Outlines of Universal History, Designed as a Text-book and for Private Reading. George Park Fisher
IN CHINA.—The Chinese language was crystallized, in the written form, in the monosyllabic stage of its development. Beginning in hieroglyphs, literal pictures of objects, and having no alphabet, it has so multiplied its characters and combinations of characters as to put great hindrances in the way of the acquisition of it. The utter absence of inflection may have crippled the development of poetry and of the drama, for which the Chinese have a natural taste. In these departments, Chinese productions do not rise above mediocrity. For this, however, the lack of imagination and of creative power is largely accountable. It is in the province of pure prose—as in historical narrations, topographical writings, such as geographies, and in the making of encyclopedias—that the Chinese have excelled. But the yoke of tradition has everywhere weighed heavily. In one sense, the Chinese have been a literary people. The system of competitive examinations for public offices has diffused through the nation a certain degree of book-learning; yet the masses have been kept in a state of ignorance. At the foundation of all learning are the "nine classics," which consist of five works, edited or written by Confucius, of which the "Shoo King," or Book of History, stands at the head, together with the four books written by his disciples and the disciples of Mencius. Great as have been the services of Confucius, his own slavish reverence for the past, so stamped upon his writings, has had the effect to cramp the development of the Chinese mind, and to fasten upon it the fetters of tradition.
GOVERNMENT AND CIVILIZATION.—The government of China is "a patriarchal despotism." As father of his people, the king has absolute authority. The power of life and death is in his hand. Yet the right of revolution was taught by Confucius and Mencius, and the Chinese have not been slow to exercise it. The powers of the emperor are limited by ceremonial regulations, and by a body of precedents which are held sacred. He administers rule with the help of a privy council. Officers of every rank in the employ of the government constitute the aristocratic class of Mandarins, who are divided into different ranks.
INVENTION.—Printing by wooden blocks was known in China as early as the sixth century A.D. Printing did not come into general use until the thirteenth century. The use of movable types, although devised, it is said, many centuries earlier, did not come into vogue until the seventeenth century. Gunpowder was used as early as 250 A.D., in the making of fire-crackers; but it was certainly as late as the middle of the twelfth century that it was first employed in war. The Chinese were early acquainted with the polarity of the loadstone, and used the compass in journeys by land long before that instrument was known in Europe. In various branches of manufactures—as silk, porcelain, carved work in ivory, wood, and horn—the Chinese, at least until a recent period, have been pre-eminent. In the mechanical arts their progress has been slow. Their crude implements of husbandry are in contrast with their exhibitions of skill in other directions. Although imitation long ago supplanted the activity of inventive talent, to China belongs the distinction of being a civilized land before the Christian nations of Europe had emerged into being.
LITERATURE.—The Middle Kingdom, by S. WELLS WILLIAMS (2 vols.); Encycl. Brit., Art. China by Professor Douglas; Arts. Confucius and Mencius by Dr. Legge; Legge, The Religions of China; Richthofen, China(3 vols.); Giles, Historic China, and Other Sketches (1882); Legge, The Chinese Classics; BOULGER, History of China (1881–84); Thornton, History of China.
JAPAN.—The authentic history of Japan belongs mainly in the modern period, since the tenth century A.D. The most ancient religion of Japan, designated by a term which means "the way of the gods," included a variety of objects of worship—gods, deified men, the mikados, or chief rulers, regarded as "the sons of heaven," animals, plants, etc. Unquestioning obedience to the mikado was the primary religious duty. It was a state-religion. Buddhism, brought into the country in 552 A.D., spread, and became prevalent.
The Japanese are a mixed race. Kiôto and the adjacent provinces are said to have been occupied by the conquerors. Prior to 660 B.C. we have no trustworthy history of the island. This is the date assigned by the Japanese to their hero, Jimmu Tenno, the first mikado, the founder of an unbroken line. For several centuries, however, the history is open to question. The tenth mikado, Sujin, is noted as a reformer, and promoter of civilization. An uncrowned princess, Jingu-Kogo (201–269 A.D.), is famous for her military prowess. She suppressed a rebellion, and subdued Corea. Ojin, a celebrated warrior, is still worshiped as a god of war. The introduction of Chinese literature and civilization at this period, makes a turning-point in Japanese history.
LITERATURE.—J. J. REIN, Japan: Travels and Researches, vol. I. (1881); E. J. Reed, Japan (2 vols., 1880); Siebold, Nippon (5 vols. 410, and plates); Kampfer, History of Japan (2 vols. fol., 1728); Encycl. Brit., Art. Japan.
CHAPTER II. INDIA.
India is the central one of the three great peninsulas of Southern Asia. On the north is the mountainous region of the Himalayas, below which are the vast and fertile river plains, watered by the Indus, the Ganges, and other streams. On the south, separated from the Ganges by the Vindhyá range, is the hilly and mountainous tract called the Deccan.
THE ARYAN INVADERS.—The history of India opens with glimpses of a struggle on the borders of the great rivers—first of the Indus and then of the Ganges—between an invading race, the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans from the north-west, and the dusky aborigines. These rude native tribes have left few relics but their tombs. Before they tenanted the soil, there dwelt upon it still earlier inhabitants, whose implements were of stone or bronze. The incoming people referred to above were of that Indo-European stock to which we belong. From their home, perhaps in central Asia, they moved in various directions. A part built up the Persian kingdom; another portion migrated farther, and were the progenitors of the Greek nation; and a third founded Rome. The Indian Aryans migrated southward from the headwaters of the Oxus at some time prior, doubtless, to 2000 B.C. Our knowledge of them is derived from their ancient sacred books, the Vedas; of these the oldest, the Rig-Veda, contains ten hundred and seventeen lyrics, chiefly addressed to the gods. Its contents were composed while the Aryans dwelt upon the Indus, and while they were on their way to the neighborhood of the Ganges. The Rig-Veda, therefore, exhibits this people in their earliest stage of religious and social development. They were herdsmen, but with a martial spirit, which enabled them by degrees to drive out the native tribes, and compel them to take refuge in the mountains on the north, or on the great southern plateau. Among them women were held in respect, and marriage was sacred. There are beautiful hymns written by ladies and queens. No such cruel custom as the burning of widows existed: it was of far later origin. They were acquainted with the metals. Among them were blacksmiths, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, carpenters, and other artisans. They fought from chariots, but had not come to employ elephants in war. They were settled in villages and in towns. Mention is made of ships, or river-boats, as in use among them. They ate beef, and drank a sort of fermented beer made from the soma plant.
THE VEDIC RELIGION.—The early religion of the Indian Aryans was quite different from the system that grew up later among them. We do not find in it the dreamy pantheism that appears afterwards. It is cheerful in its tone, quite in contrast with the gloomy asceticism which is stamped on it in after times. The head of each family is priest in his own household. It is only the great tribal sacrifice which is offered by priests set apart for the service. The worship is polytheistic, but not without tendencies to monotheism. The principal divinities are the powers of nature. The deities (deva) were the heavenly or the shining ones. "It was the beautiful phenomenon of light which first and most powerfully swayed the Aryan mind." The chief gods were the Father-heaven; Indra, the god of thunder and of rain, from whom the refreshing showers descended; Varuna, the encompassing sky; and Agni, the god of fire. Among these Indra, from his beneficence, more and more attracted worship. Soma, too, was worshiped; soma being originally the intoxicating juice of a plant. Brihaspati, the lord of prayer, personifying the omnipresent power of prayer, was adored. Thirty-three gods in all were invoked. The bodies of the dead were consumed on the funeral-pile. The soul survived the body, but the later doctrine of transmigration was