We have seen above that the future Buddha Metteyya as an Arahant will lead reigning universal king-the apex of mundane power, to renounce his worldly realm in order to attain mok a by joining the Sa gha. The message is unambiguous: liberation, which is denied to this world, can only take place in the realm of ultimate value. Assuming this, we have to ask: why did this otherworldly message of emancipation become a worldly reference for revolution in China? In other words, how on earth could the world renouncer be transformed into the world conqueror?
In order to respond this question properly, first, we have to scrutinize the most relevant issues pertaining to the understanding of the unique situation of universal kingship in traditional China. Surprisingly, oracle bone inscriptions, so far the earliest Chinese records, already evinced the distinctive symbol of universal kingship. The king of the Shang (ca, 1750-1100 BC) titled himself as, “the One Person” （一人）or “I, the One Person” （余一人）and this usage was continued by the kings of Chou (1100?-256BC). (Hu, 1982) To be sure, as Schwartz argued that
anuttaro purisa-damma-sārathi satthā deva-manussāna Buddho Bhagavā...Atha kho Sa kho nāma rājā…Metteyyassa Bhagavato arahato Sammā-Sambuddhassa santike kesa-massau ohāretvā kāsāyāni vattāni acchādetvā agārasmā anagāriya pabbajissati.
the notion of universal kingship is widely shared by the higher civilizations of the ancient world, e.g., Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and others. He pointed out:
In these cultures…there had occurred a degree of military-political consolidation over large areas which made it possible for the leading contenders for power to claim some kind of universal authority in what as plausibly regarded as the whole of civilized. Such universal authority had its religio-cosmic basis. In none of this is ancient China unique.
(Schwartz, 1968:277)
What is unique about the history of universal kingship in China is the persistence of its dominion in traditional China which lasted for more than two millennia. (Schwartz, 1968; cf. also Abe, 1956) Even during the period of Spring and Autumn and Warring States (c. 800-200 BC), when the Middle Kingdom was divided into hundreds of small states and principalities, the writings of the “hundred schools” at the time still clung tenaciously to the ideal of universal kingship. (Schwartz, ibid: 278-9) Indeed, it also survived the cultural dominance of Buddhism in China.19 The complete breakdown of universal kingship in China happened in
19 “Whereas the Buddhists were by no means anxious to spell the possible subversive implication of their doctrines, their opponents were most anxious to make them explicit. In the end, the decisive fact is that Chinese Buddhism never carried out the substantial and aggressive assault on the claims of the Chinese world order on its own ground that papal Christianity carried on the claims of the Holy Roman Emperor.”
(Schwartz, ibid: 280)
1911 with the demise of the last Dynasty. Symbolically speaking, it was defeated by Christianity rather than Buddhism.
Concomitant with the ascendancy of universal kingship has been the predominance of political culture since ancient China. (Keightly,1978 ; Chang, 1983). Confucianism which had become the imperial ideology since Han (206 BC-220 AD) reinterpreted this legacy from a new perspective. The adoption of Confucianism as orthodoxy in imperial China leaves an indelible mark on traditional Chinese statecraft.
Among the issues of Confucianism related to our discussion here is the ideal of sage-king （聖王）of Hsün-Tzu (born ca. 312 BC) and more explicitly, of Mencius (372?-289 BC). In the Mencius, the following striking passage is pertinent here:
In the time of Yao, the Empire（天下） was not settled. The Flood still raged unchecked, inundating the Empire; plants grew thickly; birds and beasts multiplied; the five grains did not ripen; birds and beasts encroached upon men, and their trail crisscrossed even the Central Kingdoms. The lot fell to Yao to worry about this situation. He raised Shun to a position of authority to deal with it. Sun put Yi in charge of fire. Yi set mountains and valleys alight and burnt them, and the birds and beasts went into hiding. Yü dredged the Nine Rivers, cleared the course of Chi and T’a to channel the water into the sea, deepened the beds of Ju and the Han, and raised the dykes of the Huai and the Ssu to
empty them into the River. Only then were the people of the Central Kingdoms able to find food for themselves…Hou Chi taught the people how to cultivate land and the five kinds of grain. When these ripened, the people multiplied. This is the way of common people: once they have a full belly and warm clothes on their back they degenerate to the level of animals if they are allowed to lead idle lives, without education and discipline. This gave the sage King further cause for concern, and he appointed Hsieh as the minister of Education whose duty was to teach the people human relationships: love between father and son, duty between ruler and subject, distinction between husband and wife, precedence of the old over the young, and faith between friends.
20(Mencius, Book III, Part A, Chap. 4. Lau’s translation, 1970:102)
Hsün Tzu has the same idea on the sage king, but with a different perspective:
In ancient time, the sage kings realized that vicious human nature inclines toward violence and malevolence and is not upright or orderly. Accordingly, they initiated ritual principles and laid down certain regulations in order to erect and embellish human tendencies and make it upright, in order to train and transform it, and guide it in a proper channels. In this way they caused all human beings to become orderly and to conform to the Tao. (Hsün Tzu, Chap. 23. I follow Watson’s translation 1968:158, with alteration of some critical vocabulary.) 「古者聖王以人性惡，以 爲偏險而不正，悖亂而不治，是以爲之起禮義，制法度，以矯飾人之情性而 正之，以擾化人之情性而導之也。」《荀子》性惡篇。
The question of the sage king is not even a rejected possibility. It is simply taken for granted. Furthermore, kingship actually precedes the existence of a natural state of human society, as it is considered to be a sine qua non for a fully human existence. This stands in sharp contrast with the Aggañña Sutta where kingship is a late unintended consequence of humanity. Human society portrayed above is also vastly different from the Aggañña Sutta, as it is in the process of progress rather than decline.
The rise of the sage kings makes the difference. Kingship therefore is an institution of fortunate and necessary good. Moreover, the depiction of the first stage of human society though situated in a flood background, is devoid of any mythical overtones. It is very human, worldly-orientated and nothing “transcendental”, like the Dhamma in the Aggañña Sutta is presupposed. The differentiation between the realms of sacred and secular, as they present themselves clearly in other traditions like Christianity or Buddhism is absent in the above passage. 21
The apprehension that human society might drift into the stage of beast doesn’t persuade the sage kings in ancient China of the necessity for the people to have a separate realm for the “religion” in their life. The
21 In discussing the transformation of Maitreya myth into the revolution ideology in China, Nattier attributes one of the factors to be the ”close link between church and state in pre-Buddhist Chinese thought.” (Nattier, 1988:32). Here, we find a presupposition, which might be true in Christianity, is inappropriate within Chinese context. Since the assumption that there should be two distinctive categories of
“church” and “state” and they should be either differentiated or undifferentiated are not thought of in Chinese tradition, there is little point in arguing the “close link” of two separated categories.
agenda that the sage kings espouse remains “secular” or “worldly”: that is, social ethics or rather moral cultivation. This message is unambiguous:
the cultivation of human relationship is the primary as well as the ultimate good. There is no need to break with human world to be genuinely transformed. Here we also see the crux of the matter: the realm of politics is indispensable for a society to become a distinctively human one. To conclude: there is no true humanity without kingship.
Since kingship is endowed with the moral obligation of educating the subjects, the ideal kingdom is to become the embodiment of benevolence and rightness. Indeed, the kingdom as a moral entity, gains its determinative purport from Mencius, as it is said in the opening chapter of the Mencius:
Mencius went to see king Hui of Liang. ‘Sir,’ said the King, ‘you have come this distance, thinking nothing of thousand li. You must surely have some way of profiting my state?’
‘Your Majesty,’ answered Mencius. ‘What is the point of mentioning the word “profit”? All that matters is that there should be benevolence and rightness. If Your Majesty says, “How can I profit my state?” and the Counselors say, “How can I profit my family?” and the Gentlemen and Commoners say, “How can profit my person?” then those above and those below will be trying to profit at the expense of one another and the state will be imperiled…”All that matters is that there should be
benevolence and rightness. What is the point of mentioning of word ”profit”?’ 22(Trans. by Lau, 1970:49)
To the contrary of the Arthaśāstra, it says above that a king should not pursue profit (利). In other words, artha- the wealth and power is not the right category for defining proper political concerns. Here, while contrasting what is benevolence and rightness, and what is profit, Mencius makes a clear distinction between moral and immoral kingdom.
In a moral kingdom, the sense of benevolence and rightness is deeply implanted in its subjects’ heart and mind. On the other hand, an immoral kingdom, according to Mencius, by dragging its subjects into wicked practices, will inevitably jeopardize itself. A kingdom is not an assembly of individuals who can do what they desire so long as it doesn’t interfere with the freedom of others, but a holistic one in which the king plays a crucial part in its functioning. After all, a kingdom is not founded on social contract, but an extension of the self, family and society, in which the maintaining of a moral order is virtually essential to its existence. As an ideal king is also deemed to be a sage, he is a moral exemplar.
A proper kingdom not only is responsible for the moral cultivation of its subjects but also should ultimately take care for the emancipation of
22 「孟子見梁惠王。王曰：“叟不遠千里而來，亦將有以利吾國乎？”孟子對
曰：“王何必曰利？亦有仁義而已矣。王曰何以利吾國，大夫曰何以利吾家，
士庶人曰何以利吾身，上下交征利而國危矣、、、王亦曰仁義而已矣，何必曰 利？” 」《孟子》 梁惠王上。
the oppressed. Since deliverance through renunciation or salvation by joining the Church or Sa gha, is not thought of in Confucianism, the liberation by political means is the final resort for humanity to be rejuvenated. Mencius argues forcefully for the responsibility of a righteous king as follows:
‘I have heard,’ answered Mencius, ‘of one who gained ascendancy under the heaven from the modest beginning of seventy li square. Such the one was T’ang…The Book of History says,
In his punitive expeditions, T’ang began with Ke.
‘With this, he gained the trust of the Empire, and when he marched on the east, the western barbarians complained. They all said, “Why does he not come to us first?” The people longed for his coming as they longed for a rainbow in the time of severe drought. Those who were going to market did not stop; those who were ploughing went on ploughing. He punished the rulers and comforted the people, like a fall of timely rain, and the people greatly rejoice.’ The Book of History says,
We wait our Lord. When he comes we will be revived.
‘Now you went to publish Yen which practiced tyranny over its people, the people thought you were going to rescue them from water and fire, and they came to meet your army, bringing baskets of rice and bottles
of drink.’ 23 (Mencius, Book 1, Part B, Chap, 11, trans. by Lau, 1970:
69-70)
People who are in a situation of deep water and scorching fire wait for the delivery. Nevertheless, what they yearn for is not paradise in the future world. They are looking forward to a benevolent world conqueror to come quickly to their aid, like the fall of timely rain, to release them from suffering here and now. This aspiration is not messianic hope with apocalyptic imagination like we find in Judaism or Christianity. It is highly political and extremely worldly-orientated: only if the tyrant is wiped out and the true revolution fulfills it. A true revolution, as it is universally acclaimed by the people under heaven, be they barbarians or not, in the east or west, will revitalize the whole humanity.
A revolution24 derives its legitimacy from the Mandate of Heaven (t’ien –ming 天命) T’ang, the founder of Shang, as it is asserted by Mencius, started with a small kingdom and eventually became a universal king because the world under heaven was on his side（天下信之）.
Although the Mandate of Heaven is highly elusive, yet, when it is
23 孟子對曰：“臣聞七十里爲政於天下者，湯是也、、、書曰：‘湯一征，自
葛始。’天下信之。‘東面而征，西夷怨；南面而征，北狄怨。曰，奚爲後 我？’民望之，若大旱之望雲霓也。歸市者不止，耕者不變。誅其君而吊其 民，若時雨降，民大悅。書曰：‘徯我后，后來其蘇。’今燕虐其民，王往而 征之。民以爲將拯己於水火之中也，簞食壺漿，以迎王師。《孟子》梁惠王 下。
24 Revolution in Chinese: 革命, literally means ‘change of the mandate’. For the idea of Mandate of Heaven, cf. Hsu and Linduff, 1988: 101-5.
manifested, its destiny is irrevocable. Once Mandate of Heaven is intended, a dictator deserves removal from his position when he is forsaken by it. The shift of Mandate of Heaven- a revolution which sets people free from a tyranny, is a remarkable achievement and justifies itself:
King Hsüan of Ch’i asked , ‘Is it true that T’ang banished Chieh and King Wu marched against Tchou?’ ‘It is so recorded,’ answered Mancius, ‘ is regicide permissible?’ ‘ A man who mutilates benevolence is mutilator, while one who cripples rightness is a crippler.
He who is both a mutilator and a crippler is an “outcast”. I have heard of the punishment of the “outcast Tchou”, but have not heard of any regicide.’ 25(Mencius, book 1, Part B. Chap. 8, trans. by Lau, 1970: 68)