Year

2002

Text

Type

Publication

Mentioned People (3)

Subjects

Chronology Entries (3)

#	Year	Text	Linked Data
1	1819-1854	Arthur Schopenhauer Quellen, Bücher aus seiner Bibliothek : Morrison, Robert. A dictionary of the Chinese language [ID D1934]. Pauthier, Jean- Pierre Guillaume. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient [ID D2040]. Pauthier, Jean-Pierre Guillaume. Mémoire sur l'origine et la propogation de la doctrine de tao, fondée par Lao-tseu [ID D6264]. Schulz, Christian. Aphorismen, oder Sentenzen des Konfuz [ID D17673]. Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Le livre des récompenses et des peines [ID D1937]. Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-tseu [ID D11899]. Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Foe koue ki ou relation des royaumes bouddhiques [ID D2020]. Lao-tseu. Tao-te-king. Trad. de Stanislas Julien [ID D2060]. Tchao-chi-kou-eul, ou l'Orphelin de la Chine. Transl. de Stanislas Julien [ID D2005]. Davis, John Francis. The Chinese : a general description of the empire of China and its habitants [ID D2017]. Gützlaff, Karl. Gützlaff's Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf den Frieden von Nankin [ID D832]. Neumann, Karl Friedrich. Natur- und Religionsphilosophie der Chinesen, nach dem Werke des chinesischen Weltweisen Tschuhi [Zhu Xi] [ID D1201]. Chinese theory of the creation. In : Asiatic journal ; vol. 127 (1826). Lettres édifiantes et curieuses [ID D1793]. Staunton, George Thomas. An inquiry into the proper mode of rendering the word 'God' [ID D17674]. Chinesische Schöpfungstheorie. In : Asiatic journal ; vol. 22 (1826). Régis, Jean-Baptiste. Y-king, antiquissimus Sinarum liber quem ex latina interpretatione [ID D2012]. Julien, Stanislas. Meng tseu vel Mencium inter Sinenses philosophos, ingenio, doctrina, nominisque claritate Confucio proximum [ID D1976]. Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Dsanglun oder, Weise und der Thor [ID D8069]. Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Forschungen im Gebiete der älteren religiösen, politischen und literärischen Sidlungsgeschichte der Völker Mittel-Asiens [ID D8070]. Ssanang Ssetsen, Chungtaidschi. Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen und ihres Fürstenhauses [ID D8066]. Deshauterayes, Michel-Ange André. Recherches sur la religion de Fo, professée par les bonzes Ho-chang de la Chine. In : Journal asiatique ; t. 7 (1825). Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über einige Grundlehren des Buddhismus. In : Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St. Petersbourg ; 1 (1832). Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über die tausend Buddhas einer Weltperiode der Einwohnung oder gleichmässigen Dauer. In : Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St. Petersbourg ; 2 (1834). Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über die sogenannte dritte Welt der Buddhaisten. In : Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St. Petersbourg ; 2 (1834). Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über Lamaismus und die Bedeutungslosigkeit dieses Namens. In : Bulletin scientifique / Académie impériale des sciences de St. Petersbourg ; 1 (1837). Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über das Mahâyâna und Pradschnâ-pâramitâ der Bauddhen. In : Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St. Petersbourg ; 4 (1837). Schmidt, Isaak Jakob. Über die Verwandtschaft der gnostisch-theosophischen Lehren mit den Religionssystemen des Orients, vorzüglich dem Buddhaismus [ID D1871]. Schiefner, Franz Anton von. Über die Verschlechterungsperioden der Menschheit nach buddhistischer Anschaungsweise. In : Mélanges asiatiques tirés du Bulletin historico philologico de l’Académie de St. Pétersbourg ; t. 1 (1851). Schiefner, Franz Anton von. Das buddhistische Sutra der zwei und vierzig Sätze. Aus dem Tibetischen übers. In : Mélanges asiatiques tirés du Bulletin historico philologico de l’Académie de St. Pétersbourg ; t. 1 (1851). Turner, Samuel. Samuel Turner’s Gesandtschaftsreise an den Hof des Teshoo Lama [ID D1898]. Bochinger, Johann Jakob. La vie contemplative, ascétique et monastique chez les indous et chez les peuples bouddhistes. [ID D17696]. Burnouf, Eugène (1801-1852). Introduction à l’histoire du buddhisme indien. T. 1. (Paris : Imprimerie royale, 1844). Foucaux, Ph.Ed. (1847-1848). Rgy tch’er rol pa ; ou Développement des jeux, contenant l’histoire du Bouddha Cakya-Mouni. Trad. Sur la version tibétaine du Bkah hgyour, et revu sur l’original sanscrit (Lalitavistara). Vol. 1-2. (Paris : L’imprimerie royale, 1847-1848). Ma, Shaoyun ; Sheng, Shengzu. Wei Zang tu shi : Description du Tibet. Trad. du chinois en Russe par Bitchourin. [Übers. von Klaproth] [ID D11524]. Klaproth, Julius von. Fragmens bouddhiques [ID D7510]. Spiegel, Fr[iedrich] (1820-1905). Liber de officiis sacerdotum buddhicorum. (Bonnae ad Rhenum : Impensis H.B. Koenig, 1841). Spiegel, Fr[iedrich]. Anecdota pâlica ; nach den Handschriften der Königl. Bibliothek in Copenhagen. (Leipzig : W. Engelmann, 1845). Buchanan-Hamilton, Francis. On the religion and literature of the Burman. I : Asiatic researches ; 6 (1799). Csoma de Körös, Alexandre. Analysis of the Kanjur and an abstract of the contents of the Tanjur. In : Asiatic researches ; 20 (1836-39). Sangermano, Vicentius (1758-1819). A description of the Burmese empire. comp. chiefly from native documents by Father Sangermano and tr. from his MS. by William Tandy. (Rome : Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1833). Turnour, George (1799-1843). The first twenty chapters of the Mahawanso : and a prefatory essay on Pali buddhistical literature ; originally pub. As an introduction to the above mentioned portion of the Mahawanso and to the epitome of the history of Ceylon, and the historical inscriptions, printed in the Ceylon almanacs of 1833 and 1834. (Ceyon : Cotta Church Mission Press, 1836). Upham, Edward (1776-1834) [et al.]. The Mahávansi, the Rájá-ratnácari, and the Rájã-vali : forming the sacred and historical books of Ceylon ; also, a collection of tracts illustrative of the doctrines and literature of buddhism. (London : Parbury, Allen and Co., 1833). Upham, Edward. The history and doctrine of buddhism ; popularly illustrated. With notices of the Kappooism, or demon worship, and of the Bali, or planetary incantations, of Ceylon. With forty-three lithographic prints from original Singhalese designs. (London : R. Ackermann, 1829). Hardy, R[obert] Spence (1803-1868). Eastern monachism : an account of the origin, laws, discipline, sacred writings, mysterious rites, religious ceremonies, and present circumstances. (London : Partridge and Oakey, 1850). Hardy, R[obert] Spence. A manual of budhism [sic], in its modern development. (London : Partridge and Oakey, 1853). Koeppen, Carl Friedrich. Die Religion des Buddha und ihre Entstehung [ID D12250]. Sekundärliteratur Adrian Hsia : Schopenhauer is the first European thinker who went beyond the borders of the Holy Bible and integrated Indian culture into his philosophical system, thereby also touching cultural China. He freely professed his indebtedness to ‘divine’ Plato, 'incredible' Kant, and the 'holy' Upanishads for the formation of his own philosophy. Each one of us is the product of a certain culture, we even speak its language. However, we can expand out cultural self to include other elements. Schopenhauer did this, and this act does not make him less European or German. However, it does make him less fundamentalistic, because his Eurocentrism includes old Indian wisdom. Consequently, China is automatically placed closer to the centre, particularly because Buddhism, which originated in India, is also recognized as one of the three Chinese religions. Even without taking the books on Buddhism into consideration, Schopenhauer had read a respectable number of books on Chinese culture. In his library, he even had the first Chinese dictionary in English (Morrison, Robert. A dictionary of the Chinese language [ID D1934]). He wrote notes in it. For example, after checking the dates of Buddha and Confucius, he notes that the latter is older that the 'Fo-Lehre' (Buddhist teaching). He was also interested in Morrison’s statement that by examining the meaning of 'Motion and Rest' he came to the conclusion that the Chinese did not have the notion of ‘deity’. Schopenhauer also possessed Confucian canons in several translated languages: the four books of Confucianism (Pauthier, Jean-Pierre Guillaume. Les livres sacrés de l'Orient [ID D2040]) ; a separate collection of his sayings (Schulz, Christian. Aphorismen, oder Sentenzen des Konfuz [ID D17673]) ; a 'Chi-king' (Shi jing) and a 'Y-King' (Yi jing) in Latin, an interpretation of the same Y-King (Yi jing) and the Latin translation of Mengzi. He also read at least four books in French on and about Taoism, two translations by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Le livre des récompenses et des peines [ID D1937] and Stanislas Julien (Lao-tseu. Tao-te-king : le livre de la voie et de la vertu [ID D2060]) respectively, and two 'mémoires' on Laozi and Tao, one by Abel-Rémusat (Abel-Rémusat, Jean-Pierre. Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-tseu [ID D11899]) and the other translated by Jean-Pierre-Guillaume Pauthier (Mémoire sur l'origine et la propagation de la doctrine de tao, fondée par Lao-tseu [ID D6264]. Thus Schopenhauer was quite well equipped to speak of the principles of Confucianism and Laozis Dao de jing. He also read the two Chinese literary works in translation, namely Tchao-chi-kou-eul, ou l'Orphelin de la Chine. Transl. by Stanislas Julien [ID D2005], a French and a German translation of Hao jiu zhuan. Last, but not least, Schopenhauer also read a general description of China (Davis, John Francis. The Chinese : a general description of the empire of China and its inhabitants [ID D2017]). In addition to the above books, we must also add Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff's History of the Chinese empire in German (Gützlaff, Karl. Gützlaff's Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf den Frieden von Nankin [ID D832]), from which Schopenhauer quoted in his short essay titled 'Sinologie'. The essay is a curious piece of work. We shall analyse it under three aspects. In the same manner as Schopenhauer was critical of the vanity of the Anglican missionaries to convert the Hindus, who, in his opinion, were more knowledgeable than any other people in ontological matters, he criticised the Catholic Church, including the much praised Jesuits, of trying to converting an ancient culture to a relatively new religion. In their fervour, they only thought of finding traces of their religion in the ancient culture of China, thereby ignoring completely the difference between the Chinese and Christian civilisation. The European culture, being derived from Judaism, is theistic, while the three Chinese religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism), are neither monotheistic nor polytheistic. In this connection, we know that Schopenhauer did not think the terms ‘atheism’ and ‘pantheism’ are logical and admissible, because both terms presupposes the existence of God. We know that Schopenhauer began his reading on Indian philosophy, through the influence of Friedrich Majer, in 1813/14, and quite a respectable number of books on Brahmanism and Buddhism can be found in his personal library. Last, not least, his essay has a long footnote providing the most important publications on Buddhism of his time. However, the fact that he thought, like the earlier German philosophers such as Hegel, Herder, and Kant, that Tibet was the capital of the 'Buddhaistischen Kirche' indicates the incompleteness of the knowledge at that time. On Taoism, there was even scantier information. Even though Schopenhauer had two books on Laozi by Abel-Rémusat, it is not established when he had read them. It has been established that he had read Stanislas Julien’s superior translation immediately after its publication in 1842. He even used a sentence from the book to serve as motto to the 'Supplements to the Fourth Book' of his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. The motto, which was taken from Julien's comments, reads : "Tout les hommes désirent uniquement de se délivrer de la mort : ils ne savent pas se délivrer de la vie". Schopenhauer also possessed the book by Jean-Pierre-Guillaume Panthier, comparing Laozi's teaching with Upanishads and concluding that they are compatible. Because Schopenhauer's approach to Asia began with Hinduism and Buddhism, we can assume that he found his way to Taoism via the Indian philosophy. Nevertheless, Schopenhauer was European, it would be more natural for him to view the world from the Christian perspective. However, because of his perception of the historical world as a place of suffering of such an intense kind which made the invention of hell superfluous, he had a natural inclination towards India's philosophy of suffering. With such a non-European connection, his perspective became less Europe-centred. Already in the first part of his major work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, he mentioned the Chinese philosophy of Y-King [Yi jing] and its accompanying antipodes Yin and Yang with Pythagorian theory in one breath. It constitutes the third of the four objective systems. He also compared the same antipodes with the natural philosophy of Schelling and his school who pointed out the polarity was a fundamental law of 'fast aller Erscheinungung der Natur'. Schelling was, of course, only 13 years older than Schopenhauer, while Yi jing is ancient. The highest praise was reserved for the Vedas as the fruit of the highest wisdom which is crystalized in the maxim: 'tat twam asi'. The essence of this formula Schopenhauer equates with Immanuel Kant’s postulate of practical reason. The truth has, of course, to be disguised as myth, in this case the transmigration with the teaching of nirvana in which there are no 'Geburt, Alter, Krankheit und Tod'. This myth of nirvana came to Greece from India or Egypt and were received with great admiration by Pythagoras and Plato. This does not contradict his other conviction, that Buddhism has the highest 'Gehalt an Wahrheit' under the 'Schleier der Allegorie'. It was not without satisfaction that he concluded that his teaching coincides with that of Buddhism without being influenced by it. Because when the first volume of his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung was published in 1818, there were hardly any publication on Buddhism except a few articles in the Asiatic Researches on the Burmese branch of Buddhism. Buddhism was, according to Schopenhauer, the oldest, largest, and truest religion because it teaches that the existence of the world is a result of our sins. Schopenhauer had moved his centre to India, it could be called an Indian-centred Eurocentrism, if such a construct is possible at all. From his centre, he built bridges both to Christianity and to China. However, he was aware that the Indology was still at its beginning, and he compared the Sanscrit scholars in Europe to high school students learning Greek. The knowledge of Chinese among the scholars was ever more inadequate, and he was particularly unhappy with Abel-Rémusat's work. Using the works he considered more reliable, some of which we have seen above, he gives us a concise picture of China as he understood it. The original cult of the Chinese, according to Schopenhauer, was devoted to the blue sky in winter and the earth in summer, besides a number of possible natural phenomena of which each is controlled by a genius. However, he correctly noticed that benefactors to the Chinese people could be deified. Then there was also the private cult of one's own ancestors. There are also three public religions. The first he identified as 'Taossee', i.e. religious Taoism, founded by Laozi, which he characterized as the 'Lehre von der Vernunft', the inner world order or innate principle of all things. Schopenhauer's source was Stanilas Julien's translation of Dao de jing. With Julien, he opined that the teaching of Tao, which is given as the way to salvation, to redemption of the world and its miseries, agrees with that of Buddhism. Schopenhauer correctly notes that the priests and the religion of Taoism were not popular and respected. What he did not know was that there was a philosophical school of Taoism as well which, lacking all religious aspects, constitutes the metaphysical structure of the Chinese culture. As a matter of fact, this Chinese metaphysics can be used as a bridge to approach his own philosophy of 'Vorstellung' and 'Wille' which we shall attempt to demonstrate later on. The second Chinese teaching is, of course, Confucianism, which he characterized as a political moral philosophy without any metaphysics. He found this quite boring. Finally, there was Buddhism, Schopenhauer’s favourite. Here he became eloquent and gave all kind of information. He was full of praise and he was especially impressed by the fact that Buddhism prospered without support from the state. He also appreciated the peaceful co-existence of all three teachings, influencing and permeating each other. This characteristic is evident in the saying that the three teachings are really one. These three religions were neither monotheistic, nor polytheistic. At least, Schopenhauer opined, Buddhism was also not pantheistic. Incidentally, neither was Confucianism or Taoism. The above was all Schopenhauer said about the Chinese culture. He was apparently only interested in its religious part. His knowledge of religious Taoism was minimal, he was not interested in the teaching of the Confucian school, although unknowingly, he shared one of its principles, namely, 'zhen ming', i. e. to call a theory by nothing but its proper designation. Schopenhauer demand of 'zhen ming' was a outburst against those contemporary philosophers whom he identified as philosophical jokers who discussed atheism, pantheism, and cosmology in reference to Spinoza. The enthusiasm of Schopenhauer for 'Tchu-Fu-Tse' knew no bounds, he thought the Chinese philosopher expressed exactly the ideas which he himself presented in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. Immediately he began to profess his innocence that he did not and could not have plagiarised from 'Tchu-Fu-Tse' because the article he quoted was published eight years after his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. He used a German article on the same Chinese philosopher to check the correctness of the English one and came to the conclusion that one confirmed the accuracy of the other, even though he thought the German Sinologist did not understand the Chinese text too well. Thus his essay on Sinology ends with a dissatisfactory note and the hope that some Englishmen would publish more of the above. Even though Schopenhauer never took up the subject again, we will attempt to interpret his Welt als Wille und Vorstellung from a Chinese perspective, but not using 'Tchu-Fu-Tse', but Taoist metaphysics which was also, at least partially, the source of the former.	Document: Schopenhauer, Arthur. Ueber den Willen in der Natur : eine Erörterung der Bestätigungen welche die Philosophie des Verfassers, seit ihrem Auftreten, durch die empirischen Wissenschaften erhalten hat. (Frankfurt a.M. : Schmerber, 1836). [2. verb. und verm. Aufl. (Frankfurt a.M. : Joh. Christ. Hermann, 1854). 3., verb. und verm. Aufl. (Leipzig : F.A. Brockhaus, 1867)]. Darin enthalten ist das 7. Kapitel "Sinologie". (Schop2, Publication) Document: Lühmann, Werner. Konfuzius : aufgeklärter Philosoph oder reaktionärer Moralapostel ? : der Bruch in der Konfuzius-Rezeption der deutschen Philosophie des ausgehenden 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhunderts. (Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2003). [Confucius]. S. 140-141. (Lüh1, Publication) Document: Worldcat/OCLC (WC, Web) Document: Payer, Alois : http://www.payer.de/budlink.htm. (Pay1, Web) Person: Schopenhauer, Arthur
2	1828.2	Schlegel, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von. Philosophie der Geschichte : in achtzehn Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1828 [ID D17552]. Teil 2 Fünfte Vorlesung Vergleichende Zusammenstellung der vier Hauptnationen der ältesten Weltperiode, in der Geistesbildung der Indier und Chinesen, der Ägypter und Hebräer ; dann auch der Perser, nach dem ihnen eigentümlichen Verhältnis und besonderen Charakter. [Es wurden nur die Texte über China übernommen]. … Es gibt auch noch eine höhere, ganz spekulative Einbildungskraft, welche in einer solchen Mystik, wie die indische sich uns darstellt und hier charakterisiert wurde, wohl ihre eigentliche Sphäre findet. Und wenn eine solche Mystik wie die der indischen Philosophie zum Grunde liegende auch ganz rein wäre von aller Beimischung sinnlicher Gefühle und selbst ganz bilderlos; so würde man darum doch gewiß unrecht haben, wenn man der Einbildungskraft ihren Anteil an einer solchen besondern Geistesrichtung und an diesem ganzen Phänomen absprechen wollte. Wie nun bei den Chinesen in der ihnen eigentümlichen Geistesrichtung nicht die Fantasie, sondern weit mehr die Vernunft das vorherrschende Element war; das wird nach der oben zum Grunde gelegten, aus den besten und neuesten Quellen und Gewährsmännern geschöpften Charakteristik dieser Nation, kaum nötig sein, noch im einzelnen ausführlich nachzuweisen; so sehr geht es schon aus dem Ganzen hervor. Anfangs, da noch die alte chinesische Sitteneinrichtung in der einfachen, nicht so wie bei andern Völkern durch Dichtungen aller Art entstellten Gottesverehrung im Geiste und nach der bessern Lehre des Confucius bestand und erhalten war, ist es allerdings die gesunde, richtig und sittlich denkende und göttlich ordnende Vernunft gewesen, in welcher sie das höhere Prinzip ihres Lebens und auch des Staats fanden, wie sie denn selbst das höchste Wesen mit der Benennung der göttlichen Vernunft bezeichnet haben. Wenn indessen auch einige neuere Schriftsteller unsrer Zeit, das höchste Wesen, wie die Chinesen, mit dem Namen der göttlichen Vernunft bezeichnen; so kann ich diesen chinesischen Sprachgebrauch nicht zu dem meinigen machen, weil nach der Überzeugung, von welcher ich ausgehe und die auch hier zum Grunde liegt und vorausgesetzt wird, der lebendige Gott zwar ein Geist ist; aber daraus folgt nicht, daß Gott die Vernunft oder die Vernunft Gott sei. Es läßt sich eigentlich und genauer genommen und nach der wissenschaftlichen Strenge des Ausdrucks, Gott ebenso wenig eine Vernunft beilegen, als das Vermögen der Fantasie. Das letzte geschieht in der dichterischen Mythologie des alten Heidentums; das erste, wenn es wirklich so gemeinet und nicht bloß ein Fehler des unpassenden Ausdrucks ist, bezeichnet jederzeit den Rationalismus, oder das neue Heidentum der Vernunft, zu welchem aber auch schon in sehr frühen Zeiten und namentlich bei den Chinesen eine Anlage und Hinneigung gefunden wird. Es ist auch bei ihnen bald genug statt jener richtigen und gesunden, der göttlichen Ordnung gemäßen und folgenden Vernunft, die egoistisch klügelnde, alles verkünstelnde, und in Sekten sich teilende und streitende, endlich auch die bessere alte Grundlage und heilig geachtete Überlieferung nach ihrem neuen System revolutionär umwerfende Vernunft daraus geworden… Von dem Ursprnge des alten Heidentums konnte erst bei den Indiern, bei den Chinesen aber deswegen noch nicht die Rede sein, weil wie oben erwähnt wurde, in der ersten und ältesten Zeit eine reinere und einfach patriarchalische Gottesverehrung dort in China bestanden ist und gefunden wird; und erst nachdem durch die Vernunftsekte der Tao-sse und den allgemein herrschend gewordnen Rationalismus unter dem ersten allgemeinen, großen und mächtigen Kaiser eine Revolution herbeigeführt worden, welche auf den Umsturz der alten chinesischen Lebens-, Glaubens- und Sitteneinrichtung angelegt war, ist alsdann etwas später das eigentliche Heidentum und ein fremder Götzendienst in der indischen Religion des Buddha eingeführt worden. Jene Umwälzung des gesamten alten Staats- und zugleich auch des ganzen alten Gedanken- und selbst, was bei den Chinesen unzertrennlich damit verbunden ist, des früheren Schriftsystems, ist aber recht eigentlich eine Revolution in der öffentlichen Meinung, in den Grundsätzen und Begriffen gewesen. Nachdem die mit der allgemeinen Bücherverbrennung verbundene Verfolgung und Hinrichtung vieler Gelehrter, allein gegen die dem alten Sitten- und Staatssysteme anhängende Schule des Confu-tse gerichtet war; so ist es wohl keine ganz willkürliche und bloß aus der Luft gegriffne Vermutung, wenn wir der entgegenstehenden Partei der Vernunftsekte der Tao-sse einen großen Anteil an dieser gewaltsamen Revolution und Ideenumwälzung zuschreiben; wie denn auch der mächtige erste Kaiser Shihoangti [Shihuangdi] ganz in dem Interesse dieser Partei gewesen sein muß. Denn obwohl seine Regierung nach außen glänzend war, durch die Errichtung der großen chinesischen Mauer und die Stiftung der chinesischen Kolonie in dem japanischen Staat, so ist sie nach innen in seiner despotischen Willkür durchaus revolutionär gewesen; und so bietet jene vor zweitausend Jahren stattgehabte große Katastrophe im chinesischen Reiche, obwohl uns so fern stehend, in dem weiten Abstande von Raum und Zeit und unter ganz andern Formen und Sitten geschehen, doch noch einige Ähnlichkeit oder Analogie dar mit manchem, was wir selbst in unsrer Zeitepoche erlebt und gesehen haben. Um aber den Widerspruch zu lösen, der darin zu liegen scheint, wenn wir von der einen Seite diese reinere, einfach patriarchalische Gottesverehrung von den Chinesen mit Lob erwähnt finden, überhaupt so vieles von einem verhältnismäßig sehr zivilisierten Zustande schon in den frühesten Zeiten, daneben diese obwohl entartete und übel angewandte, doch aber sehr entwickelte und hoch gesteigerte Kunst in ihrer wissenschaftlichen Kultur; und dann von der andern Seite wieder manches angeführt wurde, was auf sehr rohe oder wenigstens geringe und beschränkte Anfänge und Armut der Begriffe in dem ursprünglichen chinesischen Ideen- oder Bilderkreis, in ihrem ältesten Schriftsystem oder in der ersten Grundlage desselben hindeutet: ist nur noch hinzuzufügen, daß auch in dem großen chinesischen Lande, wie man dieses in der Geschichte mehrerer anderer gebildeten Völker gefunden hat, wo sich im Hintergrunde des herrschenden und in der historischen Zeit hochgebildeten Volksstammes, bei genauerer Untersuchung rohe oder wenigstens rauher gesittete und in der Geistesentwicklung viel weniger vorgeschrittene Urbewohner zeigen, dieses eben so auch hier gewesen ist. Sie werden hier unter dem eignen Namen der Miao in verschiednen Provinzen historisch aufgeführt, und grade ebenso, als die früheren, weniger gebildeten Urbewohner charakterisiert, und hat sich dieser Stamm der Miao noch bis in die spätere Zeiten erhalten. Überhaupt stößt die historische Forschung in der ersten Weltperiode fast überall auf eine zwiefache Völkerschicht von älterem und jüngerem Stamm; in ähnlicher Weise, wie die geognostische Untersuchung der Erdoberfläche zweierlei Gebirgsformationen und deutlich geschiedne Bildungsepochen in dieser unterscheidet. So haben also auch in China die gebildeten Ankömmlinge und eigentlichen Stifter und ersten Begründer der nachherigen Nation und des Staats oder der ersten mehr geregelten Vereine der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, sich in manchem nach den Sitten und Gewohnheiten, der Sprache und vielleicht selbst der Bilderschrift dieser Halbwilden bequemt; so wie es auch die Europäer zum Teil ebenso gemacht haben, als sie die Mexikaner oder andre solche Völker der untersten Kulturstufe zivilisieren und durch den bessern Unterricht bilden wollten, oder in ähnlichen Fällen noch machen würden; wie es auch notwendig ist, wenn die wohlmeinende Absicht einen glücklichen Erfolg haben soll. Da wir nun mit der Herleitung der chinesischen Nation und Kultur überall immer nach Nordwesten, wo die Provinz Schensi gelegen ist, und über dieselbe hinaus hingewiesen werden; so dient dies nur der ohnehin sehr wahrscheinlichen und durch viele Zeugnisse bestätigten Idee von der allgemeinen Ableitung aller asiatischen Geisteskultur in ihren ersten Anfängen aus dem großen Mittellande in Westasien zur Bestätigung. Sekundärliteratur Adrian Hsia : In the second lecture, Schlegel tried to describe the world in the light of the stories told by Moses. Because it was God who created humans, they had not been created wild or primitive, but became so later. Humans were created free and were given two wills, the divine and the natural. He was placed in Paradise for observation, and the natural will gradually took over. The world history did not begin with Adam, but with Cain. After the fratricide, he fled to East Asia and found the oldest city there. Thus a warlike race was founded which was also knowledgeable in working metal, mining gold and silver. There was a second, god-fearing race, founded by Cain's brother Seth. Schlegel did not identify this race either. Perhaps the identity of these two races was not important, because both deteriorated to the point that God had to inundate the earth. The deluge killed all humankind except those in Noah's Arch. Then Schlegel became preoccupied with the high age of Noah who lived for 500 years, 400 more than the usual patriarch in the Bible. What happened after Noah was of no interest to the philosopher, as he explained earlier that when the humans still possessed the word of God, there was unity, including one language for the whole world. When the divine word slowly vanished from memory, diversity established itself, including a multitude of cultures and languages. Then a further mutation took place in accordance with different climates and environments. The present world had, according to Schlegel, four continents, Australia being considered as a part of Asia. He opined also that Europe and Asia must have originally been separate while Europe and Africa were linked by a isthmus. In the third lecture, Schlegel analyses China. Similar to Schelling, who knew that one usually explained the origin of the others from one's own perspective, but this knowledge also did not prevent him from perceiving the Chinese culture from a European position, Schlegel was aware that the designation East and West were really relative, because, as he pointed out himself, China was situated east of Europe, but west of Peru. However, he decided to adhere to our custom, thus placing China at the farthest end of East Asia. This was a different attitude than Herder, who called the Chinese the 'corner people' (i.e. being located in the corner of the world), and Hegel, for whom the East was simply in the East and Europe was irrevocably in the West. However, Schlegel knew no relativity as to the purpose of studying China and the other ancient pagan cultures. At the very beginning, lest his audience forgot, he re-confirmed that the analysation solely served the purpose to find the still remaining traces of the original revelation of God in order to demonstrate that there might be other ways of development, but invariably, they had the same source. It follows that China is no exception. However, before Schlegel examines what he termed the inner culture, he discusses the external matters. Schlegel was also impressed by two other items which could be considered as the emblems of China : the canals and the Great Wall. The Great or Imperial Canal was a singular achievement which no civilized country could match. And he praised the care which China took in water preservation, and whenever there was a inundation, it was invariably considered as a punishment from above. As for the Great Wall, he indicated its magnificence by the newest calculation that the cubic content was sufficient to build all the houses in England and Scotland and more. Nevertheless China was not a perfect nation. Schlegel mentioned the long, claw-like nails of mandarins and the crushed feet of women. Above all, like nearly all Europeans of his time, he was disturbed by the language. He emphasized that one sound could represent 160 different characters ; and it took the life time of a scholar to learn the ideograms. With the above features, Schlegel seems to have exhausted the negative points in the Chinese culture. However, as a non-Christian country, China must have some fundamental faults. In this connection, Schlegel comes to the point. Even though China seemed to have reached an ideal secular state without priests before the introduction of Buddhism, without a reditary nobility, where state officials were scholars, and despite the apparent unified state of China, the history of China knew no peace, but a chain of revolutions, revolts, usurpations, change of dynasties and so on. Schlegel undertakes to explain the inner intellectual development which led to this violent history. The spiritual side of a culture was linked with the language. The first written Chinese characters were pictographs, similar to those which could be found with primitive peoples such as the Amerindians, especially in Mexico. The Chinese characters were supposed to be about 4000 years old, as the learned Sinologue Abel Rémusat assumed. He also opined that the Chinese script had no character to denote a priest. This would have led to the conclusion that China did really not know any religion, and consequently could not have received any revelation. Schlegel opposed that assumption. He turned to Yi jing for help. Here Leibniz enters the picture again. After having described the combination of unbroken and broken lines to signify yin and yang, he went on to explain that Leibniz interpreted the system as similar to binary arithmetic. Schlegel himself turned to Plato to identify the yin and yang as the first theory of opposites. In addition, he also recognized the theory as representing the absolute unity as the foundation of all things. It created all things. The principle of duality is even more evident if we took the new discovery in natural sciences into account. It corresponded to the positive and negative ends of electricity, magnetism, and so on. However, the other side of the coin, the revelation, should not be neglected. The philosopher Laozi, whose teaching was identified as the philosophy of reason, ignored this with the result that his philosophy gradually degenerated to atheism, opined Schlegel. He pointed out that the parallel development of Chinese religion and scientific and practical knowledge knew three stages. The first stage was the holy revelation which resulted in the Chinese political structure as well as the idea of the Chinese empire along with the moral teachings. The second epoch which began about 600 years before the Christian era, was the age of rational philosophy. The two great representatives were Confucius and Laozi (he was then considered a rationalist!). The third stage saw the introduction of Buddhism, the most false of all pagan religions. This is a straight line of deterioration. Schlegel thought that Laozi's 'rational philosophy' prepared the way for the reception and expansion of Buddhism in China. As far as Schlegel was concerned, he had proven that China did receive divine revelation. He then asserted that the Chinese and Mosaic traditions had many common grounds. The most apparent evidence for Schlegel was the description of the fallen dragon in Yi jing which we have already seen. This reminded Schlegel of the downfall of the 'disloyal spirit'. Once fallen to earth the dragon became the holy symbol of the Chinese Empire and its ruler. Therefore, the Son of Heaven, i.e. the emperor, should really be called the Son of God, according to Schlegel, because his will was divine. He ruled over nature and spirits and was considered the master of heaven and earth. He was the only one who could make sacrifices to heaven. However, this Chinese celestial ideology was anything but heavenly. Therefore, the Chinese history could not know peace and tranquillity. The Chinese ideology borrowed the ideas and vocabulary from the Holy Book, but used it for the wrong end. For example, it insisted there was only one emperor on earth and demanded tribute from other rulers. Another example is that its political structure resembled that of the church, it was pure state idolatry, so Schlegel. Such a system could not know peace in its history and had to be visited by revolutions and conquests, such was the law of dialectics. It also followed that the Chinese moral teaching was not moral at all, because everything was upside down. Because of this, it was ripe for Buddhism. If Islam was characterised by polygamy, then the characteristic of Buddhism is polyandry. According to Schlegel, Mohammed, because he only styled himself a prophet, was less evil or false than Buddha who (and his followers) claimed incarnation in flesh. Buddhism was in Schlegel's judgement anti-Christian. Thus Schlegel concluded that the Chinese were proof that ancient cultures received divine revelation, because traces of it could still be found in their ancient history. However, the knowledge of truth took a wrong turn in a very early stage so that it could not develop properly. The Chinese language was proof of this result. From political idolatry it sank further downwards so that they accepted a foreign idolatry, i.e. Buddhism, which was a demonic aping of Christianity and its most serious competitor, because of all religions, Buddhism had the most followers. Such was the description of China by Schlegel from the Catholic perspective. Comparing it with Schelling's view, we could see how close their individual interpretations were even though they might not have agreed to it. Schelling called the Chinese religio-political ideology cosmocracy, quoting the same passage as Schlegel in Yi jing. Only the latter did not interpret it as cosmocracy, but the evidence of corrupted revelation. It is also interesting to see that when both philosophers described the Chinese culture as such, their attitudes were normal, i.e. they had both positive and negative things to say. As a matter of fact, positive judgements seemed to outweigh negative ones. However, once they had introduced the biblical element, identifying the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden with the Chinese dragon, a sinister tone became evident. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that none went as far as to spell out the consequence of the identification. If the biblical serpent was the Chinese dragon, which was condemned by God to crawl on its belly and to eat dust all its life, and this dragon was the symbol of the Chinese Empire and its emperor, then China would be some kind of evil empire. But China was accused of blindness, arrogance, and perhaps also stupidity, but not of evilness. Moreover, no Christian author, Catholic or Protestant, would have words of praise for the real Satan. Schelling and Schlegel, each in his own way, merely wanted to expose the true nature of the Celestial dragon of China as really the serpent of the dust. At the beginning, it still retained shreds of memory of heaven, then it deteriorated until it embraced Buddhism. Lucie Bernier : In the third lecture, Schlegel analyses China. He was aware that the designation East and West was really relative, because, as he pointed out, China was situated east of Europe, but west of Peru. However, he decided to adhere to "our" custom, thus placing China at the farthest end of East Asia. His attitude differed from Herder's, who called the Chinese the "corner people" (that is, being located in the corner of the world), and Hegel's, for whom the East was simply in the East, and Europe was irrevocably in the West. However, Schlegel's open-mindedness vanished when he reaffirmed that the analysis served the sole purpose of finding the still-remaining traces of the original revelation of God in order to demonstrate that while there might be other ways of development, they invariably had the same source. It follows that China is no exception. However, before Schlegel examines what he termed the inner culture, he discusses external matters. Despite the apparent unified state of China, the history of China knew no peace, but consisted of a chain of revolutions, revolts, usurpations, changes of dynasty and so on. Schlegel undertakes to explain the inner intellectual development which led to this violent history. He saw the spiritual side of a culture as being linked with its language. The first written Chinese characters were pictographs, similar to those which could be found among primitive peoples such as the Amerindians, especially in Mexico. The Chinese characters were supposed to be about four thousand years old, as the learned Sinologue Abel Rémusat assumed, and he also believed that the Chinese script had no character to denote a priest. This would have led to the conclusion that China really did not know any religion, and consequently could not have received any revelation. Schlegel opposed that assumption. He pointed out that the parallel development of Chinese religion and scientific and practical knowledge had three stages. The first stage was the holy revelation which resulted in the Chinese political structure, the idea of the Chinese empire, and moral teachings. The second epoch, which began about six hundred years before the Christian era, was the age of rational philosophy. The two great representatives were Confucius and Laozi (he was then considered a rationalist!). The third stage saw the introduction of Buddhism, the most false of all pagan religions. This development shows a straight line of deterioration. Schlegel thought that Laozi's "rational philosophy" prepared the way for the reception and expansion of Buddhism in China. As far as Schlegel was concerned, he had proven that China did receive divine revelation. He then asserted that the Chinese and Mosaic traditions had much common ground. The most apparent evidence of this for Schlegel was the description of the fallen dragon in the Yijing which we have already discussed in connection with Schelling. This reminded Schlegel of the downfall of the "disloyal spirit". Once fallen to earth the dragon became the holy symbol of the Chinese Empire and its ruler. Therefore, the Son of Heaven, the emperor, should really be called the Son of God, according to Schlegel, because his will was divine. He ruled over nature and spirits and was considered the master of heaven and earth. He was the only one who could make sacrifices to heaven. However, this Chinese celestial ideology was anything but heavenly. It borrowed ideas and vocabulary from the Holy Book, but used it for the wrong end. For example, it insisted that there was only one emperor on earth and demanded tribute from other rulers. Another example is that although its political structure resembled that of the church, it was, to Schlegel, pure state idolatry. Such a system could not know peace in its history and had to be visited by revolutions and conquests, such was the law of dialectics. It also followed that Chinese moral teachings were not moral at all, because everything was upside down. Because of this, it was ripe for Buddhism. If Islam was characterized by polygamy, then the characteristic of Buddhism is polyandry. According to Schlegel, Mohammed, because he only styled himself a prophet, was less evil or false than the Buddha who (and his followers) claimed fleshly incarnation. Buddhism was, in Schlegel’s judgement, anti-Christian. Thus Schlegel concluded that the Chinese were proof that ancient cultures had received divine revelation, because traces of it could still be found in their ancient history. However, the knowledge of Truth took a wrong turn at a very early stage and it was not able to develop properly. The Chinese language was proof of this. From political idolatry it sank further downwards so that the Chinese accepted a foreign idolatry, that is, Buddhism, which was a demonic aping of Christianity and its most serious competitor, because of all religions, Buddhism had the most followers. Such was the description of China by Schlegel from the Catholic perspective. Comparing it with Schelling’s view, we can see how close their individual interpretations were. Schelling called the Chinese religio-political ideology a cosmocracy, quoting the same passage as Schlegel in the Yijing. Schlegel however did not interpret it as a cosmocracy, but as the evidence of a corrupted revelation. It is also interesting to see that when both philosophers merely described Chinese culture, their attitudes were balanced, in other words, they had both positive and negative things to say. However, once they had introduced the biblical element, identifying the biblical serpent in the Garden of Eden with the Chinese dragon, a sinister tone becomes evident. All intentions of being fair and adhering to facts had to be subject to the dictates of the one and only true religion.	Document: Schlegel, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von. Philosophie der Geschichte : in achtzehn Vorlesungen gehalten zu Wien im Jahre 1828. Bd. 1-2. (Wien : C. Schumburg, 1829). = Hrsg. und eingel. von Jean-Jacques Anstett. (München : Schöningh, 1971). (Kritische Friedrich-Schlegel-Ausgabe ; Bd. 9, Abt. 1). (Schle3, Publication) Document: Bernier, Lucie. Christianity and the other : Friedrich Schlegel's and F.W.J. Schelling's interpretation of China. In : International journal of Asian studies ; vol. 2, no 2 (2005). (Bern10, Publication) Person: Schlegel, Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von
3	1842.3	Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von. Philosophie der Mythologie [ID D11898]. 23. und 24. Vorlesung Berlin 1842 und 1845/46. Sekundärliteratur Werner Lühmann : Schelling hält 1828 das erste Kolleg über Mythologie und Offenbarung, in welchem die Behandlung Chinas noch fehlt. Erst in Berlin erscheinen zwei umfangreiche Abschnitte über China, um Hegel entgegenzutreten, von dessem negativem Denken sich Schelling mehr und mehr distanziert hat. Schelling stellt fest, dass die Chinesen infolge der 'völligen Abwesenheit des religiösen Princips', 'ein absolut unmythologisches Volk' sei, sogar 'gar kein Volk', nur eine ‚blosse Menschheit’. Er folgt dabei einer Aurgumentation Bilfingers, der aus der Abwesenheit jedweder Gottesvorstellung bei den Chinesen den Schluss gezogen hat, dass allein der Himmel der Bezugspunkt für die Grundlehre der chinesischen Moral gewesen sei. Deshalb könne man, meint Schelling, zwar in gewisser Weise von einer 'Himmel-Religion' oder von einer 'astralen Religion' der Chinesen als einem allen Völkern eigenen mythologischen Urgrund religiösen Empfindens ausgehen, doch dürfe man auf der anderen Seite nicht übersehen, dass sich jenes 'Himmelsprincip' alsbald 'verweltlicht und veräusserlicht' habe und damit zum 'allwaltenden, herrschenden Princip des ganzen Lebens und Staats' geworden sei. Er muss einräumen, dass dieses 'Princip der väterlichen Macht und Auktorität' die Jahrhunderte hindurch Bestand gehabt und trotz mehrfacher 'tartarischer' Fremdherrschaft nichts von seiner Gültigkeit eingebüsst habe. Doch sei gleichermassen wahr, 'dass das ganze chinesische Staatswesen auf einer ebenso blinden und dem Bewusstseyn unüberwindlichen Superstition' beruhe. Hinzu komme, dass eben jenes Prinzip für die ‚erdrückende Gewalt’ verantwortlich gemacht werden müsse, mit welcher der Staat in China 'alle freie Entwicklung hemme und seit Jahrtausenden niederhalte'. Für Schelling ist der Kaiser ein 'Weltherrscher, weil die Macht des Himmels in ihm ist'. Gleichwohl bereite aber der Glaube an einen 'alles durchdringenden und bewegenden Geist des Himmels', aus welchem sich die weltliche Macht herleite, dem christlich geprägten Denken insofern Schwierigkeiten, als dass eben diese Vorstellung 'noch himmelweit verschieden sei von einem freien, mit Willen und Vorsehung handelnden, nicht bloss immateriellen, sondern übermateriellen Schöpfer'. Für Schelling gilt es, was die geistig-religiöse wie auch die staatlich-politische Verfassung der Chinesen betrifft, dass alle Religion nur noch in der Ausübung gewisser moralischer Pflichten bestehe, vorzugsweise aber zur Beförderung der Zwecke des Staats wirken sollte. Im zweiten Teil der Vorlesung wiederholt Schelling noch einmal seine grundlegende Kritik an der konfuzianischen 'politischen Moral'. Ausgehend von seiner These, dass 'die chinesische Menschheit kein Volk' sei, erklärt Schelling die chinesische Sprache zu einer 'Ursprache', die 'der grammatischen Formen nicht bedürfe' und demzufolge genau genommen eigentlich 'gar keine Sprache' sei. Immerhin vermag er den inneren Zusammenhang zwischen Sprache und Schrift der Chinesen zu erkennen. Er folgt den Abhandlungen Abel-Rémusats und arbeitet sich mit sicherem Gefühl für die besonderen Eigenheiten der chinesischen Schriftsprache in die komplizierte Problematik der wechselseitigen Bedingtheit von 'Sache' und 'Begriff’' auf der einen sowie von 'Schrift' und 'Wort' bzw. Zeichen auf der anderen Seite ein. Er begreift, dass es im Chinesischen oftmals eine unmittelbare Rückverweisung der Schrift auf die gemeinte Sache gibt. Bei der gesprochenen Sprache kommt er auf '272 einsylbige' Grundwörter, die aber durch 'Verschiedenheit der Intonation durch verschiedene Charaktere' noch weiter unterschieden würden. Da er die Zahl der Schriftzeichen auf 'wenigstens 80'000' ansetzt, verwundert es nicht, wenn er der Armut des Gesprochenen ein Reichtum an Geschriebenem gegenübersteht. Schelling erkennt offenbar nicht, wie vortrefflich eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Klassifikationsprinzipien der Schriftzeichen als Einstieg in die Erforschung der Ursprünge chinesischer Schriftkultur geeignet gewesen wäre. Für Schelling steht es von vornherein fest, dass die Glaubenswelt der Chinesen aufgrund ihrer prinzipiell unvollkommenen Stellung in der 'Totalität oder Allseitigkeit der Weltentwicklung' nicht den gleichen Platz wie die übrigen Religionen des Altertums einzunehmen vermöge. Es mangele ihr eben an jeglichem 'Grund einer nothwendigen und natürlichen Fortschreitung'. Der 'Religion des Cong-fu-tsee' spricht Schelling alle Attribute einer Religion im eigentlichen Sinne dieses Begriffs ab ; auch widerspricht er dem Vergleich mit Sokrates. Es ist die Abwesenheit des 'Werdens', des andauernden Strebens nach der Idee eines Absolution, die Negation der 'explicatio Dei' in der Welt, welche Schelling in der konfuzianischen Lehre vermisst. Er verweist auf den Himmel als letzte Instanz für ein pragmatisches Denken und Handeln. Einer Welt, die sich nach Schellings Auffassung aus der souveränen Freiheit Gottes in fortwährender Entwicklung stets aufs neue erschafft, musste die scheinbar statische Vorstellung des immer Gleichen, wie sie dem Konfuzianismus innewohnt, diametral entgegenstehen. Nur wenn man dies berücksichtigt, wird aus heutiger Sicht verständlich, mit welch folgerichtiger Konsequenz die Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus den Stab über das konfuzianische China zu brechen bereit war. Somit war Konfuzius für Schelling wohl ein aufgeklärter Denker, doch entbehrte dieses Attribut für ihn fraglos jenes vorbildhaften Glanzes, wie er für die Bewertung durch die europäische Philosophie des 17. und beginnenden 18. Jahrhunderts einstmal charakteristisch gewesen war. Den beiden anderen Religionssystemen, Buddhismus und Taoismus, räumt Schelling geringen Raum ein. Er verschiebt den Buddhismus, die Behandlung der Lehre des Fo auf den Abschnitt seiner Vorlesung, der sich mit der Mythologie Indiens beschäftigt. Nach Einsicht in eine Textausgabe des Dao de jing korrigiert er Hegel, welcher 'Tao' mit Vernunft gleichgesetzt hat und erklärt, dass Tao Pforte heisse. Zum erklärten Ziel der Anhänger des Laozi gehöre es, 'diese grosse und unüberwindliche Macht des nicht Seyenden zu zeigen'. Der Gedankengang indem sich die buddhistischen und taoistischen Glaubensvorstellungen der Chinesen mit der politischen Morallehre der Konfuzianer zu einem Kaleidoskop sich ergänzender geistiger und Kultureller Daseinsmuster zusammenfügen, mündet in ein überwiedgend negatives Chinabild, das wenig oder gar nicht mehr geeignet erscheint für jenen wechselseitig einander befruchtenden Austausch der Kulturen in Ost und West, von dem die aufgeklärten Philosophen Europas zuvor geträumt haben. Fang Weigui : Schelling ist vor allem von der mythologischen Perspektive aus auf das 'chinesische Wesen' eingegangen, wodurch er sozusagen sich einen neuen Weg in der China-Rezeptiong eröffnete. Schelling, der sich in seiner Auffassung des 'chinesischen Wesens' nicht aus seinem europäischen Milieu heraushalten konnte und sich auf nicht hinreichende Quellen und bestehende Forschungsergebnisse stützen musste, hat trotzdem einige interessante Thesen aufgestellt. Am Anfang seiner Ausführungen über China stellt er fest, dass China 'in seiner Ursprünglichkeit' 'der entschiedenste Widerspruch' gegen seine 'bis jetzt behauptete Allgemeinheit des mythologischen Processes' scheine, weil die Mythologie bzw. der Verlauf der polytheistischen Entwicklung, was Schelling in seiner Einführung als 'einen nothwendigen Process' betrachte, hier nicht stattgefunden habe. Das China-Phänomen wird an seinem entscheidenden Massstab gemessen : a) Polytheismus – Völkerentstehung ; b) absolut vorgeschichtliche Zeit – relativ unmythologische Zeit. Es sei also falsch, 'von einem chinesischen Volk zu sprechen', denn 'kein Volk ohne Mythologie'. Mit dieser These will Schelling natürlich nicht die von ihm aufgeworfene Allgemeingültigkeit des mythologischen Prozesses in Frage stellen, was sonst bedeuten muss, dass dieses Prinzip nicht für die ganze Welt gültig ist. Er bleibt immer bei seiner der ganzen Auseinandersetzung vorangestellten These oder Hypothese, dass die Chinesen sich dem mythologischen Prozess entzögen. Nun stellt er die Chinesen in ein Makrogefüge und gibt das Faktenmaterial an, dass 'sie ein volles Drittheil der ganzen lebenden Menschheit ausmachen'. Für seine hypothetische Ausführung sei die Spaltung des Prinzips, das die absolut vorgeschichtliche Menschheit beherrschte, nicht von ungefähr. Da es für Schelling die 'Religion in allem' gebe und da jene Urverpflichtung zu Gott nie aufgehoben werden könne, solange menschliches Bewusstsein bestehe, müsse bei den Chinesen 'die ursprünglich religiöse Bedeutung auch in dem nun nicht mehr eigentlich religiösen noch durchschimmern', bloss mit veränderter Bedeutung, 'dass jenes Princip seine materiell-religiöse Bedeutung verliere, während es die formell-religiöse behalte'. In diesem Zusammenhang modifiziert er seine bisherige Schilderung, indem er 'das der Mythologie so wiedersprechende chinesische Wesen' als 'antimythologisch' darstellt. Er geht noch einmal zum inneren Grund über, warum China 'eine blosse Menschheit' darstelle ; aber diesmal greift er statt des Gesetzes des mythologischen Prozesses die chinesische Weltanschauung auf, die natürlich voraussetzt, dass der religiös-theogonische Prozess in China versagt hat. Schelling kommt zur Überzeugung, 'dass die ursprüngliche Religion Chinas eine reine Himmels-Religion war', d.h. jene ursprüngliche 'astrale Religion', ein gemeinsamer Ausgangspunkt der noch ungetrennten Menschheit und eine allgemeine Voraussetzung des mythologischen Prozesses, der leider in China versagt habe. Schelling hebt zwar hervor, dass das Prinzip der väterlichen Macht und Autoriät in China grosse Bedeutung und Wirkung habe, aber er meint nicht, dass die 'Unerschütterlichkeit des chinesischen Reichs und die Unveränderlichkeit seines wesentlichen Charakters seit Jahrtausenden' in der letzten Konsequenz auf die wohl überall in China als Ausgangspunkt betrachtete patriarchalische Verfassung zurückzuführen sei. Für ihn ist dieses patriarchalischen Prinzip, das Jahrtausende hindurch seinen Einfluss und seine Macht behaupten konnte, nicht durch die Macht des Prinzips selbst zu erklären. Es sei eben das Prinzip der astralen Religion. Gerade die einst ausschliessliche Macht der astralen Religion, die als Naturreligion ganz im Gegensatz zur geoffenbarten im Sinne einer 'blind entstehenden' und 'wild wachsenden' verstanden werden sollte, wurde in China in den ebenso über alles erhabenen Kaiser, da in ihm die Macht des Himmels ruht, verwandelt und in dessen Staatswesen repräsentiert, das letzten Endes 'auf einer ebenso blinden und dem chinesischen Bewusstseyn unüberwindlichen Superstition' beruhe. Für ihn ist China nicht mehr das älteste Land der Welt, denn ‚das errstarrte Älteste ist nicht mehr das wirkliche Älteste’. Er betont oftmals, dass China nur insofern am Anfang aller Geschichte liege, als es sich aller Bewegung versagt und fast aller Teilnahme an dem Prozess, der die übrige Menschheit erschütterte und bewegte, entzogen habe. Es stellt nicht anderes als eine Negation der Bewegung dar, negativ gegen jeden mythologischen Prozess. China sei ein vom Anfang der Geschichte schon von der übrigen Welt fast vollkommen abgesonderter Teil der Menschheit und bleibe immer noch eine andere und zweite Menschheit mit seiner kompakten Masse. Selbst die monosyllabische chinesische Sprache, sei 'wie eine Sprache aus einer andern Welt'. Seine Behauptung, dass die chinesische Menschheit kein Volk sei, ist die logische Konsequenz seiner Philosophie der Mythologie. Die Mythologie entsteht mit dem Volk zugleich 'als sein individuelles Volksbewusstseyn' und stellt das Schicksal eines Volkes dar, 'wie der Charakter eines Menschen sein Schicksal ist'. Alle Ausführungen und Schlussfolgerungen Schellings sind auf ein und dieselbe Voraussetzung zurückzuführen, dass China ganz ausserhalb der mythologischen Bewegung geblieben sei. Für ihn ist unter Mythologie in erster Linie die griechische Mythologie zu verstehen. Liu Weijian : Schelling schreibt darin ein Kapitel über die taoistischen Philosophie. Er bespricht Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusats Mémoire sur la vie et les opinions de Lao-tseu und widerlegt die Annahme des Autors, Laozi habe vor der Herausgabe seines Hauptwerkes eine Reise nach Westen bis Griechenland unternommen und in Palästina von Jehova Kunde erhalten. Schelling beruft sich auf die Übersetzung Lao-tseu. Tao-te-king : le livre de la voie et de la vertu von Stanislas Julien und weist darauf hin, dass die Tao-Lehre ganz im Geist des entfernten Ostens gedacht und erfunden ist, dass von westlicher Weisheit... nicht eine Spur ist. Darüber hinaus übersetzt er den Begriff Tao nicht als "Vernunft", sondern als "Pforte", was der chinesischen Wortbedeutung "Weg" nahekommt... Das Dao de jing handle davon, durch eine grosse Abwechslung der sinnreichsten Wendungen diese grosse und überwindliche Macht des nicht Seyenden zu zeigen... diese Macht suche keinen ausführlichen Aufschluss über die Entstehung der Dinge zu geben wie die christliche Lehre, darum sei sie kein geistig ausgeführtes System, sondern vielmehr Auseinandersetzung eines blossen "Prinzips". Ihre Anhänger seien vor allem Ekstatiker und Mystiker. Adrian Hsia : Schelling went on to characterise the role of the Chinese emperor as the son of heaven who considered himself the ruler of the world with China in its absolute centre. Schelling emphasized that this was not just some kind of Oriental exaggeration, but a deep-rooted conviction. In addition, the Son of Heaven is also responsible for the harmony of nature. A natural catastrophe was considered a disorder. To illustrate this point, he cites a concrete example. On May 14, 1818, the emperor ordered his subjects to report any misconducts of his or his mandarins to him. The reason for this command was that Peking was visited by a terrible hurricane from the south east which darkened the whole city for a lengthy period. A Son of Heaven had to assume responsibility and correct any misdeeds caused directly or indirectly by him so that the order of nature could be restored. Schelling also cited another example to illustrate the perceived domain of the Son of Heaven. He quoted from the letter of Viceroy Lin Zexu to Queen Victoria, dated July 13, 1839, the phrases of the traditional self-glorification of the Chinese emperor. Schelling had spotted a weakness in the theistic translation of the Chinese term 'Asheng', which is often associated with the emperor. However, this neither makes Confucius or the emperor divine in the theistic sense. Schelling himself openly professed his incomprehension how the whole power of heaven could be invested in an earthly ruler who was not only mortal, but was also subject to mistakes, errors, and other imperfections. He said that even the clever Jesuits could not clarify this dark point. Schelling continues to examine the importance of the Son of Heaven in the symbol of the dragon. The description of this mythological animal again shows unmistakeably traces of theistic interpretation. For him, a dragon was a winged serpent which represented the power of the material world, the spirit of all worldly elements. Then he quoted from a sentence in Yi jing that the dragon blinded by pride, flew to heaven and fell to the lap of earth and compared it with another passage in the Bible describing the fall of a red dragon from heaven. He thought these two images are comparable. This would change the connotation of the world Celestial Empire for China. It was not the heavenly earth or early paradise, but rather the early kingdom which fell from heaven. Thus China obtained a satanic flavour, even though Schelling did not go so far as spelling it out. He also did not invoke the archangels Michael and Gabriel as dragon-slayers. However, he did call it a dark side of the Chinese world view. Because China was an empire fallen from heaven, only the emperor maintained contact with the lord of heaven.Therefore, China was a theocracy which had turned worldly and became a cosmocracy. In Schelling's opinion, 'un univers sans Dieu' described China correctly. However, Schelling's theistic explanations confused the issue somewhat. If the Chinese cosmocracy originated from theocracy, then the lord of heaven must still be in existence somewhere. However, Schelling insisted that the Chinese emperor is a pure worldly ruler and that it was an absolute unpriestly country. In one breath, he insisted again that the Chinese cosmocracy had developed from the worship of the spirit of heaven, but this is not imbued with will and providence. In a word, this spirit is not the Creator or personal God. Then he made another leap and returned to his original topic that China was unmythological, from the very beginning it reached pure reason without the circuitous route of mythology. In this connection, Schelling warned against the new trend in Europe which regarded the purpose of all religions as merely a means to advance moral behaviour. If this was allowed to develop unchecked, the whole world would become like China, dominated by Chinese atheism. The Chinese version of atheism was not, according to Schelling, the denial of God's existence. China had turned the state into God or God into the state. He hinted that if modern Europeans wanted to acquire the same state of earthiness, a fall from heaven must be involved. He also suggested that a dragon cult would follow as well as the cult of ancestors, because these modern Europeans would be deprived of the heavenly kingdom in their after-life. After this conclusion, Schelling turns his attention to the Chinese language, both spoken and written. From the beginning, he insists that the whole power of heaven is prevalent in the Chinese language. He characterized it as monosyllabic, each word began with a simple or double consonant and ended with a vowel or a nasal. It had about 272 basic words, he meant probably sounds, with different modulations, it would bring the sounds up to 1800. However, there were more than 80 000 written characters. In addition, the language had no grammar. It also did not have the R-sound, so that Jesus Christ had to be transliterated as Ye-sou-ki-li-sse-tou. All these characteristics reflect the similar power of heaven present in the socio-political structure of China, because the degree of centralization did not allow any part, (in the case of the language, words) to develop freely. Therefore, the Chinese language was closest to the Primitive Language before the language confusion. Schelling also mentioned two additional proofs of his theory. A polysyllabic language was a later phenomenon and appeared at the same time as polytheism. The language confusion began when the parts rebelled against the centralized power of the whole and fought for independence. The other proof was that in lieu of grammar, Chinese was governed by music which was understood by all peoples and dissolved any discordance and difference. Everything was in harmony. In his eloquence, Schelling even argued against the most famous sinologue of his time, Jean-Pierre Abel Rémusat, whose works were the source of Schelling's knowledge on China. He accused the former of trying to prove that the monosyllabic words was an abbreviation of polysyllabic words by citing hieroglyphs as evidence. Schelling argued that Chinese was not developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs. He opined that the Chinese written character was a logical development because of the nature of spoken Chinese. Here he is also against the theory of Rémusat that the written characters prescribed the monosyllabic nature of spoken Chinese. He pointed out that the written language could not have been invented before the advance of culture so that the opposite of Rémusat's conjecture was true. Here we pause to pose the unavoidable question why Schelling was interested in the Chinese language. A close reading of his arguments reveal that he was using the language question as a further proof of the heavenly nature of China. We have already seen that because of the heavenly nature, China did not have a mythology and the Chinese could not be regarded as a people. In the same vein, Schelling wrote that the Chinese language was not a language. Because he did not spell out what it could be if it were a language, we assume that he meant that it was different than the other languages. These are polysyllabic and are written in some kind of alphabet. For Schelling the superiority of the alphabet is irrefutable. It lent wings to a language. In contrast, a monosyllabic language was nature-like, concrete, and introspective. In a word, both the Chinese culture and the language were immutable. Nothing important had changed since the dawn of Chinese civilization. The last third of the chapters deals with the position of China within the world community. Schlegel knew only that we explain the origin of other peoples from our own perspective, he was not aware that we marginalise the others because they are different. He posed the rhetorical question that why the European culture did not develop from the Chinese, since any philosophy of history always began with China. He supplied the answer himself. Because history meant development, and China meant the negation of it. Because it had never developed, its present stage could not be the original one, it was only its fossilized form. Here, like Herder before him, he compared China with a mummy. The mummified China stood in contrast with the energetic Babylonian culture from which the European culture ultimately developed. We know that Schelling did not regard the Chinese as a people, but as humanity. He also called them the 'second humanity'. Today, we would say the other humanity, a humanity of mummies. The epithet heavenly or celestial may modify the quantitative, but not the qualitative nature of the mummies. Schelling discussed shortly the three religious systems of this 'Mummyland'. Regarding Confucius, he wrote straightforwardly that it was a mistake to view him as a founder of a religion, because his writings constitute the ideological foundation of the Chinese Empire. He also objected to calling Confucius the Chinese Socrates, because the Greek philosopher was a reformer while the former was exactly the opposite. Schelling was particularly displeased that Confucius did not transmit anything about the 'true God' at all, and he is disturbed that 'the most modern philosopher and the rationalists', like Confucius, followed reason and ignored God. In this connection, Schelling is merely repeating what he said in the first part of the chapter. He also did not have much to say about Lao Zi (he spells the name as Lao Tsee). However, he compared the works of two French Sinologues on Lao Zi. He criticised Abel Rémusat again for falsifying history by letting the Chinese philosopher travel to Jerusalem, by pretending to have discovered the name Jehovah in Dao de jing. He thought Rémusat said this in order to please the powerful Jesuits in Paris. In this connection, he praised the rendition of Stanislas Julien who translated Tao as 'gate'. Schelling found Tao very promising, probably because he suspected to be able to find God through this gate. However, he did not go on with the speculation because it would be out of place in a work on mythology. Schelling regarded Buddhism as the main hindrance of proselytizing Christianity in Asia. He thought the teaching of Tao is preoccupied with the beginning of being, while Buddhism with the end. He opined that the latter reached the pinnacle of atheism only in China. Then he switched from Buddhism to Lamaism, pointing out this is sometimes called a degenerated Christianity. Like many Europeans during this time, there was still confusion between Lama and Buddha, as Dalai Lama was described as an incarnation of Buddha. Schelling had both positive and negative things to say about Buddhism. He found it positive that Buddhism had civilized the Mongolian races and made them peaceful peoples so that they did not threaten Asia and Europe any more. On the other hand, he disliked the other results of Buddhism that it made people meditative, unspeculative, and inactive. Schelling discussed Confucianism, Taoismus, and Buddhism very briefly, his major concern being the mythology or rather the lack of it and the importance of heaven in China. China was, for Schelling, a world of its own. It did have some attractive characteristics, but ultimately it is without development and fossilized. It may attract some modern rationalists who wanted morality without God. However, the Chinese reality should served as a warning to them lest they also became mummies like the Chinese.	Document: Liu, Weijian. Die daoistische Philosophie im Werk von Hesse, Döblin und Brecht. (Bochum : Brockmeyer, 1991). (Chinathemen ; Bd. 59). Diss. Freie Univ. Berlin, 1990. [Hermann Hesse, Alfred Döblin, Bertolt Brecht]. S. 28. (LiuW1, Publication) Document: Fang, Weigui. Das Chinabild in der deutschen Literatur, 1871-1933 : ein Beitrag zur komparatistischen Imagologie. (Frankfurt a.M. : P. Lang, 1992). (Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe 1. Deutsche Sprache und Literatur ; Bd. 1356). Diss. Technische Hochschule Aachen, 1992. S. 131-137. (FanW1, Publication) Document: Lühmann, Werner. Konfuzius : aufgeklärter Philosoph oder reaktionärer Moralapostel ? : der Bruch in der Konfuzius-Rezeption der deutschen Philosophie des ausgehenden 18. und beginnenden 19. Jahrhunderts. (Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2003). [Confucius]. S. 130-138. (Lüh1, Publication) Person: Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von

Cited by (1)

#	Year	Bibliographical Data	Type / Abbreviation	Linked Data
1	2000-	Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich	Organisation / AOI	Cited by: Huppertz, Josefine ; Köster, Hermann. Kleine China-Beiträge. (St. Augustin : Selbstverlag, 1979). [Hermann Köster zum 75. Geburtstag]. [Enthält : Ostasieneise von Wilhelm Schmidt 1935 von Josefine Huppertz ; Konfuzianismus von Xunzi von Hermann Köster]. (Huppe1, Published)