare as wasteful and advocated pacifism. Mo Zi also believed that unity of thought and action was necessary to achieve social goals. He maintained that the people should obey their leaders and that the leaders should follow the Tao of heaven. Although Monism failed to establish itself as a major school of thought, its views are strongly echoed in Legalist thought. In general, the teachings of Mo Zi left an indelible impression on the Chinese mind.
THREE Mencius
Mencius, Mengzi (his first name is Ke, and his literary name is Ziyv.) Mengzi lived during 372 B.C.—289 B.C. He was born in Zou in the middle period of the Warring State, which is nowadays Zou County in southeast Shangdong Province, and is not very far from the hometown of another prestigious Chinese thinker and philosopher Kongzi. He was a well-known thinker, statesman and philosopher who are only regarded as second to Kongzi in importance within Confucian intellectual circles. It is said according to “the legend of Leinv” and “prescription for Mencius” written by Zhaoqi that he was once disciples of Zisi, the grandchildren of Confucius. Meanwhile, it is also reported in that book that Mencius was greatly influenced by his mother.
Mencius is a fourth-generation disciple of Confucius and widely considered by the anti-traditionalists as the "Second in the Confucian Shop". With many parables, Mengzi tries to persuade the rulers of different states to follow the way of the ancient sage kings and to rule with humanity and righteousness (ren and yi), and to let the people take part in the wealth of the upper classes. On the other hand, he considered the unchangeable official position and division of labour as an integral part of the social fabric. He supposed that every man is good by nature and therefore every ruler is able to run an ideal government without exhausting himself. A central point in his social doctrine is the filial piety (xiao), which has to be expressed in giving up everything to serve one's parents during lifetime and after their death.
As for his view on Government, Mencius had an audience with King Hui of Liang. The king said, "Sir, you did not consider a thousand li too far to come you must have some ideas about how to benefit my state." Mencius replied, "Why must Your Majesty use the word 'benefit'' All I am concerned with are the benevolent and the right. If Your Majesty says, 'How can I benefit my state?' your officials will say, 'How can I benefit my family,' and officers and common people will say, 'How can I benefit myself.' Once superiors and inferiors are competing for benefit, the state will be in danger. When the head of a state of ten thousand chariots is murdered, the assassin is invariably a noble with a fief of a thousand chariots, when the head of a fief of a thousand chariots is murdered the assassin is invariably head of a sub-fief of a hundred chariots. Those with a thousand out of ten thousand, or a hundred out of a thousand, had quite a bit. But when benefit is put before what is right, they are not satisfied without snatching it all. By contrast there has never been a benevolent person who neglected his parents or a righteous person who put his lord last. Your Majesty perhaps will now also say, 'All I am concerned with are the benevolent and the right. Why mention 'benefit?' ''
After an incident between Zou and Lu, Duke Mu asked, "Thirty-three of my officials died but no common people died. I could punish them, but I could not punish them all. I could refrain from punishing them but they did angrily watch their superiors die without saving them. What would be the best course for me to follow?" Mencius answered, "When the harvest failed, even though your granaries were full, nearly a thousand of your subjects were lost -- the old and weak among them dying in the gutters, the able -- bodied scattering in all directions. Your officials never reported the situation, a case of superiors callously inflicting suffering on their subordinates. Zengzi said, 'Watch out, watch out! What you do will be done to you.' This was the first chance the people had to pay them back. You should not resent them. If Your Highness practices benevolent government, the common people will love their superiors and die for those in charge of them."
As for his ideas on Human Nature one could mention Mencius’ core ideas that are based on the concept of ‘heart’. Everyone, in his view, has a heart that is sensitive to the sufferings of others. The great kings of the past had this sort of sensitive heart and thus adopted compassionate policies. Bringing order to the realm is as easy as moving an object in your palm when you have a sensitive heart and put into practice compassionate policies. He, like all other philosopher-sages, explicates his notion of heart that is sensitive to the sufferings of others by examples. Anyone today who suddenly saw a baby about to fall into a well would feel alarmed and concerned. It would not be because he wanted to improve his relations with the child's parents, nor because he wanted a good reputation among his friends and neighbours, nor because he disliked hearing the child cry. From this it follows that anyone who lacks feelings of commiseration, shame, and courtesy or a sense of right and wrong is not a human being. From the feeling of commiseration benevolence grows; from the feeling of shame righteousness grows; from the feeling of courtesy ritual grows; from a sense of right and wrong wisdom grows. People have these four germs, just as they have four limbs. For someone with these four potentials to claim incompetence is to cripple himself; to say his ruler is incapable of him is to cripple his ruler. Those who know how to develop the four potentials within themselves will take off like a fire or burst forth like a spring. Those who can fully develop them can protect the entire land while those unable to develop them cannot even take care of their parents. Within his philosophical matrix a superb theory of what Abraham Maslow calls ‘Self-actualization’ or ‘Growth Theory’ lies, which needs to be explored along the lines of intercivilizational dialogical theory.
To conclude; The relative time of the middle Warring State was more revolutionary than the late Spring and Autumn period in which Confucius lived, accompanied by the unstable social environment as well as the competing cultural world of “Baijiazhengming”, which means that there were many schools of thoughts merged up during that period of time. Therefore, adopting the political as well as the educational ideas of Confucius, Mencius had developed and formed a series of socio-political and pedagogical thoughts of his own. Among the fierce competition of the schools of thoughts of MO, DAO, and FA, Mencius managed to maintain the ideas of Confucianism. Consequently he had stabilized his position as a grand master next to Confucius. As the thoughts of Confucianism had gained its ruling place, both Confucius and Mencius were considered as “the Sages” par excellence.
FOURHan Fei zi
Han Fei (d. 233 BC) was a philosopher who, with Li Si (d. 208 BC), developed the unsentimental and authoritarian inclinations of Xun Zi into the doctrine embodied in the School of Law or Legalism. Han Fei was a prince of the royal family of Han in the Warring States Period. He and Li Si studied with the philosopher Xun Kuang. Li Si, who later became chancellor of Qin under the First Emperor, felt that he was not the equal of Han Fei. But Han stuttered and could not present his ideas in court, which was a serious impediment. He overcame this by developing one of the most brilliant styles in ancient China.
His main ideas could be presented schematically as follow:
A Country’s Strength Depends on Law Promote Followers of the Law Beware of Promotion by Reputation or Partisanship Civil Decay Follows Punishment of the Innocent Efficient Administration Depends on Upholding the Law Let the Law Select Leaders The Law Treats All Alike
He elaborated his main ideas into complex principles, which could be presented below in brief: 1. A Country’s Strength Depends on Law
No country is permanently strong. Nor is any country permanently weak. If conformers to law are strong, the country is strong; if conformers to law are weak, the country is weak
2. Promote Followers of the Law
Therefore, at present, any ruler able to expel private crookedness and uphold public law finds the people safe and the state in order; and any ruler able to expunge private action and act on public law, finds his army strong and his enemy weak. So, find out men following the discipline of laws and regulations, and place them above the body of officials. Then the sovereign cannot be deceived by anybody with fraud and falsehood. Find out men able to weigh different situations, and put them in charge of various important affairs. Then the sovereign cannot be deceived by anybody in matters of world politics.
3. Beware of Promotion by Reputation or Partisanship
Now supposing promotions were made because of mere reputations, then ministers would be estranged from the sovereign and all officials would associate for treasonable purposes. Supposing officials were appointed on account of their partisanship, then the people would strive to cultivate friendships and never seek employment in accordance with the law. Thus, if the government lack able men, the state will fall into confusion. If rewards are bestowed according to mere reputation, and punishments are inflicted according to mere defamation, then men who love rewards and hate punishments will discard the law of the public and practice self-seeking tricks and associate for wicked purposes. If ministers forget the interest of the sovereign, make friends with outside people, and thereby promote their adherents, then their inferiors will be in low spirits to serve the sovereign. Their friends are many; their adherents, numerous. When they form juntas in and out, then though they have great faults, their ways of disguise will be innumerable.
4. Civil Decay Follows Punishment of the Innocent
For such reasons, loyal ministers, innocent as they are, are always facing danger and the death penalty, whereas wicked ministers, though of no merit, always enjoy security and prosperity. Should loyal ministers meet danger and death without committing any crime, good ministers would withdraw. Should wicked ministers enjoy security and prosperity without rendering any meritorious service, villainous ministers would advance. This is the beginning of decay.
Were such the case, all officials would discard legalism, practicing favouritism and despising public law. They would frequent the gates of the residences of cunning men, but never once would they visit the court of the sovereign.
5. Efficient Administration Depends on Upholding the Law
The law of the early kings said: "every minister shall not exercise his authority nor shall he scheme for his own advantage but shall follow his majesty's instructions. He shall not do evil but shall follow his majesty's path." Thus, in antiquity the people of an orderly age abode by the public law, discarded all self-seeking tricks, devoted their attention and united their actions to wait for employment by their superiors. Indeed, the lord of men, if he has to inspect all officials himself, finds the day not long enough and his energy not great enough. Moreover, if the superior uses his eyes, the inferior ornaments his looks; if the superior uses his ears, the inferior ornaments his voice; and, if the superior uses his mind, the inferior twists his sentences. Regarding these three faculties as insufficient, the early kings left aside their own talents and relied on laws and numbers and acted carefully on the principles of reward and punishment.
Thus, what the early kings did was to the purpose of political order. Their laws, however simplified, were not violated. Despite the autocratic rule within the four seas, the cunning could not apply their fabrications; the deceitful could not practice their ill-intentions; and the wicked found no means to resort to, so that, though as far away from His Majesty as beyond a thousand li, they dared not change their words, and though as near by His Majesty as the courtiers, they dared not cover the good and disguise the wrong. The officials in the court, high and low, never trespassed against each other nor did they ever override their posts. Accordingly the sovereign's administrative routine did not take up all his time while each day afforded enough leisure. Such was due to the way the ruler trusted to his position.
Therefore, the intelligent sovereign makes the law select men and makes no arbitrary promotion himself. He makes the law measure merits and makes no arbitrary regulation himself. In consequence, able men cannot be obscured, bad characters cannot be disguised; falsely praised fellows cannot be advanced, wrongly defamed people cannot be degraded. Accordingly, between ruler and minister distinction becomes clear and order is attained. Thus it suffices only if the sovereign can scrutinize laws.
The law does not fawn on the noble; the string does not yield to the crooked. Whatever the law applies to, the wise cannot reject nor can the brave defy. Punishment for fault never skips minister’s reward for good and never misses commoners. Therefore, to correct the faults of the high, to rebuke the vices of the low, to suppress disorders, to decide against mistakes, to subdue the arrogant, to straighten the crooked, and to unify the folkways of the masses, nothing could match the law. To warn the officials and overawe the people, to rebuke obscenity and danger, and to forbid falsehood and deceit, nothing could match penalty. If penalty is severe, the noble cannot discriminate against the humble. If law is definite, the superiors are esteemed and not violated. If the superiors are not violated, the sovereign will become strong and able to maintain the proper course of government. Such was the reason why the early kings esteemed legalism and handed it down to posterity. Should the lord of men discard law and practice selfishness, high and low would have no distinction. Hence to govern the state by law is to praise the right and blame the wrong.
To conclude; Han Fei zi was a representative of the Fa-chia, or Legalist, school of philosophy and produced the final and most readable exposition of its theories. His handbook for the ruler deals with the problems of strengthening and preserving the state, the way of the ruler, the use of power, and punishment and favor. But most importantly one could discern in his complex discourse a social theory that does not refrain from moral as well as metaphysical challenges. His represents one of the finest treatments of political theory that regards man as an existentially conscious being, which cannot live happily in a society that lacks transcendental concern. This is an aspect, which needs to be taken into account in future research on intercivilizational social theory and religious intellectual debates across the globe.
FIVESun Tzu
Sun Tzu was a military general from the state of Chi, which is roughly the same period as Confucius. The general agreement among scholars is that he may have lived from 544 BC to 496 BC. Sun Tzu means Master Sun. His first name is Wu. Sun Tzu’s father was a senior officer in the military establishment, which helped to develop his interest in tactical warfare at an early age and lead him to become an expert in the military field. Skilled and experienced in warfare matters during a time of unprecedented political turmoil, he was introduced to the emperor Ho-lu of Wu Kingdom by Wu Gi Xu to explain his art of war theories. At the emperor's request, he demonstrated the military strategies with the emperor's royal concubines. He successfully transformed 180 court women into trained soldiers in just one session, which proved his competency and confirm the principles' effectiveness. The emperor eventually agreed to employ him as his General.
With Sun Tzu as general, King Ho-lu captured the capital city of Ying to defeat the powerful Ch'u state in 506 BC. They then headed north and subdued Ch'i and Chin. Not surprisingly, Sun Tzu's name quickly spread throughout the land and among the feudal lords.
How he later lived or died is unknown. However, the Yueh Chueh Shu declared "ten miles outside the city gate of Wu Hsieh, there is a large tomb of the great strategist Sun Tzu." By the Han dynasty, his reputation as a wise philosopher, who took life as a battleground that requires a careful and examined approach and respected military leader was well known. Considering the countless texts lost or destroyed throughout China's history, the remarkable survival and relevancy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War to this very day attest to its immeasurable value.
The Art of War has come to be considered as one of the most significant books on military theories but this is a naïve approach to Sun’s immensely existentially enriching philosophy of life. It is true that the book is aimed at military battles but to lose sight of the underlying assumptions is equal to misunderstand how Master Sun looked upon military battles, which are partial reflections of what Life is all about. His masterpiece is best known to most of us as The Art of War. Since naming a written work after its author was customary in ancient China, the text was originally referred to as simply "Sun Tzu." The book consists of 13 chapters written in Classical Chinese, namely Strategic, Waging War, Attack by Stratagem, Tactical Disposition, Posture of Army, Weak and Strong Points, Manoeuvring, The Nine Variables, On the Marches, Terrain, The Nine Varieties of Situation, Attack by Fire, and Use of Spices. Let’s look at each briefly:
I. Strategic Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
II. Waging War Sun Tzu said: In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armour, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.
III. Attack by Stratagem Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
IV. Tactical Disposition Sun Tzu said: The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.
V. Posture of Army Sun Tzu said: The control of a large force is the same principle as the control of a few men: it is merely a question of dividing up their numbers.
VI. Weak and Strong Points Sun Tzu said: Whoever is first in the field and awaits the coming of the enemy, will be fresh for the fight; whoever is second in the field and has to hasten to battle will arrive exhausted.
VII. Manoeuvring Sun Tzu said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign.
VIII. The Nine Variables Sun Tzu said: In war, the general receives his commands from the sovereign, collects his army and concentrates his forces
IX. On the Marches Sun Tzu said: We come now to the question of locating the army, and observing signs of the enemy. Pass quickly over mountains, and keep in the neighbourhood of valleys. X. Terrain Sun Tzu said: We may distinguish six kinds of terrain, to wit: (1) Accessible ground; (2) entangling ground; (3) temporising ground; (4) narrow passes; (5) precipitous heights; (6) positions at a great distance from the enemy.
XI. The Nine Varieties of Situation Sun Tzu said: The art of war recognizes nine varieties of ground:(1) Depressive ground; (2) facile ground; (3) contentious ground; (4) open ground; (5) ground of intersecting highways; (6) serious ground; (7) difficult ground; (8) hemmed-in ground; (9) desperate ground.
XII. Attack by Fire Sun Tzu said: There are five ways of attacking with fire. The first is to burn soldiers in their camp; the second is to burn stores; the third is to burn baggage trains; the fourth is to burn arsenals and magazines; the fifth is to hurl dropping fire amongst the enemy.
XIII. Use of Spices Sun Tzu said: Raising a host of a hundred thousand men and marching them great distances entails heavy loss on the people and a drain on the resources of the State. The daily expenditure will amount to a thousand ounces of silver. There will be commotion at home and abroad, and men will drop down exhausted on the highways and as many as seven hundred thousand families will be impeded in their labour.
This work stresses the unpredictability of battle, the importance of deception and surprise, the close relationship between politics and military policy, and the high costs of war. The futility of seeking hard and fast rules and the subtle paradoxes of success are major themes. The best battle, Sun Tzu says, is the battle that is won without being fought.
Sun Tzu argued in his The Art of War:
Much calculation brings triumph. Little calculation brings defeat. How much more so with no calculation! By observing this, I can predict victory or defeat
There are five fundamental strategies in The Art of War. One should calculate a plan with five working fundamentals and examine each of them closely.
1. Moral Cause - Inspire people to share the same ideas and expectations. 2. Nature - is changes in climatic conditions. 3. Situation - is distant or immediate, obstructed or easy, and conditions for the chances of life or death. 4. Leadership - is wisdom, humanity, credibility, courage, intelligence and firmness. 5. Discipline - is officials views employ moral cause, reward, punishment, logistics and flexible system.
Those who understand these aforementioned fundamentals will win. Those who don't - will be defeated.
The Art of War was intended only for the military elite of his time period. However, this treatise would later be absorbed by others of influence -- from the fearless samurai in feudal Japan to the shrewd business leaders of the 21st century. Nowadays, the theories of the book are also widely employed in business approach, organization strategy and developing management skills.
The strategies in the "The Art of War" were widely followed in Japan in medieval times (15th to 16th Century), and the Japanese military classic "Book of Five Rings", written by Miyamoto Musashi, a noted samurai (1645), contained many similarities to Sun Tzu's teachings.
The works of Sun Tzu have been widely known in the United States since the mid-1970s. Social Thinkers such as Henry Kissinger has made reference to Sun Tzu and the principles for the conduct of warfare have been the subject of serious study in U.S. military circles for many years.
The Art of War as applied to business, sports, diplomacy and personal lives has been popularized in American business and management texts. Sun Tzu may be the most frequently quoted Chinese personality in the world today. The book has been translated into different languages such as, Persian, Turkish, Arabic, English, Japanese, German, French and Russian, which is highly valued in different countries especially as a reference book for various military academies and also enjoys growing popularity among businessmen around the globe.
His major ideas are based on one grand assumption, i.e. ‘all warfare is partly based on deceptions’ and could be concisely presented as follow:
(1) Seem unable when able to attack. (2) Behave as inactive but are ready to use forces. (3) Pretend the army is moving away from the war field but actually camped near the area. (4) When far away, we must make the opponent believe that we are near. (5) Use baits to allure the opponent. (6) Feign disorder followed by attack. (7) "Be prepared and stay low profile" if opponent is secure and strong. (8) Pretend to be strong to cause
the opponent to avoid you.
But what make all these rules and regulations significant in social theoretical terms and existentially are not the military dimensions contained in them but the overriding concern with intelligible self as he eloquently puts it:
Know yourself first, then know your opponent, and win thousand battles.
This is the point through which one can rediscover the metaphysics of perennial philosophy that is of great significance to religious thinking in an intercivilizational dialogical context. This is the aspect, which intellectuals need to pay more attention if social theory is intended to be what it always purported to be, i.e. an attempt to reflect upon human predicaments in the world at large and how to achieve to the heights of intelligible life both individually and communally. These are issues of significance, which are discernible in Chinese intellectual traditions as indicated by our sketchy presentation. However one needs more insightful research into the classical periods of Chinese intellectual traditions along intercivilizational lines before embarking upon the contemporary scene. This is a task that we will work towards in our forthcoming book, where global issues of today will be cast into the framework of intercivilizational dialogue. In this brief anthology we will settle down for a concise familiarization of the Chinese intellectual tradition, which are of philosophico-social theoretical significance. Now in the remainder of this essay we will look at the contemporary scene and hope to bring into debates a long-forgotten fact about social theory, namely the dialogical nature of global world that could not be understood unilaterally or along imperialistic lines. We hope that students of social theory, philosophy, religious studies, art, poetry, and human sciences in general would soon realize that the universe of ‘culture’ is not flat but complexly multifaceted and in dire need of intelligent students, who have an insightful eye for the intelligible life.
SIXKang Youwei
Kang Youwei (1858-1927), who was born in Nanhai County, Guangdong Province,
and popularly known as the Master of Nanhai or Kang Nanhai, was a
progressive reformer who in his whole life “sought truth.”
He was a Chinese philosopher and reform movement leader. He was a leading
philosopher of the new text school of Confucianism, which regarded Confucius
as a utopian political reformer.
The first
two books were his comments on the ancient classics, but they had something
to do with the reform of 1898. And The
Book of Universal Commonwealth
directly expressed the thoughts of saving Chinese society.
His plans for reform, which he proposed to model after the Meiji example, included (1) the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, (2) the creation of a parliament, and (3) the formation of a modern system of education. Enthusiasm for his ideas spread, however, and several provincial reform associations were founded (1896-1897). Again confronted with foreign pressure for concessions, Emperor Guang Xu (1898) summoned Kang to Beijing and asked him to draw up reform plans. In a series of decrees known as the "hundred days' reform", the emperor changed the civil service examination system to include essays on current affairs, established Beijing University as well as western-style provincial schools, abolished many sinecure posts, and revised administrative regulations. Backed by
conservative officials, Dowager Empress CiXi imprisoned the emperor and
rescinded most of the reforms. Kang fled to Japan and spent the years before
the 1911 revolution working for constitutional monarchy.
Apart from being a leader of the Reform Movement of 1898 he was a key figure in the intellectual development of modern China. During the last years of the empire and the early years of the republic he sought to promote Confucianism as an antidote against “moral degeneration”. Like many great social philosophers in the world he too was concerned with the question of ‘moral decline’ and the importance of ‘intelligible life’. He made great contribution to the development of the Chinese intellectual thought in relation to the grand issues of self and society and freedom and social harmony or order.
Kang Youwei, like many of his great contemporaries such as Liang Qichao, Tai Sitong, Yan Fu, Xue Fucheng and Guo Songtao, was devoted to the comprehensive study of the ethical significance of modern science and technology. The main results of his intellectual endeavours could be summarized in the following five points:
1. The object of ethics is life viewed as a transcendental substance. Therefore, this study is not science, nor is scientific methods applicable to it. The object of ethics is transcendental spiritual substance or "ego", while science takes phenomena as its object and searches to discover law in phenomena; therefore science and ethics are in contrast, the method of science being objective, logical, analytic, causal and seeking identity, whereas the method of ethics is subjective, intuitive, synthetic, single and concerned with free will.
2. Youwei held that ethics could be studied using a scientific method regarding phenomena, for the study of false substances is not only useless but also harmful. True ethical knowledge can be obtained only by use of the scientific method and reducing the object of ethics to moral phenomena. The problem of the life is not separated from that of science; indeed the most basic ethical problems are moral phenomena, which can be studied by science. For example, the problem of whether the nature of humans is good or evil is the same scientific problem as Darwin’s theory of competition, and both are solvable. Science has direct influence on the nature of humanity, and promotes moral progress as the best instrument for education and civilization. It enhances the human’s abilities to seek truth, to know, to imagine and to intuit, thus making human life happy. On the other hand, he rejected the existence of moral substance and in this employed a modernist epistemology, which he characterized as sceptical idealism. A sceptical attitude to substance behind phenomena restricts knowledge to systematizing natural phenomena by mental concepts. In terms of this limitation he considers the ethics of moral substance to be not only absurd, but also harmful.
3. Youwei’s "Scientific or Naturalist View of Life" divided human life between human behavior and general mental life. Scientific method and content applies to both sides. As human life is determined by the cosmos, knowledge about the cosmos through science becomes the norm of the view of life. Here the core idea is scientific causality and the theory of evolution. Based on science and biology regarding the cause and history of the evolution of living beings and human society, as well as psychology, it is clear that all mental phenomena have their causes.
The behavior of actual life is governed by the rules of the cosmos and explained particularly by science. At the same time, the internal life of humans, their ethical value, including free will, creative force, feeling and aesthetic sense, all can be described and regulated. Human freedom is not limited by causality; rather man is capable of explaining the past and of foreseeing the future by the virtue of causality. Even the idea of competition promotes man’s pity and his faith in the importance of mutual assistance.
4. It is imperative to make a distinction between moral substance and moral phenomena. The former is not the object of science, whereas the latter is. Youwei divided knowledge of life into its ideal and actual aspects. The former is "a priori form", while the latter is "a posteriori content". The former is the substance of morality, while the latter is its phenomena. Study of the moral ideal is of fundamental importance for ethics, for which the study of moral actuality constitutes a preliminary step.
Moral substance is an issue, which philosophers studied by methods of intuition. But it is not possible starting from the doctrine of moral substance to deduce consequences about ethical actuality, for which study scientific methods are required. It is imperative to distinguish scientific method and science as a system of knowledge. Ethics becomes a science by using the scientific method. But it remains distinct from natural science, which is science in a strict sense, whereas ethics belongs to general science as a normative rather than explanatory dimension.
5. Youwei divided human life into its mental and material aspects, respectively governed by intellect and feeling. Accordingly, the view of life can also be divided into two parts, of which that corresponding to the mental aspect cannot be studied by scientific methods, whereas that corresponding to the material aspect must be studied by scientific methods.
Life, to conclude Youwei’s thought, in its material aspect alone cannot exist without a world of things, which can be rationalized by the use of precise scientific methods and is based on facts. He emphasized that the mental or feeling aspect is a prime motive in life, which it is absurd to direct as if it were an empirical reality. Finally His formula for saving China was to establish an ethico-centric ideal society of "Universal Commonality." For Kang Youwei, the society of China must be motivated by the force of Western science and technology to approach gradually this ideal of "Universal Commonality". It is obvious that Western science and technology, on the one hand, and the social ethics of China, on the other hand, are united in Kang Youwei’s thinking.
SEVEN Fei Xiaotong
Fei Xiaotong was born on November 2, 1910 and spent his first ten years in Wujiang County of Jiangsu Province. In 1933, Fei graduated from Yanjing University. Fei remained at Yanjing for five years and there he established the intellectual direction and momentum that would shape the rest of his life. Under the notable scholar Wu Wenzao's influence and the inspiring impact of visiting professor Robert Ezra Park of the University of Chicago, Fei concluded that his original choice of medicine was too narrow. "China's problem was not sickness, not a medical problem," he decided. "It was a social problem and a political problem. So I went to the social sciences."
At age twenty-four, Fei completed his baccalaureate degree and shifted to nearby Tsinghua University to begin graduate studies in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. After graduating from Tsinghua University in 1935, he threw himself into a study of Kaixiangong’s rural life and enterprises, collecting masses of social and economic data on the rural life and its people. Armed with his data about the mountain folk of Guangxi and his notes from Kaixiangong, he was now ready for London. Meanwhile, in London, Fei enrolled for his doctoral studies under Raymond Firth.
In 1938, Fei Xiaotong made his way home. In Kunming, Fei became a professor of social anthropology at National Yunnan University and also served as a field director of the Yanjing-Yunnan Station for Sociological Research. He got the Huxley Award from Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1981. Rarely, as one acute observer noted, has a scholar been able to influence a major national policy in the way Fei did.
His major works are on different aspects of Chinese society, whereby one can discern a disciplinary outlook intertwined with a Chinese spirit:
Peasant Life in China(1939), Earthbound China (1945), Chinese Gentry(1945), Toward a People's Anthropology(1981), Chinese Village Close-up(1983), Small Towns in China(1986). His Core Idea
He encouraged the leaders to observe the phenomenon for themselves and argued that China is in need of substantial reforms within its socio-economic structures and in the general climate of the post-Mao leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Fei's ideas were profoundly welcomed. He focused on the problem of community not as a part of social construction solely but within civilizational context. Fei was more interested in the applicability of his analysis. In the introduction to one of his major books, he wrote, "A current understanding of the existing situation based on empirical facts will assist in directing change toward a desired end. Herein lies the function of social science." This hope was a belief that he shared with many modern Chinese social thinkers and intellectuals and as a matter of fact guided Fei as a working-hypothesis for the rest of his career.
During 1980s, he argued that liberation had ended a long era of exploitation and rendered Chinese peasants owners of their own land. Moreover, collectivization and other communist reforms had increased peasant incomes. Fei asserts that rural sideline enterprises and industries are the key to the health of the entire system. For one thing, he says, by the early 1990s, "the output value created by township- and village-owned enterprises was about 1,000 billion (RMB), making up one-third of the national GNP." One hundred million peasants were in the process of becoming modern workers. At the same time, most of these new workers were still entrenched within the family and community life of the countryside. "People will start to demand rights. Then the word will just come out: democracy." The democracy movement of the Tian'anmen demonstrations of 1989, he says, was "not the real thing. It had no social roots." Real democracy in China will emerge organically and from within a process of social change unleashed by its own characteristically Chinese path to industrial modernity. Fei is one of the rare Third World, a la Shariati or Jalal Ale-Ahmad, intellectuals, who could translate the universe of modernity in West into his native Chinese tradition, without forgetting that ‘change’ is part of human social life but, at the same time, without neglecting that the ‘grand change’ needs ‘great foundation’ too.
EIGHT Sun Yat-Sen
Sun Yat-sen was born to a peasant family in the village of Cuiheng in southern China. After receiving a few years of local schooling, at age 13, Sun went to live with an older brother, who had immigrated there as a labourer and become a prosperous merchant, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Sun studied at the Iolani School in Honolulu (1879-1882) and ultimately earned a license to practice medicine from the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese (1892), of which he was one of the first two graduates. He subsequently practiced medicine in that city briefly in 1893.
His years in Hawaii, where he was taught by American Christian missionaries, awoke in him a deep sense of curiosity to study the American System of economics. He attached particular importance to the ideas of Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln. Sun often said that the formulation from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, "government of the people, by the people, for the people," had been the inspiration for the "Three Principles of the People." In October 1894 he founded the Xing Zhong Society to unveil the goal of prospering China and as the platform for future revolutionary activities.
On October 10, 1911, a military uprising at Wuchang in which Sun had no direct involvement, began a process that ended five thousand years of imperial rule in China. When he learned of the successful rebellion against the Qing emperor from press reports, Sun immediately returned to China from the United States. On December 29 at Nanking, a meeting of representatives from provinces elected Sun as the provisional President of the Republic of China and set the New Year's Day of 1912 as the first day of the First Year of the Republic.
After the presidential oath, Sun telexed all provinces to elect and send new senators to establish the National Assembly of the Republic of China. In March 1925 he died of liver cancer in Beijing at the age of 59.
Works: The Vital Problem of China (1917); he analyzed some of the problems of colonialism. Sun warned that "...the British treat nations as the silk-worm farmer treats his worms; as long as they produce silk, he cares for them well; when they stop, he feeds them to the fish." International Development of China (1921); he presented detailed proposals for the development of infrastructure in China, and attacked the ideology of laissez-faire, as well as that of Marxism.
Ideas: Enumeration of the Three Principles of the People
The Principle of Mínzú ("The People's Relation/Connection"): Nationalism. By this, Sun meant freedom from imperialist domination. The Principle of Mínquán ("The People's Power"): Democracy. To Sun, it represented a Western constitutional government. First, he divided political life into two 'powers': The power of politics (zhèngquán): This is the power of the people to express their political wishes, similar to a parliament in other countries, and is represented by the National Assembly. The power of governance (zhìquán): This is the power of administration. Here he expanded the European-American constitutional theory of a three-branch government and a system of checks and balances by incorporating traditional Chinese administrative tradition to create a government of five branches (each of which is called a yuàn or 'court'). The Legislative Yuan, the Executive Yuan, and the Judicial Yuan came from Montesquieuan thought; the Control Yuan and the Examination Yuan came from Chinese tradition. (Note that the Legislative Yuan was first intended as a branch of governance, not strictly equivalent to a national parliament.)
The Principle of Mínshēng ("The People's Welfare/Livelihood"): This is sometimes translated as socialism, although the government of Chiang Kai-Shek shyed away from translating it as such. Sun understood as an industrial economy and equality of land holdings for the Chinese peasant farmers. Here he was influenced by the American thinker Henry George; the Land Value Tax in Taiwan is a legacy thereof. He divided livelihood into four areas: food, clothing, housing, and transportation; and planned out how an ideal (Chinese) government can take care of these for its people.
The ideology is heavily influenced by Sun's experiences in the United States and contains elements of the American progressive movement and the thought championed by Abraham Lincoln.
The Three People's Principles was claimed as the basis for the ideologies of the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek, of the Communist Party of China under Mao Zedong, and of the Japanese collaborationist government under Wang Jingwei. The Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China largely agreed on the meaning of nationalism but differed sharply on the meaning of democracy and people's welfare, which the former saw in Western social democratic terms and the latter interpreted in Marxist and Communist terms. The Japanese collaborationist governments interpreted nationalism less in terms of anti-imperialism and more in terms of cooperating with Japan to advance pan-Asian interests.
Sun Yat-sen, to conclude, was a Chinese revolutionary leader, intellectual and statesman. He had a significant influence in the establishment of the Republic of China. A founder of the Kuomintang, Sun was the first provisional president of the Republic of China in 1912 and as de facto leader from 1923 to 1925. He developed a political philosophy known as the Three Principles of the People. Almost all Chinese from different walks of life have admired him. Throughout his life, Sun made great contribution to the Chinese society and what he termed as the Asian thought and ideals.
NINE Ma Yinchu
Ma Yinchu, the famous Chinese economist, educator and demographer has been called china's Bruno. He did great contribution to the development of demography in social sciences.
Shortly after China's national liberation in 1949 China experienced a baby boom. In 1850, the statistics from the court of Qin dynasty showed there had been 430 million people. Till 1949, the population was still less than 550 million. In the past, Chinese women gave birth to 7-8 children on average, but less than half could be brought up to be adults. The average life span was about 30. So the high birth rate and high death rate did not indicate any possibility of rapid increase of population.
However, Mayinchu had his own view on this problem. Just like an insightful seer, he could predict the potential danger caused by over-increase of population. He made a social investigation in 1950s; the most impressive condition was that there were children everywhere. According to critical demographic studies, too many children were just an index of poverty and slum. After 1949, the high death rate was changed, but the birth rate remained high. In 1953's census, which was also the first census in China, the population reached 600million. He calculated the limited land resources, and began to worry that it may affect the industrialization, and advocated family plan.
In 1957 he published the work ' New Theory on Population'. In this work, he made an insightful estimation about the situation of population at the time by analyzing the contradiction between the fast growing population and national economic development. He systematically expounded the core theory that is to control the number of population and improve the quality of population.
Through investigating into the first hand data, he proved that the increase of population at that time had already been unsuitable with national economic development, and had been in serious contradiction with wealth accumulation, consumption, and scientific development. His theory could be briefly outlined as follow:
1 Population increase in our country is too fast. 2 Our fund accumulation is not fast enough. 3 Not only should we accumulate funds but also speed up the accumulation. 4 In aspect of industrial resources, the population must be controlled. 5 To improve scientific research, the population must be controlled. 6 As for food, the population should be controlled.
Finally, he made some suggestions:
1 There must be a sound statistic system of demography. 2 The legal age of marriage had better be put off to 25 for men and 23 for women. 3 Methods of prevention from pregnancy must be widely propagated.
On the forth session of the first NPC, he mentioned his theory. On one hand, China should control the population that had already emerged and on the other hand, they should improve the cultural and material life. He emphasized the birth control.
It was really hard to challenge the traditional concept on population at the time. For China used to be an agriculture nation. Traditionally, people firmly believed that the more people, the more prosperous a family would be. At that time the manufacture industry mainly depended on the number of labourers, the more labourer, the more products. Over the past 2000 years, the rulers encouraged giving birth to children as many as possible, in order to increase the taxes. Newly founded China, at that time, also largely depended on the agricultural economy; the major form of production was handy work, which forced the leaders to rely on mass of people to raise productivity. Under such cultural background, his suggestion of controlling population was not accepted. And he was subjected to criticism and finally persecution was Mayinchu’s terrible lot.
With the proceeding of China's modernization drive, the pressure from large population has been more and more obvious. Years later his advice proved true. The wrong criticism was rectified in 1979, and the Asian population and development society awarded him. In 1982 when he passed away, the problems he foresaw became evermore evident.
Now China has been carrying the family planning policy for 2 decades, the population problem is still a big headache for her development. If China adopted his suggestion of controlling birth rate earlier, situation could have been different. However, he is still remembered as the greatest demographer in Asian history of social sciences.
TEN Lu Xun
Lu Xun (1881-1936) - name also translated Lu Hsün; pseudonym of Zhou Shuren. Chinese writer, intellectual and thinker; author of short stories, poems, essays, and literary criticism; considered the founder of Modern Chinese literature and the representative writer of Socialist Realism; favorite author of Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). He was born in 1881, into an educated but impoverished Chinese family in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, in the heart of Jiangnan, the cultural center of China since at least late imperial times.
MAIN WORKS
Call To Arms (Cheering from the Sidelines) (Na-Han) (1922), his first collection of stories, includes his most celebrated stories such as "Diary of a Madman" (1918) and "The True Story of Ah Q" which depicts an ignorant farm laborer who goes through a series of humiliations and finally is executed during the chaos of the revolution of 1911. Wandering (Hesitation) (Pang Huang) (1925), his second collection of stories, includes his second best-known story, "The New-Year Sacrifice," in which Lu Xun sketches the life of an ordinary working woman. Through his exploration of her life and heart, Lu Xun makes a profound analysis of society -- displaying the social pressures she faces and hinting at the inhuman Confucian morality destroying her hopes and sense of dignity. Wild Grass (Ye Cao) (1926), a collection of prose poems where Lu Xun describes his feelings in relation to the Chinese struggles against imperialism and the Northern warlords. Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk (Chao-hua hsi-shih) (1926), a collection of essays dealing with Lu Xun's childhood and early youth. Old Tales Retold (Gu Shi Xin Bian) (1935), his third collection of short stories, where Lu Xun retells old Chinese stories from his own perspective.
Lu Xun was concerned with the modernization of China, liberation from foreign imperialism, the abandoning of oppressive and superstitious traditions, issues of social and economic justice, the plight of the poor and the peasants, the problems of war, violence and the exploitation of others.
Lu Xun's outlook on the world was based on the theory of evolution. According to his own admission, he merely believed that humanity and society are bound to progress, and that the new is bound to replace the old. His struggle, therefore, took the form of hastening the extinction of the old in order to promote the growth of the new; but as to what the new was actually going to be, he chose to be silent. He had not yet accepted positively and clearly the theories of Marx and Lenin. Regarding the problems of the Chinese democratic revolution, which by this time had already entered the epoch of New Democracy under the leadership of the proletariat, he did not comprehend them, as a Communist would, from the proletarian standpoint, utilizing Marxism-Leninism. But he was close to the Marxist-Leninists, and was fiercely attacking the right wing of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, although still retaining the idea of the liberation of individuality, he had nevertheless, in his work of exposing and attacking the dark forces of society that were oppressing the masses of the people, already far surpassed his formed dissection of the roots of illness in the "national character;" or, to be more exact, Lu Xun had now in a general way diagnosed the feudal structure of Chinese society and the accompanying feudal ideas which, layer upon layer, were oppressing the masses, as being the primary source of disease in the "national character." Lu Xun arrived at his general philosophy through his reflections before the May Fourth Movement and his enthusiastic struggle during that movement. This outlook was one of the bases, which enabled him to advance, step by step, from his former theory of the liberation of individuality (reform of the "national character") to the theory of the liberation of the worker-peasant masses in his later period. Thus, Lu Xun in his Peking period had not yet acquired the proletarian standpoint and the Marxist-Leninist outlook, but because he was a severe critic of feudalism, he finally became an enlightener and spearhead of the New Democratic revolution.
He, to conclude, represents a trend within Chinese intellectual thought, which took literature as a form to advocate social change and as a tool to breed political responsibility among the nation. This is an important aspect of literature, which needs more attention by students of intercivilizational dialogue, who are looking for commonalities between various civilizations and cultures.
ELEVEN DENG XIAOPING
The fact that Deng Xiaoping was a great statesman is beyond any doubt among the historians of world politics but little have been said about this man in terms of social theory and his political philosophy. Of course one main reason could be the fact that disciplinary historians of social theory and philosophy have come sadly to be accustomed in narrating the theories of likeminded academicians, who rarely could touch the heart and mind of ordinary people. But this lack should not be hailed as a scientific practice and conveyed to students of social theory and philosophy or human sciences in general. It is an obsolete rule to consider someone as a social thinker as long as he has been born and bred within disciplinary or academic confines. A social thinker or philosopher is someone, who is able to discern the connections between individual life and collectivity as well as man’s place in life. Having these concerns in mind then one could not but break the iron shackles of disciplinary thought, which deprives the sociological imagination from the rich of human creativity that does not know any borders but a profound yearning for glory and transcendence. If the net, which we choose to cast, were reasonably wide enough then there would not be any surprise to see a pragmatic intellectual such as Deng Xiaoping among our anthology.
Biographical Background
At the turn of the century the Chinese nation (like Iranian and Japanese nations) was groaning in misery. Under the leadership of Dr. Sun a resolution was brewing, and the country was on the eve of radical changes. It was in this turbulent time that Deng Xiaoping was born. Deng's birthplace was Paifang Village in Xiexing Township Guang'an County, in the province of Sichuan. It was in this village that his forefathers had lived for three generations and that Deng Xixian - the future Deng Xiaoping - was born on August 22, 1904.
At five the boy entered an old-fashioned private pre-school, at seven a modern primary school and in due course a middle school in his native county. It happened that in 1919, on the proposal of Wu Yezhang, a member of the Chongqing to prepare young people to go to France on a work-study program. After passing the entrance examinations, the boy was enrolled in the school.
In his teens Deng Xiaoping already had some simple patriotic ideas. After the may 4th Movement of 1919, he joined his schoolmate in a boycott of Japanese goods. But his understanding did not go beyond the slogan "save the country by industrialization", an idea popular among students at the time. His ardent hope was to go to France to learn industrial skills through work and study for the benefit of the country.
In the summer of 1920, Deng Xiaoping graduated from the Chongqing Preparatory School, filled with fervent hopes he and 80 schoolmates boarded a ship for France and in October arrived in Marseilles. Deng, the youngest of all the Chinese students, had just turned 16.
After Chiang Kai-Shek and Wang Jingwei staged successive counter-revolutionary movements, the once-dynamic Great Revolution ended in failure. To save the revolution, the Communist Party launched a series of armed uprisings against the Kuomintang regime. In the summer of 1929 Li Mingrui and Yu Zuobo took control of military and political power in Guangxi and attempted to direct the work of the local Party organizations by preparing for an armed uprising. This was the first time that Deng was independently undertaking the important responsibility of leading a region.
In 1937 the Japanese launched a full-scale war of aggression against China. The Chinese Communist Party worked hard to bring about a second period of co-operation with the Kuomingtang, thus achieving nationwide unity in resistance. In accordance to the agreement between the two sides, the Chinese Workers' and Peasant' Red Army was reorganized as the Eighth Route Army of the national Revolutionary Army and marched to the front. Deng Xiaoping was appointed Deputy Director of the Political Department of the Eighth Route Army and, shortly afterwards, Political Commissar of its 129th Division, of which Liu Bocheng was commander.
After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the Kuomintang, in defiance of the strong desire of the entire nation for peace and reconstruction, launched a large-scale civil war with the intention of eliminating the Communist Party and the revolutionary forces under its leadership. Under the command of Mao Zedong, the army and the people in the liberated areas rose in resistance. This has been called the War of Liberation, a war of decisive importance in the history of China's modern era.
The Great Southwest included Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and present-day Sichuan and Tibet, with a total area of 2.3 million square kilometres. It was the last territory held by the Kuomintang before they fled from the mainland. To liberate the Southwest, the PLA adopted the tactics of outflanking and encircling their rivals. The Second Field Army, commanded by Liu Bocheng and Deng Xiaoping, and a corps of the First Field Army, led by He Long, advanced from the south and the north respectively and swiftly liberated the entire Southwest except for Tibet, ultimately driving the Kuomintang forces from the mainland.
Deng Xiaoping served as First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau, Vice-Chairman of the Southwest Military and Administrative Commission and Political Commissar of the Southwest Military Command. While leading a campaign to wipe out fleeing Kuomintang diehards, Deng, along with Liu Bocheng, He Long and others, did everything possible to unite with everyone who could be united with and to win over everyone in the enemy camp who could be won over. With great care and discretion, they tried to break down traditional animosities among different peoples and to bring about national unity. Lastly, by mobilizing the masses, they accomplished agrarian reform and other social reforms and built democratically moulded governments at different levels. Thus they brought about stability in the Southwest.
In July 1952 the Central Committee of the Party transferred Deng Xiaoping to the central organs. This transfer marked the beginning of another important period in his revolutionary career. He served first as both executive Vice-Premier of the Government Administration Council and Vice-Chairman of the Financial and Economic Commission, and was soon appointed Director of the Office of Communications and Minister of Finance as well. In 1954, retaining only the position of Vice-Premier, he became in addition Secretary-General of the Party Central Committee, Director of the Organization Department and Vice-Chairman of the National Defense Commission. In 1955, at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee, he was elected to the Committee's Political Bureau. In 1956, at the Party's Eighth National Congress, it was Deng who made the report on the revision of the Party Constitution, and at the First Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee he was elected member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau and General Secretary of the Central Committee. Thus, at the age of 52 he became one of the chief leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, together with Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Chen Yun. For the next ten years Deng Xiaoping was General Secretary, directing the routine work of the Secretariat. Referring to this time, he said later, "It was the busiest period in my life."
The "cultural revolution", initiated and led by Mao Zedong, took China down the wrong path. Taking advantage of the situation, a group of careerists and conspirators headed by Lin Biao and another by Jiang Qing attempted to usurp the Party and state leadership, bringing unprecedented disaster upon the Party and the people. During the ten years of turmoil Deng Xiaoping was twice discredited and removed from office and went through the most painful ordeal in his revolutionary career.
Nineteen seventy-six is a year the Chinese people will never forget. Zhou Enlai, Zhu De and Mao Zedong died one after another, plunging the nation into mourning. Then in October, to general rejoicing, the Central Committee smashed the counter-revolutionary clique of the Gang of Four. The ten-year "cultural revolution" that had wreaked such havoc was finally brought to an end, and the country entered a new period of her history. He passed away on 1997 at the age of 93.
Briefly his core ideas could be summarized as follow:
A. Deng was the first to advance the theory that peace and development are the two major issues in today's world, pointing out the global strategic issues in the present-day world: one is the question of peace and the other is the question of development, but neither of these issues has been solved today.
B. Deng stated that China would not join any group, nor enter into alliance with any big power. With respect to all international affairs and issues, Deng said, China should independently decide on her own attitude and policy from the fundamental interests of the people of China and of the rest of the world and in light of the right and wrong of the case; Deng further pointed out that no foreign country should expect China to be its stooge or would swallow the bitter fruit resulted from damaging its own interest.
C. .Set forth the theory that a socialist country should be opened to the outside world, and that opening to the outside world should be a basic national policy for China's socialist construction. He pointed out that for socialism to win comparative superiority over capitalism, it must boldly absorb and draw on all achievements of civilizations created by human society, including all advanced operational forms and management methods of developed capitalist countries that reflect the law of modern socialized production. This, in my view, is probably one of the great political principles which could prove revolutionary for intercivilizational co-operation globally, in general, and regionally (among Iran, China, India, Pakistan and Turkey), in particular.
D. Deng also put forward the new idea about "sovereignty belonging to me, putting aside disputes and seeking common development", thus maintaining peace, stability and tranquillity in China's surrounding regions. This new idea represents a great contribution to the peaceful solution of disputes over territory between nations.
To put it otherwise Deng’s importance within the frame of intercivilizational dialogue is indispensable as in his thoughts the question of underdevelopment has been treated in relation to social change with a deep anchorage in socialism as a grand frame of national reference. That is to say, for progress one needs to have a conviction, which is not based on ‘imported ideology’ but home-grown as growth could not be achieved when there is no inner conviction either individually or collectively. This is a great lesson for all social and political theorists or intellectuals in general, who think of global issues that face the developing as well as underdeveloped nations. In brief, Deng Xiaoping's key contribution to China was his Reform of Chinese economic and political system, and also his policy of opening up to the world. The Chinese Wonder since 1978 owes a great deal to Deng's theory as well as personal insight. Maybe one day when the textbooks of global social theory are published in future academies Deng would be one of the main classics among the intercivilizational theorists.
TWELVE Ku Hung-Ming
Apart from the abovementioned authors and trends within Chinese intellectual context there is one significant traditional Chinese philosopher, who as early as 1878 paid serious attention to the question of cultural exchange between China and the world in general and Europe in particular, namely Ku Hung-Ming (1857-1928). He may be considered the last traditional philosopher of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) who is rightly considered as the supreme prototype of intercultural dialogue in Chinese tradition. He was one of the first Chinese intellectuals to study in Europe and as Wu Xiaoqiao rightly argues, the first who engaged in historical aspects of the intellectual and cultural exchange between China and Europe in a profound sense. Ku Hung-Ming began his career with a number of critical writings over the First World War in Europe and a way out of the war with European contemporary intellectuals on large scale. He being one of the earliest Chinese intellectuals, who visited the university in Europe, Ku Hung Ming primarily was fascinated with the European civilization. Ku Hung Ming was born into a wealthy Chinese merchant family in Penang which was an English colony. At 16 he came to Europe. After the Magister Studium in Edinburgh he stopped for some time in Germany and registered in Leipzig at the university. During his study time Ku undertook often journeys within the country. After concluding his study in Germany Ku spend also sometimes in Paris. After his return to China in the year 1888 Ku was active as a secretary of the governor general of Wuchang, Chang Chih Tung. He published his views over political and cultural questions in China regarding the colonial policy of the western powers in the book: "Papers from A Viceroy’s Yamen", which appeared in 1901 in English language in Shanghai. The strong traditionalist development of Ku’s culture theory presents itself particularly in the work of "China’s defense against European ideas" (1911), in which the writing is most well-known "the history of the Chinese Oxford movement", and in the English work "The spirit OF the Chinese People, with an essay on The War and The Way Out", where one can read also the most important opinions of Ku over the differences and similarities between the Chinese and the European culture. He wrote his political treatise, namely ‘China’s defense against European ideas’ in order to point to real political questions on modernity and tradition, religion and materialism by arguing that since the arrival of the Europeans to China, Chinese have tried to prevent destructive forces of the materialistic civilization of Europe and the cultural harm materialism brings on good government and indigenous culture of China. He believed that Chinese as a nation has a genuine power within herself to curb the destructive forces of the modern civilization of Europe but Chinese people have not yet awakened. In this last book Ku Hung Ming, tried to explain the soul of the Chinese civilization and its value as a world-shaking fact of intercivilizational import. The work is considered as a Chinese version of Occidentalism and Ku proved to be a passionate defender of the traditional Chinese culture against the military and materialistic tendencies of the modern European civilization as well as a criticism against the thought of the "Poebelverehrung". Ku was deeply concerned about the possibility of dialogue on issues that matter perennially for human beings. He holds that if one could solve the equation a+b=c correctly in matters of perennial significance then soon one will find that only a small difference exists between Confucius from East and Shakespeare and Goethe from West. In connection with the Verwestlichungstroemungen in China Ku Hung Ming attached a great value on the intellectual exchange between China and Europe. He rejected the introduction of western weaponry industry strictly in China. In his writings Ku fought militarism and materialism entirely. He stressed moral values and intellectual forces of the Chinese culture and pleaded, in particular, in his "The Spirit OF the Chinese People" for the moral elements of the Confucianism. Ku Hung Ming professes itself rather to the classical (sacred, religious, and perennial) ideas both of the Chinese and the European culture. His thoughts seemed by many in China to be in certain respects conservative and reactionary in a context where modernization in all dimensions of humanities was the prime goal. He was extremely a skillful comparativist thinker who could make his case by quoting both the sayings from the Chinese classical authors such as Confucius and Menzius or Do Fu and the quotations and verses from European classics and philosophers of Enlightenment tradition. Owing to the education of many years in Europe, particularly in Germany, Ku belonged at that time to the few, which quoted Goethe in the writings several times over cultural similarities between China and Europe. One must be reminded that Goethe at that time in China was completely unknown. Beside Goethe he quoted also more frequently Shakespeare, Voltaire, Wordsworth, Heine, Emerson, Beranger and many sages of the Middle Ages. In particular the English writer Mathew Arnold had a great impact on Ku Hung Ming both stylistically and philosophically. Another front that Ku was deeply engaged (like his counterparts in Iran, Turkey and Muslim World in general) was the discipline of Sinology, which in his view was extremely dissatisfactory. He critically assessed the Schlampigen Translation at that time of the classical Chinese works, which had contributed in Ku’s opinion to the wrong understanding of the Chinese culture in Europe. In order to present the true ideas of the Chinese culture to the western public, he dedicated himself to a new translation of the Confucian’s teachings in English. In the year 1898 Ku’s "The Discourses and Sayings OF Confucius: A new Special translation, Illustrated with Quotations from Goethe and OTHER Writers " appeared in Shanghai. Ku released another important work on Confucian civilization entitled "The universal order OF Conduct OF Life: A Confucian Catechism" in 1906. With the translation of this work into English Ku Hung Ming made also a grand contribution for the spreading of the Chinese culture in Europe.
Ku Hung Ming influenced great many thinkers in Europe such as the German Sinologist Richard William, Alfons Paquet, Rudolf Pannwitz, Hermann Hesse and the doyen of modern social theory Walter Benjamin who was deeply inspired by Ku’s cultural theory. In a letter to a friend Walter Benjamin takes Ku’s position on cultural theory by stating that the Chinese literary man Ku Hung Ming’s book ‘China’s defense against European ideas’ surprised me to notice that under completely different conditions how Hung Ming works satisfactorily based on a vision of moral dignity that attempts to awaken China from the danger of materialist Geist that has ravaged the European mind into shatters. We know also that the Danish critic George Brandes wrote a long discussion over Ku Hung Ming. Also the German moral philosopher Leonard Nelson, professor in Goettingen, was influenced by Ku Hung Ming’s cultural theory. Ku’s writings were also translated by Harold Svenberg into Swedish over several times. In Paris the work ‘The Spirit OF the Chinese People’ appeared in the year 1920 in French language. On 26 October 1908 Tolstoy in his diary wrote: ‘Yesterday I received a book from China. It compelled me to think about certain issues anew.’ The book was Ku’s, with which Tolstoy already in 1906 had begun to correspond. The books, which Ku send to Tolstoy, were ‘The Universal Order of Conduct of Life: A Confucian Catechism’ and ‘Great Learning of Higher Education’. It is noteworthy that Tolstoy remained still completely unknown like other European, Russian, Indian, Iranian, Turkish, Arab and African cultural representatives in China. On 21 November 1906 Tolstoy published the ‘Open Letter to Chinese’ in the Journal of Nowoje Wremja, which was translated within a short time into English, French and German. In form of a public letter Tolstoy answered to a letter of Ku Hung Ming in regard to the moral causes of the Russian-Japanese war and ‘Paper from A Viceroy's Yamen: A Chinese Plea for the cause of good government based on the Chinese perspective’. Ku also met with the Indian poet Tagore in Peking, who visited China in 1924. Ku Hung Ming introduced his ideas on intercultural dialogue between China and Europe that he had already published in English. Ku’s impact in a global sense is not confined to authors of previous century alone but exceeds even over the doyens of 20th century on thinkers such as Bertolt Brecht, Elias Canetti, and even the philosopher Martin Heidegger, just mention a few. From different perspectives they took up Chinese ideas to their work and/or to their philosophy. In the area of the intercultural exchange between Asia and Europe Ku Hung Ming belongs in China to the few innovative forerunners, who were qualified enough to launch a constructive critical dialogue between Asia and Europe based on a Chinese perspective. This approach to European intellectual tradition bears deep resemblance to Tagore from Hindu tradition, Phiroz Mehta from Zoroastrian tradition, Iqbal, Muttahari, Shayegan, Nasr, Allama M. Taghi Ja’fari and Dr. Shariati from Muslim tradition and Tolstoy, Solovyov and Dostoevsky from Russian tradition. In the early 20’s and 30's Ku found also in China his successors with the new generation of scholars, who had opportunities to become acquainted with Europe and America by studying the foundations of modern secular worldview propagated by West and at the same time delving into the fundamentals of traditional Chinese worldview and whence constructing a traditionally modern Chinese critique of West and imported Chinese modernity that had no organic connection with Chinese psyche. Among people who followed in the footsteps of Ku one could mention Lin Yutang, who had significantly profound impact on the cultural scene in the 30's by his best-seller ‘My Country and My People’ both in Europe and in the USA. Another important figure in this genre is Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998), who studied in both Oxford and Paris for several years and made a great contribution to ‘Comparative Studies’ with his extensive works on intellectual issues in China and Europe such as Guanzhui Bian (Limited Essays on Ideas and Letters). In the year 1956 Ku’s work in Taiwan experienced a new renaissance, which could not occur in mainland China due to extreme fervent revolutionary sentiments of Communist intellectuals, who wrongly branded him as a reactionary at the service of Capitalism, without realizing the depth of his religious worldview based on a Confucian tradition. That was also the time, when the religious Chinese cultural traditions, in particular the Confucian (Buddhist, Taoist and Islamic) ideas, were outlawed during the Cultural Revolution. Since mid-80's Ku’s star has been gradually rising up in China and he is regaining the right intellectual fame that he truly deserves, namely as a master and a connoisseur of the European cultural and intellectual tradition based on a unique Chinese perspective, which could prove profoundly significant in an intercivilizational dialogue (in particular in a context where China is regaining her long-desired position among world’s nations). At present, in other words, Ku (and his intellectual legacy) is experiencing an intellectual rediscovery or as Germans would have said it about Goethe today Intellektuellen eine Wiederentdeckung. The reasons, why we are witnessing a Ku-Renaissance in China today, lie in the fact that the conception of a so-called complete Europeanizing failed in all non-European contexts (e.g. Iran, India, Russia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Venezuela and so on and so forth) and that the significant perennial meaning of the sacral tradition has been recognized again by the public and its loss or degradation defended profoundly by religious intellectuals in all domains of life such as family, morality, nature, environment, ethics, education and so on and so forth.
As I mentioned elsewhere European and American social theorists and philosophers and even historians of intellectual systems of thought have come to be accustomed in neglecting the importance of non-Western thinkers in substantial debates of sociology, psychology, economics, political theory or in one word what is termed social sciences and humanities. This institutionalized attitude is not only evident in textbooks of cultural studies but a constitutive part of what is today called disciplinary vision of human reality. But with Ku Hung Ming as one of the founding fathers of interciviliational Social Theory it becomes harder to sustain the myopic disciplinary vision of humanities that starts in Europe and ends in America. He poses a challenge both to historians of social theory and practicing social theorists, who desire to explain the death of modernism and the birth of postmodernism in terms of internal dynamics of secular worldview without realizing or admitting that the writings of Ku Hung Mings, for instance, proved as an early successful attempt from a Chinese perspective, which rightly repudiated Eurocentrism dominant in the psyche of European intellectuals. Ku’s komparatistischen method availed itself, in order to infer parallels and analogies from ideas of the two cultures. While he appeared always ready to maintain a peaceful attitude towards the ‘other’ but Ku never failed to critically assess the European ideologies on their destructive accounts such as materialism and colonialism that are deeply ingrained in the political psyche of Europeans and American elites. His intellectual point of departure was not a simple denial or rejection of the other, but constructive engagement with the other in the true sense of intercivilizational dialogue, which entails a deep sense of learning from one another’s perspective or Erweiterung des Gesichtskreises. The world today, as Xatami asserted time and again, is in need of intercivilizational dialogue and Ku surely is one of its great architects who put his indelible mark on issues related to human sciences which never desire to dispense with sacral traditions of humanities and God as the Alpha and Omega of life.
THIRTHEEN Qian Zhongshu
Qian Zhongshu was born in 1910 and died at the end of December 1998. He was an intellectual of great stature who practiced in his writing the art of intercivilizational dialogue incessantly. Born in Wuxi, Qian Zhongshu grew up under the care of his eldest uncle, who did not have a son. Qian was initially named Yangzhi. When he was one year old, according to a tradition practised in many parts of China, Qian was given a few objects laid out in front of him. He grabbed a book. His uncle then renamed him Zhongshu, literally meaning ‘being fond of books’. His father later also changed his Zi to Mocun, literally meaning ‘to keep silent’, in the hope that he would be less talkative. Although he never did shake his chatty nature, Qian was indeed very fond of books. When he was young, his uncle often brought him along to tea houses at night. There Qian was left alone to read storybooks on folklore and historical events, which he would repeat to his cousins upon returning home. When Qian was ten, his uncle passed away. He continued living with his widowed aunt, even though their living conditions worsened drastically due to the lack of steady income. At fourteen, Qian left home to attend a school in Suzhou. Despite failing in Mathematics, Qian was accepted into the Department of Foreign Languages under Tsinghua University in 1929 because of his excellent performance in Chinese and English languages. He met his wife Yang Jiang in Tsinghua and married her in 1935. In the same year, Qian received government sponsorship to further his studies abroad. Together with his wife, Qian headed for the University of Oxford in Britain. After spending two years at Exeter College, he received a Baccalaureus Litterarum (Bachelor of Literature). He then studied for one more year in the University of Paris in France, where his daughter Qian Ai was born, before returning to China in 1938. Due to the unstable situation during the second Sino-Japanese War, Qian did not hold any long-term jobs until the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949. However, he wrote extensively during the decade of chaos and uncertainty. His most celebrated novel, Fortress Besieged, and many other shorter works were completed and published during this period. In 1949, Qian was appointed a professor in his alma mater. Four years later, an administrative adjustment saw the change of Tsinghua into a Science and Technology-based institute, with its Arts branches merged into Peking University (PKU). Qian was relieved of teaching and worked entirely at the Institute of Literary Studies under PKU, where his job was actually translating Mao Zedong's collected works into English. During the Cultural Revolution, like many other prominent intellectuals of that time, Qian suffered heavy persecution. He was very much stripped of his favourite pastime- reading. However, he saw it through and continued to write. In 1982, he was reinstated as the deputy director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He then began working on his magnum opus, Guan Zhui Bian, which occupied the next decade of his life. On his death the Xinhua News Agency, a mouthpiece for the state, labelled him ‘an immortal’ - a term usually reserved for revolutionary martyrs. He was the author of Guanzhui bian (Limited Essays on Ideas and Letters) and of Wei cheng (Fortress Besieged) among many others. He had a perfect knowledge of French, German and English, languages that he spoke fluently, and had a reading knowledge of Italian, Spanish and the ancient classical western languages. Qian Zhongshu was not a pure philologist or linguist: he used languages to roam at his ease through most of western literature and philosophic thought. His novel Wei cheng, published in 1947 and translated into the principal European languages, is partly autobiographic and, above all, a satire on many Chinese intellectuals of the first half of the 20th century. His foreign literature studies allowed him to place, side by side, metaphors and literary figures of the West in order to facilitate a modern reinterpretation of traditional Chinese works. Guanzhui bian, written in classical Chinese language, is not easy to read, but its style is always aesthetically appealing and elegant. During the ‘Cultural Revolution’, as aforementioned, he was persecuted and sent to a re-education camp together with his wife Yang Jiang, who later narrated their vicissitudes during that difficult period in her book Ganxiao liuji (Six Chapters from my Life 'Down under').
Intellectual Achievements His most famous novel, Fortress Besieged, published in 1947, had been translated into English, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Persian and Spanish. His other works include Men-Beasts-Ghosts and The Marginalia of Life. Qian also wrote elaborate notes on Chinese classics, showing his erudition and insight into a comparative study of different cultures. For all of this, literature was not his primary concern. He was also the translator for much of Mao Zedong's collected works, which occupied most of the remainder of his active professional life. Only recently have translations of his earlier works become widely available, though Fortress Besieged was adapted into a television mini-series in China in 1990. Qian's magnum opus is the five-volume Guan Zhui Bian, literally the Pipe-Awl Collection, translated into English as Limited Views. Begun in the 1980s and published in its current form in the mid-1990s, it is an extensive collection of short essays on poetics, semiology, literary history and related topics written in an erudite classical style. Qian's command of the cultural traditions of Classical and Modern Chinese, Ancient Greek, Latin, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish allowed him to construct a towering structure of polyglot and intercivilizational allusions. He took as the basis of this work a range of Chinese classical texts, including the Classic of Poetry, the Tao Te Ching, and the Complete Prose of the Pre-Tang. From neglected details in these works, he found points of connections with works from other literatures. Fortress Besieged is a comedy of manners based on a French proverb: Marriage is like a fortress besieged: those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out. Set in the 1930s it follows the misadventures of Fang Hung-chien, a bumbling everyman who wastes his time studying abroad, and secures a fake degree when learning he has run out of money and must return home to China. The first part of the novel is set on the boat home, where he courts two young ladies. The novel is known for its acerbic asides, such as describing one young lady in the following way "at first, they called her 'Truth' because the truth is supposed to be naked. But then, they called her 'half-truth'. The second section follows his securing a teaching post at a new university - where his fake credentials are used to keep him in line, and in the third part, it centres on his disastrous marriage. The novel ends with his wife leaving him, while he listens to a clock chiming. His philosophy was a fusion of intercivilizational dialogue and academic methodology. On elaborating the work of Lao Tze, Qian demonstrated a profound fact of life, namely the mystical dimension of human existence which is always elusive. He may not be an existentialist in the conventional sense but it would not be farfetched to argue that he was deeply involved in questions of human existence and adversaries of life, which may not always be a matter of our choosing. To pursue this line of thinking he worked on Chinese classical music and found that the main theme of this genre is ‘sadness’ which attempts to express this sense in an infinite manner possible. He argues that the music of classical China first speaks of the sadness of life. Of course there is joy and pleasure and love. But music must, in order to move mountains and minds in traditional Chinese worldview, express infinite sadness. He finds this attempt towards ‘infiniteness’ not only in music but in all dimensions of Chinese civilization. Although he does not speak of religion in a direct and systematic manner nevertheless the observant student may be able to reconstruct based on Qian’s work on the Philosophical and Mystical Paradoxes in the Lao Tze, where he explores the religious and philosophical aspects of Lao Tze by demonstrating the importance of Hermeneutic Traditions in Chinese Culture. Last but not least there is no doubt that he was one of the most accomplished and profound Chinese scholars of the 20th century.
Final Remarks
Looking at China the importance of Tibet as a cultural base where three great civilizations of Asia namely, China, Iran, and India meet and ideas cross-fertilize into new, revolutionary, life-giving worldviews of Tibetan cultures. Very few have looked into the importance of Iranian (both pre-Islamic and Islamic) philosophies and religions in the constitution of Tibetan culture, where India and China turn into vessels of communication for Iranian metaphysical traditions. The contemporary Chinese intellectual traditions are pluralistic and multi-polar and Tibet plays a significant role in this context, where one could see the role of intercivilziational dialogue in action diachronically and synchronically. Let me explain this briefly, which would enable us to see the significant role of intercivilizational dialogue on grand scale.
In 1908, a leading Indian historical journal published a paper entitled "Persian Affinities of the Licchavis". The obscure title, however, masked the remarkable consequences of the work for intercivilizational research, which could enhance the cultural as well as intellectual affinities between India, China and Iran on even further grounds. For, a Persian origin of the Gangetic Licchavis automatically forces several far-reaching conclusions: 1. The Tibetan kings, as evidenced by numerous Tibetan historical works, were descended from the Li-tsa-byi or Licchavi tribe. If the Licchavis were Persian, the long-headed Tibetan ruling caste becomes an Iranic race. 2. The founder of Jainism, Mahavira, was likewise a Licchavi, and hence an Iranian. Consequently, Jainism is an Iranic religion. The intrinsic anti-Brahmin and anti-Sanskrit nature of Jainism, manifested through its denunciation of the Vedas and its patronage of the Ardhamagadhi language, can be logically understood as a consequence of the Iranic racial origin of Mahavira. 3. The historical Nepali Licchavi ruling dynasty was consequently also of an Irano-Aryan origin. The journal in question was published from 1872 to 1933 and then became defunct. It has since been long out of print. As the article is hence virtually out of reach for most Iranologists, I am reproducing extracts from this important paper for research purposes.F
The learned author of the article, Prof. Satis Chandra Vidyābhūaa, was a pioneering historian of Indian logic and earned the title of Mahamahopadhyaya as a mark of his erudition. The ideas set forth in his brilliant paper have withstood the test of time. A mountain of further evidence, confirm the Iranic origin of the Licchavis. It is high time for Iranian intellectuals to reclaim Jainism and Later Tibetan culture as an evidence of the importance of Iranian life-philosophies in India and China. In connection with Mr. Vincent A. Smith's very interesting article, `Tibetan Affinities of the Licchavis,' published ante, Vol.XXXII, p.233-236, I would like, by building on Dr. Samar Abbas’ insightful deliberations, to offer a few observations for consideration. In the article referred to an attempt has been made to establish the theory that the Licchavis were a Tibetan tribe, which settled in the plains during pre-historic times. While admitting the kinship of the Licchavis with the early Tibetan Kings, I beg to differ from Mr. V. A. Smith in his main theory as to the origin of the Licchavis. In my opinion, as buttressed by Abbas’ observations, the Licchavis were a Persian tribe, whose original home was Nisibis, which they left for India and Tibet in the 6th century BC and 4th century BC, respectively.
In fact, Nisibis (and the
intellectual traditions, which flourished there) was a part of Persia (not
only as a geographical location but religio-intellectual idea, which lives
on even today in the absence of the political reality of Iran-Shahr). It
appears very probable that while about 515 BC Darius,9 the King
of Persia, sent an expedition to India, or rather caused the Indus to be
explored from the land of the Pakhtu (Afghans) to its mouth, some of his
Persian subjects in Nisibis (off Herat) immigrated to India, and having
found the Panjab over populated by the orthodox Brahmans, came down as far
as Magadha (Behar) which was at that time largely inhabited by Vrātyas10
or outcaste people.
According to Pag-sam-jon-zang, Gyal-rab-sal-wahi-me-long11 and other Tibetan books, the earliest Kings of Tibet from Nya-thi-tsau-po downwards belonged to the Li-tsa-byi race. There is, no doubt, that Li-tsa-byi is only a modified form of Licchavi. The first King of Tibet was Nya-thi-tsan-po, who was a wanderer from a foreign country. The exact date of his arrival in Tibet is unknown, but from Deb-ther-son-po and other Tibetan records it appears that he lived between the 4th and 1st centuries BC. It is probable that during the occupation of Sogdiana 12 and the neighbouring places by Alexander the Great, the Bactrian Greek Kings and subsequently the Scythians (the Yue-chi) about 150 BC, some Persian people from Nisibis (off Herat) migrated to Tibet into the Himalayan regions, where they established a monarchical system of Government on the model of the Government in Persia.
The Bam-Yik variety of the
Tibetan alphabet, which is in common use in Tibet, derived, I suppose, its
name from the city of Bamyian (off Nisibis), which was visited by
Hiuen-thsiang in 630 AD, and is now subject to the Afghans.
That there was intercourse between Persia and Tibet in the ancient days is evident from Kālidāsa's (Sanskrit) Raghuvasa, Canto IV (verses 60-81) in which the foreign conquests of Raghu are described. Raghu after subduing the Pārasīka (Persians), Huna (Huns) and Kamboja (the inhabitants of the Hindukush mountains, which separate the Gilgit Valley from Balkh), ascended the Himalayas, where he fought hard against the mountain tribes called U-tsa-va-sa-ketān,14 and afterwards crossing the Lauhitya (Brahmaputra river), came down to Prāgjyotia (Assam). This conquest of Raghu is, perhaps, a mere fiction, but it shows that in the days of Kalidasa, about 500 AD, the people of India were aware of a route existing between Persia and India on the one hand and Persia and Tibet on the other.
Apart from abovementioned observations of Abbas one could trace another religio-intellectually significant development, which occurred between Iran and Tibet that came to be important for the development of Chinese metaphysics and that is the contribution of Mani. He was one of the greatest Persian metaphysicians, who has wrongly been neglected both by Chinese as well as Iranian philosophers. Mani is the source of the Dzogchen teachings of Tibetan Buddhists. Beginning with an ancient Persian from of Zoroastrianism which penetrated the Tibetan region in the 5th Century BC, and followed by a heretical Pudgalavadin form of Buddhism in the 3rd century BC, both of which pave the way for the influx of the teachings of Mani in the late 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th centuries AD. This Manichaean faith became totally dominant in northern Tibet when the Uyghur (who are part of greater Iranian nations) King converted to Manichaeanism in 762 AD. The deeper teachings of this Manichaean mix also came to be known as Dzogchen and survived in southern Tibet in the form of the Nyingma tradition incorporated by the Indian Padmasambhava into his own system when he taught in the area in 747 A.D. Later Tibetan schools look with some suspicion on this earlier form of teaching which has many elements foreign to their own viewpoints but harmonious with the Manichaean worldview of the Order of O N E. Generally speaking BON was introduced to Tibet in the fifth century BC, when there occurred a mass migration of Iranians from Sogdhiana in northeast Iran to the northern parts of Tibet. It is more likely that Bon goes farther back to at least the time of the influx of Manichaeanism into the area. The similarities of Bon to Nyingma, once thought to have been borrowed after Padmasambhava's time, is now seen by the most astute scholars to be signs of their mutual antiquity in the pre-Padmasambhava landscape of central Asia.
As for Pudgalavadim; In the 3rd century B.C.E. the Pudgalavadins emerged from the Hinayana school of Buddhism, who derive their name from the word pudgala, meaning 'person'. The Pudgalavadins claimed that for reincarnation to take place, there had to be a continuous person who was reincarnated again and again, thus requiring a kind of individual soul, not an autonomous self, but a soul in constant transformation. This view was criticised by other Buddhist sects who said that Pudgalavadin teaching implied the reality of a self and, therefore, contradicted the basic Buddhist teaching of Anatman. These Pudgalavadins were persecuted in India but flourished in Central Asian (or what was known as Iran Bironi) Bon areas where they, with the possible influence of Mani and Manichaeanism, seem to have developed into, or merged with, the Dzogchen teachings of the Great Perfection in Tibet. An early form of this Dzogchen then possibly evolved into Ch'an and Zen and spread eastward. As widely known Manichaeanism entered into Tibet and northern India at the end of the third century A.D. By 670-692 existed in strength in eastern Turkistan where the Uyghur Turks were intermixing with Iranians and Scyths. Manichaeanism, along with Buddhism, became extremely prevalent in this area. Manichaeanism tended to express itself in Buddhist terminology in this land and itself was part Buddhist, yet Manichaeanism has many elements considered inharmonious with traditional Buddhist ideas. This Buddhist Manichaeanism mix, of which Mani would have been proud, possibly had a profound influence on Mahayana Buddhism, which would soon become the dominant form of Buddhism. Manichaean elements are especially discernible in Buddhist schools such as the pure land sect and continued to influence the unique development of Vajrayana Buddhism in Tibet. Thus these forms of Buddhism speak of a central deity, a light land, 5 elements in need of redemption, and other traditional Persian metaphysical teachings that are alive even today in various philosophical schools such as Sufism, Hikmat and so on and so forth in Iran.
But the main question is the meaning of Dzogchen. Dzogchen or The Supreme Highest Yoga Tantra, Atiyoga, Dzogchen, or Great Perfection is said, according to both early Bon and Nyingma sources, as well as by Jamgon Kongtrul Lodro Taye (19th century Nyingmapa scholar and adept) to have come from the northwest into Tibet. Dzogchen is also said by these early writers to come from Persian sources and to have existed in Tibet before Padmasambhava came in the eighth century. We concur with this assessment and suspect that Dzogchen originated with the insights of Mani the Persian Messenger of Light and the Manichaean message, which came into the area from the northwest. There is also a tradition that Dzogchen and Padmasambhava, come from a place called Oddiyana in Shamballa. Texts from this same Tun huang site identify Oddiyana as "Shamis en Balkh" in modern day Balkh (Iran-Shahr), where many ruins, Buddhist stupas and monasteries exist. This is the town oft associated with Padmasambhava, and Rabia and Rumi as well. Although Padmasambhava is usually thought to be Indian, it is possible that he is from the Iranian region also associated with his name. Later Bon is perhaps the mixture of older Iranian Bon with the Pudgalavadin Buddhism that entered Tibet before more traditional forms of Buddhism. We are told by Kongtrul and Longchenpo that Nyingma split off from the Bon Religion when the "new translations" period began in Tibet after Padmasambhava. Scholars are now concluding that Padmasambhava did not begin Nyingma as later tradition asserts, only incorporated it from the older Bon/Nyingma tradition that preceded him. They also report that the Iranian (which lies in Central Asia) Dzogchen View is common to and found within not only Bon, but also the Nyingmapa lineage, as well as in some northern Indian elements of the Sikhs, Nathas, and Bauls. Now the reader might wonder about the importance of Vajrayana in relation to Iran, Tibet and later Chinese thought. In 645 Tibet Buddhism was established in Lhasa where it mixed with Bon and Dzogchen (Iranian metaphysics) which had entered into Tibet from the west and north, creating the Path of Vajrayana, or Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. The eighth century saw the glorious rise of Padmasambhava and Yeshay Tzogyal in the land of Tibet where they vivified the Manichaean and Buddhist mixture that came to be known as Vajrayana, the third and highest vehicle of Buddhism. Their particular expression became so strong by 747 that more outward and traditional forms of Manichaeanism no longer prevailed in the more southern portions of their land of snows except under its Nyingma form. In the northern Tibetan regions Manichaeanism was still the strongest and the state religion of the Uyghur Kingdom, which by 757 stretched from northern Tibet all the way to the Yellow River in China. Recent discoveries in Tun Huang caves seem to indicate that a pre-Buddhist form of Dzogchen teachings in the Tibetan region and Iranian area became the Taoist alchemical tradition of yoga that evolves into Ch'an and Zen. Both Zen and Dzogchen teach the concept of sudden enlightenment in contrast to other Buddhist schools that teach gradual unfolding. Within Tun Huang texts we also seem to see non-Taoist texts transforming into Taoist texts and Iranian Buddhist liturgy transforming itself into Taoist liturgy. This type of pre-Buddhist Zen like Dzogchen teaches that there is no permanent self nor immortal part nor reincarnation. One must first develop an immortal body and personhood by uniting solar and lunar souls. This last teaching is similar to Iranian teachings on the soul and Ziwa and Noorah light bodies. An early form of Dzogchen may possibly have evolved into the Ch'an and Zen traditions that one encounters farther eastward. A debate on Tibet today, in other words, is not only a matter of historical excavation but a question that could revive intellectual debates in an intercivilizational spirit, where China, Iran and India could play significant roles. Although what I have related above are common knowledge among scholars of metaphysics nevertheless it is of great importance to emphasize the role of Iranian philosophy once again today, as it seems very few students of social theory are aware of the magnitude of Iran as a religio-intellectual idea. Even a great thinker such as Iqbal fell for the modern distinction of Iran into pre-Islamic and Islamic Persia, when he was narrating the story of metaphysics in Iran. Iran as a religious-philosophical reality has always been a plural oneness and in this form is of great importance in relation to Chinese intellectual thought, which is the main concern of our reflection here. By discussing Tibet in relation to Iran, I wished to revive the lost, but still existent, philosophical bonds, which could assist us in better appreciating Chinese philosophies today.
Any debates on Chinese thought would be barren if one does not take into consideration the pluralistic nature of contemporary China where various ideologies, philosophies and religions are at work simultaneously. But what makes the Chinese context a very fascinating domain of study is the fast expansion of economic sectors while the traditional values are declining speedily by creating unsurpassable gaps of existential lacks and religious disorientation. The lack of faith is what characterizes the great masses in China, who do not understand anymore the necessity of Communism as an ideology but appreciate it as a form of economic formulae clad under the banner of nationalism publicly. But the same people who appreciate this ideology publicly is at loss privately in matters of meaning and salvation of soul, which have always been integral part and parcel of religion, metaphysics and wisdom philosophy in China. The decline of all the three during the past hundred years has given rise to a new breed of Chinese, who do not see West, particularly America, only as a model to aspire to but as a way of being. But the problem is that West, in general, and America, in particular, is not a way of being and Americanness or Westerness could not offer any metaphysics of being in the essential sense of the term, as both are devoid of meaning and themselves in search for a new haven that might be born out of the severe clash, which has already begun, within European and American societies between Islam and man-made ideologies of various isms. In other words, any studies that attempt to understand the history of intellectual traditions in China should not be oblivious to the facts of lack of faith, which is so widespread in China and soon or later will become a grand issue in coming prosperous China. Unfortunately the native Chinese Muslims have not been able to display any leadership in intellectual regards as their attempts have been deeply focused on Islam as an ethnical culture rather than ethical model based on universal values. Of course there are plenty historical reasons for such an underdevelopment among Chinese Muslims and one apparent one is the disconnection of Muslim China from Iran that came about by British and Russian Colonialism, which carved Iran up into various parts (Caucasus and Beyond, Afghanistan, and Central Asia). Muslims in China were active culturally and intellectually as long as they were connected to their spiritual homes in Iran and India but the historical disconnection imposed upon them externally as well as internally did put an end to their vigorous intellectual engagements. However, the question within an intercivilizational perspective, as Xatami argues, is not to lament about the past but discern signs of possibilities in the present by turning them into spiritual realities in the future. It is true that the contemporary Chinese mind is business-oriented but this shall not last very long as China is engaged with a world that is characterized with a specific metaphysics, namely that of inverse Christianity as America and Europe are the two destinations where Chinese aspire to. Although they have lost Christianity nevertheless they are left with an inverse form of religiosity that has no God but Gods and this shall aggravate the Chinese psycho in various tormented ways, which business ethics cannot provide any long-term solutions for. However it should be noted that the Chinese thought is dominated with two grand poles: the idea of kind-heartedness and the rule of virtue. These two grand ideas have always been part and parcel of Chinese spiritual life down to present time. But the problem now is that the intellectual backbone of this spiritual tradition has been badly damaged and there are many discrepancies between traditional metaphysics and Communism’s modern idea of China based on communal good and lack of individual idea of Good that has been reduced to the productions of goods.
This discrepancy is all-evident within contemporary intellectual activities which are devoid of aforementioned universal Chinese tendencies. For instance, within human sciences we have famous Chinese thinkers such as Li Yinhe, who works on sociological problems of modernity and intimacy in China, or Zheng Hangsheng, who works on social theoretical problems and finally Yu Keping that works as a political theorist with a vast experience on Liberalism, Feminism, Ecologism, and Religion and Politics. But none of them have been able to go beyond the secular modernity of Western experience in their intellectual models and are deeply disconnected from traditional metaphysics both in morality and ethics of the self, as the former is a matter of community and the latter an integral part of individual person. The modern intellectuals in China - such as Wang Zhanyang (b. 1956), who argue that Socialism is common happiness as a form of socio-political system, have come to realize that in present stage, socialism should be combined with Capitalism, as this is an inevitably historical phase without any other option. Because he thinks that during the present stage, the socialism, which Marx imagined is not practically possible in any country. In other words, we need and should practice New Socialism that is combined with Capitalism. New Socialism is a common social fact both in Socialist Countries and Capitalist Countries. One of the basic characteristics in developed countries is they possess well-developed new socialism and China should adopt this capitalist-oriented socialism for the benefit of China- have come to be heavily involved with the affairs of state by influencing various domains of policy in China. The move towards reform could not be appreciated in Chinese context if one disregards the profound socio-economic impact of four thinkers, who appeared on Chinese scene during or right after the waning years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), namely Xu Muqiao, Ma Hong, Liu Guoguang and Wu Jinglian. In the 1930s, while China was in the grip of civil war, Muqiao carried out groundbreaking research into rural poverty. In the 50s he was an economic policy assistant to the country’s highest decision-making body-and in 1979 he published works widely regarded as the seminal guide to China’s market-oriented transition. He along three other outstanding Chinese thinkers were all key figures in paving the way for China to move away from a planned economy towards an economical system that is not poverty-oriented but while capital-oriented does not disregard the norms of socialism as understood within framework of Chinese Communism. Due to the intellectual efforts of these four economists China has seen one of the most breathtaking social transformations in recent history since 1979.
The importance of these economists within Chinese context is not solely due to their expertise but to the integral role they have performed in Chinese cultural progress as educators and creative thinkers. Ma Hong, for instance, is one of those thinkers who greatly assisted policy-makers in China to put the restructuring of Chinese economy at a stable pace. Wu, for example, will be remembered for lending urgency and substance to state-sector reform by breaking the ‘iron rice bowl’- a system which guaranteed life-long employment and perks like housing but led to inefficiency. He is also a key contributor in advancing the entrepreneur culture in China that could be of great significance for other countries in Asia such as Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and so on and so forth. The last but not the least among the quartet is Liu, who is famed for his ambivalent towards market economy. He is not fully convinced the free market has all the answers to the economy as he thinks government has a great role in finding the right balance between different aspects and domains of life in society and politics as well as economics.
In his view, only when the government performs its role correctly can we fully realize a socialist market economy, which is none but based on the ideal of justice. With him we are again back to the golden theme of Chinese thought in relation to economy and society based on harmony under the good government, which brings to mind the great sage, namely Confucius. However it should not be disregarded that intellectuals in China have all become socially and politically partisans in the true sense of the word, i.e. taking the side of China and working for the glory of Chinese nation in her modern sense.
Of course this involvement should be understood in the context of modern China that was reshaped by Colonialism that culminated since 1840 Opium War. The public mind of China (intellectuals, philosophers, poets, artists, writers, politicians, and so on and so forth) since then has been vigilantly concerned about the state of China regionally (vis-à-vis Japan and Russia) and internationally which were both badly damaged and undermined. But since the establishment of Communism in 1949 Chinese ideologue-politicians have been concerned with three major issues and this concern has been reasserted since 1989 even globally and those are:
. Peace . Development . Co-operation
These three issues are of great concerns for all modern Chinese intellectuals, who have grown up within the framework of Communism and attempting to navigate the economic compass of China from regionalism to globalism that ultimately would mean issues about political hegemony. These are heated topics that modern Chinese thinkers are concerned about and one finds less and less discussions on universalism that was so characteristic of Chinese traditional thought. Chinese Muslims may be able to play a role in this regard but the current state of Muslims in China intellectually is deplorable and far from a paragonic condition. This may need a re-ignition of spirit of ‘ilm among intellectuals but one should note that this requires a great deal of soul-searching among Muslim intellectuals globally and centres of ‘ilm in cities such as Mashhad, Qom, Najaf, Kerbela, and so on and so forth. Religious intellectuals in these sites and elsewhere should remember that the domain of religion is not confined to or even determined by terms of nation-state but the world is where these intellectuals should focus upon, or to put it differently; think globally and work locally. This is a fine line that should not be disregarded by religious intellectuals as the world is in dire need of Message of God. If they could expand their horizons by moving beyond the ethnical cultures of their surroundings through ‘siru fi al-ardh’ and learning of various languages by a team of at least 250 scholars who know almost all the current languages in contemporary states (by living in these vast cultural landscapes of humanity) then the result of such a religious engagement would be immense intercivilizationally.
Let’s move to the domain of literature briefly. This is a significant domain that has hitherto not been explored at all and even not theorized along intercivilizational lines proposed by contemporary Shia philosopher of Islam, namely Xatami from Iran. One should not disregard the domain of modern literature within Chinese thought where one can find traces of novel engagements with various human issues of socio-political significance. Here one can mention people such as Lu Xun, Lu Yao, Wong Xiao Bao and Bin Xin who in different ways tackled the question of China’s social disintegration and political submissiveness in the world. These writers in one way or another functioned as modern social critics who paved the way for the emergence of Chinese branch of socialism that is deeply rooted within the soil of Chinese culture. But it should be mentioned that very few have been able to fuse the traditional Ying-Yang metaphysics of Chinese religiosity with a modern ethos that could overcome challenges of modernity. It seems on this account China has not fare any better than India, Iran, Russia, or other non-European cultures. At any rate it is worthwhile to take into consideration the works of these literary men (and few women) who were concerned on issues of modernity and tradition and modern tradition and socialism.
This anthology, in other words, is far from a complete account of Chinese social theory as there are great many others such as Jiao Xun, Huang Zong Xi, Huang Zun Xian, Gu Yan Wu, Dai Zen, Wan Xi-Tong, Wei Yuan, Yan Yuan, Wang Fu Zhi (also named Chuan Shan) –a great thinker, scholar as well as an outstanding disciple of Yuelu Academy in the Ming Dynasty, who was a prolific writer (and wrote on man and nature) and made great contributions to such fields as philosophy, history, ethics, and educational theory- who have not been named and presented. But the main purpose of this anthology was to demonstrate an important forgotten fact to western social theorist, who mainly talk about the World but write about it in terms of Western Europe (mainly England, Germany and France), whenever they venture to present a historiography of social theory. It is my deep conviction that if students of social theory and human sciences in general are not exposed at the preliminary stages at universities to a truly global history of the classics of social and human sciences it would be almost impossible to convince them at professorial stage (when they almost lost the zest for life and zeal for unknown) that there is a life out there too. The idea that humanity in essence is ONE is lost due to the absence of essential thinking about the essential problems of existence and there is no way one could reach a profound understanding about this essential fact through positive research on class, race, ethnicity, status or so on and so forth. This is an essential problem and nobody can propose otherwise. As long as essential questions are not approached through essential methods there would not be any solutions for humanity at large. Essence is not an ideal apart from our reality but a part of who we are in the matrix of life and this is an intuitional fact, which should be realized in one and each of us as it is part of our species characteristic. If you feel otherwise about these essential facts then it is lamentable for you as a human being, as these are parts of what constitute you as human being that partakes in the motions of universal being. This lack of understanding is easily discernible even among the contemporary political leaders, who are supposedly should be in a position of leadership and social enlightening but the facts point otherwise. For instance, the widespread hatred towards Muslims and Islam that has become a normal mantra of mass media as well as western politicians of England, America, Germany and France are even discernible in the writings of the best minds of Europe such as Karl Jaspers or Max Weber not mentioning Gerhard Schroder, G. Bush or other leading politico-cultural figures. These, despite the fact of being presidents or famous intellectuals, are infants, who never grew up to be self-actualized individuals with great visions. The task of intercivilizational intellectuals is one of enlightening by brining about dialogue among thinkers, writers, artists, poets, scientists and philosophers from all corners of the globe. This mission could be achieved if you are informed about the other thoroughly. This anthology has focused upon Chinese tradition but this approach could be applied to other contexts both diachronically as well as synchronically. The best starting point for a committed dialogue is the question of self, which could generate heated debates as well as tangible results across civilizational/cultural/intellectual traditions. Of course there are great many other issues, which could function as bridging problems among intellectuals, but in any social theory the problem of human self should occupy a central position. In other words, one should be able to theorize about the highest wonderful possibilities of human self as well as the lowest ones and lay bare the similarities as well as dissimilarities among various existing traditions. This is another way of discussing the question of transcendence or religion in social theory and how future generations in our globe are intending to coexist on this planet. Are we going to repeat the histories of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, genocide, and savageries or learn from the past and lay the foundations of a new humanity based on peaceful coexistence? If the latter is what we wish to carry in our minds/hearts then how should religions be approached and what are the roles of intellectuals? More importantly what could intercivilizational intellectuals, who consider religious thinking as their point of departure accomplish in a hostile climate, where words have been replaced by swords? The question of dialogue needs a serious reconsideration not along the lines proposed by politicians but by intellectuals from all existing traditions, who understand the value of human existence and, to paraphrase Abraham Maslow, the wonderful possibilities that it entails. Although we may differ on what those possibilities are or could be nevertheless we all agree that existence is full of possibilities and human self and human society could and ought to grow towards the highest mountains of self-actualization and goodness. War is not the absence of dialogue but it is the hatred of dialogue. It is an active destruction of wonderful possibilities that Life (an attribute of God in Muslim tradition) presents us. These wonderful possibilities are not realizable as long as individuals are not aware of their own souls that lie within as a silent volcano in need of constant attention. It recalls the very intelligible words of Imam Musa Al-Kazim (peace be upon his noble soul) who says:
It is not from us, who does not observe her/him-self everyday.
The process of becoming a realized soul is not a subjective matter confined to the realm of brain cells or private domain. It is, on the contrary, a very profound cosmological happening that could bring one to partake in the creation of Beauty, Good, and Truth. Society is not the only realm that creative power of human soul could exert its goodness, truthfulness and beautifulness but the world of being in its entirety is the place for sama’ eshgh. Love means union. This unity can be understood on different levels: philosophically, as that of the relative, limited self with the absolute Self; religiously, as that of the individual soul with the Infinite Spirit; psychologically, as the integration of the personality-a state wherein a person no longer lives at cross-purposes with himself; emotionally, as the stilling of the waves of likes and dislikes, permitting one to remain in all circumstances complete in himself. It is this last level that serves as the classical definition of yoga by the ancient sage Patanjali.
The question of human self and cosmic self or as it is put in Islamic tradition (‘Abd and M’abod) is how we may be able to distinguish between religious thinking and secular thinking or infinite philosophy and finite philosophy. Because at the centre of this question is what all sages, philosophers, prophets, Sufis, Imams, dervishes, luhans, and perennial thinkers have been arguing for, namely the pivotal role of ‘heart’ in the constitution of self. If you look closely you could find out that religious thinking is composed of two aspects: zahir and batin or exotericism and esotericism. And again the very core of religious thought is addressed to two different but complimentary levels: self and community. However the constitution of human self is not confined to its sociological dimension but it contains two dimensions: inner-side and out-side. This means that to fathom the reality of community one cannot consider it in a purely sociological manner, which is confined to external anthropology. On the contrary, community itself is consisted of two dimensions: transcendence and immanence. To give an example on how could one apply religious thinking on social theoretical problems which could be utilized within the framework of intercivilizational dialogue we can choose one universally contested question of ‘heart’ that has been always used in contrast to ‘reason’ without any constructive solutions within secular frame of reference.
The human heart within religious frame of thought (which always combined thought and action or theory and practice in the context of existence) is a reflection of the spiritual Heart of the Prophetic or Transcendental Reality. This spiritual Heart represents the Divine Ocean of Power (“Barh’ul Qudra”), which is the Origin of all creations. Whoever reaches the Knowledge of the Heart is able to understand the true Prophetic Reality of Nur Muhammad, the Muhammadan Light inhabiting the Ocean of Power, which is the nub of perennial philosophy.
There are 5 lata’ifs (subtle points of spiritual energy), or Maqams (spiritual stations), on the human heart. These five stations are, in an ascending order:
1. Qalb (“External Structure of the Heart”) 2. Sirr (“Secret”) 3. Sirr as Sirr (“Secret of the Secret”) 4. Khafa (“Hidden”) 5. Akhfa (“Most Hidden”)
Out of the five stations of the Heart, there are four that are related to creation and one that is related to the Creator. The last Station, called Akhfa (“Most Hidden”) is related to the Creator while the remaining four stations are grouped together as the stations that are related to creation. The first four Stations (the stations that are related to creation) have a special relation to sound while the last Station (the station that is related to the Creator) has a special relation with Silence. In other words, one could think of a dialectics of sound and silence within Zen-tradition which constitutes the very framework of human spiritual journey.
Four Levels of Sound 1. Qalb represents the external call to Islam and to Union with the Light of Prophet or transcendental realization. While listening to the call to Divine Servitude, the seeker must remain humble and obedient to the Caller: Sami’na wa Atana “We heard (the call) and we obeyed”. At the beginning, the Caller urges the seeker to adhere to the external Divine Rules of God.
2. Sirr is the level at which the seeker follows a spiritual path (“Tariqa”) that will lead him to the Light of Prophet. As a Tariqa follower, the seeker listens to Zikrullah (Remembrance of God through his Divine Names), Sallawat (Praising of Prophet and Imams), and recitals of Holy Quran. These sounds awaken the heart of the seeker who begins to see the realities of praising.
3. Sirr as Sirr represents the manifestation of the Divine Conversation that takes place in the heart of the seeker. At that stage, the seeker interacts with the Divine Light and starts hearing Heavenly voices.
4. Khafa represents the Hidden Sound of the words of God. Whenever a word is written, there is a sound associated to it. However, the sound is not released until the word is spoken. Therefore, the sound is hidden and contained in the letters of the word, waiting to become manifest as soon as the letters are pronounced.
One Level of Silence 5. Akhfa represents Silence. Silence, as noted within all religious traditions (that focus on inner dimensions of human spirit as well as intelligible questions in regard to constitution of self and community) means seclusion from all types of external sounds. Silence is the Sound of the Unknown. The Akhfa station of the Heart is the Station of Annihilation; therefore all sounds of creation are annihilated at that level. It is important to understand that annihilation of the sounds of creation does not mean annihilation of Divine Sound. Indeed, there are still some callings, melodies, sallawat and conversations taking place in the Ocean of the Black Station, which is devoid of sounds but not being. However, these sounds are all related to the Divine. In this aspect, one may say that Silence is the Sound of the Divine. Each station is a complete universe appearing with particular characteristics.
As the murid (spiritual seeker) progresses on the Way that lead to the Divine, his spiritual guide pours in his heart the knowledge that is associated with each station. The ultimate goal is to reach the 5th and last station of the Heart, for it is the highest abode of the Ocean of Divine Power within which dwells Nur Muhammad ve Ale Muhammad or cosmic realities of transcendence.
The 5 Stations of the Heart lead to the Divine Presence through the Reality of the Light of transcendence, which could be accessible through the frame of orthodoxy. Religious thinkers provide a complex model to explain human spirituality by arguing that the 5 human senses are directly related to the 5 spiritual stations of the Heart. Each sense is a manifestation of a spiritual station of the heart at the level of cognitive perception.
1. The first station (Qalb) is related to hearing 2.The second station (Sirr) is related to sight 3. The third station (Sirr as Sirr) is related to touch 4. The fourth station (Khafa) is related to smell 5. The fifth station (Akhfa) is related taste
The 5 stations are also manifested as the five fingers of the hand:
A. The little finger corresponds to Qalb (1st Station) B. The ring finger corresponds to Sirr (2nd Station) C. The middle finger corresponds to Sirr as Sirr (3rd Station) D. The index finger corresponds to Khafa (4th Station) E. The thumb corresponds to Akhfa (5th Station)
The little finger corresponds to Qalb because it is the station of humanity (normal individuals). As humans, we are indeed as weak as the little finger, and in constant need of support. The ring finger corresponds to Sirr because it is the station of the seal of Faith (Iman) that is engraved on the ring the spiritual seekers symbolically wear. This station is the station of the people of Tariqa who are the true spiritual seekers and who wear the ring of absolute faith in their Guide. The middle finger, which is the highest of all fingers, represents Sirr as Sirr because it is the station of the most perfect representative of Prophet, who is the highest spiritual Authority (in Shia-tradition he is called Imam Hujja). This Representative is given complete and perfect authority over creation and is therefore the highest spiritual human being living at any given era. This highest authority is manifested as the superior height of the middle finger. The index finger corresponds to Khafa because it represents the Shahada index, that is, the designated finger one raise when s/he pronounces the Islamic testimony of faith. The thumb corresponds to Akhfa because it is the only station that is separated from the other four stations (Akhfa is related to the Creator while the remaining four stations are related to creation). Similarly, the thumb is the only finger that is separated from the other fingers (the thumb is considerably located below the other four fingers while these four fingers are all the same level).
If we look at the way the five senses are assigned to the five spiritual stations of the Heart, we notice a clear movement: the senses describe five increasing levels of interaction between the spiritual seeker and the object of his search, which is the Light of transcendence.
First Level: Hearing the Call to Islam and Believing in the Unseen
At the very first level (the first station called Qalb), the seeker does not know about the spiritual reality of the Light of Prophet. In this state of ignorance, the only way the seeker can know about the existence of a Higher Reality is through listening to the call to Islam. Therefore, the notion of Sound plays a particular important role at the first stage of spiritual development. At that stage, the seeker does not see the Higher Reality that is calling him, but he hears about the beautiful description of this Higher Reality. This description, which may vary in different religious traditions, of the Beautiful Names and Attributes of the Higher Reality brings faith to the seeker who starts believing in what he does not see yet. The first step in religion is indeed to acquire belief in the Unseen or Transcendence.
At this very first level, the seeker cannot see the Higher Reality because of the veil of his ego which stands between him and the Higher Reality. Therefore, his vision is obstructed by the wall of the base characteristics of his ego.
Second Level: Seeing the Reality after having destroyed the Veil of the Ego
After the seeker has heard about existence of the Higher Reality, he sets on a journey to eliminate the base characteristics of the ego in order to lift the veil of the ego that stands between him and the Divine Reality. Through the spiritual training he is able to “extinguish” all his base traits until the wall of his ego crumbles down. At that moment, the seeker can now see the Higher Reality he had belief in. The seeker’s belief in the Message he was hearing made him reach the second level of the five stations of the Heart, where he is granted spiritual vision. At that stage, the seeker is now a step closer to the Higher Reality because he now has the ability to see and to hear. The next natural step for the seeker is to move closer to the Reality standing in front of him up to the level where he can touch the Reality.
Third Level: Touching the Reality
Through the spiritual struggle, the seeker reaches the third level where he is brought close to the Higher Reality of transcendental light, up to the point where he is able to physically interact with the Reality. At that stage, the seeker is reborn as an infant, free from the base characteristics of the ego, and pure as a crystal. This purity is the condition to physically interact with the Prophetic Light because this Light can only be touched by a clean and pure heart, hence the notion of ‘cleanness’ in Koran which could not be touched but by the purified ones.
Fourth Level: Smelling the Perfume of the Divine Presence
After the seeker has reached the level of physical interaction with the Light he may reach to the point of smelling the Perfume of the Light. Perfumes are signs of the Presence of a higher reality therefore the seeker who is elevated to the stage of Smell is inevitably transported in the Presence of the Prophetic Light.
Fifth Level: Tasting the Reality
The last step on the way to spiritual realization is union with the Light of Prophet or becoming an embodied transcendence. Through the spiritual enlightenment, the seeker moves from smelling the Presence of the Light to disappearing in the Spirituality of Nur Muhammad and Velayat Ali. At that stage, the seeker does not need any external sensitive sign to interact with the Object of his desire. Hearing, Sight, Touch and Smell are, indeed, all external cognitive signs of perception while Taste is directly related to the inner soul of an individual. The sense of Taste is the only sense that requires you to be one with a reality in order to interact with it.
It should be borne in mind that this brief presentation was only an example on how we could apply religious methodology on intellectual questions and philosophical problems without disconnecting theory and practice in the context of human existence. In other words, the question of existence does not need to be divided into worldly and otherworldly dimensions, as these are not geographical designations but aspects of human levels of perceptions. Of course, the significant of this engagement could be enhanced if we could bring about all the traditional thinkers’ models of human self and cosmic life within the parameters of intercivilizational dialogue. For instance, the role of Buddha as the light of transcendence in the constitution of human self or the idea of ‘Jen’ in comparison to Islamic or Hindu tradition. In my upcoming work on comparative philosophy these issues will be more within the framework of intercivilizational dialogue explored in sha Allah.
F The full academic citation of the article, which Abbas used for his essay (http://www.iranchamber.com), is as follows:
Vidyabhusana 1908: "Persian Affinities of the Licchavis" by Prof. Satis Chandra Vidyabhusana, The Indian Antiquary, Vol.XXXVII, March 1908, p.78-80; Swati Publishers, 34, Central Market, Ashok Vihar, Delhi-110052, reprint 1985.
1.
McCrindle's Ancient India as Described by Ptolemy, pp.308 and
328.
9. Encycl.Brit., 9th edition, Volume
XVIII, p.569. 12. Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., Vol.XXII, p.246. 13. Vide Rai Sarat Chandra Das's article on "The Bon Religion" in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Part I, 1881. 14. Utsavasangketān, according to the Mahābhārata (Sabhāparva, Chapter 26 and Bhiṣmaparva, Chapter 9) was the collective name of seven tribes that inhabited the Himalayas. It is a compound word, which may be analysed as follows: - u + t + sa + ba + sang + ketān = u + da-yul + sa-yul + ba-thang + tsang + khotan. In this compound we discern several well-known Tibetan names, such as U - Central Tibet, Tsang - Western Tibet, Ba - Bathang, etc. Sa-yul, Da-yul and Khotan were also provinces of Tibet.
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