Myths of China and Japan

Myths of China and Japan - with illustrations in colour & monochrome after paintings and photographs

This volume deals with the myths of China and Japan, and it is shown that these throw light on the origin and growth of civilization and the widespread dissemination of complex ideas associated with certain modes of life. The Far East does not appear to have remained immune to outside cultural influences in ancient times. Modern research has established that the old school of opinions which insisted on the complete isolation of China can no longer obtain. As Laufer says: It cannot be strongly enough emphasized on every occasion that Chinese civilization, as it appears now, is not a unit and not the exclusive production of the Chinese, but the final result of the cultural efforts of a vast conglomeration of the most varied tribes, an amalgamation of ideas accumulated from manifold quarters and widely differentiated in space and time. No graver error can hence be committed than to attribute any culture idea at the outset to the Chinese, for no other reason than because it appears within the precincts of their empire. Even the Chinese records have to be regarded with caution. It is impossible nowadays to accept as serious contributions to history the inflated chronology and the obvious fables compiled and invented by Chinese scholars [vi]for political and other purposes during the Han and later dynasties. These scholars had really little knowledge of the early history of their country and people. They were puzzled even by certain existing customs and religious practices, and provided ingenious secondary explanations which, like their accounts of the early dynasties, do not accord with the data accumulated by archologists and other workers in the scientific field. The complex religious ideas of the Chinese were obviously not of spontaneous generation. Many of these resemble too closely the complexes found elsewhere, and their history cannot be traced within the limits of the Chinese empire. Indeed, as is shown, some of them are undoubtedly products of human experiences obtained elsewhere, and they reveal traces of the influences to which they were subjected during the process of gradual transmission from areas of origin. Nor, would it appear, was Chinese civilization nearly as ancient as the native scholars would have us believe. When the early Chinese entered China, they found non-Chinese peoples in different parts of that vast area which they ultimately welded into an empire. They were an inland people and did not invent boats; they did not originate the agricultural mode of life but adopted it, using the seeds and implements they had acquired; nor did they invent the potters wheel with which they were familiar from the earliest times in China, having evidently become possessed of it, along with the complex culture associated with it, before they migrated into the province of Shensi. Nor could an agrarian people like the Chinese have been the originators of the belief in the existence of [vii]Isles of the Blest in the Eastern Ocean; they were not alone in Asia in believing in a Western Paradise situated among the mountains. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 67344
Author: Mackenzie, Donald A. (Donald Alexander)
Release Date: Feb 6, 2022
Format: eBook
Language: English
Publication Date: 1923
Publisher Country: United Kingdom