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Confucianism and Its Rivals :Lectures De artljara, Jfm ^atk CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023203742 Cornell University Library BL 1801.G47C Confucianism and its rivals :lectures de 3 1924 023 203 742 THE HIBBERT LECTURES SECOND SERIES 1914 _ THE HIBBERT LECTURES SECOND SERIES CONFUCIANISM AND ITS RIVALS LECTURES DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY HALL OF DR WILLIAMS'S LIBRARY, LONDON OCTOBER-DECEMBER 1914 BY HERBERT A. GILES, LL.D. PROFESSOR OF CHINESE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE LONDON WILLIAMS AND NORGATE 14 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W,C. 19IS PREFACE In the following Lectures an attempt is made to exhibit, chronologically, the principles and practice adopted by Confucius as a heritage from antiquity and subsequently handed down through twenty- four centuries, with certain modifications, until the present day. Beginning from the pure monotheism of a personal God, we ultimately reach the substitution of Con- fucius and of his worship, with the almost total disappearance of a supernatural Power. This de- velopment was not effected with the consent of all parties concerned. Taoism, Buddhism, Mazdaism, Judaism, Mahometanism, and Christianity under such varied forms as Manichaeism, Nestorianism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism, each made its bid for the salvation of the Chinese, with results which it is hoped may be gathered from this volume. My best thanks are due to the Hibbert Trustees for allowing me an opportunity of drawing attention, from a purely secular point of view, to the religious struggles and problems of a people whose national life dates back to prehistoric times and still shows no signs of decay. HERBERT A. GILES. Cambridge, Ut May, IQIS. — —— — — CONTENTS LECTURE I B.C. 3000-1200 PAOB The word " God "—The Canon of Changes—Revelation The Diagrams — Divination THen= God — Anthropo- morphism—Canon of History Shang Ti, an alternative for T'ien—Shen or Shin—Sacrifice—Ancestral worship Canon of Poetry (or Odes)—Natural phenomena—Magic 1 LECTURE II B.C. 1200-500 The Chows—Hou Chi's miraculous birth—Sacrifices T'ien and Shang Ti—Impersonation of the dead—God in the Odes—Annals of the Lu State—The Commentary " Oaths " Propriety —Fear of God—Human sacrifices —Eclipses—Droughtj famine, etc. —Spirits—The soul —Prayer ......... 33 LECTURE III B.C. 500-300 Confucius—His beliefs—A chosen vessel—The will of God — Spiritual beings— Sacrifices to them—Divination, fast- ing, etc. —Mourning—Man born good—Points of con- tact with Christianity — Standard of Confucius—His inspiration — Esteemed by disciples — Mencius — His view of God—Spirits of mountains, etc. —Man's original " " nature—Confucianism not a mere philosophy . , 65 — —A viii CONFUCIANISM AND ITS RIVALS LECTURE IV B.C. 300-200 PAGK Mencius on man's nature—The philosopher Kao—The philo- sopher Hsiin—His attitude towards the Deity—The philosophers Yang Chu and Mo Ti—Ch'ii P'ing—God in his poems—God Questions^—Divination—T'an Kung on burial, mourning, and divorce—The *' First Emperor '' —Burning of the Books—Ascent of Mt. T'ai—Sacrifices —The god of the soil ....... 96 LECTURE V B.C. 200-A.D. 100 Lao Tzii—His non-historical character— Chuang Tzii ex- pounds his teachings— Life and death—The soul—God as the Ultimate Reality—God subordinate to Tao—The value of 7*00—The prince of Huai-nan on Lao Tzii— miracle—Alchemy—The elixir of life—Book attributed to Lao Tzii—The heterodox writers Yang Hsiung and Wang Ch'ung—God not anthropomorphic . .129 LECTURE VI A.D. 100-600 Arrival of Buddhism—Amiracle—Mission to India—Kdshiap- madanga—Buddhachinga—Kumirajiva—Spread of the faith MaMydna and Hinaydna—The Diamond Siitra— Fa Hsien's mission—Development of Taoism—Features common to Buddhism and Christianity—Taoism and Buddhism borrow from one another—Taoist papacy Revival of Confucianism—The Confucian temple Mazdaism Manichseism . — . .165 LECTURE VII A.D. 600-1000 The Nestorians—The Tablet—Buddhism at Court—Arrival of Bodhidharma, the Patriarch — Buddhism prevails over Taoism—Both prohibited —Mission of Hsiian Tsang —— CONTENTS ix PASS —The bone of Buddha and Han Wfin-kung—Liu Tsung- " yiian on Buddhism—His " God Answers —Is there a God ? — Buddhism out of favour — Mahometanism — Ascent of Mt. T'ai—Vitality of Confucianism . 196 LECTURE VIII A.D. 1000-1915 Confucianismi prevails—Impermanency of canonizations Su Tung-p'o's ' allusions to God—Chu Fu Tzfi, the philosopher—His interpretation of " God " —On man's nature — Denounces Taoism and Buddhism — Shao Yung's location of God—Judaism—Ricci, S.J. —Jewish Tablet — Its inscription — Mahometanism — Roman Catholicism—A term question—The Sacred Edict Protestantism—Another term question—Translations of the Bible — How made—Obstacles to Christianity Call for a State religion^—How to be supplied . 229 Index . 266 CONFUCIANISM AND ITS RIVALS LECTURE I B.C. 3000-1200 The Chinese are not, and, so far as we can judge from their history, never have been, what we understand by the term "a religious people." Consequently, we find in their biographical records extraordinarily few in- stances of religious fanaticism, bigotry, and persecu- tion ; still fewer, if any, examples of men and women who have suffered for their faith, when mere verbal recantation would have saved them from a dreaded fate. With a highly practical nation like the Chinese, the acts of human beings have always been reckoned as of infinitely greater importance than their opinions. The value of morality has completely overshadowed any claims of belief; duty towards one's neighbour has mostly taken precedence of duty towards God. The word " God " has been familiar in China from time immemorial; but before we can deal with the conception implied thereby, it will be necessary to turn our attention to the visible universe as it ap- 2 CONFUCIANISM AND ITS RIVALS peared to the primeval Chinese man. Above him was a round sky, later on to be symbolized as the male element in creation ; below him was a square earth, also to be symbolized later on as the mother of all things—the feme covert in " the bridal of the earth and sky." In the Canon of Changes, usually admitted to be " the oldest extant Chinese book, we read : The sky one, the earth two, the sky three, the earth four, the sky five, the earth six, the sky seven, the earth eight, the sky nine, the earth ten." This is explained to mean that, in a cosmogonical sense, and also for pur- poses of divination, odd numbers are male, even numbers female. We must pause a moment to consider what the Canon of Changes precisely is. Broadly speaking, it is the most venerated as well as the most ancient volume of a collection of sacred books now known as the Confucian Canon, and it is said to have come into existence as follows. Three thousand years before Christ—the furthest point reached even by the most enthusiastic chronologers—China was ruled by her first, somewhat legendary monarch, the Emperor Fu Hsi. Prior to this date, we hear of a Chinese Pro- metheus, the discoverer of fire, and of a still earlier hero, who taught mankind to make nest-habitations in trees, as a safeguard against such attacks firom animals as people would be more exposed to on the ground. The Emperor Fu Hsi is said to have been miracu- lously conceived by his mother, and to have been ; B.C. 3000-1200 S born after a gestation of twelve years ; but in spite of this, and of other legendary accretions, it is most probable that he had a real existence. He taught his people to hunt, to fish, and to keep flocks. He showed them how to split the wood of a certain tree {Pawlonia imperialis, S. and Z.), and then how to twist threads and stretch them across so as to form rude musical instruments. He invented some kind of calendar, placed the marriage-contract upon a proper basis, and introduced cooked as opposed to raw food. From certain markings, divinely revealed to him on the back of a tortoise—some say a dragon (hence the Imperial Dragon)—he is said to have con- structed the Eight Diagrams, or series of lines from which was to be ultimately developed a scheme of divination, as embodied many centuries later in the Canon of Changes. Put in the fewest words, these Diagrams are the eight possible combinations or arrangements of a line and a broken line in groups of three, so that either one or the other is repeated twice, and in two cases three times, in the same combination. Thus, there may be a broken line above or below two unbroken lines, two broken lines above or below one unbroken line, a broken line between two unbroken lines, an unbroken line between two broken lines, and finally, a diagram of three unbroken lines, and another of three broken lines. Of these last two, the former, three unbroken lines, was held to represent the sky the latter, three broken lines, stood for the earth. The remaining six figures were identified as symbols — 4 CONFUCIANISM AND ITS RIVALS hills and on of mist, fire, thunder, wind, water, and ; the ground that the sky and earth, the male and female principles in nature, produce, as it were, the to other six elements, an attempt has been made and trace a connexion between the Eight Diagrams the company assembled in the Ark. Sky Wind >^ ^arshes Fire Water Earth The Emperor Fu Hsi is said by some to have sub- sequently increased these combinations, as above, to sixty-four, by the simple process of doubling the number of lines employed ; and on this groundwork was first of all constructed, according to tradition for no definite traces remain in literature—a system of divination, of which we know next to nothing.
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