Jaganmohanlal Pandita Sadhuwad Granth

Author(s): Sudarshanlal Jain
Publisher: Jaganmohanlal Shastri Sadhuwad Samiti Jabalpur

Page 202

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Eastern and Western Philosophical Approaches
conquered the mountain. Viewing the panorama from its peak, he declares himself the master of all he surveys. The other, once having ascended the same peak, bows in gratitude to the mountain for having allowed him to reach its height.
The Chinese landscape paintings of the Sung dynasty are a classical example of the man in nature philosophy. In them nature, not man, is the dominant element. While there, he is found unobtrusively in the landscape, sitting under a tree, or offshore in a small boat. He is not the central focus of the painting; in fact, there is no single center but a number of them, such as a range of mountains or forest of trees. The effect created is that of a totality, an organic whole made up of a number of separate yet interdependent entities, each an integral part of the whole but subservient to it and blending into the whole.
The Sung paintings represent a Chinese metaphysical tradition in which nature is conceived of as an organic totality permeated by the life force Ch'i. It does not consist of sets of twos antithetical or alien to each other. Rather it is like a complex organism such as the body which is made up of many parts or organs working harmoniously together for the well being of each and the whole. As is projected in the painting, so in natue, distinctions are not sharp or radical, an effect created by the artist through the use of curved rather than straight lines. The different elements of the painting, the trees, water, mountains and empty space are continuum. They seem to coalesce with and supplement each other rather than the opposite.
This view of nature as an organized whole and man as an integral part of it is expressed beautifully by the philosopher Chang Tsai and his Western inscription
"Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst. Therefore that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature, All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions."
One effect of the man-in-nature outlook is that it may lead man to take a more modest view of himself. The same effect may come from viewing the landscape painting. It may come also from another view found in the East which stresses the ineffability or the ultimnate unknowability of nature. The Hindu and Buddhist says there is something about nature or reality which will remain hidden from us, at least in this life. We are unable to reach it It is beyond our grasp and control. It cannot be categorized, manipulated or mastered. The Taoist would assert we cannot even describe it, for "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of all things." Such a view is in contrast to the Western one regarding knowing and doing, already discussed, with its insistence that, given time, there is nothing we cannot know or do.