Page 89 - A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols BIG Book

A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols 82
century the Analects were canonised as one of the classical ‘Four Books’. Till the
revolution of 1911, when the Chinese Empire was replaced by Sun Yat-sen’s republic,
Confucianism retained its hegemony.
Confucius himself produced nothing that could be called a systematic philosophy (as
the Neo-Confucians were to attempt in the 11th and 12th centuries AD). The ontological
and epistemological problems which were even then being discussed by the Pre-
Socratics, were of little interest to him. What concerned him was man’s life in society –
life before death. His ideas on morality are summed up in the doctrine of the five
virtues, or the four ‘bonds’ (si wei). Confucius was an agnostic, but he did not deny
the existence of supernatural beings. The state ceremonies involving the worship of
heaven and earth, which play a key role in his precepts, scarcely come under
the heading of ‘religion’. It is significant that his tombstone in Qu-fu bears no more than
the posthumously conferred honorary title ‘King of Literature’.
Confucius died at the age of 72, without having had a chance to apply in practice
the philosophy of life he had elaborated in theory. ‘Certainly he died in the belief that he
had failed; and yet no other man has ever had such a profound effect on the culture, the
life and the manners of a people: an effect, moreover, which has endured for two
thousand years’ (Erwin Wickert). If any one thing goes to making the Chinese ‘Chinese’
it is the Confucian moral code ( xiao). Confucian attitudes have ‘penetrated their very
being so completely that people are surprised if you remind them that they have just
repeated an aphorism of Master Kung’s. The fact is that middle-aged Chinese and those
of the younger generation know nothing about him; only now are people beginning to
read him again.’
Symbolic representations of scenes from his life used to be very common.
These began with his birth, when two dragons appeared over his parents’ house
and five spirits gave their blessing, and ended up with the 72 disciples he is
supposed to have taught.
Taoists and Buddhists have tried to show that their own teachings do not conflict
with the Confucian state religion, and have coined the phrase ‘The three teachings
are one.’

Constellations

xing

The Chinese see seven stars in the constellation of the Great Bear. These seven stars
are very frequently represented in art, and play a very important part in Taoist ritual.
One very attractive legend tells how the astral gods were once overcome with longing for
life on earth and the pleasures of wine. So down they came to the house of a man who
had been unjustly condemned to death, and began to drink. Whereupon the Astronomer
Royal informed the Emperor that the Seven Stars had vanished from the heavens and that
a major catastrophe was imminent. He recommended an immediate general amnesty.