Einstein (if I understand him correctly) said that space and time are one dimension and the other three dimensions are related to it. Shankara said that "space and time are merely a film or veil (Maya) through which we perceive the world" -- that "the intellect supposes that it knows the real" and that although "we see a multiplicity of objects, there is only one Being. Behind the veil (Maya) which is reached not by sensation or intellect but only by the insight and intuition of the trained spirit, is the one universal reality, Brahman."

Am I interpreting this to mean, in Shankara's view, that the world is merely our own perception? That 100 of us have 100 different perceptions and, therefore, there are 100 worlds, or 1000, or 1,000,000?

An increasing number of Asiatics are immigrating to the United States, Australia, and other Western Civilizations. Is this "intertwining" perhaps taking place now?

"Morality is such living as comes from a sense of union with all things."

The Brahmans were protected by their "unintelligibility." If the masses didn't understand what the Brahmans were saying, then they just accepted it. Any similarity to today's world? The categories of the intellect were represented as helpless or deceptive." Sort of like: "Our (Brahman's) minds are made up -- don't confuse us with facts?

"Sanskrit had survived as the Esperanto of scholars having no other commmon tongue. Divorced from contact with the life of the nation, this literary language became a model of scholasticism and refinement. New words were formed not by the spontaneous creation of the people, but by the needs of technical discourse in the schools. At last the Sanskrit of philosophy lost the virile simplicity of the Vedic hymns, and became an artificial monster whose 'sesquipedalia verba' crawled like monstrous tapeworms across the page."

Makes me think of some of the scholarly journals I have to read to keep up with my particular career. The authors could write in simpler language but choose not to. Makes me also think of the Academie Francaise which insists on long French phrases over the simpler English words that many French people are adopting.

"Even today India has a hundred languges, and the literature of 'Swaraf' uses the speech of the conquerors."

From time to time here (and in Democracy in America) there have been comments as to whether a nation should legislate a specific language as the language of that nation. Anyone here believe in that? Anyone against it? In the case of India, what are your thoughts? Does the fact that India has "a hundred languages" have an effect on its culture? If you were in the Indian legislature, would you promote the use of just one "national" language -- emphasizing its use in common daily interactions and insisting that all documents be in that language?

The comments by Durant point out that it is the "people" who change language. With the heavy current immigration into America, language has become an important subject. What are your thoughts?

"Immense collections of this wooden literature have survived the devastations of time and war."

I am amazed! About the time the Pilgrims were landing on Plymouth Rock, scholars in India were still scratching letters on bark.

This emphasizes my recommendation to newcomers and Lurkers that they check in here daily. This is a fast-moving discussion group.

Knowing, as we have read, that there are at least 100 separate languages in India, do you believe that this is practical in a Democracy of the type India has as compared to our style of Democracy?

Usually he was sent out into the world with the wise admonition that education came only one-fourth from the teacher, one-fourth from private study, one-fourth from one's fellows, and one-fourth from life."

May I ask participants here to examine today's schools in our Western Civilization and compare this form of education with the schooling described above which was conducted centuries ago? What is your reaction?

"The candidates who were fortunate enough to gain admission were given free tuition, board and lodging, but they were subjected to an almost monastic discipline. Students were not permitted to talk to a woman, or to see one. Even the desire to look upon a woman was held a great sin, in the fashion of the hardest saying in the New Testament. Every morning the entire student body was required to bathe in the ten great swimming pools that belonged to the university. The course of study lasted for twelve years, but some students stayed thirty years, and some remained until death."

An earlier posting here referred to India being "primitive." Does the above describe a primitive Civilization or was it "advanced" and then "progressed" to being "primitive?"

Please, if you will, think of today's renowned universities in the Western world and compare them with the universities described here? Are our students receiving a good higher education? Were theirs?

"Among the Moslems, education was mostly individual, through tutors engaged by prosperous fathers for their sons. It was an aristocratic conception of education as an ornament -- occasionally an aid -- to a man of affairs and power, but usually an irritant and a public danger in one doomed to poverty or modest place."

Some interesting phrases: "using piety for the purposes of plunder" - "high but narrow standard of culture." Any similarity seen between the Moslems in those Ancient times and the Moslems of today?

Do you folks believe we are learning more of that philosophy? Is the West becoming more "spiritual?"

Thank you, Claudia, for your kind compliment. You say:--"Ghandi believed that creating Pakistan to give Moslems their own state would end any animosity between Hindus and Moslems. Instead it created bloody massacre after bloody massacre."

Are you saying that you think that India should have remained undivided with both the Moslems and the Hindus in the same nation?

Mal, do you equate spirituality with religion?

The term "epic" has many meanings and connotations -- e.g. a long poem about the deeds of one or more great heroes or a nation's past history," "a bearer of cultural identity," "a long narrative poem in elevated style recounting the deeds of a legendary or historical hero." Certain words are often used when discussing Epic Poems -- majestic, heroic, narrative, colossal, magnitude, exalted. The concept of "long" is what scares some people.

The term "epic" is not restricted to poems. We have poems like Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey -- or books and movies such as "Gone With the Wind."

It is my hope that participants (and Lurkers) here will not let their eyes glaze over and quickly scan the page until we arrive at a future controversial topic such as religion. The history of America (as short as it may be) is filled with thrilling events. Prior to moving onto the Epics out of Ancient India I will, with your kind permission, in the next few postings give some excerpts of Epics telling America's story. Some of these may ring a bell from your high school or college literature class.

Perhaps our own Mal here may (with non-technical terms) help us to enjoy Epic Poems. Let us briefly move into something familiar and then, hopefully, we may have greater appreciation and enjoyment of the Epics of over a thousand years ago.

Durant continues:--

""The schools and universities were only a part of the educational system of India. Writing was less highly valued than in other Civilizations. The habit of public recitation spread among the people -- the most precious portions of their cultural heritage.

"As nameless reconteurs among the Greeks transmitted and expanded the Iliad and the Odyssey, so the reciters and declaimers of India carried down from generation to generation, and from court to people, the ever-growing epics into which the Brahmans crowded their legendary lore."

"A hundred poets wrote it. A thousand singers moulded it, until, under the Gupta kings (ca. 400 A.D.), the Brahmans poured their own religious and moral ideas into a work originally Kshatriyan, and gave the poem the gigantic form in which we find it today."

Incredible! One single poem -- growing and growing over 900 years or more! Did the culture keep the poem from disappearing or did the poem keep the culture intact?

In any event, please help me, folks, by sticking to the narrow sub-topic of EPIC poetry which is where Durant is leading us.

Robby

"Amid this bloody scene of death Gandhari, queen consort of the blind Kuru King wails with horror at the sight of vultures hovering greedily over the corpse of Prince Durodhan, her son."

The following posting gives the beginning of that Epic Poem in which the queen mourns.

"And the long-drawn howl of jackals o'er the scene of carnage rings,
And the vulture and the raven flap their dark and loathsome wings.
Feasting on the blood of warriors foul Pishachas fill the air,
Viewless forms of hungry Rakshas limb from limb the corpses tear.

This is, of course, a translation from the original language but I have a hunch the original also contained a strict beat. Please note the rhythm -- one-and, two-and, three-and, four-and -- one-and, two-and, three-and, four-and.

Now, if you please, read the starting verse of the Epic Poem, "The Song of Hiawatha," by Longfellow and notice the identical rhythm.

The Song of Hiawatha
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Introduction

Should you ask me whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows

With the curling smoke of wigwams
With the rushing of great rivers
With their frequent repetitions
And their wild reverberations<
As of thunder in the mountains?

I should answer I should tell you
From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,

From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.

"What the author had in mind to do, apparently, was to shake the Hindu soul out of the enervating quetism of Buddhist piety into a willingness to fight for India. It was the rebellion of a Kshatriya who felt that religion was weakening his country, and who proudly reckoned that many things were more precious than peace."

Any similar examples where religious and/or philosophical treatises in the Western world exhort the people to battle?

"Tradition attributes the poem to one Valmiki who, like the supposed author of the larger epic, appears as a character in the tale. More probably it is the product of many wayside bards like those who still recite these epics, sometimes for ninety consecutive evenings, to fascinated audiences."

Any similarity to the "wayside bards" of later Europe?

Durant continues:--"In one sense, drama in India is as old as the Vedas, for at least the germ of drama lies in the Upanishads. Doubtless older than these Scriptures is a more active source of the drama -- the sacrificial and festival ceremonies and processions of religion.

"A third origin was in the dance -- no mere release of energy, much less a substitute for coitus, but a serious ritual imitating and suggesting actions and events vital to the tribe. Perhaps a fourth source lay in the public and animated recitation of Epic verse.

"These factors cooperated to produce the Indian theatre, and gave it a religious stamp that lingered throughout the classic age in the serious nature of the drama, the Vedic or epic source of its subjects, and the benediction that always preceded the play."

Interesting -- that all plays had an aura of religion surrounding them -- always preceded by a benediction. It causes me to think of the controversies in our democracy regarding benedictions preceding high school football games or graduations.

"The maid refutes him by forgiving him.
Act V - Vasanta-sena comes to Charu's house to return both his jewels and her casket. A storm blows up, the storm increases its fury, and compels her, much according to her will, to spend the night under Charu's roof.
Act VI - Vasanta leaves Charu's house the next morning.
Act VII - A subordinate plot, inessential to the theme.
Act VIII - Vasanta is deposited, not in her palace as she had expected, but in the home, almost in the arms, of her enemy. She again spurns his love. He chokes her and buries her.
Act IX - Describes the trial in which Maitreya unwittingly betrays his master by letting Vasanta's jewels fall from his pocket. Charu is condemned to death.
- Act X - Charu is seen on his way to execution. Vasanta herself appears. Sharvilaka had seen Samathanaka bury her. He had exhumed her in time, and had revived her. Vasanta recues Charu. Everybody is happy."

What is your reaction to a Hindu play written and performed thousands of years ago?

"The play ends with an epilogue, in which the favorite god of the author or the locality is importuned to bring prosperity to India."

We are speaking in this forum of cultures we have "inherited" from the Orient. Are there similarities between some plays we have in the Western Civilization to what is described above -- or are they greatly different?

"Its virtues are its creative fancy, its tender sentiment, its sensitive poetry, and its sympathetic evocation of nature's beauty and terror."

Could its "simplicity" be compared to that of the simplicity of children? -- And could we say that Civilization was still in its infancy? And is that Simplicity perhaps a beautiful thing?

Could it be that the material was more meaningful to the people of 3,000 years ago than it is to us?

"Fables and history, which in the West are content with prose, found in India a melodious poetic form."

Let us permit our imaginations to fly. We sit in the greal halls of a scientific university and the lecturer up front presents his new findings in verse. We are in a high school history class and the teacher gives us our lessons in poetic form. A renowned trial lawyer presents his case in meter and rhyme. A knowledgeable physician, using poetic form, shares his patient's diagnosis with his fellow physicians.

Advantages? Disadvantages?

"Details of place and date were so scantily recorded, even in the case of famous men, that Hindu scholars assigned to their greatest poet, Kalidasa, dates ranging over a millennium. Living to our own time in an almost unchanging world of custom, morals and beliefs, the Hindu hardly dreamed of progress, and never bothered about antiquities. He was content to accept the epics as authentic history, and to let legend serve for biography."

It seems that the life of the ordinary Hindu was almost exactly the same as that of his parent, his parent's parent's parent, and on back ad infinitum. In our Western civilization it is common that we live in an entirely different part of the world from that of our parent and that our lives are entirely different. After a building is a century old (or less), it is demolished to make way for a newer structure. Our lives are composed of conveniences that didn't exist in our own parent's time, never mind a century ago. The length of our lives increase. The extent of our education increases. We depend more upon written history than oral history.

Could it be that many of the "facts" that have been handed down in Oriental cultures are not true?

"It was an excellent scaffold on which to hang a score of tales."

In our fast-moving Civilization, I wonder how many people would take the time to read a story 100,000 couplets long. We have just finished examining some American Epic poems which some nowadays students can hardly force themselves to work their way through.

"The visitor listened humbly, and understood nothing."

How would you folks define music?

"Great gaps occur in the history of the art, because most of the early works was ruined by the climate, and much of the remainder was destroyed by Moslem 'idol-breakers' from Mahmud to Aurangzeb. The earliest dateable Indian painting is a group of Buddhist frescoes (ca. 100 B.C.) found on the walls of a cave in Sirguya, in the Central Provinces. From that time on the art of fresco painting -- that is, painting upon freshly laid plaster before it dries -- progressed step by stp until on the walls of the caves at Ajanta it reached a perfection never excelled even by Giotto or Leonardo. In 1810 Europeans stumbled into the ruins, and were amazed to find on the walls frescoes that are now ranked among the masterpieces of the world's art."

"Try as we will, however, we shall hardly find in Indian painting the technical development, or range and depth of significance, that characterize the pictorial art of China and Japan."

Very shortly now we shall be in China!

"In the seventeenth century the Dutch arrived, and drove out the Portuguese. In the eighteenth the French and English came, and drove out the Dutch. Savage ordeals of battle decided which of them should civilize and tax the Hindus."

Any comments?

"Such parts of India as were under the Company were subjected to a land tax of fifty per cent of the produce, and to other requisitions so numerous and severe that two-thirds of the population fled, while others sold their children to meet the rising rates. 'Enormous fortunes,' says Macaulay, 'were rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to the extremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this.'"

If I understand correctly, here in this 21st Century, we are complaining of the barbarism of those in the Orient who do not appreciate "our civilized ways."

"The Brahmans held their ground proudly, and offered against the orthodoxies of the West a system of thought quite as subtle, profound, and incredible."

I wonder, as we read about the "end" of Ancient India and the entry of the Western thinking and action into their lands, if we can for just a brief moment, try to enter their minds and perhaps better understand the thinking of today's Orientals regarding our attitudes and behaviors.

"It was but a step from this to Gandhi."

"He slept on the bare floor, or on the earth. He lived on nuts, plantains, lemons, oranges, dates, rice, and goat's milk. Often for months together he took nothing but milk and fruit. Once in his life he tasted meat. Occasionally he ate nothing for weeks. As the blood thins, he felt, the mind clears. Irrelevancies fall away, and fundamental things -- sometimes the very Soul of the World -- rise out of Maya like Everest through the clouds."

Anyone here remember Gandhi?

"When he realized that India's basic need was birth-control, he adopted not the methods of the West, but the theories of Malthus and Tolstoi."

A saint? A "kook"? An extremist? What was there about Gandhi that moved millions of people?

"Shortly after the worst of all riots between Moslems and Hindus, when the Moplah Mohammedans butchered hundreds of unarmed Hindus and offered their prepuces as a covenant to Allah, these same Moslems were stricken with famine. Gandhi collected funds for them from all India, and with no regard for the best procedents, forwarded every anna, without deduction for 'overhead,' to the starving enemy."

As we look at the India of today, is it in any way changed due to Gandhi's actions?

Martin Luther King, Jr. used Gandhi as his role model and ended up being assasinated just as his role model was assasinated. Dr. King started the Civil Rights movement and this was continued, after his death, by other leaders who kept the spirit alive. Unless I have missed something, there were no strong leaders in India who followed Gandhi.

"The judge expressed his profound regret that he had to send to jail one whom millions of his countrymen considered a great patriot and a great leader. He admitted that even those who differed from Gandhi looked upon him as a man of high ideals and of noble and even saintly life. He sentenced him to prison for six years."

As we try in this discussion group to answer Voltaire's question in the Heading above, are we seeing in Gandhi a step toward Civilization? Is this what being civilized means?

Is that the general consensus of other participants here? And we haven't even gotten yet to Ancient Greece.

We will be looking forward to your comments in the upcoming discussion about Ancient China.

Are they heathen? dark ways? tricky? peculiar? childlike smile? cheap labor?

Please make yourself known as we enter this new phase.

I have also noticed the emphasis of the Chinese on education (note my description above of the types of subjects required in schools in China). Any idea from anwone here why their culture takes education so seriously?

"What is the secret of this durability of government, this artistry of hand, this poise and depth of soul?"

Durant asks the question for us. Is our "alien eye" unable to see "what makes China tick?"

Your background is fascinating! I invite everyone here to click onto your name to read your profile.

How gigantic Asia is! And Europe, which sticks out like a wart on the thumb of Asia and which is so important in the eyes of Americans -- how small that is! It is almost incredible that we consider Europe a continent.

"Flowers it has in abundance, and all the varied natural scenery that can come from sunshine and floating mists, perilous mountain crags, majestic rivers, deep gorges, and swift waterfalls amid rugged hills. Through the fertile south runs the Yang-tze River, three thousand miles in length. Farther north the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River, descends from the western ranges amid plains of loess to carry its silt through vacillating estuaries once to the Yellow Sea, now to the Gulf of Pechili, tomorrow, possibly, to the Yellow Sea again."

Maybe my geography teacher explained all this to me when I was in school but somehow I haven't carried with me all these years the environmental majesty that is China and which Durant describes so adequately above.

"The discoveries of Andersson and others in Honan and south Manchuria indicate a neolithic culture one or two thousand years later than similar stages in the prehistory of Egypt and Sumeria. Some of the stone tools found in these neolithic deposits resemble exactly, in shape and perforations, the iron knives now used in northern China to reap the sorgym crop. This circumstance, small though it is, reveals the probability that Chinese culture has an impressive continuity of seven thousand years."

How many of today's cultures have this length of continuity?

Feel free to comment on either the quotes above or the comments made by others. No one here is an "expert." We are looking forward to your thoughts.

"China is not the united home of one people, but a medley of human varieties different in origin, distinct in language, diverse in character and art, and often hostile to one another in customs, morals and government."

To paraphrase Durant:--America is not the united home of one people, but a medley of human varieties different in origin, distinct in language, diverse in character and art, and often hostile to one another in customs, morals and government. Do you folks think we can compare America with China?

This not only helps those who do not have the Volume but helps all of us to remain together as we discuss each section. Those who have the book are asked to remain within the section we are discussing at that moment.

As can be seen by the GREEN quotes above which were just changed, we have moved ahead from "The Middle Flowery Kingdom" to "The Unknown Centuries." I urge everyone not to just scroll quickly through the Heading each time you enter but to pause to read these quotes. It helps to orient us as to where we are and also to stimulate some questions in our mind.

"So legend, which loves personalities more than ideas, attributes to a few individuals the laborious advances of many generations."

I note that the people who did all those things were men, not gods. After ending their toils, they died. And what about us in this "enlightened" Western civilization? Any legends? Or are we above all that?

"Yao ruled through another century, and so well that Confucius, writing of him eighteen hundred years later in what have must have seemed a hectically 'modern' age, mourned the degeneration of China. The old sage, who was not above the pious fraud of adorning a tale to point a moral, informs us that the Chinese people became virtuous by merely looking at Yao."

Perhaps we should ignore whatever the Chinese people tell us about themselves? Perhaps they just enjoy "weaving tales?"

You say:--"There are many general similarities here to Greek and Roman mythology as well as the Judeo/Christian legends." Do any examples come to mind?

In our discussing earlier Civilizations in this forum, we found that the "priests" of those Civilizations often controlled the populace through the use of beliefs concerning certain gods which the priests had often created or modified. However, as Durant has pointed out, these legends in Ancient China were about men, not gods, and no "priests" seemed to be involved. As Justin states, many historians simply wrote or told tales that "appealed to them."

Any thoughts regarding this?

"In his reign, according to sacred legend, rice wine was discovered, and was presented to the Emperor, but Yu dashed it to the ground, predicting: 'The day will come when this thing will cost some one a kingdom.' He banished the discoverer and prohibited the new beverage, whereupon the Chinese, for the instruction of posterity, made wine the national beverage. The dynasty was brought to an end by the whimsical Emperor Chieh, who amused himself and his wife by compelling three thousand Chinese to jump to their euthanasy in a lake of wine."

A number of things come to my mind here. Unless I have missed something, nothing was said about these great "Five Rulers" regarding combat with foreign Civilizations. They all seemed to strengthen their peoples in peaceful ways. Even if none of those stories were true, it does appear to say something about the philosophy of the Chinese. I notice, too, that Durant uses the term "sacred" legends although religion is not mentioned.

Your thoughts, please?

"During his long ministry Ts'i became a well-ordered state, with a stabilized currency, an efficient administration, and a flourishing culture."

Interesting how in history, a man conquers another man and then often makes the conquered man the chief minister. And then this minister of state makes all his actions in the name of "helping the poor." Or am I being overly cynical?

As the old expression goes:--Stay Tuned!

"In the end the two hostile forces -- custom and law -- arrived at a wholesome compromise. The reach of law was narrowed to major or national issues, while the force of custom continued in all minor matters. Since human affairs are mostly minor matters, custom remained king."

There is so much in this passage by Durant.

1 - The "characteristic" courtesy of the Chinese gentleman. Anyone here have direct contact with this "courtesy?" Is it different from the courtesy shown in other cultures? Is it honest? Is it a facade to cover other feelings?
2 - A "code of manners, ceremonies, and honor" substituting for religion. Any examples in our culture or others of such substitution?
3 - How about the battle between custom and law? Does that ring a bell in our own culture? And if it does, is custom winning?
4 - Do we have "aristocracy" in our culture and, if we do, are they allowed to discipline themselves?
5 - Please note the date -- how many years before the birth of Christ that all this was supposed to have taken place.

I'm not sure I understand your question, but I will give what I hope is the answer you are looking for. In effect, you want to know our procedure here. After you receive your book, you will find that the quotes in GREEN in the Heading above follow the sections in each chapter. From time to time, I write postings of paragraphs that Durant has written but they will always be within the section outlined by the GREEN quotes.

You, as a participant, react to what I have posted, or you might react to a posting by someone else, or you might react to something you have read in your book which I skipped by and did not post. I often skip sentences or paragraphs in the interest of time or because you folks do not seem interested in those topics. We stay within that particular section until it seems to me that the majority of participants are ready to move on to something else. We, therefore, might remain within a particular section one day or one week, depending on how revved up you folks are.

You will also find that Mal (who is excellent at this) or I or someone else will post a Link to something related to our discussion. Do NOT skip by these Links. They are one of the items that make this discussion group so successful.

Another fact -- although we are discussing Ancient times, sometimes we find it interesting to discuss something happening in current times which relates to the Ancient Civilization. However, we do not remain too long in that direction. We quickly return to Ancient China (and some weeks from now Ancient Japan).

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain our procedure here and if my answer is way off the mark from what you were looking for, just ask it again.

It should be interesting to see.

"It is an almost ideal code, more probably sprung from the mind of some anonymous and irresponsible Plato than from the practice of leaders sulled with actual power and dealing with actual men."

And so we see here the beginning of government in Ancient China. Does it seem practical to you folks?

The GREEN quotes above will let us know when have arrived there.

"We shall study the art and language later but the poetry and the philosophy belong specifically to this age, and constitute the classic period of Chinese thought."

If I understand Durant correctly, not enough time had yet passed to form any tradition and the Chinese Civilization was still in the process of creating itself. Your thoughts please?

I pray you, dear,
Steal not the garden down,
Nor break my sandal trees;
Not that I care for these,
But oh, I dread the talk of town.
Should lovers have their wilful way,
Whatever would the neighbors say?"

Thousands of years ago youth was saying: 'What will my family say? What will the people say?' Has anything changed?

I am assuming, Mal, that when you say "most of us," you are not referring to those of us in this discussion group but the American populace in general.

Any comments here about the extent of historical knowledge possessed by American youngsters and teen-agers, American baby-boomers, American Seniors in Senior Net, and those Seniors not in Senior Net?

Perhaps, then, we might ask ourselves. Why are we participating in this discussion group? What difference does it make if we become knowledgeable about the history of the Orient? What are we all gaining from this, if anything? Are we changing? If so, in what way and how will it benefit mankind in any way?

I am particularly interested in what WE here in this forum are doing to help change the world and specifically how this discussion group has been helpful to us in doing so -- if at all.

Do you agree? Disagree?

Why should we even care about Primitive Man, Sumeria, Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Judea, Persia, India, and China? As the common expression goes: "What's in it for me?

"Confucius, who edited the volume and adorned it with commentaries, ranked it above all other writings, and wished that he might be free to spend fifty years in its study."

It is an interest coincidence (some say that there is no such thing as coincidence) that Durant starts to talk about the "curiosity of our species" just at the moment when participants here begin to speak of curiosity.

We are entering a subject which, I submit, if we were to quickly pass on, we would deprive ourselves of really beginning to understand Chinese philosophy. I ask that each of us be patient and re-read Durant's passage that we have just read. The more we read it, the easier it is to understand. The complicated phrases become simple concepts. And perhaps various participants here will help us to understand what Durant was trying to get across.

And as for I- Ching, I would hope that all of us here (including lurkers!) would at least begin to understand a smattering of its meaning before we move on. In my humble opinion, If we get to comprehend the Book of Changes just a bit, we will better understand the Chinese as we move along.

I also ask Mal's capable help in ferreting out Links that will make the Book of Changes more visual and, therefore, more understandable to us.

The Book of Changes was exensively used by fortunetellers but King Wen expanded it from being merely a book of fortune telling to one which also laid down guidelines for personal conduct, social norms and a corrct way of life.

The Word means "easy" as well as "change" and is based on two fundamental aspects.

1 - Transformation starts from the easy and simple. If we know the causes of the easy and the simple, we can predict the effects of the complex.
2 - All things in the universe are complex and ever changing, but are governed and guided by unchanging, and relatively simple, laws of Nature.

AND THAT'S IT! Maybe that will help us to discern the difference between the Chinese way of thinking and those in the Western World.

Could this, then, be the success of the I-Ching and having much to do with the Chinese character? Are we, of the "practical" Western civilization, being just a bit too skeptical? Are we missing the forest for the trees?

Isn't what you describe just a whit more than a fortune cookie?

Jere tells us that "maybe I Ching was the foundation of the other religions. If we know when it was started maybe we can hazard a guess. It causes one to think, at least about the similarities of some of the various religions which sprang up in different parts of the world without seeming connection to each other."

Is the self-knowledge mentioned above contained in both "philosophy" and "religion" without a god?

Bubble says:--"I believe that the historical experience from books has much less impact than the personal one."

Is that perhaps one of the secrets of the success of this discussion group? Please note the statement in the Heading above which starts with "In this discussion group we are not....." Many of us here do not have the book but we are having "personal" contact with each other.

"The government ended the argument by cutting off his head."

Let's see if I get this:--

1 - The people demanded a good education.
2 - The teachers decided that both the religious clerics and the governmental agents were partial to their own desires and so the teachers taught from a Utopian point of view.
3 - The authorities killed many of them.

Any lesson for those of us in the Year 2002 to learn from our Ancient Chinese ancestors?

"The worst conceivable government would be by philosphers. They botch every natural process with theory. Their ability to make speeches and multiply ideas is precisely the sign of their incapacity for action."

So much for education! We should abolish schools? We should place in office those leaders who do not think? We should all go out into the countryside, ignore the latest news, sit back and listen to the birds?

"Unhampered by regulations from the government, the spontaneous economic impulses of the people -- their own lust for bread and love -- would move the wheels of life in a simple and wholesome round. There would be few inventions, for those only add to the wealth of the rich and the power of the strong. There would be no books, no lawyers, no industries, and only village trade."

No industrial revolution? No cars? No trains? No planes? No electric lights? No electric or gas ranges? No furnaces? No air conditioning? No libraries? No book stores? No radio? No newspapers? No police? No courts? No computers? No Internet? No Senior Net? No group discussing "The Story of Civilization?"

"It is the Absolute in which all particulars are resolved into one Hegelian unity."

A distinction between Nature and Civilization? Why are we trying to understand Civilization? Just what is this "Story" that Durant places in the title? Does the concept of spirituality fit in here somewhere?

"Quiescence, a kind of philosophical inaction, a refusal to interfere with the natural courses of things, is the mark of the wise man in every field. If the state is in disorder, the proper thing to do is not to reform it, but to make one's life an orderly performance of duty. If resistance is encountered, the wiser course is not to quarrel, fight, or make war, but to retire silently, and to win, if at all, through yielding and patience. Passivity has its victories more often than action."

Is this how Gandhi helped to bring independence to India? Is this how Martin Luther King brought success to the Civil Rights Movement?

The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the hardest. There is nothing in the world softer or weaker than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it."

I would think of my house back home with all the furniture and remind myself that at that moment I had the three necessities of life -- food, shelter, and clothing. And, of course, I had (so far) life itself.

"The wise man is modest, for at fifty one should have discovered the relativity of knowledge and the frailty of wisdom. If the wise man knows more than other men, he tries to conceal it. 'He will temper his brightness, and bring himself into agreement with the obscurity of of others.' He agrees with the simple rather than with the learned, and does not suffer the novice's instinct of contradiction. He attaches no importance to riches or power, but reduces his desires to an almost Buddhist minimum."

Durant adds that the Chinese think of the sage as reaching the maturity of his powers about the age of fifty. Speaking for myself, this passage makes me pause, look within myself, and examine what I see.

"After every idea has had its day with us and we have fought for it not wisely or too well, we in our turn shall tire of the battle, and pass on to the young our thinning fascile of ideals. Then we shall take to the woods with Jacques, Jean-Jacques and Lao-tze. We shall make friends of the animals, and discourse more contentedly than Machiavelli with simple peasant minds. We shall leave the world to stew in its own deviltry, and shall take no further thought of its reform. Perhaps we shall burn every book but one behind us, and find a summary of wisdom in the Tao-Te- ching."

Many philosophical thoughts here. Any reactions?

Barbara is a published author having created at least two books that I know of --"Dementia with Dignity" and "Sex, Intimacy and Aged Care."

"Confucius sensed at once the wisdom of these words, and took no offense from them. Then the new master went forth to fulfil his own mission, and to become the most influential philsopher in history."

Do any of us ever think of ourselves in that fashion? -- our bones moulding into dust and nothing remaining but our words? Does it matter what we say here in this forum?

"His father was seventy years old when K'ung was born, and died when the boy was three. Confucius worked after school to help support his mother, and took on in childhood, perhaps, that aged gravity which was to mark nearly every step of his history. Nevertheless he had time to become skilled in archery and music. To the latter he became so addicted that once, hearing an especially delectable performance, he was moved to the point of vegetarianism. For three months he did not eat meat. He married at nineteen, divorced his wife at twenty-three, and does not seem to have married again."

What we know of him is apparently a combination of myth and half-truths but we, at least, begin to get a faint picture of this man who had such an influence, not only on the Chinese, but of many people beyond their border.

Joyce, you will find that the GREEN quotes above change periodically along with the section of Durant's book, so you can follow along even if you don't have the book.

"He was confident that only the wisest and the stupidest were beyond benefiting from instruction -- that no one could sincerely study humanistic philosophy without being improved in character as well as in mind."

Three subjects formed the substance of his curriculum:--history, poetry, and the rules of propriety. No one could sincerely study humanistic philosophy without being improved in character as well as in mind.

Any one here know of any schools these days that have a similar curriclum?

1 - No foregone conclusions
2 - No arbitrary predeterminations
3 - No obstinacy
4 - No egoism."

Would anyone here be willing to spend a year with Confucius?

"Said Confucius to his students: 'My children, remember this. Oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger.'"

As everyone here knows, this is not a political forum and we resist the temptation to mention specific political figures, but we do occasionally speak of government in general and that comment of Confucius might bring some thoughts to mind.

What's new?

Please do, Barbara. It most certainly fits in with the theme as expressed in the Heading above, especially the quote by Voltaire.

Thank you, Justin, for emphasizing the aphorisms of Confucius. It is so easy to pass by what we consider platitudes and not consider them of much importance. As you say, the Golden Rule appears again. And, may I add, I see participants here following that rule constantly and that, in my opinion, is one of the factors that make this discussion group so successful.

"Reluctantly Confucius resigned, left Lu, and began thirteen years of homeless wandering."

"He died at the age of seventy-two."

We will shortly be examining some of the Classics he left behind. In doing so, we might keep in mind some of Justin's thoughts given in his powerful posting -- regarding not only speech and thought in the times of Confucius but in our day.

"If he idealized the past of his country, he did no more than we do with our own less ancient past. If already our earliest presidents have become sages and saints in hardly a century or two, surely to the historians of a thousand years hence they will seem as virtuous and perfect as Yao and Shun."

I ask you folks to share with us here your remembrances of the studies in the schools you attended. How many of you had instructors who spent some time discussing rules of propriety, formation of character, maintenance of social order and peace, metaphysics, nature of human life, principles of morality, elevating events or legends of the culture in which you live? Do you now look back and see these instructors as "moulders of youth" or otherwise? Did they have a "solicitude for morals and admiration of wisdom?" Above all -- were you inspired?

"When Tsze-loo told Confucius: 'The prince of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government, what will you consider the first thing to be done?' -- Confucius answered: 'What is necessary is to rectify names.'"

"Abuses too often covered up with words?" Department of Disinformation? Ministry of Peace? Democratic Republic? "Check is in the mail?" "I only had a couple of beers?" "I love you?"

Perhaps so, yet Durant was undoubtedly thinking of Confucius' remark that "the people are the proper and actual source of political sovereignty, for any government that does not retain their confidence sooner or later falls" when he spoke of our Oriental Heritage. Perhaps our nation's founders had Confucius and other Ancient Orientals in mind as well as Ancient Greece when they held their meetings.

"His disciples tell us that 'the subjects on which the Master did not talk were extraordinary things -- feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings.' They were much disturbed by this philosophic modesty, and doubtless wished tht the Master would solve for them the mysteries of heaven."

In this forum we have examined in detail Sumeria, Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria, Judea, Persia, and India and in every single one of them, religion and "priests" held an important role in their particular Civilization. We have often commented on that. So what is happening here in Ancient China?

Your comments, please?

Being careful not to comment on clerical activities in today's news, but instead looking backward through our seven months of examining Ancient Civilizations, is it true that "the priest is selfish" or were some of those ancient "representatives of deity" perhaps as sincere as Confucius? Were they always looking out only for themselves or do some of you folks believe that there were those who had the welfare of their people at heart?

Durant tells us:--"Presumably Confucius died an unhappy man. When the great unifier finally appeared, and succeeded, by his military and administrative genius, in welding the states of China into one, he ordered that all existing copies of Confucius' books should be burned.

Ch'u P'ing asked an oracle:--

"Should I steadily pursue the path of truth and loyalty, or follow in the wake of a corrupt generation? Should I work in the fields with spade and hoe, or seek advancement in the retinue of a grandee? Should I court danger with outspoken words, or fawn in false tones upon the rich and great? Should I rest content in the cultivation of virtue, or practise the art of wheedling women in order to secure success? Should I be pure and clean-handed in my rectitude, or an oil-mouthed, slippery, time-serving sycophant?

"Ch'u P'ing dodged the dilemma by drowning himself (ca. 350 B.C.) and, until our own day the Chinese people celebrated his fame annually in the Dragonboat Festival, during which they searched for his body in every stream."

Apparently the Chinese people in the time of Confucius were (perhaps like ourselves?) not that interested in his love of unity and his pure thoughts. Perhaps his thoughts were too difficult to understand, much less follow. And so some of us find ourselves asking the same questions that Ch'u P'ing asked. Some of us don't ask these questions but, instead, follow in the wake of a corrupt generation. The daily news tells us what is happening in our own time. In the time following Confucius books are "burned." In our time they are "shredded." A common expression nowadays is "it's good enough for government work."

Is it more of the same? Are most of us refraining from "pursuing the path of truth and loyalty" and, instead, "fawning in false tones upon the rich and great?"

Any reactions here to what Justin is saying? What about the governmental official who says "Just take my word for it. It's in the interest of national security." What about the head of the company you've worked with for 20 years saying: "This is a solid company worthy of your buying its stock."

Ch'u P'ing asked himself: "Should I court danger with outspoken words?" What if you don't take the governmental official's word for it and find your yourself being examined by the FBI? Are you willing to do it? What if you find your company's CEO has some inside knowledge which shows your company is about to go down the tubes? Are you willing with your "outspoken words" to lose your job and put your family in jeopardy?

Any reactions from you folks?

"Rome fell because China built a wall."

As a conqueror, he took ten years or so to unify China. As a thinker, he visualized combining all the smaller walls into one Great Wall which, under his guidance, took another ten years. In the meantime he began to administer his new nation.

Would you folks describe him as a leader? How does one go about describing a leader?

Another compliment to the intriguing and enlightening comments made by the various participants here, each of whom has his/her own background and interest.

Regarding the fall of Rome being related to the Chinese Great Wall, if enough participants here want to continue on to Durant's Volume II (Life of Greece) and then move on to Volume III (Caesar and Christ), we may gather more detail there on that subject.

"He embellished this city with many palaces. He persuaded the 120,000 richest and most powerful families of the empire to live under his observant eye. Traveling in disguise and unarmed, he made note of abuses and disorders, and then issued unmistakable orders for their correction."

Looking backward through the various Civilizations we have visited and now looking at the methods of Shih Huang-ti in China, is it fair to say that a leader gathering and using power makes for a powerful nation? Or vice versa? Any lesson to be learned here?

"A strong leader is necessary so as to have a stable state. If corrupt, effective, or beneficial only the future can tell."

Does that mean that we will never know if a leader is corrupt or beneficial during his reign or term of office? What is the benefit of our examining previous Civilizations if our eyes are shut during our own Civilization or era?

"The Emperor liked the idea considerably, and issued the order. The books of the historians were everywhere brought to the flames, so that the weight of the past should be removed from the present, and the history of China might begin with Shih Huang-ti."

A preview of Hitler? Stalin? a model for the book "Farhenheit 451? a model for the book "1984?"

Do you folks agree with the scholars that it has never happened that a culture has not modeled itself on antiquity and yet achieved duration? Is our democracy modeled on antiquity? If so, does that have anything to do with its two century (so far) duration?

"For generations the people expressed their judgment of him by befouling his grave."

Interesting (to me at least) that the very person who ordered these books destroyed kept copies in his own personal library. In George Orwell's "1984," forbidden material was kept in a private official vault. And I believe that Stalin and Hitler kept copies of books that were forbidden to the public. I wonder why.

Also interesting to me is the fact that generations of Chinese "befouled" the grave of the very person credited with uniting the Chinese nation.

Any reactions here?

"Several hundred maidens (we are told) were buried alive to keep him company, and his successor, grateful for his death, lavished art and money upon the tomb. The workmen who brought the coffin into the tomb were buried alive with their burden, less they should live to reveal the secret passage to the grave."

This was the man who unified China and at age twenty-five began to annex the petty states and for perhaps the first time in history, placed them all under one rule. He was the visionary who brought the Great Wall into being.

He was also the man who forced his father to suicide, persecuted his mother, and ascended the ducal throne when he was twelve years of age. How do we define this man? Good? Bad? Did China benefit?

Nice to hear from you again, Mahlia. Please continue to share your thoughts with us.

It is not for me to speak on behalf of those of us in the West but if most people are like me, we should hang our heads in shame. We live in our own little cocoon and have no idea whatsoever what our Oriental forebears thought and what our Oriental contemporaries are thinking and doing.

If I am that STUPID now (and I purposely use that word again), think how STUPID I was eight months ago.

"Then a clever condottiere, Kao-tsu, seized the throne and founded the Han dynasty which, with some interruptions and a change of capital, lasted four hundred years. Wen Ti (179-57 B.C.) restored freedom of speech and writing -- revoked the edict by which Shih Huang-ti had forbidden criticism of the government -- pursued a policy of peace -- and inauagurated the Chinese custom of defeating a hostile general with gifts."

Defeating a hostile general with gifts? Are we in the Western Civilization missing out on the use of a great tool to defeat those with whom we disagree?

"The state stored surplus goods, selling them when prices were rising too rapidly, buying them when prices were failing. In this way, the rich merchants and large shop-keepers would be prevented from making big profits and prices would be regulated throughout the empire. All incomes had to be registered with the government, and had to pay an annual tax of five per cent. The Emperor enlarged the supply of currency by issuing coins of silver alloyed with tin. Great public works were undertaken in order to provide employment for the millions whom private industry had failed to maintain. Bridges were flung across China's streams. Innumerable canals were cut to bind the rivers and irrigate the fields."

Let's see now. There was the newly formed U.S.A. pushing back the Indian tribes and extending its rule over the French and Spanish territories. There was Benjamin Franklin saying that taxes are certain. Then there was Franklin D. Roosevelt with PWA and WPA. Then there is the present-day procedure of issuing alloyed coins which are not truly silver or copper. Not to mention the present-day government storing surplus corn and cheese and dried milk and buying and selling according to the vagaries of the market.

Is this all part of our Oriental heritage?

"Everything was as before."

"He divided the soil into equal tracts and distributed it among the peasants. To prevent the renewed concentrtion of wealth, he forbade the sale or purchase of land." Precursor of the Soviet Union?

"Everything was as before." I am beginning to see history in terms of cycles. Things are terrible? They'll get better. Things are wonderful? Just wait. Your reactions, please?

"The Chinese accepted the conquerors, married them, civilized them, and advanced to the zenith of their history."

Victory through marriage?

"One day he visited the jails and saw two hundred and ninety men who had been condemned to die. He sent them out to till the fields, relying soely on their word of honor tht they would return. Every man came back and T'ai Tsung was so well pleased that he set them all free."

First murdered his brothers and then set free all the prisoners on death row. Are we seeing here one of the differences in attitude between the Eastern and Western Civilizations?

"Having read the message, Li dictated a learned and terrifying reply, which the Emperor signed without hesitation, almost believing what Ho whispered to him -- that Li was an angel banished from heaven for some impish deviltry. The Koreans sent spologies and tribute, and the Emperor sent part of the tribute to Li. Li gave it to the innkeeper, for he loved wine."

"Wine of the grapes,
Goblets of gold --
And a pretty maid of Wu --
She comes on pony-back, she is fifteen.
Blue-painted eyebrows--
Shoes of pink brocade --
Inarticulate speech --
But she sings bewitchingly well.
So, feasting at the table,
Inlaid with tortoise-shell,
She gets drunk in my lap.
Ah, child, what caresses
Behind lily-broidered curtains."

AH - YOUTH!! No matter what century or civilization!

I didn't know that it had been done but only that there was a judicial ruling.

But the basic question remains. Why wasn't there a "strong" priesthood? Why didn't they have the same "vested interest" in power that priests in all the other civilizations had?

I understand what you are saying but am wondering what force built that behavior into them.

Francoise tells us that "when truth is recognized from within, it becomes a manifested acting force of your being...Teachings were imbibed to the degree that it became a built-in force acting like a seed which grows into a tree."

Mal says that "the people were receptive to abstract thought and didn't need to anthropormorphize a deity."

Faith reminds us that "many people not formally educated but who think abstractly have become great philosophers."

MaryPage calls to our attention the fact that "each of us has it within ourselves to find our way to our own vision of a supreme power or powers."

But an entire Civilization of philosophers all looking within??!!

"Like many other elements of human life, drama's repute is not proportioned to its popularity. The names of the dramatists are seldom heard, abd the actors, though they may give a lifetime to preparations and accomplishment, and rise to a hectic fame, are looked upon as members of an inferior order.

"Something of this odor, no doubt, attached to actors in every civilization, above all in those medieval days when drama was rebelliously differentiating itself from the religious pantomimes that had given it birth.

"A similar origin is assigned to the Chinese theatre. Tradition says that wand dances were forbidden, on the score that they had become licentious, and it was apparently from this cleavage that secular drama began."

Acting looked upon as an inferior order in EVERY civilization? Agree? Disagree? In our civilization as well?

In 1980 I had a back problem and spent almost a month in bed in the home of one of my daughters. The longest amount of time I have ever been in bed. At my request, her husband went to my house, browsed through my library, and brought back a number of books on philosophy I had always wanted to read and hadn't gotten to. One of those books was Durant's "Story of Philosophy," another was "Oriental Philosophy" (don't remember the author- paperback with red cover) and similar types of books. While I was in pain much of the time, the month was well spent as far as my brain was concerned.

I have never had a major problem with my back since. The physician said he couldn't find anything wrong so it's been a great 22 years since.