Friday 14 June 2013
Tan Chung
SATYAM, shivam, sundaram is chanted in a Hindu's daily prayer.
The words come from the Upanishads, which were quoted by Rabindranath Tagore in a different version as Shantam, Sivam, Advaitam - which he said was the aim of his school-university.
Tagore thought they were the three profiles of God, that is, the three facets of Truth.
The earliest Chinese translation of these three Sanskrit words, zhen shan miaose, is found in Fahua Xuanyi (Mystic Meanings of the Lotus Sutra) by the eminent Buddhist monk of the Sui Dynasty (581 AD-618), Reverend Zhiyi (538 AD-597). Zhen means truth, shan means goodness, and miaose was a common Chinese description of the image of the Bodhisattva.
Thus, the Chinese translation was true to the original version of Shantam, Sivam, Advaitam of the Upanishads, which depicted the three profiles of God.
Collective living
Civilization is the creation of collective living of the people. Initially, people had only "physical contacts," but would continually infuse spiritual elements to enrich their collective living.
The spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram was dug out from people's collective living which is a great discovery of the Eastern civilizational traditions. In the past, the Eastern civilizations became brilliant because of it.
Today, there is the "Chinese dream" envisaging the country and people of China enjoying stability and peace, with an economy developing by leaps and bounds, politics enlightened, culture thriving, and the promotion of all-round development of individuality.
The spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram will surely make great contribution to the pursuit of this "Chinese dream."
It was relatively simple to translate the ancient Indian concept of sundar into Chinese mei/beauty. However, translating the concepts of satya and shiva, which formed the mainstay of the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram, would be relatively difficult.
In isolation, the Sanskrit concept of satya stands for "truth."
But, when it juxtaposes with that of shiva, it assumes dimensions of omnipotence and omnipresence.
Chinese spiritual leaders have shown commendable acumen in rendering satya and shiva into zhen/truth and shan/goodness respectively. Then, replacing zhen shan miaose by zhen shan mei has freed it from the images of the Bodhisattvas, and made it a universal spirit.
As Chinese civilization has taken up the task of popularizing the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram, Chinese literature responded to this task enthusiastically.
The Tang (618 AD-907) poetry is exemplary in this respect. I have particularly loved the poem Ziqian (Self Amusement) by Luo Yin (833 AD-909) which reads:
In triumph I sing my song,
At failure my life goes on.
Never mind worry and sorrow
I'm always a jolly fellow.
When I have wine to drink today
Happy life's pretty thorough,
Come tomorrow the sorrow may
Let me worry it tomorrow.
In our human society, which is full of opportunities but everywhere encountering unseen challenges and reversals, the poem has been a shield protecting me in the entire course of my vibrant life and in my hard strife for my goals. This, indeed, demonstrates the power of the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram.
Rabindranath Tagore who broke the white race's monopoly over the Nobel Prize for Literature as the first Asian Nobel laureate one hundred years ago was a rare talent of the East. Chinese intellectuals showed no less admiration to him than his fellow-Indians. That was because Tagore's Nobel laurel revitalized the Eastern civilizations.
Tagore?s ?god?
It is most important to realize Tagore's popularization of the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram.
Tagore said in China that "I could not persuade myself to imagine that I had a religion because everybody whom I might trust believed in its value." All those who know Tagore know that his "god" was not in the temple, but in his heart. He saw "god" from the phenomena of Nature, from the life of the common people. The "god" in Tagore's poems is the symbol of the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram.
A salient feature of the Tagorean literature is the popularization of the "true and pure spirit of the child" - Tagore regarded the child's mind as the symbol of Satyam, shivam, sundaram.
Moreover, the family institution is the vitality of Eastern civilizations just as the collapse of the family institution is a vital cause of the decadence of Western civilizations.
China is progressively losing her traditional virtues of baitou xielao (husband and wife loving each other till their hair goes gray) and xianqi liangmu (woman becoming a good wife and nice mother), and the eternal deep affection between the two generations of the family as depicted in the lines:
The comfortable clothing
On the body of the traveler
Is hand sewn
By the compassionate mother.
In addition, there are the serious phenomena of ernai (second mistress) and xiaosan (the small third - spoiler of marriage) that corrode morality.
China is in need of art and literature that "awakens the society" and "warns the society" to rescue her from this moral crisis. Great works of art move people deeply because they are permeated with the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram.
I don't have much knowledge of Mo Yan's works. To me, his novel Wa (Frog) has sophisticatedly drawn the red line from the social phenomena of "falsehood, evil and ugliness" to highlight the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram in real life.
After reading the novel, people know clearly who should be loved and who should be hated. I do think the literary circles of China should emulate the example of Tagore and promote the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram vigorously.
The gold mine of the spirit of Satyam, shivam, sundaram in China's real life has hardly been excavated. If there is serious excavation we shall see many, many great writers of Tagore's calibre. In that case, a renaissance will appear in China.
China, then, will march forward in giant strides alone the five lanes of material culture, political culture, spiritual culture, societal culture, and ecological culture.
Not only China will materialize her "Chinese dream," but the entire Eastern Hemisphere will enjoy a renaissance like Europe had enjoyed several hundred years ago. There will be a face-lift for Asia and for the whole world.
Tan Chung, born in 1929, is a historian of Chinese studies, Sino-Indian relations and cultural exchange. He lives in Chicago. The article is adapted from his speech early this month at an international forum on Tagore and Moyan at Tongji University, Shanghai.
