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lations of the T do -t eh- Ki n g that now one, now the other, seems to fit best into the context of words and the context of thoughts with which the author is dealing. Translators, however, seem to forget that mere words, such as Nature, God, Reason, Logos, and all the rest, require themselves a definition before they can be declared adequate for the purpose of translation. One thing seems quite clear — that in the philosophical and religious development of early humanity there is nothing that had the same origin and the same development as the Chinese Tao. All agree that it meant originally the path or course, and that afterwards it came to mean something quite different, such as nature, God, or reason, though they do not explain by what stages this transition took place.
But though there is no word and no concept in any other language, the historical development of which runs parallel with that of Tao, I venture to point out one occurring in Vedic, though almost forgotten in classical Sanskrit, which seems to me to fulfil those conditions better than any other word. I mentioned it years ago to Professor Legge, but, as he was un- acquainted with the language and the growth of philosophy of the Veda and the Upanishads, he was afraid that my explanation would only be explaining the ignotum per ignotius — a mere addition of a new translation— without any addition of new light on the hidden origin of the Tao. I see that I even mentioned my idea in a note to my Lectures on the Origin of Religion, that is to say, in 1878, p. 251. My con- viction has, however, become stronger and strongei the more I studied Lao-tz
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more I watched the application of Tao to natural, psychological, moral, and political developments, sup- posed to have originated in and to be ruled by the Tao. For it must not be forgotten that Tao rules, or is meant to rule, not only in nature, but in the government of States also, and in the actions of each individual. One thing only I must guard against at once — namety, the idea that I look upon Tao as a Vedic idea, transferred in ancient times, like many other things, from India to China. Not even among the Buddhists of India does such an idea occur, though there may possibly have been earlier communications between India and China than we are aware of. The parallelism between the Vedic and the Chinese courses of thought need, therefore, prove no more than a natural coincidence, showing, it may be, that the con- ception of the Tao was by no means so peculiar to the Chinese as it seemed to Chinese scholars h
Rita,, from ri, to go, would mean originally the going, the moving forward, the path, particularly the straight or direct path. Thus we read in the Rig- veda, i. 105, 12, ‘The rivers go the .Rita’ — i. e. the right way ; or, RV. ii. 28, 4, ‘ The rivers go the right way of Varum.’ Here ‘.Rita’ may mean no more than the right or proper way, and the same meaning would apply when Varum and other gods are called the guardians of Rita — that is, of the right way, or of the right. But when Varum and Mitra and other gods are said to be born of .Rita, to know the .Rita, or to increase the .Rita, .Rita has evidently the meaning of something prior to the gods, a something from
1 See what Le Page Renouf says about the Egyptian Ma&t (. Hilbert Lectures, p. 169 et seq.).
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which even the gods may he said to proceed. The Way is used in the sense of that which caused the movement or gave the first impulse, and likewise the first direction to all movement— the m vovv aKivrjTov, or privium mobile — in fact, the very fao, as we shall see. Rita, may first have been suggested by the visible path of the sun and other heavenly luminaries, but it soon left that special meaning behind, and came then to signify movement and course in general — that is to say, in a larger sense — including the movements of sun and moon and stars, of day and night, of the seasons and of the year. On the other hand Rita came to mean the point from which a movement pro- ceeded, the starting-point, or the cause of any move- ment, more particularly of the great cosmic movement. When the sun rises the path of Rita, is said to be surrounded by rays, and it was used tor the place from whence the movement originated, and sometimes also of the originator of such movement. The sun is actually called the bright face of .Rita. The dawn is said to dwell in the abyss of Rita. The god Varuna (Uranus) is introduced as saying, ‘ I supported the sky in the seat of Rita,’ and later on Rita is conceived as the eternal foundation of all that exists.
When Rita, or the path of Rita, had once been conceived as the path on which the gods overpowered the darkness of the night, it was but a small step foi their worshippers to pray that they also might be allowed to follow that right path. In this connexion it is often doubtful whether we should translate the path of Rita or the right path. And we can from this point of view better understand how Rita, alter meaning what was straight, right, and good, came to
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mean law. ‘ 0 Inclra,’ the god exclaims, RV. x. 133, 6, ‘ lead us on the path of i?ita, or on the right path, over all evils.’
At all events, we can see now how many ideas may and do cluster round this one word Rita,, with its original concept of path changed into movement, impulse, origin, disposition, tendency, bent, law, &c. Divergent as these concepts are, they can all be shown to converge towards one primitive concept, of some- thing first perceived in the movements of the heavenly bodies, day and night, summer and winter, and in the end experience of the law and even the lawgiver that rules the world and rules ourselves. When there are no mythological gods, such as Agni or Indra, the God, whether Tien or Varuna, became naturally the law or the lawgiver. The mental process is the same, however much the words may differ.
Anyhow we can clearly see from the Vedic word Rita, that the ancestors of our race in India did not only believe in divine powers, manifested in nature, but that their senses likewise suggested to them the concept of order and law as revealed in the daily path of the sun, and of other heavenly bodies, in the succession of day and night and of the seasons.
Let us now see whether the Chinese Tdo, the origin of which, as a concept, has puzzled so many Chinese scholars, may not be rendered intelligible by being compared with the Vedic Rita,. Each by itself is obscure, Rita, as well as Tao, but for all that they may throw light on each other ; only we must re- member that the one has grown up on the mental soil of India, the other on that of China.
That Tao is not meant for a personal being, though
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it sometimes comes very near to it, may be gathered from such passages as ‘ the Tao is devoid of action, of thought, of judgement, of intelligence.’ When Lao-tze speaks of the Tao in nature, it means nothing but the order of nature. The Tao of nature is no doubt the spontaneous life and action of nature ; it is that which changes the chaos into a kosmos, and represents the law and order visible in nature, in the growth of animals and plants, in the course of the seasons, the movements of the stars, in the birth and death of all animals. In all of these there is Tao, an innate force, sometimes also something very like Providence, only not like a personal God. If water by itself finds its level, runs lower by its own gravity as long as it can, and then remains stagnant, that again is due to its Tao, its inherent qualities, we should say, or its character, its very being (svabhava), as Hindu philo- sophers would call it.
So much for Tao in nature. As to the Tao in the individual, who is considered a part of nature, it becomes manifest in all actions which are spontaneous, and, as Lao-tz^ requires, show no cause and no purpose. If the individual acts as he acts because he cannot help it, he acts in conformity with his Tao. He lets himself go and act as his nature moves him. If the heart is empty of all design and of all motives, then the Tao has its free course. This leads to the glorifi- cation of perfect quietude, and of allowing perfect freedom to the Tao. Lao-tze actually maintains ‘ that by laziness and doing nothing there is nothing that is not done.’ ‘ All things,’ he adds, ‘ shoot up in spring without a word spoken, and grow without a claim to their production. They accomplish their development
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without any display of pride, and the results are reached without any assumption of ownership.’
So it is or should be with man, who, while the Tao has free play, remains perfectly humble and never strives. The water too is a pattern of humility. It abases itself as low as it can and finds its lowest level. Thus we read (p. 104) : —
‘ What makes a great State ? Its being like a low-lying, down- flowing stream ; it becomes the centre to which tend all the small States under heaven. To illustrate from the case of all females : the female always overcomes the male by her stillness, and the process may be considered a sort of abasement
On p. 52 Lao-tze says : —
‘The highest excellence is that of water. That excellence appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving to the contrary, the low place which all men dislike. Hence its way is near to that of Tao.’
‘There are three precious things,’ Lao-tzd says, ‘ which I prize and hold. The first is gentle kindness, the second is economy, the third is humility, not daring to take precedence of others. With gentleness I can be brave, with economy I can be liberal, not presuming to take precedence of others. I can make myself a vessel or means of the most distinguished services.’
All this may be perfectly true ; the only question is whether it can be obtained by simply letting the Course (Tao) have free course, by being good-natured without being aware of it, aye, as he says in con- clusion, by loving even our enemies. He goes a step further, and maintains that by following this course men may acquire c mysterious power,’ may become inviolable, enjoying freedom of all danger, even the Tdo-teh-King, translated by Legge.
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risk of death. Poisonous insects will not sting him? wild beasts will not seize him, birds of prey will not strike him. This is, of course, sheer fatalism, and it might seem that Tao could in this connexion be trans- lated by fatum. And this is the point where a good deal of the superstitious practices of the Taoists comes in. They do not see the metaphorical significance of these words, but profess by a symbolism of the breath and other hypnotic practices to act as physicians and to be able to brew even the elixir of life. Death does not seem to exist for them as an extinction of life. Anyhow, dying means to them no more than the perishing of the body, while the soul is immortal. A Taoist of the eleventh century writes : ‘ The human body is like the covering of the caterpillar or the skin of the snake, as occupying it but for a passing sojourn. When the covering is dried up the caterpillar is still alive, and so is the snake when the skin has decom- posed and disappears. But he who knows the per- manence of things becomes a sharer of the Tao, and while his body may disappear his life will not be extinguished.’
In this way the exoteric and the esoteric meaning of Lao-tze’s doctrines show themselves, as professed either by the vulgus profanum or by the sage.
We can easily imagine what this doctrine of the Tao may become when applied to the government of political society, though Lao-tzd certainly went beyond our wildest imaginations. The ethics of political life are the chief interest of Confucius, and they are so, though in a different form, in the system of Lao-tze. Confucius goes back to very primitive times when he imagines that a State could be governed by Hsiao, or
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Filial Piety, but Lao-tze goes far beyond when he looks upon Tao as the true principle of all govern- ment. Confucius also speaks of the way of Heaven, which we ought to follow. Both the ruler and the ruled are to act without purpose, without striving, in fact without any activity except what is suggested by the Tao, perfect quietude and unselfishness. ‘ As soon as a sage exercises government he would seek to empty the hearts of his people from all desires, he would fill their bellies, weaken their ambition, and strengthen their hones. He would try to keep them without knowledge, oppose the advancement of all knowledge, and free them from all desires.’ One can hardly trust one’s eyes, but this is Professor Legge’s translation of the Tdo-teh-King, and I believe he may be implicitly trusted. There are covert hits at the Filial Piety preached by Confucius. It was only when the great Tao method fell into disuse, and there came in its room benevolence and righteousness, very inferior to the Tao, and afterwards shrewdness and sagacity, and at last hypocrisy, that Filial Piety was considered a panacea for all defects of government. ‘ When harmony ceased to characterize the six nearest relations of kindred there arose Filial Sons ; when States and clans became involved in disorder loyal ministers came into notice.’ Lao-tzfi’s remarks sound almost like a satire on Confucius, but he repeats his accusation, and says : ‘ When the Tao was lost goodness appeared again as inferior to Tao. When goodness was lost benevolence appeared. When benevolence was lost righteousness appeared. When righteousness was lost propriety appeared. Now, propriety is the attenuated form of leal-heartedness and sincerity, and
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the commencement of disorder. Every member of a State should act as the Tao or, it may be, his nature compels him, and this Tao is supposed to be better than goodness, benevolence, righteousness and pro- priety.’ Knowledge, too, does not fare better. Not to value men for their superior talent is the way to keep people from contentious rivalry ; not to prize articles difficult to obtain is the way to keep them from stealing ; not to show them the example of seeking after things that excite the desires is the way to keep their hearts from disorder.
Lao-tzd seems to have believed that such a pai'a- disiacal State once existed, and that there were rulers then under whom their subjects simply knew that they existed. They all said: ‘We are as we are ourselves.’ The great object of the governors was to keep people simple, and one only wonders how the ancients ever forfeited such a paradise. Knowledge seems to have been considered as the chief cause of all mischief. £ The difficulty of governing the people arises from their having too much knowledge ; and therefore he who seeks to govern a State by wisdom is a scourge to it, while he who does not seek to govern it thereby is a blessing.’ It is but natural that Lao-tzd should, on account of such sentiments, have been looked upon as an enemy to all knowledge and a believer in the blessings of ignorance. But we ought not to forget that his description of what a political system ought to be, or even had been, was a Utopia only, and we should remember that in another Paradise also the fruit of the tree of know- ledge was a forbidden fruit. I cannot bring myself to believe that a man of Lao-tze’s genius would have
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wished to revive that state of paradisiacal ignorance and innocence in modern States, though it is certainly true that superstitious ignorance flourished more among the Taoists than real knowledge. Yet he says in so many words : ‘ Though the people had boats and carriages they should have no occasion to use them. Though they had mail coats and sharp weapons they should not don them. I would make them return to the use of knotted cords (an important passage, as showing the former use of knotted cords, quippos, instead of written characters, in ancient China also). They should think their coarse food sweet, their plain clothing beautiful, their poor houses places of rest, and their common ways places of enjoyment.’
Much more is to be found in the Tao-teh-King as to the power and the workings of Tao, but what has been said may suffice for our purpose. We see in Taoism a system of philosophy and religion, sometimes the one, sometimes the other, which has sprung up on purely Chinese soil, though at a later time it was evidently far more influenced than Confucianism by the newly introduced system of Buddhism. Taoism and Confucianism both point back to an immeasurable antiquity, and they certainly made no secret of having taken anything that seemed useful from the treasures or from the rubbish of ancient folklore that had accu- mulated in times long before the days of Lao-tz^ and Confucius. Those who have known the present class of Tao priests and who have witnessed their religious services form a very low opinion of a religion which has lasted for twenty-four centuries, and, though formerly professed by much larger numbers in China,
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is even now, while the number of its adherents is considerably reduced, a powerful element for evil as well as for good, in China. As an historical pheno- menon it deserves the careful study of the historian, if only to teach us how even a religion supported by the State may do its work by the side of other religions without the constant shouts of anathema to which we are accustomed in other countries. No one seems a heretic in the eyes of the Chinese Government ex- cepting always the hated foreigner ; and while one Taoist may grovel in the meanest religious practices and another soar high into regions which even the best disciplined of Christian philosophers hesitates to venture into, the two will not curse each other as infidels, but try to carry out the highest Christian principle of loving our enemies, or at least of doing justice to them.
3. Buddhism and Christianity.
The third of the State-supported, but often State- persecuted religions of China is that of Fo, the Chinese name for Buddha. The circumstances under which the religion of Buddha was introduced from India to China are matter of history ; and unless we mean to doubt everything in Eastern history for which we have not the evidence of actual eye- witnesses, the introduction into China of Buddhist teachers by the Emperor Mingti in the year 65 a.d. has a perfect right to claim its place as an historical event. It may be quite true that the fame of Bud- dhism had reached China at a much earlier time. A Buddhist missionary is mentioned in the Chinese
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annals as early as 217 B.C., and about the year 120 B. c. a Chinese general, after defeating some barbarous tribes in the North of the Desert of Gobi, is reported to have brought back among his trophies a golden statue of Buddha. But it was not till the year 65 a.d. that the Emperor Mingti gave practical effect to his devotion to Buddha and his doctrines by recognizing his religion as one of the State religions of his large empire. It would seem most extraor- dinary that the ruler of a large empire in which there existed already two State religions should, without being dissatisfied with his own religion, have sud- denly asked the teachers of a foreign religion to settle in his country, and there, under the protection of the Government, to teach their own religion, the doctrine of Buddha. The Chinese idea of religion was evi- dently very different from our own. Religion was to them giving good advice, improving the manners of the people; and they seem to have thought that for such a purpose they could never have enough teachers and preachers. Legend may no doubt have embellished the events that actually took place. No wonder that visions seen by the Emperor in a dream were introduced ; but even such visions would not help us to explain, what certainly seems a most extra- ordinary though real event in the history of the world, the introduction of the Buddhist religion into China and the rest of Central Asia. Soon after Mingti we hear of Indian Buddhists who had gone to China and brought with them MSS. and sacred relics. But even that would be of little help ; for what could be more different than Sanskrit and Chinese, the language of the missionary and that of his Chinese pupils? The
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sacred canon of Buddhism— for at that time we know of one only, the one written in Pali and reduced to writing by Vattagamini in 8ob.c. — had not yet been translated into Chinese, and at the time of the intro- duction of Buddhism into China this canon would seem to have been the only one accessible to Chinese Buddhists ; and yet it is clear that the Chinese depended far more on the Sanskrit than on the Pali canon. The Emperor sent Tzai-in and other high officials to India, in order to study there the language, the doctrines, and the ceremonial of Buddhism. They engaged the services of two learned Indians, Buddhists of course, Matanga and Tchou-fa-lan, and some of the most important Buddhist works were translated by them into Chinese. Missions were sent from China to India to report on the political and geographical state of the country, but their chief object remained always to learn the language, to enable Buddhist missionaries to translate and generally to study the work done by Buddhism in India. On the other hand, Indian Buddhists were invited to settle in China to learn the Chinese language — no easy task for an Indian accustomed to his own language — and then to publish, with the help of Chinese assistants, their often very rough translations of the Buddhist originals. In the catalogue of these translations, those taken from Sanskrit texts preponderate evi- dently over those taken from Pali. Yet we know now, thanks chiefly to the labours of Bunyiu Nanjio, in his catalogue of the Chinese Triphaka — which was secretly removed from my library, and which, con- sidering the notes it contained from the hands of Bunyiu Nanjio and other Chinese scholars, was sim-
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ply invaluable — and from the researches of Takakusu, that both texts, the Pali and the Sanskrit, were placed under contribution by Chinese translators.
For about 300 years after the Emperor Mingti, the stream of Buddhist pilgrims seemed to flow on unin- terruptedly. The first account which we possess of these pilgrimages refers to the travels of Fa-hian, who visited India towards the end of the fourth cen- tury a.d. The best translation of these travels is by