The previous posting to this blog concerned the significant differences between the Indo-Vedic civilization on the one hand – which is to say the greater Indian sub-continent and thereabouts - and the Sino-Asiatic on the other – which is to say Southern and North-Eastern Asia. Various points of contrasts were noted – such as the Hindoo world giving way to the Boodhist – with a different relation to salt in the cuisine, and a different salt regime in general, being given as a crucial one. Readers can see the post, Salt and Civilisation, here.
The specific reason for noting the contrasts is that the present author has, in the past few weeks, traversed from one civilization to the other, crossing the invisible line that divides the two. After six months travelling around the sub-continent, most recently along the Malabar coast, he has now made it as far east as the Prince of Wales Island (or what the Malays call ‘Pe Nang’, the so-called ‘Pearl of the Orient’) to take up temporary residence in the elegant historic city of George Town. The contrasts between India and South-East Asia are marked, obvious and everywhere. As he adjusts to the relocation, more and more contrasts present themselves. There are still swastikas on the temples and the Musselmens still give the call to prayer five times a day, along with many other points of continuity with Hindoostan – indeed, there are plenty of Dravidians about and George Town includes an entire area popularly called Little India – so there is a definite sense of being in the same Asia as before, generally speaking. But the distinctions are more profound than the continuities. It is a different spiritual atmosphere, a different construction of traditions, a different culture. What exactly defines these differences? What factors are the most decisive?
One psycho-spiritual difference is immediately apparent: when one enters the Chinese or Chinese-influenced world one enters a new encounter with “luck”. The Hindoo, and even more the Mahometan, can be perfectly fatalistic and will indulge in prayers and amulets to confer good fortune and to attract blessings, but this is quite different to the Chinese preoccupation with “luck”. The Chinaman lives in a web of “luck”, which often manifests as a proclivity to gambling. The present writer saw no instances of gambling anywhere in India. No doubt it exists, but it is not a feature of Indian culture. It is, however, of the Chinese. And, as anywhere, it is unhealthy. “Luck” is surely a trivialization, a degeneration, of the ancient Chinese spirit, a symptom of metaphysical decline. In many respects the Chinese are not nearly as ‘religious’ as the Indians – depending, of course, on what we mean by ‘religious’ – but they are more directly ‘superstitious’ in a profane sense. It is the difference between being “blessed” and being “lucky”. The religious man still seeks blessedness (and whatever than entails) whereas “luck” is a desacralized and profane version of blessedness and is focused upon worldly things. In George Town one can see Chinese lighting incense sticks in temples to assist the outcome of a horse race. Indian superstition is rarely so crude.
There are, all the same, ways in which the Sino-Asiatic culture is more refined and developed than the Indian. The present writer must relate that, to a great degree, it comes as a relief to be out of an Indian milieu and to be settled in the far more orderly – and clean – realm of the Chinese. A different social order prevails, a different sense of the civic. This is not merely sociological. It goes much deeper.
A friend of the writer, who was himself widely travelled and well acquainted with these distinct worlds, long ago made the remark that, in his opinion, the most fundamental difference between the Indians and the Asians – the Hindoostanis and the Sino-Asiatics – can be put down to one word, one name: Confucius. “Asia has Confucius,” he said, “Whereas India does not.” The two worlds have, as already noted, the Boodha in common, although the Asians embraced him and his fellow Indians did not (or not finally). And Taoism, indigenous to China, is pervasive in its influence in the Chinese world but has never made a mark in the Indian. But, more to the point, - more important even than Lao Tse - China had a Confucius and India had no equivalent.
Chinese culture and religious tradition is often stylized as an amalgam of three main streams: Boodhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Of these three, the latter is the one most often neglected by outsiders and especially by Western observers because it hardly seems like a “religion” at all, and yet it is the tradition that has made the deepest impression upon the Chinese and upon their wider world. Every aspect of Chinese life – the whole of Chinese civilization - is coloured by Confucius and the greater Confucian tradition, and this influence extends on every level throughout the entire sphere of historical and cultural Chinese influence, throughout the whole of South-east Asia as well as Korea and Japan in the north. Confucius and Confusianism, more than any other single factor, has created the very fabric of Sino-Asiatic life.
This is evident in many ways, but primarily in what we might term an elevated notion of ‘civic virtue’. These pages are not the place to explain the manner in which Confucianism operates as a religion and not merely as a philosophy in the lesser sense - it is certainly much more than merely a code of social behaviour. It has much deeper roots in the Asiatic soul. But in practical terms, and for our present purposes, its effect is to inculcate civic virtues. This is conspicuously lacking in the Indian. The Indian order promotes many profound virtues, of course, especially those pertaining to family and to caste, and yet there is a remarkable lack of civic virtues. This becomes all too evident once one has a different social order, such as the Chinese, with which to compare. One wonders why the Indian does not seem to have the slightest degree of civic pride? His virtues are private, and based in family and caste affinities, yet are conspicuously lacking at the civic level. It is a problem with which governments in India must contend all the time – to no great effect. The modern Indian has a newly concocted sense of nationalism, certainly, but that is a different thing again. There is, aside from that, a very definite lack of civic consciousness and civic obligation, virtues which are deeply ingrained in Chinese culture by contrast.
This aspect of Indo-Vedic civilization is on display at every point in the civic environment in every part of the sub-continent. As any traveler can relate, the dirtiness of the Indian civic environment is truly something to behold. The Indian, as many travelers have long remarked, is very clean in his personal habits, and also in his home, but that is where it ends. He feels no obligation to keep the streets clean. Nor does he feel any obligation to respect the beauty of Mother India more generally. This writer heard a story related of a traveler on an Indian train who was chided for putting a plastic wrapper in a rubbish bin. “No, no,” he was told, “you throw it out the window.” He resisted this, but after a while a bin attendant arrived and duly emptied the entire rubbish bin out the door of the moving train. It was suddenly apparent that the traveler had been chided for making the bin attendant’s job more difficult.
It is such things that make India so incomprehensible to outsiders. Indians are punctilious about purity but think nothing about spitting in public places. This is to say nothing about defecating! Poor Mother India, in truth, is the biggest urinal in the world. The present writer was shocked and horrified to arrive in Cochin – assuredly a beautiful location – only to find the entire foreshore literally ankle deep in rubbish. Most remarkable is the fact that no one seems to notice. Indian families sit on the sandy beaches conducting picnics in amongst the junk and years of accumulated plastic bags. No one makes the slightest effort to clean up the mess. Without doubt the most appalling abuse to be seen is in Boodha Gaya where Indians have been throwing empty drink bottles into the compound housing the Bodhi tree and the Diamond Throne of the Boodha. India is very raw.
Once one enters a world under Chinese influence, however, there is a marked difference. A sense of civic virtue prevails. George Town is spotless. The streets are pristine. The same sense continues throughout all those parts under Chinese influence, the entire Sino-Asiatic realm. Once, in Japan, this writer and his fellow travelers noted an item of rubbish screwed up and shoved into a hedge. It was the only item of rubbish to be seen in the entire city. Someone quipped, though, that the miscreant responsible would probably spend sleepless nights about it and would eventually go back, throw the rubbish in the bin, and might possibly turn himself into the police in shame. This is the mark of Confucius. Such is the hold that Confucius has upon the Asiatic soul.
Once one enters a world under Chinese influence, however, there is a marked difference. A sense of civic virtue prevails. George Town is spotless. The streets are pristine. The same sense continues throughout all those parts under Chinese influence, the entire Sino-Asiatic realm. Once, in Japan, this writer and his fellow travelers noted an item of rubbish screwed up and shoved into a hedge. It was the only item of rubbish to be seen in the entire city. Someone quipped, though, that the miscreant responsible would probably spend sleepless nights about it and would eventually go back, throw the rubbish in the bin, and might possibly turn himself into the police in shame. This is the mark of Confucius. Such is the hold that Confucius has upon the Asiatic soul.
It is very noticeable. Why is India the way she is? Why are the profound spiritual traditions of India accompanied by civic chaos? The answer is that India never had a Confucius. In many respects Sino-Asiatic spirituality is not as lofty, not as transcendent, as the Indo-Vedic, but it is consequently more grounded, more concerned with civic realities. This is exactly the nature of Confucianism. We may have difficulty appreciating the ways in which it constitutes a ‘religion’, but such is the very nature of Asian religiosity, certainly as it was shaped by Confucianism. This holds in check the otherworldliness of Boodhism and the emphasis upon nature that characterizes Taoism. India never had such a moderating influence to bridge heaven and earth.
Confucianism, of course, is far more than merely a deeply rooted civic code. It was among the so-called Neo-Confucian sages such as Zhu Xi and his followers that China found a parallel to the metaphysics of Plato. Westerners are often drawn to Taoism, but it is actually certain schools of Confucianism that are nearest to the occidental temperament. This might be the subject of a later post.
Yours
Harper McAlpine Black
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