for example, memorized the Tao Te Ching but gave it a vulgar interpretation. “‘The
Tao that can be Tao’d,’ this is to eat good things in the morning: ‘the Tao that is
not eternal,’ this is to have a bowel movement in the evening” (Welch, 1965: 119).
- Kuo Hsiang’s major work is his commentary on the Chuang Tzu, which was in
part a continuation—and perhaps a plagiarism—of the unfinished commentary by
Hsiang Hsu in the previous generation. As Figure 4.4 indicates, Hsiang Hsu
probably took part in the discussions of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove,
and is indirectly linked to Wang Pi and the rationalistic interpreters of Taoism.
Kuo Hsiang probably had some contact with Hsiang Hsu’s son, reportedly careless
in scattering his father’s treatise about (Fung, 1952–53: 206). Whatever the indi-
vidual contributions, the “philosophy of Kuo Hsiang” is very much a product of
the core intellectual factions around Loyang in the late 200s.
5. India
- There were eight such swings: (1) Consolidation of the numerous small kingdoms
in the middle Ganges into 16 major states around 600 b.c.e., then down to 4
contenders 100 years later, culminating in the Maurya Empire over almost all of
India ca. 300–185 b.c.e., and disintegrating thereafter. The two leading states
around 500, Magadha and Kosala, were the first patrons of Buddhism and Jainism.
(2) A three-way split among leading states, peaking around 150 c.e., including the
south-central Andhra kingdom, another Buddhist patron. (3) The Gupta Empire
in the north, from 335 c.e. to the late 400s. (4) Harsha’s reconquest of Gupta
territory around 600–650. (5) In the late 800s another three-way struggle in the
north, including the last great patron of Buddhism, the Pala kingdom in Bengal,
expanding westward into the ancient Magadha heartland. The last three cycles
prior to the British Empire involve Muslim invaders from the northwest; in coun-
terpoint, Hindu kingdoms in the far south attain their maximal size. (6) Around
1000, the Ghaznavid Muslim empire centered in Iran and central Asia conquered
the northwest; meanwhile the Chola Empire expanded in the south. (7) Another
Muslim conquest in the late 1100s, expanding by 1335 to almost all of India except
the far south, then disintegrating rapidly after 1340. In the south the kingdom of
Vijayanagar attains its greatest size in the 1500s. (8) The Mogul conquest from
Afghanistan in the 1560s, spreading south in the 1600s; its disintegration after
1770 leaves the power vacuum filled by European overseas empires (Davies, 1949;
OHI, 1981; Dutt, 1962; Thapar, 1966; Craven, 1975; Zürcher, 1962; Gombrich,
1988; Chandler and Fox, 1974).
- The centralizing Maurya dynasty arose on the basis of a succession of parricide
kings. The Arthashastra, or classic of statecraft, composed at this time, advocated
the most blatant tactics of treachery and espionage as the path to artha, worldly
success.
- Hence the lower Ganges province takes its name, Bihar, from vihara, monastery.
On Buddhist support, see OHI, (1981: 169–173); Dutt (1962: 331; 225–230).
- Sharma (1965); Mann (1986: 356–357); OHI, (1981: 112–113, 178–179, 206–
208). An exception to this pattern apparently occurred in coastal states of the south
Notes to Pages 173–190^ •^961
