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Since the fall of the Mongols , the Government has uniformly favoured Confucianism as the teaching of the State; before that, there were struggles with Buddhism and Taoism, which were connected with magic, and appealed to superstitious Emperors, quite a number of whom died of drinking the Taoist elixir of life.
Modern Confucianism and the revival of Chinese learning, resulted in eighteenth century scepticism and in nineteenth century agnosticism. The New Buddhism. In our day and time, Japanese Buddhism, in the presence of aggressive Christianity, is out of harmony with the times, and the needs of forty-one millions of awakened and inquiring people; and there are deep searchings of heart.
Yet despite its allegorical character, a number of mythological and fairy-tale motives are incorporated in it. The ape himself suggests Hanumant, the companion of Rama. Yo Huang is the Lord of the Heavens. The stone ape is the stone heart of natural man. The Buddhas, blessed spirits and gods, represent the ideals of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.
How explain the multiplied original ways in which bamboo and straw are used? For a still closer view of the matter, let us consider the imported ethical and religious codes of the country. In China the emphasis of Confucianism is laid on the duty of filial piety. In Japan the primary emphasis is on loyalty.
If we go into the field of philosophy, we find much the same thing. Take Confucianism. He taught no religion; illuminated in nowise the world of mind; though he enabled millions to illumine it for themselves. He made hardly a ripple in his own day; and yet, so far as I can see, only the Buddha and Mohammed, of the men whose names we know, have marshaled future ages as greatly as he did.
During the Tang era of national prosperity, Chinese socialists questioned the foundations of society and of government, and there grew up a new school of interpreters as well as of politicians. In the tenth century the contest between the old Confucianism and the new notions, broke out with a violence that threatened anarchy to the whole empire.
Apart from this, the influence of Confucianism would have been even greater than it was, but for the imperial partiality periodically shown for rival doctrines, such as Buddhism and Taoism, which threw their weight on the side of the supernatural, and which at times were exalted to such great heights as to be officially recognized as State religions.
For merchants and other people who lacked full social recognition there were brothels, a quite natural feature wherever there were considerable commercial colonies or collections of merchants, including the capital of the southern empire. In their ideology, as will be remembered, the Chinese gentry were always in favour of Confucianism.
No one would think for one moment of considering Confucianism, Hinduism, or Buddhism as specially akin to Christianity, whereas Islam has been treated by some historians of the Christian Church as belonging to the heretical offspring of the Christian religion.
It is a curious fact that Buddhism, which started out with such a lofty rejection of deity, finally fell to the worship of idols, whereas Shinto, which is peculiarly the worship of personality, has never stooped to its representation in wood or stone. Confucianism, however, surpasses all in its intimations of the personality of the Supreme Being.
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