I Felt It Was Me on Trial

Yuan-tsung reunited with two friends from her Chongqing days, Yu Dayin and her husband, Zeng Zhaolun, who took her to a meeting of the Political Consultative Conference, where she witnessed Mao’s withering attack on Liang Shumin, a Confucian scholar, who criticized Mao’s agricultural policy. This was followed by Mao’s purge of Hu Feng, a maverick literary critic, who had criticized Mao’s dictates on culture and had written a manifesto challenging them. The two incidents led Yuan-tsung to come to some painful political realizations—among them that writing under Mao’s reign was a life-and-death matter.

Rethinking Gender and Female Laity in Late Imperial Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Biographies

This paper explores how lay female believers are depicted in the Chinese monastic Pure Land Buddhist texts and how a particular late-imperial Chinese Buddhist biography collection betrayed the previously existing narrative of female laity. Moreover, I wish to show that there had existed a long-lasting and persistent non-binary narrative of lay women in Chinese Pure Land biographies admiring female agency, in which female Pure Land practitioners are depicted as equally accomplished to male ones. Such a narrative betrays the medieval monastic elitist discourse of seeing women as naturally corrupted. This narrative is best manifested in the late Ming monk master Yunqi Zhuhong’s collection, who celebrated lay female practitioners’ religious achievement as comparable to men. This tradition is discontinued in the Confucian scholar Peng Shaosheng’s collection of lay female Buddhist biographies in the Qing dynasty, however, in which Peng depicts women as submissive and inferior to males. This transition—from using the stories of eminent lay female Buddhists to challenge Confucian teachings to positioning lay females under Confucian disciplines—exhibits Peng Shaosheng’s own invention, rather than a transmission of the inherited formulaic narration of lay female believers, as he claimed.

Motoda Nagazane’s standards of Confucianism – between Confucianism and Emperor Centralism

This paper discusses the ideological significance of the activities of Motoda Nagazane who, in the latter half of his life, became an attendant of Emperor Meiji as a member of the Kumamoto school of practical science. Whilst there were trends towards modernisation and Westernisation, Motoda Nagazane led a conservative reaction attempting to restore Confucianist politics/policies. I scrutinise the theories of revolution and lineage considering the history of East Asian Confucianism and comparing Motoda’s assertions to the views expressed by Kumazawa Banzan. In doing so, I assert that Motoda’s consistent attitude shows that he does not approve of the theory of revolution and that he regards the theory of lineage as an established fact. Thus, he highlights the cultivation of virtues in rulers, adopting the stance typically taken by Confucian scholars in the history of Japanese ideology. In ‘Lessons of the Emperor’s Way’, Motoda attempts to support the meaning of ‘The Three Sacred Treasures’ through Confucian texts. My evaluation of this text results in the view that in this discourse, Motoda transcends the significance of harmonising the deep and difficult ‘Lessons of the Emperor’s Way’ with Confucianism, which is easy to impart. I deduce that Confucianism was positioned above all else as the absolute/comprehensive standard in Motoda’s thought and that his endorsement of the Emperor’s way was proscribed within the ideological boundaries of Confucianism. Through the above analysis, I conclude that Motoda was an anachronistic Confucian scholar who truly endeavored to realise the kingship politics of Yao and Shun in the early Meiji era. While it is acknowledged that he was lagging behind his contemporaries, it is shown that this seemingly backward stance emanated from his serious Confucian scholarship. Further, his assertions differ from the plain-spoken Confucianist Emperor centralism that emerged in later years.

TRỞ LẠI VẤN ĐỀ NGUỒN GỐC TRUYỆN KIỀU

In the preface of the book “Kim Van Kieu Thanh Tam Tai Tu” – a Vietnamese translation of the novel “The Tale of Jin Yun Qiao” (金雲翹傳 Kim Van Kieu truyen) – published in 1971, the translator To Nam Nguyen Dinh Diem suggested that the novel “Kim Van Kieu truyen” was not created by a Chinese writer but could have been composed by a Vietnamese Confucian scholar based on Nguyen Du’s verse story “Doan truong tan thanh” (A New Cry from a Broken Heart – the official title of “The Tale of Kieu”). This suggestion seems to have been proved incorrect by many textual studies inside and outside Vietnam. However, the topic has been revived recently. This article presents a comprehensive literature review about “The Tale of Jin Yun Qiao”, adding more documents that we have recently collected in foreign countries, to give a firm conclusion about the origin of “The Tale of Kieu”.

CẢM THỨC CỦA NGUYỄN DU VỀ TRUNG QUỐC THANH TRIỀU TRONG BẮC HÀNH TẠP LỤC

Nguyen Du (1765-1820), with courtesy name To Nhu, poetic name Thanh Hien, and other pseudonym Hong Son Liep Ho, was born into the noble Nguyen clan of Tien Dien village in central Vietnam. Many of his family members served in high positions in the imperial mandarin system of the Le-Trinh dynasty. Inheriting honors from his father, Nguyen Du was bestowed the titles: Hoang Tin Great Man, Guard Commandant of Origin, and Thu Nhac Count. Therefore, deep within his conscience, Nguyen Du always felt indebted to the Le dynasty. However, the rapid replacement of the Le-Trinh by the Tay Son and then by the Nguyen dynasty during the chaotic years of the eighteen century seriously challenged his beliefs and emotions, pushing him into a reclusive lifestyle during his reluctant service to the Nguyen dynasty. In the 12th year of Gia Long (1813), Nguyen Du was appointed the mission leader on a yearly tribute trip to China, during which he wrote a collection of poetry titled “Bac hanh tap luc” (Trivial Notes on the Northward Trip). His “trivial notes” revealed his complicated thinking and feelings about the Chinese landscape, people and culture under the rule of the Jiaqing emperor. This article analyzes Nguyen Du’s rational and emotional perceptions of China, especially Chinese culture as implied in “Bac hanh tap luc”, to better understand a case of direct interaction of a Vietnamese Confucian scholar with imperial China.

Motoda Nagazane’s standards of Confucianism – between Confucianism and Emperor Centralism –

This paper discusses the ideological significance of the activities of Motoda Nagazane who, in the latter half of his life, became an attendant of Emperor Meiji as a member of the Kumamoto school of practical science. Whilst there were trends towards modernisation and Westernisation, Motoda Nagazane led a conservative reaction attempting to restore Confucianist politics/policies. I scrutinise the theories of revolution and lineage considering the history of East Asian Confucianism and comparing Motoda’s assertions to the views expressed by Kumazawa Banzan. In doing so, I assert that Motoda’s consistent attitude shows that he does not approve of the theory of revolution and that he regards the theory of lineage as an established fact. Thus, he highlights the cultivation of virtues in rulers, adopting the stance typically taken by Confucian scholars in the history of Japanese ideology. In ‘Lessons of the Emperor’s Way’, Motoda attempts to support the meaning of ‘The Three Sacred Treasures’ through Confucian texts. My evaluation of this text results in the view that in this discourse, Motoda transcends the significance of harmonising the deep and difficult ‘Lessons of the Emperor’s Way’ with Confucianism, which is easy to impart. I deduce that Confucianism was positioned above all else as the absolute/comprehensive standard in Motoda’s thought and that his endorsement of the Emperor’s way was proscribed within the ideological boundaries of Confucianism. Through the above analysis, I conclude that Motoda was an anachronistic Confucian scholar who truly endeavored to realise the kingship politics of Yao and Shun in the early Meiji era. While it is acknowledged that he was lagging behind his contemporaries, it is shown that this seemingly backward stance emanated from his serious Confucian scholarship. Further, his assertions differ from the plain-spoken Confucianist Emperor centralism that emerged in later years.

Self-Cultivation as the Basis of Person Making: A Confucian Perspective Illustrated by a Case Study of Zeng Guofan

As a model of self-cultivation in accordance with the Confucian theory of Xinxing-Gongfu (心性-功夫论), Zeng Guofan (1811–1872), a well-renowned Confucian scholar and successful minister of the Qing Dynasty (1636–1912) in China, is a prime exemplar of ‘self-cultivation as the basis of person-making’ (修身为本). Considerable historical data proves he consciously strove to perfect himself in a systemic way. By examining his Diaries, Family Letters, and Reading Records, this study identifies that he had three interrelated practices of self-cultivation: (a) The establishment of the moral self. With the proposition that ‘if you are not a sage, you are a beast’, Zeng advocated improving one’s character through self-reflection, self-blame, self-discipline and self-encouragement. (b) Individual moral practice and the learning of moral knowledge. Zeng believed that one could strengthen one’s moral cultivation by keeping a diary, meditating, reading Confucian classics, extracting and reciting famous quotes from former sages, writing essays and practicing calligraphy. (c) The construction of family and cultural community. Zeng’s experience provides illustration that cultural communities can be constructed through the process of a father delivering life experiences to his children, friends and colleagues, and that self-criticism can be used in the service of self-enhancement in Confucian psychology.