Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1To Lado it seemed to be before God. I am compelled to accept the existence of God, as the ultimate Fact, bowing before it with reverence, and not attempting to explain it, the one mystery, the sole mystery of the universe. 4. ‘The bodily shape was the body preserving in it the spirit, and each had its peculiar manifestation which we call its nature.’ So it is said in the passage quoted above from Kwang-3ze’s twelfth Book, and the language shows Man is composed how Taoism, in a loose and indefinite way, of body and considered man to be composed of body and spint. spirit, associated together, yet not necessarily dependent on each other. Little is found bearing on this tenet in the TAo Teh King. The concluding sentence of ch. 33, ‘He who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity,’ is of doubtful acceptation. More pertinent is the description of life as ‘a coming forth,’ and of death as ‘an entering?;’ but A wang-jze expounds more fully, though after all unsatisfactorily, the teaching of their system on the subject. At the conclusion of his third Book, writing of the death of Lao-;ze, he says, ‘When the master came, it was at the proper time; when he went away, it was the simple sequence (of his coming). Quiet acquiescence in what happens at its proper time, and quietly submitting (to its sequence), afford no occasion for grief or for joy. The ancients described (death) as the loosening of the cord on which God suspended (the life). What we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed; but the fire is transmitted elsewhere, and we know not that it is over and ended.’ 1 The Tao Teh King, ch. 14; et al. 2 Ch. 50. 22 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH. II.
2What we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed; but the fire is transmitted elsewhere, and we know not that it is over and ended.’ 1 The Tao Teh King, ch. 14; et al. 2 Ch. 50. 22 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH. II. It is, however, in connexion with the death of his own wife, as related in the eighteenth Book, that his views most fully—I do not say ‘clearly’—appear. We are told that when that event took place, his friend Hul-3ze went to condole with him, and found him squatted on the ground, drumming on the vessel (of ice), and singing. His friend said to him, ‘When a wife has lived with her husband, brought up children, and then dies in her old age, not to wail for her is enough. When you go on to drum on the vessel and sing, is it not an excessive (and strange) demonstration?’ Kwang-3ze replied, ‘It is not so. When she first died, was it possible for me to be singular, and not affected by the event? But I reflected on the commencement of her being, when she had not yet been born to life. Not only had she no life, but she had no bodily form. Not only had she no bodily form, but she had no breath. Suddenly in this chaotic condition there ensued a change, and there was breath; another change, and there was the bodily form; a further change, and she was born to life; a change now again, and she is dead. The relation between those changes is like the procession of the four seasons,—spring, autumn, winter, and summer. There she lies with her face up, sleeping in the Great Chamber’; and if I were to fall sobbing and going on to wail for her, I should think I did not understand what was appointed for all. I therefore restrained myself.’ The next paragraph of the same Book contains another story about two ancient men, both deformed, who, when looking at the graves on Kwan-lun, begin to feel in their own frames the symptoms of approaching dissolution. One says to the other, ‘Do you dread it?’ and gets the reply, ‘No. Why should I dread it? Life is a borrowed thing. The living frame thus borrowed is but so much dust. Life and death are like day and night.’ In every birth, it would thus appear, there is, somehow, a repetition of what it is said, as we have seen, took place at ‘the Grand Beginning of all things, when out of the 1 That is, between heaven and earth. CH. III. INTRODUCTION. 23 primal nothingness, the Tao somehow appeared, and there was developed through its operation the world of things,— material things and the material body of man, which enshrines or enshrouds an immaterial spirit. This returns to the Tao that gave it, and may be regarded indeed as that Tao operating in the body during the time of life, and in due time receives a new embodiment.
3This returns to the Tao that gave it, and may be regarded indeed as that Tao operating in the body during the time of life, and in due time receives a new embodiment. In these notions of TAoism there was a preparation for the appreciation by its followers of the Buddhistic system when it came to be introduced into the country, and which forms a close connexion betwecn the two at the present day, Taoism itself constantly becoming less definite and influential on the minds of the Chinese people. The Book which tells us of the death of Kwang-3ze’s wife concludes with a narrative about Lieh-3ze and an old bleached skull}, and to this is appended a passage about the metamorphoses of things, ending with the statement that ‘ the panther produces the horse, and the horse the man, who then again enters into the great machinery (of evolution), from which all things come forth (at birth) and into which they re-enter (at death).’? Such representations need not be characterised. 5. Ka Hsi, ‘the prince of Literature, described the main object of Taoism to be ‘the preservation of the breath of The Taoas life ;’ and Lid Mi, probably of our thirteenth promotive of century’, in his ‘ Dispassionate Comparison longevity. of the Three Religions,’ declares that ‘its chief achievement is the prolongation of longevity.’ Such is the account of Taoism ordinarily given by Confucian and Buddhist writers, but our authorities, Lao and Kwang, hardly bear out this representation of it as true of their time. There are chapters of the Tao Teh King which 1 Quoted in the Amplification of the Sixteen Precepts or Maxims of the second emperor of the present dynasty by his son. The words are from Dr. Milne’s version of ‘ the Sacred Edict,’ p. 137. 2 In his Index to the Tripi¢aka, Mr. Bunyio Nanjio (p. 359) assigns Lif Mi and his work tb the Yiian dynasty. In a copy of the work in my possession they are assigned to that of Sung. The author, no doubt, lived under both dynasties,—from the Sung into the Yiian. 24 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH, III.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
Romanised transliteration as printed by the translator, not the original script. This is what we hold.
1To Lado it seemed to be before God. I am compelled to accept the existence of God, as the ultimate Fact, bowing before it with reverence, and not attempting to explain it, the one mystery, the sole mystery of the universe. 4. ‘The bodily shape was the body preserving in it the spirit, and each had its peculiar manifestation which we call its nature.’ So it is said in the passage quoted above from Kwang-3ze’s twelfth Book, and the language shows Man is composed how Taoism, in a loose and indefinite way, of body and considered man to be composed of body and spint. spirit, associated together, yet not necessarily dependent on each other. Little is found bearing on this tenet in the TAo Teh King. The concluding sentence of ch. 33, ‘He who dies and yet does not perish, has longevity,’ is of doubtful acceptation. More pertinent is the description of life as ‘a coming forth,’ and of death as ‘an entering?;’ but A wang-jze expounds more fully, though after all unsatisfactorily, the teaching of their system on the subject. At the conclusion of his third Book, writing of the death of Lao-;ze, he says, ‘When the master came, it was at the proper time; when he went away, it was the simple sequence (of his coming). Quiet acquiescence in what happens at its proper time, and quietly submitting (to its sequence), afford no occasion for grief or for joy. The ancients described (death) as the loosening of the cord on which God suspended (the life). What we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed; but the fire is transmitted elsewhere, and we know not that it is over and ended.’ 1 The Tao Teh King, ch. 14; et al. 2 Ch. 50. 22 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH. II.
2What we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed; but the fire is transmitted elsewhere, and we know not that it is over and ended.’ 1 The Tao Teh King, ch. 14; et al. 2 Ch. 50. 22 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH. II. It is, however, in connexion with the death of his own wife, as related in the eighteenth Book, that his views most fully—I do not say ‘clearly’—appear. We are told that when that event took place, his friend Hul-3ze went to condole with him, and found him squatted on the ground, drumming on the vessel (of ice), and singing. His friend said to him, ‘When a wife has lived with her husband, brought up children, and then dies in her old age, not to wail for her is enough. When you go on to drum on the vessel and sing, is it not an excessive (and strange) demonstration?’ Kwang-3ze replied, ‘It is not so. When she first died, was it possible for me to be singular, and not affected by the event? But I reflected on the commencement of her being, when she had not yet been born to life. Not only had she no life, but she had no bodily form. Not only had she no bodily form, but she had no breath. Suddenly in this chaotic condition there ensued a change, and there was breath; another change, and there was the bodily form; a further change, and she was born to life; a change now again, and she is dead. The relation between those changes is like the procession of the four seasons,—spring, autumn, winter, and summer. There she lies with her face up, sleeping in the Great Chamber’; and if I were to fall sobbing and going on to wail for her, I should think I did not understand what was appointed for all. I therefore restrained myself.’ The next paragraph of the same Book contains another story about two ancient men, both deformed, who, when looking at the graves on Kwan-lun, begin to feel in their own frames the symptoms of approaching dissolution. One says to the other, ‘Do you dread it?’ and gets the reply, ‘No. Why should I dread it? Life is a borrowed thing. The living frame thus borrowed is but so much dust. Life and death are like day and night.’ In every birth, it would thus appear, there is, somehow, a repetition of what it is said, as we have seen, took place at ‘the Grand Beginning of all things, when out of the 1 That is, between heaven and earth. CH. III. INTRODUCTION. 23 primal nothingness, the Tao somehow appeared, and there was developed through its operation the world of things,— material things and the material body of man, which enshrines or enshrouds an immaterial spirit. This returns to the Tao that gave it, and may be regarded indeed as that Tao operating in the body during the time of life, and in due time receives a new embodiment.
3This returns to the Tao that gave it, and may be regarded indeed as that Tao operating in the body during the time of life, and in due time receives a new embodiment. In these notions of TAoism there was a preparation for the appreciation by its followers of the Buddhistic system when it came to be introduced into the country, and which forms a close connexion betwecn the two at the present day, Taoism itself constantly becoming less definite and influential on the minds of the Chinese people. The Book which tells us of the death of Kwang-3ze’s wife concludes with a narrative about Lieh-3ze and an old bleached skull}, and to this is appended a passage about the metamorphoses of things, ending with the statement that ‘ the panther produces the horse, and the horse the man, who then again enters into the great machinery (of evolution), from which all things come forth (at birth) and into which they re-enter (at death).’? Such representations need not be characterised. 5. Ka Hsi, ‘the prince of Literature, described the main object of Taoism to be ‘the preservation of the breath of The Taoas life ;’ and Lid Mi, probably of our thirteenth promotive of century’, in his ‘ Dispassionate Comparison longevity. of the Three Religions,’ declares that ‘its chief achievement is the prolongation of longevity.’ Such is the account of Taoism ordinarily given by Confucian and Buddhist writers, but our authorities, Lao and Kwang, hardly bear out this representation of it as true of their time. There are chapters of the Tao Teh King which 1 Quoted in the Amplification of the Sixteen Precepts or Maxims of the second emperor of the present dynasty by his son. The words are from Dr. Milne’s version of ‘ the Sacred Edict,’ p. 137. 2 In his Index to the Tripi¢aka, Mr. Bunyio Nanjio (p. 359) assigns Lif Mi and his work tb the Yiian dynasty. In a copy of the work in my possession they are assigned to that of Sung. The author, no doubt, lived under both dynasties,—from the Sung into the Yiian. 24 THE TEXTS OF TAOISM. CH, III.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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