He Ideals of the Eas Ith Special Refereno O The

HE I DEALS OF THE EAS

I TH SPECI AL REFERENO

O THE A R T O F J A PA N

" 11 7 3 2. BY KAKUZO O KAKURA

L O N D O N

J O HN URRAY ALBE ARLE S TREET M , M 1905

PRE FATO RY NO TE

wishes to point ou t tha t this book is wr i tten in by a na i a n t ve qf J ap .

CO N TE N TS

I NTRODUCTI O N

THE RANGE O F I DEALS

THE PRI MITI VE A RT O F J APAN

CON FUCIANI S M NO RTHERN CH I NA

LAO I S M AND TAO I S M — S O UTH ERN CH I NA

BUDD H I S M AND INDIAN ART

— THE AS UKA PERI OD ( 5 5 0 700 A .D .)

— 1 08 THE NARA PE RI OD (700 8 00 A .O .)

- 1 28 THE HEIAN PERIOD (8 00 900 AD .)

W — THE FUJ I ARA PE RIOD (900 1200 A.D .)

K K 1 2 - 40 A D THE AMA URA PERIOD ( 00 1 0 . .)

1 4 0- 1 w AS HI KAGA PERI OD ( 0 600 .) Vll C ONTENTS

PAGE TOYOTO MI AN D EARLY TO KUGAWA

— PERI OD ( 1 600 1 700 A n.)

LATER TO KU GAWA PERIOD ( 1 700.

1 8 5 0 A .D .)

THE M EIJI PERI OD ( 1 8 5 0 TO THE PRESE NT

DAY )

THE V I STA I N T R O D U C T I O N

K A KUZ O K A KURA t his O , the author of work on Japanese A r t Ideals— and the t future au hor, as we hope , of a longer and completely illustrated book on the same subject— has been long known to his own people and to others as the foremost living authority on Oriental Archaeology and Art .

Although then young, he was made a member of the Imperial Art Commission which was sent ou t by the Japanese Government in the year 1 8 8 6 to study the ar t history and movements of Eur ope and the United States . Far from being overwhelmed by this experience , Mr . Okakura only found his appr eciation of Asiatic ar t deepened and intensiﬁed by his travels , and since that time he has x INTRODUCTION made his inﬂuence felt increasingly in the direction of a strong r e-nationalising of J apanese art in opposition to that pseudo Europeanising tendency now so fashion able throughout the East .

On his return from the West , the Government of Japan showed it s appr ecia

’ tion of Mr . O kak u r a s services and con vict ions by making him Director of their

New Art School at Ueno , Tokyo . But political changes brought fresh waves of so -called Europeanism to bear on the 1 8 9 in school , and in the year 7 it was sisted that European methods should become increasingly prominent . Mr .

Okakura now resigned . Six months later thirty-nine of the strongest young artists in Japan had grouped themselves about him , and they had opened the Nip

Bi it su in or pon j , Hall of Fine Arts , at

of Yanaka , in the suburbs Tokyo , to which r eference is made in chapter xiv . of this book .

I f we say that Mr . Okaku ra is in some INTRODU CTI ON xi

sense the William Morris of his country, we may also be permitted to explain that the Nippon Bij it su in is a sort of Japanese

Merton Abbey . Here various decorative arts , such as lacquer and metalwork , bronze

be casting , and porcelain , are carried on ,

a anes aint in sides J p e p g and sculpture . The members attempt to possess themselves of a deep sympathy and understanding of all that is best in the contemporary art

of movements the West , at the same time that they aim at conserving and extending their national inspiration . They hold proudly that their work will compare favourably with any in the world . And their names include those of Hashimoto

Ta ik a n S e ssei K ozn Gaho , Kanzan, , , , and others equally famous . Besides the work of Bi it su in the Nippon j , however , Mr . Okakura has found time to aid his Govern ment in classifying the art treasures of

Japan , and to visit and study the antiqui ties of China and India . With regard to t h e latter country, this is the ﬁrst instance INTRODUC TION in modern times of the arrival of a traveller possessed of exhaustive Oriental

’ . O kaku ra culture , and Mr s visit to the Caves of Ajanta marks a distinct era in

Indian archaeology . His acquaintance with the art of the same period in South ern China enabled him to see at once that the stone ﬁgures now remaining in the caves had been intended originally merely

of as the bone or foundation the statues , all the life and movement of the portrayal having been left to be wor ked into a deep layer of plaster with which they were afterwards covered . A closer inspection of the carvings gives ample j ustiﬁcation o f

V u ncon this iew , though ignorance, the " scious vandalism of mercenary Europe , has led to an unfortunate amount of cleaning and unintentional disﬁgu r e ment , as was the case with our own

English parish churches only too recently . Ar t can only be developed by nations that are in a state of freedom . It is at once indeed the great means and fruitage INTRODUC TION xiii ofthat gladness of liberty which we call the

of . sense nationality It is not , therefore , very surprising that India , divorced from spontaneity by a thousand years of op pression , should have lost her place in the world of the joy and the beauty of labour . But it is very reassuring to be told by a competent authority that here

a s of also once , in religion during the era

she W Asoka , evidently led the hole East , impressing her thought and taste upon the innumerable Chinese pilgr ims who V isited - her universities and cave temples , and by their means ‘ inﬂuencing the development of sculpture , painting, and architecture in

r China itself, and th ough China in Japan . Only those who are already deep in the

ar chmolo problems peculiar to Indian gy ,

of however, will realise the striking value

’ Mr. O k ak u r a s suggestions regarding the alleged inﬂuence of the Greeks on Indian

. as sculpture Representing, he does , the great alternative art -lineage of the world

— — M r namely , the Chinese . Okakura is xiv INTRODUCTI ON able to show the absurdity of the Hellenic theory. He points o u t that the actual afﬁnities of the Indian development are

of largely Chinese , but that the reason this is probably t o be sought in the existence of a common early Asiatic art , which has left its uttermost ripple-marks alike on

of the shores Hellas , the extreme west

oe of Ireland , Etruria, Ph nicia , Egypt ,

India, and China . In such a theory , a ﬁtting truce is called to all degrading disputes about priority, and Greece falls into her proper place , as but a province of that ancient Asia t o which scholars have long been looking as the A sgard backgr ound of the great Norse sagas . At the same time , a new world is opened to

s n future scholarship , in which a more y thetic method and outlook may correct many of the errors of the past .

’ O kak u r a With regard to China, Mr . s treatment is equally rich in suggestions . His analysis of the Northern and Southern thought has already attracted considerable INTRODUC TI ON xv attention amongst the scholars of that country , and his distinction between L a oism and Taoism stands Widely a o cept ed . But it is in its larger aspects that his work is most valuable . For he holds that the great historic spectacle with which the world is necessarily fam i o f liar , Buddhism pouring into China

of across the passes the Himalayas , and by the sea—route through the straits— that movement which probably commenced under Asoka and became tangible in China itself at the time of N agarj u na in D — the second centu ry A . . was no isolated event . Rather was it representative of those conditions under which alone can

Asia live and flourish . The thing we call Buddhism c a nnot in itself have been a ‘ ri defined and formulated creed , with st ct boundaries and clearlydemarcated heresies , capable of giving birth to a Holy Office w of its o n . Rather must we regard it as the name given to the vast synthesis known as Hinduism , when received by a b xvi INTRODUCTION

. F or foreign consciousness Mr . Okakura , in dealing with the subject of Japanese art in the ninth century , makes it abun dau tly clear that the whole mythology of the East , and not merely the personal

t of doc rine the Buddha, was the subject of interchange . Not the Bu ddhaising but the I ndia nising o f the M ongolian mind , was the process actually at work much as if Christianity should receive in some strange land the name of Francis c a nism o m , fr m its ﬁrst issioners . It is well known that in the case of Japap the vital element in her national activity lies always in her art . Here we

ﬁnd , at each period , the indication and memorial of those constituents of her consciousness which are really essential .

It is an art , unlike that of ancient

Greece , in which the whole nation par t ici a tes p ; even as in India, the whole nation combines to elaborate the thought .

r o The question , therefore , becomes p fou ndl " y interesting what is that thing , INTRODUC TI ON xvii

as a whole , which expresses itself through Japanese art as a whole "

Mr. Okakura answers without hesit a u tion "It is the culture of Continental Asia that converges upon Japan , and ﬁnds free living expression in her art . And

is this Asiatic culture broadly divisible , i as he holds , into Chinese learn ng and

Indian religion . To him , it is not the ornamental and industrial features of his country ’ s art which really form its char a ct er ist ic h elements , but t at great life of the ideal by which it is hardly known as yet in Europe . N ot a few drawings of plum blossoms , but the mighty conception of the Dragon ; not birds and ﬂowers , but the worship of Death ; not a triﬂing realism , however beautiful, but a grand interpretation of the grandest theme within the reach of the human mind , the longing desire of Buddhahood to save others and not itself— these are the true burden of Japanese art . The means and method of this expression Japan has xviii INTRODUCTION

’ ever owed to China ; it is Mr . O k ak u r a s contention , however, that for the ideals h themselves s e has depended upon India. It is his belief that her great epochs of expression have always followed in the wake of waves of Indian spirituality .

of Thus , bereft the stimulating inﬂuence of the great southern peninsula , the superb art -instincts o f China and Japan must have been lowered in vigour and

of impoverished in scope , even as those Northern and Western Europe would undoubtedly have been , if divorced from

Italy and the message of the Church . Bourgeois o u r author holds that

Asiatic art could never have been , stand

i ing in sharp contrast in this respect t o that of Germany, Holland , and Norway amongst ourselves . But he would admit , we may presume , that it might have remained at the level of a great and beautifu l scheme of peasant decoration . Exactly how these waves of Indian l spiritua ity have worked to inspire nations , xx INTRODUCTION dismaye d at this moment befor e the disintegration of taste and ideals which is coming about in consequence of competi tion with the West . Therefore it is worth while to make some effort to recall Asiatic peoples t o the pursuit of those proper ends which have constituted their greatness in the past , and are capable of bringing about its restitution . Ther efore is it of supreme value to show Asia, as Mr. Okakura does , not as the congeries of geographical fragments that we imagined , but as a

i united living organ sm , each part depen

on r dent all the othe s , the whole breathing a single complex life .

Aptly enough , within the last ten years , by the genius of a wandering monk the Swami Vivekananda who found his way to America and made his voice hear d in the Chicago Parlia 1 8 9 3 ment of Religions in , Orthodox

Hinduism has again become aggressive, as in the A sok an period . F or six or INTRODUCTION

seven years past , it has been sending its n missio aries into Europe and America , providing for the future a religious generalisation in which the intellectual freedom of Protestantism— culminating in natural science— c an be combined with the spiritual and devotional wealth of “

Catholicism . It would almost seem as if it were the destiny of imperial peoples to be conq uered in turn by the religious “ ideas of their subjects . As the creed of the down -trodden Jew has held half the earth during eighteen centuries , s o , to quote the great Indian thinker just “ mentioned , it seems not unlikely that that of the despised Hindu may yet dominate the world . In some such event i s the hope of Northern Asia . The pr o cess that took a thousand years at the be

o f now ginning our era may , with the aid of steam and electricity , repeat itself in a few decades and the world may again witness the Indianising of the East .

of If so , one many consequences will xxii INTRODUCTI ON be that we shall see in Japanese art a recrudescence of ideals parallel to that of the Mediae val Revival of the past century in England . What would be the simul " " t an eou s developments in China in India F or whatever in ﬂuences the Eastern

Island Empire must inﬂuence the others . Our author has talked in vain if he has not conclusively proved that contention w with hich this little handbook opens ,

for that Asia , the Great Mother , is ever

O ne .

N IV EDITA , - or RAM AKRIS HNA V I V E KANANDA .

BO RE A R A LA N E P ,

BAG H BA Z AA R CA LCUT TA . , THE RANGE O F IDEAL S 2 3 7 3 1 .

A M A is one . The Himalayas divide , only to accentuate , two mighty civilisa

it s tions , the Chinese with communism

it s of Confucius , and the Indian with individualism of the Vedas But not even the snowy barriers can interrupt for one moment that br oad expanse of love for the Ultimate and Universal , which is the common thought-inheritance of every Asiatic race , enabling them to pro duce all the great religions of the world , and distinguishing them from those mari time peoples of the Mediterranean and

on the Baltic , who love to dwell the

Particular, and to search out the means ,

of . not the end , life Down to the days of the Mohammedan conquest went , by the ancient highways A 2 IDEALS O F THE EAST of the sea , the intrepid mariners of the

Bengal coast , founding their colonies in

Ceylon , Java , and Sumatra, leaving Aryan blood to mingle with that of the sea-board races of Burmah and

Siam , and binding Cathay and India fast in mutual intercourse . The long systolic centuries— in which

India , crippled in her power to give , l shrank back upon herse f, and China , self-absorbed in recovery from the shock of ll Mongol tyranny, lost her inte ectual hospitality — succeeded the epoch of

Mahmoud of Ghazni , in the eleventh century. But the old energy of com m u nicat ion lived yet in the great mov

sea ing of the Tartar hordes , whose waves

of recoiled from the long walls the North , to break upon and overrun the Punjab .

G ett a es The Hunas , the Sakas , and the ,

of grim ancestors the Rajputs , had been the forerunners of that great Mongol h outburst which , under Genghis K an and Tamerlane , spread over the Celestial THE UN ITY OF AS IA 3

Tant r ikism soil , to deluge it with Bengali , and ﬂooded the Indian peninsula , to tinge its Mussulman Imperialism with

Mongolian polity and art .

F or at if Asia be one, it is also true th the Asiatic races form a single mighty

We web . forget , in an age of classi

ﬁcat ion , that types are after all but shining points of distinctness in an ocean of approximations , false gods deliberately set t o be up worshipped , for the sake of n mental convenience , but havi g no more ultimate or mutually exclusive vali dity than the separate existence of two inter I f changeable sciences . the history of Delhi represents the Tartar ’ s imposition of himself upon a Mohammedan world , it must also be remembered that the story of Baghdad and her great Saracenic culture is equally signiﬁcant of the power of Semitic peoples to demonstrate

Chinese , as well as Persian , civilisation and art , in face of the Frankish nations of the Mediterranean coast . Arab 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST

chivalry, Persian poetry , Chinese ethics , and Indian thought , all speak of a single ancient Asiatic peace , in which there grew up a common life , bearing in different regions different characteristic blossoms , but nowhere capable of a hard - and fast dividing line . Islam itself may be described as Confucianism on horse

in F or back , sword hand . it is quite possible to distinguish , in the hoary communism of the Yellow Valley, traces of a purely pastoral element , such as we see abstracted and self-realised in the

Mussulman races .

Or, to turn again to Eastern Asia from

- r of the West , Buddhism that g eat ocean idealism , in which merge all the river systems of Eastern Asiatic thought— is not coloured only with the pu re water of the Ganges , for the Tartaric nations that joined it made their genius also tributary, l bringing newsymbo ism , new organisation , new powers of devotion , to add to the treasures of the Faith .

6 IDEALS OF THE EAST terms to the sovereigns of Antioch and Alexandria-A s almost forgotten among the crumbling stones of Bharhut and f Buddha Gaya . The jewelled court o

V ikra m adit a a y is but a lost dre m , which even the poetry of Kalidasa fails to evoke .

The sublime attainments of Indian art , almost effaced as they have been by the

- of rough handedness the Hunas , the

of a fanatical iconoclasm the Mussulm n , and the unconscious vandalism of mer c enar y Europe, leave us to seek only a past glory in the mouldy walls of

of Ajanta, the tortured sculptures Ellora ,

e - the silent prot sts of rock cut O rissa , and ﬁnally in the domestic utensils of the present day, where beauty clings sadly to religion in the midst of an exquisite - home life . It is in Japan alone that the historic wealth of Asiatic culture can be con secu tively studied through its treasured l specimens . The Imperial co lection , the S hinto temples , and the opened dolmens , A MUSE UM OF C IV ILI SATI ON 7 reveal the subtle curves of Hang work manship . The temples of Nara are rich

n of a in representatio s T ng culture , and of that Indian art , then in its splendour , which so much inﬂuenced the creations of this classic period — natural heir looms of a nation which has preserved the music , pronunciation , ceremony , and

not costumes , to speak of the religious

h so rites and p ilosophy , of remarkable an age , intact .

t r ea su r e ~ st ores The of the daimyos , again , abound in works of art and manu scripts belonging to the S ung and Mongol dynasties , and as in China itself the former were lost during the Mongol conquest , and the latter in the age of the reactionary Ming, this fact animates some Chinese scholars of the present day to seek in Japan the fountain-head of their O wn ancient knowledge . Thus Japan is a museum of Asiatic

et a civilisation ; and y more than museum , because the singular genius o f the race 8 IDE ALS OF THE EAST leads it to dwell on all phases of the ea the id ls of past , in that spirit of living A dvaitism which welcomes the new without losing the old . The Shinto still adheres to his pre-Buddhistic rites of ancestor-worship ; and the Buddhists themselves cling to each various school of religious development which has come in its natural order to enrich the soil .

Bu ak u The Yamato poetry, and g h a music , w ich reﬂect the T ng ideal under the régime of the Fujiwara aris t ocra c y, are a source of inspiration and

delight to the present day, like the

m Z enn ism - so bre and No dances , which

wer e the product of Sung ill umination . It is this tenacity that keeps Japan true to the Asiatic soul even while it raises

her to the rank of a modern power. The history of Japanese a r t becomes thus the history of Asiatic ideals — the beach where each successive wave of Eastern thought has left its sand-ripple as it beat against the national conscious J APANE SE ART 9

n ness . Yet I linger with dismay o the i thiéshold of an attempt to - make an - intelligible summary of those art ideals .

For art , like the diamond net of Indra , reﬂects the whole chain in every link .

It exists at no period in any ﬁnal mo u ld .

' w a rowth It is al ays g , defying the dis sect ing knife Of the chronologist . To discourse on a particular phase of its development m eans to deal with inﬁnite causes and effects throughout its past an d present . Art with us , as elsewhere , is the expression of the highest and nOblest Of ou r national culture , so that , d in order to un erstand it, we must pass in review the various phases of Confu cian philosophy ; the different ideals which the B u ddhist mind has from time to time revealed ; those mighty political cycles which have one after another unfu rled t he banner of nati onality ; the reflection in patriotic thought of the lights of poetry a nd the shadows of heroic characters ; and the echoes , alike of the 1 0 IDEALS O F THE EAST

of wailing of a multitude , and the mad seeming merriment of the laughter of a race . - Any history of Japanese art ideals is , l then , almost an impossibility, as ong as the Western world remains so unaware of the varied environment and inter related social phenomena into which that

s et art is , as it were a jewel . Deﬁnition is limitation . The beauty of a cloud or a ﬂower lies in its unconscious unfolding of itself, and the silent eloquence of the masterpieces of each epoch must tell their story better than any epitome of neces - sary half truths . My poor attempts are merely an indication, not a narrative .

NOTE S

n i a nt — Th Ta a a re i Be ga l T ri kism . e ntr s works wr tten for the most pa rt in Northern Benga l a fter the thir t e e nt h . T a l century heir subjects consist, very l rge y ,

a a nd a of psychic phenomen kindred m tters, but they l ﬂ inc ude some of the noblest ights of pure Hinduism . Their chief purpose seems to h a ve been the form a NOTE S 1 1 la tion of a religion whi ch could rea ch a nd redeem the lowest of the low . ' ' Hang Wor km a nship — Tang Cu ltur e— S u ng a nd M on gol Dyna s ties — A brief a bstra ct of the pe ri ods of Chinese history might r u n a s follows The Shit Dyna s ty ( 1 1 22to 221 -This wa s the culmi na tion of the process of ea rly Chinese consoli d a tion preceded by the dyna sties of Kha a nd I n. The a i a a a i ua c p t ls of these powers, though lre dy s t ted a Y R no t in the v lley of the ellow iver , were yet a dva nced so fa r e a st a s the present centre . They

a a Dok wa n Pa were pl ced westw rd of the ss , where

a a a a the river m kes right ngle in striking the pl ins , a t th a t poi nt where it wa s la ter to be touched by the Grea t Wa ll . The Shin Dyna sty (221 to 202 — The tendency of this power to suppress communism brought a bout it s a The i a i downf ll . brev ty of its dur t on , coupled

a i s a a with its import nce , only p r lleled in modern E i times by the mp re of the ﬁrst Na poleon .

The Han D na t C 0 —T g y s y (202 B . . to 22 his wa a empire s cre a ted by a popul a r rising . The he d m a n a B of a vill ge beca me Emperor of Chin a . ut the whole trend a nd development of the Hangs grew to be imperia listic .

h r Kin d 2 8 D -A i T e Th ee g oms (2 0 to 26 A. ). terr t or ia l division . The Six Dyna s ties (26 8 to 6 1 8 — The Three Kingdoms were now consolida ted under a single

a a i ha d a a n tive dyn sty, wh ch l sted bout two cen

t i a n i ﬂux u i and M a tu es, when n of H nn sh ongoli n tribes of the northern border drove them to ta ke 1 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

- r efuge in the valley of the Ya ng tse . The scene of Chinese succession and culture is thus shifted a t

hi to S N r b t s period the outh , while the o th ecomes the mea ns of the introd u ction of Buddhism a n d the

Ta esta blishment of oism . The Tang Dyna sty (6 18 to 907 — This

‘ dyna sty wa s the result of the reconsolida tion of

China under the grea t genius of Ta i so . The c a pita l

Ta wa s a -Ho of the ngs on the Ho ng , where the northern a nd the southern sovereignties were a ma l

a m a te d Th a wa s a g . is combin tion ﬁn lly broken up b a i a s y the feud l stic kingdoms , known the Five

D a hi h a a a yn sties , w c l sted , however, only h lf century . The S ung Dyna sty (960 to 1 28 0 — The centre of rule w a s ne w a ga in tra nsferred to the Ya ng I i er a a S a S tse . n th s , under the n me of of or ung a schol sticism , is developed the movement which we

a a a N - i h ve design ted in the text s eo Confucia n sm . The Gen or M ongol Dyna s ty ( 1 280 to 1 3 6 8

T was a M a u K u a his ongoli n tribe which , nder bl i

K a a an d a h n, overpowered the Chinese dyn sty est b Th G n lis he d itself nea r Pekin . e e introduced

m a Ta n r k i Lla m ai s or Thibet n t i sm . The M ing Dyna sty ( 13 6 8 to 1 662 This wa s due to a popula r u prising a ga inst the M ongol

a . I ha d at Na tyr nny t its centre of power nkin, on the Ya ng-tse-Ki a ng ; but it m a intained a second

a ta it s a t P c pi l , from the time of third emperor, ekin .

h n t 1 d a The M a nc u Dy as y ( 662 to the present y). This w a s a nother Ta rta r t ribe who took a dva nta ge of the division of power between the emperor a nd

THE PRI M ITIV E ART OF JAPAN

THE of origin the Yamato race , who drove the aboriginal Ainos before them into Yezo and the Kurile Islands , in order to establish the Empire of the

so sea - Rising Sun , is lost in the mists im out of which they sprang , that it is possible to divine the source of their - art instincts . Whether they wer e a remnant of the Accadians who mingled their blood with that of Indo Tar taric nations , in the passage along the coasts and islands of south -eastern Asia ; or whether they were a division of the Turkish hordes who found their way through Manchuria and Korea to settle early in the Indo-Pa ciﬁc ; or whether they were the d es cegd ant s of the Aryan THE Y AMATO RAC E 1 5 emigrants who pushed through the Kash mirian passes , to be lost amongst the

Turanian tribes forming the Thibetans ,

Nepalese , Siamese , and Burmese , and to bring the added power of Indian sym bolism to the children of the Yang-t se t he Kiang valley, are questions still in clouds of archaeological conjecture . The dawn of history reveals them as a compact race, ﬁerce in war , gentle in

' of the arts peace , imbued with traditions of solar descent and Indian mythology , with a love of poetry , and a great rever

. ence for womanhood Their religion ,

of known as Shinto , or the Path Gods , was the simple rite of ancestor-worship honouring the manes of the fathers who were gathered to the groups of Kami or

on gods , the mystic mountain Taka m a ahar a — an g , the highland of Ama Olympus which had the Sun -Goddess as its central ﬁgure . Every family in Japan claims descent from the gods who followed the grandson of the Sun-God 1 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST

his dess in descent upon the island , by the

- of d eight rayed pathway the clou s , thus intensifying the national spirit which clusters rou nd the unity of the Imperial “ throne . We always say We come of " bu t sk Ama, whether we mean the y , or

‘ s ea ‘ or the , the Land of Rama there is

of nothing , save the simple old rites the

a nd . Tree , the Mirror, the Sword , to tell

of —ﬁeld s The waters the waving rice , the variegated contour of the archipelago ,

co n so conducive to individuality , the

of — stant play its soft tinted seasons , the

air of shimmer of its silver , the verdure

of its cascaded hills , and the voice the ocean echoing about its pine-girt shores of all these was born that tender sim l licit t s o p y , that roman ic purity , which m of f te pers the soul Japanese art , dif er ent iat ing it at once from the leaning to

of i monotonous breadth the Ch nese , and from the tendency to overburdened rich ness of Indian art . That innate love of cleanness which , though sometimes THE DOL M ENS 1 7

detrimental to grandeur , gives its ex q u isit e ﬁnish to ou r ind u strial and decora tive art , is probably nowhere to be found in Continental work .

I se I d z u m o The temples of and , sacred

ancest rism shrines of immaculate , with their toris and rails so reminiscent of

s Indian torans , are pre erved in pristine exactness by having their youth renewed every two decades in the ir original forms -beautiful in their unadorned propor tions .

si nifi The dolmens , whose shapes are g cant , in their relation to the original stupa , and suggestive as the prototype of - the lingam , hold stone and terra cotta coffins of fine form , covered sometimes i with des gns of considerable artistic merit, and containing implements of worship and personal decoration , which display highly

ﬁnished workmanship in bronze , in iron ,

i ~ and in var ou s colo u r ed stones . The terra-cotta figurines placed round the burial mound , and supposed to represent B 1 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST more ancient human sacrifices at the b grave , often attest the artistic a ility of the primitive Yamato race . Yet the in flux of the matured arts of the Hang

of dynasty China, which reached us in this early stage, overwhelmed us with the wealth of an older culture , and com plet ely absorbed ou r aesthetic energy in a new effort on another and higher plane. What Japanese art would have been if ou r civilisation had stood bereft of this a H ng inﬂuence , and of the Buddhism f which reached us later , it is di ﬁcult to imagine. Who dares to conjecture what

Greece might have failed to attain , not withstanding her vigorous artistic instinct , h of ad she been deprived the Egyptian ,

or the Pelasgian , the Persian background What would not have been t he bareness of Teutonic art , if divorced from Chris t ia nit y , and from contact with the Latin culture of the Mediterranean races We can only say that the original spirit of ou r primitive art has never been allowed ART ETERNAL 19 to die . It modiﬁed the tilted roofs of Chinese architecture by the delicate

. curves of the Kasuga style , in Nara It imposed their feminine reﬁnement on the creations of Fuj iwara . It impressed the purity of the sword -soul on the solemn art of Ashikaga . And as the stream

on courses under masses of fallen foliage , it still ever and anon reveals its brilliance , and feeds the vegetation by which it is concealed . l Apart from this , her unassailable origina

o of destiny , the ge graphical position Japan would seem to have offered her the intel lectual r Ole of a Chinese province or an

Indian colony . But the rock of our race pride and organic union has stood ﬁrm throughout the ages , notwithstanding the mighty billows that surged upon it from the two great poles of Asiatic civilisation . The national genius has never been over whelmed . Imitation has never taken the f place o a free creativeness . There has always been abundant energy for the 20 I DEALS OF THE EAST acceptance and r e -application of the in

ﬂu ence received , however massive . It is the glory of Continental Asia that her touch upon Japan has made always for new life and inspiration "it is the most sacred honour of the race of Ama to hold itself invincible, not in some mere political

m r o sense alone , but still ore and more p fou ndl t o f y , as a living spiri Freedom , in h life , and t ought , and art . It was this consciousness that ﬁred the

Z hin o s warlike Empress g to brave the eas , for the protection of the tributary king doms in Korea , in face of the Continental

Empire . It was this which dismayed the

- of all powerful Yodai , the Zui dynasty , “ by calling him Emperor of the Land " of the S etting Sun . I t was this which deﬁed the arrogant menace of Kublai Khan in the full zenith of a V ictory and conquest that was to overpass the Ural ranges into Mos cow . And it is for Japan herself never to forget that it is by right of this same heroic spirit that she stands

22 IDEALS O F THE EAST

i b e i n a b the log hut, st ll to seen gre t num ers on the - a A a south e stern coa st of sia . It does not suggest tent . The Ka s uga Style in N a r a — The Ka suga style i s a development of the Shinto style of I se a nd I d zu m o .

I i s a a a i t ch r cterised by very delic te curves, wh ch ta ke the pla ce on the one h a nd of the stra ight lines Ya a a a nd of m to rchitecture , on the other of the - exubera nt ca nva s like curves of the Chinese .

The a r ro a nt m na ce nb a i Kha — K la K a g e of K l n ub i h n , a a a n a a fter his conq uest of Chin , sent emb ssy, c lling upon J a pa n to surrender. A peremptory refus a l wa s fo llowed by a n inva sion of some of the outlying

a T a a a d a isl nds . hen , while the J p nese w ite , gu rding

i a a a wa s i a t i the r co sts , gre t cloud seen to r se n ght

I s e a nd i n from the temple of , , the storm which ﬂ a resulted , the eet of the inv ders, with its ten thou

a an d w a s s nd ships million men, utterly destroyed , only three men esc a ping with their lives . This w a s

i I s e a nd d a a the div ne wind of , to this y e ch sect

' clai ms tha t it was ra ised by the power of its sup plica tion . This i s the only occa sion in history on which the rulers of China a dopted an a ggressive policy towa rds Ja pa n . C ON F UC IAN IS M— N ORT HERN CHINA

THE ﬁrst wave of continental inﬂuence which swept over the art of primitive

Japan , before Buddhism reached us in

w a s an the sixth century, that of the H g and the Six Dynasties of China . H ang art was itself the natural outcome of a primeval Chinese culture , which had culminated under the Shu dynasty

1 1 22 221 it s to , and idea may be broadly termed Confucian , from the name of the great Sage who embodied and elucidated the fundamental notions of the Celestial race .

F or the Chinese-“ who are agricultural

Tartars , just as the Tartars are nomadic — in Chinese settling , untold ages earlier,

0 in the rich valley the Yellow River, 25 24 IDEALS OF THE EAST had begun at once to evolve a grand

of system communism , entirely distinct from the civilisation of their wandering m brethren, left behind the on the Mon in golian steppes , though no doubt even that earliest phase , amongst the cities in their kingdoms of the plateaux , some con t genial elemen s had existed , suited to become the germ of the Confucian devel n m o m e t . p From this oment , lost as it is

prehistoric night , to the present day, the function of the Yellow River peoples has

of been one and the same , in the midst their own progressive development , to receive periodically fresh increments of t Tartar nomads , and assimilate hem to a place in the agricultural scheme .

This is a process which , by beating the s word ofthe nomad into the ploughshare of the peasant , weakens the resistive powers of the new citizen , and leaves him to suffer again behind the walls the fate he once inﬂicted from without . Thus the long succession of Chinese dynasties EARLY C H INESE IDEAL S 25 is always the story of the rise of some fresh tribe to the head of the state , to be again supplanted , when the old conditions are repeated . For many ages after their settlement on the plains however, the Chinese Tar tars still retained a pastoral noti on of government , the governors of the nine provinces into which early China was divided being called B ohn or p a stor s .

They believed in a patriarchal God , sym bolised Ten or e by H aven , who , in His benevolence , rained destinies in mathe m atical order on mankind , probably, since the Chinese word for F a te is JVI ei or

Comma nd , the root idea of that fatalism which , lent to the Arabs by the Tartars , became Mohammedanism . They main t ained still their dread of the various wandering spirits of the unseen world , their idealism of womanhood , which was to develop later into t he zenana-life of the East ; that knowledge of the stars h whic they had gathered , with the dual 26 IDEAL S OF THE EAST i stic mythology of the Turanians , as they wandered amongst the tall grasses of the plateaux ; above all , the grand idea of a universal brotherhood , inalienable heritage of all the pastoral nations who roam b e tween the Amoor and the Danube . This fact , that in China the peasant was pre ceded by the shepherd , is expressed in their mythology by saying that the ﬁrst emperor

F u kki s u c was , the Teacher of Grazing , ceded by Shinno, the Divine Farmer . But the slowly-deﬁning necessities of

r an ag icultural community , developing itself through u ncounted ages of tran li quil ty , were yet to bring forth that great ethical and religious system , based on

u Land and Labo r, which to the present day constitutes the inexhaustible power o . f the Chinese nation True to this , their t - ances ral organisation , and self contained in its exalted socialism , its children , in on now spite of political disturbances , go spreading their industrial conquest to all available corners of the globe . C ONFUC IANI S M 27 It fell to the lot of Confucius 5 5 1 to at the end of the

Shu dynasty , to elucidate and epitomise

of this great scheme synthetic labour , worthy of study by every modern sociologist . He devotes himself to the

of realisation of a religion ethics , the con

t o . secration of Man Man To him ,

Humanity is God , the harmony of life his ultimate . Leaving the Indian soul to soar and mingle with its own inﬁnit u d e of the sky ; leaving empiric Europe to investigate the secrets of Earth and matter , and Christians and Semites to be wafted in mid -air through a Paradise

— of terrestrial dreams leaving all these , Confu cianism must always continue to hold great minds by the Spell of it s broad intellectual generalisations , and its inﬁnite compassion for the common people .

E hi B ook o Cha n e The or f g , Veda of the Chinese race , full of allusions , as it is , to the pastoral life, though by it he

h b is al approaches t e Incomprehensi le , 28 IDEALS OF THE EAST most a forbidden page to the agnostic

Confucius , who says , Knowing not yet d "" of life , how am I to talk of eath According to Chinese ethics the unit of

is society the family , constituted on the n system of graduated obedie ce , and the pea saig is of equal importance with the em p er or m t hat parental autocrat whose virtues have placed him at the head of the great communistic brotherhood of mutual duties , entirely by its own con sent and choice . The supreme canon of life was the self sa cr iﬁce of the individual to the com m u m a nd art r ce ity , was prized for its se vi to the moral deeds of society. Music , it is

In the “ to be noted , was placed highest b rank , its special function being to armo nise men with men , and communities with communities . The study of music was therefore the ﬁrst accomplishment of a Shu youth of gentle blood . There are some who will recall in the

of o se l life C nfucius , not only the vera dia

3 0 IDEAL S OF THE EAST trampling of excited steeds ; and weird chants of the supernatural , on the border land o f the realm where ignorance bows before the I nﬁnit e ﬁ wer e it s a ccept ed for m . For such a doctrine could only be fOr m u lated in an age rich in such elements , and by a people amongst whom the poetry of - individual self realisation was not yet born . Ancient ballads were collected by the Sage by way of illustrating the manners of the Chinese Golden Age , of the three

of early dynasties Kha , In , and Shu , when its songs furnished the test by which the welfare or misgovernment of a province was to be determined . Even painting was held in esteem for its inculcation of the practice of virtue .

The Sage , in his family dialogues , speaks of visiting the mausoleum of the kings

how of Shu , and describing on the wall

Shu k o was a portrait of , bearing in his

r S eiw o a ms the infant King , he contrasts this with another picture of Ketsu and

r Chu , despotic ty ants of the past , shown AN AN TITHESI S OF IDEALS 3 1

act of in the personal enjoyment , and dwells on the glory and meanness de pict ed in the respective delineations . It may be said of the Shu vases and

b fol other ronzes that , although they ff lowed a di erent convention , they are more than equal in purity of form to the

Greek . Indeed , these together constitute , like the calm and delicate j ade , compared with the ﬂashing individualistic diamond , f o , oles, of the antithesis ideals the two p . - i ﬂ l the decor at ve im pu se in East and West .

l A nd here also, amongst the workers in metal and j ade , we ﬁnd the same pas sionat e effort to realise the ideal of har mony that absorbs the singers and painters of the period . The consolidated Shu power had lasted

ﬁve some hundred years , when it was weakened by the rise of strong feudal houses , which were again conquered and

221 B .C . ﬁnally absorbed about the year , according to the perpetual destiny of

ou t - China , by a tribe from the lands 3 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

S hin known as , whose importance had been increasing during some six hundred

. years These were Mongolian herdsmen , who had been horse-breeders and chario

of teers under the ﬁrst emperors Shu , - and who now , as the last comers from the desert , became the dominant element .

n o n From their territories , lyi g the fron

of tiers the empire, it is supposed that the name by which foreigners know the

Celestial soil is taken . To these tyrants ancient Confucian scholars attributed every conceivable abomination and terror . But it may in be held that they were , after all , an t egr al factor in the working ou t of the

Shu system . It was by them that the

Chinese Empire was consolidated , with l its roads and great wal s , its provincial

e gov rnments akin to the Persian satrapies ,

it s or t and invention , more correc ly its

of choice , of a national system chiro graphy. It was they who formally dis armed China, and it was they who ﬁrst THE S HIN 3 3 assumed the style and title of emperors . In all this it may be that they only fol lowed the com mon tradition of imperial ism , which provides for its own purposes that centralisation by which it is afterwards to be overthrown . Even their antipathy and persecution of letters may be considered as not meces sar ily directed against Confucian scholars so much as towards the suppression of free political thought — a dangerous ele ment in the feudalistic kingdoms of the latter part of the Shu power . They had national schools , but only under

r Hak u shi inst uctors called , appointed by the Government . This Wa s the age of wide philosophic thought the world over. Buddhism was becoming a social consciousness . Athens was a living inﬂuence . Christianity was w n about to da n o mankind at Alexandria . And on the eastern side of the great

of ranges , the era the Shin tyrants was rich in schools . They practised a censor 0 3 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST ship which is known as the Fire of " d est r u c Shin , but it is probable that the tion of literature , so greatly lamented by posterity, was not in fact due to this so much as to the civil war , which raged for

of twenty years , during the downfall their short empire . a 2 2 t The H ng dynasty ( 0 o 220 A .D . ) succeeding the Shin , followed in the main

on e ff their policy , with the di erence that from the time of their third emperor they made a knowledge of Confucianism c om

u lsor p y in the civil service examinations , a regulation which has come down t o the present day . This system was very help ful i n drawing the best intellect of the

t o of t he country the service state , and yet , the critical element in the test being

ﬁxed , growth and evolution were checked , and Confucianism itself tended to become rigid .

of So strong , indeed , was the inﬂuence Confucian thought at this period that in the ﬁrst century of the Christian era a RISE AND F ALL OF OMO 3 5

prime minister , Omo by name , ascended the Dragon Throne in its authority , asserting the choice of the wise men of the time , according to the tradition which it upheld .

This man , it is interesting to note , was of remarkable genius . He established the dynasty of Shin , and it is supposed , from the fact that during his short reign of fourteen years his coins reached all parts of the known world , that it was then that the name o f China (Shin-land) was

ﬁrst given . It is probable , however , from the earlier occurrence of the name in n Indian literature , that he o ly reinforced h its use . He has t e distinction of being the ﬁrst sovereign in history to publish an edict abolishing slavery, and his downfall only occurred when he allowed his Con fa cian instincts to carry him to the point of ff proclaiming , and attempting to e ect , equal division of the land amongst all the f people . This concentrated the power o the nobles against him , and he was killed 3 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST

A D in the year 23 . . The story o f his death is a superb instance of the fatalism natural to the Confucian mind . He sat f in his palace , jade staf in hand , gazing ou t upon the stars , while the battle raged “ round his standards without . If it be

no t the will of Heaven I shall die ; if , n nothi g can kill me , he said calmly , and his assassins rushed in u pon him and

sat . killed him , unresisting , as he His name is still surrounded by the aroma of that courtesy with which he received the foreign embassies . The art of the Hangs— who spread Confucian ideals as the Romans did Hel lenic — -ist ln culture was Shu form , though tinged by that richer colour i ng and mag niﬁcent imagery which were an integral

of an part the H g consciousness , with its vast uniﬁcation and luxurious life . I n literature one notes with interest that its writers are always striving to ﬁnd an ethical basis for this , the gorgeous colour ing of their stupendous indulgence , and

3 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of the era military walls , and , like the t Romans af er them , the Shin emperors had left their memorial in the Great Wall that stretches from D okw an to the Yellow

. Sea It may , indeed , be held that this , o the culmination , had als been the begin

of ning of the decadence their power , exhausting alike the resources and the prestige of their government . But many succeeding dynasties added to the work . Other architectural achievements of this period , however , like the colossal statues

of h in bronze and iron , which suc frequent mention is made in letters , are now lost , partly because Chinese emperors have had the habit of burning themselves with

of their treasures in the hour defeat , and partly by the vandalism of dynastic changes .

of an The pictorial style the H gs is , of

b co n course , irrecovera le , unless we can jure up its richness and maturity from the - roughly chiselled rocks of the B u rioshi in

Shantung, tombs of a family of provincial ROC K -S C UL PTURE S 3 9

of nobles , who belonged to the latter part an - the H g dynasty. These fresco sculp tures contain descrip tions of Chinese mythology and history , and show the life f and customs o early China. In order to ﬁnd specimens o f the w on d erfu l of crafts the period , we have to

of turn to Japan , to the collections the

t o o f imperial family , the treasuries Shinto

t o temples , and the unearthed contents of the dolmens . F or we received Hang art

a c from China , and were even perhaps

u aint ed q with Chinese literature , long

W Hak u shi before ani the , the Korean

t o . scholar , came expound Confucian texts That there wa s a prior stream of inﬂuence is attested by the numerous inscriptions in Chinese , showing the facility with which that language was cultivated , not " long after his advent . Thus in Japan , as

u in China , Conf cianism provided the soil on which the seed of Buddhism after wards fell . The vast bulk of Chinese and Korean 40 IDEALS OF THE EAST

immigrants were artists and artisans , who a worked in the H ng style , as their mir r or s - - , horse trappings , sword ornaments , and beautiful armour in bronze and gold

- of will testify. Thus the art education the Japanese was almost complete by the time Buddhism called for a new a nd grand expression in the Asuka Period . The

of Tor ibu shi genius , our great sculptor , was not born in a night , but was the fruit of cau ses long pre -existent ; and in him we have only the ﬁrst harvesting of a mighty culture that had covered the ploughlands for many a day.

s m Yet the Confucian ideal , with its y

of a nd metry born dualism , its repose , the result of the instinctive subordination of

r e the part to the whole , was necessarily

ic iv of st r t e the freedom of art . E nch a ined t o of n be the service ethics , art aturally h came industrial . Indeed , the C inese art consciousness must always h ave tended towards the decorative— as shown in its extraordinary development of textiles and NOTES 1 ceramics — had the Taoist mind not im

i ts parted to it playful individualism , and B had uddhism not come later , to lift it up to the expression of commanding ideals . B ut even if it had remained at the decorative , it could never have sunk

u to the bo rgeois level , since from the remotest danger of such a failure of

ar t sympathy , Asiatic , by her vast life I of the Universal and mpersonal , stands eternally redeemed .

NOTE S

Eki or Boole of Cha nge — The a ncient Scripture of

a wa s a u u a a a Chin , which cc m l ted gr du lly through the

Kha a nd I a nd a a e periods of n , tt ined to its pr sent

u B K Shu . form nder unno, the ﬁrst ing of Confucius a a a i s e a n a dded comment ry , which consider d essenti l fe a t u re of Eki by Confu ci a ns . Here much is ma de

Ma n a s a ﬂ of , the centr l point between the con icting

a a n d E a forces of He ven rth , thus philosophising

u i The Ta a comm n sm . oist, on the other h nd , is a ble to ignore the Confu cia n commenta ry a nd i n t e r r e t Eki i n wa . To a p his own y him , its gre t note

e x O e a a nd a . T is th te t , p n m tter cre te work his a ncient Chinese Ved a m ay be d escribed a s a philo 42 IDEALS OF THE EAST

N a u a a a a . sophy of t re , r ther th n story of Cre tion I a a O n e a ll a t de ls with the imm nence of in du lity , a nd with the rela tion of the fo u r sea sons or Hea ven

E a to the eight elements or rth . It consists of four books or divisions .

i t ih -b —Ta —b o w a The Anc en days of Ta o o. iko s the e u K n Shu chi f co nsellor of the ﬁrst i g of , when the

t w a throne wa s ta ken from In . This gre a t minis er s K i a rewa rded by being ma de ing of S e (Sh ntung) . L A O I S M AND TAOI S M S OUT HERN C H INA

C O N F UCI A N China could never have a c c ept ed Indian idealism had not L aoism

of and Taoism , ever since the end the d Shu ynasty, been preparing a psycho logical basis for the common display of these , the mutual polarities of Asiatic thought The Yang-t se-Kiang is no tributary of -Ho - the Hoang , and the all grasping

of a r ic u lt u ralised r r socialism g Ta ta s , bred on of the banks the Yellow River, had never been enough to enthral the wild spirits of their brethren , the children of the Blue River . Amongst the impene t r able forests and misty swam ps of that great valley dwelt a race ﬁerce and free , owning no allegiance to the kings of Shu 43 4A IDEALS OF THE EAST of the northern provinces The chiefs of these mountaineers , in feudal days , were not admitted to the assem bly of the Shu

e nobl s , and their uncouth appearance and rough language , compared by the North e rner s t o of the croaking ravens , were matters of ridicule, even as late as the a period of the H ng dynasty . But , gra dually impregnated with Shu culture , these southern people found art-e xpr e ssm n of their own loves and ideals , in forms widely divergent from those of their t nor hern countrymen .

r This poet y, as exempliﬁed in Kut sugen , of tragic memory , abounds in the

d of intense a oration nature , the worship t he of great rivers , delight in clouds and

- a d t h lake mists , the love of freedom , n e assertion of s elf. The last point ﬁnds

Ta o-tei-lein striking illustration in the g ,

r B o k Vir tu e of L a ot se o o , , the great of ‘ rival of Confucius . In this work , ﬁve thousand ideographs long, we hear of the greatness of retiring into self and

46 IDEALS OF THE EAST moment 7 What is the use of this great ’ long ﬂight Again , The wind , Nature s

ﬂute , sweeping across trees and waters ,

so sings many melodies . Even , the Tao , the great Mood , expresses Itself through different minds and ages and yet remains " ever Itself. Or again , The art of living , whose secret lies not in antagonisms or

‘ r c iticisms , but in gliding into the inter " i s st c e that exist everywhere . This last

o - p int he illustrates by the master butcher , whose knife never needed sharpening , since he cut between the bones , instead of attacking them . Thus he ridicules the

Confucian polity and conventions , which f are but ﬁnite ef orts , and can never cover the great range of the impersonal Mood . It is said that he was asked to take

fﬁ t o o ce, but he pointed a bull , decorated for sacriﬁce , saying , Thinkest thou that the beast will feel happy when the axe is " on him , though he be bejewelled This spirit of individualism shook Confucian

so socialism to its very foundations , that INTELLE CTUAL TRI UMP H S 47

of the life Mencius , the next great Con

fu cian after the Master , was devoted to Iﬁghting the L a oist theories . It will be noticed that in this Eastern struggle between the two forces of communism

r of and individual eaction , the ground contest is not economic but intellectual

and imaginative . None would have been more desirous of protecting the great moral advantage w on by Confucius for

L aot se the common good than , who was

- a rival thinker .

In the sphere , also , of statecraft , the m t Southern ind produced grea thinkers ,

quite opposed to the Confucian ideals .

Here , for instance , Kampici , sixteen cen “ t ur ie s before the Italian wrote The m Prince , elaborated the syste of Machia

velli . The period was proliﬁc of military theory ; a Napoleonic genius was devoted t o the elaboration of the science of tac

of tics . F or the feudal age at the close the Shu dynasty was one of free discus

sion . Original thought and research were 48 IDEALS OF THE EAST

on welcomed politics , sociology , and law , while the liberty and complexity of the Southern Chinese nature enabled it to rise to the height of the opportunity. All this time China was being gradu ally eaten by the encroachments of t he O Shin , and after the change f dynasties their imperialism and the Confucianism o f Hang seemed likely to prove fatal to L i the ao st school . But the stream of philosophic energy found an underground channel , from which it emerged , towards

of a the end the H ng period , in the freedom and vagaries of the Conversa t ionalist s . In the three kingdoms into which the Hang dyn asty divided— thus lessening the prestige of Confucian unity— the spirit of

L aoism was rampant . New commem taries on the Ta o-tei -h' ing were written

O hit su by Kaan and , and though such thinkers did not openly attack C onfu c ia nism , yet their lives were consciously directed as demonstrations against con SO C IAL SI MPLI C ITY 49 ve n tion . This was the period when learned men retired to discuss philosophy in bamboo groves ; when a prime minis ter chose t o stop his coach before a road side tavern in order to drink with his servants in the sight of the astonished public ; when a simple student ventured to delay a high dignitary and ask him to

on for play the ﬂute , which he was noted , the amiable statesman being pleased to indulge him in his request for hours ; when philosophers would betake them

’ selves , for amusement s sake , to work at the forge , paying no attention to the illustrious guests who might have come to honour them by putting weighty ques tions for solutio n . The poetry of this era and of the early part of the Six

Dynasties (26 5 to 6 1 8 A .D .) represents d this free om , and by the simplicity and grace with which it returns to the love of Nature , stands in strong contrast to the gorgeous imagery and elaborate metres of the H ang poets . 5 0 IDEALS OF THE EAST

Every o ne will remember the poems of To enm ei— most Confucian of L aoi st s and

L aoist of who most Confucians , the man resigned a governorship because he dis liked wearing a c eremonial robe t o receive an imperial representative — fo r his ode on “ The Return " was the very expression of the times . It is through To e nm ei and other poets of the South that the purity o f the dew-drooping chrysanthemum

c of w the deli ate grace the s aying bamboo , the unconscious fragrance of plum —ﬂow e r s

on ﬂoating the twilight water , the green

of i ts serenity the pine , whispering silent woes to the wind , and the divine narcissus , - s o r hiding its noble soul in deep ravine , // fo r of a seeking spring in a glimpse he ven ,

of ins ir a tio n which become themes poetic p , when blende d with Buddhist ideals in the a d great liberalising T ng perio , bursts forth again in the Sung poets , who are , like - e i of n t s e Toenm , a product the Ya g mind ,

o f t h l ever seeking the expression e sou . in Nature . K O GA I S HI 5 1

Freedom is recognised as the essential characteristic by Soshi . He relates a story of a great noble who sought fo r a distinguished painter t o execute a picture .

o ne One by the candidates arrived . and ,

t o saluting him decorously , inquired as the subject and manner of treatment r e quired by him . With all this he wa s far from satisﬁed . At last an artist appeared , i who burst rudely nto the room , and throwing o ff his garments sat down in some rough postur e before calling for his brushes and colours . Here , exclaimed “ the patron , without further ado , I ﬁnd my man I

K o aishi - of g was a poet painter , the

be latter part of the fourth century, who

L aoist longed to the school , and was held admirable for three virtues , being called

r fi st in poetry , first in painting, and first in foolishness . His is the e arliest voice to speak of the necessity of concentration on - the dominant note , in an art composi “ . of tion The secret portraiture , he 5 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

“ d tha t sai , lies in , revealed in the eye of the subject . For it is another fruit of the L aoist mind that the ﬁrst systematic criticism of painting and the ﬁrst history of painters were begun in China at this

so for period , giving the basis a future generalisation of aesthetics in that land and in Japan . Shak ak u in the ﬁfth century lays down

s six canon of pictorial art , in which the idea of the depicting of Nature falls into

t w o a third place , subservient to other f main principles . The ﬁrst o these “ is The Life -movement of the Spirit through the Rhythm of Things . F or art is to him the great Mood of the Uni verse , moving hither and thither amidst those harmonic laws of matter which are

Rhythm . His second canon deals with composi tion and lines , and is called The Law of " - Bone s and Brush work . The creative

t o spirit , according this , in descending into a pictorial conception mu st take upon

5 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST

s a strong line , who could , as they y , give the whole fall of Troy in the eyes of the

prophetess , and we cannot refrain from

sa ln y g that European work , by following

the later school , has lost greatly in power of structural composition and line expres

t o sion , though it has added the facility

of realistic representation . The idea of wa line and line composition has . al ys a’ been the great strength of Chinese and

Japanese art , though the Sung and Ashi

. kaga artists have added the beauty of i d a r k and light— without forgetting that

not the artistic , and the scientiﬁc , was their goal— and the Toyotomi epoch has contributed the notion of composing in

colour .

’ 7 The sacredness of caligraphy; which attains to great heights for the ﬁrst time

L aoist in this period , is the worship of the

. the line , pure and simple Each stroke of brush contains in itself its princip le of life - and death , inter related with the other f lines to form the beauty o an ideograph . BIRTH OF THE DRAGON 5 5 It must not be thought that the excel lence of a great Chinese or Japanese painting lies only in its expression or

o f a nd accentuation outlines contours , t m never heless these do , as si ple lines , possess an abstract beauty of their own . As no works of the L aoist period are now t o r e extant , we are left infer and construct their style from those of the succeeding epoch which still retain their characteristics . We know that a new t range of subjects has been at empted . The love of Nature and Freedom of this

led great school have them to landscape , and we read of their pictures of the wild fowl calling t o each other amongst the

s reed , Above all , they bring forth the mighty conception of the Dragon , that

of awful emblem , born of cloud and mist,

of the power Change , and in their tiger and -dragon pictures they portray the ceaseless conﬂict of material forces with the I nﬁnit e— the tiger roaring his inces 5 6 IDEAL S OF THE EAST sant challenge to the unknown terror of the spirit .

of As was natural , the masses the people could not be carried by the L aoist

. L aot se movement Neither Soshi , nor their legitimate descendants , the Conver sat ionalist s— delighting in their learned discussions about the Abstract and Pure , waving the jade-handled yak -tails as they talked— can be held responsible for that

Ta ois m so cult known as , which holds much o f the Chinese race in its hands to day , and claims The old Philosopher as its founder . In spite of the steady efforts of Confu

ian c sages , the Tartar superstitions which came with the Chinese from their early home , could never be eradicated , and the uncultivated foresters of the Yang-t se Kiang were the guardians of this primi tive inheritance , delighting in demoniac

of a nd . stories witchcraft magic Indeed , a f i necessary outcome of Confucianism itself, ignoring a s it did the problem of an after " "UEST OF IMMORTALITY 5 7

life , and stating that the higher elements in man would return to heaven , and his w lo er be united once more in the earth , was the quest of immortality in the

ﬂesh . Even so far back as the late Shu litera

of ture , we ﬁnd frequent mention the

or i viz ard of Sennin , the Mountains , who

of by strange practices , and the discovery

of a magic elixir , has attained the power

for S living ever , and now pends his time riding through the mid -day sky on the backs of storks t o j oin the secret meetings of his mysterious brother hood . The emperors of Shin sent ou t expedi tions to search for the potion o f im in mortality the Eastern seas , and the

- members , afraid to return empty handed , b are elieved to have settled in Japan , where whole families claim descent from them to the present day .

a t oo not u n The H ng emperors , , were addicted to similar pursuits , and time after 5 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST time erected palaces of worship for their gods , which were invariably overthrown by Confucian protest . Their experiments

of/ in alchemy , however , were productive / ma many compounds , and we y ascribe the or 1g1n of the xvonclg m r g la i n m l glaze of Chma to thei r a col d ent al d lS c over ies .

But the ﬁnal organisation of Taoism as a sect was due to the labours of Rikuj u sei

“ and S ok e nsi in the early part of the Six

Dynasties . They adopted the philosophy

L aot se the of and the ritual of Buddhists , with the idea of increasing the signiﬁcance and sanction of the popular notions And it was they who initiated the awful series of persecutio ns which were so disastrous to the Buddhists of Northern China , before the liberalism of the Tang dynasty enabled Confucians , Buddhists , and Tao ist s to live side by side in mutual tole ration . On its philosoPhi c side Buddhism was

L ao ist s received with open arms by the , THE GOLDEN SENNIN 5 9 who found in it an advance on their own f philosophy . The ea rly teachers o the Indian doctrine in China were mostly

L a o o students of t se and Soshi . And Y é n even taught these books as a necessary preparation for the understanding of the abstract idealism of A shvagho sha and

N agarj u na .

From its more concrete aspect , again , the early Taoists welcomed the images of Buddha as those o f o ne of their own gods . The golden Sennin (Wizard of the

one of Mountains) which Hanchow , the a b H ng generals , rought back as a trophy from an inroad o n the borders of Thibet

r w a s d in the ﬁrst centu y , considere , as f the name implies , nothing dif erent from the Taoist images already extant in

so China , that it was put amongst the Taoist deities and worshipped with simi la o r of r rites in the Kansen palace , Hall

Sweet Springs .

of The King So , in the second century of the Christian era, being a pronounced 6 0 IDEALS OF THE E AS T

Taoist, was also at the same time a devout Buddhist. In the third century , when the Emperor Korei cast an im age of Buddha in gold he cast at the same

L a time an image o f ot s e . All this proves that in this early period the two religions were not deﬁant , as later Taoist works assert .

NOTE S

Ku tsu en —A So a i g . prince of , prov nce on the

Ya - u K ng tse . His co nsels were rej ected by the ing - S o a n d wa s e . B w a a of , he xiled y y of self ssertion he wrote gre a t poems of solitude — of the m a n who sta nds a pa rt from men — seeking in N a ture his only e a a a nd e fri nd, in ide lis tion his only home , th n com m it t ed suicide by drowning . To this d ay his dea th is mourned a nnua lly by grea t concourses of people . — M enci us . Moshi or M encius lived a bout a century W a fter Confu cius . ith Bun no a nd Confu cius bene vo le n ce ha d been prea ched a s the secret of hum a n

a i . M a a ssoci t on encius dds the note of duty, depict

la w Th a i n g m u tu a l obliga tion a s the . e ideogr ph for duty is very s u ggestive here ; it consists of

a n d . M s hee a The i sheep ego y p , th t is , duty . deo i s m a n a n d — i n gra ph for benevolence two two, one forgets onesel f.

BUDDHISM AND INDI AN ART

UD D H I S is B M a growth . The diamond throne of the original enlightenment is

f su r now di ﬁcult indeed to discover , rounded as it is by the labyrinth of gigantic pillars and elabo rate porticos which successive architects have erected , as each added his portion to the ediﬁce

F or of faith . there has been no genera tion that did not bring its own stones and tiles to widen the great roof that ,

— ff d like the bodhi tree itself, o ers every ay m a broader shelter to ankind . As in

is of Buddha Gaya , it the obscurity cen t u r ie s that hides t he image of the birth

of v of Buddhism , Garlands lo e and reverence have covered it , and sectarian d pride and pious frau s have stained , each

own o f s u r to his hue , the waters the 62 FORMS OF BUDDHISM 6 3

is rounding ocean , till it almost impossible to distinguish between the various streams

and currents once its tributaries . Yet it is this very power o f adaptation and growth that constitutes the greatness of that system which not only embraces

Eastern Asia , but bore its seeds long ago

to blossom in the Syrian desert , and in the form of Christianity completes the

n of circli g the world , with its fragrance f o love and renunciation . The several forms which the thought

has of the great Teacher assumed , as it has come in contact with various nation alitie s and periods— even as the same raindrops may call to life the ﬂowers of many diffe rent climes — are indeed ditti cult to analyse and describe in their true

of . order development For Asia is vast , India itself larger than Europe west of - the Vistula , and the twenty three Indian , twelve Chinese , and thirteen Japanese

s u bd i schools , with their innumerable

s vi ions , under which later students love 6 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of m to classify the formulations Buddhis , are inter-related more in the sense of territorial distribution than of chrono logical succession . Their very names ,

N or ther n S ou ther n and , imply that this is s o with the two main division s of the faith . In religions that are ascribed to indivi d r it m ual founde s , is clear that there ust be t wo great elements— one the gigantic

of ﬁgure the Master himself, growing ever more dazzling as successive centuries r e ﬂe ct their own brightness o n his per s onalit or y , and the other , the historic

ou t national background , of which he springs to consciousness . If we go deeper into the psychological conditions of the

of i a sense indiv duality , we sh ll think it

t o reasonable look for a certain antithesis ,

not n though ecessarily any antagonism ,

hi ' a between the Teacher and s p st . Those elements of his realisation which he does no t discover in the social consciousness will be the S ubject of his most forcible ANTITHESIS 6 5 utterance . And yet only in its relation to that consciousness will his message reach its full signiﬁcance . It is , therefore , quite conceivable that the doctrine of the

Founder , carried away from its natural e environm nt , may be understood and developed in some sense, true in itself, and yet superﬁcially contradictory of another stream of thought which is at least as authentic and vastly more faithful f to the complexity o the original impulse . No one who has studied the relation which the holy man bears to the race in l India, can fai to understand the applica

of . tion this law There , the most start ling negations will be accepted from a seer as the natural evidence of his own em an ci at ion p , and fall on society with their full impetus of life , without for a moment disturbing that calm graduation of expe r ience by which they were reached . Any Indian man or woman will worship at the feet of some inspired wayfarer who tells them that there can be no image of God , E 6 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST

that the word itself is a limitation , and go straightway , as the natural sequence , to pour water on the head of the Siva-lin gam . Unless we can grasp the secret of

of O this inclusion pposites , the mutual relations of Northern and Southern Bud dhis m must bafﬂe us . F or it is not pos

sa sible to y that either is true , and the

bu t e other false , it is p rfectly compre hensible that , as the narrower basis of S outhern Buddhism , we have the echo f of the great voice itsel , crying alone in the wilderness , amongst those who know h nothing of its whence or w ither , while in the Norther n school we listen t o the

Buddha in his true relativity , as the apex of the religious experience of his country. Northern Buddhism is thus like some

great mountain ravine, through which

I ndia, pours her intellectual torrents upon

the world , and the contention that in Kashmir was made the most au thori

of t at ive deposit the doctrine , though it may or may not be true in the A MESSAGE OF FREEDOM 6 7

a o sense intended , has an inevitable

of it s curacy own , deeper than the words imply .

n int er re Essentially, accordi g to both p t at ions of , the message Buddha was a

of of message the Freedom the Soul , and those who heard were the emancipated

of n children the Ganges , already drinki g

o f of to their full the purity the Absolute , in their Mahabharata and Upanishads .

But beyond its philosophic grandeur , across all the ﬂight of centuries and through the repetitions of both schools e alike , we h ar the divine voice tremble still with that passion of pity that stood forth in the midst of the most individual ist ic race in the world , and lifted the dumb beast to one level with man . In face of the spiritual feudalism whereby Caste makes a peasant in all his poverty

o f of one the aristocrats humanity ,

his we behold him in inﬁnite mercy, dreaming of the common people as one great heart , standing as the breaker 6 8 IDEALS OF THE EA ST of i social bondage , and proclaim ng equality and brotherhood to all . It

so was this second element , akin to the of f feeling Confucian China itsel , that dis tinguished him from all previous de velo er s p of Vedic thought , and enabled his teaching to embrace all Asia , if not t he whole of humankind .

K a ilavast u of p , the place his birth ,

N wa s stands in epal , and in his days even more Turanian than now . Scholars are wont sometimes to claim for him a Tartar

i i S a h a s or g n , for the y may have been

S a kas or M on , Scythians , and the frankly golian type in which the earliest images

or represent him , as well as the golden yellow colour of the skin described in u the earliest s tras , and remarkable pre su m pt ive evidence . The Taoists even go r ridiculously further, and nar ate in the

R oshi -K a hohio B ook o the Con , the f ver sion o the B a r ba r ia ns b L a otse f y ,

aot se how L himself, after his mysterious

Kwank oku kw a n disappearance in , tra

70 IDEALS OF THE EAST

Perfection , in order to express itself, must necessarily fall back upon the contrast of

of opposites , and in announcing the quest of unity in the midst variety , the assertion of the true individual at once in the uni

a versal and the particular , we have alre dy postulated all the differentiations of the creed . The Lion of Sakya in shaking his mane

' disper se s t he dust of Maya . He breaks through slavery to forms , and denies their

as very existence , he directs the soul to

wards the Eternal Unity. This gives their basis to the atheistic formulae of the

later Southern school . At the same time , the joy and glory of union with the Ab solute gives birth t o an immense love of

of and the beauty and signiﬁcance things , draws the Northern Buddhists and the ir brother Hindus to paint the whole world/

with gods . His te aching was probably or delivered in the Gatha, some kin ed transitional form of the original Sanskrit

before Pali . But , as if to repudiate it SCHI SM AND SECTS 7 1

own with his lips , he ordered his disciples to talk in the dialects of the people . Such varying interpretations of a single truth , clothed thus with equal authority f in widely dif erent garbs , led inevitably to schismatic d isputes . At ﬁrst these were mainly concerned with the discip

or line rule , which was the most import ant of D eed sm an act the great spiritual , but later they involved such discussion of philosophic standpoints as to divide

Buddhism into countless sects . The or iginal disruption seems to have occurred between those who represented the highest culture of that Indian thought which was a development of the Upani shads , and the acceptors of the popular interpretation of the new doctrine and discipline .

The r st sta e o B u ddhism ﬁ g f , imme ll diately after the Nirvana- which we may consider to have taken place about the

— middle of the sixth century B .c . is con cerned with the ascendency of the primary 72 IDEALS OF THE EAST

group and the fact that its leaders , the

r h early pat iarchs of the Churc , taught a

of system positive idealism , while their Opponents were engaged mainly on details of the monastic rule, and in discussions c upon the real and the unreal , whi h led for the most part to negative conclu sion s . Asoka— the great emperor who united

of India, and made the inﬂuence his empire felt from Ceylon to the limits of

Syria and Egypt , deliberately recognising Buddhism as its unifying force— gave the weight of his personal inﬂuence to those thinkers who must have been closely allied to the Northern school , though with Asiatic toleration he patronised their opponents also , and did not fail to countenance the Brahminical religion itself. His son Mahindra converted

Ceylon to Buddhism , laying the foun

of dations there the Northern school , which still survived in the seventh cen

G ensho Hie unt san V tury, when ( g) isited NA GARJUNA 73

S India , till the reﬂux from iam , a few centuries later , of the Southern doctrine , of which it remains the present strong hold .

Northern India and Kashmir , where immediate disciples preached the faith , formed the busiest seat of Buddhist a o tivit . y It was in Kashmir , in the ﬁrst

K anishk a — century after Christ , that that King of the Gett a e s who extended his

P u n au b power from Central Asia to the j ,

his and left footprints at Mathura , near — Agra called a great Buddhist council , whose inﬂuence spread Buddhism farther into Central Asia. But all this was only enforcing the work begun by Asoka , the great descendant of Chandra Gupta (fourth century

N a ar u na g j was an Indian monk , whose name is well known in China and Japan . In the second century of the Christian era , he followed in the wake of previous

A sva hosha V a teachers , known as g and su m itr a r c , the latte of whom had a ted as 74 IDEALS OF THE EAST

f ’ president o K anishka s council . Nagar juna gave ultimate form to this , the ﬁrst

of is school of Buddhism , by means h eight negations and the elucidation of the middle path that lies between t w o oppo

a s of sites , as well by his recognition the

s infinite self, the great oul and light which pervades the All . This is a doctrine which the Buddha of the Pali texts (the u Southern school) does not deny , tho gh he there preaches the non-existence of the finite self. The fact that the memory of N agarj u na connects itself with Orissa and Southern India, and that his imme diate successor, Deva , came from Ceylon , shows the wide range within which the influence of this first school worked . In India the art of this early Buddhism was a natural growth ou t of that of the

Epic age that went before . F or it is idle to deny the existence of pre-Buddhistic

t o Indian art , ascribing its sudden birth the inﬂuence of the Greeks , as European ar chmologist s are wont to do . The THE RAILS OF A SOKA 75

Mahabharata and Ramayana contain fre quent and essential allusions to storeyed

of of towers , galleries pictures , and castes painters , not to speak of the golden statue

and of of a heroine , the magniﬁcence per sonal adornment . Indeed , it is difﬁcult to imagine that those centuries in which the wandering minstrels sang the ballads l w that were ater to become the epics , ere

- for d devoid of image worship , escriptive

of literature , concerning the forms gods , means correlative attempts at plastic actualisation . This idea ﬁnds corrobora

’ of tion in the sculptures Asoka s rails , where we ﬁnd images of Indras and Devas

bo - n worshipping the tree . These thi gs

of point to the early use clay, paste , and other impermanent materials , as in ancient

China . We ﬁnd a trace of this custom again as late as the Gupta period , in the habit of covering the stone basis of the statue with paste or plaster . Probably the rails of Asoka were originally so covered . There is here no trace of the 76 IDEALS OF THE EAST

inﬂuence of the Greeks , and if it be necessary to establish a relation with any foreign school , it must surely be with that old Asiatic art whose traces are to be found amongst Mesopotamians , Chinese ,

of and Persians , the last whom are but a branch race of the Indian . The lofty iron pillar of Asoka at

— of Delhi strange marvel casting , which o Eur pe , with all her scientiﬁc mechanism ,

- cannot imitate to day , like the twelve colossal iron images of Asoka’ s contem

or ar of p y , the Shin Emperor China , points us to ages of skilled workmanship and vast resources . Too little effort is spent in reconstructing the idea of that great splendour and activity which must have existed , in order to leave such wr eckage as it has to a later age . It may be that the desolate wastes of

K u r u k shet ra n o , and the waili g weeds f

of Rajagriha, still cherish the memory an ancient glory , which they cower down to cover from alien eyes .

78 IDEAL S OF THE EAST that common ancient style in which a deeper and better-informed study of the works of Gandhara itself will reveal a greater prominence of Chinese than of - the so called Greek characteristics . The Bactrian kingdom in Afghanistan was never more than a small colony in the

of midst a great Tartar population , and w a s already lost in the late centuries before the Christian era . The Alexan dr ian invasion means rather the exten sion of Persian inﬂuence than of Hellenic

culture . The second s tag e of B u ddhist a ctivity — on whose Sino -Japanese development we shall have occasion to touch in the Nara period— begins in the fourth cen tury under the Gupta dynasty , which was able through the preceding Andras to amalgamate the Dravidian c ulture of the

South and that of the Cholas . We now ﬁnd A sangha and V a su bandhu inaugurating the school of objective r e

a search , movement whose poetic impulse PHASES OF BUDDHISM 79 reaches extraordinary scientiﬁc expression .

It must be understood that Buddhism ,

of owing to its special deﬁnition Maya , is a r eligious idea remarkably retentive of f scientiﬁc ef ort , and we have in this period a forcible demonstration of the fact . This was the age of that great intellectual expansion when Kalidasa sang , and astronomy scaled its heights u nder

V ar aham ihir a a , l sting till the seventh c d of entury, with Nalan a as its centre learning. The art of this second Buddhist epoch is best seen in the wall -paintings of

Ajanta , and in the sculptures of the

s Ellora cave , now the few remaining

of specimens a great Indian art , which doubtless , thanks to innumerable travel a lers , gave its inspiration to the T ng art of China .

The thir d ha se B u ddhism p of , the era of concrete idealism , begins with the seventh century to sound the dominant n note of the faith , spreading its inﬂue ce 8 0 IDEALS OF THE EAST

one to Thibet , there to become, on the hand, Lamaism , and on the other Tan t rikism , and reaching China and Japan as the Esoteric doctrine, to create the art of the Heian period . It was now that the idea of the Southern school of Buddhism , which had always been working side by side with its com panion movement , penetrated Burmah and Siam, and , returning upon Ceylon , absorbed the remnant of the Northern adherents in that island , thus creating a - new stratum of Indo Chinese art , very different in style from that of the

North . Hinduism— that form into which the Indian national consciousness had been striving to resolve Buddhism ever since its appearance as a creed— is now recog nised once more as the inclusive form of

’ the nation s li fe . The great Vedantic revival of S ank ar a char ya is the assimila

of tion Buddhism , and its emergence in

ne m . a w dynamic for And now , in spite

8 2 IDEAL S OF THE EAST

a a s 0 T r u l e rly from 200 to 700 B .C. hey a e s pp e

a r V a a n d a i i ment y to the ed s, form the gre t rel g ous

T - a cl a ssics of the Hindu people . heir subj ect m tter - is the rea lisa tion of the super person a l existence . For depth a n d grandeur they a r e wit hout riva ls in the litera ture of the world . The Ra m ay ana — The second of the gre a t India n a i Ra a a n d epics , de ling with the hero c love of m

Sita .

Ku ruhshetr a or ield o the K a m a — The a , F f gre t la D p in in the neighbourhood of elhi, where the ’ a a M a a a a a eighteen d ys b ttle, recorded in the h bh r t , w a s a wa took pla ce . It here th t the Gita s spoken .

It is now only a pl a ce of pilgrim a ge .

Ra a r i ha — The a a a M a a d ha b e for e j g ncient c pit l of g , wa s Pa a i v it removed to tn , w thin the pro ince now

a s B a I ia known eh r, nd . N a la nda — The grea t mona stery a n d university of

B a i Ra a a . uddhist le rn ng, in the vicinity of j grih THE ASUKA PERIOD

5 5 0 TO 700 A.D.

THE first Buddhist period in Japan begins with the form al introduction of Buddhism from Corea in 5 5 2 A .D . It is called the Asuka period because the capital was in that province , until its final removal to Nara in 71 0 A .D . And it signifies the influence upon Japanese development of that original stream of abstract idealism

-K anishka which , through the Asoka con

of solidation , brought the waters the new faith to China .

It is , of course , possible that the mis s ionaries of Asoka reached the Celestial Empire in the reign of the ﬁrst Shin

so . tyrant . But if , they left little trace The historical records which we can a u thent icat e 0 5 9 A .D . begin ab ut the year , 83 8 4 IDEAL S OF THE EAST

of Gett aes when an ambassador the ,

K anishk a then probably under , gave to

t r ansla the Chinese scholar Saian , certain tions of a Buddhist scripture. In 6 4 A .D .

M eit ei a of , a H ng Emperor, dreamt a huge golden god , and on waking asked his courtiers for the meaning of his dream .

It was this Saian , now a scholar of great repute , who proved able to explain about W the Buddhism of the est , and he was sent next year, with eighteen followers ,

Gett a es 6 A .D . to the , returning in 7 , with n Buddhist images and two mo ks , Matanga and Horan , claiming to be from Central

India . It is told of them that they were lodged in the palace reserved for alien " subjects in Loyang , the capital for a China , during the H ng period , claimed sovereignty over the whole world . This palace was subsequently turned into a “ of monastery, called the Temple the " White Horse , and its site is still to be

of seen , in the suburbs that shrunken city of Loyang, which is so rich in ancient

IDEALS OF THE EAST

Indian Upanishads— in contradistinction to the personal divine as manifested in

Sakya Muni . The recognition of this fundamental difference distinguishes the Northern from the Southern school of

Buddhists , by the latter of whom Nirvana,

of or freedom from the world relativity , is sought as the ﬁnal goal of attainment , while by the former it is regarded as the f beginning o a new glory . We ow e the ﬁrst elucidation of the idea extant to As vaghosha ; it is our common heritage from that early Indian philosophy of which

Buddhism is a development . The tree of Buddhism w as taking gra - dual root in China, when the over running of the Nor th by the Hunnish races of the border , who established what is called the

reat a nd su d Northern dynasty, gave a g den impetus to its growth . For these tribes already , amongst their wild steppes , were adherents of the faith , though in a form coloured with the superstitions and prejudices natural to their barbaric state , BUTTO CHO 8 7

ff n and very di erent from that versio which , by it s phiIO SO phic soundness and afﬁnity to the ideas of the Conversationalists , had appealed to the civilised world of the

or Chinese Southern , native , dynasty .

B u tt o cho , a teacher who is said to have a o in been an Indi n m nk , wielded a great ﬂu ence amongst the ﬁerce and turbulent

wa s o Hun soldiery. He said to be p s sessed of supernatural powers , and as such w a s the held in awe by people , who are said never to have spat in his direction . f He was able , by his personal in luence , to stop much cruelty and bloodshed under the Northern Cho dynasty . His pupil

Doan went southward , and in collabora

’ o ti n with Yeon , assisted in the promulga

or tion of the faith in Amida, the quest of salvation by contemplation of, and

VVe s pray er to , the ideal Buddha in the

K u m ar a iva s on Gett ae tern heavens . j , of a

su father and an Indian mother, and p posed to have been a native of Korsar,

so was renowned in his day , that a Nor 88 I DEAL S OF THE EAST therm emperor despatched an army to bring him as a teacher to China, where he arrived in 401 A .D . He devoted himself to the innumerable translations of Bud dhist scriptures and laid the foundation of that Buddhistic scholarship which cul m inat e s Tend ai in Chiki of the Mountains , at the end of the sixth century. This history of the long succession of important teachers , implying the constant ﬂow of a stream of wandering thinkers from India to China throughout the period , raises the interesting question of the means of intercourse . It appears that besides the sea -route from the Bengal coast by Ceylon to the mouth of the - - Yang tse Kiang , there were two great landways , which both began at Tonko in

China, at the mouth of the Gobi Desert , n divided before reaching the Oxus , i to the

r of Tensan no thern and southern passes , and so on to the Indus . Embassies pro bably went by sea . We h ave here the clue to a great era ,

9 0 IDEAL S OF THE EAST

W e ith regard to building, as obs rved h before, Chinese palaces were c anged at once into Buddhist temples in an impulse o of renunciation , only such alterati ns being made as would meet the new needs . The

of stupa , through its evolution the tee ,

of K a nishka had , so early as the time , attained several storeys , and when trans

c on lated into Chinese forms , under the dit ions of wooden architecture , became h t e wooden pagoda, as known to this day

one Japan . Of these, two kinds exist , the rectangular and the other the circular

e e typ , the latter still r taining the form of the original dome . The ﬁrst pagoda built in wood by

Rio ken 21 A .D . , in 7 , must have been modelled upon the many-storeyed towers a that existed under the H ng dynasty ,

t he S with the modiﬁcation of disked pires ,

or originally a canopy umbrella , the

of emblem sovereignty , whose number

of denoted the grade spiritual rank , three

indicating a saint , and nine the supreme SC ULPTURE 9 1 W Buddha. ooden pagodas , built in the

of beginning of the sixth century , which fortunately some descriptions remain , seem more and more to have followed the

of r e Indian method ornamentation , for garding them we read of the great vase

o at the top , in striking reminder f the description by Gensho (Hiou en-Tsang) of the ornaments of the Buddha Gaya Stupa , built in the same century by Amara Singh , “ one of the so-called Nine Gems of

the of V ikr am adit Learning of court ya . Sculpture seems to have followed a parallel course . The Indian type looked ou at ﬁrst tlandish to the Chinese mind , and t sculptors like Taiando , in the four h n century , devoted themselves to evolvi g

n of its a new type , by constant cha ging proportions . Taiando was s o eager to have frank criticism that he hung a cur

of tain at the back of a statue his , and lay behind it three years to hear the remarks of the public . That there was a distinct school of Chinese sculpture is 9 2 IDEAL S OF THE EAST manifest from the records of the pilgrim Hoken (Fahian), who describes the statues of a certain border country as quite

Chinese in type , in contrast with the

of e Indian type other places , and ascrib s the origin of the style to the inﬂuence of a

Chinese general , Roko , who had occupied the territory , though we should consider this to be no more than an enforcing of the style of sculpture evolved by the

Gett ae P u n au b in the j , whose traces are

e . seen ev n in Mathura Indeed , the exist ing specimens of this period follow in the a main , as far as we know , the H ng style , in features , drapery , and decoration . The most typical examples that we can recall are the rock-cu t images of Riu m on san n . , near Loya g They form part of the cave-temples which the Empress

Dowager K o constructed in 5 1 6 A .D . This place is still very impressive in its o ruin , as it is not nly representative of the period , but is a perfect museum in itself, containing more than ten thousand

9 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST powerful factor in the empire from the

of Takanou chi S days their founder , ukune, who was the adviser and prime minister

Z hin o of the Empress g , in her famous conquest of Korea . He may be seen in later pictures painted as a venerable bearded man , holding the infant emperor in his arms . From this time onwards his family were hereditary ministers of foreign

ff of a airs , and the traditions their blood naturally led them to love and reverence foreign culture and institutions , whereas other native princes tended to the strict conservation of national customs F or the responsibility of government usually remained with the powerful aristocracy who surrounded the throne, and carried ou t mandates with the sanction of the imperial name . This is the survival of “ that Assembly of the Gods who w ere held to have given counsel to the supreme

Ta kam a ahar a Godhead in g . The civil commotion attending the establishment of Buddhism in Japan CIVIL COMMOTI ON 9 5 becomes thus a matter of family jealousies

S M ononobes between the ogas and the , hereditary commanders -in - chief of the

on territorial army , supported their side

N ak ot om is of by the , the ancestors the

Fujiwaras , who , as head priests , or more

of r properly , custodians , the ancestral ites , clung naturally to the ancient notions , f in deﬁance o the new religion . The

O t om os , who were hereditary admirals in the Japanese navy , cruising along their stations on the Korean coast , leaned to e the sid of the Sogas , at least in the fact that they stood neutral in the dispute .

u These disastro s struggles for power, which ended with the supremacy of the — -b e Sogas , were attended by the never to

of im er icide forgotten crime p , and several dethronements — a matter of grave chagrin

— to the Japanese of the p resent daym but were otherwise not unlike the state o f ff a airs at the recent Meiji restoration , when progressives and conservatives fou ght ou t their differences of aims 9 6 IDEALS OF THE EAS T k and opinions , though in a indlier spirit .

i oli The imperial power, curta led by

ar chic ce g preponderan in the Soga period , was unable to veto the claims on either side . Thus when the Korean king , Mei

of rei , in the thirteenth year of the reign Emperor Kim m ei (5 5 2 sent ambas sador s bearing a bronze -gilt statue of

S -M u m akya , with hangings and canopies and sundry Buddhist scriptures— address “ ing a memorial , saying , Your vassal

Mei , King of Kudara, respectfully sends this vassal of your vassal Ru r ishit ike to bear the accom panying image into your empire , that the teaching may ﬂow and

a c spread towards all your boundaries ,

’ cording to the Buddha s command , who commanded that His law should ﬂow " — of Eastward , the Emperor was , course , glad to receive the tribute , but was obliged to hesitate about accepting it . He therefore put the question to his

of ministers , amongst whom Iname Soga

9 8 IDE ALS OF THE EAST

of ﬁgure in the arts this period , had migrated to Japan thirty—one years before this event , and his daughter became the ﬁrst nun who worshipped the Buddhist

. r D on ei images The Ko ean priests , y and

D oshin r 5 5 4 A .D . , ar ived in Chiso , a

Southern Chinese , is also said to have brought over images and sculptures ten years later, and in spite of conservative

e . pers cution , the cult gained ground daily The Korean Kings of Kudara and S hir agi vied with each other in Buddhist presents ,

W u m ako son m and , the of Ina e , who succeeded his father as prime minister , er ected Buddhist temples in 5 8 4. The year 5 73 is remarkable for the birth of

Wu m a a d o Prince y , commonly known - as Shotoku Taishi , the Saint amongst

r Princes , who becomes the great pe soni

ﬁ t ion ca of this ﬁrst Buddhist illumination .

He , as regent of his aunt, the Empress

Suiko , wrote the seventeen articles of the

J apanese constitution . This document proclaims the duty of devotion to the WUM AY AD O 9 9

Emperor , inculcates Confucian ethics , and lays its stress on the greatness of that Indian ideal which is t o pervade them all — thus epitomising the national life of

Japan for thirteen centuries to follow . His commentaries on the Buddhist sﬁt r a s not o nly evince remarkable scholarship in

Chinese , but by their clear setting out of the principles of N agarj u na (second cen tury A .D .) prove a masterly insight and inspiration . The book was a marvel to n Korea s and Chinese . The death o f

Wu m a Prince yad o in 6 21 A .D . was the signal for universal despair , people beating their breasts in the sorrow of a night robbed of its moon . He is still wor

of shipped , as the Patron the Arts by all craftsmen and artisans , and especially at

Tennoji in Osaka . It was in 5 8 8 that the disputes between

t o the rival families had come a head , when each had sought t o place on the throne the upholder of its own creed , end

N ak at om i ing in the defeat of Moria and , 1 00 IDEALS OF THE EAST and the subsequent assassination of the succeeding Emperor , who chose to object to the dictation of W u m ako . Wu m ako had then placed his own grand-niece Suiko

she on the throne, being also the grand daughter of the Emperor . Her long

5 9 3 6 28 A .D . reign , from to , with Prince

W u m a a do y as regent , forms the culmina

of tion the ﬁrst Buddhist movement , which is sometimes called from her , the

Suiko epoch . Her capital was in the province of Asuka about twelve miles to

of the south Nara , where the emperors had resided ever since the days of Kim

r e mei . Unfortunately , no specimens main in Asuka itself, and since the transfer of the capital to Nara , the whole place has fallen into decay . A few temples here and there , and some marble foundations scattered amongst the mulberry trees , alone mark its past importance . The one exception to this is the colos s al of A nkoin on bronze , the site of the

Asuka temple , which history reports to

1 02 IDEALS OF THE EAST

another trinity of Yakshi, bearing the 6 25 date of , the height of each , including the halo , being about seven feet . In these statues we ﬁnd the same Hang type that we noticed in the rock-cut temples of Riu m onsan more than a century earlier .

A valoki t e sw ar a A Kwannon ( ), ten feet in height , made of wood and lacquer n paste , and purporti g to have been pre

of sented by one the Korean kings , stands in the same hall . It may have been made in that country , or by some of the numerous Korean artisans who

ﬂocked to Japan at that time . Another

Kwannon , which has been unrevealed to v public gaze for centuries , and is preser ed

i s in a remarkable condition , the Kwannon d of Y u m e ono in the same temple . From these two we can j udge of that idealised purity of expression which characterises the H ang type as it appear s in Buddhist art . The proportions are not exactly ﬁne -hands and feet are disproportionate in A NEW MOVEMENT 1 03

size , and the features have almost the

.rigid calm of Egyptian sculpture . Yet , i wit h ‘ all these drawbacks , we ﬁnd in these works a spirit of intense reﬁnement and t purity, such as only grea religious feeling

could have produced . For divinity , in " of n this early phase ational realisation ,

u na r oa ch seemed like an abstract ideal , pp

it s able and mysterious , and even distance from the naturalesque gives to art an

awful charm .

But it seemed that the Japanese mind , with its innate love of beauty and con

cr et eness , was not to be satisﬁed with abstract types presented to it by Chinese

and Korean masters . Contemporary with

these , therefore , we ﬁnd a new movement

in sculpture , which aims at softening rigid outlines and bettering the propor

tions . The typical example is found in

of the wooden Kwannon Chinguji , a nun

of nery , founded by the daughters the

prince , and attached to the same Horinji

temple . This statue , which is believed 1 04 IDEALS OF THE EAST t o of of be about the close the Asuka era , is wonderful for its tenderness of expres it sion and beautiful proportions , though adheres strictly to the Hang type of the period . Besides the Buddhas and Bodhi S att va s there is also the type of Deva " — rajas known as the Guardians of Law , sustaining the four corners of the universe — which is preserved to us in the same “ temple under the name of the Four Guar dian Kings . These last statues are signed

Y am a hu chi K u su shi by g , Oguchi , , and

of Toriko , whom the ﬁrst is mentioned elsewhere as a celebrated artist in the middle of the seventh century. One notable point about these kings is that the metal work which decorates the head piece and parts of the armour still pre serves the old Hang patterns found in early dolmens . The only example now extant of the paintings of this period consists of the lacquer decorations of a shrine belong ing to the Empress Suiko herself. This

1 06 IDEALS OF THE EAST

NOTES

The da tes which divide J a pa nese histor y ha ving been somewh a t genera lised for the purposes of the present sketch , it is thought well to supply the following brief s u mm a ry in more a ccura te form for use in reference.

— The As uha Per iod . La sted from the introduction of Bu ddhism in 5 5 2 to the a ccession of the Emperor

Te n i 6 6 A D . T e r a a a ﬂ j , 7 . his in J p n is much in uenced a B i n a by the gre t vigour of uddhism Chin , under T the ang dyna sty . The F uj iwa r a Period — From the a ccession of t he E S e iwa 8 8 a Ta a a mperor in 9 , to the f ll of the ir f mily

1 1 A D a a a a in 8 6 . . This ge is ch r cterised by purely n a tiona l development of Bu ddhist a r t a nd philo

u a a a a sophy , nder the Fujiw r ristocr cy.

The Ka m h P r i 1 1 to 1 4 A D — Fl‘0m a um e od, 8 6 3 9 . .

M a S u a Ka a a the rise of the in moto hog n te in m kur , to th a t of the Ashika ga S hoguna te .

— The Ashika a P er iod 1 3 4 to 1 5 8 7 A.D . S o a g , 9 c lled a a e M u sa s hi had ee from pl c in the province , which b n th e origin a l residence of tha t bra nch of the Min amoto fa mily who held the Shogu na te durin g this time .

The To tom i a nd E a r l T ku a wa Per iods — yo y o g . From the suprem a cy of Hid eyos hi n in 1 5 8 7 to the a cces

S u Yo shim u n e 1 1 1 A .D . sion of the hog n , 7 The La ter Tokuga wa Period — From the a ccession S Yoshi m un e 1 71 1 a of the hogun , , to the f ll of the ,

S a 1 8 6 A.D . T era i hogun te , 7 his sees the r se of the NOTES 1 07

i a a nd a i b E a i ﬂ m ddle cl sses, , ss sted y urope n n uence , the a dvent of the re a listic school in a r t . The M eij i Period — From the a ccession of the i i d re gn ng Emperor in 1 8 67 to the present ay . Kwa nnon — This word i s a n a bbrevia tion of Kwa n

Kw a n i za i a Ava lokit es wa r a — gion or g , me ning the

Lord who witnesseth . The n a me denotes one of

a B i —Sa tt va s N a a the gre t odh , who refuse irv n until the sa lva tion of the universe i s a ccomplished . K a wa s a a s a w nnon origin lly conceived youth , some A thing like the Christia n idea o f the a ngels . fter wa rds the form becomes pre -eminently th a t of woma n - i n a nd mother . This ema na tion is self ma nifested

c r . K a every y of sorrow , in every sight of pity w n ha s - a ll a non thirty three forms , representing gr des " i W a a a m I of ex stence . herever gn t cries, there , - m a y be ta ken a s the keynote of the Lotus S ﬁt r a . He (or She ) represents tha t sa tisfa ction which comes a i i s before renunci t on . He never, therefore , the

N a a bu t a a giver of irv n , only of the before s lv , step - N ot B a B i S a a . tion . the uddh , but the odh ttv H e

I a B a s Pa d m a ani is known in ndi n uddhism p , the

L u - e i n a V a ra a ni ot s Hold r , contr st to j p , holder of the thunderbolt . THE NARA PERIOD

700 TO 8 00 A.D .

A N E W era was to be born . The whole of Asiatic thought was surging on , past that distant vision of the Indian Abstract Universal which Buddhism had made possible , to recognise its supreme self revelation in the Cosmos itself. The vulgarisation of this impulse was to

i n betray itself the succeeding period , when the tendency to a sordid and har d ened symbolism would take the place of the direct perception of the beautiful . But for the moment Spirit was seeking t union with Mat er, and the joy of the ﬁrst embrace was to ring from Ujjain t o Choan and Nara through the songs of

of Rit a ihaku Hit o ar Kalidasa, , and of m u . Three great political ﬁgures inaugurated 108

1 10 IDEAL S OF THE EAST ever since the pre-Buddhistic period when she pr oduced the Sankhya philosophy and the atomic theory ; the ﬁfth century, when her mathematics and astronomy ﬁnd their blossom in A r yabhatt a ; the

his seventh , when Brahmagupta uses highly developed algebra and makes astronomical observations ; the twelfth , brilliant with the glory of Bhaskar a char ya and his famous daughter, down to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries them selves , with Ram Chandra the mathe m at ician J a adis B , and g Chunder ose the physicist "

r In the era which we are conside ing ,

A san ha V a su bandhu beginning with g and , the whole energy of Buddhism is thrown upon this scientiﬁc research into the world

of of the senses and phenomena, and one of the first outcomes is an elaborate p sy chology treating of the evolution of the finite soul in its fifty-two stages of growth

1 f R i n h - Au thor o esponse t e Living a nd Non Living.

Lon m ans 1902. g , AN AGE OF EN"UIRY 1 1 1 and final liberation in the infinite . That the whole universe is manifest in every atom ; that each variety , therefore , is of equal authenticity ; that there is no truth unrelated to the unity of things ; this is the faith that liberates the Indian mind in science , and which even in the present day is so potent to free it from the hard shell of Specialism that one of her sons has scien been enabled , with the severest tifi n c demonstratio , to bridge over the supposed chasm between the organic and inorganic worlds . Such a faith , in its early energy and enthusiasm , was the natural incentive to that gr eat scientific age which was t o produce astronomer s

Ar abhat t a r e volu like y , discovering the

o n own tion of the earth its axis , and his

V ar am ihir a not less illustrious successor, ; which brought Hindu medicine to its

S u sr u t a height , perhaps under ; and which ﬁnally gave to Arabia the know ledge with which she was later to fructify

Europe . 1 1 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

It was also an age of poetry, distin

u ished of g by the names Kalidasa, Bana

R avikir t i bhatta, and the Jain , creating that richness of imagery and allusion that was afterwards to clothe Hinduism with puranic lore . Buddhist art now assumes the aspect of calm which always rises out of the

of blending the spirit with matter, in a repose where neither attempts to over whelm the other, and thus becomes akin to the classic ideal of the Greeks , whose pantheism led them to a similar expres

. a r excellence sion Sculpture is , p , the form t best adapted to this conception , and he

of stone Buddhas the Tin Tal in Ellora , though deprived of the plaster mouldings with which they were originally covered, - are beautiful , with a self contained gran f deur and harmony o proportion . In them we ﬁnd the sources of inspiration of the Tang and Nara sculptures . The China of the Tang dynasty (6 1 8 to 9 07 enriched by the fresh Tartar

1 1 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST

i n i ment which , the e ghth century, resulted in the creation of the present Japanese alphabet. The memory of the wonderful enthu sia sm that was born of this continental fusion of the moment survives to this day - in Japan, in a quaint folk story of three travellers meeting in Loyang . One came

one from India, one from Japan , and “ from the Celestial soil itself. But we “ meet here, said the last , as if to make a fan , of which China represents the

o u paper , y from India the radiating sticks , and ou r Japanese guest the small but necessary pivot "

This was an age of toleration , as may always be expected wherever there is a permeation of the Indian spirit , when in

China Confucians , Taoists , and Buddhists were equally honoured , when the Nesto rian fathers were allowed to spread their cult , as the Choan tablets attest , and when Zoroastrians were permitted to establish their ﬁr e~wor ship in the important cities A GRAND HARMONY 1 15

of the empire , leaving traces of Byzantine and Persian inﬂuence in Chinese decora tive art— in the same temper which in India made Y a sovar dhan and the Sila dit a y of Kanauj honour Brahmins , Jains , and Buddhists equally . Thus the three streams of Chinese thought ﬂow side by

Toshim i Rit aihak u side , and , , and Oma

of kitsu , who represent the poetic ideals these three rival conceptions , express also ,

of none the less , the grand harmony the a T ng period , whose assimilative idea is so

B u nchu si early expressed through , the

of Taiso teacher of Gicho , chief adviser himself. This harmony foreshadows the N eo-Confucianism of the succeeding Sung dynasty in China (9 6 0 to 1 28 0 when

Confucians , Taoists , and Buddhists to gether became a single national com plet eness.

Buddhism , the predominating impulse of w as the period , , of course , that of the second Indian (monastic) phase . Ge nsho (Hiou en~ Tsang) was a pupil of Mitra 1 1 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of V a su b andhu sena , a disciple , and through his great translations and com m ent ar ies hi s he , on return from India , inaugurated the new school known as the Hosso sect , of which the idea seems to have been at work even before his time .

K enshu Gis sananda , assisted by of Cen

- of tral , and Bodhi ruchi Southern India , further enforced the same movement in the beginning of the eighth century,

K e on and established the g sect , which aims at complete fusion of mind and matter . The intellectual effort of this period being so closely akin to that of modern science , art becomes largely a reaching forth towards a V i sualisation of the vastness of the universe , resting and centring itself upon t he Buddha . It therefore assumes colossal dimensions , and the Buddha images become the im

ha n a i chana mense R os a (V r o ) Buddhas . The R oshana Buddha is the Buddha of

t he of Law in contrast to Buddha Mercy ,

m d of which is A ida , and the Bu dha

1 1 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST o u account of the rushin g stream of the - Yang t se at its base .

Ten i 7 In Japan , the Emperor j , who i crushed the Soga fam ly, consolidated the

of personal government the emperors ,

r e im e 6 45 beginning a new g in , which

u iwar a s lasted till the F j , descendants of his prime minister , Kamatari , again veiled the throne by their aristocratic power. The provincial government was managed by appointed governors , instead of by d here itary princes , as in former days ; a

of on h system laws , modelled t ose of the

a w a s T ng court , compiled ; and justice was administered by a specially-appointed body of judges . The country was opened up with a new energy. Roads were built the means oftransportation were regulated

of on a sounder basis , relays horses being established on the routes ; and a general reform of interior administration was ff e ected , though perhaps at the sacriﬁce of foreign supremacy. Japan was grow

neces ing in prosperity , and it was found NARA 1 1 9 sary in 710 to found on the wider plains of the Yamato a new capital , now known as the town of Nara . This city became the great Buddhist centre , and the strength of it s hierarchy was enough later to threaten the throne and the nobility.

D osho , a Japanese monk , had become a personal pupil of Gen sho (Hiou en -Tsang) in Choan , and returned again to Japan in

6 . the year 77 It was through him , and

of again through Giogi , in the middle the eighth century , that we were able to

K e on introduce the Hosso and g sects , and thus incorporate the ideas , and begin to share in the general development of the new form of the Northern move ment .

It is easy to understand , therefore , that the art of the Nara period is reﬂected from

of a that the early T ng dynasty , and has even a direct connection with its proto type in India for many Indian artists are recorded as having crossed over at this 1 20 IDEALS OF THE EAST

ou r . Gu m orik time to shores p , a fol

of lower Kanshin , a great Chinese monk who founded the Vinaya sect in this f period , was a sculptor presumably rom

Ceylon , and the similarity of his works to those o f A n ar aj apu r a shows the contem p or a ry predominance of the full Gupta

. type all over India One would hope, however, that it is not mere national pride which ﬁnds in the Japanese rendering of

n ot the same themes , only the abstract

of beauty the Indian model , with the

n of an stre gth the T g , but also an added delicacy and completeness that makes the art of Nara the highest formal expression of the second Asiatic thought . The Nara period thus inaugurated is

for remarkable its wealth of sculpture, which begins with the bronze trinity o f Amida in Y aku shij i and is followed by the Yakshi trinity of the same temple thirty years later , undoubtedly the ﬁnest existing specimen of this art . In connec tion with these must also be mentioned

1 22 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of e mental work , in spite the cramp d Space which the present building covering

’ it allows to the pilgrim s view . The ori ginal building was forty-ﬁve feet higher and eighty feet longer than the present. We owe the idea of the statue to the Emperor S hom u and his great Empress

K om io , in consultation with Giogi . This great monk travelled throu gh the length and breadth of Japan , bearing that pro clamation of the Sovereign whi ch a n nou nc es the project of the great R o shana “ of Buddha Nara , and then adds , It is our desire that each peasant shall have the right to add his handful of clay and his r strip of grass to the mighty ﬁgu e, h whic , we must remember , was intended to be the centre of the Buddhist universe .

se e on We can still , the petals of the lotus ’i da s , the various Buddhistic worlds chased with great delicacy.

The Emperor , who called himself pub licl of i .e. y Slave the Trinity , the

Buddha, the Law , and the Church , assisted GI O GI ’ S LIFE -WORK 1 23 with his whole court at the erection . Ladies of the highest rank are said to have carried clay for the model on their S brocaded leeves , and the ceremony of its inauguration must have been most impressive , with the central image , that it had taken more than twenty thou sand J a anese pounds of the precious metal to cover with gold . It was surrounded by a halo on which three hundred gold statues were hung , not to speak of the wonderful tapestries and

of hangings , which fragments still remain to testify to their past magniﬁcence . A

Brahmin monk , named Bodhi , arrived in

Japan , and being hailed by the dying a s one Giogi come from the sacred land , h and t erefore more worthy than himself, was invested with the cond uct of the inaugural ceremony . Giogi died next

se i day , having thus lived only to e h s - great life work completed . This was an age of tremendous Bud dhist activity. Amongst the seven tem 1 24 IDEALS OF THE EAST

ples at Nara, which vied with each other

of in gorgeousness , that Saidaiji is noted for its elaborate architecture , surrounded as it is by golden phoenixes with bells in their mouths . People thought it the work of magic , and worthy to be the palace of a dragon king . They ordered one monastery and one nunnery to be

of erected in each province the country , the sites of which are now to be seen from the extreme end of Kiushu to the north of Mutsu . The Empress K o m io was highly inst ru mental in extending the work of S hom u

o f after his death , and this with the help

who her daughter Koken , was the next to ascend the throne . The nobility of soul of this great Empress-Mother may

one be felt even in of her simplest poems ,

of ff when , speaking o ering ﬂowers to the

she Buddha , says , If I pluck them , the

of touch my hand will deﬁle , therefore standing in the meadows as they are I offer these wind-blown ﬂowers to the Buddhas

1 26 IDEALS OF THE EAST which ought also to be mentioned amongst the works of this period. The pictorial art of Nara— as seen in

- of Hor iu l the wall paintings j , which we conclude to be the work of the beginning of the eighth century— is of the highest merit, and shows what the Japanese genius had been able to add , even to the ﬁne workmanship of the wall-painting of the Ajanta caves . A landscape in the

on imperial collection at Nara , painted the leather bandage of a musical inst ru ment called the hizca (evidently from the “ Indian vina is so different from the

Buddhist style , both in spirit and in exe c u t ion , as to give us a glimpse into the delicate feeling of the L a oi st school of painting under the Tang dynasty. This imperial treasure-house (S hosoin ) is also remarkable , containing as it does the personal belongings of the Emperor

Shom u K om io and his Empress , which their daughter presented to the R oshana

Buddha after their deaths , and which A TREASURE -HOUSE 1 27 have come down undisturbed to the pre s . ent day It contains their robes , shoes , musical instruments , mirrors , swords , car pets , screens , and the paper and pen with which they wrote , together with the cere monial masks , banners , and other religious

on accoutrements , used the anniversary of their death , handing down to us in all its luxury and splendour the actual life of nearly twelve hundred years ago . Glass l é gob ets , enamelled cloisonn mirrors , sug

est ive or g of Indian Persian origin , and innumerable specimens of the best Tang t workmanship are here , making the col lection a miniature Pompeii or Herou laneu m without their catastrophic ashes . By reason of the strict rules which cau s e it to be opened to spectators of a certain rank once only in each reign , this whole treasure is preserved as if almost a thing of yesterday . THE HEIAN PERIOD

8 00 TO 9 00 A .D .

THE idea of the union of mind and matter was destined to grow still str onger in Japanese thought , till the complete fusion of the two conceptions should be reached . It is remarkable to ﬁnd that this fusion rather centres in the material , and the symbol is regarded as realisation , the common act as if it were beatitude , the world itself as the ideal world . There is no Maya after all . In India , while it may be that this feeling of the physical and concrete as a luminous sacrament of

one spirituality, leads on the side to Tan t rikism on and phallic worship , it forms the other, as we must remember, the liv ing poetry of the home and of experience .

From such conceptions , the sannyasin 128

1 3 0 IDEALS OF THE EAST

o teri doctrine , whose philosophic basis is I su ch as to make it capable of including

of - the two extremes , ascetic self torture and the worship of physical rapture . This movement was ﬁrst represented in China by V aj r abodhi and his nephew

A m o hava r a r g j , of Southe n India, the latter having gone back to India in quest

41 A D of such ideas in 7 . . This may be considered as the point at which Bud dhism merges itself in the larger inﬂux of Hinduism , so that Indian inﬂuence at the period is overwhelming, in art as in religion . The origin of the school in India itself is obscure . There are apparent traces of its existence even in very early days , but its systematisation seems only to be com plet ed in the seventh and eighth cen t u r ies for , when a need arose combining the Brahminical and Buddhist doctrines . This was the moment at which the Rama

it s ﬁ yana received nal form , as a protest - against the over m ona sticising of life . In THE TRUE WORD 1 3 1

Japan the new philosophical standpoint was an advance upon the Hosso and K egon schools which had taught the

of union mind and matter , and the reali

of S sation the upreme Spirit , in concrete forms , for these thinkers went further ff than their predecessors , in the e ort to demonstrate the idea in practice, claiming their own descent from direct communion

V a ir ochana S with , the upreme Godhead , of which the Sakya-Buddha was only one manifestation . They aimed at ﬁnding truth in all religions and all teachings , each of them being its own method of attaining to the highest .

o f The union mind , body, and word in meditation was considered essential , though any one of the three , by itself, carried to its utmost possibility , was pro d u ct ive of the highest results . Thus they

or of made the Word , the pronouncing sacred charms , which they considered as lying on the borderland between mind

“ and body, the most important way of 13 2 IDEAL S OF THE EAST

attaining the result , so that this sect was sometimes called the True Word , or

Shingon . Art and Nature were now regarded in a new light , for in every object alike was

V air ochana contained , the Impersonal

Universal , a supreme realisation of which was to be the quest of the believer .

of Crime , from this point of view trans cend ent oneness , becomes as sacred as

-sacriﬁce self , the lowest demon as natu rally the centre of the pantheon as the highest god . The minutest details must be guarded and conserved , the object being to see the whole of life as an em bodiment of Godhead . And mythology comes to be treated as a shimmering iridescence , of which any point may at any moment be made the centre , throwing all others into relative subordination . The idea is one of many possible issues of the great Indian aspiration towards

- Same Sightedness (S am a d ar sana ). At the same time , curiously enough , in spite of

1 3 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST

the temple, were all made expressive of this idea of the universe . It was under this inﬂuence that Bud dhism acquired its great masses of gods l and goddesses , alien to the faith itse f, but made possible by the new teaching as manifestations of the supreme original

Divinity . We ﬁnd now a systematised

of pantheon , grouped around the idea

V air ochana , in four main subdivisions

ﬁrst F u d o , second Hosho , third Amida , 1 and fourth Sakya , as representations ( )

2 of of Power, which is knowledge ; ( )

3 of Wealth , which is creative force ; ( )

Mercy , which is Divine intelligence de

u 4 or scending pon man ; and ( ) of Work ,

of Karma , the realisation the ﬁrst three

i on in actual l fe earth , that is , Sakya

Muni . Such is the abstract signi ﬁcance of the

F u d o symbols . On their concrete side , ,

m of the im ovable , the God Samadhi ,

of stands for the terrible form Siva, the

i of grand v sion the eternal blue , rising F UD O AND A I Z E N 1 3 5 out of ﬁre . Corresponding to the Indian

of idea the period , he has the gleaming third eye , the trident sword , and the lasso of . snakes In another form , as Kojin , the Fierce God (Rudra or M ak eisu r a

of (Maha Iswara), he wears a garland skulls , armlets of snakes , and the tiger skin of meditation . His feminine counterpart appears as

A izen of - , the mighty bow, lion crowned

— and awful , the God of Love but love in

of its strong form , whose ﬁre purity is death , who slays the beloved that he may attain the highest . V air ocha na becomes

F u do Aizen a trinity with and , by means of the symbol of the Chintamani j ewel , whose mystic for m is that of a circle

— striving to make itself a triangle for life , it is said , never completes itself, but is for ever breaking through perfection, in its struggle upwards to the higher rounds of realisation . The Indian idea of Kali is also r epr e K ar it eim o -" sented by , the Mother ueen 13 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST

is ff of Heaven , to whom made o ering daily of the pomegranate , under a strange interpretation that points to the t r ansfor mation of an ancient sacriﬁce of blood into this form under Buddhistic inﬂu

m . e ees Saraswati , as Benten , with her

K om ir a vina , which quells the waves ; p , d - or the Gan harva, the Eagle headed ,

Kichi ot en or sacred to mariners ; j , Lak shm i , who confers fortune and love ;

Tai ensu i -in- g , the Commander chief (Kar t ike a of y ), who bestows the banner

- victory ; Shoden , the elephant headed

Ganesh , Breaker of the Path , to whom the ﬁrst salutations are offered in all vil - lage worship , and whose dread power is held in check by the counsels of the

- eleven headed Kwannon , now attaining the female form , in expression of the Indian thought of motherhood— all these suggest the direct adoption of Hindu deities . This new conception of the divinities is different from the distant attitude of

13 8 IDEALS OF THE EAS T

" a him Sect of the True Word , p inted by , are now handed down in the Toji temple of Kyoto, amongst its priceless treasures , and are deeply suggestive o f the great l - viri ity and grandeur of this master mind .

Jitt e Jikaku His immediate disciples , , ,

Chisho and , all of whom studied the doc trine in China , carried the movement still further . The creed and temples of the early Nara period succumbed in the main to this new inﬂuence , inasmuch as its comprehensive view engendered no con

ﬂict with any earlier tenets . One of the best specimens of the sculpture of this period is the Yakshi

Buddha , the Great Healer, carved under the orders of Kukai , now extant in the

Z hin o i . g j temple near Kyoto Another , the eleven-headed Kwannon of Toganj i ’ S aicho K u kai s in Omi , is attributed to , great rival . We may also mention

N ioir in of K ansin i the Kwannon j , and the graceful Kwannon of Hokkiji in

Nara. HEIAN ART 1 3 9

v In painting , the twelve de as by Kukai , preserved at present in Saidaij i in Nara ,

Rioka im and ara S en u in of with the of j , the same province , are the foremost examples of the strong brushwork of the period . Heian art is thus a synonym for work

. that is strong and vital , because concrete

It is full of a certain vigour of assurance .

But it is not free , lacking the spontaneity and detachment of great idealism . It is at the same time representative of an essential stage in the appropriation of

Buddhist conceptions . Up to this point they have been regarded and treated as something apart from the believer him in t self. Now, heir slightly common place energising of the Heian conscious

se ar at edne ss ness , this p is lost , and the succeeding era Shows their absorption and r e-expression in the national life as emotion . 1 40 IDEALS OF THE EAST

NOTES

— d . T Fu o he Immova ble . O ne of the India n na mes

S a i i a A a a U . of iv , s m l rly, is ch l , the nmoving The Twelve D eva n - The t welve deva s a r e Bonten

B a a a Ha Ku a ( r hm ), ttended by the white bird g , or S wa n ; Kha ten (Agni) ; I sha nh a Tha isha h (Indra ) ; u ten Vis ha m on Kic h ot e n F ; , whose consort is j

G Em -m a Ya a a ( oddess of Fortune) ; ( m ), riding on ffa a nd a i a a f a ~ bu lo, be r ng the gre t st f of de th , sur

a Nitten S un-God mounted by two he ds ; , the ;

Getten M —God S u iten God Wa , the oon ; , the of ters

on a tortoise a nd Shoden (Ga nesh). ’ At a a a a a the time of monk s initi tion the ch ry , or

a V a ir ocha na a m ster, represented ; the postul nt, the potentia l Va i roc ha na ; pictures of the twelve dev a s

u a a a s a a i were h ng bout the h ll gu rdi n w tnesses , a nd at a wa s a a i the b ck pl ced the screen, be r ng the

a a a nd a represent tion of mount ins w ters , behind i e ar which the secret text was spoken n the .

S a m a dhi a a a , or re lis tion through concentr tion .

I a a u h e a i n J p n we disting is thr e st ges, beginn ng

i a - w th the tr nce of super consciousness , produced by

a i an d l a a i medit t on, cu min ting in perfect union w th

A u a i the bsol te, which is comp tible w th work in the

a nd i s a a s B a . T a world , the s me uddh hood his l st - pha se i s tha t known i n India a s j iva n mukti.

1 42 IDEAL S OF THE EA ST

now, according to mental habit , it isolates it , and makes its realisation its solitary purpose . In this the Japanese , by their

a dvan greater Indian afﬁnity, enjoy an tage over the Chinese , who are withheld by that strong common sense which is

u n expressed in Confucianism , from the balanced dev elopment of any single motive to its full intensity.

Those disturbances in China which , h a towards the close of t e T ng dynasty , prevented the exchange of diplomatic amenities between the two countries , and the conscious dependence which Japan began to place on her own power, induced the statesmen of the time— amongst whom stands that M ichiza ne who is so revered as Tenjin , patron of letters and learning — to resolve on sending no more embassies to Choan , and to cease borrowing further from Chinese institutions . A new era began , in which Japan strove to create a system of her own , based on the

of revival purely Yamato ideals , for WOMEN WRITERS 1 43 the administration of civil and religious affairs . This new development is marked in letters by the appearance of important

s book , written in Japanese by women .

For till now , in comparison with the classic Chinese style of the scholars , the vernacular language had been considered ff e eminate , and was left to become the proper instrument of woman only . So dawned the great era of feminine litera

of ture , in the course which may be men tioned ki u Murasa Shikib , authoress of

S eishona on the grand romance of Genji ; g , a whose sarcastic pen nticipates , by seven ’ witti hundred years , Madame Scudery s cism s on the court scandals of the

G r a nd M ona r u e Akazom e q ; , noted for her peaceful and pure conception of life ;

sad and Komachi , the great poetess , whose life exempliﬁes the loves and sorrows of that reﬁned and voluptuous epoch . Men imitated the style of these ladies , for this was a r ex cellence . , p , the age of woman 1 44 IDEALS OF THE EAST

Conﬁned in their island home , with no questions of state to trouble their sweet reveries , the court aristocracy found their serious occupation in art and poetry. The lesser duties of statecraft were left

-r eﬁnem ent of to inferiors , for to the over the time it appeared that useful duties

r so were both lowe ing and impure, that the handling of money and the use of arms were functions ﬁt only for the menial classes . Even the administration of justice was relegated to the lower orders . Governors of provinces would almost spend their lives in the capital , Kyoto , leaving their representatives and henchm en t o take

of charge their local duties , and some were even heard to make the proud boast that they had never left the metropolis .

To Buddhism , still the dominant ele

’ ment in the nation s range of variation , t he halo of the eternal feminine draws closer in the Jodo ideal of the Fujiwara epoch than at any other moment in its

1 46 IDEALS OF THE EAST

over Japan in the Fujiwara epoch , and , intoxicated with frantic love , men and women deserted the cities and villages in

or I en crowds to follow Kuya p , dancing and singing the name of Amida as they went . Masquerades came into vogue , representing angels descending 'i from Heaven with the lotus da s , in order to welcome and bear upward the departing soul . Ladies would spend a lifetime in weaving or em broidering the

ou t image of Divine Mercy, of threads - extracted from the lotus stem . Such was the new movement , which , however closely paralleled in China, in the begin

of a ning the T ng dynasty, was nevertheless so completely and distinctively Japanese .

It has never died , and to this day two thirds of the people belong to the Jodo

V aishna sect , which corresponds to the vism of India .

Gen shin Both , the formulator of the

Genku creed , and , who carried it to its

u culmination , pleaded that human nat re THE EASIER PATH 1 47

t r was weak and , y as it might , could not accomplish entire self-conquest and direct attainment of the Divine in this life . It was rather by the mercy of the Amida

Buddha and his emanation , Kwannon , that one could alone be saved . They did not put themselves in conﬂict with the earlier

S o u t ects , but , leaving them to work , each

own its own results in its way , declared that it was for strong natures and rare in divid u als to develop by what they called

S hodo , or the Path of Saints , while for the n ordinary masses a prayer, even a si gle e prayer , addr ssed to the almost mater nal Godhead , represented in Amida , the

Immeasurable Light , was enough to draw the soul into His world of purity, called

J odo the , where , free from the pains and l evi s of this wretched life , they could evolve into the Buddhahood itself. “ This prayer they called the easier " path , and their images , softened by the

of spirit femininity , produced a new type , very different from those of the sta tely 1 48 IDEAL S OF THE EAST

of Buddhas , and ﬁerce representations the

r Divine w ath , known to the preceding

- F u do age as the Siva like , Destroyer of

Earthly Passion and Sentiment . Shin

of Genk u ran , a disciple , founded the

Honganj i sect , now the most powerful in the country , of the adherents of this idea .

Japanese painting , with its delicate i lines and reﬁned colours , beg ns now to be characterised , from the tenth century

of onwards , by a predominating use gold, which , not unlike the gold backgrounds

m edimval of artists in Europe , is explained by the argument that yellow light must permeate the regions of Amida . Its subjects of illustration are the King d om A of mida , or ideal Mercy, the

of Kwannon Seishi , or ideal Power , and

-ﬁve the twenty Angels , who , with their heavenly music , escorted spirits into Para

is dise . There no better representation of this idea than in the grand picture of Amida and the twenty-ﬁve Angels by

1 5 0 IDEALS OF THE EA ST

barons of succeeding ages . Revolts in the North gave an opportunity to the

of martial family Minamoto , and their long campaign of ﬁfteen years won the hear ts of the uncivilised peoples east of

a s the Hakone Pass , who were almost much dreaded by the people of the court as the hordes of Goths by the later Romans The suppression of pirates in the Inland Sea also called into promi

n e so ne c the power of the Taira , that towards the end of the eleventh century the military strengt h of the empire was divided between these two rival families of Minamoto and Tair a . The aristocracy of the court—pleading in their extreme effeminacy that the true man was a com bination of man and woman— were going so far as to imitate women in painting their faces and in their attire , and could not , in their frivolity , understand the danger that was threatening them so close. A civil war between two aspirants for the imperial throne in the middle of the FRUITS OF EFFEMINACY 1 5 1 twelfth century completely unmasked f the powerlessness o the Fuj iwara court . The Commander-in-chief of the forces was not even able to mount his horse , and the Captain of the Imperial Guard found it impossible to move , in the heavy armour which had become fashionable at the period . In this dilemma the war

of like families Minamoto and Taira , held in contempt by the court , and treated as an almost inferior class , though they were both descended from the imperial loins , were necessarily called in to assist the rivals for the throne . The family of that imperial candidate who was supported by the Taira arms

c gained the ascendency, and held it lose on half a century. Then they succumbed t o r the habits and ideals of the Fujiwa as , so as completely to lose their valour . The scion of the Minamotos found them

all then an easy prey , and their power and prestige were destroyed in the epic battles of Suma and Shioya . 15 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

NOTE S

Choa n i o f S ui an is the present c ty , g, in the vice a S e E -D a roy lty of henshi , wher the mpress ow ger

u a took ref ge recently, during the unfortun te ocen

a P A . a Ra k u io p tiou of ekin by the llies Cho n, with

L a a a or oy ng, formed the two chief c pit ls of the i H ang a nd Tang dyn a st es . In this a nd other ca ses we ha ve followed the J a pa n ese pronuncia tion of

Chinese na mes .

Bha kti — T a Go d a nd in h t love of , devotion love , which a tta ins to s elﬂe s sn e ss . In Europe S t . Teresa and som e of the modern Protesta nt sects m ay sta nd a s exa mples . Gu a m — Tha t supreme illumina tion of the intellect in which the tra nscendent oneness of a ll things

- becomes self evident .

ka r a ch r a ~ — Th a a S a n a y . e gre test Hindu s int a nd i commenta tor of modern t mes . He lived in the

a nd a eighth century, is the f ther of modern Hin d u i sm . He died a t the a ge of 3 2. Ra m a nuj a — A sa int a nd philosopher of the S Bha kti type . He lived in outhern India in the twelfth century . He is the founder of the second V a grea t school of the ed nta philosophy .

Cha ita a — K a s P N u dd e a ny nown the rophet of , i a a n a i a n Beng l , ecst t c s int of the thirteenth cen tury. — S um a a nd Shi a . Two a a K a a . oy pl ces ne r obe, J p n

1 5 4 ID EALS OF THE EAST Here we ﬁnd the idea of individualism struggling to express itself among the é decaying d bris of an aristocratic rule, inaugurating an age of hero-worship and heroic romance akin to the spirit of European individualism in the time of l - chiva ry, its woman worship restricted by

of Oriental notions decorum , and its religion— by reason of the freedom and ease of the Jodo sect— lacking the severe

v A asceticism of that overawing popedom which held the Western conscience in iron f fetters . The division o the country into

feudal tenures , headed by the noble and powerful family of Minamoto at Kama

kura, led each province to ﬁnd amongst its own lords and knights some central ﬁgure who represented for it the highest

personiﬁcation of manhood . The inﬂux upon the people who lived in the trans Hakone region of the so-called Eastern Barbarians with their simple bravery and

unsophisticated ideas , broke down the effeminate complexity left by the over THE SAMURA I 1 5 5 reﬁned formalism of the Fujiwaras . Each local knight strove hard as against all others , not only in martial prowess , - but in the power of self conquest , courtesy ,

con and charity , which were qualities sid er ed above muscular might , as the marks of true courage . To know the sadness of things was

so the motto of the time , bringing to birth the great ideal of the Samurai ,

’ whose r a ison d etr e was to suffer for the sake of others . Indeed , the very etiquette of this knightly class during the Kama kura period points as unmistakably to

of the conception the monk , as the life of any Indian woman t o that of the nun .

of or f Some the Samurai , military o ﬁcers , grouped around their chiefs or daimyos , and followed in turn by their own clans men , wore a priestly garment over their armour , and many even went the length of shaving the head . There w a s nothing in

of congruous with religion in the art war , and the noble who renounced the world 1 5 6 IDEAL S OF THE EA ST became one of the militant monks of his new order. The Indian idea of the Guru , or giver of spiritual life , was here projected ’ - upon the Samurai s war lord , whoever he might be , and a surging passion of loyalty " - to the banner chief, became the motive of a career . Men would devote their lives to the avenging of his death , as in other countries women have died for their husbands , or the worshipper for his gods It is possible that this ﬁre of monas t ic ism has been the great inﬂuence in robbing Japanese chivalry of its romantic element . The idealising of women would seem to have been an instinctive note of early Japanese life . Were we not of the " race of the Sun -goddess Only after the

Fujiwara epoch , with its exploration of the realm of religious emotion , the devotion of man to woman amongst us assumes its true Eastern form , of a wor ship the more powerful because the shrine is be secret , an inspiration the stronger

1 5 8 IDEAL S OF THE EAST plausible grounds for identifying him with Genghis Khan in Mongolia , whose wonderful career begins about ﬁfteen years after the disappearance of Y oshit sune in Yezo . His name is also pro nou nced Ghen i and of g Khei , some the names of the generals of the great Mogol conqueror bear resemblance to those of the knights of Y oshit su ne . We have

Toki or ie also y , the regent of the Shoguns ,

-al- who , like Haroun Raschid , travelled through the Empire alone as a simple monk , inquiring into the state of the country. These episodes give rise to a

of literature adventure, which , centring on s some heroic character, is rigorou in its rude simplicity , in contrast to the elegant effeminacy of preceding Fuji wara writings . Buddhism had to be simpliﬁed in order to meet the requirements of this new age . The Jodo ideal now appeals to the public mind , through grosser representa f tions of retribution . Pictures o purga A V IRILE ART 1 5 9 tory and the horrors of hell are for the

ﬁrst time presented , in order to overawe

who the rising populace , under this new r egim e were becoming more prominent than before . At the same time , the

o r Samurai , knightly class , adopted as its ideal the teaching of the Zen sect

(perfected under the Sung dynasty, by the Southern Chinese mind), that salva tion was to be looked for in self-control n and stre gth of will . Thus the art of this period lacks both the idealised per fection of the Nara and the reﬁned

is delicacy of the Fujiwara epochs , but characterised by the vigour of its return to the line , and by the virility and strength of its delineation .

so S Portrait statues , igniﬁcant a pro d of t uction the heroic age , now claim he foremost place in sculpture . Among these may be mentioned the statues - o f monks of the K egon sect in K ofu kuj i in Nara, and several others . Even the Buddhas and devas assume personal 1 6 0 IDEALS OF THE EAST

characteristics , as may be seen from the great Nioo of N a nd aim on in Nara . The ﬁne bronze Buddha of Kamakura is not exempt from the human tendernesswhich is absent from the more abstract bronzes of Nara and Fuj iwara .

Painting lent itself, besides portraiture, to the illustration of the heroic legends ,

ll of or genera y in the form makimonos , rolls , in which the pictures are inter spersed with the wri tten text . No subj ects were too high or too low for t the ar ists of the day to illustrate , as the formalist canons of aristocratic dis tinction were discarded in the new-born enthusiasm of individual consciousness ; but what they most delighted to paint

of was the spirit motion . Nothing is more illustrative of this than the wonder ful street scenes , depicted in the maki

of mono owned by Prince Tokugawa ,

Band aina on or - g , the three battle scenes of Hei i the j stories , owned by the h Emperor, Baron Iwasaki , and t e Boston

1 6 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST a a i a a x i term ppl ed to cert in of the ncient te ts , wh ch a i a —a a nd a r e n e ce s consist of phor sms or p rt phorisms, s ari ly obscure by re a son of their conciseness . They an d a r e belong to the old system of memorising, rea lly a series of suggestions covering the whole

a n a a ground of rgument, in which e ch sentence is T intended to revive the memory of certa in steps . he c i n i s wa r a orresponding word Chinese p , th t which is to be woven upon . ASHIKAGA PERIOD

— 1 400 1 6 00 A.D .

THE Ashikaga period is named from that branch of the Minamoto family who succeeded to the Shogunate . It sounds , natural outcome as it is of Kamakura - hero worship , the true note of modern m r art , Ro anticism in its lite ary sense . The conquest of Matter by the Spirit has been always the purpose of the

of - striving world forces , and each stage

r e of culture is ma ked , alik in East and

of West , by an intensifying the attitude of triumph . The three terms by which European scholars love to distinguish

o f the past development art , though n lacki g perhaps in precision , have never t eless h an inevitable truth , since the fundamental law of life and progress 163 1 6 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST underlies not only the history of art as a whole , but also the appearance and growth of individual artists and their schools . The East has had its ow n form of that

S m bolic period called y , or better still , per

F or m a listic haps , , when matter , or the

of law material form , dominates the spiritual in art . The Egyptian and Assyrian sought by immense stones to express grandeur , as the Indian worker by his innumerable repetitions to utter forth inﬁnity in his creations . Similarly , the Chinese mind of the Shu and H ang dynasties pursued sublime effects in their long walls , and in the intricately subtle lines which they produced in bronze .

of n The ﬁrst period Japa ese art , from its birth to the beginning of the Nara

u era , however imb ed with the purest ideal of the ﬁrst N orthern development of Buddhism , still falls into this group , by making form and formalistic beauty the foundation of artistic excellence .

1 6 6 IDEALS or THE EAST and ﬂame up once for all into the freedom

u of the spirit . Spirit must conq er Matter, and though the differing idiosyncrasies of the Occidental and the Oriental mind f lead to dif ering expression , the modern idea of the whole world runs inevitably to Romanticism . The Latin and Teu tonic races , from their hereditary instincts

t o and political positions , went forth seek

’ the R om ant ist ic ideal objectively and materialistically ; whereas the later Chinese

-Con mind , as represented by the Neo fu cians , and the Japanese since the days of Ashikaga , steeped as it were in the

S of piritual essence Indian , and imbued with the harmonistic commu nism of Con fu cian thought , approached the problem from a subjective and idealistic stand point .

- The Neo Confucian inﬂuence of China , which ripened later under the Sung dynasty (A .D . 9 6 0 was an amal

am ation g of Taoist , Buddhist , and Con fu cian t thought , ac ing chieﬂy , however, THE TAOIST MIND 1 6 7

through the Taoist mind , as shown in

Chim aku p , that Taoist philosopher at the

of a close the T ng dynasty , who made a single diagram to represent the universe a c cording to all these systems at once . We come now upon the new interpretations of

of the two principles the Cosmos , the male

for and female , with stress laid the ﬁrst - . time upon the latter, as the alone active This corresponds to the Indian notion of the Sakti , and was developed by Neo Confucian thinkers as their theory of Ri an d the Ki , all pervading Law, and the working Spirit. Thus all Asiatic philo

Sankar a char a sophy, from y downwards , turns on the moving power of the u ni verse . Another tendency of the Taoist mind is the ﬂight from man to nature . This is a consequence of the fact that we seek expression in Opposites . This innate love of nature imposes a limitation on the

too Ashikaga art , which devotes itself exclusively to landscapes , birds , and 1 6 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST

ﬂowers Thus Neo -Confucianism in China consists of the Confucian j u stiﬁ

of lu s of cation all , p the new spirit

u individualism , and it c lminates in the revival of the polity of Shu with a deepened modern signiﬁcance . It is a proof of the reality of the in dividualism of the epoch that the move ment is succeeded by the rise of great political parties in the empire , thus weakening China against her next Tartar

u invasion , which res lted in the Mongol dynasty of Gen (A .D . 1 28 0 Japanese art ever since the days of the

Ashikaga masters , though subjected to sli ght degeneration in the Toyotomi and

Tokugawa periods , has held steadily to the Oriental Ro m ant ist ic ideal— that is to sa y , the expression of the Spirit as the ff highest e ort in art . This spirituality, with us , was not the ascetic purism of the early Christian fathers , nor yet the allegorical idealisation of the pseudo

. I t renaissance was neither a mannerism ,

1 70 IDEALS OF THE EAST glory and reﬁned ideality of the Gen ’ shin s Angels of Koyasan , yet it impresses one with a directness and unity which cahnot be found in these earlier creations .

i It is mind speaking to m nd , a mind

-r u — be strong and self ef sing unmoved , cause it is so simple . That identity of mind and matter which had been the evolving and culminating ideal of the pre-F ugiwar a periods of

Japanese art always means repose . It is the centripetal effort of the imagination .

But the latent ene rgy breaks forth anew . Life reasserts itself in the centrifugal i m pulse . Strange new types create them selves . Individuality becomes rich in its variety and strength . The ﬁrst expres

B ha kti of sion is always in emotion , the

see Indian thought , as we it in the love

of stories and poems Europe , and in the religious developments of the F u giw ar a epoch . Later, as here in the Ashikaga period , we have the higher phase , in that realisation of the su m of things as the act ZEN 1 71 of ou r own will which in India is called “ G na n or , insight . The Ashikaga ideal owes its origin to the Zen sect of Buddhism , which became predominant during the Kamakura period .

Z en " D h a n , from the word y , meaning

a medit tion in sup reme repose , was intro d u ced into China through Bodhi Dharma , an Indian prince who reached that country as a monk in A .D . 5 20. But it had ﬁrst

L a oist to assimilate ideas , before it could be naturalised on Celestial soil , and in w this form it made its advent , to ards the a end of the T ng dynasty . The doctrines of Baso and Rinzai are clearly demarcated from those of the early exponents of this

. Z enism school , therefore , was a develop w ment , and the inheritance hich it left to be handed down by the Kamakura

w a s and Ashikaga monks the Southern ,

f r dif ering greatly f om the Northern Zen , which latter adhered still to the form that had been taught by the early patriarchs of the sect . For by this time the idea 1 72 IDEALS OF THE EAST had become nothing less than a school of individualism . Under its inspira tion , the militant heroes of Kamakura were as the spiritual heroes of the church Alexander stood transformed as Ignatius Loyola . The idea of con quest was completely orientalised , in passing from that which is without to that which is within a man himself.

N ot u se he to the sword , but to the sword - u p re , serene , immovable , pointing ever to the polar star— was the ideal of the

Ashikaga knight . Everything was sought

of in the soul , as a means freeing thought from the fetters in which all forms of knowledge tended to enchain it . Z enism

of was even iconoclastic , in the sense ignoring forms and rituals; for Buddhist images were cast into the ﬁre by the Zen V who obtained enlightenment . I or d s were considered an encumbrance to

Z enist ic thought , and the doctrines were set forth in broken sentences and power m ful metaphor , to the great disparage ent

1 74 I D EALS OF THE EAST

b u t ing not only the phantom moon , u also themselves . The elaborate s tras of the so called eighty —four thousand gates of knowledge were like the mean ingless chatter of the apish scholars .

Freedom , once attained , left all men to revel and glory in the beauties of the

one whole universe . They were then with nature , whose pulse they felt beat ing simultaneously within themselves , whose breath they felt themselves inhal ing and exhaling in union with the great - world spirit . Life was microcosmic and macrocosmic at o nce . Life and death alike but phases of the one existence universal . They loved also to portray the progress of a Zen student as a cowherd in search of a lost charge . F or man through igno

his rance is bereft of soul , and , like the cowherd , once roused for the search , he trudges on in the almost imperceptible footprints , till he discovers ﬁrst the tail and then the body of that which he seeks . THE INNER LIGHT 175

Next ensues the struggle for mastery— a ﬁerce combat and terrible warfare between the mundane senses and the inner light .

The herdsman conquers , and , seated on

of t the back he now docile animal , goes S serenely on his way , playing a imple melody on the ﬂute— thus he forgets him

e self and the beast . To him day is sw et , with its green willows and c rimson ﬂowers .

These vanish again , and he delights to move about in the pure moonlight , where at once he is and yet is not . Thus , to

’ Zen thinking , victories over the inner self are more true than the austere penances ‘

ae n of the medi val hermit , who torme ted his ﬂesh instead of disciplining his mind . ‘ is The body a crystal vessel , through which t he rainbow of the Great Existence is to shine The mind is like a great . ﬂ lake , clear to its bottom , re ecting the clouds that hover over it , sometimes ruffled by winds which make it foam and rage , but only to settle down into the original calm , never losing its purity , 176 IDEALS OF THE EAST or its own nature . The world is full of a pathos of existence which is yet merely

one incidental , and must battle and war with serenity and imperturbability, as if going to a bridal feast . Life and art , as

r inﬂuenced by these teachings , w ought changes in Japanese habits which have n o w become a second nature . Our eti q u ett e begi ns with learning how to offer

t he a fan , and ends with rites for com - mitting suicide . The very tea ceremon y is made expressive of Zen ideas .

The Ashikaga aristocracy , exquisites in their own way , worked , like their Fuji wara ancestors , from the notion of luxury

t o to that of reﬁnement . They loved live in thatched cottages , as simple in appear

of ance as those the meanest peasant , yet whose proportions were designed by the

of or S oa m i highest genius Shojo , whose pillars were of the costliest incense-wood from the farthest Indian islands ; even whose iron kettles were marvels of work

. manship , designed by Sesshu Beauty,

1 78 IDEALS OF T HE EAST That law of change which is the guiding thread of life is also the law which governs beauty . Virility and activity were necessary in order to make an ever lasting impression ; but leaving to the imagination to suggest to itself the com pletion of an idea was essential to all forms of artistic expression , for thus was the spectator made one with the artist . The uncovered silken end of a great masterpiece is often more replete with meaning than the painted part itself. The Sung dynasty was a great age of

- e s art and art criticism . Their painters ,

eciall of p y from the time Emperor Kiso , w in the t elfth century , himself a great

a artist and a patron , had shown some p

s ee preciation of this spirit, as we in Bayen

in Riok a i and Kakei , Mokkei and , whose l sma l works express vast ideas . But it

of r e r e required the artists Ashikaga, p senting the Indian trend of the Japanese mind released from Confucian formal ism , to absorb the Zen idea in all its S IMPLICITY 1 79 intensity and purity . They were all Zen

or priests , laymen who lived almost like monks . The natural tendency of artistic form under this inﬂuence was pure , solemn , and full of simplicity . n - The stro g , high toned drawing and colouring , and the delicate curves of Fuji wara and Kamakura , were now discarded for simple ink-sketches and a few bold lines — just as they discarded their grace

f s ful robes , assuming huge stif trou ers in their place— for the new idea was to divest art of foreign elements , and to make expression as simple and direct as - possible . Ink painting , an innovation begun at the close of the Kamakur a

now im period , supersedes colour in portance .

A painting , which is a universe in itself, must conform to the laws that govern all existence . Composition is like the crea l tion of the wor d , holding in itself the constructive laws that give it life . Thus a great work by Sesshu or S esson is not a 1 8 0 IDEALS OF THE EAST

depictment of nature, but an essay on nature ; to them there is neither high nor low , neither noble nor reﬁned . A picture of the goddess Kwannon , or of

Sakya , will be no more important a subj ect than a painting of a single ﬂower or a spray of bamboo Each stroke has its moment of life and death ; all together assist to interpret an idea , which is life within life . The two most prominent artists of this period are , undoubtedly , these masters , though the way was paved for them by

S hiu bu n his , noted for landscapes and juicy ink touches .

J a sok u is another , whose vigour of stroke and compact composition are almost unequalled . Sesshu owes his position t o that direct ness and self-control so typical of the Zen mind . Face to face with his paintings , we learn the security and calm which no other artist ever gives .

S esso n on To , the other hand , belong

1 8 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

Six Dynasties , which , while derived from

so India and China , is yet closely akin to the Greek . And this is natural , since all alike must have been but off-shoots from the c om m om stem of early Asiatic song - and melody. This Bu gak u music has never been forgotten . We can still hear

J old it played in apan in the costumes ,

old to the steps , thanks to its preserva tion by a hereditary caste . It has now grown , perhaps , a little mechanical and expressionless , but the Hymn to Apollo could still be played in its own mode by the B u gaku musicians .

of True to the needs a military age , the

Kamakura period produced the Bards , who sang epic ballads of the glory of the heroes . The masquerades of the Fujiwara epoch also found dramatic development later ,

c in representations of Hell, given in re ita tive to a simple accompaniment . These two elements gradually fused and became permeated by the historic spirit , so giving birth , towards the opening of the Ashikaga THE NO -DAN CE 1 8 3

- period , to those No dances , which are likely , from their consecration to great n national themes of struggle and eve t , to remain always one of the strongest elements in Japanese music and drama . The stage on which the N o -dance is performed is made of hard , unpainted wood , with a single pine tree somewhat conventionally portrayed on the back ground . Thus is suggested a grand monotony . The main parts are three in n umber , the small chorus and orchestra n being seated o the stage at one side . Masks are worn by the chief players— who might almost better be termed telhzr s — and assist in the general idealisation . The poem deals with historical subj ects , always interpreting them through Buddhist ideas . The standard of excellence is an i nﬁnite suggestiveness , naturalism the one thing to be condemned .

Under these conditions , relieved only by slight comic interludes , an audience - will sit spell bound through a whole day. 1 8 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST The short epic drama that composes the

- - No dance is full of semi articulate sounds . The soughing of the wind amongst the

r of pine boughs , the d opping water , or t the olling of distant bells , the stiﬂing of

of sobs , the clash and clang war , echoes of the weavers beating the new web against

c the wooden beam , the cry of the cri kets , and all those manifold voices of night and

nature , where pause is more signiﬁcant

than pitch , are there . Such dim utter

anc es of , echoed from the eternal melody

silence , may seem to the ignorant curious

or barbaric . But there can be little doubt that they constitute the insignia of a great

art . They never allow us to forget for a moment that the No -dance is a direct a ppeal from mind to mind , a mode by which unspoken thought is borne from behind the actor t o that unhearing and unheard intelligence that broods within

1 the heart of him who listens .

1 8 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu forms a triple power , each in turn constituting

of the great representative force his day , at last accomplished the task . It w a s

’ N ob u na a la ce d a va nta e g who , from his p g w in central Japan , was able to edge him self into the focus of the conﬂicting movements , and replace the Ashikaga Shoguns in his own person as military dictator of more than half baronial Japan .

It was Hideyoshi who , as the greatest

N obu na a general of g , succeeded to his inﬂ uence and completed the subjugation l of the rival chiefs , eaving the country again at his death to be consolidated under the strict ré gime of the wary statesman , Iyeyasu . Thus the central ﬁgure of this period

of is that Hideyoshi , a man who rose from the lowest rank t o the highest

1 5 8 6 A .D dignity in the empire in ., and to whose towering ambition Japan was so much too small a sphere as to lead

of him to attempt the conq uest China , THE NE W NOBIL ITY 1 8 7 an idea which brought about the dis astrous devastation of Corea , and the humiliating r ecall of Japanese troops from the peninsula on his death in 1 5 9 8 . l Like their il ustrious leader , the new nobility of that period were men who had created their own ancestry with their swords ; some were recruited from the

‘ banditti of the land , and some from the piratical captains who were such a terror t o the people of the Chinese coast ; and

a natur lly , to their uncultured mind , the solemn and severe reﬁnement of the e Ashikaga princes was distasteful , b cause b unintelligible . They, instigated y Hide e yoshi , often indulged in the subtl plea

of - et sures the tea ceremony , y even this meant for them rather the enj oyment of displaying their riches than any true r e

ﬁnement . The art of this period is more remark

e for abl , therefore , its gorgeousness and wealth of colour than for its inner sigui

ﬁcance . The decorat ion of palaces in 1 8 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of the style Ming , rich with decadent elaborateness , was suggested to them by their intercourse with the Koreans and

Chinese , through the continental war. New palaces were needed for the new daimyos , which , by their size and magni

ﬁ cence l , outshone the simpler dwel ings even of the Ashikaga Shoguns . This

of was the age stone castles , whose plan were inﬂuenced by Portuguese engineers .

of Of these, the foremost was that Osaka ,

Con planned by Hideyoshi himself, the struction of which was assisted by all

so the daimyos throughout the country , as to make it impregnable even t o the military genius of Iyeyasu .

That of Momoyama , near Kyoto , was also a grand masterpiece in this kind of

of construction , attracting the admiration the whole nation by its splendour and magniﬁcence . Here the whole wealth of artistic decoration was lavished to the u t

so it m em or most , that had survived the able earthquake of 1 5 9 6 and subsequent

1 9 0 I DEALS OF THE EAST

im of pupils , worked on , painting the

r of mense forests , the bi ds gorgeous plumage, and the lions and tigers that symbolised courage and royalty , in the midst of all the magniﬁcent turmoil of their patrons .

Tokugawa Iyeyasu , who came into power after the second storming of the

1 6 1 5 ad m inis Osaka Castle in , uniﬁed the t r ative an system throughout the l d , and

e put it , with his wonderful stat smanship , upon a new ré gime of simplicity “and solidarity. A like in art and manners he strove to return to the Ashikaga ideal . His court painters Tannyu and his

N a onobu Y a su nobu brothers , and , with

Tsu nenobu — their nephew, made it their

of S aim to imitate the purity esshu , but

of si ni ﬁ failed , course , to touch his real g cance . The age w a s alive with the virility

s of a race only just awakened from leep , evincing now for the ﬁrst time the nai ve delight of a popu lace but newly made free of the world of art . In this Japanese THE POPULAR SCHOOL 1 9 1 society anticipates by two hundred years some of the most striking features of the nineteenth century of Europe . The manners and loves of the time were for m display and not si plicity , and this , even

of as late as the era Genroku , a century after the establishment of the Tokugawa

Shogunate . The arc hitecture of early Tokugawa

' followed mainly , as said before , the

s of of characteri tics Toyotomi , which fact weﬁnd examples in the mausoleums Of Nikko and Shiba, and in the palace

' EEOr at iOns of the Nij o Castle, and the

Nishi Hoganj i Temple . The breaking down of social distino

wa s tions , which brought about by the

r upheaval of the new a istocracy , per meated art with a spirit of democracy hitherto unknown . Here we ﬁnd the beginning of the

Uk io e or y Popular School , though its conceptions at this time differed widely fr om those of the later Tokugawa genre 1 9 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

- school , where intense class distinctions imposed their limitations on plebeian conceptions . In this age of wild revelry, while pleasure w a s yet sweet to the nation , freed from half a century of bloodshed , whenever the people would vent their energies in juvenile playfulness and fantastic images , the daimyos would join with the populace in unrestrained enjoyment .

S anr aku o , the able successor and ad pted son Y eit oku of ; Kohi , the great teacher of Tann u Y u w asa K a t su shi e s o y ; g , the called father of the Ukiyoe School ; and

I t cho on , noted for his panegyrics the life of the day , were all artists of rank in the highest line— yet they delighted t o

of w paint the common scenes life , ith no

of feeling lowering themselves , such as high -class artists of the later Tokugawa

so of had , and this age revelry and pleasure led to the creation of a great

not . decorative , though a spiritual art The only school which stands o u t with

1 9 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST 1 French Impressionism by two centuries , was nipped in the bud of its great futurity by that icy conventionalism of the Toku gawa ré gime to which it unfortunately

succumbed . LATER TOKUGAWA PERIOD

— 1 700 1 8 5 0 A.D .

E TH Tokugawas , in their eagerness for

out consolidation and discipline , crushed the vital spark from art and life . It was only their educational institutions which in later days reached the lower classes , and to some slight extent redeemed these defects .

In their prime of power, the whole of society— and art was not exempt— was cast in a Single mould . The spirit which secluded Japan from all foreign inter course , and regulated every daily routine, from that of the daimyo to that of the lowest peasant , narrowed and cramped artistic creativeness also . The Kano academies— ﬁlled with the disciplinary instincts of Iyeyasu— of which 195 19 6 IDEALS OF THE EAST four were under the direct patronage of the Shoguns and sixteen under the

Tokugawa government, were constituted on the plan of regular feudal tenures .

Each academy had its hereditary lord , who followed his profession , and , whether i ff or not he was an ndi erent artist , had under him students who ﬂocked from various parts of the country, and who fﬁ were , in their turn , o cial painters to different daimyos in the provinces . t Af er graduating at Yedo (Tokyo), it was de r i u eu r g for these students , returning

t o to the country , conduct their work there on the methods and according to the models given them during inst ru c tion . The students who were not vassals

d r of aimyos were , in a sense , heredita y

ﬁefs of the Kano lords . Each had to pursue the course of studies laid down

Tann u Tsu nenobu by y and , and each painted and drew certain subjects in a certain manner. From this routine, u depart re meant ostracism , which would

1 9 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST

K m the work of the a os , as the pictures of M it su oki and Gu kei show. The sordid aristocracy of the day looked upon all this as natural , for their own lives were regulated on the same basis . The son would order a picture from a contemporary Kano or Tosa as his father had done from the preceding academician .

of Meanwhile , the life the people was entirely apart . Their loves and aspira ff tions were utterly di erent , though their round of existence was equally stereo f typed . Forbidden the high honours o the court and intercourse with aristocratic society, they sought their freedom in

or mundane pleasures , in the theatre, in the gay life of Yoshiwara . And as their literature forms another world from

of that the writings of the Samurai , so their art expresses itself in the delineation of gay life and in the illustration of theatrical celebrities . t The Popular School, which was heir only expression , though it attained skill MERE PRETTINES S 1 9 9

in colour and drawing , lacks that ideality which is the basis of Japanese art. Those

- charmingly coloured wood cuts , full of

O u t a m ar o vigour and versatility , made by ,

S hu nm an Kionob u Kiona a , , Harunobu , g ,

To oku ni y , and Hokusai , stand apart from the main line of development of Japa nes e art , whose evolution has been continuous

inr os ever since the Nara period . The ,

net su kis - the , the sword guards , and the delightful lacquer-work articles of the period , were playthings , and as such no embodiment of national fervour , in which all true art exists Great art is that B before which we long to die . ut the art of the late Tokugawa period only allowed a man to dwell in the delights of fancy . It is because the prettiness of the works of this period ﬁrst came to n notice , instead of the gra deur of the masterpieces hidden in the daimyos ’ col lections and the temple treasures , that Japanese art is not yet seriously con sid er ed in the West . 200 IDE ALS OF THE EAST

b of The ourgeois art Yedo (Tokyo), under the dread shadow of the Shoguns , was limited thus to a narrow round of expression . It was due to the freer atmosphere of Kyoto that another and higher form of democratic art was evolved .

Kyoto , where the imperial seat remained , was on that account comparatively free

the from Tokugawa discipline , for the Shoguns dared not assert themselves here as openly as in Yedo and in other parts

t he . of country Here it was , therefore , that scholars and free -thinkers ﬂocked to m take refuge, so aking it , a century and a half later , the fulcrum on which would turn the lever of the Meiji restoration . It was here that artists who disdained the Kano yoke could venture to indulge in d wilful eviations from tradition , here that the rich middle classes could permit them selves to admire their originality. Here was Busson trying to formulate a new style by illustrating the popular poetry ; - here was Watanabe Shiko , who tried to

202 IDEALS OF THE EAST hardened into mannerism before it reached

Japan . The second important effort of Kyoto was the study which it initiated of Euro

- pean realistic art . Matteo Ricci had been a Roman Catholic missionary, who had

r ente ed China during the Ming dynasty, and given the impulse which had now made the new school of Realism pro minent in the cities at the mouth of the

- - Yang tse . Chinnan ping , a Chinese artist of this school who was noted for his birds and ﬂowers , resided in Nagasaki for three

of years , and laid the foundation the

Natural School of Kyoto. Dutch prints were eager ly sought and copied , and Maruyama Okio, the founder of the Maruyama School , devoted himself in his youth to copying them . It is pathetic to note that he copied the lines of the engravings with his brush . It was due to this artist that the movement was brought to a focus , for he , with an early

Kano training , was able to combine the THE REALISTIC S CHOOL 203 new methods wi th a style of his o wn .

of He was an ardent student nature , serving her moods in all their detail , and his delicacy and softness and exquisite gradation of effects on silk give him his right to be called the representative artist of this period .

of , , " Goshun his rival the founder the

Shij o School , follows closely in his steps , though his Chinese mannerisms of later

Ming differentiate him .

Ganku , another realist , ancestor of the

Kisshi ff o School , di ers fr m the ﬁrst two - by his closer similarity to Chinnan ping . These three streams of tendency to gether constitute the modern Kyoto

School of Realism . They sound a different

K anos note from the , yet , with all their dexterity and skill, they also fail to catch

r the truly national element in art , as thei brethren in Yedo failed to do in the

Popular School . Their works are delight

of ful and full grace , but never grasp the essential character of the subject as 204 IDEALS OF THE EAST

Sesshu and other artists used to do . The occasions when Okio rises to great heights are when he reverts unconsciously to those methods which governed the old masters . h Kyoto art , since t e death of these three great workers , consists only of attempts by their followers to combine in different proportions the individual excellence of their respective styles . Yet , up to the r ise of contemporary Japanese art , in the second decade of the Meiji 1 8 8 1 restoration in , the Kyoto artists were the leading creative spirits in pictorial art .

NOTE S

- Ka no Aca demies . These owe their n a me to a - fa mily of a rtists who were a ppoi nted painters i n ordina ry to the Tokuga wa s . "m oan— S a a u i — a be m ll l cq er med cine c ses, to hung i on the obi or g rdle .

N t ulcis — a a i e s . O rn ment l buttons by which the nro - or the toba cco pouch wa s hung .

206 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of the vicissitudes this new age , whose - thirty four years have passed , bringing each moment some new and greater pro

u s gramme , surround with a labyrinth of contradictions , amongst which it becomes extremely diffi cult to abstract and unify the underlying idea . And indeed the critic w ho speaks of contemporary art is always in danger of

on own treading merely his shadow , i l ngering in wonder over those gigantic , or f may be grotesque , igures which the slanting rays of sunset cast on the ground - behind him . There are to day two mighty chains of forces which enthral the Japanese - mind , entwining dragon like upon their own coils , each struggling to become sole

of now master of the jewel life , both lost and again in an ocean of ferment . One i is the Asiatic ideal, replete w th grand visions of the universal sweeping through the concrete and particular, and the other

r European science , with her o ganised cul

all of ff ture , armed in its array di erentiated TWO GREAT MOVEMENT S 207

knowledge , and keen with the edge of competitive energy . The two rival movements awoke to consciousness almost simultaneously, a century and a half ago . The ﬁrst began in an attempt to recall Japan to a sense of that unity which the various waves of Chinese and Indian culture — however much colour and strength they might

— bring had tended to obscure . Japanese national life is centred in the

t ranscen throne , over which broods in dent purity the glory of a succession u n broken from eternity . But our curious isolation and long-standing lack of foreign intercourse had deprived us of all occasion - for self recognition . And in politics the vision of our sacred organic unity had been somewhat screened by the succession of the Fujiwara aristocracy , giving place in turn to the military dictatorship of the

Shogunate under the Minamotos , the

Ashikagas , and the Tokugawas . Amongst the various causes which con 208 IDEAL S OF THE EAST tributed to arouse us from this torpor of

r stl the centuries may be mentioned , ﬁ y,

Con u cia n r eviva l o the M in schola r s f f g , a s r eﬂ ected in the lea r ning of the ea r ly

Toku a g wa p er iod . The ﬁrst Emperor of Ming who overthrew the Mongol dynasty in China was himself a Buddhist - monk . Yet he considered the Neo Con fu cianism of the Sung scholars— with it s individualism based on Indian ideas- as dangerous to the uniﬁcation of a grand

Empire . He therefore discouraged this - n Neo Co fucianism , and sought also to sweep away the maze of Thibetan Tan t r ikism , which the Mongols had brought to China , before attempting the regenera tion of the native political supremacy . Since Neo-Confucianism is C onfucianism under Buddhist interpretation , this means that the Emperor tried to revert to pure

Confucianism . Thus the M ing scholars a returned to the H ng commentators , and an age of archaeological research was begun which attained its culmination in

210 IDEALS OF THE EAST

Buddha as its generalissimo , and Con "" fu c iu s as his lieutenant He answered

off without hesitation , Strike the head - of Sakya Muni , and steep the ﬂesh of Confucius in brine "" It was this torch that burned in the m hand of San yo , when he , a century later , wrought out that epic narrative of the country fr om whose poetic pages the youth of Japan still learn the intensity of the raging “ fever that moved their grandfathers to the revolution . A study of purely Japanese ancient literature came into vogue , led by the

- of M ot oori t o master minds and Harumi , whose colossal works on grammar and philology modern scholars ﬁnd little t o add . This led very naturally to the revival of Shintoism , that pure form of ancestor worship extant in Japan before Buddhism , but covered long since, especially by the

of int er r genius Kukai , with Buddhist p e t ations . This element in the national THE S ECOND CAUSE 21 1 religion centres always in the person of the Emperor, as the descendant of the

Godhead . Its revival , therefore , must always mean an accession of patriotic self consciousness .

The Buddhistic sects , weakened as they had been by the peaceful and worldly attitude of the Shogunate , which had h granted them ereditary privileges , were quite unable to assimilate this awakened energy of Shintoism , and to this fact we owe the sad destruction and scattering of the treasures of the Buddhist temples and monasteries , when the monks and priests were forced to turn Shinto by threats of instant annihilation . Indeed the zeal of the new converts themselves often added the torch of destruction to this funeral pyre of forced conversion . The second ca u se of the na tiona l r e a wa kening wa s u nd ou btedly tha tp or tentou s da ng er with which Wes ter n encr oa chments on A sia tic soil thr ea tened ou r n a tiona l indep endence. Through the Dutch mer 21 2 IDEAL S OF THE EAST chants who kept us informed of the current events of the outside world , we knew of the mighty arm of conquest which Europe extended towards the

East .

saw We India , the holy land of our most sacred memories , losing her inde

end ence i p through her pol tical apathy, lack of organisation , and the petty

— a j ealousies of rival interests sad lesson , which made us keenly alive to the necessity of unity at any cost . The O pium war in China , and the gradual

of succumbing Eastern nations , one by one , to the subtle magical force which the black ships brought over the seas , brought back the dread image of the

r Tartar A mada, calling women to pray

now and men to polish their swords , groaning in the rust of three centuries o f peace . There is a short but signiﬁcant sonnet by K om eit enno — the augu st

of father the present Majesty, to whose far-sighted penetration Japan owes much

21 4 IDEAL S OF THE EAST declaration that the nation was not ready - - for fool hardy self assertion . Lasting gratitude is due to these , as well as to

of the armed embassy America , whose national policy Opened ou r doors in a Spirit of enlightenment that was not - self aggrandisement . A nother a nd thir d imp etu s was gi ven b the sou ther n da im os y y , who , as de scend ant s of the aristocracy of Hideyoshi and comrades of Iyeyasu , had been con st a nt ly fretted by the absolutism of the

Tokugawa Shogunate , which had almost reduced them to the position of here d it ary vassals . The princes of Satsuma

Choshu and of , of Hizen and of Tosa , had always kept alive the sense of their n ff past gra deur , and had a orded shelter to the refugees who escaped to them from the wrath of the court of Yedo .

It was in their territories , therefore , that the new spirit of revolution could breathe with freedom . It was in their territories that the mighty statesmen who rebuilt THE MEIJI RESTORATION 21 5 the new Japan were born ; to the lands within their bounds that the great spirits who rule her to the present day must trace their lineage . These strong clans furnished the generals and soldiers who d overturne the Shogunate , though honour is due also to the princely house of Mito and to Echizen of the Shogunate itself, who united to bring a speedy peace to the Empire , and to make that great renunciation in which all the daimyos

S a and murai joined , sacriﬁcing their time

ﬁefs be honoured to the throne , and coming equal before the law, as fellow citizens with the meanest peasant in the land . So the Meij i restoration glows with

of the ﬁre patriotism , a great rebirth of

of the national religion loyalty , with the t r ansﬁgu r ed halo of the Mikado in the centre . The educational system of the

Tokugawas , which had spread the know ledge of reading and writing to all boys h and girls alike , studying in t e village 216 IDEAL S O F THE EAST

schools under the resident village priests , had laid the foundation of that com pu l sory elementary education which was amongst the ﬁrst acts of the present reign . Thus high and low became one in the great new energy that thrilled the nation , making the humblest con script in the army glory in death , like a Samurai . In Spite of political squabbles— natural unnatural children of a constitutional system such as was freely bestowed by the monarch in 1 8 9 2— a word from the throne will still conciliate the Govern ment and Opposition, hushing both to mute reverence , even during their most violent dissensions .

The Code of Morality , the keystone of Japanese ethics as taught in the schools , was given by an imperial man date, when all other suggestions failed to strike the note of that all-embracing veneration that was needed .

On the other hand , the wonders of

21 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of population Shimabara, had brought about the prohibition against building sea

a faringvessels above certain tonnage , and caused the penalty of death to threaten

one who fﬁ a any , not being an o cial p pointed to treat with the Hollanders , might dare to hold communication with foreigners . This shut off the Western

so world , as though behind an iron wall , that it required the greatest self-sacriﬁce and heroism to make the adventurous youth seek passage in those stray European vessels which chanced now and then to touch our coasts . But the thirst for knowledge was not to be quenched . The task of preparing for the civil war which was to engage the rival powers of the Shogunate and the southern daimyos gave occasion for the

of introduction French officers , instigated as this was by the ambition of the French in their scheme for checking the Asiatic expansion of the English . The advent of the American Commo A MODERN RENAIS SANCE 219 dore Perry finally opened the flood -gates of Western knowledge , which burst over the country so as almost to sweep away the landmarks of its history . At this

e r e - mom nt Japan , in the awakened con s ciou sness i of her national l fe , was eager to clothe herself in new garb , discarding the raiment of her ancient past . To cut away those fetters of Chinese and Indian culture which bound her in the maya of

s o Orientalism , dangerous to national independence , seemed like a paramount duty to the organisers of the new Japan .

Not only in their armaments , industry , and science, but also in philosophy and religion , they sought the new ideals of the

West , blazing as that was with a wonder ful lustre to their inexperienced eyes , as yet indiscriminating of its lights and

Shadows . Christianity was embraced with the same enthusiasm which welcomed the steam engine ; the Western costume was adopted as they adopted the machine gun .

Political theories and social reforms , worn 220 IDEAL S O F THE EAST

t out in the land of their bir h , were hailed here with the same new delight with which they took to the stale and old fashioned goods of Manchester. The voices of great statesmen like Iwakura and Okubo were not slow to condemn the wholesale ravages which this frenzied love of European institutions was committing on the ancient customs of the country. But even they considered no sacrifice too great if the nation were to be made efficient for the new contest . Thus modern Japan holds a unique posi tion in history, having solved a problem not comparable perhaps to any, save that which faced the V igorous activity of the Italian mind in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries . F or at that point in its de velopm ent the West also had to grapple with the double task of assimilating , on the one hand the Greco -Roman culture precipitated upon it by the rise of the

on Ottoman Turks , and the other the new Spirit of science and liberalism which ,

222 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of The strange tenacity the race , nur t u r ed in the shadow of a sovereignty unbroken from its beginning, that very tenacity which preserves the Chinese and Indian ideals in all their purity

u s amongst , even where they were long since cast away by the hands that created them , that tenacity which delights in the

of ul delicacy Fuj iwara c ture , and revels at the same time in the martial ardour of

Kamakura, which tolerates the gorgeous

of pageantry Toyotomi , even while it loves the austere purity of the Ashikagas ,

- of holds Japan to day intact , in spite this sudden incomprehensible inﬂux of W es tern ideas . To remain true to herself, notwithstanding the new colour which the life of a modern nation fo rces her to assume, is , naturally , the fundamental imperative of that A d wait a idea to which she was trained by her ancestors . To the instinctive eclecticism of Eastern culture she owes the maturity of judgment which made her select from various sources THE NE W A S IATIC POWER 223 those elements of contemporary Euro pean civilisation that she required . The

ou r Chinese War , which revealed supre macy in the Eastern waters , and which has yet drawn us closer than ever in

ou t mutual friendship , was a natural

r t h of g the new national vigour , which has been working to express itself for a century and a half. It had also been foreseen in all its bearings by the remark able insight of the older statesmen of the

no w period , and arouses us to the grand problems and responsibilities which await us as the new Asiatic Power . N ot only to return to our own past ideals , but also to feel and revivify the dormant life of

s ou r . the old Asiatic unity , become mission The sad problems of Western society turn us to seek a higher solution in Indian religion and Chinese ethics . The very

of trend Europe itself, in German philo

S it s sophy and Russian pirituality , in latest developments , towards the East , assists us in the recover y of those subtler 224 IDEAL S OF THE EAST and nobler visions of human life which drew these nations themselves nearer to the stars in the night of their material oblivion . The double nature of the Meiji r est or a h tion is manifest in the ﬁeld of art , whic is struggling , like the political conscious ness , to attain its higher rounds . The spirit of historical inquiry and the revival of ancient letters led art back to the pr e

c Tokugawa schools , transcending the p pu

of U kio e lar democratic notion the y , and returning at once to the methods of the

Tosas in the heroic Kamakura period .

Historical painting , enriched in material by the archaeological research of the

Tam e a su scholars , became the vogue . y and To-tsugen were the pioneers of this

Kamakura revival , which laid its hand upon the naturalistic school of Kyoto through the works of Yosai , and was even reﬂected by the popular brush of Hokusai. A parallel movement occurred at the same time in ﬁction and the drama.

226 IDEALS OF THE EAST tempts of S hibakok an and Ayodo are conspicuous , now found an opportunity for unrestricted growth . That eagerness and profound admiration for Western knowledge which confounded beauty with science , and culture with industry , did not hesitate to welcome the m eanest chromos as specimens of great art ideals . The art which reached u s was Euro pean at its lowest ebb— before the ﬁn ‘ de-siecle aestheticism had redeemed its atrocities , before Delacroix had uplifted the veil of hardened academic Chia r o oscu r o Bar bizons , before Millet and the

of brought their message light and colour , before Ruskin had interpreted the purity - of pre Raphaelite nobleness . Thus the Japanese attempt at Western imitation which was inaugurated in the Govern ment School of Art where Italian teachers were appointed to teach grovelled in darkness from its infancy , and yet succeeded , even at its inception , in imposing that hard crust of manner LIFE TRUE TO SELF 227 ism which impedes its progress t o the present day . But the active individual ism of h Meiji , teeming with life in ot er

of cycles thought , could not be content to move in those ﬁxed grooves which orthodox conservatism or radical Euro i pean sat ion imposed on art . When the

ﬁrst decade of the era was passed , and recovery from the effects of civil war

or was more less complete , a band of earnest workers strove to found a third - belt of art expression , which , by a higher realisation of the possibilities of ancient

Japanese art , and aiming at a love and knowledge o f the most sympathetic W - movements in estern art creations , tried to reconstruct the national art“ on a new basis , whose keynote should be Life true to Self. This movement resulted in the establishment of a Government

A rt School at Ueno , Tokyo , and , since

of 1 8 9 the disintegration the faculty in 7, is represented by the N ippon Bijit su in

at Yanaka , in the suburbs of the city , 228 IDEALS OF THE EAST

e it whose biennial exhibitions r veal , is hoped , the vital element in the contem por a ry art activity of the country.

According to this school , freedom is the greatest privilege of an artist , but freedom always in the sense of e volu

ional - t self development . Art is neither

r the ideal nor the eal . Imitation , whether of nature , of the old masters , or above all of self, is suicidal to the realisation of individuality , which rejoices always to

of play an original part , be it tragedy

o f or comedy, in the grand drama life,

m an . of , and of nature

old To this school , again , the art of Asia is more valid than that of any modern school , inasmuch as the process

not of idealism , and of imitation, is the ’ - r a ison d etr e of the art impulse . The stream of ideas is the real " facts are mere incidents . N ot the thing as it

inﬁnit u d e was , but the it suggested to

of . him , is what we demand the artist

Chia r o It follows that the feeling for line ,

23 0 IDEALS OF THE EAST

l - ha f unconscious , on her pilgrimage in

search of the Inﬁnite , lingering to gaze on the accomplished past and dimly-seen

—a future dream of suggestion , nothing

ﬁxed — of more but a suggestion the spirit ,

nothing less noble . ~ N Technique is thus but the weapon of the artistic warfare ; scientiﬁc knowledge

of anatomy and perspective , the commis

sariat that sustains the army . These Japanese art may safely accept from the

w it s West , ithout detracting from own d nature . Ideals , in turn , are the mo es in

of which the artistic mind moves , a plan campaign which the nature of the country

imposes on war . Within and behind - them lies always the sovereign general , - n immovable and self contained , noddi g

peace or destruction from his brow . Both the range of subjects and the method of their expression grow wider under this new conception of artistic

Ho ai freedom . The lamented Kano g ,

Hashimoto Gaho, the greatest living HO GA I AND GA HO 23 1

master of the age , and the numerous

not geniuses who follow in their track , are only noted for their versatility of tech

of nique , but for their enlarged notion

- the subject matter of art. These two w masters , themselves reno ned professors of the chief Kano academy at the close of the Shogunate , inaugurated the revival of the Ashikaga and Sung masters in their ancient purity , together with the study of

Tosa and the Korin colourists , without at the same time losing the delicate natural f ism o the Kyoto School . The ancient spirit of race-myths and historic chronicles has breathed upon these painters , as at every great epoch of

of ZE sch lu s revival in art , from the time y to that of Wagner and the Northern

European poets , and their pictures give new ﬁre and meaning to these great themes . The last masterpiece of Kano Hogai represents Kwannon , the Universal

of Mother , in her aspect human mater 23 2 IDEALS OF THE EAST

- mi . ty She stands in mid air , her triple

sk halo lost in the y of golden purity, and

ou t o f holds in her hand a crystal vase, which is dropping the water of creation . l A single drop , as it fal s , becomes a babe , - which , wrapped in its birth mantle like a nimbus , lifts unconscious eyes to her , as it is wafted downwards to the rugged snow-peaks of the earth rising from a mist of blue darkness far below. In this picture a power of colour like that of the Fujiwara epoch joins with the g r ace of m ff Maruya a, to a ord expression to an interpretation of nature as mystic and reverent as it is passionate and realistic . ’ Gabo s pictur e of Chok ar o combines the strong style of Sesshu with the broad massing of S ot at s u . It takes up and r e- of expresses the obsolete Taoist idea, the magician who watches with wistful smiles the donkey that he has j ust pro

ect ed j from his gourd , an image of the playful attitude of fatalism .

’ K anzan s Funeral Pyre of Buddha

23 4 IDEALS OF THE EAST Sculpture and other arts follow closely on this road . The wonderful glaze of Kozan is not only reviving the lost secrets of early Chinese ceramics , but creating - new Korin like dreams in colour . Lacquer is emancipated from the delicate ﬁnesse of the later Tokugawas , and loves to revel in a wider range of - colour and materials , and the sister arts é of embroidery and tapestry, of cloisonn - and metal work , are breathing new life throughout their wide domains . Thus

o f of art , in spite its new conditions patronage and the dreadful grind of mechanical industry , is striving to attain to a higher life , which shall express the contemporary vitality of our national aspirations . But the time is not yet ripe for an exhaustive summary . Each day opens up fresh elements of possibility and hope , calling out for a place in the scheme of reawakened nationalisation . China and India , not to speak of the artistic

of activity the West , which is also ' IDEAL VISTAS 23 5

struggling for a new expression , present their grand ideal vistas , yet to be trodden by the explorers of the future .

NOTE S

— - S a unyo. Wri ter of the Nipp on Ga ishi a nd the Ni on-S ei/ci a nd a pp , noted lso for his poems on historica l a nd pa triotic subj ects . He lived a t the

i a nd S a beginn ng of the nineteenth century, pent m ny yea rs in wa ndering a bout the country i n sea rch of a a hi s i w e the m teri ls for h story, hich were rend red d ifﬁc u lt to obta i n by the e a gerness of the Toku ga wa s to suppress the na tion a l consciousness . Adwa ita ide a — The word a di va ita m ea ns the

a be in a n d e a a st te of not i g two, is th n me pplied

ea I a a a ll to the gr t ndi n doctrine th t which exists,

u a a a i a tho gh pp rently m n fold , is re lly one . Hence a ll truth m ust be d iscovera ble in a ny single differe n t ia ti on i n a . , the whole universe involved every det il All thus becomes eq u a lly precious . THE VISTA

THE Simple life of Asia need fear no shaming from that sharp contrast with Europe in which steam and electricity have placed it tod ay. The old world of t trade, the world of the craf sman and the pedlar, of the village market and the ’— saints day fair, where little boats row up and down great rivers laden with the produce of the country, where every palace has some court in which the tra velling merchant may display his stuffs and j ewels for beautiful screened women

see . to and buy , is not yet quite dead

And , however its form may change , only at a great loss can Asia permit its spirit to die , since the whole of that industrial and decorative art which is the heirloom of ages has been in its keeping , and she must lose with it not only the beauty 236

23 8 IDEALS OF THE EAST

of on again , goes from no place interest his wanderings without leaving his hair/cu

- or short sonnet , an art form within reach of the Simplest . Through such modes of experience is cultivated the Eastern conception of in divid u ality a s the ripe and li ving know ledge , the harmonised thought and feeling of staunch yet gentle manhood . Through such modes of interchange is maintained

r the Eastern notion of human intercou se, m not the printed index , as the true eans of culture . The chain of antitheses might be in deﬁnitely lengthened . But the glory of Asia is something more positive than f these . It lies in that vibration o peace that beats in every heart ; that harmony that brings together emperor and peasant that sublime intuition of oneness which commands all sympathy, all courtesy , to be its fruits , making Takakura , Emperor o f his S - Japan , remove leeping robes on a winter night , because the frost lay cold SELF -RENUNCIATION 23 9

Taiso of on the hearths of his poor ; or , a T ng, forego food , because his people were feeling the pinch of famine . It lies in the dream of renunciation that pictures the B oddhi -Sattva as refraining from Nirvana till the last atom of dust in the universe shall have passed in before to bliss . It lies in that worship of Free dom which casts around poverty the halo of greatness , imposes his stern simplicity

on of apparel the Indian prince , and sets up in China a throne whose imperial c c cu pant — alone amongst the great secular

— rulers of the world never wears a sword . These things are the secret energy of the thought , the science , the poetry , and the art of Asia . Torn from their tradi

of tion , India , made barren that religious life which is the essence of her nationality , would become a worshipper of the mean , the false , and the new ; China, hurled upon the problems of a material instead

r of a moral civilisation, would w ithe in the death -agony of that ancient dignity 240 IDEALS OF THE EAST and ethics which long ago made the word of her merchants like the legal bond of

of s the West , the name her peasant a synonym for prosperity ; and Japan , the

Fatherland of the race of Ama , would betray the completeness of her undoing in the tarnishing of the purity of the spiritual mirror , the bemeaning of the

- sword soul from steel to lead . The task of - h Asia to day , t en , becomes that of protecting and restoring Asiatic modes . But t o do this she must herself ﬁrst recognise and develop consciousness of those modes . F or the shadows of t he past are the promise of the future . No tree can be greater than the power that is in t he seed . Life lies ever in the r e turn to self. How many of the Evangels " have uttered this truth Know thyself, was the greatest mystery spoken by the “ " Delphic Oracle . All in thyself, said the quiet voice of Confucius . And more striking still is the Indian stor y that carries the same message to its hearers .

242 IDEALS OF THE EAST of the possibilities opening ou t before

. them Even Japan cannot , in the tangled skein of the Meiji period , ﬁnd that single thread which will give her the clue to her own future . Her past has been clear and

. continuous as a mala , a rosary , of crystals

of u From the early days the As ka period , when the national destiny was ﬁrst bestowed , as the receiver and coneen

of trator , by her Yamato genius , Indian ideals and Chinese ethics ; through the succeeding preliminary phases of Nara and Heian , to the revelation of her vast powers in the unmeasured devotion of her

Fujiwara period , in her heroic reaction of Kamakura , culminating in the stern enthusiasm and lofty abstinence of that Ashikaga knighthood who sought with so austere a passion after death— through all these phases the evolution of the

u nation is clear and unconf sed , like that of a single personality. Even through

Toyotomi , and Tokugawa , it is clear that after the fashion of the East we are “ THE CLOUDED MIRROR 243 ending a rhythm of activity with the lull f o the democratising of the great ideals .

The populace and the lower classes , not withs tanding their seeming quiescence and commonplaceness , are making their own m the consecration of the Sa urai , the

of - sadness the poet , the divine self sacri

ﬁce — of the saint are becoming liberated , in fact , into their national inheritance . But to-day the great mass of Western thought perplexes us . The mirror of

s a . Yamato is clouded , as we y With the

Revolution , Japan , it is true , returns upon her past , seeking there for the new vitality she needs . Like all genuine restorations , f F it is a reaction with a dif erence . or that self-dedication of art t o nature which the Ashikaga inaugurated has become now a consecration to the race , to man himself. W e know instinctively that in

o u r our history lies the secret of future , and we grope with a blind intensity to

. ﬁnd the clue But if the thought be true , if there be indeed any spring of renewal 244 IDEALS OF THE EAST

ou r hidden in past , we must admit that it needs at this moment some mighty

i re nforcement , for the scorching drought of modern vulgarity is parching the throat o f life and art . We await the ﬂashing sword of the lightning which shall cleave the darkness .

For the terrible hush must be broken , and the raindrops of a new vigour must refresh the earth before new ﬂowers can spring up to cover it with their bloom. But it must be from Asia herself, along the ancient roadways of the race , that the great voice shall be heard .

V or ictory from within , a mighty death without.

‘ Pr in ed N E ’ t by BALL AN I Y , HA N S O N ér C0 . Ed i nbur gh Gr Lo nd on