Buddhism and East Asian cultures
East Asia is a sub region of Asia. China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia are the countries come under East Asia. It is having various religions. Coming of Buddhism to China was an event with high results in the development of Chinese thought and culture and of Buddhism it-self. Many people are known about Buddhism, with the rise of the Tang Dynasty at the starting of seventh centaury. Buddhism has become an important part of Chinese culture and it has influence on Chinese Sculpture, Philosophy, Art, and Literature of that time. The number of Chinese translations of Buddhist texts increased tremendously. During the sixth and seventh centuries, several groups went to China to study the teachings of various Chinese schools of Buddhism.
The East Asia featured a number of reinventions with the coming of Buddhism. It underwent several evolutions and entered into many distinct schools at the time it reached Japan. Buddhism played a dramatic role in the history of Japan. Its rise in Japan did not run away the statement of a militaristic role. Buddhism combined with the native Japanese forms of religions in an almost faultless web.
Obstacles for rise of Buddhism in East Asia
According to historians Buddhism entered in China in 67 A.D along silk route. Down fall of Taoism and Confucianism helped to the rise of Buddhism. Buddhism also faced several problems in the process of spreading in the other regions like other religions. Taoist emperor acted very rudely and even faced persecution. He forced to confiscation of temples, demolition of monasteries and ordered melting of metal Buddha images. In Korea, Buddhist monks were not allowed to enter capital, monasteries closed, lands were taken away and ceremonies of Buddhists were also abolished. The Buddhism sponsorship of ascetic and meditative powers produced idealistic ethical visions often unrelated to social practices. Social involvement of Buddhist clergy largely illegal and the ethical guidelines of Buddhism were irrelevant to social issues. These two issues are the main obstacles for rise of Buddhism in East Asia.
Buddhism overcame all these obstacles by different ways depending upon the conditions in respective countries. In Korea, Buddhism was brought through many other forms by Japanese and introduced married clergy tradition which ended the celibacy tradition. New universities, monasteries and large scale translation of literature allowed reviving the Buddhism in Korea. Fall of Han dynasty allowed it to gain popularity during the period of political disunity.
For their security and solace, the people revolved at the side of Buddhism. The concepts of Buddhists which refusing of law and the mappo appeared as a reality attract the people. The militant aspect of Buddhism is also one reason to turn the other religion people into this religion. Buddhism is called as the most peaceful of the worlds religion. It obtained the fame in Japan for its militaristic role. Many Buddhists temple complexes are established with special guards to protect the holy relics. The political and territorial issues have no chance to escape of the presence of this protection activities. Through these obstacles of Buddhism, it overcomes the native cultures and religions in East Asia especially in Japan. The native cultures were assimilated into the Buddhism and other was faded away.
Social and political responsibilities of ancient historians in East Asia
Ancient historians helped the present day generation in knowing about the past. The main reason why ancient history is important and why it is written is based on fours aspects such as glory, moralizing, monumentality and truth and understanding that are interlinked among themselves. It helps us to understand ourselves and provides a channel to look at the social and political conditions of thousands of years back. East Asia is having good source of ancient literature, mainly due to the intellectual historians of those days, who has not only provided just what happened, but also improved social and political conditions of those times. The analysis of these works and careful understanding of critiques, rulers of East Asia improved the socio-political conditions of their regions. Some of the prominent ancient historians of that sort were Confucius, Sima Qian etc.
Confucius was a Chinese social philosopher, his philosophy and teachings have deeply influenced the East Asian countries. Confucius deepest teachings are superiority of personal exemplification over explicit rules of behavior. His work is generally objective and liberal. In response to lack of history of china, he wrote the records of the Grand historian up to modern times. In this he noted the key events, year of rules and human cultural achievements.
In china the dynasty of Qin is the most important because, he ruled the country first time by bring all together under a single supervision. In his period the all things like language, communication of land and water were standardized. But through his legalism his dynasty was fall down. About this down falling Jia Yi wrote an essay by the name of The Faults of Qin. He says that the emperor Qin lost his dynasty by his violent ruling. And he did not take any condemnation but the dynasty was prevented by some activities such as appointing loyal and capable officials, decreasing taxation, reducing the callous punishments. The son Qin also did nothing to correct his ways.
This work had provided an overview of a dynasty to all the next generations Historians can identify the problems in the administration and should analyze the administrative lapses and reasons for that. Through this it will through a light to the present generation about the similarities in the administration, where there is a need to improve and what happens if they were not altered showing historical evidences. They can fill the difference between the bad and good administration. While providing the historical literature they should be ready to face the risks, because they cannot satisfy all the people, as there are people who are pro and anti to the point, the historians write.
Early poetry in China and Japan
The ancient poetry of Japanese has mostly influenced by Chinese poetry. And also there is no Confucian manipulate. But to read the text of early Japan three essential problems are accrued. The first is, the texts or poetry requires vernacular speech to read. The Second problem is this speech is taken as an indicator of ethnicity. The last and third one is the ethnicity inflicts a recent logic of territoriality and it also tolerate the national community. Through these problems a question was raised which is the Japanese folk distinct from the other East Asian people in archaeology field and anthropology field also.
The poetry of Japanese is three types 1) The Choka 2) the Tanka and 3) The Sedoka. Even in the language of Japanese used the Chinese words they were omitted in Japanese poetry. Even if the Japanese poetry has a vast of metaphors of sea there is no rhythm of their poems. By borrow some words from Chinese and converting them into their language for using of poetry. In more angularly to present the foreign words they used Katakana. For their indigenous word the hiragana is used.
The Chinese poetry has an enormous preface and the poetry comes from the heart. Their poetry sustained with discussing of poetic techniques along with the expressions of thoughts, feelings, human will and a great sentiment. In Chinese poetry the classic which is used in writing Odes or Books of Songs (Shih Ching) is the best type of classic. This book written in 600 BC but some pieces are very older. It was composed through the dynasty of Zhou and contained 305 poems. There are used the three types Metaphor, Inspiration and Straight description of basic techniques in writing the poetry. The Chinese poetry runs rhythmically.
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