Lao-tzu, A Study in Chinese PhilosophyWatters, Thomas
Religion
Lao-tzu, A Study in Chinese Philosophy
Watters, Thomas
Laozi; Laozi. Dao de jing; Philosophy, Chinese
[30] See the 性理縹題, ch., 17, p. 2.
[31] A quotation from the Lun-yü, B. xv, ch. 28.
[32] Legge’s Shu king, vol. ii., p. 490. See also, vol. i., p. 209.
[33] Legge’s voL i., p. 65. Reference is apparently made to the
Yi-ching where 謙 and 損 are two of the Diagrams. It is a
wonder that this escaped Dr. Legge’s notice.
[34] See Li-chi, ch. 1, p. 1, and Chu-hsi’s note.
[35] Compare on this, other topics mentioned by Lao-tzŭ, the character
of the 儒 in the Li-chi, ch. 10.
[36] Legge’s Ch. Classics, vol. i., p. 21.
[37] See Legge’s Shu, &c., vol. ii., p. 491.
[38] For the duty of self-denial at certain times see the Li-chi,
ch. 3, p. 53, and Callery’s Li-ki, p. 31.
[39] The Great Learning. See Legge’s Ch. Classics, vol. i., p. 222.
[40] In the Li-chi, Confucius says that as a parrot does not cease to
be a bird though it can speak, so though creatures have the
appearance of men, yet if they have not Li they are not men.
Ch. 1., p. 4.
[41] Li-chi, ch. 4, p. 60.
CHAPTER IX.
CONCLUSION.
It would be a very interesting study to examine the points of
similarity and difference in the writings of the early Buddhists and
the teachings of Lao-tzŭ; but this cannot be attempted here. There is
one circumstance, however, to which I shall allude, that is, the
resemblance of the Buddhist Bodhisattva (Pʽusa) Mandjusri to Lao-tzŭ.
The Nepaulese traditions about this Pʽusa also make him to be a
foreigner and to have come to their country from China, though other
accounts represent him as returning from the latter country to his
home in Nepaul. A full and very interesting account of Mandjusri, or
“Mañdjuçri,” as Burnouf writes it, will be found in that accomplished
scholar’s “Le Lotus de la bonne Loi.”[1] Rémusat and Pauthier insist
on the western origin of Lao-tzŭ’s doctrines, and there are certainly
not a few points of resemblance between them and some of the early
Indian systems of religion and philosophy. Of these the doctrine of
annihilation, or at least of final absorption, is one of the most
striking.
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