Spirit and Self in Medieval China: The Shih-shuo hsin-yu and Its Legacy

9. An Alien Analogue: The Japanese Imitation Daitō seigo

∫ Chapter 9 An Alien Analogue: The Japanese Imitation Daitō seigo The Shih-shuo t’i inspired imitations not only in imperial China but also in Tokugawa and Meiji Japan.1 Ironically, the closest imitation of the Shihshuo hsin-yü in late imperial times can be found in Japan rather than in China. It is Hattori Nankaku’s Daito seigo, or AnAccount of the Great Eastern World, a work that presents an animated scroll of Heian (794–1185) and Kamakura (1185–1333) personalities. Written entirely in classical Chinese and furnished with its model work’s taxonomic scheme and linguistic style, the Daito seigo physically looks very much like the Shih-shuo hsin-yü.2 Moreover, it spiritually resembles the Shih-shuo hsin-yü by focusing on people’s personalities and emotions. In a sense, the Daito seigo stands out as the only imitation of the Shih-shuo hsin-yü that presents human personalities objectively, independent of moral or political judgments . Why should the Daito seigo resemble its model work so closely when other imitations did not? Hattori’s student, Tei Mo’ichi (Udono Shinei) (1710–1774), addresses this problem in his preface to the Daito seigo. He first contemplates why the Shih-shuo hsin-yü towers above all of its imitations : “From my point of view, Prince Lin-ch’uan’s (Liu I-Ch’ing) achievement is indeed unique, towering over a thousand years. . . . Is it because there was no more Prince Lin-ch’uan, or there was no more Chin period? Why is it that [the Shih-shuo hsin-yü tradition] was so difficult for later authors to follow? . . . The Chin trend upheld competitions in pure conversations .Anyone who participated in this practice would cast pearl[-like arguments] and receive jade[-like refutations]. Pearls and jades spread along the roads, shining over one another. When it came to Prince Lin- ch’uan’s time, he was able to collect them as his own treasure, whereupon he compiled the Shih-shuo hsin-yü.”3 Tei Mo’ichi goes on to argue that the Daito seigo emanated from a time similar to the Chin period and an author as talented as Prince Lin-ch’uan. Consequently, the Daito seigo outshone Chinese imitations, such as Ho’s Forest, becoming the closest analogue of the Shih-shuo hsin-yü.4 I agree with Tei Mo’ichi and intend to explain the affinity between the two works in terms of their authorship and historical background. I believe, however, that their similarity resulted not from a “coincidence,” as Tei suggests, but rather from Hattori Nankaku’s intentional compilation of the Daito episodes following the spirit of the Wei-Chin era and the model of the Shih-shuo. Hattori Nankaku’s Life and Time Hattori Nankaku was a scholar of the Chinese Classics, a writer of Chinese verse, and a literatus-painter of the middle Tokugawa or Edo period.5 Although the Chu Hsi School of Neo-Confucianism (Tao-hsüeh or Lihs üeh) was then state orthodoxy,6 Hattori Nankaku was himself affiliated with an unorthodox Confucian school known as Ancient Learning (Kogakuha ). Its major premise was that “the essence of Confucianism was to be comprehended, not by studying what later scholars such as the Sung philosophers said, but by going directly to the texts of the ancient philosophers .”7 With this basic assumption, the Ancient Learning scholars launched their broad-ranging criticism of Chu Hsi’s philosophy. Hattori Nankaku’s mentor, Ogyu Sorai (1666–1728), one of the most radical thinkers among the unorthodox Confucians, particularly opposed Chu Hsi’s position that principle, li, governs human nature. Against the Chu Hsi scholars’ insistence that one’s imperfect material endowment (kishitsu) could be fashioned into a sage’s personality that embodies li, Ogyu Sorai argued that one’s endowment could never be changed: “One receives a material endowment [disposition] from Heaven and parents. To say that one’s disposition may be changed and that human beings are responsible for changing it is the Sung Confucians’ absurd idea and is totally unrea3 2 0 Pa r t 3 sonable. One’s disposition cannot be changed in any case. Rice will always stay rice, and beans always beans.”8 Precisely because rice and beans maintain their natural status, Ogyu Sorai continues, their different functions make the world work. For Ogyu Sorai, Chu Hsi scholars strove in vain to change human beings by following...