From Oracle Bones to Computers. Baotong Gu
its way into my discussion of ideologies involved in technology development and transfer is that, although a religion, it is no doubt one of the most influential ideologies that has impacted the Chinese of all kinds, from the intellectual elite to the uneducated, from high government officials to laymen, from the wealthy to the poor. As Robert Somers (1990) has claimed, “few aspects of Chinese life, from high politics to popular culture, were untouched by the increased influence and mass appeal of this sophisticated religious system and the church that articulated and disseminated its teachings” (p. x). Buddhism “worked its way into all the domains of Chinese life—fundamental social doctrine, systems of belief, political institutions, and every sphere of culture, including architecture, sculpture, and painting” (Somers, p. x).
Buddhism first originated in India and later spread to China. Its exact date of introduction into China is an issue of dispute. It has been variously identified as around the first half of the first century CE (Fung, 1948), or the second half of the first century CE (Wright, 1990), or the second century CE (Xia et al., 1979), with some claims as specific as 67 CE (Pachow, 1980) and others as vague as the period from the first to the third centuries CE (Ebrey, 1993). Buddhism was commonly believed to have been founded by Shakyamuni Buddha (ca. 563–483 BCE). “As a set of ideas, it built on the Indian conviction that sentient beings transmigrate through endless series of lives as people, animals, gods, hungry ghosts, hell dwellers, or titans, moving up or down according to the karma, or good and bad deeds, that they accumulated,” Ebrey (1993) explains. “The major insight of the Buddha was that life is inevitably unsatisfactory because beings become enmeshed in the web of their attachments. Yet he offered hope, teaching that it was possible to escape the cycle of rebirth by moral conduct, meditative discipline, and the development of wisdom” (p. 97).
After its introduction into China, Buddhism branched off into many different schools. In spite of their differences, they generally agree on the theory of Karma, translated as Ye in Chinese and deed and action in English. Such a translation, however, does it much injustice, as its actual meaning extends far beyond simple deed or action to cover one’s speech and thoughts as well. Whatever one does, says, or thinks causes some effect, whether in the present or in the future, and “the being of an individual is made up of a chain of causes and effects” (Fung, 1948, p. 243). This chain of causes and effects spans a long cycle. “The present life of a sentient being is only one aspect in this whole process. Death is not the end of his being, but is only another aspect of the process. What an individual is in this life comes as a result of what he did in the past, and what he does in the present will determine what he will be in the future. Hence, what he does now will bear its fruits in a future life, and what he will do then will again bear its fruits in yet another future life, and so on ad infinitum. This chain of causation is what is called Samsara, the Wheel of Birth and Death. It is the main source from which come the sufferings of individual sentient beings” (Fung, 1948, p. 243–44). Only in the course of many rebirths can man accumulate Karma and attain an emancipation of the self, the Nirvana.
According to Buddhism, the transcendence of the cycle of life and death ( i.e., becoming a Buddha) is considered one’s highest, ultimate attainment. The path to this apex is one’s cultivation of the mind, which depends on endless good deeds and five prohibitions: no killing, no robbery, no adultery, no lie, and no alcohol, the meanings of which are compared by Wei Shou, a Chinese historian of the sixth century, to the five Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness (Ebrey, 1993). Such a comparison, which seems to put Buddhism and Confucianism on the same philosophical plane, is certainly open to debate as many scholars in Chinese philosophy will attest to the obvious differences and contentions between Buddhism and Confucianism (see, for example, Ch’en, 1973; Chan, 1985). Nevertheless, it points to the fact that Buddhism, one of the most dominant religions and prevailing philosophies in the history of China, has had its fair share of ideological influences in various spheres of Chinese life.
While the real meanings of Buddhist principles, in spite of my obviously simplistic attempt to summarize them, are far from being transparent, its impact on China is undeniably huge. Its impact is such that, as Arthur Wright (1990) has claimed, “an understanding of Buddhism in Chinese history helps to explain and clarify the whole of China’s development, that without such an understanding much remains inexplicable, [ . . . ] that the observation of Buddhism in interaction with Chinese cultural elements serves to bring into bold relief those institutions, points of view, and habits of mind which are most intractably and intransigently Chinese” (p. 32–33). Of course, as Wright has also asserted, a thorough understanding of the impact of Buddhist principles on various facets of the Chinese life requires the study of the following aspects:
the history of the relationship between Buddhism and Chinese law
the history of the state policies and institutions for the control of Buddhism
the history of the relation between Buddhism and religious Taoism
the history of Buddhism in relation to Chinese philosophy
all aspects of Buddhism in relation to the total culture of a specific period. (p. 33)
Lack of study in these areas, however, should not deter our effort directed at understanding Buddhism. As my brief summary of Buddhist principles has demonstrated, it is not impossible to catch at least some occasional glimpses, if not anything else, of some of the essences of Buddhism, which should shed much light on our discussion of the development of some of the writing technologies in China.
A discussion, however brief, of these three most dominant ideologies in the history of China begs the natural question: how do Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism coexist, and how do they fare with one another? While the coexistence of these three ideologies is a known fact, their coexistence has not exactly been one of harmony and accord. In the previous section, I discussed the differences between Confucianism and Taoism, so here I will mention some major arguments that outline the distinction and tension between Buddhism and the other two ideologies.
Since the Buddhist concept of Karma and retribution identifies the individual as the cause of all evil, Buddhism encountered strong resistance in medieval China. Buddhists then engaged themselves in strong defense. In her analysis of Xiaodao Lun (Laughing at the Tao), an anti-Taoist polemical text written by the official Zhen Luan and presented to Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty in 570 CE, Livia Kohn (1995) observes four distinct lines of reasoning in defense of Buddhism. The first was the argument for difference, which countered the notion of equality between Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism and strongly insisted that Buddhism was fundamentally different from the other two. The second was the Buddhist claim that its teaching was superior “because of its transcendent and otherworldly nature.” The third, which seems to be in direct contradiction to the first two, was its claim that Buddhist teaching was useful in the Confucian state and was more original and effective than Taoism. The fourth argument went one step further to claim that the sages of ancient China were in fact disciples of Buddha and that Buddhism was therefore the very foundation of the Chinese intellectual and social scene instead of being merely one of its additions (p. 38–39).
Buddhist arguments that were specifically directed toward Taoism, claims Kohn, were even more aggressive. One argument accused Taoists of inconsistency between their preaching and practice, claiming that Taoists preached noble philosophies while practicing dishonesty and vulgarity in their ways of dealing with the world. A second Buddhist argument dismissed Taoism as politically useless and harmful, arguing that Taoism, with its betrayal and rebellious practices, was a potential source of political instability and moral degradation of social virtues and thus formed a destructive link in the fine equilibrium of social, natural, and political forces. A third argument by Buddhism “invoked Confucian morality and common sense to move against specific Taoist ideas and practices,” charging that the Taoist practices, as in the interaction between yin and yang, the swapping of wives as part of their ritual, and the use of alcohol, all went against Confucian morality (Kohn, 1995, p. 40). A fourth argument was fired at Taoism, against its claim to universality, arguing that the concept of Tao as the source of all things and as the key to understanding the world was misleading and could endanger the wellness of the state and the empire.
Such were the representative