Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century

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Sixth Century BCE to Seventeenth Century Page 66

by Ying-shih Yü


  particularly singled out the following

  view for severe criticism: “ There cannot be two Ways in the world. Nor can the

  sages possess two Minds. Though Confucianism and Buddhism are diff er ent,

  both of them nevertheless talk about the same Princi ple ( 1i).”50 This seems to

  be exactly the type of “noncompartmentalization” that the author says “had

  been inconceivable” before the late Ming (15).

  In support of his argument for Jiao Hong’s originality in syncretism, the

  author devotes several pages (110–113) to a discussion of two concepts in the

  Analects that were interpreted by Jiao Hong in Buddhist terms. The fi rst con-

  cept is about birth and death based on the saying of Confucius already men-

  tioned above in connection with Zhang Shangying’s Discourse on Protecting the

  Dharma: “If a man in the morning hears the right way, he may die in the eve-

  ning without regret.” According to the author, Jiao Hong took this saying “as an

  example of the Confucian counterpart of the Buddhist doctrine of birth and

  death.” The second concept is the term kong

  (emptiness), which appears

  twice in the Analects (9.8, 40.19). Jiao Hong also gave it a Buddhist reading

  and considered “emptiness” to be a designation for the “original substance of

  Heaven’s decree.” Based on these two examples, the author then jumps to the

  conclusion that “Jiao Hong’s practice of concept- matching is produced on

  the condition of a type of syncretic consciousness which is no longer consti-

  tuted by the logic of compartmentalization.” As has been shown earlier, how-

  ever, Zhang Shangying of the Northern Song had already matched the concept

  of “morning Way” in the Analects with the Buddhist concept of bodhi— the “en-

  lightenment” leading to “knowing the Mind and seeing the Nature” ( shixin ji-

  anxing

  ). Here it is clear that Zhang Shangying was using this passage

  to argue for the case that the prob lem of “birth and death” was “a shared con-

  cern of Buddhism and classical Confucianism,” exactly as the author says of Jiao

  Hong (112).

  From the point of view of intellectual history, however, it is necessary to

  point out that in practicing this kind of concept- matching, Jiao Hong most cer-

  tainly did not, as the author suggests, depart from any tradition (113). One may

  argue, though, without being very convincing, that Zhang Shangying was too

  early to bear signifi cantly on Jiao Hong’s practice of concept- matching. Yet the

  infl uence of Wang Ji cannot possibly be ignored. It so happened that the two

  concepts in the Analects were also Wang Ji’s favorite examples when he argued

  for the oneness of Confucianism and Buddhism on the philosophical level. In

  his commentary on the Analects (4.8), Wang Ji says:

  The Way ( Dao ) has neither birth nor death. Having heard the Way, one

  can therefore sweep through the barrier between day and night as well as

  unify birth and death. [With one’s mind] being vacuous, tranquil, and

  t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed 335

  full of light, one then leaves the world as if transcending it. There is nei-

  ther birth nor death to be spoken of. Hence the saying, “he may die in the

  eve ning without regret,” which means that he has experienced the state

  of neither birth nor death.51

  This is indeed a Buddhist reading of the Analects to the highest degree. With

  regard to the concept of kong in the Analects, Wang Ji’s Buddhist point of view is

  equally unconcealed. He insisted that when Confucius described himself as

  “empty- like” ( kongkong ruye

  ) or spoke of Yan Hui as “often empty”

  ( lükong

  ), he was invariably defi ning “the substance of the Way” ( Daoti

  ) in terms of “emptiness.”52 Thus, in both cases, we see Jiao Hong follow-

  ing Wang Ji very closely. The identifi cation of his “original substance of Heav-

  en’s decree” with Wang Ji’s “substance of the Way” is singularly unmistakable.

  Jiao Hong once argued for the oneness of the Way on the ground that “stillness”

  ( ji

  ) and “vacuity” ( xu

  ) are equally characteristic of the “wondrous princi-

  ples” of Confucianism.53 In this case, he was again following the paradigm of

  Wang Ji who, in his famous debate with Nie Bao

  (1487–1563), further identi-

  fi ed Confucius’s kong with “vacuity” and “stillness.” “To be empty is to be vacu-

  ous and still,” said he, “and here lie the vital arteries of [the Confucian] Learn-

  ing.”54 Undoubtedly, Jiao Hong was an active participant in the philosophical

  movement of Sanjiao heyi in the late Ming. It is also evident, however, that most

  of his syncretic ideas were derivative, particularly from Wang Ji. Nevertheless, to

  say this is not to underrate his importance. Like any other thinker in history—

  great or ordinary—he can be truly understood only when the historian fi nds the

  exact place that he actually occupied in his intellectual world.

  “ E V I D E N T I A L R E S E A R C H ” W I T H O U T E V I D E N C E

  Speculation on “evidential research” ( kaozheng

  ) constitutes an impor tant

  part of this study of Jiao Hong. The author is apparently unfamiliar with the

  actual practice of “evidential research,” about which he nevertheless philoso-

  phizes a great deal. His dialogical interest in intellectual history is even more

  pronounced in this part than elsewhere in the book. It is particularly revealing

  that in his discussions on the relationship between Qing “evidential research”

  and Han classicism, the author relies wholly on the authority of Tang Junyi and

  ignores all the critical refl ections on the subject by scholars since the nine-

  teenth century. With all my re spect for the erudition and originality of my for-

  mer teacher, I must emphatically point out that the late phi los o pher is hardly

  the best guide for “evidential research.” His general observations as summa-

  rized by the author (184–185) raise more questions than they can answer. In this

  section, however, I prefer not to discuss the philosophical implications of Qing

  “evidential research,” which will be dealt with toward the end of this essay.

  336 t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed

  Instead, I shall focus on the prob lem of theoretical construction in relation to

  the textual basis of Chinese intellectual history. I have found it very disturbing

  that the author often resorts to an extreme procrustean method to make the

  evidence fi t his theories.

  A major thesis of this study, as we shall see later, is that Jiao Hong and “eviden-

  tial” scholars actually belonged to the same “discursive” tradition. To show that

  the latter also shared Jiao Hung’s “linguistic skepticism,” which “implies the be-

  lief in the necessity of going beyond language to apprehend the Dao through ex-

  periential realization,” the author cites Dai Zhen as evidence. He says:

  Even Dai Zhen, who was a towering fi gure in the Qing world of “eviden-

  tial research” and who proclaimed that “when the language of the past is

  made clear, t
he old Classics will become clear,” did not consider the

  “hearing of the Dao” to be simply a matter of mastering language. Rather,

  he said that one “must empty” one’s “dependence” on language and “ex-

  perientially comprehend” ( tihui

  ) the Classics as texts. (192)

  This alleged view of Dai Zhen’s is based on Dai’s “Letter to Someone.”55 It is a

  total distortion of the original message in the letter. The distortion is made

  through the following three steps. First, the sentence “one must empty one’s

  dependence” is taken out of context. As the sentence that immediately follows

  makes abundantly clear, what Dai Zhen urged his fellow scholar to “empty” his

  “dependence” on are the authorities of latter-

  day commentators, including

  those of the Han, the Jin, and, particularly, the Song Confucians. Here, in his

  En glish translation, the author surreptitiously replaces “ later commentaries”

  with the general term “language.” As a result, Dai Zhen is misrepresented as if

  he held that one can study the classics without depending on language at all.

  In fact, the point Dai Zhen really wanted to make is that the true meaning of a

  classical text must be grasped through the language of its own age, not that of

  the later commentators. Hence, the sentence immediately preceding “the hear-

  ing of the Dao” says: “In the study of the Classics, one must fi rst investigate the

  meaning of each and every word and then master the grammar.” The author’s

  quoting Dai Zhen out of context is thus complete, as he deliberately ignores the

  sentences both immediately preceding and following it.

  Second, an undue emphasis is given to the compound verb tihui

  , which

  is then literally translated as “to experientially comprehend.” In the original

  letter, Dai Zhen only urged his friend “to comprehend the classical texts thor-

  oughly and with an unbiased mind” ( pingxin tihui jingwen

  ) . By

  playing up the verb tihui and manipulating it in En glish translation, the author

  creates the impression that Dai Zhen was a religious mystic who believed that

  one must go beyond language to comprehend the Dao through some sort of

  intuition or pure experience.

  t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed 337

  Third, Dai Zhen’s view is distorted not only through commission but through

  omission as well. The above- quoted phrase involving tihui is not a complete sen-

  tence in the original text; the second half of the sentence runs as follows: “for

  even a slight departure from the correct reading of a single word will inevitably

  pervert the meaning [of the entire text] and, consequently, the Dao will be lost.”

  With these words, Dai Zhen made it perfectly clear what he meant by “compre-

  hending the classical text thoroughly and with an unbiased mind.” It is indeed

  a far cry from “linguistic skepticism.”

  Distortions of this kind are also often found in the author’s treatment of Jiao

  Hong’s writings. In the rest of this section, however, I shall focus on one par tic-

  u lar document that the author has used as the textual basis to build a variety of

  theories about Jiao Hong’s thought such as his criticism of Zhu Xi, his theory

  of language, and, above all, the philosophical background of his interest in “evi-

  dential research.” This document is the long note entitled “Zhuzi” in the Jiaoshi

  bicheng

  (Miscellaneous essays of Jiao Hong) . 56 In discussing Jiao

  Hong’s conception of the relationship between language and the Dao, the au-

  thor begins by summarizing a passage in this note as follows: “[Jiao Hong] said

  that the Dao as the Ancestor or zong

  is the source of speech. [A person who]

  establishes a doctrine without the Ancestor is like a blind man on a journey.

  He will run into obstacles wherever he turns (125).” Based on this paraphrase, the

  author then generously imputes the following grand theory of language to Jiao

  Hong: “This conception of language as a human activity to represent the Dao as

  real ity means not only that mimesis has a share in the construction of language as

  a human creation, but that language as a human creation to render a mimetic

  repre sen ta tion of the Dao as real ity, is not self- possessing.” Unfortunately, how-

  ever, when we check this beautiful theory against the original text, there is ab-

  solutely nothing that can give it even the slightest support. To substantiate this

  very serious charge against the author, I must give a full account of the passage

  in question.

  The whole question of this passage arises out of Xunzi’s criticism of Men-

  cius. In Xunzi’s view, Mencius “followed the early kings, in a general way, but

  did not know their fundamentals ( tong ).”57 In defense of Mencius, the writer

  of this note on “Zhuzi” says:

  As regards the criticism that [Mencius] “did not know their fundamen-

  tals,” I defi nitely would not dare to agree with Xunzi. Why? Because the

  so- called tong (fundamentals) constitutes the central purpose ( zong )

  of the Dao as well as the source of all the doctrines ( yan

  ) [of the later

  thinkers]. To say that [someone] establishes a doctrine ( yan) without a cen-

  tral purpose ( zong) is to liken him to a blind man on a journey who will

  run into obstacles wherever he turns. How can this be the proper way of

  talking about Mencius? Clearly, the central purpose ( zong) of Mencius’s

  338 t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed

  [doctrine] consists in [what he spoke of as] “taking hold of the will and

  cultivating the qi

  .”58

  Now we can proceed to see exactly how the author distorts this passage. To be-

  gin with, the entire passage says nothing about the relationship between “the

  Dao as real ity” and “language as a human creation.” It deals, generally, with the

  prob lem of the “fundamentals” ( tong

  ) established by the sage- kings in pre-

  Confucian antiquity vis- à- vis the vari ous doctrines ( yan

  ) developed by later

  thinkers and, specifi cally, with the Mencian doctrine in relation to the “funda-

  mentals” ( tong) of the “early kings.” The focus of the passage is clearly on the

  tong, not the Dao. Here the tong is the fi rst- order concept from which the Dao

  derives its “purpose” ( zong) and in which all the later “doctrines” ( yan), if wor-

  thy to be so- called at all, are variously rooted. The author’s one- sentence sum-

  mary that “The Dao as Ancestor or zong is the source of speech” is but a garbled

  quotation combined with manipulations in translation. Allow me to show how

  this is done and why.

  As we have seen, the original statement in the text on which the above quo-

  tation is based is this: “The tong constitutes the purpose ( zong) of the Dao as

  well as the source of [all the later] doctrines ( yan).” When the author uses the

  phrase “the Dao as Ancestor or zong,” he has dropped the word tong altogether

  and put Dao in its place. Even if we follow his translation, we can only say “the

  tong as the Ancestor of the Dao” but defi nitely
not “the Dao as Ancestor.” Next,

  he manipulates the En glish translation by rendering zong

  as “Ancestor” and

  yan

  as “speech” to justify “the Dao as real ity” and “language as a human

  creation” in his theory. He is inconsistent in translation, however, for elsewhere

  he also renders zong and yan in the same text as “purpose” and “doctrine,” re-

  spectively. For example, on page 69 he quotes the sentence “[they] each had a

  purpose ( zong ) in their learning” from the same note on “Zhuzi” and identi-

  fi es the translated word “purpose” explic itly with the original Chinese charac-

  ter zong. As for the Chinese character yan , it appears twice in the author’s

  quotation. Without a word of explanation, he quietly renders the fi rst yan as

  “speech” (in “source of speech”) and the second one “doctrine” (in “a doctrine

  without Ancestor”). Since the two identical characters run continuously right

  in the middle of an argument, it is impossible to justify this inconsistency in

  translation on the ground that the meaning of yan takes a sudden change from

  “speech” to “doctrine” or vice versa.

  Now the question is why must the author go to such a length to falsify this

  text and manipulate his translation? My conjecture is that it has resulted from

  the author’s procrustean determination to make the evidence fi t his theory, in

  this case, the theory about Jiao Hong’s conception of language in relation to the

  Dao. First, the author cannot possibly follow the original statement and say

  that, in his translation, “the tong is the Ancestor ( zong) of the Dao.” In the origi-

  nal text, tong (fundamentals) is supposedly something created by the “early

  t h e in t e l le c t ua l wor l d of j i ao hong r e v isi t ed 339

  kings.” If the tong turns out to be the Ancestor of the Dao, it would certainly

  make the Dao also a “ human creation” and, even worse, a derivative one at that.

  Therefore, the word tong must go so that the Dao can take its place as “Ances-

  tor.” Second, zong must be rendered as “Ancestor” not only because it makes no

  sense to say that “the Dao as purpose is the source of speech,” but because,

  more importantly, the Dao identifi ed as Ancestor suggests something of an

  entity that is ultimate and self- generated. Fi nally, yan must also be translated as

 

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