Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism: Evolutionary Theories in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian Cultural Contexts [1st ed.] 9783030373399, 9783030373405

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-vi
Introduction: Global Darwinism in Asian Cultural, Historical, and Religious Contexts (C. Mackenzie Brown)....Pages 1-15
Front Matter ....Pages 17-17
The Politics of Islamic Opposition to Evolution in Turkey (Taner Edis)....Pages 19-36
South Asian Muslim Responses to Darwinism (Martin Riexinger)....Pages 37-64
Islamic Responses to Darwinism in the Persianate World (Kamran Arjomand)....Pages 65-98
Front Matter ....Pages 99-99
Karmic Versus Organic Evolution: The Hindu Encounter with Modern Evolutionary Science (C. Mackenzie Brown)....Pages 101-135
The Hindu Evolutionary Heritage and Hindu Criticism of Darwinism (Dermot Killingley)....Pages 137-165
Sri Aurobindo’s Theory of Spiritual Evolution (Peter Heehs)....Pages 167-184
Jainism and Darwin: Evolution Beyond Orthodoxy (Brianne Donaldson)....Pages 185-208
Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Responses to Darwinism (Roger R. Jackson)....Pages 209-239
Front Matter ....Pages 241-241
Progress and Purposiveness in Chinese Philosophies: A Darwinian Critique (Nicholas S. Brasovan)....Pages 243-256
Yan Fu’s Xunzian-Confucian Translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics (Kuan-yen Liu)....Pages 257-286
Yan Fu’s Daoist Reinterpretation of Evolutionism (Kuan-yen Liu)....Pages 287-318
Dependent Co-evolution: Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual Aid and Its Appropriation by Chinese Buddhists (Justin R. Ritzinger)....Pages 319-336
Japanese Responses to Evolutionary Theory, with Particular Focus on Nichiren Buddhists (Yulia Burenina)....Pages 337-367
Back Matter ....Pages 369-385

Citation preview

Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33

C. Mackenzie Brown   Editor

Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism Evolutionary Theories in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian Cultural Contexts

Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures Volume 33

Series Editors Editor-in-Chief Purushottama Bilimoria, The University of Melbourne, Australia, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA Co-Editor Christian Coseru, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, USA Associate Editor Jay Garfield, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Editorial Assistants Sherah Bloor, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Amy Rayner, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Peter Yih Jiun Wong, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Editorial Board Balbinder Bhogal, Hofstra University, Hempstead, USA Christopher Chapple, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA Vrinda Dalmiya, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, USA Gavin Flood, Oxford University, Oxford, UK Jessica Frazier, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Kathleen Higgins, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Patrick Hutchings, Deakin University, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia Morny Joy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada Carool Kersten, King’s College London, London, UK Richard King, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK Arvind-Pal Maindair, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA Rekha Nath, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa, USA Parimal Patil, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA Laurie Patton, Duke University, Durham, USA Stephen Phillips, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, USA Joseph Prabhu, California State University, Los Angeles, USA Annupama Rao, Columbia University, New York, USA Anand J. Vaidya, San Jose State University, San Jose, USA

The Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures focuses on the broader aspects of philosophy and traditional intellectual patterns of religion and cultures. The series encompasses global traditions, and critical treatments that draw from cognate disciplines, inclusive of feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial approaches. By global traditions we mean religions and cultures that go from Asia to the Middle East to Africa and the Americas, including indigenous traditions in places such as Oceania. Of course this does not leave out good and suitable work in Western traditions where the analytical or conceptual treatment engages Continental (European) or Cross-cultural traditions in addition to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The book series invites innovative scholarship that takes up newer challenges and makes original contributions to the field of knowledge in areas that have hitherto not received such dedicated treatment. For example, rather than rehearsing the same old Ontological Argument in the conventional way, the series would be interested in innovative ways of conceiving the erstwhile concerns while also bringing new sets of questions and responses, methodologically also from more imaginative and critical sources of thinking. Work going on in the forefront of the frontiers of science and religion beaconing a well-nuanced philosophical response that may even extend its boundaries beyond the confines of this debate in the West  – e.g. from the perspective of the ‘Third World’ and the impact of this interface (or clash) on other cultures, their economy, sociality, and ecological challenges facing them – will be highly valued by readers of this series. All books to be published in this Series will be fully peer-reviewed before final acceptance. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8880

C. Mackenzie Brown Editor

Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism Evolutionary Theories in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and East Asian Cultural Contexts

Editor C. Mackenzie Brown Emeritus, Trinity University San Antonio, TX, USA

ISSN 2211-1107     ISSN 2211-1115 (electronic) Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures ISBN 978-3-030-37339-9    ISBN 978-3-030-37340-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction: Global Darwinism in Asian Cultural, Historical, and Religious Contexts ��������������������������������������������������������    1 C. Mackenzie Brown Part I Islamic Responses 2 The Politics of Islamic Opposition to Evolution in Turkey������������������   19 Taner Edis 3 South Asian Muslim Responses to Darwinism��������������������������������������   37 Martin Riexinger 4 Islamic Responses to Darwinism in the Persianate World ������������������   65 Kamran Arjomand Part II South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Responses 5 Karmic Versus Organic Evolution: The Hindu Encounter with Modern Evolutionary Science��������������������������������������������������������  101 C. Mackenzie Brown 6 The Hindu Evolutionary Heritage and Hindu Criticism of Darwinism��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  137 Dermot Killingley 7 Sri Aurobindo’s Theory of Spiritual Evolution ������������������������������������  167 Peter Heehs 8 Jainism and Darwin: Evolution Beyond Orthodoxy����������������������������  185 Brianne Donaldson 9 Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Responses to Darwinism����������������������������������  209 Roger R. Jackson

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Contents

Part III East Asian Responses 10 Progress and Purposiveness in Chinese Philosophies: A Darwinian Critique������������������������������������������������������������������������������  243 Nicholas S. Brasovan 11 Yan Fu’s Xunzian-Confucian Translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics����������������������������������������������  257 Kuan-yen Liu 12 Yan Fu’s Daoist Reinterpretation of Evolutionism ������������������������������  287 Kuan-yen Liu 13 Dependent Co-evolution: Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual Aid and Its Appropriation by Chinese Buddhists����������������������������������������  319 Justin R. Ritzinger 14 Japanese Responses to Evolutionary Theory, with Particular Focus on Nichiren Buddhists ��������������������������������������  337 Yulia Burenina Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  369

Chapter 1

Introduction: Global Darwinism in Asian Cultural, Historical, and Religious Contexts C. Mackenzie Brown

Abstract  The Introduction places various Asian religious responses to Darwinism in their cultural, historical, and religious contexts, in the process indicating similarities between and differences from Anglo-European, especially Christian, responses. Especially noted are three fundamental challenges to Christian traditions that also exercised the minds of Asian respondents, but from different cultural and religious perspectives. These three were (1) that the universe was merely the product of chance; (2) that natural selection/survival of the fittest negated any transcendent moral template; and (3) that humans are not unique, physically or spiritually. The essay argues that the first challenge, of a universe without transcendent purpose, is the most fundamental, underlying the other two. For instance, animal-human continuity was deeply troubling to Western traditions, including the Islamic, but was of relatively little concern to Chinese and Japanese traditions. The essay also notes several critical factors for understanding the Asian religious responses such as the colonial and imperialistic contexts, the various meanings of the term evolution, and the ancient concepts within the religious traditions that were often seen as resembling or even anticipating modern evolutionary theory. The thirteen essays in the volume cover many of the major traditions in the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia, but the Sikh tradition is absent, in part due to the relative indifference of Sikhs to Darwinism. The Introduction provides a very brief summary of Sikh responses as seen in Sikh-authored internet blogs.

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species presented significant challenges to the cultural and religious traditions to which Darwin himself belonged. Yet his theory of evolution and his explanation and justification of it were shaped in a number of ways by the various western philosophical and especially Christian theological

C. M. Brown (*) Emeritus, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_1

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traditions in which he was raised. As the Japanese historian of science Masao Watanabe has observed: The central theme of evolution theory is the transformation of species, but in order to create such a concept there first had to be the concept of a species, above all the idea of an unchanging species. This had its origin in the Judeo-Christian worldview, which designated the species as parts of God’s creation. (Watanabe 1976: 78)

Darwin himself considered his book to be “one long argument” against William Paley’s Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, a work that thoroughly captivated him in his youth.1 Darwin notes in his Autobiography: The old argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. (Darwin 1958: 87)

Darwin’s long argument is clearly directed, at least in considerable part, to those Anglo-Americans and Europeans thoroughly familiar with notions of a great supernatural being, a providential and benevolent God, who created the universe in all its various details as recounted in the biblical book of Genesis. In addition, there were the conceptions inherited from the Greeks and reinforced by Christian theology regarding the idea of species as manifestations of eternal forms and part of the Great Chain of Being that placed humankind at the apex of all earthly creatures, superior to all other species, distinct from and with authority over the rest of the created world.2

1.1  Three Fundamental Darwinian Challenges The broad challenges of Darwinism for traditional western, largely Christian, worldviews included three especially disquieting and interrelated proposals: (1) that the development (and by implication the origin) of life, and of the cosmos as a whole was a random or chance process, without plan, forethought, ultimate meaning, or purpose; (2) that natural selection and the associated idea of survival of the fittest was an amoral process thereby discarding any notion of a divine or transcendent moral template; and (3) that humankind was not unique, physically or 1  Darwin’s statement about his “one long argument” introduces his last chapter in The Origin of Species. Although Darwin does not specifically mention Paley in his concluding chapter, the recapitulation presents the sorts of objections to the theory of natural selection that Paley’s Natural Theology would raise. Darwin also refers to the “one long argument” of The Origin in his Autobiography (1958: 140). 2  For the Greek teleological conception of species, see Nicholas Brasovan’s essay in this volume, pp. 244–245.

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spiritually, and shared a common ancestry with animals. But how would Darwin’s “long argument” with its three basic challenges to western tradition sound to those from non-European cultures, especially those for whom the idea of an omnipotent and providential creator god was either not a significant part of their worldview, or was even regarded as superstitious?3 In the chapters that follow we shall hear a great variety of voices responding to Darwinism, and to western evolutionary theories in general, from a number of disparate Asian religions: Turkish, Iranian, and South Asian traditions of Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese Buddhism, Japanese Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism. And, of course, within each of these traditions there is a diversity of responses, from outright rejection or ignoring, to various degrees of qualified acceptance. For adherents of these diverse Asian religious traditions, Darwinism came to them from outside their accustomed and habituated cultural, philosophical, political, and social environments. Nonetheless, these Asian religious communities, despite their different cultural perspectives and spiritual traditions, including attitudes towards nature, the relationship between faith, reason, and scripture, and what counts as knowledge, were also profoundly challenged by the same three basic Darwinian issues, although diverse Asian traditions placed differing relative emphases on the three fundamental challenges. It is these three challenges that form the conceptual foci and integrating themes of the essays in this volume. These essays make clear that the most widely shared concern among Asian religious thinkers regarding these three issues was the conception of a universe devoid of any transcendent direction, meaning and purpose, in short, the lack of cosmic teleology within the Darwinian model. The idea that the cosmos, from the celestial heavens down to worms, so seemingly well prearranged, balanced, and harmonized, could be the result of blind chance, struck many as not only impossible, but also as undermining any sense of order and all spiritual striving. Such views were expressed both in theistic traditions, such as Islam, with its insistence that all was created and designed by God, whatever the means, as well as in non-theistic schools within Hinduism and Buddhism, including Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. These non-­ theistic traditions saw the mechanism of karma working through rebirth as supplying a spiritual meaning to life—the striving for enlightenment or Nirvana—without recourse to a personal god. And while in China the traditional philosophies of Daoism and Confucianism lacked the strong teleology of the West, ideals of purpose and progress are still much in evidence in responses to Darwinism, and inevitably in tension with Darwin’s non-teleological worldview.4

3  For example, the Chinese Buddhist T’ai Shu in 1928 proclaimed: “The Ego, or Spiritual Self, known as God is in reality a superstition. The Mahayana doctrine is free from this restriction since it holds that this corporeal form of ours is born from causality and harmony and destroyed or carried on like any other illusion of the Unreal” (T’ai Hsu 2002: 89). 4  I have borrowed the term “strong teleology” from Nicholas Brasovan’s essay in this volume, p. 246.

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The notions of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest evoked a more ambivalent set of critiques from Asian respondents. Among Muslim commentators in general and among many Hindu and Buddhist thinkers, the doctrine of survival of the fittest seemed tantamount to abolishing all motivation for leading a moral life. If there were no transcendent moral template—whether devised by God or underwritten by the law of karma—then humans would act only out of self-interest.5 In China and Japan, however, where survival of the fittest was often introduced through the primary lens of Herbert Spencer’s ideology of Social Darwinism and Thomas Huxley’s ideas expounded in Evolution and Ethics, Chinese and Japanese intellectuals, political leaders and religious reformers, apprehensive of European imperialistic intentions, interpreted western evolutionary theories as providing scientific justification for their own cultural and political nationalisms. At the same time, other Chinese and Japanese thinkers, especially among the Buddhists, espoused a different model of evolutionary theory, that of Peter Kropotkin with his emphasis on cooperation rather than competition. In like manner, the issue of human uniqueness presented itself differently across the Asian arena. As in Europe, some Asian anti-Darwinists rejected the idea of any species transmutation, while others adopted what Stephen Jay Gould calls the “picket fence strategy,” accepting that all species have evolved through time, except for humankind. As Gould notes, this strategy “devises a pervasive order for the rest of nature, but separates humans alone with a brand of superiority” (Gould 1983: 241–42). He then cites the famous geologist Charles Lyell and Alfred Wallace, the co-discoverer with Darwin of natural selection, as examples of picket fence builders. Gould specifically notes that for many (western) natural historians like Lyell and Wallace, it is not the physical form of humankind that is exempt from evolution, but rather only his moral and intellectual capacities. By thus giving in to “traditional pride and prejudice” regarding our species, they attempted “to secure an exceptional status for one peculiar primate” and “to separate man from nature” (Gould 1980: 136). For at least some traditional Muslim thinkers, this picket fence strategy in one form or another was very appealing, even from early on in the encounter with Darwinism. The Qur’an clearly states that Allah created humankind from “an extract of clay” (Surah 23:12). Similarly, the Qur’an proclaims that “It is He who created you out of one living soul [Adam], and made of him his spouse [Eve] that he might rest in her” (Arberry translation; Surah 7:189). While the creation of the world is recounted in the Qur’an as occurring in six days (Surah 7:54), as in Genesis, this statement is usually interpreted metaphorically, as six periods, so that the age of the Earth has not been a particularly controversial issue for Muslims. But the 5  Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt (2017: 8–10) argue that the belief in the objective nature of moral norms worldwide is based on belief in God. I broaden their idea to that of belief in a transcendental moral template that can include both God and the law of karma, following Edward O. Wilson (1998: 238–265), in his argument that “an ethical transcendentalist” may or may not believe in God, but insists that moral norms are independent of humans. One such transcendentalist option surely is the law of karma.

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statement about the creation of humankind is taken in its plain and literal sense. Accordingly, we find the influential Lebanese Muslim theologian Husayn al-Jisr, for instance, accepting many evolutionary ideas, including “variation, inheritance, the struggle for life, and natural selection,” precepts that seemed to him “fairly mundane” and not “to pose any sort of challenge to a Muslim worldview” (Elshakry 2011: 334). But then, as Marwa Elshakry notes regarding al-Jisr: The main sticking point for him—as it was for so many around the world at this time (including such major Christian proponents of natural selection as Alfred Russel Wallace himself)—was the claim that man, with all his mental and spiritual powers, could be said to be the product of evolutionary laws alone. (Elshakry 2011: 334)

Elshakry further elaborates upon al-Jisr’s approach, illustrating that issues of scriptural interpretation and of what constitutes valid knowledge were often at the forefront of Muslim responses to Darwinism: … he [al-Jisr] stressed that metaphorical interpretations [of the Qur’an] were also permissible where there was absolute, that is, logically or empirically derived evidence that could counter the seemingly manifest meaning of the verse. Once again this allowed him to argue that some issues—such as the age of the earth or the linked creation of forms over time— possessed a fairly flexible interpretative range in the Qur’an, while others—such as the divine origins or createdness of men—did not. As he saw it, references to Adam’s special creation, in particular, were very clearly indicated in the Qur’an. Moreover, he seemed certain that evolutionary science would never be able to provide absolute evidence regarding man’s spiritual origins—for the nature of the soul, he argued, would likely always remain ultimately among the “secret treasures” of Divine knowledge and unascertainable by human powers of reasoning or empirical demonstration. (Elshakry 2011: 337)

One of the major obstacles, then, to accepting Darwinian evolution in its robust form, both for Christians and Muslims, was its implication that humankind is not unique. But for the Japanese and Chinese, Darwinism was seen as largely confirming their view that humans are indeed animals. The eminent primatologist Frans de Waal has noted that Plato’s “great chain of being”, which places humans above all other animals, is absent from Eastern philosophy. In most Eastern belief systems, the human soul can reincarnate in many shapes and forms, so all living things are spiritually connected. A man can become a fish and a fish can become God. (de Waal 2010)

While de Waal’s characterization of “Eastern philosophy” is overly simplified as this volume attests, and his implication that the notion of animal-human reincarnation dismisses any sort of human exceptionalism is misleading, de Waal is certainly correct that the human-animal boundary, especially in China and Japan, is much less sharp than in the West. While ideas of reincarnation may have helped to blunt the edge of human uniqueness ideology, it may also be that Asians in China and Japan, as well as in India, were simply more familiar with our closest primate relatives, thereby filling in missing zoological and psychological links, and closing the gap between ourselves and other species. As de Waal insightfully observes: The fact that primates, our closest animal relatives, are native to many Eastern countries, has only helped to strengthen this belief in the interconnectedness of life. Unlike European fables, which are populated with ravens, rabbits, foxes and the like, Eastern folk tales and

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The Japanese zoologist Isono Naohide further confirms de Waal’s insight, arguing that the relatively easy acceptance of Darwinian theory by the Japanese was due to “their familiarity with indigenous macaques, living examples readily suggestive of a simian-human continuity and common ancestry.”6 And as Jean Kitahara-Frisch has commented: While the Western view of nature seldom loses sight of the distinction between humans and other living creatures, Japanese culture sets great value on a feeling of empathy with nature. The Buddhist spiritual tradition also emphasizes the affinity of all living things with each other. (Kitahara-Frisch 1991: 74)

The sense of affinity among all living creatures certainly eases the path to acceptance of a Darwinian evolutionary view. We see this basic acceptance, for instance, in the thought of the great Chinese educational reformer, T’ai Hsu: Darwin traces the evolutionary development of man back to the ape and to still lower forms of life, and although there is some difference between this theory and the Buddhist doctrine which shows that “all life emerges from a certain concentration of matter in the form of a nucleus” both of these statements enunciate a law of change, which is inherent in all forms of life. (T’ai Hsu 2002: 87)

And in Japan, Oka Asajirō (1866–1944), a biologist who studied in the West and who introduced Darwinian theory to the Japanese public, argued that Darwin, with his theory of natural selection, had basically shattered “the delusion that humans are unique in being spiritually endowed” (quoted in Watanabe 1976: 87). For Oka, humans do not differ from other animals “in structure, origin, function, and behavior” (Watanabe 1976: 87). And intriguingly, for Oka, “the reason for and significance of morality and religion lie exclusively in their role in the fight for the survival of the race. According to Oka the human intellect originally was an important weapon in the struggle for survival” (87). Yet even in those Asian traditions most comfortable with the idea of animal-­ human continuity, there is often the suggestion—sometimes subtle, sometimes not—that humankind is exceptional in some moral or spiritual way. Reincarnation theory, for example, generally assumes that the final spiritual goal, enlightenment in its various forms, is most readily, if not exclusively, attained within a human body. Further, reincarnation is in many ways irrelevant to the question of species evolution, for reincarnation only argues for the transmigration of a soul from one animal to another, not for the transmutation of one animal species into another.7 Of the three basic challenges, I would argue that the particular issue of teleology, of chance versus purpose, or stated differently, of purely mechanistic causation versus transcendent mind or consciousness ruling the cosmos, is more fundamental

 Quoted from Yulia Burenina’s essay in this volume, p. 338.  See Mackenzie Brown’s essay in this volume, especially pp. 110–111, 117, 123, 125.

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than the other two major challenges, and indeed underlies them.8 That this issue is the most fundamental, I believe, becomes clear when we look back, for instance, at the issue of human uniqueness in different Asian traditions. The denial of human uniqueness is of great concern in certain traditions, as we have seen. In Islam and some schools of Hinduism, with their particular presuppositions about the place of human beings in the cosmos, the denial of human uniqueness threatens any sense of feeling at home in the universe and thereby of having some sort of cosmic purpose. Thus, even epistemological questions concerning scriptural interpretation, which loom so large in the consciousness of Muslim respondents to Darwinism, reflect the underlying apprehension that without Qur’anic confirmation of human uniqueness, other Qur’anic statements about the spiritual responsibilities and purposes for humankind proclaimed by Allah would not be trustworthy, thereby irreparably rending the Muslim sacred canopy of meaning, to borrow Peter Berger’s phrase. But in the religious traditions of China and Japan, where human uniqueness is usually either denied or of little consequence, the Darwinian challenge to cosmic purpose nonetheless is still often quite evident. While epistemological issues may not have been quite so keen as in the Islamic science-and-religion discourse, in China and Japan the wisdom of the sages was often invoked to defend notions of ultimate meaning and purpose. And in Indian indigenous traditions, yogic intuition or super-consciousness often played a similar role. But Qur’anic authority, sagely wisdom, and yogic insight are all in radical tension with the empirical-deductive-inductive methods of Darwinian science that allows no appeal to supernatural authority or a priori metaphysical assumptions and rational-speculative systems. While the three major issues discussed above presented a variety of challenges to the diverse Asian religious traditions, other issues prevalent in the West were of less concern in Asia. The problem of suffering, for instance, that poses an enormous challenge to any notion that the universe was designed and guided by a supernatural being both beneficent and all-powerful, caused little disquiet among Muslims. For the latter, suffering was simply a means towards some spiritual and transcendental end, even if not always understood. As Elshakry notes, “Because both good and evil were co-constitutive and God’s purpose in each ultimately inscrutable, questions surrounding design in nature that Darwin saw as unmet by Christian natural theology were not a problem for Muslim theologians” (Elshakry 2011: 335). Similarly for Hindu and Buddhist thinkers, the problem of suffering was considerably diminished by integrating evolutionary notions into the framework of karma and rebirth. That is, a soul reaps what it sows, in its present or future lives, as part of a long spiritual evolution. Thus only oneself, not God, is accountable for any suffering endured in a given life. Considering the many tensions and conflicts between Darwinism and conservative religious views in the West, it is easy to view Darwinian theory as a strong,

8  See Jacques Barzun’s comment on the priority of the issue of chance versus purpose, quoted by Peter Heehs in this volume, p. 178.

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corrosive force undermining traditional religious ideals and doctrines in a global context as well. Elshakry provides an important qualification and corrective to this point of view. In an Opinion piece in Nature, in an essay entitled “Global Darwin: Eastern Enchantment,” Elshakry observes that while “some, particularly in Europe, saw Darwin as a weapon beating down religious beliefs, around the world he was as much a force for religious insurgence and revivification as for religious skepticism” (Elshakry 2009: 1200). As examples, she cites among others the Chinese Confucian scholar Yan Fu, who in the late nineteenth century “reinterpreted both Darwin and Huxley in the light of Confucian ethical debates,” as well as the Bengali intellectual Satish Mukherjee, who saw in the Hindu teachings of the Sāṃkhya school “a precursor to the modern view of evolution” (1200).9 Regarding the Sāṃkhya school, however, a recent Hindu commentator lists a number of basic differences between the Sāṃkhyan view of evolution and the Darwinian, not the least of which is the teleological perspective of the former and the mechanical view of the latter (Chakravarthy n.d.). In any case, Elshakry concludes: In an age in which advocates of intelligent design battle to have evolution removed from classrooms, we would do well to recall how Darwin once captured and captivated the world—not by ridding it of the forces of enchantment, faith, or even God, but by revitalizing traditions of belief and re-enchanting so many. (Elshakry 2009: 1201)

I agree with Elshakry that Darwin was certainly a stimulus for rethinking various aspects of religious traditions. But I am very hesitant to say that the revitalizing of traditions has resulted in a serious reconciliation of religious beliefs and Darwinian theory in its specific details and more precise and rigorous forms. I also note that few participants in the evolution discourses, western or Asian, ever rejected the authority of modern science entirely, or thought their own traditional worldviews— properly understood—to be unscientific, often just assuming that their religious views were either in harmony with, or simply transcended the findings of modern science. But claiming such harmony is quite different from being in actual harmony. Critical tensions between traditional worldviews and modern evolutionary theory, such as those represented by the three challenges, were often glossed over, ignored, or reinterpreted in ways that only seemed to defuse controversial issues. And aside from the occasional outward harmony of evolutionary theory and religion in intellectual discourse, there were frequently explicit conflicts expressed on the part of religious leaders and thinkers, as well as on the popular level. As Saheeb Ahmed Kayani of the National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad, points out in commenting on Elshakry’s Opinion article, her essay “makes no mention of the conflict of Darwin’s ideas with popular religious beliefs in some conservative societies across the eastern world. There the writings and thoughts of intellectuals, however influential, are no match for traditional religion” (Kayani 2009: 984).

9  For detailed analyses of Yan Fu’s evolutionary ideas, see the essays in this volume by Nicholas Brasovan and Kuan-yen Liu.

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And, I would add, modern evolutionary theory is also often no match for traditional religion, for as Robert McCauley (2011) has argued, religion—or more specifically, religious belief—is natural, but science is not. Helen De Cruz and Johan De Smedt (2017) argue that early and universal childhood intuitions regarding how the world works, including notions of intention, purpose, and objective morality— later developing into such theological arguments as the argument from design, the cosmological argument, and the moral argument—are extremely persuasive throughout life. As these intuitions run counter to many of the basic concepts of Darwinian evolution, it is hardly surprising to see the pervasive and lasting tensions between traditional religions, East and West, and Darwinism, despite often very different cultural assumptions and contexts.

1.2  Historical and Contextual Issues There are a number of closely interrelated contextual issues that one must be familiar with to attain any in-depth understanding of and insight into the Asian religious responses to Darwinism. Probably first and foremost is the colonial and imperialistic context. The actual or threatened political and economic domination by European powers of Asian countries from the Middle East to Japan created ambivalent attitudes towards western/modern science in general. On the one hand, science and the technology that came with it was generally regarded as authoritative and powerful, but on the other was perceived as the critical means by which Europe was able to conquer and exploit other countries. Was the scientific enterprise of the West as a whole to be imitated in a global struggle for existence, as some in China and Japan argued, or could scientific discoveries and especially science-enabled technology be appropriated without also adopting the self-serving and materialistic worldview that often came with them? Second, the transference of Darwinism and western evolutionary theory to Asian countries was quite random, piecemeal, and unsystematic. A few young Asians travelled to Europe and studied western philosophy and literature in the universities there, returning to their home countries to teach what they had learned abroad. Others back home learned of western science from visiting western educators and missionaries. Often transmission of evolutionary theories was via translations, sometimes translations of translations, from English. Thus, many who spoke to evolutionary theory were often unfamiliar with Darwin himself and his writings, or responded to other western evolutionary thinkers like Herbert Spencer, Jean-­ Baptiste Lamarck, or Peter Kropotkin, rather than Darwin. Responding to second hand accounts of Darwin easily led to misunderstandings of it, as seen in al-­ Afghani’s refutation.10

10

 See Kamran Arjomand’s essay in this volume, pp. 72–73.

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Third, to elaborate upon previous points, we should note that the word evolution was used in many senses, not always clearly distinguished and often conflated. Evolutionary theory was frequently understood more as a social and political theory, rather than as a biological theory. In this regard, Watanabe notes that in Japan, evolution theory… was received not as a biological doctrine per se but either as a new interpretation of the world based on ‘science’ or else as a simple slogan such as ‘victory of the superior, defeat of the inferior’ or ‘survival of the fittest,’ applied mainly to social problems. (Watanabe 1976: 69)

Thus, in Japan, evolutionary theory was used to support cultural and national revivals of various sorts, to support political nationalism, as well as to denigrate Christianity and the West. Similar uses of the theory were made in China and India. And given the Enlightenment and Victorian ideal of progress and its association with evolutionary theory in the West, it is little wonder that Asian respondents also often united, conflated, or confused the two. Fourth, the Asian religious traditions already had their own “evolutionary” ideas, or at least philosophical and theological ideas that could be seen in retrospect as evolutionary, or as resonating with modern evolutionary concepts, long before Darwin. At least some Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain commentators, for instance, attempt to integrate concepts of genetic inheritance, including DNA replication and recombination, with traditional ideals of karma and rebirth.11 Karma theory then, for these respondents, not only complements evolutionary theory, but completes it, accounting for mental, psychological, and moral development, including the evolution of higher states of consciousness. Such interpretations, of course, are always subject to the problem of reading ancient scriptures with twentieth- or twenty-first-­ century eyes.12 On the negative side, however, some commentators equated Darwinism with materialism, an ancient foe already encountered in ages past.

1.3  T  he Traditions, Subjects, and Themes Included in the Volume The 13 essays in this volume cover three geographic and cultural areas of West, South, and East Asia, and as indicated earlier most of the major religious traditions originating in or migrating into these parts. These include the Turkish, Iranian, and South Asian Islamic traditions; the Hindu and Jain Indian traditions; the Indo-­ Tibetan, Chinese, and Japanese Buddhist traditions; and the Chinese Confucian and Daoist traditions. This volume does include three essays dealing with important non-Arab Muslim responses from three cultural traditions as already noted, which collectively help to  An especially noteworthy effort is seen in the writings of certain Jain authors. See, for instance, Brianne Donaldson’s essay in this volume, p. 198. 12  See, for instance, Peter Heehs’ essay in this volume, pp. 172, 176. 11

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delineate many features of the Muslim response in general. As for responses of Arab Muslims to Darwinism, these are explained and discussed excellently by Marwa Elshakry, whom I have already quoted extensively above. For those interested in this topic, I strongly recommend her two essays cited above  and her 2013  book Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950. One important Indian tradition that is not represented in this volume is the Sikh. The main reason for this lack is that few Sikh intellectuals or Sikh scholars with relevant scientific background, or scholars of Sikhism, have seriously addressed the challenges posed by modern science. Nor is evolution of much concern on the popular level. As Jagbir Jhutti-Johal writes, The question of evolution and religion has not raised any major concerns in the past for the Sikh masses. Religion and science have been kept distinctly separate and have not warranted a full debate, probably due to the fact that, up until now, scientific thought and practices have not developed and permeated through Sikh society to the same extent as they have in the West. The theory of evolution has posed no practical or moral issues for Sikhism and thus has been largely ignored. (Jhutti-Johal 2011: 13)

It seems that Jhutti-Johal’s comment is made with respect mainly to Sikhs in South Asia, for we find many Sikh immigrants into western countries entering scientific careers. However, many of these Sikhs are attracted to fields like engineering, medicine, computer science and other related fields that tend not to challenge traditional worldviews. In any case, Jhutti-Johal herself notes that “with increasing globalization and the spread of the Sikh diaspora, Sikhism will increasingly come under the same scrutiny from the evidence-based methodologies of science as other religious philosophies have” (14). It seems almost certain that with the increasing scrutiny, Sikhs will be faced with the same three basic challenges that other Asian religions have encountered. We see the issues already being formulated in the internet blogs of Sikh adherents, as they attempt some sort of reconciliation of modern science and the Sikh tradition. Jhutti-­ Johal comments on some of these internet bloggers: “A number of authors and contributors to Internet-based discussions have attempted to correlate verses in the Guru Granth Sahib [main scripture of the Sikhs] to current scientific theory about the origin of the universe, evolution and even quantum mechanics” (14). She characterizes such an approach as “a highly unscientific methodology,” but thinks “it is useful to outline the verses in the Guru Granth Sahib in order to provide a framework of Sikh beliefs on such matters, and to examine how they are now being interpreted within a scientific context” (11). Given the absence of the Sikh tradition in the rest of the volume, I provide here some longer quotations from Sikh bloggers that attest to the tensions between Sikhism and Darwinism, and that future Sikh writers and scholars may seek to address. Most of the bloggers simply restate matters of faith, often scripturally based, with little actual argument or analysis of the Darwinian challenges. I will begin with a brief but to-the-point discussion posted on a BBC web page on Religion and Science, entitled, “Is the theory of evolution compatible with Sikhism?” As in other theistic religions, a teleological perspective espousing guided evolution is a key talking point.

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C. M. Brown As Sikh teachings mention little about how Waheguru [name of the Supreme Being or God in Sikhism] created the universe and how life developed on Earth, it is quite possible for evolution to be a part of Sikh thought. However, Sikhs believe that Waheguru cares for all living things and is in charge of the birth, life and death of everything. Evolution would only be accepted as compatible with Sikhism if Waheguru was in complete control of the process. Crucially, the information the Guru Granth Sahib gives us about creation does not seek to offer a scientific answer to questions about the origins of the universe. The Guru Granth Sahib is more concerned with making it clear that Waheguru is in complete control and that the universe exists because he wants it to. Our purpose as humans is to help Waheguru to care for creation and not seek to damage it. The main difference between the two is that Darwin’s theory talks about evolution being influenced by natural selection – only the fittest and most successful species survive and so different forms of life evolve to be the fittest and most successful. A Sikh would say that Waheguru oversees this natural process – after all, he created nature along with everything else. Everything is planned by God and not left to random chance, as the atheistic interpretation of the theory of evolution suggests. (“Is the theory of evolution compatible with Sikhism?” n.d.)

From the website Sikh Answers, in an article entitled “What does Sikhi say about Darwins [sic] theory, does it believe in the concept of how the human came into the world?” we find as above an acceptance of natural selection with a theistic twist, and further elaboration of “guided selection.” The blogger first cites a verse from Sikh scripture, “O Nanak, True is the Creation of the True Lord.” Then he comments: This means survival of the fit and selection for fitness is under the Will of God. Only those are selected that God wishes to be selected and survived. This means the process of evolution is guided by God because He is within His creation …. So evolution and Darwin’s theory are supported by Sikhi but remember science does not know who guides this evolution. Scientists believe in randomness but Sikhi rejects randomness and believes in the role of God in evolution. (Sikh Answers n.d.)

And as a final example from the internet, I cite from a brief blog entitled “Do Sikhs believe in creation or evolution?” posted on Real Sikhism. The author provides a succinct statement reinforcing the relative Sikh indifference to the issue of religion and evolution: It does not matter to a Sikh whether the Earth was created in seven days or it evolved in 4 billion years. The only thing that matters to a Sikh is that a Sikh is to become One with God and attain salvation. Creation and/or Evolution do not affect Sikhs in their journey to be One with God. (“Do Sikhs believe in creation or evolution?” n.d.)

In some ways, the Jain tradition has shown similar indifference to Darwinian theory. As Brianne Donaldson remarks in this volume: “In spite of claims of compatibility between Jainism and science, there are relatively few attempts among Jains to specifically engage Darwin. Those that exist approach the topic from disciplines such as physics, biology, and philosophy, with varied levels of systematicity and/or engagement with specific biological concepts.”13 Yet Donaldson has been able to ferret out a rich variety of Jain responses in her own systematic and elucidating way.

13

 Quoted from Donaldson’s essay in this volume, p. 186.

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Returning to the essays as a whole in this volume, I have divided them into three sections: Islamic responses (from both western and South Asian contexts), South Asian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist responses, and East Asian Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist responses. The essays thus follow a broad trajectory from theistic interpretations of evolution in the West, to karmic accommodations and adaptations in the South, flowing with Buddhism into the East, and finally to the immanentist, humanizing and naturalizing approaches of the indigenous Chinese responses. While each essay deals with the three fundamental Darwinian challenges outlined above, the authors of the essays take different approaches in various combinations, including historical, political, sociological, philosophical, and literary. All essays, whatever the particular emphases in approach, highlight the interrelationship between the theological-philosophical ideas found in the Asian religious responses to Darwinism and the broader cultural movements of the times. Most essays provide at least some description of the ancient and classical teachings of the religious traditions that informed the religion-evolution discourse from the latter part of the nineteenth century to the present. Individual essays may provide a broad overview of the array of religious responses within a tradition, from shortly after the publication of the Origin of Species down to the present. These comprehensive essays include Kamran Arjomand’s survey of Muslim responses in the Persianate world and Martin Riexinger’s review of Muslim responses in South Asia. Other essays focus on a particular time period within this framework. Taner Edis’ essay on Islamic responses to Darwinism in Turkey deals primarily with the rise of Islamic creationism in that country since 1980. Brianne Donaldson’s account examines recent Jain interpretations of their tradition vis-à-vis Darwinism, especially twenty-first-century responses. Likewise, Roger R.  Jackson’s discussion of IndoTibetan Buddhism examines recent modernist attempts to reconcile Buddhist tradition with modern science. Dermot Killingley, on the other end of the time spectrum, concentrates mostly on Hindu developments in the late nineteenth century, with limited attention to some twentieth-century responses. Similarly, Yulia Burenina’s essay on Nichiren Buddhist responses focuses on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japanese engagement with western evolutionary theories. Four of the essays focus on just one or two individuals. Peter Heehs examines the spiritual evolutionary ideas of the Hindu revolutionary nationalist-turned-mystic Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950). Nicholas Brasovan spans a century in comparing an early and a late Chinese response, those of Yan Fu (1854–1921) and Li Zehou (b. 1930). Kuan-yen Liu, in his first essay for this volume, also examines Yan Fu’s interpretation of evolution, providing a detailed account of his creative Confucian-­ inspired translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics. In his second essay, Kuan-yen Liu analyzes Yan Fu’s Daoist-inspired interpretation of various western evolutionary thinkers, especially Herbert Spencer. Finally, two essays address the three challenges by looking at specific ideas or themes in responses to Darwinism. C.  Mackenzie Brown’s essay focuses on the Hindu conceptions of karma and rebirth, and the many nineteenth- and twentieth-­ century attempts to reconcile karmic evolution with Darwinism’s organic evolution.

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Justin Ritzinger’s essay examines the effort of Chinese Buddhists in the 1920s and 1930s to utilize the traditional Buddhist idea of the interdependency of all things to criticize the Darwinian struggle for existence while favoring and appropriating Peter Kropotkin’s idea of cooperation and mutual aid. For more particular details of each essay, I refer the reader to the abstracts at the beginning of each chapter. Acknowledgement  I wish to thank Justin Ritzinger for the inspiration behind this volume. I heard his presentation of a paper on the Chinese Buddhist appropriation of Peter Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid at a national meeting of the American Academy of Religion in 2010, which raised precisely the issues dealt with in this book. His paper in revised form was then published in the Chung-Hwa Journal of Buddhist Studies (see note 1 in his essay for bibliographic details), and is republished here, with permission (the only previously published paper in this volume). Given my own work on Hindu appropriations of evolutionary theories, I was intrigued by the possibility of editing a volume dealing with a wide variety of Asian religious responses to Darwinism, written by experts in their fields. Ten years following that original inspiration, here is that volume. I also am grateful to Trinity University for granting me a year’s academic leave in 2017–2018 to work on this project and for assisting with the costs of the final preparation of the manuscript. Finally, I wish to thank Benjamin Harris, Head of Instruction Services at Trinity University’s Coates Library, for his help with the index and proofreading.

References Chakravarthy. n.d.. Difference Between Samkhya and Darwinian Conception of Evolution, internet essay. Available at: http://www.preservearticles.com/2013101733412/difference-betweensamkhya-and-darwinian-conception-of-evolution.html. Accessed 29 Mar 2019. Darwin, Charles. 1958. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–1882, ed. Nora Barlow. London: Collins. Available at: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&i temID=F1497&pageseq=1. Accessed 29 Mar 2019. De Cruz, Helen, and Johan De Smedt. 2017. Intuitions and Arguments: Cognitive Foundations of Argumentation in Natural Theology. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 9 (2): 1–26. de Waal, Frans. 2010. Rousseau Meets Japanese Primatology. In 3 Quarks Daily: Science Arts Philosophy Politics Literature, March 15. Available at: https://www.3quarksdaily. com/3quarksdaily/2010/03/rousseau-meets-japanese-primatology.html. Accessed 29 Mar 2019. Do Sikhs Believe in Creation or Evolution? n.d. Posted on web page: Real Sikhism. Available at: http://realsikhism.com/index.php%3Fsubaction%3Dshowfull%26id%3D1226710464%26uca t%3D7. Accessed 29 Mar 2019. Elshakry, Marwa. 2009. Global Darwin: Eastern Enchantment (Opinion Article). Nature 461 (29 Oct): 1200–1201. ———. 2011. Muslim Hermeneutics and Arabic Views of Evolution. Zygon 46 (2): 330–344. ———. 2013. Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1980. In the Midst of Life….In Stephen Jay Gould, The Panda’s Thumb: More Reflections in Natural History, 134–142. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ———. 1983. Our Natural Place. In Stephen Jay Gould, Hen’s Teeth and Horse’s Toes, 241–250. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Is the Theory of Evolution Compatible with Sikhism? n.d. Posted on web page: BBC Religion and Science. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/education/guides/z8d7sbk/revision/4. Accessed 23 May 2018.

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Jhutti-Johal, Jagbir. 2011. Sikhism Today. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Kayani, Saheeb Ahmed. 2009. Global Darwin: Long Kept Under Wraps in Pakistan (Correspondence). Nature 462 (24/31 Dec): 984. Kitahara-Frisch, Jean. 1991. Culture and Primatology: East and West. In The Monkeys of Arashiyama Thirty-Five Years of Research in Japan and the West, ed. Linda Marie Fedigan and Pamela J. Asquith, 74–80. Albany: State University of New York Press. McCauley, Robert N. 2011. Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. New  York: Oxford University Press. T’ai Hsu. 2002. “Science and Buddhism” (from Lectures in Buddhism, Paris: 1928). In A Modern Buddhist Bible: Essential Readings from East and West, ed. Donald S.  Lopez Jr., 85–90. Boston: Beacon Press. Watanabe, Masao. 1976. The Japanese and Western Science. Trans. O. T. Benfey. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. What Does Sikhi Say About Darwins [Sic] Theory, Does It Believe in the Concept of How the Human Came into the World? n.d. Posted on web page: Sikh Answers. Available at: http:// www.sikhanswers.com/god-and-his-universe/what-does-sikhi-say-about-the-darwins-theorydoes-it-believe-in-the-concept-of-how-the-human-came-to-the-world/. Accessed 29 Mar 2019. Wilson, Edward O. 1998. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. New York: Alfred Knopf. C.  Mackenzie Brown is Jennie Farris Railey King Professor of Religion, Emeritus, at Trinity University, where he taught courses in Asian Religions and in Religion and Science, both western and Asian. He has a B.A. from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Early in his career his research focused on medieval Sanskrit literature dealing with Hindu goddesses, but intrigued by modern Hindu commentaries on goddess mythology that attributed great technological achievements to the ancient deities, he turned to the issue of the scientizing of spiritual traditions. This readily led him to research on the interaction between modern Hindus and western evolutionary thought. He has written many articles and book chapters on Hindu responses to Darwinism, and one book, Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Darwin, Dharma, and Design (Routledge, 2012).  

Part I

Islamic Responses

Chapter 2

The Politics of Islamic Opposition to Evolution in Turkey Taner Edis

Abstract  Islamic creationism has been very successful in Turkey, finding official as well as grassroots support in an environment shaped by neoliberal Islamism. Opposition to evolution has many local, Turkish and Islamic political rationales. However, as comparison with creationism in the United States demonstrates, creationism also draws political sustenance from a more universal rhetoric of modern conservatism, emphasizing markets, organic communities, and a pragmatic view of science as infrastructure for business and technology.

2.1  Muslim Resistance to Evolution Evolution as biologists understand it—blind, aimless, driven by mindless natural processes such as random variation and selection—is famous for challenging supernatural belief systems (Edis 2006). Much of the debate concerning evolution and religion has taken place in a Christian cultural context, and the most notorious example of rejection of evolution has been Protestant creationism in the United States. Creationism has very little presence among American educational and scientific elites; even the recent, more ecumenical and intellectually ambitious Intelligent Design movement has either been dismissed as a variety of religious creationism (Forrest and Gross 2007) or analyzed as a gross scientific failure (Young and Edis 2004). Nonetheless, creationism has a strong political constituency among religious conservatives, which constantly exerts pressure on American science education. Opposition to evolution is also a global phenomenon. It is not unusual to observe creationism among Christians in South Korea, Russia, or South Africa, or Orthodox Jews in Israel (Numbers 2006). Buddhists (Lopez 2008) and Hindus (Brown 2012) occasionally express discomfort with naturalistic evolution because it excludes teleology, though they show little opposition to common descent—the fact that life

T. Edis (*) Truman State University, Kirksville, MO, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_2

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forms share a common ancestor. Even Europe harbors creationism, not just in conservative Christian enclaves but among Muslim immigrant populations (Blancke et al. 2014). But both in terms of popular support and in terms of influence on public education, the most successful opposition to evolution appears in Muslim-majority countries (Edis 2007; Hameed 2008). The Middle East has a long history of rejection of Darwinian evolution (Edis and BouJaoude 2014), and other predominantly Muslim regions such as South Asia also exhibit resistance to evolution (Riexinger 2009). Survey data, though not entirely reliable, appear to show that deniers of human evolution outnumber those who accept it in the most populous countries such as Indonesia, Pakistan, and Turkey, while smaller countries in Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East show more ambiguous results (Bell et al. 2013: 132–133). Even affirmations of evolution need not mean much: the surveys in question do not distinguish between evolution as understood by biologists or ideas such as Intelligent Design or common descent under explicit divine guidance. Guided evolution is often a popular way of preserving the supernatural design of nature while superficially supporting science. And while the presence of evolution in mass education is most likely to trigger religious opposition, different Muslim countries have widely varying educational policies, from the strict creationism of Saudi Arabia to the acceptance of common descent for nonhuman species in Iran (Edis and BouJaoude 2014). In the past decades, Turkey has had a leading role in developing and promoting popular varieties of Islamic creationism. Rejection of evolution has appeared both in formal, officially sanctioned education, and in independent forms of literature that promoted religious revival while associating all manners of modern social problems with evolution (Edis 1999). Historically, Muslim elites within colonial states such as British India, and rulers of independent Muslim states such as the Ottoman Empire have supported modernization efforts since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These efforts have responded to Western commercial and military dominance by importing modern institutions and technology, while at the same time minimizing accompanying cultural and religious changes. Turkey, however, underwent an explicitly secularist, westernizing revolution in the early twentieth century. Both Arab and Turkish regions of the Ottoman Empire were exposed late to Darwinian ideas, often as a byproduct of Christian missionary activity (Elshakry 2013) or as part of European materialist arguments promoted by a small number of extreme westernizers. Muslim rejection of such materialism rarely led to more than superficial denunciations (Mustafa Efendi 2014), and until the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, public awareness of evolutionary ideas was negligible enough that little creationist opposition was necessary. However, the Turkish Revolution suppressed traditional expressions of Islam and gave full rein to a project of westernization. The new regime lionized science, and included ideas such as evolution in its centralized, expanded and modernized education system. Most Turks, however, remained devout and conservative, and steps toward a more democratic politics later in the twentieth century bolstered a conservative

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populism that fully embraced economic and technological modernization. Until the 1980s, explicit creationism was rare—passive resistance toward evolution in education and occasional Islamist criticism of evolution as an indirect way of attacking official secularism was most common. But a right-wing military coup in 1980 and its aftermath introduced the Turkish education system to creationism, in a form translated from American Protestant creationism and adapted to Islamic beliefs (Edis 1994). Since Turkey was the Muslim country that had attempted the most radical top-down westernization, and since Turkey harbored no constituencies that rejected technological modernity, many conservative Turks were attracted to a pseudoscientific attack on evolution rather than simply rejecting evolution for religious reasons (Edis 2007). Since then, Turkish creationism has expanded its influence and attracted attention from Muslim populations outside of Turkey (Edis 2007, chapter 4; Riexinger 2008). Since 2002, Turkey has been governed by the moderate, business-friendly Islamists of the Justice and Development Party (AKP, from its Turkish initials). Their education policies have been cool toward evolution, and science textbooks have regularly featured occasional creationist statements. At the same time, the media and the public intellectual environment has become saturated with religion. Expressions of creationism are commonplace, extending far beyond the conservative religious movements that make a cause of opposing evolution. Turkish creationists repeat many themes familiar from Christian varieties of creationism. With rare exceptions, however, they show little interest in the age of the Earth, and they ignore the signature preoccupation of Protestant creationism, flood geology. The Quran alludes to the Genesis narrative, but does not include detailed creation stories of its own. It does, however, affirm the special creation of Adam and Eve. Among many Muslims, then, human evolution is unacceptable. Humans are supposed to be unique, not to be lumped in with mere animals. Darwinian, naturalistic evolution is an obvious affront to divine creation, overlooking the obvious design in life forms, attempting to replace omnipotence with the mindless, random processes that materialists irrationally think can achieve the glorious interlocking functionality we see in nature. Even descent with modification is morally dangerous, emphasizing animal nature and uncontrolled desires rather than the spiritual truths nurtured by true religion. “Survival of the fittest” is associated with the strong oppressing the weak, inspiring vile atheistic ideologies such as fascism and communism (Yahya 2002). The emphasis on human uniqueness also means that complete creationism, though a very popular position, is not the only religious option in responding to evolution. Many Turkish theologians take a more moderate stand, allowing for a process of divinely guided change and development for non-human life forms, while insisting on the special creation of humans. Islam, according to such a view, has no objections to evolution (Ateş 1991). Popular Islamic varieties of creationism are not usually very intellectually sophisticated—they are often derivative, and even with their adaptations to Muslim concerns, most details of their arguments can also be found in the literature produced by opponents of evolution linked to other religions. Turkish creationism is, however, fascinating as an example of a socially and politically successful form of

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resistance to evolution. In Turkey and in many other Muslim environments, anti-­ evolutionary ideas have a notable presence in the academic and intellectual high culture as well as in the popular media. They affect education and science policy. And since the creation-evolution debate everywhere is strongly connected to political and religious concerns, successful Islamic resistance to evolution raises questions about the political impetus behind creationism. A comparison between the political aspects of Turkish creationism and its better-known American cousin should help us better understand modern religious resistance to evolution. The political details involving creationism are always local. Nonetheless, some common threads exist. Both in Turkey and in the United States, defenders of evolution tend toward an establishment liberal point of view that trusts expertise, affirms public enterprises at a national scale, and keeps science and religion institutionally well separated. Creationists are more often conservative populists challenging liberal elites for control of state functions such as mass education, demanding a more central role for religion in public life. Turkey and the United States have been proving grounds for publicly offered rationales for favoring creationism and evolution. Therefore, a more abstract description of conservative and liberal positions will help in a comparison between different historical experiences and different national politics. A liberal approach has been most influential in shaping modern mass education, and scientists and educators typically take a secular liberal view when affirming evolution. Their views may be sketched as: L1. Liberals think that natural science, as determined by the properly credentialed experts in science, is trustworthy. Science represents our best reasoned collective effort to figure out how nature works. L2. Liberals believe that a properly educated person should know something about science. Science education is in the public interest. Not only should the practical benefits of science and technology be accessible to everyone, but also all should be able to develop their capabilities of understanding how the world works. Liberal democracies depend on an informed electorate; citizens have to have a basic understanding of science to participate in many policy debates. L3. For liberals, science is a secular enterprise. It provides public knowledge independent of religious faith, without interfering with religious commitments concerning non-empirical matters such as the ultimate nature of reality. In the language of liberal political philosophy, science is an exemplary instance of “public reason” according to which modern citizens can conduct their common affairs. Conservatives sympathetic to creationism often see such a liberal perspective as an endorsement of heavy-handed state intervention in the ability of people in religious communities to live according to their faith. Conservatives emphasize the local convictions of communities and the spontaneous results of market transactions, rather than the impositions of expertise. Therefore, conservatives, especially religious conservatives who are not convinced by evolution, might favor a different list:

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C1. Conservatives trust the concrete products of technology, but are more reserved about abstract theoretical descriptions of nature. Science can be overly ambitious. C2. For conservatives, the role of science in education is more limited. Students are part of communities with organically developed ways of understanding the world, in which moral and spiritual ideals are interwoven with descriptions of how the world works. If students are to become productive members of their community, their education should instill the appropriate loyalties. Claims of scientific expertise do not trump these local interests. C3. Conservatives do not agree that secularism is neutral regarding religion. To the extent that science is secular, science is also not neutral concerning religion, and therefore can be legitimately treated as an aspect of a rival ideology. Conservative political philosophy often incorporates a distrust of rationalism, emphasizing practical knowledge and local experience (Oakeshott 1966). To make these sketches more concrete, a brief look at the historical context of evolution and public science education in the United States and Turkey will be helpful. In the United States, mass public education has roots in the evangelical Protestant activism of the nineteenth century. Protestants, who enjoyed an informal establishment of their religion (Sehat 2011; Eisenach 2000), were concerned to socialize students into a distinctly American democratic way of life. They included Christianity of a supposedly nonsectarian Protestant variety in public education, prompting Catholic resistance. Many Catholics instead relied on an alternative network of private parochial schools and unsuccessfully attempted to secure public funding for their institutions. As American Protestantism split between more liberal and conservative currents, and education became increasingly professionalized, matters of curriculum and instruction became a domain of expertise, rooted in a universal—or at least national—conception of knowledge rather than the varying interests of local communities. Teachers had to acquire more demanding qualifications. Secular liberal philosophies of education, such as that expressed by John Dewey, acquired some influence, limited by the way American public education is controlled by state and local authorities. For example, the famous Scopes trial of 1925 produced ridicule of conservative evangelical anti-intellectualism in urban and educated circles, but did not improve the presence of evolution in science education. The Cold War led to a more explicit imposition of expertise on science education. As American science education was overhauled, biologists took the opportunity to make sure evolution was treated properly. This imposition of expert views took place relatively easily. Politics in the post-World War II United States had come to be dominated by a “liberal consensus,” where conservative political thinkers were resigned to an almost permanent minority status. Liberal jurists dismantled the remains of the informal Protestant establishment, technocrats administered Keynesian economics, and large corporate bureaucracies sought a modus vivendi with unions.

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By the 1970s, the liberal consensus was unraveling, and there was a potent conservative backlash. As secondary education in the natural and social sciences was made to more fully reflect the views of credentialed experts, the modern young earth creationist revival provided a response (Numbers 2006). Opposition to evolution became an issue for conservative Protestant activism. Creationists pressed for laws that would allow “equal time” for creation and evolution in the classroom. It soon became apparent that while such laws could be passed by local legislatures, the courts would strike them down as a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which, when interpreted from a liberal perspective, provides for church-state separation. Still, community pressure on public schools in religiously conservative localities often meant inadequate coverage of evolution. Moreover, the movement toward private Christian academies reacting against desegregation in the American South provided a channel for a creationist education. Many conservative Protestants found themselves in a position similar to Catholics a century ago: frozen out of a public education system controlled by elites unresponsive to their cultural concerns, partly relying on a parallel alternative educational system, and resentful of the taxes they continued to pay to fund public education. The religious conservatives objecting to evolution did not think of themselves as opposing science. American conservatism, no less than liberalism, has usually been captivated by the “technological sublime” (Nye 1996); its hero-figures prominently include inventor-entrepreneurs. In conservative religious circles science—equated with practical technological products—has usually been understood to support divine design and American ingenuity (Gilbert 1997). Creationism has drawn much of its social support from upwardly mobile people from religious backgrounds moving into positions where technology is critical to earning a living—there would be little motivation for constructing an elaborate pseudoscience such as creationism without a strong need to harmonize traditional religion with a modern technological environment (Eve and Harrold 1990). Religious conservatives often have some respect for the notion of expertise, since they value authority: American creationists are notorious for craving and flaunting doctoral degrees, which occasionally turn out to be fake. Contempt for the experts in academia goes together with efforts to found alternative institutions such as Liberty University. But by and large, experts are treated with suspicion. Conservatives consider government a liberal instrument of interference in peoples’ lives, but also broaden their defense of local community values by adopting an ethno-religious nationalism. And education, for such conservative populists, is primarily an instrument for reproducing community ideals. Expressions of conservative populism, such as Republican Party platforms, rail against “liberal elites” and experts and favor privatizing education as a vehicle for making schools more responsive to community concerns (GOP Platform 2012: 19; Texas GOP 2012: 12). To defend their position, American liberals have often relied on the courts, which have consistently blocked creationism from public science education. In effect, liberals have used elite, nondemocratic judicial institutions to frustrate populist demands and enforce deference to the prerogatives of an expert class. Defenders of science education insist that science is not a democracy—the current state of science is defined by consensus within an expert community.

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Blocking creationism, however, depends almost entirely on the First Amendment. Therefore, American liberals are legally, as well as culturally, invested in arguing that evolution is religiously neutral, and indeed no threat to religious faith (Scott 2004). In practice, this has meant arguing that proper religion is compatible with modern science: religion that defers to science about empirical matters, religion as understood by liberal theologians who comfortably move in academic circles. Liberals favor a class of religious experts who are often distant from the beliefs of ordinary religious people in order to define acceptable religion. This is hardly the sort of argument that can appeal to conservative populists. The Turkish history of debates of over science and religion, and the politics of creation and evolution, are naturally somewhat different from the American case. The broad themes of religious concern about evolution—its downgrading of human uniqueness, its replacement of a divine plan of history with contingency and randomness, its emphasis on reproduction of the fittest rather than purpose-infused morality tales—remain much the same. After all, most of the varieties of Islam in Turkey and the expressions of Christianity in the United States echo common themes of the Abrahamic religions. But in the Islamic world, science-inspired challenges to traditional supernatural beliefs have appeared in a different historical context than Western Christianity. In Western intellectual institutions, the aspects of science that cast doubt on supernatural beliefs have been internal heresies, and were debated as questions organically arising within the local intellectual tradition. Muslims encountered modern science as an import, as part of a package to be adopted for rapid modernization to avoid being overwhelmed by Western colonial powers. Cultural defense—protecting religion and social morality while borrowing Western technology—has been a leading concern among Muslim intellectuals. The more skeptical, religiously threatening aspects of modern science have typically been perceived as foreign, with the extra implied threat of alien cultural domination (Edis 2007). Nonetheless, the contrast between liberal and conservative views is helpful in analyzing the politics of evolution and creationism in Turkey. Westernizers, who took the lead in modernization projects, have been educated elites who naturally fell into the liberal pattern of L1–L3. Turkish conservatives have not just reacted to the expertise claimed by westernizers and embodied in bureaucratic institutions. They have developed a populist political appeal, based not just in traditional communities but also small and provincial business owners and culturally rural working classes migrating to the slums of large industrial cities. The rhetoric of conservative politicians and intellectuals draws on convictions well-summarized by C1–C3. Modern education in what is now Turkey began with reform efforts in the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The first few Western-style schools for Muslims were oriented toward military training, while traditional education continued as a disorganized and religiously-focused effort involving madrassas and small-scale local arrangements where boys would be taught to recite the Quran. The successor to the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s, the Republic of Turkey, continued the Ottoman modernization project, but took it in a more radical direction. The republicans, largely based in the military and the remains of the imperial

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bureaucracy, had often enjoyed a Western-style education, and considered secular education to be key to lifting the population out of poverty and achieving a status on a par with European nations. They brought education under centralized state control and emphasized the unity of instruction, abolishing the traditional networks of religious schooling. Education became the province of experts, where the best practices were modeled on Western Europe and the aims of education were determined by a Turkish nationalist ideology (Koç 2006). Science enjoyed a high reputation as the foundation of Western military and commercial advantages, and ideas such as biological evolution straightforwardly found a place in the curriculum. Reliance on state-imposed expertise extended to matters of religion. The Turkish republicans are often misleadingly described as strict secularists, but the centrality of Islam to the identity of the citizens of the new Turkish Republic was never in doubt. The republicans had their ideas about proper religion, which was not the traditional Islam of Sufi orders, rural piety, or the rabbinical class of religious scholars (Parla and Davison 2004). The true religion appropriate for Turks had no use for any such debased superstitions—while preserving Sunni ritual practices and core supernatural beliefs, proper religion was to become an agent of modernization. Therefore, the new Turkish Republic attempted to bring religion and religious education under state control as well. Even today, religion in Turkey remains a matter of state, where religious functionaries are government employees, overseen by a powerful Directorate of Religious Affairs in charge of the officially sanctioned version of Sunni Islam. The mostly conservatively religious population of Turkey naturally resisted the imposed interpretation of proper religion. Versions of traditional religious structures and education flourished underground, even giving rise to theologically conservative, populist, but also modernizing currents such as the very influential Nur movement, which was initially criminalized by the republicans in power (Edis 2007, chapter 3). And after the first decades, the revolutionary fervor of the early republic subsided. More conservative administrations accepted republican structures of government, but also provided outlets for popular resentment with state-imposed education and interference with religion. Of particular importance are the İmam Hatip schools, originally intended for vocational training of religious functionaries such as imams. They eventually developed into a parallel education system based on Sunni Islam, taking in students vastly outnumbering possible posts for functionaries, and even included females who are excluded from clerical positions. This parallel religious educational establishment enjoyed considerable grassroots support from conservative populations, deflecting occasional revived republican hopes to reunify education. Resentment against state-imposed ideology and claims of expertise remained a major theme of Turkish conservatism, but after a military coup in 1980, religious conservatives began to enjoy more direct access to state power. Post-coup Turkey exhibited increased dominance by the business class (Ozan 2012) and efforts to forge closer alliances with religious populists; the mid-1980s also witnessed the first penetration of Turkish public education by an Islamic version of creationism partly derived from American Protestant examples (Edis 1994).

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For a while, Islamist politics retained an edge of opposition to the regime, but with the formation of the AKP, which has been in control of the Turkish government since 2002, religious populism has been fully integrated with a neoliberal, business-­ dominated political system (Tuğal 2009). Creationist references are now common in Turkish secondary school textbooks (Yalçınoğlu 2009), and education policy is guided by ethno-religious nationalism. Within Turkish conservatism, opposition to liberal elites is less often expressed in terms of the anti-government rhetoric familiar from the United States. Instead, the political narratives of Turkish conservatives emphasize an ongoing conflict between bureaucratic and military elites entrenched in the state on one hand, and a traditionally devout and free enterprise-oriented population at large on the other. Turkish conservatism, then, appears as a democratic, democratizing ideology that reconciles the state with the population (Göle 2000). Instead of a liberal elite commanding expertise and taking a tutelary role to prompt a recalcitrant population to modernize, conservatives say that they trust the market or elected politicians responsive to local community interests. Even with such differences of emphasis, however, the political philosophy guiding Turkish conservatism has taken on an American coloration. The rise of the AKP reflects this increased Americanization of political Islam in Turkey. Political theorists associated with the AKP partly claim inspiration from a European Christian Democratic tradition, but their animating thought derives largely from Anglo-­ American conservative political philosophy (Akdoğan 2004), including conservative critiques of European Enlightenment-derived conceptions of reason (Özipek 2011). Indeed, some Turkish conservative literature presents a political outlook that is hard to distinguish from that of the Republican Party in the United States (e.g. Akyol 2011). This is not merely a matter of rhetorical convenience. As Greek political scientist Christos Teazis observes, “the Islamist movement in Turkey was only able to strengthen and express itself as part of a process of democratization (Americanization). Therefore, in this process American institutions have been adopted and applied in every respect” (Teazis 2010: 188). So a convergence of conservative thinking about science and education in Turkey and the United States is not surprising. The response to conservative dominance from the Turkish equivalent of the liberal establishment in science and education has been ineffective. In recent decades, starting in 1997, the most visible form of creationism in Turkey has been an internationally exported product of private enterprise, operating under the pseudonym of “Harun Yahya” (Edis 1999). Scientists and educators, including the Turkish Academy of Sciences, strongly opposed Yahya’s wave of creationism (Sayın and Kence 1999). However, they phrased their objections in terms of the universal standards of scientific expertise, and worse, presented themselves as defending the secular nature of the Turkish state. By appealing to politically discredited ideals such as secularism, they ensured failure. The AKP period has further entrenched conservative disregard of scientific expertise. The Ministry of Education has retained creationist material in the curriculum, ignoring academicians petitioning for the removal of unscientific material

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(Kotan 2006). Furthermore, the AKP government has asserted more control over scientific institutions; for example, restructuring the Turkish Academy of Sciences to remove its independence, and preventing a cover story honoring the two hundredth birthday of Darwin in a popular science and technology magazine published by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Abbott 2009). More recently, the AKP has increased its emphasis on the religious İmam Hatip schools, promoting them to become a main form of secondary education in Turkey. Creationism has also been supported by religious movements acting in partnership with the Islamist government. The most important example is the Gülen movement, an offshoot of the Nur movement that has put particular emphasis on training talented students and placing followers in important institutions. Gülenist education has typically aimed to produce high levels of technical competence in mathematics and science (Hendrick 2013; Edis 2016, chapter 3) while downplaying conceptual frameworks such as evolution; they have been particularly good at producing applied science professionals. Starting in 2013, a power struggle between the AKP and the Gülenists emerged, leading to a failed 2016 coup attempt that the AKP leadership blamed on Gülenists. The subsequent purges of public employees included thousands of teachers and university faculty accused of having Gülen connections. The result appears to be further consolidation of AKP power, with few opportunities for a liberal expertise-based politics that might support evolution. The overall political contexts in which the creation-evolution contest takes place are similar in Turkey and the United States, though there are also important differences such as the comparative weakness of the liberal position in Turkey. The general views summarized by L1–L3 and C1–C3 can usefully characterize broadly liberal and conservative approaches in both countries. This is not to say that every point of view can be shoehorned under a liberal or conservative heading, or that either camp is perfectly unified. For example, biologist Jerry Coyne challenges L3 from a more hardline secularist position, arguing against the notion that evolution is compatible with religious supernatural beliefs. He considers monotheism to be a key motivation for rejection of evolution, and suggests that science education needs to confront this aspect of religion rather than reassert liberal pieties about the separate spheres of science and religion (Coyne 2012). However, while the liberal model of separate spheres for science and religion is intellectually dubious, it also remains a politically indispensable device to smooth relationships between scientific and religious institutions (Edis 2006). When Turkish academics publicly defend evolution, they usually see no alternative to taking a similar position, endorsing liberal theological stances and advocating separate spheres (Aydın 2007). The liberal emphasis on expertise in L1 is also not shared by all. A left-wing critic might observe that academic expertise often is pressed into the service of existing arrangements of power. The expertise of neoclassical economists, for example, is socially more consequential than that of natural scientists, and reflects a practice that is insensitive to empirical failure and exhibits possibly pseudoscientific traits (Keen 2011). Liberals have represented neoliberalism with a technocratic emphasis, while conservatives have often stood for neoliberalism with full spectrum

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dominance by the business class. However, while a left-wing critique of expertise may be interesting, it is of doubtful relevance. After all, the United States and Turkey are both countries where the political left—as distinguished from the technocratic liberalism such as that expressed by the Democratic Party in the US— is practically inconsequential. Conservatives are also not necessarily united. Conservatives who set aside religion and are more concerned to defend markets and property need not have any sympathy for creationism. Such conservatives’ interest in education policy tends to focus on efforts to privatize education and to break teachers’ unions. Indeed, currently in the United States privatization is probably a more important issue concerning education than the entrenched stalemate over evolution. In Turkey, the ongoing privatization of education has become complicated in the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, with the state asserting control over Gülenist private educational institutions. But in practice, both in Turkey and in the United States, a privatization agenda strengthens the hand of creationists, both because of political alliances between religious and business-class conservatives, and because private and parallel educational systems already harbor plenty of distrust toward evolution. Moreover, conservatism that does not emphasize religion has an anti-science record of its own, as seen in the examples of corporate-orchestrated denials of the harm of smoking and global warming (Oreskes and Conway 2010). Therefore, where the creation-evolution dispute is concerned, a liberal-­ conservative dichotomy summarized by L1–L3 and C1–C3 continues to frame the political context in Turkey and the United States. And it is hard to negotiate a compromise: too much that is important is at stake. For example, even when backing away from strict secularism and praising the social cohesion and moral grounding religion provides, a prominent liberal philosopher such as Jürgen Habermas cannot let go of an ideal of public reason. He therefore grants scientific expertise a privileged position, arguing that “religious citizens must develop an epistemic stance toward the internal logic of secular knowledge and toward the institutionalized monopoly on knowledge of modern scientific experts” (Habermas 2008: 137). But it is hard to see why religious conservatives should agree. Trust in scientific institutions is not automatic, and even in an Islamic context, conservative distrust of science draws on sources as eclectic as postmodern critiques of scientific knowledge (Aydın 2008). Furthermore, given their political dominance in the United States and especially in Turkey, conservatives might not be as motivated to seek a compromise.

2.2  What Is to Be Taught? Most arguments favoring creation or evolution are well-rehearsed. From popular science books to television documentaries, the most accessible defenses of evolution give an overview of the biological evidence, and perhaps argue that evolution does not threaten religion when properly understood. But fundamentally, the popular case for evolution rests on trust in the experts. In contrast, creationists claim that

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science has gone wrong due to the influence of materialist ideologies; Turkish creationists often combine distrust of scientific institutions with the conspiracy theories that are pervasive in Middle Eastern political discourse (Yahya 2011; Solberg 2013: 75–93). Both the standard creationist and evolutionary arguments primarily address constituencies already inclined to support such views. The biological evidence does not speak for itself; its effects depend on a modern education and habits of critical trust. When creationists highlight threats to human uniqueness or present randomness in nature as a danger and an absurdity, they address conservative tendencies to be vigilant against challenges to a moral order. Most popular literature about creation and evolution plays to an established base of support. Going beyond the base, however, requires making appeals to less committed constituencies. Such appeals are more pragmatic, more explicitly political: they seek a minimal common ground rather than invoke shared identities. Agreements on the desirability of democracy, social cohesion, or economic development frame arguments for the benefits of evolution or creationism in education. In the United States, liberal supporters of evolution often argue that a scientifically literate, well-educated citizenry is critical. Democracy depends on a well-­ informed citizenry practiced in the skills of critical thinking. Liberals state that education must develop these capabilities of citizenship, culminating in a higher education centered on the liberal arts, particularly the humanities (Nussbaum 2010; Folbre 2010). Today, however, education at all levels faces privatization and defunding. A conservative political climate undermines professionalism and communities of expertise (Newfield 2008: 257–63). Turkey does not have a strong tradition of liberal education. The public utility of science and science education is most often conceived of in terms of economic development and nationalist and religious prestige—catching up to the Western world. Deference to expertise comes mixed with subservience to national goals of development. Old-line republican critics of the present education system often invoke the ideals of the early Turkish Republic, affirming ambitions to overcome tradition in order to produce a modern generation, understood in liberal terms contrasted to conservative religiosity (e.g. Koç 2006). To conservatives, all this awakens suspicions of liberals using state power in futile attempts to remake human nature. Aiming for a broad scientific literacy throughout the population might be less controversial. After all, almost everyone, regardless of their political orientation, thinks of science and technology as useful. Moreover, scientific literacy is part of a more general cultural literacy. Even today’s popular culture, no less than high culture, includes references to ideas such as evolution. It would be to the advantage of students to understand such references, even if they personally reject evolution as an explanation for the history of life. Science literacy, however, need not mean more than a superficial engagement with science. Modern science depends on broad conceptual frameworks such as relativity, quantum mechanics, or Darwinian evolution. Without such frameworks, students collect a set of “scientific facts” like stamps, without developing a picture of the world that is truly informed by science. Nonetheless, that is usually what

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happens. The conceptual frameworks that inform modern science are counterintuitive and often require considerable intellectual maturity, not to mention some mathematical background, to grasp. In contrast to more everyday and religious ways of thinking, science demands profoundly unnatural ways of thought (McCauley 2011). An understanding of science that goes beyond collecting facts is very difficult to achieve beyond the small percentage of the population that is professionally involved with science or technology (Shamos 1995). Popular conceptions of evolution, even among populations that do not share a conservative religious suspicion of evolution, reflect such difficulties. As biologists have long observed (e.g. Gould 1989), evolution is commonly imagined to be progressive, with an inherent direction. Such conceptions also support a description of evolution as a purposeful, divinely guided process. And so the Intelligent Design version of creationism, for example, can position itself as a reasonable point of view that accepts much of evolution, especially if it is presented as an explanation for the origin of life or the sources of biological information (Meyer 2009). Indeed, in Turkey, variants of Intelligent Design often represent a compromise position. Moderate Turkish theologians often claim that Islam has no difficulty with evolution, defend a version of guided evolution that sidelines purposeless Darwinian mechanisms, and assert that evolution applies to mere animals, not humans (Ateş 1991). Grasping how biologists understand evolution does little for cultural literacy, since broader cultural notions of evolution are shaped in large part by concerns that have little to do with science. What, then, does a student gain from science education? In the United States and Turkey today, education is often considered an instrument for individual economic advancement. Education is an investment in human capital, in anticipation of future earnings. There is considerable pressure from the business community to reform education by privatizing, imposing standardized testing, and becoming more efficient with fewer resources. But reformers never call for less science and math. After all, students are preparing for a complex, technology-driven economy. Some competence in science may be important in order to achieve a decent economic position. Liberals, therefore, have an opening to argue that an inadequate background in central scientific concepts like evolution would impose a handicap on students. Conservative Muslims in Turkey are no less committed to a neoliberal framework and are supportive of education, including for women (Tuğal 2009). Therefore, even religious conservatives might be persuaded to accept evolution in education. Even if such an argument has some plausibility, however, it need not support evolution as a vital component of mass science education. Knowing something about evolution might be relevant if there is a large demand for basic science skills in the labor market. This is not the case. The trajectory of the United States for the last three decades has been toward a low-wage service economy for the majority of the population. Most jobs demand little education that is related to science or technology (Kalleberg 2011). In science and technology fields, which are often described as keys to economic competitiveness, there is overproduction of graduates compared to the jobs available (Brown et al. 2011, chapter 3). Both liberals and conservatives in the United States have

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acquiesced in the offshoring of not just routine manufacturing but highly skilled technological jobs. And for decades, liberal celebration of “symbolic analysis” work (e.g. Reich 1992) has led to an emphasis on education as a panacea. Rhetorical support for education has shifted responsibility to individuals to cope with a neoliberal economy that offshores analytic jobs as easily as shop-floor manufacturing employment (Brown et al. 2011). Mass science education, with or without evolution, is not as relevant to the economic future of the United States as often assumed. Turkey, as an upper middle-income country that is rarely at the cutting edge of developing technologies, faces different demands. In the decades since creationism has become a public presence in Turkey, manufacturing industries have become stronger, benefiting from offshoring from Europe and exploiting cheap labor and suppressed unions. Making use of Islamic affinities, Turkish industry and trade expanded into Central Asian markets, and attracted hot money from rich Gulf states. In the period of Islamist AKP rule, Turkey has enjoyed per capita income growth rates of 3–4% a year, which, while less than powerhouses such as India and China, is still respectable. Neoliberal growth has come with problems, such as a highly unequal income distribution, wages remaining stagnant alongside productivity growth, environmental degradation, and insecure, precarious employment conditions (Atasoy 2009; Lordoğlu and Koçak 2015). Nonetheless, conservative Turks today feel as if they have found a path toward development that does not require compromising religious values (Edis 2016, chapter 3). Under such conditions, like many developing and middle-income nations, Turkey has continued to emphasize applied science and engineering; indeed, engineering fields have typically enjoyed greater social prestige than basic science, which provides few career opportunities aside from teaching. The engineering opportunities that exist do not concern cutting edge innovation; as in most countries, the bulk of engineering work is in unglamorous areas such as maintenance (Edgerton 2007). In any case, Turkey produces a more than adequate supply of applied scientists for its internal market. The best students go into engineering, not physics; medicine, not biology. And religious organizations have been closely involved both with the spread of market-centered thinking in Turkish society and with educating talented students in applied science. The contribution of modern Islamic movements to the ascendance of free market ideology in Turkey has been much remarked upon. Organizations of pious businessmen conceive of a “homo islamicus,” tempering the greed of Western capitalism by grafting Islamic charity practices onto a religiously-sanctioned free market order. Instead of conflict between management and labor, religious orders envision working toward a common, Islamic cause, while promoting business practices that comply with international norms (Yankaya 2014). Many prominent religious movements also run private schools and provide support networks for students. The Gülenists are the best-known example, famous for emphasizing technical competence in mathematics and science in the classroom, while making sure that religion remains a background social presence that rarely interferes with course content (Hendrick 2013). However, technical competence, associated with good performance on standardized tests and entry into prestigious

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engineering programs, requires no more than a superficial conception of science. Education supported by religious orders reinforces long-standing Turkish tendencies to treat science as a collection of facts and an infrastructure for business and technology. It is easy to ignore central conceptual frameworks of science, such as evolution, because there are no negative consequences in the job market. Evolutionary biology in particular does not lead to immediate practical applications. Even in the United States, arguments that Darwinian perspectives in medicine can provide insight into disease processes and aspects of human physiology have not prevented evolution from being virtually ignored in medical education (Stearns and Koella 2008; Gluckman et al. 2009), even though at the same time some medical institutions have been quick to incorporate scientifically dubious emphases on religion (Sloan 2006). At best, evolutionary thinking has not yet demonstrated its full promise in medicine; it certainly cannot provide a rationale for a mass introduction to evolutionary biology. Officials in the Islamic Republic of Iran have decided to invest in biotechnology, which has helped Iranian science education accommodate common descent for nonhuman animals. In Turkey, both prospects for biotechnology and Darwinian medicine remain too distant to provide reasons to support evolution. Knowledge of evolution has next to no relevance to economic life. It is hard to see, in these circumstances, how creationism in Turkish schools can have any adverse effect on either individual economic prospects or national performance. The purge of tens of thousands of alleged Gülenists, due to the 2016 failed coup blamed on Gülen, does not change the underlying picture. Gülen schools may be assimilated into the state-run parallel religious education system, the İmam Hatip’s, or they may be taken over by other entrepreneurial religious orders that maintain a better relationship with the AKP government. In either case, market-oriented, religion-­friendly education that produces narrow technical competence is a proven success. It is also a model compatible with widespread creationism. Indeed, regardless of the details of the entanglement of religion and the public perception of science, the overwhelming emphasis in Turkey on applied science alone can be expected to sustain an environment that favors doubts about evolution. After all, compared to basic science, the practitioners and institutions of applied science are much more conservative about religion and politics. Applied scientists more closely reflect their societies, while basic scientists tend to be more liberal outliers (Gambetta and Hertog 2009). Creationism in Turkey and in the United States share some important similarities. In both countries, creationists defend conservative religious ideas of human uniqueness, affirming traditional beliefs in a world of modern technology. In both places, the conservative political climate of the past decades has eroded liberal views about deference to secular expertise and provided an environment suitable for populist religious movements associated with creationism. In an era of identity politics, support for both creation and evolution has become a matter of personal identity, making political agreement hard to achieve. And the firm consensus on neoliberal policies does not provide the sort of common ground that can support evolution. Privatizing education and emphasizing human capital indirectly harms

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science education aimed at understanding nature rather than just technical competence and technological applications. Turkey and the United States also have important differences. Creationism is politically and culturally stronger in Turkey. Today, Muslim conservatives committed to neoliberal modernization are much more assertive: to them, Islam represents a degree of economic success rather than backwardness. They aspire to a pious modernity that is an alternative to secular liberal conceptions of being modern (Edis 2016). And they are politically successful. Whatever minor costs that might be associated with rejecting a central concept of modern science appears to be more than offset by the social and cultural attractions of harmonizing piety and technology. Acknowledgments  Thanks are due to Eugenie Scott and Joshua Rosenau for comments and discussions.

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Eisenach, Eldon J. 2000. The Next Religious Establishment: National Identity and Political Theology in Post-Protestant America. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Elshakry, Marwa. 2013. Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Eve, Raymond A., and Francis B. Harrold. 1990. The Creationist Movement in Modern America. Boston: Twayne Publishers. Folbre, Nancy. 2010. Saving State U: Why We Must Fix Public Higher Education. New York: The New Press. Forrest, Barbara, and Paul R. Gross. 2007. Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. New York: Oxford University Press. Gambetta, Diego, and Steffen Hertog. 2009. Why Are There so Many Engineers Among Islamic Radicals? European Journal of Sociology 50 (2): 201–230. Gilbert, James. 1997. Redeeming Culture: American Religion in an Age of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gluckman, Peter D., Alan Beedle, and Mark Hanson. 2009. Principles of Evolutionary Medicine. New York: Oxford University Press. Göle, Nilüfer. 2000. İslam ve Modernlik Üzerine Melez Desenler. İstanbul: Metis Yayınları. GOP Platform. 2012. http://www.scribd.com/doc/104221532/2012-Gop-Platform. Accessed 7 Oct 2016. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1989. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. New York: W.W. Norton. Habermas, Jürgen. 2008. Between Naturalism and Religion: Philosophical Essays. Trans. Ciaran Cronin. Malden: Polity Press. Hameed, Salman. 2008. Bracing for Islamic Creationism. Science 322: 1637–1638. Hendrick, Joshua D. 2013. Küreselleşme, İslami Aktivizm, ve Türkiye’de Pasif Devrim: Fethullah Gülen Örneği. In Neoliberalizm, İslamcı Sermayenin Yükselişi ve AKP, ed. Neşecan Balkan, Erol Balkan, and Ahmet Öncü. İstanbul: Yordam Kitap. Kalleberg, Arne. 2011. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment in the United States, 1970s–2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Keen, Steve. 2011. Debunking Economics—Revised and Expanded Edition: The Naked Emperor Dethroned? London: Zed Books. Koç, Nurettin. 2006. Laik Eğitimden Şeriatçı Eğitime: Ulusal Eğitimde Çöküş Süreci. İstanbul: Berfin Yayınları. Kotan, Betül. 2006. Bakan Çelik: Yaratılış aynen kalacak. Radikal. http://www.radikal.com.tr/ haber.php?haberno=180408. Accessed 7 Oct 2016. Lopez, Donald S., Jr. 2008. Buddhism and Science: A Guide for the Perplexed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lordoğlu, Kuvvet, and M. Hakan Koçak. 2015. AKP Döneminde İstihdam, İşgücü ve İşsizlik. In Himmet, Fıtrat, Piyasa: AKP Döneminde Sosyal Politika, ed. Meryem Koray and Aziz Çelik. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları. McCauley, Robert N. 2011. Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. New  York: Oxford University Press. Meyer, Stephen C. 2009. Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design. New York: HarperOne. Mustafa Efendi, Harputizâde Hacı. 2014. In Red ve Isbât: Alman Feylesoflarından Louis Büchner’in Ahmed Nebil, Baha Tevfik Efendiler Tarafından Tercüme Olunan Madde ve Kuvvet Nâm Eserine Reddiyedir, ed. Ibrahim Hakkı Kaynak and Ali Utku. İstanbul: Çizgi Kitabevi. Newfield, Christopher. 2008. Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Numbers, Ronald L. 2006. The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nussbaum, Martha C. 2010. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Nye, David E. 1996. American Technological Sublime. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Oakeshott, Michael. 1966. Experience and Its Modes. Cambridge, UK: The University Press. Oreskes, Naomi, and Erik M. Conway. 2010. Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. New  York: Bloomsbury Press. Ozan, Ebru Deniz. 2012. Gülme Sırası Bizde: 12 Eylül’e Giderken Sermaye Sınıfı Kriz ve Devlet. İstanbul: Metis Yayınları. Özipek, Bekir Berat. 2011. Muhafazakarlık: Akıl, Toplum, Siyaset. İstanbul: Timaş Yayınları. Parla, Taha, and Andrew Davison. 2004. Corporatist Ideology in Kemalist Turkey. New  York: Syracuse University Press. Reich, Robert. 1992. The Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st-Century Capitalism. New York: Vintage Books. Riexinger, Martin. 2008. Propagating Islamic Creationism on the Internet. Masaryk University Journal of Law and Technology 2 (2): 99–112. ———. 2009. Reactions of South Asian Muslims to the Theory of Evolution. Welt des Islams 49 (2): 212–247. Sayın, Ümit, and Aykut Kence. 1999. Islamic Scientific Creationism. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 19 (6): 18–20, 25–29. Scott, Eugenie C. 2004. Evolution vs. Creationism: An Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sehat, David. 2011. The Myth of American Religious Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Shamos, Morris H. 1995. The Myth of Scientific Literacy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Sloan, Richard P. 2006. Blind Faith: The Unholy Alliance of Religion and Medicine. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Solberg, Anne Ross. 2013. The Mahdi Wears Armani: An Analysis of the Harun Yahya Enterprise. Huddinge: Södertörns Högskola. Stearns, Stephen C., and Jacob C. Koella, eds. 2008. Evolution in Health and Disease, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Teazis, Christos. 2010. İkincilerin Cumhuriyeti: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi. İstanbul: Mızrak Yayınları. Texas GOP. 2012. http://www.texasgop.org/wp-content/themes/rpt/images/2012Platform_Final. pdf. Accessed 7 Oct 2016. Tuğal, Cihan. 2009. Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Yahya, Harun. 2002. Fascism: The Bloody Ideology of Darwinism. İstanbul: Kültür Yayınları. ———. 2011. Darwinist Propaganda Techniques. İstanbul: Global Publishing. Yalçınoğlu, P. 2009. Impacts of Anti-evolutionist Movements on Educational Policies and Practices in USA and Turkey. İlköğretim Online 8 (1): 254–267. Yankaya, Dilek. 2014. Yeni İslâmî Burjuvazi: Türk Modeli. İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Young, Matt, and Taner Edis. 2004. Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Taner Edis teaches physics at Truman State University, a liberal arts and sciences school that lets him get away with research on the history and philosophy of science. He focuses on paranormal and supernatural claims and explores what their failures say about the nature of science. Opposition to evolution—especially Islamic creationism and the American “Intelligent Design” movement— has been a particular interest. Edis has published numerous articles and books about the relationship between science and religion. His latest book is Islam Evolving: Radicalism, Reformation, and the Uneasy Relationship with the Secular West.  

Chapter 3

South Asian Muslim Responses to Darwinism Martin Riexinger

Abstract  Muslims in South Asia responded to the theory of evolution in three different ways: (1) acceptance concomitant with a reinterpretation of relevant passages of the Qur’an; (2) teleological reinterpretation of the theory of evolution based on a reinterpretation of scriptural sources as well; and (3) rejection based on the conflict with the Qur’an and the sunna, usually accompanied with the argument that the theory of evolution is “unscientific.” Whereas the first approach is characteristic for modernist thinkers, and the second one is typical for new Islamic movements which have emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Islamists and representatives of the traditional schools of thought reject the theory of evolution. For the latter group, however, the theory of evolution never became an important issue, for in general it was not made use of in larger ideological battles.

3.1  Introduction In his The Growth of Biological Knowledge Ernst Mayr (1982: 501) pointed out that the Darwinian theory of evolution challenged six major assumptions of the Western intellectual tradition: 1. The replacement of a static by an evolving view of the world (not original with Darwin). 2. The demonstration of the implausibility of creationism. 3. The refutation of cosmic teleology. 4. The abolition of any justification for an absolute anthropocentrism by applying the principle of common descent to man. 5. The explanation of “design” in the world by the purely materialistic process of natural selection, a process consisting of an interaction between non-directed variation and opportunistic reproductive success. M. Riexinger (*) Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_3

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6. The replacement of essentialism by population thinking. With the first five of these six challenges, Mayr unmistakably refers to Christian theological preconceptions prevalent in the West until the late nineteenth Century. Yet these challenges apply with greater or lesser force to any theistic tradition. Islam thus had to address these very same challenges, but for Muslim thinkers, the challenge was not limited to the theological. For Muslims everywhere, the theory of evolution presented an array of new concepts contrary to inherited ideas and norms. Moreover, Muslims encountered the theory as part and parcel of modern science, an enterprise that supposedly accounted for the undeniable economic and technological superiority of Western civilization. Such superiority had led to European colonization of many Muslim countries and peoples, including those of South Asia. For South Asian Muslims, then, the intellectual challenges of modern science, including evolutionary theory, were exacerbated by the fact that the country was subjected to colonial rule, further aggravated by the greater apparent ease with which other competing communities such as upper caste Hindus and Zoroastrians were adapting to the changing circumstances. Muslims in South Asia responded in various ways to these challenges, reflecting diverse attitudes to Western civilization in general and to the authority of Islamic scriptural and community resources. This chapter, then, will present and analyze responses of South Asian Muslims to the theory of evolution against the social, cultural and historical background of colonial South Asia. I will also briefly look at the consequences of responses for the future of evolutionary theory and modern science within South Asian Muslim communities. This inquiry will not be exhaustive, as I will utilize only sources in Urdu (the lingua franca for most Muslims of South Asia), Arabic (the sacred language of Islam in which South Asian scholars address their colleagues abroad), and English, which played an increasing role among lay Muslims. Interesting contributions or even debates in languages like Malayalam, Gujarati, Sindhi, Tamil or Bengali may exist, but no respective research has hitherto been undertaken, and the study of potential sources must be left to scholars with the appropriate language skills.

3.2  Islam in South Asia South Asia is the region where by far most Muslims reside. Their number in the two Muslim majority countries Pakistan and Bangla Desh is only surpassed by Indonesia. Muslims form only about 15 per cent of the Indian population. As that amounted to 177 million in 2010, they can be considered as the largest religious minority in the world (Pew Research Center 2011: 11, 72–78). Muslims with a South Asian background form the majority of Muslims in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Mauritius and the Caribbean, and an important segment of Muslims in the USA (Pew Research Center 2011: 149). Nevertheless, research on South Asian Islam lags far behind scholarship on Islam in the Middle East, in part because the relevant

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languages are not part of standard curricula in Islamic studies. Research on Muslims in the field of South Asian Studies has by contrast focused on activities in the political field, complemented by sociological and anthropological analyses of religious movements. Intellectual history in a broader sense has not found the same attention, and instead of focusing on debates most of the few contributions center on the writings of a number of eminent figures (Troll 1978; Nasr 1996; Riexinger 2004; Hartung 2004, 2013). It is hence not surprising that very little has been published on the reception of modern science by South Asian Muslims in general (Troll 1978: 144–170; Riexinger 2004, 2015: 296–300, 304–308) and the theory of evolution specifically (Riexinger 2009).

3.3  The Different Tendencies Within South Asian Islam The four major tendencies of South Asian Islam are: 1 . Adherence to traditional “schools of thought” 2. Modernism 3. Participation in “New Islamic movements,” a spectrum of small groups who have formulated doctrines generally considered heretical by traditional scholars and show traits of “new religious movements” 4. Islamism, the reformulation of Islam as a political ideology For authors from groups 2–4, the engagement with modern science has been a central issue, and in each of them one can observe a specific type of response to the theory of evolution. Exponents of group 1 have engaged far less with modern science, but the few who speak out on the theory of evolution do so with a specific point of view. It therefore appears pertinent to analyze responses to the theory of evolution according to this division.

3.3.1  Adherence to Traditional Schools of Thought The traditional schools of thought are a heterogeneous mix of religious currents whose relation to each other is often marked by hostility. The differences among them reflect pre-modern doctrinal divisions in Islam. Here I will provide a short characterization of their general outlook and attitude to modern science. Amongst these schools of thought the Barelwīs are perhaps the one with the largest following (Sanyal 1996). The label derived from Aḥmad Riżā Khān Barelwī (1856–1921) in the late nineteenth century, although many adherents and most leaders prefer the term ahl ul-sunna wal-jamāʿat (the followers of the prophetic tradition and members of the broad community). The Barelwīs represent a blend of Sufism and allegiance to the Ḥanafī school of law which dominated South Asian Islam for centuries. The founder Aḥmad Riżā Khān himself polemicized against

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modern astronomy and wrote a defense of geocentric astronomy (Riexinger 2004: 401–403), but apart from that interest in modern science, there has been little other response. Since the late 1990s one offspring of the Barelwī movement in Pakistan, Minhāj al-Qurʾān (Method of the Qurʾān) took a different approach. Its founder Ṭāhir ul-Qādrī (b. 1951) gained prominence by setting up his own religious cum political project which is supposed to address the more educated groups whom the ultra-­conservative and consciously antiscientific outlook of the Barelwī scholars might scare off. Whereas his political party, the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (Peoples Movement), which cooperated with the Pakistan Peoples’ Party of the Bhutto clan, met with little success, his educational program seems to have found considerable approval in Pakistan and among Pakistanis abroad (Philippon 2011: 230–255).1 Two Sunni schools of thought reject Sufi practices and beliefs. One of them, the Ahl-i Ḥadīth who also reject the four schools of law and are closely associated with Saudi Arabia, was almost torn apart in the early twentieth century by a dispute on whether traditions of the prophet (ḥadīth) with cosmological content are authoritative. On the theory of evolution, however, none of their exponents expressed an opinion. Among the scholars belonging to other puritan currents, the Deobandīs, who reject Sufi practices but accept the Ḥanafī school of law, the theory of evolution did not attract much attention either, but at least two responses from that background have come to my attention. Among the traditional schools of thought one can also include the considerable minority of The Twelver Shiites in India and Pakistan. How far they have developed a particular stance on modern science and the theory of evolution has not yet been investigated, and I am not aware of relevant sources.

3.3.2  Modernism In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries new currents emerged within South Asian Islam which reflect influences from and engagement with Western culture, including not least science. Although single Muslim intellectuals have been aware of intellectual developments in Europe, including modern astronomy, since the late eighteenth century (Khan 1998: 264–331), the systematic engagement with Western ideas among South Asian Muslims started in the second half of the nineteenth century with the activities of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (1817–1898) and his collaborators. This scion of the Delhi ‘aristocracy’ had joined the British administrative service as a young man. He observed the relative decline of the Muslim elite in the civil service and concluded that this development threatened the social status of this 1  Recently he caught some attention in the West due to his campaigns against Salafist inspired terrorism and Sunni-Shiite sectarianism: Qadri 2010; Dominic Casciani “Islamic scholar Tahir ulQadri issues terrorism” BBC March 22,010 fatwa, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8544531. stm; interview of Shaykh ul Islam Dr. Tahir ul Qadri on CNN with Christine Amanpour CNN March 122,010 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_kQjkbjfBg

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class. But according to him this was also to some degree self-inflicted, as Muslims shunned the opportunities secular education provided. He decided to tackle this problem with three approaches: political, institutional, and theological. In the field of politics, he warned Muslims against joining the Indian National Congress as according to him British rule was the only safeguard against Hindu majority rule (Lelyveld 1978: 20–100). This approach was institutionalized by the founding of the Muslim League in 1905 (300–348). In the educational field, his most important legacy is the foundation of the Anglo-Muhammadan College at Aligarh, which was supposed to provide gentleman-like education for Muslims alone, at a time when this was primarily available at Christian missionary institutions (102–239). His theological approach was conditioned by his engagement with Western science, which had begun when he was a young man. After the conquest of Delhi the British had founded the Delhi College, where under the leadership of the Austrian born scholar Aloys Sprenger (1813–1893) natural science and Western history were taught. The instruction was supplemented by the publication of books in Urdu (Chaghatai 2006). Thus post-Copernican astronomy became known among the educated classes. Sayyid Aḥmad Khān reacted with indignation and wrote a pamphlet in which he defended the Ptolemaic cosmology with arguments from Aristotelian physics. Some years later he changed his position, and in the 1870s he argued for the compatibility of the new astronomy with Islam, asserting that the Qurʾān does not pretend to teach astronomy. References to the sky and the celestial bodies are therefore formulated in a language Muḥammad’s contemporary could understand and are only supposed to serve as proofs for the creator. Ideas like the movement of the planets within impermeable celestial spheres stem from the projection of speculative Greek ideas into the wordings of the Qurʾān. Modern astronomers with the help of instrument-based observation, however, have overthrown these concepts. In this context, he stressed that scientific knowledge is subject to constant improvement and never final (Bausani 1980; Riexinger 2015: 301–304). As a prolific writer on religious topics, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān wanted to demonstrate that the Qurʾān—correctly understood—was compatible with science. He therefore discarded the traditional Sunni doctrine that all events are directly caused by God in every instant, whereby there is no natural causality. Instead he argued— using English Deist terminology—that the “Word of God” (revelation) conforms to the “Work of God” (creation = nature, the laws of nature). He therefore interpreted miracles allegorically and discarded exegetical prophetic traditions implying a “supernatural” reading of Qurʾānic verses or statements about cosmology: The jinn (genies), for example, were thus to be understood as unruly Bedouins harassing the sedentary population. By insisting on such “natural” explanations, he earned himself the disrespectful epithet “neycharī” (“naturist”) in conservative circles (Troll 1978; Berger 2000).

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3.3.3  “New Islamic Movements” Sayyid Aḥmad Khān consciously kept his educational and his theological activities apart. Because he feared that his theological ideas might estrange conservative Muslims, he refrained from putting his writings on the reading list of his college (Lelyveld 1978: 239–248). Nevertheless, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s intention to build a bridge between Islam and secular knowledge gained ground among Muslims who had received a secular education. In some cases, this led to the formation of new religious currents that diverged considerably from common understandings of Islam. Because the British rarely interfered in religious affairs, a number of religious movements emerged and flourished that the British would have suppressed in other contexts. In numerical terms, these movements never became very important; however, among them one finds many more examples of the Islamic engagement with the challenges of modern science than among the previously described traditional schools of thought. A particularly important group is the Aḥmadiyya, founded by Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad (1835–1908), a failed candidate for the Civil Service in the Punjab. He had engaged in polemics with Christian missionaries and with members of the Hindu Arya Samaj. In order to rebuff their accusations of Islam being an irrational belief, he made use of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s arguments. Due to these activities, he emerged as the charismatic leader of a small community and came forth with more and more far-reaching claims concerning his wisdom and knowledge. Finally, he declared himself a prophet, and thus violated the common idea that Muḥammad was the “seal of the prophets.” Religious leaders and many Islamic scholars therefore denounced him and his followers as apostates (Friedman 1989; Riexinger 2004: 295–319). Whereas the Aḥmadīs were protected by the authorities under British rule, religious leaders of all schools of thought and Islamists called for the persecution of this minority in independent Pakistan. In 1974 The National Assembly succumbed to their demands and declared the Aḥmadīs a non-Muslim minority, thus paving the way for discrimination and persecution. Due to often tolerated attacks on life and property, a considerable part, if not the majority of the Aḥmadī community, has migrated to Western countries since the 1980s (M.  Ahmed: 1975; Gualtieri 2004: 133–154; Qasmi 2014). Several groups—like Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s—did deny the authenticity and reject the authority of the prophetic tradition. As these groups relied on the Qurʾān alone, they were called Ahl-i Qurʾān (Brown 1999: 38–42, 68–80; Riexinger 2004: 319–326; Qasmi 2011). Most of them were short lived and disappeared with the death of their leader, an exception being the group founded by Ghulām Aḥmad Parwez (1903–1985). He tried to formulate on this basis a comprehensive social theory devised to overcome all forms of injustice. Despite being an adversary of the Islamist Mawdūdī (s.b.) on many practical political questions such as the position of women as well as with regard to the stance on science, Parwez agreed with him in rejecting democracy. As an alternative he propagated ‘Qurʾānocracy,’ according to which humankind has to obey eternal laws ordained by God. Parwez, moreover,

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objected to the understanding of Islam as a ‘religion’ and described it as a “challenge to religion.” He interpreted religion as humankind’s emotional and irrational response to existential challenges, while Islam represents dīn, “[a] ‘Code of Life,’ regulating the conduct of affairs concerning the individual as well as the collective life of human beings.” Parwez’s most radical concept was the denial that all humans will enjoy an eternal afterlife. Instead, only a tiny elite that has acted according to God’s will during their lifetime is destined to gain immortality. Concerning issues like angels, jinn, and miracles in the Qurʾān, he followed Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s rationalizations closely—if not verbatim—although he did not acknowledge the source (Parwez 2004: 97–104;  Riexinger 2009: 241). Due to these extravagant claims, he is considered by mainstream ulema no less an apostate than the Ahmadiyya, but unlike the Aḥmadiyya, he never experienced organized persecution. Under secularist Pakistan President Ayub Khan (1958–1969), Parwez even received government support and his ideas were used to legitimize an intended reform of family law, which the government finally had to withdraw after protests from religious scholars (Qasmi 2011: 216–286). Another movement that drew inspiration from Sayyid Aḥmad Khān is Taḥrīk-i Khāksār (movement of the humble) founded by ʿInāyatullāh Mashriqī (1888–1963) in the Punjab around 1930. As an ardent admirer of fascism, he tried to formulate a version of Islam in accordance with vitalist and biological ideas. Whereas Mashriqī’s message resonated in urban Punjab and North India throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the movement declined rapidly after independence (Daechsel 2006).

3.3.4  Islamism South Asia played a special role in the history of Islamism or political Islam, as the region brought forth one of the founding figures of that ideology, Abū l-Aʿlā Mawdūdī (1903–1979). This scion from an impoverished aristocratic Delhi family was born in Hyderabad, where his father had found employment. Mawdūdī attended both secular and religious educational institutions. He received an ijāza, a permission to teach, from eminent Deoband scholars but did not immediately start to work as a teacher in a madrasa. Instead, he first embarked on a career as a journalist and publisher and then founded an Islamic commune in Pakistan. The inheritance of two educational traditions, secular and religious, distinctively colors his writings (Nasr 1996). Although he did not differ from Deoband scholars regarding basic beliefs, he was severely dissatisfied by the way in which contemporary ulema addressed challenges like colonial rule, the secularization of the legal system, and Western culture in general. He accused them of indulging in details and petty questions, while losing the vision of Islam as a ‘complete way of life.’ He himself defined Islam as an ideology on an equal footing with the contemporary secular ideologies, communism, liberalism, and fascism. According to him, then, Islam could only be lived properly in a political system based on the implementation of Islamic law in all walks of life.

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Compromises with other ideologies—secular Indian nationalism or secular ‘Muslim’ nationalism, as proposed by the Pakistan movement—are thus impossible (Mawdūdī [1937] 2013; Riexinger 2004: 559–563; Hartung 2013). In 1941 he founded the political party Jamāʿat-i islāmī following the elitist and hierarchical Leninist model in order to implement his ideas in practice (Nasr 1994, 1996: 49–79). Mawdūdī settled in Pakistan after partition where the Jamāʿat-i islāmī contested elections with meagre results. Nevertheless, the influence among the urban middle class was considerable (Nasr 1994, 1996: 27–47; Hartung 2013: 227–233). In any case, the relevance of his ideas is not restricted to South Asia, as in 1955 some of his tracts were translated into Arabic and circulated in Egypt among the members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had originated at the same time but was far less theory-minded. Mawdūdī’s idea that every political order not based on the sharia is to be considered paganism contributed especially to the radicalization of parts of this movement, in particular Sayyid Quṭb (Calvert 2010: 158, 213–314; Hartung 2013: 194). Moreover, Mawdūdī advanced his ideas as a member of the Saudi-led Islamic World League (Schulze 1990: 292, 321, 323). In the present context Mawdūdī is especially relevant as his reformulation of Islam as an ideology implied the engagement with various aspects of Western civilization, including science. This does not imply, however, that Mawdūdī was positively inclined to modernity, as is often asserted (Nasr 1996: 52). He defended classical Sunni theological positions as far as possible and considered the breakup of a unitary religious orientation in the Renaissance as the lapse of Western civilization (Mawdūdī [1934] 2013a). Mawdūdī rejected the concept of natural laws and followed the traditional Sunni concept that all events are directly caused by God in every instant. Miracles, hence, only represent an interruption of God’s custom. Therefore, he affirms most miracles mentioned in the Qurʾān and denounces the rationalizations of modernists like Sayyid Aḥmad Khān and Abū l-Kalām Āzād (Riexinger 2004: 549–564).

3.4  Responses to the Theory of Evolution 3.4.1  Acceptance: The Modernists According to the present state of research, Sayyid Aḥmad Khān (1817–1898) was the first South Asian Muslim to address the challenge of the theory of evolution, albeit very late toward the end of his life. Yet earlier he had written on a topic closely related to evolutionary issues. Around 1860 he started to write a commentary on the Bible, although he never proceeded beyond the first several verses of Genesis. In this work he rejected the literal understanding of the seven days of creation, citing the writings of the South African Anglican bishop John Colenso (1814–1883). Colenso pleaded for interpreting biblical chronology in accordance with Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian geology and hence for accepting an age of the earth ranging

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in millions of years. Sayyid Aḥmad Khān, when writing his commentary, apparently had some knowledge of the theory of evolution already, as he hinted in one passage that all life is derived from one origin. At that time, however, he did not elaborate further on this issue (Khān 1862: ii. 54–55; Troll 1978: 74, 109–112). Almost three decades later Sayyid Aḥmad Khān turned again to the question of evolution, this time explicitly addressing challenges of Darwin’s theory to traditional Muslim perspectives. In the course of three articles, he proceeded from the least to the most disturbing ideas of Darwin, a clear indication that he was aware of their brisance. In his first essay, Khalq ul-insān ʿalā mā fī l-Qurʾān (Creation of Men according to the Qurʾān), published in 1891, he argued that the idea of human evolution beginning with lifeless matter is in accordance with the Qurʾānic teaching that life began with the fermentation of clay (15:26; 23:12; 32:8). He added that species have been developing from simpler to more advanced forms, but he did not yet explicitly endorse the concept of phylogenesis that assumes the transmutation of species, although he mentioned Darwin as an eminent scientist (Khān [1891] 1988). Two years later, in an article titled “When was the world created and how long did it take?” he aimed to harmonize the Qurʾānic six days of creation with the results of the geological research of his day. In the article he mentioned the emergence of humans in the late Tertiary, but again refrained from expressing an opinion on their origin (Khān [1893] 1988). In 1895, however, he demonstrated in the article “The progression of the human from the lowest to the highest degree” that the similarity of species in certain orders is due to the descent from common ancestors and that this holds true for the relation of men to apes as well (Khān [1895] 1988). Another modernist who supported the theory of evolution was Abū l-Kalām Āzād (1888–1958). In the political field he was the exact opposite of Sayyid Aḥmad Khān. Already before WW I, when the majority of Muslims still considered British rule a bulwark against domination by the Hindu majority, he propagated resistance to both colonial rule and pan-Islamic solidarity. After World War I he became the main spokesman for Hindu-Muslim unity in the struggle for independence. He therefore joined the Indian National Congress and staunchly opposed the concept of a separate state for Muslims. After independence, he opted for staying in India and became the country’s first minister of education (Douglas 1988). Early in his career, he advocated for his anti-colonial stance with a call for cultural resistance against the West. In his treatise Tadhkira, for example, he argued that contemporary Muslims should follow the example of early religious figures who struggled against the importation of foreign concepts like those from Greek philosophy into Islamic theology by refuting Western ideas (Āzād [1912] 1998: 133–139, 175, 222–254). A look at his attitude to science, however, shows that his call to reject foreign and specifically Western ideas was a showcase argument. In his short-lived weekly al-Hilāl (The Crescent), Āzād himself wrote an obituary for Alfred Russel Wallace under the heading “The Qurʾān and the theory of evolution.” Āzād started with an exposition of the theory, as he assumed that at least some among his readers would not be familiar with key evolutionary concepts such as common descent and natural selection. He deplored that the secular-educated either

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had failed in their duty to explain the theory properly or had used it to legitimize materialism and atheism. Āzād stressed that evolution as such is not a revolutionary concept but a belief already held by Greek and even Islamic philosophers. He described the “struggle for existence” as a concept in harmony with God’s laws, because in His wisdom the creator has endowed every creature with the will to preserve its life. Āzād continued with an account of Wallace’s life and his main discoveries and presented the fact that Darwin and Wallace arrived at the same conclusions independently as an argument in favor of the theory of natural selection (Āzād 1913a, b; Riexinger 2009: 220–221). Later in his life Āzād turned back to the theory of evolution. In his commentary on the Qurʾān, Tarjumān ul-Qurʾān, he demonstrated that the classical explanations of the Qurʾānic verses relating to the creation of men are untenable, as the ancient commentators knew nothing about the necessity of eggs for procreation. Instead, he claimed that, according to the nowadays-discarded embryology of Haeckel, the individual embryo recapitulates the evolutionary process of the species. Such an idea can be brought into accordance with verses in the Qurʾān stating that aquatic forms of life preceded terrestrial ones, and bones came into existence out of flesh (Āzād n.d.: 540–544; Riexinger 2009: 221).

3.4.2  P  artial Adaptation and Teleological Reformulation: The “New Islamic Movements” Exponents of the “New Islamic movements” in the decades after the turn of the century appropriated Sayyid Aḥmad Khān’s arguments that the theory of evolution was in accordance with the Qurʾān. But unlike him, they not only argued that the theory of evolution harmonized with Islam, but also went one step further by reformulating evolution in teleological terms, arguing that evolution is a part of God’s creation scheme, partially at the expense of randomness and natural selection. Representative of this teleological reinterpretation is ʿInāyatullāh Mashriqī (1888–1963), who presents an idiosyncratic interpretation of the theory of evolution. Unlike other apologists who strove to render the theory of evolution digestible for Islamic predilections, he approved of the simplification of natural selection as “survival of the fittest” in accord with his admiration for fascism. In his major work Tadhkira he asserted that this principle of survival of the fittest is embodied in Qur’an 24:55.2 He interpreted the Arabic verb istakhlafa (to install as successor) that appears in the verse to mean that God “will grant stability on the earth” (Urdu:

2  Arberrry’s translation reflects the standard understanding: “God has promised those of you who believe and do righteous deeds that he will surely make you successors in the land, even as He made those who were before successors.…”

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qiyām ʿaṭāʾ farmāegā) to a nation that believes and performs righteous actions. According to this natural law, such a nation will prevail over others (Mashriqī 1924: 7–15). Nevertheless, he argued that it is not brute, physical force that guarantees survival, but rather the capability to make the best use of one’s abilities. Under contemporary circumstances, the struggle for survival of each individual cannot be separated from the competition of larger collectives (27–34). This being the case, he asked, how could Europeans have prevailed over Muslims, to whom such an eminent revelation as the Qur’an had been sent? His answer was that only after the re-equilibrating of faith and righteous actions according to the God-given sharia, will Muslims have the chance to gain the dominance promised by the Qurʾān (36–39). Like Āzād, Mashriqī (1924: 8n3) stressed that the theory of evolution has been convincingly proven by Darwin, but that its basic concepts had already been formulated by Greek philosophers such as Heraclitus and Lucretius (actually a Roman), as well as by Islamic thinkers such as al-Fārābī, Ibn Bāja (Avempace) and Ibn Khaldūn. According to Mashriqī, the evolution of living creatures has to be considered in the light of the cosmological unity of the universe, which is never completed but constantly developing as the emergence of new celestial bodies proves (Mashriqī 1924: 18–23f). Mashriqī claimed that insight into the dynamic nature of the universe, gained by Western scholars only after centuries of observation, had already been proclaimed by “the illiterate messenger to the Arabs” in the Qur’anic verses 21:30–33, 39:5, 53:1–13, according to which Earth and Sun are moving. The reference to evolution as a cosmological principle is a hint that Mashriqī’s understanding of evolution had been informed by Haeckel’s Die Welträthsel, where the development of life is connected with the development of the cosmos, unlike in Darwin’s writings (Haeckel 1899; Daechsel 2006: 461–462). In this respect Mashriqī seems to be a singular case in the South Asian Muslim context, where Haeckel—unlike in the late Ottoman/early republican Turkish context—was not a relevant source of inspiration (Riexinger 2014: 181–182). Regarding biological evolution, specifically, Mashriqī did not dispute the common origin of animals. He pointed to transitional animals like oviparous mammals as proof that there are no missing links, and he did not exempt humankind from evolution. Humanity’s biological origins are attested through the remains of skeletons that hint at physically stronger but mentally feebler predecessors of “his Majesty men” (ḥażrat-i insān). Continuing evolutionary development from these predecessors led to the emergence of human beings who were forced to develop the capacity to transcend self-interest and to live together as social animals. This process enabled humankind to acquire the capability to make use of the natural laws for its own purposes (Mashriqī 1924: 27–36 fn). In later years Mashriqī developed quite astonishing propositions based on his interpretation of evolutionary theory. In a 1951 communication allegedly given to scientists (names not provided) and published posthumously, he pleaded for a planned evolution of humankind that would enable it to adapt to the environmental

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circumstances on other celestial bodies. Furthermore, the wasteful method of sexual reproduction should be replaced by “fission,” as the term cloning had not yet been invented (Mashriqī 1987). Ghulām Aḥmad Parwez (1903–1985), the founder of the New Islamic movement Tulūʿ-i Islām (Rise of Islam), objected neither to the idea of the transformation of species nor to that of the common origin of species including humans. Instead, he claimed that centuries before Western scientists discovered this fact the Qurʾān had already taught that life had emerged from inorganic matter. He interpreted the Arabic term amr in 32:5—usually understood as ‘command,’ ‘directing’—as a divine scheme which initiated upward developments lasting for long periods.3 Verses 6:384 and 24:455 are supposed to prove the common descent of species. In spite of his affirmation of these aspects, he staunchly objected to the idea of natural selection, as it contradicts his concept of a purposefully designed universe. He alleged that Darwin and his followers were imprisoned in the materialist and mechanistic prejudices of the nineteenth century. Parwez further contended that contemporary Western scientists increasingly question such prejudices. Whereas the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement Mirzā Ghulām Aḥmad did not elaborate on the theory of evolution, two successors as the leaders of the Ahmadiyya movement spoke out on the issue: his son Mirzā Bashīruddīn Maḥmūd (1889–1965), and his grandson Mirzā Ṭāhir Aḥmad (1928–2003), the fourth khalīfa. Mirzā Bashīruddīn Maḥmūd touched upon evolutionary issues in his introduction to the English translation cum commentary of the Qurʾān, used and propagated by the Aḥmadiyya. He claimed that humans are at the center of creation (or at least this solar system) and that they are the vicegerent of God on earth. Humankind has evolved in a gradual, but directed process of evolution that culminated in Adam, who was, however, not the first human, only the first human with the ability to understand the divine message. The jinn, understood as demons ‘in tales and fables,’ were contemporary ruffians who opposed him (M. B. Aḥmad [1947] 1988: i.cclciv-­ cclxvii). Mirzā Ṭāhir Aḥmad elaborated on this position in a voluminous book, Islam and Rationality, where he accepted the development of species but polemicizes against Richard Dawkins’ idea of the “blind watchmaker,” according to which unplanned development could have led to well-functioning living beings. As they are optimally fitting their environment, any mutation would lead to fatal deviations (M. T. Aḥmad 1998: 353–561).

 Arberry: “He directs the affair from heaven to earth.”  “No creature is there crawling on the earth, no bird flying with its wings, but they are nations like unto yourselves.” 5  “God has created every beast of water, and some of them go upon their bellies, and some of them go upon two feet, and some of them go upon four.” 3 4

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3.4.3  R  ejection: Islamists, Traditional Scholars, Pious Scientists and Doctors Traditional scholars seem to have paid little attention to the theory of evolution before the second half of the twentieth century. To my knowledge the only exception is the eminent Deoband scholar Ashraf ʿAlī Thānwī (1863–1943), who in 1908 sponsored a translation into Urdu of the most important Arabic Islamic refutation of Darwinism, al-Risāla al-ḥamīdiyya, by the Lebanese scholar Ḥusayn al-Jisr (1845–1909) (Riexinger 2015: 297–301). According to the present state of research, the first South Asian Islamic figure to formulate a rejection of the theory of evolution was Mawdūdī (1903–1979). Alerted by a reader of his monthly Tarjumān ul-Qurʾān, Mawdūdī outlined his objections to Darwinism in an article in 1944. Like many western creationists, he asserted that evolution is “just a theory,” not an established fact. Furthermore, he argued that whereas the Qurʾān clearly states that life began by order of God, Western science has denied—due to “theophobia”—any supernatural agency from the time of the Renaissance onwards. Had Darwin taken the Qurʾān as the starting point for his investigations, he would have discovered the “design” in every living being. This design defies an explanatory model devoid of a designer. To exemplify his point, Mawdūdī presented the parable of a Martian professor visiting Earth with his students. Their one striking deficit is their inability to see humans. They observe vehicles driving around and apparently reproducing themselves in factories. They see more advanced vehicles replacing old-fashioned ones. Therefore, they deny that these items are consciously designed and suppose the existence of a “primary industry,” and that boats might have developed out of terrestrial vehicles through intermediary forms. The concept of evolution Mawdūdī had in mind, however, is apparently not Darwinist but Lamarckian, because development occurs due to the directed adaption to new challenges. His use of the automobile parable and references to design strongly suggest that Mawdūdī had read Western refutations of Darwinism, although he does not cite any authority,6 as he customarily does when writing on other issues.7 Like Christian creationists, Mawdūdī did not restrict himself to criticizing the theory of evolution as scientifically unfounded and logically unsound. He denounced its moral effects on humanity as devastating. By teaching that humans are just one kind of animal, it turns men into animals. Instead of pursuing a sublime ideal, men follow their instincts and turn the world into a battlefield on which the strong consider themselves entitled to subject or even eliminate the weak. Moreover, his criticism of Darwinism related to his opposition to Marxism and Hegel, which he rejected for similar reasons. On one hand, he accused it of glorifying basic instincts; 6  I have stumbled over this parable in the book of a German proponent of the theory of morphogenetical fields (Eichelbeck 1999: 264–265) who also does not indicate a source. 7  The most remarkable example is his treatise against the equality of women and in favor of gender segregation: Parda (Mawdūdī [1940] 2013).

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on the other, he reproached it and Hegel’s philosophy of history for denying the agency of God and claiming that history proceeds according to innate laws (Mawdūdī [1939] 2012, [1951] 1994: 372–373). Finally, Mawdūdī’s opposition is a part of his rejection of modern science, which he viewed as part of the “theophobic,” materialist post-Renaissance Western “civilization of doubt” ([1934] 2013b: 22–23). In his commentary on the Qurʾān, Mawdūdī addressed the theory of evolution in a footnote on 7:11: “We created you, then we shaped you,”8 which may suggest that Mawdūdī mitigated his objections to Darwinism (Hameed 2009). Indeed, Mawdūdī conceded that the theory of evolution is conceivable, but that it is “merely a theory.” But before stating this, Mawdūdī insisted that humans have been created as human, and not as developed from more primitive stages. Furthermore, he stressed again that the acceptance of the theory of evolution has devastating socio-moral consequences. If humans consider themselves as animals, they will look down to something below them, not up (towards God). In addition, he was explicit about his rejection of the theory of evolution elsewhere.9 Mawdūdī’s position—that evolution is only a theory, even if conceivable—meant that there was no need to interpret the Qurʾān in an allegorical manner. Such an argument regarding evolution had first been formulated by al-Jisr. The case of post-­ Copernican astronomy was different, for allegorical interpretation of Qurʾānic verses on the heavens was needed inasmuch as modern astronomy was generally proven. The advocates of this non-literal approach justified their position by referring to the views of the classical theologian, al-Ghazālī (1058–1111). According to al-Ghazālī, any apparent contradiction between a definite geometrical proof in astronomy and the literal meaning of a verse from the Qurʾān or a ḥadīth necessitates the allegorical interpretation of the text in question; otherwise religion would be exposed to ridicule (al-Ghazālī 2000: 5–6; Riexinger 2015: 300–304). But as the theory of evolution, according to both al-Jisr and Mawdūdī, is at best only possible and actually far from proven, such a necessity to reinterpret scripture does not exist. The rejection of the theory of evolution hardly played a role in the program and the campaigning of Mawdūdī’s party Jamāʿat-i islāmī. The only example I could find stems from Kurhshid Ahmad (b. 1932), who would later succeed Mawdūdī as chief ideologist of the Jamāʿat-i islāmī. Ahmad (1956: 41–45) attacked the dominance of the theory of evolution as part of a Western conspiracy, and as proof that the cherished principle of freedom of thought was constantly violated in the West itself. After independence in 1947, one can also find scholars from the traditional schools of thought addressing the issue of evolution, for example the Deobandi scholar Shihābuddīn Nadwī (1931–2002) from Bangalore. He was a graduate of the Nadwat ul-ʿulamāʾ, (association of scholars) in Lucknow, an institution founded with the intention to overcome the gap between those with a religious and those with a secular education. Although this institution developed an increasingly

 Mawdūdī 2012: ii.10–12; http://www.englishtafsir.com/Quran/7/index.html#sdfootnote10sym  Mawdūdī 2012: https://www.englishtafsir.com/Quran/32/index.html#sdfootnote14anc

8 9

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conservative outlook, its alumni tended to be more aware of secular intellectual developments than other religious scholars. Due to their active knowledge of Arabic, they were able to act as mediators between South Asian and Middle Eastern Muslims (Metcalf 1982; Hartung 2004, 2013: 194). In his hometown he founded the Furqania Academy, which according to his own words was “a pioneering research institute of the Indian subcontinent engaged in the field of scientific research on Islamic studies and modern thought” (Nadwī 2003: 132–133; Riexinger 2009: 250). One purpose of this institution was to promote the study of science among Muslim scholars, since Islamic scholars of the last few centuries have failed to fulfil their duty to formulate a new/modern (jadīd) theology (ʿilm-i kalām). Only when armed with knowledge of modern science will Muslim scholars, according to him, be able to confront contemporary challenges to Islamic teachings, using arguments based on the Qurʾān and the prophetic traditions (Nadwī 1998). In publications on biological subjects, Shihābuddīn Nadwī elaborated on the “argument from design” with reference to the astonishing phenomena in the realm of plants. In 1987 he devoted a special treatise to refuting the theory of evolution: Takhlīq-i Ādam awr naẓariyya-i irtiqā (The Creation of Adam and the Theory of Evolution). Like Mawdūdī, he held that the dominance of materialist thought was responsible for the success of the theory in the West. He went one step further by claiming that it was pushed through in the media and academia as part of the Jewish world conspiracy outlined in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, although he had to acknowledge that Darwin himself was not Jewish (Nadwī [1987] 2005: 59–67). Nadwī’s primary objective was to affirm the special creation of Adam, but he also strove to reconcile this idea with paleontological findings. Hence, he identified the remnants of early hominids with the jinn, whom he considered as creatures consisting of earthly matter, not as demons created from fire—the traditional Islamic view. Nadwī’s jinn were thus endowed with bodies containing high percentages of inflammable substances like sulfur and oxygen. In many respects, however, they were similar to men, having religious obligations, for example. Nevertheless, they were morally inferior to humans because their main characteristic was to spill blood, according to Qurʾān 2:30.10 In support of his interpretations, he referred to authorities in the field of exegesis such as al-Ṭabarī (838–923) and al-Zamakhsharī (1070–1143), who argued that jinn preceded humankind on Earth, a view that he interpreted as referring to the hominids of modern paleontology. Furthermore, Nadwī interpreted the term khalīfa, usually applied to Adam in the sense that he is God’s vicegerent, as meaning that Adam succeeded the jinn.11 This opinion seemingly implied that the jinn do not exist at present, although this is at variance with concepts commonly held before the nineteenth century and in which many Muslims still believe today. It is unclear whether Nadwī saw any problem in sacrificing one

 Arberry: “And then the lord said to the angels: ‘I am setting in the earth a viceroy.’ They said: ‘What, wilt Thou set therein one who will do corruption there and spill blood.” 11  Nadwī [1987] 2005: 77–108. 10

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scripture-based belief (the fiery origin and nature of jinn) in order to stand by another (the special creation of Adam). His most striking argument against any hominid ancestor of humankind is the fact that no hominid skeleton ever found has measured sixty cubits high (at least something over 70 feet), which was the stature of Adam when he was evicted from paradise according to ḥadīth reports (Nadwī [1987] 2005: 231–235; Şaḥīḥ Bukhārī Book 55, no. 543 and 544). His affirmation of the literal truth of the reports on Adam in the Qurʾān and the prophetic tradition is directed against modernists who advocated the allegorical interpretation of passages related to the origins of humankind (Nadwī [1987] 2005: 143–179). The reference to the prophetic tradition is remarkable, as it is usually discarded in discussions concerning cosmology and creation due to the many mythical elements (Riexinger 2004: 412–413). Nadwī’s refutation of the theory of evolution—like his writings on natural science in general—was based on knowledge from reference works, manuals for undergraduates and popular science books, not on specialist literature. He frequently cited the Encyclopedia of Ignorance, and the English translation of Teilhard de Chardin’s Le Phénomène Humain, although the latter derives from the concept of theistic evolution instead of Creationism. Furthermore, he referred extensively to the popular apologetic work La Bible, le Qurʾān et la science (first ed. 1976) by the French physician Maurice Bucaille, although this author advocates “directed evolution” in the tradition of French Lamarckianism of Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985) instead of creationism (Loison 2011). Quite astonishingly, Nadwī seemed to be unaware of American Creationist literature. Another evolution-denier, Ṭāhir ul-Qādrī (b. 1951), maintains, like so many other conservatives, that science and Islamic revelation are in full accord, but this actually means that religious doctrines are the yardstick by which to measure scientific theories. Hence, Ṭāhir ul-Qādrī considers all scientific theories conforming to Qurʾānic teachings as well established, whereas he declares those that do not conform to be at least highly improbable. Therefore, he devotes one chapter of his book Islām awr jadīd sāʾins (Islam and Modern Science) to the refutation of “Darwin’s hypothesis on the evolution of life.” In his refutation Ṭāhir ul-Qādrī deals with such diverse topics as the origin of the universe, the theory of relativity and the development and the functions of the human body, to underline that God created the universe in a harmonious fashion. In his specific arguments against organic evolution, Qādrī (2001: 397) begins with the statement that the Qurʾān (6:38) unmistakably teaches that all animal species have been created independently. His argumentation is not particularly original, being based on The Holy Qurʾān and the Facts of Science (Kur’ân’ın İlmi Mucizeleri) by Haluk Nurbaki (1924–1997), a Turkish physician, right wing politician and author of religious books (Riexinger 2009: 235). Because the Western authorities that Ṭāhir ul-Qādrī refers to are the same as in Nurbaki’s work, Qādrī has most probably not studied Western anti-Darwinist literature himself. Authors referred to are the French neo-Lamarckist Pierre-Paul Grassé and the American Young Earth Creationists Duane Gish and John Moore. The inclusion of the latter two is remarkable because Qādrī accepts the common scientific dating of the age of the earth as billions of years old, and in the preceding chapter he describes

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the succession of different forms of life in the geological strata in accord with standard scientific models. Another source of inspiration for Qādrī mediated by Nurbaki is the book Algeny by the American left-wing anti-Darwinist Jeremy Rifkin (1983; Qādrī 2001: 383–392; 398–399, 409–410). Given this variety of sources, Qādrī’s polemics are a mixture of the common arguments that supposedly point to various inconsistencies in the theory of evolution, and he alleges that evolutionary biologists concede that evolution cannot be observed at present and that mutations always have negative effects. The evolutionist claim that higher forms developed from more primitive ones allegedly contradicts the “general paradigm of science,” which Qādrī does not explain. One can only guess that he refers to the second law of thermodynamics, which is frequently referred to in creationist literature. According to Qādrī, fossils which supposedly filled in the missing links of the evolutionary narrative were repeatedly forged, citing only the “Piltdown man” and the “Nebraska man.” Then employing various equations, he attempts to demonstrate that the laws of probability preclude the possibility of an ape becoming a human. In comparison with the views of other Islamic anti-evolutionary authors, one aspect of Ṭāhir ul-Qādrī’s chapter is noteworthy. He restricts himself to demonstrating that the theory of evolution is untenable from the scientific and the religious point of view, but refrains from any discussion of the harmful socio-moral consequences. It is exactly on these social issues that the anti-Darwinist Wahīduddīn Khān (b. 1925), an Indian ex-member of both the Jamāʿat-i islāmī and the Tablīghī Jamāʿat,12 focuses. In an article “Social Justice in Islam,” for instance, he alleges that based on Darwin’s theories, Westerners divide humankind into advanced and backward races, as well as into intellectually superior men and inferior women, in order to justify the unequal distribution of wealth. According to Khān, Darwinism is, in addition to its immoral character, scientifically untenable. In Quran—the Book of God, he asserts that several scientists have convincingly demonstrated that Darwin’s theory contradicts the laws of probability, here agreeing with Qādrī. To bolster his claims he quotes the astronomer Fred Hoyle who advanced the idea that life reached Earth via cosmic dust. He also cites John Maynard Smith and the “mathematician” Klaus Pätau to demonstrate the improbability of the self-organization of life. The latter two, however, are, biologists working on the basis of the Darwinian theory of evolution. The references thus exemplify the creationist trick of presenting misunderstood or misinterpreted quotations from scientists, often out of context, or dealing only with details of evolution, as arguments against the theory of evolution as such. Khān’s source seems to be the The Encyclopedia of Ignorance in which eminent scientists explain the unknown aspects of their fields of expertise. Furthermore, Khān argues that the theory of evolution leaves certain problems unexplained, whereas the concept of God, who can always effect everything at his will, is able to solve all riddles posed by the natural world. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that Khān  The Tablīghī Jamāʿat is a missionary movement within the broader Deobandi movement. It is politically quietist and anti-intellectualist, focusing primarily on exhortations to fulfil the ritual obligations: Masud (ed.) 2000, Sikand 2002.

12

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stresses—unlike other anti-Darwinists—that Darwin himself never endorsed atheism by quoting a part of the final sentence of the Origin of Species: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one….” In addition to Islamists and traditional scholars, we may count a third group of authors among the rejectionists: devout Muslims with a secular, scientific education who are disturbed by the materialistic nature of western science (or expect a certain audience to be so). When they elaborate on the theory of evolution, they commonly assert that the theory of evolution suffers from serious scientific flaws and is therefore increasingly coming under attack. One example appears in a booklet by the physicist Abul Quasem from Bangla Desh. He stresses the affinity of the theory of evolution with materialist ideologies, reflecting his concern that cultural influences from the Indian state of West Bengal with its strongly communist-tainted culture might spill over to Bangla Desh. He claims that the Big Bang theory, with its notion that matter was created at a given point in time, undermines the theory of evolution with its materialistic assumption that matter is eternal (Quasem 1980: 28–62; Riexinger 2009: 238–239). Abdul Mabud, another physicist from Bangla Desh, director of the Islamic Academy Cambridge (UK), and an editor of the Cambridge-based Muslim Educational Quarterly, a publication inspired by Isma’il al-Faruqi’s project for the “Islamization of knowledge,”13 came forth with his Theory of Evolution? An Assessment from the Islamic Point of View in 1993. He draws his ideas from the so-­ called traditionalist school, an intellectual group consisting of writers like René Guénon, Titus Burckhardt, Fritjof Schuon and Seyyed Hossein Nasr. These thinkers argued that the wisdom of a philosophia perennis is reflected in the major religions, but has been given up in the West. Because of their criticism of Western materialism and because some of them converted to Islam, such traditionalists are frequently referred to in Islamic apologetics as “crown witnesses” against the West (Sedgwick 2009). Mabud’s book consists of two parts. In the first, he attempts to refute the theory of evolution by citing a variety of Western authorities. Apart from the usual out-of-­ context quotations suggesting that quarrels over details of evolution are quarrels over substance, his selection of Western authorities is very eclectic. He readily passes over the contradictions among the sources he cites, referring very favorably to the Young Earth Creationists Morris and Gish, while accepting an old age for planet Earth following Pierre-Paul Grassé and other French neo-Lamarckists, although neo-Lamarckianism contradicts Mabud’s insistence on special creation no less than Darwinian evolution. In order to undermine Darwinism he also cites Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge, whose theory of punctuated equilibrium implies even faster transitions from one species to another than allowed by the prevailing Neo-Darwinist gradualism (Mabud 1993: 17–47, 67–70).

13

 Stenberg (1996).

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In the second part of his book, Mabud offers the theory of special creation as an alternative to evolution. For this creationist theory, he offers no empirical proofs, merely citing verses from the Qurʾān that support creationism (70–88). Remarkably, Mabud (88–91) polemicizes against Maurice Bucaille, whose ideas are generally very favorably treated in apologetic writings. Mabud lambasts Bucaille for claiming that Adam might have belonged to one of the extinct hominid species. Furthermore, Mabud considers evolutionism a worldview, which is not restricted to biology. Hence, he objects to the Big Bang theory, which Islamic apologetic literature usually describes as affirmation of the creatio ex nihilo. As expected, Mabud (51–67) confirms that the universe was created from nothing, but he insists that Earth came into being as soon as it was separated from the heavens (21:30).14 Hence, there was no time gap between the emergence of stars and Earth, which contradicts the theory that our planet “evolved” out of cosmic dust billions of years after the beginning of the universe, or that the Moon “evolved” out of Earth. The third and most prominent representative of this category of scientifically educated and devout Muslims is Zakir Naik (b. 1965), a physician from Mumbai. Inspired in part by Ahmad Deedat (1918–2005), a South African Islamic preacher of Indian origin and Deobandī orientation, Naik started an apologetic enterprise, the Islamic Research Foundation. Deedat had focused on polemics against other religions and was a pioneer in the use of audiovisual media. Conferences where he responded to claims from opponents from other religions or questions from the audience were filmed and then distributed on videotape, and later via the Internet (Westerlund 2003; Gardner et al. 2018). Naik adopted the format but is less interested in denouncing other religions than in demonstrating that Islam is in accordance with modern science. The spectrum of his speeches ranges from the demonstration that the current scientific knowledge can already be found in the Qurʾān, which comprises more than 1000 signs for God, to the health benefits of prayer, fasting and food items mentioned in the Qurʾān. The other subject which he emphasizes is the peaceful character of Islam, by defining jihād as struggle against the lower self.15 In both his “Islam-and-science” discourse and his presentation of Islam as peaceful, Naik rehashes arguments from apologetic literature which have been around since the late nineteenth century. This lack of originality apparently did not prevent him from becoming popular among Muslims in South Asia and in the West (both with and without South Asian background). Naik did not found any organization himself, because he largely avoided specific aspects of theology and

 “Have not the unbelievers then beheld that the heavens and the earth were a mass all sewn up and then we unstitched them.” 15  It is moreover noteworthy that Naik, like his role model Deedat (Westerlund 2003: 274), refrains from demands to found the political order on Islamic norms, perhaps reflecting a realistic appreciation of the lack of feasibility of such a project in a minority situation. Nevertheless, remarks implying that the perpetrators of 9/11 as well as the London (2007) and Mumbai (2008) attacks were not Muslims as well as other ambiguous utterances raised skepticism and even led to an entry refusal in the UK: Naik v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2010] EWHC 2825 (Admin) (05 November 2010). 14

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legal theory that might have  raised sensitive issues for one or another group. Accordingly, his apologetics are acceptable to a broad range of Muslims.16 Zakir Naik stresses the importance of science and education for the advancement of Muslims.17 In order to prove the compatibility of science and Islam, he follows the concept of tafsīr ʿilmī (scientific exegesis), a common apologetic approach based on the projection of scientific findings into more or less creatively reinterpreted verses of the Qurʾān (Jansen 1974: 39-55). In his speeches, Zaik does not address the theory of evolution, but in three YouTube videos he polemicizes against the theory of evolution on request—twice by self-declared atheists—in the Q&A section after his presentation.18 In all three videos, he constantly invokes his authority as a “medical doctor.” The argumentation in two of the cases is almost identical. Naik asserts that evolution is not a ‘fact,’ but only a ‘theory’. He deliberately uses the term in its colloquial understanding as unproven hypothesis. Were the theory of evolution a fact, he claims, it would appear in medical textbooks.19 In order to bolster his arguments, he refers to Darwin’s letter to Thomas Thomson, in which Darwin states that he does not have proof of his theory but that the theory helps him with classification.20 Naik denies that missing links between different hominids are known, but if there are such links, they should still exist today.21 Hence, the descent of humans from apes can be precluded. Remarkably his knowledge (and also that of one questioner) about human evolution seems to be stuck in the 1980s. Naik implies that the Neanderthal was superseded by the Cro Magnon, and not that homo sapiens (sapiens) emerged practically at the same time as the homo (sapiens)

 Thus some Salafis have embraced his apologetics, and in Norway there has even emerged an organization of Muslims of Pakistani origins that fuses Salafism with Naik’s apologetics (Abou Zahab: Bangstad & Linge 2013; Mårtensson 2014). This alone, however, does not justify the application of the label salafi. 17  01:34:15ff.; he praises the Muslims in the South of India for being much more successful than those of the North in this respect. 18  It is impossible to find out definitely on the basis of the recordings whether the questions posed to Naik are staged. The insistence of one questioner on evidence and the differentiation between the colloquial and the scientific usage of theory, as well as the harsh response by Naik, and the abrupt interruption by the chair Arshad Khan, the director of Dubai Museum, all suggest that nether question nor questioner were preselected. 19  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 03:30–03:45, 08:00–10:58; “Ask Zakir Naik Q31” 02:35-. 20  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 02:55–03:15; the letter was written to Cuthbert Collingwood. Naik’s misrepresentation is derived from Bucaille: https://archive.org/ details/DarwinsLetterToThomasThomsonSayingIDoNotHaveProof…1861 21  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 05:10–05:23. 16

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neanderthalensis.22 Moreover, Naik claims that the development from ‘ape’ DNA to human DNA is impossible due to the laws of probability.23 Naik does not, however, claim that everything Darwin said is wrong. For example, Darwin’s idea that life emerged from water agrees with the Qurʾān (21:30): “and of water we fashioned every living thing,”24 and Naik concedes that certain evolutionary processes happen at a lower level, as when microbes become immune against antibiotics.25 Nevertheless, he claims that a majority of scientists do not accept the theory of evolution as a whole,26 asserting that it is “propagated” due to the lack of an alternative. Muslims, however, know that creationism is correct. For his claim that the scientific community generally rejects evolution, Naik provides few examples. Among the hundreds of Nobel Prize winners he alleges reject the theory of evolution, he cites for example Albert Szent-Györgyi, discoverer of vitamin C, who proposed the principle of ‘syntropy’ (the opposite of entropy) to explain the complexity of living organisms, but why that is relevant Naik does not clarify. Naik also refers to Rupert Sheldrake “who proposed a new theory of evolution,” and the unidentifiable “biologist Whitemeat,” creating the impression that they too are Nobel Prize winners. Moreover, he claims that Francis Crick opposed the theory of evolution, again without going into details.27 Another example Naik offers is Grassé’s objections to the mainstream proposed lines of human descent, even though Grassé himself does not deny human descent.28 Regarding the widespread acceptance of evolutionary theory in the West, Naik attributes it to the rise of anti-religious sentiment following “the Church’s sentencing of Galileo to death.” Therefore, everybody who supported science was simply following the logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and accepted the theory of evolution without demanding further proof.29 He thus adopts the classical argument stemming from the late nineteenth century apologetics according to which the emergence of materialism in the West can be explained and to some degree excused as overreaction to the irrationality of the Christian clergy. Western criticism

 “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 04:10–04:17; 03:40-; “Ask Zakir Naik Q31”; “Zakir Naik Q&A-88” 03:30–03:45. 23  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 5:45–05:55. 24  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 04:45–05:00 25  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 07:10–07:30. 26  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 03:30–04:00; 27  “Zakir Naik Q&A-88” 04:25–05:50; Naik might have been inspired by a publication of the Institute for Creation Research where Szent Györgyi is referred to as a crown witness against the theory of evolution (Bergman 1977). 28  “What Does Islam Say About Theory Of Evolution?” 04:20–04:24; −; “Ask Zakir Naik Q31” 04:45; “Zakir Naik Q&A-88” 03:30–03:45. 29  “Zakir Naik Q&A-88” 02:45-. 22

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of religion is thus irrelevant in the Islamic context, as Islam is thoroughly rational (ʿAbduh 1905; Mawdūdī [1934] 2013a: 11).

3.5  Conclusion 3.5.1  Attitudes and Currents The three kinds of responses to the theory of evolution among South Asian Muslims, acceptance, teleological reformulation, and rejection, readily correlate with four religious currents. Acceptance is the typical approach of modernists. The popularity of this perspective seems to be waning, supported only by those with a largely secular outlook and who separate science from religious ideology. They make little effort to underpin science, including evolutionary theory, with conciliatory reinterpretations of Qurʾānic verses. One rare exception appears in Pakistani biology textbooks, supposedly reflecting a modernist perspective, that present the theory of evolution as compatible with the Qurʾān (Asghar et al. 2014: 9–12). The influence of the modernists is most likely restricted to circles in the upper and upper middle class who have received an English language education and use English-language media as their source of information.30 The use of arguments harmonizing scientific teachings and the Qur’an, as well as the teleological reformulation of evolutionary ideas, is typical for “new Islamic movements,” which in many respects have broken with traditional Islamic beliefs. While a similar approach has found a certain following in the contemporary Middle East as seen in the writings of the Syrian engineer Maḥmūd Shahrūr (b. 1938) on the Qurʾān,31 this current is no longer relevant in South Asia. Mashriqī’s Khāksār movement virtually ceased to exist after he passed away. The Ṭulūʿ-i Islām movement of Ghulām Aḥmad Parwez’s still exists and publishes his works, but lacks the strong support from elite circles that it had during the rule of President Ayub Khan (1958–1969). Most Aḥmadīs have fled from discrimination and persecution in Pakistan since the 1980s so that the movement’s centers of gravity are today Western Europe and North America. The rejection of the theory of evolution, justified with a blend of religious and auxiliary “scientific” arguments, is typical for Islamists, scholars from the traditional religious currents, and lay activists with an Islamist or traditional religious background. This denial of one of the mainstays of modern biological science compels one to question the received wisdom prevailing in much scholarly literature and in liberal discourse, that Islamism is a political movement that embraces modernity. Rather, the Islamist denial of evolution lends credence to Pervez Hoodbhoy’s

 Defenses of the theory of evolution in the highbrow English language are free from religious references: Daudpota 2009; Hoodbhoy 2016; Khalique 2016. 31  Christmann 2004. 30

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assertion (1991: 52) that “The disputes that other religious parties have with the [Islamist] Jamaat are essentially fights over turf and political influence, and not over fundamental matters such as what the role of science should be in Islamic society.” Islamist attitudes rather resemble the “reactionary modernism” of Hindu conservatives who embrace the technological aspects of modern science but reject the scientific method. Islamists do embrace modern media, modern technology and modern forms of organization. By denying evolution, despite proclaiming their appreciation of science, they are in essence attempting to spiritualize science. Which scientific theories and findings Islamists, representatives of the traditional schools of thought, and the “pious doctors and scientists” accept, is decided through a balancing act between the use of the scriptural sources as yardstick and the wish to avoid embarrassment (Riexinger 2004: 412–413). Whereas the latter aspect led to rejection of geocentrism, the primacy of the textual authority prevailed in the case of the theory of evolution. This position, however, could not be defended on the basis of religious arguments alone, because all three groups of evolution-deniers address audiences with at least some secular education (often of a dubious quality). Therefore, they selectively choose to cite Western authorities whose ideas they can use to guarantee the “scientificity” of traditional concepts.

3.5.2  Impact It is important to stress that the importance of the theory of evolution in religious debates among South Asian Muslims has been and is very limited. Mashriqī, whose religious-cum-political movement has practically disappeared, is the only author in whose writings an appropriation of the theory of evolution plays a central role. Shihābuddīn Nadwī seems to be the only South Asian Islamic scholar—although not very prominent—who attributes central importance to combating the theory of evolution. In all other cases, the theory of evolution plays a rather marginal role. In this respect, the situation contrasts markedly with Turkey where opposition to the theory evolution became an important identity marker for religious communities in the 1970s. There a full-fledged Islamic version of creationism emerged, attracting attention from Muslims all over the World since the 1990s and serving as a source of inspiration for South Asian Muslim opponents of the theory of evolution. At present, material from Turkey is used—rather than writings from South Asian authors— by organizations of South Asian Muslims in the West. Individual Muslims in South Asia looking for Islamic answers to the challenge posed by the theory of evolution often fall back on the enormous amount of creationist material presented on the website of Adan Oktar, alias Harun Yahya (Samuel and Rozario 2010; Riexinger 2008: 107; Solberg 2013). How can we explain this situation? Thomas F. Glick and Mark G. Henderson (2001: 232) have proposed four modes of reception of scientific theories in cultural contexts outside those where they originated: acceptance, rejection, corrective

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reception (revision of theories in light of received traditions and new knowledge), and extensional reception (the use in other fields and for other purposes than in the original context). The last, extensional reception, is mostly absent in the South Asian context for Muslims. I can cite only one example: the short-lived Khāksār movement of Mashriqī. Hence, the theory of evolution most probably lacked deep connection to other societal and political issues, which seems to be a precondition for scientific theories to become an issue for ideological controversies. In any case, the situation in South Asia differs markedly from that in the late Ottoman Empire and Turkey, where the reception of the German “vulgarmaterialist” appropriation of the theory of evolution had become a decisive element of the anti-religious ideology of the Young Turks and of Kemalism (Riexinger 2001; 2014). As the theory of evolution could thus be associated with a social and political enemy and its hostile value system in Turkey, it developed into an ideological issue and cultural marker. In South Asia it was never charged in a similar manner. Consequently, most opponents discussed here considered it to be one of many western materialist delusions which deserve to be refuted, but not a top priority. The minor role creationism plays in the conservative religious discourse of South Asian Muslim intellectuals, however, does not mean that it is irrelevant for public attitudes towards the theory of evolution, at least in Pakistan (data on Muslims in Bangla Desh and India are lacking). In Pakistan the religiously motivated support of creationism and rejection of evolution determines the general attitude of the Muslim public. In a survey conducted by Riaz Hassan among a sample of Pakistani Muslims with above average income and education (2007: 466–467, 475–476), only 5% stated that the theory of evolution was “almost certainly true,” complemented by 9% according to whom it was “most probably true.” On the other side, 60% claimed that “the theory could not possibly be true” and 14% felt that it was “probably false.”32 In spite of the fact that the theory of evolution is part of high school curricula, the acceptance of and knowledge about it is quite low even among medical students in Pakistan (Yousuf et al. 2011). This might not come as much of a surprise given that even biology teachers in the country tend to present a religious explanation for the origin and development of life (Asghar et al. 2010; Asghar 2013).

Printed Sources General Literature ‘Abduh, Muḥammad. 1905. Al-Islām wal-Naṣrāniyya ma‘a l-‘ilm wal-madaniyya. Miṣr: Maṭba‘at Majallat al-Manār.

 The survey also was conducted in Malaysia, Indonesia and Egypt, where the results were quite similar, in Turkey where the acceptance of the theory of evolution was slightly higher, and in formerly Communist Kazakhstan where the majority accepted the theory of evolution.

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Online Sources Q31: About Theory of Evolution – Dr. Zakir Naik. DR Zakir Naik, December 26 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDzY41e-ln0. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. FULL – New – Dr. Zakir Naik – Quran & Modern Science. sabeeldawah, August 4 2011, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5h6CNhtVls. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Hameed, Salman 2009. Maududi on Evolution, July1, http://www.irtiqa-blog.com/2009/07/ maududi-on-evolution.html. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Mawdūdī, ‘Abū l-A‘lā. Tafhim al-Qur’an – The Meaning of the Qur’an, http://www.englishtafsir. com/. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Nasihat Advice to Firqaparast Maulvies Who Use Abusive Language & Having No Manners. Serving Islam: Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri, October 18 2010 https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=85AzB0-PsTA. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Pew Research Center. 2011. The Future Global Muslim Population: Projections for 2010-2030, https://www.pewforum.org/2011/01/27/the-future-of-the-global-muslim-population/. Accessed Apr 5 2019. Sikand, Yoginder. 2011. Dr. Zakir Naik: New Target of Mullah Ire. New Age Islam, January 27, http://newageislam.com/the-war-within-islam/dr-zakir-naik%2D%2Dnew-target-of-mullahire-/d/4011#sthash.y0QGMGv9.dpuf. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Urdu: Qur’an Aur Jadeed Science. – Dr. Zakir Naik. truth1exposer, September 14, 2012, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5kr1R5Dut8. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. What Does Islam Say About Theory of Evolution?  – Dr Zakir Naik Dubai Peace Conference 2014. Salman Rashid, November 16, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=CfUCJQBrwig. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. What is Sectarianism (Firqa-Parasti) by Dr. Tahir ul Qadri, January 14 2015, http://www.downvids. net/what-is-sectarianism-firqa-parasti-by-dr-tahir-ul-qadri-589820.html. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Zakir Naik Q&A-88|Does Islam Agrees with Darwin Theory of Evolution. ZakirNaik.net Official, March 16, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sonEvHTc59c. Accessed 5 Apr 2019. Martin Riexinger (M.A., Tübingen 1997; Dr.  Phil., Freiburg im Breisgau 2002; Habilitation: Göttingen 2010) since 2010 is associate Professor (lektor) in Arabic and Islamic studies at Aarhus University, Denmark. His research focus is the modern intellectual history of Islam including the reception of modern science.  

Chapter 4

Islamic Responses to Darwinism in the Persianate World Kamran Arjomand

Abstract  The first refutations of evolutionary theories in the Persianate world date back to the 1880s. These first responses were general and often displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of Darwinism. This had to do with the piecemeal and often oral transmission of the latter, which led to misleading and inadequate representations of the theory. Refutation of materialism with the implication that the creation of life was based on accidental circumstances was the main concern of these responses. Sticking to the traditional dogma of creation, they rejected transformism, and especially the assertion that humankind descended from apes. In the twentieth century the situation changed when a positivistic stance was gradually adopted by some Shi’ite scholars. Evolution was considered by some as a scientifically proven fact that finds corroboration in the Qur’an. The concept of evolution accepted by these scholars is, however, teleological. Accordingly, creation of new species only occurs through Divine intervention. Furthermore, the Darwinian evolutionary lineage of humankind is categorically rejected. Nonetheless, this “creationist evolution” posed a direct challenge to the traditional Islamic dogma of creation. Despite widespread criticisms, tolerance is also observed towards those who accommodate this kind of evolution. The ensuing discussions have brought to light considerable disagreements among Shi’ite scholars as to what extent science can help unravel the secrets of creation by inspiring new interpretations of holy script.

I would like to thank Mackenzie Brown for his close reading of the manuscript and his valuable comments. Thanks are also due to Amir Mohammad Gamini for his helpful comments and suggestions. “Persianate” denotes the cultural realm of the Persian language, pertaining to countries and regions where Persian prevailed as the lingua franca K. Arjomand (*) University of Halle, Halle, Germany © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_4

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4.1  Introduction Reactions on the part of Muslim intellectuals and the clergy in the Persianate world to evolutionary theories, in particular to Darwinism, comprise a range of opinions: from outright rejection to a qualified acceptance of evolution as a fact of nature. The earliest Islamic responses to nineteenth-century theories of evolution, including Darwin’s, consisted mainly of refutations of what were thought to be the main assumptions and tenets of these theories: materialism, the strong implication that the creation of life was based on accidental circumstances, the claim that species can evolve one from another, and especially the assertion that humankind descended from apes. These first responses were very general and often displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of Darwinism, frequently resulting in misleading and inadequate representations of the theory. No doubt this had to do with the piecemeal reception of the latter. Once more accurate information regarding Darwin’s theory became available in Iran, more positive responses appeared, although negative approaches have persisted to the present day. Following a brief overview of the transmission history of evolutionary theory into the Persianate world, we shall discuss several of the major figures representing a variety of responses to evolutionary theory, some more accommodating than others.

4.2  Transmission of Theories of Evolution into Iran It is very difficult to reconstruct the ways theories of evolution were first transferred to the Persianate world. There are just a few early translations of European zoological works describing different features of the animal kingdom, some referring to evolution, but none that dealt specifically with Darwin’s theory. And most of these translations were not published. Moreover, there are no detailed studies regarding this early transmission. What we do know is that theories of evolution, including Darwin’s, were first transmitted unsystematically via various channels and by secondary sources. Iranian students in Europe were among the first transmitters who brought European scientific literature to Iran. European, mainly Austrian instructors at the Dār al-Fonūn (Tehran), the first modern college in Iran, also used European scientific literature for teaching. The earliest detailed Persian account of modern European studies on zoology seems to be the translation of Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon’s Histoire naturell des animaux quadrupeds (Natural history of quardrupeds) (Buffon 1778), published in 1856 with the title Mokhtaṣarī dar tawṣīf-e aḥvāl-e baʿz̤ī az hayvānāt (A summary of descriptions of some animals). It was translated by a certain Mirza Mohammad Hosayn Dabir, aided by the Austrian Iranist Heinrich Alfred Darb (1826–1883). It was probably intended to be used as a textbook at the Dār

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al-Fonūn.1 Some of Buffon’s popular writings, including a handbook for the youth, were also known in Iran.2 Buffon discarded the biblical account of creation, and was convinced that science, relying in the first place on Newtonian physics, is fit to explain the genesis of the world. Influenced by eighteenth-century French materialism, he considered nature not as a passive environment for the growth of life, but one that itself generates life and governs the development of living beings. Opposing the Linaean classification, he tried to introduce an alternative classification of animals according to their natural similarities. By accepting that different species may have common ancestors, Buffon came very near the modern concept of evolution (Bowler 1989: 74). The first nineteenth-century comprehensive book on natural history in Persian, which contained accounts of extinct Jurassic animals, seems to be Tazkerat al-arz̤-e Nāṣerī (The Naseri book of geography), being an abridged translation of Louis Figuier’s (1819–1894) La terrre avant le deluge (The World before the Deluge) (Figuier 1864), a creationist tract. In his book Figuier presents a detailed study of the geological formation of the earth together with botanical and zoological classifications of living organisms in historical perspective, that he claimed to be in agreement with the Bible (Figuier 1864: 8), avoiding any direct reference to evolution. This translation was completed in 1867 by Mohammad Taqi Ansari Kashani (1849/1850–1901/1902), a physician and instructor at the Dār al-Fonūn, which he dedicated to the reigning monarch Naser al-Din Shah (1831–1896), hence the eponym Naseri in its title. It, too, remained unpublished (Monzavī 2003: 3805). On the orders of Naser al-Din Shah, Kashani wrote a detailed account of modern geology and zoology and included a zoological survey of Iran, with a special focus on venomous reptiles. He titled his work Jānevarnāma3 (The book of animals). It contains a good introduction to natural history and geology, presenting a zoological classification that goes back to the dinosaurs, with descriptions of affinities and gradual differences among species and group members. Jānevarnāma was written around 1870 and was probably intended as a textbook for the classes at the Dār al-Fonūn, but remained unpublished until recently.4 The book was based on European scientific literature available to its author. Its main source was Henri Milne-Edwards’s (1800–1885) Zoologie (Milne-Edwards 1841) which he used intensively. Another source was the above-mentioned La terrre avant le deluge (Figuier 1864) that he had translated. Toward the end of the nineteenth and the

1  Monzavi identifies one of the translators as Davud Khan (Monzavī 2003: 5, 3911), a court interpreter who was sent to Vienna in 1850 to employ European instructors for the Dar al-Fonun. But this is very unlikely, because Davud Khan soon returned to Iran and was in Tehran when the instructors arrived in 1851. 2  Buffon de la jeunesse and Le petit Buffon were both translated, the former before 1879, but not published. Cf. Monzavī 2003: 5, 3807 and 3799. 3  Central Library of the University of Tehran, Manunscriptī 5256. 4  This was published for the first time in 2011 by the Institute for the Study of History of Medicine, University of Tehran.

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beginning of the twentieth century other books on natural history were published in Iran,5 but apparently none that comprised evolution. Written as well as oral accounts of natural evolutionary theories, including Darwin’s, were certainly in circulation in the second half of the nineteenth century in the Arab and Ottoman territories as well as in India, from where they could also have been transmitted to Iran. The journal al-Muqtaṭaf, (Selection), founded in Beirut in 1876, was instrumental in the early propagation of Darwinism in the Arab and Islamic world (Hourani 1962: 248f; Ziadat 1986: 26; Glass 2004: II. 415–434). Shibli Shumayyil (1850–1917), the main proponent of materialism and Darwinism, wrote many articles in al-Muqtaṭaf and published translations of European literature on this topic (Ziadat 1986: 18; Elshakry 2013: 108–119). Although these sources were in Arabic and published outside of Iran, they could easily have been accessible in the Persianate world. Early in the twentieth century, a young intellectual, Ali Asghar Hekmat (1893–1980), translated into Persian Shibli Shumayyil’s Falsafat al-nushū’ wa al-irtiqā’ (The philosophy of development and progress) that was published in Cairo in 1910, as the first volume of Shumayyil’s collected works.6 This book contained a translation of Ludwig Friedrich Büchner’s (1824–1899) materialistic commentary on Darwin that Shumayyil had translated, as well as his two introductions to the text. Hekmat’s translation also included a treatise in defense of Darwinism against the critique of Ibrahim al-Hurani (1844–1916) entitled al-Ḥaqīqa (The truth) that Shumiyyil had published in 1884 and 1885, respectively (Elshakry 2013: 110, 117; Gamīnī 2015: 307). Büchner’s commentary consisted of six lectures he gave between 1866 and 1868. In these lectures a summary of geological theories and theories of natural history of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries including Darwin’s are presented, and the latter is defended against contemporary criticisms. In the last two lectures Darwinism is placed within the scope of the nineteenth-­ century mechanical materialism, of which Büchner was a champion. Büchner held that all natural changes are governed by unchanging laws and are brought about by the interaction of force and matter that permeate the infinite space and interact uninterruptedly at all times (Büchner 1868: 398; Büchner 1855). This materialism was thus new, but like all other versions of its kind, it was generally unacceptable within the Islamic world. For fear of hostile reactions, Hekmat’s translation was not published at that time (Hāshemī 2014).7 The first Persian rendering of On the Origin of Species was not published until 1939, having been translated from the Arabic (Masumi 2015: 242). For the first time this gave Persian intellectuals at large relatively direct access to the writings of Darwin himself. But one should bear in mind that transfer of knowledge involving translation may lead to distortions that stem from unwarranted interpretations or linguistic inadequacies. As we shall see later, some of the objections raised against Darwinism, or lack of criticism  For example Gharāʾib-e zamīn va ʿajāʾib-e āsmān. See fn 16.  Shumayyil’s collected works were published with the title: Majmūʿat al-Duktur Shiblī Shumayyil. 7  It was eventually published in 1976. 5 6

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regarding certain aspects of Darwinism in the Persianate world, may be based on such distortions. In what follows, I will present a more or less chronological account of responses, beginning in the 1870s and 1880s with Mohammad Taqi Ansari Kashani’s partial assimilation of the Lamarckian evolutionary theory, as well as the early refutations of Darwinism expounded by the reformer Jamal al-Din Afghani and the Shi’ite authority Mohammad Hosayn Shahrestani. In examining these and later thinkers, we will focus on three major themes: (1) attitudes towards natural selection; (2) the notion of life as an accidental occurrence; and (3) the idea of the evolutionary origins of humankind. To what extent, if any, have the array of thinkers we will discuss been able or willing to reconcile or harmonize these ideas with traditional Islamic doctrines and interpretations of the Qur’an?

4.3  N  ineteenth-Century Responses: Non-Darwinian Accommodation of Evolution and Refutation of Materialism and Darwinism 4.3.1  M  ohammad Taqi Ansari Kashani’s Acceptance of Lamarckism In the past, Iranian scholars have held Kashani’s Jānevarnāma to be a rendition of Darwin’s theory.8 But close examination of this work readily reveals that this is not the case. The part of Jānevarnāma on natural history is in considerable tension with Darwin’s theory, as it advocates a Lamarckian process of evolution (Arjomand 2019). For Kashani, evolution takes place according to a plan set in motion by the Creator. But then it is nature that carries out and completes the job of evolution. “When the wise nature started bringing about existence, it sent the aptitude for perfection and superiority at that very instant to this world” (Kāshānī 2011: 179). Kashani explains that gradual developments leading to diversity in species occurred as a result of the need for adjustments to new environmental conditions and states that different activities would lead to development of specific organs (39, 63f, 69f, 175f, etc.). Transformation of organs is directional. It occurs towards increasing perfection (57, 63, etc.). And finally, when as a result of environmental changes some organs become redundant, they perish (58, 83) Kashani’s expositions reflect Lamarckian traits, but he goes beyond Lamarck in introducing theological notions into his natural history, perhaps to make it more acceptable to other Muslim intellectuals. Regarding the origin of man Kashani is ambivalent. On the one hand, he suggests that humankind was made by God at a late stage of creation, in the

8  The first historian who opted for this attribution was Faridun Adamiyat (1920–2008) (Ādamiīyat 1972: 24). Later on, many scholars followed his example (Khosravī 2015: 174f.).

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mountains of Caucasia, partly located in present-day Iran.9 The formation of humans, as suggested by Kashani, was a sudden act of creation from the state of nothingness. Having created humankind, God also made him King of the Earth, superior to all other beings (245). This, as we shall see later, accords with the traditional Islamic view of creation. Earlier in the book, though, Kashani placed humankind within the evolutionary process, but is not explicit on whether he thinks that humankind emerged from the line of apes. When discussing the transformation of organs, however, he places humans immediately after monkeys in the order of perfection (180). In any case, Kashani insists that the sciences of geology and zoology do not offer ultimate causal explanations, only secondary explanations dealing with how or under what conditions, evolutionary processes can take place. Science can thus help one understand the mechanisms involved, but not the real or final cause (26f). Kashani is also known for his long standing efforts to introduce modern science to Iran. He wrote, for instance, a book entitled Ḥadāʾiq al-ṭabīʿiyya (Gardens of nature) on Copernican astronomy, since heliocentrism was at that time widely rejected in Iran (Arjomand 1997). Kashani also advocated educational reform in Iran and wrote a treatise on child education titled Tarbiya: dar qavāʿid-e taʿlīm va tarbiyat-e aṭfāl (Education: Rules for teaching and education of children). Compared to his contemporaries, Kashani seems to be a scholar of considerable international connections. He was apparently an associate or member of a number of European academic institutions.10 Kashani’s insistence on the creative power of nature to shape life, despite his equal insistence on God as the ultimate cause, qualifies him to be considered as a naturalist, or as it was then pejoratively termed, a “neicheri.” We shall now turn to two refutations that were directed against “neicheris.”

4.3.2  Jamal al-Din Afghani’s Refutation of Darwinism Despite his self-adopted name, there is little doubt that the outspoken, anti-colonial Islamic reformer Jamal al-Din Asadabadi known as (al-)Afghani (1838/1839–1897) was born and raised in Iran (Keddie 1968: 14f; Keddie 1983). In his youth Afghani spent a few years in India and became familiar with modern European sciences (Hourani 1962: 108). Afterwards he travelled to many Middle East countries propagating his anti-colonial political ideas. He gained important disciples among the 9  This idea was at the time widely accepted in Europe. It goes back to Johann Friedrich Blumbach’s idea of a “Caucasian race.” It is adhered to in Figuier’s The World before the Deluge. This claim also circulated in the Indian Subcontinent. Afghani repeats it in his refutation. 10  In a biographical note on the frontispiece of his Ḥadāʾiq al-ṭabīʿiyya, some of these institutions are mentioned, for example an “Ethnographic Academy in Bordeaux (Gironde)” or a “Society for Chirurgy and Pharmacy” in Italy, which are hard to identify.

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intellectuals who embraced his ideas of political activism to effect reform in the Islamic world. However, his own activism placed him at times in political disfavor. So he was expelled from Egypt in 1879 and went for the second time to India, where he stayed and was apparently kept under British surveillance until 1882 (Keddie 1968: 23). At that time he became increasingly critical of the political line adopted by a group of Muslim intellectuals gathered around Sir Sayyed (Syed) Ahmad Khan (1817–1899) (Hourani 1962: 125; Keddie 1968: 53f), who advocated acceptance of the British rule. Ahmad Khan, an influential Indian Muslim, is best known for his efforts to bring about educational reform and in doing so, he propagated European modern sciences. He founded the Aligarh Scientific Society in 1864 and launched an intensive translation program, publishing a journal and organizing popular lectures (Kumar 2006: 196f.). He was one of the founders of the Aligarh Muslim University.11 He and his followers were opposed by conservative religious Muslims who claimed Ahmad Khan and company believed only in nature, calling them neicheris (naturalists) and their alleged doctrine neicheriyya (Afghani 1884: 177; Keddie 1968: 54). Afghani’s attitude towards modern science was more ambivalent than Ahmad Khan’s. While Afghani is known for his plea for modern sciences as a key to reforming the Islamic world, he accepted the findings of modern science only so long as they did not bluntly contradict the Qur’an. His opposition to Ahmad Khan and his followers, other than being politically motivated, was based on the conviction that they had adopted a materialist stance and hence a morality with no room for spirituality and monotheism (Keddie 1968: 3–35; Keddie 1983). In response to a query directed at him by his fellow Muslims, Afghani wrote his famous treatise against the “neicheris.” This refutation was expounded in Ḥaqīqat-e maẕhab-e naycherī va bayān-e ḥāl-e naycheriyān (The truth about the Neicheri Sect and an explanation of the Neicheris), and published in Hyderabad in 1881 and soon afterwards also appeared in Hindustani (Calcutta 1883).12 Afghani in his treatise attempted to refute materialism in its various forms as he understood them, and which he attributed to the neicheris. Although he usually remained rather general or vague about the specific forms of materialism he discussed, rarely mentioning their origins, some of these doctrines may probably be identified. These include the above mentioned materialism of Ludwig Büchner (1824–1899) (Büchner 1855). One might be tempted to identify social evolutionary theories of Marx or others that are alluded to without any further specification or differentiation (Afghani 1968b: 148f; Keddie 1968: 80). Social (r)evolutionary theories, like Spencer’s or Marx’s, were apparently not received in Iran at that time.

 Founded in 1875, it was originally called the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College.  The Arabic translation, with the title al-Radd ʿalā al-dahrīyīn (Refutation of the materialists), was finished in 1886. Apparently this translation, undertaken by Muhammad ʿAbduh and his aide to address Shumayyil’s materialism, published later in 1902–03, is somewhat different from the Persian original. Elshakri writes that the Arabic translation was “revealingly different” from the original, but fails to specify in what respect this was so (Elshakry 2013: 120). 11 12

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Let us now turn to the claims that Afghani attributes to Darwin and his followers, and his own responses to these alleged claims. Regarding the idea of common descent, Afghani writes: One group [Darwin and his followers] decided that the germs of all species, especially animals, are identical, that there is no difference between them, and that the species also have no essential distinctions. Therefore, they said, those germs transferred from one species to another and changed from one form to another through the demands of time and place, according to need and moved by external forces. The leader of this school is Darwin. He wrote a book stating that man descends from the monkey, and that in the course of successive centuries as a result of external impulses he changed until he reached the stage of orangutan. From that form he rose to the earliest human degree, which was the race of cannibals and other Negroes. Then some men rose and reached a position on a higher plane than that of the Negroes, the plane of Caucasian man. (Afghani 1968b: 135)

Afghani concludes, then, that “according to the view of this individual [Darwin], it would be possible that after the passage of centuries a mosquito could become an elephant and an elephant, by degrees, a mosquito,” which he finds preposterous (1968b: 136). In Afghani’s view, not only does Darwinian theory postulate incredible, even impossible, scenarios, but it also fails to account for many natural phenomena. For instance, he thinks that according to Darwin’s theory, plants that grow in one and the same region of the world, sharing the same climate and soil, should all be identical and that the existence of different plants having different leaves, flowers, and so forth is counter-evidence that proves the theory false: If one should ask him [Darwin] about the species of trees and plants that have been in the forests of India from the oldest times, and were shaped in one corner of the globe by one climate, and their roots formed in the mud of one soil—why do they vary in structure, length, leaves, flowers, fruit, nourishment, and age; and what external causes have affected them despite their unity of climate and place?—he would certainly be unable to answer. (Afghani 1968b: 136)

In similar vein, Afghani poses another “unanswerable” question to Darwin: If one would ask him why the fish of Lake Aral and the Caspian Sea, although they share the same food and drink, and compete in the same arena, have developed different forms— what answer could he give except to bite his tongue? (Afghani 1968b: 136)

In giving such examples Afghani shows little awareness of what Darwin’s theory actually entailed. Apparently he had at this time no knowledge of the idea of natural selection acting on random variations. He assumed that Darwin claimed that the only efficacious force of evolution is the necessity of survival. Afghani thus challenges Darwin once again, this time with reference to the long-standing problem of the complex design of organisms arising from simple, seemingly identical cells: …if one asked him, What guided those defective, unintelligent germs to the production of perfect and sound external and internal members [organs] and limbs …. and how could blind necessity be the wise guide of the germs toward all these perfections of form and

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reason—naturally he could never raise his head from the sea of perplexity. (Afghani 1968b: 136)

Afghani shows no knowledge of the painstaking research and empirical data gathered by Darwin and his predecessors. He thus portrays Darwin as rather simple-­ minded and easily misled: “Only the imperfect resemblance between man and monkey has cast this unfortunate man into the desert of fantasies, and in order to control his heart, he has clung to a few vain fancies” (1968b: 136). Afghani’s conception of humankind is rooted in traditional Islamic philosophy. For him the idea of descent of humans from apes is ontologically absurd and contradicts holy scripture. He holds that humankind is the highest and the most perfect creature on Earth. This idea, which can be traced back to Aristotle, finds corroboration in the Qur’an. There are a number of Qur’an-verses that are traditionally taken to indicate that humankind is the most perfect creature: “We indeed created Man in the fairest stature” (Qur’an 95: 4). His high position is also implied by the following verses: “I am setting in the earth a viceroy” (Qur’an 2: 30), and further: “We said to the angels, ‘Bow yourselves to Adam’” (Qur’an 2: 34). Plants, animals and all other beings are placed below humankind in the hierarchical ontology. They are all created to serve humankind: “And He has subjected to you what is in the heavens and what is in the earth.” (Qur’an 45: 13).13 That is why he and Muslim scholars, as we shall see later, vehemently oppose the idea of descent of humans from apes. Afghani’s sources of information about Darwin’s theory could hardly have been translations of Darwin’s works, but rather inaccurate and blatantly false attributions that might easily happen in oral transmissions. One of these false attributions is the allegation that Darwin “reports that one society used to cut off the tails of their dogs, and after they had persevered for several centuries their dogs began to be born by nature without tails” (Afghani 1968b: 136). As a refutation of this claim Afghani asks disdainfully: “Is this wretch deaf to the fact that the Arabs and Jews for several thousand years have practiced circumcision, and despite this until now not one of them has been born circumcised?” (1968b, 137.) It is true that some naturalists held that heredity of mutilations was an instance of the Lamarckian law of heredity of acquired changes (Weismann 1889: 422ff). And while Darwin in his later, provisional theory of pangenesis accepted the notion of the inheritance of acquired characteristics to some degree, he did not apply it to mutilations.14 Afghani’s arguments against Darwin are, for the most part, no more than superficial polemics. He does not discuss in any detail ideas peculiar to Darwin such as the principle of natural selection, and he conducts his arguments on a general level. His aim seems to be to discredit Darwin and those who adhered to his ideas of organic, naturalistic evolution, and specifically the neicheris. Nevertheless, his refutation was translated into Arabic and carried considerable weight in the discussions

 The English renderings of the above verses are A.J. Arberry’s.  August Weismann’s famous experiment with generations of mice with mutilated tails disproved the heredity of mutilations (Ueber die Vererbung) (Weismann 1889). For Darwin’s views on pangenesis and mutilations, see Y.-S Liu 2011.

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on Darwinism in Arab intellectual circles in the Levant and Egypt (Elshakry 2013: 119–125). Later on, Afghani seemed to have softened his stance toward Darwin the man but not to his theory. Afghani no longer referred to Darwin as a “wretch,” or an “unfortunate man,” but rather as “a man of knowledge, perseverance, and firmness in his research, who contributed to most aspects of natural history” (Afghani 1968a: 251). And perhaps most surprising, Afghani came to regard Darwin not as an unbeliever, but as one who sees the work of God in creation. At the same time, Afghani denies that Darwin’s thinking was original, not only with respect to the general idea of evolution, but also regarding the principle of “natural selection” (al-intikhāb al-ṭabīʿī), saying that many Arab thinkers before Darwin had referred to evolution in their writings (1968a: 252–253). The inclusion of natural selection here as previously discovered by Arab thinkers may seem puzzling, given Afghani’s refutation, or at least ignoring of it, in his earlier work. Unfortunately, he does not specify where he had seen the principle of natural selection expounded by Arab thinkers. And significantly, he still did not seem to have grasped how the principle of natural selection was supposed to regulate evolution, which he continued to reject. Afghani did not deny that there is a struggle for survival among animals. But, he refused to consider it relevant for explaining the divergence of species. Regarding his claim that Muslim thinkers had discussed the idea of evolution as well as that of struggle for survival, we may note that indeed both ideas were discussed by Muslim philosophers. But their idea of evolution centered around the Aristotelian concept and involved no branching of species. Different species stood in the order of perfection forming the Aristotelian scale of nature (scala naturae). Each species is created by God separately and almost simultaneously with other species. “Evolution” for traditional Muslim thinkers refers to the degree of perfection, lacking any historical dimension. As for the struggle for existence, Al-Jahiz (ca. 776–869), one of the most prolific early Muslim scholars, described the way animals are adapted to their environments and how they compete and fight for survival (Zirkle 1941: 84f). His Kitāb al-ḥayawān (Book of aminals), one of the many zoological works bearing the same title, contains accounts of his own accurate observations and borrowings from other sources, especially Aristotle’s History of Animals. Jahiz influenced a great number of Muslim thinkers. It is because of this precedence that we see critics and commentators of Darwinism often considering the concepts of evolution and survival of the fittest as nothing new. Stating again that an ape does not evolve into a humankind (Afghani 1968a: 251), and repeating his old allegation that evolution entailed that “the flea (barghūth) in thousands or millions of years would turn into a large elephant,” (Afghani 1968a, 251), Afghani aimed to demonstrate again the absurdity of modern theories of evolution and their materialist assumptions.15 Combating the neicheris and their  Dallal maintains that Afghani became more sympathetic toward evolution and even seemed to accept the notion of natural selection when applied to the animals and plants but not to humans (Dallal 2010, 167), but Dallal does not substantiate this claim.

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materialistic philosophy was a major focus of Afghani’s reflections on the natural world and his concomitant rejection of Darwinian theory. Shortly after the 1881 publication of Afghani’s The Truth about the Neicheri Sect and an explanation of the Neicheris, another refutation of materialism appeared, composed by Mohammad Hosayn Shahrestani.

4.3.3  Shahrestani’s Refutation of Darwinism Mohammad Hosayn Shahrestani (1839–1898) was born in a religious Shi’ite family in the city of Kermanshah located to the east of the present Iraqi border. His father Mohammad Ali taught at seminaries in Karbala, south of Baghdad. His mother Fatima was daughter of Aqa Ahmad Kermanshahi (1777–1819/1820), who spent some years in India, where he became familiar with Western sciences and was impressed by British colonial rule. Shahrestani grew up in a family that, at least on the maternal side, was sympathetic towards European scientific and social and political achievements. Having finished his studies in Karbala, he began to teach there and after a while he became head of the seminary. After some years he moved to Tehran and later also attained the rank of marjaʿ, the highest religious authority in 1888–1889 (Arjomand 1998: 2f; Arjomand 2016: 39f). As a well-known jurist, Mohammad Hosayn Shahrestani was asked by Shi’ite believers in India what he thought about a group of people—the neicheris—who were spreading their materialist teachings amongst the intellectuals of the country. He wrote an extensive answer, finishing it in February 1882, some months after the appearance of Afghani’s refutation. Shahrestani’s treatise was shortly afterwards published in Lahore as a book titled: Āyāt-e Bayyenāt16 (The verses of Bayyenat or The clear evidence). The full title of the book also bears the qualifying phrase: dar radd-e dahrīyīn. Which means: “in refutation of materialists.” The term bayyenāt in the title makes clear reference to the Qur’anic chapter, Sura al-Bayyina (98), which deals with unbelievers. While there is no direct identification in the book as to who these unbelievers/materialists might be, there can be little doubt that Shahrestani was referring to the neicheris and thus he must have been informed about their doctrines.17 Āyāt-e Bayyenāt, like Afghani’s refutation, is a treatise to combat the  Another book with a similar title, al-Āyāt al-Bayyināt: fi gharāʾib al-arḍ wa al-samāwāt, written by Ibrahim al-Hurani, a Christian Arab at the Syrian Presbyterian College, was published in Beirut in 1883. It was on natural history, presenting a theological interpretation of the variety of mineral, botanical and zoological creations as works of God (Elshakry 2013: 143, 352 fn 72). This book was translated into Persian by Mohammad Ibn Molla Aqa Qazvini and titled Gharaʾib-e zamīn va ʿajāʾib-e āsmān. It was edited by Mohammad Hosayn Foroughi and published in 1898. Also a third book with a similar title, al-Āyāt al-Bayyināt: fī qamʿ al-bidaʿ wa al-ḍalālāt by Muḥammad Ḥusayn Āl-Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, a Shi’ite authority in Najaf, written in Arabic and pubished in 1926, rejects materialism and Darwinism. 17  A manuscript copy of this book is kept in the Astān-e Quds Library in Mashhad, which is very probably an autograph, but in any case, certainly a copy that belonged to and was collated by the 16

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nineteenth-­ century philosophical materialism, but there is no evidence that Shahrestani had seen Afghani’s refutation before finishing his own. Āyāt-e Bayyenāt is a refutation of the main characteristics of materialism, in particular the idea of evolution as a process immanent in nature, governed by unchanging laws, without divine interference. Shahrestani’s stance toward modern science in this book is not all embracing. Regarding modern astronomy, although he discusses the possibility of a heliocentric system, he rejects the latter in favor of the geocentric system of Ptolemy. He is reported, however, to have later changed his mind and accepted the Copernican system (Arjomand 1998: 3). Shahrestani’s refutation of theories of evolution is rather indirect. He does not expound any of these theories but rejects them by providing alternative answers to the problems that were the main concerns of these theories, i.e. the explanation of the diversity of species and the coming into being of life. Āyāt-e Bayyenāt is an attempt to prove the existence of God by arguing that God, as the one and only wise administrator (modabber-­e ḥakīm), is the only rational explanation for the diversity of species. His proof of God’s existence, though interesting, is not entirely original and in any case, it need not concern us here. While assuring us that his refutation and subsequent proof of God’s existence are wholly based on rational arguments (Shahrestānī 2017: 25), he cites numerous Qur’an-verses appearing for the most part as marginal notes to indicate conformity with the Qur’an. He defines reason (ʿaql) as “the power by which one can distinguish between good and evil, one’s gains and losses, and through which the beneficial is desired and the harmful is avoided” (30), which amounts basically to common sense. He also explains his methodology as utilizing the standard logic taught at clerical seminaries (Ḥawza) in Iran, based on the treatise al-Shamsiyya (The parasol) by the Persian Islamic Philosopher Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī (died 1276 CE) (Arjomand 1998: 8). This book with its commentaries had been, and was still used, well into the twentieth century. Having expounded his methodology, Shahrestani then proceeds with the specifics of his refutation. Some of his main arguments will be examined below. Shahrestani does not mention any names of scholars who contributed to European natural history and evolutionary theory, not even Darwin’s. But in his rejection of natural evolution, Shahrestani dismisses an idea peculiar to Darwin’s theory, i.e. random mutation that leads to appearance of new species. “Random” is interpreted by Shahrestani as “essentially accidental.” And accident has no place, according to Shahrestani, in the creation of the world order. This rejection makes it clear that Sharestani’s argument is directed towards the Dawinian claim that divergence of

author. It is shelved as manuscript number 37. The colophon has not survived as the last few pages are missing. There is, however, a notice of possession indicating that the manuscript is an autograph. It reads: “property of the sinner, its author and scribe: Moḥammad Ḥosayn al-Sharestānī al-Ḥāʾerī,” and dated: Jumādā II, 1299 (April 26, 1882). There is a marginal note in this manuscript (Fol. 1a) that refers to the word dahrīyīn. It states: “in the language of Europeans they are called neicheri.” This marginal note is missing in the 1882 edition.

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species is best explained by random mutation and that there is no need for a divine plan. Judging by the accepted criteria of the mid-nineteenth century methodology of science in the West, one of the weaknesses of Darwin’s evolutionary theory was its inability to give causal explanations regarding how organisms could come about. It had to resort to “accidental circumstances” to account for this phenomenon. Furthermore, it could not stipulate under what conditions certain chemical processes would cause further qualitative changes. The scientific community of Europe and in particular England was not ready at that time to accept a theory that did not start with and was not built upon ascertainable causation. In this spirit William Whewell, the famous British philosopher of science, criticized Darwin’s theory on the grounds that it did not start with natural causes in order to explain the origin and development of life, but rather resorted to accidental circumstances (Hull 1973: 119). In a similar manner Shahrestani criticizes the materialists by echoing Whewell’s contention. He concedes that chance may play a role in certain circumstances, but this occurs very rarely: “an arrow shot in the dark very rarely hits the foe” (Shahrestānī 2017: 43). An explanation of the complex world order on the basis of accidental circumstances, he states, is even less probable than the hypothetical situation, that if “flies were to sit on a sheet of paper …[they] would sketch with their excrements a complete map of London with the names of every household written in English” (43). The example of London and the phrase “names …. written in English” were probably intended by Shahrestani to indicate the cultural background and geographical location of Darwin. The multilateral relations of beings that make up the world order, Shahrestani reiterated, could not have arisen accidentally, nor could they be due to the actions of nature by itself, but must be the work of a wise administrator (mudabber-e ḥakīm). In accordance with Islamic theology, Shahrestani maintains that all beings, be they minerals, plants or animals (mavālīd), have been created from nothingness (ʿadam). He then brings in a metaphysical concept also rooted in Islamic philosophy, that all things need external causes (53) to move from one state to the next. This external efficacious cause (qiṣr) is necessary for all changes and occurs through God’s intervention (mu’aththir bi-al-dhāt) (efficacious in His essence) (50). Thus, the birth and death of human beings are dependent on the will of God. He can prolong the life span of those he chooses. The prophet Noah is an example of prolonged life, as recorded in holy scripture. On the age of creation of humankind, Shahrestani admitted that there were discrepancies among scholars: some took it to be seven thousand years and others, like certain Chinese historians, claim that humans already existed some forty thousand years ago. At any rate, Shahrestani conceded, the dating of creation might be controversial among scholars, but not the act of creation itself (55). Accordingly, if the world was created, it cannot be eternal, because otherwise one would have to concede that also humankind must have existed since eternity. This would in turn imply that human knowledge of things (ʿilm) should have reached perfection and that there should have remained nothing undiscovered. However, since this is not the case, it must follow that the world is not eternal.

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This argument might be considered as sound, when we bear in mind that for traditional Muslims the creation of the world and its inhabitants were almost simultaneous: “Surely your Lord is God, who created the heavens and the earth in six days” (Qur’an 7:54, trans. Arberry). Shahrestani further argues that the sciences did not exist at the very beginning but were taught to men by God: “How could ignorant people (johhāl) ever discover through experience and analogy even the simplest of medical properties of so many plants and animals, let alone their combined effects, other than through the direct teaching of some mighty being?” (Shahrestānī 2017: 56f) The concept of science Shahrestani has in mind is that exemplified by ṭibb al-nabī, the medical knowledge of the Prophet, which is believed to have been transmitted by revelation. Other than metaphysical refutations, Shahrestani introduces logical and mathematical arguments to prove the impossibility of evolution, because, he claims, it is based on “the fallacy of succession” (boṭlān-e tasalsol.) He offers two similar quasi-­ mathematical arguments to prove his contention (57f). The principle of succession, according to him, states that “the human chain is only possible through the father-­ son relationship” and this generates a chain that must be finite if the principle is to hold true. It must start with a father (Adam) who is himself not son of someone else. All materialists, including proponents of theories of evolution, require an infinite chain that is logically impossible. Of course Shahrestani’s underlying assumption is that every generation is, as far as biological properties are concerned, an exact duplicate of the previous one. As alluded to above, in traditional Islamic theology species are constant and there is no room for variations that would alter the essential traits of that species. The traditional Islamic view of nature did not allow for the occurrence of a “genetic jump.” For Shahrestani gradual transformism that requires a chain of genetic jumps was unacceptable. From a religious view point Shahrestani’s refutation could seem convincing. Shahrestani opts for the concept of intelligent design as an answer to materialist doctrines in the Persianate world, just as William Paley (1743–1805) almost three quarters of a century before him had utilized it to combat the eighteenth century materialism. Shahrestani expounds a teleological explanation for the diversity of species, in conformity with the Qur’an. To match the idea of environmental adaptation employed in evolutionary theories, Shahrestani argues at great length that the creation of every organ serves a special purpose that suits the given environmental conditions (59–73). So God created the aquatic animals suitable to living in water. He did not endow them with lungs, because no being can breathe air underwater; instead, He gave them suitable organs to live and swim in water. However, He gave amphibians both possibilities (70). A consequence that can be drawn from evolutionary theories and especially from Darwin’s natural selection principle, is that humankind has no privileged position and is biologically very much like other animals. Shahrestani, like Afghani, rejects vehemently the idea that there is no inherent distinction between humankind and animals. He maintains, in accordance with the Islamic doctrine alluded to above, that humankind is superior to all other beings, which are to serve him. Plants and animals provide for him food and medicine. Trees give him wood

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to build shelters to live in, and ships to sail, and so forth (74). In the same manner, minerals are created so that humans can use them for the improvement of life conditions (78f). Āyāt-e Bayyenāt is an attack on materialism which has always been rejected by religious thought. It is an important work for the understanding of the history of culture and intellectual climate and throws light on the cognitive barriers imposed by traditional Islamic theology that not only rejected transformism, but also had no place for an autonomous nature. As mentioned before, evolutionary theories were embedded in the nineteenth-century materialism transmitted to the Persianate world. This can account for the hostile attitude of Islamic scholars towards evolutionary theories during the latter part of the century.

4.4  T  wentieth-Century Responses: Accommodating Darwin and Continuing Opposition The Constitution Revolution of Iran (1906–1911) and the formation of a modern parliamentary state paved the way for the introduction of educational reforms and the importation of science and technology from the West, and ultimately to a more accommodating attitude towards biological evolution. Increasing numbers of Shi’ite clergy gave up their wholesale rejection of “Western” science and were prepared to examine modern sciences on their own merit. In this respect, a major contribution was made by a Shi’ite clergy named Hibat al-Din al-Shahristani (1883–1967), who published a book entitled al-Haiʾa wa al-Islām (Astronomy and Islam) in Iraq in 1909, to show that the Copernican astronomy was in conformity with the Qur’an (Arjomand 1997: 21). However, not all sciences enjoyed the same fate. The high ranking clergy Mohammad Ali Sonqori Haeri (1876–1958) in Kabala, who incidentally also studied under Mohammad Hosayn Shahrestani, criticized the new schools in Iran for teaching subjects that were conducive to weakening the faith. He wrote a book in Persian on theology with the title Mirʾāt al-ʿaql (The mirror of reason) in 1912, but for some reason did not publish it. Apparently, Sonqori Haeri had seen some issues of the journal al-Muqtaṭaf on Darwinism and knew of Büchner’s materialism. In this book he rejected Darwinism and materialism, without differentiating between them, on theological grounds, arguing entirely on the basis of traditional philosophy.18 In contrast, Mohammad Reza Isfahani, another Shiʿite clergy, having examined Darwinism, criticized some, but approved many elements of Darwin’s theory and

 I owe all information on Sonqori Haeri to Mohammad Masumi who has recently discovered a manuscript of Mir’āt al-ʿaql in a private library, which is probably an autograph in two volumes. He is preparing the first volume for publication that deals with Darwinism. I thank him for kindly sharing this information with me.

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accepted evolution as a fact of nature that, for the main part, did not contradict the Qur’an.

4.4.1  M  ohammad Reza Isfahani’s Critique and Partial Accommodation of Darwinism Mohammad Reza Isfahani (1870/1871–1943), also known by his filionymic name as Abu al-Majd, was a Persian Shi’ite scholar, born in Najaf, where he grew up in a religious family. Later in life he went to Iran and taught in Shiʿite seminaries. His most prominent student was Ayatallah Khomeini (Hāshemī 2011: 45). Isfahani’s most important writing was a two-volume study of Darwin, entitled Naqd falsafat Dārwūn (Critique of Darwin’s philosophy) (1331q =1912/13) published in Baghdad in Arabic. The import of Isfahani’s work “was a milestone in the dissemination of Western scientific ideas among the Arab and Muslim readers” (Ziadat 1986: 106), although it remained unnoticed for a long time in Arab and Iranian intellectual circles. Isfahani was not hostile to Western natural sciences and thought that Muslims, having transferred knowledge to Europe in medieval times, should now learn from the accumulated knowledge of Europeans (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 2, 141; Hāshemī 2011: 46). Unlike Shahrestani and Afghani, Isfahani had a fairly good knowledge of theories of evolution, and had followed the discussions on Darwinism that appeared in the journal al-Muqtaṭaf and other Arabic sources. These sources reflected the ongoing discussions of evolution in the European as well as Lebanese scientific communities. Isfahani was also familiar with Ludwig Büchner’s commentary on Darwin, and had read some Arabic translations of works by Darwin (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 121 and 48). Isfahani states at the outset of his Naqd Falsafat Dārwūn, that he intends to consider evolution from two different perspectives: from that of science based on empirical evidence, on the one hand, and from the viewpoint of religion and philosophy on the other (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 3; Ziadat 1986: 96; Hāshemī 2011: 45). In volume one he discusses Darwin’s evolutionary theory in detail, but also refers to Lamarck, Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1919) and Thomas Huxley (1825–1895). He regards them all as believers in God, praises Wallace for seeing divine power in evolution, but criticizes Lamarck on a number of issues, especially for his account of creation involving spontaneous generation (Ziadat 1986: 97, 103). Volume two is a defense of religion against materialism, consisting in large part of a long dialog between a believer and a materialist in which shortcomings of materialism and materialistic ideas of evolution are criticized from a monotheistic point of view. Isfahani seems to accept what he attributes to Huxley, i.e., science and religion are concerned with different sorts of knowledge (Ziadat 1986: 97). Thus Isfahani argues: “science is detailed knowledge acquired through the intellect and is other than the knowledge gained through religion or reason generally” (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 25). For Isfahani religion and science are complementary and cannot be in

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contradiction with one another. However, there is a limit as to what science, i.e., the intellect, can discover, and beyond which it is not equipped to go. The secret of creation, the prime cause, is beyond the reach of the intellect (vol. 1, 26). He adds that where science reaches its limit, the door of religious knowledge needs to be used (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 42; cf. Ziadat 1986: 98). In this way this contention is anchored in the traditional Islamic doctrine of knowledge, also alluded to by Shahrestani, that God’s message, waḥy (revelation), is the prime source of knowledge about the world.19 Religious knowledge is indispensable for those who do not wish to follow the folly of materialism (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 2, 238; cf. Ziadat 1986: 98; Hāshemī 2011: 46). Religion can provide a heuristic frame for natural sciences and hence guarantee the conformity of science and religion. He disagrees with those who consider all of holy scripture as descriptions of factual happenings. The scriptural accounts of creation, including that of humankind, he admits, may have metonymic (majāzī) elements. But this does not mean that other terms in these accounts are also metonymic. And although statements based on literal translations of these texts cannot substitute for scientific findings (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 43; Ziadat 1986: 98), when scientific evidence is missing or inconclusive, as in the case of the origin of humankind, all that remains is what religion tells us: that “Abu al-bashar (the father of mankind) [Adam] was created as a human being out of clay” (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 118).20 In this way Isfahani denies a common origin for humankind and other animals (cf. Ziadat 1986: 101), rejecting a basic Darwinian insight. The apparently inconsistent positions adopted by Isfahani regarding evolution and the origin of humans may be due to his choice as to which key terms in verses of the Qur’an are metonymical, thus in need of interpretation, and which can be taken at face-­ value. Clearly he thinks that there are ample unequivocal verses that distinguish humankind from animals, justifying a special creation for humankind. While Isfahani is keen to accept evolution as a scientific fact, he repeatedly opposes Darwin with respect to the origin of humankind. Isfahani thus outlines what he considers to be empirical counter evidence against the evolutionary origins of humankind, as well as arguments based on religious and philosophical grounds (Ziadat 1986: 96–108; Gamīnī 2017: 231-273). In his view, evolution in itself is not contrary to religion, so long as one allows for the interaction of God in the processes leading to the appearance of new species. Like Shahrestani, Isfahani was also not satisfied with the explanation that creation is effected randomly. He stated that the structural unity of organisms in creation for the believer can only be due to “divine wisdom” (al-ḥikma al-ilāhiyya). But for the materialist it is due to “blind chance” (al-ṣudfa al-ʿamyāʾ) (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 225; Ziadat 1986: 103). This statement is consistent with Isfahani’s view of religion and science outlined above. He considers the question of prime cause for the creation of species to set the limit to what  The standard reference to the Qur’an is sura 2, verse 31: “He taught Adam the names, all of them” (Translation: Arberry). 20  This makes reference to the Qur’an, sura 23, verse 12.: “We created man of an extraction of clay” (Translation: Arberry 23/11). 19

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science can discover. At this point materialists refer to randomness and accidental circumstances, because they cannot explain this phenomenon by known laws of nature, whereas believers see here the limit of science and opt for divine intervention. Isfahani attacks materialist like Büchner for bringing in the element of chance to account for the diversity of creation, but not Darwin, because Isfahani held the latter to be a pious believer. (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 192f; Ziadat 1986: 103). Isfahani tried to show on the basis of religious and philosophical arguments that the position of materialists (māddiyūn or muʿaṭṭila) who denied the intervention of God was untenable (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 120f; Ziadat 1986: 101). For Isfahani the element of randomness is what atheists like Büchner have injected into the concept of natural selection. And it is primarily this element that Isfahani rejects. He also criticised natural selection on other grounds. Isfahani deals with natural selection in a separate chapter titled “Struggle for Survival” (tanāzuʿ al-baqāʾ). Isfahani accepts that natural selection or survival of the fittest, to use Spenser’s coinage, plays an important role in the process of evolution and also effects population control and natural balance (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 129; Ziadat 1986: 102). However, Isfahani criticizes what he understands as the way in which struggle for survival supposedly effects changes in animal organs and leads to new species. Isfahani rejects the claim he attributes again to Büchner, that: “Struggle for survival is one of the factors that transmutes lives … it is the cause of evolution.” (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 128).21 In Origin of Species, Darwin assimilated some notion of perfection into his idea of evolution, not like Lamarck as a goal striven for by organisms through an innate drive, but rather as a result of natural selection. Darwin wrote: “Natural selection tends only to make each organic being as perfect as, or slightly more perfect than, the other inhabitants of the same country with which it has to struggle for existence” (Darwin 1859: 201, cited in Ospovat 1981: 84). Darwin, however, elsewhere preferred to talk about “progress” rather than “perfection”. Utilizing Henri Milne-­ Edwards principle of division of labor in organisms, Darwin interpreted it as a sign of progress in the evolutionary process. Isfahani, agreed that evolution leads to more perfection (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 221; Ziadat 1986:103), but questioned the meaning of perfection. Referring to Spencer, he conceded that in political sociology division of labor is a measure of progress, but this need not be true in the realm of zoology. He wondered if an animal with a single organ that can perform a number of functions is inferior to another that needs a few organs to perform the same functions (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 224). Isfahani’s idea of perfection is certainly theological. It illustrates the purpose behind creation: God creates all living beings to match perfectly the environment in which they live. The diversity of species marked by their differently shaped limbs and organs is best accounted for, writes Isfahani, by considering the aim of creation (al-ghāya fi khalq al-ashyā’): the organs and limbs are shaped so as to suit their function in their specific living environments. Isfahani  Arab critics of Darwin like Ibrahim al-Hurani also assumed that natural selection is supposed to be the cause of evolution (Elshakry 2013: 117). Shumayyil’s response to Hurani in al-Ḥaqīqa (The truth), alluded to earlier, was available to Isfahani.

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sees a wise creator (al-ṣāniʿ al-ḥakīm) at work, who brings about this most perfect system (al-niẓām al-atamm) and accuses Büchner for not seeing a purpose behind the creation (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 121f). This idea is similar to that expounded by Shahrestani in his Āyāt-e Bayyenāt. But Isfahani’s critique of the principle of natural selection led him to postulate the principle of divine amelioration (al-taḥsīn al-ilāhī) (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 152; Ziadat 1986: 102) to indicate that God’s intervention is essential in the evolutionary process. The difference from Sharestani’s contention is that for Isfahani evolution does take place and creation is effected through evolution. For Shahrestani creation is a sudden act: God created the world and all species from nothingness almost simultaneously according to His plan and gave them special organs to survive best in their living environments. For Shahrestani, there is no evolution and hence no branching of species; all species were created by God in their present form. The major step that Isfahani took was to regard evolution as a scientific fact. Isfahani accepted that creation has a historical dimension. Evolution takes place during “long periods and epochs” (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 131). Furthermore, evolution is for him not confined to one species; it could also include variations of species, so that different species may have a common ancestor (Iṣfahānī 1913: vol. 1, 17; Ziadat 1986: 97). Isfahani’s idea of evolution is perhaps more akin to the Lamarckian idea, in which development is thought to be teleological with the aim of “perfection,” rather than to the Darwinian, where accidents play a major role. Indeed, Isfahani does not seem to be aware of the differences between the Lamarckian and Darwinian theories of evolution, because he is silent on this matter (Ziadat 1986: 97). He attributes Darwin’s innovations to Büchner, praising the former and criticizing the latter.

4.4.2  Asad Allāh Kharaqānī’s Renewed Criticism of Materialism and Darwinism Despite the accommodating views of Isfahani, other clergy writing just a few years later made no reference to his work. The high ranking cleric Asad Allāh Kharaqānī (1839–1936) is a good example. He studied in Najaf and later actively supported the Constitution Revolution (1906–1911) and was elected to the Iranian parliament in 1914. Despite his early enthusiasm for constitutionalism, towards the end of his life he turned against it and advocated greater influence of religion in state affairs (Jaʿfariyān 2003; Hajatpour 2002: 148–158). He apparently met Afghani while the latter was staying in Iran. In any case, like Afghani, he wrote a treatise against Darwinism, entitled Resāla-ye tanqīd-e maqāla-ye Dārvīnīsthā (Treatise on the critique of the claims of Darwinists) in Persian that was published, probably in 1920

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(Hāshemī 2011: 47).22 Like Afghani he does not mention his sources and misrepresents the views of Darwinists. For example, he rejects what he attributes to Darwinists, namely the claim that humankind is a “metamorphosed” monkey (Kharaqānī 1920: 4; Hāshemī 2011: 47). He also insists on the separate creation of human beings (Kharaqānī 1920: 1; Hāshemī 2011: 47). Like Afghani’s refutation, Kharaqani’s Treatise was written to combat what he held to be heretical ideas propagated by materialists to weaken religious beliefs.

4.4.3  E  nayatallah Dastghaib Shirazi’s Defense of Evolution as an Islamic Discovery Another treatise on Darwinism was published in 1923 by Enayatallah Dastghayb Shirazi (d. 1928) who was a poet, journalist and editor of a number of popular and literary journals. The book, entitled Resāla-ye Dārvīn va ḥukamā-ye Mashreq Zamīn (Darwin’s treatise and the scholars of the East),23 takes a relatively pro-­ evolutionary view. According to the author himself, his treatise relies heavily on Shumayyil’s essays in Falsafat al-nashū’ wa al-irtiqā’ defending evolution, alluded to earlier (Dastghayb Shīrāzī 1923: 14). As mentioned earlier, this commentary was also used by Isfahani. However, Dastghayb Shirazi does not mention Isfahani’s critique and does not even seem to be aware of it. Darwin echoes, according to Dastghayb Shirazi, ideas already expressed by Greek philosophers and afterwards by Iranian philosophers like Avicenna (908–1037), Muskuya (Miskawaih) (932–1030.), Sadr al-Din Shirazi (1572–1641) and others (Dastghayb Shīrāzī 1923: 14–16, 18–20, 26–33). As we have seen, attributing evolutionary ideas to past Islamic thinkers is not uncommon among the critics of Darwinism like Afghani or Isfahani. Dastghayb Shirazi, like Afghani, claims that Darwin must have borrowed his ideas from them (17). Like Afghani, Dastghayb Shirazi also ignores the fundamental differences between Darwin’s ideas and those expressed by past Islamic “evolutionary” thinkers, thereby allowing him to deprive Darwin of any originality. Abiding by Islamic doctrines, Dastghayb Shirazi, like Isfahani and others, was uncompromising with regard to the origin of humankind. He maintained that in creating human beings, God has intervened in a special way and has imparted into him His own soul (34). He does not seem to object to the Darwinian concept of variation of species by natural selection as long as it is not applied to humankind. He does not criticize the randomness of mutation as Shahrestani and Isfahani did. It

 The date given on the title page of the book is Dhu al-Ḥijja 1328, which corresponds to December 1910. However, on this very page the titles of other works by the same author are given that were published between 1910 and 1920. Therefore the figure 1328 must be considered as a typo. I have followed Hashemi who takes the date 1338q =1920 to be more plausible. 23  It was published together with a poem and a translation of an article from the journal al-Muqtaṭaf on philosophy. 22

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is likely that Dastghayb Shirazi was not aware of the theological implications of randomness.

4.4.4  M  ahdi Najafi Iṣfahāni Masjedshāhi’s Further Criticism of Darwinism as Materialism Mahdi Najafi Iṣfahani Masjedshahi (1881–1973) (Rawz̤ātī 1996), known simply as Najafi, was another Shi’ite clergy writing against Darwinism. He wrote a treatise entitled Ketāb-e mortafaq (The book of support) (1929),24 covering a number of controversial religious themes (Nūrī 2000: 45f). The main concern of the book is to refute materialism as an untenable, antireligious philosophy and Christianity as a misguided religion. Darwinism for Najafi is on a par with materialism, as seen in this remarkable attribution of the nebular hypothesis to Darwin himself. According to Najafi, Darwin’s theory talks about the cosmos and how our solar system has evolved, as well as how life appeared on our planet. His account of the nebular theory can be summarized as follows: Matter is the origin of the universe and has always existed; it was gaseous and thinner than the air, filling the space. That state is called ether. Its parts always moved. Neither its existence nor its movement had a cause. So it appeared accidentally and without any reason. And sometimes these parts gathered around each other and formed a nebulous mass comprising small objects which attracted each other, forming a large sphere that rotated around itself and caught fire. This was a sun, out of which stars sprang like sparks from fire. (Najafī Eṣfahānī Masjedshāhī 1929: 10)

Najafi goes on to say that according to Darwin, many other suns including the sun in our solar system accidentally came into being. And in a similar way, regarding biological evolution, Najafi more accurately but very broadly describes Darwinism as teaching that life on our planet accidentally came about. Its development took place according to the principle of the survival of the fittest, the weakest gradually dying while the strongest survived (7–11). A hint as to the possible source for Najafi’s information regarding Darwin’s theory can be seen in his statement following his introduction to Darwinism: “This is the philosophy of growth and progress” (falsafa-ye nashv va erteqāʾ). The original Arabic expression, used in the Arab world to refer to the theory of evolution, was coined by Shumaiyyil and chosen as the title of his book Falsafat al-nushū’ wa al-irtiqā’, alluded to earlier. For Shumayyil following Büchner, the phrase “growth and progress” refers both to cosmic as well as to biological evolution, which could explain Najafi’s attribution of the nebular hypothesis to Darwin. This makes it probable that Najafi also used Shumayyil’s book, but surely indirectly. However, unlike Isfahani, Najafi did not separate Darwin’s theory from materialistic interpretations

24

 It is written as a dialog between two friends, one posing questions the other answering them.

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of the creation of the world, pointing to his lack of familiarity with Darwin’s own writings. There is no indication that Najafi had read Isfahani’s critique of Darwin; on the contrary, it seems that he was not aware of it, for otherwise he would have given a more informed account of Darwinism. Having described Darwinism in a broad evolutionary sense, Najafi then brings certain arguments regarding cosmic evolution to show that the order of the universe and the complexity of organisms cannot be products of accident. Najafi follows the line of refutation presented by Shahrestani in his Āyāt-e Bayyenāt, but without mentioning his source. Indeed, some of the parables and comparisons in his Ketāb-e mortafaq seem to be taken from Āyāt-e Bayyenāt. Najafi writes that the probability that accident could be responsible for the creation of the world order is as little as the chance of producing the complete Diwan of Hafiz by spilling ink randomly on sheets of paper (12). For “flies’ excrements” and the “map of London” in Āyāt-e Bayyenāt, Najafi substitutes “ink” and the “Diwan of Hafiz.” Also a parable that Shahrestani stated is taken with slight variation by Najafi. This parable aims to illustrate the absurdity of making accident responsible for extremely unlikely coincidences. The parable tells of someone who enters a garden and picks fruits and while busy hiding them in his dress, the owner of the garden sees him. To exonerate himself the thief says that a strong wind threw him into the garden, and it was the wind that caused the fruits to fall off the trees, but he is puzzled as to how they got hidden in his dress (Najafī Eṣfahānī Masjedshāhī 1929: 11; Shahrestānī 2017: 76f.). Personal agency, of course, rather than accident is the true explanation. The moral of this parable is that God purposefully intervenes in nature and the world order is intentionally caused by Him. Najafi brings other arguments against “cosmological” Darwinism, as he understood it. One is to show that matter is not eternal but must have been created (Najafī Eṣfahānī Masjedshāhī 1929: 98–99). Najafi also thinks that Darwin’s theory is falsified by new discoveries showing, supposedly, that the planets did not originate by separating from the sun, but were formed individually. Najafi has relatively little to say about biological evolution. And what he does say in this respect indicates considerable misconceptions regarding Darwin’s theory, in particular, and science in general. For example, he criticizes Darwin for not being able to account for spontaneous generation, a phenomenon that Najafi believes happens in the case of “the mouse that is created from clay and the scorpion from brick and insects from dirty waste” (101). Here he echoes popular beliefs regarding the origin of these creatures. As for natural selection and survival of the fittest, Najafi is ready to admit that such a phenomenon can be observed in the human and animal realms, but not among plants. Further, he claims that survival of the fittest does not lead to any change in organs. He sees the fights and wars between individuals, groups and nations as manifestations of this struggle. Yet in the past tens of thousands of years that the fight for life has been going on, there has not been the slightest change in any human organ. For instance, the human hand has always had the same shape (102). This criticism shows that he had certain misconceptions regarding the Darwinian principle of natural selection. It is apparent that Najafi did not learn

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about Darwin’s theory in depth, but relied on what he might have read in secondary sources or heard from others. One plausible explanation for his misconception about natural selection may be sought in the inaccurate Persian rendering of the key expression “struggle for survival.” This expression was translated as tanāzuʿ-e baqāʾ from the Arabic tanāzuʿ al-baqāʾ coined by Shumaiyyil (Glass 2004: 425). Tanāzuʿ means contending with or struggling against one another, i.e. mutual fight. So the Persian rendering of struggle for survival literally means “mutual fight for survival.” This narrow interpretation might have led Najafi to the misconception that the evolution of human beings is effected through fights of individuals or wars of nations. Having understood this principle in the narrowest sense, he could see no way of applying it to plants, since fighting requires movement and plants cannot move. Like Shahrestani, Najafi attempts to prove the existence of God and the principles of Islamic belief (uṣūl al-dīn). In doing so, he introduces somewhat different arguments, but unlike Shahrestani, he claims that the Copernican system is corroborated by the Qur’an (27). Najafi is strongly in favor of the heliocentric system and provides detailed interpretations of Qur’an-verses and hadiths to support his claim, adding that Muslims in the past did not understand the deep meanings of the sayings of the Prophet and the sacred Imams and took them as confirmations of the Ptolemaic system (31–45, 51–75). Najafi sees no contradiction between science and religion (45) and thinks that science can even help determine many details that are hidden in holy scripture. He asserts that scientific discoveries can be used, for instance, to locate paradise and thinks that it is situated on Jupiter, because the climatic description of Jupiter fits well with the way the climate of paradise is described by the Qur’an (79). A considerable portion of his book is a polemic directed against Christian beliefs. This part does not concern us here, but can surely be understood as a reaction to Christian missionary activities in Iran in the first decades of the twentieth century.

4.5  P  ost World War II Responses: Further Reaction Against Materialism Amidst Renewed Support of Evolution The educational reforms and the foundation of Tehran University by Reza Shah (reigned 1925–1940) marks the general introduction of Western science into Iran’s education system as a whole. Theories of natural evolution became part of the curriculum for the last high school year (Torkaman 1998: 168). The rapid spread of Marxism among Iranian intellectuals during and after the Second World War, however, was a worrying development for Islamic thinkers. Marxists and materialists, enlarging upon Darwin’s theory, attacked religious doctrines as superstitious and unscientific, claiming that materialism alone was based on scientific facts and discoveries. Such claims quickly provoked reactions on the side of Muslim scholars.

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Thus Mohammad Hosayn Tabataba’i (1902–1981) set out with a number of his pupils, the most prominent of them Ayatollah Motahhari (1920–1979), one of the most intellectually influential clergy whose thoughts have shaped the thinking of many Iranians in the Islamic Republic, to write a critique of Western philosophy and in particular the materialism that was advanced by Marxists in Iran (Subḥānī 1984: 294). The result of their collective effort was the publication in 1954 of Osūl-e falsafa va ravesh-e reālīsm (The principles of philosophy and the method of realism). We shall briefly examine Tabataba’i’s critique of evolution after considering a proponent of Darwinism, Yadallah Sahabi, whose writings provoked a strong response from traditionalists.

4.5.1  Y  adallah Sahabi’s Reconciliation of Science and Religion, and Revision of Creation Doctrine Yadallah Sahabi (1905–2002), a politically active Muslim modernist, trained in France as a geologist and was greatly influenced by the spirit of August Comte’s positivism. Sahabi saw no contradiction in adopting a positivistic approach for strengthening the faith. He returned to Iran in 1937, having earned a doctorate in geology. He started teaching geology at the University of Tehran in 1938 and became politically active. Due to his political activities he was sent to prison in 1962 and exiled to Borazjan in the south of Iran. Sahabi’s imprisonment gave him ample time to discuss politics, science and religion with other detainees who were mostly intellectual political prisoners, including a large number of Marxists. Before his release from prison in 1967, Sahabi finished his book Khelqat-i ensān (The creation of man) (Torkaman 1998: 141), a response to Marxist philosophy, and published it shortly afterwards. According to Sahabi, the theory of evolution became a weapon in the hands of materialist and Marxist teachers, who denied the existence of God. At the same time, Sahabi argued, the refusal of religious authorities to accept the reality of biological evolution was no help at all in neutralizing the materialists’ offensive (Torkaman 1998, 168). Sahabi’s contention was that “unbiased scientific knowledge about the gradual evolution and related topics is one of the ways of gaining insight into the purposeful creation of the world and attaining knowledge of the intelligent and unique Creator” (Torkaman 1998: 168). Sahabi‘s main contribution to the Islamic modernist movement of Iran has been his attempt to replace the traditional Islamic doctrine of creation by a view that accommodates evolutionary processes, and replaces the doctrine of simultaneous creation of all species in their present form. In his Khelqat-e ensān, Sahabi sets out to show not only that an evolutionary process of species-creation is compatible with the Qur’an, but also that the traditional Islamic doctrine of creation is based on a false interpretation of scripture. His arguments are original and deserve closer scrutiny.

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Sahabi questions specifically the traditional doctrine of the creation of humankind. It is worth noting that his proposed interpretation is based neither on any closely examined philological evidence, nor on any of the older Qur’an exegeses, but rather is arrived at in the light of the principle of evolution. That is, Sahabi derives the meaning of the Qur’an by working backwards from the principles of evolution as he understood them to various Qur’anic terms, construing them in a way that makes them conform to evolutionary ideas. Sahabi is quite conscious of this point but does not seem to worry about it. If one wants to break with the traditional view, then one cannot seek support in conventional interpretations. He interprets the Qur’an in the light of what he regards as scientific facts established beyond reasonable doubt. Some of these scientifically established truths are, in his view, the gradual evolution (takāmol) of beings over time, and their ancestral unity (payvastagī-ye naslī), meaning that life has evolved “during approximately two milliards of years” from the simplest of organisms to “humankind and innumerable species of plants and animals” (Saḥābī 1970: 11). Sahabi differentiates between two key Qur’anic terms that are commonly thought to be synonymous in many instances: ādam and insān. In Arabic and Persian both terms have the general meaning of human being. Ādam, in addition, is also a proper name, referring to Adam, who is considered by the Muslims to be the first prophet. Sahabi insists that in the Qur’an the term ādam is used exclusively to refer to the Prophet Adam, whereas insān is generally used in a collective sense to denote the human species (Saḥābī 1996a: 106f.). He also proposes to attach a special meaning to the term insān as opposed to bashar. Whereas bashar denotes humankind in its entire evolution, the term insān, Sahabi insists, is reserved for humankind in its rational evolutionary phase. I will clarify these concepts in a moment. Sahabi maintains that, contrary to the traditional doctrine, Adam was not the first of humankind in the sense of its entire evolutionary history (bashar), a history that encompasses both irrational and rational phases. To prove that Adam was not the first human in the broadest sense, Sahabi cites a key verse (Qur’an 3: 59): “Truly, the likeness of Jesus [ʿIsā], in God’s sight, is as Adam’s likeness; He created him of dust….” (Transl.: Arberry). Sahabi prefers the word “clay” (ṭīn) rather than “dust” (truāb) that is also used in the context of creation. For Sahabi “clay” is one of many Qur’anic metaphors to describe the materiality of the creation of humankind. In addition, clay is a mixture that needs to be carefully prepared by the potter to form the figures he wishes to make. This metaphor also implies a process of creation (Saḥābī 1996b: 18). Sahabi then asks in what other aspects are the creations of Adam and Jesus similar? After a lengthy consideration of the suffering of Maria (Maryam) and the birth of Jesus, he replies that the similarity of creation refers to all aspects of their lives until their youth. This includes the similarity of their birth, i.e. their both being born from a mother (Saḥābī 1996a: 146; 1996b: 37f.). If Adam had a mother, this means that other humans must have existed before him. Another key verse (Qur’an 3:33) that Sahabi refers to in support of his view is: “God chose Adam and Noah and the House of Abraham and the House of Imran above all beings,…” (Arberry’s translation). Here Sahabi points out that choosing implies plurality of options. This in turn, according to Sahabi, requires that Adam, like the

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other chosen prophets and families, was picked out of the then existing pool of people (Saḥābī 1996a: 107f). As for the “rational phase” of humankind’s evolution, Sahabi argues that this began when God, noting that Adam was capable of reason, endowed Adam and his descendants with what he calls “manners and duties,” (ādāb va takālīf), resulting in the appearance of the rational and responsible man” (1996a: 108). Here Sahabi is thinking of the sura 2, verse 31: “And He taught Adam the names, all of them” (Arberry’s translation). God’s endowing Adam with intelligence marks a turning point in the history of humankind, bringing to an end the first stage of irrational early man who had no sense of duty or responsibility. In the rational stage, commencing with Adam, humankind is given a mission, requiring the evolution of thought and rationality. Sahabi’s innovation is of course not free from problems and is open to criticism. For one thing, according to the Qur’an, Adam and Eve (Ḥawwāʾ) were expelled from the celestial Paradise, where he had been taught “names” by God. The question then is: did the evolution of humankind (bashar) up to Adam take place in the celestial Paradise, or was Adam an Earth inhabitant before he was chosen by God, called up to Paradise, and there endowed with manners and duties? There is no mention in the Qur’an, that he was brought to Paradise from the Earth to learn the names, and then sent back to Earth. Sahabi was aware of this problem but does not deal with this question explicitly in his Khelqat-e ensān. There he maintains that the Qur’an contains no information on the early life of Adam, but only from the time he was chosen by God (Saḥābī 1996a: 148, 172.). In his Khelqat-i ensān dar bayān-e Qor’ān (The creation of man according to the Qur’an), however, he deals with this question in more details and states that Adam and Eve were sent back to the Earth (Saḥābī 1996b: 68.)

4.5.2  M  ohammad Hosayn Tabataba’i’s Critique of Sahabi’s Views of Human Descent, and Sahabi’s Response The main challenge to Sahabi’s views came from the esteemed Shi’ite scholar Ayatallah Mohammad Hosayn Tabataba’i, who, as mentioned earlier, was also engaged in challenging western philosophical ideas adhered to in Iran by materialist and modern intellectuals. In his authoritative and voluminous Qur’an commentary al-Mīzān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān (The balance, a commentary on the Qur’an), Tabataba’i wrote an article entitled: “Kalām fi kainūnat al-insān al-awwalī” (A word on the coming into being of the first mankind) (Ṭabāṭabāʾī 1968: 269–274), in which, without mentioning Sahabi, he criticizes Sahabi’s views on evolution. Tabataba’i objects to Sahabi’s contention that the Qur’anic comparison between Adam and Jesus has to do with their both being born from a mother. Both Adam and Jesus, Tabataba’i maintains in accordance with standard commentaries, were created directly out of clay (270). Another objection deals with Sahabi’s contention that Adam was chosen

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by God because he acquired the ability of being rational. If rationality is the only criterion by virtue of which he was chosen, Tabataba’i  objects, then all humans would qualify to be picked out as prophets to lead humankind, which is absurd (273). While rejecting Sahabi’s innovative exegeses, however, Tabatab’i made an important concession. He stated that the doctrine of creation did not belong to the necessities of religion, implying that one can be a good Muslim and at the same time believe in the evolution of humankind and living organisms, without thereby denying the faith (ibid.). ُThe importance of this concession can be inferred from the reaction of another Shi’ite authority in Irak,  Muhammad Husayn Āl-Kashif al-­ Ghita’, who wrote a treatise in 1926 titled al-Āyāt al-Bayyināt: fī qamʿ al-bidaʿ wa al-ḍalālāt (The verses of Bayyinat or The clear evidence: on prevention of heresy and errors) after the partial acceptance of Darwinism by Isfahani, rejecting vehemently materialism and Darwinism, and calling all their followers “mulḥid” (apostate) (Muḥammad Ḥusayn Āl-Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ 1926; ch.3, 7).  Tabataba’i’s very important concession, having the power of a fatwa, enabled Shi’ites afterwards to hold to theories of evolution without rejecting basic Islamic teachings. This was instrumental for the tolerance that has been observed in this very delicate controversy. In reply to Tabataba’i, Sahabi published a booklet entitled Baḥthī dar bāra-ye maqāla-ye … Janāb-e Āqā-ye Sayyid Moḥammad Ḥosayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī taḥt-e ʿonvān-e Kalām fī kaynūnat al-insān al-awwalī (A discussion on Tabataba’i’s essay entitled: A word on the coming into being of the first mankind). In this booklet, Sahabi rejects Tabataba’i’s objections regarding the criterion for choosing Adam, arguing that Adam was different from other men in that Adam’s knowledge was taught to him directly by God, whereas human beings have to use their rational ability to reach true knowledge. The importance of this controversy lies in the fact that a challenge was made to revise the traditional doctrine of creation, bringing it somewhat—but only somewhat—in line with modern science. In defense of his views Sahabi stated that his interpretation was not inspired by and was not based on “changing scientific results of the day” (1970: 6). He claimed, specifically, that Darwin’s theory did not play a role in his new interpretation of the Qur’an. Furthermore, to counter the accusation of being a Darwinist, he argued that Darwin’s evolutionary lines of species did not enjoy scientific certainty, nor was Darwin’s causal explanation of the evolutionary process acceptable to all palaeozoologists (Saḥābī 1970: 13). Sahabi explicitly rejects the line of descent of man from monkeys (1996b: 75) and states that nowhere in his Khelqat-e ensān did he make the claim that the human species evolved from other species. What he accepts as a proven scientific fact is that living organisms show an ancestral unity, a continuity of living beings up to humankind. And this, he maintains, has been corroborated by several Qur’anic verses (1996a: 113). The first part of his Khelqat-e ensān is devoted to demonstrating the structural similarities between species and the continuity of evolutionary development in animals without extending it to humankind. This part is obviously taken from modern biology text books.

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Regarding Darwin’s idea of natural selection, Sahabi is vague. He does not reject it, but states that because it has been utilized by materialists to disprove the existence of God, it has become infamous among people of belief (1996b: 75). At any rate, he states that natural selection was one way Darwin sought to explain the diversity of species, but later he had to concede that there were other secondary factors (ʿavāmel-e farʿī) involved in the process of evolution (1996a: 5). It must be pointed out that Sababi’s intention was not to elaborate on and defend Darwinism. His aim was to show that “gradual evolution” is the way God intervenes and creates diversity in species, and that many Qur’an-verses corroborate this contention (1996b: 75). What the positivist Sahabi achieved was to bring forward the idea that Qur’an-­ interpretations need to be based on and inspired by proven scientific facts. With the progress of science, a need arises for a reinterpretation of some scriptural verses, although he explicitly denied that his innovative interpretation was based on consideration of Darwin’s theory. Muslims should not fear that science could undermine religious beliefs; on the contrary, by interpreting the Qur’an in the light of proven scientific facts, new depths of the Qur’an would be revealed.

4.5.3  Ayatallah ʿAli Meshkini’s Qualified Support of Sahabi An important favorable response to Sahabi’s innovation came from Ayatallah ʿAli Meshkini (1921–2007).25 Meshkini’s support for Sahabi is very important, because he was the first religious authority who defended Sahabi against Tabataba’i’s crititique (Meshkīnī 1987: 44f.). In his book entitled Takāmol dar Qurʾān (Evolution in the Qur’an), Meshkini shares Sahabi’s contention regarding science and religion and sees no contradiction between established scientific facts and the Qur’an (19). Like Sahabi and his predecessor Isfahani, Meshkini sees evolution as a proven scientific fact (17). Meshkini expounded many interpretations of the Qur’an in favor of evolution. Many of the Qur’an verses he discusses are also referred to by Sahabi, but he introduces further supporting examples. For instance, he thinks that the verse 21:30: “We created every living thing from water”, corroborates what the proponents of evolution claim regarding the origin of life, i.e. the first organisms were formed in water. But Meshkini was not in full agreement with Sahabi (Jaʿfarī 1998: 414). Significantly, he did not share Sahabi’s distinction between the Quranic-terms insān und bashar. Meshkini uses the term “insān” to refer to humankind even before commencement of the rationality phase marked by the prophet Adam (Meshkīnī 1987: 11). Meshkini contends that humankind before Adam must have been in possession of intellect and

 After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, he became the first Head of the Council of Experts (Majles-e Khebragān-e Rahbarī) and also head of the Seminary Professors in Qom (Jāmeʿa-ye Mudarresīn-e Ḥawza-ye ʿEmlīya-ye Qom).

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had the ability to think, before he could be taught “the names of all things” by God (14). Like Sahabi, Meshkini aims to show that evolution is not contrary to the Qur’an; rather, it is entailed by many Qur’an-verses. Darwin’s theory is briefly described, including the principle of natural selection, but without any comments on the latter (11ff). But he rejects the Darwinan lineage of descent of humankind on the grounds that it is not scientifically proven (13f).

4.5.4  Ayatallah Mortaza Motahhari’s Middle Position Ayatallah Mortaza Motahhari (1920–1979), the most influential pupil of Tabataba’i, and an important figure in fashioning post-revolutionary Islamic thought in Iran, took a middle position in this debate. He rejects Darwin’s theory on the grounds that it is not proven, being only hypothetical and subject to rejection or modification. He contends, however, that even if it were proven to be true, it would only show the planning genius of God and would not contradict holy scripture. He maintains that the verses dealing with the creation of humankind are symbolic and should not be understood as factual statements (Moṭahharī 1978: 132f; Hāshemī 2014). However, contrary to Sahabi, he rejects the positivist idea that some verses need to be interpreted in the light of new scientific theories.

4.5.5  S  eyyed Hossein Nasr’s Dismissal of Darwinism as a Myth of Modernism A radically different view is put forward by the Iranian Seyyed Hossein Nasr (b. 1933), professor emeritus of Islamic studies at George Washington University. In his book Islam and the Plight of Modern Man, Nasr sees the scourge of this era in the materialistic stance of modern humankind. Darwin’s evolutionary theory, he maintains, is a myth of modernism. It propagates, on the one hand, a detrimental and unethical social attitude, i.e. the survival of the fittest, and on the other hand, an anti-spiritual, anti-religious world view that would make God redundant and thus irrelevant (Howard 2014: 87–119). It must be pointed out that the phrase, “survival of the fittest,” did not arouse as much opposition in the Islamic Persianate world as one might have expected, given the usual moral implications that many see in it and as expounded in Social Darwinism. One important reason is surely to be found in the way the phrase was rendered in Arabic and Persian. This factor is especially relevant for those critics with only a superficial grasp of Darwinian theory. In Persian, “survival of the fittest” was translated as baqā-ye aṣlaḥ (Arabic: al-baqāʾ li-al-aṣlaḥ). This means “survival of the worthiest / the best / the most righteous.” The word aṣlaḥ has strong religious

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and ethical connotations. From the viewpoint of Islamic ethics, there is little one can find objectionable in the proposition conveyed by this rendering. Nasr’s objection, like many by others, is thus against the postulate of survival of the strongest or the fittest, and not the worthiest. Nasr does not deny that historical, social and environmental factors do play a role in the shaping of human beings, but these are factors that only “color the outer crust of his being.” Human needs do change, but his “essential pole” is unchanging (Nasr 2002: 77). As evidence for this unchanging nature of humankind’s essence, Nasr cites a saying from the hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet and his sacred companions), ascribed to ʿAli, the Prophet’s son-in-law and nephew and the first Imam of the Shi’ites, regarding the history of humankind. When asked “what existed before Adam?” Nasr writes: “echoing the teaching of the Prophet, he [ʿAli] answered, “Adam.” The question was repeated. He again answered “Adam,” and added that if he were to answer this question to the end of the time he would repeat “Adam.” This means, Nasr insists, “that man in his essential reality has not undergone evolution and that there is no “before man” in the sense of a temporal predecessor or a state from which man developed “in time” (76). He therefore holds Darwin’s theory of evolution to be “metaphysically impossible and logically absurd” (Nasr 2002: 212). It is, however, striking that a scholar trained in the tradition of Western scholarship can be so uncritical of the hadith genre.

4.6  Conclusion Among the varied responses to Darwinism among Iranian Muslim intellectuals and clergy, we may note a number of overarching trends. For those who reject evolution outright, three aspects are prominent. First, evolution-deniers, from Afghani and Shahrestani to Najafi, Kharaqani and Nasr, were above all reacting against the materialism promoted by neicheris and Marxists. Second, those who rejected natural evolution often did so on the grounds that it contradicts the Qur’an and the teaching of the Prophet. And third, scholars like Shahrestani and Nasr argued that evolution is philosophically, metaphysically and logically untenable. A fourth theme represented by Motahhari, not so common as the above three but representing an important position in the religion-and-science discourse among modern Iranians, is that the truth of the Qur’an is not dependent upon anything science says about the physical world. While Darwin’s theory is not free from reasonable scientific doubt, as it is only a theory, its assertions cannot be proven or disproven by the Qur’an. Qur’an-verses dealing with the creation of the world and man (Adam) are symbolic and cannot be immediately and directly comprehended. For those more favorably disposed towards evolution, their responses, like those of Isfahani, Meshkini, and Sahabi, were based on greater familiarity with Darwinian theory and more accurate accounts of natural evolution. Characteristic of these more positive responses is an attempt to demonstrate that the idea of natural

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evolution in Darwinism was not necessarily materialistic and was compatible with monotheism, and was even corroborated by the Qur’an. Over the last century and a half, one can discern a changing of attitude towards evolutionary theories among Iranian intellectuals. In the nineteenth century Afghani and Shahrestani denounced all evolutionists as materialists and unbelievers. At the beginning of the twentieth century Isfahani stated that the idea of evolution need not lead to materialism; it is an old idea that is compatible with Islam. Isfahani’s contribution did not have an immediate impact on mainstream Shi’ite thought. However, Tabataba’i, in his controversy with Sahabi, paved the way for more tolerance towards those who accept the idea that the act of creation is an evolutionary process. Among all the aforementioned Iranian Islamic thinkers, even those sympathetic towards evolution, we always find no-go areas. The descent of man from apes is rejected by all. They all consider the origin and development of humankind as a development separate from other species. This restriction is imposed by the Islamic doctrine ascribing to humans a special and privileged position, since God made him His viceroy to rule on the Earth and created all other beings for him and placed them under his command. This view of humankind is corroborated by certain Qur’an-­ verses and sayings of the Prophet (hadith). For this reason it is very hard, if not impossible, for conservative and moderate or even liberal Muslims to accept the idea that the human species is an offspring of another species. The decoupling of evolution from materialism, argued by some, made it necessary for them to impose a restriction on natural selection as an autonomous principle. Otherwise, natural selection, acting on its own, subverts the role of God in His creative and supervisory capacities. In their views, natural selection cannot account for the creation of humankind; this can only be the work of a “wise sage” who designed the “perfect order.” A logical consequence of this doctrine is that the variation of species cannot be accounted for by chance. To look for pure Darwinism among the Iranian Shi’ite clergy may be a futile task, but one cannot deny that Darwin’s impact on traditional Islamic thought has been very significant. Darwinism has led to a rethinking of the dogma of creation and in some instances the partial accommodation of the evolutionary processes to explain changes and natural developments.

References Ādamiīyat, Farīdūn. 1972. Andīsaha-ye taraqqī va ḥokūmat-e qānūn. Tehrān: Khwārazmī. Afghānī, Jamāl al-Dīn. 1968a. al-Aʿmāl al-kāmila. Cairo: Dār al-Kātib al-ʿArabī li-al-Ṭibāʿa wa al-Nashr. ———. 1968b. The Truth About the Neicheri Sect and an Explanation of the Neicheris,  trans. N.  Keddie and H.  Algar. In An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn “al-Afghānī,”  ed. Nikki Keddie, 130–174. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Afghānī, Jamāl al-Dīn. 1884. The Materialists in India, trans. N. Keddie. In An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn “al-Afghānī,” ed. Nikki Keddie, 175–180. Berkeley: University of California Press. Āl-Kāshif al-Ghiṭāʾ, Muḥammad Ḥusayn. 1926. al-Āyāt al-Bayyināt: fī qamʿ al-bidaʿ wa al-ḍalālāt. Najaf: al-Maṭbaʿa al-ʿAlawiyya. Arjomand, Kamran. 1997. The Emergence of Scientific Modernity in Iran: Controversies Surrounding Astrology and Modern Astronomy in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Iranian Studies 30 (1–2): 5–24. ———. 1998. In Defense of the Sacred Doctrine: Muḥammad Ḥusayn Shahristānī’s Refutation of Materialism and Evolutionary Theories of Natural History, 1–18. Sonderheft: Hallesche Beiträge zur Orientwissenschaft. ———. 2016. Molāḥaẓātī dar bāra-ye ketāb-e Āyāt-e Bayyenāt va rūyārūyī bā Dārvīnīsm. Miras-e Elmi-ye Eslam va Iran 5 (1): 35–51. ———. 2019. Bāz ham Jānevarnāma. Tarikh-e Elm 17 (1): 37–90. Bowler, Peter J. 1989. Evolution: History of an Idea. Berkeley: University of California Press. Büchner, Ludwig. 1855. Kraft und Stoff. Frankfurt a.M.: Meiniger. English edition: Büchner, Ludwig. 1864. Force and Matter: Empirico-Philosophical Studies, Intelligibly Rendered. London: Trübner et. Co. ———. 1868. Sechs Vorlesungen über die Darwinsche Theorie von der Verwandlung der Arten und die erste Entsehung des Organismenwelt. Leipzig: Theodor Thomas. Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de. 1778. Histoire naturell des animaux quadrupeds. Paris: De l’Imprimerie Royal. Persian edition: Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de. 1856. Mokhtaṣarī dar tawṣīf-e aḥvāl-e baʿz̤ī az ḥayvānāt,  trans: Dabīr, Mīrzā Moḥammad Ḥosayn, and Darb, Heinrich Alfred. Vienna: Dār al-Ṭibāʿa-ye Makhṣūṣ. Dallal, Ahmad. 2010. Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dastghayb Shīrāzī, ʿEnāyatallāh. 1923. Resāla-ye Dārvīn va ḥokamā-ye Mashreq Zamīn. Shīrāz: Maṭbaʿa-ye Moḥammadiyya. Elshakry, Marwa. 2013. Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860–1950. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Figuier, Louis. 1864. La terrre avant le deluge. 4th ed. Paris: L: Hachette. English edition: Figuier, Louis. 1866. The World before the Deluge. New York: D. Appleton. Persian trans: Tazkerat al-arz̤-e Nāṣerī completed in 1867 (trans: Kāshānī, Moḥammad Taqī Anṣāri). Ms. kept in the National Library of Iran. Gamīnī, Amīr Moḥammad. 2015. Rūyārūyi bā naẓarīya-ye takāmol-e Dārvīn dar ʿaṣr-e Qājār: Shaykh Moḥammad Rez̤a Esfahānī va Takāmol-e Ensān. Tarikh-e Elm 2: 297–350. ———. 2017. Movājaha bā Dārvīn. Tehran: Nashr-e Kargadan. Glass, Dogmar. 2004. Der Muqtaṭaf und seine Öffentlichkeit, 2 vols. Würzburg: Ergon. Hajatpour, Reza. 2002. Iranische Geistlichkeit zwischen Utopie und Realismus. Wiesbaden: Reichert. Hāshemī, Moḥammd Manṣūr. 2011. Yak masʾala, do rūykard. Āyina-ye, pazhūhesh 130: 44–49. ———. 2014. Takāmol yā taṭavvor-e anvāʿ: movājaha-ye Īrāniyān bā naẓariyya-ye takāmol-e anvāʿ. Dāneshnāma-ye jahān-e Eslām 8. http://rch.ac.ir/article/Details?id=10380. Accessed 9 July 2017. Hourani, Albert. 1962. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. London: Oxford University Press. Howard, Damian H. 2014. Being Human in Islam: The Impact of the Evolutionary Worldview. London: Routladge. Hull, David L. 1973. Charles Darwin and Nineteenth Century Philosophy of Science. In Foundations of Scientific Method: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Ronald N. Giere and Richard Samuel Westfall, 115–132. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Iṣfahānī, Moḥammad Rez̤ā. 1913. Naqd falsafat Darwūn, 2 vols. Baghadad: Maṭbaʿat al-Wilāya. Jaʿfarī, Moḥammad Mahdī. 1998. Doktor Yadallāh Saḥābī va khelqat-e ensān. In Yādnāma-ye Doktor Yadallāh Saḥābī, ed. Moḥammad Torkaman, 403–415. Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Qalam.

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Jaʿfariyān, Rasūl. 2003. Asadallāh Kharaqānī: ruḥānī-ye nawgarā-ye rūzgār-e mashrūṭa. Tehrān: Markaz-e Asnād-e Enqelāb-e Eslāmī. Kāshānī, Moḥammad Taqī Anṣārī. 2011. Jānevarnāma. Tehrān: Moʾassasa-ye Moṭālaʿāt-e Tārīkh-e Pezeshkī. Keddie, Niki R. 1968. An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn “al-Afghānī.” Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 1983. Afgānī, Jamāl-al-Dīn. Encyclopaedia Iranica. http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afgani-jamal-al-din. Accessed 9 July 2017. Kharaqānī, Asadallāh. 1920. Resāla-ye tanqīd-e maqāla-ye Dārvīnīsthā. Tehran. Khosravī, ʿErfān. 2015. Jānevarnāma va rafʿ-e yak sūʿ-e tafāhom-e tārīkhī. Tarikh-e elm 2: 173–219. Kumar, Deepak. 2006. Science and the Raj: A Study of British India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Liu, Y.-S. 2011. Inheritance of Acquired Characters in Animals: A Historical Overview, Further Evidence and Mechanistic Explanations. Italian Journal of Zoology 78 (4): 410–417. https:// doi.org/10.1080/11250003.2011.562554. Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/ showCitFormats?doi=10.1080%2F11250003.2011.562554. Maʿṣūmī, Moḥammad. 2015. Dārvīn-e “mā” va Dārvīn-e “ānhā”. Tarikh-e Elm 2: 237–250. Meshkīnī, ʿAlī. 1987. Takāmol dar Qorʾān. Persian trans. Q. Ḥosaynīnezhād. Tehrān: Daftar-i Našr-i Farhang-i Eslāmī. Milne-Edwards, Henri. 1841. Zoologie: Cours élémentaire d’histoire naturelle. Paris: G. Masson. Monzavī, Aḥmad. 2003. Fehrestvāra-ye ketābhā-ye Fārsī. Vol. 5. Tehran: Dāʾirat al-Maʿāref-e Bozorg-e Eslamī. Moṭahharī, Mortaz̤ā. 1978. ʿElal-e garāyesh be māddīgarī. Qom: Jāmeʿa-ye Moddaresīn-e Ḥawza-ye ʿElmīya. Najafī Eṣfahānī Masjedshāhī, Mahdī. 1929. Ketāb-e mortfaq. Esfahān, Maṭbaʿa-ye Emāmī. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein. 2002. Islam and the Plight of Modern Man. Cambridge: The Islamic Texts Society. Nūrī, Moḥammad. 2000. Nakhostīn Naqdhā-ye Motakallemān-e Shīʿa bar Dārvīnīsm. In Faṣlnāma-ye ketābhā-ye Eslāmī 1/2: 43–48. Ospovat, Dov. 1981. The Development of Darwin’s Theory: Natural History, Natural Theology, and Natural Selection, 1835-1859. Cambridge: University Press. Rawz̤ātī, Moḥammad ʿAlī. 1996. Hadiyya-ye Najafiyya  – tarjama-ye aḥvāl-e… Mahdī Najafī Masjedshāhī In Hafdah resāla-ye Fārsī, ed. Rez̤ā Ostādī, 390–399. Mashhad. Saḥābī, Yadallāh. 1970. Baḥthī dar bāra-ye Maqāla-ye … Janāb-e Āqā-ye Sayyid Moḥammad Ḥosayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī taḥt-e ʿonvān-e Kalām fī kaynūnat al-insān al-awwalī. Tehrān: Sherkat-e Enteshār. ———. 1996a. Khelqat-i ensān. 13th ed. Tehrān: Sherkat-e Enteshār. ———. 1996b. Khelqat-i ensān dar bayān-e Qorʾān. Tehrān: Sherkat-e Enteshār. Shahrestānī, Moḥmmad Ḥosayn. 1882. Āyāt-e Bayyenāt: dar radd-e dahrīyīn. Lahore: New Imperial Press. ———. 2017. Āyāt-e Bayyenāt: dar radd-e dahriyīn, ed. Kamran Arjomand. Tehrān: Nashr-e Sāles. Shumayyil, Shiblī. 1910. Majmūʿat al-Duktur Shiblī Shumayyil, vol. 1: Falsafat al-nushū’ wa al-irtiqā. Cairo: Maṭbaʿat al-Muqtaṭaf. Subḥānī, Jaʿfar. 1984. Jāmeʿiyat-i ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī. In Duvumīn yādnāma-i ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī, 277–305. Tehrān: Anjoman-e Eslāmī-ye Ḥekmat va Falsafa-ye Īrān. Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Moḥammad Ḥosayn. 1968. Al-Mīzān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān. Vol. 16. Tehrān: Dār al-Kutub al-Islāmiyya. Torkaman, Moḥammad, ed. 1998. Yādnāma-ye Doktor Yadallāh Saḥābī. Tehrān: Enteshārāt-e Qalam. Weismann, August. 1889. Essays Upon Heredity. Oxford: University Press. Ziadat, Adel A. 1986. Western Science in the Arab World: The Impact of Darwinism. 1860–1930. London: Macmillan. Zirkle, Conway. 1941. Natural Selection Before the “Origin of Species.”  Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 84 (1): 71–123.

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Kamran Arjomand, born in Iran, studied physics in England, and philosophy and Islamic Studies in Canada and Germany. He obtained his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Cologne (1986), where he later directed a project for cataloging the collection of rare books kept at the Shi’ite Library of the Oriental Department of the University of Cologne. He then worked as specialist librarian of the Iranian world at the State and University Library of Halle, Germany. Now retired, he has taught Iranian modern cultural history at the University of Cologne and Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany. His area of research is the transfer of modern science to the Persianate world. He is author of Catalogue of the Shiʿite collection in the Oriental Department of the University of Cologne; 6 vols. 1996. He has ­critically edited the first Shi’ite response in Iran to modern theories of natural history by Mohammad Hosayn Shahrestani entitled Ayat-e Bayyenat (2016).  

Part II

South Asia: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Responses

Chapter 5

Karmic Versus Organic Evolution: The Hindu Encounter with Modern Evolutionary Science C. Mackenzie Brown

Abstract  Hindus today often affirm a belief in evolution and avow that the Hindu tradition is entirely compatible with evolutionary theory and modern science in general. Some Hindus go so far as to claim that their ancient sages actually discovered evolution long before Darwin. Others assert that Hindu teachings go beyond modern science and can complete it, accounting not just for the evolution of the physical body but also of consciousness. In the process of making such claims, these apologists at times declare that Hinduism is the most scientific religion in the world, certainly more scientific than Christianity. Closer examination of these pronouncements reveals that evolution has many meanings. For Hindus, it often refers to the spiritual evolution of the soul via the processes of rebirth and karmic development. It is this meaning that permeates the broad claims about the compatibility of Hinduism and evolution, rather than Darwin’s notion of organic evolution, thereby obscuring deep differences. This conflation of meanings thus generates considerable tension in attempts to reconcile the two explanatory evolutionary processes, karmic and organic, despite many superficial similarities. The tensions revolve around the three major challenges that confronted Christian theologians regarding purpose, morality, and human uniqueness, although in rather different terms. To investigate these tensions, I will first look at traditional teachings about karma and rebirth, both in popular literature and more philosophical treatises, including Hindu accounts of the origin and nature of species. I will then examine colonial and postcolonial Hindu responses to modern evolutionary theory.

C. M. Brown (*) Emeritus, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_5

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5.1  Meanings of Evolution Educated, English-speaking Hindus today generally say they believe in evolution. As Roger Jackson indicates in his essay (p. 209), in a 2009 Pew Forum survey of religious attitudes towards evolution in the U.S., 80% of Hindus responded that “evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth.” A somewhat more carefully worded set of questions in a 2014 Pew Forum poll revealed that 62% of Hindus in the U.S. agreed that humans evolved “due to natural processes” (14% of Hindus thought humans evolved “due to God’s design”1). My own 2009–2011 survey of English-speaking and computer-literate Hindus from around the world showed that 65% of respondents agreed that “[t]here is no conflict between Hinduism and evolution” (Brown 2012: 218). As with Buddhists, however, the apparent harmony is misleading. In my same 2009–2011 survey, 54% of respondents affirmed that “[k]arma and rebirth are better explanations for the origin of the diversity of life than Darwinian evolution” (218), and 82% regarded karma as “a fundamental scientific law of nature,” like gravity (215). Karma, accordingly, is widely seen as a natural process, and thus as a fully scientific explanation for the evolution of life on Earth. Clearly, then, what Hindus often mean in affirming “evolution” is that they believe in some sort of spiritual or karmic evolution, not necessarily the modern theory of organic evolution—Darwinism and its various updated versions. Traditional Hindu ideas about karma have seemingly displaced—in the name of science—the modern scientific explanation of the world. One recent scholar of karma-theory notes: The modern theory of evolution was not, of course, part of the understanding of the world of the classical thinkers of India. In its stead they conceived of another process which many of them considered responsible for the development of the world: the law of karma. The creation and development of the world were often looked upon as being largely determined by actions carried out by living beings at an earlier time. (Bronkhorst 2000: 8–9)

In this essay I will explore the various tensions and possible reconciliations between the two explanatory evolutionary processes, karmic and organic. To compare ancient accounts of natural phenomena with modern scientific explanations, one may argue with considerable force, is a nearly indefensible anachronism. Yet many Hindu thinkers today compel us to do exactly that when they assert that traditional ideas about karma and rebirth are in fact not just compatible with modern evolutionary science, but even superior to it in terms of explaining reality as it really is. As another scholar comments: Typical of those who place karma and rebirth within an evolutionary context is the assertion that karma and rebirth as explanations of life are supported by modern scientific, philosophic, and empirical research. Certainly, this is the case with Blavatsky, Aurobindo, and Radhakrishnan, although little in the way of scientific or empirical evidence is put forward to support the assertion. (Neufeldt 1986: xiv)

 As we shall see, some Hindus view God as the overseer of karmic fruits.

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To be able to form some judgment about the compatibility of traditional Hindu notions of spiritual evolution and modern organic evolution, let us look first at ancient and classical teachings about karma and rebirth, both in popular literature and more philosophical treatises. We should note at once that Hindu ideals of karmic evolution or spiritual development involve two somewhat independent notions: (a) karma itself, or moral compensation for one’s actions or intentions, and (b) rebirth, or transmigration of some spiritual entity (soul) through multiple lives in various forms, not restricted to human bodies. By the beginning of the Common Era, these two general ideas became thoroughly intertwined: karmic compensation in the classical Hindu worldview occurs not just within one life, but over the course of thousands of births, although explanations of the processes involved varied widely. I will begin by looking at popular traditional stories highlighting diverse features and interpretations of the karmic processes, followed by accounts of the origin and nature of species that became implicated in karmic theory, notions obviously relevant to discussions of Hindu responses to Darwinism. These narratives will set the stage for our further inquiry into the classical philosophical interpretations and explanations of karmic processes, leading up to our examination of colonial and postcolonial Hindu responses to modern evolutionary theory—responses that are in many ways dependent upon and frequently draw upon the popular and philosophical traditions.

5.2  Three Traditional Hindu Stories of Karmic Fruition To illustrate popular Hindu ideals of karmic evolution, I will first summarize three dramatic tales of rebirth and karmic fruition from ancient and medieval scriptures. I begin with a cautionary story from the Viṣṇu Purāṇa about a venerable old king, Bharata, who lost his heart to a deer. In the process of analyzing the Bharata legend, I will introduce a story from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa of the foolish Brahman, Ajāmila, who married a licentious maid servant or prostitute and thereby abandoned his brahmanical conduct and ideals—a potentially disastrous karmic development. I follow up with the Mahābhārata’s story of the pious ascetic, Māṇḍavya, impaled on a stake for a theft he did not commit. Each story has a rather different take on the working of karma and karmic fruition. As the tales unfold, the reader should note two points especially relevant to our exploration: (1) to what extent do the authors of the stories attempt to explain the actual karmic mechanisms that determine, or at least influence, a person’s future birth, and (2) what is the nature and role of different animal species in the karmic process? This last question is particularly germane to the story of Bharata. So let us turn to King Bharata and his curious fate, as told in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (2.13–14).2 This devout monarch, having reached old age, retired to the forest,

 A much-expanded version of the story is found in Bhāgavata Purāṇa 5.8–14.

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renouncing family, wealth, pleasures, and kingdom, and with his mind focused on god. One day he witnessed a pregnant, near-term doe drinking in a stream close by his hermitage. The sudden roaring of a nearby lion caused her to spring out of the water in fear. The abrupt leap brought forth the fawn, but so stressed the doe that she collapsed and died. The fawn fell back into the water and was carried downstream until rescued by the compassionate former monarch. Taking the fawn home, he looked after all its needs, but ever worried that some injury might come to it. Despite having renounced his former station and relations, this mind-controlling ascetic could not control his heart, becoming totally attached to his cervine ward. Absorbed no longer in god but in the welfare of the deer in its daily wanderings, he took inordinate pleasure in its company when it returned home at night. Sometime later, as the king lay dying, the tearful deer at his side, he focused on just one thought, that of the deer. Accordingly, with the thought of the deer in his mind at the moment of his death, Bharata was reborn as a deer. At this point in the story, we realize we are in the midst of a morality tale espousing the ancient ascetic ideal of renunciation, but not simply the institutionalized renunciation of the fourth stage of life exemplified by Bharata’s retreat to the forest. Such renunciation is here contrasted with the genuine renunciation attained through complete emotional detachment from any object of endearment. For our purposes, however, the most significant aspect of the story so far is the consequence of failing to achieve such genuine detachment at the moment of death: rebirth in a lower, non-­ human status—that of a deer in Bharata’s case. The importance of a dying person’s last thought in determining the nature of the next birth is often emphasized in both the classical Buddhist and Hindu traditions. In the Bhagavad Gītā (8.6), for instance, the god Kṛṣṇa declares to Arjuna: “Whatever sort of being one calls to mind at the time of death, that very being one becomes, transformed by the thought of it” (my translation). At the same time, we may note, there is a counter tradition found in the Purāṇas and Upaniṣads that emphasizes not a person’s dying thought in determining the kind of rebirth but rather the thought of the future father of the transmigrating soul (jīva) at the moment of conception (O’Flaherty 1980: 22). We shall return to the story of Bharata in a moment, but first I will note a popular variant of the final-mortal-thought motif, in the story of Ajāmila as found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (6.1–3). The story describes its protagonist as originally a righteous and dutiful son, married to a wife of good family, well-versed in Vedic knowledge, and strict in fulfilling his religious obligations. But one day, going into the forest to gather items for a sacrificial ritual, he happened upon a lascivious man of the Śūdra class having intercourse with a drunken and flirtatious maid servant. Despite his best efforts to resist, lust rose in Ajāmila’s heart. Entranced by her coquettish glances, he gave himself up to her, soon supporting her in lavish style and abandoning his own wife. He eventually had several sons by his new wife, maintaining them all by various disreputable means such as thievery and kidnappings. In his old age, Ajāmila fathered the last of ten sons, becoming as attached to him as Bharata to the deer. As death approached, Ajāmila, thinking only of his beloved last child, uttered the son’s name, which just happened to be Nārāyaṇa, the name of

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the Supreme Lord. By pronouncing the name Nārāyaṇa, Ajāmila atoned for all his sins, for even the worst of evil acts are forgiven by pronouncing the Lord’s name, including the murder of a Brahman, a woman, a father, a cow, or having sexual intercourse with one’s teacher’s wife. Ajāmila repented of his evil ways, performed various penances, and upon his actual death went, not to hell, which he richly deserved from a karmic perspective, but to the world of the Lord. And the reader realizes that even the penances were not really necessary, for as the Bhāgavata concludes, “By pronouncing the name of the Lord, whether referring to someone else [as in Ajāmila’s case], or as a jest, or in song, or in amorous dalliance, all one’s sins are destroyed” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa 6.2.13–14; my translation). Whatever theological issues may be raised by the seeming randomness of the efficacy of pronouncing the Lord’s name, having no regard to intentionality or circumstances, the Bhāgavata’s story of Ajāmila does provide an account of the rebirth process that integrates the idea of karmic fruits with dispositions produced by one’s prior actions.3 According to the Bhāgavata, when the soul becomes enmeshed in a material body, it is compelled to act ceaselessly by the force of its inherent natural qualities (guṇas). At this point, the Bhāgavata tells us that the invisible force of karma is responsible for a new birth: “One’s inherent disposition [derived from one’s prior actions and passions] causes an unseen force (nimittam avyaktam) to create a gross and subtle body in accord with the womb and seed of the parents. Through contact with material nature (prakṛti), a person suffers misfortune, which quickly dissolves through contact with the Lord” (6.1.54–55, my translation). I shall deal with karma as an unseen force in the philosophical section below. The Ajāmila story suggests a possible answer to the question of karmic mechanics in general: it is all in the hands of the Lord. As the Bhāgavata Purāṇa notes elsewhere, “It is the Supreme Lord who, himself independent, effects the life duration, short or long, of a suffering being dependent on karma” (4.11.21, my translation).4 Karmic fruits, then, from the Bhāgavata’s standpoint, are overseen by God, or alternatively, rendered inoperative by his divine grace. But the declaration of divine oversight or intervention is hardly an explanation—it is merely a descriptive claim. How the Lord actually maintains or breaks the frequently proclaimed “natural law” of moral cause and effect is not explained. Apparently his being omnipotent is answer enough for many. But one may still ask if there is any constraint on the Lord imposed by karmic forces? If not, then questions of partiality and bias arise. We shall again consider the theistic interpretation of karmic mechanics later, in a more philosophic mode. But let us return to the story of Bharata, where no such theistic interpretation is given. In his deer incarnation Bharata was able to recollect his former life as king and so realized, according to the moral norms of the narrative, the folly of his prior attachment to the deer. Accordingly, he developed a profound aversion to worldly 3  See Prabhupada (n.d.-b) for a modern commentary on the power of God’s name in helping Ajāmila become Kṛṣṇa conscious and return to Godhead. 4  The phrase, “dependent on karma” (karma-adhiina) is the commentator Sridhara’s gloss of “suffering” (duhhstha).

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endeavors and departed from his deer mother to live near his former hermitage. Performing penances for the acts and passions that had resulted in his cervine rebirth, he eventually took birth in a pious Brahman family, still able to recall his former births. His post-deer birth in the Brahman family is perhaps even more curious than his previous incarnation. Though endowed with wisdom, deep insight into scripture, knowledge of the Self, and realizing that all beings are the same, the former king/deer—now turned Brahman—adopted the life of a simpleton, speaking incoherently, dressing in filthy rags, with saliva dribbling from his mouth, indifferent to worldly opinion. Following several curious turns of events that need not concern us, the idiot-sage ended up preaching to a king on the nature of reality and the Self, beginning with the karmic reality: “To experience pleasure and pain is the cause of embodiment; a creature attains a body to experience the fruits of virtue and vice (dharma and adharma)” (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 2.13.81–82, my translation). The king acknowledged the truth of these statements, and Bharata continued: A man, a woman, a cow, a goat, a horse, an elephant, a bird, a tree, all these are to be regarded as simply conventional names applied to bodies produced by karma. A man is not really a god nor a human nor a beast nor a tree, for these are just diverse bodily forms, or species (ākṛti), generated by karma. Such distinctions as king or soldier, taken as real by the world at large, are not real, being merely products of imagination. (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 2.13.97-99, my translation)

The idiot-Brahmin, several explanations later, finally concludes: “The soul consisting of wisdom is not conjoined with any non-realities (such as) names and species (jāti)” (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 2.14.30, my translation). The didactic tale of Bharata shows little interest in the physical world regarding how nature works, including how species originate or develop, all such entities being mere unrealities. All that really matters is realization of the one Self: diverse body forms or species are simply vehicles for receiving appropriate karmic consequences on the spiritual journey towards this realization. Different species are only temporary assemblages of name and form, and ultimately, for the idiot-sage, mere projections of the imagination. The tales of Bharata and Ajāmila reflect particular philosophical and theological concerns that are especially highlighted by using the final-mortal-thought motif.5 5  Regarding final-thought karma, contemporary Hindu teachers emphasize the psychological element, without really explaining how it actually effects karmic outcomes. Swami Adiswarananda of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center of New York, for instance, notes: “A dying man’s next life is determined by his last thought in the present life.” Then after quoting Bhagavad Gītā 8.6, Adiswarananda explains: “And the last thought of the dying person inevitably reflects his inmost desire” (Adiswarananda n.d.). In like manner, Swami Prabhupada, in commenting on the same verse of the Gītā, makes specific reference to King Bharata: “Maharaja Bharata, although a great personality, thought of a deer at the end of his life, and so in his next life he was transferred into the body of a deer. Although as a deer he remembered his past activities, he had to accept that animal body. Of course, one’s thoughts during the course of one’s life accumulate to influence one’s thoughts at the moment of death, so this life creates one’s next life.” As a devotee of Krishna, Prabhupada finds no inconsistency between Bharata’s fate and that of Ajāmila, whose uttering of

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But such a motif runs somewhat counter to the usual approach to karmic fruition, which stresses more the acts, especially unvirtuous acts, performed during a person’s life rather than any final thoughts at the end. A good example of this type of karmic perspective is found in our third story, concerning Aṇīmāṇḍavya, or Māṇḍavya-of-the-Stake. The sage Māṇḍavya, according to an epic tale (Mahābhārata 1.101), while living under a vow of silence in the forest, was falsely blamed for aiding in a robbery. The police, after all, had found the stolen goods along with the thieves themselves hiding in his ashram. Refusing to testify on his own behalf due to his vow of silence, Māṇḍavya, hauled before the king’s court, was convicted and sentenced to death by impalement, along with the thieves. Māṇḍavya did not die, however, though he suffered greatly and wondered why he deserved such misery. He simply assumed, at least initially, that he must be responsible, tacitly accepting the law of karma. Māṇḍavya was eventually lowered from the stake, but it could not be removed, just cut off, and thus his name, Māṇḍavya-of-the-Stake.6 He then went to the god of justice, Dharma himself, inquiring for what evil act of his was he so severely punished. Dharma tells him “You used to stick straws up grasshoppers’ rumps, and this, ascetic, is the result of that practice (karma)” (1.101.24; Goldman’s translation, 1985: 418). The sage is outraged that Dharma would inflict such suffering on him for such a petty misdeed, and then effects a cosmic change by declaring that henceforth no one will suffer karmic fruits for acts committed before the age of 14. Robert P. Goldman analyzes these events as follows: The sage’s crime is not so much against Dharma [the god] as against dharma [righteousness]; and so the god has dispassionately assigned fitting retribution: He who sticks things up the rectum of a creature shall, in the course of time and in rigid keeping with a Hammurabian principle of justice, have things stuck up his. Dharma here is seen as an impartial judge who monitors the transgressions of all men and somehow manages to assign meet punishment to be carried out blindly by unwitting agents such as the king in this story. In short a personified Dharma is acting in effect like a personified Karma seeing to it that all actions, however trivial they may seem, are appropriately requited. (Goldman 1985: 410)

The tale of Māṇḍavya raises many questions about the workings of karma. As Māṇḍavya himself noted, there is the problem of commensurability between punishment (suffering) and misdeed. Bruce R. Reichenbach points out that there is no easy resolution: “We have no scale which correlates the amount of pleasure and pain to be received with the moral quality of the act performed. And even were we provided with one, it would be difficult if not impossible to carry out the relevant calculations. Pleasure and pain are notoriously difficult to quantify accurately” (Reichenbach 1990: 94). Another problem is Māṇḍavya’s lack of memory of his former misdeed.

his son’s name, which happened to be a name of the Lord, was sufficient to break the karmic chain. If only Bharata had named his deer Krishna. In any case, whether any accounting of final-thought karma can accommodate individuals suffering severe dementia, or who are engaged in various sorts of daily activities with thoughts focused on their work when instantly killed (as the vaporized victims at Hiroshima were), I will leave for the reader to speculate on. 6  I have followed the summary of the story in Goldman (1985: 418).

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How pedagogically effective is karmic retribution without some sort of karmic recall? Such questions become increasingly important in a scientific context. Given the narrative, didactic genre of the three tales of Bharata, Ajāmila, and Māṇḍavya, we can hardly expect any deep explanation—philosophical or physical/ biological—of how rebirth and the various karmic fruitions are brought about. What we do have, to the extent that there are any explanations at all, varies from story to story. In Bharata’s case, we have an idealist interpretation of the process in which mind or thought creates karma as well as bodies, and karma creates bodies as well as thoughts and mind. We find a theistic interpretation in Ajāmila’s case, in which god supervises the distribution of karmic fruits but also intervenes to counter the usual effects of karma, whether in terms of acts themselves or the intentions behind them. And in Māṇḍavya’s case, we have a personalist interpretation in which karma (or dharma) personified sees to the Hammurabicly appropriate fruition of deeds. All three stories thus reflect some sense of purpose, a teleological function for karma. Ilkka Pyysiäinen points out that humans in general “are prone to see things as existing for a reason or purpose” (2009: 20). As applied to karma theory, he argues that believers see all events as happening for the purpose of rewarding or punishing prior actions (155). He summarizes: …the Indian ideas of karma and reincarnation are based on the intuitions of disembodied agency and a ‘promiscuous teleology’: the agentive principle or self wanders from body to body, and its deeds determine everything that is or happens in the world. The problem of mental causation [the causative power of intentions], especially in its collective aspect, is then solved by either invoking a god who mediates between the intention behind a deed and its ‘fruit’ or adopting an idealist position. Either a god makes things happen in accordance with the intentions of living beings or the effects of mental causation are interpreted as being mental, too. (158–59)

Invoking god, or seeing the world as only a mental projection (an idealist position), is basically incompatible with modern scientific methodology with its empirical underpinnings. We find, however, in some of the ancient non-narrative Hindu literature, attempts to provide more in-depth physical and biological explanations of karmic processes. These explanations will be fundamental in the modern efforts to accommodate or reconcile karmic ideas of spiritual evolution with modern biological theories of species evolution. But before examining the more philosophical and naturalistic accounts of karma, we must first examine ancient and traditional accounts of the karmic role of various animal species, beginning with various explanations or descriptions of speciation.

5.3  Traditional Hindu Accounts of the Origin of Species Not all Hindu story-tellers and myth-makers are as indifferent to the origin of species as the author of the Bharata tale. Hindus have many origin myths that encompass both the cosmos as a whole and the diversity of species. The earliest often

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provide etiological explanations for a variety of animals rather than drawing any moralistic connection with the notion of karmic compensation, understandable enough given that the ideas of karma and rebirth are somewhat later notions. As the Indologist Wilhelm Halbfass notes, aside from various minority and materialist schools, “virtually nobody in the classical and later traditions of Indian religion and philosophy has questioned the basic principles of the theory of karma. There seem to be no explicit awareness and hardly any reflection of the initial absence of the theory in the oldest period of thought, although the texts which document this absence are carefully preserved” (Halbfass 1991: 294). One of the earliest Hindu myths describes speciation as a cosmic oblation. The Rig Veda (10.90) recounts how the gods sacrificed the body of a primordial cosmic man (puruṣa), thereby producing among other things all aerial creatures, wild and domestic animals including horses, cows, goats, sheep, as well as the social hierarchy of the four classes of men, Brahman, Kṣatriya, and so forth.7 Another ancient myth explains speciation as a process of procreative devolutionary mutation. The Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (1.4.1–4) suggests that the original being, the Self (Ātman) in the form of a man (puruṣa-vidha), was lonely and desired a second. He split into two, woman and man, from whose union humankind was born. The woman, realizing she had united with him from whom she had sprung, hid herself by mutating into a cow. But he mutated into a bull, united with her, thereby producing cows. She then hid herself successively as a mare, she-ass, she-­ goat, ewe, down to an ant, only to have him follow her in this descending series in his male forms, generating all the different species down to the insects. In its overall structure, this explanation of speciation is a kind of inverse version of Darwinian evolution. Still another, more recent account of speciation, in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (3.10–11), first describes a primary creation of the qualities and elements of the universe instigated by the energy of the supreme lord. He then delegates the creator god Brahmā to proceed with a secondary creation that produces plants, then animals, including the cow, goat, bull, antelope, boar, gayal, deer, sheep, camel, donkey, horse, mule, gaur, deer, yak, dog, wolf, tiger, cat, rabbit, porcupine, lion, monkey, elephant, tortoise, lizard, birds, and so forth. Humans are created in a class by themselves, followed by the creation of the lesser gods. Thus, we have a third cosmogonic mode: speciation by divine creation. All three modes of speciation assume that species are static rather than dynamic forms, treated as manifestations of unchanging essential types, brought into being all at once or nearly so. There is no hint of any organic evolution in the modern, scientific sense, but strong intimations of human exceptionalism—in the Vedic and Upaniṣadic versions, the original form is human-like, and in the Purānic account, humans are a special category unto themselves.

7  See Roger Jackson’s essay in this volume, p. 215, regarding an alternative Buddhist view to the Rig Veda account.

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There are also indications in certain early accounts of some divine or supernatural purpose underlying speciation. In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (5.10.7), we see perhaps the earliest connection of karma and rebirth with the idea of species as vehicles for moral compensation: persons of pleasant conduct will attain a pleasant rebirth, as a Brahman, Kṣatriya, or Vaiśya, while those of despicable conduct will attain despicable births as a dog, hog, or an outcaste. As to how those of pleasant or despicable conduct attain their various rebirths, the Chāndogya offers some folkloristic, naturalistic notions intertwined with sacrificial analogues. First, the Chāndogya (5.10.1–2) mentions that those who attain wisdom in the forest—a group separate from those of pleasant or despicable conduct—follow a pathway of light after death, going from the flame of the sacrificial fire to the day, then to the bright half of the month of the waxing moon, to the sun moving northward, to the year, and so on, finally reaching the gods from whence they do not return, having transcended all natural, seasonal cycles. The Chāndogya (5.10.3–6) next indicates that those who practice ritual sacrifices and good works in the village pass into the smoke of the sacrificial fire, to the night, to the dark half of the month, to the sun going southward, and so forth, to the world of the pitṛs (deceased fathers), where they remain until the residue of their good works is spent. Then the rebirth process begins in earnest, involving a series of naturalistic transformations. Such virtuous persons descend from the world of the fathers to space, then to air, smoke, mist, and cloud, becoming each in turn. They descend to earth as rain, springing up as rice, barley, and so forth, finally becoming like him—whether human or non-human—who eats them and sows his semen in a womb. At this point, tension emerges between the idea of becoming whomever eats you, which appears rather random, and the karmic notion of attaining a pleasant or unpleasant birth according to prior conduct. As Halbfass comments regarding the path of the fathers, the “succession of events and transformations…follows its own ‘natural’ order and is not directed or kept in motion by the retributive causality of our deeds. To be sent into a plant, a vegetable, is not in itself a form of retribution and punishment; it is just the ordinary, ‘natural’ way of returning to the earth” (Halbfass 1991: 325).8 Halbfass goes on to note, “As a matter of fact, it seems to be left to mere chance which kind of living being will consume a particular vegetable, extract its essence, transform it into the semen of a new creature, its own offspring, and thus raise it to its own level of being” (325). The Chāndogya’s account, of course, is no explanation of the process, but merely a speculative description based on observations of certain aspects of the natural cosmic, meteorological, and food cycles. How rain, for instance, becomes barley, let alone how a person or jīva becomes these or enters them, or is born into them, or becomes whomever eats him, is not elucidated. One possible explanation of how a transmigrating soul ends up in the right stomach in karmic terms may relate to Hindu dietary habits, according to the contemporary scholar Karl H.  Potter. He acknowledges that Upaniṣadic accounts are not very clear regarding the process  For Śaṅkara’s explanation of this process, see below, pp. 116–17.

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whereby a soul karmically destined for a high-class birth gets “into the bodily fluids of the right kind of parents, rather than getting a lower birth among humans or even animals” (Potter 1980: 255). Potter then suggests that “[t]he purer jīvas find their way into purer foodstuffs (although exactly how or why is still a mystery, it seems); then, since the higher castes eat the purer foods, and so on down the natural order, it will ordinarily work out that the right jīvas will be born from the right parents” (255). Potter’s account seems just as mysterious as the Upanishadic accounts, and makes the dubious assumption that there are purer classes of people corresponding to purer classes of food. In the later Purāṇic literature, it is almost axiomatic that different animal species simply serve as karmic vehicles. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty quotes a marvelous example from the Mārkaṇḍeya Purana: “When he has suffered through all the hells, the sinner, through the ripening of his own karma that he committed even while inside another body, enters the animal creation, among worms, insects, and birds; among wild animals, mosquitoes, and so forth; among elephants, trees, cattle, and horses, and other evil and harmful creatures” (O’Flaherty 1980: 18). O’Flaherty also notes the general Purāṇic notion that conception occurs when the man’s seed unites with the woman’s blood. The man’s semen is thus the vehicle for the transmigrating soul’s rebirth. One final aspect of the Chāndogya’s portrayal of transmigration relevant to our topic concerns certain “small creatures” (kṣudrāṇi) who follow neither the path of the gods nor of the fathers (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 5.10.8). Rather, they revolve through endless cycles of birth and death. These small creatures loosely correspond to what the Aitareya Upaniṣad (3.1.3) calls sweat-born beings, one of four general orders of beings based on their origins. The other three are egg-born, womb-born, and sprout-born. The Chāndogya itself (6.3.1) mentions the last three classes. These biological taxonomies point to an ancient, incipient interest in the natural world, but were not expanded or empirically explored. Instead, as Halbfass argues, there arose in classical times “an increasingly systematic and rigid superimposition of religious and soteriological schemes and perspectives upon biological, zoological, cosmological observations, and a gradual evaporation of the spirit of observation, of the empirical openness for natural phenomenon” (Halbfass 1991: 320). Such developments lead me to a brief consideration of popular and religious explanations of natural phenomena vis-à-vis scientific explanations.

5.4  Popular and Religious Versus Scientific Explanations With regard to the popular narratives and accounts given above, we may note the following traditional themes that are in significant tension with modern science: (1) for the most part, there are no random events; (2) suffering ultimately has some moral justification, as well as some future rehabilitative purpose; (3) supernatural intervention may readily complement or supersede the purely mechanical working of karma; (4) species are static, karmic vehicles; (5) humans are, in one or another

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sense, exceptional, often reflecting or manifesting the image of the primordial Puruṣa or Self. What is largely or completely absent in the popular tales, quite understandably given the nature of the genre, is (1) any account of the origin of species in a scientific, mechanistic sense; and (2) no real explanation of the karmic processes, whether or not supplemented by divine supervision or intercession. Especially problematic is the issue of group karmic mechanics, as most events, being karmically determined or influenced, “affect many persons at once, which makes it difficult to point out the exact links between causes and effects” (Pyysiäinen 2009: 180). Detailed explanations of karmic mechanics or of species formation are not something that concerns the average Hindu. As Goldman notes: Although many people in India generally accept the notion of karma as an impersonal force or mechanism, an understanding of how this mechanism ‘works,’ how karmic accounts are kept, how the actual fruition of past deeds actually takes physical form, is something that sensible folk have left to the ingenuity of that country’s plethora of metaphysical philosophers and theologians. For the vast mass of people speculations and ‘authoritative’ pronouncements on the workings of karma are uninteresting, unappealing, and in any case incomprehensible. They have, as popular literature such as the epics demonstrate, shown more interest in formulations in which the fruition of past deeds is clearly shown to be the result of the supervision and even intervention of some supernaturally empowered being, a god or a powerful ascetic. (Goldman 1985: 418–19)

Supernatural clarifications of karmic processes may satisfy religious needs and impulses, providing especially a sense of meaning to otherwise puzzling, seemingly undeserved misery. But are they compatible with modern scientific explanations? I noted earlier that any comparison of ancient traditional and modern scientific accounts of natural phenomena is quite anachronistic. At the same time, such a comparison makes clear the large historical, cultural, and intellectual gap between the two types of accounts. Accordingly, I quote here from the abstract of a 2004 paper entitled “Evolution and phylogeny of old world deer.” Please bear with me for a moment the technical language of the passage: The phylogenetic pattern and timing of the radiation of Old World deer was determined based on the complete mitochondrial cytochrome b gene from 33 Cervinae taxa. Using rooted and unrooted phylogenies derived from distinct theoretical approaches, strong support was achieved for monophyly of the Old World deer with muntjacs as sister group as well as for the divergence of at least three distinct genera: Rucervus, Dama, and Cervus…. We used these molecular phylogenies to assess the homoplastic evolution of morphological, geographical, ecological, and selected behavioural character state differences within the Cervinae. Reliable fossil calibrations, large molecular data sets, and improved dating methods are shaping a molecular time scale for the evolutionary radiation of Old World deer that occurred at the Miocene/Pliocene transition and is largely compatible with existing palaeontological evidence. Using node ages estimated from sequence data, we estimated an average per-lineage diversification rate of 0.51 ± 0.1 species per million years (my) over roughly the last 6 mya. (Pitra et al. 2004)

How different in so many ways is this modern account of deer evolution from the classical story of Bharata. The natural appeal of the moral narrative of King Bharata is lacking, as are any teleological notions of liberation. Instead, we are presented

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with complex genetic information, molecular data, highly mathematical calculations, all of which require sophisticated equipment to produce and vast learning to comprehend. From the traditional standpoint, it is the amoral perspective of the modern account that is particularly disturbing, leading to denouncements of modern science as inferior, if not actually immoral. The two accounts, traditional and modern, in any case, nicely illustrate Robert N. McCauley’s claim that religion is natural and science is not (McCauley 2011). Religious explanations are relatively intuitive, while scientific explanations are often counter-intuitive and require considerable skepticism towards received traditions. Let us now turn to the often elaborate and sophisticated philosophical accounts of karma and rebirth.

5.5  C  lassical Philosophical Explanations of Karmic Mechanics and Rebirth According to the classical philosophers, karma accounts for a person’s length of life, state of health, wealth, attractiveness, as well as happiness or misery. Yet for the most part the philosophical treatments of karma and rebirth are not really explanations of karmic processes, but rather justifications of karma as constituting a compelling, if not sole, explanation for the various vicissitudes of life. Reichenbach comments: Strange as it may seem, the precise connection between our actions and the events which bring us happiness and unhappiness in subsequent lives is rarely dealt with in the literature of the traditions which invoke the law of karma, Jainism being the exception. What is focused on is the effect (in terms of pain and pleasure) which the original action has on us, not the process. Yet this is not so strange, considering that the primary concern of karmically-­ oriented philosophies is with how we can bring about our own salvation through renunciation, non-attachment and overcoming ignorance. (Reichenbach 1990: 80)

The philosophers were thus far more interested in theodicy—or more precisely in cosmodicy, the idea that justice prevails in the cosmos—than in supplying any mechanistic account of how karma actually operates over several lifetimes. In theistic contexts, karma was also invoked to exculpate God for suffering in the world, inasmuch as God merely distributes the fruits of karma that a person has created for himself. As Halbfass notes, “Explanation of this kind is obviously not explanation in the modern scientific sense, but something much closer to theodicy. As a matter of fact, the reference to karma in such cases is in some significant instances combined with an explicit vindication and exculpation of the ‘Lord’ (īśvara)” (Halbfass 1991: 297).9 With some exceptions, then, karma theory and its presupposition of transmigration are assumed rather than argued for, being accepted on the basis of scriptural revelation or extraordinary yogic perception.  Halbfass refers specifically to Śaṅkara’s karmic theodicy. See also Brown 2012: 32.

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We may also observe that classical philosophical theories of karma are largely if not wholly non-empirical and non-testable, perhaps accounting for the general lack of interest in providing naturalistic explanations of karmic mechanics. As Reichenbach observes regarding the difficulty of explaining causal karmic links between acts in former lives and subsequent enjoyment or suffering: “The problem is exacerbated by the contention that the law of karma is not empirically verifiable. Yet its constitutive process of cause (one’s action) and effect (the pain or pleasure received) cannot be understood in any way other than empirical” (Reichenbach 1990: 80). And Karl H. Potter notes, with reference to the Yoga school’s theory of karma, that many of its postulated entities and constructs cannot be directly observed, including the notions of karmic residues (vāsanās) consisting of emotional, cognitive, and volitional predispositions (saṃskāras) carried over from previous lives (Potter 1980: 245). Such non-observable entities supposedly determine the type of birth (say as a cat or human), length of life, and the sorts of experiences, pleasurable or painful, that a transmigrating being will have (see Potter 1980: 243–44). Potter seems unconcerned about the non-empirical nature of Yoga theory with its many hypothetical constructs, remarking that while the Yoga account intends to explain such everyday phenomena as pleasurable and painful experiences, type of births, and so on, “it is also evident that the explanation, like any scientific theory, goes beyond common knowledge to postulate various processes and constituents unfamiliar to the ordinary person” (Potter 1980: 245). He elaborates: “Although scientifically minded (mostly Western critics) have tended to view the accounts reviewed above as either very poor theories or else as myths or models themselves, it seems to me clear from the care with which the accounts are presented that their authors intended them quite literally as theories” (259). The preceding claim is reasonable enough, but Potter continues: “Furthermore, it is not at all clear to me that they are any worse off with respect to the kinds of criticisms of theories sketched earlier than are the theories deemed successful in Western science. The major criticism of the karma theory is that it is untestable, but similar criticisms can be made of theories in physics [such as quantum theory]….” (259). This latter claim is highly problematic in the present context, for theoretical physics is quite different in subject matter and research methodology from evolutionary biology—the field most relevant to our topic, its major theories thoroughly verified empirically, and clearly accounting for such phenomena as the emotional, cognitive, and volitional predispositions of a person without recourse to purely hypothetical or speculative constructs. Another difficult issue concerns non-personal and interpersonal karma. As Halbfass notes: Karma is supposed to be personal, i.e., attached to one individual being or life-process. But how can this be isolated from the shared and public world in which living beings coexist? How do one’s own experiences, together with their external conditions, interfere with the bhoga [experiencing karmic fruits] of others? Does one’s own personal and private karma contribute to the formation of a public and common reality, so that an appropriate share of pleasure or pain may be derived from it? (Halbfass 1991: 299)

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Given such issues, some Hindu philosophers, noting the long delay between act and karmic compensation extending over many lives, and the complex interactions between the karmic residues of various agents, as well as the possibility of non-­ karmic causal factors intervening, or even of karmic mechanisms not properly functioning, conceded that “the course of karma is difficult to understand” (quoted by Halbfass 1991: 321). This idea also appears in popular literature: “The course of karma in a breathing creature tied to a body is deep and mysterious, hard even for the gods to comprehend; so how could men understand it?” (Devībhāgavata Purāṇa, quoted by O’Flaherty 1980: 15). Such disclaimers seem to be another way of saying that karma theory is non-falsifiable. Regarding philosophical discussions of karma and rebirth that do attempt some sort of rational validation, we find that the arguments frequently take the form of a circumstantial or negative inference, an alleged necessary gap-filler, to explain otherwise inexplicable phenomena in both the physical and psychological realms (Halbfass 1991: 303). As Mitchell G. Weiss notes: “Causality serves as a rationale for the karma doctrine and explains seemingly unexplainable situations” (1980: 91). For example, the Vaiśeṣika school interpreted karmic actions as creating invisible forces (adṛṣṭas) of merit and demerit (dharma and adharma) that could effect physical occurrences. These forces were used to explain mysterious natural movements for which there are no obvious visible causes such as the rising of flames, blowing of wind, circulation of sap in trees, and magnetism (Reichenbach 1990: 83; Halbfass 1991: 311–14). At the same time, unexplained natural occurrences could reflect an element of karmic compensation. According to one Vaiśeṣika commentator, “such events as earthquakes are indicators of good and evil … for the inhabitants of the earth” (Halbfass 1991: 312). Several examples of negative inference relating to karma come from the Nyāya school (School of Logic). The basic text of the school, Gotama’s Nyāya Sūtra, contends that the structures of organic bodies and their processes can only be accounted for by the karmic causality of merit and demerit: bodies are “vehicles, instruments of retributive experience; the complex instrumental character of organic bodies…would remain unexplained if they were not seen as fulfilling this very function and as being shaped by the retributive causality of dharma and adharma” (Halbfass 1991: 316–17). The Nyāya Sūtra also argues for rebirth on the grounds that only the pre-­existence of the soul can account for various emotional states and behavioral traits observed in newborn infants. Specifically, the Nyāya Sūtra (3.1.19) claims that “happiness, fear, and distress [seen in the face] of a newborn can only be the result of [unconscious] memories of experiences in previous lives [since the causes of such emotions have not yet been experienced in this life]” (my translation). Similarly, the text (3.1.22) contends that “a newborn’s desire for the mother’s milk arises from having suckled in a prior life” (my translation; cf. Halbfass 1991: 297; Brown 2012: 37; Dasti and Phillips 2017: 86–89). Gotama dismisses objections that an infant could simply have been created with desires just as things like jars are produced with various qualities, by asserting that the infant’s desires arise from thoughts or intentions from prior lives—a nice example of circular reasoning.

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Like Gotama, the Advaita (Non-Dualist) philosopher Śaṅkara argues that prior-­ life experience must persist into the present life, or else, for example, “it would not be possible for the Ape, just as it is born to hang to its mother’s breast, while the mother is jumping from tree to tree; because, such capability has never been learnt in its present life” (Jha’s translation in Chāndogya Upaniṣad [with Śaṅkara’s commentary] 1923: 47). These examples of negative inferences regarding mysterious physical motions, complex organic forms, and newborn behaviors and emotions, all fail to take into account possible alternative explanations. Both Gotama and Śaṅkara assumed that newborn behaviors could only be explained by one of two theories: either such behaviors were purely random coincidence, that is, without cause, or else they must have been learned through experience (whether in this life or a previous one). The idea that infant behavior might arise from a third alternative beyond coincidence or prior experience was never entertained. Stephen J. Gould (1993:144–46) has pointed out the difficulty of realizing alternative causal explanations for natural phenomena when the alternative accounts seem at odds with common sense, or are not even conceived of at all. He illustrates the difficulty by citing the example of the late-eighteenth-century theologian, William Paley, and his famous argument for divine design of organic bodies. Gould points out the reasonableness of Paley’s dismissing alternative explanations such as chance (function following fortuitously from form), and purposeful evolution towards a goal without divine fiat (Lamarckian). But there was another alternative to divine design, which Paley missed, an alternative that, in Gould’s words, was “weird and crazy” (Gould 1993:146). And of course, it is this same weird and crazy alternative, Darwinian evolution by variation and natural selection, that Gotama, Śaṅkara, and other classical philosophers did not consider. The relationship between the unseen force as a causal factor in the natural world and as a force for moral compensation varied through time and among the schools. In early Vaiśeṣika (a school allied with the Nyāya) this unseen force behind unexplained natural phenomena may or may not have been identified with the power of karmic retributive justice, but such an identification becomes explicit in later Vaiśeṣika. This identification enabled the Vaiśeṣika philosophers to construe the physical world, including of course natural disasters, as an instrument of karmic compensation (Halbfass 1991: 313; cf. Reichenbach 1990: 95–96). At the same time, according to Halbfass, the Vaiśeṣika attempt to harmonize what was originally more a philosophy of nature with the soteriological concerns of orthodox karma theory resulted in a not fully satisfactory compromise that led to the “scholastic petrification” of the school (Halbfass 1991: 315). The tension between naturalistic and soteriological interpretations of karma and rebirth also appears in Śaṅkara’s Brahmasūtra-Bhāṣya (3.1.22–24), where he discusses the return of souls from the moon on the way of the fathers. The tension, already present in the Chāndogya’s account as we have seen, is especially evident in Śaṅkara’s explanation of the jīva’s descent to earth via rain into a plant or vegetable as a “guest jīva” (Halbfass 1991: 327). The host plant is already occupied by a prior jīva —as a result of karmic retribution—while the guest jīva at this point is

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propelled into the plant by “natural cycles” rather than karmic causation. As Halbfass concludes: “The juxtaposition and contrast of the two jīvas illustrate the interference of two different models of thought and, moreover, of different historical layers of the Indian tradition: a scheme that is…primarily left to ‘natural,’ seasonal, cosmic regularities interferes with the more comprehensive context of the universalized theory of karma and saṃsāra” (327). In the end, however, for Śaṅkara, efforts to explain the rebirth process are merely human speculations, the truth being known only through revelation, the karmic realm as a whole being one of ignorance. As he says, “in a matter to be known from the Upaniṣads, any general argument based on empirical experience has no application” (Brahmasūtra-Bhāṣya 4.4.8; Gambhirananda’s translation). The author of the Bharata story and Śaṅkara seem in basic agreement here, neither showing any real interest in natural phenomena for their own sake. We may recall that in popular narratives, different species simply serve as karmic vehicles, an assumption wide spread among the philosophers. As Halbfass points out, “According to Śaṅkara and others, the hierarchy of pain and pleasure, or suffering and well-being, coincides with the objective hierarchy of creatures from the plants and low animals to human and finally divine beings. According to classical Yoga, the results of karma [among other fruits] are birth into a particular species” (Halbfass 1991: 299). As for the problem of how karmic fruits are distributed lifetimes after initiating acts, the philosophers, like the authors of popular narratives, frequently resorted to the device of divine intervention, since explaining karma in purely mechanical terms was not easy. The Sāṃkhya school attempted such, but they did so by arguing that nature itself (prakṛti) works for the liberation of the spirit (puruṣa) (Bronkhorst 2000: 14). Such arguments were not convincing to many, given that nature itself is unconscious. Śaṅkara, for example, argued that since the invisible force is insentient, it is incapable of determining the time and place and degree of pain or pleasure a transmigrating soul should experience (Potter 1980: 258). Regarding the Vaiśeṣikas and the problem of karmic fruits, Bronkhorst comments: “It appears that the Vaiśeṣikas themselves were not satisfied with the mechanism of karmic retribution through mere dharma and adharma [acting on their own]. This is shown by the fact that they soon abandoned their atheistic position…and assigned a central role in the retribution of karma to their newly introduced creator God” (Bronkhorst 37; cf. Reichenbach 1990: 96–97). The late Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika thinker Udayana (tenth-eleventh century CE), argued that God was required not only to conjoin primary atoms in appropriate configurations in order to create the atomic structures of the gross and subtle elements with their proper qualities of taste, color, and so forth, but was also “indispensable for bringing about the required combinations to produce the diverse effects in the world in accord with the merits and demerits of all beings. Only an omniscient god can accomplish this” (Brown 2012: 40). And as Pyysiäinen notes: The Vaiśesikas…assigned a central role in the retribution of karma to God (Īśvara). It was God who read the karma from persons’ intentions and assigned them their deserved fates. The price of this argument was that God could not have any freedom of will. He was merely

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From the above it is clear that there was no overall consensus among the philosophers as to how karma actually worked. Karmic mechanics was an issue addressed at some level by most of the classical philosophical schools, and their interpretations were highly varied and even within one school changed significantly over time. “Naturalistic” interpretations of karma and rebirth gave way increasingly to soteriological ones. Like the popular understandings of karmic processes, the philosophical were for the most part thoroughly teleological in nature.

5.6  N  ote on Classical Medical Explanations of Karma, Conception, and Rebirth Karma theory appears in various contexts in the traditional medical literature of Ayur Veda. Medical practice and karma doctrine generally seem at odds with each other in many ways. After all, if karma determines health, length of life, and psychological predispositions that affect the physical well-being of an individual, then what role can medical intervention play in improving health and extending life? What we find, then, in the medical texts like the Caraka Saṃhitā is a sort of division of labor: when medical treatment is effective, then medical explanations (often based on the traditional doṣa theory of three pathogenic elements, wind, phlegm, and bile) are employed; when the onset of disease has no discernible cause or medical intervention fails, then karma may be invoked as the unknown precipitating factor of the disease, or as the dominant force obstructing successful treatment (Weiss 1980: 109–110). Similarly, karma theory may be invoked when no medical intervention is required, in order to explain normal but otherwise unexplained physiological processes. For instance, the first throbbing of the fetal heart, according to the Caraka, is due to desires arising in a previous life (Weiss 1980: 106). Once again, we find karma playing the role of gap-filler. One preponderant interest on the part of physicians concerned the qualities and characteristics, including sex, of a newborn. Karma theory emphasizes the past deeds and intentions of the transmigrating soul. Medical theory emphasizes the actions and attitudes of the parents. The Caraka Saṃhitā, for instance, provides “detailed directives for promoting fertility and the birth of a healthy, intelligent male child. This is inconsistent with more rigid interpretations of the karma doctrine holding that it is the karma of the fetus remaining from previous lives, not the activities of the parents, that determines the sex and characteristics of the child” (Weiss 1980: 97). According to the Caraka, conception occurs when the semen unites with menstrual blood, and a predominance of blood results in a girl, of semen a boy. Karma is invoked only to explain twins (Weiss 1980: 99). Further, to conceive a son, parents are to mate on even days counting from the onset of menstruation, while odd days will produce a girl. Or to ensure a male offspring, certain rituals could be

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performed after conception that would change the sex of a female embryo. While such advice runs counter to scientific understandings of sex determination, the relevance in this context is that it is inconsistent with notions of karmically-determined sex. In the medical field as in philosophy, during the early and later middle ages there was a growing soteriological emphasis affecting interpretation of natural phenomena and a turning away from interest in the natural world and empirical investigation. As Weiss notes regarding developments in the centuries following the classical medical texts, “Ayurveda had begun to allow its garden of empirically derived clinical insights to be invaded by weeds spreading from the more supernaturally oriented popular culture” (113). As we turn now to the modern period, we may note that karma theory has been interpreted, justified, and questioned in a variety of ways. Halbfass insightfully comments that the theory does not represent one basically unquestioned pattern and premise of thought, and it would be quite inadequate to try to find one master key, one single hermeneutic device that would allow us to understand it all at once and once and for all. As a matter of fact, the understanding of the karma theory has often been hampered by an exclusive and thus misleading search for one basic principle or pattern of thought, one essential meaning, one “underlying intuition,” by an exclusive interest in its core and its essence, disregarding its perimeter and its limits, its conflicts and its tensions. (Halbfass 1991: 295)

The diversity of interpretations has affected not just scholarly attempts to understand karma, but also the attempts of Hindu thinkers seeking some sort of rapprochement between the classical karma traditions and Darwinian evolutionary theory.

5.7  A  n Early Hindu Response to Darwinism: Mahendralal Sircar The first Hindu responses to Darwinian evolutionary theory in the last three plus decades of the nineteenth century occurred in a context of colonial oppression and cultural displacement. Many Hindu intellectuals and activists of the time rejected a common British view that Indians were a backward race, unfit for self-rule and in need of Christianity. To convince their colonial masters that Indians were a capable, self-sufficient, and noble people, a number of Hindu writers—inspired by European romanticists who advanced the idea of an ancient Vedic Golden Age—invoked the ideal of a glorious Hindu past when Indian civilization had excelled in science as well as other fields of intellectual and artistic endeavor.10 Indians could once again accomplish such achievements if the colonial rulers would only afford their subjects  Such a view goes back at least to Rammohun Roy, who in 1823 insisted that the world was indebted to India for the dawning of scientific, literary, and religious knowledge (Roy 1906: 906; see Brown 2012: 87).

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the opportunity. Such arguments often focused on matters of science and technology, areas where, in comparison with the West at that time, India seemed to be lagging far behind. One of the earliest Hindu commentators on Darwinian theory, Mahendralal Sircar (1833–1904), also subscribed to the romanticist idea of a great golden age in India’s past. A graduate of the Calcutta Medical College and co-founder in 1876 of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Sircar dedicated his career to promoting native Indian learning and practicing of modern science. Based on his rejection of the cardinal Hindu belief in rebirth, Sircar is perhaps better regarded as of Hindu background, rather than as a Hindu. In any case, for Sircar, science was a moral enterprise involving not only the study of God’s handiwork, but also the spiritual and scientific regeneration of Indian civilization. Sircar delivered perhaps his first public comments on Darwinism in a lecture near Kolkata in 1869, arguing that the mind is the product of a progressive physical evolution, not something breathed into a developing embryo by a Creator god, nor the result of some disembodied spirit floating around in search of a suitable organism to inhabit either by choice or karmic fate. Thus, he dismissed both traditional Christian creationist views and Hindu ideas of rebirth, referring to the latter as “the crude doctrine of the transmigration of souls” (Sircar 2003: 37).11 He invoked what he called the “Darwinian hypothesis” as the main obstacle to such traditional views. At the same time, Sircar saw the evolutionary process as fully teleological, guided by God, his brilliance bursting through the darkness of evolutionary struggle until “the light of God…appears in nearly its full effulgence in man, in whom is found the final and the most profound stamp of the Divinity” (38). Such a teleological perspective was in significant tension with the Darwinian hypothesis, rejecting the key Darwinian evolutionary mechanism of natural selection with its non-­teleological outlook. David L. Gosling suggests that Sircar might have expressed different views if speaking among his Bengali friends, rather than before an audience that might well have included a large proportion of missionaries. Yet Sircar did not hesitate to criticize the Christian view of creation. Gosling also calls attention to subaltern reactions to Darwinism that may have been relatively accepting of the theory. He notes that articles in the Bengali language Sambad Prabhakar from 1873 on contained brief articles on evolution of human life, but no indication of any controversy about Darwinian theory. He argues that, unlike Victorian English opposition to Darwinism based on the notion of common ancestry between humans and non-human animals, Hindus generally accepted the idea that “even the gods can assume animal features. In theory, humans can be reborn as animals, though few of the Hindu reformers appear to have taught this…” (Gosling 2016: 78). Two issues here are worth mentioning. First, Sircar accepted Darwinian theory, seeing it as compatible with theism, although apparently not realizing the tension between divinely guided evolution and natural selection. His expressed opposition

11

 I have discussed Sircar’s essay more fully in Brown 2012: 63–65.

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was thus not to Darwinism but to the idea of transmigration and the associated idea of karma. Perhaps he would have shown more deference to traditional ideas of karma and rebirth if he had been talking with Bengali friends, but as Gosling points out, the great Bengali Hindu reformer Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833) “totally disbelieved in rebirth” (78). And second, Gosling’s argument about Hindus’ easy accommodation of evolutionary theory relies upon the idea of animals as karmic vehicles, not as products of variation and natural selection. I agree with Gosling’s conclusion that late nineteenth-century Hindu reformers and scientists “progressively fastened on to it [Darwinian evolution] in order to adapt and fortify the main tenets of their tradition and in the process bolster their growing sense of self-sufficiency and national identity” (85). I would simply add that Hindus did not fasten on to Darwinian theory in its full, non-teleological form, with its denial of human exceptionalism and amoral implications embedded in the notions of natural selection and survival of the fittest. The attempt “to adapt and fortify” aspects of a religious tradition to harmonize with modern science, and specifically with modern evolutionary theory, is one type of reconciliation among several. These include not only reformulating tradition on the basis of science (the scientizing of tradition), but also revising, or reinterpreting the findings of science to conform to religious beliefs (the spiritualizing of science) (cf. Stenmark 2010: 285). Sircar in many ways represents this latter attempt to harmonize science with his theistic beliefs—these latter informed in part by the natural theology prevalent in Europe and promulgated in India in the nineteenth century by missionaries—even while rejecting basic aspects of the Hindu tradition.

5.8  General Approaches to Darwinism Most of the major Hindu writers responding to Darwinism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—Sircar and a few others excluded—have accepted the notions of karma and rebirth. For some Hindu respondents, the championing of karma and rebirth seemed to necessitate denying Darwinian evolutionary theory altogether, proposing instead various forms of what I call modern Vedic Creationism. Most respondents, however, attempted some sort of creative accommodation through reinterpretation either of traditional Hindu teachings, or of Darwinian concepts, or of both, approaches we may collectively call modern Vedic evolutionism.12 Vedic Creationism  Perhaps the first modern Vedic creationist was Dayananda Saraswati (1824–1883), founder of the Arya Samaj. In his Satyarth Prakash, taking the Vedas as literal and inerrant and adopting the basic cosmological ideas of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, he argued that God, by manipulating atoms, had designed and created the physical bodies of all animals and humans at the beginning of the pres In an earlier article, I further broke down Vedic Evolutionism into the “Modern Vedic Evolutionism” of Swami Vivekananda, the “Anthropic Vedic Evolutionism” of Rabindranath Tagore, and the “Reactionary Vedic Evolutionism” of Aurobindo Ghose (Brown 2010).

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ent cosmic cycle 1.96 billion years ago on Earth and on all celestial bodies (sun, moon, planets, stars). God then conjoined the bodies with pre-existing souls. He created all bodies in their youth so that they could immediately reproduce sexually and maintain themselves. He created the various species and distributed them  to souls in accord with their karma from the previous cosmic cycle (Dayananda 1970: 217–21).13 Once again we see the motif of species as simply karmic vehicles. In the Satyarth Prakash Dayananda expressed extreme anti-evolutionary views (in the scientific sense) but did not refer to Darwin or Darwinism. Only near the end of his life, in a public lecture, he denounced Darwinian evolution, while stressing one of his major themes, that the ancient Vedic Hindus had already made the discoveries of modern science, such as Newton’s law of gravitation, airplanes, and the steam engine. Dayananda specifically argued: “If man descended from monkeys, how is it that [that] process had come to an end and monkeys no longer evolve into men” (Garg 1984: 70, quoted in Brown 2012: 124). Such misunderstandings of Darwinian evolution were common in his day, persisting to the present. The most prominent Hindu movement today promoting Vedic Creationism is the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), founded by A.  C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in the U.S. in 1966. For him, as for Dayananda and creationists in general, the mystery of life cannot be solved by atheist scientists since they do not acknowledge God’s creative power. As Praphupada argues: “Unless the mystic power of the Supreme Lord [Krishna] is accepted, there is no solution to the problem of the origin of life” (Prabhupada n.d.-a). Regarding Darwinian theory, Prabhupada repeats some of the same arguments presented by Dayananda: Darwin and his followers are rascals. If originally there were no higher species, why do they exist now? Also, why do the lower species still exist?…Why do we never see a monkey giving birth to a human? The Darwinists’ theory that human life began in such and such an era is nonsense. Bhagavad-gita says that you can directly transmigrate to any species of life you like, according to your efforts [karma]. (Prabhupada 1979: 48)14

After Prabhupada’s death, ISKCON members Richard Thompson and Michael Cremo sought a greater reconciliation with modern science, refraining from ridiculing scientists and Darwin, merely insisting that scientific data could be interpreted in a manner harmonious with Vedic literature. Thompson and Cremo proposed the theory of Devolution, in which all creatures devolved from a single entity, a superintelligent being, however, rather than a single celled organism—a view roughly parallel with the procreative devolutionary mutation account in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad mentioned earlier. Thompson and Cremo developed various arguments for intelligent design reminiscent of Christian intelligent design arguments, simply differing in positing that human beings have been around for trillions of years instead of a mere few thousands, and in accepting the idea of rebirth. Yet they said

13 14

 I discussed these claims, with quotations from the Satyarth Prakash, in Brown 2012: 123–24.  I commented upon this quotation in Brown 2002: 100–101.

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little about karma itself and how it works, merely repeating standard Hindu ideas about how we reap what we sow over the course of several lives. Vedic Evolutionism  Turning to Vedic Evolutionism, we leave behind notions of a personal god like Krishna as we now encounter the ideal of the transpersonal ­absolute called Brahman, pure consciousness and being, as found in the teachings of Advaita Vedānta. Some of the earliest versions of Vedic Evolutionism were characterized by a twofold movement of the absolute: an original “involution” of spirit (Brahman) followed by its “evolution.” Involution involved the descent of the one absolute, perhaps for the purposes of play, into all living forms, all the way down to bacteria. Then, evolving back up through the human and beyond, the involved spirit reemerges with, or rather realizes its forgotten unity with, the one Brahman.15 The involution-evolution model was often put forth as a correction to or completion of Darwinian evolution. We see this latter idea manifested in the writings and speeches of Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), the earliest Vedic Evolutionist.16 He largely accepted modern evolutionary theory as he understood it. “New species of trees and plants birds and beasts,” he thus wrote, “are being always created in nature through change, brought about by time, environment and other causes” (Vivekananda 2003: 5:521–22). But he saw ancient Vedic theories of evolution as superior for they dealt not only with the organic or material evolution expounded by modern science, but also with the descent or involution of Spirit/Brahman/Intelligence into the world and the rebounding spiritual, karmic ascent or evolution of the transmigrating soul back to Brahman. And even if animal species are “being always created in nature through change,” Vivekananda still viewed them in traditional terms, as karmic vehicles: “The animal is a state of sojourn for the Jiva evolving from lower forms. In course of time the animal [soul] becomes man” (1:400). A later follower of his teachings, Swami Nikhilananda (1895–1973) makes this traditional perspective even clearer: “According to the Hindu doctrine of rebirth, the soul can assume a lower or a higher body according to its desires and the impressions of its past actions….the various species of living beings are so many vehicles for the soul’s expression…” (Nikhilananda 1958: 53). Vedic evolution thus included a moral and spiritual dimension lacking in modern science, for mere evolution of matter is devoid of any purpose or moral progress. At the same time, Vivekananda frequently invoked modern science to support his Vedic evolutionary model, utilizing especially the law of the conservation of energy: “…every evolution presupposes an involution. Nothing can be evolved which is not already there. Here, again, modern science comes to our help. You know by mathematical reasoning that the sum total of the energy that is displayed in the universe

 The idea for this double movement of involution/evolution apparently came from the Theosophical co-founder, Madame Blavatsky (Brown 2012: 133). 16  The following discussion of Vivekananda’s evolutionary ideas is based in large part on my more detailed treatment in Brown 2012: 131–54. 15

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is displayed throughout” (Vivekananda 2003: 2:227).17 He elided this idea of conservation of energy with the classical Hindu doctrine that nothing can come out of nothing (satkārya-vāda)—a clear critique of the Christian notion of creation out of nothing—arguing that if intelligence “was not present in the protoplasm, it must have come all of a sudden, something coming out of nothing, which is absurd” (2:227). He succinctly described the involution/evolution model in the following memorable phrase: “If the Buddha is the evolved amoeba, the amoeba was the involved Buddha also” (3:407). The incompleteness of Darwinian evolution for Vivekananda was manifested not only in its lack of moral purpose but also in its alleged unconvincing explanation of the psychological and behavioral predispositions of the higher animals, especially humans. Only the notion of transmigration can explain such predispositions, he believed, reiterating the Nyāya-Sūtra’s arguments for rebirth: “Why should it [an infant] have fear of death if it never saw death? If this is the first time it was ever born, how did it know to suck the mother’s milk?” (9:209). Experience, like energy, can never be annihilated, and thus lives on life after life. He dismissed as “scientific popery” the idea that the characteristics and traits of individual species derived from prior experiences/lives can be packed into a single cell of protoplasm and thereby transmitted to an infant. As for the influence of parental traits which are often manifest in offspring, Vivekananda saw no conflict with the karma doctrine. For instance, a parent’s tendency towards addiction to alcohol may manifest in the offspring, but that is because a transmigrating soul chooses the appropriate parental inclinations in accord with its own previous karmic experiences (Brown 2012: 142). Perhaps the most striking of Vivekananda’s reflections on karma and rebirth relate to the power of an individual’s thought to determine the type of embodiment they will experience in their next life: “What we think, that our body becomes. Everything is manufactured by thought, and thus we manufacture our own lives” (Vivekananda 2003: 9:213). That is, the soul, by its thoughts or desires, and apparently in conformity with its karmic experiences, manufactures new bodies, from amoeba to human, in its struggle with the environment (cf. Vivekananda 2003: 2:136–37). Final-thought karma, incidentally, as seen in the story of Bharata, seems to be a passive form of the power of thought to influence rebirth—Bharata did not will to become a deer. Vivekananda, however, like many other modern Hindu thinkers, deemphasizes without denying the retributive aspect of karma, focusing instead on karma as an opportunity to create one’s own future destiny: “If what we are now has been the result of our own past actions, it certainly follows that whatever we wish to be in the future can be produced by our present actions…” (Vivekananda 2003: 1:29). Karma (action) performed without attachment to the fruits, following the admonishment of the Bhagavad Gītā, not only frees one from karmic retribution,

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 Cf. Williams 1986: 47–48, 58.

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but also helps to create India’s future and realization of its spiritual ideals (cf. Williams 1986: 54). As for how karma and reincarnation actually work, Vivekananda never developed a detailed accounting of these processes, simply referring to traditional notions when expedient for his purposes (Williams 1986: 41, 57–59). One such purpose, as illustrated above, was to prove the superiority of Hindu ideals to those of the West, both scientific and religious. Another was to spur his fellow Indians to social reform. For instance, using the notion of group karma, he accounted for the oppressive tyranny of British rule as karmic compensation for the centuries of oppressive tyranny of Brahmans and Kshatriyas in India (Williams 1986: 53). Like Śaṅkara, Vivekananda ultimately seems little interested in the physical workings of the empirical world or of karmic processes in general, for the eternal soul, identical with Brahman, is ever unchanging, all change being illusion. He affirms that at the highest level of knowledge, there is “neither involution nor evolution,” since such change is māyā, apparent only (Vivekananda 2003: 8:362). To be sure, as George M.  Williams has pointed out, Vivekananda adopted a number of different perspectives, depending in part on his audience, adopting at times a more theistic approach, giving more weight to the reality of this world, and allowing for God’s grace to adjust karmic fruits (Williams 1986: 41–50). The second major proponent of Vedic Evolutionism, Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), presents an updated and more complicated account of cosmic and personal evolutionary processes than Vivekananda (for detailed examination of Aurobindo’s views, see Heehs’ essay in this volume). We may note four similarities between Vivekananda’s and Aurobindo’s Vedic Evolutionism. First, Vivekananda and Aurobindo both see ultimate reality, Brahman/Consciousness, as undergoing the process of involution prior to commencement of the two parallel-but-­intertwining paths of physical and spiritual evolution. Second, both claim that only extraordinary intuition or supramental consciousness, not scientific laboratory investigation, can discern the spiritual processes of involution and evolution—including the transmigratory progression of the soul guided by karma. Third, both reject the Darwinian denial of purpose or meaning within cosmic processes. And fourth, both see karma not so much as a theory of moral compensation but rather as a spur to further spiritual effort and growth. Aurobindo clearly saw that traditional interpretations of karma, as a system of reward and punishment, failed “to explain the necessary connection between moral good and evil and pleasure and pain” (Minor 1986: 28; cf. Aurobindo 2005: 101, 835–47). In Aurobindo’s words, “A world which serves only as a school of sin and virtue and consists of a system of rewards and whippings, does not make any better appeal to our intelligence” (Aurobindo 2005: 836). As for differences, Aurobindo is far more critical of Darwinian evolution, dismissing the randomness of mutations and natural selection as insufficient explanations for the variety of species, even if not totally denying that they play some role. As he argued: “If it be asked, how then did all these various gradations and types of being [species] come into existence, it can be answered that, fundamentally, they were manifested in Matter by the Consciousness-Force [an aspect of Brahman] in it, by the power of the Real-Idea building its own significant forms and types for the

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indwelling Spirit’s cosmic existence….” (Aurobindo 2005: 862). Aurobindo’s claim here resonates with the ancient idea of species as karmic vehicles meeting the spiritual needs of the soul. He continues: “A constant creation of types is visible, but that is no indubitable proof of evolution” (Aurobindo 2005: 862). More emphatically, he concludes: “Even as others [species], so he [man] too has his own native law, limits, special kind of existence, svabhāva, svadharma; within those limits he can extend and develop, but he cannot go outside them” (Aurobindo 2005: 863). Another major difference with Vivekananda is that Aurobindo rejects the idea that the involution-evolution cycle is without real progress, merely a return to the unconditioned state of Brahman. Thus, the progressive cycle of involution/evolution is not illusory, but leads towards a real divinization of the world involving a radical integration of Matter and Spirit. Aurobindo gives thanks to modern science for this insight that the physical world is not just an illusion. With such integration, the divine play and creativity of the Infinite will be manifested in each and every being (Brown 2012: 157–58). Clearly, he denies that the doctrine of karma is fatalistic, a common critique of the theory by missionaries in his day. The idea of real evolutionary progress leads Aurobindo to reject generally the idea that a soul, once attaining humanity, can regress to animal embodiments (Aurobindo 2005: 792). A different sort of Vedic Evolutionist is Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888–1975). Like all Vedic Evolutionists, he saw the universe on cosmic and individual levels in evolutionary terms, but unlike others largely ignored the idea of involution. He viewed the world and its complex forms as the result of emergence, guided by the goal or nisus of a soul evolving back to oneness with Brahman. Without such a goal, the world would be meaningless, a merely random development. He insisted that “[t]he world is not the result of meaningless chance. There is a purpose working itself out through the ages. It is a view which modern science confirms” (Radhakrishnan 1953: 58). He found such confirmation in the modern scientific reconstruction of terrestrial history from the arising of animal consciousness down to self-conscious, rational man. The appearance of spiritual figures like Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus foreshadows the eventual evolution of “God-man” (1953: 58). In contrast to Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan largely accepted Darwinian theory on the physical level, noting the “animal character” of humankind seen in the various stages of development of the body from conception to death. Such facts, he insisted, cannot be just “an elaborate jest on the part of nature simply to pull the legs of biologists,” concluding that “[i]t is fairly certain we have descended from apes or their cousins” (Radhakrishnan 1937: 28). At the same time, he retained the traditional Hindu view of human exceptionalism: “The human soul represents an order of reality different from that of atoms, plants and animals. It is a more complex organisation with its own specific nature. It is more intimately bound up with its environment. It has the two features of continuity with the past (karma) and creative advance into the future (freedom)” (1937: 301). And, like other Hindu respondents, he believed that Darwinian  evolution could not explain such questions as why there is life, or mind/consciousness. For him, the laws of inheritance were adequate for explaining bodily characteristics, but not life itself or the mind.

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Survival of the fittest was inadequate because, in his reasoning, rocks survive, so that if survival was the only goal, life and mind need never have developed (1937: 257). Genetic inheritance, more specifically, was insufficient in Radhakrishnan’s thinking because it failed to explain the psychological qualities of humans. The only factor that could explain these qualities in his view was the soul’s pre-existence, transmigrating via the old hypothetical entity of a subtle body (1937: 294–95). Once again, Radhakrishnan invoked science to support this notion: It is an admitted principle of science that if we see a certain stage of development in time, we may infer a past to it. It is not true that we “brought nothing into this world.” The self enters this life with a certain nature and inheritance. We commonly speak of talents that are inherited, an eye for beauty, a taste for music, which are not common qualities of the species but individual variations. So the self must have had a past history here and elsewhere. We cannot believe that the rise of self with a definite nature is simply fortuitous. (1937: 289)

He concludes that the denial of the soul’s pre-existence “makes all education and experience superfluous” (1937: 290). This claim accords with Radhakrishnan’s conviction that education and experience are valuable only if they lead, eventually, to some transcendent goal: “The Hindu holds that the goal of spiritual perfection is the crown of a long patient effort. Man grows by countless lives into his divine self-­ existence” (1937: 122). At the same time, we see that Radhakrishnan’s argument is another example of negative inference: is there another explanation for an individual having a “definite nature” at birth, other than pure randomness on the one hand, or rebirth on the other? We shall consider a third option in a moment. Exactly how the karmic rebirth process works, Radhakrishnan admitted—like the ancients before him—is a mystery, “difficult to know, if not impossible to conceive” (1937: 294). But he immediately added, “simply because we do not understand the process [of rebirth] we cannot deny the facts. We know that mental qualities are transmitted from parents to offspring but we do not know how” (1937: 294). He further explicates that parents create new bodies, but not new souls, a statement that seems to reveal an assumption, rather than a fact. His main arguments thus often focused on showing the reasonableness of the karma-rebirth doctrine, showing for instance that there is no conflict between the idea of rebirth, of a soul choosing its parents in accord with its karmic tendencies, and the idea of genetic inheritance (see Minor 1986: 31). Souls would naturally choose parents and their genetic potentials in accord with their own underlying predispositions, in their spiritual evolutionary journey—a journey that could not be completed within one lifetime. Joining other modern interpreters of karma like Aurobindo, Radhakrishnan rejected the juridical theory of karma, seeing karma as a process of moral continuity and progress. He attributed the notion of juridical karma to popular misunderstandings that also led the populace at large to believe in regression of human souls back to animal forms—as part of karmic retribution. He admits that the scriptures refer to such, but sees these as merely analogies or metaphors or figures of speech:

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While it is theoretically possible that the life process which has now reached the human level may so operate as to sink into the animal…we are not concerned with such speculative possibilities. While we need not dogmatically deny the possibility of reversion to animal births, we are now concerned with the normal changes which are within a type. It is possible that rebirth in animal form is a figure of speech for rebirth with animal qualities. (Radhakrishnan 1937: 292)

Thus Radhakrishnan, again like Aurobindo, generally rejected the idea of transmigrational regression, since regression smacks of a fatalistic-juridical view of karma and is in opposition to the idea of the soul’s freedom in its progress to liberation (cf. Creel 1986: 3).

5.9  A  nalysis and Critique of Basic Characteristics of Vedic Evolutionism Over the last several decades Vedic Evolutionists have provided various other defenses of karma and rebirth vis-à-vis Darwinian notions of mutation and natural selection, but they all share most, if not all, of the following eight features. The first four fully align with traditional interpretations of karma, while the last four introduce modernist perspectives: (1) insistence on animals as karmic vehicles; (2) insistence on humans as special; (3) denial that the cosmos is a chance product  and insistence on cosmic purpose; (4) proffering of evidence for rebirth, but general avoidance of explaining karmic mechanics; (5) justification of karmic suffering, but retribution deemphasized; (6) denial of karma as deterministic or fatalistic, emphasizing ideals of growth and freedom; (7) asserting of karma as confirmed by, or at least not in conflict with, modern science; and (8) affirmation of a higher science beyond natural or material science. Let us now critically examine each of these regarding their ability to accommodate Darwinian theory and modern science in general, or at least to avoid outright conflict. The first three, as already noted throughout the essay, are in considerable tension with the modern biological and scientific perspectives in general, with their denial of human exceptionalism and non-teleological outlook. I will rather focus, then, on the last five. Regarding evidence for rebirth, contemporary Hindu apologists cite especially three sorts of phenomena, all quite traditional: the predispositions and manifest emotions of infants, the variety of intellectual and physical abilities of humans, and unequal distribution of suffering and happiness. We have already seen how Vivekananda cites the Nyāya-Sūtra’s arguments on infant predispositions and emotions. One current website article, entitled “Reincarnation A scientific explanation,” by a Dr. S.J. Divakar, refers to the same arguments, and attempts to refute atheist objections that such predispositions as seeking a mother’s breast are due merely to instinct. Divakar notes that, unlike iron being attracted to a magnet and nothing else, and thus the attraction is determined, the baby makes a choice based on prior experience. The author concludes: “The baby’s sucking the mother’s breasts is purposeful, not circumstantial” (Divakar n.d.). No scientist would disagree that the sucking is

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purposeful, but a purpose that can be accounted for by natural selection. Infants whose genetic inheritance did not lead to configuring a brain predisposed to direct an infant to the mother’s breast would likely die. One can hardly blame the author of the Nyāya-Sūtra for not considering the modern scientific explanation of infant predispositions, but today such explanation is readily available. More than 50 years ago, the Indian scholar Surama Dasgupta called attention to it: As regards the instinct of sucking and fear of death, the science of biology has tried to explain them as the inherent properties of life itself…. Its findings may yet be incomplete, but so far it has shown that certain instincts are innate in animals and man, and of these self-preservation and race-preservation are the foremost….The instinct of sucking in ­mammals, nest-building in birds, hatching of eggs, rearing of the offspring, are found in varied degrees as spontaneous in animals, birds and men. (Dasgupta 1965: 214–15)

Dasgupta then briefly discusses the genetic inheritance passed on through germ cells. She concludes: “The particular arrangement of chromosomes in a seed-cell is taken to explain the characteristics inherited by an individual. No karma of an individual in the past life, or the pre-existence as such, is formulated to explain them” (215). As for emotional expressions of fear, joy, and the like, Edward O.  Wilson observes regarding an infant’s smiling: The smile appears on the infant’s space between two and four months of age and immediately triggers a more abundant share of parental love and affection….The simplest and most automatic of such behaviors may well be genetically hard-wired into the cellular units of the human brain and facial nerves, such that the pattern of contraction of the facial muscles develops during early postnatal development by a chain of physiological events requiring a minimum of learning. (Wilson 1978: 62–63)

Evolution, then, according to Wilson, has pre-configured the brain to exhibit behaviors like smiling once an infant is sufficiently developed physically. While smiling is almost universal, characteristics that manifest differently in different individuals, including diverse intellectual, artistic, and athletic abilities, can be accounted for in similar evolutionary manner, taking into consideration environmental and cultural factors as well, without recourse to the idea of pre-existence. As the Indian philosopher Saravasti Chennakesavan noted over four decades ago: Whatever might have been the utility of the karma theory in the past, it has lost its disciplinary hold amongst Hindus. With the spread of scientific and technological knowledge, an explanation for the physiological and mental inequalities so far-fetched as the karma theory has become unacceptable. Facts of sociological economics and social psychology combined with anthropology are able to explain inequalities that so puzzled our ancestors. (Chennakesavan 1976: 223)18

Chennakesavan brings us back full circle to Sircar’s skepticism about karma and rebirth (minus Sircar’s theism) more than a century earlier. The classical arguments

 Austin B. Creel also quotes this passage in his discussion of modern Hindu philosophers who question the traditional karma ideas (1986:9).

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for karma based on negative inferences reveal that traditional conceptions of karma, like traditional Christian conceptions of God, are subject to the problem of gaps. As the natural sciences progress in their understanding of the world, filling the causal gaps, the role of karma increasingly retreats. Such retreat is seen especially in relation to ideas of group karma and political or natural disasters. We have already seen how Vivekananda claimed that India’s subjugation by Britain was due to the karmic compensation for centuries of Brahmanical and Kshatriya oppression. Gandhi famously attributed the 1934 Nepal-Bihar earthquake that killed over 10,000 people, not to karma, however, but to God’s divine punishment for India’s mistreatment of outcastes, although he was rebuked by the more scientifically-minded Rabindranath Tagore for such a view (Brown 2010: 720; Sen 2011).19 How easily humans attribute unexplained suffering to supernatural intervention of some sort, whether karma or God. Like smiling, teleological thinking, or perhaps rather teleological feeling, seems to be hardwired into most of us, causing us to resist the idea that our suffering has no explanation or meaning beyond the simple fact that it happened. Interpretations of karma that stress retribution are increasingly hard to harmonize with science (as well as with the modern ethos that emphasizes rehabilitation rather than punishment). The turning away from the idea that suffering is not so much a matter of karmic compensation but of an opportunity for growth, I suggest, lessens the tension with science. This interpretive shift is well illustrated by Ramdas Lamb in his interpretation of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, as well as the Holocaust, while still accepting the reality of rebirth: The suffering of some people may be a result of actions from past lifetimes that have come to fruition in this lifetime. Although I believe this happens, I do not see it as the main reason why the suffering caused by extreme and collective events such as Haiti or the Holocaust occur. I see these solely in terms of events for spiritual growth, both for those who experience the suffering directly as well as those who witness it and choose to help. (Lamb 2010)

While there seems little here to conflict with science, no explanation is given why such extreme and massive suffering is needed for spiritual growth. Nor is it clear why spiritual shriveling is not just as real a possibility as growth. And finally, it is not clear how animals grow spiritually as a result of their suffering in such natural disasters. As Creel notes, “Modern thinkers generally pass over the link between human retribution and vast natural calamities and attend to the perception that much that affects me comes through other persons” (Creel 1986: 5). Lamb’s apologetic, it appears to me, is an example of modifying traditional beliefs in order to avoid conflict with science, as well as with modern ethical sensitivities. It is time to assess the viability and success of the various Hindu responses to Darwinian theory and modern science in general.  Aurobindo also rejected any causal link between human morality and natural disasters: “Why should earthquakes occur by some wrong movement of man? When man was not there, did not earthquakes occur?...Earthquakes are a perturbation in Nature due to some pressure of forces;… the upheavals of earth and human life are both results of a general clash or pressure of forces, one is not the cause of the other” (Aurobindo n.d.: 492–93).

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5.10  Concluding Reflections We have seen that one common Hindu strategy for defanging Darwinian Theory is to propose the idea of two kinds of sciences, hierarchically arranged: a lower science dealing with the material and empirical world, and a higher science dealing with spirit, soul, Brahman or God—in short, having two different subject matters as well as different methods. This strategy thus seems similar to Gould’s famous NOMA approach, Non-Overlapping Magisteria. It is such an approach that Swami Nikhilananda utilizes in dismissing as inappropriate any comparison between modern scientific views of evolution and Hindu views: It should however be noted at the very outset that any comparison between the Western and the Indian idea of evolution will be both unfair and fruitless; for they have different premises, different methods, different aims and purposes, and different fields of investigation. Darwin and his followers were solely concerned with the evolution of physical forms and structures, whereas the Hindu philosophers discussed evolution from the standpoint of the soul. (Nikhilananda 1958: 48)

The problem with such a NOMA-like dichotomizing is that, however much traditional Hindu and modern scientific theories differ in aims and purposes, their fields of investigation all too often do overlap. While modern evolutionary science, modern psychology and related scientific endeavors do not see the soul—in its traditional sense as an immaterial, nonphysical force/entity—as part of their subject matter, they go well beyond investigation of “physical forms and structures,” researching personality traits and predispositions and the various genetic and cultural factors involved, as we have seen in the case of infant predispositions. The alleged functions of the traditional soul, but not the metaphysical entity, are thus legitimate subjects of scientific investigation. In many ways, the crux of the difficulty is that modern science simply does not accept such supernatural entities as gods or souls—having no tools with which to investigate them, and most importantly in our context, finding little need for such. Jonathan Edelman, a student and scholar of ISKCON, sees clearly the significance of the question of the soul’s reality—after all, no soul, no rebirth. So he and a co-­ author have proposed ways to prove scientifically the existence of prior lives, by careful and extensive checking of incidences of former lives, and he is aware of many of the problems (Edelmann and Bernet 2007). Yet as Goldman said years ago: “The evidence for the reality of transmigration that I have so far seen is entirely of the pathetic, unscientific, and childish ‘testimony’ offered by the usual array of occultists, parapsychologists, and ‘past lives’ therapists; certainly nothing that would engage the attention of a serious researcher” (Goldman 1985: 415). But even if we find Goldman’s conclusion a bit harsh—which I do not—there remains the critically related first part of the karma and rebirth theory: karma itself, at least in its traditional compensatory form that both science and ethical philosophy especially impinge upon. How can karma ever be verified, given the repeated affirmations of Hindu apologists, ancient and modern, that it is beyond human understanding? And

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how would one measure the degree of evil that deserves a particular amount of suffering? Let me close with an insightful comment by Patricia Y. Mumme, a scholar of Śrīvaiṣṇavism. After summarizing Christian attempts to reconcile a doctrine of nature with divine purpose, she notes: The notion of a divine plan focusing on human beings, toward which all history is leading, sits ill with what modern evolutionary theory teaches us: There have been immense stretches of time since creation, in which human history is merely a blip. The process by which species emerge, evolve, and become extinct is a groping, seemingly random process of mutation and natural selection, with no single teleological line but many blind branches. Furthermore, God’s love and justice, central to most interpretations of the divine plan, are difficult to square with the violence and cruelty of the nature portrayed in evolutionary theory, marked by fierce competition for survival both within and between species. (Mumme 1998: 149)

Mumme then adds: “Śrīvaiṣṇava thinkers and authors have not even begun to adapt their traditional theology to current evolutionary theory; if and when they do, they will no doubt encounter as many difficulties as Christian theologians have” (149). I would simply add that Hindu theologians and philosophers in general are in the same situation as the Śrīvaiṣṇava thinkers, as they have yet to deal substantively with such new evolutionary fields as sociobiology, evolutionary psychology, and ecological developmental biology. Hindus will face different specific issues, for instance, not the great dimensions of time that troubled western writers, but karma is just as inscrutable, mystifying, and problematic as God when one gets down to specifics.

References Adiswarananda. n.d. Hinduism: Death and Life Beyond Death. Available at: https://www.ramakrishna.org/activities/message/weekly_message43.htm. Accessed 4 Jan 2018. Aitareya Upaniṣad. 1966. In Eight Upaniṣads, with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya [with Text in Devanagiri and English Translation]. Vol. 2. Trans. Swami Gambhirananda. Mayavati, Almora: Swami Chidatmananda. Aurobindo Ghose. 2005. The Life Divine. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Publication Department. ———. n.d. Fate and Free-Will, Karma and Heredity, etc. In Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga. Vol. 1, Pt 1. Available at: https://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/22/0009_e.htm. Accessed 31 Jan 2018. Bhagavad Gītā. Srīmad Bhagavad Gītā Bhāṣya of Sri Saṁkarācārya, with Text in Devanagiri & English Rendering. 1983. Trans. A. G. Warrier. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math. Bhāgavata Purāṇa of Kṛṣṇa Dvaipāyana Vyāsa with Sanskrit Commentary Bāvārthabodhinī of Śrīdhara Swāmin. 1983. Ed. J. L. Shastri. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad with the Commentary of Śaṅkarācārya [with Text in Devanagiri and English Translation]. 4th ed. 1965. Trans. Swami Madhavananda. Mayavati, Almora: Swami Chidatmananda.

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Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2000. Karma and Teleology: A Problem and Its Solutions in Indian Philosophy. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies of the International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies. Brown, C.  Mackenzie. 2002. Hindu and Christian Creationism: ‘Transposed Passages’ in the Geological Book of Life. Zygon 37: 95–114. ———. 2010. Hindu Responses to Darwinism: Assimilation and Rejection in a Colonial and Post-­ Colonial Context. Science and Education 19: 705–738. ———. 2012. Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Dharma, Darwin, and Design. London: Routledge. Chāndogya Upaniṣad. The Chha’ndogya Upanishad and Sri Sankara’s Commentary [with Text in Devanagiri and English Translation]. 1923. Vol. 4. Trans. Ganganath Jha. Madras: V.C.  Seshacharri. Available at: https://ia802608.us.archive.org/17/items/ChandogyaUpanish adWithShankaraBhashya-EnglishTranslationPart2/04ChandogyaUpanishadWithSankaraBha shya-English-Part2_text.pdf. Accessed 7 Jan 2018. Chennakesavan, Sarasvati. 1976. Concepts of Indian Philosophy. Bombay: Orient Longman. Creel, Austin B. 1986. Contemporary Philosophical Treatments of Karma and Rebirth. In Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments, ed. Ronald W.  Neufeldt, 1–11. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dasgupta, Surama. 1965. Development of Moral Philosophy in India. New York: Frederick Unger Publishing Co. Dasti, Matthew, and Stephen Phillips. 2017. The Nyāya Sūtra: Selections with Early Commentaries; Translated with Introduction and Explanatory Notes. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. Dayananda Saraswati. 1970. An English Translation of the Satyarth Prakash, Literally: Exposé of Right Sense (of Vedic Religion) of Maharshi Swami Dayananda Saraswati, “The Luther of India,” Being a Guide to Vedic Hermeneutics. 2nd ed. Trans. D. Prasad. New Delhi: Jan Gyan Prakashan. Divakar, S.J. n.d. Reincarnation A Scientific Explanation. Available at: http://www.vedpradip.com/ articlecontent.php?aid=149. Accessed 30 Jan 2018. Edelmann, Jonathan B., and William Bernet. 2007. Setting Criteria for Ideal Reincarnation Research. Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (12): 92–101. Garg, Ganga Ram. 1984. World Perspectives on Swami Dayananda Saraswati. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Co. Goldman, Robert P. 1985. Karma, Guilt, and Buried Memories: Public Fantasy and Private Reality in Traditional India. Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (3): 413–425. Gosling, David L. 2016. India’s Response to Darwin. In Science and Religion: East and West, ed. Yiftach Fehige, 70–87. London: Routledge. Gould, Stephen Jay. 1993. Darwin and Paley Meet the Invisible Hand. In Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History, 138–152. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. Halbfass, Wilhelm. 1991. Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lamb, Ramdas. 2010 Haiti and the Law of Karma. Available at: https://www.onfaith.co/ onfaith/2010/01/22/the-law-of-karma/4454. Accessed 31 Jan 2018. Mahābhārata, For the First Time Critically Edited by Vishnu S. Sukthankar. Online text. Originally built on Apr 23, 1998. Links updated 15 Feb 2017. Available at: https://sanskritdocuments.org/ mirrors/mahabharata/mahabharata-bori.html. Accessed 5 May 2019. McCauley, Robert N. 2011. Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Minor, Robert N. 1986. In Defense of Karma and Rebirth: Evolutionary Karma. In Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments, ed. Ronald W.  Neufeldt, 15–40. Albany: State University of New York Press. Mumme, Patricia Y. 1998. Models and Images for a Vaiṣṇava Environmental Theology: The Potential Contribution of Śrīvaiṣṇavism. In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, ed. Lance E.  Nelson, 133–161. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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Neufeldt, Ronald W. 1986. Introduction. In Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments, ed. Ronald W. Neufeldt, xi–xv. Albany: State University of New York Press. Nikhilananda. 1958. Hinduism and the Idea of Evolution. In A Book that Shook the World: Anniversary Essays on Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, 48–60. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. Nyȃya Sutras of Gotama [with text in Devanagiri and English Translation]. 1913. Trans. M.S.C. Vidyabhuasana. Alllahabad: Panini Office. O’Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. 1980. Karma and Rebirth in the Vedas and Purāṇas. In Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, 3–37. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pew Forum. 2009. Religious Differences on the Question of Evolution. Available at: http://www. pewforum.org/2009/02/04/religious-differences-on-the-question-of-evolution/. Accessed 29 Dec 2017. ———. 2014. Views About Human Evolution. Available at: http://www.pewforum.org/religiouslandscape-study/views-about-human-evolution/. Accessed 29 Dec 2017. Pitra, Christian, Joerns Fickela, Erik Meijaardb, and Colin Groves. 2004. Evolution and Phylogeny of Old World Deer. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 33 (3): 880–895. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/5383289/Evolution_and_phylogeny_of_old_world_deer. Accessed 8 Jan 2018. Potter, Karl. 1980. The Karma Theory and Its Interpretation in Some Indian Philosophical Traditions. In Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, 241–267. Berkeley: University of California Press. Prabhupada, A.C.  Bhaktivedanta. 1979. Life Comes from Life: Morning Walks with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. ———. n.d.-a. The Tiny World of Modern Science. [Chapter 6: Finding Spiritual Solutions to Material Problems. In The Science of Self-Realization]. Available at: https://prabhupadabooks. com/. Accessed 23 Jan 2018. ———. n.d.-b. The Deliverance of Ajamila. Available at: http://iskconza.com/chanting/srila-prabhupada-on-chanting/the-deliverance-of-ajamila/. Accessed 28 Jan 2018. Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 2009. Supernatural Agents: Why We Believe in Souls, Gods, and Buddhas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Radhakrishnan, S. 1937. An Idealist View of Life. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd. ———. 1953. The Principal Upaniṣads, Edited with Introduction, Text, Translation and Notes. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.. Reichenbach, Bruce R. 1990. The Law of Karma: A Philosophical Study. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Rig Veda: An Anthology: One Hundred and Eight Hymns, Selected, Translated and Annotated by Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty. 1981. New York: Penguin. Roy, Rammohan. 1906. The English works of Raja Rammohun Roy with an English Translation of “Tuhfatul Muwahhiddin”. Allahabad: Pannini Office. Available at https://babel.hathitrust.org/ cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015019120685;view=1up;seq=1. Accessed 8 Jan 2018. Śaṅkara. 2004. Brahmasūtra-Bhāṣya [Brahma-Sūtra-Bhāṣya of Śrī Śaṅkarācārya]. Trans. Swami Gambhirananda. Kolkata: Swami Mumukshananda. Sen, Amartya. 2011. Poetry and Reason: Why Rabindranath Tagore Still Matters. The New Republic. Available at: https://newrepublic.com/article/89649/rabindranath-tagore. Accessed 5 May 2019. Sircar, Mahendralal. 2003. On the Physiological Basis of Psychology (being the substance of a lecture delivered by the Editor [Dr. Mahendralal Sircar] at a meeting of the Canning Institute, Howrah, held in April 1869). Calcutta Journal of Medicine (May–June 1869: 167–173, and January–April 1870: 35–53). Reprinted in Collected Works of Mahendralal Sircar, Eugene Lafont and the Science Movement (1860–1910). Ed. Arun Kumar Biswas. Kolkata: The Asiatic Society.

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Stenmark, Mikael. 2010. Ways of Relating Science and Religion. In The Cambridge Companion to Science and Religion, ed. P. Harrison, 278–295. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Viṣṇu Purāṇa [Śrīśrīviṣṇupurāṇa]. 1990. Ed. Śrimunilāla Gupta. Gorakhpur: Gita Press. Vivekananda. 2003. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 9 vols. In Swami Vivekananda: Life, Works & Research. Multimedia CD. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. Weiss, Mitchell G. 1980. Caraka Sāṃhita on the Doctrine of Karma. In Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, ed. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, 90–115. Berkeley: University of California Press. Williams, George M. 1986. Swami Vivekananda’s Conception of Karma and Rebirth. In Karma and Rebirth: Post Classical Developments, ed. Ronald W.  Neufeldt, 41–60. Albany: State University of New York Press. Wilson, Edward O. 1978. On Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. C.  Mackenzie Brown is Jennie Farris Railey King Professor of Religion, Emeritus, at Trinity University, where he taught courses in Asian Religions and in Religion and Science, both western and Asian. He has a B.A. from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. Early in his career his research focused on medieval Sanskrit literature dealing with Hindu goddesses, but intrigued by modern Hindu commentaries on goddess mythology that attributed great technological achievements to the ancient deities, he turned to the issue of the scientizing of spiritual traditions. This readily led him to research on the interaction between modern Hindus and western evolutionary thought. He has written many articles and book chapters on Hindu responses to Darwinism, and one book, Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Darwin, Dharma, and Design (Routledge, 2012).  

Chapter 6

The Hindu Evolutionary Heritage and Hindu Criticism of Darwinism Dermot Killingley

Here may be recalled an old and proverbial summary of the progress of ideas—scientific and other—that people first say: “It is not true”; and next: “It is not new”; and then often later: “We knew it all before.” The last is indeed the commonest of these sayings in India; but in Europe we generally begin with the other two. (Geddes 1920: 98)

Abstract  The name of Darwin was invoked frequently by Indian writers in the nineteenth century and later, even if they were thinking of popular ideas associated with him, rather than of his works. Already in the mid-nineteenth century, especially in Calcutta (now Kolkata), the main seat of the British presence in India, some Hindu intellectuals were looking for ways of interpreting their traditions which were compatible with European science, and indeed more compatible with it than the Christian ideas brought by the missionaries who provided much of the education in British India. The long periods of time envisaged by Hindu chronology, the various cosmogonic narratives in which the world evolves from a unitary being or cosmic egg, and the idea of rebirth which made humankind part of a community of many species, all found some corroboration in Darwinian evolution, and even led to claims that the essential points of Western science had been anticipated long ago in India. On the other hand, the primacy of consciousness in many Hindu cosmogonies, the position of “man” (puruṣa) as a primal constituent, or even the sole origin, of the universe, and the view of cosmic change as a series of recurring patterns, were challenged by Darwinian ideas. Thinkers such as Keshub Chunder Sen and Swami Vivekananda took up the challenge by claiming that the Hindu view was superior, having a spiritual dimension which Darwinism lacked. Thus the Hindu response to D. Killingley (*) Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_6

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Darwinism joined forces with the idea that the material superiority of the West is matched or surpassed by the spiritual superiority of the East.

6.1  India in the Nineteenth Century By the time The Origin of Species appeared in 1859, India was partially integrated into the international world of ideas. Before discussing how The Origin was received, we should look at the political and technological developments which had led to this partial integration. These developments had progressed rapidly from around the beginning of the century, especially in Calcutta (now Kolkata), Bombay (Mumbai), and Madras (Chennai), known as the “Presidency towns.” These port cities were the main seats of British power, which until 1858 was exerted by the East India Company, originally a commercial body founded by royal charter in 1600. The Company gradually acquired political powers, and from 1773 it came progressively under the control of the British government. A Board of Control for this purpose was established in 1784; a series of enactments thereafter made the Company increasingly an arm of the British government, until the government of India was brought directly under the Crown in 1858. Calcutta was the political and commercial capital of British India until Delhi became the political capital in 1911; it was also the intellectual capital of the new, internationally oriented India. This status represented a degree of discontinuity with the past: Calcutta was a new town, developed in the course of the eighteenth century as a result of alien enterprise, and remote from the centres of traditional learning, both Sanskritic and Islamic. Participation in the world of ideas, especially in Calcutta but also in Bombay, Madras and elsewhere, was facilitated by seaborne traffic in books, letters and people, expedited in 1869 by the Suez Canal. It was also favoured by the presence of expatriates—especially, though not only, non-officials, since the East India Company’s officials tended to be conservative in their views—and by printing. Printing had grown rapidly in Calcutta from the 1770s, at first in English, but soon adapted to several of the many scripts used in India. Rather than setting up a totally new form of communication, the press “speeded up the velocity and range of communication among existing communities of knowledge” (C.  Bayly 1996: 243). Besides facilitating the spread of new ideas from abroad, and from one part of India to another, printing brought knowledge of traditions from India’s past to people who had not inherited it through oral transmission (Killingley 1993: 32; Jacobsen 2018: 81). Participation in the international world of ideas depended also on the growing use of English as a medium of communication. This did not exclude concern for vernacular languages: printing and the spread of literacy led to developments in the literature of these languages, both in traditional forms which were mainly in verse, and in prose forms such as novels, short stories and essays, not forgetting newspapers, modelled at first on English forms, but evolving in their own ways.

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Communication within India was facilitated by the postal system (C. Bayly 1996: 217), unified in 1854 (O’Malley 1941: 237); by road building, and later by railways, starting from 1853 and extending to 5400 miles of track by 1872 (Schwartzberg 1978: 126); and by the telegraph, opened in 1855, which reached 17,500 miles by 1865 (C. Bayly 1996: 318; Arnold 2000: 113). Another important factor was education. Although the Charter Act of 1813 provided for government expenditure on education, very little money was forthcoming, and schools were in the hands of Christian missions, private individuals both Indian and expatriate, and bodies such as the Hindu College, founded in 1817, and the Calcutta Schools Society, founded in 1818, both managed by Indians and Europeans jointly. No firm policy was established until 1854, when Charles Wood (1800–1885), president of the Board of Control, sent a dispatch on education to Calcutta. This policy document covered primary and secondary schools, mainly using vernacular languages, and introduced universities, using English. All schools were to be co-­ ordinated by a department of education in each province. As the summit of the educational structure, three universities were established, in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. However, these were mainly examining bodies, on the model of London University; teaching was largely left to the colleges, established and governed by voluntary bodies, some dominated by missionaries, some by officials, and some by private donors, Indian or expatriate. Education, like other facilities promoted by the British presence—transport, medicine, law—was unevenly distributed geographically: secondary schools were mainly in towns, and universities initially only in the three Presidency towns. It was also unevenly distributed socially: in many parts of India various brahmin castes retained their hereditary hold on literacy, professional employment, and intellectual life. In Calcutta, the situation was complicated by the presence of two other hereditary literate groups: Kayasthas, known as the “writer caste,” traditionally clerks, though with claims to royal ancestry, and Vaidyas, traditionally medical practitioners. Members of both these castes, as well as brahmins, were to be found in the class known as bhadralok (literally “good people”). Not all the bhadralok were highly educated, and not all were well off; indeed they were not a class, if that means a group with a common economic interest (Bhattacharya 2005: 28). However, a typical member of the bhadralok had education—even if not specific knowledge; salaried employment—as low-paid clerk, minor civil servant, teacher or other professional; and familiarity with print, whether in Bengali or English (Sarkar 1997: 232; Bhattacharya 2005: 24). With these came exposure to, and varying enthusiasm for, the modern and Western ideas and practices that flourished in the international port city. The bhadralok were predominantly Hindu, though some were Christians and some professed atheists; Bengali Muslims, as a community, did not embrace modernity or Western education (Bhattacharya 2005: 31; cf. Hardy 1972: 92–94). Moreover, throughout India the indigenous intellectual arena was exclusively male. It has been said that “For the Hindu tradition, the encounter with modern science and technology was the most momentous part of its encounter with the West” (Halbfass 1988: 399)—though the encounter with Christianity, with British political power, and with Western textual scholarship were also momentous. However,

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Western ideas and methods were not introduced into an intellectual vacuum; indigenous science had flourished, and continued to do so, not merely perpetuating received ideas but using empirical observations and drawing on Western sources (Arnold 2000: 2–7). But it was dependent on patronage, which had declined in the eighteenth century; and many of the places where it flourished were remote from Calcutta. From the point of view of the bhadralok, indigenous learning was embodied in ancient texts, rather than in “the intellectual curiosity of religious and cultural elites and the skills of artisans” (Arnold 2000: 5). The picture of an ancient culture which had been in decline for centuries until it was reinvigorated from the West may be a product of colonialism, but it was accepted by many Bengali intellectuals. The Brahmo Samaj, to which many of the bhadralok belonged, sought to rescue ancient monotheism from the idolatry and polytheism into which Hindus were believed to have sunk; it appealed to the authority of ancient Sanskrit texts, while using Western ideas and means of communication, and the support of Europeans. The British presence was widely regarded as beneficial to traditional learning. When Sir Edward Hyde East, chief justice of Bengal, hosted a meeting in 1816 which led to the foundation of the Hindu College, a representative of the leading pandits told him “they rejoiced in having lived to see the day when literature (many parts of which had formerly been cultivated in their country with considerable success, but which were now nearly extinct) was about to be revived with greater lustre and prospect of success than ever” (Majumdar 1955: 46). The geologist Pramatha Nath Bose wrote in 1884 of “the degenerated Hindus” who “forgot the principles of their sciences” until the Asiatic Society (founded in 1784 as a forum for all branches of learning) undertook “to rescue those sciences from oblivion” (Arnold 2000: 171–172).

6.2  Public Knowledge of Science Such was the environment within which the thinkers we will look at developed their ideas. Science, as we have seen, did not appear as something alien; however, opportunities for learning and practicing it were limited. Whereas Rammohun Roy (1772?–1833), the first Indian thinker with worldwide contacts, had urged the government of India in 1823 to promote instruction in “Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy, with other useful sciences” (Roy 1906: 472), the education policy which emerged from Wood’s dispatch was more effective in promoting literary and historical studies. The colleges could not usually afford the personnel or equipment for advanced education in the sciences, and until around 1920 scientific research was mainly in government departments, not in universities (Sen 1966: 119), and consequently under the direction of British officials. While research was carried out to a high level in geology, zoology, and botany—disciplines fundamental to Darwin’s work—and also in medicine, the main advances during most of the nineteenth century were made by expatriates. Surveying was extensively practiced, and advances were made in its theoretical basis, geodesy; but these were made

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by expatriates, while the training or employment of any Indian in this tool of empire met with stern official disapproval (Sen 1966: 116–117; Arnold 2000: 43). In the government-directed scientific institutions established under British rule, which multiplied in the half-century following the nationalization of the Government of India in 1858, and also in the universities, Indian scientists were systematically paid less than Europeans, and kept in subordinate positions (Arnold 2000: 139–141; Sen 1966: 113, 117). Racial discrimination was at the time considered to have a scientific basis—for which Darwin, with his frequent references to “civilized races” and “savage races” in The Descent of Man (1874), must be partly responsible. In India, research in geology, zoology and botany was largely a matter of applying methods and principles devised in Europe to Indian materials, especially those expected to have commercial value. Further, much research in the early nineteenth century, in science as well as in the humanities, had been pursued by military engineers, surgeons, and civil servants in their spare time; they felt isolated, lacking training and contact with the centres of research in the West, and hampered by their official duties (Arnold 2000: 26–28, 44). With these limitations on the structure of scientific activity, Indian participation in what was once a European but is now a world-wide scientific enterprise hardly developed until around the beginning of the twentieth century, in contrast with the nineteenth-century expansion of science in Europe and North America, and indeed with the rapid advances from 1867 in Japan (Sen 1966: 113). It was not until 1876 that an Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science was established in Calcutta, modelled on the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831), and the Royal Institution (1799). This was an independent enterprise, the fruit of a proposal made in 1869 by Mahendralal Sircar (1833–1904), who was an alumnus of the Calcutta Medical College, a government institution dating from 1835. In a speech to subscribers to the Association in 1875, Sircar said it was to be “solely native and purely national,” and would not seek government funding— reflecting the aspiration to self-determination that marked the later nineteenth century (Sen 1966: 120). He did, however, receive the collaboration of Eugène Lafont, of St. Xavier’s College, who as a Belgian Jesuit was about as far from officialdom as a European could be. Another collaborator in the Association was Alexander Pedler (1849–1918), who came to Calcutta in 1873 to occupy the newly created chair of chemistry at Presidency College (MacLeod 2004). Until Pedler’s arrival Lafont, a physicist and meteorologist, was the only effective science teacher in Calcutta University (Biswas 1969, 2001); his lectures attracted a wide audience, public as well as academic. There was lively interest in science among Indian intellectuals. An early enthusiast among the Bengal bhadralok was Akshay Kumar Datta (1820–1886) (Chakraborty 1979; Killingley 1995: 176), followed by other members of the Brahmo Samaj. Another was the novelist Bankimchandra Chatterji (1838–1894), who brought to the subject “a lifelong curiosity which he sought to satisfy in an amateurish way” (Raychaudhuri 1988: 125). Bhudev Mukhopadhyay (1827–1894), who had a distinguished career in the government’s education service while upholding brahminical values and ridiculing uncritical adoption of European ways,

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included a book on science among his many books for schools (Raychaudhuri 1988: 56). In other parts of India there were initiatives to disseminate the findings of science through education, translations, and societies—many of them short-lived (Arnold 2000: 157–158). Mahendralal Sircar saw the development of science in India as a means of national moral and intellectual regeneration, “no less than remodelling the Asiatic mind” (quoted in Chakraborty 2001: 252); like the Scots missionary and educator Alexander Duff (1806–1878), but without Duff’s Christian agenda, he believed that science would free Indians from the irrationalities of Hinduism. But since opportunities for hands-on research were few, science was received as a set of doctrines rather than a set of methods. This could lead to uncritical acceptance of systems that claimed to be scientific, such as Auguste Comte’s positivism (Forbes 1975: 118), and the Theosophy of H.  P. Blavatsky and Annie Besant.

6.3  Reception of The Origin The Origin of Species, published on 26th November 1859, was reviewed in Calcutta within a year, in the Calcutta Review for September 1860—not a long delay, considering that transport from Britain could take four months or more. The Calcutta Review was closely associated with Alexander Duff, who was for a time its editor. Duff aimed to promote rational thought which would free Indians from Hindu error, and so prepare them for Christianity (Laird 1972: 206–216); soon after his arrival in Calcutta in 1830, he had founded a school, which later became a college of Calcutta University. The Calcutta Review had similar aims, publishing book reviews, and sometimes other articles of a literary nature, edited and mostly written by Europeans, with the aim of acquainting the bhadralok, as well as the expatriate community, with the best of contemporary thought. As was usual at that time (Mullan 2007: 181–216), the reviewers were anonymous. The review of Darwin (Anon. 1860) has been attributed to “Medlicott” (Thistlethwayte 1998: 82)—either Henry Benedict Medlicott (1829–1905) or his elder brother Joseph (d. 1906); both were geologists in India. However, the reviewer calls himself one of “us orientals” (Anon. 1860: 64), meaning an Indian. Whoever he is, the reviewer is scientifically well-informed and perceptive, and acquainted with “the many notices that have appeared” reviewing Darwin’s book (Anon. 1860: 84). He demonstrates the explanatory power of Darwin’s theory, with well-selected quotations lucidly explained (74–77), and notes the honesty and impartiality with which he deals with difficulties (77–79), as well as his propensity for metaphors which leave him open to misinterpretation (79–81), and his reticence on theologically sensitive matters (87). Compared with several of the reviews published in Britain (Endersby 2009: lviii), this one is not only more favourable but more appreciative of Darwin’s methods. The reviewer is aware that the book has

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aroused religious controversy, but insists that “the Word of God and the Book of Nature,” if properly interpreted, cannot conflict (Anon. 1860: 88). On this he refers to the third edition (1859) of Scripture and Science not at Variance, by John Henry Pratt (1809–1871), Archdeacon of Calcutta and a notable mathematician, first published in 1856. By contrast, in the following year a review of Pratt’s book in the same journal denounced The Origin as “the latest spawn of a thinly disguised Infidelity” (Anon. 1861: 197). This review has been attributed to Duff (Thistlethwayte 1998: 89 n. 2); certainly the denunciation is in his style. Pratt himself delivered and published a lecture on Darwin’s Descent of Man, within months of its first publication (Pratt 1871). The same improvements in communications and the manufacture of microscopes and other equipment which had made Darwin’s work possible (Endersby 2009: xi– xii, xxii–xxiii) had also brought India, or rather certain parts of its population, into the circle in which that work was discussed. By the end of the 1860s the name Darwin, and the terms evolution and natural selection, were generally known, if not understood, in Britain. Darwin and evolution were equated in the public mind (Ellegård 1990: 43–44); they were associated with ideas that were considered disturbing, but could also be reassuring. In India, too, the name Darwin stood for evolution, and was known among many who had not read him.

6.4  The Term Evolution Before Darwin The word evolution is now associated with Darwin. However, to understand Darwin’s place in the history of ideas, we need to consider how it was used in his time and before (Bowler 1975). Darwin himself does not use it in the first edition of The Origin, though in the peroration which ends the book he marvels at how “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved” (Darwin 1968 [1859]: 460). Already in 1842 he had written a very similar sentence, ending in the same word, in a sketch of what was to become his theory (Bowler 1975: 102). If we consider the history of the word evolution up to his time, we can understand why Darwin might wish to avoid it. Apart from its etymological sense of “unrolling, unfolding,” of which many writers would be aware in an age when knowledge of Latin was highly valued, it could be applied non-technically to many sequences of events, without implying that the later events were in any sense enfolded in those that came before (OED s.v. evolution, II.11; Bowler 1975: 99). It also had a technical meaning in mathematics, and another in military parlance. But in biology it usually meant, as Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus Darwin put it, “the gradual evolution of the young plant or animal from its egg or seed” (OED, s.v. evolution I. 6. a.)—a special application of the etymological meaning, exemplified most obviously in the opening of a bud into a flower. The verb evolve, which was

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used much more freely than the noun, similarly referred in biology to the emergence of something that existed previously in its source. The Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet (1720–1793) had extended the use of evolution to his theory of the successive appearance of species, in which the forms of the new species had been implanted by God in those which he originally created (Gayon 2009: 279, 298–299). Such a theory is opposed to Darwin’s (and Wallace’s) theory of natural selection, in which small changes, occurring at random in individual plants or animals, are perpetuated if they happen to give those individuals and their offspring an advantage in the struggle for existence, in the particular environment in which they occur. This theory has no place for the emergence of a pre-existing form, as envisaged by Bonnet. The word evolution had also been used by Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), for a principle which he believed governed the whole universe, including human society: a principle of progress and increasing complexity. In 1852 he wrote of the “Theory of Evolution” (his capitals) with reference to the formation of one species from another; but it was only in his book First Principles, published in 1860–1862, that he used it frequently in this sense, and by 1870 the usage had become popular (Bowler 1975: 106–109). While Darwin professed to admire Spencer, and referred to him respectfully—as he referred to many others whose theories differed from his—their approaches were diametrically opposed: Spencer applying grand principles, Darwin working from detailed observations of numerous phenomena, collected by himself and others. As Darwin put it in his autobiography, Spencer’s “deductive manner of treating every subject is wholly opposed to my frame of mind” (Barlow 1958: 108–109). Above all, while Darwin’s more rhetorical passages suggest the idea of progress, as in the peroration quoted above, or even of a goal, as in his reference to “Man, the wonder and glory of the universe,” for whose advent “The world, it has been often remarked, appears as if it had long been preparing” (Darwin 1874: 255), the theory of natural selection which he claims as the core of his work has no place for teleology or for pre-existent design (Kuhn 1996: 172). However, in the last edition of The Origin, in 1872, Darwin used the word evolution seven times, in reference to his own theory. When he states: “At the present day almost all naturalists admit evolution under some form” (Darwin 1959: 264), he evidently includes himself; what is distinctive about his form of evolution is that it is “slow and gradual” (ibid.; Gayon 2009: 280). By that time, the word was so closely associated with Darwin’s theory, and indeed with his name, that not to use it would have been an awkward departure from common usage. In The Descent of Man, he looks forward to a time when “the principle of evolution is generally accepted, as it surely will be before long” (Darwin 1874: 280).

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6.5  Evolution in Accounts of Hindu Thought1 In India, and to those who studied the Sanskrit tradition, the term evolution had other associations which gave it a distinctive history. It was used in several English-­ language accounts of Hindu thought, though in a different sense from the one popularly associated with Darwin and Spencer. Hindu traditions contain many accounts of cosmogony in which the world is produced from an original unitary being by an autonomous process of successive emanation or division. Such cosmogonies are found already in the oldest corpus of Sanskrit texts, the hymns of the Ṛgveda. An outstanding example, influential in ancient as well as modern times, is Ṛgveda 10.129. This hymn uses deliberately riddling language to describe how a primordial being, called simply “the one” (grammatically neuter), breathing without wind (verse 2), is born from heat (verse 3). Under the influence of desire, which was the first emission2 of mind, it produces the world, by a process unknown even to the gods, who are themselves a product of it (verse 6). In some ancient cosmogonies the world exists first in the form of an egg (Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 11.1.6.1) or an embryo (Ṛgveda 10.121; Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 3.4), or a man (Ṛgveda 10.90; Taittirīya Saṃhitā 7.1.1 (Varenne 1982: 258)); in all these narratives, cosmogony is seen in organic terms. There are various accounts of how the original being multiplies itself. Sometimes it divides into male and female, and copulates (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.3). Sometimes it becomes three, as heat, water and food—all essential to organic life (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.2); each of the three is then further divided into three (Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.3–6). Or the five elements—space, wind, fire, water, earth—originate successively (Mahābhārata 12.224.35–38; Vedāntasūtra 2.3.1; 2.3.8–12). The division into five, a number that is used in many ways in Vedic thought, was particularly fruitful; the five elements are linked with other groups of five—sense faculties, layers of the body, and so on—in different ways in different texts (Killingley 2006). The idea that the world is structured around groups of five was developed further in the tradition of thought known as Sāṃkhya. Sāṃkhya ideas were elaborated gradually; elements of them appear in the Upaniṣads, and they are expounded in several passages of the Mahābhārata, including the Bhagavadgītā, and in other ancient texts. They appear in accounts of cosmogony in several of the Purāṇas, and in the first chapter of the lawbook of Manu (Olivelle 2005: 87–93, 383–402). The version included in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, one of the earliest Purāṇas, is summarised below as an example, though simplified for the sake of brevity and clarity. An English translation by Horace Hayman Wilson, one of the pioneer part-time indologists, was published in 1840.

1  In what follows, the  word Hindu is used as  a  cultural rather than a  religious or ethnic term, embracing the body of indigenous tradition handed down in Sanskrit and other languages, as distinct from Islamic or Western tradition. Since Indian was also used in this sense in the period under discussion, the meanings of the two words will often overlap. 2  The word in the original is retas, which can just mean “flow,” but often refers to semen.

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According to the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, Viṣṇu, the supreme God, exists first in four forms or aspects (rūpa): puruṣa (literally “man”); prakṛti, conveniently translated “nature,” also called pradhāna “the primary” or avyakta “the undifferentiated or unmanifest”; vyakta “the differentiated or manifest”; and Time (VP 1.2.14–18). Time is cyclic; the observable cycles of the day, the lunar month and the year provide the model for much longer cycles which are beyond our observation. Accordingly, creation occurs periodically (VP 1.2.26)—once every 4,320 million years, according to a commonly accepted calculation (Wilson 1840: 23). Half of that period is a cosmic night, when everything exists in static equilibrium; when the time for creation comes, at the dawn of the cosmic day, God disturbs the equilibrium (VP 1.2.29), causing the emergence of consciousness (buddhi), also called “the great” (mahat) (VP 1.2.33). From it comes ahaṃkāra, the “I-maker” or “that which says ‘I’”—the sense of one’s identity as an individual being (VP 1.2.35). From ahaṃkāra come the five sensations, together with the element by which each is carried: sound, with space; tactile sensation, with wind; visual appearance, with fire; flavor, with water; and odor, with earth. Each element produces the next by developing or changing itself (vikurvāṇa, VP 1.2.37–43). Then come the five sense faculties which apprehend those sensations, located in the ear, skin, eye, tongue, and nose; and the five faculties of action: speech, manipulation (in the hands), locomotion (in the feet), procreation, and defecation.3 All these formed themselves into an egg (VP 1.2.53), containing all worlds, with their gods, demons and people (VP 1.2.57). Another passage says that after its periodic dissolution the world is contained in God as a banyan tree in its seed, and at each creation it emerges like the banyan appearing as a sprout and then spreading (VP 1.12.66–67). Wilson (who was a botanist as well as a Sanskritist) compares this to “the doctrine, that the rudiments of plants exist in their cotyledons” (Wilson 1840: 79n). The gradual development of these ideas can also be partially traced in the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata. Their presentation there and in the Purāṇas is rather unsystematic, but they were systematized around the fourth century CE in a verse text, the Sāṃkhya-kārikā, by Īśvarakṛṣṇa. This system became the basis of the philosophical school called Sāṃkhya, and was also used by the Yoga school, and partially by Vedānta. In this “classical Sāṃkhya,” unlike the “pre-classical Sāṃkhya” described above, puruṣa and prakṛti are not aspects of one supreme being, but two eternal principles; prakṛti is active but not conscious, while puruṣa is conscious but not active. Moreover, there is not one, but a multitude of puruṣas, to account for the innumerable beings who experience the world in different ways (SK 18). Another point insisted on is satkāryavāda, the “doctrine of the existent effect,” meaning that every effect exists already, in potential form, in the material cause from which it emerges. 3  The association of each sense with an element is well established in Sanskrit texts. The list of action faculties may seem arbitrary, but it too is a standard one. The first three are related to the first three senses as output to input, while the last two, located in the abdominal orifices, complete the list of orifices begun by those in the head—the mouth, nostrils, ears and eyes (Killingley 2006: 77; 2018: 181).

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The pioneering indologist Henry Colebrooke (1765–1837), who, like Wilson and others, pursued research part-time while a civil servant in India from 1783 to 1814, wrote an account of the classical Sāṃkhya system in a paper presented to the Royal Asiatic Society in London in 1823 (Colebrooke 1837: 227–260), and another on Vedānta, presented in 1827 (325–377). In both these papers he used the words evolution and evolve, to denote the production of phenomena from their material causes; but he was applying the words in their general sense, not with reference to any of the biological theories current in his time. Moreover, he only uses them sporadically (pp. 245; 252; 353; 356); more often he uses the words production, produce, product. Wilson used evolved only once in his translation of the Viṣṇu Purāṇa (Wilson 1840: 39, translating jāyate “is born” (VP 1.6.16)); but he used both evolve and evolution in his preface and notes. The New York-born Sanskritist Fitzedward Hall made an enlarged edition of this translation, adding his own notes (Hall 1864–1877). These expanded or modified Wilson’s interpretations in the light of later researches; and in interpreting the Sāṃkhya material in the Purāṇa they make greater use of evolve and evolution than Wilson had. The key terms avyakta and vyakta, describing prakṛti before and after the creative process, which Wilson habitually translated “indiscrete” and “discrete,” Hall calls “unevolved” and “evolved.” Hall’s notes on Sāṃkhya were published in 1864, in the first of the six volumes of his enlarged edition of Wilson’s work. Two years previously, he had used the word evolution many times (sometimes translating vikāra and sometimes pariṇāma) in his translation of Ṣaḍdarśanadarpaṇa (“mirror of the six systems”). This book was a critique of Hindu philosophy written in Hindi in 1860 by the pandit and Christian convert Nehemiah Nīlakaṇṭha Goreh. In his preface to his translation, Hall shows a keen interest in the choice of English words to render Hindu philosophical terms—as he does later in his edition of Wilson; earlier indologists had been less concerned with consistency in this matter. In this preface, Hall mentions some afterthoughts which he regrets are too late to incorporate in the translation. He particularly questions the common translation of prakṛti as “nature,” which he had hitherto accepted; he suggests instead “originant” or “evolvant” [sic]. For vikṛti, the term for the phenomena produced from prakṛti, which include the five senses and the five elements, he proposed “originate” or “evolute” (Hall 1862: ix). (Colebrooke had called them “principles,” or occasionally “categories.”) The word evolute, together with evolvent (the etymologically expected spelling) was taken up by E. B. Cowell (1882: 221), with an acknowledgment to Hall, and has remained in use in accounts of Sāṃkhya. This word is otherwise only recorded in its mathematical sense (OED s.v. evolute); the English vocabulary used to translate Sanskrit words has always been partly independent of standard English usage. In this way, the word evolution became increasingly common in English-­ language accounts of Hindu thought, at the same time as it was becoming familiar in the context of biology, and especially in association with Darwin. The indologists do not seem to have had Darwin in mind when introducing it; as we have seen, Darwin had not yet whole-heartedly embraced it at the time when Hall was doing so.

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6.6  Hindu Evolution Meets Darwinian Evolution Among the bhadralok, especially among those whose awareness of the Sanskrit tradition had been facilitated by Western indology, this specialized use of evolution and related words, coinciding with their increasing use in the context of biology, acted like one of those random variations on which Darwinian evolution depends: it gave the Purāṇic tradition, classical Sāṃkhya, and Vedānta which uses many of the same concepts, an advantage in the colonial intellectual environment. Besides the word evolution, and the depiction of cosmogony in organic terms, other factors contributed to this advantage. Darwin’s account of evolution required a vast time-­ scale. Although many in Britain had learnt not to take literally James Ussher’s dating of the creation in 4004 BCE (Bowler 1989: 4–5), Darwin found it necessary to include a digression on geology in The Origin, to impress on readers “What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years!” (Darwin 1968 [1859]: 297). But while this long roll of years may have been difficult to grasp in the West, those familiar with the Purāṇas and related texts, with their multiples of years of the gods, found their traditional chronology corroborated rather than shaken. Similarly, the affinity of humankind with animals, so potentially disturbing in Britain that Darwin only hinted at it near the end of The Origin (Darwin 1968 [1859]: 458; Bowler 1989: 229), was familiar to Hindus through the ideas of rebirth and avatāra, and through numerous myths and theriomorphic images. Satkāryavāda, the doctrine that the effect exists in its cause, waiting to be unfolded, rolled out or evolved, resonated with the laws of conservation of matter and energy which underpinned much Victorian science. For several nineteenth-century Indian thinkers, evolution was not a new Western discovery but a part of their heritage. Monistic ideas associated with evolution, such as Spencer’s ultimate first cause which he called the Unknowable, and Haeckel’s belief that evolution must lead inevitably to monism (Haeckel 1883: 1.17), and that “spirit exists everywhere in nature” (Haeckel 1883: 2.455), encouraged acceptance of the monism of Advaita Vedānta. Earlier in the century, Advaita Vedānta had been drastically modified, or rejected altogether, by men such as Rammohun Roy and Debendranath Tagore, who thought in terms of a dualism of matter and spirit (Killingley 1976). Now, its time had come. Keshub Chunder Sen (1838–1884), the most colorful figure in the Brahmo Samaj, gave a speech in 1882, entitled “That Marvellous Mystery—the Trinity” (Sen 1979: 219–247). It is not intellectual enough to be called a lecture (“I profess neither scholarship nor research,” he says (219)); nor, by the standards of his time, is it sufficiently methodical or anchored in scripture to be a sermon, though it is full of biblical quotations and allusions. Keshub’s discourses combined rhetoric, prose poetry, and ecstatic utterance, in which ideas of many kinds and sources were juxtaposed. He was deeply devoted to Jesus, while retaining an interest in Hindu traditions which increased during the last decade of his life. He begins this speech by

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claiming the Trinity for Hinduism; it is “more Asiatic than European, more Indian than English” (220). Later in the rambling course of the speech, he does the same both for the biblical account of creation and for evolution, combining the two in a single narrative. Inviting his audience to “give your imagination wings” (224), he quotes, and then elaborates, the first two and a half verses of Ṛgveda 10.129 (summarised above); but instead of desire, the creative impulse mentioned in the fourth verse, he introduces “that Almighty Word... They call it Logos.” Touching on a question which was much discussed in the nineteenth century, he continues: “Creation means not a single act, but a continued process... a continued evolution of creative force, a ceaseless emanation of power and wisdom from the Divine Mind” (225). Keshub was among the subscribers to the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 1876 (Chakraborty: 255); like many of the bhadralok, he was interested in science as a source of ideas, without being a scientist. The same could be said of Swami Vivekānanda (1862–1902), whose works, like Keshub’s, consist largely of speeches. Many of these were given in the USA and in England, and show a deliberate reversal of the project of Duff and others to bring enlightenment from the West to India. Vivekananda frequently mentions evolution as part of the Hindu or Vedantic heritage which Western thought has corroborated but not surpassed. He told an American audience: The idea of evolution was to be found in the Vedas long before the Christian era; but until Darwin said it was true, it was regarded as a mere Hindu superstition. (Vivekananda 1972–78: 8.25)

Vivekananda’s mention of the Vedas should not be taken as a textual reference; for him, the Vedas were not so much a corpus of literature as the entire body of ancient Indian wisdom, remembered, handed on and experienced by an uninterrupted succession of sages, including his own master Rāmakṛṣṇa, whose textual knowledge was scanty. When Vivekananda does cite a text in connection with evolution, it is usually the Yoga-Sūtra of Patañjali, whom he calls “the great ancient evolutionist” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 1.292), “the father of evolution, both spiritual and physical” (6.113). He thus makes a double claim to authority: in the modern West and in ancient India. We will look further at this claim below. Though Vivekananda often names Darwin, his view of evolution draws also on Haeckel, Spencer and Huxley. Spencer’s grand design had more appeal for him, and for other Hindu thinkers, than Darwin’s slow accretion of small and initially random variations. Other Hindu thinkers have made similar claims. B. G. Tilak (1856–1920), in his best-known book which combines a commentary on the Bhagavadgītā with an attempt to build a philosophy of ethics on both Indian and Western authorities, mentions Darwin, together with Lamarck, as agreeing with the Sāṃkhya view that the universe arises in successive stages from an original undifferentiated substance (Tilak 1965 [1915]: 205, 233). However, he takes Haeckel’s The Riddle of the Universe as his main source for Western ideas of evolution (206). He also claims that “the definition of atoms given by Kaṇāda [the founder of the Vaiśeṣika school, which Tilak considers identical to the Nyāya school] and the one given by Western

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natural scientists is the same” (204), and further that this school was eclipsed by Sāṃkhya in the same way as Dalton’s atomic theory has been eclipsed by Darwin (205). This shows a desire to find parallels between Western and Hindu thought, rather than any clear understanding of the history of science. John Dalton (1766–1844) was not eclipsed by Darwin but worked in very different fields; and the concept of atomic weight which he introduced changed the world of chemistry (Kuhn 1996: 133–135). However, Tilak’s intention may be to suggest that as Sāṃkhya, having eclipsed Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, was in turn eclipsed by Advaita Vedānta, while supplying it with many key concepts, so the evolutionary theory of Darwin and Haeckel must be similarly eclipsed. A less prominent figure who combined ancient Indian and modern Western authorities was Hariharānanda Āraṇya (1869–1947). Like Keshub and Vivekānanda, he was a member of the bhadralok; but, in complete contrast to their very public lives, he abandoned his course at Presidency College and lived as a recluse. Little is known of his life, except that he became a saṃnyāsin in 1892 (Jacobsen 2018: 1, 71, 72). His achievement was to establish a Sāṃkhya-Yoga tradition in Bengal, and most of his writing, mainly in Bengali, is devoted to the interpretation of Sanskrit texts. In these interpretations he made only sporadic, and not very cogent, appeals to science (Jacobsen 2018: 105). However, in his last book, Karmatattva, published in 1931, he turned to the idea that “The final conclusions of modern science are similar to those of the Sāṃkhya system” (Jacobsen 2018: 121). In this book he referred not only to Darwin and Haeckel but to an impressive range of earlier, later, and even contemporary scientists and philosophers (Jacobsen 2018: 119–120). His intention seems to be to appeal to Bengali readers for whom science was an authority, and especially to those who thought Sāṃkhya was contradicted by science (Jacobsen 2018: 122). A much better-known figure, the Hindu nationalist V.  D. Sarvarkar, counted Darwin, Spencer, Haeckel and Huxley among the authors he read in prison between 1911 and 1921 (Jaffrelot 1997: 335). He used evolutionary ideas as support for his notion of a Hindu race—though the ideas he later published as Hindutva defined nationhood in terms of land and culture rather than descent.

6.7  Satkāryavāda When Vivekananda mentions evolution, he frequently identifies it with satkāryavāda, the “doctrine of the existent effect” mentioned above. The whole meaning of evolution is simply that the nature of a thing is reproduced, that the effect is nothing but the cause in another form, that all the potentialities of the effect were present in the cause, that the whole of creation is but an evolution and not a creation. (Vivekananda 1972–78: 1.372)

He also identifies satkāryavāda with the law of conservation of energy: “The modern scientific man will tell you that you can only get the amount of energy out of a

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machine which you have previously put into it” (2.75). The same law of conservation, he says, underlies the idea of rebirth according to karma (5.313). Tilak similarly identifies satkāryavāda with the modern scientific law that “the sum total of all material concomitants and of all potential energy in the world is always the same” (Tilak 1965: 211). Vivekananda’s version of satkāryavāda involves the conservation of specific powers or qualities, rather than of something as universal as matter or energy. This enables him to reconcile an important difference between Hindu cosmology and Darwinian evolution. In the Hindu accounts, a conscious being, often called “man” (puruṣa) in Sāṃkhya, or ātman “self,” or brahman, a conscious but impersonal first principle, in Vedānta, is not an outcome of the evolutionary process, but its starting-­ point. Vivekananda notes that according to “modern research” and the “Evolutionists,” “man is the evolution of the mollusc” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 2.74). But in the cyclic Indian view, “every evolution presupposes an involution. If man is an evolution of the mollusc, then the perfect man—the Buddha-man, the Christ-man—was involved in the mollusc” (2.75). “All the possibilities of a future tree are in that seed... all the possibilities of any future life are in the germ. What is this? The ancient philosophers of India called it involution” (2.227); he does not tell his American audience what Sanskrit word he has in mind. This doctrine of involution answers the evolutionists’ objection to the idea of God. Intelligence, an attribute of God, is in their view a late development in the course of evolution; but in Vivekananda’s view it must have been there in the beginning (2.208). Vivekananda suggests a cyclic process; his view of the evolution of something previously “involved... uncoiling itself until it becomes manifested in the most perfect man” (2.209) belongs more to Bonnet’s idea of an unfolding, pre-existing plan than to Darwin’s open-ended evolution. The word involution, which Vivekananda adopted to mean the reverse of evolution, hardly belongs to scientific phylogeny; its usual biological uses refer to ontogenetic processes such as the inward growth of the eye or ear, or to degenerative processes in an ageing organism. However, it found an important place in Hindu versions of the theory of evolution, especially in the work of Aurobindo Ghose (1872–1950), the subject of the next chapter.

6.8  Karma and Rebirth While Darwinian evolution belongs essentially to the realm of phylogeny (the process by which species originate), when Indian thinkers mention evolution they are often referring to ontogeny (the origin and development of an individual being). In Hindu thinking, this distinction is blurred by the idea of rebirth, whereby an individual passes through bodies of many species in accordance with previous karma. The range of species is fixed—in every cosmic age there are gods, demons, humans, cattle, ants and so on; it is the individual puruṣa that progresses or reverts from one species to another. Though some texts speak of a transcendent being who “disposed objects from eternal years” (Īśā Upaniṣad 8), or “disposes the desires of the many”

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(Kaṭha Upaniṣad 5.13; Svetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.13), the operation of karma needs no creator to design the species and their distribution. As Vivekananda put it in one of his first speeches in the West: The human soul is eternal and immortal, perfect and infinite, and death means only a change of centre from one body to another. The present is determined by our past actions, and the future by the present. The soul will go on evolving up or reverting back from birth to birth and from death to death. (Vivekananda 1972–78: 1.10)

While the word “evolving” suggests that he was thinking of Darwinian evolution, he does not pursue the matter here. He did so later, when he gave classes on yoga in New York, and wrote his book on the Yoga-Sūtra (1.119–313), which was based on those classes. In this work he seems much more interested in “evolving up” than in “reverting back”; his teaching fitted the ideas of self-improvement which were popular in the American circles which he addressed. The aim of the yogi, as he presented it, was to rise to a higher form of being: to perfect humanity, or even to divinity. As we have seen, Vivekananda regarded Patañjali, the author of the Yoga-Sūtra, as the ancient Indian authority on evolution.4 His textual basis for this claim is a passage in the Yoga-Sūtra which he mentions five times in the context of evolution (Killingley 1990: 156). This passage, Yoga-Sūtra 4.2–3, concerns how a yogi can change to a different species (jāti); the commentator Vācaspati Mitra explains that the species may be that of a god or an animal (deva-tiryag-jāti-pariṇāmaḥ), depending on the yogi’s merit. Vivekananda, however, speaks as if the change were invariably progressive: “all progress and power are already in every man; perfection is man’s nature... It is nature that is driving us towards perfection, and eventually she will bring everyone there” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 1.292). “The basic idea is that we are changing from one species to another, and that man is the highest species” (5.277). It is this law of progress, which he finds in Patañjali, that Vivekananda teaches as the ancient Indian version of evolution, superior to the Western one because it is spiritual (5.298) and not merely physical (3.406). Vivekananda was sceptical about social progress, but he tells us to “think of humanity as one vast organism, slowly coming towards light—a wonderful plant, slowly unfolding itself to that wonderful truth which is called God” (2.41). Elsewhere, contrary to the above-quoted statement that nature drives us towards perfection, he says it is not nature but our own effort that does this. “The whole process of evolution is the soul’s struggle to manifest itself. It is a constant struggle against nature, and not conformity to nature, that makes man what he is” (6.35–36). This last sentence recalls Huxley’s argument in his lecture on “Evolution and Ethics” in 1893. In civilized society, Huxley says, the struggle for existence, which he calls the “cosmic process,” gives way to a different kind of struggle: not for the survival of the fittest but for “the fitting of as many as possible to survive.” This he

4  He also calls the Sāṃkhyas “the fathers of the theories of evolution,” whose researches resulted in “the Sutras of Vyâsa” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 4.334). By this he means the Yoga-sūtra of Patañjali; the first known commentary on it is attributed to Vyāsa.

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calls the “ethical process.” “The ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it” (Huxley 1895: 81–83). Huxley wished to dissociate evolution from “social Darwinism,” which justified unrestrained competition and the suffering and death of the poor—a view that belonged more to Spencer than to Darwin (Bowler 1989: 287–289). Vivekananda does not mention Huxley’s lecture, but he may well have read it (Killingley 1998: 153–156). Huxley’s views resonated with Vivekananda’s dislike of competition and scepticism about progress: “Machines are making things cheap, making for progress and evolution, but millions are crushed, that one may become rich” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 2.96). However, in his view it was Patañjali who taught that competition and struggle “are not part of the evolution of man. It is just our impatience which creates them” (5.278). When speaking of rebirth, Vivekananda often applies the Lamarckian theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics. In a light-hearted remark which purports to illustrate Darwin’s theory, he says that a tortoise is a python which “by remaining stationary at one spot for a long time, has gradually turned hard-backed” (7.151). More seriously, he claims that “the latest school of evolutionists” agrees with the Hindus in “explaining the tendencies of the present life by past conscious efforts” (4.271); the idea that such efforts are necessarily conscious is Vivekananda’s rather than Lamarck’s. Vivekananda never mentions Lamarck, but the Lamarckian theory of inheritance which he attributes to Darwin5 supports both the traditional idea of rebirth according to karma and his own faith in spiritual progress. He never mentions Haeckel either; but he may have him in mind when he speaks of “the German and the English savants” with their “doctrine of physical evolution” (3.406). Vivekananda does not detach karma from the notion that our action shapes our personal destiny. But he sees this in a positive light: karma is the work that we perform to manufacture “character” (1: 30). Without explicitly mentioning rebirth, which was still a strange concept to his Western audiences, he argues that “a Buddha or a Jesus” has acquired a powerful will “by persistent work, through ages, and ages.” The power possessed by such men cannot be explained by heredity, since “their fathers” had no such power (1: 30); Vivekananda shows a male-dominated view of genetics. The ability of karma to provide better explanations than heredity is an important part of Vivekananda’s interpretation of evolution, and is one of the motives of his teaching on yoga. Vivekananda’s colleague Swami Abhedananda (1866–1939) lectured in New  York on “Reincarnation” (Abhedananda 1907), linking it closely to Darwin’s name and the term evolution. While he invokes three Darwinian principles—the tendency to vary, natural selection, and the struggle for existence— his version of evolution is teleological. “According to Vedanta, the end and aim of Evolution is the attainment of perfection.” Accordingly, his version of karma, 5  Darwin himself never entirely rejected the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Endersby 2009: 381–389); he considered that mutilations might be inherited (Darwin 1874: 90, 920–921), and that “Gout... is generally caused by intemperance during manhood, and is transmitted from the father to his sons” (1874: 366).

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which he identifies with the scientific “law of causation.” is meliorative. While claiming that “each individual soul is bound by the inexorable law of nature to receive its body as a natural consequence of its former deeds and misdeeds,” he also claims that it is only “uneducated people among the Hindus” who believe in rebirth in animal forms. The meliorative versions of rebirth according to karma taught by Vivekananda and Abhedananda are very different from the punitive one found in texts such as Manu, chapter 12, verses 54–81 (Olivelle 2005: 233–234, 899–904), which detail the various unpleasant rebirths which result from wrong actions. Unlike Vivekananda and Abhedananda, Hariharānanda Āraṇya separates the idea of rebirth according to karma from that of evolution. The form of the body into which one is reborn depends on voluntary actions; he does not see any progressive direction in the process (Jacobsen 2018: 121).

6.9  Man and Spirit While Darwin sometimes writes as if evolution were consciously directed towards certain goals, if we are to read him in terms of Darwinian natural selection we have to take these passages as metaphorical. In his view, consciousness emerges only gradually; and though he argues, against some of his contemporaries, that it is present in animals, he finds it developed to a much higher degree in humankind (Darwin 1874: 98–194). He takes issue with those naturalists—he mentions Blumenbach and Cuvier—who classify humankind (as we would now call it) as a separate order, “on an equality with the orders of the Quadrumana, Carnivora, etc.,” and approves of those who follow Linnaeus in classifying humankind “in the same order as the Quadrumana, under the title of the Primates.” He adds wryly that “If man had not been his own classifier, he would never have thought of founding a separate order for his own reception” (230–231). This view of the gradual evolution of consciousness, culminating in humankind, contrasts with many Hindu cosmogonies, in which the original being is called ātman “self,” an essentially conscious being, or puruṣa, “Man,” a word connoting both humanity and masculinity. Many Hindu writers account for this crucial difference between Hindu and Western evolutionary theories by saying that Indian evolution is spiritual, while Western evolution is material; we have already noted this view in Vivekananda. It was facilitated by Wilson (1840), who regularly translates puruṣa as “spirit,” in recognition of its essential quality of consciousness. However, the contrast between Western materialism and Indian spirituality, so common among Hindu writers from Keshub and Vivekananda onwards, depends on concepts that are themselves Western rather than Indian (King 1985). The nearest equivalents to spiritual and material or spirit and matter in Sanskrit are cetana “conscious” and jaḍa “stupid; unconscious; inanimate”; but

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these do not carry all the associations of the English words. Tilak (1965: 218–219, 270, 336) calls Haeckel’s form of monism jaḍādvaita “non-dualism of the material.” To show the difference between Hindu and Western approaches, he takes the Bhagavadgītā’s description of the ātman (there referred to as dehin “the one that has a body”)—“Knives do not cut it, fire does not burn it, water does not wet it, wind does not dry it” (BhG 2.23)—and places it in the novel context of the laboratory: the ātman cannot be dissected, vaporized with fire, or dissolved with acid. Accordingly, scientific methods are inapplicable; the ātman can only be known by the introspection of pure-minded persons, trained in yoga and enlightened by the Upaniṣads and Bhagavadgītā (Tilak 1965: 271–273). Nevertheless, he finds support for the concept of ātman in Kant, and to some extent in Hegel and Schopenhauer (293). The contrast between spiritual and material evolution may help to explain a cryptic passage in which Vivekananda complains that “Deussen is playing into the hands of the Darwinists” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 8.362). This is cryptic largely because it is in a letter to his English friend E. T. Sturdy, and we do not have Sturdy’s letter which it answers. Whereas in many of his talks Vivekananda is addressing people unfamiliar with Indian thought, he is here addressing someone in whom he can assume some knowledge, and with whom he has discussed his ideas before. The German philosopher and Sanskritist Paul Deussen (1845–1919) was an enthusiastic advocate for Advaita Vedānta, but his interpretation of it was colored by his admiration for Schopenhauer; he conflated the Vedāntic monism of consciousness with Schopenhauer’s monism of will (Hacker 1995: 276–277). Schopenhauer held that will was “the root of the tree of which consciousness is the fruit” (Schopenhauer 1958 [1819] 2.139). Vivekananda was aware of Schopenhauer’s idea of the primacy of will; he said it was derived from the Buddhist concept of thirst or craving (Sanskrit tṛṣṇā, Pali tanhā) (Vivekananda 1972–78: 8.362). But in his view, as he goes on to explain, will is a manifestation of consciousness (buddhi or mahat), which itself is preceded by what he here calls the Absolute (the ātman or puruṣa). As he argues elsewhere, will could not have created the universe, as Schopenhauer thought; will is a compound, which depends on the existence of a sentient person and an outside world (5.280). In the letter to Sturdy, he is saying that by accepting Schopenhauer’s theory of the primacy of will, Deussen accepts a material instead of a spiritual evolution. He also links Schopenhauer’s monism of will with the view that the struggle for existence is the driving force of the universe—which he condemned as justifying oppression, as we have seen (above, p. 153). It is this “social Darwinism” that he accuses Deussen of supporting. Vivekananda was ambivalent towards both Darwin and the Buddha; while he found corroboration in each, he also objected that each denied the spiritual. The lack of a spiritual dimension in Western evolutionary theory was felt by Indian scientists also. Mahendralal Sircar, the founder of the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, took issue with Darwin on the matter of God. Like his

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Jesuit supporter Lafont, he believed that science was the study of God’s works, and that the world was governed by a Supreme Mind. In a lecture on “Moral Influences of Physical Science” in 1892, he criticized Darwin for avoiding the idea of a first cause, or considering such a cause to be unknowable (Chakraborty 2001: 270). One of India’s most notable scientists, Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937)—a former student of Lafont at St Xavier’s College—linked his experimental work on responsiveness in plants to that message proclaimed by my ancestors on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago— “They who see but one, in all the changing manifoldness of this universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth—unto none else, unto none else!”(Geddes 1920: 98)6

Turning explicitly to Darwin, Bose rejected the theory of natural selection of random variations, in favour of response to environmental stimuli (Bose 1906: 749–754). Unlike Sircar, he was not looking for a divine mind; for him, “the true significance of the great Theory of Evolution” was to be found, through the process of experiment and precise measurement to which he applied his remarkable ingenuity, in “the definite sequence of cause and effect,” which applies to both animals and plants, and also to the non-living (754). Among those who took an interest in science but were not themselves scientists, Hariharānanda Āraṇya, who was more concerned to seek corroboration from Western scientists than to find fault with them, equated the idea of a cosmic mind with scientific theories of a principle underlying the universe (Jacobsen 2018: 120). Radhakrishnan (1888–1975), whose extensive reading in his formative years included Darwin and Huxley (Gopal 1989: 24), used evolution as a key to the interpretation of Indian thought, seeing it, as Vivekananda did, in terms of spiritual striving (Gopal 1989: 109). An example is his treatment of Taittirīya Upaniṣad 3.1–5 (Radhakrishnan 1953: 56–59, 553–557). This Upaniṣad gives a progressive series of five accounts of brahman, the absolute from which beings are born, in which they live, and which they enter when they die (TU 3.1.1). These five are food (anna; “matter” in Radhakrishnan’s translation) breath (prāṇa; “life”), mind (manas), intelligence (vijñāna), and bliss (ānanda). The same series is presented as five puruṣas, one inside the other, in TU 2.1.1–5, to which Radhakrishnan gives the heading “Brahman and the course of evolution” (541). The progression, as Radhakrishnan sees it, is a “cosmic evolution,” of which bliss or “deified consciousness” is the crown (556). “The Upaniṣad suggests an analogy between the macrocosm, nature and the microcosm, man.” 6  This seems to be an imperfect recollection of one or more Upaniṣadic passages, rather than an exact quotation. Possible sources are Kaṭha Upaniṣad 5.12 “The one controller, the inner self of all beings, who makes one appearance into many—the wise who see him in themselves, have eternal happiness; others do not;” and Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad 6.12 “The one controller of the inactive many, who makes the one seed into many—the wise who see him in themselves, have eternal happiness; others do not.” The repetition of the final phrase, as in Bose’s quasi-quotation, is a device marking the end of some Upaniṣadic passages, but is not used in either of these verses.

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When seen macrocosmically, the progression is “The ascent of reality from matter to God” (557); but it can also be seen microcosmically as an investigation, in which “The investigator proceeds from the obvious and outer to the deeper and the inward” (554). Radhakrishnan also tells us that “the Upaniṣad assumes that the naturalistic theory of evolution cannot be accepted” (57). “If there is ordered development, progressive evolution, it is because there is a divine principle at work in the universe” (59).

6.10  Hierarchy from Primitive to Perfect Like Spencer and other Victorian thinkers interested in evolution, Vivekananda moves easily from the notion of rudimentary and advanced life-forms to that of primitive and advanced cultures. Moreover, he tends to equate primitive culture with childhood or childishness. Keshub, too, equates the two: he speaks of “man” “in the earliest phase of his life, whether in the little infant or in the primitive barbarian” (Sen 1979: 226)—a conflation of phylogeny and ontogeny. Vivekananda uses this equation of the infantile and the primitive as an important dimension of his teaching of the fundamental unity of religions, which he brought to the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. He taught a hierarchical form of inclusivism: conflicting religious doctrines “are meant for different grades of aspirants and are arranged in the order of evolution” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 7.412). “To the Hindu... all the religions from the lowest fetishism to the highest absolutism” are stages of progress towards the Infinite (1.17). God, or rather the idea of God, evolves (2.106–107). Other religions remain at the childish stage, but Hinduism, as well as nurturing spiritual children, allows them to grow to spiritual maturity. The Vedas, as seen “through the eyeglass of evolution... contain the whole history of the progress of religious consciousness, until religion has reached perfection in unity” (6: 103)— that is, in Advaita Vedānta. Vivekananda’s criticism of some forms of Hindu worship as primitive or childish does not stop him from regarding Hinduism as superior to other religions; Hinduism, in his view, encourages all levels of development, the highest as well as the lowest. The implication that Hinduism is mature, and Christianity childish, inverts the common idea of an imperial mission to bring India up to the level of Britain, or at least towards that level. Radhakrishnan brought a similar message in his Upton Lectures in Oxford in 1926: Hindu thought believes in the evolution of our knowledge of God... Hinduism accepts all religious notions as facts and arranges them in order of their more or less intrinsic significance. The bewildering polytheism of the masses and the uncompromising monotheism of the classes are for the Hindu the expressions of one and the same force at different levels. (Radhakrishnan 1960: 24)

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6.11  Progress, Degeneration and Regeneration Though Darwin often expressed himself in terms implying that evolution represented progress towards a goal, the principle of natural selection which distinguished his theory, and also Wallace’s, left no place for teleology. While he objected to Sir John Herschel’s dismissal of natural selection as the “law of higgledy-­ piggledy” (Darwin 1887: 2.240; Bowler 1989: 197), his theory depended on random variation and “the war of nature” (Darwin 1968 [1859]: 459). But popular versions of evolution, especially those which combined it with the notion of a creator, or of pre-existent spirit, often included teleology. Not only Darwin, but many in Victorian Britain thought of change, as if instinctively, in terms of progress from the primitive to the advanced. Progress in the development of a species could be treated as analogous to the growth of the individual—an idea developed especially by Haeckel in his theory of recapitulation, whereby the embryo of an existing species resembles, at different stages of its growth, the adult forms of earlier species from which it has evolved; ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (Bowler 1989: 202). Haeckel’s theory was partly a development of the ideas of Louis Agassiz (1807–1873); and Darwin himself sometimes used embryology as evidence for earlier stages of the evolution of a species (Darwin 1874: 12–15). Some racial theorists, thinking in terms of linear development rather than the branching model presented by Darwin (1968 [1859]: 160–161), placed the supposed races of humankind in an order of development, in which lower races had remained child-like, or even ape-like (Bowler 1989: 303). According to the Scottish anatomist Robert Knox (1791–1862), “the type of the Negro is foetal, that of the Mongol is infantile” (S. Bayly 1997: 180). Though Knox was a radical who opposed both imperialism and slavery, his views contributed to Victorian ideas of race (Biddiss 1977: 249–250). The idea of development from embryo to adult, from primitive to advanced, which pervades much colonial anthropology and political theory, runs counter to some traditional Hindu ideas. In the cyclic view of time presented in the Purāṇas, during each cosmic day of 4,320 million of our years the world passes a thousand times through a series of four ages (yugas; the four together are a mahāyuga). Unlike years, days and lunar months, each of which shows a steady fluctuation between equidistant troughs of darkness and peaks of brightness, the four ages represent a stepwise decline, like the golden, silver, bronze and iron ages of Greco-­ Roman mythology, alternating with a swift restoration. First comes the perfect age, when people live for four hundred years, and the moral norms of dharma are followed completely. At the end of this age the human lifespan, and the practice of dharma, are reduced by a quarter. Similar reductions occur at the end of the second and third ages. Food, clothing and other necessities of life, which were produced spontaneously in the perfect age, require increasing amounts of effort. The present age is the worst, in which unrighteousness prevails, kings are oppressive, diseases abound, agriculture is laborious, and weather unreliable. It still has over four

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thousand centuries to run, during which life will become shorter and wickedness increase, until Kalki, the final avatāra of Viṣṇu, restores the perfect age. This model, in which decline is inevitable and future perfection remote, does not determine all Hindu views of time; indeed, it is possible for orators to urge their hearers to help restore the perfect age. This is not a new rhetorical invention; in the Mahābhārata, where the doctrine is first presented systematically, it sometimes appears that the perfect age, rather than being begun and ended in the inexorable course of time, results from the righteous rule of the king (Thomas 2007). There is also an explicitly paradoxical teaching that the fourth age excels the others, because the rewards which are gained in the first age by ten years of ritual practice can be gained in a day in the fourth; what is gained by meditation in the first age, by sacrifices in the second, and by worship in the third, can be gained in the fourth by praising Kṛṣṇa (VP 6.2.15–17; Wilson 1840: 492). Even so, the series of four ages presents a picture of decline which contradicts the one presented by Darwin, Spencer or any other Victorian believer in progress.

6.12  Avatāras In the 1882 speech already quoted (above, p. 149), Keshub Chunder Sen spoke of the avatāras as a Hindu expression of “the continued evolution of the Logos, and its graduated development through the ever-advancing stages of life.” Lo! the Hindu Avatar rises from the lowest scale of life through the fish, the tortoise, and the hog up to the perfection of humanity. Indian Avatarism is, indeed, a crude representation of the ascending scale of Divine creation. Such precisely is the modern theory of evolution. (Sen 1979: 226)

Keshub goes on to summarise this theory, though his summary is hardly precise. He describes how “from the lowest forms of gross matter is evolved the vitality of the vegetable world... And then from the most perfect and vital types of vegetable life springs the least in the animal kingdom, which again rises... to the very highest in intelligence and sagacity... and finds its full development in man... Through culture and education he rises in the scale of humanity till he becomes the son of God” (226). He identifies “the son of God” as “Christ Jesus,” while leaving the way open to see other great men as the perfection of humanity, as he had done in his speech “Great Men” in 1866 (73–100). There are several traditional lists of the avatāras of Viṣṇu, but Keshub is probably thinking of the best-known, the list of ten celebrated in Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda: the fish, tortoise, boar, man-lion, dwarf, Paraśurāma, Rāma (the hero of the Rāmāyaṇa), Kṛṣṇa, Buddha, and Kalki. The list invites comparison with the orders of the Linnaean system, familiar to naturalists, in which reptiles rank above fishes, with mammals, culminating in humankind, at the top. The man-lion can thus represent a turning-point between the non-human and the human, and the dwarf an undeveloped form of humanity.

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Vivekananda, though clearly interested in evolution, did not take up Keshub’s idea of linking it with the avatāras. Indeed, he had little to say about avatāras, except as great human teachers, “the highest ideal of Ishvara [God] which the human mind can grasp” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 7.199). As we have seen, he often mentions Buddha as the perfection of humanity. He also sometimes mentions Jesus or Kṛṣṇa; less often Zoroaster, Moses, and Mohammed (4.431); Rāma, Caitanya, Nānak, Kabīr (6.394). He is indifferent as to whether his master Rāmakṛṣṇa should be accepted as an avatāra or not (7.496); what matters is the teaching, not the man. Aurobindo, in discussing the avatāras, says that “some would interpret” the series in terms of evolution; as usual he gives no reference (Ghose 1959: 223). But the idea adumbrated by Keshub has persisted (Dass 1981). A passage that has often been understood as seeing the avatāras through an evolutionary lens, and thus as an attempt to accommodate Darwin to Hindu thought (Wong 2014: 356), occurs in the Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā, a Vaiṣṇava work in Sanskrit verse, with a long Bengali introduction and a Bengali autocommentary which is largely a paraphrase of the verses (Bhaktivinod 1986 [1879]). The author was Kedarnath Datta, later known as Bhaktivinod (1838–1914), a member of the bhadralok who shortly after this publication was initiated into a Vaiṣṇava order. He became a leading thinker of Gauḍīya (Bengal) Vaiṣṇavism, and through his son Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī he was the guru’s guru of A. C. Bhaktivedānta Svāmī, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In his Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā, Bhaktivinod sets out to reconcile modern ideas—those which had prestige among the bhadralok—with Vaiṣṇava belief. In chapter 3 verses 5–8, he names the ten avatāras in order, and says that God (bhagavat) descends in each of these forms to the soul (jīva), in bondage to māyā, which has reached that state. The passage thus outlines a double progression: of the soul in the course of rebirth, and of the series of avatāras. It recalls the meliorative version of rebirth which we have noted in Vivekananda and Abhedananda—the idea that “we are changing from one species to another, and that man is the highest species” (Vivekananda 1972–78: 5.277)—rather than the punitive version portrayed in Manu. Bhaktivinod’s account of the relation of the avatāras to time is problematic. On the one hand he presents them as matching the stages of progress of each soul (“God reaches whatever state the soul reaches,” yad yad bhāvagato jīvas tat-tad bhāvagato hariḥ (Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā 3.5ab), in a process which occurs within the heart (hṛdi) (3.9b). Among fish, God appears as the fish avatāra; among the uncivilized (asabhya), as Paraśurāma; to the civilized person, as Rāma. He appears as himself, Lord Kṛṣṇa, to one who has all knowledge; to a man reliant on argument (tarka-niṣṭha-nare) he is Buddha; to an unbeliever (nāstika) God is Kalki—perhaps as the nemesis of unbelievers, rather than an unbeliever himself. Here, the avatāras seem to be God’s way of presenting himself inwardly to different people according to their different stages of spiritual progress—except that the last two avatāras cannot represent stages higher than Kṛṣṇa, who in Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism is God himself, and those in whose

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hearts they appear must be inferior to those who have all knowledge.7 Interpreted in this way, it is hard to relate the series to cosmic chronology, since we know that fish, boars and people exist simultaneously, and people living at any time are likely to be at different stages of spiritual development. On the other hand, Bhaktivinod also relates the avatāras to time, saying that time is divided into ten according to the stages which souls have reached (jīvānāṃ krama-­ bhāvānāṃ lakṣaṇānāṃ vicārataḥ)  (3.10ab); as his commentary puts it, the sages have divided historical time into ten, with regard to the history of the progress of souls (ṛṣirā jībagaṇer unnatir itihāsa ālocanā karata aitihāsika kālake daśa bhāge vibhāga kariýāchen). He adds that some scholars have divided time into twenty-­ four, and others into eighteen, according to the number of avatāras. Here, he does seem to be thinking in terms of cosmic chronology, using the traditional idea that the succession of avatāras is related to the cycle of four ages. But if the series is to be progressive, even if the last two avatāras are excepted, the progress runs counter to the decline of the ages. Perhaps Bhaktivinod was attempting to merge a theory of individual spiritual development with an evolutionary cosmology, or even to take an evolutionary cosmology and interpret it allegorically as spiritual psychology.

6.13  Conclusion In the nineteenth-century encounter between Indian and Western thought, Western participants brought not only new ways of thinking, including science, but new ways of communicating with the Hindu and other traditions current in India. Western, and later indigenous, scholars provided a vocabulary in which dialogue could be conducted; and in that vocabulary evolution was a key term, standing for Western and Hindu concepts which were both complex and variable in their meaning. The implications of evolution for Christian notions of divine design, and of man as the culmination of creation for whose sustenance and enjoyment the whole existed, provided Hindu thinkers with an opportunity for turning the missionaries’ weapon against them. The vast periods of time required for Darwinian evolution, and for Lyell’s geology on which Darwin had built, presented no difficulty to minds accustomed to the Purāṇas. Hindu cosmologies in which the universe grew organically from a cosmic egg or a primal couple fitted the evolutionary model better than any version of the biblical creation narrative. While the primacy of Man (both human and masculine) or the essentially conscious self (ātman) in Hindu cosmology was alien to Western evolutionary thinking, the difference could be turned to the Hindu tradition’s advantage by claiming that it had a spiritual dimension which Western science lacked. The morally objectionable aspects of Western

7  Das (2004: 99), who interprets the passage in terms of progress, omits the last two avatāras from his translation of Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā 3.8; he must have realized that they did not fit his interpretation.

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evolutionism, with its exaltation of competition and indifference to the sufferings of the unfit, were attributed to its materialistic basis. The claim that ancient Indian ideas were corroborated by science, while Christian cosmology with its limited view of time and space stood condemned, was common among Hindu thinkers by the early twentieth century (Gosling 2007: 66f.). By that time, Hindu scientists were contributing to the international body of research; but such producers of scientific knowledge were few in comparison with those intellectuals who were its consumers, and in some cases its reprocessors. We have looked at Sircar, Pramatha Nath Bose, and most notably Jagadish Chandra Bose among the scientists, but have necessarily had to omit others, such as P. C. Ray, chemist and historian of Indian chemistry, whose work had less bearing on the Indian response to Darwin. One figure we have discussed at length is Vivekananda. His restless and relatively short life was spent not only expounding and upholding the Hindu tradition, but exploring and often reinventing it, in the various places in which he read, wrote and spoke. He was especially skilled at adapting scientific ideas; but in doing so he often transformed them so that only the words—such as evolution, or the conservation of energy—remained. Indeed, by introducing involution in a new sense, he even changed the words. Much of his work in this field was in the form of talks in the United States and in England; and in these talks he relied on his hearers having a similar general knowledge of science to his own. Many others, before and after him, also relied on such general knowledge. Keshub Chunder Sen, though he touched on scientific matters less often than Vivekananda, did so with similar panache. Tilak’s claims were equally bold, though less spectacular. Bhaktivinod and Hariharānanda Āraṇya were more tentative. Radhakrishnan used science less exuberantly than Vivekananda, but with more academic acceptability. Aurobindo’s thoroughgoing use of the Western concept of evolution, and of the concept of involution which was added to it in India, requires a separate chapter.

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Radhakrishnan, S. 1953. The Principal Upaniṣads. London: Allen and Unwin. ———. 1960. The Hindu View of Life. London: Allen & Unwin. Raychaudhuri, Tapan. 1988. Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Roy, Rammohun. 1906. The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy, ed. Jogendra Chunder Ghose and Eshan Chunder Bose. Allahabad: Panini Office. Sarkar, Sumit. 1997. Writing Social History. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1958. The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.  F. J.  Payne. 2 vols. Indian Hills, Colorado: Falcon’s Wing. (Originally Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Leipzig 1819.) Schwartzberg, Joseph E., ed. 1978. A Historical Atlas of South Asia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Sen, S.N. 1966. The character of the introduction of western science in India during the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. Indian Journal of the History of Science 1 (2): 112–122. Sen, Keshub Chunder. 1979. Keshub Chunder Sen: A Selection, ed. David C. Scott (Library of Indian Christian Theology series.) Madras: Christian Literature Society. Thistlethwayte, Lynette E.L. 1998. The Role of Science in the Hindu-Christian Encounter. In Religious Traditions of South Asia: Interaction and Change, ed. Geoffrey A. Oddie, 81–90. Curzon: Richmond/Surrey. Thomas, Lynn. 2007. Does the Age Make the King or the King Make the Age? Exploring the Relationship between the King and the Yugas in the Mahābhārata. Religions of South Asia 1 (2): 183–201. Tilak, Bal Gangadhar. 1965. Śrīmad Bhagavadgītā-Rahasya: or Karma-Yoga-Śāstra, trans. B. S. Sukthankar (First published in Marathi, 1915.) Poona: Tilak Brothers. Varenne, Jean. 1982. Cosmogonies Védiques. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Vivekananda, Swami. 1972–1978. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda. 8 vols. Kolkata: Advaita Ashrama. Wilson, H.H. 1840. The Vishńu Puráńa: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition Translated from the Original Sanskrit and Illustrated by Notes Chiefly from Other Puráńas. London: John Murray. Wong, Lucian. 2014. Negotiating History in Colonial Bengal: Bhaktivinod’s Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā. Journal of Hindu Studies 7 (3): 341–370. Dermot Killingley studied Latin, Greek and Sanskrit in Oxford University from 1955 to 1959, and Middle Iranian languages in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, from 1959 to 1961. He taught in the Department of Indian Studies, University of Malaya, from 1961 to 1968. He returned to SOAS in 1968 to study Indian philosophy, and taught in the Department of Religious Studies, Newcastle University, from 1970 to 2000, when he retired as Reader in Hindu Studies. In 2008 he was a Visiting Professor in the University of Vienna. He is joint editor (with Simon Brodbeck and Anna King) of Religions of South Asia. He has published research on ancient Indian thought, and on its modern interpreters, particularly Rammohun Roy, Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan. His books include Rammohun Roy in Hindu and Christian Tradition, and a three-volume course, Beginning Sanskrit, completed in collaboration with the late Dr Siew-Yue Killingley.  

Chapter 7

Sri Aurobindo’s Theory of Spiritual Evolution Peter Heehs

Abstract  Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy of spiritual evolution was based on ideas found in Indian spiritual texts but also incorporated Western ideas. Born in India, he was educated in England between 1879 and 1892, when the question of evolution dominated British scholarly and popular discourse. Although his theory as a whole was original, it is possible to break it down into its constituent elements. It incorporates the central idea of nineteenth-century Western evolutionary philosophy as he understood it: the development of complex forms through physical evolution. It also incorporates two key elements of Vedanta (the philosophy based on the Upanishads) as he understood it: the One Being or brahman and the perfection of the soul through rebirth. To this Vedantic basis he added two ideas that he found implicit in the Upanishads and the Vedas—the development of higher levels of consciousness and the emergence of a “supramental” and spiritual consciousness—as well as two ideas he seems to have encountered in esoteric and religious sources: the “involution” of consciousness prior to its evolution and the possibility of the divinization of the human being. Viewed historically, Aurobindo’s theory was one of many attempts by nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers to harmonize science and spirituality. It also may be viewed as an attempt to show that life is not the product of chance but has a long-term purpose. In this essay I give a synchronic as well as diachronic presentation of Aurobindo’s theory, attempting to trace intellectual influences but taking seriously the idea that individual minds may arrive at independent formulations of ideas that recur across historical periods. Keywords  Helena Petrovna Blavatsky · chance · Aurobindo Ghose (Sri Aurobindo) · involution · spiritualism · Keshub Chandra Sen · spiritual evolution · Theosophy · Vedanta · Swami Vivekananda

P. Heehs (*) Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives and Research Library, Pondicherry, India © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_7

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Sri Aurobindo (born Aurobindo Ghose, 1872–1950) developed a system of philosophy that combined elements of ancient Indian and modern Western thought. One of its key features is a theory of spiritual evolution. Viewed thematically, this was part of an attempt to solve several perennial problems of philosophy, among them the question of chance versus purpose in creation. Viewed historically, it was one of many efforts by late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century writers to bridge the gap between science and religion. Aurobindo shared with several of his contemporaries a desire to show that the process of evolution is not governed by chance and that the higher faculties of the mind or soul are not just expressions of unconscious matter. He differed from most of them in insisting that matter, life and mind are expressions of an involved spiritual consciousness and at the same time the matrix from which higher and higher levels of consciousness will emerge, opening the way to the transformation and divinization of life.

7.1  The Gist of Aurobindo’s Theory Aurobindo’s fullest treatment of his theory is found in The Life Divine, a metaphysical treatise that he published serially in a journal between 1914 and 1919 and later revised for publication as a book. The Life Divine is long and difficult to summarize. To convey the gist of Aurobindo’s theory as a basis for further discussion, I will rely on three short prose pieces he wrote for the general public. His philosophy, he began, is based on the insight of “the ancient sages of India that behind the appearances of the universe there is the Reality of a Being and Consciousness, a Self of all things one and eternal.” This Being/Consciousness “is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection.” The “first step of this release of consciousness” is life, the second is mind. There must necessarily follow a third step: “the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being.” The Western theory of evolution laid more stress on “the growth of form and species than on the growth of consciousness,” missing out on the truth that consciousness is “the whole secret of the meaning of the evolution.” Some schools of Indian religious and philosophical thought included theories of evolution that emphasized “the growth of the soul through developing or successive forms and many lives of the individual to its own highest reality.” But many Indian schools viewed the phenomenal world as “a mistake or a vanity and illusion” and considered the goal of spiritual discipline to be freedom from the world and its suffering. Aurobindo countered that the world is in fact “the scene of a spiritual evolution” through which “the Divine Consciousness in things” will be manifested. Eventually human beings will “evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divinise human nature” (Aurobindo 2006: 547–548, 550–552, 10).

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These passages set forth the main elements of Aurobindo’s theory: (1) the One Being and Consciousness; (2) its involution into unconscious matter; (3) the evolution of consciousness in life and mind; (4) the parallel evolution of the soul through the process of rebirth; (5) a further spiritual evolution, leading to (6) the emergence of a spiritual and supramental consciousness, and (7) the eventual transformation and divinization of life. Aurobindo attributed points (1) and (4) to the “ancient sages” of India, by whom he meant primarily the authors of the Upanishads, esoteric texts written in the first millennium BCE that became the basis of the system of philosophy known as Vedānta. He gave credit for point (3) to “the science of the West,” noting however that scientists missed the significance of the emergence of consciousness. He linked points (5) and (6) to the Upanishads and Vedas, but suggested that these ideas were not fully worked out in those texts. He did not – at least in the pieces cited above – specify the sources of points (2) and (7), involution and divinization (Aurobindo 2006: 547, 552, 553). I will suggest possible sources for these ideas below.

7.2  The Genesis of Aurobindo’s Theory Aurobindo was well read in Indian scriptures but had little detailed knowledge of Western science. He was, however, aware of what people in England were saying about evolution at the end of the nineteenth century, because he was educated in England between 1879 and 1893. At that time, observed Belgian historian of religions Eugène Goblet d’Alviella, “The variety and exuberance of religious phenomena presented by London to-day [1884] are such as have not been witnessed since the time when sophists and theologians encumbered the streets of Alexandria.” In England and the rest of Europe the general acceptance of the theory of evolution had led to a “crisis of Theism.” The solution was to acknowledge that the theory of evolution could “be legitimately held in connection with the most diverse metaphysical systems of thought, and even with the old doctrines of Natural Religion” (Goblet d’Alviella 1885: 18, 35–56). Goblet d’Alviella did not go into the details of these systems and doctrines. To flesh out his observations, I will examine six books of the 1870s that tried to show how religion and science might be harmonized. The first three, by scientists, maintained that divine or spiritual entities might influence physical evolution. The second three, by writers on esotericism, argued that evolution was fundamentally a spiritual rather than a physical fact. The purpose of The Unseen Universe: Physical Speculations of a Future State, by geophysicist Balfour Stewart and mathematical physicist P. G. Tait, was to show that the “true principles of science” were “in accordance with revelation.” Even if Darwin was right in saying that “all the present organisms, including man, may have been derived by the process of natural selection from a single primordial germ,” the question of the germ’s origin remained unanswered. Stewart and Tait took it as axiomatic that life cannot arise from matter. Therefore there must be an antecedent to

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life in the “invisible universe.” This is what Christian scriptures called “the Lord and Giver of Life” (Stewart and Tait 1875: vi, 178–179). Stewart and Tait were well-known physicists but they were not involved in biological research. Asa Gray, the author of Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism (1876), was one of the foremost botanists of the age and one of the ablest defenders of Darwinism in the United States. He believed that Darwin’s writings had “no atheistical intent” – this echoes a phrase in a letter Darwin wrote him in 1860 – “and that, as respects the test question of design in Nature, his view may be made clear to the theological mind by likening it to that of the ‘believer in general but not in particular Providence’” (Gray 1888: 258). In other words God’s providence might work through the process of evolution as a whole and not through specific interventions. Gray himself endorsed such a “theistic evolution,” although he admitted that Darwin did not (Gray 1880: 81). Nevertheless he did not falter in his support for Darwin’s theory. Neither did the pioneering naturalist and evolutionary theorist Alfred Russel Wallace, though Wallace came to believe that natural selection was “not the all-powerful, all-sufficient, and only cause of the development of organic forms.” He suggested in On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (1875) that certain “preterhuman intelligences” might have a role to play in the process of evolution. He also believed that the human being was a spirit–matter duality and that evolution involved progress on the spiritual as well the material level (Wallace 1875: vii–viii, 213). Wallace based his scientifically unorthodox ideas on first-hand experiences of spiritualism, which was attracting a great deal of interest at that time. Some who investigated spirit-communications were also interested in the theory of evolution and tried to find ways to harmonize these two leading features of the mid-Victorian zeitgeist. In 1871 English writer Gerald Massey published Concerning Spiritualism, in which he distinguished spiritual from organic evolution, arguing that the former was necessary for the latter. Evolution had a two-part movement: “While this ascent on the physical side has been progressing through myriads of ages” the “Divine descent has also been going on.” Darwinists who made room for a Creator viewed him as operating from without, while spiritualists apprehended him “as the innermost Soul of all existence, the living Will, the spiritual Involution that makes the physical evolution.” This “theory of spiritual evolution” would, Massey wrote, “cut the ground from under the feet of the natural evolutionists” (1871: 55–61). Massey was one of the first English-language writers to speak of “spiritual evolution” and of a prior “involution” or “descent.” Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, the Russian founder of  the Theosophical Society, included both ideas in her 1877 tour de force, Isis Unveiled. It is impossible to say if she drew on Massey. Religious scholar Jeffrey Lavoie writes simply that Blavatsky’s view of evolution “would seem to align with Massey’s view.” He also notes that Blavatsky was notorious for using ideas from various places without proper attribution (Lavoie 2012: 146, 270). According to Blavatsky, evolution started “from pure spirit, which descending lower and lower down, assumed at last a visible and comprehensible form, and became matter.” At this point physical evolution began. The development of physical forms was something for scientists to study, but “the question of man’s psychical

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and spiritual evolution” lay beyond the reach of science (Blavatsky 1994: xxxi, 153). In Isis Unveiled Blavatsky denied the possibility of reincarnation. In this she differed from other occult writers of the period. In An Essay on Spiritual Evolution (1879), the spiritualist J.P. Bryce wrote that “Evolution without Reincarnation is a maimed and incomplete doctrine” and expressed satisfaction that spiritualists had begun to realize its importance (Bryce 1879: 28–29). By the time Blavatsky published The Secret Doctrine (1888), she herself had come around, not because of Bryce, who was a one-book wonder, but because she had by that time settled in India, where reincarnation was taken for granted. From then on it became an essential part of the Theosophists’ theory of evolution. There is no evidence that Aurobindo read any of the books discussed above, but they show that the idea of theistic or spiritual evolution was known in certain English circles while he was at school and university. His own reading at the time – apart from course requirements – consisted primarily of Greek, Latin, English and French literature. His literary inclinations come out clearly in his earliest surviving prose writing, The Harmony of Virtue, a philosophical ramble on the model of Plato’s Symposium. This contains his first recorded thoughts on evolution. The character who is Aurobindo’s mouthpiece defines “virtue” as “the perfect evolution by the human being of the inborn qualities and powers native to his personality” (Aurobindo 2003a: 66). That the qualities are inborn is very Platonic; that they evolve and tend toward perfection is very Victorian. When Aurobindo returned to India in 1893 he devoted what free time he had to reading Bengali and Sanskrit literature and writing English poetry and essays. He also became involved in the still embryonic Indian independence movement. A passage from a 1902 essay on the Mahābhārata shows that he considered freedom from British cultural domination as necessary as freedom from British imperial rule. If “we are not to plunge into the vortex of scientific atheism and the breakdown of moral ideals which is engulfing Europe,” he wrote, the Hindu tradition “must survive as the religion for which Vedanta, Sankhya & Yoga combined to lay the foundations, which Srikrishna announced & which Vyasa formulated.” There must be “no apeings or distorted editions of Western religious modes,” as in Indianised Christianity or the warmed-over version of “English Theism” popularized by the Brahmo Samaj, a Bengali reform group (Aurobindo 2003a: 332).1 A footnote on Theosophy from a couple of years later shows that he regarded Blavatsky’s organization as part of the movement of cultural imperialism he had set himself against: “The Western intellect seizes upon the profound researches of the East into the things behind the veil, the things of the soul & spirit,” and before you know it “everything is arranged, classified, manualized, vulgarized,” and the infinite future “barred out of its heritage” (Aurobindo 2001: 349). 1  Brahmo writers always referred to their religion as “Theism,” by which they meant worship of the formless Supreme Being (Pruthi 2004: 158). “Theism” in the Brahmo sense differs from “theism” as used today, that is, belief in God or gods, and also from “Deism,” a word that has gone through several changes of meaning but now is connected especially with belief in a Creator who does not intervene in the workings of his creation.

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Aurobindo took up the study of Indian scriptures in earnest in 1904 or 1905. From then onward the Vedantic ideas of the One Being and Consciousness, brahman, and the one Self, ātman, became central to his thinking. Around the same time he began to practice yoga in the form of breathing exercises and meditation. It is not unusual to find yoga practice linked with Vedantic philosophy: the two have gone together since the time of the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad and Bhagavad Gītā, that is, for two millennia, give or take a century. At the same time Aurobindo began to write about evolution and to link it with the Vedantic idea of brahman. Such a linkage is not explicit in the Upanishads, although some nineteenth-century scholars used the word “evolution” to translate certain philosophical concepts found in the Upanishads and other Indian scriptures. Aurobindo was aware of these parallels  but did not make much of them. He just presented, without argument, a full-blown evolutionary interpretation of Vedanta. Evolution, he wrote sometime between 1904 and 1906, is “simply the wider and wider revelation of Brahman, the universal spirit, the progress from the falsehood of matter to the truth of spirit” (Aurobindo 2003b: 107). This Vedantic theory, he said, lacked the detail of the scientific theory but it looked more deeply into the fundamental truths of existence: European thought seizes on Evolution as manifested in the outward facts of our little earth and follows it into its details with marvellous minuteness, accuracy and care. The Vedanta slurs over this part of the scheme with a brief acknowledgement, but divines the whole course of Evolution in the Universe and lays down with confident insight its larger aspects in the inward facts of the soul. (Aurobindo 2001: 347)

Aurobindo worked out his theory of evolution in a discursive commentary on the Īśa Upaniṣad that he called “The Karmayogin.” He began work on it in 1905 or 1906 and last saw his manuscript in May 1908 when he was arrested for waging war against the government. This incomplete commentary therefore serves as a time capsule of his thinking during those years. According to Aurobindo the īśa (Lord) of the Upanishad is Existence-Consciousness-Bliss (the Vedantic sat-cit-ānanda) “pouring itself out in a million forms and names and keeping for ever in motion the eternal wheel of phenomenal Evolution, which He guides and governs.” The aim of evolution “is the wider and wider realization of the universal Brahman. Towards that goal we progress,” rising from animality to humanity to divinity and finally to brahman, in whom “our evolution finds its vast end and repose” (Aurobindo 2003b: 176, 187–188). This is a very modern reading of an ancient text. To better align his interpretation with Indian tradition, Aurobindo invoked another philosophical system, Sāṃkhya. In scholastic debate, dualistic Samkhya was a rival of monistic Vedanta. For Aurobindo their similarities were more important than their differences: “The idea of creation as a selection and development from preexisting material which is common to the Upanishads & the Sankhya philosophy, is also the fundamental idea of the modern theory of Evolution.” Aurobindo presented his Vedanta-Samkhya theory as a web of three evolutionary processes: spiritual, psychical, and elemental. Spiritually, he wrote, everything begins with the self-limitation of turīya ātman, “spirit in its fourth or transcendental state.” He then introduced the idea, found in the Māṇḍūkya Upaniṣad, that the fourth state stands

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above the three states of Sleep, Dream, and Waking. He interpreted this as a descent from “pure Spirit into physical matter.” The purpose of this “downward evolution” – which he also called “involution” – is “to create a body fit for an upward evolution into the region of pure spirit.” The second process, psychic evolution, operates through individual beings, starting from the Self and passing through Will, Supraintelligence, mind and the organs of sense and action before arriving at matter in its subtle and gross forms. (All these elements are taken directly from Samkhya.) The theory of psychic evolution contradicts “those conclusions of modern Science which make soul an evolution of physical life and activities.” In fact the opposite is true: “It is physical life that is an evolution from psychical, and no more than a later and temporary operation of psychical activities.” Once the downward evolution reaches matter and the body, “the upward evolution starts.” We recover in turn life, mind, Supra-intelligence, and Will and in the end “know our infinite and eternal Self who is one with the Supreme Self of the universe.” Elemental evolution, the third of the three processes, is based on the idea that matter, like spirit, is eternal: the “possibility of evolution from and involution into each other would not be conceivable if they were not in essence one entity.” To demonstrate this unity Aurobindo drew on the Samkhya teaching that puruṣa (Spirit or Soul) and prakṛti (Nature or Matter) are both fundamental principles. Classical Samkhya is dualistic: spirit and matter are fundamentally separate. Aurobindo therefore brought back Vedanta, which, according to him, “emphasizes what Sankhya briefly assumes, − that Purusha & Prakriti are themselves merely aspects, obverse and reverse sides, of a single Supreme entity or Self of Things” (Aurobindo 2003b: 228–240, 245, 259). Aurobindo’s marriage of Samkhya and Vedanta, which was not without its discords, was meant to deal with a problem that troubled many nineteenth-century critics of Darwinism. As Aurobindo phrased it toward the end of “The Karmayogin”: The evolution of a mighty, reasoning, aspiring, conquering, irrepressible Consciousness, capable of something like omnipotence and omniscience, out of mere material gases and chemical substance is a paradox so hardy, so colossally and impossibly audacious that mankind has rightly refused to accept it even when advanced with the prestige of Science and her triumphant analysis and the almost irresistible authority of her ablest exponents to support the absurdity. (Aurobindo 2003b: 264)

The idea that consciousness is too remarkable, indeed too sacred, to be a product of matter was widespread at that time. It is expressed or implied by the authors of the books of the 1870s discussed above, and also by four authors of the 1880–1900 period whose names if not writings Aurobindo was familiar with: Keshub Chunder Sen, H.P. Blavatsky, Annie Besant, and Swami Vivekananda.2 Keshub was one of the most important figures in the Brahmo Samaj, a reform group that played a major role in the intellectual life of late-nineteenth-century Bengal. Aurobindo’s maternal grandfather was a prominent Brahmo leader; his father was a lapsed member of the organization who knew Keshub well. In an 1877 lecture Keshub acknowledged that 2  Dermot Killingley deals with Keshub Sen and Vivekananda at some length in his essay in this volume. I confine myself to Keshub’s treatment of divinization and Vivekananda’s treatment of involution.

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there was “some truth in the [scientific] theory of evolution,” adding that what scientists said about the evolution of species was also “true in some sense of the individual.” Human souls pass through four stages: inorganic, carnal, human, and divine. This process takes place with the help of transmigration (i.e. reincarnation). It ceases when there is no more possibility of descent into carnality. Keshub linked this outcome to a state “when humanity has ascended to heaven, and there put on Divine life.” There was even the possibility of a “bodily ascension into heaven,” when a man “enters into the presence of God” while still alive (Sen 1901: 309–318). Keshub gave these ideas an Indian pedigree but the terminology suggests that his inspiration was chiefly Christian. “Bodliy ascension into heaven” is a fundamental Christian dogma. “Divine life” occurs frequently in nineteenth-century Protestant inspirational and apologetic writings. Keshub was well read in this literature. He became so enamored of Christianity during the 1860s and 1870s that Englishmen hoped and Indians feared that he would become a convert. When Blavatsky wrote Isis Unveiled she looked on Egypt as the primary source of the eternal wisdom. Later she shifted her allegiance to India and Tibet. In The Secret Doctrine (1888) she introduced the idea of divinization in her commentary on the pseudo-Tibetan Book of Dzyan: “In order to become a divine, fully conscious god,  – aye, even the highest  – the Spiritual primeval Intelligences must pass through the human stage.…Each Entity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through self-experience” (Blavatsky 2011: 106). Blavatsky’s English disciple Annie Besant referred to divinization and the divine life on several occasions in The Ancient Wisdom (1897), a book Aurobindo was at least slightly familiar with. Besant situated the divine life at the end of the process of evolution: “Thus evolution, however slow and halting, is yet ever onwards, and the divine Life, ever unfolding in every soul, slowly subdues all things to itself” (Besant 1918: 136). Both Besant and Blavatsky were vague about their sources. Blavatsky’s Book of Dzyan is unknown to conventional scholarship; she herself said that it comprises “the records of a people unknown to ethnology” (Blavatsky 2011: xxxvii). Besant acknowledged the inspiration of “the Masters” – also unknown to ethnology – and of Blavatsky herself. In a few places, however, she was more specific. In The Ancient Wisdom she wrote, apropos of reincarnation, that “it is taught that the Soul is present in the divine Idea ere coming to earth” and that traces of such beliefs “occur both in the Hebrew and Christian exoteric Scriptures” (Besant 1918: 18). In Esoteric Christianity (1901) she wrote that “the human Spirit is the outpoured divine Life of the Father, poured into the vessel prepared by the Son, out of the materials vivified by the Spirit” and that “man’s will may not be forced, else were the divine Life in him blocked in its due evolution” (1901: 271, 225). Besant knew her Bible but did not provide citations. Like many other esoteric writers, she let the higher wisdom speak through her pen. So it was with the nineteenth-century esoteric writers who introduced the English term “involution” in the esoteric sense of “downward evolution.” Earlier the word was used in technical senses in mathematics and biology. In the second edition of First Principles (1867) Herbert Spencer wrote that “involution” might in some respects serve better than “evolution” for signifying the “integration of matter and

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concomitant dissipation of motion”; but in the end he decided to stick with evolution, thus helping to launch that word on its famous career (Spencer 1898: 295–296). Four years later, as noted above, Gerald Massey spoke of the Creator as “the spiritual Involution that makes the physical evolution.” Knowledge of this process came to him, he said, “from data supplied by the facts of personal experience” (Massey 1871: 61, iv). Besant gave a fairly straightforward description of the process of involution in The Ancient Wisdom: “This involution of the life of the Logos [or “supreme Lord”] as the ensouling force in every particle, and its successive enwrapping in the spirit-matter of every plane” are what “make evolution certain and give to the very lowest particle the hidden potentialities which will render it fit” to “enter into the forms of the highest beings” (Besant 1918: 44). She provided no source for this idea, but presumably took it from Blavatsky’s works, of which the Ancient Wisdom was, she wrote, “an epitome.” Blavatsky herself wrote in The Secret Doctrine that “the whole of antiquity was imbued with that philosophy which teaches the involution of spirit into matter, the progressive, downward cyclic descent, or active, self-conscious evolution” (Blavatsky 2011: 416). This claim is rather sweeping, though it is true that theories of the descent of God in Gnosticism, Kabbalah and other esoteric schools have much in common with the Theosophical idea of involution. The idea of involution reached an international audience in the works of Swami Vivekananda. A recurrent formula in his lectures – it occurs at least eight times in his collected works – was “every [or, “each”] evolution presupposes [or, “must be preceded by”] an involution” (Vivekananda 1989: vol. 2, 75, 207, 221, 227, 228, 427; vol. 5, 255; vol. 8, 363). In one passage he connected the idea of involution with Indian mythology, in particular the theory of cosmic cycles. In another he connected it with Samkhya philosophy, which he said was the basis of Vedanta and therefore not fundamentally different from it (vol. 2, 75; vol. 1, 360, 361–362). His discussion was a new take on the old scholastic debate between proponents of the Samkhya theory of pariṇama (real transformation) and the supporters of the Advaita theory of vivarta (apparent transformation). Of more immediate interest to us is his statement that “the ancient philosophers of India called it [the preexistence of possibilities in the germ] involution” (vol. 2, 227). He does not say what Sanskrit word the ancient philosophers used. One possibility is satkārya, a term used by Samkhya philosophers for the idea that an effect preexists in its cause. But why did Vivekananda pick the new-fangled English word “involution” to translate his Sanskrit term? It is at least possible that he got it from the Theosophists (Brown 2010: 225–226; Nanda 2010: 333–337). Vivekananda never admitted to being influenced by Theosophy, about which he had mixed feelings, but he moved in circles in America and Europe that included Theosophists and he may have picked up the term from them even if he never studied any Theosophical texts. Aurobindo was well acquainted with Vivekananda’s writings. He began to read them in Baroda sometime before 1906, although he did not cite them in his own works until around 1912 (Aurobindo 2006: 39; Aurobindo 2003b: 320, 328, 336, 337, 409, 487, 558). By that time he seems to have become familiar with Vivekananda’s formula that evolution presupposes a prior involution. Did he know

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about it while working on “The Karmayogin” between 1906 and 1908? There is no way of saying for sure. At any rate, by 1912–13 he had made the idea his own: “evolution is the result and sign of a previous involution,” he wrote. Life emerges out of matter because “the Truth within things, the pure Idea at work in the world which … originates & guides evolution, demands & compels, perhaps by the pull from a higher world where life is the predominant power and basic principle, the evocation of an organised & self-fulfilling Life out of this inert substance and inanimate Life-­ force.” So it is with mind and so it will be for yet higher powers (Aurobindo 2003b: 532–534). He attributed these ideas to unspecified Vedic and Vedantic texts but evidently was reading the ancient scriptures with a twentieth-century eye. The passages quoted in the above paragraph are from a commentary on the Īśa Upaniṣad that was Aurobindo’s scratchpad for the final version of his theory of evolution. He called this commentary “The Life Divine.” He worked on it for around two years, writing three drafts comprising 230 pages before breaking off to start two new works: a compact commentary on the Īśa Upaniṣad and an extensive metaphysical treatise, The Life Divine. In the commentary he said little about evolution, recognizing that the Īśa Upaniṣad made little explicit reference to the idea. In the treatise he was free to develop his evolutionary ideas at length. The “Life Divine” commentary contains all the elements of the final theory that I sketched in the introduction to this essay. Two of these elements – vijñāna or supermind and divinization – appeared first in the “Life Divine” commentary and other writings of the same period. They constitute the core of Aurobindo’s rebuttal of the idea that evolution is ruled by chance. The Sanskrit word vijñāna is composed of vi, an intensive prefix, and jñāna, “knowledge.” Hence its basic meaning is a more complete power of knowledge than ordinary jñāna. When Aurobindo used the term he generally was thinking of its use in Vedantic scriptures such as the Bhagavad Gītā and the Upanishads. In several verses of the Gītā, jñāna is distinguished from vijñāna. Commenting on the most significant of these verses, Aurobindo translated jñāna as “essential knowledge” and vijñāna as “complete knowledge of it [the Godhead] in all its principles” (Aurobindo 1997: 309, cf. 266). Religious scholar Ayon Maharaj suggests that in making this distinction Aurobindo was influenced by a remark by Ramakrishna Paramahansa, the Bengali mystic who was Vivekananda’s guru (Maharaj 2015: 4–6). This is at least possible. Ramakrishna’s distinction is similar to Aurobindo’s and Aurobindo may have read the comment, although there is no hard evidence that he did. In writing about vijñāna in the “Life Divine” Aurobindo relied on ancient authorities, citing more than once an apologue from the Taittirīya Upaniṣad in which Bhṛgu Vāruṇi ascends from matter to life, mind, vijñāna and finally divine Bliss. He interpreted this story in evolutionary terms: “if this faculty of vijnana exists … then the path of our evolution and, consequently, also the right direction of our efforts is clear; it is, having exceeded nervous life & body, to exceed mind also and arrive at the culmination of right knowledge, right feeling, right works in the spontaneous & infinite mastery & liberty of the vijnana” (Aurobindo 2003b: 526–539, 567).

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Aurobindo usually described the powers of vijñāna/supermind by contrasting them with the faculties of mind: “The thing we call mind is the knowledge of the individual about himself and of the world only as it affects or reaches his individual consciousness,” while vijñāna is “limitless & comprehensive in its nature and process, because free from individuality, apaurusheya [impersonal], and universal in its movement and origin.” The evolution of vijñāna out of mind was “inevitable for the same reason that the evolution of life out of matter was inevitable or the evolution of mind out of life, because the vijnana or pure Idea, already involved in matter, life and mind, demands & will procure, perhaps by the pull from a higher world where the Idea would be the dominant power & basic principle, its own release out of the limitations of sensational mentality” (Aurobindo 2003b: 544–548). These sentences contain the seeds not only of Aurobindo’s theory of involution–evolution but also of his cosmology, the details of which lie beyond the scope of this essay. Here we will confine ourselves to one practical point. By the power of vijñāna, Aurobindo wrote, the human being “can get himself a new heart, a new mind, a new life … even a new body.” Under the influence of vijñāna humanity will “consent & be compelled to live in the truth – & that truth to which vijnana itself is the door, is Brahman as Sacchidananda.” In the end “all things here will be Sacchidananda” (Aurobindo 2003b: 419). That small word “here” is very important. By the power of vijñāna, life here, in the physical world, will become an expression of the Absolute Existence-­ Consciousness-­Bliss (sat-cit-ānanda). In brief, life and world will become divine. Aurobindo used the phrase “life divine” for his commentary on the Īśa Upaniṣad and also for his metaphysical treatise because he felt that the divinization of life on earth was the ultimate aim of human existence. In this he differed from the teachings of many well-known Indian religions and philosophies  – for example, Jainism, Theravada Buddhism, Samkhya and Advaita Vedanta – which hold that release from the misery of embodied life is the aim of spiritual effort. Aurobindo never endorsed this goal but he did not articulate an alternative until around 1912. In a chapter he worked on concurrently with the “Life Divine” commentary, he wrote: “Our ideal, therefore, is fixed, – to become one with God and lead individually the divine life, but also to help others to the divine realisation and prepare, by any means, humanity for the kingdom of God on earth” (Aurobindo 2001: 423). In the commentary itself he wrote that he took up the Īśa Upaniṣad because he regarded it as “the gospel of a divine life in the world” (Aurobindo 2003b: 363). The phrases “divine life” and “life divine” occur throughout the commentary. Where did Aurobindo get them from? As noted above, “divine life” appears frequently in nineteenth-century Christian, especially Protestant, literature. It is found also in the works of non-­ Christian spiritual writers from Emerson to Annie Besant. The inverted form, “life divine,” occurs frequently in Protestant hymns, where its iambic cadence fits in nicely at the end of lines, for example the first line of the well-known hymn “Author of life Divine.”3 Dermot Killingley has pointed out that Keshub Sen used the inverted

3  “Author of life Divine,” sometimes incorrectly attributed to Charles Wesley, is found in many hymnals, for example Hymns Ancient and Modern (1875).

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phrase in the 1877 lecture I discussed above (Killingley 1995: 195, 202). Aurobindo was no fan of Keshub’s, but it is possible he read the lecture after it was published in 1901. It seems probable, however, that he first encountered the phrase “life divine” while squirming in the pews of the Congregational church of the Reverend William H. Drewett, his guardian in Manchester, when he was a child. (The phrase “life divine” occurs at least five times in the New Congregational Hymn Book of 1855). Decades later he sometimes connected the divinization of life with the Christian idea of the kingdom of heaven (or of God) on earth (Aurobindo 2003b: 314, 342, 419, 460, 481; 2005: 172, 265). But he also pointed out that the Christian idea had parallels in Indian traditions, indeed that it was a universal human longing: “The Vedic gospel of a supreme victory in heaven and on earth for the divine in man, the Christian gospel of a kingdom of God and divine city upon earth, the Puranic idea of progressing Avataras ending in the kingdom of the perfect and the restoration of the golden Age, not only contain behind their forms a profound truth, but they are necessary to the religious sense in mankind” (Aurobindo 2001: 96). To Aurobindo the emergence of consciousness is the meaning of the evolutionary process. Consciousness can emerge, indeed must emerge because it is involved in matter. When it comes out fully in the form of vijñāna it will open the way to the divinization of life. This is his answer to the great philosophical and moral question posed by Darwinism: What purpose can life have if the emergence of species, including Homo sapiens, is the result of chance variation winnowed by natural selection? This was a matter of grave concern to many Victorians. As historian Jacques Barzun put it, the battle instigated by the Origin of Species was not centrally about the relationship between primates and humans or the inerrancy of the Bible but rather was “a major incident, though neither the first nor the last, in the dispute between the believers in consciousness and the believers in mechanical action; the believers in purpose and the believers in pure chance” (Barzun 1981: 37). This debate had been going on for centuries. The Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad began by asking whether the cause of things was the brahman (existence-consciousness-­ bliss) or “time, own nature, fate or chance, / Elements, a womb, a person” (Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad, 1.1.1–2, in Roebuck 2003: 295). The philosophy of the Ajivikas, contemporary with early Jainism and Buddhism, stressed the importance of fate, chance, and the interplay of the elements and downplayed the importance of the gods (Basham 2009: 224–228, 262–272). Greek and Roman philosophy was filled with speculations about fate, chance, the elements and atoms. The second-­ century Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius summed up the difference between Stoicism and Epicureanism in the formula: “Providence or atoms?” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.3, cf. 12.14, in Hays 2002: 38, 164). In modern Europe, Marcus’s formula was updated to “Design or chance?” Arguments from design go back to the ancient world, but after the Renaissance they were retooled to account for scientific observations. As science gnawed away at the idea of Providence, theologians and pious philosophers and scientists held up design in nature as proof of the existence of God. Three years before the Origins was published, paleontologist and geologist Louis Agassiz wrote in The Structure of Animal Life (1866) that differences between species were “not the product of

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accident or chance” but “were made what they are by an intellectual process which connects them all and combines them under one original plan.” Three decades later the statesman and scientist George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, wrote in Organic Evolution Cross-Examined (1898) that every biological order originated in a separate germ, each possessing its own “internal directing agency or force” or “Plan,” according to which new species emerged in such a way as to “harmonise with those intellectual instincts and conceptions of our mental nature to which the idea of chance is abhorrent, and which demand for an orderly progression in events some regulating cause as continuous and as intelligible as itself” (Moore 1979: 208, 222). Between these two pronouncements by eminent Victorians a Cambridge undergraduate named Aurobindo Ghose wrote that the disharmonies and crudities of life were enough to make one conclude that “Chance was the author of existence.” One way out of the impasse was to picture nature “as a novice in art” who progressed “through failures and imperfections into an artistic consummation” so that “when Evolution had exhausted her energies, her eyes would gaze on a perfect universe” (Aurobindo 2003a: 30). Twenty years later, while working on the “Life Divine” commentary, Aurobindo used a similar metaphor while presenting his Vedanta-Samkhya idea of evolution: Prakriti [Nature] of Vedanta is no separate power, no self-existent mechanical entity, but the executive force of the divine Purusha [Soul] at once self-revealed and self-concealed in the mechanism of its own workings. Purusha, conscious Soul, is the divine Poet and Maker; Nature, conscious Force, is His poetic faculty; but the material of His works is always Himself and their stage & scene are in His own conscious being.

This creative interplay of conscious Soul and conscious Force gives rise to a universe in which chance has no place: Vedanta “rejects the concept of Chance as only a specious name covering our self-satisfied ignorance of the cause and process of things; Chance is really the free action, not pursuable by us in its details, of a mighty cosmic Providence which is one with cosmic Force” (Aurobindo 2003b: 512–513).

7.3  Ideas and Intuitions I have shown that the constituent elements of Aurobindo’s theory came from a variety of sources. He encountered the idea of vijñāna in the Upanishads and (under other names) in the Ṛg Veda. He heard about biological and social evolution while a student in England and noted similarities between Darwinism and Samkhya-­ Vedanta while reading books on Indian philosophy in India. He apparently picked up the term “involution” from nineteenth-century spiritual and esoteric writers and the term “divine life” from modern Christian sources. He was familiar with the question of chance versus purpose from his reading of Greek, Roman and Indian philosophy but he met it more intimately in the writings of contemporary poets,

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novelists and critics.4 He did not openly acknowledge any Western sources, and generally played down the importance of reading in his intellectual formation. In an autobiographical note of the 1940s, he wrote that he read little philosophy while at school and college, and later made only lackadaisical efforts to learn something about Locke, Hume, Kant and Hegel. In regard to Indian philosophy, “it was a little better, but not much.” He knew only the general ideas of the three main sub-schools of Vedanta. Of the other philosophical schools, including Samkhya, he “knew practically nothing … except what I had read in Max Muller and other general accounts.” The books that made a real impression on him were the Upanishads and Bhagavad Gītā, but the hints he found in these ancient books proved valuable only if he was able to “realise” them in his spiritual experience: “I was never satisfied till experience came and it was on this experience that later on I founded my philosophy, not on ideas by themselves.” Aurobindo went on to speak of the importance of “intuitions starting from experience,” which led “to other intuitions and a corresponding experience.” These experiences and intuitions had the ability to integrate the ideas that came to him from different sources: “all sorts of ideas came in which might have belonged to conflicting philosophies but they were here reconciled in a large synthetic whole” (Aurobindo 2006: 112–113). This helps explain how he was able to turn a heterogeneous assortment of ideas into a unitary system of philosophy.

7.4  The Life Divine and After When Aurobindo set aside the “Life Divine” commentary and took up The Life Divine in August 1914, all the elements of his theory of spiritual evolution were in place. He developed the theory over the next five years in the pages of a monthly journal and in 1939–40 revised the chapters for book-publication. Besides serving 4  By thus breaking down Aurobindo’s theory into units of idea and influence I am mirroring the methodology of Arthur O. Lovejoy, which he presented to the world in his 1936 book The Great Chain of Being. Lovejoy wrote that the history of ideas should be concerned not with doctrines or systems but their “component elements” or “unit-ideas.” Lovejoy demonstrated his method by showing that “the great chain of being,” a dominant literary and philosophical topos from the time of Neoplatonism till the eighteenth century, was composed of the unit-ideas of plenitude, continuity, and gradation (Lovejoy 2001: 3, 61–62, 183). His analytical approach allowed him to trace unit-ideas as they combined, separated, and re-combined across cultures and periods. This approach dominated the history of ideas until the late 1960s, when it was attacked by Quentin Skinner, Michel Foucault, and others. To Skinner the weakness of the unit-idea method was its blindness to historical context; this frequently resulted in “empirically false claims” of historical continuity (Skinner 1969: 35). Foucault felt similarly that Lovejoy-style historians were too narrowly focused on tracing the origin and transmission of thoughts and images to be able to comprehend discourses “in their specificity” (Foucault 1972: 135–140). Simply stated, the Lovejoy method missed out on particular forests by looking too closely at individual species of trees. For all that, Skinner, Foucault and most other historians of thought since 1970 have spent a lot of time examining individual texts, ideas and terms. It is impossible to understand a forest without a detailed knowledge of the genealogy and anatomy of its constituent trees.

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as a vehicle for his theory of evolution, The Life Divine offered solutions to many metaphysical problems, such as reality versus illusion, free will versus determinism, and purpose versus chance. In concluding, I will show how his mature dealings with the question of chance are tied in with his treatment of three themes we discussed above: involution and evolution, the emergence of the supermind, and the possibility of divinization. Aurobindo took it for granted that human beings are “part of some kind of manifestation and move forward in the press of some kind of evolution.” Clearly there is a power at work; the only question is “whether in that power there is a conscious Will” or whether what we see is “the blind result of an organised Chance or inconscient self-compelled Law.” Science tends by its nature “to explain supraphysical things by a physical formula” and therefore makes the error of setting “behind the universal rule of law … the quite opposite idea of the cosmic reign of Chance.” In practice, however, science excludes chance “from the actual process of physical law,” asserting that everything is “determined by fixed cause and relation.” Yet Science cannot tell us “why a particular cause is allied to a particular effect” or why one possible outcome happens instead of another. Scientists therefore find it convenient “to say that Chance or at most a dominant probability determines all actual happening, the chance of evolution, the stumblings of a groping inconscient energy which somehow finds out some good enough way and fixes itself into a repetition of the process.” Aurobindo found this illogical. If physical processes unfolded according to physical laws, there was no place for chance. The whole idea had to “be banished from the dictionary of our perceptions; for of chance we can make nothing, because it is nothing. Chance does not at all exist; it is only a word by which we cover and excuse our own ignorance” (Aurobindo 1998: 305–306, 333–334). These passages from a collection of essays written concurrently with The Life Divine rely more on assertion than argument. In The Life Divine itself, Aurobindo had sufficient space to construct a detailed argument based on the key concepts of vijñāna, involution, and divinization. Supermind or vijñāna is the central idea of Aurobindo’s philosophy. Standing between the higher hemisphere of sat-cit-ānanda and the lower hemisphere of matter, life and mind, supermind is “the nature of the Divine Being … in its action as the Lord and Creator of its own worlds.” Stated otherwise, supermind is “the truth of that which we call God.” But when Aurobindo says “God” he does not mean “the too personal and limited Deity, the magnified and supernatural Man of the ordinary occidental conception,” but rather a “truth-consciousness” that is “everywhere present in the universe as an ordering self-knowledge.” Without this ordering knowledge, the manifested cosmos “would be merely a shifting chaos” or “a play of uncontrolled unbounded Chance” (Aurobindo 2005: 141). Supermind is present in the cosmos as “a secret involved Consciousness.” It uses its energy as the “means of an evolutionary manifestation, a creation out of itself in the boundless finite of the material universe.” The apparent unconsciousness and randomness of matter is an “indispensable condition for the structure of the material world-substance in which this Consciousness intends to involve itself so that it may grow by evolution out of its apparent opposite; for without some such device a complete involution would be

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impossible.” The necessary act of involution gives rise to the appearance of chance because the “infinite Consciousness” that involves itself must by its nature express itself according to the “the principle of free variation of possibilities” (Aurobindo 2005: 317–318). In fact, however, the universe “is not a meaningless freak or phantasy or a chance error.” There is “a divine significance and truth” in existence. “A perfect self-expression of the spirit is the object of our terrestrial existence” (Aurobindo 2005: 706). This is Aurobindo’s answer to the existential worry that all is determined by chance. Divine consciousness has involved itself in matter in order to emerge in the form of supermind and establish a divine life on earth. Aurobindo was not the only early-twentieth-century philosopher to grapple with the problem of chance versus purpose within an evolutionary framework. Henri Bergson, whose theory of creative evolution has some similarity with Aurobindo’s theory of spiritual evolution, doubted that chance variations accumulated over time were enough to explain the development of the eye or the transmission of animal instincts. More fundamentally, Bergson wrote that the very idea of chance presented insoluble philosophical problems: “chance merely objectifies the state of mind of one who, expecting one of the two kinds of order, finds himself confronted with the other. Chance and disorder are therefore necessarily conceived as relative” (Bergson 1944: 72–78, 185–187, 256). Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a paleontologist and Catholic priest who envisaged a directed evolution toward a Christian consummation, wrote similarly that the correspondence “of animal forms according to their degree of cerebralisation” conferred “on the tree of life a sharpness of feature, an impetus, which is incontestably the hall-mark of truth. Such coherence,” he concluded, “could not be the result of chance” (Teilhard de Chardin 2008: 145–146). Since the middle of the twentieth century most philosophers and social theorists have given a wide berth to the idea of evolution. Thanks to the work of Michel Foucault and Thomas Kuhn, belief in the discontinuity of epistemological or scientific eras has elbowed out the nineteenth century’s faith in unidirectional progress. And how could anyone believe in progress after the Holocaust and Hiroshima? In the twenty-first century, the belief that evolution has a purpose and direction is most visibly associated with creationism and other religion–science mashups. Few mainstream scientists and philosophers take such beliefs seriously. On the other hand, some remain unconvinced by hardcore neo-Darwinism. In his 2012 book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False, philosopher Thomas Nagel insists that “we must regard the appearance and evolution of life as something more than a history of the development of self-reproducing organisms, as it is in the Darwinian version.” It is, he suggests, “highly implausible that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection.” Biologists are aware that an enormous number of things had to come together before life could emerge, but they think a Darwinian explanation for this is possible. Nagel thinks they are wrong. The problem is compounded by the emergence of consciousness. What sort of explanation within the framework of evolutionary theory “could account for the appearance of organisms that are not only physically adapted to the environment but also conscious subjects?” Nagel admits that his approach assumes an evolutionary

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purpose – something forbidden by science but normal to the religious mind. As an atheist, he rejects divine intervention, proposing instead a “natural teleology” – purpose emerging from the natural order of things (Nagel 2012: 122, 6, 44, 67). Despite his rejection of supernatural agency, Nagel’s approach to the problem of chance in evolution has some kinship with that of nineteenth-century interventionist scientists such as Gray, Wallace, and Stewart and Tait. It also has something in common with the ideas of process philosophers such as Bergson, Teilhard, Alfred North Whitehead, and Aurobindo. Human beings have always been loath to accept that existence in general, and their own existences in particular, are purposeless. Aurobindo’s view of the process of evolution offers a solution to this problem: “In a future transformation the character of the evolution, the principle of evolutionary process, although modified, will not fundamentally change,” he wrote in The Life Divine. It will continue “on a vaster scale and in a liberated movement,” eventually bringing about a “change into a higher consciousness or state of being.” This he said, “is not only the whole aim and process of religion, of all higher askesis, of Yoga, but it is also the very trend of our life itself, the secret purpose found in the sum of its labour” (Aurobindo 2005: 755). Aurobindo, Teilhard, Bergson and Whitehead are now out of style, and Nagel, by moving in the direction of purposeful evolution, has drawn the wrath of mainstream philosophers down on his head. Yet the problems with the Darwinian theory of evolution that these philosophers raised remain unresolved.

References Aurobindo, Sri. 1997. Essays on the Gita. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ———. 1998. Essays in Philosophy and Yoga. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ———. 2001. Kena and Other Upanishads. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ———. 2003a. Early Cultural Writings. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ———. 2003b. Isha and Other Upanishads. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ———. 2005. The Life Divine. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. ———. 2006. Autobiographical Notes and Other Writings of Historical Interest. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram. Barzun, Jacques. 1981. Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Basham, A.L. 2009. History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Bergson, Henri. 1944. Creative Evolution. Trans. Arthur Mitchell. New York: Random House. Besant, Annie. 1901. Esoteric Christianity or the Lesser Mysteries. London/Benares: Theosophical Publishing House. ———. 1918. The Ancient Wisdom. Madras: Theosophical Publishing House. Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. 1994. Isis Unveiled. Wheaton: Quest Books. ———. 2011. The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, C. Mackenzie. 2010. Vivekananda and the Scientific Legitimation of Advaita Vedanta. In Handbook of Religion and the Authority of Science, ed. James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer, 205–248. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Bryce, J.P. 1879. An Essay on Spiritual Evolution. London: Trübner & Co.

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Foucault, Michel. 1972. The Archaeology of Knowledge. Trans. A.M. Sheridan Smith. New York: Pantheon. Goblet d’Alviella, Eugène. 1885. The Contemporary Evolution of Religious Thought in England, America and India. Trans. J. Morden. London: Williams and Norgate. Gray, Asa. 1880. Natural Science and Religion. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. ———. 1888. Darwiniana: Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism. New York: Appleton. Hays, Gregory, ed. and trans. 2002. Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. New York: Modern Library. Hymns Ancient and Modern. n.d. [1875]. (London: William Clowes and Sons, Ltd.). Killingley, Dermot. 1995. Hinduism, Darwinism, and Evolution in Late-Nineteenth-Century India. In Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. David Amigoni and Jeff Wallace, 174–202. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lavoie, Jeffrey D. 2012. The Theosophical Society: The History of a Spiritualist Movement. Boca Raton: Brown Walker Press. Lovejoy, Arthur O. 2001. The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Maharaj, Ayon. 2015. Toward a New Hermeneutics of the Bhagavad Gita: Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Aurobindo, and the Secret of Vijnana. Philosophy East and West 65: 1209–1233. Massey, Gerald. 1871. Concerning Spiritualism. London: James Burns. Moore, James R. 1979. The Post-Darwinian Controversies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Nagel, Thomas. 2012. Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Nanda, Meera. 2010. Madame Blavatsky’s Children: Modern Hindu Encounters with Darwinism. In Handbook of Religion and the Authority of Science, ed. James R. Lewis and Olav Hammer, 279–344. Leiden/Boston: Brill. New Congregational Hymn Book. n.d. [1855]. London: Hodder and Stauton. Pruthi, R.K. 2004. Brahmo Samaj and Indian Civilization. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House. Roebuck, Valerie, ed. and trans. 2003. The Upanishads. London: Penguin. Sen, Keshub Chunder. 1901. Keshub Chunder Sen’s Lectures in India. London: Cassell and Company. Skinner, Quentin. 1969. Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas. History and Theory 8: 3–53. Spencer, Herbert. 1898. First Principles. New York: Appleton. Stewart, Balfour, and P.G. Tait. 1875. The Unseen Universe or Physical Speculations on a Future State. London: Macmillan. Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. 2008. The Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper Collins. Vivekananda, Swami. 1989. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 8 vols. Calcutta: Advaita Ashrama. Wallace, Alfred Russel. 1875. On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism. London: James Burns. Peter Heehs is an independent scholar based in Pondicherry, India. He has published more than sixty articles in journals such as History and Theory, Modern Asian Studies, and Postcolonial Studies, and magazines such as History Today and Art India. He is the author or editor of twelve books, the most recent of which are The Lives of Sri Aurobindo (Columbia University Press, 2008), Writing the Self: Diaries, Memoirs and the History of the Self (Bloomsbury Academic, 2013, named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013 by Choice), and Spirituality without God: A Global History of Thought and Practice (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018)  

Chapter 8

Jainism and Darwin: Evolution Beyond Orthodoxy Brianne Donaldson

Abstract  Many contemporary Jains assert that the ancient tradition of Jainism is compatible with modern science. Some authors specifically attempt to demonstrate the early evolutionary insights of “Jaina biology” which, when compared to Darwin’s nineteenth-century theory, may be partial, implicit, resonate with “Darwinian expressions,” or offer a corrective to Darwin’s account by redefining certain aspects of evolution altogether. In this essay, I explore three strategic arguments contemporary Jain authors have made for their tradition’s compatibility with Darwin’s theory of evolution, namely that the Jain view posits (1) biological resonances and epistemic flexibility, (2) the evolution of consciousness explained through karmic variation, and (3) the exceptional possibility of human omniscience. I will highlight persistent challenges within these arguments that undermine any easy comparison between the Jain worldview and Darwin’s theory. The Jain tradition does not speak in one voice regarding modern science. However, as Jain communities move and develop into new contexts with fresh concerns beyond ancient orthodoxies, we find a proliferation of divergent responses to claims such as Darwin’s theory of evolution that keep the Jain tradition alive and changing in its own right.

Framed posters depicting Jain principles hang in the corridor outside the education classrooms in the Jain Society of Metropolitan Chicago. Labels atop each read “Atomic Science,” “Applied Physics,” “Anatomy and Physiology,” “Mathematics,” “Psychology,” “Cosmology,” and “Biology.” Each poster includes verses of support taken from the Tattvārtha-sūtra (TS), a text considered authoritative by both main sects of the Jain tradition that was written by the philosopher and monk Umāsvāti (second–fifth century CE) describing the true nature of reality, or as the Sanskrit title translates, “That Which Is.”

B. Donaldson (*) University of California, Irvine, CA, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_8

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These posters reveal a persistent trend among some modern Jains to demonstrate their tradition’s compatibility with, and even anticipation of, western scientific concepts (Laidlaw 1995: 72). Certain Jains have articulated their tradition as a “scientific religion” because of its emphasis on empirical verification (Jain 2010), as well as the content of its ancient scriptures, dating back approximately 2500 years, that detail “many aspects concerning the physical world, including physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and astronomy, architecture, geology, medical science, food science and the like …” (Shah 1998: 129). Yet not all Jains are in accord with what one scholar calls “the scientization” of the Jain tradition, meaning “processes by which proponents of a religion appeal to the authority of science both in form and content” (Auckland 2016: 199). One anonymous author who was raised in a Jain family, expressed frustration on a public religion blog that many people identified Jainism only with its central doctrine of ahiṃsā—or nonviolence in thought, word, and deed toward all living beings—without critically examining other aspects of the tradition. “[T]hat one idea [of nonviolence] seems to negate all the other nonsense Jainism propagates,” writes the blogger, who then lists several points that do not comport with modern science such as an unending time cycle, karma and reincarnation, the presence of supernatural beings even in the absence of an Ultimate deity, as well as certain practices of fasting or diet that lack adequate empirical support (“The Problems” 2011: n. p.). So on one hand, we find modern Jains equating their ancient tradition with scientific knowledge regimes. On the other, we find Jains abandoning their tradition when it fails the test of empiricism. There is even an instance of a prominent monk leaving the ascetic order due to conflicts with science.1 Certainly, there are a variety of responses between these poles. In spite of claims of compatibility between Jainism and science, there are relatively few attempts among Jains to specifically engage Darwin. Those that exist approach the topic from disciplines such as physics, biology, and philosophy, with varied levels of systematicity and/or engagement with specific biological concepts. All of the authors recognize an ancient field of “Jaina biology” and most identify a Jain theory of evolution that may be partial (Sikdar 1974: v; Kachhara 2014: 293), implicit (Jaini 2010: 126), resonate with “Darwinian expressions” (Joshi 2012: n. p.), or offer a corrective to Darwin’s account by redefining certain aspects of evolution altogether (Kachhara 2014; Jansma and Jain 2008: n. p.; Jansma 2010: n. p.; Pokharna 2013). In this essay, I will offer a basic introduction to the evolving Jain tradition as well as its description of the universe. I will then explore three strategic arguments Jains

1  The monk Kumar Jayakirti describes his decision to leave the ascetic order as part of a documentary on Jainism called “The Frontiers of Peace: Jainism in India.” The relevant portion can be found at the 9:00  min mark at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a96nz4DvRRE&list=PL1aq wA6lSoz6oo8nkrS8OQ8O3DmYl8-mg&index=3

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have made for their tradition’s compatibility with Darwin’s theory of evolution, namely that the Jain view posits (1) biological resonances and epistemic flexibility, (2) the evolution of consciousness through karmic variation, and (3) the exceptional possibility of human omniscience. I will also highlight persistent challenges within these arguments that undermine any easy comparison between the Jain worldview and Darwin’s theory. I suggest that the ongoing development and diversification of the Jain tradition— its own social evolution into new contexts with fresh concerns beyond ancient orthodoxies—allows it to grapple diversely with Darwin’s concept of evolution. The Jain tradition does not speak in one voice regarding modern science, and the proliferation of divergent responses to contemporary claims keep the Jain tradition alive and changing in its own right.

8.1  Jainism: An Evolving Tradition Many people are familiar with the ancient tradition of Jainism through images of monks and nuns wearing mouthshields to prevent disturbing airborn organisms, walking barefoot so as not to injure earthbound life forms, or using hand brooms to sweep the ground clear of organisms when walking and sitting. Although only a very small portion of the Jain community is composed of ascetics, they represent a vital link to the tradition’s past as living exemplars of ahiṃsā, the preeminent vow of nonviolence in thought, word, and deed toward all living beings. Ahiṃsā is the first of five great vows (mahā-vratas) taken by ascetics, and the other four—truthfulness (satya), taking only what is given (asteya), monastic celibacy (brahmacarya), and non-accumulation of goods (aparigraha)—are all in service to the first. Ahiṃsa is a central theme in the Ācārāṅga-sūtra (The Book of Conduct, sixth/ fifth–first century BCE; ĀS),2 part of the earliest strata of existent Jain literature, that describes the behavior of monks and nuns: [A]ll breathing, existing, living sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure, unchangeable, eternal law which the clever ones, who understand the world, have proclaimed. (1.4.1.1–2, trans. Jacobi)

Jains consider their tradition to be eternal. In their version of Universal History, there is no founder, but rather a series of 24 tīrthaṅkaras, meaning teachers who made a tīrtha, or pathway, across the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, called saṃsāra. The last two of these teachers are considered historical persons who oversaw a community of ascetics—Pārśva (eighth–seventh century BCE), and Mahāvīra, the “great hero” (fifth century BCE), who was an elder contemporary of the Buddha.

2  According to Suzuko Ohira’s chronological textual analysis, the Ācārāṅga-sūtra, like other canonical texts, was written in over several hundred years, dilineated often by key themes and term usage (Ohira 1994: 1).

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Mahāvīra and the Buddha, alongside the Cārvāka materialist and Ājīvika determinist philosophers, represented a heterodox challenge to the Vedic dominance of the time, rejecting brahmanical authority, the fixity of birth caste, and animal sacrifice. Ascetic followers of the Buddha and Mahāvīra were considered “strivers” (śramaṇa) who, through rigorous action, could overcome their birth condition and pursue liberation without the mediation of religious rituals. Mahāvīra’s teachings on ascetic conduct are preserved in texts and represent the orthodox path of liberation, or mokṣa-mārga. This path is characterized by renunciation of the world through practices of self-control that reduce one’s entanglement with matter, including karmic matter (on which more to come), and the harm of other life forms. But a robust lay Jain community also developed early on in the tradition, adapting the great vows of the ascetics into smaller vows (aṇu-vratas) oriented toward daily concerns of work, family, and social life. Sectarian divisions over textual authority and doctrinal disagreements also resulted in two main lineages whose names are distinguished by the clothing they thought appropriate to an ascetic—the larger Śvetāmbara, or “white-clad” lineage, and the minority Digambara, or “sky clad”, naked lineage, in which only nude males could achieve liberation. These two main sects, along with several sub-lineages, represent distinct-­ yet-­overlapping Jain communities. This diversity within the Jain tradition, though moderate when considered against the nearly 20 rival schools of Buddhism by the third century BCE, still makes it challenging to construct a cohesive “Jain response” to the insights of Darwin. Do we look to the orthodox “other worldly” ascetic perspective within scriptural texts that seeks “taming of the passions … through disengagement from nature [as] the sole means of gaining the ultimate goal of deliverance” (Dundas 2002b: 98)? Or do we look to the contemporary “this worldly” community of lay Jains, increasingly living outside of India without access to authoritative ascetic teachers, whose application of Jain values in new contexts represents “a fundamental reinterpretation of Jainism’s ethical orientation … [a] shift in the understanding of what constitutes ‘reality’ and ‘human nature’—away from a connection to an ascetic soteriology” (Vallely 2002: 194)? The issue is further complicated by the fact that many lay Jains work in science-­ related occupations. This is in part due to the success of Jain communities in securing royal patronage in ancient India and thereby safeguarding a degree of merchant prosperity that enabled generational access to education (Jaini 2001: 275–84), and in part due to early lay regulations prohibiting Jains from taking certain jobs such as animal husbandry, or trade in arms, alcohol or animal byproducts (Jaini 2010: 6). Moreover, many Jains came to the United States through The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which favored immigrants with advanced training in science and engineering, so U.S. Jains—an estimated 100,000 live in the U. S.—also reflect these occupational trends. As will be evident throughout this essay, attempts to grapple with Darwin emerge between the constraints of scriptural, orthodox Jainism aimed at ascetic liberation from karmic bonds of the material world, and modern lay Jain communities

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enmeshed in a post-Enlightenment worldview dependent on insights of modern science.

8.2  The Jain Universe Most authors seeking parallels between Jainism and modern science recognize elements in the Jain tradition at odds with Darwin’s overall evolutionary worldview, while still seeking meaningful comparisons. Jain cosmology presents an obvious obstacle to evolutionary accounts with its concept of cyclical time (kāla-cakra). The finite, occupied Jain universe, called the loka-ākāśa (“space having worlds”), is said to have no temporal beginning nor end, nor was it brought into existence by any outside power or deity. An early Śvetāmbara text describes the shape of the universe as wide at the top and bottom and narrow in the middle, a bit like the shape of an hourglass, divided into an upper, middle, and lower portion, filled with life forms of various kinds (BhS 7.3, trans. Lalwani).3 Unlike the Copernican model, the center of the Jain universe is said to be a flat world disc surrounded by islands interspersed with oceanic rings. Humans, plants,4 and animals live on two and a half of these islands where time is understood to be cyclical (TS 3.37). It should be noted here that Jain doctrine, alongside other Indian cosmologies, was extremely advanced in the vastness of its measurements, both in time and distance, articulating figures in the billions, and beyond, roughly 1000 years before the Greeks (Plofker 2009: 65). The Jain time cycle is described like a 12-spoked wheel with half of the cycle of time being progressive (utsarpiṇī), meaning that life span, body stature, pleasure, morality, and spiritual understanding all increase during this portion, while the other half is regressive (avasarpiṇī) in these same ways (TS 3.27). Each spoke represents a fixed amount of time and the entire 12 periods together constitute one complete cycle (kalpa) consisting of a nearly unimaginable duration.5 One peculiar feature of this cycle is that liberation is only possible in certain spokes (the third and fourth on the regressive side, and the ninth and tenth on the progressive side) when the mix of pleasure and sorrow are ideal such that moral  The dating of many of these texts is difficult. The Bhagavatī-sūtra, also called the Vyākhyāprajñapti, “Exposition of Explanations,” is thought to combine older and more recent oral traditions, potentially spanning fourth century BCE to fifth century CE when the present version was recorded at the Council of Valabhī. See Dundas 2002a: 23, and Wiley 2004: xix–xx. 4  A one-sense being called a nigoda, considered part of the plant family (discussed later in this chapter), can live anywhere in the universe; they are not limited to the two and half islands. 5  Regarding the Jain measurements of time, John Cort writes, “A crore is ten million, a sāgaropama is one-hundred million of one-hundred million palyas, and a palya is simply defined as an uncountable (but not infinite) number of years. . . . In other words, each half-cycle lasts for ten crores of crores (one hundred trillion) sāgaropamas” (2009: 42); mentions of the time cycle can be found in various scriptures such as Kalpa-sūtra 185–203, trans. Jacobi, and are further described in Kachhara 2014: 108–118. 3

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decision is possible. Our present moment is said to be in the fifth spoke, when ignorance and difficulty override pleasure; therefore, liberation is not possible. Since the fifth and sixth spoke of the downturn cycle, as well as the seventh and eighth spoke in the upturn cycles are considered to last 21,000  years each, this means that no liberation is possible in regions in which the time cycle is operative for over 80,000 years (Schubring 1978: 225–26). Jain cosmology asserts that there are certain portions of the universe not subject to this cycle where the conditions for liberation always exist; thus, there is always a tīrthaṅkara teaching somewhere in the universe, even if not in the part inhabited by humans (Dundas 2002a: 269). Jain authors considering modern evolution do not engage very deeply with this cosmology, noting that within the concept of cyclical time “there is no scope for the theory of evolution in the Jaina framework of the universe” (Joshi 2012: n. p.). However, this admission does not negate the value of Jain cosmology,6 as many modern Jains have, as one scholar suggested, opted to treat the cosmic account as a metaphor for a dynamically populated moral universe rather than a literal representation of the world (Long 2009: 180). With cosmology as metaphor, a modern Jain can emphasize both the imaginative capacity for measurement and thereby validate the inarguable quest for knowledge inherent in early Jain thought, the long scope of change suggested by a regressive-progressive time cycle, and the concomitant struggle for existence within such a time cycle while setting aside the obvious conflicts, in order to set the figurative stage for the much more detailed accounts of Jain biology. I will now turn to three strategic arguments that Jain authors have articulated to demonstrate the tradition’s compatibility with Darwin’s theory of evolution.

8.3  A  rgument 1: The Jain View Posits Biological Resonances and Epistemic Flexibility Because it describes a universe teeming with diverse life forms, Jain explanations of biology do offer resonance with modern accounts. Jain philosopher Nalini Joshi refers to these resonances as “Darwinian expressions” (2012: n. p.). Authors who explore such “expressions” typically privilege modern science in certain respects, and strive to modify the Jain tradition in various ways to “resonate” with contemporary concepts even as “[i]t is not expected from the ancient texts to express modern theories in the same terms, concepts, and vocabulary” (Joshi 2012: n. p.). One simple example of a “Darwinian expression” is that there is no Creator god in the Jain universe, but in keeping with the wider milieu of ancient Indian naturalism, Jains affirm that the world is real and self-causing, that we must acquire knowledge of it through our senses rather than through mystical means, and that order and regularity in the world do not preclude personal responsibility (Riepe 1996 [1961]: 6).  See Auckland 2011 for a compelling account of the enduring significance of Jain cosmology.

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A slightly more complex “expression” is the acknowledgement that Jain philosopher-­monks carefully observed the natural world and wrote about what they found, which J. C. Sikdar, a former researcher at the Jain-based L. D. Institute of Indology, sees as akin to, if not identical with, the modern scientific method of recording one’s research process, findings, and conclusions for the sake of “further studies of the problems and mysteries of the world and life on the basis of new information” (1974: 5). Positive comparisons between Jainism and modern science are a hallmark of what Marcus Banks calls the “neo-orthodox” tendency within the contemporary Jain community (1991: 247). As juxtaposed with the orthodox and heterodox leanings concerned with the content of belief,7 “neo-orthodoxy claims for itself the status of a science” (252). Here, Jainism may be seen as a “science” of practices that, if followed, sustain physical health, mental well-being, and social harmony. Jainism-as-“science” may also assert that omniscient Jinas possessed specialized knowledge of microorganisms, atoms, and physics millennia before Western scientists did. This neo-orthodox tendency is apparent in the posters I described at the start of this chapter and will emerge again in the third Jain strategy of viewing Darwin’s insights through the exceptional possibility of human omniscience. From this (neo-orthodox) view of “Darwinian expressions,” modern science need not pose a terminal threat to the Jain worldview so long as practitioners can be flexible with their epistemological claims, noting that Jain biology only offers “partial discussions” of topics such as cell-structure, metabolism, photosynthesis, and genetics (Sikdar 1974: v). Three significant key “Darwinian expressions” relevant specifically to biology include (1) pervasive life, (2) interdependent and changing existence, and (3) diverse species struggling for survival. Although each of these can be traced in early Jain texts, these “expressions” come with other serious limitations.

8.3.1  Pervasive Life: The Jīva There are six substances in the Jain universe. The one living substance, called jīva, is the driving force, rather than any deity, for the Jain notion of evolution. Often translated as the self, or soul, the Sanskrit root (√jīv-) has various meanings such as to live, to keep alive, to vivify, and to restore. Every living being possesses a distinct jīva, rendering it pervasive throughout the universe, and each jīva is characterized primarily by three qualities. The first quality is consciousness, consisting of two 7  Banks describes the “orthodox” tendency as associated with tradition, rituals and sectarian identity, while the “heterodox” tendency is more variable—associated with a theistic outlook shaped by bhakti influences in the subcontinent and greater degree of syncretic religious identity and/or co-existent truth claims. Banks asserts that orthodox, heterodox and neo-orthodox do not describe fixed groups but rather three categories of informal belief that can overlap and shift within a given person (1991: 244–57).

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aspects: (a) perception (darśana) and (b) knowledge (jñāna). The second and third qualities are energy (vīrya) and bliss (sukha) respectively, with the former animating the levels of perception and knowledge, and the latter describing the degree to which a jīva’s desire is rightly self-focused rather than outwardly focused (Jaini 2001 [1979]: 104). These four qualities—the perception and knowledge of consciousness in particular, as well as energy and bliss—are inherent in every jīva and every living being is animated by this insistent life force of energetic consciousness. Although Darwin did not accept a pre-existing vitality (Sikdar 1974: 3), certain Jain authors suggest that the “role of the soul must be considered in evolution” regardless if it has been recognized by science or not (Kachhara 2014: 278).

8.3.2  Interdependent and Changing Existence Alongside the jīva are five non-living substances, or ajīva, namely matter (pudgala), medium of motion (dharma), medium of rest (adharma), space (ākāśa), and time (kāla). Each of these six substances possesses essential qualities (guṇa), and each quality undergoes ongoing modifications in the form of changing modes (paryāya). The quality of color in a leaf, for example, is continuously changing. Each living being is a composite of a distinct jīva plus matter, supported by the other four ajīva—including the qualities and changing modes of each. Thus, each living being must be understood as permanent in one aspect and changing in another. Jain authors who seek biological resonance identify a similarity between the general fact of change expressed in evolution (I will say more about the mechanisms of change in the next section) and the change expressed as “origin, permanence, and destruction” inherent in the interaction of these six substances, their changing qualities and modifications (Joshi 2012: n. p.). This resonance is much more metaphorical than specific and poses another problem, namely the distinction between life, or jīva, and non-life, or ajīva, which for Jains are two distinct, if interacting, substances. J. C. Sikdar has tried to reconcile the presence of a “mysterious vital force” such as the jīva, with the affirmation in biology that “all life comes only from living things,” and is “incapable of originating from non-living material by spontaneous generation” (1974, 3). This resonant overlap between life and non-life overlooks the distinction that Jain thought makes between non-living matter and the vivifying life force of the jīva.

8.3.3  Diverse Species Struggling for Survival In addition to the infinite number of jīvas populating the Jain universe—already a vast plurality—Jain texts name four kinds of birth-forms (gati) that a jīva can inhabit: (1) humans (manuṣya), (2) heavenly beings (deva), (3) infernal-beings

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(nāraka), and a (4) group of beings that include animals (tiryañc), plants (vanaspati), earth-bodied (pṛthivī-kāyika), water-bodied (āp-kāyika), fire-bodied (tejo-­ kāyika), and air-bodied (vāyu-kāyika) beings. Each of these bodily forms is distinguished by the senses it possesses—which are seen as an aspect of matter—from the single sense of touch in plants and elemental beings, up to five senses of touch, taste, smell, vision, and hearing in birds, mammals, aquatic creatures, humans, and heavenly and infernal beings (TS 2.23–24). Heavenly and infernal beings are understood as two possible birth forms one can take within the karmic universe; they are not seen as transcendent or truly supernatural. Certain beings such as humans, animals born in a womb (as opposed to asexual reproduction which Jain texts also describe in detail) (TS 2.32), and heavenly and infernal beings also possess a mind, which, as matter, is distinct from consciousness, or jīva, which all living beings possess (TS 2.25). In total there are 8,400,000 possible birth-states that a jīva can inhabit (TS 2.33).8 At death, a jīva will almost instantaneously transport itself into the embryo of a new bodily form, a cycle that continues for potentially hundreds of thousands of rebirths toward the ultimate goal of mokṣa. At the level of “Darwinian expressions,” Jains identify a clear resonance between their tradition’s diverse taxonomy and the biodiversity described by Darwin. The presence of heavenly and hell beings in the Jain biota is not necessarily seen as an obstacle to this comparison, but merely a pre-modern notion of multiple forms of diverse life that are inarguably detailed in Jain texts (Kachhara 2014: 245–56). This resonance is further shored up in the Jain assertion that all of these life forms struggle for existence, subject to four primary instincts (Joshi 2012: n. p.). These instincts (saṃjñā) include the most foundational craving for food that establishes basic competition, followed by sex, fear, and the desire to accumulate resources for future use (Jaini 2010: 284). These instincts are diagnosed as the root of violence (hiṃsā), and Jain practices of self-control are meant to reduce this harm. Some Jain authors do acknowledge a conflict between their own four discrete birth-forms and Darwin’s evolutionary “descent with modification” described in On the Origin of Species (1998 [1859]: 483; hereafter OS). Jain birth-forms, for example, do not derive from a “common progenitor” (OS 354), nor could humans have evolved from primates in this view, as Darwin suggested in The Descent of Man (2004 [1879]). Still, this distinction does not necessarily nullify Jain insights, but merely requires one to have epistemic flexibility between ancient texts and modern claims. “Conservative Jainas will never agree to [accept] ‘manuṣya’ [or the human birth form], as a developed ‘tiryañc’ [or animal/plant birth form],” writes Joshi, “but a rational academician has no difficulty in accepting this Darwinian theory by a little moderation in the concept of ‘4 [birth forms]” (2012 n. p.). Likewise, Sikdar allows that “The species of plants and animals are not, as the Jain ācāryas believe, 8  The particular number 8,400,000 may have been an adaptation from another śramaṇa tradition known as the Ājīvikas, closely related to the early Jain community. Ājīvika doctrine suggests that every soul must pass through 8,400,000 great time periods (mahā-kalpas) before reaching mokṣa. The Jain tradition transformed this into the number of possible birth-states (Jaini 2010: 130).

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unchangeable biologic entities each of which originated separately, but groups of organisms which have arisen from other species and which give rise to still others … ” (1974: 271). Nevertheless, the observations of these ancient teachers “may be analyzed, or simplified into their constituent parts in the light of modern Biology,” he maintains, “… then the parts can be synthesized or reassembled and their … interrelations discovered on the scientific basis” (2–3). Further, although the set number of 8.4 million birth-states clashes with the open-ended variation put forth by Darwin, “if there is a scope for a little alteration in the number of [8.4 million] then there is no difficulty in accepting the emergence and extinction of new bio-species” (Joshi 2012: n. p.). Those Jains who seek biological resonances, accompanied by epistemological flexibility, privilege modern science in distinct ways, adapting certain traditional narratives when conflicts arise. This strategy, however, does not ultimately resolve those conflicts, nor does it prevent these same authors—alongside others—from simultaneously reinterpreting other aspects of the Jain tradition—such as comparing the karmic evolution of the jīva, or consciousness, to Darwin’s evolution of organic life through processes of natural selection, which I will examine next.

8.4  A  rgument 2: The Jain View Posits Evolution of Consciousness Through Karmic Variation Jain cosmology describes a universe of substances expressed through the existence of diverse living beings. If taken literally, the cosmology is quite different from the modern account of our earth and evolutionary biome. However, if Jain authors adjust their analysis to mere resonances, certain meta-themes of pervasive life, interdependent and changing existence, and diverse species struggling for survival can be traced, even amid serious incompatibilities. As we examine the Jain universe more closely, we find a more specific doctrine at the micro-level—that of karma—that explains material evolution and morphological variation within the tradition. Because this doctrine is so foreign to Darwin, it cannot be generalized by Jain authors as a mere “Darwinian expression.” Rather, authors have defended the phenomena of karma as a valid description of an “implicit” evolution of consciousness within jīvas that must be considered as a necessary addition to Darwin’s theory of variation through natural selection.

8.4.1  Karmic Determinism as Responsible for Variation In the Jain tradition karma is uniquely understood as a kind of subtle matter (pudgala). As one of the non-living substances (ajīva), matter fills the entire universe, but not all of it is considered karmic. As the Digambara Jain philosopher Kundakunda

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(second-third century CE) writes, “The physical world is thickly packed everywhere with material bodies, subtle and gross, capable of being received or not (by the soul)” (PS, 2.76, trans. Upadhye). Though I am simplifying considerably, it is enough for our purposes to say that certain material particles aggregate together and become activated as karmic matter when jīvas engage in activities of passionate attachment or aversion, in the form of anger, ego, deceit, and greed. These activities “charge” the material aggregates such that they stick to jīvas like dirt to a wet surface. Jain authors describe 148 kinds of karmic matter classified into two kinds: (1) “destructive” (ghātiyā) karma, called such because its accumulation destroys the four qualities of the jīva, and (2) “non-destructive” (aghātiyā) karma that does not affect the jīva, but rather determines the kind of body and rebirth the jīva will experience. There is much to be said about karma that cannot be said here, but these two forms of karma—destructive, and non-destructive—are essential for any engagement with Darwin. The four kinds of “destructive karma” are considered such because they obstruct the full manifestation of the jīvas’ four qualities, with each karma named for the quality of perception, knowledge, energy, or bliss that it impedes. Destructive types of karma therefore affect the quality of consciousness (in terms of perception and knowledge), as well as the energy that characterizes consciousness and the degree of inner stability, or bliss, that each living being possesses (Bajželj 2016: 261–63). Contra an evolutionary view that posits the gradual development of increasingly complex modes of cognition, Jain philosophy asserts that all living beings possess consciousness inherently as the primary quality of the jīva. However, the qualities of consciousness will differ due to their modifications (greater or lesser obscurance) through karmic bondage. Thus, karma, as it relates to obscuring the qualities of the jīva, is a primary factor in accounting for apparent differences of consciousness among living beings. The four kinds of non-destructive karmas are responsible for the external factors of a jīvas’ embodied existence. Simplified descriptions of the four kinds follow: Nāma-karman, or name karma, determines the birth state and body shape a jīva will inhabit. Āyu-karman, or duration-determing karma, determines the length of jīvas’ embodied lives. This type of karma is bound one time in a given lifetime and is activated in the subsequent embodied existence. This karma is closely related to the birth-state that jīvas pass into since the age of a body must correspond to a form that allows such an age. One could not, for example, have an age karma of 100 years and be born as a bumblebee whose life span is much shorter. Gotra-karman determines whether the environment of jīvas’ embodied life will be conducive or not to spiritual/conscious development, and vedanīya-karman regulates the degree of satisfaction, or its lack, that jīvas can achieve in a given environment. Consequently, non-destructive karma accounts for variations in physical morphology, while destructive karma accounts for variations in consciousness, as well as energy and bliss. The Jain path to liberation details 14 stages (guṇa-sthānas) through which jīvas can gradually shed all destructive and non-destructive karmas. By thinning out

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those destructive karmas that obscure the qualities of consciousness, energy, and bliss and cause delusion, along with the related damaging attractions and aversions, one slowly purifies the jīva’s qualities. Clearing away these karmic particles affects more auspicious bodily rebirths, until even the non-destructive body-determining karmas are shed, and the state of bodiless, pure, unimpeded consciousness—or omniscience—is reached in liberation (Wiley 2004: 243–44). The Jain vows, along with practices such as fasting and meditation that engender nonviolence, nonaccumulation, and self-control, enable progress along this 14-stage path.

8.4.2  Nigodas as Evidence of “Implicit” Evolution Compared to Darwin’s own “laws of variation” (OS 12) such as inheritance, migration, response to climate, and disuse of certain attributes, Jain philosophy attributes micro-level variation to karma, both the destructive and non-destructive kinds. The effects of karma on the evolution of both body and the three qualities of the jīva, have been upheld as a possible “implicit” theory of evolution. Renowned Jain scholar Padmanabh Jaini explored this possibility through his analysis of the nigoda, the simplest form of life in the Jain universe. Nigodas have only a single sense of touch. Unlike other one-sensed beings that possess a separate body, such as certain plants, nigodas have no individual body, but can only exist in clusters that live and die as a group, and often must live upon host organisms such as the skin of people and animals, as well as in certain root vegetables. The presence of nigodas is one reason why orthodox Jain diets eschew foods such as garlic, onions, carrots, and potatoes (Jaini 2010: 127). So how do one-sensed nigodas come into play in a consideration of Darwin? Jain doctrine describes two kinds of nigoda beings: first, those that for some reason have not yet left the nigoda state, called nitya-nigoda by Digambara Jains (or avyāvahārika by Śvetāmbara Jains), and second, those that have occupied other birth-states, but through some terrible deed have fallen back into nigoda state (itara-nigoda [Dig]; vyāvahārika [Śvet]). We are more concerned with the former at present. The nitya-nigodas seem to be, according to Jaini, “in some sense beyond the operation of karma” much as the liberated jīvas (called siddhas) are beyond karmic entanglement at the opposite side of saṃsāra (2010: 128). But, as jīvas leave the universe through liberation—which can only be achieved in a five-sensed human body—one-sensed jīvas “come into the world,” not as new life per se, but by differentiating themselves from their clusters. This emerging individuation maintains a finite population, so that the universe does not run out of individual jīvas. Nitya-­ nigodas are considered to be the only infinite class of living beings, and thus offer an endless pool of jīvas to repopulate the universe at the same rate of those that depart through liberation. This replacement equation suggests that early Jains imagined that “some souls begin their existence in this rather primordial and undifferentiated state,” which could be inferred for all souls (Jaini 2010: 129). Adding this inference to the strong

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Jain doctrine that “every soul is said to exist along a virtual continuum of consciousness, from the minimal but ineradicable trace of awareness possessed by the nigoda to the omniscience of the siddha,” Jaini summarizes, “we have here a model which is both linear and evolutionary in its conception (2010: 129, emphasis added). Sikdar echoes this sentiment suggesting that “Jain ācāryas have worked out a theory of a sort of gradual evolving life-forms on the basis of one-sense organs from the [nigodas] up to the five-sensed animals—men” (1974: 261). Jaini summarizes, “We may find in this kind of speculation … a rather ingenuous but interesting parallel to the modern view that the highest forms of life on our planet are, ultimately, descended from primitive micro-organisms which inhabited ancient seas” (2010: 129). It is important to note that Jaini’s analysis was not necessarily intended to demonstrate compatibility with Darwin, but primarily to trace the development of doctrinal conflicts within the Jain tradition. On the one hand, Jain thought rejects linear and gradual evolution due to time cycle and affirms the ability of jīvas’ to “jump the line” from one into another diverse pre-determined birth-state, based on karma (Kachhara 2014: 290). On the other hand, as Jaini deduced through his analysis of the nigoda, Jain thought also gestures toward an evolution of consciousness and bodily form based on one’s accrued karma, both destructive and non-destructive. This latter emphasis on the karmic development of consciousness represents a historic distinction between Jains and rival groups that asserted either an inescapable spiritual limit based on one’s fixed birth caste or species, or a fatalism that one must go through a pre-set number of existences before liberation. Jain philosophy leaves immense space for rapid forms of spiritual and bodily advancement of consciousness—even rebirth from a nigoda straight to a human—based on activities such as study, meditation, and austerities that accrued beneficial karma even in a past life (Jaini 2010: 130–31).

8.4.3  Contemporary Interpretation of “Implicit” Evolution Contemporary Jain authors have utilized notions of karma as a kind of “implicit” mechanism of evolution to argue for more direct overlap with, or improvement upon, Darwin’s account of variation through natural selection. First, some authors assert that karma enlarges the notion of evolution to include consciousness, or jīva. As Narayan Kachhara, a mechanical engineer who recently authored a two-volume text titled Scientific Explorations of Jain Doctrines, argues, “[E]volution is only half the story of a soul. The ultimate aim is emancipation … [which] has no place in science but is studied seriously in philosophy and psychology” (2014: 293). Similarly, physicist and Jain practitioner Surendra Singh Pokharna suggests that the evolution of consciousness through the jīva offers a needed counterpart to Darwin’s notion of variation by including a phenomenon of common identity [of consciousness] in all living beings (2013: 43–44). This kind of “universal evolution,” claims Rudi Jansma in his analysis of evolution and Jainism, is “not

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confined to animals and plants, as Darwin’s theory,” but “includes all bodies and all souls in nature” (2010: n. p.). Karma is thus a way of describing an internal evolution, or what Jansma refers to as built-in “autonomous capacity” capable of “bringing things to manifestation from within” where all possibilities are latent (n. p.). This kind of “self-directed evolution” of consciousness in terms of karmic striving could be rightly considered “evolution in the true sense” (Jansma and Jain 2008: n. p.). Karma further links morphological variation with evolution of consciousness. This link is exemplified in the way that nitya-nigodas, according to Joshi, “contain the seeds of a theory of evolution” along a continuum of consciousness and bodily forms (2012: n. p.). Kachhara agrees that the “system of vacancies created by mokṣa,” makes room for the emergence of nitya-nigodas into the realm of karmic exchanges where consciousness can be developed as “the beginning of evolution” (Kachhara 2014: 34). Nigodas, thus, demonstrate “implicit evolution” whereby the development of consciousness allows them to evolve into single-sensed elemental bodies, then plants, and then “successively assume three, then four, then five sensed bodies” capable of the perfection of consciousness (282). Kachhara goes so far as to suggest that “the development of brain is related to evolution of soul,” offering a detailed account of cognitive anatomy bound to consciousness and karma (287). Karma, in this view, functions as a complement to genetic inheritance. Sikdar includes karma (1974: 250), along with genes and environmental pressures, as the primary factors determining bodily and intellectual traits (259). Gesturing toward the non-destructive gotra-karman and vedanīya-karman that determine respectively the level to which an environment is spiritually conducive and the level of satisfaction that can be achieved in that environment, Sikdar suggests that “each particular species of plant or animals has the ability to become adapted by seeking out an environment to which it is suited to make it better fitted to its present surrounding” (281). Other authors take this suggestion further, seeing karma as a way of describing DNA transferred between rebirths by the karmic body, which is a specific “body” of information, namely that of nāma-karman, that determines birth state and bodily form (Kachhara 2014: 288). The karmic body carries what Kachhara calls “biopotentials” (265) akin to chromosomes that contain “a record of past lives … the history of [a] journey leading to human life” (265). “In other words,” he writes, “evolution is driven by consciousness and karma” (288). He explains: … the decision of species in the next life is made in the present life … based on the level of consciousness and the merits and demerits an individual has earned in this life. This decision and all other information are stored in the karma body. (288; emphasis added)

This view ascribes a level of decisive agency to DNA, further conflicting with the Darwin’s “accidental deviation[s]” (OS 94) or the “unconscious” processes of adaptation (34). In the Jain view, the “general perfection, or aberration in symmetry or proportions” can be attributed to “the transfer of the subtler energies from incarnation to incarnation” inscribed in karma (Jansma 2010: n. p.). Genes, plus (or as)

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karma, are considered in these accounts, as a more adequate theory of biodiversity, evolving in degrees of consciousness and bodily form.

8.4.4  Karma Modifies “Survival of the Fittest” Some authors suggest that the Jain notion of karma offers an alternate principle to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest,” which implies the involuntary preservation of variations that are beneficial to an individual’s survival and reproduction. The phrase entered Darwin’s fifth edition of Origin in 1869, through the work of English biologist Herbert Spencer, who used the concept of “fitness” to describe natural selection. Those organisms in whom the most beneficial variations were preserved were said to be the most “fit.” Fitness is the mechanism in which tragedy and beauty meet for Darwin, where “from the war of nature, from famine and death,” and the competitive struggle for existence, evolve from one or few organisms “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful … ” (OS 490). Even if some variation seems “abhorrent to our ideas of fitness,” for example, that more organisms are born than can ever survive (467), that males will fight or kill to possess females for reproduction (468), that a bee dies after stinging, or that the larva of parasitic wasps will feed within the living bodies of caterpillars (472), these variations, however imperfect or lacking in beneficence, have served to benefit the individual and its progeny. Jainism, too, asserts that “[t]he living world is afflicted, miserable, difficult to instruct, and without discrimination” (ĀS 1.1.2, 1). Mahāvīra is recorded in the Ācārāṅga-sūtra as saying: This is called the saṃsāra … [h]aving well considered it, having well looked at it, I say thus: all beings, those with two, three, four senses, plants, those with five senses, and the rest … (experience) individually pleasure and displeasure, pain, great terror, and unhappiness. Beings are filled with alarm from all directions. See! There the benighted ones cause great pain. See! There are beings individually embodied. (1.1.6, 2, trans. Jacobi)

But although Jains offer this diagnosis of the world, they do not take it as the final word. “[W]ould a Jain ever believe that utter self-interest of individuals or species, relentless struggle and cruelty are the [only] motivation powers in Nature?,” Jansma asks (2010: n. p.). The Jain path to liberation (mokṣa-mārga) is a curative to the diagnosis of mere competition. Through practicing the five vows that reduce harm to oneself and others, one can gradually shed karmic particles that obscure the full perception and knowledge of the jīva, through the 14 stages (guṇa-sthānas) toward mokṣa. In this view, violence is not primarily a feature of evolution, but of unenlightenment (Dundas 2002a: 99). Even animals in the Jain view are moral agents capable of perceptive understanding, “able to assume the religious vows” and thus refrain from harm (Chapple 2006: 242). Consequently, some Jain authors see Darwin’s model of competition and selection as responsible for destruction caused in the modern scientific era. Pokharna, for

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example, directly ties biological competition to destructive technologies, human-­ centered practices and ecological damage caused by uncontrolled material and economic development (2013: 245, 253). Jansma states that “Evolution in the sense of Darwinism is not the attainment of cultural or spiritual attainment moving in the direction of nobility and happiness,” but rather “leads to more material success, struggle, eternal war, cruelty, and altruistic indifference except when it serves one’s own profit” (2010: n. p.; original emphasis). The error driving the competition model, according to these Jain authors, is twofold. First, it lacks a goal in the process of evolution whereas Jainism offers the aim of mokṣa, and the 14 stages of evolved consciousness to achieve that end (Pokharna 2013: 264). Within this framework, “a concept of ‘live and let live’ has evolved, indicating respect for all living being and aims to define future goals of all living beings” (265). Second, “live and let live” functions as an alternate to “survival of the fittest,” revealing that the principle of ahiṃsā is actually the driving factor of evolution rather than natural selection (265). In this view, cooperation, stoked by the karmic evolution of consciousness, brings about a gradual order within mind and society that “generates the least entropy in the environment” by reducing material entanglement and consumption (259). Ahiṃsā is thus seen as a counter to disorder caused by unchecked economic competition, such as the “entropy” of pollutants in the atmosphere, the adulteration of food and medicine through industrial processes, the mixing of gender roles as women leave their religious activities for exclusively economic purposes, the proliferation of chaotic music and noise, and the increase in corruption (248). Kachhara suggests that while natural selection may be operative at the more basic levels of life, other factors—namely the realization of ahiṃsā—take over as living beings acquire additional senses through advanced consciousness and rebirths. “As manifested consciousness increases,” he writes, “natural selection becomes less effective, and at the stage of five-sensed organisms natural selection might play only a marginal role and it may have no role at all in the evolution of humans” (Kachhara 2014: 289; emphasis added). These speculative assertions attempt to undermine the ultimate efficacy of natural selection and lead us toward the last argument I will address, namely the recourse to the exceptional capacity for human omniscience that may surpass the current limits of science.

8.5  A  rgument 3: The Jain View Posits the Possibility of Human Omniscience Several contemporary Jain authors suggest that the evolution of consciousness, and the gradual upwelling of cooperation that arises by reducing one’s karmic entanglement, offers a pragmatic alternative to the competition of natural selection. One of the fundamental affirmations of the Jain tradition, expressed in an early text called

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the Sūtrakṛtāṇga-sūtra (“Relating to the Heretical Views,” third–second century BCE) is that “All beings hate pains, therefore one should not kill them” (SKS 1.11.9–11, trans. Jacobi). The role of humans in this view is according to Pokharna to “support [the] evolution of other species through the principle of non-violence” (2013: 264). This sentiment mirrors a central statement of Jain faith that “Souls render service to one another” (parasparopagraho jīvānām) (TS 5.21, trans. Tatia). Herein we see a paradox of human uniqueness as at once vulnerably related to other life in a tapestry of mutual service, and yet simultaneously exceptional in its capacity to achieve the highest state of consciousness, namely the omniscience that accompanies liberation. In this section I will discuss the paradox of human exceptionalism, the possibility of human omniscience, and appeals to apophatic discourse regarding what cannot be known as another strategy that some Jains use to reorient their tradition to modern science.

8.5.1  The Paradox of Human Exceptionalism Humans in Jain cosmology are at once profoundly equal to all other living beings, and also exceptional in the taxonomy of existence. They are equal in that every living thing possesses an inviolable life force, or jīva. As already discussed, the human form is merely one of four birth-states that a jīva can inhabit, and every jīva is said to have existed in innumerable bodily forms, moving back and forth between these incarnations based on accumulated karma. Consequently, every human bears in its karmic history the embodiment within organisms of all kinds. Humans are simultaneously exceptional since it is said that only five-sensed humans (and for the Digambara sect, only male humans) can achieve the fullest actualization of consciousness and reach the liberated state (siddha). As Joshi writes, between “Darwin and the Jaina texts, both of them place human-being on the top of the creation” (2012: n. p.). While this spatial hierarchy may be a metaphorical stretch for both Darwin’s branching taxonomy and the Jain equity of souls, Jain texts clearly assert that among the 8.4 million possible birth-states, there are only 1.4 million ascribed to humans (TS 2.23, trans. Tatia); the attainment of human form is understood to be rare and difficult. Therefore, the ethical responsibilities of pursuing what Jains call the “three jewels” (ratna-traya, TS 1.1) of right worldview (samyak-darśana) taught by the omniscient tīrthaṅkaras, right knowledge (samyak-­ jñāna), and right conduct (samyak-cāritra) places a special burden and opportunity upon five-sensed creatures generally (including fish, birds, and terrestrial animals, heaven/infernal beings, and humans), and humans particularly, who are said to possess a distinct form of mind. As suggested above, many Jains would resist the notion put forth by Darwin in The Descent of Man that the human species evolved gradually from another animal (Joshi 2012: n. p.). At the same time, Jain philosophy asserts that that the jīva can move back and forth between diverse bodily forms in subsequent rebirths from a

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nigoda to a plant, to a centipede, chicken, dog, primate, person, and beyond. Stories within the Jain tradition emphasize the “interchangeability of life forms” establishing “a truly unprecedented philosophical foundation for compassionate behavior toward animals” and plants (Chapple 2006: 242). Jain literature frequently depicts respect for plants and animals as a primary way to gain karmic merit and to ensure better rebirths. Consequently, the Jain practice of vegetarianism and its tradition of animal protection exemplify the mutuality of life forms. Further, cultivating qualities of animal life is a great virtue, and the Kalpa-­ sūtra (fourth–third century BCE)9 describes Mahāvīra as one whose senses were protected like a tortoise, whose valor echoes the elephant, whose strength was like a bull, and whose defenses were like a lion (KS 5.118, trans. Jacobi). It is understandable that contemporary Jains would see this kinship between human and more-than-human life as a needful corrective to a competitive interpretation of natural selection, even as it preserves an exceptional role for humans. Many have argued that the equality of life through the jīva is an exemplar for ecological flourishing and environmental reform (Chapple 2006; Singhvi 2002; Kumar 2002). Yet, others have pointed out that orthodox Jain thought, with its emphasis on liberation from the material world, retains a stark division between the exceptional human birth-state, which is the only body from which one might achieve liberation, and the more-than-human world, which must be overcome in the mokṣa-mārga. “The Jain soteriology,” writes John Cort, “with its devaluation of the material world in the pursuit of a pure spirituality is in many ways not conducive to the development of an environmental ethic” (2002: 84), even as Jains offer a “history of daily practices and attitudes that foster a much more positive engagement with the material world” (84). Moreover, the Jain cosmological time cycle, with its regressive downturn requires that “that both humankind and the natural world socially and ecologically decay” before renewal takes place, posing a challenge both to continual ecological flourishing as well as progressive notions of fitness (Dundas 2002b: 96–97). The paradox of human exceptionalism in the Jain tradition views humanity simultaneously on a continuum with other life forms, equal in possession of a unique jīva, even as being born as a plant or animal is seen as karmic backsliding, to be avoided by humans at all costs. Yet, all Jains, and especially the contemporary lay communities living abroad for whom liberation is not a primary aim (nor even possible at present by the tradition’s own cosmology), understand that taking care not to harm plant and animal life is a serious responsibility that bears on one’s own karmic potential and future. As Anne Vallely convincingly asserts, “The exceptionalism [Jainism] claims for humans is weak and conditional, and its ethic of reverence for life is strong and absolute” (2018: 15).10 Nevertheless, the orthodox 9  Again, the dating of many of these texts is difficult, and is often based on the dates of the assumed author, in this case Bhadrabāhu, a Jain teacher who died in the mid-fourth century BCE. The text was passed orally until it was written in the fifth century CE. See fn 2 above. 10  See Vallely (2018) for a fuller analysis of Jainism’s “conditional ‘anthropocentrism’” that joins human exceptionalism with a strong reverence for life beyond the human (15). Vallely’s essay was

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tradition requires that the more-than-human realm be transcended as a prerequisite to liberation, and even that it be ultimately destroyed in the time cycle of decline.

8.5.2  Possibility of Human Omniscience As I hope is evident throughout this essay, contemporary Jains seek creative parallels, resonances, and even anticipated insights between their ancient texts, teachers, and traditions, and that of Darwin. In another sense, some Jain authors see the tradition as surpassing the limits of modern science due to the omniscience of their tīrthaṅkaras. Jain scholar Jeffery Long suggests that “devout Jains can always point to the fact that Mahāvīra was profoundly aware of the existence of tiny life forms in air and water many centuries before the invention of the microscope” (2009: 181). The appeal to omniscience echoes Banks’ description of the “neo-orthodox” tendency described earlier (1991: 252) in which Jains can uphold certain claims of the tradition as pre-dating science and also uphold possible Jain interpretations of evolution that science has not yet discovered. Omniscience in the Jain tradition is unique in its own right. Achieving omniscience signifies the removal of all destructive karma that inhibits the four qualities of the jīva. With those qualities shining forth, the jīva can actualize its innate capacity to perceive and know all substances in the cosmos as well as their qualities and changing modes simultaneously. In a sense, the Jain tradition holds out the continued possibility for ever-growing knowledge—that the world is real and we can know more about it. Additionally, certain humans—Mahāvīra, for example— through discipline and careful action, have achieved this state of epistemic unison. “All doctrinal categories, whether ontological, metaphysical, ethical, or cosmological,” writes Paul Dundas, “are ultimately validated by Mahāvīra’s immediate and unmediated experience of the totality of reality” (2002a: 89). He continues, “The omniscient person as a type was for Jains totally trustworthy and faultless and his teaching had full authority, against which the claims of other sects and schools were flawed and incomplete … the Jain position is essentially unfalsifiable” (89). Dundas also argues that the cosmological claim precluding anyone from reaching omniscience and liberation in the fifth and sixth spokes of our present time, enabled Jains historically to evade rival arguments. “Free … from the obligation to produce an enlightened member of their religion for inspection,” he writes, “the Jains could at the same time assert that there was nothing which militated against the existence of such persons in the past” (89). Jain rhetoricians in the early and mid-centuries CE could appeal both to past omniscience and to the present

published 2 years after this chapter was initially completed and turned in. Consequently, I could only add a brief reference within this text during the final review. However, I fully recommend it to readers interested in these themes.

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impossibility of omniscience as a means of intellectually defending the superiority of their worldview within philosophical debates. Contemporary writers do not take precisely the same route when it comes to Darwin. Authors have argued that extraordinary cognitive skills demonstrated by contemporary Indian sages such as Swāmī Vivekānanda (1863–1902), who is reported to have memorized multiple volumes of an encyclopedia, or Jain philosopher Śrīmad Rājacandra (1868–1901), who could memorize 100 items at a time, are examples of higher states of disciplined consciousness underexplored by modern science (Pokharna 2013: 256–57). Additionally, remarkable feats of mental and bodily control such as extended fasting seem to defy current scientific explanations (Pokharna and Bobra 2016: 147). This “higher evolution [of the mind],” suggests Jansma, “could never even occur to the mind of a Darwinist” (2010: n. p.). More commonly, the presumption of jīva and karma makes clear that modern Jains still consider the insights of Mahāvīra authoritative even in the absence of scientific verification. Perhaps bridging the gap between these approaches, Jains can appeal indirectly to omniscience with apophatic discourses illuminating the present limits—what is yet unknown—within scientific knowledge.

8.5.3  Appeals to Apophatic Discourse The quality of consciousness belonging to jīvas describes a mode of multi-faceted knowledge that admits a much wider frame of knowable data than modern science. “[S]cientific knowledge,” writes Pokharna, “is just a subset of a much wider concept of knowledge which is structured in the consciousness” (2013: 243). With this delineation of “the limitations of the scientific methodology” (243), Jain authors carve out new territory to explore ideas that modern science is not yet capable of considering. By emphasizing consciousness as the root of “new frontiers of knowledge and exploration,” Jains working in scientific fields, such as Pokharna and surgeon Dilip Bobra, can hold open a possibility space for science to modify its conclusions toward ancient Jain insights (2016: 143). This reversal puts the burden of verification on modern science rather than Jainism, since appeals to consciousness exist in an un-actualized realm. To support this reversal, authors appeal to apophatic theories of what science has yet to discover. For example, Pokharna and Bobra utilize Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems in mathematics to illuminate the limits of scientific language and methods that would be enriched with a more foundational concept of consciousness beyond the human-only mind (145–46). The same authors look to General Systems Theory as a model of open-ended systems that include non-material social and relational forces in their explanatory accounts. In this view, environmental pressures and hereditary transmission are insufficient to account for biological diversity (147–48). In the face of these limits, Jain philosophy of consciousness and its evolution through karma is put forth as a “new paradigm of total systems” that can deal with these limitations (148). This expansion would extend the current reaches of science.

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“A Jain evolutionary theory,” writes Jansma, “would not only be confined to the earth, but to the whole knowable universe” (2010: n. p.) encompassing “quantum consciousness” (Pokharna 2013: 277), “extra-sensory perception” (265), “hyper communication and group consciousness” (Kachhara 2014: 282). From this orientation of underexplored consciousness, “the Darwinian revolution remains woefully incomplete because . . . most of us are still unwilling to abandon the comforting views that evolution means progress [toward] something like human consciousness is either virtually inevitable or at least predictable” (274). Consciousness, in the Jain view, far exceeds human-only mind, and offers, according to these authors, a new ground from which to understand the agency and activity of all life which they see as currently stagnated in Darwin’s notion of evolution. “New icons might break the locks” of modern science, muses Kachhara, and the Jain tradition has just such icons to offer (274).

8.6  Conclusion The development of the Jain community over nearly three millennia—across several continents, beyond diverse sects, including evolving doctrines for ascetics seeking liberation and lay people seeking karmic advancement, into the modern era of evolutionary science—results in a variety of perspectives regarding the ultimate sources for knowledge about the true nature of reality. When it comes to a comparative analysis of the Jain tradition with the evolutionary insights of Charles Darwin, Dundas summarizes the continuum helpfully. At one end, “Many Jains today, reckoning that recent discoveries of western science, such as relativity and the existence of microbes, were presaged by Mahāvīra’s teachings, find it gratifying to describe Jainism as a ‘scientific’ religion” (Dundas 2002a: 89). I have shared some of these voices in the present chapter, along with some of the justifications they provide for this affirmation. Dundas also describes the opposite end of the continuum such that, “Others might be more struck by the fact that Jainism, through its dependence on the teaching of omniscient beings embodied in a fully authoritative sacred scripture … in actuality shows many of the characteristics of a revealed religion of the Judaeo-­ Christian-­Muslim type” (89). At least certain of the perspectives included in this essay acknowledge a tension, if not a fatal one, between ancient claims, texts, and current scientific methods. In the views presented here, we see an amalgamation of strategies that include (1) privileging science and adjusting certain Jain claims through metaphorical “resonances” or epistemic flexibility, (2) maintaining specific Jain doctrines and finding gaps or parallels in the scientific narrative that permit Jains to hold on to the authority of both their tradition and science, and (3) privileging certain Jain insights as surpassing the current imaginative reaches of science. Sometimes all three of these strategies are present in a single author.

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The value of these strategies emerges most clearly in the Jain assertion that Darwin’s own assessment of natural selection requires a corrective of unchecked competition toward cooperation and nonviolence. Of course, “the mutual affinities of organic beings” is an aspect of Darwin’s thought that has been largely overlooked by the authors surveyed in this essay (OS 3). While some have erroneously conflated Tennyson’s “nature red in tooth and claw,” with Darwin’s concept of evolution,” he makes clear that the “Struggle for Existence … [includes] dependence of one being on another” (62) as well as variations “advantageous to the community,” and not only the individual (238–39). Still, the Jain philosophy of ahiṃsā rooted in self-control and moderate consumption, especially as it is increasingly applied to social, economic, and ecological relationships by lay Jains in the diaspora, does have much to offer to the evolution of our communal consciousness and its embodied expressions. Although there are intractable tensions and disharmonies between ancient Jain accounts of reality and those of modern science, a thorough-going exploration of the insights and historic developments of both knowledge systems may prove advantageous to our collective community; a refusal to ultimately dismiss ancient wisdom for modern truth may yet be a beneficial adaptation of both visions for the sake for our planetary futures to come.

References Primary Sources ĀS [Ācārāṇga-sūtra]. 2008 [1884]. Jaina Sutras, Part I & II. Âkârâṅga Sūtra, Trans. Hermann Georg Jacobi. Forgotten Books. BhS [Bhagavatī-sūtra], Vol. 3. 1990. Trans. K. C. Lalwani. Calcutta: Jain Bhawan. KS [Kalpa-sūtra]. 2008 [1884]. Jaina Sutras, Part I & II. Kalpa Sûtra. Trans. Hermann Georg Jacobi. Forgotten Books. PS [Pravacanasāra, Kundakunda]. 1984. Trans. A.  N. Upadhye. Śrῑ Kundakundācārya’s Pravacanasāra (Pavayaṇasāra). Agas: Parama-Śruta-Prabhāvaka Mandal, Shrimad Rajachandra Ashrama. SKS [Sūtrakṛtānga-sūtra]. 2008 [1884]. Jaina Sutras, Part I & II.  Trans. Sūtrakṛtānga Sûtra. Hermann Georg Jacobi. Forgotten Books. TS Tattvārtha-sūtra [of Umāsvāti]. 2011. That Which Is. Trans. Nathmal Tatia. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Secondary Sources Auckland, Knut. 2011. The Enduring Significance of Jaina Cosmography. Śramaṇa: A Quarterly Research Journal of Jainology 62 (1): 1–17. ———. 2016. The Scientization and Academization of Jainism. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84 (1): 192–233.

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Bajželj, Ana. 2016. When Earth Comes Alive: Earth-Bodied Beings in Jain Tradition. In Soulless Matter, Seats of Energy: Metals, Gems and Minerals in South Asian Traditions, ed. Fabrizio M. Ferrari and Thomas W.P. Dähnhardt, 255–274. Sheffield/South Yorkshire/Bristol: Equinox Publishing. Banks, Marcus. 1991. Orthodoxy and Dissent: Varieties of Religious Belief Among Immigrant Gujarati Jains in Britain. In The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society, ed. Michael Carrithers and Caroline Hmphrey, 241–260. New York: Cambridge University Press. Chapple, Christopher Key. 2006. Inherent Value Without Nostalgia: Animals and the Jaina Tradition. In A Communion of Subjects: Animals in Religion, Science, and Ethics, ed. Paul Waldau and Kimberly Patton, 241–249. New York: Columbia University Press. Cort, John. 2002. Green Jainism? Notes and Queries toward a Possible Jain Environmental Ethic. In Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple, 63–94. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2009. The Cosmic Man and the Human Condition. In Victorious Ones: Jain Images of Perfection, ed. Phyllis Granoff, 64–69. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing. Darwin, Charles. 1998 [1859]. On the Origin of Species. Introduction by Ernst Mayr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2004 [1879]. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. New  York: Penguin Books. Dundas, Paul. 2002a. The Jains. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge. ———. 2002b. The Limits of a Jain Environmental Ethic. In Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple, 95–118. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jain, Sunjay K. 2010. Antiquity of Jainism: And Ancient, Scientific and Independent Religion of the Universe. Delhi: Vishwa Jain Sangathan. Jaini, Padmanabh S. 2001 [1979]. The Jaina Path of Purification. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. ———. 2010. Collected Papers on Jaina Studies. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Jansma, Rudi. 2010. Evolution and Reincarnation in Jainism. January 27. Here-Now4U: Next Level Consciousness. Accessed 01 Nov 2016 at http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=71217. Jansma, Rudi, and Sneh Rani Jain. 2008. Jainism: An Introduction—Millenia Before Darwin [and] Evolution. October 5. Here-Now4U: Next Level Consciousness. Accessed 01 Nov 2016 at http://www.herenow4u.net/index.php?id=66071. Joshi, Nalini. 2012. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution from a Jain Viewpoint. August 11. Here-­ Now4U: Next Level Consciousness. Accessed 01 Nov 2016 at http://www.herenow4u.net/ index.php?id=90854. Kachhara, Narayan L. 2014. Scientific Explorations of Jain Doctrines, Part 1. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Kumar, Satish. 2002. Jain Ecology. In Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple, 181–190. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Laidlaw, James. 1995. Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society Among the Jains. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Long, Jeffery. 2009. Jainism: An Introduction. New York: I. B. Tauris. Ohira, Suzuko. 1994. A Study of the Bhagavatī-sūtra: A Chronological Analysis. Ahmedabad: Prakrit Text Society. Plofker, Kim. 2009. The Mathematics of the Jain Cosmos. In Victorious Ones: Jain Images of Perfection, ed. Phyllis Granoff, 65–69. Ahmedabad: Mapin Publishing. Pokharna, Surendra Singh. 2013. Explorations of General Systems Theory (GST) and Jainism May Provide New Frontiers of Knowledge and Evolution. Syntropy 2: 243–279. Pokharna, Surendra Singh, and Dilip K. Bobra. 2016. General Systems Theory (GST) and Concepts of Indian Philosophy May Provide a Holistic View of Consciousness and Its Evolution. Universal Journal of Psychology 4 (3): 142–164. Riepe, Dale. 1996 [1961]. The Naturalist Tradition in Indian Thought. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Schubring, Walter. 1978. The Doctrine of the Jainas. Trans. Wolfgang Beurlen. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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Shah, Natubhai. 1998. Jainism: The World of the Conquerors. Vol. 1. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press. Sikdar, J.C. 1974. Jaina Biology. Ahmedabad: L. D. Institute of Indology. Singhvi, L.M. 2002. The Jain Declaration on Nature. In Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple, 217–224. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. The Problems With Jainism. 2011. Patheos. July 3. Accessed 01 Dec 2016 at http://www.patheos. com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/07/03/the-problems-with-jainism/. Vallely, Anne. 2002. From Liberation to Ecology: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora Jains. In Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life, ed. Christopher Key Chapple, 193–216. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2018. Vulnerability, Transcendence, and the Body: Exploring the Human/Nonhuman Animal Divide within Jainism. Society and Animals 26: 1–17. Wiley, Kristi. 2004. The A to Z of Jainism. Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. Brianne Donaldson is the author of Creaturely Cosmologies: Why Metaphysics Matters for Animal and Planetary Liberation (2015), and the forthcoming Insistent Life: Foundations for Bioethics in the Jain Tradition (Lexington Books, 2021, co-­authored with Ana Bajželj). She is the editor of Beyond the Bifurcation of Nature: A Common World for Animals and the Environment (2014), The Future of Meat Without Animals (2016; co-edited with Christopher Carter), and Feeling Animal Death: Being Host to Ghosts (2019; co-edited with Ashley King). She is assistant professor and Shri Parshvanath Presidential Chair in Jain studies at University of California, Irvine.  

Chapter 9

Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Responses to Darwinism Roger R. Jackson

Abstract  The purpose of this essay is to complicate the common Buddhist modernist claim that because Buddhism is, allegedly, atheistic and process-oriented in metaphysics and fundamentally empirical and critical in method, it is the most “evolution-­friendly” of the major religions. Comparing Darwin’s theory with the metaphysics of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, I investigate Darwinian and Buddhist views on the drama of sentient life, survival of the fittest, randomness, and the problem of human uniqueness. I find in each instance that while superficial similarities may be detected, at a deeper level the differences are profound, primarily because Darwinism posits a non-teleological, materially driven process in which randomness is a major factor, humanity differs from other species in degree but not kind, and mind matters hardly at all; while Buddhism posits a mentally-driven teleological process in which a human birth is rare and precious and causal predictability is a key to the attainment of the Buddhist telos, enlightenment. I conclude with a consideration of several Buddhist modernist attempts to reconcile Buddhism and evolutionary theory, finding little to indicate that these attempts can succeed without severely compromising the traditional perspectives and methods of one or the other system.

9.1  Introduction In a 2009 Pew Forum poll of American religious attitudes toward biological evolution, 81% of Buddhists agreed that “evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth.” This percentage narrowly eclipsed that of Hindus (80%), Jews (77%), and even the religiously unaffiliated (72%), and was well ahead of that This essay has benefited from the close, critical reading given it by C. Mackenzie Brown, whose assistance I gratefully acknowledge. R. R. Jackson (*) Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_9

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of any Christian or Muslim group (Pew Forum 2009). One would wish to know more about the sample of Buddhists polled and the sense in which “evolution” was understood by pollsters and respondents alike, but the result is not surprising. Indeed, it has been common since the late nineteenth century for Asian and Western Buddhists (and others besides) to claim that Buddhism is the most “evolution-­ friendly” of the major religions. This claim is part of the larger Buddhist modernist insistence that science poses no particular threat to Buddhism, because, after all, Buddhism is atheistic and process-oriented in metaphysics and fundamentally empirical and critical in method. It is, thus, a “scientific” religion—if it is a religion at all.1 An extreme but not atypical example of this view is found in a 2004 blog post by Sri Lankan scholar D. Amarasiri Weeraratne, who writes that “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution shattered the foundations of Western religion and reduced Christianity to a shipwreck, [but] it has not harmed Buddhism in any way. In fact it has confirmed its wisdom.” Specifically, Weeraratne argues, Darwin confirms three central Buddhist principles: the impermanence of all things, including species; the suffering to which all sentient beings are heir in their struggle for survival and self-­ assertion; and the absence of any distinctly human “soul,” let alone a loving God who guides the world and its creatures (Weeraratne 2004). If one adds to this the oft-expressed view—dating back as far as the writings of nineteenth-century Theosophists, and common since—that Buddhism is centrally concerned with the “evolution” of slumbering sentient consciousness toward spiritual awakening, Buddhism can easily be seen as a tradition thoroughly in harmony with evolutionary ways of thinking on the metaphysical, biological, and psychological level. My purpose in this essay is to complicate the modernist account sketched above. Given limited space and resources, on the evolutionary side I will focus primarily on the theory proposed by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species, first published in 1859 (Darwin 1909), and The Descent of Man, first published in 1871 (Darwin 1989), leaving aside more recent developments in what is sometimes called Neo-Darwinism or the Modern Synthesis—which is, in any case, founded on the same principles as Darwin’s great works. At times, we will need to distinguish between the outlook of Darwin himself and those of his popularizers, who sometimes have distorted the master’s voice. On the Buddhist side, I will concentrate on the philosophical (rather than the practical) side of what has sometimes been called “Indo-Tibetan Buddhism.” This by no means uncontroversial term denotes a purportedly continuous tradition of theory and praxis that stretches from the early sūtras and treatises of Foundational Buddhism2 through the scriptures and masters

1  For a book-length exposition of this view, see Barrish 2013. For critical discussion of the Buddhism-science “romance,” see McMahan 2008: 89–116; Lopez 2008; Lopez 2012. 2  There is no agreement among scholars as to the best term to replace the pejorative “Hīnayāna” or “Lesser Vehicle” when referring to non-Mahāyāna schools. Among those that have been proposed are “Nikāya Buddhism,” “Mainstream Buddhism,” and “Śrāvakayāna.” I prefer “Foundational Buddhism” because it indicates that the texts, teachers, and practices under discussion are accepted by all Buddhist traditions as forming the bedrock of the Buddha’s Dharma. It should be noted that “Theravāda Buddhism” is not appropriate because although Theravāda is nowadays the common

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of the Indian Great Vehicle (Mahāyāna), to the Tantra-inflected Tibetan forms of Buddhism that developed—based primarily on transmissions from India—starting in the seventh century C.E., continued after the disappearance of Buddhism from much of India in the thirteenth century, and persists, both on the plateau and in the post-1959 diaspora, to the present day.3 Although I will draw on the Pāli canon of Theravāda Buddhism (since many of its equivalent Sanskrit texts were translated into Tibetan), I will leave out much else that is of philosophical interest from the traditions of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, and from East Asian traditions, as well. Furthermore, my focus within the Indo-Tibetan tradition will be on the intellectual heritage held in common by most Indian Buddhist schools and by all Tibetan traditions, with only an occasional sideways glance at anomalies. Finally, my bias here will be toward the “classical” metaphysics of pre-modern Buddhism, especially as found in sūtras and treatises written in India and widely accepted in Tibet; I will be rather less concerned with modern—or modernist—attitudes and ideas, though I certainly will draw on some of these, particularly as found in the works of William Waldron (2003), the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (2005), Donald S.  Lopez, Jr. (2008, 2012), and Richard Jones (2010), four figures who, to my mind, have engaged the points of harmony and disagreement between Buddhism and Darwinism in a serious and sophisticated manner.4 In line with the aims of this volume, I will devote most of my discussion to potential (or actual) Indo-Tibetan responses to the basic Darwinian doctrines of survival of the fittest, randomness, and human uniqueness (or lack thereof). Before I consider those themes, however, I will pause to outline the central points of similarity and difference between the Darwinian and Buddhist accounts of the drama of sentient life.

9.2  General Considerations: The Drama of Sentient Life Speaking in the broadest possible terms, William Waldron observes that “Buddhists and biologists … largely concur that the very forms and structures of human life result from the accumulative actions of innumerable beings over countless generations,” and that “we inherit powerful dispositions at birth that predispose us to act in

name for the branch of Buddhism predominant in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, it is a term of rather recent vintage and, however designated, it is only one of many non-Mahāyāna schools that flourished in the Indian subcontinent (and beyond) in the premodern period. 3  The term “Indo-Tibetan Buddhism” has been contested on the grounds that it too easily accepts traditional Tibetan claims that their version of Buddhism seamlessly and with utter fidelity carried over and preserved the Indian Buddhism of the seventh through twelfth centuries. This is, of course, a pious fiction, but it is undeniable that much (though not all) of the “worldview” of Tibetan Buddhism was inherited and adopted from its classical Indian sources, making the term “IndoTibetan Buddhism” provisionally appropriate in the context of an essay like this. 4  Jones 2010, which makes frequent reference to Buddhism, is a particularly trenchant philosophical critique of attempts to conflate or integrate scientific and religious views of reality.

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certain, often harmful, ways” (Waldron 2003: 153, 159). At this macroscopic level, then, Buddhists and biologists agree that what we might call “the drama of sentient life”—a drama in which we find ourselves cast, willy-nilly—is produced by immensely powerful forces that have been playing out over nearly incalculable spans of time. When, however, we examine the specific powers and processes identified by evolutionary biologists and Indo-Tibetan Buddhists as shaping sentient life, significant disparities between the two perspectives quickly become apparent. Here, we will briefly outline the standpoint of Darwinian evolutionary theory, then consider the viewpoint of Buddhist psycho-cosmology, beginning with a brief exploration of an early Buddhist account of the “origin of species” that sometimes has been regarded as anticipating Darwin, then moving on to a more general exposition of the “classical” Indo-Tibetan view. We will conclude this section with a summary of the key points of similarity and difference between the Darwinian and Buddhist accounts of the sources of sentient life.

9.2.1  Darwin’s Theory Darwin’s theory of evolution, first fully articulated in On the Origin of Species, is one of the capstones of a tradition of a Western scientific inquiry that began with the Greeks, was revived during the Renaissance, and gained powerful impetus during and after the Enlightenment. Although concerned primarily with explaining biological processes, it is part of a larger intellectual project that sought to make sense of the cosmos and its inhabitants not according to theological speculations requiring supernatural forces but on the basis of gathering empirically observable physical evidence and developing testable theories on the basis of that evidence. In that sense, Darwin’s work is of a piece with the efforts of astronomers, physicists, chemists, biologists, and even social scientists of earlier and later eras who also sought to understand humanity and the universe through the scientific method. The choice of method, of course, implied, if it did not explicate, a critique of theological approaches, and it may safely be said that Darwin, intentionally or not, cast doubt on God’s place in biology as surely as Marx, Freud, and Einstein eschewed the divine in their explanations of society, the mind, and the cosmos, respectively. Darwin’s theory itself need not be rehearsed in detail here. Suffice it to say that in its broad outlines, as presented in On the Origin of Species, it explains how biological species came to be the way they are: through a process of “natural selection.” In the context of a constant “struggle for existence” by both individuals and species (Darwin 1909: 23) amidst ever-changing environments, certain traits prove more useful than others relative to the external challenges. These traits, which appear to occur randomly, are passed on by survivors in the struggle for existence from one generation to the next. As circumstances change through subsequent generations, those inherited traits may work for or against the survival of the individual or species. On the macroscopic level, the transformations required for survival result eventually in new species, while the fate of those not “naturally selected” for

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survival is extinction—the fate of over 99% of the species that ever have lived on Earth. The “anthropological” element in Darwin’s theory, examined most closely in The Descent of Man, sees humanity as the outcome of a long process of natural and sexual selection, which may be traced back to humans’ anthropoid and simian ancestors and beyond. Thus, humanity’s distinctive traits, such as language, consciousness, culture, and so forth, all are simply evolutionary adaptations, functions of blind and random processes that have no ultimate purpose or end except survival. Darwin acknowledges that the “higher” animals, including humans, show inclinations not just to selfish behavior geared to individual survival but also to kindness, cooperation, self-sacrifice, and other prosocial tendencies that indicate a concern with the survival of larger or smaller groups, as well. Nevertheless, the evolution of traits that assure survival and reproduction remains absolutely central to his outlook. There is, of course, far more than this to Darwin’s theory—not to mention developments in evolutionary biology after Darwin5—but for our purposes, the key themes are survival of the fittest, the randomness with which inheritable traits appear, and the question of human uniqueness, while the broader metaphysical implication of the theory is that the drama of sentient life is best understood as a natural, biological process in which simpler life-forms evolve into more complex forms on the basis of natural selection. Life itself, in turn, is best understood as the outcome of molecular changes in an ever-increasing number of material elements, the most basic of which appeared at the time of the Big Bang. Darwin’s theory, in short, implies a metaphysical materialism in which neither God nor any other supernatural agent has a place, and in which simpler entities “evolve” into more complex ones through random fluctuations of natural forces.6

9.2.2  A Buddhist “Genesis”? With its frequent rejection of an unchanging creator God and a sophisticated “process” metaphysics that describes the development and transformation of things through a complex theory of impermanent, plural, and interrelated causal events, Buddhism might at first glance seem closely aligned with some of the central perspectives of Darwinism. Indeed, it sometimes is suggested that Buddhists developed their own evolutionary theory, as shown in a “genesis” story found in the Agañña

5  It is important to remember that Darwin was unaware of gene-theory, let alone the identification of such “transmitters” of genetic information as DNA and RNA, which are key concepts in NeoDarwinism. Although Neo-Darwinists have at their disposal research data undreamed of by Darwin, and have modified his findings in certain respects (e.g., the gradual or sudden alteration of species), they remain for the most part true to him in their basic outlook, approach, and conclusions. 6  Darwin does conclude On the Origin of Species with the suggestion that laws of life have “been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or one” (Darwin 1909: 529), but this deistic concession did little to alter the perception that Darwin’s outlook was, effectively, atheistic.

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Sutta of the Pāli canon (and its Sanskrit equivalents), and well known to Buddhist scholars of both the Theravāda and Indo-Tibetan traditions. Presupposing the common Indic view that both cosmology and history are cyclical, the Agañña account (Walshe 2013: 80–98) describes how, just before the inception of a new cosmic era, when the sun and stars are absent and no planets have formed, most beings dwell in a divine Brahmā realm, where they are mind-made, self-illumining, asexual deities who feed only on heavenly delights. Eventually, however, Earth appears and beings come to enjoy its visual beauty and its sweet taste. As they consume its bounty, their bodies grow coarser and they lose the power of self-illumination, so the sun and stars appear, and with them, the reckoning of time. Distinctions begin to be evident among the beings in terms of beauty, intelligence, and strength, which in turn lead to arrogance on the part of the fortunate and resentment on the part of the unfortunate. Various food sources—mushrooms, sweet creepers, and finally rice—become available in such abundance that each meal is naturally supplied, but as the beings consume increasingly coarse foodstuffs, most develop sex organs and, moved by lust, become addicted to erotic pleasure, turning indolent in various ways. Exiled by the celibate, they make dwellings in the forest and eventually begin to fence off their rice fields, which they harvest only occasionally, storing large amounts for later use. With the development of property, theft inevitably occurs, punishments are imposed, and eventually, to bring order to the growing chaos, the people elect a leader to govern them. He thus becomes the first member of the ruling and warrior class (varṇa), the kṣatriya, while those who devote themselves to purity, austerity, and learning become the brahmans, tradespeople become the vaiśyas, and hunters, laborers, and servants become the śūdras. This account articulates clearly the ways in which, over time and through various transformations, human beings—and human society—came to be the way they are, and it does recognize a shift from simplicity to complexity. As a “Buddhist version of evolution,” however, it is something of a red herring, for a number of reasons. First, the process that is described is more a devolution than an evolution, in that beings begin in a state of wisdom, harmony, and contentment, and then, step by step, fall away from that into increasing brutishness. This is in line with Buddhist (and more generally Indic) views that, within the cycles of cosmos and history, things are always best at the outset, and that it’s all downhill from there—until the slate is wiped clean and a new sequence begins. The Buddhist vision of devolution and decline, of course, echoes Edenic myths of a “Fall” developed outside the subcontinent—and is no more in harmony with Darwinism than they are, since evolutionary theory admits of an ideal state neither at the beginning nor the end of the process of evolution, and in any case sees that process as linear and unidirectional rather than cyclical. Second, while the mechanism whereby beings grow coarser is not explicated in the Agañña Sutta, it is clear from other Buddhist contexts that it is not simply a random material process, for from the Buddhist standpoint we are the sorts of beings we are primarily because of things we have thought and actions we have performed on the basis of those thoughts; in short, because of karma. This point will be developed in detail shortly. Finally, regardless of how it may have been

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read, the Agañña account is not primarily an attempt to explain biological processes, be they evolutionary or devolutionary but, rather, a way of understanding how the four social classes of Indic society came into existence. Implicitly rejecting the common Brahmanical claim (in Ṛg Veda 10.90) that the four classes and their hierarchy are sanctified because they resulted from the sacrifice of the primordial being, Puruṣa, the Agañña provides an alternative, “naturalistic” explanation that shows there is nothing special about the categories and, more crucially, nothing special about brahmans.7

9.2.3  Indo-Tibetan Cosmology and Soteriology Within the larger framework of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist cosmology and psychology, the drama of sentient life is not directed by the interaction of blind material forces. It is, instead, the outcome of processes that are above all mental. The primacy of mind (manas, citta) or consciousness (vijñāna) in the Buddhist understanding of how the world works cannot be overstated. The very first verse of one of the most celebrated of all Foundational Buddhist texts, the Dhammapada, affirms: “all things have mind as their forerunner; they are founded on mind, they are made up of mind, they are wrought by mind.”8 The term I have translated as “things,” dhammā, refers to the fundamental constituents of reality, whether material, mental, or both, so the claim about the primacy of mind applies not only to the elements of human, or more broadly, sentient, experience but also to the world outside the subject. Dhammapada 1 goes on to exemplify the claim by describing how negative results follow negative actions as surely as the wheel of a cart follows the foot of the ox that draws it, while verse 2 restates the initial claim and example with regard to positive actions. Here, and in many other Buddhist contexts, “action,” or karma, may be physical, verbal, or mental, but it is defined above all by the mental factor of intention (cetanā). Thus, whatever befalls a sentient being is rooted in intentions that he or she has set. The notion of karma, it should be noted, is a crucial subset of a broader Buddhist insistence that the cosmos is, at every level, governed by causation; the universality of causation assures regularity and predictability not only on the level of physical processes, but on the moral and psychological level, as well. Without the assurance of causal predictability—especially when it comes to karma and the mind—the Buddhist cannot be confident that enlightenment or awakening (bodhi) is obtainable; with the causal processes leading to continued suffering or final peace in place and properly identified, however, spiritual freedom becomes a real possibility. The results of positive or negative actions do not simply come to us during this lifetime, but may manifest in future lives, just as experiences we have during this

 For a thorough and thought-provoking study of Buddhist critiques of caste, see Eltschinger 2012.  Manopubbaṅgamā dhammā/mano seṭṭhā mano mayā/manasā ce padutṭhenā. See, e.g., Buddharakkhita 1966: 2. 7 8

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life may be the result of actions performed in previous lives. This crucial metaphysical doctrine of rebirth (punarjanma) is based on the assumption that, while mind and body are closely enough related that they can affect each other in countless ways, they are fundamentally different, since body is insentient and coarsely material, while mind is clear, aware, and immaterial. As a result, neither one can be said to effect the other, that is, serve as its substantial cause or indispensable condition.9 This Buddhist version of interactionist dualism assures that the mind can survive the death of the body, and in the case of an ordinary, unenlightened being, will do so. Because the mind that survives bodily death carries with it the “seeds” of all previous unfructified actions, the results of those actions may be experienced in the next life or in some life far down the road—whenever the proper conditions come together. It is important to recognize that the “results” one experiences as a consequence of one’s actions are not limited to the “events” that befall one (for instance, I kill in this life and am killed in a future life); they also include the natural environment and social conditions into which one is born. To put it plainly, mind affects not just the “destiny” of individuals but the natural and social worlds, as well.10 The drama of the cosmos as Buddhists see it, therefore, is essentially that of the countless consciousnesses, the ever-flowing, metaphysically substanceless mind-­ streams (saṃtana) of sentient beings, which circulate from one life-form to another, blown now higher and now lower by the winds of delusion (kleśa) and karma. This process of circulation or, more literally, “flowing on,” is called saṃsāra, a fundamentally unsatisfactory (or “suffering,” duḥkha) condition that is commonly mapped into three spheres (dhātu)—those of desire, form, and formlessness—or six realms (gati)—those of hell-beings, hungry ghosts, animals, humans, titans, and gods11—in any of which beings may take birth, regardless of their previous station.12 These spheres or realms are located not just on or above or below our familiar world (though they often are imagined that way), but are found throughout a cosmos that is teeming with life. Thus, one may enjoy a pleasant existence as a human being on

9  This technical way of putting it reflects the position of the seventh-century Indian philosopher, Dharmakīrti, whose Pramāṇavārttika (Commentary on Valid Cognition; see, e.g., Jackson 1993) is a locus classicus for Buddhist discussions of the mind-body problem, and is symptomatic of Indo-Tibetan views on the issue more broadly. 10  This view is detailed in a wide variety of Indic texts. The classic exposition, which was profoundly influential in India, Tibet, and East Asia alike, is found in the third and fourth chapters of the Abhidharmakośa (Treasury of Abhidharma) of Vasubandhu (fifth century); see La Vallée Poussin 1988: vol. II. There are certain traditions within the Mahāyāna—most notably the Yogācāra school and many tantric traditions—that go even farther in their “idealism,” insisting that the entire cosmos is a manifestation of consciousness, whether that consciousness be construed as polluted or pure. We will briefly return to this view in the conclusion. 11  In some cases, the titans and gods are combined in a single category, such that there are five realms rather than six. 12  When the six realms are mapped onto the three spheres, we find that the hell, ghost, animal, human, titan, and some of the “lower” god realms are in the sphere of desire, while the higher reaches of the god realm—corresponding to certain meditative states—are in the form and formless realms.

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Earth in this life, but if the appropriate karmic forces arise at death-time, one’s next rebirth may be as an animal in some far-flung galaxy. Just as there is no spatial limitation to saṃsāra, there is no “genesis” to the process, either, for mind is truly beginningless: each individual life has as its forerunner a previous life, which was preceded by another, and that by another, and so on ad infinitum. The same is true of the universe: the universe in which we live was preceded by the collapse of an earlier universe, which was itself preceded by the collapse of a still earlier universe, and so forth, without beginning. While saṃsāra is beginningless, it does, for each being, have an end-state, which is described by Foundational Buddhist traditions as liberation, or nirvāṇa, or arhatship, and by Mahāyānists as complete awakening or buddhahood. The English term most commonly used for this state (or these states) is “enlightenment,” which, despite its shortcomings, I will use here for the sake of simplicity.13 In either case, one is freed from the need to take further rebirth: though arhats are usually said to be completely disengaged from the cosmos, Great Vehicle buddhas and bodhisattvas (future buddhas) typically choose to take birth anyway, so as to assist suffering beings. The process whereby beings move from the suffering of saṃsāra to the satisfaction of enlightenment is generally referred to as the path (mārga), a set of attitudes, ideas, and practices that allow one to counteract deluded ways of thinking and acting by understanding how things really exist—as, for instance, impermanent, suffering, and without self—and training their minds and bodies in a way of living—guided by morality, meditation, and wisdom—that leads to peace and happiness.14

9.2.4  Points of Connection and Disconnection It is tempting to regard the practice of the Buddhist path as constituting a kind of “spiritual evolution,” in which sentient beings who aspire to liberation or buddhahood “develop” certain qualities that help move them from baser to more sublime states of being, that is, from saṃsāra to nirvāṇa, or delusion to enlightenment. Indeed, there is a particular point along the Buddhist path where one may be said to “evolve” into a different sort of being: the moment when one gains a direct realization of the way things are (as, for instance, described by the four noble truths, or governed by causation, or lacking a permanent self, or empty of inherent existence) and begins on that basis to extirpate the delusions (ignorance, attachment, aversion,

 As has been noted by numerous scholars, “enlightenment” not only evokes a specific European intellectual and cultural movement that is quite different from Buddhism, but the key terms for the “end-state” attained in Buddhism do not really translate into metaphors of light; thus, nirvāṇa is best rendered as “extinction,” while bodhi refers to “awakening.” 14  An early and still widely cited version of the path is eightfold, consisting of proper (1) views, (2) intentions, (3) speech, (4) action, (5) livelihood, (6) effort, (7) mindfulness, and (8) concentration. The first two correspond to the training in wisdom, the third through fifth to the training in morality, and the last two to the training in concentration. Proper effort applies to all three trainings. 13

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and so on) that are the root of saṃsāra and of the deluded actions that keep us circulating within it. A being who gains this realization and begins this process is said to have changed from an ordinary being (pṛthagjana) into a noble being (ārya), and will progress steadily from there toward the ultimate condition: enlightenment. The analogy to evolution works less well, however, within the broader context of the lives of ordinary beings in saṃsāra, who, as noted above, cannot be sure that they will progress “upward” from one rebirth to the next; indeed, the longue durée of an individual’s circulation through saṃsāra enroute to enlightenment must be seen as moving in fits and starts, even if it gains increasing coherence as it nears its telos. Furthermore, the notion of a telos is itself a line of demarcation between Buddhist and Darwinian theories: the Buddhist cosmos, and especially the Buddhist path, clearly is teleological, in that there is—no matter how long it takes—an end-point that each mind-stream or sentient being, will attain, while Darwinian theory admits no such terminus, since there is no conceivable end to the process of biological evolution, short of the collapse of conditions for life on Earth. Also, the driving force in the cosmos according to Buddhism—karma—implies a moral calculus that is built into the very fabric of things, whereby the telos of enlightenment is approached through proper ideas, attitudes, and actions; evolution as described by Darwin, on the other hand, is quite amoral, proceeding in its random course without regard to human scruples or notions of sin—except as they may prove advantageous to the survival of individuals and species. Finally, but perhaps most crucially, the disparity in views about the place and power of mind in the cosmos is significant. As Waldron remarks: Buddhists do not hold a materialist worldview, that consciousness is merely an epiphenomenon of neural states. Most Buddhist traditions hold that some processes of an individual’s mind stream persist from one life to the next … whose “descent into” and “exit” from the body defines the span of a single lifetime. This does not vitiate, I believe, a comparison between evolution and Buddhist thought as causal theories regarding the dependent origination of species through the aggregate activities of sentient beings… . [But] there are … major divergences between Buddhism and biology concerning how the effects of those activities may be transmitted from one generation to the next. On this and other issues, Buddhist perspectives appear largely incommensurable with current scientific assumptions. (Waldron 2003: 172–173n7)

In short, then, the Darwinian vision of the drama of sentient life is one in which individuals are born and die while playing a small role in a non-teleological, amoral process of physically-based evolution of multiple species that has been underway since before there was life and will continue as long as Earth is hospitable to biological organisms. The Buddhist vision, on the other hand, sees the drama as located in the karmic history of each of the countless individual mind-streams that not only inhabit but, individually and collectively, help to constitute the cosmos—a history that, for each, has a distinct terminus in the attainment of enlightenment. Juxtaposed in this way, the two accounts seem almost entirely at odds with one another. As Jones observes: … [O]ur spiritual evolution as a person (or, better, as an impermanent karmic stream) through different life-forms has absolutely nothing to do with the biological evolution of

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one species into another. Rebirth does connect animals and human beings …. But that a human being today may be born as a dog or a cow or another animal has nothing to do with the evolution of life-forms. The two notions do share the abstract principle of “life-forms changing over time,” but to claim that the Buddha discovered anything even tangentially related to the scientific theory of how life-forms are connected and change over time is simply wrong. (Jones 2010: 167; modified slightly)

And, as Lopez so well puts it: [F]or the Buddha there are not myriad species but a single species, the species of the sentient, to which all forms of sentient life belong…. [I]nstead of moving up the tree of life, the members of this species have wandered among its many branches forever, sometimes climbing up, sometimes falling down. (Lopez 2012: 68)

The disparities are perhaps most evident with regard to the nature of mind: for the Darwinian, mind is, in a species, an emergent property of biological processes, and in the individual, a function of the brain; while for the Buddhist, mind is related to the body and brain but separable from them—and is, in fact, the “prime mover” of psychological and biological processes in both the individual and the species. Being committed to a holistic vision of a cosmos in which causation obtains on every level, the Buddhist certainly does not deny that material processes play out through their own physical cause-and-effect dynamics, but where the Darwinian (or almost any scientist) will restrict cause and effect to the physical, the Buddhist, as we have seen, will argue not only that there is a causal process initiated by mind that also is at work, but that the mental is more powerful than mere physical processes, which in fact it helps to guide. Thus, for the Buddhist, Darwin may have provided a relatively adequate account of how matter and life behave, but this does not contradict Buddhist claims about the reality of rebirth or the functioning of karma, because the cosmos is shaped both by physical and mental processes. The physical unfolds according to laws more or less accurately described by science, while the mental unfolds along the lines described by Buddhists, and simply happens to intersect with physical processes, again and again. Thus, a brain that evolved significantly enough along physical lines to be associated with a “human” consciousness would not be the cause of that consciousness (or any consciousness), but, rather, its host. From the standpoint of empirical scientists who analyze fossil remains and physiological data, it would seem as if consciousness had evolved as a function of matter; as we have seen, however, from the Buddhist standpoint individual consciousnesses progress in their own ways, associating with this or that body according to karmic laws, thereby happening to embody at one or another point along the line of physical evolution—which may itself be more mind-driven than is apparent. Thus, the rebirth that a particular mind-stream may take is quite independent of evolutionary processes that may be occurring on this or that planet at one or another time. On the basis of previous karma, for example, I have taken birth in this life on Earth as a human being located at a particular point in the biological history of the planet, but it is entirely possible that—again on the basis of karma—I may be born next time on a distant planet as a member of a different species, which finds itself at a different stage of evolution relative to its own planetary history. And because of the primacy of mind and karma,

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the evolutionary processes on a given planet, while operating according to physical laws, may be activated at a deeper level by karma, by the requirement that suitable bodies and environments be available for sentient beings as they circulate through saṃsāra. In short, from the Buddhist point of view, the physical drama of biological evolution simply coincides with the mental process of the “evolution” of beings from delusion to enlightenment, and is, in fact, to a significant degree shaped by that mental process, since, to recall the claim of the Dhammapada, “all things have mind as their forerunner.”

9.3  S  pecific Cases: Survival of the Fittest, Randomness, and Human Uniqueness As suggested earlier, there are three key Darwinian ideas that deserve fuller examination relative to Indo-Tibetan concepts of the cosmos, life, and sentience: survival of the fittest, randomness, and human uniqueness. We will examine each of these in turn.

9.3.1  Survival of the Fittest The term “survival of the fittest” was coined not by Darwin but by Herbert Spencer, who sought to apply the notion of natural selection to spheres outside the biological, most notably that of economics. Darwin himself used the term in later works and in later editions of On the Origin of Species, and it has passed into common usage as an evocative description of the competition and struggle involved not only in evolutionary processes but in nearly every aspect of human life, as well (Survival of the fittest 2016). Its echoes in the West reach back to the grim picture of life painted by Thomas Hobbes and, long before him, the Greek tragedians, and forward to everything from competition-centered theories of Social Darwinism, to the pessimism of Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, to the popular entertainment of such “Reality TV” shows as Survivor. Broadly speaking, this rather dark view of life corresponds to the first noble truth of Buddhism: there is suffering. From the Buddhist standpoint, all life in saṃsāra is by definition unsatisfactory. As the Buddha famously put it in his first discourse, “birth is suffering; aging is suffering; dying is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, and despair are suffering; encounter with the unpleasant is suffering; separation from what we love is suffering; and not getting what we want is suffering” (Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta).15 The pervasiveness of suffering is obvious in the “lower” realms inhabited by hell beings, hungry ghosts, or animals, but is also 15

 My translation from the Pāli.

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evident in the human realm, with its mixture of pain and pleasure, struggle and ease, and is subtly present in the higher realms of the gods and titans: the titans are locked into an endless and futile attempt to attain the status of gods, while the gods, despite their longevity, pleasure, and power, are not immortal, and suffer grievously at the end of life, in part through their recognition that they are bound for a lower rebirth. Buddhist accounts of the animal realm, in particular, tend to have a rather Darwinian feel to them, as in this description from a twentieth-century Tibetan text: Animals experience five kinds of suffering: eating one another; being stupid and benighted; heat and cold; hunger and thirst; and being made exploited or made to work…. The larger ones devour the smaller ones while the smaller ones feed on the larger ones…. Hawks eat little birds, birds eat worms, beasts of prey and wild animals eat each other, hunting dogs stalk wild animals and kill them, and so on…. Animals … do even not know whether they are being led to a place to be slaughtered or to be fed, much less know anything else. They suffer from heat and cold. They are scorched to death in summer, frozen to death in winter, and so on. (Pabongka 1993: 388–389)

This description, which could easily be applied to other realms of saṃsāra as well, sounds very much like survival of the fittest.16 Within a Buddhist cosmological framework, however, the “fitness” required for survival is a function of an individual being’s previous karma: one is born strong or weak—with greater or lesser chances of survival and reproductive success—based on the quality of one’s actions in one or more previous lives. For example, if a being is born human—a generally favorable condition—but is sickly and dies in childhood—a most disadvantageous one—this is the result of mixed karma: positive actions, such as the practice of generosity and morality, will have insured the human birth, but negative actions assure an early death. That such a destiny may be analyzed physically in terms of genetic or environmental factors is, for the Buddhist, undeniable but secondary, since rebirth into a situation where such factors will be in play is itself a result of karmic forces. Once again, therefore, we see that a traditional Buddhist view admits the existence of evolutionary processes, but sees those processes as auxiliary to the primary cause of a particular life-situation: previous karma. Those who “survive,” therefore, do so because of karmic fitness—although from the Buddhist standpoint, the survival or death of an individual is only a small factor in the much larger drama of “evolution” from delusion to enlightenment. Indeed, the individual who dies young is not thereby effaced, for there almost certainly will be another life to live, in which circumstances may be far more favorable. Buddhists certainly do not devalue any particular individual life (especially a human life, so rich in spiritual possibilities), but they do see it from a larger perspective, in which that life is neither the beginning nor the end of the mind-stream that lives it. In terms of natural history, an important corollary of the idea of survival of the fittest is the fact that not only do all individuals perish sooner or later but species do as well; indeed the vast majority of species that ever have existed are now extinct, and their numbers are increasing daily. Extinction is the price paid for failure in 16  For a superb discussion of early Indian views of animals, which complicates this picture in interesting ways, see Ohnuma 2017.

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competition and reproduction, and is a necessary part of the overall scheme of evolution. Individuals and species adapt as best they can in order to avoid extinction, but extinction occurs anyway. As Lopez notes, however, extinction is in some respects the aim of Buddhism, in the sense that the culmination of the Buddhist path, nirvāṇa, represents the extinction of the body-mind complex,17 most notably of the insubstantial yet distinct mind-stream that has, from beginningless time, been as close to an “identity” as any sentient being has (Lopez 2012: 72–75). Early Buddhist accounts of nirvāṇa in the full sense, that is, the post mortem “nirvāṇa without remainder,”18 make it clear that it involves a complete transcendence of all physical and mental conditions, and that a being who has attained it no longer will take birth, no longer will live—in short, has become extinct. Were all sentient beings to attain nirvāṇa, then saṃsāra would end, meaning that all species would go extinct and life would end, not only on Earth but throughout the cosmos.19 “Perhaps,” Lopez notes ironically, “Buddhism is ‘life denying’ after all, as Christian missionaries have been saying for so long” (Lopez 2012: 75). Lopez’s argument is intriguing, but perhaps a bit overstated. Early Buddhist texts make it quite clear that the final nirvāṇa of an enlightened being leads to a condition in which neither existence nor non-existence (nor both, nor neither) may be said to be the case, which suggests that the simple equation of nirvāṇa with extinction may not be quite accurate. The question, in any case, was one the Buddha was unwilling to answer, and one on which Foundational Buddhist traditions reached no consensus. If extinction may be the aim in Foundational Buddhism, it is far less obviously the purpose of Mahāyāna Buddhism. In fully developed Great Vehicle traditions, all beings eventually will become fully enlightened buddhas. As buddhas, they continue to exist: they have transcended saṃsāra, and have their minds absorbed in nondual, nonconceptual emptiness (śūnyatā), yet are able to know all things, feel compassion, and act skillfully in the world for the sake of suffering beings, by manifesting in appropriate forms for their sake.20 Thus, the goal in Mahāyāna soteriology is not the extinction of the mind-stream but its transformation into a condition that is maximally cognizant of the nature of reality and at the same time maximally effective in working for the benefit of others. Make no mistake: the “extinction” of saṃsāra is as much the aim in Mahāyāna Buddhism as in the Foundational schools, but the enlightened state beyond saṃsāra does not look quite so vacant in the Great

 Usually referred to in Buddhism as the five “aggregates” or “heaps” or “constituents” (skandha): matter, sensations, conceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. 18  There is a nirvāṇa “with remainder” that one enjoys after enlightenment and before death, which is characterized as entailing bliss, wisdom, detachment, compassion, and other saintly qualities. 19  Buddhists have debated whether the number of sentient beings is finite or infinite; if the former, then, assuming that all sentient beings will eventually attain enlightenment, saṃsāra will end; if, however, the number of beings in infinite, we cannot really conceive of an end to saṃsāra, for no matter how many beings are enlightened, there always will be at least one more who is not. 20  Mahāyāna thinkers disagreed among themselves in explaining how a buddha might be absorbed in emptiness yet appear to non-buddhas to think, feel, speak, and act. For discussion of these central problems in buddha-theory, see, e.g., Griffiths 1994; Makransky 1997. 17

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Vehicle; indeed, with its elaborate buddha-created pure lands, it is less like nothing and more like paradise, hence, ultimately, utopian.21 A final implication of the doctrine of survival of the fittest has been the common belief that evolution is driven solely by the selfish pursuit of survival, whether of the individual or the species. Here, as in other cases, Darwinism and Buddhism present some superficial similarities. As Lopez notes: There seems to be a certain parallel between the survival of the species and the perpetuation of the cycle of rebirth…. Over the course of billions of lifetimes, the sense of self has become so ingrained as to be innate, present not only in humans … but in all forms of animal life, as well. (Lopez 2012: 74)

While such selfishness certainly is a powerful motivator in both Darwinian and Buddhist schemes, the question may rightly be asked, in either case, whether “self-­ grasping” (ātmagraha), as Buddhists call it, is the only factor at work. The Dalai Lama raises this issue pointedly in The Universe in a Single Atom: One empirical problem in Darwinism’s focus on the competitive survival of individuals, which is defined in terms of an organism’s struggle for individual reproductive success, has been how to explain altruism, whether in the sense of collaborative behavior … or conflict resolution … or acts of self-sacrifice. (Dalai Lama 2005: 112)

The Dalai Lama finds that evolutionary biologists are so committed to the doctrine of survival of the fittest that, rather than admit that competition and cooperation may be evolutionary forces of comparable power, they view altruism only through survivalist lenses, insisting that collaboration, conflict resolution, self-sacrifice, and other instances of prosocial behavior are merely expedient strategies that contribute to the survival and reproductive success of an individual, group, or species—all of which, at base, are driven by aggression. The Dalai Lama finds this approach to be unscientific, concluding that the “inability or unwillingness fully to engage the question of altruism is perhaps the most important drawback of Darwinian evolutionary theory, at least in its popular version” (Dalai Lama 2005: 114). The popular understanding of survival of the fittest, he adds, “has been misused to condone, and in some cases to justify, excesses of human greed and individualism and to ignore ethical models for relating to our fellow human beings in a more compassionate spirit” (Dalai Lama 2005: 115).22 With this last comment, we see clearly the gap that divides Buddhist from popular Darwinian notions of the survival of the fittest, as promulgated, for instance, by T.H. Huxley. While the Darwinian is committed to a vision of life as an amoral, survivalist struggle for existence, in which attitudes and practices such as compassion, altruism, cooperation, and self-sacrifice exist to the degree that they contribute to survival and reproductive success, the Buddhist believes that such qualities are deeply ingrained in sentient beings—and are, in fact, more fundamental than our  See, however, the discussion in Collins 1998, which finds strong utopian elements in Theravāda Buddhist discourse. 22  For a perspective on some of these questions from the point of view of evolutionary biology (and not “popular Darwinism”), see, e.g., Sober 2002. 21

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delusion and selfishness. Indeed, there is a fundamental moral optimism at the heart of Buddhism, which insists that no matter how deeply mired in saṃsāra any of us may be, no matter how deluded, we all possess the capacity eventually to attain enlightenment, and the moral perfection it entails. Foundational Buddhist traditions clearly believe in the ability of each being eventually to become an arhat, while in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the concept of Buddha Nature (buddhadhātu) or the Matrix of the Thus-Gone One (tathāgatagarbha) points to a fundamental wisdom and goodness possessed by all beings, such that practice of the path will, in time, bring to full fruition in the state of buddhahood—whether through a process of developing a potential for goodness that resides in us in embryonic form or uncovering a perfect goodness that always has been there.23 This moral optimism, in turn, is inseparable from an epistemological optimism that goes back to some of the earliest texts (e.g., Aṅguttara Nikāya I: 10), which affirm that the nature of mind is clear and cognitively correct, while its errors, delusions, and afflictions are merely accidental and temporary. There is a natural connection between a correct understanding of reality and the perfection of virtues. The passions that typically afflict us prompt us to act improperly and lead to suffering results based on a mistaken apprehension of reality: the belief that we possess a permanent, independent, inherently existent self. When the idea of such a self is undermined through philosophical or contemplative investigation, the delusions and passions that stem from such “selfishness” are undermined as well, and as a result negative karma and its results are avoided. Seeing reality as ontologically selfless, the practitioner of the path becomes increasingly inclined to live in a morally selfless manner, and eventually, at the point of enlightenment, to reach the acme of cognitive and ethical development. Whether in Foundational or Great Vehicle Buddhism, the attainment of enlightenment entails mastery over death and life, with the ability to prolong life indefinitely or manifest the birth and death of countless bodies without departing from a fundamental, eternal, absorption in reality. Ironically, then, it is the maximization of selflessness and altruism rather than of competitiveness and aggression that lead to survival in the deepest sense of the term. In considering the passage cited earlier, it is important to note the Dalai Lama’s qualification that it is popular Darwinism, with its emphasis on selfishness, aggression, and competition, that seems so deeply at odds with Buddhism (or, for that matter, scientific thinking), for in The Descent of Man Darwin himself devotes considerable attention to the role of prosocial behavior in higher animals, writing: The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man…. [T]he social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure

 Certain early-first-millennium Mahāyāna texts, e.g., the Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Compendium of the Great Vehicle) do recognize the existence of a class of sentient beings who are forever cut off from enlightenment, but this rather darker view of our spiritual potential was not widely influential, and the idea of Buddha Nature has been well-nigh universal throughout the Mahāyāna world for the past fifteen centuries.

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in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. (Darwin 1989: 102)

He goes on to argue that emotions like love and sympathy are evident in a variety of non-human animals, such as dogs and elephants (Darwin 1989: 106–108), and that this demonstrates that prosocial emotions and behavior are widespread, if not universal, among what Buddhists call sentient beings.24 In this sense, Darwin is somewhat more attuned to the Buddhist outlook than comparisons with popular Darwinism might suggest. At the same time, Darwin does see the development of prosociality as part of a larger evolutionary process that still is centered on survival and reproduction, so we must be wary of attempts to identify his views too closely with those of a traditional Buddhist. Buddhists, after all, are centrally concerned with the spiritual destiny of individual mind-streams, and commonly assert the goodness and purity of that mind-stream—not, as Darwin would have it, as a survival-­oriented emergent property in higher animals but as an essential trait of all beings, expressible to greater or lesser degrees in this or that particular rebirth in saṃsāra, and maximized in a spiritually awakened being, whether arhat or buddha.

9.3.2  Randomness As we have seen, one key component of Darwinian accounts of the mechanism of natural selection is the apparent randomness with which heritable mutations occur in living beings, such that traits assuring fitness for survival, hence reproductive success, are the result not of purposive activity but of blind fortuity. Darwin himself articulated a notion of “spontaneous,” “accidental,” or “chance” variation (Merlin 2010). Thus, from the Darwinian standpoint a sentient being is configured as it is at least partly on the basis of random mutations undergone by its ancestors, either distant or immediate, and the being itself also may be subject to such mutations, which may in turn be transmitted to its offspring, hence—if evolutionarily successful—to future generations. While the meaning, and even the existence, of “randomness” and “chance” in evolutionary processes has been much debated among Neo-Darwinians (see, e.g., Talbott 2011; Merlin 2010), the basic notion that mutations occur more or less independently of environmental conditions and factors internal to the organism—and unrelated to any purpose but survival and reproduction—remains a cornerstone of the view maintained by Darwin and most of his successors.25  Among neo-Darwinians, Frans De Waal has argued both vehemently and persuasively for the presence of a wide range of prosocial emotions in non-human species, such as bonobos. See, e.g., De Waal 1997, 2014. Thanks to C. Mackenzie Brown for this reference. 25  Richard Jones observes that “in evolutionary theory ‘random’ does not mean uncaused. Genetic mutations do have physical causes. Rather, ‘randomness’ means that these mutations are undirected and have no goal—they occur without regard to their usefulness to the organism, and thus there is no intentionality behind the process of evolution. That is, they are random from the point 24

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If some degree of chance is a key feature of Darwinian conceptions of how species evolve, the same cannot be said for Buddhism. Indeed, as noted earlier, there are few doctrines so central to the tradition as that of dependent arising (pratītya-­ samutpāda), which makes it quite clear that causation operates throughout the cosmos, not just at the level of the physical, but in the realms of the psychological and moral, as well. There are two classic, general formulations of this law. The first states, formulaically: “this being, that arises; from the arising of this comes the arising of that. This ceasing, that ceases; from the ceasing of this comes the ceasing of that.” So important was this formula that several of the Buddha’s most important disciples are said to have attained spiritual awakening simply by hearing it expressed. The second general statement of the law runs: “Of those things produced by causes, the Thus-Gone One has stated the causes, and also their cessation—thus speaks the Great Ascetic.” This formula26 became even more popular than the first, taking on, in time, the status of a dhāranī or magical spell; as such, it is often found inscribed on Indian sculptures from the first millennium C.E. So much for the general law; more important for detailing the drama of sentient life and progressing on the path to enlightenment is a famous 12-fold27 formulation of dependent arising, often described as the twelve connected “links” (nidānas) that explain how sentient beings take birth in saṃsāra (see, e.g., Warren 1970: 165–208; La Vallée Poussin 1988: 401–438; Pabongka 1993: 526–534). Since its first appearance in Buddhist literature, this formula has been interpreted in countless ways, but the most common reading suggests that the causal sequence is spread over three lives. Thus, in Life A—which may or may not directly precede one’s current life— one is beset by (1) ignorance, particularly the mistaken belief that one is or has a permanent self. As a result of deluded actions rooted in that ignorance, one creates (2) karmic formations, the seeds that will bear fruit as rebirth in a particular situation either in one’s present life, or in some future life (Life B). Life B begins with (3) a consciousness conditioned by previous karmic formations being conceived and taking birth in whichever life form is karmically appropriate. The association of consciousness with a body produces (4) name and form, that is, the body-mind complex of a typical sentient being. Beings that possess name and form encounter the world through their (5) six entrances, or sense faculties (five sensory and one mental), and those faculties’ (6) contact with particular objects leads to (7) sensations of pleasure, pain, or indifference. One develops (8) craving for the perpetuation of pleasure, the elimination of pain, and the transformation of indifferernce into pleasure. At the end of Life B, one engenders (9) grasping toward either existence or non-existence, but as long as one is deluded, the process of (10) becoming another life form is inevitable, and one soon will undergo the (11) birth (or conception) that of view of the history of life, but they are not uncaused; indeed, there may be a physical determinism here” (Jones 2010: 171). 26  In Sanskrit: ye dharmā hetuprabhāvā hetun teṣāṃ tahāgataḥ hyavadat/teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃ vādī mahāśramaṇaḥ. 27  Twelve is the commonly accepted number, but there are versions in a number of early texts that omit ignorance and karmic formations, hence contain only ten members.

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marks the transition into Life C. From that moment on, everything is really just a process of (12) aging and death, ignorance of the true nature of which starts the process yet again. As we have seen already, the species and situation into which one is born is a secondary concern for Buddhists, having importance only to the degree that rebirth as such and such a being in such and such a place and time may impede or accelerate one’s movement in the direction of enlightenment. Given the beginninglessness of mind and the number of ignorant actions we perform every hour of every day, it is not surprising that Buddhists assert that we have, truly, an infinity of such actions awaiting fruition, even as we plant more seeds all the time. Despite this rather grim picture of our enslavement to what Jack Kerouac called the “slaving meat wheel” of saṃsāra (Kerouac 1959: 211), the fact that the sequence of twelve links is causally predictable means that if we break the chain at certain key points, we can undo the entire process. Links 2–7 and 10–12 all are said to be “resultant” events, hence not subject to our intervention once they are in process. The “weak” links in the chain, then, are the “causal” elements, namely, (1) ignorance, (8) craving, and (9) grasping. The undermining of any of these factors can lead to the chain being broken, such that the resultant factors no longer occur, and (regardless of how many unfructified karmic seeds remain in the mind-­ stream) rebirth no longer is necessary. Because in most Indo-Tibetan traditions ignorance is the most fundamental of our delusions, it is by breaking that first link— by recognizing the absence of self—that one is best assured of escaping saṃsāra and attaining nirvāṇa. The key point in the present context is that the processes leading either to continued rebirth or transcendence of saṃsāra operate according to strict causal laws: unlike in the Darwinian scenario, nothing, but nothing, is left to chance.28 The Dalai Lama is acutely aware of the problem posed by Darwinian notions of random mutation, and comments: From a philosophical point of view, the idea that … mutations … take place naturally is unproblematic, but that they are purely random strikes me as unsatisfying. It leaves open the question of whether this randomness is best understood as an objective feature of reality or better understood as indicating some kind of hidden causality. (Dalai Lama 2005: 106)

The Buddhist perspective on this issue is, to the Dalai Lama, clear: dependent arising, or causation, is a universal law, allowing no exceptions. Hence any scientific postulation of randomness—whether in biology, quantum physics, or elsewhere— cannot, in the end, be accepted as an adequate account of the process or event in question, for there are bound to be “hidden” causes at work—not, perhaps, causes that we ever will be able to detect with human instruments, let alone senses, but causes nonetheless. Though the Dalai Lama does not expound on the point, he clearly sympathizes not only with the general Buddhist axiom of unfailing  At the same time, Buddhists have recognized from early on that unconditioned dharmas, the most important of which is nirvāṇa, cannot have causes in the usual sense of the term. Nirvāṇa, therefore, is not so much the result of the particular practices that constitute the path as it is the outcome of those practices. Mahāyāna notions of the ways in which buddhahood is attained operate along similar lines.

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causation, but believes as well that one factor at work in physical processes—at least where sentient beings are concerned—is the mind and its karmic disposition, and that in some cases this may prove to be precisely the hidden cause that scientists seek, but will never find. Thus, the mutations that occur in biological organisms may appear to be random, but from a Buddhist standpoint they are effected by a combination of unseen physical causes and the influence of mind and karma—since the latter are the crucial determinants of the nature and constitution of the natural world and the bodies that inhabit it.

9.3.3  Human Uniqueness If Copernicus removed Earth from the center of the cosmos, then Darwin, more than any figure before him, may be said to have undermined the idea that humanity is the crown of creation.29 By arguing that “man, like every other species, is descended from some pre-existing [lower] form; …. [and] in every visible character man differs less from the higher apes, than these do from the lower members of the same order of Primates” (Darwin 1989: 4), Darwin brings humans completely within the range of the methods he had used and the conclusions he had reached in On the Origin of Species. Thus: Man is liable to numerous, slight and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals…. [H]e has necessarily been exposed to the struggle for existence, and consequently to Natural Selection. … His body is constructed on the same homological plan as that of other mammals. He passes through the same stages of embryological development. He retains many rudimentary and useless structures which no doubt were once serviceable. Some naturalists … have divided the whole organic world into three kingdoms, the Human, the Animal, and the Vegetable, thus giving man a separate kingdom…. I have [endeavoured to show] that the mental faculties of man and the lower animals do not differ in kind, though immensely in degree. A difference in degree, however great, does not justify us in placing man in a distinct kingdom…. (Darwin 1989: 151–152)

Thus, if most of the world’s religious traditions, and not a few humanists and secularists, placed humanity at the apex of the natural order, Darwin sought to counter this tendency toward human “exceptionalism,” by showing that, from a strictly scientific standpoint, humans are simply part of a continuum shared with countless other species, and that judgment as to “high” and “low” are at best relative, and certainly far from absolute.30  He acknowledges Lamarck as a predecessor in this regard, and Wallace, Huxley, Lyell, Haeckel, and others as contemporaries who have reached the same conclusion (Darwin 1989: 4). 30  It must be acknowledged that Darwin is not entirely free from at least an implicit endorsement of human exceptionalism. Towards the end of On the Origin of Species, after summarizing the general laws of evolution, he writes: “Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, 29

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Buddhism is widely reputed to be a tradition that demonstrates unusual sensitivity to the non-human sentient world. Certainly, the reputation is not entirely undeserved. Not harming sentient beings (ahiṃsā) is a basic definition of what it means to practice the Buddha’s Dharma and—at least in thought and word, if not always in deed—Buddhists consistently express love and compassion toward all sentient beings, not just humans. Given the axiomatic assumption of rebirth, and the reality that the same mind-stream may in one life be a human and in the very next an animal, there is a certain fluidity to species distinctions—or, as Lopez has reminded us, in the Buddhist view, there is really only one species: the sentient being, which now takes one form and now another, and is equally deserving of respect and concern, regardless of the configuration of a particular life. In this sense, Buddhists and Darwinists agree that humans and animals (Buddhists, of course, would extend their compass to hell beings, ghosts, and deities) are more fundamentally alike than they are different, and that there is a profound and inescapable connection among all forms of life, both in the temporal succession of “generations” (whether of species or mind-streams) and in the present-moment interdependence of various beings on a local or planetary level. As an example, one popular Tibetan meditation technique involves recognizing that all sentient beings currently living have at one time or another been one’s mother. One then remembers the kindness of one’s present-life mother, thinks about how one would do anything to relieve her of sorrow and suffering—and then extends that sentiment to all other beings, who have equally shown motherly kindness to us in lives past. Despite this expansive notion of sentient life, however, Buddhism has long displayed a deep ambivalence about the place of humanity in the overall scheme of saṃsāra (Harvey 2000: 150–186; Ohnuma 2017). In one sense, to be born human is no better than to be born as an animal or a hell being, in that human life is subject to delusion and suffering in exactly the same way as life in any unenlightened realm, whether “low” or “high.” At the same time, the human realm clearly is regarded as one of the most valuable—indeed, probably the most valuable—station into which a sentient being might be born, and as a result of this, Buddhism has, from the very beginning, evinced some degree of “speciesism,” both in theory and practice. Merely on the doctrinal level, evidence of this bias abounds. The vows against killing taken by both monastics and laypeople are considered most egregiously broken only through the killing of a fellow human. By the same token, discussions of the “heaviness” of karma—the calibration of action according to the nature and intentionality of the agent, the status of the object of the action, the method of acting, the frequency with which the action is performed, the completion of the action, and the agent’s satisfaction in the outcome—make it clear that it is far worse to kill a human being than, say, a mosquito, and that there are humans whom it is worse to kill than others: one’s parents or an arhat rank among the worst. Finally, and of particular relevance to Indo-Tibetan traditions, the practice of tantra, the swiftest and surest

directly follows” (Darwin 1909: 528). This is not human exceptionalism per se, but it does exalt the “higher animals,” of which humans are, so far, the culmination.

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route to enlightenment in a single lifetime, only is possible within the vehicle of a human body. As noted earlier, there is a clear sense in Buddhist cosmology that the human realm is a “higher” place into which to be born than that of animals, which, with the hungry ghost and hell realms, is considered a “lower” station. Furthermore, although the human realm, with its admixture of pleasure and pain, intelligence and stupidity, and various other opposed qualities, is lower on the ladder of saṃsāric states than either the titan or god realms—whose denizens exceed humans in power, pleasure, and longevity—to be born human is regarded as perhaps the most fortunate of all possible destinies. This is so because humans are neither utterly preoccupied with suffering and survival, as beings in the three lower realms are, nor obsessed with power or pleasure like the titans and gods. Rather, humans have the range of experiences, and the intelligence, to permit them to assess their true condition and, through practicing the Dharma, correct it. In short, humans are unusually—if not uniquely— positioned to attain enlightenment. It has been a key Buddhist claim from early times that the human rebirth is a rare and precious opportunity, not to be wasted. A popular analogy, found in the Chiggala Sutta of the Saṃyutta Nikāya of the Pāli canon, brings this point home strikingly. The Buddha asks his monks: “Monks, suppose that this great earth were totally covered with water, and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole there. A wind from the east would push it west, a wind from the west would push it east. A wind from the north would push it south, a wind from the south would push it north. And suppose a blind sea-turtle were there. It would come to the surface once every one hundred years. Now what do you think: would that blind sea-turtle, coming to the surface once every one hundred years, stick his neck into the yoke with a single hole?” (Thanissaro 1998)

The answer, obviously, is “no,” and the Buddha explains that the odds of the turtle putting his head into the yoke when he surfaces once a century are roughly the same as those that a given sentient being will be born human: slim to none. A human birth is valued highly in Indian Buddhism, and Tibetans Buddhists, if anything, took the idea even farther. Virtually every Tibetan practice tradition has as one of its most fundamental reflections a meditation on what is sometimes called the “perfect human rebirth,” or the “free and favored human life” (e.g., Sgam.po.pa 1959: 14–29; Pabongka Rinpoche 1997: 307–325). A human rebirth is inherently valuable, but for it to count as “perfect,” it must fulfill further conditions, as articulated under the rubrics of the eight freedoms and the ten endowments. The eight freedoms are freedom from being born as (1) a hell-being, (2) a hungry ghost, (3) an animal, (4) a long-life god, (5) a barbarian, (6) deaf, (7) a heretic, or (8) in a time without the Buddhist teaching or order. The ten endowments are (1) birth as a human, (2) birth in a religious country, (3) birth with perfect faculties, (4) avoidance of extreme evil, (5) faith in the Buddha Dharma and the scriptures that expound it, (6) birth in a period when Buddhism is available, (7) encountering Buddhist teachings, (8) encountering persons who have experience in the teachings, (9) following the teachings, and (10) receiving help in practicing the teachings. Once we have come to appreciate the extraordinary good fortune we enjoy, not just as humans, but as humans with the opportunity to practice the Dharma, we reflect further on the

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rarity of such a birth, and our own uncertainty as to just how long it will last. After all, death is certain, but its time is quite unknown. Given our tendencies toward negative attitudes and actions and the mechanisms of karma, were we to die today without having fully mastered the Dharma, it is likely that we would end up in a lower realm, with no guarantee that we would be born human any time soon. All this makes it imperative for us to take advantage of our spiritually advantageous position, not just in this life, but right now. Thus, although there are many reasons to regard Buddhism as a tradition broadly sympathetic to sentient life wherever it is found, there is a strong sense in it, as well, that humans are exceptional among sentient beings, not—as some evolutionists might have it—because they are the culmination of a long evolutionary development, but because their situation and capacities make them uniquely well positioned to undertake the most significant task possible for a conscious entity: the overcoming of delusion and the attainment of enlightenment. Enlightenment, in turn, is a state that, while most easily attained from the human realm, actually transcends species entirely—or, if it must be considered in speciated terms, marks one’s transition from sentient being to enlightened being, whether as (in Foundational Buddhism) an arhat or (in Mahāyāna) a fully awakened buddha. In any case, the Buddhist view of the place of humanity in the cosmos, while not infected by the same degree of exceptionalism as Western theism or even secular humanism, still seems at a considerable remove from the Darwinian view, with its strong sense of the continuities between animals and humans, and its unsentimental affirmation that humanity is just another development in a biological evolutionary process that has no particular aim, and no particular endpoint.

9.4  C  onclusion: Traditionalism, Modernism, and the Dream of Compatibility It seems, then, that despite the common, modern assumption that Buddhism and Darwinism are eminently compatible—or at least not in serious conflict—an examination of the views of Darwin and traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhists yields a considerably different picture. On a macroscopic level, each system views the drama of sentient existence quite disparately. The Darwinian sees the birth and death of individuals as part of an ongoing, endless, evolutionary process in which organisms struggle—sometimes selfishly, sometimes cooperatively—to survive and reproduce, and where their ability to do so is determined largely by unpredictable and uncontrollable environmental and genetic factors that are primarily physical in nature. The Buddhist sees an individual life as a brief sojourn among many undergone by a beginningless mind-stream that (if one is an ordinary being) takes birth where it does because of delusion and karma, and will attain its telos only in the consummation that is enlightenment. For the Darwinian, mind is an emergent property of physical evolution, and has little or nothing to do with the larger biological

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processes in which it is involved. For the Buddhist, mind is the primary guiding power in the universe, such that it is the forerunner not only of subsequent mental states, but of the body and environment, as well. Even if the Buddhist does not forcefully assert the mind’s influence over the physical cosmos, the connection between the Darwinian version of the sentient drama and the Buddhist understanding would remain tenuous at best, for in the Buddhist view, the rebirths taken by sentient beings might happen to coincide with physical processes of evolution playing out on this or that planet, but biological evolution would remain simply a backdrop to the more urgent matter of overcoming delusion and attaining enlightenment. On the level of particular key issues and concepts, the differences are notable, as well. The Darwinian depiction of the struggle for survival in nature may correspond superficially with certain Buddhist accounts of life in saṃsāra, but the basis for survival is viewed quite differently in each system: for the Darwinist, it is a matter of changes to the physical environment and random genetic mutations, while for the Buddhist it is a matter of the mind-rooted karma that has directed one into a particular situation in which survival may or may not be the projected outcome. On the question of randomness vis-à-vis causation, Darwinists admit that many of the events and processes that determine the fate of sentient beings and of species are subject to random fluctuation, hence unpredictable and uncontrollable, while Buddhists insist that the cosmos is causally coherent from top to bottom, such that all events and processes—most notably, but not solely, those related to delusion and enlightenment—can be understood, hence, to one degree or another, predicted and controlled. Finally, on the question of human uniqueness, Darwinians clearly posit that homo sapiens is simply the outcome of a long process of development; our species may differ from other animals in some significant ways, but there are, in fact, many more continuities than dissimilarities between humans and their ancestors— nor is humanity guaranteed a future any more than other species, all of which are bound for eventual extinction through one set of circumstances or another. Buddhists, while arguing for continuities among all sentient beings, nevertheless do tend to privilege humanity, on the grounds that the combination of physical and mental circumstances in the human realm makes it far more conducive to the attainment of enlightenment than circumstances in other realms. In short, classical Darwinism and traditional Indo-Tibetan Buddhism are quite dissimilar. With the rise of the scientific ethos and worldview in the modern era, however, traditional Buddhist cosmology and metaphysics have been brought into question, both in Asia and the West. As with other religious people confronted by modernity, Buddhists have adopted a variety of positions on how to reconcile scientific and Buddhist views of the world and its workings, ranging from a thoroughgoing revision of Buddhism in the face of science to attempts to show that science actually confirms traditional Buddhist ways of describing reality. The most common move, especially among Westerners, is to take the way of Buddhist modernism (see, e.g., Lopez 2002; McMahan 2008), which, in the matter at hand, would (a) concede that science provides the most plausible explanation for the nature and development of life on Earth, and (b) either drop, leave in abeyance, or reinterpret in a symbolic, psychological, and/or existential manner the traditional Buddhist belief in past and

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future lives, multiple realms of rebirth, and the possibility of a transcendent enlightenment like that described in the ancient texts (see, e.g., Flanagan 2011; Batchelor 2015). This option would keep in place Buddhism’s process metaphysics, its ontology of no-self and emptiness, its complex psychology, its ethical commitment to care and compassion for others, and such ritual and meditative techniques as are conducive to human flourishing. In such an approach, however, Donald Lopez observes, [T]he standard cosmology … wound have to be abandoned…. [T]he six realms of beings would need to be reduced to two: humans and animals. This Buddhism would be a materialist Buddhism, one in which the dichotomy between mind and matter so central to Buddhist thought would have to be abandoned; mind would become merely an epiphenomenon of matter. And if mind does not precede matter nor persist beyond it, there could be no rebirth. Thus, the Buddha would not have perfected himself over many millions of lifetimes…. [T]he Buddha would be a man … who sat beneath a tree and contemplated the law of cause and effect and then spent his life teaching others to live ethically and understand that there is no self. At the end of his life, he would enter nirvana. Put another way, he would die. (Lopez 2012: 76–77)

Lopez adds that “this is obviously a bleaching of the Buddha, a fading of his aura …. [and] a domestication of the dharma, making it … something of the world rather [than] … something beyond the world” (Lopez 2012: 77). For his part, Lopez suggests “that we allow the Buddha to remain beyond the world, completely at odds with the world, and with science” (Lopez 2012: 79), and leave it at that. Diametrically opposed to these Buddhist modernist approaches, which by and large concede the metaphysical field to normative science, are the perspectives of those we might term neo-traditionalists. These thinkers—who include Robert Thurman, Alan Wallace, and any number of modern Asian Buddhists, including the Fourteenth Dalai Lama31—insist in one way or another that the findings of modern science do not really touch on the fundamental metaphysical claims of traditional Buddhism, and may, in fact, help to confirm them. Some will argue that because science is so far (and perhaps in principle) incapable of fully explaining, let alone quantifying, human consciousness, the door remains open to a form of interactionist dualism not too far from that espoused by Dharmakīrti—whose arguments still may be seen to hold some sway.32 Still others will point to empirical evidence suggesting the reality of past and future lives, such as accounts of near-death experiences or cases, such as those studied by Ian Stevenson, “suggestive of reincarnation.”33 And still others will look to the fringes of physics, where thinking through the implications of quantum physics (e.g., Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle or the Schrödinger Equation) has led certain theorists to suggest that the universe, whether considered macroscopically or microscopically, may in the final analysis be more “mental” than “physical.” In the words of twentieth-century physicist James Jeans:

 See, e.g., Thurman 1999; Wallace 2007; Dalai Lama 2005.  See, especially, Dalai Lama 2005: 117–61. 33  See, e.g., Moody 2015; Stevenson 1980. 31 32

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The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. (Jeans 1930: 158)

This idealist view of the cosmos—which has been espoused in more recent times by such thinkers as Fritjof Capra, David Bohm, and Robert Lanza,34 turns the Buddhist modernist approach on its head, by the simple expedient of reversing the priority of mind and matter, and arguing on that basis that the sciences, properly understood, confirm Buddhist metaphysics rather than overturning it. Of course, each of the approaches described here faces limitations: Dharmakīrti’s arguments, while rigorous and sophisticated, still are open to criticism on a variety of grounds, especially that of question-begging; the “empirical” evidence for past lives or survival of death is far from unambiguous, and rightly subjected to skeptical questioning on methodological grounds; while the attempt to utilize quantum physics to argue for an “idealist” rather than a “materialist” metaphysics, represents the view of a tiny minority within the community of physicists, and may reflect a one-sidedness as problematic as that of the materialism it seeks to overturn.35 The options for the modern Buddhist are not, however, a simple binary—a stark choice between, on the one hand, defending tradition on the basis of arguments old or new, or, on the other, trading tradition in for secular humanism with a Buddhist patina. A number of intermediate positions have been offered, which seem to allow some degree of reconciliation between Buddhism and science in general, and Buddhism and Darwinian evolution in particular. Almost all these “middle way” approaches work from the twin premises that, on the one hand, the classical, dualist Buddhist account of the mind-body connection and the operation of karma may be impossible to defend on either empirical or rational grounds, while on the other hand, the thoroughgoing materialism of Darwinian views of consciousness leaves unanswered many difficult questions about the place of mind in individual organisms and in the evolutionary scheme writ large. From there, different thinkers take off in different directions. David Loy, for instance, argues for “a new evolutionary myth,” in which we find a third alternative “between intelligent design and haphazard mutation” (Loy 2015: 80), a vision in which we regard the evolution of the cosmos as a whole, and species in particular, as “neither random nor predetermined but creative” (Loy 2015: 81). “[W]hat if,” Loy asks, “instead of reducing biology to physics and viewing the cosmos as a machine, we turn that around and understand the physical universe according to a biological model?” (Loy 2015: 82). In this model, it is understood that the universe “constantly reorganizes itself, creating more complex structures as part of itself….” It is, in short, an organism (Loy 2015: 83). Loy goes on to cite with approval the claim, by systems philosopher Ervin Laszlo, that humans “are a  See, e.g., Capra 1975; Bohm 1980; Lanza 2009.  For recent critiques of Dharmakīrti, see, e.g., Arnold 2012: 19–47; Thompson 2015: 81–83. For a critique of Stevenson, see, e.g., Carrol 2013. For a critique of “idealist physics,” keyed to Lanza 2009, see, e.g., Wadhawan 2009. 34 35

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conscious part of the world, a being through which the cosmos comes to know itself” (cited Loy 2015: 83).36 As a result, Loy adds, “we can view evolution as the creative groping of a self-organizing cosmos that is becoming more self-aware” (Loy 2015: 85).37 Loy’s view certainly reintroduces to evolutionary theory a teleology that is absent in its classic formulation, and it suggests, in its own way, that there is something resembling “mind” at work throughout all natural processes—a view that harmonizes especially well with certain “idealist” strains in Mahāyāna and tantric Buddhist theory, which see all entities and events as a function of an underlying consciousness or gnosis. At the same time, his vision seems both sentimental and speciesist: sentimental in its romantic celebration of the universe’s groping toward self-understanding through consciousness, speciesist because it exalts human consciousness as the apex of the entire process of cosmic evolution. More crucially, perhaps, it suggests a sort of crypto-theism, with the “intelligent” cosmos as a whole—we could equally call it Being—taking the place of the God of Western and other monotheistic traditions without fully subverting it.38 Such a view is not likely to meet with the approval of many Buddhists, whether traditional or modernist, who are if nothing else generally committed to atheism, and may well ask what the difference is between creationism and “creativity-ism.” Nor would this view likely find favor with evolutionists, precisely because it reintroduces teleology to natural processes and subordinates natural, physical events to consciousness, centuries of scientific evidence notwithstanding. A second “intermediate” approach is reflected in the work of Evan Thompson, who observes that neither evolutionary biology nor neuroscience has so far succeeded in explaining the “experiential” or “interior” dimension of organisms. The fact that what philosophers of mind call “the really hard problem” has not been— and perhaps never can be—adequately accounted for through materialist assumptions and methods, does not lead Thompson back to the mind-body dualism of Dharmakīrti and most premodern Buddhist traditions. Indeed, he considers himself an emergentist, but in a special sense: I hold that consciousness is a natural phenomenon and that the cognitive complexity of consciousness increases as a function of the increasing complexity of living beings. Consciousness depends on physical or biological processes, but it also influences the physical or biological processes on which it depends…. In my view, … no concept of nature or physical being that by design excludes mental or experiential being will work to account for consciousness and its place in nature. (Thompson 2015: 103)

 General systems theory has provided a fruitful point of comparison for modern Buddhist thinkers. For examples, see Macy 1991; Cho and Squier 2015. 37  Loy acknowledges the influence, in this matter, of the cosmologist Brian Swimme (Loy 2015: 78); see Swimme 1984, which itself is a popular presentation of the ecotheology of Thomas Berry. 38  Granted, if Loy is suggesting some version of God, it is not the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God of classical theism but, instead, a “creative” God more like that of process theologies, as found in the works of, e.g., Charles Hartshorne and Gordon Kaufman. 36

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Thompson hastens to add that he is not proposing some version of panpsychism, whereby all phenomena, from atoms to galaxies may in some sense be said to be “conscious,” but, rather, suggesting that: We need to work our way to a new understanding of what it means for something to be physical, in which “physical” no longer means essentially nonmental or nonexperiential…. [S]uch an understanding would replace our present dualistic concepts of consciousness and physical being, which exclude each other from the start, with a nondualistic framework in which physical being and experiential being imply each other or derive from something that is neutral between them. (Thompson 2015: 105)

Thompson notes that the idea that we need to rethink the nature of matter—“so that physical being is understood as naturally including, at its most fundamental level, the potential for consciousness or experiential being”—was proposed at a Mind and Life conference by the Dalai Lama himself (Thompson 2015: 104), suggesting that there may be a bridge, however tenuous, between traditional Buddhist and modern scientific perspectives on the nature of things. It must be added, however, that in most settings the Dalai Lama still relies heavily on Dharmakīrti’s arguments for dualism, and that his suggestion at the Mind and Life conference may have to be understood in the special context of tantric discourse on the relation between the mental and the physical in the subtle body, which is the site for the most advanced type of tantric contemplative practice. Furthermore, Thompson’s assertion that we must revise the meaning of “matter” is far from unanimously held among neuroscientists or philosophers of mind. Nevertheless, Thompson (in concert with the Dalai Lama) does suggest a way in which scientific materialism and the Buddhist assertion of the centrality of mind might coincide.39 Still, it is worth observing that while Loy’s and Thompson’s attempts to find a third possibility between Buddhist tradition (or neo-traditionalism) and hard-core Darwinism (or Buddhist modernism) yield intriguing possibilities—for each in its own way gives mind a place in the cosmos that modern science has tended to deny it—neither really seems to provide a framework for preserving a Buddhist cosmology in which sentient mind-streams take successive births in various realms as dictated by the operations of karma. Loy’s “myth” makes some sort of intelligent impulse a guiding, if not omnipotent, force in evolution, but says nothing about the possibility of past and future lives or the reliability of karma. Thompson’s version of emergentism complicates our idea of how evolutionary processes may work, granting “mind” a causal role in those processes, but this means only that matter is more complex than we had thought, not that mind can survive without it. In this sense, from the point of view of a Buddhist traditionalist, these “middle way” solutions are not a middle way at all, but simply kinder, gentler, and perhaps more philosophically respectable versions of the materialism that is axiomatic in modern scientific theory and method.  Thompson was influenced by, and collaborated with, Francisco Varela, who is credited with developing the concept of autopoeisis as a way to describe the role of mind in evolutionary processes, and with founding the field of “neurophenomenology.” Varela also was a frequent interlocutor for the Dalai Lama. See Varela et al. 1991; Hayward and Varela 1992.

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Where does this leave the modern Buddhist, who, like the vast majority of his or her co-religionists, purportedly accepts the plausibility of the Darwinian account of the origins of life but also wishes to assert the truth of the Buddha’s basic teachings? I have argued that, despite Buddhist modernist assumptions of a basic compatibility between the two worldviews, the similarities—in terms of, for instance, rejection of creationism, appeal to the dynamism of nature, and description of the struggles involved in sentient existence—are significantly outweighed by the disparities— whether in, for instance, understanding the place of mind and sentient beings in the cosmos, determining the pervasiveness and reliability of causal processes, or situating human beings in relation to other species. Some might suggest that modern Buddhists simply ought to learn to live with the cognitive dissonance involved in holding two incompatible views at the same time, perhaps assuming that they are simply, in Stephen Jay Gould’s phrase, claims made within “non-overlapping magisteria,” that is, entirely different realms of human inquiry. But the urgency and totality with which each system presents its view of the cosmos makes such a response both unpromising and unsatisfying. The likelier options would seem to be to either (1) reassert Buddhist tradition by insisting that mind does have the primacy and independence of the physical insisted upon in pre-modern texts, “normal” scientific evidence notwithstanding; (2) concede that science has provided a more defensible description of the world than traditional Buddhism, and reinterpret Buddhist cosmology symbolically, psychologically, or existentially, or (3) adopt an intermediate position that preserves certain key elements of both views and points beyond traditional dualities to an understanding of the cosmos that gives more or less equal weight to both the mental and the physical. Each option has its advantages and pitfalls, and the choice a particular Buddhist makes will, in the end, be a personal one, based on the usual human admixture of cultural influence, internal reflection, emotional need, and aesthetic response, with absolute certainty perhaps a distant dream except for the true believer, whether Buddhist or Darwinian.

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Pabongka Rinpoche. 1993. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: A Concise Discourse on the Path to Enlightenment. Ed. Trijang Rinpoche, Trans. M. Richards. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Pew Forum. 2009. Religious differences on the question of evolution. http://www.pewforum. org/2009/02/04/religious-differences-on-the-question-of-evolution/. Accessed 29 March 2016. Sgam.po.pa. 1959. The Jewel Ornament of Liberation. Trans. H.V. Guenther. London: Rider. Sober, E. 2002. Kindness and Cruelty in Evolution. In Visions of Compassion: Western Scientists and Tibetan Buddhists Examine Human Nature, ed. R.J. Davidson and A. Harrington, 46–65. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stevenson, I. 1980. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation. Revised and enlarged ed. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Survival of the fittest. 2016. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survival_of_the_fittest. Accessed 12 Apr 2016. Swimme, B. 1984. The Universe is a Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story. Rochester: Bear & Co.. Talbott, S.L. 2011. Evolution and the Illusion of Randomness. The New Atlantis (Fall 2011). http:// www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/evolution-and-the-illusion-of-randomness. Accessed 18 April 2016. Thanissaro Bhikkhu. 1998. Chiggala Sutta: The Hole. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/ sn56/sn56.048.than.html. Accessed 24 Apr 2016. Thompson, Evan. 2015. Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press. Thurman, R.A.F. 1999. Inner Revolution: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Real Happiness. New York: Penguin. Varela, F., E. Thompson, and E. Rosch. 1991. The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Wadhawan, V., with A. Kamal. 2009. Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza’s Notion of a Conscious Universe. Nirmukta. http://nirmukta.com/2009/12/14/ biocentrism-demystified-a-response-to-deepak-chopra-and-robert-lanzas-notion-of-a-conscious-universe/. Accessed 24 May 2018. Waldron, W. 2003. Common Ground, Common Cause: Buddhism and Science on the Afflictions of Identity. In Buddhism and Science: Breaking New Ground, ed. B.A.  Wallace, 145–191. New York: Columbia University Press. Wallace, B.A. 2007. Hidden Dimensions: The Unification of Physics and Consciousness. New York: Columbia University Press. Walshe, M., trans. 2013. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Dīgha Nikāya. Boston: Wisdom Publications. Warren, H.C., trans. 1970. Buddhism in Translations. New York: Atheneum. Weeraratne, D.A. 2004. Buddhism and Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. http://www.lakehouse.lk/ budusarana/2004/03/20/Budu14.pdf. Accessed 29 Mar 2016. Roger R. Jackson  is John W. Nason Professor of Asian Studies and Religion, Emeritus, at Carleton College, where he taught the religions of South Asia and Tibet. He also has taught at the University of Michigan, Fairfield University, McGill University, and Maitripa College. He has a B.A. from Wesleyan University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied under Geshe Lhundub Sopa. His scholarly interests include Indian and Tibetan Buddhist systems of philosophy, meditation, and ritual; Buddhist and other types of religious poetry; the study of mysticism; and the contours of modern Buddhist thought. His books include Is Enlightenment Possible? (1993), Tibetan Literature (with José Cabezón, 1996), Buddhist Theology (with John Makransky, 1999), Tantric Treasures (2004), The Crystal Mirror of Philosophical Systems (with Geshe Sopa et al., 2009), and Mahāmudrā and the Bka’ brgyud Tradition (with Matthew Kapstein, 2011). He has written many articles, book chapters, and reviews, and presented regularly at national and international scholarly conferences. He was editor-in-chief of The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies from 1985 to 1993, and co-edited the Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies from 2006 to 2018. His recent work is focused on Gelukpa Mahāmudrā meditation.

Part III

East Asian Responses

Chapter 10

Progress and Purposiveness in Chinese Philosophies: A Darwinian Critique Nicholas S. Brasovan

Abstract  When Darwinism is taken up as a hermeneutic position from which to engage and interpret traditional Chinese philosophies, it elicits questions regarding philosophical commitments to metaphysical ideals of progress, nature’s purposiveness and harmony. Advancing this hermeneutic dialogue between Confucianism, Daoism, and Darwinism, this chapter demonstrates potential contradictions and possible resolutions for a creative synthesis of these several worldviews. The present discussion begins with an exposition of the philosophical critique that Darwinism posed to teleological positions in the history of Anglo-American and European philosophies. It then pivots to pose this Darwinian critique to classical Chinese traditions of thought. Over the course of this discussion, two pillars of modern Chinese thought are addressed: Yan Fu and Li Zehou. The philosophies presented by these two authors provide insight into the antitheses between and potential syntheses of Darwinism and traditional Chinese worldviews.

10.1  Introduction This chapter critically analyzes Chinese philosophical engagements with Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century and the turn of the twenty-first century. To this end, we first focus on the seminal work of Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921) and then inquire into the contemporary philosophy of Li Zehou李泽厚 (b. 1930). The method of the current inquiry is hermeneutic in the sense that it seeks to foreground the philosophical questions, challenges and resources that Darwinism poses to the Chinese philosophical traditions adopted and espoused by Yan and Li. To begin the hermeneutic engagement, we first frame a set of philosophical concepts raised by John Dewey’s “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy.” Having outlined the philosophical critique posed by Dewey’s representation of Darwinism, we then

N. S. Brasovan (*) University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_10

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apply this critique to the Confucian and Daoist strains of thought in the philosophies of Yan Fu and Li Zehou.

10.2  Darwin á la Dewey In order to frame the philosophical questions posed by Darwinism at the turn of the twentieth century, we first look to John Dewey’s “The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy,” which was delivered as “a lecture in the course of public lectures on ‘Charles Darwin and His Influence on Science’ at Columbia University in the winter and spring of 1909.” Dewey’s assessment is not only of theoretical interest for analyzing the philosophical implications of Darwin’s biological theory of evolution by natural selection; it is also of historical significance for the inquiry into Darwinism in twentieth-century China. In 1919 Dewey embarked on a two-year tenure as a lecturer at Peking University, where he was heralded as the personification of Mr. Science and Mr. Democracy. The story of Darwinism in China thus extends through Dewey’s lectures in the philosophy of science. Dewey departed from China just four months before the death of Yan Fu. While Dewey’s expositions focused largely on the implications of Darwinism for traditional European philosophical and religious perspectives, his philosophy of Darwinism affords an incisive hermeneutic to assess Yan’s own efforts to synthesize a Darwinian perspective with traditional Chinese ways of thinking. Dewey’s exposition also proves helpful in evaluating the later synthetic work of Li Zehou. Dewey begins his Columbia lecture by rehearsing the epistemological and metaphysical backdrop against which Darwin sets forth his novel theory of evolution by natural selection. Tracing the dominant epistemologies and metaphysics of European philosophies back as far as the schools of Athens, Dewey rightly identifies the signal feature of Hellenistic philosophical narratives as a pursuit of unchanging, transcendent, supernal, rational principles that govern and structure the empirically observable, immanent changes of the natural physical world in which we live. In sum, he calls our attention to the Greek pursuit of an árche. One may argue along with Dewey: from the advent of Heraclitus’ Logos and Parmenides’ Being, through Plato’s ideal forms, and into Aristotle’s conception of final cause (télos), early Greek philosophers assigned metaphysical and epistemological priority to static principles, ideals (éidos) and universals at the expense of devaluing and discrediting process, transformation and diversified particularity. Dewey takes up philological analysis of the title of Darwin’s seminal work, The Origin of Species, as a means of demonstrating its revolutionary significance. The term “species,” as Dewey points out, has deep roots in the premodern biology of Aristotle. In its original Greek, Dewey explains, the term “species” is eidos, which Aristotle proposes in the context of his substance ontology (i.e. as a secondary substance) to essentially categorize biological kinds. Coupled with Aristotle’s concept of cause (aitía), eidos becomes an ideal form toward which any particular organism is striving. In short, Aristotle’s concept of species is teleological. The final cause is

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a kind of allure that guides the generative transformations of an organism so that the changes happen in a predetermined organized manner. From Aristotle until Darwin the dominant narrative of European metaphysics asserted a commitment to a final cause acting as a kind of guide to nature’s myriad transformations. The Aristotelian teleology was agreeable to European theologians of the medieval era. Saint Thomas Aquinas, for example, adopted a teleological strategy for attempting to prove the existence of God. Aquinas states in his cosmological argument that nature’s transformations are not fortuitous, but by design. Indeed, the Aristotelian stream of thought ran its course into the modern era of European history. During this period, William Paley famously argued for the analogy that likens the world to an intricate and grand machine designed toward specifiable ends, and he likened God to a divine artisan. Immanuel Kant, a quintessential representative of modernity, also perpetuates a commitment to teleology in his Critique of Judgment. Kant argues in this Critique that nature presents itself to the rational agent as if it has a subjective purposiveness that provides it with its rational order. Granted, Kant states his belief as a hypothetical; nevertheless, it suffices to say for our current discussion that Kant’s modern philosophy echoes classical calls for purpose or teleology in the natural order of things. Dewey’s Darwinian critique aims at such teleological metaphysics. Darwin’s discovery of evolution by natural selection provides an empirically-based, non-­ teleological, theory of changes in biological species. Natural selection, as a mechanism for genetic transformation over time, undercuts a conception of a teleological world driven by final ideal causes. As Dewey conveys the relationship between pre-­ Darwinian and Darwinian theories of natural evolution and organization, the latter is a paradigmatic departure from and refutation of the former. In a Darwinian world, there are no fixed and final causes; no predetermined ideal ends. On Darwin’s account, diversification and change in biological species over time occurs by way of adaptation to the changes in sources and forces of energy that constitute the dynamic environmental habitat. As environments change, certain genetically predisposed traits are more suitable for an organism’s survival than others. Those organisms that bear the traits that will allow them to develop to sexual maturation will be able to reproduce and thereby genetically pass on those surviving characteristics to their next generation of offspring. As environments change over space and time, so the fitting characteristics for survival must change. Those organisms that do not possess the biological traits necessary for survival, maturation and reproduction in a given environment will accordingly die out in that environment. Nature, on this model, can be a precarious place: if a biological species does not have the capacities to adapt to dynamic changes of its environments, it faces the distinct possibility of extinction. In Dewey’s estimation, Darwin’s scientific discovery of evolution by natural selection provided an empirical and experimental key to unchaining philosophy from the dogmatism and despotism of determinism. “In laying hands upon the sacred ark of absolute permanency, in treating the forms that had been regarded as types of fixity and perfection as originating and passing away, the Origin of Species introduced a mode of thinking that in the end was bound to transform the logic of

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knowledge, and hence the treatment of morals, politics, and religion” (Dewey 1981). In other words, abandoning the teleological mode of thinking about the world for a Darwinian paradigm allows persons to reframe their experience and orientation to the world in a way that regards knowledge, morals, politics and religion as adaptive means for not only surviving but also for thriving in a world of experience. Dewey thus elaborates upon the significance of this paradigm shift for philosophy and the related implications for culture and society at large: Interest shifts… to the question of how special changes serve and defeat concrete purposes; shifts from an intelligence that shaped things once for all to the particular intelligences which things are even now shaping; shifts from an ultimate goal of good to the direct increments of justice and happiness that intelligent administration of existent conditions may beget and that present carelessness or stupidity will destroy or forego. (Dewey 1981)

The significance of Darwinism on philosophy, according to Dewey, is that it calls for scholars to rethink and reform their epistemologies so that knowledge is henceforth understood in terms of intelligent practice and ongoing experimentation with aims of progressively achieving valuable experiences within the plenitude of possibilities afforded by an ever-changing world.

10.3  Classical Chinese Horizons In Dewey’s estimation, Darwinism “dismisses” the metaphysics of immutable principles, ideal forms, and final causes rooted in axial era Hellenistic philosophy.1 In contrast to ancient Greek philosophy, axial era Chinese metaphysics set forth in the Confucian Commentaries on the Book of Changes (Yizhuan 易傳) and the Daoist Daodejing 道德經 do not formulate an explicit or strong teleology. They do not postulate a final cause as the aim of living things or the world in general. Nonetheless, when traditional Chinese philosophies are taken up in the hermeneutic engagement with Darwinism, questions of purposiveness, chance, and the position, power, and progress of persons in the world are elicited from the textual traditions. Indeed, Yan Fu’s early interpretation and introduction of Darwinism was in effect a syncretic adoption and adaptation of Darwinian ideas, Confucianism, and Daoism. His primary source for Darwinian concepts, moreover, is not Darwin himself, but “Darwin’s bulldog,” Thomas Huxley. Yan’s adoption and adaptation of Darwinian thought requires a negotiation between these ideological sources regarding the philosophical questions at hand. Though Yan presents a creative synthesis of these several traditions of thought, the consistency of his system is questionable. Thus we proceed by analyzing Yan 1  Dewey (1929) argues that ideal ends are fallacies of hypostatization. In the realm of biology, he says that human beings have picked out certain aspects of their experience of organisms (and organic experiences), and reified them to be ideal forms. He calls this “the philosophic fallacy.” Similarly, A. N. Whitehead (1925) refers to this tendency for hypostatization and reification “the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.”

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Fu’s interpretation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, and hermeneutically foregrounding the etymology and philosophical implications of his philosophical vocabulary. Based on a Darwinian critique of purposiveness in nature, one must draw into question the Confucian claims that the world (tiandi) has a heart-andmind, a purpose for life, or sense of humaneness. From the perspectives of Darwinian philosophies of struggle and extinction, one must further draw into question Daoist admonishments against competition, and critique both Confucian and Daoist idealized models of nature as a productive harmony of forces.2 Let us now work up to these questions through an exploration of the traditional Chinese philosophical positions assumed and invoked in Yan Fu’s commentarial, interpretive, philosophy. In his intensive comparative analysis of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and Yan Fu’s translation and commentary, Tianyanlun, Vincent Tsing-song Shen demonstrates that the traditional Chinese philosophical vocabulary used in Yan’s interpretation is irrevocably Confucian and Daoist. Shen juxtaposes Huxley’s English claim and Yan’s Chinese rendition to prove the hermeneutic prejudice in Yan’s work. Shen then provides a translation of Yan’s Chinese text back into a more literal English interpretation of Yan’s claim. Through rehearsing this analysis, I intend to demonstrate that Yan’s original translation used Confucian and Daoist philosophical terminology to translate Huxley’s philosophical terminology. Yan’s Chinese translation of Huxley’s claim thereby demonstrates that Yan’s translation was a transformation of meaning from one language into another. Huxley’s claim reads: Yet nothing is more certain than that, measured by the liberal scale of time-keeping of the universe, this present state of nature, however it may seem to have gone and to go on forever, is but a fleeting phase of her infinite variety; merely the last of the series of changes which the earth’s surface has undergone in the course of the millions of years of its existence.

Yan’s translation reads: 故事有絕無可疑者, 窮詰之變動而來.

則天道變化,

不主故常是已。…實者今茲所見,

實乃自不可

Shen then retranslates Yan’s claim back into a literal English reading of Yan’s claim: So, what is absolutely without doubt is that the ever-changing heavenly dao does not limit itself to the constancy of the past…whatever we see today, is in fact from the unquestionable change. (Shen 2014)

The terminology of Huxley’s, Yan’s, and Shen’s statements are philosophically loaded with different hermeneutic prejudices. Huxley, of course, is referencing the 2  Conversely, one may question popular Darwinian positions on struggle and non-purposiveness from the counter-positions of Confucianism and Daoism. In posing these questions, a Darwinian reply may then draw from Darwin’s Descent of Man. “In that work Darwin himself was very aware of cooperation as well competition. Popular Darwinism—often inspired but Spencer and especially Huxley—emphasized the struggle for survival aspect” (Mackenzie Brown, editor’s note). The encounter between Darwinism, Confucians, and Darwinism is accordingly dialogical; it is an instance of a hermeneutic circle.

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changing dynamics of “nature.” Yan Fu’s phrase, “天道變化, 不主故常是已” (tiandao bianhua, buzhu gu chang shi yi), uses the term 天道 tiandao to interpret Huxley’s terminology of “nature.” Yan Fu, then translates this terminology of “nature” into the terminology of tiandao. Shen’s translation of Yan’s claim back into English is indeed illuminating, but he complicates matters by then introducing an interpretation of “tian” as “heaven.” In traditional Chinese philosophical discourse, the sense and reference of “tian” and “dao” have been subject to much dispute. In some contexts, Shen’s translation of tian would be more justifiable. In the context at hand, however, Yan Fu is using “tiandao” to translate Huxley’s “nature.” Accordingly, he is attempting to reconstruct or associate “tiandao” in terms of a Darwinian sense of “nature,” not a religious sense of “heaven.” Thus, I believe, Yan’s claim is best retranslated along these lines: “nature’s way transforms, without ceasing; thus, it constantly is passing…” As disputes over the sense and references of tiandao are deeply rooted in traditional Confucian and Daoist texts alike, the terminology of tiandao expresses a tacit synthesis of Confucian and Daoist cosmological ideals. Insofar as the term is implicative of Confucian and Daoist understandings of tian and dao, Yan’s use of the term proposes Darwinian questions to traditional Chinese philosophical discourse. Indeed, in this framework, Yan can be understood as attempting to advance classical Chinese philosophical language and conceptual discourse into the discourse of modern natural science. At the same time that he is seeking to expound new Western scientific theories to the Chinese, he is also re-­ contextualizing classical Chinese philosophical terms and questions. Dating back to pre-Qin dialectics between Confucianism, Daoism, and within Confucianism itself, the question can be found: Does tian have a mind? This question implies questions of purposiveness and morality as metaphysical principles: Is tian purposive (yizhizhitian 意志之天)? Is tian humane (ren 仁)? In the words of Confucius, “Does tian speak? The four seasons run their course therein. Hundreds of things are born therein. Does tian speak?” (Analects 17.19) Here the cosmological term, tian, denotes an impersonal natural order that pervades the world. The suggestion here is that tian lacks the anthropomorphic capacities of speech, and by extension tian lacks the anthropomorphic capacities of intention. In short, tian here refers to an impersonal immanent cosmological organization. As such, tian is neither personified nor transcendent, and thus the case can be made that tian is better understood in this context as nature, rather than (a transcendent or intentional) heaven. Though tian lacks intentionality, it nonetheless enacts myriad transformations and life producing events. In this vein, Confucius may be found to suggest an agreement with Darwin on the point of natural transformations; strictly speaking, in this case the natural world does not transform in accordance with an intelligent design. Though I here understood Confucius to indicate that tian does not have an intentional heart and mind, other passages from the Analects and the Confucian canon present an alternative account. Not only is this line of questioning foregrounded by a Darwinian critique, the question of tian’s subjective purposiveness has classical precedent within Chinese dialectics. Painting the picture in broad strokes, Chen Lai discusses the evolution of

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the concept tian in the history of Chinese philosophy: “Though tian 天 has always been the supreme category of Confucian philosophy, yet at least since the eleventh century tian has been rationalized and has lost any sense of being the supreme ruler, and become a term to express the order of the universe and the rationality of the universe” (Chen 2009). In other words, in the historical evolution of the concept, tian, the concept began with anthropomorphic and anthropocentric connotations. Contemporary scholar Zheng Xiong elaborates on this early concept: Confucius inherited the Western Zhou thought regarding tian, acknowledging tian to have dominion over one’s life and death, wealth and poverty, even dominion over the determination of history and civilization … Confucius focuses on tian as having personal powers, having the capacity of dominion over the myriad things. It also indicates that when Confucius spoke of tian, he meant ruling tian (which is a volitional tian). (Zheng 2006)3

Though Confucius is quoted above as suggesting that tian lacks subjective purposiveness, one may find evidence within the Analects and the book of Mencius demonstrating a contrary view, namely, a commitment to an intentional and purposive nature. With his inheritance of Zhou discourse on tian, Confucius is found throughout the Analects suggesting that tian has cognitive, intentional capacities. For example, in Analects 14.35, Confucius claims that tian knows him. In the Mencius, moreover, the author affirms a position to the effect that tian has a plan for persons (individually and collectively).4 On these pre-Qin Confucian accounts, then, tian has a kind of subjective purposiveness. In short, Zhou and early Confucian-Mencian lineages assert that tian has a mandate for persons to fulfill, tianming 天命. In these early contexts, tian might be more appropriately translated as heaven, and tianming in this case would be “mandate of heaven.” By the twelfth century the neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi would come to model nature and all things as rational patterns of energy, but even Zhu Xi suggests that nature has a “heart-and-mind” and “humane” disposition to produce things (Zhu 1963). Such suggestions, again, indicate a belief that nature has a kind of subjective purpose for creating life. According to Zhu Xi’s moral theory, it was up to persons to align their hearts-and-minds with the heart-and-mind of tian to create a procreative and peaceful way of life. Though a mainline Confucian tradition advocates a purposive (teleological) reading of tian, one finds pronounced disagreements with this line within Confucianism itself. So, for example, the pre-Qin philosopher Xunzi took a position contrary to Mencius with regard to tian’s possession of concern, knowledge, and purpose. After Zhu Xi, moreover, the Ming Dynasty philosopher, Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692), advocated a natural world that organized itself without any predetermined purpose or plan. Instead, for Xunzi and Wang Fuzhi, the natural world creates and transforms organized patterns without any

 My translation from the Chinese: “孔子继承了西周关于“天”的思想, 承认天具有主宰人的生 死寿夭,富贵贫贱, 乃至主宰历史文化的命运…. 这都表现孔子眼中的“天”具有人格力量, 具有主宰万物的能力. 这也说明孔子所谈的 “天”, 指的是主宰之天 (即意志之天)” (Zheng 2006). 4  See, for example, Mencius 6B35. 3

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intention; it acts spontaneously, naturally, of itself, ziran 自然. On this point, these latter Confucian philosophers come to a position informed by and akin to the worldview of philosophical Daoism.5 Contrary to the orthodox Confucian line of Confucius, Mencius and Zhu Xi, the philosophical Daoism of Laozi presents a model of nature qua spontaneous and non-intentional phases of organization and disorder. The dao of Laozi is self-so (ziran 自然), without heart-and-mind (wuxin 無心), without intention (wuzhi 無志), without knowledge (wuzhi 無知), and without concern. “Dao is not humane. It takes up the myriad things and treats them as straw dogs” (Daodejing 5). The world qua dao lacks any moral concern or purpose for persons or life in general; nevertheless, Daoist philosophy advocates living a simple life in harmonious compliance with the natural propensities of things. The Daodejing admonishes against contention, struggle and strife as a way of life: the authors of the text do not see struggle as characteristic of the natural way of the world. Their view is not a “might is right” philosophy, nor does it affirm a mandate to struggle for existence with all of nature red in tooth and claw. Laozi teaches an injunction for persons to live in an idealized harmony through spontaneous adaptation to the forces of the world. This injunction is portrayed in the Daodejing in terms of non-action, wuwei 無為. The term, wuwei, serves as a rejection of coercive and intentional action as the ideal mode of persons in the world. The person, on this view, ought to act as dao acts, without any preset prejudice or purpose; without any extraneous effort; without any struggle. Yan Fu broke with the Sages on the point of harmony and strife. He believed that the Confucian and Daoist emphases on harmony had caused Chinese society to be eclipsed by Western powers and their emphasis on struggle and competition (Pusey 1983). Yan explains his view, “Things contend, means that things struggle to preserve themselves. ‘Heaven chooses’ means that only the fit races are preserved…’ The produce of Heaven and earth is limited, but human desire knows no bounds. Men keep multiplying, cultivation is ever extended, and in the end there is not enough. And, when there is not enough, men contend…” (Qtd. in Pusey 1983). James Reeve Pusey argues that the different strains of thought interwoven into Yan Fu’s syncretism were “bafflingly inconsistent.” “Conflicting pulls of determinism and ‘determinationism’ strained Yan Fu’s emotions and his logic” (Pusey 1983); indeed, we find these pulls in his simultaneous commitment to metaphysical progress and destiny (ming) and Darwinian rejection of teleology (Pusey 1983). In the absence of a telos, the question of “progress” seems somewhat incoherent in Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Indeed, as Dewey would have it, one would be guilty of the philosophic fallacy if one were to look back now on the evolution of homo-sapiens and claim that the present human form was the goal all along. “Progress” implies an end, a goal, a vector. Biologically, Darwinism rejects a final cause; metaphysically, it makes no such assumption. Progress requires an intentional mind to set the end-in-view. Progress, in other words, is determined 5  For more on the naturalism of Xunzi and Wang Fuzhi, see my work, Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism: An Interpretive Engagement with Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015).

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relative to an intentional end-in-view. In spite of his Darwinian persuasions, Yan Fu believed in a metaphysical ideal of progress. “[Westerners] had the power to make progress because they knew the world was progressing.” Thus, Yan Fu “painted progress as the promise of mankind” (Pusey 1983). Yan’s inconsistency can be reframed as a simultaneous commitment to “a new, ‘scientifically’ naturalistic philosophy,” and “a semi-supernatural position” of manifest destiny (Pusey 1983). Yan’s inconsistency can be resolved from a critical hermeneutic perspective by excising the concept of manifest destiny from his Confucian-informed worldview, and reconstructing the concept, ‘ming,’ as “objective conditions.” That is to say, the Chinese concept of tianming, which is a hermeneutic prejudice underlying Yan’s deterministic sensibilities, can be naturalistically defined as objective conditions beyond one’s locus of control. In this case, one can consistently affirm a natural concept of fate, destiny, tianming, in conjunction with Darwinian rejection of teleology. As Darwinian theory is not inconsistent with a concept of “objective circumstances outside of one’s locus of control,” so it is not inconsistent with “subjective circumstances within one’s locus of control.” I propose to further resolve the inconsistency between a belief in progress and the decidedly anti-teleology of Darwinian philosophy. Progress, in this resolution, is not a metaphysical concept; rather, progress is a pragmatic concept. Yan could have resolved his inconsistency had he had the opportunity to appropriate the Darwinian-pragmatism of John Dewey. For Dewey, progress (or creative advance) is really only possible in a Darwinian world devoid of predetermined designs. On this pragmatic definition, progress is a creative experience, and creativity is only possible in a world of indeterminate outcomes. (If the outcome was predetermined, then how could anything novel have been created?) Progress is an actively pursued and consummately achieved experience of positing and working toward an end-in-view. The end-in-view is provisional as opposed to absolute. Likewise, “progress” is relative to and contingent upon the end-in-view. What is more, nothing necessitates that any end-in-view be posited. Progress, on this view, does not follow a logic of categorical imperatives or universal claims, as Yan Fu would suggest. Progress in a pragmatic framework follows the logic of hypotheticals and instrumental reasoning. For example, “If we want progress in communication and culture, then we ought to increase literacy.” “Progress” in this use of the term allows for the kind of social transformation that Yan Fu sought, while avoiding his reification of “progress” as a metaphysical ideal. Yan Fu was looking for instrumental knowledge, but perhaps he did not recognize the ramifications of the very processes of instrumental reasoning that undergird Darwinian scientific theory. Indeed, Dewey made it a point to disabuse his colleagues and students in China of an emphasis on the technological product. “Dewey knew that in their attempt to emulate Western technology, the Chinese tended to espouse a one-sided, mechanistic view of science, paying attention merely to the products, not the process, of science. Therefore, in his lectures, Dewey stressed science as a method of thinking, knowing, and acting” (Wang 2007). For Dewey, the fruits of Darwinism lie not in its theoretical or technological outcomes, but in its experimental method. Science itself is a tool to be used to help persons to attain

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their ends-in-view. Science enables persons, through methodical experimentation, with an understanding of the dynamic forces at play in nature and experience. This understanding, in turn, serves as a tool to manipulate our bodies and our environments (our biological and ecological conditions) to produce valuable experiences, e.g., warmth, health, freedom, compassion and happiness. Thus, Dewey taught in his lectures in China that “Progress in science enabled people to unlock the secrets of nature and to improve the material conditions of their lives” (Wang 2007). Progress in scientific pragmatism is efficacious understanding and intelligent practice. At the end of the day, Yan Fu emphasized struggle and the need to work together as a group for survival and cultural advance. His appropriation of Darwinism served as a critique of Daoist passivity. However, his belief in a kind natural purposiveness for cultural progress seems to have betrayed an inconsistency between Confucian anthropocentric and anthropomorphic characterizations of tian, on the one hand, and Darwinian-Daoist beliefs that nature does not care about people, on the other. Yan Fu did not finally adopt the experimental methodology and biology of Darwinism; rather, he developed a view in which society, or the group (qun 群), was regarded as a social organism. The organism would survive, develop and adapt to the extent that its constitutive cells worked in concert with one another. The Chinese as a group, he believed, were locked in a struggle for existence. The survival of the group depended on its progress, and its progress depended on its internal cohesion.

10.4  Li Zehou Whereas Yan Fu represents mainline Chinese adoptions and adaptations of Darwinian philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century, Li Zehou represents the engagement between Darwinism and Chinese philosophies at the turn of the twenty-­ first. In contrast to Yan Fu, Li Zehou emphasizes the importance of instrumental reasoning in Darwinian evolution by natural selection. Nonetheless, for Li, a Darwinian-informed inquiry dives straight away into the domain of philosophy. He opens his article “An Outline of the Origin of Humankind,” with the claim, “The origin of humankind is not merely a paleoanthropological question; it is also a question for philosophical enquiry” (Li 2000). Li then proceeds to literally analyze the evolution of the human hand in and through its use of tools. He claims, “In the history of evolution from ape to humankind, the manipulation of tools takes on the highly significant meaning of ‘transforming quantity into quality’” (Li 2000). The philosophy of Li Zehou offers a sophisticated theory of evolution: a theory informed by Confucianism, Darwinian paleoanthropology, and the dialectical philosophies of persons and nature in the work of Marx and Engels. His synthesized account presents a naturalistic and dialectical, philosophical anthropology. In his “Outline of the Origin of Humankind,” Li argues that the use of tools allowed persons to actively transform their environments, rather than merely be transformed by their environments. As the hand co-adapts to the tools that it uses, so persons

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co-­evolve with their natural environments. Li maintains a position strikingly close to Dewey’s: through the use of instrumental reasoning and tools, persons create a means to transform themselves and their environments in an indeterminate number of ways. Li states that the human use of tools “gives rise both to [humankind’s] vast capacity of taking the initiative in exploiting the laws of nature themselves and to their limitless potential of transforming nature. In confronting nature and becoming differentiated from nature (the object), humankind constitutes the subject. This is subjectivity, or the ontological being [of humankind studied by] anthropology” (Li 2000). In his masterful work, The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, Li develops this natural philosophical anthropology into a novel concept of “humanizing nature” with deep Confucian and Daoist resonances. “Humanization of nature” is a process in which persons intentionally transform their existential conditions into valuable experiences. His concept is predicated on an understanding that certain aspects of the natural world lie within persons’ locus of control, while others lie outside of the locus. Though he does not explicitly acknowledge it, Li’s theory has precedent in classical Chinese religious-and-philosophical categories of persons’ way and nature’s way (rendao 人道 and tiandao 天道). For example, Wang Fuzhi 王夫之 (1619–1692) makes this distinction in his naturalistic philosophical anthropology: rendao is the natural world insofar as it is brought into the domain of human experience and anthropogenic transformations. Tiandao is again the natural world beyond human comprehension and control. For Wang Fuzhi, like Li Zehou, persons have a humanistic responsibility to advance experience and culture in the midst of a world that makes no guarantees. Persons have a responsibility to advance their way and conscientiously humanize nature with the recognition that the world will never fall completely under human subjugation. The way of persons is always counterbalanced by its correlative implication of the way of nature. The process of humanization in Li’s philosophy is an evolutionary process, which begins, Li argues, with the use of material tools, and continues to the development of more complex, subtle, and abstract tools, such as language and ritual (Li 2000, 2009). Li presents a philosophical reconstruction of the historical development of Chinese culture, i.e. humanization of nature, within and out of shamanistic ritual traditions. He speculates that an analysis of the classical Chinese character for appropriate conduct, yi 義, speaks to shamanistic origins of Chinese ritual structures, relational patterns, and praxis. The character is constituted by two significant components: yang 羊 on top, and wo 我 below. Li demonstrates that the character signifies a person, a subject (wo), carrying a lamb (yang) overhead. He proposes, moreover, that the lamb overhead could be a graphic representation of an animal totem, literally, a headdress. Li advances that ritualized culture emerged and evolved through different phases of human pre-history and history in China, with a self-­ conscious consummation of ritualized culture in Confucian thought and praxis (Li 2009). Li Zehou reconstructs a historical-dialectical model of the evolution of Chinese philosophical, aesthetic, and sociological patterns of activity. Li’s theory of human evolution in China is grounded in recognition of ritual as an instrument and means

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through which persons (individually and collectively) can regulate their emotions and practices. An analysis of Li’s philosophy of Confucian ritual qua humanizing force demonstrates that ritual is an intentional activity used to set the conditions for a valued intersubjective experience of harmonious flourishing. Effectively, ritual is an intentional attempt of human organisms to pattern their relationships and activities in coordination with one another and the forces of the heavens and earth (tiandi – in the sense of “natural environment”). Li argues that whereas Confucianism is a consummation of a self-conscious tradition of humanizing nature, Daoism serves as a dialectical antithesis: Daoism provides an intentional movement to “naturalize humans.” Persons are not in a position to humanize nature without repercussions. With the Daoist addition of naturalization of humans, one finds a concept of reciprocity qua reversion. The idea is pervasive in the Daodejing (e.g. 16, 25). Take for example verse 40: “Reversion (fan 反) is the movement of dao”. While humans actively transform their biological and ecological conditions, each transformation is accompanied by novel conditions that in turn call for ongoing (spontaneous, ziran 自然) adaptation. In Li’s adoption and adaptation of the Daoist concept of reversion as a process of “naturalizing humans,” persons evolve in an ongoing negotiation and mutual transformation with their natural environments. Li concludes his reading of classical Chinese philosophies by claiming to have set out “a kind of anthropological ontology (or, a practical philosophy of subjectivity)” (Li 2009). On his account, “humanization of nature” has two principal senses: “the first, in which external nature is brought into the human realm, and the second, in which internal nature is molded into ‘human nature’” (ibid.). In the former, humans intentionally and unintentionally enact anthropogenic transformations in and on their material environments; in the latter, humans intentionally enact biological and psychological transformations in their own embodied experiences.6 In the former sense, humanizing nature occurs when the material conditions of the human organism are taken up by the organism and intentionally transformed into meaningful material structures. In the latter sense, humanizing nature occurs when the basic biological instincts of the human organism are intentionally cultivated and expressed through ritualized patterns of interactions with persons and impersonal nature. The basic biological instincts “come to constitute human nature by undergoing a concrete and historical process of development that takes place in the course of individual and corporate human life.” Li continues: “Without this historical process—the process of living—human nature could never have emerged… It emerges only through the effort to live, the experience of struggle, the furnace of love… One should take hold of these, experience and savor them” (Li 2009). Insofar as Darwinism postulates no ideal or archetypal human form, it stands in agreement with Li’s concept of an emergent, evolving, human nature.

6  Harkening back to his discussion of Mencius’s theory of emotions, Li argues for a Confucian idea that the consummate and authoritative human experience of compassion, ren 仁, is “based physiologically in biological instincts like sexual love, mother love, and communal love” (Li 2009).

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10.5  Conclusions The foregoing discussion demonstrates that when a Darwinian critique is posed to traditional Chinese philosophies, it immediately calls into question the tendency of Confucian thinkers to invest nature with a purposive intentionality. When this tendency is taken to an extreme fatalistic belief in destiny (ming), it stands in outright contradiction to a Darwinian critique of teleology. If a Confucian concept of destiny is to be hermeneutically reconstructed vis-à-vis Darwinism, the concept must be naturalized so that it merely refers to objective circumstances outside of one’s locus of control. The concept of objective circumstances outside of one’s locus of control correlatively implicates a concept of subjective conditions within one’s locus of control. For Dewey, Yan Fu, and Li Zehou alike, these subjective circumstances are of primary concern. Dewey argues that in the absence of a predetermined end or goal for humankind, the possibilities for creating novel, valuable, human experiences are open and endless. As Dewey’s reading of Darwinism shows, progress is possible in a Darwinian world. The progress, however, must be understood provisionally: i.e. relative to the self-determined goals and values of intentional agencies. Darwin’s discovery of evolution by natural selection forecloses upon the possibility of metaphysically guaranteed progress, but it does not preclude humanistic progress toward contingently posited ends-in-view. To be clear, Yan Fu’s position results in a paradoxical commitment to predetermined fate, on the one hand, and the open possibility of persons to determine their own outcomes, on the other. With Dewey and Li Zehou, one finds more consistent positions. For these latter two authors, human progress is not guaranteed, but persons have the intentional capacities to postulate and progressively work toward valuable experiences. Though Yan Fu’s synthesis led the author into a number of inconsistencies, his groundbreaking work ushered forth a fresh set of concepts and questions into a Chinese universe of discourse. All contradictions aside, Yan Fu’s emphasis on the capacities of persons to enact their progress by effectively interrelating and communicating with one another touches upon a number of keystone cultural presuppositions in a society deeply rooted in Confucian humanism. Darwinism not only challenges deterministic strains in Confucian traditions of thought, but it also calls into question the Confucian and Daoist idealization of harmony as an ultimate metaphysical principle. Yan Fu, in the midst of social distress during the fall of the Qing and the incursion of foreign imperial powers, identified with a Darwinian concept of struggle for existence. With a Darwinian recognition of the distinct possibility of extinction, Yan called for scientific reasoning as a means for surviving and flourishing as a group in a precarious world. Insofar as he advocates an instrumental use of science, he finds agreement with the philosophy of John Dewey. Finally, with the more recent proposals of Li Zehou, one finds a conscientious effort to reconstruct the progressive humanism inherent in Confucianism with an understanding that the “humanization of nature” always meets with a kind of dialectical response on the part of nature. That is, Li Zehou demonstrates that the Chinese

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philosophical and religious traditions of Confucianism and Daoism both posit that as persons transform their biological and ecological conditions, so they must physically and psychologically adapt to their new conditions. Li Zehou’s idea that Chinese culture has been actively engaged in the humanization of nature is counterbalanced with his theory that the culture has had to reciprocally adapt to the dynamic transformations that constitute the human existential situation. Humanization is a process of co-evolution with impersonal natural forces.

References Chen, Lai. 2009. Tradition and Modernity: A Humanist View. Leiden: Brill. Dewey, John. 1929. Experience and Nature. London: George Allen & Unwin. ———. 1981. The Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy. In The Philosophy of John Dewey, ed. John Dewey and John J. MacDermott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Li, Zehou. 2000. An Outline of the Origins of Human Kind. Contemporary Chinese Thought 31 (2): 20–25. ———. 2009. The Chinese Aesthetic Tradition. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Pusey, James Reeve. 1983. China and Charles Darwin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shen, Vincent Tsing-song. 2014. Evolutionism Through Chinese Eyes: Yan Fu, Ma Junwu and Their Translations of Darwinian Evolutionism. ASIANetwork Exchange 22 (1): 49–60. Wang, Jessica Ching-Sze. 2007. John Dewey in China: To Teach and to Learn. Albany: State University of New York Press. Whitehead, Alfred North. 1925. Science and the Modern World. Simon & Schuster. Zheng, Xiong. 2006. Reconstructing the Confucius Theory of Nature and Destiny by Wang Fuzhi. Journal of Hunan University 20: 5. Zhu Xi. 1963. A Treatise on jen [ren]. In A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans. and ed. W.T. Chan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Nicholas S. Brasovan received a Ph.D. in comparative philosophy from the University of Hawai’i. He is presently an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Central Arkansas. His teaching and research focus on the intersection between Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism and environmental philosophies. He is a China Fulbright Scholar (2018–2019), and the author of several articles on Chinese philosophy. His recent work includes a book-­length study of neo-Confucian ecological philosophy: Neo-Confucian Ecological Humanism: An Interpretive Engagement with Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692) (State University of New York Press, 2017).  

Chapter 11

Yan Fu’s Xunzian-Confucian Translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics Kuan-yen Liu

Abstract  The synthesis of Victorian Evolutionism, Thomas Huxley’s ethics, Late-­ Qing Chinese nationalism (especially post-1894) and Pre-Qin Confucian thinker Xun Zi’s political thought (third century BCE) in Yan Fu’s interpretative translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics into Tianyan lun (On the Operation of Heaven) helps to unravel a puzzle in the study of Chinese Darwinism: Why did Yan Fu choose to translate Huxley’s anti-Social-Darwinian writing to introduce the ideas of Darwinism to his Chinese compatriots? To answer this question, this essay explains how Yan Fu perceived Huxley’s ideas of “limiting struggle for existence within society” and “the strengthening of the social bond” from the perspective of international politics rather than from Huxley’s original perspective of domestic social policy. Yan Fu thereby transplanted Huxley’s thought about ethics and evolution from the Victorian social context of capitalism and industrialism into the Late-­ Qing Chinese context of nationalism and anti-colonialism. Close attention will be paid to how Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s passages concerning the society of bees transforms Huxley’s ethics into an evolutionist discourse of nationalism. I argue that Yan Fu effects this transformation by appropriating Xun Zi’s argument about the fulfilling of “duty” (Fen) and the power of “community” (Qun). I also examine how Yan Fu translates Huxley’s idea of “combating the cosmic process” into “overcoming Heaven” (Shengtian) in terms of Xun Zi’s thought of “controlling and using Heaven” (Zhitian yongtian).

11.1  Introduction The three Darwinian challenges that are the focus of this volume—the challenge to the teleological purpose of the cosmic operation, the problem of the amoral process of natural selection, and the challenge to the uniqueness of human beings—arise out of the Judeo-Christian tradition of theology and the Western context of philosophy K. Liu (*) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_11

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and science. In the Chinese reception of Darwinism, these three challenges are usually not as dominant, although questions pertaining to them are raised and reinterpreted through the lens of Late-Qing Chinese intellectual and political culture (1840–1911). Regarding the teleological question, for example, Chinese intellectuals of the time viewed national survival as the ultimate end of the evolutionary process. To achieve this goal, they saw the struggle for existence in the international arena as necessary. Accordingly, for these intellectuals, survival of the fittest is not an immoral process but a patriotic obligation. This nationalist reinterpretation of Darwinism—and other western evolutionary theories—implies a rethinking of the question of human uniqueness. For Chinese Darwinians, just as animal species struggle for existence in the natural world, so nations, countries or races compete for survival in the human world. Humans resemble animals in that all animal species, including humankind, share the common instinct to struggle for existence, but humankind is still distinguished from most of other animal species in that humans, like bees and ants, can form a community in their struggle for existence. Chinese Darwinians do not deal with the three Darwinian challenges in their own original terms, but reframe and reconnect the teleological, ethical and scientific questions concerning natural selection and animal-human similarity in a discourse of national survival. This attention to evolutionary theory and the meaning of the struggle for existence for Chinese society is particularly evident in the highly influential writings of the Chinese intellectual Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921). Born in Fouzhou, a city located in the southeast coast of China and comparatively susceptible to Western influence in the Late-Qing period, Yan Fu studied Chinese classics for the civil-service examination until the age of thirteen.1 In 1867, due to financial hardship, he entered the newly-built Naval Academy in Fouzou (福州船政學堂) with government support. At the Academy he became one of very few people in his generation to receive modern Western education. Then, from 1877 to 1879, he was sent by the Qing government to Britain, where he studied at the Royal Naval College of Greenwich and became familiar with Western social systems and political institutions. After returning to China, he served as an instructor in the Northern Naval Academy (北洋水師 學堂) in Tianjin. The First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) transformed Chinese views of the world as well as Yan Fu’s career and social status. Yan Fu became obsessed with finding ways to salvage China from national crisis in the age of foreign intrusion.2 As a response to the fiasco of China in the war, Yan Fu published an article “Yuan 1  As to the details of Yan Fu’s life, see Sun Yingxiang’s Yanfu nianpu (The chronology of Yan Fu); Wang Quchang’s Yan jidao nianpu (The chronology of Yan Fu’s life); Wu Chan-liang’s Yanfu zaoqi de qiudao zhi lu: jianlun chuantong xueshu xingge yu siwei fangshi de jicheng yu zhuanhua (The search for the Dao in Yan Fu’s early years: The continuity and transformation of traditional modes of learning and thinking); and Huang Ko-wu’s Weishi zhian: yanfu yu jindai zhongguo de wenhua zhuanxing (Yan Fu and the transformation of culture in modern China). 2  In “Zouxiang fanyi zhilu: beiyang shuishi xuetang shiqi de yanfu” (Embarking on a new career in translation: Yan Fu at the Northern Naval College), Huang Ko-wu examines Yan Fu’s career and life from 1880 to 1900.

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Qing” 原強 (On Strength), introducing the theory of Darwinism to China and trying to alert his Chinese compatriots to the crisis in national survival. From the beginning of the dissemination of evolutionary ideas in China, they were connected with and informed by a strong sense of nationalism. After the Treaty of Shimonoseki between Japan and China in 1895, Yan Fu “translated” Thomas Huxley’s (1825–1895) Evolution and Ethics (1894) into Tianyan lun 天演論 (On the Operation of Heaven).3 In his translation, Yan Fu continued utilizing Darwinian ideas to awaken his Chinese compatriots to international competition, imperial intrusion and the crisis of survival which confronted China, and then the nationalist language of evolutionism began to resonate in China.4 Yan Fu came into the limelight in political and intellectual circles in large part because the First Sino-Japanese War, highlighting the success of a newly modernized Japan that stood in stark contrast with a backward China, shook the excessive confidence of the Chinese in their own value, knowledge and culture. Thus, Chinese politicians, intellectuals and students turned to Western sources for prescriptions to salvage the country and the people from national crisis. Under such circumstances, Yan Fu earned an exalted standing in Chinese intellectuals’ eyes for his exceptional knowledge of both Western and Chinese culture. Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), a leading intellectual and influential reformist, publicly commended Yan Fu as “the first-rate scholar in both Chinese studies and Western studies in our country” 於中 學西學皆為我國第一流人物 in Xinmin congbao 新民叢報 (The newspaper of the new people). After the publication of Tianyan lun in 1898, Yan Fu continued translating other seminal Western works like Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and A System of Logic, and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws with an eye to enlightening his Chinese compatriots and saving China from national downfall.

11.2  Y  an Fu and the Spencer-Huxley Debate in Diverse Contexts In the preface of his interpretive translation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, Yan Fu deals with the debate between Spencer and Huxley regarding the relation between society and biology. Yan Fu writes:

 See Yan Qu’s 嚴璩 “Xianfujun nianpu” 先府君年譜 (The chronological biography of my father).  In “Shehui daerwen zhuyi yu wanqing xuehui yundong: 1895–1911” (Social Darwinism and the movement of study communities in the Late-Qing period: 1895–1911) and “Cong yanhua lun tanxi yanfu xing weiji gan de yili jiegou” (The significance and structure of Yan Fuian sense of crisis in relation to Evolutionism), Guo Zhengzhao examines the development of Chinese Darwinism in Late-Qing intellectual and political culture. Besides, in China and Charles Darwin, James Reeve Pusey delineates the ramifications of evolutionism and Yan Fu’s version of Darwinism on a variety of social and political thoughts in Late-Qing and Early-Republican China. 3 4

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The main purpose of Huxley’s book is to solve the gigantic problem of the free reign of Heaven in Spencer’s thought. Huxley’s argument is compatible with our ancient men’s. In addition, Huxley repeatedly touches on the theme of “strengthening oneself and sustaining the race.” (Yan Fu, Tianyan lun 171)5 赫胥黎氏此書之恉, 本以救斯賓塞爾任天為治之末流, 其中所論, 與吾古人有甚合者, 且於自強保種之事, 反復三致意焉。

It seems that Yan Fu sympathizes with Huxley’s view of rejecting the natural or cosmic process of evolution in society, while criticizing Spencer’s Social Darwinism. Nevertheless, one eminent scholar of Chinese intellectual history, Benjamin Schwartz, in his pioneering and influential work on Yan Fu entitled In Search of Wealth & Power: Yen Fu and the West, argues, [Yan Fu’s] commentaries [in Tianyan lun] abound in panegyrics of Spencer and defenses of his positions on various matters. It would, indeed, be no exaggeration to say that T’ien-­yen lun [Tianyan lun] consists of two works—a paraphrase of Huxley’s lectures, and an exposition of Spencer’s essential views as against Huxley. (103)

The question of whether Yan Fu agrees with Huxley against Spencer regarding the role of the natural law in society, or with Spencer, raises critical issues concerning the Chinese reception of Darwinism and evolutionary theory in general at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. To probe these issues, I will investigate Yan Fu’s discussion of Spencer and his understanding of Huxley’s ethics as an evolutionist discourse of nationalism. I will first briefly summarize the historical contexts of Victorian Britain (1837–1911) and Late-Qing China (1840–1911). This historical background will help us to grasp the socio-political contexts of Huxley’s and Spencer’s works as well as Yan Fu’s translation, and to answer a question that has puzzled scholars in the study of Chinese Darwinism: Why did Yan Fu choose Huxley’s anti-Social-Darwinian writing to disseminate Darwinian ideas and create a nationalist discourse?6 Then I will look at the resurgence of Xun Zi’s thought in the Late-Qing period because it is mainly through Xun Zi’s ideas that Yan Fu translates and reinterprets Huxley’s ideal of the “ethical process.”

5  All references to Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and Yan Fu’s Tianyan lun will be indicated by the author’s name and page number. I translate all passages from Tianyan lun by myself, as well as all other Chinese texts unless otherwise indicated. The exception is that, as to the passages of Xun Zi, I rely largely on Eric Hutton’s and Chan Wing-Tsit’s English translations of Xun Zi. 6  In In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West, Schwartz argues, “Yet here we confront the enormous paradox. Huxley’s lectures are decidedly not an exposition of social Darwinism. They actually represent an attack on social Darwinism! … Nothing could have been further from Huxley’s pathos at this point than Y[a]n Fu’s ardent desire to find in the Darwinian cosmos prescriptions for human behavior. Nothing—it need hardly be added—was more remote from Huxley’s concerns than Y[a]n Fu’s preoccupation with the wealth and power of the state…. Why then does Yen Fu choose to translate a work so little in tune with his basic message? We can, of course, only speculate” (100–101). Unlike Schwartz, I will demonstrate how Huxley’s ethics strikes a chord with Yan Fu.

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11.2.1  V  ictorian Britain (1837–1901) and Late-Qing China (1840–1911) When Britain underwent the second phase of industrialization from 1840 to 1895, social stratification and economic competition became intensified.7 Since this period also witnessed the rise of evolutionism in science and social thought, intellectuals usually dealt with the question of social policy in terms of evolutionism. In 1873, Hebert Spencer wrote The Study of Sociology, arguing that the biological principle of “survival of the fittest” should be the base of social policy and that “the undeserved” should not deserve philanthropic assistance (339–346). Spencer’s view became prominent in Britain and sparked a surge of unrest in Victorian intellectuals.8 In 1888, as a critical response to Spencer’s Social Darwinism, Huxley wrote an essay, “Struggle for Existence in Human Society,” intending to “promot[e] physical and moral welfare among the poorer classes” (217). In 1894, Huxley published his Evolution and Ethics, contending that the cosmic process of struggle for existence should be curbed in human society and that social policy should “secure every member of the society in the possession of the means of existence” (36). In Victorian Britain, Huxley’s evolutionary ethics was criticized by naturalists for the disparity between the law of nature and the law of society. The debate between Spencer and Huxley over whether the underprivileged should be protected or eliminated is connected with the question regarding the role of the government in the operation of society. Spencer holds a let-alone view of socio-economic policy and argues that social struggle without government intervention facilitates the evolution of man and the progress of society, especially in adapting to industrialization (340–350). Thus Spencer argues that the government should not intervene in the struggle for existence in human society and can therefore leave the “unfit” to die out and allow the “fit” to endure and “produce the next generation” (340). Huxley, however, contends that the government should promote humanitarian policies and foster social organization that helps to secure the existence and welfare of all members in society. Yan Fu understands this debate from a Late-Qing Chinese standpoint. He reads Spencer’s and Huxley’s works with the overriding concern of Chinese intellectuals of the time: national survival. Ever since the humiliation of China in the Opium War with Victorian Britain in 1840, the Second Opium War with the British and French Empires during 1856–1860 and the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, Chinese intellectuals were confronted with the threat and reality of Western and Japanese imperial intrusion. They sought for a way to save China from total cultural and political collapse, rummaging through Chinese and Western sources for a way to strengthen 7  As to the industrialization in Britain, see Eric Hobsbawm’s Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution: 87–131. 8  As to the wide dissemination of Spencerism, see Michael W. Taylor’s The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer.

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and enrich the country. For Yan Fu personally, the fiasco of China in the First Sino-­ Japanese War, occurring when he was around forty years of age, was especially disturbing. It is no wonder, then, that all of his translations of Western works, including Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics and Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, are permeated with his preoccupation with the wealth and power of the state.9 Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics is highly interpretative and creative because his main purpose is to use western evolutionary theories to search for ways of salvaging China’s survival in the age of colonialism and international competition.10 While the Spencer and Huxley debate centers on social policy and the government’s role in an industrial and capitalist society, the major concern of Yan Fu’s translations of their works is the strengthening of the Chinese nation and the sustaining of the Chinese race.11 It is hardly surprising that Yan Fu does not pay much attention to Spencer’s thought about the “natural working of things” in society (340) in terms of the original context of the Victorian debate over the government’s role in society. Yan Fu fears that Spencer’s let-alone view deprives humankind of the power of agency in the process of evolution. He thus criticizes Spencer’s social theory as an idea of “free reign of Heaven” (Tianyan lun 171), which he reads as a fatalistic view that does not allow human beings, especially the feeble people like the Chinese people of his time, to change their fate in confrontation with the cosmic process, and by implication condemning the Chinese nation to extinction.12 By contrast, Yan Fu appreciates Huxley’s argument about the limitation of severe competition in order to strengthen the social bond and build up a cooperative society, since he interprets this as a prescription for “the strengthening of the country and the sustaining of the race” (Tianyan lun 171). Yan Fu thus engrafts Huxley’s idea of cooperative society without severe internal struggle into the historical issues of Late-Qing China, thereby transforming Huxley’s anti-Social-Darwinian ethics into an evolutionist discourse of nationalism. By this means he is able to use Darwinian ideas of survival of the fittest and natural selection to awaken his Chinese compatriots to the crisis in national survival. It is this nationalist crisis that explains why Yan Fu’s first choice in translating evolutionary theory for a Chinese audience is Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, which disputes the Social Darwinian view of preserving the state of socio-economic struggle in society. As for how Yan Fu goes about his interpretive translation and comments in Tianyan lun, he usually paraphrases the original texts of Huxley and Spencer, adds his own words to what he translates or paraphrases, and writes comments on what  See Schwartz’s In Search of Wealth & Power: Yen Fu and the West.  See Guo Zhengzhao’s and Schwartz’s works on Yan Fu and Chinese Darwinism. 11  Yan Fu translated Spencer’s The Study of Sociology into Qunxue yiyan 群學肄言 (Remarks on the study of the group) in 1903. 12  Robert C Bannister argues that Spencer’s philosophical system contains a “fatalistic” significance (28). Taylor also points out that Spencer believes in “a rigidly deterministic universe” (53). In Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, the feeble people seem to be biologically determined in their personal development in society. 9

10

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he understands as the authors’ thoughts. Yan Fu’s translation frequently misinterprets or distorts the meaning of the original texts, due in large part to his preoccupation with the survival of the Chinese nation.

11.2.2  T  he Resurgence of Xun Zi in the  Late-Qing Period In his nationalist translation of Huxley’s ethics, Yan Fu uses Confucian terms and ideas from different schools in different periods. Especially, for Yan Fu, it is Xun Zi’s political philosophy, which received more attention from the Mid-Qing period and gained wider acceptance in the Late-Qing period, that seems concordant with Huxley’s ideal of the ethical process. Thus, it is necessary to discuss the development of Chinese philosophy, especially the resurgence of the thought of the Pre-Qin (pre-221 BCE) Confucian Xun Zi in Late-Qing intellectual and political culture. Confucius (551–479 BCE) emphasized moral cultivation and the governance of the people through virtue. In the period of Warring States (475–221 BCE), Mencius (371–289 BCE) focused on how to amplify the innate goodness of human nature in developing his moral and political philosophy. In response to Mencius, Xun Zi contended that human nature is evil and should be regulated through Li 禮, the rituals and rules of propriety that include the institution and law of the government and the mores and values of society. Since his socio-political theory about “Li” (ritual) was an inspiration to his disciples Hanfei Zi 韓非子  (279–233  BCE) and Li Si 李斯 (280–208 BCE), proponents of Legalism that emphasized the ruling of the country by the strict law and a strong government, Xun Zi’s thought represented the transition from Confucianism to Legalism. In the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 CE), Xun Zi was posthumously praised and his status in Confucianism was considered higher than Mencius’s because Han Confucianism featured the mixture of Confucianism and Legalism. Nevertheless, in the Song Dynasty (960–1279), owing to the canonization of Mencius’ thought, Xun Zi’s thought was devaluated and no longer considered as orthodox Confucianism.13 In the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), since Confucians started to place emphasis on the rituals and rules of society,14 Xun Zi’s thought received more attention and his status was once again elevated.15 In the Late-Qing Dynasty, Xun Zi’s thought about

 As to the acceptance, interpretation and evaluation of Xun Zi in different periods, see Bao Kuoshuen’s “Xun Zi pingjia de lishi guancha” (An observation of the history of the evaluation of Xun Zi). 14  See Wang Fansen’s “Qingchu lizhi shehui sixiang de xingcheng” (The formation of the thought about the governance of society by rituals in the Early-Qing Dynasty) in Quanli de maoxi guan zuoyong: qingdai de sixiang xueshu yu xintai (Capillary function of power: the thought, academics and mentality of the Qing period). 15  See Jian Jyun-Ru’s Qingdai xunzi wenxian yanjiu (A study of Qing scholarship on Xun Zi) and Tien Fu-mei’s Qingdai xunzi xue yanjiu (The study of Xun Zi in the Qing dynasty). 13

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“Qun” (group or community) entered intellectual discussion about the community and the state, and interacted with Western thoughts.16 A question arises as to why Yan Fu does not explicitly refer to Xun Zi in translating and interpreting Huxley, even though he uses Xun Zi’s terms and ideas to explicate Huxley’s ethical thought. This may be due to the anti-Xunzian movement in Late-Qing intellectual and political culture, despite the elevation of Xun Zi’s thought. In the eyes of reform-minded intellectuals like Kang Youwei (1858–1927), Tan Sitong (1865–1898) and Liang Qichao (1873–1929), Xun Zi’s support of the power of the emperor was problematic as it distorted the thought of Confucianism.17 Of particular note is that Yan Fu’s friend Xia Cengyou 夏曾祐 (1863–1924), who wrote the preface to Yan Fu’s commentary on Lao Zi’s Daode Jing, spearheaded “The Movement of Refuting Xun Zi” 排荀運動 (Zhu Weizheng 338–343). In any case, Yan Fu did not want readers of Tianyan lun to think that the solidification of the community and the strengthening of national power would depend on the absolute power of the emperor. The significance of Xun Zi’s ideas for understanding Yan Fu’s transformation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics into a patriotic manifesto is largely neglected in existing scholarship,18 probably because Yan Fu does not explicitly or directly compare Xun Zi’s and Huxley’s thoughts.19 My analysis of Tianyan lun will demonstrate how Xun Zi’s language and thought facilitate Yan Fu’s nationalist translation of Victorian Evolutionism and Huxley’s ethics.  As to the use of the ideas of Xun Zi in the language of Late-Qing and modern Chinese academia, see Chou Chih-Huang’s Wulei yu lunlei: xunxue guannian yu jinxiandai zhongguo xueshu huayu (Classification of things and categorization of ethical values: the ideas of Xun Zi and the academic language of modern China). 17  In Wanqing paixun yu zunxun (The refutation and praise of Xun Zi in the Late-Qing period), Hsueh Yu-Min examines the arguments in Yu Yue’s, Zhang Taiyan’s, Kang Youwei’s, Tan Sitong’s and Liang Qichao’s evaluations of Xun Zi. Chou Chih-huang also deals with the acceptance, praise and criticism of Xun Zi in the Late-Qing period (51–78). Please also see Zhu Weizheng’s book chapter on this topic. 18  In current research, only Chou Chih-Huang, who studies the acceptance of Xun Zi in the LateQing period, pays much closer attention to the terms and ideas of Xun Zi in Yan Fu’s Tianyan lun (79–131), but he does not further examine how Yan Fu uses these terms and ideas to “translate” and “reconstruct” Huxley’s terms and ideas. As to other scholars, Han Cheng-hua and Huang Ko-wu’s co-authored essay (114–115) and Han Cheng-hua’s book (103–105) briefly discuss Yan Fu’s remarks on Xun Zi in relation to Spencer’s sociology. In English scholarship, Pusey compares Confucius, Xun Zi, Huxley and Yan Fu in terms of their political activism (170). These scholars do not focus on the influence of Xun Zi’s language and thought on Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s ethics. Besides, in his academic papers, Wu Chan-liang identifies and examines a variety of intellectual and philosophical traditions in Yan Fu’s thought, but he fails to pay attention to how Xun Zi’s language and thought informs Yan Fu’s magnum opus Tianyan lun. 19  Yan Fu mentions Xun Zi when discussing Spencer’s sociology (“Yuanqiang” 35). In a very general sense, both Spencer and Xun Zi deal with the development of the community. Nevertheless, their notions about the role of the government in the operation of society are diametrically different. While Spencer argues for let-alone policy and social struggle, Xun Zi emphasizes the institution of the king and the harmony of society. In this regard, Yan Fu uses Xun Zi’s idea of “Qun” simply to translate and name Spencer’s “sociology,” but he does not suggest that Spencer’s thought is compatible with Xun Zi’s. 16

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11.3  Analysis of Tianyan Lun: Yan Fu’s “Translation” of Huxley’s Ethics I will divide my analysis of Tianyan Lun into three sections below. Section 11.3.1 examines Yan Fu’s transplantation of Huxley’s thought about “the social bond” and “outside competition” into the Late-Qing discourse on national survival. Section 11.3.2 deals with Yan Fu’s use of Xun Zi’s thought about “community” (Qun) to reinterpret Huxley’s remarks on cooperative society as an advantage in dealing with outside competition. And Sect. 11.4 focuses on Yan Fu’s use of Xun Zi’s concept of “controlling Heaven” (Zhitian) to translate Huxley’s thought about “combating the cosmic process,” reconfiguring it to fit his own nationalist thought of “overcoming Heaven.”

11.3.1  Y  an Fu’s Nationalist Transformation of Huxley’s “Ethical Process” At first sight there may appear to be a stark contradiction between Huxley’s anti-­ Social-­Darwinian thought in Evolution and Ethics and Yan Fu’s Darwinian discourse of Chinese nationalism in Tianyan lun. On one hand, Huxley aims to limit the struggle for existence within society and to disprove the application of the biological principle of the survival of the fittest to the human world. On the other, Yan Fu encourages his Chinese compatriots to struggle for national existence in international competition and interprets the competition between different countries in terms of the biological principle of natural selection. Yan Fu’s nationalist reinterpretation of Huxley’s ethics may make him look like a Chinese Spencer. To understand Yan Fu’s seemingly contradictory views, we must first look more closely at Huxley’s own ideas, and then see how Yan Fu interprets them in his own historical context. In Evolution and Ethics, Huxley distinguishes between the spheres of domestic society and international politics, between “the struggle for existence, as between man and man, within . . . society” and “the struggle for existence . . . with other societies” (36)—the latter refers to the “military and industrial wars with other nations” (40). Huxley argues only for the limitation of struggle in domestic society but not in the sphere of international politics. Although Huxley does not lay emphasis on wars with other nations, he holds that the curbing of internal struggle is beneficial to “outside competition” (24–26). Huxley includes “outside competition” in his discussion of ethics because in the Victorian intellectual context, he has to defend his ethical ideas as conforming to the order of nature. Victorian scientific and sociological thoughts feature a gradual inclination to include human beings in the animal world. In The Descent of Man (1871), Darwin argues about the origin of humankind from animals through an evolutionary process. Huxley directly discusses the relation between humankind and animals even earlier than Darwin. In his own Man’s Place in Nature (1863),

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Huxley uses his research on comparative anatomy and embryology to place humans in the animal world. Nonetheless, does his ethics of cooperation, of reducing struggle for existence in society, set humans outside of the natural order? Huxley’s critics assume that he excepts humankind from the universal law of the struggle for existence.20 For instance, Henry Drummond (1851–1897), a Scottish naturalist and the author of Natural Law in the Spiritual World, accuses Huxley of “turning his back upon Nature” and “eject[ing] himself from the world order” (The Ascent of Man 21–22).21 The assumption in Drummond’s criticism is that since the struggle for existence is the law of nature in the animal world, the world of human beings cannot be an exception. In Evolution and Ethics, Huxley anticipates this kind of criticism and tries to prove that the struggle for existence does not preclude cooperation, and that raw competition has a limited scope even in the non-human natural world. For the above-mentioned purpose, Huxley cites the cases of bees and ants to illustrate his point: Social organization is not peculiar to men. Other societies, such as those constituted by bees and ants, have also arisen out of the advantage of cooperation in the struggle for existence. (24)

He goes on to draw an analogy between the society of humans and the hive of bees: And, as in the hive, the progressive limitation of the struggle for existence between the members of the family would involve increasing efficiency as regards outside competition. (Evolution and Ethics 26)

For Huxley, the limitation of struggle for existence within a community can be an advantage in natural selection and outside competition and thus accords with the order and operation of nature. Huxley elaborates upon the idea of cooperation by introducing the notion of “the ethical process”: I have termed this gradual strengthening of the social bond, which, though it arrests the struggle for existence inside society, up to a certain point improves the chances of society as a corporate whole, in the cosmic struggle—the ethical process. (Huxley, Evolution and Ethics 35)

Huxley thus contrasts “the struggle for existence inside society” with “the cosmic struggle,” which refers to “the struggle with the state of nature and with other societies” (36). He does not mean to promote outside competition, but only observes that the limitation of struggle for existence among individuals within a community is not detrimental to but rather is conducive to the survival of the whole community in

 As for the reception and criticism of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics in Victorian Britain, see James Paradis’s “Evolution and Ethics and Its Victorian Context” (42–52). Besides, Geoffrey M Hodgson points out that “Henry Drummond (1894), Benjamin Kidd (1894), John Dewey (1898) and Peter Kropotkin (1902) all oppose Huxley’s false dichotomy between nature and human society” (116). 21  My attention is drawn to Drummond’s criticism of Huxley by Paradis’s article. 20

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outside competition. And this curbing of internal struggle within society, more positively stated as the strengthening of the social bond, is the “ethical process.” In Yan Fu’s eyes, Huxley’s idea of limiting internal struggle is an admonishment that excessive competition inside a community leads to its dissolution (Tianyan lun 210). Huxley’s argument about the checking of struggle for existence within society as an advantage in “outside competition” is even more exciting for Yan Fu. He understands Huxley’s view on domestic society and external struggle as a prescription to arrest internal competition, strengthen the social bond, and succeed in the struggle with other nations in outside competition. This is why in his preface to Tianyan Lun, Yan Fu stresses that Huxley repeatedly touches on the question of “strengthening oneself and sustaining the race.” A comparison of Huxley’s text with Yan Fu’s translation shows that Yan Fu follows Huxley’s general argument about the relation between arresting severe social competition, strengthening the social bond, and improving the chances for survival of a community in outside competition. But Yan Fu registers a rather different socio-­ political concern in his translation. For Huxley, the ethical process of limiting internal struggle is an end in itself, while the reference to success in outside competition is merely a justification and means to defend the end—the ethical process of strengthening the social bond. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu reverses the end and the means. For him, the unifying of all people in a group by limiting internal competition is the means by which the end, national survival, can be achieved.22 This reversal is already suggested in Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s argument, quoted above, using the hive of bees as a model for cooperation within a community (Evolution and Ethics 35). Yan Fu translates that passage as follows: In such a group of human beings, members unite for outside competition with humans or non-humans. Therefore, this group fears nothing and can “survive” (“Cun” 存). In this regard, only by removing internal strife can a group become “strong” (“Qiang” 強) and triumph in outside competition. In this respect, the community of humans is like those communities of animals which crawl and swim. (208) 夫如是之群,合而與其外爭,或人或非人,將皆可以無畏, 而有以自存。蓋唯泯其爭於 內,而後有以為彊,而勝其爭於外也,此所與飛走蠕泳之群同焉者也。

While Huxley’s concerns about outside competition are rather muted, Yan Fu’s nationalist concerns are quite evident in his interpretive translation. Whereas for Huxley, the societies of bees and ants serve as animal examples to demonstrate that his ethics complies with the natural law, Yan Fu interprets the societies of “animals which crawl and swim” as examples of preserving the race through social cooperation. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu puts Huxley’s words about animal societies into a

 In his essay on Yan Fu’s misreading of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, He Huaihong indicates that, while Huxley is concerned with the ethical question pertaining to all human beings, Yan Fu looks at questions from the standpoint of nationalism (158). My research is distinguished from He Huaihong’s in that I not only discuss the difference between Huxley’s ethics and Yan Fu’s nationalism, but also examine how Yan Fu, following Huxley’s general argument and logical line of thought, incorporates his ethics into a nationalist discourse. I also indicate that Huxley’s ethical concern is limited to his Victorian context.

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section entitled “Fengqun” 蜂群 (The Group of Bees) to highlight the nationalist implication of the animal example for international politics. Yan Fu’s shift in emphasis from the curbing of social competition to the advantage in outside competition becomes especially clear when we examine the nuanced differences between the meanings of Huxley’s English terms and Yan Fu’s Chinese terms. For instance, Yan Fu’s use of the Chinese word “Qiang” 彊 (strength and power), which is a variant form of the Chinese character 強, to translate the English word “strengthen,” is central to his reversal of the means and the end. In Evolution and Ethics, Huxley’s use of the word “strengthen” refers to the “strengthening” of the social bond, that is, the “strengthening” of people’s relation and social harmony. In classical Chinese, the word “Qiang” 強 when used in a political context usually refers to “the strengthening of the military power of the state” 強兵 and may also imply the “increasing of the wealth of the state” 富國. For instance, in Xun Zi, there are chapters entitled “Qiangguo” 彊國 (Strengthening the State) and “Fuguo” 富國 (Enriching the State). In this regard, “Qiang” relates to the strength and power of the state and this Chinese term, unlike the English word “strengthen,” cannot be used to refer to the “strengthening” of social harmony. In the Late-Qing period, the word “Qiang” and related phrases like “Ziqiang” 自 強 (strengthening oneself) and “Tuqiang” 圖強 (search for strength) referred specifically to the need for China to strengthen its national power. Thus, in the wake of the Second Opium War with Britain and France (1856–1860), some officials in China launched the “Ziqiang yundong” 自強運動 (The movement of self-­ strengthening), which aimed to adopt Western technology and modern armaments. The word “Qiang” in Tianyan lun also clearly contains this nationalist significance, while the meaning of “Qiang” for Yan Fu is not just technological and military strength but also refers to national power in general. Accordingly, the “strengthening” of the “social bond” in Evolution and Ethics, referring to the solidification of relations within society, becomes for Yan Fu the strengthening of the country to retaliate against foreign intrusion. Yan Fu’s use of the Chinese terms “Cun” 存 (existence or survival) and “Zicun” 自存 (self-existence) to translate the English term “existence” in the phrase “struggle for existence” is also revealing. When “Cun” is used in political contexts, it usually refers to the existence of the country in a time of danger, as exemplified in the phrase of “the existence or death” 存亡 of the country. In Evolution and Ethics, the phrase “struggle for existence” implies the competition for resources among individuals or species, as well as between nations. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu translates Huxley’s “struggle for existence inside society” (Evolution and Ethics 35) not as a struggle for “Cun” (existence) but as “Zheng” 爭 (competition and strife), usually containing a derogatory sense in classical Chinese.23 In contrast, Yan Fu understands

 Yan Fu translates Huxley’s idea of “arrest[ing] the struggle for existence inside society” (Evolution and Ethics 35) into “泯其爭於內,” which means “removing internal strife” (Tianyan lun 208). In this sense, Yan Fu understands “the struggle for existence inside society” as “Neizheng” 內爭 (internal strife), which may lead to the chaos and dissolution of society.

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the English phrase “struggle for existence with the state of nature and other societies” (Evolution and Ethics 35) as the struggle for “Zicun” 自存 (self-existence), a positive endeavor containing a strong nationalist sense in the Late-Qing context (Tianyan lun 208). Like the “Zi” (self) in “Ziqiang” 自強 (self-strengthening), the “Zi” (self) in “Zicun” 自存 (self-existence) does not refer to an individual self but to a collective self, “we ourselves” or “our own Qun (Group).” In this sense, “Zicun” (self-­ existence) refers to the existence of our society as a whole in struggle with other societies rather than the struggle of an individual with other people within his society. Thus, the word “Cun” (existence) in Tianyan lun (208) refers only to the “existence” of a society and encapsulates the idea of “struggle for existence with other societies.” In Late-Qing China, due to foreign intrusion, a strong sense of “Tucun” 圖存 (seeking for existence) informs intellectual thought and political culture and thus the word “Cun” 存 (existence) in this historical context refers to the existence of a country in its conflict with foreign countries. Yan Fu’s use of the word “Cun” (existence) in Tianyan lun thus contains a powerful sense of nationalism which the English word “existence” in Evolution and Ethics does not contain. The political implication of the Chinese word “Cun” 存 (existence) in Late-Qing texts overpowers any other sense. Thus, “Cun” in Tianyan lun highlights the idea of “the struggle for existence with other societies” and turns this idea from Huxley’s means to justify the end into the ultimate end in politics. We can now see more clearly that Yan Fu is not simply a Chinese Spencer or a Chinese Social Darwinian. In the Victorian context, Spencer’s Social Darwinism is defined as the application of the biological principle to human society and in this sense Huxley’s ethics, which attacks Spencer’s view of social policy, is considered as anti-Social Darwinian. In the context of Late-Qing political culture, to be sure, Yan Fu’s evolutionist discourse of nationalism is considered as “Shehui daerwen zhuyi” 社會達爾文主義 (Social Darwinism).24 But like Huxley, Yan Fu argues for the limitation of conflict within society. Yan Fu rejects Spencer’s view of applying the principle of survival of the fittest to domestic policy because, to him, this is “competition” (Zheng) that may result in the dissolution of the community. Instead, Yan Fu is strongly inclined towards Huxley’s ethical process of diminishing internal struggle and competition. Thus, while Yan Fu and Huxley endeavor to remove severe social competition for different reasons, the disparity between their political goals cannot be understood in terms of the Victorian opposition between Social Darwinism and Anti-Social Darwinism. For Yan Fu himself, what Huxley argues about the ethical process of limiting internal struggle as an advantage in outside competition accords with the agenda of Chinese nationalism.

 See Guo Zhengzhao’s “Shehui daerwen zhuyi yu wanqing xuehui yundong: 1895–1911” (Social Darwinism and the movement of study communities in the Late-Qing period: 1895–1911).

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11.3.2  Y  an Fu’s Use of Xun Zi’s Idea of “Community” in Translating Huxley’s “Bee Society” It is through the language and thought of the pre-Qin Confucian Xun Zi that Yan Fu transforms Huxley’s ethical evolutionary thought about the strengthening of relations among people in a community into a nationalist discourse of unifying the people, strengthening the power of the country and securing the existence of a nation in the international arena. We have already seen how Yan Fu utilizes Xun Zi’s concept of “Qiang” to emphasize the strengthening of state power for outside competition rather than merely the enhancing of social harmony. Yan Fu’s use of the key term “Qun” 群 (group, community), along with two closely related terms, “Fen” 分 (duty) and “Zheng” 爭 (competition, strife), to translate Huxley’s ethical process further illustrates his reliance on the text of Xun Zi. For instance, regarding the first term, “Qun,” Confucius and Mencius also emphasize the community, but unlike Xun Zi, they only occasionally use the term “Qun” to refer to the community, nor do they place a premium on the power of the state or the community. In this regard, the significance of “Qun” in Yan Fu’s translation is specifically influenced by Xun Zi’s thought. Etymologically speaking, the Chinese character “群” (Qun) includes the character “羊” (Yang), which means sheep, because sheep have a tendency to form a group (Xu Shen 146).25 While the original meaning of “群” (Qun) is a group of animals, this character also includes the meaning of a community. In the Chapter “Wangzhi” 王制 (Institution of the King) of Xun Zi, Xun Zi argues that it is the formation of “Qun” that distinguishes human beings from other animals: [Humans] are not as strong as oxen or as fast as horses, but oxen and horses are used by them. How is it so? I say it is because humans can form “Qun” while oxen and horses cannot. (Xun Zi 194)26 力不若牛,走不若馬,而牛馬為用,何也?曰:人能群, 彼不能群也。27

 See Xu Shen’s 許慎 Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explanations of simple and compound characters), an influential work of Chinese etymology in the Han Dynasty. 26  This is a slight modification of Hutton’s translation (76). While the English translation of the passages of Xun Zi in my essay relies on Hutton’s Xunzi: The Complete Text as well as Wing-Tsit Chan’s A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, I occasionally modify some parts in their English translations. Generally speaking, the choice of English words to translate ancient Chinese texts usually accentuates some aspects of the original meaning and conceals other aspects, depending on which aspect the translator wants to emphasize. Since Hutton (or Wing-Tsit Chan) and I have different emphasis in our interpretations of Xun Zi, I slightly modify their translations. The emphasis in my modified translation accords with Yan Fu’s understanding and use of Xun Zi’s thought and terms. 27  All quotes of Xun Zi in this section come from the same paragraph in Xun Zi (194). In his discussion of the reception of Xun Zi’s ideas in Yan Fu’s thought, Chou Chih-Huang also pays attention to this paragraph of Xun Zi, arguing that Yan Fu’s thought about the relation between social cooperation and national power accords with Xun Zi’s thought in this paragraph (108–109). While Chou Chih-Huang just briefly points out the similarity between Xun Zi’s and Yan Fu’s thoughts about the power of a cooperative society, I further analyze how Yan Fu uses the terms, ideas, thought, and logic of argumentation in this paragraph of Xun Zi to translate and transform Huxley’s ethics, especially Huxley’s passages concerning the society of bees. 25

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When Xun Zi says that oxen and horses cannot form “Qun,” he does not mean that these animals do not form groups, but rather that they, unlike humans, cannot form a community through the establishment of the social order, political hierarchy and the rules of propriety. For Xun Zi, these characteristics of a community are important to the governance of the state by the King (“Wangzhi”). To him, the formation of the community enables human beings to overpower and dominate animals which are physically stronger. His thought of “Qun” as power informs Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s idea of the community as illustrated in Yan Fu’s passage about how the formation of “Qun” in the hive enables bees to “compete with other things” (Yu fanwu weijing 與凡物為競) in the next paragraph. The following juxtaposition of the description of the society of bees in Evolution and Ethics and Yan Fu’s translation of this passage in Tianyan lun illustrates how the nuanced meaning of the Chinese terms transforms the socio-political significance of the original text: The society formed by the hive bee fulfills the ideal of the communistic aphorism “to each according to his needs, from each according to his capacity.” Within it, the struggle for existence is strictly limited. Queen, drones, and workers have each their allotted sufficiency of food; each performs the function assigned to it in the economy of the hive, and all contribute to the success of the whole co-operative society in its competition with rival collectors of nectar and pollen and with other enemies, in the state of nature without. (Huxley, Evolution and Ethics 24) There is a queen among bees. Male bees are indolent. Workers are half female. In the hive of bees, all members have assigned duties (“Zhi” 職) and do their jobs. They get up in the early morning, collect nectar and pollen, and make honey. Then they can secure the living of the community (“Qun”) and enable it to compete with other things [in nature]. The ­reason why bees form a community is that Heaven grants them this natural disposition. They have a tendency to do their respective jobs and feed each other. All members have the duties (“Zhifen” 職分) which they have to fulfill. (Yan Fu, Tianyan lun 207) 夫蜂有后。其民雄者惰, 而操作者半雌。一壺之內,計口而稟,各致其職。昧旦而起, 吸膠戴黃,制為甘薌,用相保其群之生,而與凡物為競。其為群也,動於天機之自然,各 趣其功,於以相養,各有其職分之所當為。

In both the original text and the translation, the cooperative society of bees is portrayed as conducive to the survival of the whole community, but Yan Fu subtly shifts Huxley’s preoccupation with the needs of all members in society to the issue of the survival of the community. Huxley’s description of the bee society illustrates his view of the ideal cooperative community which helps people find their appropriate place in the division of labor and meets their individual needs (“The Struggle for Existence in Human Society” 217). By contrast, for Yan Fu the division of labor is not intended to meet the needs of individuals but to sustain the “life and growth” (Sheng 生) of the community. To emphasize the importance of the power of the community for outside competition, Yan Fu adds to the examples of bees and ants mentioned by Huxley a number of other animals:

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Among the things produced by Heaven, not only humans establish themselves by forming a community. Birds with a group like geese, beasts with a group like deer, elephants and especially American bison and African macaque, and insects with a group like ants and bees also depend on the formation of the group to keep themselves intact in their competition with other animals. (Tianyan lun 206) 天之生物,以群立者,不獨斯人已也。試略舉之:則禽之有群者,如雁如烏;獸之有群者, 如鹿如象,如米利堅之犎,阿非利加之獼,其尤著者也;昆蟲之有群者,如蟻如蜂。凡此 皆因其有群,以自完於物競之際者也。

By adding more animal species, Yan Fu stresses the importance of the community for survival throughout nature. Needless to say, these animal examples and the principle of the community in natural selection have strong connotations of international competition and national survival. Yan Fu’s emphasis on the importance of the community in sustaining diverse animal species incorporates but goes beyond Xun Zi’s and Huxley’s thoughts. Xun Zi argues that the formation of the community is the major factor that enables human beings to overpower other animals and limits the power of the community to humans. Yan Fu extends the principle of the community to the world of animals at large, in accord with Huxley. Both Yan Fu and Huxley believe that the formation of the community increases the chances for survival throughout human and non-human worlds. However, while Huxley just considers “community” or “cooperation” as one of the advantages in natural selection, Yan Fu emphasizes the principle of the community as a major or determining factor in the external struggle for survival, in line with Xun Zi’s emphasis on the community as power. By appropriating Xun Zi’s thought about the power of the community, Yan Fu engrafts Huxley’s idea of social cooperation into Late-Qing nationalist thought about the search for the power and wealth of the nation. In this sense, “Qun” is reenvisioned as a determining factor in international competition and natural selection and universalized as a principle “among the things produced by Heaven” (天之生 物 Tianzhi shengwu). Yan Fu also achieves his nationalist reinterpretation of Huxley’s ethics through his use of Xun Zi’s view of “Fen” 分 (duty, role and social division). In the passage concerning the hive as quoted above (Evolution and Ethics 24), Huxley uses the economy of the hive to illustrate the social ideal that in a cooperative society, all members contribute according to their capacity and receive according to their needs. Huxley hopes that just as “Queen, drones, and workers have each their allotted sufficiency of food,” so all members in human society can have sufficient resources for the sustaining of their lives. By contrast, Yan Fu’s major concern is not the needs of all members but the duty of members to the community. He substitutes the idea of “fulfilling one’s duty to the community” for Huxley’s idea of “performing one’s function according to one’s capacity.” In his translation quoted above, Yan Fu understands the division of labor in the bee society in terms of “Zhifen” 職分 (the duty attached to a job): “All members have the ‘Zhifen’ (duties) which they ought to fulfill” 各有其職分之所當為 (207). For Yan Fu, if all members in the hive work hard to fulfill the “duties” (Fen 分) attached to “their jobs” (Zhi 職), then they can secure “the living” (Sheng

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生) of the whole community and increase its power to compete with other communities. Yan Fu’s use of “the duty attached to the job” (Zhifen) reflects Xun Zi’s understanding of a person’s “duty” (Fen 分) within society. In “The Institution of the King,” Xun Zi argues that human beings can form a community because they know “Fen” and “Yi” 義 (righteousness): Why are humans able to form “Qun” (group)? I say it is because of “Fen” (role, duty and social division). How can “Fen” be put into practice? I say it is because of “Yi” [righteousness]. Thus, if “Fen” is based on “Yi,” then there will be social harmony. Social harmony will bring about the unification [of “Qun”]. With the unification [of “Qun”], human beings will have more force. If they have more force, then they will be strong. If they are strong, then they will be able to overcome “Wu” (things). And so they can live in houses and palaces. (194)28 人何以能群?曰:分。分何以能行?曰:義。故義以分則和,和則一,一則多力,多力則彊, 彊則勝物;故宮室可得而居也。

Both Xun Zi and Yan Fu believe that if each member in a community fulfills his duty in society, then the power of the community will be strengthened. Thus, Yan Fu borrows Xun Zi’s idea of “Fen” to facilitate his nationalist translation of Huxley’s idea of social cooperation into a patriotic prescription to fulfill one’s duty and contribute to the community. However, it should be noted that Yan Fu and Xun Zi define the relation between “an individual’s duty” and “the power of the community” from different perspectives. For Xun Zi, the duty of a person is defined in terms of his status in the political hierarchy, and a system of social division can work only when people recognize and fulfill their respective duties. In Xun Zi, “Fen” thus means not only the duty of a given job or social role, but also distinguishing between people to ascertain their proper roles.29 Social order is established when people act “righteously” (Yi 義), that is, in accord with socially defined roles and duties, resulting in social harmony (He 和) and the unification (Yi 一) of the community. Such unification in turn allows for the overcoming of obstacles and nature and the advancement of civilization symbolized by “living in houses and palaces.” In “The Institution of the King,” Xun Zi gives advice to the kings of warring states and thus speaks of “Fen” from a ruler’s perspective. According to Xun Zi, if  This passage is a substantial modification of Hutton’s translation (76).  Hutton translates “Fen” 分 into “social divisions”  (76). This translation is correct, but as Li Disheng indicates in Xunzi Jijie (The collection of commentaries on Xun Zi), the Chinese character “分” (Fen) in Xun Zi also refers to a person’s role and duty in the political hierarchy (181). In Chinese, the character “分” (Fen) contains the meaning of “differentiating” or “stratifying.” In addition, when this Chinese character is used as a noun, it can refer to the “duty” attached to one’s role. In Xun Zi, the Chinese character “分” (Fen) contains both of the above-mentioned meanings. Xun Zi argues that a ruler should “differentiate” (stratify) the people according to their social roles in the political hierarchy, and make them fulfill the “duties” attached to their social roles. While what Xun Zi argues about is a kind of “social division,” I argue that the English phrase “social divisions” which Hutton uses to translate “分” (Fen) does not fully capture the strong sense of “duty” in this Chinese character.

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a king can establish the law and regulate the order of society by making his subjects fulfill their duties and follow the rituals of propriety, then he can unify the community and strengthen the power of the state. In this regard, when fulfilling their socially defined duties, the people have no conscious intention to empower the community, which is the concern of the ruler. By contrast, Yan Fu draws a much closer and direct connection between individuals’ duties and the power of the community by ignoring Xun Zi’s emphasis on the social hierarchy and the role of the ruler. For Yan Fu, just as bees work diligently to feed each other and secure the operation and growth of the community, so members of a society should consciously fight for the existence and survival of their community. National survival, rather than the social hierarchy, is Yan Fu’s primary concern. In Yan Fu’s reinterpretation of the bee society, the term “Zhifen” refers not only to the duty of a job but also to the duty to the community, which in turn is redefined as a nationalist duty to fight for the existence of the country in outside competition. Let us turn now to the problem of competition or strife (“Zheng” 爭) in the community. In Evolution and Ethics, Huxley argues that the limitation of internal struggle can be an advantage in outside competition, but does not explicitly say that internal struggle will lead to a failure of the community in external struggle. For Yan Fu, however, internal strife bears directly on the issue of national survival: “Zheng” (competition) results in the disbanding of “Qun.” If “Qun” is disbanded, then people lose what they rely on for existence. Thus, if individuals just manage for themselves, the Way of ‘Qun’ (community) ceases and a human race (“Renzhong” 人種) becomes extinct. (210) 爭則群渙,群渙則人道所恃以為存者去。故曰自營大行,群道息而人種滅也。

Yan Fu clearly has the Chinese race in mind, and fears that internal strife will lead to the dissolution and extinction of the Chinese nation. The warning that Yan Fu gives to his Chinese compatriots in regard to the disbanding of the community is a reminder of Xun Zi’s admonishment about the damage caused by strife and chaos to the whole community: Thus, the reason why humans can follow the order of four seasons, “tailor” myriad things, and bring benefits to all under Heaven is none other than that they achieve “Fen” (duty) and “Yi” (righteousness). And so humans cannot live without being in a group. If humans form a group without “Fen,” then they will struggle. If they struggle, then there will be chaos. If there is chaos, then they will disband. If they disband, then they will be weak. If they are weak, then they cannot overcome “Wu” (things). And so they will not get to live in homes and palaces. This is the meaning of the saying that “one must not let go of ritual or Yi for even a moment.”30 (194) 故序四時,裁萬物,兼利天下,無它故焉,得之分義也。故人生不能無群,群而無分則爭, 爭 則 亂 ,亂 則 離 ,離 則 弱 ,弱 則 不 能 勝 物 。 故 宮 室 不 可 得 而 居 也 ,不 可 少 頃舍禮義之謂也。

In this quotation, Xun Zi admonishes that “Zheng” 爭 (competition or strife) within the community leads to the disruption of the social order and the weakening of the 30

 This is a substantial modification of Hutton’s translation of Xun Zi (76).

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community. “Weak” (Ruo 弱) in this text means that a community loses its power to overcome things in nature, and thus is unable to build “houses and palaces.” Besides, in the context of Xun Zi’s chapter “The Institution of the King,” the failure to “overcome things” also includes the failure to develop animal husbandry, engage in agriculture, construct embankments or set up irrigation systems, that is, the failure to advance civilization and strengthen the power of the state (Xun Zi 195–198). Both Xun Zi and Yan Fu are concerned about the negative impact of internal strife on the power of the whole community to struggle with nature or compete with other communities. But whereas the voice in Xun Zi is an advisory voice from an official who admonishes the king about the problem of internal strife in the governance of the country, the voice in Tianyan lun is from a patriot who admonishes his compatriots about the possibility of national downfall and racial extinction, urging them to become united. Huxley’s and Xun Zi’s thoughts can be intertwined in Yan Fu’s translation not just because Yan Fu twists and transforms the significance of Huxley’s ideas through Xun Zi’s thought, but because Yan Fu tries to find in both Evolution and Ethics and Xun Zi the ideas that can serve as a nationalist prescription to save China. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu coordinates the ideas from Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, Xun Zi’s political thought and Late-Qing nationalism, and incorporates these ideas into a nationalist agenda, in which these ideas redefine each other.

11.4  Y  an Fu’s Use of Xun Zi’s Idea of “Controlling Heaven” in Translating Huxley’s “Combating the Cosmic Process” In Tianyan lun, the question concerning the community is intimately connected with the question of “Heaven” (“Tian”) and its role in society. In this section I will focus on how Yan Fu uses Xun Zi’s idea of “controlling Heaven” (Zhitian 制天) to translate Huxley’s thought of “combating the cosmic process.” In the process I will examine Yan Fu’s thought about the relation between nature and society and investigate why he interprets Evolution and Ethics as an attempt “to solve the gigantic problem of the free reign of Heaven in Spencer’s thought” (Tianyan lun 171). First we must be clear on Huxley’s understanding of the cosmic process if we are to appreciate Yan Fu’s own view correctly. The recent study of Yan Fu’s view of Heaven and his attitudes towards Huxley’s thought about the cosmic process is deeply influenced by Schwartz’s In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West, in which he argues that “Huxley’s enmity to the cosmos offends Y[a]n Fu’s deepest religious proclivities” (104). Schwartz cites a passage from Evolution and Ethics to show Huxley’s attitudes towards the cosmic struggle in relation to society: “[T]he ethical process of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it” (Schwartz 101; Huxley, Evolution and Ethics, 83). Nevertheless, Schwartz does not comprehend the larger view of

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Huxley’s thought as a whole, as becomes clear when we look at the “Prolegomena” in Evolution and Ethics. Evolution and Ethics includes two of Huxley’ longer essays—“Prolegomena” and “Evolution and Ethics: The Romanes Lecture.” Huxley wrote the “Prolegomena” in 1894 after he wrote “Evolution and Ethics: The Romanes Lecture” in 1893. He placed the later-written “Prolegomena” before the earlier-written essay in the book version of Evolution and Ethics. The passage which Schwartz cites above is from Huxley’s “The Romanes Lecture” in 1893 and in this lecture, as Schwartz points out, Huxley talks about combating the cosmic process through the ethical process. However, in the 1894 “Prolegomena,” Huxley revises his argument and endeavors to show that the ethical process is not in opposition to the cosmic process but part of it. In his “Preface” to Evolution and Ethics, Huxley writes that “I have endeavoured to repair my error [in “Evolution and Ethics”] by prefacing the lecture with some matter—briefly elementary or recapitulatory—to which I have given the title of ‘Prolegomena’” (6). He goes on to explain: “All I have endeavoured to do, at present, is to remove that which seems to have proved a stumbling-block to many— namely, the apparent paradox that ethical nature, while born of cosmic nature, is necessarily at enmity with its parent [my italics]” (9). In the “Prolegomena,” to repair his earlier error in “The Romanes Lecture,” Huxley likens the “ethical process” to the “horticultural process” in the garden. Both of these processes aim to remove internal conflict and to preserve each member of the community, human beings in one case, plants in the other (Huxley 9–20). He also explains the “conceptual antinomy” between the “cosmic process” and the “horticultural process.” In his definition, the “cosmic process” means “the intense and unceasing competition of the struggle for existence” in the state of nature, and the “horticultural process” refers to the limitation of that struggle and the preservation of each member as seen in the garden (Huxley 13). These two processes plainly oppose each other. But the horticultural process, Huxley contends, is part of the cosmic process, for “the operation of human energy and intelligence” in the garden is “part and parcel of the cosmic process” (11). For Huxley, the results of the human effort, though called “the works of artifice,” still belong to the natural process of the cosmos, for “man, physical, intellectual, and moral, is as much a part of nature, as purely a product of the cosmic process, as the humblest weed” (11). Since humankind is a product of nature, human effort is part of nature. In this sense, the horticultural process or the ethical process is part and parcel of the cosmic process.31  In “Hewei tianyan? Yanfu tianyan zhi xue de neihan yu yiyi” (What is “Tianyan”? The meaning and significance of Yan Fu’s theory of the operation of Heaven), Huang Ko-wu also pays attention to the problem of the relation between “the ethical process” and “the cosmic process” in both Huxley’s original work and Yan Fu’s translation (146–151). In his comparison of Huxley’s idea of the “horticultural process” and Yan Fu’s translation of this idea, Huang Ko-wu argues that, for Yan Fu, the force of the human effort and the force of the operation of Heaven “complement” each other just as “Yin” 陰 (feminine element) and “Yang” 陽 (masculine element) not only oppose but also complement each other in Chinese cosmology (147–148). My research on this question differs

31

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In the “Prolegomena,” Huxley also uses another way to argue that the ethical process is part of the cosmic process. As mentioned above, Huxley uses the societies of bees and ants to explain why the ethical process can both fight against and accord with the cosmic process. He contends that the human effort to curb the struggle for existence within the internal social sphere completely conforms to the struggle for existence in the external sphere, given the selective advantage of internal cooperation in outside competition. Let us now turn to Yan Fu’s own attempt to incorporate the ethical process into the cosmic process. In Yan Fu’s translation of the following passage from “The Romanes Lecture” (part of which is quoted by Schwartz), we see that Yan Fu is not offended by Huxley’s idea of combating the cosmos, but instead embraces it. I juxtapose Huxley’s text and Yan Fu’s translation: Let us understand, once for all, that the ethical progress of society depends, not on imitating the cosmic process, still less in running away from it, but in combating it [my italics]. It may seem an audacious proposal thus to pit the microcosm against the macrocosm and to set man to subdue nature to his higher ends. (Huxley, Evolution and Ethics 83) Nowadays, people cannot achieve success in the way of governance without combating Heaven. It is not right to imitate the operation of Heaven. Neither is it right to steer clear of the operation of Heaven. To triumph over Heaven is not to counter Heaven or the nature of things—an ominous, inharmonious action. The Way is to make use of the nature of things and know how to turn something harmful into something beneficial. (Yan Fu, Tianyan lun 275–276) 今者欲治道之有功,非與天爭勝焉,固不可也。法天行者非也,而避天行者亦非。夫曰 與 天 爭 勝 云 者 ,非 謂 逆 天 拂 性 ,而 為 不 祥 不 順 者 也 。 道 在 盡 物 之 性 ,而 知 所以轉害而為利。

Yan Fu reinterprets Huxley’s idea of the “ethical process” as “the [ideal] way of governance” (Zhidao 治道), and Huxley’s idea of “combating the cosmic process” as “combatting or overcoming Heaven” (Yutian zhengsheng 與天爭勝), in effect identifying the cosmic process with Heaven. The difference between Huxley and Yan Fu is striking both in terms of their goals and their means. Huxley’s end in “combating the cosmic process,” as we have seen, is to curb the struggle for existence within society, while Yan Fu’s goal in “overcoming Heaven” is to make the most of natural resources. Huxley’s method for achieving his goal is to subdue “nature” and disrupt its normal operation, that is, to counter the natural cosmic process of struggle for existence. Yan Fu’s method is not to go against the operation of Heaven but to follow the nature of things: humans must respect the operation of the cosmos to “overcome Heaven” and then they can take full advantage of things in the natural world. Huxley thus focuses on reordering the from Huang Ko-wu’s. My analysis of Tianyan lun aims to demonstrate that both Huxley and Yan Fu try to construct a “compatibility” between the human effort and the cosmic operation, thus “incorporating” the former into the later. In addition, my examination of the ideas of “community” and “overcoming Heaven” in Tianyan lun reveals how Yan Fu, through Xun Zi’s thought about the power of a unified community to “control and use Heaven,” translates and reconstructs Huxley’s idea of the compatibility between the ethical process and the cosmic process.

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social world in his thought of “combating the cosmic process,” while Yan Fu focuses on the natural world and emphasizes how to make use of things according to their ‘Xing’ 性 (nature or essence) in his thought of “overcoming Heaven.” This shift in focus is especially clear in the comment which Yan Fu adds to his translation of Huxley’s original text: In the past one hundred years, the reason why Europe became the wealthiest and strongest is none other than overcoming the operation of Heaven and controlling myriad things in the world…. To predict what will happen should be based on what has happened. Thus, my argument about overcoming Heaven to achieve governance is correct. (Tianyan lun 275) 百年來歐洲所以富強稱最者,其故非他,其所勝天行,而控制萬物……以已事測將來,吾 勝天為治之說,殆無以易也。

In the original text, Huxley makes no reference to the wealth and strength of Europe. While Yan Fu does not clarify what he means by Europe’s “overcoming the operation of Heaven and controlling myriad things,” he is clearly referring to the technological and industrial progress of nineteenth-century Europe that enabled the West to amass its wealth and power. In this sense, “controlling myriad things” (Kongzhi wanwu 控制萬物) is to develop technology and industry. The significance of “controlling myriad things” in Yan Fu’s view of technology corresponds to Xun Zi’s idea of “following the order of four seasons and ‘tailoring’ myriad things” 序四時, 裁萬物 in a passage quoted above (Xun Zi 194). The literal meaning of “Cai” 裁 is “tailor,” and the “tailoring of myriad things” is to control and develop natural things.32 The tailoring, controlling and developing of things, which is also referred to as “overcoming things” (勝物 Shengwu) in Xun Zi’s “The Institution of King” (194), does not mean that humans should go against the order of nature. Instead, they should follow the order of nature, and they can “tailor myriad things,” thereby developing animal husbandry, agriculture, irrigation and other prerequisites of civilization (Xun Zi 195–198). Both Xun Zi’s idea of “tailoring myriad things” and Yan Fu’s idea of “controlling myriad things” mean that humans can develop technology if they know how to follow the operation of nature. Yan Fu’s idea of “overcoming Heaven” (Shengtian 勝天) also derives from Xun Zi’s thought. The title of Yan Fu’s Tianyan lun (天演論 On the Operation of Heaven) corresponds to the title of Xun Zi’s chapter “Tianlun” (天論 On Heaven), and Yan Fu borrows Xun Zi’s thought about the operation of Heaven and his idea of “controlling Heaven and using Heaven” (Zhitian yongtian 制天用天). In “On Heaven,” Xun Zi argues:

32  The character “裁” (Cai) has the literal meaning of “tailor.” Hutton is right to translate this character into “control” (76) because the “tailoring” of things in this context means the “controlling” of things (76). However, just as Wang Xianqian 王先謙 (1842–1917) annotates, the verb “tailor” in this context also contains the significance of “Cheng” 成, which means “develop” in this context (194).

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Instead of regarding Heaven as great and admiring it, Why not foster it as a thing and control it? Instead of obeying Heaven and singing praise to it, Why not control the Mandate of Heaven and use it? Instead of looking on the seasons and waiting for them, Why not respond to them and make use of them? Instead of letting things multiply by themselves, Why not exercise your capacity to transform them? Instead of thinking about things as things, Why not regulate them so you won’t lose them? Instead of admiring how things come into being, Why not do something to bring them to full development? Therefore, to neglect human effort and admire Heaven is to miss the nature of things. (374–375)33

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大天而思之 孰與物畜而制之 從天而頌之 孰與制天命而用之 望時而待之 孰與應時而使之 因物而多之 孰與聘能而化之 思物而物之 孰與理物而勿失之也 願於物之所以生 孰與有物之所以成 故錯人而思天 則失萬物之情

The idea of “Heaven” (Tian 天) in this text refers to nature. Xun Zi does not put Heaven on the pedestal to admire and eulogize it, but conceives of Heaven as nature that can be controlled and used. The “controlling” (Zhi 制) and “using” (Yong 用) of Heaven thus refers to the controlling and using of nature or natural things. For Xun Zi, humans have to “exercise their capacity” to “transform” (Hua 化) natural things, but this does not mean that humans fight against the operation of nature. Instead, humans have to “respond to seasons” (Yingshi 應時) if they want to “bring things to full ‘development’ (Cheng 成).” That is to say, humans have to follow the order of nature and thus they can make the most of natural things. Seen in this light, “the controlling of the Mandate of Heaven” (Zhi Tianming 制天命) is not to combat the operation of nature. Instead, this idea, like the idea of “tailoring myriad things,” means that humans have to follow the order of nature when using and controlling natural things. It is clear that the idea of “overcoming Heaven” in Yan Fu’s Tianyan lun is connected with Xun Zi’s idea of “controlling Heaven.” Just as Xun Zi argues that “controlling Heaven” is to develop natural things in accordance with the order and operation of nature, so Yan Fu defines “overcoming Heaven” as making the most of the essence of natural things without countering the operation of the cosmos. Xun Zi’s language and thought about “controlling Heaven” enables Yan Fu to engraft Huxley’s idea of “combating the cosmic process” into a discourse of national power. Yan Fu’s thought about “overcoming Heaven” is closer to Xun Zi’s thought of “controlling Heaven” than to Huxley’s views about “combating the cosmic process.” Whereas both Yan Fu and Xun Zi aim to make use of things in accordance with the order of nature, Huxley intends to check the state of nature inside the sphere of society. In addition, whereas the purpose of overcoming or controlling Heaven in Yan Fu’s and Xun Zi’s thoughts is to increase the power of the community by controlling and developing things in nature, the purpose of Huxley’s combating the cosmic process is to preserve each member in society by excluding the cosmic process of struggle for existence from society. 33

 This is a slight modification of Wing-Tsit Chan’s translation (122).

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In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu uses different ways to translate Huxley’s ideas of “combating the cosmic process” in “Prolegomena” and “The Romanes Lecture.” In his translation of “Prolegomena,” Yan Fu transforms Huxley’s idea of the “ethical process,” which means the limitation of the cosmic process of struggle for existence in society, into a prescription to remove internal strife for the purpose of struggling for national survival in the cosmic process. Since Huxley already uses the horticultural process and the societies of bees and ants to create a compatibility between the ethical process and the cosmic process in “Prolegomena,” Yan Fu just incorporates this compatibility into his nationalist agenda. As to “The Romanes Lecture,” Yan Fu uses the idea of “controlling and using Heaven” in Xun Zi’s views on nature and technology to transform Huxley’s idea of “combating the cosmic process” in a radical way, arguing that “overcoming Heaven” is to develop technology by making the most of natural things in accordance with their essence. Yan Fu constructs a compatibility between the human effort and the cosmic operation through Xun Zi’s thought, and therefore erases the antithesis between the ethical process and the cosmic process in Huxley’s original text of “The Romanes Lecture.” While Yan Fu transforms Huxley’s idea of “combating the cosmic process” in diverse ways, the main themes in these two parts of his translation are consistent. Both the purpose of limiting internal competition in the first part of Tianyan lun and the purpose of making the most of natural things in accordance with their essence in the second part are to strengthen the country and seek for national survival. This consistency in purpose is informed by Xun Zi’s thought. Just as Xun Zi argues that the removal of internal strife can empower a community to make the most of natural things, so Yan Fu asserts that the Chinese nation should struggle for existence by uniting people and making the most of natural things, that is, to develop technology and industry.

11.5  D  arwinian Challenges Revisited in Late-Qing Nationalism and Xunzian Confucianism Yan Fu’s nationalist and Xunzian translation includes an implicit transformation of Huxley’s responses to the “three Darwinian challenges” which are the focus of this volume. In Victorian Britain, Darwin’s biological theory of evolution posed challenges to the notions of human uniqueness, social ethics and the designed cosmos. In Evolution and Ethics, Huxley responded to these Darwinian challenges from the perspectives of anti-Social-Darwinian ethics and evolutionary biology. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu does not pay much specific attention to the Darwinian challenges, but since Huxley explicitly and implicitly responds to these challenges in Evolution and Ethics, Yan Fu inevitably raises questions pertaining to them, reinterpreting them through the lens of Late-Qing nationalism and Xunzian Confucianism. In Tianyan lun, the translation of Huxley’s evolutionary ideas and animal examples deals with the relation between man and animals; the translation of Huxley’s ideas of the social bond and the ethical process responds to the question concerning the ethics of society; and the translation of Huxley’s idea of “combating the cosmic

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process” includes a reconsideration of the purpose of the cosmic operation. A comparison of Huxley’s and Yan Fu’s responses to the questions concerning Darwinian challenges can shed light on how Yan Fu reframes and transforms Huxley’s thought about evolution and ethics through Chinese nationalism and Xunzian Confucianism. Huxley’s evolutionary biology and evolutionary ethics center on the questions concerning the relation between man and animals as well as the analogy between the animal world and the human world. As an evolutionary biologist, Huxley argues that there is no fundamental difference in the bodily structure and the mental function between man and animals (Man’s Place in Nature 129). Biologically speaking, for Huxley man is a kind of animal. However, as to the ethics of society, Huxley distinguishes between man as a “member of society or citizen” and “man as a mere member of the animal kingdom,” contending that “[s]ociety differs from nature in having a definite moral object,” that is, “setting limits to the struggle [for existence]” within society (“The Struggle for Existence in Human Society” 203). To Huxley, even though humankind is not fundamentally different from animals in terms of their origins, processes of evolution, physical structures and mental functions, yet the ethics of the human world should differ from the biological principle of struggle for existence which prevails in the animal world. In addition, Huxley uses the societies of bees and ants to illustrate that the struggle for existence is significantly limited even in the animal world. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu translates Huxley’s words and arguments concerning the similarities and differences between man and animals, but the problem of the animal-­human relation which underlies Huxley discussion of man’s and animals’ societies, is reframed. In his discussion of the “competition among myriad things” 萬物爭存 (209), Yan Fu alludes to Western biological works on the evolution of man from the lower form of animal, including Darwin’s The Descent of Man, Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature and Ernst Haeckel’s The Evolutionary History of Man (209). Yan Fu does not find the Darwinian challenge to human uniqueness distasteful in that he reads the question concerning the origin of man from a Late-­ Qing nationalist perspective rather than from a Judeo-Christian perspective. To him, the evolution of man from animals in interspecies competition and natural selection reveals that an animal species or a human race has to struggle for survival in outside competition. As to the question of the ethics of society, while Huxley considers the problem of the survival of the fittest in the human world with a focus on domestic policy, Yan Fu reconsiders this question in terms of international politics. Thus, Yan Fu redefines Huxley’s ethical process of limiting internal struggle as a nationalist prescription to increase the chances for the survival of the country in international competition. The transformation of Huxley’s ethics into a nationalist agenda is particularly evident in Yan Fu’s translation of Huxley’s passages concerning the cooperative society of bees. In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu is not concerned with the Spencer-Huxley debate over the application of the survival of the fittest to social policy in the Victorian context of capitalism and industrialism. Neglecting the question concerning social policy in the Spencer-Huxley debate and Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, Yan Fu reiterates that the limitation of internal struggle is conducive to

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the struggle for national survival. Yan Fu reads the idea of “survival of the fittest” from a Late-Qing nationalist perspective, and thus, for him, to struggle for existence is a nationalist prescription rather than a challenge to the ethics of society. And as for the Darwinian challenge to the notion of a designed cosmos, the process of evolution seems to be an amoral process that does not entail a teleological end in the operation of nature. In his ethics, Huxley indicates that the struggle for existence in the natural world may not necessarily lead to competition among animals, but can also bring about the limitation of struggle for existence within society because cooperation can be an advantage in natural selection. Huxley explains the origin of society by evolutionary theory, arguing that “societies, such as those constituted by bees and ants, have also arisen out of the advantage of cooperation in the struggle for existence” (24). Further, he asserts, “I see no reason to doubt that, at its origin, human society was as much a product of organic necessity as that of the bees” (26). To Huxley, then, the cosmos as well as human society, including its cooperative aspects, are products of natural laws and organic necessity, not of any conscious design entailing some transcendent purpose. The denial of conscious or intentional design in the universe, however, does not mean that society is without any purpose or intentions. Huxley attributes a certain extent of agency to humankind in the evolution of society. Huxley believes that, just as humans can put the horticultural process into effect in the garden, so they can act to make the ethical process possible in society. What distinguishes human society from animal society is that humans can perform intentional actions to build up or accelerate the development of a cooperative society. Like Huxley, Yan Fu believes that the operation of nature includes the advantages of a cooperative society in outside competition, as revealed in the societies of bees and ants. While Yan Fu defines the operation of nature in terms of Huxley’s thought about evolution and ethics, his attitudes towards the cosmic operation corresponds to Xun Zi’s thought about “Heaven.” In “Tianlun”  (On Heaven), Xun Zi argues, “Heaven operates with constant regularity. It does not exist for the sake of Yao (a sage emperor) nor does it cease to exist because of Jie (a wicked king)” 天行有常, 不為堯存, 不為桀亡 (362).34 On the assumption that the operation of the cosmos follows some constant ways, Xun Zi not only disputes the idea of a personified Heaven who has a will or an intention to intervene in human affairs, but also disconnects the operation of Heaven from morality. In this sense, the term “Tian” (Heaven) in Xun Zi’s thought represents the operation of nature without a moral connotation and thus without purpose. In Xun Zi, although the operation of Heaven or nature does not include a teleological end, yet by unifying the community and making use of natural things through the observance of the order and operation of nature, human beings can achieve their goals to strengthen the power of the community, develop technology, and advance civilization. For Yan Fu, as for Xun Zi, the cosmic process operates without a teleological end, but human beings, through their efforts, can achieve their own goals. In observing the order and operation of nature, humans can build up a cooperative society, 34

 This is a slight modification of Wing-Tsit Chan’s translation (116).

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devote themselves to the community, develop technology and industry, and strengthen the power of the community. In the Late-Qing context, such strengthening referred especially to changing the fate of the country, nation, and race in international competition. The cosmic process of natural selection and its apparent randomness, so problematic or even threatening in the Anglo-European context, does not pose a teleological challenge for Yan Fu.

Works Cited Primary Sources Chinese Liang Qichao 梁啟超. 1902. “Jieshao xinzhu: yuanfu” 介紹新著: 原富 (Introduction to New Books: On Wealth). Xinmin congbao 新民叢報 (The Newspaper of the New People). 1: 113. Xu Shen 許慎. 2006. Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explanations of Simple and Compound Characters). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban she. Xun Zi 荀子. 2010. Xunzi jijie 荀子集解 (Collected Commentaries on Xun Zi), Annotated and Edited by Wang Xianqian 王先謙. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. Yan Fu 嚴復. 1998a. “Yuan Qiang” 原強 (On Strength). In Yanfu heji I: Yanfu wenji biannian yi  嚴 復合集1: 嚴復文集編年一 (The Collected Works of Yan Fu I: The Chronological Collection of Yan Fu’s Works I). Taipei: Gugongliang wenjiao jijin hui. ———. 1998b. Yanfu heji VII: Tianyan lun huikan sanzhong  嚴復合集 7: 天演論匯刊三種 (The Collected Works of Yan Fu VII: Three Versions of On the Operation of Heaven). Taipei: Gugongliang wenjiao jijin hui. (Interpretative and creative translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics). ———. 1998c. Yanfu heji X: Qunxue yiyan  嚴復合集10: 群學肄言 (The Collected Works of Yan Fu X: Remarks on the Study of the Group). Taipei: Gugongliang wenjiao jijin hui. (Interpretative and creative translation of Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology). Yan Qu 嚴璩. 1998. “Xianfujun nianpu” 先府君年譜 (The Chronological Biography of My Father). In Yanfu heji XVII: Houguan yanshi pingdian laozi 侯官嚴氏評點老子 (Commentary on Lao Zi by Mr. Yan of Houguan). Taipei: Gugongliang wenjiao jijin hui.

English Darwin, Charles. 1988. On the Origin of Species. 1859. Reprint. New  York: New  York University Press. ———. 1989. The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. 2nd ed (Revised and Augmented). 1877. Reprint. New York: New York University Press. Drummond, Henry. 1894. The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man. New York: J. Pott & Co.. Huxley, Thomas. 2001. Preface to Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays. 1894. Repirnt. Project Gutenberg Etext of Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays. https://www.wikipremed.com/ reading/philosophy/Evolution_and_Ethics.pdf ———. 2003. Man’s Place in Nature. 1863. Reprint. New York: Dover Publication. ———. 2009. Evolution and Ethics. 1894. Reprint. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

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———. 2011. “The Struggle for Existence in Human Society.” 1888. Reprint. Evolution & Ethics and Other Essays. London: Macmillan, 1894. Reprint. Collected Essays IX: Evolution and Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer, Herbert. 1874. The Study of Sociology. New York: Appleton.

Secondary Sources Chinese Bao Kuo-shuen 鮑國順. 2002. “Xunzi pingjia de lishi guancha” 荀子評價的歷史觀察 (An Observation of the History of the Evaluation of Xun Zi), Ruxue yanjiu ji 儒學研究集 (Collection of Essays on Confucianism). Gaoxiong: Fuwen. Chou Chih-Huang 周志煌. 2015. Wulei yu lunlei: xunxue guannian yu jinxiandai zhongguo xueshu huayu  物類與倫類: 荀學觀念與近現代中國學術話語 (Classification of Things and Categorization of Ethical Values: The Ideas of Xun Zi and the Academic Language of Modern China). Taipei: Hongye. Guo Zhengzhao 郭正昭. 1972. “Shehui daerwen zhuyi yu wanqing xuehui yundong:1895–1911” 社會達爾文主義與晚清學會運動: 1895–1911 (Social Darwinism and the Movement of Study Communities in the Late-Qing Period: 1895–1911). Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindai shi yanjiu suo jikan 中央研究院近代史研究所集刊. 3: 557–627. ———. 1978. “Cong yanhua lun tanxi yanfu xing weiji gan de yili jiegou” 從演化論探析嚴復型 危機感的意理結構 (The Significance and Structure of Yan Fuian Sense of Crisis in Relation to Evolutionism). Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindai shi yanjiu suo jikan 中央研究院近代史研究 所集刊. 7: 527–556. Han Chenghua 韓承樺. 2013. Shenzhong zixue: yanfu fanyi qunxue yiyan zhi yanjiu 審重咨學: 嚴 復翻譯《群學肄言》之研究 (Caution and Learning: A Study of Yan Fu’s Translation of The Study of Sociology). Taipei: Wunan. Han Cheng-hua 韓承樺 and Huang Ko-wu 黃克武. 2013. “Wanqing shehui xue de fanyi ji qi yingxiang: yi yan fu yu zhang binglin de yizuo wei li” 晚清社會學的翻譯及其影響: 以嚴復 與章炳麟的譯作為例 (Late-Qing Translation of Sociology and Its Influence: A Case Study of Yan Fu’s and Zhang Binglin’s Translations). In Jindai zhongguo xin zhishi de jiangou 近代中 國新知識的建構 (The Construction of New Knowledge in Modern China), ed. Sha Peide and Zhang Zhejia. Taipei: Academic Sinica. He Huaihong 何懷宏. 2014. “Wudu yu queshi: dui tianyan lun ji qi yingxiang de yige fansheng” 誤讀與闕失: 對《天演論》及其影響的一個反省 (Misreading and Missing: Reflection on Tianyan lun and Its Influence). In Daojia wenhua yanjiu 28:Yan Fu zhuanhao 道家文化研 究 28: 嚴復專號 (The Study of Daoist Culture: A Special Issue on Yan Fu), ed. Chen Guying. Beijing: Sanlian. Hsueh Yu-Min 薛裕民. 2005. Wanqing paixun yu zunxun 晚清排荀與尊荀 (The Refutation and Praise of Xun Zi in the Late-Qing Period). M.A. Thesis. National Cheng Kung University. Huang Ko-wu 黃克武. 2005. “Zouxiang fanyi zhilu: beiyang shuishi xuetang shiqi de yanfu” 走 向翻譯之路: 北洋水師學堂時期的嚴復 (Beginning a New Career in Translation: Yan Fu at the Northern Naval College). Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindai shi yanjiu suo jikan 中央研究院 近代史研究所集刊. 49 (9): 1–40. ———. 2010. Weishi zhian: yanfu yu jindai zhongguo de wenhua zhuanxing  惟適之安: 嚴復 與近代國的文化轉型 (Yan Fu and the Transformation of Culture in Modern China). Taipei: Lianjing. ———. 2014. “Hewei tianyan? Yanfu tianyan zhi xue de neihan yu yiyi” 何謂天演? 嚴復「天演 之學」的內涵與意義 (What is “Tianyan”? The Meaning and Significance of Yan Fu’s Theory of the Operation of Heaven). Zhongyang yanjiu yuan jindai shi yanjiu suo jikan 中央研究院 近代史研究所集刊. 85(9): 129–187

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Jian, Jyun-Ru 簡均儒. 2011. Qingdai xunzi wenxian yanjiu 清代荀子文獻研究 (A Study of Qing Scholarship on Xun Zi). M.A. Thesis, National Taiwan University. Li Disheng 李滌生. 1979. Xunzi Jijie  荀子集解 (A Collection of Commentaries on Xun Zi). Taipei: Xuesheng shuju. Sun Yingxiang 孫應祥. 2014. Yanfu nianpu  嚴復年譜 (The Chronology of Yan Fu). Fouzhou: Fujian renmin chuban she. Tien Fu-mei 田富美. 2001. Qingdai xunzi xue yanjiu 清代荀子學研究 (The Study of Xun Zi in the Qing Dynasty). New Taipei City: Huamu lan wenhua chuban she. Wang Fansen 王汎森. 2014. Quanli de maoxi guan zuoyong: qingdai de sixiang xueshu yu xintai 權力的毛細管作用: 清代的思想、學術與心態 (Capillary Function of Power: The Thought, Academics and Mentality of the Qing Period). Taipei: Lianjing. Wang Quchang 王蘧常. 1977. Yan jidao nianpu 嚴幾道年譜 (The Chronology of Yan Fu’s Life). Taipei: Shangwu. Wu Chan-liang 吳展良. 1999a. “Yanfu tianyan lun zuoyi yu neihan xinquan” 嚴復《天演論》作 意與內涵新詮 (A New Interpretation of the Intention and Meaning of Yan Fu’s Tianyan lun). Taida lishi xuebao 臺大歷史學報. 24: 103–176. ———. 1999b. “Yanfu zaoqi de qiudao zhi lu: jianlun chuantong xueshu xingge yu siwei fangshi de jicheng yu zhuanhua”  嚴復早期的求道之旅:兼論傳統學術性格與思維方式的繼承 與轉化 (The Search for the Dao in Yan Fu’s Early Years: The Continuity and Transformation of Traditional Modes of Learning and Thinking). Taida lishi xuebao  臺大歷史學報. 23(6): 239–276. ———. 2001. “Zhongxi zuigao xueli de wanhe yu chongtu: yanfu daotong weiyi shuo xilun” 中西 最高學理的綰合與衝突: 嚴復道通為一說析論 (The Integration and Conflict of the Highest Principles of Chinese and Western Learning: An Analysis of Yan Fu’s Theory of “Dao Is One”). Taida wenshizhe xuebao 臺大文史哲學報. 54: 305–332. Zhu Weizheng 朱維錚. 1996. “Wanqing hanxue: paixun yu zunxun” 晚清漢學: 排荀與尊 荀 (Han Learning in the Late-Qing Period: The Refutation and Praise of Xun Zi). Qiusuo zhen wenming—wanqing xueshu shi lun  求索真文明—晚清學術史論 (Search for the True Civilization—On Late-Qing Academic History). Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban she.

English Bannister, Robert C. 1970. “‘The Survival of the Fittest is our Doctrine’: History or Histrionics?” Journal of the History of Ideas. 31 (3): 377–398. Chan, Wing-Tsit. 1963. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hobsbawm, E.J. 1999. Industry and Empire: The Birth of the Industrial Revolution. New York: The New Press. Hodgson, Geoffrey Martin. 2004. The Evolution of Institutional Economics: Agency, Structure, and Darwinism in American Institutionalism. London: Routledge. Hutton, Eric L. Trans. 2015. Xunzi: The Complete Text. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Paradis, James. 1989. “Evolution and Ethics and Its Victorian Context.” In Evolution and Ethics, by T.H. Huxley. Princeton: Princeton University Press.  Pusey, James Reeve. 1983. China and Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schwartz, Benjamin. 1964. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Taylor, Michael W. 2007. The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer. London: Continuum.

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Kuan-yen Liu is currently a Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), where he teaches courses on “History and Philosophy of Biology” and “History of Chinese Philosophy” for  the Philosophy Minor Program as well as other courses on Western and Chinese thought, science and literature for the General Education Division. At the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), he served as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and taught cross-­disciplinary  courses on “Nationalism, Evolutionism, Capitalism and Socialism in LongNineteenth-Century Europe” and “Buddhism and Daoism in Classical, Modern and Diasporic Chinese Literature” in the Comparative Literature Program. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at UCSB, where he specialized in Victorian thought and literature, Late-Qing Chinese thought and literature, and philosophy of biology. Prior to his doctoral study, he earned a B.A. from National Chengchi University in Taiwan, with a double major in English Literature and Philosophy as well as minors in History and Chinese Literature. His scholarship focuses on the history of biology and the epistemology of science in Victorian Britain as well as the cultural translation and philosophical transformation of Darwinism in late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century China.  

Chapter 12

Yan Fu’s Daoist Reinterpretation of Evolutionism Kuan-yen Liu

Abstract  This essay investigates the interlacing of Daoist Philosophy and Victorian Evolutionism in Yan Fu’s comment on and reinterpretation of both Lao Zi’s Daode Jing as well as Wang Bi’s annotation of this seminal Daoist classic. Following some preliminary comments, I will discuss in Sect. 12.2 how Yan Fu’s commentary shows the intersections of many trends in the intellectual and political culture of Late-Qing China (1840–1911), including the search for ways to strengthen the nation, the acceptance of Western knowledge, the revival of Pre-Qin Chinese (Pre-221 BCE) thought, and the tradition of annotating the Daode Jing. In Sect. 12.3, I will examine how Western science and evolutionary biology draw Yan Fu’s attention to the latent concepts of “desire,” “nature” and “force” in the Daode Jing. I will further address how, through the metaphysics in Wang Bi’s annotation and reconstruction of Lao Zi’s thought, Yan Fu draws a connection among the function of desire, the operation of the Dao and the forming of myriad things to argue about the impetus or inner driving force in the process of evolution. Section 12.4 deals with how Yan Fu redefines the natural way of the Dao in Lao Zi’s political thought of non-action through Spencer’s theory of the development of a social organism and how, in terms of the working of the force of the Dao, Yan Fu reinterprets evolution and survival in natural selection as a “natural way” in the nationalist agenda of strengthening the country. This essay, thus, demonstrates how Yan Fu accepts Darwinism and Spencerism through Lao Zi’s and Wang Bi’s metaphysics and therefore constructs a Daoist and nationalist discourse of evolutionism.

12.1  Introduction Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921), as we saw in the preceding chapter, was a renowned Chinese nationalist commentator on Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, interpreting Huxley’s ethics from a Xunzian-Confucian standpoint. Yan Fu also wrote a K. Liu (*) The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_12

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commentary on the Daode Jing 道德經 (also called the Lao Zi 老子), the foundational classic of Daoist thought by Lao Zi 老子 (alleged by tradition to have lived sometime between sixth and fifth centuries BCE). Yan Fu’s commentary, entitled Houguan yanshi pingdian laozi 侯官嚴氏評點老子 (Commentary on Lao Zi by Mr. Yan of Houguan),1 appeared in 1903 just five years after the publication of Tianyan lun, his interpretive translation of Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics. In his commentary on the Daode Jing, Yan Fu frequently cites the ideas of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and Herbert Spencer (1820–1903). Intriguingly, in the preface to Yan Fu’s commentary, Xia Zenyou 夏曾祐 (1863–1924) asserts that “my friend Yan Fu reads the Daode Jing and thinks that Lao Zi’s thought is particularly compatible with Darwin’s… and Spencer’s” 吾友嚴幾道讀之, 以為其說獨與達爾文、…斯賓塞相通 (3). My essay examines how Yan Fu uses Darwin’s and Spencer’s theories to reinterpret Lao Zi’s thought and how evolutionary ideas from Victorian Britain are accepted and reshaped through the lens of the cosmology and metaphysics of Daoism in the historical context of Late-Qing Chinese nationalism. As in his Xunzian-Confucian response to Darwinism, so also in his Daoist response, the three major Darwinian challenges—to the idea of human uniqueness, to conventional morality, and to the notion of a designed universe—are far less disturbing to Yan Fu than to many of his Western contemporaries. His Daoist response shows the unproblematic nature of these issues for him. Before proceeding to Yan Fu’s evolutionary interpretation of Daoist thought, I will briefly review the basic ideas and world view of the Daode Jing, as well as the centuries-old Chinese tradition of interpreting, annotating and commentating on this classic text.

12.1.1  K  ey Concepts and Broad Scope of the Daode Jing Yan Fu’s evolutionistic annotation of the Daode Jing is a reconceptualization of the Dao, the central concept in Lao Zi’s thought. Thus, it is necessary to specify the definition of this concept in the Daode Jing. Right at the start, Lao Zi argues, “The Dao that can be spoken of is not the Eternal Dao” 道可道, 非常道 (1). While the Dao cannot be fully grasped and expressed through language, Lao Zi still tries to define what the Dao is. In The Way of Lao Tzu, Wing-tsit Chan elucidates the meanings of the Dao in the Daode Jing: [The Dao] means that on which something or someone goes, a path, a road, later extended to mean “method,” “principle,” “truth,” and finally “reality.” All of this is well summed up in the common English translation, “the Way.” … It is the “mother” (1, 52) and “ancestor”

1  All references to Yan Fu’s commentary on the Daode Jing will be indicated by the author’s name and page number. In addition, the texts of Lao Zi and Wang Bi which I cite come from Yan Fu’s Houguan yanshi pingdian Laozi (Commentary on Lao Zi by Mr. Yan of Houguan) will also be indicated by the author’s name and page number.

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(4) of all things. It exists before heaven and earth (25). It is the “storehouse” of things (62). It is at once their principle of being and substance… . It is “everlasting” and “unchangeable” (7.16, 25). It is all-pervasive and “flows everywhere” (34). “It operates everywhere and is free from danger” (25). Use it and “you will never wear it out” (6). “While vacuous, it is never exhausted” (5). It depends on nothing (25). It is natural (25), for it comes into existence by itself and is its own principle for being… . (The Way of Lao Tzu 6)2

Wing-tsit Chan tries to use the English translation of Lao Zi’s original ideas (like “mother” and “ancestor”) and Western concepts (like principle, method and reality) to define the scope of the meaning of the Dao in the Daode Jing. Briefly speaking, the Dao is the origin of “all things” (“Wanwu” 萬物) in the cosmos, the inexhaustible force that propels things to move and change, the way in which the world operates, and the all-pervading principle of all phenomena and issues. The significance of the Dao in the Daode Jing is not just metaphysical or cosmological. Its relation to the concept of “De” 德 (character or virtue) in the Daode Jing has social and political connotations as well. As Wing-tsit Chan indicates, [To Lao Zi,] [w]hen this [D]ao is possessed by individual things, it becomes [their] character or virtue ([D]e). The ideal life for the individual, the ideal order for society, and the ideal type of government are all based on it and guided by it. (“The Natural Way of Lao Tzu” 136)

What Lao Zi means by “De” is the particularization of the Dao in individual things. Individual things attain their “De” from the Dao, and the “De” granted by the Dao inheres in individual things, becomes their character or essence, and provides a latent power that propels things to move and change. It is through the relation between “Dao” and “De” that Lao Zi connects metaphysics and cosmology with politics and society. To him, the particularization and embodiment of the Dao in the political order and social affairs is the achieving of “De” (character), which contains both a metaphysical meaning of potentiality and a connotation of virtue.3 The Daoist idea of the Dao as an ultimate truth and an all-pervading principle in the cosmos has been accepted, revisited and transformed in numerous fields of Chinese culture such as statecraft, military strategy, martial arts, medicine, painting, calligraphy and religion. Further, Daoism has interacted with different domestic and foreign ideas and world views. For instance, starting from the “Metaphysical School” (Xuanxue 玄學) in the Wei-Jin Dynasties (220–420), Lao Zi’s philosophy has served as a philosophical foundation for Chinese intellectuals to receive and reinterpret Buddhism as it gradually infiltrated into China from India over several centuries. More importantly, despite the tension between Confucianism and Daoism, Lao Zi’s idea of the Dao and Daoist philosophy have played a constructive role in the reshaping of Confucian cosmology, metaphysics and philosophy of mind in the Han (206  BCE-220  CE), Song (960–1279) and Ming Dynasties (1368–1644). Especially relevant for our purposes, Daoist philosophy still influenced Chinese

 The number in the citation refers to the chapter number in the Daode Jing.  Wing-tsit Chan argues that the concept of “De” in Lao Zi’s political thought refers to the “latent power” and also includes the connotation of “moral excellence” (A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy 790). 2

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understanding of the cosmos in Late-Qing China (1840–1911). Accordingly, the metaphysics and cosmology of Lao Zi were used to receive and reinterpret Western science, especially evolutionary biology.

12.1.2  Many Readings of the Daode Jing Yan Fu’s evolutionistic reconstruction of Lao Zi’s thought reflects the trends in traditional Chinese intellectual and political culture. Starting from the reinterpretation of Lao Zi’s thought by legalist thinker Hanfei Zi 韓非子 (280–233 BCE), the tradition of interpreting, annotating and commentating on the Daode Jing has continued from the Pre-Qin period (pre-221 BCE) to the Late-Qing period (1840–1911). This is partly because the language and meaning of the Daode Jing are not transparently comprehensible to readers and thus leave much room for interpretation. Another important reason is that traditional Chinese intellectuals tend to express their thoughts or construct their philosophical systems by interpreting ancient classics. Most of the hermeneutical works on the Daode Jing do not show a clear line of demarcation between “annotation” and “reinterpretation.” Further, and not surprisingly, in each period annotators brought the concerns and thoughts of their time to the interpretation and exegesis of the Daode Jing. In the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368), the Daoist thinker Du Daojian 杜道堅 (1237–1318) already observed that, in different historical periods of China, intellectuals and annotators had diverse interpretations of Lao Zi’s thought: After Zhangju, there have been numerous annotators. The Dao changes in the progress of history and varies in different periods. Annotators usually follow the trends of their time and express their own entrenched thoughts. Therefore, the annotators in the Han Dynasty create a Han version of Lao Zi, the annotators of the Jin Dynasty create a Jin version of Lao Zi, and the annotators in Tang and Song dynasties create a Tang version of Lao Zi and a Song version of Lao Zi. (Xuanjing yuanzhi fahui 469)4 自《章句》著而注者出。然道與世降, 時有不同。注者多隨時代所尚, 各自其成心而 師之。故漢人注者為漢老子, 晉人注者為晉老子, 唐人、宋人注者為唐老子、宋老子。

Du Daojian points out that after Heshang Gong’s 河上公 Zhangju 章句 (an annotation of the chapters and sentences of the Daode Jing in the Han Dynasty), annotators have interpreted Lao Zi’s thought through the lens of the trends of their time as well as their own thought. For instance, Heshang Gong’s annotation of the Daode Jing shows Han cosmology, Wang Bi’s 王弼 (226–249) annotation of the Daode Jing reflects the metaphysical thought of the Wei-Jin period, Cheng Xuanying’s 成玄英 (608–669) annotation of the Daode Jing shows the confluence between Buddhism and Daoism in the Tang Dynasty (619–907), and the

4  Unless otherwise indicated, I translate the Chinese texts in this essay into English by myself. The exception is that my translation of Lao Zi’s Daode Jing and Wang Bi’s annotation relies largely on Rudolf G. Wagner’s English translation.

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annotation of the Daode Jing by Song Confucians reflects the Confucian and Buddhist concerns in the intellectual and political culture of the Song Dynasty (960–1279).5 The tradition of interpreting the Daode Jing continued after Du Daojian’s time. In the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), annotation of the Daode Jing deals with the questions raised in the School of Mind (Xinxue 心學).6 In the Early-and-Middle Qing Dynasty (1644–1840), the annotation of the Daode Jing reflects the Confucian concern about “Li” 禮 (rituals, customs, social mores, and so forth).7 And finally, in the Late-Qing period, Chinese intellectuals reconceptualized the world by once again annotating and interpreting the Daode Jing, now reflecting the encounter with Western ideas. For instance, Yan Fu’s interpretation of Lao Zi’s metaphysics of Dao was triggered by evolutionary ideas, and these Western ideas were refracted through Wang Bi’s reading of the Daode Jing. In the long history of the annotation and interpretation of the Daode Jing, there are two important and seminal versions: Heshang Gong’s Laozi heshang gong zhu 老子河上公注 (Annotation of Lao Zi by Heshang Gong) probably written during the Eastern Han Dynasty 東漢 (25–220), and Wang Bi’s Laozi daode jing wangbi zhu 老子道德經王弼注 (The annotation of Lao Zi’s Daode Jing by Wang Bi) composed during the Wei Dynasty (220–266). These two versions differ not only in the annotation but also in the main text of the Daode Jing. In the Late-Qing period, both Heshang Gong’s version of the Daode Jing and Wang Bi’s were influential in intellectual circles.8 Yan Fu chose Wang Bi’s version to guide his own commentary. He praised Wang Bi when commenting on the Daode Jing: “Wang Fusi (the courtesy name of Wang Bi) is perfect!” 至哉!王輔嗣 (6). However, the significance of Wang Bi’s annotation for understanding Yan Fu’s commentary on Lao Zi’s thought has been completely neglected in existing scholarship. My essay will demonstrate why Wang Bi’s annotation and interpretation of the Daode Jing is fundamental to Yan Fu’s Daoist reception of evolutionism and

5  As to the diverse interpretations of the Daode Jing in different historical periods, please see Zhonguo laoxue shi (The history of the study of Lao Zi in China) by Xiong Tieji, Ma Lianghuai and Liu Shaojun. As to Heshang Gong’s and Wang Bi’s annotations of the Daode Jing, please see Alan K.L. Chan’s Two Visions of the Way, Liu Lingdi’s Hanwei liuchao laoxue yanjiu (Research on the study of Lao Zi in the Han Dynasty, Wei Dynasty and Six Dynasties), and Yu Dunkang’s Weijin Xuanxue shi (The history of Wei-Jin Metaphysics). As to Song Confucian interpretation of the Daode Jing, please see Chiang Shu-Chun’s Songdai laozi xue quanshi de yili xiangdu (The dimensions of thought in the interpretation of Lao Zi during the Song Dynasty). 6  See Chiang Shu-Chun’s Mingdai laozi xue quanshi de yili xiangdu (The dimensions of thought in the interpretation of Lao Zi during the Ming Dynasty). 7  See Liu Sihe’s Qingdai laoxue shigao (The history of the study of Lao Zi in the Qing dynasty) and Wang Chuang’s Qingdai laoxue yan jiu (Research on the study of Lao Zi in the Qing dynasty). 8  In the Late-Qing period, despite the rise of Wang Bi’s version of the Daode Jing, Heshang Gong’s version was still appreciated by certain intellectuals. For instance, in the Tongcheng School, Wu Rulun and Ma Qichang still used Hesheng Gong’s version rather than Wang Bi’s version.

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evolutionist commentary on the Daode Jing.9 In the next section, I situate Yan Fu’s work in both the long-term tradition of the annotation of the Daode Jing as well as the intellectual history of Late-Qing China. I will then examine in the subsequent section how Yan Fu interprets Lao Zi’s thought in light of evolutionary theory and how he accepts Darwin’s biological theory of natural selection and Spencer’s theory of social progress through the Daoist metaphysics and cosmology of Lao Zi and Wang Bi. And finally, I will explicate Yan Fu’s synthesis of Lao Zi’s thought about the relation between the cosmos and politics with Spencer’s thought about the connection between nature and society. All sections of this essay aim to deal with how Yan Fu interlaces the ideas of British Evolutionism and Chinese Daoism on a metaphysical level in the Late-Qing context of nationalism and anti-imperialism.10 Given the many possible readings of the Daode Jing, before I commence my detailed analysis, I should indicate my own interpretive strategies for understanding Lao Zi’s thought. As already stated, Yan Fu interprets the Daode Jing through the lens of Wang Bi’s commentary. But there is often a clear gap between Wang Bi’s reinterpretation and the meaning of the text of the Daode

9  In recent research, many scholars have discussed how Yan Fu reinterprets Lao Zi’s thought in light of evolutionary theory. For instance, in In Search of Wealth and Power:  Yen Fu and the West, Benjamin Schwartz argues that “Yen Fu’s claims for Lao-tzu as a philosopher favorable to science rest on the assumed affinity of his thought to that of Spencer” (202). In China and Charles Darwin, James Reeve Pusey points out that, “thanks to Darwin and Spencer, … [Yan Fu identifies the Dao] with progress and evolution, and he [takes] comfort in the faith that the [Dao is] bearing mankind upwards” (171). In Chinese scholarship, Wu Chan-liang has elaborated on how Yan Fu tries to search for a unified Dao among Western science, evolutionary theory, Daoism and Confucianism. Wang Zhongjiang studies how Yan Fu reconsiders Daoist philosophy in light of Western science (100–108). In scholarly works on the interpretation and annotation of the Daode Jing during the Qing period, Liu Sihe and Wang Chuang pay attention to the intellectual culture in which Yan Fu comments on the Daode Jing (Liu Sihe 365–405; Wang Chuang 308–317). Besides, in historical research on the modern study of the Daode Jing, Li Cheng and Liu Gusheng situate Yan Fu’s commentary on the Daode Jing in the context of the intersection between Western and Chinese academics (Li Cheng 234–254; Liu Gusheng 288–304). Nevertheless, without a deep understanding of all of the sources in Yan Fu’s commentary on the Daode Jing—that is, Lao Zi’s cosmology and metaphysics, Spencer’s epistemology, metaphysics and theory of social evolution, and Darwin’s philosophy of biology—scholars still fail to analyze how Yan Fu reconnects the ideas from different systems of knowledge on a metaphysical level. Moreover, no scholar has paid attention to how the metaphysical thought in Wang Bi’s annotation of the Daode Jing influences Yan Fu’s understanding of Lao Zi’s thought and enables Yan Fu to accept Western evolutionary thought through Daoist metaphysics and cosmology. 10  In the collection of essays entitled “Daojia wenhua yanjiu 28: Yan Fu Zhuanhao” (The study of Daoist culture: a special issue on Yan Fu), Li Chenggui discusses how Yan Fu reevaluates Chinese traditions of cosmology and metaphysics in terms of modern Western science (256–273), and Han Likun argues about the “metaphysication” of science in Yan Fu’s thought (274–290). Both of these essays concern the interaction between Western science and Chinese metaphysics in Yan Fu’s thought, but unlike my essay they do not focus on Lao Zi’s metaphysics and Victorian biological science.

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Jing itself.11 In such cases, my translation follows the meaning of the text of the Daode Jing instead of imposing Wang Bi’s interpretation on this text.12 By this strategy I can show that Wang Bi’s annotation changes the meaning of the Daode Jing in subtle ways that help Yan Fu to use Lao Zi’s thought to accept Darwin’s and Spencer’s scientific thoughts.

12.2  L  ate-Qing Intellectual Culture and the Tradition of Annotating the Daode Jing Following the Opium War between Britain and China in 1840, the powers of industry, technology, science and imperialism from the Western world posed a challenge to the political order of Chinese international relations and to the system of the world in traditional Chinese knowledge of nature. Dragged into the Western-centric order of international relations by colonial empires, China was no longer the “Celestial Dynasty” in foreign relations with other countries. Moreover, the defeat of China in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894 aroused in Chinese an anxiety over the downfall of the Chinese nation and revealed the necessity of modernization. The fiascos of China in a series of wars did not just mean the intrusion of foreign imperial countries, but also a threat to traditional Chinese values and knowledge systems. As Benjamin Elman indicates, the years following 1894 witnessed the displacement of Chinese science and medicine (396–421). In their ensuing quest to re-envision the world order and to save China from collapse, Late-Qing Chinese intellectuals searched both Western and Chinese sources.13 Leading intellectuals like Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (1869–1936) and Liu  Rudolf G. Wagner is right to argue that we cannot presuppose “a Laozi with an intrinsic meaning” (A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing 116). That is to say, the meaning of the original text of the Daode Jing is “interpretable” and there is not an authentic meaning of this Daoist classic. We cannot understand this ancient text without annotation, and our understanding of its meaning is unavoidably influenced by annotation. However, even though there is no authentic meaning of the Daode Jing, I contend that in many parts of Wang Bi’s annotation of the Daode Jing, we can still observe the nuanced or obvious difference between the meaning of the original text and the meaning constructed by annotation. 12  My English translation of Lao Zi’s and Wang Bis’ texts relies largely on Rudolf G. Wagner’s A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing: Wang Bi’s Commentary on the Lao Zi with Critical Text and Translation. All references to this book will be indicated by the translator’s name and page number. I rely on this work because Wagner’s translation of the Daode Jing and Yan Fu’s understanding of the Daode Jing are based on Wang Bi’s annotation. However, as Wagner himself points out, his translation and explanation of the text of the Daode Jing is “an extrapolative reading of the Lao Zi text through Wang Bi’s commentary” (116). Since the imposing of Wang Bi’s thought on Lao Zi’s Daode Jing in Wagner’s strategy of English translation erases the nuanced difference between Wang Bi’s understanding of the Daode Jing and the meaning of Lao Zi’s original text, I modify and revise Wagner’s English translation in a substantial way. In addition, I utilize Wing-Tsit Chan’s English translation of the Daode Jing for reference. 13  See Chang Hao’s Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890–1911. 11

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Shipei 劉師培 (1884–1919) were immersed in both Western knowledge and ancient Chinese thoughts. On the one hand, the disastrous First Sino-Japanese War accelerated the translation and dissemination of Western works and ideas (“Xixue” 西學). As one of the pioneering scholars who aimed to introduce Western knowledge to China, Yan Fu translated several important Western works, like Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and A System of Logic, and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws. On the other hand, the Late-Qing period witnessed the revival of “Zhuzi Xue” 諸子學, that is, the thoughts of PreQin (pre-221 BCE) thinkers like Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi 莊子 and Xun Zi 荀子.14 LateQing intellectuals wanted to prove that ancient Chinese values were compatible with modern Western thought. The interlacing of Daoism and evolutionism in Yan Fu’s commentary on the Daode Jing reflected the intersection between these two intellectual developments—the acceptance of modern Western thought and the revival of ancient Chinese thought. Yan Fu’s evolutionist interpretation of the Daode Jing was thus an attempt to re-establish a meaningful world order by coordinating and reconciling Chinese and Western thoughts. For Yan Fu the theory of evolution was at once a prescription to save China and the ultimate truth of the cosmos.15 In traditional Chinese philosophy, metaphysics is connected with politics, and political statements are usually expressed through metaphysical thought.16 That is to say, traditional Chinese philosophers believe that the way of politics should be compatible with the Dao of the cosmos. By the same token, in his translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics into Tianyn lun 天演論 (On the Operation of Heaven), Yan Fu uses evolutionary theory to connect politics and nature. For him, to struggle for existence in international politics is to follow the principle of natural selection, and the solidification and unification of the community is to comply with the operation of nature and to have an advantage over other communities in outside competition (see my chapter “Yan Fu’s Xunzian-Confucian Translation of Thomas Huxley’s Evolution and Ethics” in this book collection). In Yan Fu’s thought, the political problem of national survival is interconnected with the question of the metaphysical principle of the cosmos. His discussion of the problem of national and  See the chapter “Zhuzi xue yu wanqing xueshu” (Pre-Qin thinkers and Late-Qing academia) in Liu Zhonghua’s Qindai zhuzi xue yanjiu (Research on the study of Pre-Qin thinkers in the Qing Dynasty). 15  In existing research, there are two major interpretations regarding Yan Fu’s purpose of translating and accepting Western thoughts. Schwartz argues that Yan Fu’s translations are informed by his preoccupation with the search for national power and wealth. Nevertheless, Wu Chan-liang contends that Yan Fu pays equal attention to Chinese thoughts and that Yan Fu’s reading of Western thoughts is not just to search for the way to achieve national power and wealth. Instead, Yan Fu attempts to search Chinese and Western thoughts for the Dao, the ultimate truth or the universal principle of the world. As to Yan Fu’s search for the Dao and his synthetic construction of a new philosophical system, see Wu Chan-liang’s three papers in the bibliography. 16  See Yu Ying-shi’s Songming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua (Neo-Confucianism and political culture in Song and Ming Dynasties): pp. 197–248. 14

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racial competition in Tianyan lun includes a Darwinian reconceptualization of the metaphysical principle of the cosmos, and his evolutionist redefinition of the Dao in his commentary on the Daode Jing shows his obsession with the strengthening of the Chinese nation. In Late-Qing political and intellectual culture, the reinterpretation of the Daode Jing was one of the ways to respond to the new order of the world in the age of globalization and anti-imperialism. For instance, in the wake of the first war between China and an imperial country, that is, the Opium War in 1840, Wei Yuan 魏源 (1794–1857) not only compiled Haiguo Tuzhi 海國圖志 (Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms) to introduce the knowledge about foreign countries and argued that “China should learn the techniques of foreigners to control foreigners” 師夷長技以制夷 (75), but also annotated and commentated on the Daode Jing to reinterpret the political and metaphysical significance of the Dao in Laozi Benyi 老子本義 (The original meaning of Lao Zi).17 For Wei Yuan, “Lao Zi is a book to save the world” 老子救世書也 (Laozi Benyi 4), an interpretation against the typical interpretation of the Daode Jing as a book about non-action and tranquility. Wei Yuan was not the only one to reinterpret the Daode Jing as a treatise of political activism. In the Late-Qing period, there was a trend of political interpretation of Lao Zi’s thought (Liu Sihe 308–362; Wang Chuang 275–333). In 1881, Chen Sanli 陳三立 (1853–1937) argued that “Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi are informed by worry about the world” 老莊乃憂世之書, and in 1891 Yi Peishen  易佩紳 (1826–1906) maintained that “Lao Zi aims to save the world in earnest” 老子救世 之心甚深切也.18 It seems that they did not read Wei Yuan’s Laozi Benyi, which was posthumously published in 1899 and disseminated in 1902 (Liu Sihe 274–275). However, like Wei Yuan, they found inspiration for political activism in the Daode Jing. Yan Fu’s own commentary on the Daode Jing, appearing just a year after the circulation of the posthumous publication of Wei Yuan’s Laozi Benyi, reflects the same concerns with saving China and reinterpreting the Daode Jing to further a political mission.19 Another probable source of inspiration for Yan Fu was the literary school of “Tongcheng” 桐城派, which had a tradition of interpreting the Daode Jing.20 Yan  Scholars still have debate over the exact year when Wei Yuan wrote Laozi Benyi.  Chen Sanli wrote Laozi zhu 老子注 (Annotation of Lao Zi) and Yi Peishen wrote Laozi jie 老子 解 (Explanation of Lao Zi). My attention is drawn to these works by Liu Sihe’s Qingdai laoxue shigao (The history of the study of Lao Zi in the Qing Dynasty), from which I quote the passages of Chen Sanli and Yi Peishen (338; 343). 19  While it is not clear whether Yan Fu had read Wei Yuan’s Laozi Benyi, we know that Chen Sanli was a bosom friend of Yan Fu and had a close relationship with the family of Yi Peishen. All of their reinterpretations of the Daode Jing show a strong sense of political activism. In “Yanfu ruhe pingdian laozi” (How does Yan Fu comment on Lao Zi), Cai Lesu discusses how Chen Sanli and Xiong Jilian 熊季廉 encouraged Yan Fu to comment on the Daode Jing (212–220). 20  In the School of Tongcheng, Yao Nai 姚鼐 (1732–1815) wrote Laozi Zhangyi 老子章義 (The meaning of the chapters of Lao Zi) in 1783, Wu Rulun 吳汝綸 (1840–1903) wrote Diankan laozi duben 點勘老子讀本 (Proofreading and correcting the text of Lao Zi) in 1885, and Ma Qichang 馬 17 18

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Fu’s writing style clearly indicates that he was familiar with this school. We know, specifically, that Wu Rulun 吳汝綸 (1840–1903), a representative of the Tongcheng School who wrote a commentary on the Daode Jing in 1885, corresponded with Yan Fu and polished the language of Yan Fu’s Tianyan lun. The school’s reinterpretations of the Daode Jing were characterized by an integration of Lao Zi’s thought and Confucianism and thus the Dao in their annotation was imbued with strong political overtones, an approach that would appeal to Yan Fu.21 Let us turn now to Yan Fu’s reinterpretation of the Daode Jing and see how he was able to construct a metaphysical and political-nationalist reading of this foundational Daoist text.

12.3  Y  an Fu’s Evolutionist Commentary on the Daode Jing This section focuses on two interconnected aspects of Yan Fu’s commentary on the Daode Jing: first, his reinterpretation of the operation of the Dao utilizing Western theories of evolution, and second, in a converse fashion, his reinterpretation of the evolutionary theories of Darwin and Spencer through the lens of Lao Zi’s cosmology and metaphysics. I shall analyze Yan Fu’s evolutionist explication of the operation of the Dao by looking at his interpretation of the ideas of “desire” (Yu  欲), “nature” (Ziran 自然), “force” (Li 力) and “calming and moving things” (靜物、動 物) in Lao Zi’s Daode Jing.

其昶 (1855–1930) wrote Laozi Gu 老子故 (The explication of Lao Zi) in 1920. As for the annotations of the Daode Jing in the Tongcheng School, see Zhao Dan’s Tongcheng pai laoxue yanjiu (Research on the study of Lao Zi in the School of Tongcheng). 21  As one of the precursors of the School of Tongcheng, Yao Nai, who embraces Song (960–1276) Confucian thought of Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085), Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107) and Zhu Xi 朱 熹 (1130–1200), argues that “there is only one Dao in the world” 天下道一而已 and that “the original purpose of Lao Zi is like that of Confucius” 老子之初志, 亦如孔子 (172–173). In his annotation of the Daode Jing, Yao Nai equates the idea of Dao in Lao Zi’s thought with the Confucian idea of “Li” 禮, which refers to the rituals, customs, social mores or institutions. As he puts it, “[Lao Zi] intends to search for the original purpose in the establishment of the ritual and institution by early sage-Kings” 以求先王制禮之本義 (172). In Yao Nai’s interpretation of the Daode Jing, the search for the Dao is the search for an ideal way of governance and a pristine order of society and politics. By the same token, Ma Qichang, publishing his annotation of the Daode Jing after Yan Fu’s, argues that “Lao Zi likes to discuss governance instead of being oblivious of the world” 老子喜言治, 非忘世者 and that Lao Zi deals with “the regulation of the state and self” 理國、理身 (171). The interpretation of the Dao in the annotation of the Daode Jing by the School of Tongcheng shows a political concern about the governance of the state. As to Yao Nai’s interpretation of Daoism, please read Zuo Xiuhui’s Lun yaonai de laozhuang yanjiu (On Yan Nai’s study of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi).

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12.3.1  Y  an Fu’s Evolutionist Interpretation of “Desire” (Yu 欲) The term “Yu” (Desire) is critical to Yan Fu’s evolutionist reinterpretation of the Daode Jing. It first appears in Chapter One of Lao Zi’s text (my modification of Wagner’s translation): By looking at things as having no desire,22 one has something by means of which to perceive the Dao’s subtlety.23 By looking at things as having desire, one has something by means of which to perceive the Dao’s “limit” (Jiao) or final result.24 (Lao Zi 1) 故常無欲以觀其妙, 常有欲以觀其徼。

Yan Fu explains the idea of “Yu” in the above text as follows: [Lao Zi is saying that] things reach their shape because they have desire. Things are the effect, while desire is the cause. (Yan Fu 1-2) 蓋物之成, 必有欲者, 物果而欲因也。

Yan Fu’s emphasis on the role played by “Yu” in the shaping and production of things is illuminated by his interpretation of “desire” in his Tianyan lun 天演論 (On the Operation of Heaven).25 In Tianyan lun, Yan Fu emphasizes the constraining of desire for the removing of internal strife and the solidifying of the community. But he also admits that in primitive society, “Yu” enables human beings to “overcome other living beings and become selected by Heaven” 戰勝萬物, 而為天之所擇 (Tianyan lun 209). The  Owing to the ambiguity of the subject in the sentences of this Chinese passage, traditional annotators and modern scholars have two kinds of interpretations as to the subject that has “desire” or “no desire.” Heshang Gong (1) and the contemporary scholar Fu Peirong (9–11) hold that the subject of this sentence is the observer and for them it is the observer who has “desire” or “no desire.” By contrast, Wagner, who interprets the Daode Jing through Wang Bi’s annotation, holds that the subject who has “desire” or “no desire” in this sentence is “things” (121). I argue that while these two kinds of interpretations differ in the subject, they do not necessarily conflict with each other. My English translation aims to indicate that “as having no desire” and “as having desire” are two perspectives from which an observer can perceive things. If an observer perceives things “as having no desire,” he sees how the “subtlety” of the Dao is manifested. If an observer perceives things as “having desire,” he sees how the Dao grants things “a desire” (an impetus) to move to a certain “final point,” which means the outcome of the working of the Dao in the shaping of things. To sum up, whether the things have “no desire” or “desire” depends on how an observer views them. 23  Traditional Chinese annotators and modern scholars have tried to figure out what the possessive “its” or “their” (“Qi” 其) refers to. Wing-Tsit Chan holds that the possessor of “subtly” and “outcome” is “things” (139), whereas Heshang Gong’s annotation (1) and Wanger’s English translation on the basis of Wang Bi’s annotation (121) show that they consider the possessor of subtly and outcome to be “the Dao” or “the ultimate principle.” 24  This is a substantial modification of Wagner’s translation (121). 25  In Yanfu pingdian gushu sanzhong yu xixue huitong yanjiu (The study of Yan Fu’s commentary on three old books and his synthesis of Western and Chinese academics), Shih Shuanlong insightfully indicates that Yan Fu’s commentaries on the Daode Jing, Zhuang Zi and the poetry of Wang Anshi should be understood in light of their intertextuality with Tianyan lun. 22

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Chinese term “Tianze”  天擇 (Selection by Heaven) is Yan Fu’s translation of Darwin’s “natural selection,” and Yan Fu’s argument about the importance of “desire” to survival is a reference to and reinterpretation of Darwin’s theory of evolution and struggle for existence. Yan Fu rethinks the originally derogatory concept of “Yu” in Chinese thought in terms of Darwinian evolution, arguing that the inherited instinct to “satisfy the desire” 遂欲 drives human beings to compete with other animals (Tianyan lun 209). In addition, after his discussion of the importance of desire to the victory of humankind in the struggle for existence, Yan Fu alludes to Western biological works on the evolution of man from ape-like animals, including Darwin’s The Descent of Man, Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature and Ernst Haeckel’s The Evolutionary History of Man (Tianyan lun 209). For Yan Fu, “desire” is conducive not only to victory in interspecies rivalry, but also to the transformation and evolution of species. Thus, in his comment on the Daode Jing, he argues that “desire” is an impetus in the “producing, developing and shaping of things” (Wu zhi cheng 物之成). A question arises as to whether or not Yan Fu’s argument about the role of desire in the production of things is a distortion of Lao Zi’s words. I argue that Yan Fu simply makes explicit what is implicit in Lao Zi’s original text. In the passage of the Daode Jing as quoted above, the text implies that the Dao moves things to an end by granting them “a desire.” In this regard, Yan Fu digs out the latent significance of “desire” in relation to the moving and developing of things in the Daode Jing. In Lao Zi’s cosmology, the Dao is manifested and particularized in individual things, and this implies that the Dao grants individual things a force to change into a certain form with a particular character. This force to change is “Desire.” At this point, we may note that Yan Fu is heavily reliant on Wang Bi’s commentary in his understanding of Lao Zi’s thought. Wang Bi’s explanation of the term “Yu” in the Daode Jing is as follows: “Jiao” means returning to the “ultimate point’… . What the desire depends on will be ultimately satisfied as a consequence of according with the Dao. That is why, while things are constantly with desire, one can see the ultimate point where the Dao completes them.26 (Wang Bi 1-2) 徼, 歸終也。… . 欲之所本, 適道而後濟。故常有欲, 可以觀其終物之徼也。

The literal meaning of “Jiao” 徼 is “Bian” 邊, signifying a border, side or end.27 This suggests the “ultimate point” where the Dao “completes or finalizes” (Zhong 終) things by making them reach their final shape.28 It is assumed in Wang Bi’s  I take Wagner’s translation for reference (121).  In Laozi zhuyi ji pingjie (The annotation, translation, explication and introduction of Lao Zi), Chen Guying lists several traditional annotations on “Jiao” 徼, pointing out that for Lu Mingde 陸 明德, Dong Sijing 董思靖 and Wu Cheng 吳澄, this Chinese character means “Bian” 邊 or “Bian Ji” 邊際, that is, the border, side or end (55–56). 28  In Wang Bi’s annotation, the “Jiao” 徼 in the Daode Jing means “Guizhong” 歸終 (return to the ultimate point). A question arises as to why the Dao completes things at an ultimate point is to “return” to this point. In the language of classical Chinese, the character “Gui” 歸 (return) can mean “Qu” 趨 (go to or move forward)—see the examples like “Sutu tonggui” 殊途同歸 (Come 26 27

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annotation that the Dao bestows a desire on things. “What the desire depends on” 欲 之所本 implies a certain kind of impetus or force which the Dao imparts to things. This impetus inheres in things, becomes their desire and drives them to change. The desire or “what the desire depends on” (the impetus) can be “ultimately satisfied” when things move and change in accordance with the natural way of the Dao and ultimately reach their final shape. Thus, by “looking at things as having desire” and paying attention to how the desire works as an impetus for the changing and forming of things, an observer can perceive the way of the operation of the Dao and the outcome of this process. An examination of how Wang Bi transforms the ambiguous meaning of Lao Zi’s text regarding the subject of desire reveals why Yan Fu chooses his version of the Daode Jing rather than Heshang Gong’s for propounding his evolutionist reading. First, whereas Heshang Gong holds that it is the observer who has “desire,” Wang Bi attributes the desire to things. Second, and most significantly, Wang Bi draws a connection among “desire,” “the forming of things” and “the Dao,” which are not clearly or closely linked in Lao Zi’s original text. While Lao Zi just says, in the sentence immediately preceding the discussion of desire in Chapter One, that the Dao is “the mother of myriad things” 萬物之母, a minimalist statement about the Dao’s creative role, Wang Bi comments that the Dao “lets myriad things grow, nurtures them, specifies them and completes them” 長之育之、亭之毒之 (1).29 In his annotation, Wang Bi links both the beginning (“Shi” 始) of things and the producing or shaping (“Cheng” 成) of them to the Dao and therefore interprets the Dao as a power to “initiate, generate, and complete” (始、生、成) myriad things.30 The power of the Dao works on things by granting them an impetus or a desire. Yan Fu chooses Wang Bi’s version because such a connection between desire and the Dao in the shaping of things is crucial for an evolutionary interpretation of the Daode Jing and for a Daoist-metaphysical understanding of the process of evolution. It is Darwin’s theory of evolution that draws Yan Fu’s attention to the idea of “desire” in Lao Zi’s text and Wang Bi’s annotation. While Lao Zi does not clearly identify the possessor of desire with either the observer or with the things seen by the observer, Yan Fu, following Wang Bi, identifies the possessor as the things observed. Yan Fu thus places a premium on the function of desire in the shaping of myriad things, and thereby he can incorporate Western evolutionary theory into Daoist cosmology by using “desire” to account for the impetus in the struggle for existence and the force driving the process of evolution. In Yan Fu’s eyes, the tendency to struggle for existence and to evolve is a desire granted by the Dao to things, from different paths to “go to/return to” the same end) in the entry of “Gui” 歸 in Kangxi zidian 康 熙字典 (The dictionary of the Emperor Kang Xi). This implies that one goes forward to a place which he should go to just as he is supposed to return home. In this sense, the “Jiao” refers to the final point to which the Dao should go forward, and this final point is the place where the Dao completes and finalizes the forming of things. 29  This is based on Wagner’s translation (121). 30  See Wagner’s Language, Ontology and Political Philosophy in China: Wang Bi’s Scholarly Exploration of the Dark (Xuanxue) (125–127).

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and the evolutionary process is a process of producing and forming of things in the operation of the Dao. Wang Bi’s interpretation of desire in relation to the forming of things and the operating of the Dao enables Yan Fu to use the metaphysics and cosmology of Daoism to accept and reinterpret Darwin’s thought about the struggle for existence and the transformation of species in the process of evolution. Yan Fu not only redefines the function of “desire” in the shaping of things through Darwin’s theory of struggle for existence, but also receives Darwin’s theory through the connection between desire and the Dao in Wang Bi’s annotation. Whereas the transformation of species in Darwin’s theory results from the natural selection of advantageous but random variations (60–61),31 in Yan Fu’s theory of evolution the changing and shaping of things is impelled by the desire instilled in them by the Dao. As Yan Fu puts it, “while things are the effect, desire is the cause.” The “desire” in Yan Fu’s evolutionist commentary on Lao Zi includes a sense of agency and intention, and this kind of Lamarckian significance is strengthened and highlighted by the connection between “desire” and “cause” in his thought about the forming of things.

12.3.2  Y  an Fu’s Evolutionist Interpretation of “Nature” (Ziran 自然) We may begin our analysis of Yan Fu’s understanding of Nature by looking at his commentary on a passage in Chapter Five of the Daode Jing. The original text reads: Heaven and Earth are not humane. They regard all things as grass and dogs. The sage is not humane. He regards all people as grass and dogs.32 (Lao Zi 6) 天地不仁, 以萬物為芻狗。聖人不仁, 以百姓為芻狗。

The phrase “Heaven and Earth” refers to Nature. For Lao Zi, Nature is indifferent to the myriad of things, since the Dao, working in the operation of Nature, grants all myriad things the “desire” to move, but does not impel their movement for any specific purpose. Instead of willing particular things to change for a specific end, the Dao makes things change and move in a natural way. That is to say, the Dao participates in the movement of myriad things, but does not intervene in this process according to its arbitrary will. The Dao, and thus Nature, are without concern for 31  In The Origin of Species, Darwin admits that, owing to his “ignorance of the cause of each particular variation,” he speaks as if “the variations … [are] due to chance” (131). He believes that variations are related to the “effects of external conditions” on the “reproductive system,” but he and his contemporary biologists cannot prove this relation (131–133). Thus, in The Origin of Species, “variation” is still represented as happening by chance. 32  I take both Wing-tsit Chan’s English translation in A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (141) and Wagner’s translation (134–136) for reference. Please also see Wing-tsit Chan’s discussion of the meaning and translation of the Chinese character “Ren” 仁 (humane), which he spells as “Jen” (A Source Book 788–789).

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what happens to the myriad of things, regarding them as inferior entities, like grass and dogs, that do not deserve notice. This is why Lao Zi argues that “Heaven and Earth are not humane.” We shall return later to Lao Zi’s statement that the sage is also not humane in dealing with Daoist political philosophy. Yan Fu comments on the above quote of Lao Zi: This is the opening remark of the School of the Operation of Heaven (Evolution). These four sentences encapsulate the new theory of Darwin. Wang Fusi (Wang Bi) is perfect! (Yan Fu 5-6) 天演開宗語。此四語括盡達爾文新理。至哉!王輔嗣。

“Tianyan” 天演 (Operation of Heaven) is Yan Fu’s Chinese translation of the English term “evolution.” The School of the Operation of Heaven refers to what he considers as the thought of evolutionism. As Schwartz indicates, Yan Fu’s commentary on this chapter of Lao Zi shows his “support of the teachings of Darwinism concerning the lofty indifference of nature to the fate of its individual creatures” (202). Here, by the way, Yan Fu takes the opportunity to praise Wang Bi, thereby indicating his indebtedness to the latter’s commentary on the Daode Jing for facilitating his construction of a Daoistic Darwinism. To Darwin, the world runs according to natural laws without a specific purpose. In his theory of natural selection, the development of an animal feature results from the accumulation of variations which are useful for the existence of an individual in a certain environment (The Origin of Species 80–130). There is no pre-ordained design for the usefulness of the variation when it first occurs, and a variation may even be harmful. Nor is there a pre-determined plan for the accumulation of the variations that turn out to be beneficial, and thus no pre-determined shape. Yan Fu argues that Daoism and Darwinism are compatible because both the Dao of the cosmos in the Daode Jing and the natural laws of the biological world in Darwin’s theory do not operate for any specific purpose or for anyone’s sake. Yan Fu’s argument is informed by the view of nature in Wang Bi’s interpretation of Lao Zi’s passage quoted above. Wang Bi’s annotation reads, Heaven and Earth let the way of nature run. They are without interference or creation. Myriad things order and regulate each other. Thus, Heaven and Earth are not “humane.” Someone who is humane will by necessity create and generate, and have pity and interfere…. The Earth does not produce grass for the cattle, but the cattle eat grass. The Earth does not produce dogs for men, but men eat dogs. As Heaven and Earth are without interference concerning myriad things, each of myriad things fits into its use so that there is none that is not provided for.33 (Wang Bi 6) 天地任自然, 無為無造, 萬物自相治理, 故不仁也。仁者必造立施化, 有恩有為。… 地 不為獸生芻,而獸食芻; 不為人生狗,而人食狗。無為於萬物而萬物各適其所用, 則莫 不贍矣。

For Wang Bi, the Dao operates in the space between Heaven and Earth, and myriad things run of their own accord in the sense that they are granted by the Dao an 33

 This is a substantial modification of Wagner’s translation of Wang Bi’s passage (135–136).

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internal impetus to change and develop in a natural way. Wang Bi argues that “Heaven and Earth are without interference or creation” because the myriad things are already propelled by the Dao to move, and Heaven and Earth do not interfere in the process of their moving. In addition, Wang Bi defines “Ren” 仁 (humane) as a moral intention to do something for someone else out of compassion, and he contends that Heaven and Earth are not “humane” because, without compassion, they have no intention to interfere in the process of things’ change. It might be assumed that Earth provides grass for the cattle and creates dogs for men, but Wang Bi contends that the grass does not grow for the sake of the cattle and that the dogs do not appear for the sake of human beings. In this regard, there is no pre-determined plan in the producing, growing and changing of things, and the movement of all myriad things follows the natural way for no particular end. Wang Bi holds that all things, in their observance of the natural way, have their use and place in the web of myriad things and interact with each other and that no power intervenes in this process of interaction. As Wagner points out, Wang Bi’s annotation on this chapter shows “a self-regulatory order of nature,” in which “Heaven and Earth are not partial, show[ing] no particular concern for any one of [myriad things]” (The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi 266–267). Seen in this light, Wang Bi’s annotation reinforces what Lao Zi argues about the indifference of the operation of nature to myriad things, and therefore helps Yan Fu to use Lao Zi’s thought about the “inhumanness” of Heaven and Earth—that is, Nature—to accept what Darwin argues about the working of natural laws for no specific purpose. We shall return to Wang Bi’s notion that “Heaven and Earth are without interference concerning myriad things” in dealing with “force” in the next sub-section.

12.3.3  Y  an Fu’s Evolutionist Interpretation of “Force”(Li 力) Following the passage on the inhumanness of Heaven and Earth in Chapter Five, The Daode Jing says: The space between Heaven and Earth is like a drum or a flute! [That is,] hollow it is, but inexhaustible! The more it is beaten, the more [sound] comes out of it.34 (Lao Zi 6) 天地之間, 其猶橐籥乎? 虛而不屈, 動而愈出。

Lao Zi tries to explain here how myriad things can continually move without the interference of Heaven and Earth. To him, just as the hollow part of a flute or a drum continually makes sound, so the Dao in the vacuous space between Heaven and

 This is a slight modification of Wagner’s English translation (136). Wagner’s translation is based on Wang Bi’s understanding and annotation of this passage. Wagner translates “Tuo Yue” 橐籥 into a drum and a flute, whereas Wing-tsit Chan translates this Chinese term into “a bellows” (A Source Book 141).

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Earth inexhaustibly makes myriad things move. Wang Bi explicates the above quotation of Lao Zi as follows: The space inside a drum or a flute is hollow. Since there is neither emotion nor a purposeful action, the space is empty and cannot be completely used up. Thus, the movement [in the space] cannot be exhausted. In the space between Heaven and Earth, the natural way is put grandly into effect. Therefore, Heaven and Earth are inexhaustible like a drum and a flute. (Wang Bi 6)35 橐籥之中空洞, 無情無為, 故虛而不得窮屈, 動而不可竭盡也。天地之中, 蕩然任自然, 故不可得而窮, 猶若橐籥也。

Yan Fu sees in the text of Daode Jing and Wang Bi’s commentary on it an implicit reference to a powerful and inexhaustible force resonating in the hollow space between Heaven and Earth. Yan Fu’s commentary on Lao Zi’s and Wang Bi’s passages reads, The great “force” (Li 力) invariably persists and [makes things change] from the pristine to the complex. (Yan Fu 6) 大力常在, 由純入雜。

Yan Fu here has introduced the Western concept of “force” to throw into relief and dig out the significance of “Li” (force) which he finds lurking in Lao Zi’s thought, even though neither Lao Zi nor Wang Bi directly uses the concept of “Li” (force) in their original texts. Yan Fu’s interpretation indicates that the Dao has “force” to make myriad things change from “the pristine to the complex.” Yan Fu also holds that the “force” is “hollow but inexhaustible” 虛而不可竭也 (6). For Yan Fu, Lao Zi’s discussion already includes the concept of “force,” particularly in light of Wang Bi’s commentary. In Yan Fu’s view, when Wang Bi says that “the movement cannot be exhausted” and that “the natural way is put grandly into effect,” he implies that the force of the Dao is inexhaustible and that the force that propels myriad things to move in a natural way is ubiquitous in the space between Heaven and Earth. From Yan Fu’s perspective, Wang Bi’s emphasis on emptiness and inexhaustibility makes the latent concept of “force” clearer and stronger than in the original text of the Daode Jing. For Yan Fu, the inexhaustibility referred to by Wang Bi corresponds to the modern scientific notion of force as acting continually. And Wang Bi’s statement regarding the emptiness of space points to the invisibility of the impelling force of the Dao, just as “force” in its modern scientific sense is invisible. However, it should also be noted that Yan Fu’s notion of force is an inner driving force, which is different from the modern Western scientific concept of force. To Yan Fu, the force that makes things change from “the pristine to the complex” is the life force which derives from the Dao, inheres in myriad things and becomes their desire. In this sense, the force that propels things to change is not an external force which pushes things to move but an internal impetus granted by the Dao to myriad things.

 This is a substantial modification of Wagner’s English translation of Wang Bi’s passage (136–137).

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The internal power of evolution granted by the Dao to myriad things in Yan Fu’s commentary on the Daode Jing differs from the external power of evolution in Darwin’s biology. In The Origin of Species, the evolution of animals is not driven by an inner force, but by an external “scrutinizing” power. Darwin argues, It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. (The Origin of Species 84)

For Darwin, the evolution of animals depends on natural selection of profitable variations. Variation happens by chance and might be useful or useless depending on the conditions of the environment. The development of profitable variations is not propelled by an inner force that continually drives animals to change. Instead, the external power of natural selection scrutinizes the preservation and accumulation of profitable features. The power of natural selection is not really an external “physical force” which “rejects that which is bad” and “preserves and adds up all that is good” for the animal. According to Darwin, the power of natural selection act on variations when animals struggle for existence owing to limited food or the change in the environment (60–79). If the environment does not change and the food is sufficient, there will be no severe struggle for existence among individuals. If there is no severe struggle for existence, natural selection will not be intensified. In this sense, the power of natural selection is a mechanism that hinges on the conditions of the environment. All parts of animals are steadily scrutinized and intensively affected by this mechanism especially when there is severe struggle for existence. For Darwin, the transformation of species results from the natural mechanism of preserving the advantageous variations in the struggle for existence rather from an external “physical force” that pushes animals to evolve. The process of evolution in Darwin’s biology is propelled by neither an inner force nor an external guiding, intentional force, but by the conditions of the environment. By contrast, in Yan Fu’s synthesis of Darwinism and Daoism, the evolution of animals is impelled by the inner driving force which the Dao gives them. To Yan Fu, thanks to the Dao, animals have the desire, impetus or inner force to change and evolve. In Yan Fu’s philosophical system, the force that propels the transformation of animals derives from the Dao and inheres in each individual animal. While Yan Fu praises Darwin rather than Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), his thought about the internal impetus of the “desire” for the forming of myriad things shows a Lamarckian sense of agency and intention in the process of evolution and progress rather than the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection.

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12.3.4  Y  an Fu’s Evolutionist Interpretation of How the Dao Calms and Moves Things In Chapter Fifteen, Lao Zi hints at how the Dao causes life to evolve: Who can—being turbid [himself]—make myriad things gradually become clear by calming them down? Who can—being tranquil [himself]—make myriad things gradually come to life by continually making them move?36 (Lao Zi 16) 孰能濁以靜之徐清? 孰能安以久動之徐生?

Wang Bi comments on these two sentences as follows: If [something that is in itself] turbid is used to calm things down, they attain transparency; and if [something that is in itself] tranquil is used to move things, they attain life. This is the Natural Way.37 (16) 濁以靜物則得清, 安以動物則得生, 此自然之道也。

Lao Zi’s text and Wang Bi’s commentary are not entirely clear with regard to the meaning of terms like “turbid,” “clear/transparent” and “calming things down.” Nor is it clear who or what is “turbid” or “tranquil.” Yan Fu’s comment on this text is similarly vague, but he presumes it is the Dao that is “turbid” or “tranquil.” And he sets the two sentences within his broader evolutionary perspective: It [the Dao] is turbid but can make myriad things gradually become clear by calming them down. It [the Dao] is tranquil but can make myriad things gradually come to life by continually making them move. This is the reality of the operation of Heaven (Evolution). The development of all myriad things derives from this process. (Yan Fu 16) 濁以靜之徐清, 安以久動之徐生。天演真相, 萬化之成由此。

Thus Yan Fu’s general idea is sufficiently evident. For him, the two sentences in the Daode Jing describe the two aspects of the Dao’s way of changing and forming things, and of bringing them to life. Regarding the first aspect, for Yan Fu the Dao is “turbid” (濁 Zhuo) in the sense that it cannot be seen or specified. The turbid Dao makes things become “clear” (清 Qing) in the sense that the Dao makes them take shape, that is, makes them develop a more clear and certain form. The Dao can do this because it makes things “calm down” (Jing 靜). But what does this mean more precisely?

 This is a fundamental modification of Wagner’s English translation of Lao Zi’s passage (166). There are various interpretations and translations of this passage. For instance, Wing-Tsit Chan translates this passage as “Who can make muddy water gradually clear through tranquility? Who can make the still gradually come to life through activity” (A Source Book 147). In the language of classical Chinese, the subject and the object of a sentence are sometimes ambiguous, and it is sometimes unclear whether a term is used as verb or an adjective. Thus, it is possible to interpret a sentence in disparate ways. 37  This is a slight modification of Wagner’s translation of Wang Bi’s passage (166). 36

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We may gain some insight into Yan Fu’s understanding of the notion of “calming things down” in the Daode Jing by looking at certain statements of Lao Zi in Chapter Sixteen. In that chapter, Lao Zi argues that while things are of undying diversity, each one of them returns to its root. Their reverting to [their] root means stillness, and this is to return to life endowment. Returning to life endowment means the Constant.38 (16-17) 夫物芸芸, 各復歸其根。歸根曰靜, 是謂復命, 復命曰常。

What Lao Zi is saying here is that despite the manifest diversity of all things in the world, they each return to their source, the Dao. The Dao is the “root” from which all myriad things derive their life force, and their transformations invariably return to this “root” in the sense that they observe the natural way of the Dao no matter how they change. While myriad things have the impetus to change, the Dao “calms them down,” thereby ensuring that they return to their roots. To make myriad things calm down and return to the root is to endow them with life force which makes them change in a “constant” (Chang 常) way. Such an understanding of the process of calming things down already entails the second aspect of the Dao’s generative activity—the endowing of life—and seems to inform Yan Fu’s commentary on Chapter Fifteen. As for the second aspect, specifically, the Dao for Yan Fu is “tranquil” (An 安) in the sense that it works on myriad things in an imperceptible and continual way, endowing them with the life force which enables them to move. Thus, the “calming down” of the first aspect contrasts with the “enabling of movement” of the second, but the two aspects in this context refer to the same overall process of changing. In the operation of the Dao and the growth of myriad things, “movement” includes “stillness” in the sense that the transformation in things follows a constant way, and “stillness” includes “movement” in the sense that the above-mentioned “constancy” in things refers to the continuity in the reception of life force and the regularity in the way of growing. For Yan Fu, the result of the working of the Dao on myriad things is their “gradual growth” (Xusheng 徐生) and their “gradual development of a more clear and certain form” (Xuqing 徐清). The importance for Yan Fu of Wang Bi’s annotation on the Daode Jing’s two sentences in Chapter Fifteen is clear when one compares it with Heshang Gong’s annotation. Wang Bi’s metaphysical emphasis on “the natural way of the Dao” and “the forming of things” contrasts sharply with Heshang Gong’s more individualistic and spiritualistic interpretation: Who knows how to make the muddy water stop and calm down, and let it gradually become clear by itself? … Who can continue to be still for a long time and gradually gain longevity? (Heshang Gong 11-12) 誰能知水之濁, 止而靜之, 徐徐自清也。… 誰能安靜以久, 徐徐以長生也。

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 This is a slight modification of Wagner’s English translation of Lao Zi’s passage (170–171).

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Heshang Gong’s interpretation focuses on “the purifying of water”—this may represent the purification of one-self or the world—and “living long.” Compared with Heshang Gong’s concern about “gradual self-purification” (Xuxu ziqing 徐徐自清) and “longevity” (Chansheng 長生), Wang Bi’s concern about the natural way of the Dao in the production and development of myriad things is much more in tune with the issue of evolution. Thus, Yan Fu accepts Wang Bi’s annotation and reinterprets the process of evolution as a process in which the Dao makes things grow and develop a clear and certain form by “calming them down” and “moving them.”

12.4  Daoist Metaphysics and Social Progress Lao Zi’s metaphysics of the Dao not only concerns the running of the cosmos and the change in myriad things, but also deals with the operation of society and politics. Lao Zi does not distinguish between natural philosophy and political philosophy. To him, social and political affairs, as well as those of the natural world, are all parts of the myriad things that constitute the universe. From our perspective, Lao Zi’s political philosophy is underpinned by his natural philosophy and metaphysics. Yan Fu, in his commentary on the Daode Jing, likewise intertwines metaphysics and socio-political philosophy. And it is this interlacing of the two that enables Yan Fu to apply Darwin’s biological theory to international politics, as well as to accept Spencer’s theory of the nexus between nature and society. In synthesizing Daoism and Evolutionism, Yan Fu redefines the natural way of the Dao in the light of Darwinism, Spencerism, and progressivism, and reinterprets the natural way of politics as a process of development, evolution and progress .

12.4.1  Yan Fu on the Emulation of Heaven in Politics As previously noted, Lao Zi argues in Chapter Five that “Heaven and Earth are not humane” in that “they regard all things as grass and dogs.” Lao Zi continues: “The sage is not humane. He regards all people as grass and dogs.” For Lao Zi, just as the Dao runs in a natural way in its working on myriad things without paying attention to any specific thing, so the sage-king should follow the natural way in his governance of the people without caring about any particular individual. By drawing a connection between metaphysics and statecraft, Lao Zi contends that the natural way of the Dao should underlie both the changing of natural things as well as the governance of the people. In his commentary on the passage in Chapter Five of the Daode Jing, Yan Fu maintains that “those who emulate Heaven can achieve perfect politics” 法天者, 治 之至也 (6). This means that the operation of society and governance of the people should accord with the natural way of the Dao, which he redefines as a process of evolution and progress.

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Wang Bi’s annotation of the Daode Jing helps Yan Fu to connect the natural way with politics. In his annotation of Chapter Five, Wang Bi writes, “the sage harmonizes his ‘nature’ with that of Heaven and Earth and likens the people to grass and dogs” 聖人與天地合其德, 以百姓比芻狗也 (6).39 This means, for Wang Bi, that the sage-king follows the natural way of the Dao instead of paying specific attention to particular people. But what is the natural way in politics? For Wang Bi, the natural way in politics is in keeping with Lao Zi’s thought of non-action (Wuwei 無為), whereas for Yan Fu the natural way in politics involves an active effort to “change from the pristine to the complex.” In the Late-Qing historical context, such change refers to the advancement in technology, the development of the economy, the progress in society, as well as the search for national power and wealth in general.

12.4.2  Y  an Fu on the Evolution from Simplicity to Complexity Yan Fu’s argument that the Dao propels myriad things to “change from the pristine to the complex” conflicts with Lao Zi’s view of the natural way as the returning to an original simplicity by rejecting certain conventional norms and values. For instance, in Chapter Nineteen, Lao Zi assumes that wisdom and intelligence lead to competition among individuals, and thus to chaos in society. In addition, he believes that since the establishment and promulgation of benevolence and righteousness make people pretend to have these values, the discarding of these values induces people to return to true filial piety and sincere parental love (20). He also contends that craftiness and profits should be abandoned because they promote deception and theft (20). To Lao Zi, striving for wisdom, intelligence, benevolence, righteousness, craftiness and profit run counter to the ideal of non-action and to the non-assertive and natural way of the Dao. Near the end of the Daode Jing, Lao Zi provides his vision of the ideal society. His utopian society is a “small state with a small population” 小國寡民, in which people do not use any ship, carriage or weapon and feel content with the simple life (89). The natural way which Lao Zi longs for refers to a life without political intervention, competition, hypocrisy or technology. He argues against the development of the economy and the advance in technology because they make the originally simple life become complicated and deviate from the natural way of the Dao. While Lao Zi places a premium on returning to the pristine, Yan Fu emphasizes the “great force” that propels things to change “from the pristine to the complex.” Thus, in his comment on chapters eighteen through twenty of the Daode Jing, Yan Fu criticizes Lao Zi’s promotion of the ideal of returning to the pristine or the simple, and redefines the natural way of the Dao in terms of Spencer’s theory of social progress. Yan Fu takes issue with Lao Zi’s view of simplicity: 39

 This is a slight modification of Wagner’s translation (136).

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It is important to note that these three chapters [18–20] show how Lao Zi’s philosophy differs from contemporary philosophy. Now, we believe that it is a natural trend to progress from the simple to the cultured, from the pristine to the complex, and gradually  from “Qiankun” (Heaven and Earth) to “Weiji” (Not-yet-done). In this sense, it is as impossible to return to the pristine and the simple as it is to drive the water of a river back to the ­mountain. Lao Zi is right to criticize the over-decorating of pristine things. However, it is wrong for Lao Zi to argue that “adorned things” should return to the pristine state. Although “the over-decorating of pristine things” and “the returning of adorned things to the pristine state” are in reverse directions, they are similar in that both of them contradict nature and violate the principle of the Dao. Nowadays, as to politics, the most valuable ideal is freedom. In the state of freedom, all things can become what they naturally are, and natural selection can make the fittest endure. Then great peace will come! (Yan Fu 19–20) 以下三章是老子哲學與近世哲學異道所在, 不可不留意也。今夫質之趨文, 純之入雜, 由乾坤而馴至於未濟, 亦自然之勢也。老氏還淳返樸之義, 獨驅江河之水而使之在山, 必不逮矣。夫物質而強之以文, 老氏訾之是也。而物文而返之使質, 老氏之術非也。 何則?雖前後二者之為術不同, 而其違自然、拂道紀則一而已矣。故今日之治, 莫貴 乎崇尚自繇, 自繇則物各得其所自致, 而天擇之用存其最宜, 太平之盛可不期而自至。

Whereas Lao Zi argues that the adherence to the Dao is to return to the pristine, Yan Fu contends that the way of the Dao is not necessarily to return from complexity to simplicity. For Yan Fu, in most cases, the natural way is to change from simplicity to complexity and it is against nature to make cultured things return to the pristine. Yan Fu redefines the natural way in terms of evolutionism and progressivism. For him, the Dao is the power that propels things to change from the pristine to the cultured or from simplicity to complexity. Whereas Lao Zi argues that various kinds of developments, like the establishment of moral standards, the advance in technology and the search for economic benefits, counter the natural way of the Dao, Yan Fu attacks Lao Zi’s view of returning to the pristine and contends that the Dao is a way of development. Yan Fu also believes that the process of progress in the operation of the Dao is infinite. The terms of “Qiankun” 乾坤 (Heaven and Earth) and “Weiji” 未濟 (Not-­ yet-­done) in Yan Fu’s commentary derive from the Yijing 易經 (Book of Changes). These two terms refer to the beginning and end in the changing process of the cosmos. The name of the final stage “Weiji” means “not-yet-done” and thus implies that the changing process will still continue (Lao Siguang 80–81). For traditional Chinese scholars like Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200) in the Han Dynasty and Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011–1077) in the Song Dynasty, the Book of Changes shows a circular view of the cosmic operation and historical development (Cheng Kath Hung 207; 214). By contrast, when Yan Fu uses these terms, he means that the process of “progress” in nature and politics will never come to an end. The “contemporary philosophy” that Yan Fu mentions above refers to nineteenth-­ century progressivism, evolutionism and Darwinism. His thought about the progress from the pristine to the cultured or from simplicity to complexity is especially influenced by Spencer’s writings. In “Progress: Its Law and Cause,” Spencer defines the law of progress as “an advance from homogeneity of structure to heterogeneity of structure” or “the evolution of the simple into the complex” (6). Spencer, on the basis of the investigations of various German natural scientists such as Caspar

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Friedrich Wolff (1735–1794), Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) and Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876) about the growing of a seed or the development of an ovum, argues that the “law of organic progress is the law of all progress” (“Progress” 6). In his synthetic philosophy, Spencer draws an analogy between biological evolution and social development and argues about the growth of society in terms of the universal law of progress. He thus maintains that this law comprehends all transformations, “[f]rom the earliest traceable cosmical changes down to the latest results of civilization” (“Progress” 40). Government, manufacturing, commerce, language, literature and science all follow the law of progress (“Progress” 39–40). In his commentary on the Daode Jing, Yan Fu clearly accepts many of Spencer’s ideas about progress from the homogeneity of structure to the heterogeneity of structure in biological and social organisms, thus rejecting Lao Zi’s admonition to return to the pristine. Yan Fu redefines the natural way of the Dao as a law of progress or a power that propels myriad things to grow, develop and evolve. Yan Fu also argues that the natural way to progress from the pristine to the cultured produces the fittest that can survive in natural selection. But this can only happen in a state of freedom. The state of “freedom” refers to the state of nature in which things can develop according to the “character” they receive from the Dao and thus change from simplicity to complexity in a natural way. Once again, we see the influence of Spencer. In The Study of Sociology, the evolution of humankind and society results from a “natural process” (346) or the “natural working of things” (340), just as the idea of socio-political evolution in Yan Fu’s works is connected with the natural way. And like Spencer, Yan Fu argues that the state of “freedom” (自繇 Ziyou) is conducive to evolution and progress. However, Yan Fu’s thought of “freedom” and “natural way” in relation to “evolution” differs fundamentally from Spencer’s. In The Study of Sociology, Spencer argues that all citizens should be “free to discharge their functions and to pursue their pleasures” without impeding others’ rights to do these (347). He expects “a society formed of units who can live without mutual hindrance” (348). He believes that in such a society, citizens are allowed to develop themselves, and therefore their “bodily natures” and “mental natures” will become “fitted to the structure of society they live in” (347). As Spencer puts it, “in the natural working of things, those having imperfect structures succumb before they have offspring: leaving those with fitter structures to produce the next generation” (340). To Spencer, the natural working of things, which refers to a state of “freedom” without the intervention of the government in individuals’ personal development, will result in the preservation of “the worthy” and the extirpation of “the unworthy” whose physical and mental features are not fit for the circumstances of industrial society, and finally lead to the evolution of humankind and the progress of society. Yan Fu, however, does not emphasize the possible tension between individuals’ freedom and the government’s intervention. Instead, the use of “freedom” in his comment on the Daode Jing is concerned more with the natural state without restraint than with individualistic aspects of freedom in the institution of politics. To

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him, the state of freedom means that, without interference, things can become what they naturally are in the process of development, evolution and progress. Yan Fu’s major concern with the idea of natural selection is national survival. In this regard, when he argues that things should be allowed to develop into what they naturally are and become selected by nature, he means that the Chinese nation should develop in the natural process of progress and can therefore survive in international competition. To him, the process of evolution and progress in the natural state of “freedom” is a political prescription to salvage China from imperial intrusion and achieve “great peace” 太平之盛.

12.4.3  Y  an Fu on the State as Spiritual Vessel and Social Organism The major idea in Lao Zi’s political thought is “non-action.” In Chapter Twenty Nine of the Daode Jing, Lao Zi uses the “Spiritual Vessel” to describe his views on governing: As to someone who desires to get hold of “All under Heaven” and to interfere with it, I see that he will not be able to manage. It is a fact that “All under Heaven” is a vessel of something spiritual. It is inadvisable to interfere with it. He who interferes with it destroys it. He who holds on to it loses it.40 (Lao Zi 32) 將欲取天下而為之, 吾見其不可得已。天下神器, 不可為也, 為者敗之, 執者失之。

The phrases, “All under Heaven” (Tianxia 天下) and “Spiritual Vessel,” refer to the state or country. For Lao Zi, something spiritual has no form, so a person cannot grasp hold of a spiritual thing that lacks any concrete shape. In like manner, a ruler cannot grasp hold of the spiritual vessel, that is, the state. Lao Zi means that there is no specific method to govern the country. If a ruler acts to interfere with the community and the people, he will accordingly fail. In his annotation of the Daode Jing, Wang Bi further explains the meaning of the “Spiritual Vessel”: “The spiritual” is something “without form” or “without corners.” “Vessel” is something completed through combination. The “All under Heaven” is a combination of something shapeless. Thus, it is called “Spiritual Vessel.”41 神, 無形無方也。器, 合成也。無形以合, 故謂之神器也。

To Wang Bi, the “Spiritual Vessel” of the state is a “combination” of numerous factors but without definite form. A state is like a shapeless and spiritual vessel in that there are no concrete patterns to follow in the operation of society and politics. In

40 41

 I take Wagner’s translation for reference (217).  This translation is based on Wagner’s translation (217).

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the political thought of Lao Zi and Wang Bi, since there are no definite ways to follow in statecraft, a ruler should not intervene in the operation of society. Lao Zi’s ideal of “non-action” in the political arena runs directly counter to Yan Fu’s aspiration to save China from national disaster. For Yan Fu, Lao Zi’s delineation of the natural way lacks a strong sense of urgency and activism. Yan Fu thus turns away from Lao Zi at this point: It is not impossible to interfere with the “All under Heaven.” If a person knows that the “All under Heaven” is a Spiritual Vessel and follows its natural way, he can manage the “All under Heaven.” If a person counters the natural way of the Spiritual Vessel, he will accordingly fail. Lao Zi considers the “All under Heaven” as a Spiritual Vessel and Spencer conceives of the nation as an organism. They are really men of wisdom! Thus, they do not have disparate opinions. (Yan Fu 32) 天下非不可為也, 知其神器, 由襲明之術, 斯可為矣。反因通之道, 則敗失從之矣。老 子以天下為神器, 斯賓塞以國羣為有機體。真有識者, 固不異人意。

Like Lao Zi, Yan Fu argues that the governance of the state should follow the natural way of the Dao, but he redefines the “Spiritual Vessel” of the state in terms of Spencer’s thought about the social organism and contends that it is possible to make active contribution in politics if a person grasps the natural way that underpins the organism of the state. Yan Fu utilizes Spencer’s thought about the development of the social organism to reinterpret Lao Zi’s idea of the Spiritual Vessel as signifying the natural way of social evolution. In The Study of Sociology, Spencer draws an analogy between the progress of society and the development of a biological organism: “[A] society as a whole, considered apart from its living units, presents phenomena of growth, structure, and function, like those of growth, structure, and function in an individual body” (330). For Spencer, like the biological organism, a community can grow on the basis of the function of its structure. Yan Fu accepts Spencer’s thought about social organism and believes that the natural way of the Spiritual Vessel is a way of development and progress. While Yan Fu argues that Lao Zi and Spencer “do not have disparate opinions,” Spencer’s idea of “social organism” differs from Lao Zi’s concept of the “Spiritual Vessel.” While the “Spiritual Vessel” is something without form, the “social organism” is something with a concrete shape, a complex structure like a biological organism. Whereas Lao Zi argues that there is no concrete pattern in the operation of society and politics, Spencer believes that a society evolves and progresses just as a biological organism advances from homogeneity to heterogeneity. Yan Fu uses Spencer’s thought of inherent or natural social evolution to redefine Lao Zi’s natural way of politics. To Yan Fu, the natural functioning of the social organism will ultimately lead to development, evolution and progress. Yan Fu, even while borrowing Spencer’s thought about the social organism, still differs significantly from Spencer. For Spencer, it is the let-alone policy of non-­ intervention in personal development that conduces to the natural mechanism of preserving the fittest and to the evolution of humankind and society. By contrast, the idea of “social organism” in Yan Fu’s thought is infused with a strong sense of

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political activism. Yan Fu emphasizes that “it is not impossible to interfere with” the operation of the state and he intends to search for the method to make a community develop and evolve. His mission is to find an effective method to let the power of the Dao operate in a natural way and thus he can make the Chinese community develop, evolve and become strong in international competition. While Spencer and Yan Fu are late nineteenth-century contemporaries, they envision a new world order from quite different socio-political backgrounds. Spencer, enmeshed in a capitalist and rapidly industrializing society, argues against government intervention, contending that a let-alone policy as well as the mechanism of the survival of the fittest will lead to a prospering economy, social progress, and the evolution of humankind. By contrast, Yan Fu confronts the problem of Western and Japanese imperialism. Thus, he contends that “it is not impossible to interfere with the ‘All under Heaven’ if a person knows that the ‘All under Heaven’ is a Spiritual Vessel and follows its natural way.” He aims to find a way to accelerate social evolution and believes that his fellow Chinese can play an active role in the development and progress of the Chinese nation.

12.5  Conclusion Yan Fu’s evolutionist commentary on the Daode Jing clearly reveals that he does not fully grasp the empirical basis or logic of Darwin’s biology, nor does he comprehend Spencer’s sociology and its socio-political context. Instead, Yan Fu uproots Darwin’s and Spencer’s ideas from their original contexts and engrafts them into the Late-Qing Chinese context of nationalism and anti-imperialism, replacing the epistemology and metaphysics that underpin Darwin’s and Spencer’s ideas with the cosmology and metaphysics of Lao Zi and Wang Bi. To be sure, Yan Fu is drawn to Wang Bi’s annotation because it emphasizes the impartial and impersonal operation of the Dao that seems to square with the Darwinian view of the mechanical operation of nature, though the Darwinian and Daoist perceptions of the mechanics of nature are quite different. Yan Fu’s reception of evolutionism demonstrates how the Chinese language and culture possess the power of agency to transform the meaning of Western ideas and texts in the reception of Western knowledge.42 This transformation of ideas, as we have seen, not infrequently results in distortions of Darwinian and Spencerian thought, while still offering correctives to Western assumptions. Thus, apropos the

 Yan Fu’s Daoist-metaphysical acceptance of Victorian evolutionism can be regarded as “cultural translation” in a broad sense. In Translingual Practice, Lydia H. Liu examines the “cultural translation” of Western works and knowledge in China during 1900–1937, arguing that the language of Chinese demonstrates its power of agency to transform Western thought in the meaning-making process of translation and that the power relation in Chinese translation of Western works is not necessarily the dominance of Western knowledge over Chinese culture.

42

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three major challenges of Darwinian theory to conventional Victorian ideals, Yan Fu largely ignores them. The erasure of human uniqueness in Darwin’s theory is not a challenge at all in Yan Fu’s Daoist interpretation of evolutionism. According to Daoist cosmology, the Dao generates all myriad things and grants them the desire to move and change, and humans are among the myriad things. In this sense, human beings are not fundamentally separated from all other myriad things. In his evolutionist comment on the Daode Jing, Yan Fu completely neglects, or perhaps is simply oblivious to, the problem of human uniqueness which obsesses his contemporary Victorian intellectuals. As for the Darwinian challenge to conventional morality, the seemingly amoral, if not immoral, principles of the “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest”—so distasteful to Victorian sensibilities—are readily accepted in Yan Fu’s evolutionist interpretation of the Dao. These phrases lose their original amoral meaning and become the necessary means for the survival of the Chinese nation. Unlike Spencer, Yan Fu does not understand the ideas of “struggle for existence” and “survival of the fittest” as an internal competition within a community. Instead, he reads these ideas from the perspective of international politics. To him, the process of evolution and struggle for existence is a “moral” process to salvage the country and the people from the national crisis. And finally, regarding the teleological question and the matter of a designed universe, we may recall Yan Fu’s praise for Wang Bi’s commentary that “The Earth does not produce grass for the cattle, but the cattle eat grass. The Earth does not produce dogs for men, but men eat dogs.” In Yan Fu’s Daoist evolutionism, the cosmos does not run for a specific purpose, and certainly not for the specific benefit of humankind. Nevertheless, Yan Fu believes that the Dao grants myriad things an impetus to grow, develop and evolve. While Darwin attributes evolution to the natural working of laws and the mechanism of selection rather than to an internal drive, Yan Fu believes that myriad things are granted by the Dao an internal desire to evolve and progress. While Yan Fu believes that the operation of the Dao is nothing other than the process of evolution, the natural process for him includes the necessity that human beings take an active role to develop, progress and evolve. Thus, Yan Fu pays special attention to Lao Zi’s words that “he who powerfully practices [the Way] will have his will” 強行者有志 (37),43 and contends that “the approaching downfall of China is due to the lack of those who powerfully practice [the Way]” 中國之將亡, 坐無強 行者耳 (38). In this regard, humans can put the Way into practice only by practicing the Dao in a “powerful” (Qiang 強) way. To Yan Fu, the Way of progress can be put into practice in China only when his Chinese compatriots perform assiduous and energetic actions. In this sense, while the Darwinian theory of evolution and natural selection is a challenge to the teleological significance of the world in the context of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in Yan Fu’s world the theory of evolution becomes a patriotic prescription and a nationalist agenda.

43

 I take Wagner’s translation for reference (227).

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Philosophy). In Daojia wenhua yanjiu 28: yanfu zhuanhao 道家文化研究 28: 嚴復專號 (The Study of Daoist Culture: A Special Issue on Yan Fu). Ed. Chen Guying. Beijing: Sanlian. Liu Gusheng 劉固盛, Liu Shaojun 劉韶軍 and Xiao Haiyan 蕭海燕. 2014. Jindai laozhuang xue 近代老莊學 (The Study of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi in the Modern Period). Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chuban she. Liu Lingdi 劉玲娣. 2012. Hanwei liuchao laoxue yanjiu 漢魏六朝老學研究 (Research on the Study of Lao Zi in the Han Dynasty, Wei Dynasty and Six Dynasties). Wuhan: Huazhong Normal University Press. Liu Sihe 劉思禾. 2017. Qingdai laoxue shigao 清代老學史稿 (The History of the Study of Lao Zi in the Qing Dynasty). Xueyuan: Beijing. Liu Zhonghua 劉仲華. 2004. Qindai zhuzi xue yanjiu 清代諸子學研究 (Research on the Study of Pre-Qin Thinkers in the Qing Dynasty). Beijing: Chinese People’s University Press. Shih Shuanlong 施璇蓉. 2011. Yanfu pingdian gushu sanzhong yu xixue huitong yanjiu 嚴復評 典故書三種與西學會通研究 (The Study of Yan Fu’s Commentaries on Three Old Books and His Synthesis of Western and Chinese Academics). M.A.  Thesis. National Taiwan Normal University. Wang Chuang 王闖. 2016. Qingdai laoxue yanjiu 清代老學研究 (Research on the Study of Lao Zi in the Qing dynasty). Wuhan: Central China Normal University Press. Wang Zhongjiang 王中江. 1997. Yan Fu 嚴復. Taipei: Dongda. Wu Chan-liang 吳展良. 1999a. “Yanfu tianyan lun zuoyi yu neihan xinquan” 嚴復《天演論》作 意與內涵新詮 (A New Interpretation of the Intention and Meaning of Yen Fu’s Tianyan lun). Taida lishi xuebao 24: 103–176. ———. 1999b. Yanfu zaoqi de qiudao zhi lu: jianlun chuantong xueshu xingge yu siwei fangshi de jicheng yu zhuanhua 嚴復早期的求道之旅: 兼論傳統學術性格與思維方式的繼承與轉 化 (The Search for the Dao in Yan Fu’s Early Years: The Continuity and Transformation of Traditional Modes of Learning and Thinking). Taida lishi xuebao 23 (6): 239–276. ———. 2001. “Zhongxi zuigao xueli de wanhe yu chongtu: yanfu daotong weiyi shuo xilun” 中西 最高學理的綰合與衝突: 嚴復道通為一說析論 (The Integration and Conflict of the Highest Principles of Chinese and Western Learning: An Analysis of Yan Fu’s Theory of “Dao Is One”). Taida wenshizhe xuebao 54: 305–332. Xiong Tieji 熊鐵基, Ma Lianghuai 馬良懷 and Liu Shaojun 劉韶軍. 1995. Zhonguo laoxue shi 中 國老學史 (The History of the Study of Lao Zi in China). Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chuban she. Yu Dunkang 余敦康. 2004. Weijin Xuanxue shi 魏晉玄學史 (The History of Wei-Jin Metaphysics). Beijing: Peking University Press. Yu Ying-shi 余英時. 2008. Songming lixue yu zhengzhi wenhua  宋明理學與政治文化 (Neo-­ Confucianism and Political Culture in Song and Ming Dynasties). Taipei: Yunchen. Zhao Dan 趙丹. 2013. Tongcheng pai laoxue yanjiu 桐城派老學研究 (Research on the Study of Lao Zi in the School of Tongcheng). M.A.Thesis. Central China Normal University. Zuo Xiuhui 左秀慧. 2014. Lun yaonai de laozhuang yanjiu 論姚鼐的老莊研究 (On Yao Nai’s Study of Lao Zi and Zhuang Zi). M.A. Thesis. Shanxi Normal University.

English Chang, Hao. 1987. Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890–1911. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Chan, K.L. Alan. 1991. Two Versions of the Way: A Study of the Wang Pi and the Ho-shang Kung Commentaries on the Lao-Tzu. New York: State University of New York Press. Chan, Wing-Tsit. 1969a. “The Natural Way of Lao Tzu.” In A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ———. 1969b. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

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———. Trans. 1963. The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching). New York: Bobbs-Merrill. Elman, A.  Benjamin. 2005. On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Liu, Lydia H. 1995. Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pusey, James Reeve. 1983. China and Charles Darwin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Schwartz, Benjamin. 1964. In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wagner, Rudolf G. Trans. 2003a. A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing: Wang Bi’s Commentary of the Laozi with Critical Text and Translation. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2000. The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi. Albany: State University of New York Press. ———. 2003b. Language, Ontology and Political Philosophy in China: Wang Bi’s Scholarly Exploration of the Dark (Xuan). Albany: State University of New York Press. Kuan-yen Liu is currently a Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen (CUHK-Shenzhen), where he teaches courses on “History and Philosophy of Biology” and “History of Chinese Philosophy” for  the Philosophy Minor Program as well as other  courses on Western and Chinese thought, science and literature for the General Education Division. At the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), he served as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center and taught cross-­disciplinary  courses on “Nationalism, Evolutionism, Capitalism and Socialism in LongNineteenth-Century Europe” and “Buddhism and Daoism in Classical, Modern and Diasporic Chinese Literature” in the Comparative Literature Program. He received his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at UCSB, where he specialized in Victorian thought and literature, Late-Qing Chinese thought and literature, and philosophy of biology. Prior to his doctoral study, he earned a B.A. from National Chengchi University in Taiwan, with a double major in English Literature and Philosophy as well as minors in History and Chinese Literature. His scholarship focuses on the history of biology and the epistemology of science in Victorian Britain as well as the cultural translation and philosophical transformation of Darwinism in late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century China.  

Chapter 13

Dependent Co-evolution: Kropotkin’s Theory of Mutual Aid and Its Appropriation by Chinese Buddhists Justin R. Ritzinger

Abstract  The encounter between Buddhism and science has long been recognized as one of the key events in the formulation of Buddhist modernisms. Yet only recently has this begun to be explored in its historic specificity. This paper examines Republican-era Chinese Buddhist engagement with the theory of evolution at the peak of its cultural influence in the 1920s and 1930s. It argues that while Buddhists largely accepted biological evolution, Darwinist theories of survival of the fittest were rejected. Instead, they embraced the alternative theory of Peter Kropotkin, who saw mutual aid as the driving force of evolution. This theory was not only less offensive to Buddhist sensibilities, but also amenable to a rhetorical strategy of subsumption in which Kropotkin was presented as anticipated and fulfilled by Buddhist doctrine. This tactic allowed Buddhists to portray their religion as modern, scientific, and progressive while avoiding what were seen as the pernicious corollaries of Darwinism. Effectively, Buddhists who employed this tactic attempted to annex Kroptokin’s discursive space, taking advantage of the internal variegation of modernity in order to constitute it as part of a modern discourse and superscribe that discourse with their own concerns.

13.1  Introduction It is a staple of Buddhist modernist discourse to assert that Buddhism is a religion that is uniquely compatible with science. In these depictions, Buddhism is presented as a thoroughly rational tradition unencumbered by the mythological speculations This chapter was originally published in Chung-Hwa Journal of Buddhist Studies 26 (2013): 89–112. I am grateful to the editors for permission to reprint here. It has been only lightly revised and updated. J. R. Ritzinger (*) University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_13

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of its rivals, but founded instead on direct, empirical apprehension of reality. As David McMahan has shown in his The Making of Buddhist Modernism (2008), this is often part of an attempt by Buddhists to position Buddhism in the discursive field of modernity. Drawing on Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self (1992), McMahan argues that this field is constituted by three distinct discourses—Western monotheism, scientific rationality, and Romantic expressivism—that have evolved in a relationship characterized at once by mutual dependence and mutual tension, even antagonism. Thus, in the discursive field of modernity, Buddhists have often sought to ally their religion with science over and against Christianity (McMahan 2008). In so doing they draw on what is seen as the long history of conflict between science and Christianity. This conflict is archetypally represented by the so-called “Trial of Galileo.” In the popular imagination, this tale is one of conflict between entrenched medieval dogma and a heroic bringer of new truths, between a literal reading of an ancient scripture and the empirical evidence of the senses. Buddhist modernists have had much to gain by standing rhetorically with Galileo. But it is just this narrative that scholars working on the history of science and religion in the West have called into question. This vision of irreconcilable conflict between religion and science, they have shown, is actually a cultural construct of quite recent vintage, as is the mythology of the “Trial of Galileo.” Much scholarship has been dedicated to replacing this simplistic, but still influential, view with a more nuanced account.1 In place of the ahistorical, monolithic and opposed categories of science and religion that this mythology has bequeathed us, scholarship has revealed a much more complex history of the emergence of science as a modern discipline in relation to Christianity. When placed in proper historical context, the trial of Galileo, such historians argue, “looks less like a conflict between a man of science on the one hand and church leaders on the other, and more like a tense and politically charged discussion among Catholics about biblical interpretation, Aristotelian science, and the relationship between individual believers and the church hierarchy” (Dixon 2010: 515).2  For an overview of some of the issues involved, see Harrison (2006).  For a concise overview of the events and issues, see Blackwell (1998, especially 23–42). It is certainly true that Galileo argued that theological interpretations of scripture were not authoritative in determining the motion of the planets, famously saying that the Bible’s purpose was to “teach us how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes” (Feldhay 2006: 743–47). Yet he did not see his project as something radically separate from religion, but as interpreting the revelation of God as written in the “book of nature,” using the hermeneutics appropriate to that text: mathematics. (This elevation of mathematics was itself controversial among natural philosophers of the day. See Feldhay 2006: 743–45; McMullin 2005b: 160–61). His view of scriptural limitation was extreme for the day, but the bulk of his theological argument was not. In writings such as his Letter to Castelli and Letter to the Grand Duchess, he relied heavily on the doctrine of accommodation—a sort of Catholic doctrine of upaya that saw God’s word as spoken in ways that accommodated the limited understandings of his children—which was not itself controversial in seventeenth-century Catholicism and had an eminent pedigree that could be traced back through Aquinas to Augustine. Indeed, the precedence given to the literal meaning of the biblical text was not the product of an unchanging and monolithic Church, but of an institution attempting to respond to the recent trauma of the Reformation. On Galileo’s theological arguments and biblical hermeneutics, see McMullin 1 2

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This project of historicization, long underway in studies of religion and science in the West, has yet to be fully taken up in studies of many other cultural contexts. Yet such historical investigation is all the more necessary when looking at the encounter between religion and science in parts of the world, such as China, where both terms—“religion” and “science”—were adopted at the very same fraught historical moment, when individuals and institutions attempted to redefine and reimagine their religious traditions in the face not only of new scientific discoveries but also imperialist threats and newly modernizing nation-states. Donald Lopez (2008) has pointed out the importance of both approaching the relationship of Buddhism and science from a historical perspective and also attending to the specific scientific disciplines and discoveries with which Buddhists were engaged. Here, I would like to build upon and extend the insights of McMahan and Lopez through a consideration of Chinese Buddhist responses in the 1920s and 1930s to arguably the most important scientific idea of their day, the theory of evolution. We might initially presume that evolution should not pose problems for Buddhism, as it is often seen to do for Christianity. Yet we will discover that Chinese Buddhists were almost as appalled by Darwinian theory as many Christians of the day were. Buddhists, however, were able to take advantage of the internal variegation of science—debates over the mechanism of evolution—to interject themselves into the debates of modernity, playing one side against another in order to advance their own concerns. Using this strategy, they were able to embrace modernist discourses of science, evolution, and progress, while critiquing what were seen to be the pernicious corollaries of Darwinism.

13.2  Science and Religion in Republican China By the 1920s, science enjoyed a position of unrivaled esteem in China. Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962), an historian and leading public intellectual of the day, put it thus: During the last thirty years or so there is a name which has acquired an incomparable position of respect in China; no one, whether informed or ignorant, conservative or progressive, dares openly slight or jeer at it. The name is Science…Ever since the beginning of reformist tendencies in China [i.e. the 1890s], there is not a single person who calls himself a modern man and yet dares openly to belittle Science. (Hu 2008: 9; translation Kwok 1965: 11–12)

This eloquent quotation vividly demonstrates the sway held by science, but also reveals rather more. Note that Hu refers to science not as a practice or as a discipline, but as a name. While science was everywhere invoked in the first decades of twentieth-century China, it was seldom practiced. The importance of science was primarily ideological. Scientific discoveries were reported in scientific and popular journals and discussed avidly by those who read them. The actual day-to-day

(2005a). On the complex factors that led to the Church’s condemnation of Copernican astronomy, see McMullin (2005b).

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practice of science, however, was less significant than the discipline’s totemic status as a marker of certain and modern knowledge. It was in this sense that it was claimed by “informed and ignorant,” “conservative and progressive” alike and used to impart authority to all manner of political and social programs.3 Just as “science” was a relatively new term in 1920s China, so too was “religion.” As is well known, at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, the religious traditions of China were faced with the task of reconfiguring themselves in light of this new category. The Late Imperial period had been characterized by a plural orthodoxy overseen by a religiously legitimated state that assumed the right to determine what was orthodox (zheng 正) and heterodox (xie 邪). The collapse of the imperial polity changed this landscape drastically. The orthodox/heterodox distinction was replaced with the neologisms of “religion” (zongjiao 宗教) and “superstition” (mixin 迷信). This discursive shift was given legal force by the new nation-state. In order to be recognized as “religions” and receive protection under the law, traditions had to be adapted to notions of “religion” inspired by Western societies. Institutionally, this meant attempts to establish nationwide organizations to represent their religions and advance their interests, while serving as allies to the developmental state. Ideologically, this meant that these traditions had to present themselves as systems of spirituality and ethics based in textual canons and to dissociate themselves from the “superstitions” of local temple cults. For, while “religion” was protected under the constitution, “superstition” was not. The new nation-state, hungry for resources, urgently pursuing its vision of modernity, often expropriated popular temples and suppressed local cults. While such selective interference by the state was nothing new, the category of superstition swept up a far larger proportion of Chinese religiosity than the earlier category of heterodoxy ever had.4 Thus, proving their religion to be suitably modern and progressive was a matter of existential concern for Chinese Buddhists. To do this, they had to establish Buddhism as compatible with science in general and evolution in particular. For evolution was the most important and influential scientific idea of the era. Its introduction at the close of the Qing Dynasty marked a pivotal moment in the emergence of modern Chinese discourse. It is important here to note, though, that evolutionary theory was introduced to China not via Darwin’s Origin of the Species or Descent of Man, but through an 1898 work entitled On Natural Evolution (Tianyan lun 天演 3  On the authority of science in China in this period, Kwok’s Scientism in Chinese Thought, 1900–1950 (1965) remains a classic. For a more recent account, see Wang (2006). 4  These shifts are the subject of a significant and growing body of scholarly work. For an overview of these issues in this period, see Goossaert and Palmer (2011, chapters two and three). Vincent Goossaert elsewhere offers more narrowly focused treatments of the establishment of national religious associations and Christianity’s role in that process (2008) and of the continuities and critical discontinuities between Late Imperial Confucian fundamentalist and anticlerical discourse and the religion/superstition discourse that took shape in the early twentieth century (2006). Nedostup (2009) provides an in-depth examination of the Nationalists’ religious policies and antisuperstition campaigns in Jiangsu during the Nanjing Decade, while Poon (2011) examines the negotiations over these issues between the common people and the state in Guangzhou.

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論) produced by the reformist intellectual Yan Fu 嚴復 (1854–1921) which served as a vehicle for the ideas of Herbert Spencer.5 It was Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase “survival of the fittest” and whose work promoted that principle as undergirding not just biological evolution, but social development as well. Thus from the outset, Darwinian theory in China was virtually inseparable from Social Darwinism, and distinctions between the two were rarely drawn. The theories of Social Darwinism had an enormous impact on young Chinese intellectuals for two reasons. First, they provided a clear explanation of China’s present circumstances. China was being menaced by imperialist powers who used their military superiority to repeatedly extort territorial and commercial concessions, leading to widespread fear that China was about to be “carved up like a melon,” as a vivid image had it. According to Social Darwinism, such predation was a natural consequence of the mutual competition among nations and races in the struggle for existence. Moreover, it was a form of heroic self-assertion that actually drove evolution and secured human progress. Second, Social Darwinism provided a clear prescription for overcoming the present peril. The only way out was forward. China must commit itself to the competition. It too must assert itself and evolve. For generations of Chinese leaders and thinkers, this basic orientation provided the justification for relentless pursuit of change and progress (Pusey 1983: 448–49). The very word used to render progress, jinhua 進化—literally, to advance and change— was used to indicate evolution as well. The key point to note is that there is a twofold slippage in Chinese discussions of evolutionary theory. First, there is a slippage between the biological and the social. Given the primarily ideological character of Chinese interest in science, biological theories of evolution were appealing primarily in their social applications. The second is closely related to the first: a slippage between the descriptive and the prescriptive. Theories of how species did evolve were considered primarily as theories of how society should progress. This often leads to locutions that might at first seem odd. Buddhist writers, for instance, often speak of “adopting the Darwinian theory” rather than “accepting,” These models are never solely “models of,” but always also “models for,” as Geertz (1973: 93) might put it. As a result, in this period “evolution” was not simply a scientific theory, but the beating heart of Chinese modernity. It addressed not merely the question: What sort of creature is humanity? But also: What is the nature of society? And: How is China to transform itself to survive in the new order? So powerful was evolution in framing these issues that it attained a hegemonic influence over everything from political theory to children’s stories (Jones 2011). One way or another, it was something that had to be reckoned with.

5  On the unique character of Yan Fu’s text, which combines a translation of Thomas Huxley’s Ethics and Evolution with commentary advancing the arguments of Huxley’s intellectual opponent Herbert Spencer, see chapter four of Schwartz (1964).

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13.3  Buddhist Responses to Darwinian Theory On the face of it, Buddhism might be expected to have fewer issues with biological evolution than Christianity. The difficulties many Christians had with evolution are well known. Continuity with animals challenged humanity’s status as beings created in God’s image and possessed of a unique soul. The notion that man was not “Creation’s crown and perfection” but simply an “improved ape” and an “unexpected cousin…[to] the mushroom” was deeply troubling to some (Dixon 2008: 73–74). The fluidity of species challenged traditional understandings of creation. Finally, the autonomous self-sufficiency of natural selection challenged the necessity of a designer, a Divine Clockmaker responsible for the intricate workings of the natural world.6 None of these gave Buddhism the same sort of difficulty. Continuity with animals, of course, is something Buddhism has always affirmed and embraced. All beings have been born and reborn since beginningless time. In the course of that infinite expanse of time, we have all at one time or another been born as all manner of creatures: bird, beast, fish, insect. Moreover, every animal on earth now living was, at one time or another, one’s own mother. Human existence is more fortunate and superior in many ways, but it is a temporary status on a continuum with all sentient life. Moreover, Buddhism has no need to defend the uniqueness of the human soul because it denies the existence of the soul entirely, positing instead the doctrine of non-self. Likewise, fluidity of species need not be a major issue. While Buddhism had not recognized this as such, the inevitability and omnipresence of change is among its most fundamental doctrines. Some Buddhists even saw the transformation of one species into another through evolution as having parallels with the transformation of the individual from one sort of creature to another through rebirth and karma. Moreover, Buddhism need not defend a mythological account of origins. The universe and all sentient beings in it have existed since beginningless time. There is no moment of origin, no first creation. There are accounts of cyclical destruction and recreation of world systems, but what is important is not the origin of the world, but the origin of suffering, the origin of our existential predicament. Finally, the idea that creation occurs through an autonomous self-sufficient process does not threaten Buddhism’s notion of a creator god because it does not have one. Rather, Buddhism asserts that all things come into being through dependent co-arising. Thus the Buddhist universe already is an autonomous self-ordering process governed by something with at least a resemblance to natural law. The role of chance in evolution is potentially problematic here, but it went unnoticed among Chinese Buddhists. Evolution would thus seem, on the face of it, to pose fewer problems for Buddhism than Christianity, and in fact the overwhelming majority of Buddhists 6  For brief surveys of Christian responses to Darwinism, see Roberts (2010) and Brooke (1991: 275–320). For a discussion of attempts by liberal theologians to reconcile Christianity with Darwinism, see Bowler (2007).

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who wrote about it had no problem with biological evolution as such. Indeed, it became one of Buddhism’s favorite bludgeons with which to attack Christianity, painting it as unscientific and unsuitable to the modern age. As one figure put it, evolution is a “rational worldview free of the stench of monotheism” (Taixu 太虛 [1930a] 2006: 1262). Yet while Chinese Buddhists largely accepted evolution, they roundly rejected Darwin—at least the vulgar Darwinism he was made to stand for. For Chinese Buddhists as for virtually all their compatriots, Darwinism was essentially reduced to the phrases “the survival of the fittest,” “the struggle for existence,” and “the strong eat the weak.” This was entirely appalling to Buddhists ethically, politically, and soteriologically. Ethically, the driving force of evolution in Darwinism was seen to be a bloody struggle of all against all. One must eat or be eaten—hardly consonant with Buddhist teachings of compassion. For Buddhists, as for many Christians of the day, Darwinism thus seemed to be corrosive of morality. As one monk lamented, “The lesson of nature in Darwinism is competitive struggle—doing evil. Nature itself is stained in blood” (Zhifeng 芝峯 [1932] 2006: 485). Chinese Buddhists, then as now, rejected the idea that one must eat or be eaten at the most literal level. They were vegetarian. After all, any animal one might eat is one’s estranged mother from another life. Thus, this aspect of Darwinism was antithetical to the Buddhist ethos not only doctrinally, but at deep levels of embodied practice and lived religion. Politically, monks and laity of the day were deeply concerned with the fate of their nation. China seemed to be under constant threat of being devoured by imperialist powers whose predation was often justified in Darwinian terms. This association of Darwinian thought with imperialism also made it deeply offensive. Though sometimes Darwinism was granted a certain usefulness early in human history, helping humanity to rise above the beasts, Darwinian struggle was clearly a liability and a hazard in the modern world. Darwinism may once have helped humanity evolve from animals, but now it could only lead to militarism and class struggle (Taixu [1925] 2006: 46). Taixu 太虛 wrote that Social Darwinists believe that as a result of competition, the strong will prevail and the weak, defeated, will perish. Only when the strong alone remain will the world attain progress. Thus when a small, weak nation is violated by a larger, stronger nation or the proletariat is exploited by the bourgeoisie until they wail and twist about, [the Darwinists] feel no pity, but take it as natural. (Taixu [1930a] 2006: 1262)

States struggling for their survival against one another ensure only their mutual destruction through pointless slaughter in bloody warfare without end. For Buddhists, as for many Christians of the day, World War I was exhibit A. The sight of the cradle of enlightened progressive modernity descending into fratricidal slaughter convinced Buddhists, as it did many around the world, that there was a profound moral bankruptcy in the path Europe had taken. Many believed that Darwinian evolution had destroyed the restraints of theistic morality at the same time that new scientific discoveries bestowed unprecedented destructive power in the form of bombs, machine guns, and chemical weapons, leading to “seas of blood

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and mountains of bones” (Hammerstrom 2010:7 235; Taixu [1925] 2006: 45; Zhifeng [1932] 2006: 485; Zhifeng [1936] 2006: 276). The conclusion drawn is vividly illustrated in a cartoon by Feng Zikai 豐子愷. Entitled “Ultimate Victory in the Struggle for Survival,” it depicts a graveyard. The caption reads (Fig. 13.1): What need is there for competition? They say it is in order to survive. This theory is poisoning the whole world. Alas, Darwin. (Feng [1931] 2006).

Feng’s implication is clear: Darwin’s theory had destroyed morality and unleashed hell on earth. Yet up above the silent graves shines a swastika moon, representing the wheel of the Dharma. Even in the dire straits of the present era, the Buddhist teachings illuminate the black night of ignorance. The cartoon thus juxtaposes the hope offered by Buddhism with the literal dead-end of Darwinism.

Fig. 13.1  Feng Zikai, “Ultimate Victory in the Struggle for Survival” (Feng [1931] 2006)

 Since the original publication of this essay, Hammerstrom’s 2010 dissertation has been published as The Science of Chinese Buddhism (Hammerstrom 2015). Chapter five of this version covers issues surrounding evolution and ethics. 7

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Lastly, soteriologically, Darwinian notions of the “struggle for existence” appeared to many Chinese Buddhists to represent a crude form of clinging to self and objects. The self-assertion lauded by the Social Darwinists was not a progressive force, but a hindrance. The struggle to get things, to benefit oneself at the expense of others, only mires one ever deeper in delusion. Taixu argued that without insight into emptiness, one will harbor thoughts of the struggle for survival and, hearing that those who seek the insight of a Buddha overturn the natural world in which people survive, will fear, thinking the more one cultivates the less joy there will be in life. Thus they cut off the provisions of bodhi. (Taixu [1933] 2006: 161)

Here Taixu treats the “struggle for survival” of Darwinian theory as virtually synonymous with the deluded clinging that blocks progress on the path. Yet what most fundamentally made Darwinism intolerable to Chinese Buddhists was the conflation of progress with evolution. Progress, after all, was axiomatically a good thing for nearly all Chinese intellectuals of the day. Thus it would appear to follow that immorality, imperialism, and delusion are also good things. This obviously was an unacceptable conclusion. Yet this conflation meant that, appalling as Darwinism was, evolution could not simply be rejected. In order not merely to be accepted by the new educated classes, but to prove itself a useful ally to the new nation-state worthy of protection, Buddhism had to show that it was compatible with science and social progress. The theory of evolution was therefore key discursive territory. Ways had to be found to lay claim to evolution even while rejecting Darwinist survival of the fittest.

13.4  The Kropotkinite Alternative Fortunately, in the 1920s and 1930s, alternatives were still available. It tends to be glossed over in the typical narratives of introductory biology classes, where the concept of evolution is traced from Lamarck to Darwin straight on to Watson and Crick, but it was some time after Darwin before the mechanism of evolution was firmly established. The modern evolutionary synthesis wedding Darwinian natural selection to Mendelian genetics did not begin to emerge until the 1930s and was not complete until the 1940s. In the early decades of the twentieth century evolution was widely accepted, but a number of different theories regarding the mechanism continued to circulate.8 The most important alternative in China was that proposed by the naturalist and anarchist Peter Kropotkin. Born to Russian nobility in 1842, Kropotkin famously rejected inherited privilege and embraced anarchism, earning himself the title “the

8  For an overview of some of the complexities of the development of evolutionary theory, see Hodge (2009). On the emergence of the modern synthesis and the vindication of natural selection, see Mayr (1991: 132–40).

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anarchist prince.” Trained in science, he made naturalistic and anthropological observations while stationed in Siberia with the Russian army that would form the basis of his theory of evolution. This theory was laid out in a series of articles published in 1888 in the journal The Nineteenth Century that were later collected and published as Mutual Aid: a Factor of Evolution in 1902. The essence of Kropotkin’s argument is that among animals of the same species, mutual aid—rather than mutual struggle for the resources to survive—was the most important factor in evolution. Unlike many of his day, Kropotkin was well aware that Darwin had made some room for cooperation as a force in evolution. Kropotkin, too, did not entirely deny any role to self-assertion and competition. However, he reversed Darwin’s prioritization, giving pride of place to cooperation. In his time on the Siberian steppe, Kropotkin observed that mutual aid appeared most conducive to the prosperity of a species in that harsh environment (Kropotkin [1919] 2006: xi–xii). In the cases where scarcity did compel competition for survival amongst members of the same species, he felt that the survivors came “out of the ordeal so much impoverished in vigor and health, that no progressive evolution of the species can be based upon such periods of keen competition” (Kropotkin [1919] 2006: xii– xiii).9 It is not those species in which competition is the rule that thrive, he argued. Instead, it is those animal species, in which individual struggle has been reduced to its narrowest limits, and the practice of mutual aid has reached its highest development, that are invariably the most numerous, the most prosperous, the most open to further progress…The unsociable species, on the contrary, are doomed to decay. (Kropotkin [1919] 2006: 242)

Like the Social Darwinists whom he abhorred, Kropotkin saw the same forces at work in the evolution of human societies as in the evolution of species. Kropotkin saw in the history of human civilization the progressive development of modes of social cooperation. The individuals and classes who asserted dominance over their fellows—those whom the Social Darwinists saw as the drivers of progress— Kropotkin saw as obstacles to human advancement. As an anarchist, he envisioned the end point of social evolution as a state of anarchy in which autonomous individuals and communities freely associated with one another to better their lot through mutual aid, a state in which competition and mutual struggle had been banished forever. Kropotkin was introduced to China by the writings and translations of Chinese anarchists in Paris and Tokyo in the dying days of the Qing. Although Chinese anarchism was marginalized by earlier historiography of modern China that focused on the emergence and triumph of the Communist Party, its importance has been rediscovered in recent years by historians who have established that anarchism was actually the dominant radical ideology in China until the mid-1920s. It held great appeal for its marriage of science with humanitarian ethics and utopian optimism. While the number of truly committed anarchists was likely always small, it provided the 9  Recall, here, that genetic inheritance was not yet understood. Kropotkin took acquired traits, such as the weakness of a starved animal, to be hereditable.

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conceptual vocabulary for the broader revolutionary movement, shaping it in key ways (Dirlik 1991; see also Zarrow 1990). Kropotkin’s version of anarchism was especially well-received, as his evolutionary theory gave his thought a scientific imprimatur. According to Arif Dirlik, in the May Fourth era Kropotkin’s works were “a staple of the reading public” (Dirlik 1991: 155–56). Though largely forgotten today, he would have been a household name among the intelligentsia of the time.

13.5  Buddhist Appropriations of Kropotkin Anarchism is more associated today with bomb-throwing than Buddhas. Yet in the 1920s and 30s, Kropotkin’s thought was familiar in Buddhist circles. Much of the anarchist’s currency among Buddhist reformers stems from his endorsement by Taixu, one of the leading Buddhist reformers of the day. It is well known among scholars of modern Chinese Buddhism that anarchism made a deep impression on Taixu as a youth. No biographical sketch seems complete without mention of his initial exposure to radical literature, including Kropotkin and other anarchist theorists, in Guangdong just prior to the 1911 revolution. Rather less well known is the degree to which his involvement in radical politics continued after the revolution. In 1912 and 1913, Taixu was actually a leading figure among the anarchist-inspired Pure Socialists, who took Kropotkin as a guiding light.10 Although Taixu eventually abandoned anarchism as an explicit ideology in favor of more moderate incrementalist views, anarchism left a deep imprint on his thought and he always retained a special soft spot for Kropotkin and his theory of evolution through mutual aid. Among the first articles he published in the Awakening Society Collectanea (Jueshe congshu 覺社叢書)11 was an abbreviated translation of Kropotkin’s “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal” (Kropotkin [1919] 2006). Over the 1920s and into the early 30s, he wrote a number of articles that dealt with Kropotkin’s ideas on evolution—including, “Humanistic Science” (Renshengguan de kexue 人生觀的科學) (1925 [2006]), and “A Critique of Shen’s Translation of Kropotkin’s Ethics” (Ping shen yi kelupaotejin de rensheng shanxing xue 評沈譯克 魯泡特金的人生善行學) (1928 [2006]), and “The  Gradual Teaching of the Mahayana and the Theory of Evolution” (Dasheng jianjiao yu jinhua lun 大乘漸教  I discuss this phase of Taixu’s career and its historiography extensively in chapter one of my monograph (Ritzinger 2017). Prior accounts of his youthful radicalism were based almost exclusively upon Taixu’s own writings, as well as those of Yinshun 印順 (1906–2005), especially the Autobiography of Taixu (Taixu zizhuan 太虛自傳) (1945, chapter 4) and Yinshun’s Annalistic Biography of the Great Master Taixu (Taixu dashi nianpu 太虛大師年普) (2000: 43, 45–47, 54–55), both of which minimize Taixu’s activities after 1911. For prominent examples of the standard narrative of this period, see Pittman (2001: 72–73), Welch (1968: 15–16), and Jiang (1993: 95–96). 11  The predecessor of the better known Sound of the Sea Tide (Haichaoyin 海潮音), which served as the flagship journal of Taixu’s movement. 10

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與進化論) (1930b [2006])—and referred to them in passing in many of his works. Although Kropotkin appears less frequently in Taixu’s writings thereafter, associates such as Zhifeng 芝峰, Fushan 福善, and Yu Deyuan 虞德元continued to treat this topic through the 1930s. Certainly, Taixu was not the only source of their interest in and knowledge of Kropotkin, but they all seem to repeat and elaborate the major themes of Taixu’s thought on the subject, suggesting that his influence was key. These works reveal that whereas Buddhists found Darwinian evolution to be antithetical to their deepest convictions, the Kropotkinite version held profound appeal. On his own terms, Kropotkin offers a theory of evolution in diametric opposition to all the aspects of Darwinism Buddhists found problematic. Kropotkin rejects competition in favor of cooperation as the primary force for progressive evolution, at least within species, although this is a qualification that was often ignored. Human progress has been and will continue to be reached through mutual aid rather than bloody struggle, undermining the justifications of imperialism. Conflict and competition lead not to advancement and evolution but destruction and decline. Prosperity and progress are instead to be found through cooperation. Moreover, the victims of imperialism need not try to beat the great powers at their own game. The way forward lies in transnational solidarity and mutual aid (Shouzhi 守志 [1931] 2006: 261). This was a key point for many and sometimes taken up in isolation from more explicitly religious concerns (Guotong 果通 [1935?] 2006). The political implications of one’s chosen evolutionary theory were sufficiently important to stand on their own. Moreover, as mentioned, Kropotkin was seen to wed science to morality, combining—as Zhifeng put it—the “ethics of the sages with biology” (Zhifeng [1932] 2006: 488). Science was generally viewed as corrosive of traditional ethical systems. Darwinism, in particular, was seen as actively regressive, damned by Taixu as “the theory that taught men to behave like beasts” (Taixu [1926] 2006: 384). Kropotkinite evolution, on the other hand, he lauded as the “theory that teaches men to improve their natures” (Taixu [1925] 2006: 66). Buddhist writers in China sometimes spoke of it as complement or corrective to the ethical humanism of Confucianism (Taixu 1925: 66), but whereas Confucianism was in a state of disrepute in the 1920s and 1930s, Kropotkin was seen as providing a scientifically sound naturalistic basis for an ethic of mutual care and self-sacrifice in the service of the greater good. As such, simply on its own terms, Kropotkin’s theory offered, in the estimation of Taixu and others, an antidote to a China “poisoned” by Darwinist thought (Taixu [1928] 2006: 274). But Kropotkin offered more to Buddhists than simply an evolution they could live with. Kropotkinite theory was seen to have deep resonances with Buddhist doctrine. This allowed Buddhist writers to present Kropotkin’s ideas as anticipated, and ultimately fulfilled, by Buddhism. This can be seen in three main areas: metaphysics, ethics, and teleology. In metaphysics, mutual aid is completed by dependent co-arising, according to Kropotkin’s Buddhist interpreters. As an anarchist, Kropotkin wanted to argue that

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no central authority is necessary. Self-organizing individuals engaged in mutual aid are sufficient for a harmonious society. He turned to science for proof. In physiology, he saw self-organizing cells and systems within the body; in biology, social animals; and in astronomy, the harmonious self-organization of celestial bodies that replaced the heliocentric universe. In all cases, order derives not from the domination of one part but through the inherent mutuality of all parties. Even the very principle of natural law itself is not some outside force, but nothing more than the relationship among phenomena (Kropotkin [1919] 2006: 264–267). Buddhist writers argued that this just does not take it far enough. In fact, this mutuality is characteristic of the most fundamental functioning of the universe: dependent co-arising. Already in the 1919 translation of Kropotkin’s “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal” a note—most likely by Taixu, the journal’s editor—asserts that this vision of cosmic mutuality bears much resemblance to the Huayan doctrine of the limitless arising of the dharmadhatu, the generative dynamism inherent in the principles of emptiness and interdependence (Kropotkin [1919] 2006: 264).12 Taixu makes this same point in his better known 192513 essay “Humanistic Science” (44) after which it becomes something of a truism in Buddhist discussions of mutual aid (Shouzhi [1931] 2006: 261; Zhu 朱鏡宙 [1948] 2006: 160). Kropotkin recognized the fact of mutual aid in the evolution of animal species and human societies, but only Buddhism can explain its ultimate basis in the interdependence of all dharmas (Yu 虞德元 [1934] 2006: 101–102). This metaphysics of mutuality takes mutual aid beyond even the stars and roots it in the very fabric of existence. In ethics, mutual aid is completed by the compassion of non-self. Kropotkinite evolutionism, in Buddhist readings, is the human cultivation of human nature and an antidote to the ruthless selfishness of Darwinist competitive struggle (Taixu [1925] 2006: 66). Yet while the spirit of self-sacrifice extolled by Kropotkin gestures toward selflessness and loving-kindness, it is still necessarily limited by notions of self. True generosity, true self-sacrifice, is possible only when one realizes the non-­ existence of the self. Without this, there is always bound to be some degree of attachment that compromises virtue. Only by recognizing the emptiness of self and other can the bodhisattva dedicate himself entirely to the welfare of others (Zhu [1948] 2006: 160).14 Moreover, some writers pointed out that Kropotkin’s vision of mutual aid is limited to members of the same species; therefore, it does not extend to animals (Taixu [1928] 2006: 271; Zhifeng [1932] 2006: 488). After all, one monk pointed out the Sutra of Brahma’s Net (Fanwang jing 梵網經) teaches that all beings were once one’s mother. We are thus bound by ties of mutual aid, not merely to other members of our society but to all living beings (Shouzhi [1931] 2006:

 Taixu makes precisely this point in connection with Kropotkin’s thought years later (1928: 270–271). 13  I refer here to the date of publication, rather than the date of composition, 1924, given in the Taixu dashi quanshu 太虛大師全書). 14  This is rather similar to the point Taixu makes in his commentary on the “Chapter on Reality” noted above. 12

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262).15 Such all-encompassing, complete compassion, it is argued, is possible only by eliminating the notion of self completely. In teleology, the evolution of humanity is completed by Buddhahood. Kropotkin is perceptive on the biological evolution of humanity and the social evolution of anarchy, but unaware of the ultimate telos of evolution. Just as humans are a higher stage of evolution than animals, there must be a higher level still than humans. This is Buddhahood (Zhifeng [1932] 2006: 488; [1936] 2006: 276–77). Thus true evolution is not biological or social but spiritual.16 This evolution is accomplished precisely by surpassing Kropotkin’s vision in the two respects mentioned above. Metaphysically, one recognizes the ultimate mutuality of all things. Morally, one perfects self-sacrificial compassion through the realization of the inexistence of self in that mutuality (Zhifeng [1932] 2006: 489; [1936] 2006: 277).17 Buddhism, subsuming and completing the mechanism of Kropotkin’s evolution, can bring human beings to this higher stage. Kropotkin is thus often presented as one who approached Buddhist teachings but fell short (Taixu [1928] 2006: 271–73), a great sage who had the misfortune to be born in a land without the Dharma (Zhifeng [1932] 2006: 490).

13.6  Conclusion: The Superscription of the Discursive Field In its general thrust, this tactic should not be terribly surprising. The argument that Buddhism anticipates, subsumes, and completes some discovery or discipline is a staple of Buddhist apologetics against science.18 Indeed, it is simply a staple of Buddhist apologetics generally. One often finds comparable tactics being deployed against Confucianism in earlier centuries. Yet there is a bit more happening here than simply an exercise in apologetics. Buddhist reformers were taking advantage of the internal debates of science—one of the constitutive discourses of modernity—in order to seize essential ideological territory. In China in the 1920s and 1930s, to be opposed to or incompatible with science was to be cast forever into the outer darkness of utter irrelevancy and forfeit any claim to be an asset to the nation worthy of protection and preservation. And evolutionary theory was not just any scientific idea. Yoked by Social Darwinists to models of human history and models

 Fushan makes the same point, but contrasts the interspecies vision of Buddhism with the intraspecies vision of Kropotkin indirectly via his reading of Plato, whose Republic he sees as founded on mutual aid (Fushan 1937: 389). 16  This was a common argument made in regard to evolutionary theory in general, not just the Kropotkinite version (Hammerstrom 2010: 234). 17  Taixu had made essentially the same point in less straightforward terms in “Ping shen yi kelupaotejin de rensheng shanxingxue” 評沈譯克魯泡特金的人生善行學 (Taixu [1928] 2006: 272). 18  For a cross-cultural survey, see Lopez (2008). For an extensive treatment of the issue in Republican China, see Hammerstrom (2015). Tao Jiang (2002: 545) maintains that this approach should not be seen as apologetics because it does not correspond to any of the typical approaches of Christian apologetics to science, but this would seem to define apologetics too narrowly. 15

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for future advancement, it was literally synonymous with progress, a central value of high modernity. Yet we have seen that Darwinism, at least in the vulgar readings that circulated most widely at the time, was deeply offensive to the sensibilities of Chinese Buddhists. Imperialism offended politically. “Eat or be eaten” offended morally. Self-assertion offended soteriologically. The ongoing debates over the precise mechanism of evolution allowed Buddhists to seize on the Kropotkinite alternative. By claiming that Buddhism anticipated, subsumed, and fulfilled Kropotkinite theory, Buddhists were not merely engaging in apologetics, at least as ordinarily understood. They were not simply defending their religion or “giving answer” to the questions and problems of the world. They were attempting to superscribe Buddhism onto the internal debates of modernity, to annex Kropotkin’s discursive space and thereby constitute Buddhism as a participant in that discourse, infusing it with their own concerns.19 In so doing, they sought both to appropriate Kropotkinite evolutionism’s impeccable credentials as a modern progressive ideology while at the same time beating back the tide of pernicious Darwinism. The extent to which these tactics were successful is likely limited. Certainly the arguments made would have left unimpressed most who were not already convinced of the veracity of Buddhist doctrine. Chinese Buddhists were also rather late to the party. Evolutionary discourse reached its zenith in the 1920s and over the course of the 1930s began to be eclipsed by Marxist dialectical materialism as the major idiom through which progress was conceptualized (Hammerstrom 2010: 234). Be that as it may, the present analysis highlights the importance of not only adopting but extending the insights of McMahan. Just as the discourses of modernity are heterogeneous and have evolved in interdependent tension, so too are the discourses themselves internally heterogeneous. The discourse of science speaks not with one voice but many. The internal debates of the discipline presented Buddhists with opportunities to exploit for their own discursive gain. Only by deconstructing monolithic conceptions of science and historically situating scientific discourse can the story of Buddhist engagements with science be told in full.

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 I borrow the concept of superscription here from Duara (1988), though I employ it somewhat differently.

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———. [1930b] 2006. Dasheng jianjiao yu jinhua lun大乘漸教與進化論 [Gradual Teaching of the Mahayana and the Theory of Evolution]. Reprinted in Vol. [ce 冊] 22 of Taixu dashi quanshu太虛大師全書 [Complete works of Master Taixu]. Included in Yinshun fashi foxue zhuzuo ji 印順法師佛學著作集 [Master Yinshun Corpus], CD-ROM, version 4.0. Zhubei, Taiwan: Yinshun wenjiao jijinhui 印順文教基金會. ———. [1933] 2006. Yuqie zhenshi yi pin jiang yao 瑜伽真實義品講要 [Lecture on the essentials of the Chapter on Knowing Reality from the Yogā(cārabhūmi śāstra)] Reprinted in Vol. [ce 冊] 7 of Taixu dashi quanshu太虛大師全書 [Complete works of Master Taixu]. Included in Yinshun fashi foxue zhuzuo ji 印順法師佛學著作集 [Master Yinshun Corpus], CD-ROM, version 4.0. Zhubei, Taiwan: Yinshun wenjiao jijinhui 印順文教基金會. ———. [1945] 2006. Taixu zizhuan 太虛自傳 [Autobiography of Taixu]. Reprinted in Vol. [ce 冊] 29 of Taixu dashi quanshu太虛大師全書 [Complete works of Master Taixu]. Included in Yinshun fashi foxue zhuzuo ji 印順法師佛學著作集 [Master Yinshun Corpus], CD-ROM, version 4.0. Zhubei, Taiwan: Yinshun wenjiao jijinhui 印順文教基金會. Wang, Hui. 2006. Discursive Community and the Genealogy of Scientific Categories. In Everyday Modernity in China, ed. Madeleine Yue Dong and Joseph Goldstein. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press. Welch, Holmes. 1968. The Buddhist Revival in China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Yinshun 印順. [2000] 2006. Taixu dashi nianpu 太虛大師年普 [Annalistic biography of the great Master Taixu]. In Yinshun fashi foxue zhuzuo ji 印順法師佛學著作集 [Master Yinshun Corpus], CD-ROM, version 4.0. Zhubei, Taiwan: Yinshun wenjiao jijinhui 印順文教基金會. Yu, Deyuan 虞德元. [1934] 2006. Renjian fojiao de huzhu jichu 人間佛教的互助基礎 [The foundation of mutual aid in Human Realm Buddhism]. Reprinted in Vol. 186 of Minguo fojiao qikan wenxian jicheng 民國佛教期刊文獻集成 [Grand compendium of Republican-era Buddhist periodicals and documents], edited by Huang Xianian 黃夏年, et al. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻縮微複製中心. Zarrow, Peter. 1990. Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture. New  York: Columbia University Press. Zhifeng 芝峯. [1932] 2006. Ping kelupaotejin rensheng zhexue 平克魯泡特金人生哲學 (sic) [An appraisal of Kropotkin’s “ethics”]. Reprinted in Vol. 67 of Minguo fojiao qikan wenxian jicheng 民國佛教期刊文獻集成 [Grand compendium of Republican-era Buddhist periodicals and documents], edited by Huang Xianian 黃夏年 et al. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻縮微複製中心. ———. [1936] 2006. Jinhua de rensheng 進化的人生 [Evolving life]. Reprinted in Vol. 192 of Minguo fojiao qikan wenxian jicheng 民國佛教期刊文獻集成 [Grand compendium of Republican-era Buddhist periodicals and documents], edited by Huang Xianian 黃夏年 et al. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻縮微複製中心. Zhu, Jingzhou 朱鏡宙. [1948] 2006. Fofa zhong zhi zhen huzhu 佛法中之真互助 [The true mutual aid in the Buddhadharma]. Reprinted in Vol. 103 of Minguo fojiao qikan wenxian jicheng 民國佛教期刊文獻集成 [Grand compendium of Republican-era Buddhist periodicals and documents], edited by Huang Xianian 黃夏年 et al. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian suowei fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻縮微複製中心. Justin R. Ritzinger is a scholar of modern and contemporary Buddhism in China and Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2010. His research focuses on the development and articulation of Buddhist modernism in the Chinese-­speaking world, particularly the role played by seemingly non-modern ideas and practices in that development. He is the author of Anarchy in the Pure Land: Reinventing the Cult of Maitreya in Modern Chinese Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2017) and has published on topics including Buddhist eschatology, engagements with anarchism and evolutionary theory, and the dynamics of Buddhist tourist development in contemporary China.  

Chapter 14

Japanese Responses to Evolutionary Theory, with Particular Focus on Nichiren Buddhists Yulia Burenina

Abstract  In modern Japan the term “evolution” has been used to refer not just to the biological concept, but also to social, cultural, political, and religious evolution, often conjoined with the popular nineteenth-century idea of progress. This essay introduces the Japanese discourse on Western evolutionary theory, especially the four major contending trains of evolutionary thought (two secular and two religious), and examines the religious responses to Darwinism in its various guises with special focus on Nichiren Buddhists. Nichirenism is one of the most influential currents of lay Buddhism in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan. Similar to many of their contemporaries, Nichirenists used the word “evolution” with several meanings and without a clear distinction between them. They accepted the general notion of evolution as commonsensical, but often critiqued aspects of Western evolutionary theory, biological as well as cultural and social. Thus, this essay argues that Japanese Buddhists were not just passive recipients of evolutionary theories, but active re-interpreters, rejecting some aspects and radically revising others. For instance, Nichirenists and other Japanese Buddhists challenged the idea of evolution as a linear process of progress and rejected any understanding of evolution as a random course of development, invoking the concepts of karma and the law of causality. This rejection of evolutionary randomness included the denial of the materialistic-mechanistic worldview seemingly inherent in Western evolutionism in favor of the spiritual pantheistic view of life based on the idea of universal Buddha-­ nature. This essay also shows that Nichiren Buddhists were characteristic in their rejection of the negative moral implications of popular Western evolutionism, This essay is based on my article previously published in Japanese (Burenina 2013) and a research paper “The Reception of Evolutionary Theory and Religious Studies in Modern Japanese Buddhism: the Case of Nichirenism” presented at the panel “Buddhism, Science, and Ideology in Modern Japan” during XXI World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (Erfurt University, Germany, 27 August 2015). I wish to express appreciation to the members of the panel discussion for their feedback and comments. Y. Burenina (*) Osaka University, Osaka, Japan © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. M. Brown (ed.), Asian Religious Responses to Darwinism, Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures 33, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37340-5_14

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including the view of human nature as ruthlessly selfish in the competitive struggle for survival.

14.1  Overview During 2009, the year of double anniversaries—the bicentennial anniversary of the birth of Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882) and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work On the Origin of Species (1859)—Darwin commemorations were held worldwide. In Japan, more than two hundred and seventy thousand people visited commemorative exhibitions at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo and the Museum of Natural History in Osaka, illustrating the popularity of evolutionary theory among the Japanese.1 Today, most Japanese people accept the theory of evolution in a general sense and believe that humans evolved from animals. Why this broad acceptance of a theory that, in other cultural contexts, has often been highly controversial? Various reasons have been proffered for Japan’s generally favorable attitude towards evolution. A famous Japanese zoologist Isono Naohide 磯野直秀 (1936–2012) argued that one of the reasons for the smooth2 acceptance of evolutionary theory by the Japanese was their familiarity with indigenous macaques, living examples readily suggestive of a simian-human continuity and common ancestry. Isono also noted that Darwin’s theory was introduced into Japan when society was undergoing drastic and stressful changes that might have made it easier for people to accept the idea of evolution as a “struggle for existence.”3 Another influential factor in the Japanese acceptance of evolutionary theory was the Buddhist religious background with its own special understanding of nature and humankind. The Buddhist doctrine of rebirth (rinne 輪廻) and impermanence (mujō 無常) assumes that humans can be reincarnated as animals and other living things and that all things are subject to change, that is, they evolve. Japanese Buddhists also are little interested in the details of cosmogenesis and largely ignore the few fragmentary creation myths within their own tradition, obviating any need to reconcile scriptural myths with evolutionary narratives. Buddhists in general, regardless of the school or denominations they belonged to— the Shin sect of Pure Land Buddhism (Jōdo Shinshū 浄土真宗) or the modern movement of Nichirenism (Nichirenshugi日蓮主義), which we will mainly discuss

 Setoguchi 2010: 1.  Clinton G. Godart in his seminal work on the history of evolutionary theory in Japan addresses the myth that the theory was uncontroversial among religious thinkers and that there was a smooth acceptance of it because of the absence of Christianity. For a nuanced discussion on a religious backlash against evolutionary theory and natural selection during the 1930s and 1940s, see especially Chapter 5 in Godart 2017. 3  Isono 1987: 239. 1 2

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in this chapter —shared a cyclical view of the universe, accounting to some extent for their disinterest in a true creation story since there are only cosmic renewals. Such a cyclical view derives in part from an Indian cosmological perspective, according to which time in general is a process of decline, not progress, until a fairly instantaneous renewal starts the cycle all over again. Interestingly, Buddhists were not the only ones who perceived progressive evolution as merely part of a dual process of development and degeneration. This way of thinking was also relatively common among Japanese intellectuals at the time: a Christian Uemura Masahisa 植 村正久 (1858–1925), a philosopher Miyake Setsurei 三宅雪嶺 (1860–1945), a Confucian philosopher Nishimura Shigeki 西村茂樹 (1828–1902), a noted novelist Natsume Sōseki 夏目漱石 (1867–1916), and several others challenged the idea of evolution as only positive development, claiming that within the process of evolution, progress and degeneration need to be thought of as two sides of the same coin.4 In any case, conceptions of cyclical time as well as of rebirth were to play critical roles in the Japanese Buddhist responses to Western evolutionary theories, facilitating a general acceptance, but also inspiring significant critiques and modifications. This essay examines early responses to evolutionary theory in modern Japan with special focus on Nichiren Buddhists. Nichiren Buddhism,5 one of the most influential currents of Buddhism in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Japan, exalts the Lotus Sūtra and its concept of an innate Buddha-nature (busshō 仏 性) in all living things. Given their interest in the nature of sentient beings, it is not surprising that Nichiren Buddhists, following the introduction of Darwinist ideas into Japan, came to engage evolutionary theory and reinterpreted it within a Buddhist framework. Yet most scholarly publications to date that discuss Japanese Buddhist responses to evolutionary theory focus on Pure Land Buddhism,6 and almost no literature is available on the reception of the theory by Nichiren Buddhists.7 To provide for a better understanding of the particular contributions of Nichirenism to the Japanese discourse on Western evolutionary theory, I will briefly outline the historical background underlying the initial political, social, and religious responses to Darwinism in its various guises.

 Funayama Shin’ichi 1959: 320.  Nichiren Buddhism is a comprehensive term covering several major schools and many subschools, as well as several of Japan’s new religions, such as Reiyūkai 霊友会, Risshō Kōseikai 立 正佼成会, and Sōka Gakkai 創価学会. Nichiren 日蓮 (1222–1282) was a thirteenth century Buddhist monk who lived in Japan and founded his sect in 1253. Nichiren particularly emphasized that salvation meant attaining Buddhahood in this lifetime. He also argued in Risshō ankokuron (one of the three major works of Nichiren) that to secure the peace of the nation the people must follow the true teachings of the Buddha expounded in the Lotus Sūtra. 6  For instance, see Nakagawa 1983 and Unoura 1989. 7  Clinton G. Godart shed some light on the religious reception of evolutionary theory by the followers of Nichiren Buddhism, such as Kita Ikki 北一輝 (1883–1937), Miyazawa Kenji 宮沢賢治 (1896–1933), Ishiwara Kanji 石原莞爾 (1889–1949), and Ikeda Daisaku 池田大作 (1928-). For details see Godart 2017: 135–147, 201–203. 4 5

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14.2  Introduction of Evolutionary Theory into Japan The introduction of evolutionary theory into Japan occurred early in the Meiji period (1868–1912), just after the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1867. The newly established Japanese government actively searched for international knowledge to strengthen the foundation of imperial rule under Emperor Meiji. Western science,8 perceived largely as the source of military technology in the form of battleships and guns during the Edo period (1603–1867), was re-evaluated as knowledge indispensable for the project known as “Civilization and Enlightenment” (bunmei kaika 文明開化) that could help transform Japan from a nonindustrial, feudalistic country to a significant global power. Thus, evolutionary theory9 along with other scientific disciplines entered Japan as part of a broad transmission of knowledge from the West. Many Japanese went abroad to study Western science and culture, and foreign experts (o-yatoi gaikokujin お雇い外国人) in various fields came to Japan. These foreign advisors played an important role in supporting modernization efforts. Among these advisors, an American naturalist Edward Sylvester Morse (1838–1925), hired as the first professor of zoology at Tokyo Imperial University, provided a series of lectures on evolutionary biology from 1877 to 1879. These lectures, based on the works of Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley, were translated into Japanese by his disciple, biologist Ishikawa Chiyomatsu 石川千代松 (1860–1935),10 under the title The Evolution of Animals (Dōbutsu shinkaron) and published in 1883. Morse is generally credited as the scientist who systematically introduced Darwin’s theory into Japan.11 He not only introduced evolutionary theory to academics at the university but also contributed to popularizing the theory among the Japanese people in general. He disliked Christianity but held great respect for the Japanese and their culture, unlike some Western Christians who “tended to treat the Japanese as morally inferior heathens.”12 This is probably why the Meiji government made every effort to maximize his exposure to the public. His lectures (in

8  On Japan’s encounter with Western science, see Bartholomew 1989. Watanabe Masao’s monograph includes discussions of Buddhism and science and of responses to Darwinism (Watanabe 1991). 9  Darwin’s name and his ideas were first (and inaccurately) mentioned by a Shinto priest Aoikawa Nobuchika 葵川信近 in 1874  in his refutation of Christianity. For details see, for example, Shimao 1981. 10  Ishikawa Chiyomatsu also published his New Evolutionary Theory (Shinka shinron) in 1891. 11  A German naturalist Franz Martin Hilgendorf (1839–1904), who gave lectures on evolution at Tokyo Medical Academy in 1874, predated Morse in bringing Darwin’s theory to Japan, but he was not as influential as Morse. Hilgendorf also translated the Origin into German and published it in 1860 (Yajima 1998). 12  Isono 1987: 239. According to Isono, Morse included more than biological concepts, such as social evolution, but his lectures did not hint of Social Darwinism except in one instance, when he remarked that a strong fighting instinct is required to prevail both in civilization and in warfare (Isono 1987: 226).

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English) were quite popular, as he spoke before audiences of six- to eight hundred on at least twelve occasions.13 He made a great impression upon the thinking public of Japan through his “chalk talks” on natural history, illustrated with quick, ambidextrous sketches on the blackboard.14 He also discussed and utilized the cultural artifacts from Ōmori shell mounds that he had helped to discover (Ōmori Kaizuka 大森貝塚),15 to introduce Japan’s long prehistory to his audience and thereby winning their respect. Shortly after Morse’s lectures, around 1880, another foreign expert gave a series of lectures at Tokyo Imperial University on Herbert Spencer’s social evolutionary thought. This new expert, Ernest Francisco Fenollosa (1853–1908), was more a social than a natural scientist, a professor of philosophy and political economy. Fenollosa shared with Morse a significant skepticism towards Christianity and was sympathetic to Buddhism.16 Fenollosa’s lectures greatly facilitated the spread of Spencer’s social evolutionism in Japan.17 Among Japanese intellectuals of different political and religious views, Spencer’s “survival of the fittest” became one of the key interpretive concepts for understanding their country’s own social development. Fenollosa’s early popularizing of Spencerism makes clear that evolutionary ideas introduced into Japan included far more than Darwin’s theory of organic evolution. Indeed, one of the first Japanese perceptions of evolution was as an ideal of incessant “struggle,” often combined with the notion of everlasting “progress,” both understood in social rather than strictly biological terms. Given the context of rapid social change, it is not surprising that Japanese thinkers were generally more concerned about the social implications of evolutionary theory rather than the biological details.18 In addition to foreign experts teaching in Japan, translations of Western works on evolution in its various modes were essential for the Japanese assimilation, comprehension, and (re) interpretation of Darwinian ideas. These translations included not only works of Darwin himself but of thinkers promoting various non-Darwinian notions of evolution such as Social Darwinism and Cooperative Evolution.19 Especially important were the writings of Herbert Spencer (1820–1903), Thomas

 Harper 2010: 76.  Tanaka 2004: 43. 15  In June 1877, while looking out a window on a train between Yokohama and Tokyo, Morse discovered Ōmori shell mounds, the excavation of which opened the study in archaeology and anthropology in Japan and shed much light on the material culture of prehistoric Japan. 16  Harding 2008: 119. 17  Concerning Spencerism in Japan, see, for instance, Godart 2015. 18  Earlier studies on the Japanese reception of and responses to evolutionism focused mostly on socio-political contexts. More recently, historians have discussed the impact of biological evolutionism, particularly, of Darwin’s idea of common descent and its contradiction with the idea of the divinity of the emperor in the late Meiji. On this topic, see Migita 2009. 19  Foreign books including English copies of Darwin’s Origin were available through some bookretailers, for example the  Maruzen Company, where educated Japanese fluent in English could purchase the Origin as early as 1876 (Harper 2010: 77). 13 14

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Henry Huxley (1825–1895), Ernst Heinrich Haeckel (1834–1919), Benjamin Kidd (1858–1916), Henri Bergson (1859–1941), and Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921). Huxley’s On the Origin of Species: or the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature (1862)20 was translated in 1879, prior to any translations of Darwin’s works. Spencer’s First Principles (1863) was first translated in 1882,21 again prior to any of Darwin’s works with the exception of a partial translation of The Descent of Man that appeared in 1881.22 Haeckel’s The History of Creation (Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte, 1868) was partially translated in 1888.23 The Origin was translated fully for the first time in 1896,24 and like the partial translation of the Descent, by a non-biologist. Kidd’s Social Evolution  (1894) was translated in 1899.25 The first translation of the Origin edited by a professional zoologist and popularizer of Darwinism, Oka Asajirō 丘浅次郎 (1868–1944), titled The Origin of Species (Shu no kigen), was published in 1905. Oka was famous for his bestselling Lectures on Evolutionary Theory (Shinkaron kōwa, 1904), written in a simple and easy to understand style, which helped popularize the theory in non-academic circles.26 Bergson’s Creative Evolution (L’Évolution créatrice, 1907) was translated in 1913 and had a wide appeal in Japan during the Taishō period (1912–1926).27 Ōsugi Sakae 大杉栄 (1885–1923), a radical Japanese anarchist influenced by Oka’s Lectures, published his own translation of Darwin’s Origin in 1914. Ōsugi was also one of the key introducers of the ideas of the famous Russian anarchist Kropotkin and his concept of mutual aid among animals as a more significant factor for  Isawa Shūji 伊澤修二 (1851–1917), an educator, who worked for the Japanese Ministry of Education, partially translated Huxley’s On the Origin of Species and published it under the title On the Origin of Living Things (Seishu genshiron). A complete translation made by Isawa appeared in 1889 (Morita 2010: 15). 21  Godart 2015: 75–77. 22  The translation of The Descent of Man titled as On the Ancestor of Man (Jinsoron) was made by a scholar of education Kōzu Senzaburō 神津専三郎 (1852–1897). The book was actually a hybrid, which included a mixture of chapters of the Descent together with part of the third edition of the Origin and some sections taken from Huxley’s Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature (1863). So this book can also be described as the first publication including a partial translation of a text from the Origin. For more information, see Kijima and Hoquet 2013. 23  The History of Creation was translated by Yamagata Teizaburō 山県悌三郎 (1858–1940) and published under the title A Guide to Evolution (Shinka yōron) by Fukyūsha (Tokyo). The full translation appeared in 1944–1946. 24  Darwin’s Origin was translated by a scholar of English literature Tachibana Senzaburō 立花銑 三郎 (1867–1901) and published under the title Origin of Living Things: [in other words:] On the Origin of Species (Seibutsu shigen ichimei shugenron). 25  Sumika 2013: 100. Tsunoda Ryūsaku 角田柳作 (1877–1964), who is often referred as the “father of Japanese studies” at Columbia University, published his translation from Kaitakusha. 26  Matsunaga 1988: 153. More than sixty thousand copies of Oka’s Lectures were sold by 1922 (Migita 2009: 34). 27  Kaneko Umaji 金子馬治 (1870–1937) together with Katsurai Tōnosuke 桂井当之助 (1887–1915) translated Creative Evolution and published from Waseda University Press. On the influence of Bergson in Japan, see, for instance, Miyayama 2006. 20

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e­ volution than competition. In 1917, Ōsugi published his translation of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (1902), which immediately became a bestseller.28 The importation of Western evolutionary theories in the early Meiji era was part of a much larger debate on the future of Japan in terms of national and social evolution.29 Japanese intellectuals with different political, social, and religious views assimilated evolutionary thinking to varying degrees and in various ways, appraising the merits and shortcomings of Western perspectives, and reinterpreting evolution for their own political and religious purposes. Let us look more closely at the major strands of this “multi-blended” biological, social, philosophical, cultural, and religious evolutionism that arose during the Meiji and continued into the Taishō era. Such an overview will provide a general context for understanding the specific responses of Nichiren Buddhists to evolutionary theory.

14.3  E  arly Political, Social, and Religious Responses to Evolutionary Theory Four major contending trains of evolutionary thought, two secular and two religious, arose among Japanese intellectuals in the Meiji period. The two secular strands we may call “samurai Darwinism” and “anarchical Darwinism,” respectively; the two religious responses, “theistic evolutionism” and “moral-spiritual evolutionism.” These strands at times overlapped and intertwined, the religious responses sometimes using arguments advanced by the secularists—often in common opposition to Western cultural and political imperialism. The earlier secular train of evolutionary thought is represented by the nationalistic “samurai Darwinism”30 of Katō Hiroyuki 加藤弘之 (1836–1916)31, the first president of the Tokyo Imperial University who had hired Morse and Fenollosa. Born into a samurai family, Katō espoused the traditional “Way of the Warrior” (Bushido), combined with ancestor worship epitomized by veneration for the emperor. He became familiar with Western science and political philosophy while studying and teaching at the Tokugawa Shogunate’s Institute for Foreign Studies (Bansho Shirabesho 蕃書調所, renamed Kaiseijo 開成所 in 1863) from 1860 to 1868. As a result, he was appointed a tutor (jikō 侍講) of the emperor in 1870 by the new government. Katō lectured on constitutional and international law to the young emperor Meiji using his own translation of The Theory of the State (Allgemeines

 The 31st edition of Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid in Ōsugi’s translation was published in 1924.  Harper 2010: 78. 30  Unoura Hiroshi coined the term “samurai Darwinism”; see Unoura 1991a, b. 31  For Katō Hiroyuki, see Davis 1996. 28 29

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Staatsrecht, 1851–1852), the work of a Swiss legal scholar Johann Caspar Bluntschli (1808–1881)32 based on the idea of the organic nature of the state.33 Katō was heavily influenced by Haeckel’s monism.34 He was greatly inspired by Haeckel’s The History of Creation (1868), which he read in the original German (Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte). In 1912 Katō recalled that around the age of 40 (1876), he became a “virtually different person” because he changed his dualistic views to purely monistic: he realized that only one natural law (he called it the “law of cause and effect”) exists in the universe, and it controls all phenomena. Katō also was one of the proofreaders (a biologist Ishikawa Chiyomatsu was among others) of the first Japanese translation of Haeckel’s best-selling The Riddle of the Universe (Die Welträtsel, 1895–1899). The book outlines Haeckel’s monistic philosophy and ethics, which he sees as the key to human progress. Katō followed Haeckel in his assertion of non-duality of matter and spirit and that the laws of nature had to become the laws of society.35 For Katō monism was “less a philosophical issue than a problem of what kind of society Japan is and should be.”36 Katō’s monism removed phenomena from a fixed world established by some supernatural entity; any religion in this context he regarded as an obstacle, while monistic philosophy and ethics he thought would have the best potential for social change.37 Katō was also heavily influenced by Spencer’s social theory, which he applied rigorously to the Japanese society of his day. In his nationalistic zeal, Katō strengthened his close ties with the Meiji government and used evolutionary theory in support of the political legitimacy of the emperor. Katō developed his “samurai Darwinism” by integrating the evolutionary concepts of Haeckel and Spencer with the ethical ideals of Bushido and ancestor worship. Specifically, he proposed a new moral principle based on the law of evolutionary competition and the spirit of loyalty to the emperor. He considered the principle of “rivalry for loyalty” (chūsei kyōsō 忠誠競争) among citizens, supported by the samurai spirit, as the motivating power for Japan’s transformation into the fittest nation in a cruel struggle for existence in the modern world.38 Katō played a significant role in popularizing the concept of “survival of the fittest,” coining two Japanese translations for the concept: “the stronger eats the

 Katō published a Japanese translation of the book under the title A General Treatise on National Law (Kokuhō hanron) in 1874. 33  For the further reading on Katō’s understanding of Bluntschli’s theory, see Katada 1996. 34  Haeckel embraced evolution not only as a scientific theory, but as a worldview, which he called “monism.” He coined the term to contrast with the dualisms of nature/man, matter/spirit, materialism/idealism. He proposed biological evolution as the central framework for the progressive organization of substance and sought the unity of all science under the umbrella of Darwinian theory. For details, see, for instance, Weir 2012. 35  See, for example, Katō’s preface to The Riddle of the Universe, translated by Okagami Ryō 岡上 梁 and Takahashi Masakuma 高橋正熊, published under the title Uchū no nazo in 1906 in Tokyo. 36  Tanaka 2004: 89. 37  Ibid., 90. 38  Unoura 1991a: 141–147. 32

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weaker” (jakuniku kyōshoku 弱肉強食) and “the superior wins and the inferior is defeated” (yūshō reppai 優勝劣敗).39 In his pamphlet titled A New Theory of Human Rights (Jinken shinsestu, 1882), Katō argued that the process of evolution from plants and animals to humans should be understood simply as survival of the fittest, meaning that those with the best constitution and physical and emotional vitality were bound to win over those who were weaker.40 He attacked the Movement for Freedom and People’s Rights (Jiyū Minken Undō, a political and social movement for civil rights in the 1880s) by claiming that individuals, as the “cells” of the social “organism,” were destined to a struggle for survival and that popular “rights” were not natural, but granted to the weak (citizens) by the strong (the state). Katō used his “samurai Darwinism” to justify the domestic policy of the Meiji government under the slogan “rich country, strong army” (fukoku kyōhei 富国強 兵), and at the same time to explain Japan’s weakness in the international arena compared with the stronger West. He envisioned Japan becoming stronger in the future,41 but in the meantime weaker Japan could compete with the “strong” Western civilization only in the moral sphere and not in the material and technological. An extreme materialist, Katō adamantly rejected all religions, including Christianity and Buddhism, because of their superstitious and unscientific character. He ridiculed Christians and Buddhists for placing their faith in God and Buddha, whom he called “ghosts” (bakemono 化け物) whose existence could never be proved.42 He regarded such beliefs as the main obstacles to intellectual progress and the nation’s survival. The second major secular train of evolutionary thought was the anarchical Darwinism of Marxist/socialists like Kōtoku Shūsui 幸徳秋水 (1871–1911).43 Kōtoku, unlike Katō, was anti-imperial: he rejected the divinity of the emperor on Darwinian grounds, declaring that the emperor was not a descendant of Shinto gods, but a mere human being. He was interested in the communist ideals of Marx and the anarchist ideas of Kropotkin. Kōtoku visited the United States in 1905 to be able to criticize the emperor, whom he saw as the prime advocate of capitalism in Japan, and to learn more about anarchist communism. When he returned to Japan in 1906, he soon was implicated in a plot to assassinate the emperor and executed in 1911. Another radical Japanese anarchist, Ōsugi Sakae, under the influence of Kōtoku, became a leading advocate of direct action. He was arrested frequently, and between 1906 and 1911 he spent over three years in prison. Ōsugi also was heavily influenced by Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid, which regarded cooperation rather than competition as the main driving force of evolution. As mentioned, he translated Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid in 1917 and his autobiography, Memoires of a Revolutionist 

 Kijima and Hoquet 2013: 35.  Yamawaki 1991: 209–212. 41  Nakazono 2012: 179. 42  Anderson 2014: 56. 43  For Kōtoku Shūsui, see Tierney 2015. 39 40

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(1899), in 1920.44 Henri Bergson’s works also had a great influence on Ōsugi. Not surprisingly, he was one of the first to introduce Bergson to the Japanese reading public.45 The two major strands of religious response to evolutionary theory were in part reactions to secular attacks like Katō’s, and in part defenses of particular traditions, specifically Christian and Buddhist, respectively—the latter at times comingled with Confucian and Shinto ideals. The third major train of evolutionary response, then, was that of Japanese Christian intellectuals who argued in their own defense that the Bible and belief in God were compatible with the modern scientific understanding of biological evolution. They rejected the anti-teleological and materialistic view of evolution espoused by the secularists and promoted the idea of theistic evolutionism: God as Creator used evolution to bring about His plan; in other words, the process of evolution occurs in compliance with the directions of God. For example, Kozaki Hiromichi 小崎弘道 (1856–1938), one of the leading Japanese Christians in the late nineteenth century, first learned evolutionary theory at Dōshisha University in Kyoto from an American naturalist and Christian missionary John Thomas Gulick (1832–1923),46 and concluded that there was no contradiction between the theory and the Bible. He accommodated the logic of evolution to a Christian worldview, regarding the universe as a living thing wherein God is immanent. Therefore, in the light of God’s immanence and guidance, human activities such as politics, economics, and culture come to have religious significance.47 Another well-known Japanese Christian evangelist, Uchimura Kanzō 内村鑑三 (1861–1930), also advocated the doctrine of theistic evolutionism. He argued that evolution was not an atheistic and mechanistic process, but that God decided and led its course.48 Uchimura accepted not only God-guided biological evolution but also social evolution. The role of religion in the evolution of society perturbed him greatly, and he found the answer in the internationally popular work, Social Evolution, by the British sociologist Benjamin Kidd. Kidd argued that religion (which for Kidd was primarily Christianity) had played a significant role in the course of human evolution and the evolution of Western civilization. He claimed that religion was probably essential to the evolutionary survival of a society. Kidd thus led Uchimura to recognize the possibility of a harmonious interplay between religion, society, and evolution.49 Social Evolution with its positive assessment of religion’s role in human progress, soon displaced Spencerism in Japan as the most popular analytical approach to social development. Turning to the indigenous Japanese religious responses to evolution, the fourth major strand, we find various intellectuals extending the hostile secular critiques of

 Yokoyama 2005: 243–251.  Stanley 1982: 61. 46  Concerning John T. Gulick, see Amundson 1994 and Harper 2010. 47  In this part about Kozaki Hiromichi I have relied on Dohi 1997 (esp. 30–31) and Matsumoto 1998. 48  Matsumoto 1998: 12–13. 49  Sumika 2013. 44 45

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Katō, but applying them only to Christianity with its other-worldly emphasis and belief in a Heavenly Father. These thinkers used social evolutionary theory for refuting the notion that Christianity was a positive factor in Japan’s economic and cultural development, and applied biological evolutionary theory to attack the Christian doctrine of creationism. Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 (1855–1944), for instance, utilized Spencerian notions of evolution to argue that the Japanese were at a lower stage of evolution than Europe and America—he himself had observed Europe’s superiority first hand while living in Germany from 1884–1890—and thus Japan must limit the intrusion of Westerners into Japanese society to avoid the loss of Japanese culture and national identity. Indeed, he felt it possible that if the more advanced Westerners gained free access to Japanese society, the Japanese people could be overpowered and even become extinct.50 Upon his return to Japan, he became the first full professor in the philosophy department at Tokyo Imperial University. One of the great conservative ideologues of Meiji Japan, he espoused an ardent nationalism infused with Confucian ideals of loyalty and filial piety, ideals he thought were in radical opposition to Christian beliefs. And the Christian monotheistic belief in a Heavenly Father contradicted the traditional Shinto idea of divine ancestors and the divinity of the Emperor himself.51 Confucianism and Buddhism, in Inoue’s view, had both assisted in the development of a national morality, while Christianity, with its other-worldly emphases, had harmed Japan. His close friend, the Buddhist thinker Inoue Enryō 井上円了 (1858–1919), devoted whole books to the refutation of Christianity and emphasized that the Christian doctrine of creation was incompatible with modern science.52 We shall return to Inoue Enryō in a moment, but first want to note certain general characteristics of the specifically Buddhist responses to evolutionary theory. The most significant indigenous religious response to evolutionary theory was the spiritual evolutionism of Buddhist thinkers. They were reacting in part to the Japanese Christian critiques of Buddhism, but they also wanted to demonstrate the modern relevance of Buddhism to society. The anti-Buddhist policies (haibutsu kishaku 廃仏毀釈, lit. “Destroy Buddha, cut down Śākyamuni”) of the early Meiji era, the reappearance of Christianity and growth of its popularity among Japanese intellectuals, and rapid political, social, and cultural modernization caused crucial changes in Buddhist self-understanding. Buddhist intellectuals attempted specifically to develop an approach to Buddhism that was compatible with evolutionary theory. Such a positive reception of the theory offered a number of benefits to Buddhism. First, Buddhists could pursue reforms in order to compete with Christianity, which was then considered the “fittest” in the struggle for religious influence. Second, they learned the grounds for critiquing Christian doctrine from the perspective of evolutionary theory. Third, by emphasizing the compatibility of

 Davis 1976: 7–8.  Davis 1976: 11. 52  On anti-Christian discourse in Meiji Japan, see Paramore 2009. 50 51

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Buddhism and evolution, they could show that Buddhism was superior and more scientific than Christianity. The philosophy of Inoue Enryō,53 a Shin Buddhist mentioned above, is an important example of the Buddhist assimilation and modification of evolutionary theory. Inoue Enryō was greatly inspired by evolutionism and the Hegelian dialectic of development. He created a Buddhist evolutionary theory that combined linear Western evolution with the traditional Buddhist cyclical view of time and nature. He argued that evolution (shinka 進化) would eventually be followed by retrogression (taika 退化). The universe would eventually return to its original state, completing the cycle, only to be followed by another round of evolution-retrogression, ad infinitum. Inoue also applied evolutionary ideas to the development of the Buddhist tradition itself. In his bestselling Introduction to the Revitalization of Buddhism (Bukkyō katsuron joron, 1887), Inoue attempted to prove the intellectual and social value of Buddhism by arguing that Buddhism had demonstrated its own evolutionary success through the course of its external and internal development. Buddhism as a “living entity” had adapted itself to various external environments in India, China, and Japan, and over time had developed internally a variety of different doctrines and schools. Consistent with his reinterpretation of Buddhism as a modern philosophy, Inoue founded an institute for philosophy (Tetsugakkan 哲学館, lit. “Philosophy Hall,” present-day Tōyō University) that opened in 1887, where another influential Shin Buddhist thinker Kiyozawa Manshi 清沢満之 (1863–1903), taught psychology and the history of philosophy. Inoue Enryō54 and Kiyozawa Manshi55 both studied philosophy under the renowned Fenollosa, while being greatly influenced by Hegel’s dialectics and the works of numerous Western philosophers including Spencer. In a series of essays titled “Buddhism and Evolutionary Theory,”56 Kiyozawa, like Inoue Enryō, asserted that the Western theory is valid to an extent, but is limited in a number of ways. First, Western evolutionism, both social and biological, emphasizes exclusively development and progress, thereby neglecting the opposite process of devolution and retrogression. Kiyozawa noted that all civilizations have their own golden ages of art, architecture, literature, and so forth, but they also undergo dark ages, so that social and cultural development are not just processes of linear progress. At any given point in time, a civilization may be progressing or retrogressing. Second, Kiyozawa interpreted evolutionary theory in terms of the fundamental Buddhist law of causality and its three basic concepts: a direct cause (Japanese: in  For the following overview of Inoue Enryō’s thoughts I have primarily relied on Godart 2004, 2008. 54  Katō Hiroyuki was also Inoue’s teacher and one of the major sponsors for his institute (Godart 2008). 55  Bloom 2003: 22. 56  Originally “Buddhism and Evolutionary Theory” (“Bukkyō to Shinkaron”) appeared serially in Mujintō (a journal published by the Ōtani sect of Pure Land Buddhism) in Vol.1, issues 2-4, December 1895-February 1896. In this essay I have referred to its reprint edition (Kiyozawa 2003). 53

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因, Sanskrit: hetu), an indirect cause, causal factors, or circumstances (Japanese: en 縁, Sanskrit: pratyaya), and an effect (Japanese: ka 果, Sanskrit: phala). He claimed that Western evolutionary theory explains the mechanism of evolution only through the connection between an indirect cause (en) and effect (ka), while the Buddhist law of causality explains evolution in terms of both direct (in) and indirect (en) causes. Kiyozawa gave heredity (iden 遺伝) as an example of one of the indirect or casual factors (en) that could explain some, but not all, similarities between parents and children and could help to predict their characters. More significantly, however, indirect causes could not explain the differences between parents and children, and between the children themselves. Only the direct cause (in) could explain the uniqueness of each individual. This naturally raises the question of what is the direct cause. In an essay titled “Heredity and Karma,”57 Kiyozawa clearly claimed that the direct cause is karma, which impels an individual to choose parents appropriate to his or her karma. This karma-impelled choosing of parents thus underlies the hereditary similarities between parents and children, while the particular karmic dispositions unique to each individual carried from previous lives accounts for the distinct characters of the children. In other words, as the direct cause, karma is crucial for explaining both hereditary similarities and non-hereditary differences. For Buddhists, indirect causes include not only heredity but also environmental factors. While later Darwinists rejected the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics, Darwin himself, in his The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), advanced his theory of “pangenesis” which allowed for some degree of environmental influence on inheritance—with random variation and natural selection still playing major roles. Kiyozawa, although not referring explicitly to the notion of pangenesis, clearly had Darwin’s theory in mind, criticizing it for being incomplete. The theory of pangenesis suggested that all parts of the parents (through gemmules) could contribute to the evolution and development of the offspring, but this did not explain, in Kiyozawa’s mind, how organisms living in the same environment could develop diverse traits. The ultimate origin of variation, whether manifesting through hereditary or environmental factors or both, is karma, the direct cause (in). That is the reason why Kiyozawa deems the Buddhist doctrine superior to the Western evolutionary theory, which refers to evolution as a result of indirect causes (en), without taking direct cause (in) into account.

∗∗∗

In the four major trains of evolutionary response, both secular and religious, we may note that various political, nationalistic, and spiritual concerns often intertwined. And all responses, however opposed to each other on certain key issues, were still more concerned with the social, cultural, and political implications of evolutionary thought than with the details of organic evolution, which were not well understood. Japanese critiques of western evolutionary theory were primarily based on general  Originally “Heredity and Karma” (“Iden to gōkan”) was written in 1895. I have referred to its reprint edition (Kiyozawa 2002).

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and abstract philosophical or religious principles. These characteristics are prevalent in the Nichirenist responses as well.

14.4  Nichiren Buddhist Responses to Evolutionary Theory The two most important and influential advocates of the modern Buddhist movement of Nichirenism58 were Tanaka Chigaku 田中智学 (1861–1939) and Honda Nisshō 本多日生 (1867–1931). Their writings and activities popularized the term Nichirenism and attracted not only religious figures, but also educators, politicians, and even military leaders to the movement.59 Both were born into families of Nichiren devotees, and both joined Nichiren temples in their youth. They each became modernizing reformers of Nichiren Buddhism but took different routes. Tanaka eventually laicized and returned to secular life to begin his own reform of Nichiren Buddhism from outside the temple priesthood, convinced that lay Buddhism was the Buddhism of the future.60 Honda, on the other hand, remained a member of the priesthood as the leader of the small Nichiren denomination Kempon Hokkeshū 顕本法華宗 until his death. He devoted his life to reforming Nichiren Buddhism from within the priestly hierarchy, even though some of his radical reform policies led to his being disrobed and deprived of his Buddhist name for three years (1892–1895).61 Tanaka and Honda reinterpreted Nichiren Buddhism as a religion that was both compatible with modernity and useful to the Japanese state. In their reinterpretations, evolutionism became one of the critical tools for proving Nichirenism’s worthiness and credibility. Tanaka and Honda asserted that while the Western theory  The term Nichirenism was coined by Tanaka Chigaku at the turn of the twentieth century. As a reinterpretation of Nichiren Buddhism in the context of Japanese modernity, this movement includes different philosophical and religious standpoints that derive in some way from the teaching of Nichiren. For the comprehensive study on Nichirenism, see Ōtani 2001, 2019. 59  Proponents of Tanaka’s ideas included Takayama Chogyū 高山樗牛 (1871–1902), the noted writer popularized as the “Nietzsche of Japan”; Miyazawa Kenji 宮沢賢治 (1896–1933), a famous writer who was greatly inspired by the Lotus Sūtra and Nichiren Buddhism; and Ishiwara Kanji 石 原莞爾 (1889–1949), a career officer in the Imperial Japanese Army remembered for his notion of “Final War” between the U.S. and Japan. As for Honda Nisshō, his central theme of the unification of all Buddhists through the firm foundation of the teaching of Śākyamuni Buddha following the basic thrust of the Lotus Sūtra was highly influential. Just one month after Honda’s death, in April 1931, his pupil, Buddhist activist Seno’o Girō 妹尾義郎 (1889–1961), formed the New Buddhism Youth League in Tokyo. This “New Buddhism” emphasized the unification of all Buddhists under the name of Śākyamuni Buddha (Ōtani 2001, 2019). 60  To modernize Nichiren Buddhism, Tanaka founded a series of lay organizations, the most enduring of which was the National Pillar Society (Kokuchūkai 国柱会), established in 1914. 61  Like Tanaka, Honda founded a number of lay societies, including Tenseikai 天晴会 established in 1909 for scientists, politicians, military officers and other prominent intellectuals of various fields, and Chimeikai 地明会 in 1911 for females. Seminars and lectures on Nichiren Buddhism were held at both these organizations. 58

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explains the physical evolutionary process of biological organisms (including humans) on this planet, Buddhism provides a broader perspective beyond the normal naturalistic presuppositions of modern science. Nichiren Buddhism, in their view, could complete and fulfill Western ideas of evolution. Let us turn to Tanaka’s and Honda’s assimilation and critique of western evolutionary ideas under several major themes, beginning with the idea of religious evolution.

14.4.1  Evolution and the Development of Religion Little information is available on where and when Tanaka and Honda first learned of evolutionary theory. We do know that Honda was among the first students of Inoue Enryō’s newly established (in 1887) private academy of philosophy (Tetsugakkan), where he may have learned about Western theories, particularly Spencerian evolutionism, in classes on psychology, philosophy, ethics, and sociology. He was also deeply influenced by the religious evolutionism of a Dutch theologian Cornelis Petrus Tiele (1830–1902).62 Tiele expounded a religious typology that explained the history of religions as the evolutional progress from naturalism to ethical or universal religion, represented by only three members: Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity. For Tiele, while these three universal religions were at the apex of evolutional development, this did not imply that the three religions were on the same level.63 Specifically regarding Buddhism, Tiele regarded it as close to Christianity because its worship can adapt itself to any place or time. But Tiele also noted its atheistic origins and consequent neglect of the Divine, making it simply a close second to Christianity with its greater potential for universal inclusiveness, the indispensable characteristic of the ultimate future universal religion. It is out of Christianity, according to Tiele, that the ultimate religion will evolve that will include all human beings. Honda drew heavily upon Tiele’s developmental schema but reversed the hierarchy of universal religions, with Nichiren Buddhism at the top.64 He created his own classification of Japanese religions, which included eleven types of religions,65 the  It is not clear when Honda first read Tiele. The earliest available evidence is in his essay “On the Object of Worship” (“Honzonron”), where Honda refers to Tiele’s typology of religions as “the best classification” for his time (Honda 1901: 8). 63  For more information concerning the process and stages of religion’s development in Tiele, see Molendijk 2004. 64  For a discussion on Honda’s evolutionary interpretation of the development of religion, see Burenina 2016. 65  Honda’s typology included animal worship (Inari worship), animism (mountain worship), fetishism (mirror and katana worship in Shintō), hero-worship (as at the Nogi shrine), kathenotheism (Kannon and Fudō Myōō worship), polytheism (Shintō), henotheism (Pure Land Buddhism), monotheism (Christianity), pantheism (Unitarianism), universalism (the Shingon sect), and “oneGod-centric pantheism” (Nichiren Buddhism based on the Lotus Sūtra). See, for instance, Honda 1925. 62

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most highly developed being the “one-God-centric pantheism” (tōitsu shinkyō 統一 神教, more specifically the “one-Buddha-centric pantheism,” in which Buddha is identical to Śākyamuni66), represented by the Lotus Sūtra and doctrine of Nichiren Buddhism. Honda’s one-God-centric pantheism can also be called an “inclusive monotheism,” a monotheism that includes pantheism. He probably searched in Buddhism for the equivalent of the Christian God, but not an exclusive monotheistic one. Although Honda included monotheism in his classification, he placed it lower in rank than pantheism. But pantheism is also not the apex of development for him, because its conception of God is vague and abstract. In this regard, by “one-­Buddha-­ centric pantheism,” Honda attempted to unite strong points of monotheism (a clear faith consciousness with an actual religious figure at the center of it—namely, Śākyamuni) and pantheism (the belief in the all-pervading Buddha-nature embodied in Śākyamuni and all beings). Honda’s “ideal religion” (risōteki shūkyō 理想的宗教), needless to say, was not included in Tiele’s classification. Honda insisted that there was no “one-God-centric pantheism” in Western culture, and that humanity could realize the ideal religion only through following the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra and Nichiren doctrine. Honda, like many Japanese Buddhists of the time, opposed the idea that monotheism is the most evolved form of religion, a notion quite common among Western scholars. Japanese Buddhists saw in pantheism the final stage of religion’s development, and Buddhism, as pantheism, was regarded as the religion of the future, because they understood it as an essentially scientific and rational construct.67 The existence of a divine creator in monotheistic religions (especially Christianity) was viewed as incompatible with science, while pantheistic religions, in spite of the absence of such a creator, still appreciated the universe as more than just a materialist reality. The Buddhist notions of causation according to which the universe is subject to natural laws without the need for any form of divine intervention, seemed more scientific for Japanese Buddhists. Tanaka and his followers, like Honda, were interested in the evolutionary development of religions and also in providing a set of criteria for determining the value of different religious doctrines. For this purpose they elaborated upon and reinterpreted Nichiren’s Five Principles of Propagation (gokō 五綱), the first and last of which are especially relevant.68 The first, regarding the different teachings of  Honda’s interpretation of Śākyamuni is closely related to the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, which states that Śākyamuni has actually been a Buddha since the eternal past. In other words the historical Śākyamuni, who was born in India and died at the age of eighty, was not simply a being who was born and died, but a manifestation of the eternal Śākyamuni in this world; Śākyamuni is originally eternal (the eternal original of Buddha) and is based on the eternal truth (dharma), but he appeared in India to save sentient beings and then returned to the original world of eternal existence after performing that task (Tamura 1989, 42–43). 67  For instance, Nakanishi Ushirō 中西牛郎 (1859–1930) referred to Buddhism as “pantheism.” For him, there were three stages in the evolution of religion: polytheism, monotheism, and pantheism. For details, see Yoshinaga 2012 and Hoshino 2012. 68  Tanaka Chigaku and his disciples interpreted Nichiren’s Five Principles as follows. The first principle, that of “doctrine” (kyō 教), represented a comparative study of Buddhist teachings. The 66

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Śākyamuni, already placed the Lotus Sūtra and Nichiren’s doctrine at the apex. The fifth principle, the “sequencing” (jyo 序) of teachings, assumed the hierarchy of doctrines propounded under the first principle. Sequencing was originally intended as a pedagogical strategy for spreading Nichirenism, starting with the simplest and ending with the most sophisticated and refined teachings of the Lotus Sūtra. Tanaka, his disciple Yamakawa Chiō 山川智応 (1879–1956), and Tanaka’s third son Satomi Kishio 里見岸雄 (1897–1974) interpreted the sequencing of teachings as an evolutionary history of Buddhism. In other words, according to the principle of sequencing, Buddhism had undergone a process of evolutional development, from the Theravada tradition through “General Mahayana” to “Specific Mahayana,” with Nichirenism being the final stage in which Buddhism attained its full development. Yamakawa referred to Nichiren’s Five Principles of Propagation as illustrating the evolutionary laws of the spread of religion as well as “preparation for the construction of a unified religion” (tōitsuteki shūkyō 統一的宗教) that would elevate both individuals and the state.69 Satomi believed that it was “a great anachronism to propagate primitive religion in the civilized world”; thus, Nichirenism was meant to be the only form of religion that was in alignment with modernity, because the goal of Nichirenists was regarded as enlightenment gained not by withdrawal from the world, but by active involvement in society, simply with a different mindset. This notion of active involvement in society was crucial in positioning Nichirenism as the religion of modern spirit. Moreover, he emphasized that Nichiren’s evolutionary interpretation of religion anticipated modern attempts, and thus demonstrated Nichiren Buddhism’s significance to the modern world. He wrote: Modern religious research has been strongly influenced by Darwin’s theory since its appearance, and there has been additional evolutionary inquiry. However, [Western] evolutionary theory is a very recent discovery, so Western religious scholars should recognize the fact that Nichiren’s doctrine was headed in this direction 700 years ago.70

As the above illustrates, Nichiren Buddhists attempted to compete with Western scholars for the honor of being the first to interpret religion evolutionally. They applied evolutionary theory and religious studies as modern methodologies to establish the “scientific” foundation of Nichiren Buddhism. The teleological interpretations of the development of religion espoused by Tanaka and Honda are no longer serious contenders; however, for Nichiren Buddhists, the Western idea of evolution was a useful tool for their time. The idea of progress helped them focus on the present and future of Nichiren Buddhism, taking into account its ability to modernize Japanese society.

second principle, of “capability” (ki 機), was interpreted as psychological research into people’s aptitude for Buddhism. The third principle, of “the times” (ji 時), described a sociological study of different periods of history. The forth principle, of “country” (koku 国), represented a state-ethnic study of religious influence. The fifth principle, of “orders” (jyo 序), involved an evolutionistic study of Buddhism (Tanaka 1911: 200–202; Yamakawa 1917: 131; Satomi 1923: 14–15). 69  Yamakawa 1917: 131. 70  Satomi 1921: 337–339.

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14.4.2  Evolution and Retrogression Although Nichiren Buddhists used extensively the idea of progress to describe the development of their own religious tradition, they challenged—like many of their Japanese contemporaries—the Western understanding of evolution as exclusively linear progress. Honda, following his teachers Inoue and Kiyozawa, believed that in the process of evolution, everything—from human beings to the universe—undergoes cycles of development and destruction, progress and retrogression. Nevertheless, he focused on the contrast of cosmic evolution introduced by evolutionary theory and the idea of an unchanging Buddha-world emphasized in the Lotus Sūtra. In his commentary on the sixteenth chapter of the Sūtra, which reveals the eternal life of Śākyamuni and elucidates that his realm will never be destroyed, Honda claims: According to present scientific knowledge, no matter how long humanity will last, it will eventually end in destruction (hakai 破壊). Modern science claims that humanity came into existence approximately 200,000 years ago. Before that, there was a nebula where everything burned in a red cloud. Land, mountains, humanity—all of it was destroyed and burned away. As the nebula gradually cooled down, the heavier things moved down and lighter things moved up, leading to the evolution (shinka 進化) of animals and humans. This has been scientifically proved, and is the same as what Buddhism explains. Therefore, “the kalpa’s end” [end of the current cosmic age described in the Lotus Sūtra] is the time…when this world will be destroyed. But even then…the world of Buddha will remain tranquil and immortal.71

As the above quotation illustrates, evolution could be understood as a part of the Buddhist cyclical cosmology, and by showing the compatibility of evolutionary theory with Buddhist teachings, Honda emphasized the scientific nature of the Buddhist doctrine. However, in contrast to the world that is destroyed and evolves repeatedly, the world of the Buddha is unchanging, making it the salvation for humanity, according to Honda. This unchanging Buddha-world is not beyond space and time. It exists in this world; people just need to change their usual mindset. Honda refers to the following well-known gatha (verse) of the Lotus Sūtra: When all the living see, at the kalpa’s end, The conflagration when it is burning, Tranquil is this realm of mine… My Pure Land will never be destroyed, Yet all view it is as being burned up, And grief and horror and distress. Fill them all like this. All those sinful creatures,

 Honda 1982: 356–357. I have referred to the reprint edition of Hokekyō no shinzui. It was originally published in 1917. It is not clear what scientific sources concerning the nebula Honda may have used. We do know that he was among the first students of Inoue Enryō’s private academy of philosophy, where he may have learned about Western theories, particularly the nebular hypothesis, for example, through Spencer’s works. Inoue Enryō also referred to the nebula theory in his works. See, for instance, Takagi 1989: 7.

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By reason of their evil karma, Throughout asamkhyaya [countless] kalpas, Hear not the name of the Precious Tree. But all who perform virtuous deeds. And are gentle and of upright nature, These all see that I exist. And am here expounding the Law.72

The Sūtra explains that the rhythm of the eternal existence of Śākyamuni and his realm is perceived through the activity of practice in the real world. The historical Śākyamuni indicates this aspect precisely, and the sixteenth chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, titled “Lifespan of Tathagata,” explains that the eternal Buddha, Śākyamuni himself, has been engaged in bodhisattva practices endlessly.73 In other words, attaining of Buddhahood in this world is closely related to social engagement. We find similar thoughts on evolution, retrogression and Buddha land in Tanaka’s writings. He often contrasted Western evolutionary theory with the traditional Mahayana Buddhist notion of the three waning ages of dharmic truth and virtue found in such scriptures as the Lotus Sūtra. According to this text, the first age, that of “the pure dharma” or “true law” commenced immediately following the Buddha’s death, and would degenerate gradually until culminating centuries later in the “age of dharma decline” (mappō 末法).74 Tanaka argued, for example: In the third age of Buddhism, things degenerate, getting worse as time progresses; in other words, it follows a “principle of degeneration” (taikasetsu 退化説). However today, a “theory of evolution” (shinkaron 進化論) has become prominent. Because people now say that things are gradually getting better, some believers are confused and doubt the idea of the “three ages”…. From our small perspective as humans, within our small history…we call it progress, but everything in the universe is constantly progressing (shinpo 進歩) and decaying (taiho 退歩); we are always moving towards both “progress” and “decay.” Everything in the spiritual world and physical world is at once progressing and decaying…and as there are many negative sides to progress and many positive sides to decay, such progress should be ethically and religiously recognized as decay.75

Tanaka thus acknowledges that progress may characterize modern civilization in its material sphere, at least for the moment, but degeneration pervades the ethical, religious, and spiritual spheres. At the same time, the final part of the quotation points to a certain optimistic understanding of mappō. Such an optimistic view can already be seen in the Lotus Sūtra and its prediction of a glorious future for the propagation

 The Threefold Lotus Sutra, 255.  Tamura 1989: 42–43. 74  The theory of mappō divides history into three ages: the age of “true law” (shōbō), the age of “imitative law” (zōbō) and the age of “dharma decline” or the “end of the teachings” (mappō). From medieval times in Japan, mappō was often understood as an eschatological end-of-the-world idea. Methods of coping with the age of dharma decline were of particular concern for Japanese Buddhists during the Kamakura period (1185–1333), and were an important factor in the rise of new sects, including Nichiren. For a discussion on mappō, see Marra 1988a, b. 75  Tanaka 1914: 80. I have referred to the 7th edition; the first was published in 1902. 72 73

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of Buddhism, particularly in the age of mappō. Nichiren himself noted that although the layperson’s abilities would become inferior in the third age, the Lotus Sūtra could save them. Tanaka also understood mappō as a period of major advancement for Buddhist dharma, saying that as the times worsen, the teachings would improve: The older times were better, and the newer times are worse; as a result, however, the Buddhist teachings, which are the salvation of every era, are more shallow and inferior in good times and more profound and excellent in bad times….As the times get worse, it happens that better teachings emerge, just as advances in medicine are made when a disease worsens. Weak medicine is used for light illness, and superior medicine is used for serious illness.76

Going further, Tanaka offered his own evolutionistic view of Nichiren Buddhist history, positioning Nichirenism at the apex of a unilinear progressive evolution within the age of decline. He divided mappō into three periods: the first “age of construction” (konryū jidai 建立時代) began with the birth of Nichiren and the establishment of his doctrine; the next “age of proclamation and propagation” (kōfu jidai 広 布時代) saw the spread of Nichiren’s doctrine after his death up to the present; and the final “age of unification” (tōitsu jidai 統一時代) shall occur with the inevitable realization of the perfect Buddha land on Earth.

14.4.3  Evolution, Diversification, and Unification Regarding the final age of unification, Nichiren Buddhists argued that while the general evolutionary process produces increasing diversification from an original oneness, there is also a process at work aiming at an eventual unification. Just as civilization and the cosmos at large undergo cycles of development and degeneration, so also evolutionary differentiation is balanced with simplification and harmony. Thus, Nichiren Buddhists accept evolution as “differentiation” or “specialization” (bunka 分化), but emphasize that it is only one aspect of the overall theory, accentuating instead the ideal “unity” (tōitsu 統一) and “harmony” (chōwa 調和) of this diversity.77 For Tanaka and Honda, it is more important to discover the  Tanaka 1911: 170–171. I have referred to the 7th edition; the first was published in 1910.  The engagement with evolutionary theory was one of the sources for the emphasis on “unity” and “harmony” in Nichiren Buddhist doctrine. We also should consider the huge role of the key principle of Tendai (Chinese: T’ien-t’ai) and Nichiren Buddhism: “the three thousand realms in one mind” (ichinen sanzen 一念三千). The word ichinen means a single moment of conscious awareness. Sanzen literally means “three thousand,” in reference to the three thousand worlds. In this sense, the word “worlds” does not literally refer to different worlds. The meaning might better be translated as “modes of existence.” Ichinen sanzen is the theoretical formulation of the key insight of the Lotus Sūtra, which explains that the realm of the microcosm (one mind) and the realm of the macrocosm (three thousand realms) are interdependent and one in their true state, forming a harmonious whole. Nichiren recognized the importance of ichinen sanzen and made it a central part of his own teaching and he mentions it many times in his major treatises and other writings. For more information on this principle, see Stone 1999.

76 77

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basic principle that keeps all things together and unifies them for a certain purpose. In other words, discovering the principle that could make diversity (biological, social, cultural, religious) exist in its unified and harmonized form was of primary importance. Using the metaphor of a phylogenetic “tree,”78 one can say that evolutionary theory describes the “branches” of the “tree,” while the Buddhists attempted to explain its “roots.” Tanaka’s idea of the “age of unification” is characterized by collective enlightenment in a realized Buddha land. These notions are similar to Honda’s idea of “unified civilization.” Honda followed Spencer in his understanding of the central theme of evolution as the process through which things develop from one to many, from simple to complex, or in other words, from homogeneity to heterogeneity.79 For Honda, since natural history and spiritual history are two sides of the same coin, human societies developing from uncivilized to civilized was another form of transformation from simple to complex. The culmination of this development is the realization of this harmony and unity residing within this complexity and diversity. Therefore, he divided civilization into three temporal stages working towards the ideal society: “mixed civilization” (konseiteki bunmei 混成的文明), “specialized civilization” (bunkateki bunmei 分化的文明), and “unified civilization” (tōitsuteki bunmei 統一的文明).80 Another interesting inquiry into the mechanism of evolution and the meaning of specialization and unification can be seen in the thoughts of Kobayashi Ichirō 小林 一郎 (1876–1944), a Nichiren Buddhist layperson and Japanese scholar of philosophy and lecturer at Tokyo Imperial University. He defined evolution as the process of division, in which “one became two, four, eight, sixteen,” but noted that the “law of evolution” (shinka no hōsoku 進化の法則) should refer not only to diversity and complexity, but should also reveal the rule for the unity of the divided (evolved)

 A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a branching diagram or “tree” showing the inferred evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities—their phylogeny— based upon similarities and differences in their physical or genetic characteristics. Darwin also produced one of the first illustrations and crucially popularized the notion of a phylogenetic tree in his Origin (1859). Unlike Darwin’s abstract trees, Haeckel, who was a brilliant illustrator, enthusiastically constructed several “Trees of Life” that were intended to convey the actual phylogenetic history of life. For more information on Haeckel’s phylogenetic trees and his evolutionism, see, for instance, Dayrat 2003 and Richards 2008. 79  Honda 1917: 240–241. 80  First Period of “mixed civilization”: elements of civilization are mixed; philosophy, religion, morality, politics, economics, production and industry are not clearly demarcated. Second Period of “specialized civilization”: culture is specialized; philosophy, religion, morality and politics are each fixed within their own areas, functioning within their specialized fields. This is one step towards civilization, but the connections necessary for unification are lacking. Modern society has reached this point. Third Period of “unified civilization”: culture is unified; politics is balanced with morality, morality is balanced with religion, economics is balanced with morality. While all function within the boundaries of their fields, they are also harmoniously connected with each other to achieve a unified civilization (Honda 1919: 182–183). 78

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things, the law that unifies and harmonizes all of them.81 He also characterized evolution as a process of development, not linearly, but rather as “wavy” progress with numerous ups and downs.82

14.4.4  Evolution, Randomness, and Karmic Law Nichiren Buddhists, like Buddhists generally, rejected the mechanistic worldview of Darwin’s theory, with its emphasis on the randomness of variation—combined with natural selection—that helped drive the evolutionary process. Such randomness negated any possibility of a predictable order or plan. Nichirenists believed in the prophesies of Nichiren and the Lotus Sūtra that foretold a glorious future and salvation for humanity. On an individual as well as a global level, Nichirenists had difficulties with the idea of randomness. Like other Buddhists, they rejected the idea that one’s birth was simply a matter of chance. They believed in karma and the immortality of the soul (or Buddha-nature). For example, Honda Nisshō, similar to Kiyozawa Manshi, lamented the way Western scientists only included physical causation, forcing them to “miss the bigger picture” of direct and indirect causes, though he recognized that Western “evolutionary theory is worthy of respect.83 He criticized the idea of randomness from the Buddhist perspective of the law of causality and dependent origination. As he put it: The idea that there is one all-powerful God who created humans, as explained in Christianity, runs counter to reason. However, the idea of materialists and evolutionary theorists that we evolved from the lowliest levels according to natural law is no more logical. There are great differences in thought among the humans that evolved according to the same biological principles. This is where the effects of direct and indirect causes (innen 因縁) from previous lives come into play.84

In other words, according to Honda, the same—that is, uniform—biological principles embedded in natural law working to produce humans could only produce essentially uniform human beings, all with the same psychological or mental characteristics. Only karma could account for the differences.

 Kobayashi 2010: 227–228. Kobayashi’s essay originally was published as a part of Tenseikai kōenroku (Vol. 3) in 1915. I have referred to its reprint edition. 82  Ibid., 243–247. 83  Honda 1928: 339. 84  Honda 1982: 12–13. 81

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14.4.5  Evolution, Competition, and Cooperation In the debates about the nation’s future and the extent to which Japan should adopt Western ideas, the most important aspect for Buddhists concerned ethics and values. The concept of the survival of the fittest was highly unpopular among most Japanese Buddhist thinkers, including Nichirenists, but not all. Tanaka, for instance, like the secularist Katō, accepted the idea of survival of the fittest, but as a Buddhist, Tanaka rejected Katō’s understanding of religion and faith, calling him a “slave of materialism” (yuibutsuron no dorei 唯物論の奴隷).85 Whereas Katō had applied the struggle for survival to the Japanese nation in a global context, Tanaka applied the concept to the competition among religions. He believed that, following the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution in 1889 that ensured non-interference in matters of faith by the government, a religious free-for-­ all would occur in which Nichirenism would emerge victorious. As he wrote in 1910: Today…the government is separated from religion, and the freedom of faith has been guaranteed in the constitution. This is a time when Nichiren should be exalted. The detachment of the Emperor and government from the many religions makes Nichiren’s Buddhism immune to attacks, and if we understand it deeply, this freedom of faith implies that the Nichiren faith can be expanded. If we have freedom of faith, then by the law of survival of the fittest (tekisha seizon no rihō 適者生存の理法), the best shall come out victorious. Therefore, these provisions of the constitution should be seen as the premise on which all religions can be unified in Nichiren Buddhism, as the Lotus Sūtra is the most clear, appropriate, profound doctrine of them all.86

Tanaka applied the notion of survival of the fittest not just to religions but also to Japanese society at large. Like many utopian social theorists in the West who had been enticed by Darwinian ideas, Tanaka became deeply absorbed in eugenics87 when it was gaining attention and had begun to influence political, public health and social movements in Japan in the 1920s up until the 1940s. With the eugenics mindset typical of the times, he insisted that government should restrict villains and

 Tanaka 1993: 2892. I have referred to the reprint edition of Nichirenshugi kyōgaku taikan. It was originally published in 1904. In a journal Waseda Literature (Waseda Bungaku, a journal operated by the Department of Literature of Waseda University, published from 1891 to nowadays) of 1897, Tanaka contributed his critique against Katō titled “Discussing Dr. Katō’s Theory of Mental Slavery.” He claimed that Katō mistakenly presents Śākyamuni and Christ as mere superstitions, and Buddhism and Christianity as two forms of “mental slavery” (shinteki dorei 心的奴隷). For more details, see Tanaka 1897: 38–49. 86  Tanaka 2010: 112. Tanaka’s essay originally was published as a part of Tenseikai kōenroku (Vol. 1) in 1910. I have referred to its reprint edition. Satomi Kishio, the third son of Tanaka Chigaku, being deeply influenced by his father, also wrote that “Great Emperor Meiji established the Japanese Constitution, and religious tolerance became a matter of fact. Hereupon, Japan prepared to accept Nichirenism freely” (Satomi 1923: 12). 87  “Eugenics” is a term coined in 1883 by British scientist Francis Galton (1822–1911) to describe the notion that human genetics could be improved by controlling heredity. For eugenics in Japan, see Otsubo 2005 and Schaffner 2014. 85

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l­ibertines from marrying while encouraging healthy, educated, and morally upright persons to marry. Tanaka believed that “by declaring these sorts of fundamental laws, the nation could create a splendid race,”88 based on the principles of the survival of the fittest and heredity.89 Honda rejected both Katō’s and Tanaka’s embrace of the survival of the fittest concept. Regarding Katō’s nationalistic samurai Darwinism, Honda argued: “Believing in no other principles than those of natural science, as Katō did, and then applying these shallow, mistaken natural laws to the world in a manner that is disdainful to religion and philosophy creates huge problems.”90 Honda specifically objected to the pessimistic and, in his mind, mistaken view of human nature depicted in Social Darwinism. He begins his Power of Eastern Civilization (Tōyō bunmei no ken’i, 1919) by stating that if the nature of humanity is misunderstood, there is a danger of corrupting society: All the corruption that plagues society…is the corruption of people themselves. Modern scholarly thought has accepted the premise that human nature is fundamentally corrupted. We should take responsibility for this way of thinking. This is of course the thinking of Western evolutionary theory, but others are also making the same assertion, whether in sociology, anthropology, or in ethics far removed from religion. From the perspective of evolutionary theory, humans are not monkeys but they were something like monkeys and gradually evolved to what they are today; they were originally very simple beings…. Research into the nature of humanity is an extremely important issue.91

Honda thus accepted that humans evolved from monkey-like animals and shared the three basic instincts of self-preservation, species-preservation, and self-sustenance. But he argued that human society need not and should not follow the principles of the ruthless struggle for existence or the competitive survival of the fittest. For Honda, it is a major error to build scientific and social theories on such negative views of human nature. Theories based on these views, he proclaimed, facilitate and justify economic exploitation, international strife, militarism and imperialism: These phenomena result from the trends in politics, academia and other parts of society to sanction the idea of free competition. They have decided that the advancement of ­civilization

 Tanaka 1968: 82. Tanaka touched on the subject of eugenics in his lectures held in 1917. They were compiled and published in 1922. I have referred to the reprint edition. 89  By the early 1930s detailed “eugenic marriage” questionnaires were printed or inserted in popular magazines for public consumption. Genetic science, mental health care, social reform, and women’s rights were some of the circles in which eugenics was received and adapted in Japan. Desiring to become a wealthy nation with a strong army, Japan implemented eugenic policies to monitor and protect the health of its citizens. Certain politicians and movements that sought to increase the number of healthy Japanese supported the legal measures. Moreover, a National Eugenic Law (Kokumin Yūseihō 国民優生法) was promulgated in 1940. This law limited compulsory sterilization to “inherited mental disease,” promoted genetic screening and restricted birth control access. Laws that decreed compulsory sterilization of the disabled were abolished in 1996. For more information, see Frühstück 2003 and Schaffner 2014. 90  Honda 1928: 147. 91  Honda 1919: 5–6. 88

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lies in competition, that the idea of survival of the fittest is the truth. This idea of the survival of the fittest is rooted in evolutionary theory and biology, and people in politics and economics have appropriated it, saying that the strongest will win. Thus, stronger countries take over weaker countries, and companies with more capital win. I believe that the encouragement of this competition has led to labor issues and led to wars between nations.92

To sum up, while not opposed to evolutionary theory as a biological principle, Honda argued that the struggle for existence and survival of the fittest as rules for society and religion—that is, for explaining human and social life—are insufficient, and the theory offers only a one-sided explanation and model. Despite their differing attitudes towards the concept of the struggle for survival, both Tanaka and Honda were attracted to an alternative Western evolutionary theory that largely supplanted the idea of competition with that of cooperation as the primary driving force of evolution. This alternative theory was that of Pyotr Kropotkin, which became influential in Japan particularly after the Japanese translation of Mutual Aid in 1917. Kropotkin strongly criticized the principles of survival of the fittest and the struggle for existence as constants in the natural world, considering the principle of mutual aid as a more important factor. According to his theory, the “fittest” was not the animal that won in competition with others but rather the one that cooperated with them. Competition wastes energy, thus negatively impacting the continuation and development of the species. Mutual aid, on the other hand, consumes less energy and benefits the individual the most, guaranteeing the further development of the species. As Kropotkin summarized his views, reflecting back on his experience in the harsh environment of Siberia and Manchuria that he had visited: “even in those few spots where animal life teemed in abundance, I failed to find—although I was eagerly looking for it—that bitter struggle for the means of existence, among animals belonging to the same species, which was considered by most Darwinists (though not always by Darwin himself) as the dominant characteristic of struggle for life, and the main factor of evolution.”93 Kropotkin was adamant that cooperation was also characteristic of human life: “There are a number of evolutionists who may not refuse to admit the importance of mutual aid among animals, but who, like Herbert Spencer, will refuse to admit it for Man. For primitive Man—they maintain—war of each against all was the law of life.”94 Tanaka believed that the idea of mutual aid was in harmony with the teachings of the Lotus Sūtra and “had the characteristics to create a wonderful society.” However, he believed that “the world was not yet perfect enough to enact mutual aid,” though he did not clarify when the world would be ready, and so adopted the stance that survival of the fittest and mutual aid should both serve as basic guidelines for the contemporary world. Tanaka linked this temporal schema to the Buddhist (Tendai)

 Honda 1919: 226.  Kropotkin 1904: vii. 94  Ibid., xv. 92 93

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terminology of the threefold truth.95 The struggle for existence and survival of the fittest represent the lowest truth of “conventional” or “provisional” (ke 假) reality, while mutual aid exemplifies the highest truth of “emptiness” (kū 空) in which all things are seen as empty of enduring, individual reality. According to Tanaka, the truth of “emptiness” makes all things equal (byōdō 平等), while the truth of “conventional” reality makes them different (sabetsu 差別). Both truths, however, should be understood in terms of the third—the truth of the “middle” (chū 中)—the middle way between the extremes of a one-sided understanding of “emptiness” (mutual aid) and “conventional existence” (the struggle for existence). Tanaka thus reinterpreted the theory of natural selection based on the complementarity of the struggle for existence and mutual aid in Buddhist terms and thought of them as the two sides of the one universal truth that was already present in Buddhist doctrine, particularly in the Lotus Sūtra.96 Tanaka concluded that the idea of mutual aid was compatible with Buddhism’s “obligation/blessings to all other sentient beings,” (shujyō no on 衆生の恩), which is one of the Four Blessings or Four Debts (shion 四恩).97 He recommended the study of the principle through the doctrine of the Lotus Sūtra, thereby implying that there was no need to refer to Kropotkin, as the truth was already explained in Buddhist doctrine. Honda agreed with Tanaka that the Buddhist concept of “obligation/blessings to all other sentient beings” fully supplanted Kropotkin’s ideology of mutual aid. And while Honda found Kropotkin’s idea of mutual aid to be a reassuring scientific confirmation of basic Buddhist teachings, he was deeply suspicious of Kropotkin’s anarchist ideology. One of the four main trains of evolutionary thought in Japan, we may recall, was the anarchical Darwinism of Marxist/socialists like Kōtoku Shūsui. And like the Buddhists, the Marxist/socialists strongly endorsed the idea of mutual aid. But there was little else in common between the two. Honda regarded socialists as troublemakers and socialism as the “evil ideology,” which originated from Darwin and the anarchist ideas of Kropotkin. These evil ideas, in Honda’s view, caused the “High Treason Affair” (taigyaku jiken 大逆事件) that resulted in the execution of Kōtoku together with eleven socialists in 1911: they were judged guilty of plotting to assassinate the emperor Meiji.98

 The threefold truth is a central doctrine in Tendai (Chinese: T’ien-t’ai) Buddhism, according to which all things are void, without substantial reality; all things have temporary existence; and all things are in the middle state, synthesizing voidness and temporary existence, being both at once (Swanson 1989). 96  Tanaka 1923: 133–138. 97  The Buddhist doctrine of the Four Blessings or Four Debts consists of blessings from and indebtedness to one’s parents, all other sentient beings, the ruler, and the Three Treasures (Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha). Honda refers to the “obligation to all other sentient beings” and Kropotkin’s mutual aid in Honda 1920: 232. 98  It is well known today that this incident was a government fabrication to break the back of socialists and anarchists, whose influence had been growing in Japanese society (Ama 2001: 48). 95

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Honda attended all of the incident’s trials and offered to be the “admonisher” (kyōkaishi 教誨師, Buddhist prison chaplain) of these socialists, and even to bury their bodies at his temple Myōkokuji after execution. The Affair became a crucial event in Honda’s perception of social activities of religious figures and their responsibilities to guide society and prevent its corruption. Religious activists, in his view, could too easily be misled by pernicious doctrines like anarchist socialism, for among those arrested and executed for treason were one Pure Land and two Zen Buddhists. Not surprisingly, Honda thought of Kropotkin himself and his anarchist ideas as “destructionism” (hakaishugi 破壊主義), but modified his opinion somewhat after reading Ōsugi’s Japanese translation of Mutual Aid. In On Result of the Problem Involving Ideological Issues and the Lotus Sūtra (Shisō mondai no kiketsu to Hokekyō, 1920), Honda classified socialists as dangerous radicals, because (as he believed) they had plotted against the government and the emperor, which resulted in the tragic Affair. At the same time, he highly appreciated the socialists’ attention to Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid, a view contrary to the popular understanding of society that focused on the struggle for existence.99

14.5  Summary Modern Japanese society interacted with various Western trends, one example of which is the evolutionary theory discussed in this book. The term “evolution” was used to refer not just to the biological concept, but also to social, cultural, political, and religious evolution, often conjoined with the popular nineteenth-century idea of progress. Similar to many of their contemporaries, Nichiren Buddhists used the word “evolution” with several meanings and without a clear distinction between them. They accepted the general notion of evolution as commonsensical, but often critiqued aspects of Western evolutionary theory, biological as well as cultural and social. We may note, in conclusion, four major, overlapping themes in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japanese Buddhist responses to Darwinism in its various modes. First, Buddhists, including Nichirenists, granted a certain degree of authority to Western science in general and to evolutionary theory in particular, and thus they regarded the assimilation of Western evolutionary theory—with certain important modifications—as necessary to prove the scientific and modern character of Buddhism. They insisted that Buddhism, with its spiritual perspective, could complete the Western materialist explanations of the universe and accounts of human nature. At the same time, they used their acceptance of scientific evolutionary theory to discredit Christianity and to overcome the secular policies of the Meiji government, which regarded Buddhism as a superstitious and unscientific obstacle to the modernizing of Japan.

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 Honda 1920: 207–208.

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Second, as already evident above, Japanese Buddhists were not just passive recipients of evolutionary theories, but active re-interpreters, rejecting some aspects and radically revising others. Nichirenists and other Japanese Buddhists challenged the idea of evolution as a linear process of progress and rejected any understanding of evolution as a random course of development, invoking the concepts of karma and the law of causality. This rejection of evolutionary randomness included the denial of the materialistic-mechanistic worldview seemingly inherent in Western evolutionism in favor of the spiritual pantheistic view of life based on the idea of universal Buddha-nature. Third, Japanese Buddhists rejected the negative moral implications of popular Western evolutionism, including the view of human nature as ruthlessly selfish in the competitive struggle for survival. Nichiren Buddhists were thus attracted to Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid with its emphasis on species cooperation rather than competition. At the same time, they regarded Kropotkin’s cooperative evolutionism as simply a modern affirmation of the traditional Buddhist teaching that all sentient beings, including humans, are innately altruistic, in accord with the idea that the eternal Buddha-nature is inherent in all beings. Fourth, and closely related to the third, Nichiren Buddhists believed that Western evolutionary theory was incomplete in its neglect of a spiritual dimension. Western evolution accounted for diversity and specialization on various levels, biological, social, and cultural, but such accounts failed to see the basic unity and harmony in the variety of those evolved diverse parts. Only recognition of the principles of unity and harmony could lead to a golden age of unified civilization and universal peace. And such recognition, the Nichirenists argued, could only come from religion, and specifically from the teachings of Nichiren and of the Lotus Sūtra. These teachings would overcome the materialistic atheism and egoism that the Nichirenists believed derived from Western evolutionary theory with its principle of the survival of the fittest. Nichirenism, aligned with science and modernity, could achieve the spiritual integration of the nation, leading eventually to the spiritual evolution of humanity as a whole when the entire world would become a vast Buddha land.

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Index

A Abhedananda, 153, 160 Ācārāṅga-sūtra, 187, 199 Adam, 4, 48, 51–52, 55, 73, 81, 89, 91, 92, 94 Adam and Eve, 4, 21, 90 Advaita Vedānta, 123, 148, 150, 155, 157, 175, 177 Afghani, Jamal al-Din, 9, 69–75, 78, 80, 83–84, 94–95 The Truth about the Naaeicheri Sect and an explanation of the Neicheris, 75 Agañña Sutta, 213–215 Agassiz, Louis Structure of Animal Life, The, 178 Ahiṃsā (nonviolence), 186–187, 200, 206, 229 Ahl-i Ḥadīth, 40 Aḥmadiyya, 42–43, 48 Ahmad, Kurhshid, 50 Aḥmad, Mirzā Ṭāhir, 48 Ajāmila, story of, 103–106, 108 Ajīva (non-living substance), 192, 194 Ājīvikas, 178, 188 AKP (Islamists of the Justice and Development Party), 21, 27–28, 32–33 al-Faruqi, Isma’il, 54 al-Ghazālī, 50 al-Haiʾa wa al-Islām (Shahristani), 79 al-Ḥaqīqa (Hurani), 68 Allah, 4, 7 al-Mīzān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān (Tabataba’i), 90 al-Muqtaṭaf, 68, 79–80 Altruism, 223–224 American Protestantism, 21, 23–24, 27 Analects (Confucius), 248–249

Anarchical Darwinism, 343, 345, 362 Anarchism, 327–329 ‘‘Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal’’ (Kropotkin), 329, 331 Ancient Wisdom, The (Besant), 174–175 Animal-human continuity, 45, 154, 228, 232, 237, 258, 265, 270, 281, 314, 324 as perceived in communal behavior, 266–267, 272 as perceived in other primates, 5, 338 and reincarnation, 5, 120, 148, 229, 324, 338 Anti-Darwinism/anti-evolutionism, 19–20, 22, 24, 53, 122 Apologetics Buddhist, 332–333 Hindu, 130 Muslim, 52, 54–57 Arabic language, sources, terms, translations, 38, 44, 51, 68, 73, 80, 85, 89, 93 Aristotle, 73, 244 History of Animals, 74 Arya Samaj, 42, 121 Astronomy, 40–41, 50, 70, 76, 79, 331 Atheism/atheists, 21, 46, 56, 82, 117, 122, 128, 139, 171, 183, 210, 235, 364 Atoms/atomism, 117, 121, 150, 178 Aurobindo Ghose, 102, 125–128, 151, 160, 162, 168–183 Harmony of Virtue, The, 171 “Karmayogin, The’’, 172–173 Life Divine, The, 168, 176, 180–181, 183 Autobiography (Darwin), 2, 144 Avatāra(s), 148, 159–161, 178 Avicenna, 84

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370 Āyāt-e Bayyenāt (Shahrestani), 75–76, 79, 83, 86 Ayur Veda, 118–119 Āzād, Abū l-Kalām, 44–47 Tadhkira, 45 Tarjumān ul-Qurʾān, 46 B Baḥthī dar bāra-ye maqāla-ye ... (Sahabi), 90 Banks, Marcus, 191, 203 Barelwīs/Barelwī movement, 39–40 Barzun, Jacques, 178 Bees and ants, in Huxley, 258, 266–267, 271, 277, 280 Bergson, Henri, 182–183, 342, 346 Creative Evolution, 342 Besant, Annie, 142, 173–174, 177 Ancient Wisdom, The, 174 Esoteric Christianity, 174 Bhadralok (good people), 139–140, 142–143, 148–150 Bhagavad Gītā, 104, 122, 124, 145, 150, 155, 172, 176, 180 Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 103–105, 109 Bhaktivinod, 161–163 Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā, 161 Bharata, King, story of, 103–106, 108, 112, 117, 124 Bible, 6, 44, 67, 174, 178, 346 Bible, le Qurʾān et la science, La (Bucaille), 52 Big Bang, 54–55, 213 Biology, Jain, 12, 190–192, 194 Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, 102, 142, 170–171, 173–175 Isis Unveiled, 171, 174 Secret Doctrine, The, 171, 174 Bobra, Dilip, 204 Bonnet, Charles, 144, 151 Book of Dzyan, 174 Bose, Jagadish Chandra, 156, 162 Bose, Pramatha Nath, 140 Brahman (ultimate reality), 103, 106, 109–110, 123, 125–126, 131, 151, 156, 172, 177–178 Brahmasūtra-Bhāṣya (Śaṅkara), 116 Brahmo Samaj, 140, 141, 148, 171, 173 Bronkhorst, Johannes, 102, 117 Bryce, J.P., 171 Essay on Spiritual Evolution, An, 171 Bucaille, Maurice, 52, 55 Bible, le Qurʾān et la science, La, 52

Index Büchner, Ludwig Friedrich, 68, 71, 79–80, 82–83, 85 Buddha, 124, 126, 153, 160, 188, 219, 233, 350 Buddhahood, 217, 224, 332, 355 Buddha-nature, 339, 352, 358, 364 Buddha-world/Buddha land, 223, 354–357, 364 ‘‘Buddhism and Evolutionary Theory’’ (Kiyozawa Manshi), 348 Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc de, 67 Histoire naturell des animaux quadrupeds, 66 Burckhardt, Titus, 54 C Calcutta Review, 142 Campbell, George Organic Evolution Cross-Examined, 179 Caraka Saṃhitā, 118 Cārvāka, 188 Causation/cause in Buddhism, 215, 220, 226–228, 232, 348–349, 352, 359 divine, 41, 44, 77, 108 final, prime, or ultimate, 70, 81, 148, 156, 244–246, 250 Chan, Wing-tsit, 289 Way of Lao Tzu, The, 288 Chance/randomness Buddhist rejection of, 214, 226–227, 232, 358 as challenge to religion, 2–3, 6, 25, 30, 168, 178–179, 181–183, 220, 246 Christian rejection of, 116, 179, 182 in Darwinism, 19, 144, 158, 212–213, 225–226, 232, 304 Hindu rejection of, 126, 128, 168, 176, 181–182 ignoring challenge of, 84, 324 Muslim rejection of, 21, 46, 76–77, 81–82, 86, 95 philosophical rejection of, 182 Sikh rejection of, 12 Chatterji, Bankimchandra, 141 Chen Lai, 248 Chen Sanli, 295 Chennakesavan, Saravasti, 129 Chiggala Sutta, 230 Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, The (Li), 253 Christian/Judeo-Christian preconceptions, 1, 257, 281, 314

Index Christianity antipathy towards, by Westerners, 340–341, 346 and challenge of evolution, 1, 38, 321, 324 and critiques of Buddhism, 347 denigrated as unscientific, 210, 320, 325, 345, 347–348, 352, 358, 363 denigration of, 9, 85, 158, 347 and Hindu encounter with, 119, 139, 142, 171, 174 and history of modern science, 320 and missionary influence or activity, 9, 20, 41–42, 87, 120–121, 126, 139, 142, 161, 222, 346 as one of three universal religions, 351 and role in human evolution, 346 Chromosomes and karma, 129, 198 Co-evolution, of humankind and nature, 256 Colebrooke, Henry, 147 Colenso, John, 44 Colonialism/imperialism in British India, 20, 42, 119, 125, 130, 138, 140–141 and Darwinism, 255, 325, 327, 330, 333 fear or threat of, 9, 25, 259, 261–262, 293, 295, 313, 321, 323, 330, 343, 360 Hindu resistance to, 171 in Muslim countries, 38 Muslim resistance to, 43, 45, 70 Western opposition to, 158 Commentaries on the Book of Changes, 246 Common descent, 19–20, 33, 37, 45, 48, 72, 193 Compassion in Buddhism, 222–223, 229, 233, 325, 331–332 in Daoism, 302 in Jainism, 202 Competition, international and Chinese nationalism, 259, 262, 265–272, 274, 277, 281–283, 294, 311, 313 Comte, Auguste, 142 Concerning Spiritualism (Massey), 170 Confucius, 248–250, 263, 270 Analects, 248–249 Consciousness/mind, individual emergence/karmic evolution of, 169, 178, 185, 194–195, 197–198, 200, 204, 218, 226 as emergent from matter, 154, 182, 219, 231, 233, 235–236 as eternal, 217, 227 higher states of, 204–205

371 as unexplained, 234 Consciousness/mind, transcendent, 123, 168–169, 172 and brains, 219 as creating, controlling, or evolving universe, 6, 125, 149, 168, 173, 181, 215, 219, 232, 234–235 denied in modern science, 236 Conservatism and creationism, 19–20, 22, 60 and modernization, 34 in South Asia, 40–41, 50, 52, 71 in Turkey, 20–21, 25–33 in the United States, 24, 28–30, 32–33 Cooperation vs. competition in Buddhism, 223–224, 361 in Darwin’s theory, 213, 223, 328 in Huxley’s thought, 266–267, 272, 276, 282 in Jainism, 200, 206 in Kropotkin’s theory, 4, 328, 330, 345, 364 in Yan Fu’s thought, 267, 269, 281 Cooperative society, 262, 265, 271–272, 281–283 Cort, John, 202 Cosmic process, 152, 260–262, 265, 267, 275–277, 279–282 Cosmological argument, 9, 245 Cosmology Buddhist, 215–216, 218, 230, 232–233, 236–237, 354 Christian, 162 Confucian/Daoist, 248, 289–290, 292, 298–300 Hindu, 151, 161 Indian, 214 Jain, 189–190, 194, 202 Cowell, E. B., 147 Coyne, Jerry, 28 Creatio ex nihilo/creation out of nothing, 55, 70, 77, 83, 124 Creation-evolution debate, 22, 28–30 Creationism and Buddhism, 235 and education, 24, 27, 33 implausibility of, 37 and political aspects, 22, 25 rejected by Sircar, 120 in Saudi Arabia, 20 in science textbooks, 21 in South Asian Islam, 55, 57, 60 and theistic evolution, 52, 182

372 Creationism (cont.) in Turkey, 20–21, 25, 27–28, 33–34, 59 in the United States, 19, 21, 24–26, 33 Vedic, 121–122 Young Earth, 24, 52, 54 Creationists Hindu, 122 and out-of-context quotations, 53–54 and similarity of Christian and Muslim critics of evolution, 49 Creation of universe/life as accident, 65, 69, 76–77, 83, 85–86 biblical account of, 4, 67, 149 in Buddhism, 214, 338 as due to karma, 102, 152 in Hinduism, 121, 145–146 Qur’ānic account of, 45, 78, 81 Creative Evolution (Bergson), 342 Creator god, a, 3, 83, 120, 158, 170, 352 absent in Buddhism, 213, 324 Creator/creator, the, 117, 170, 181, 190, 234, 346 in Darwin, 54 identified with Brahmā, 109 in Islam, 46, 88 proof of, 41 as setting evolution in motion, 69 Creel, Austin, 130 Cremo, Michael, 122 Crick, Francis, 57 Critique of Judgment (Kant), 245 ‘‘Critique of Shen’s Translation of Kropotkin’s Ethics, A’’ (Taixu), 329 D Dabir, Mirza Mohammad Hosayn, 66 Dalai Lama, the Fourteenth, 211, 223–224, 227, 233, 236 Universe in a Single Atom, The, 223 Dalton, John, 150 Dao/dao, 247–248, 250, 254, 288–289, 294, 296, 298–310, 312–314 Daode Jing/Daodejing (Lao Zi/Laozi), 246, 250, 254, 264, 288, 290, 291, 293–296, 298–306, 308, 310–311, 313–314 Dār al-Fonūn, 66–67 Darb, Heinrich Alfred, 66 Darwin, Charles, 193 and alleged borrowing of theory from Muslims, 84 and atheism, 54, 74, 82, 170

Index Autobiography, 2, 144 bicentennial anniversary of, 28, 338 Descent of Man, The (see Descent of Man, The (Darwin)) disparagement of, 74, 122 On the Origin of Species, 82 (see On the Origin of Species (Darwin)) as revitalizing religion, 8 and the Qur’an, 49 Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, The, 349 Darwiniana (Gray), 170 Darwinians, Chinese, 258 Darwinism and challenges to traditional religion, 1–3, 7–9, 37–38, 255, 258 as corrosive of morality/religion, 53, 200, 325–326 and cosmic evolution, 85 as incomplete, 123–124, 171, 194, 197, 198, 203, 205, 349, 364 and materialism or mechanism, 10, 48, 66, 68, 79, 85, 95, 213, 234, 358 misinformed accounts of, 9, 66, 69, 72–73, 84, 86, 120, 122 popular understanding of, 8, 210, 223, 224, 325, 333, 361 Sikh responses to, 11 as supporting Chinese/Japanese views of humankind, 5 and teleology, 3, 121, 125, 128, 218, 245, 250–251, 255, 282 and transmission to Asian cultures, 2, 9, 66–69, 142, 244, 259, 340–341 Dasgupta, Surama, 129 Datta, Akshay Kumar, 141 Dawkins, Richard, 48 Dayananda Saraswati, 121–122 Satyartha Prakash, 121 De Cruz, Helen, 8 Deedat, Ahmad, 55 Delusion in Buddhism, 216–218, 220–221, 224, 227, 229, 231–232, 327 in Jainism, 196 Deobandīs, 40 Dependent arising or co-arising, 226–227, 324, 330–331, 358 Descent of Man, The (Darwin), 141, 143, 144, 193, 210, 213, 224, 265, 281, 322, 342 Design in Aquinas thought, 245

Index argument from, 2, 9, 51, 72, 81, 178 in Chinese Buddhism, 324 in Confucianism/Daoism, 248, 302, 314 divine/supernatural, 3, 20–21, 24, 102, 116–117, 121, 170, 324 in Hinduism, 102, 115, 117, 121–122 in Huxley’s thought, 282 intelligent, 2, 77, 78, 122, 234, 246, 248 in Islam, 48–49, 51, 72, 78, 81 pre-existent, absent in Darwin, 144, 301 De Smedt, Johan, 98 Determinism, 181, 245, 250 Deussen, Paul, 155 Devolution in Buddhism, 214 Devolution, theory of, 122 De Waal, Frans, 5 Dewey, John, 23, 243–246, 250–251, 253, 255 “Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy, The”, 243–244 Dharma and adharma, 106, 115, 117 Dharma, decline of, 355 Dharma, god of justice, 107 Dharmakīrti, 233–236 Dharma, of Buddha, 229 Dhammapada, 215, 220 Digambara, 188, 195–196, 201 Dirlik, Arif, 329 Divakar, S.J., 128 Divine intervention, 65, 82, 117, 183, 352 Divine life, 174, 177–179, 182 DNA, 10, 57, 198, 213 Doniger, Wendy, 111 Drummond, Henry Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 266 Du Daojian, 290 Duff, Alexander, 142–143, 149 Dundas, Paul, 203, 205 E Earth, origin or age of, 4, 5, 21, 44–45, 52, 54, 77, 122, 148, 214 East, Edward Hyde, 140 Ecological concerns, 200, 202, 206, 252, 254, 256 Edelman, Jonathan, 131 Education in British India, 139, 142 and privatization, 29–30, 33 and religious conservatism, 24 secular and/or religious, 26, 28, 41, 43, 59 Western, in China, 258

373 Education and science, 19, 22–24, 27–28, 30–31, 33, 58, 60 Educational reform, 25, 70, 71, 79, 87 Egg, cosmic, 111, 143–146, 1621 Einstein, Albert, 212 Eldredge, Niles, 54 Elman, Benjamin, 293 Elshakry, Marwa, 5, 7–8, 11 Emperor, the Chinese, 264 Japanese, 340, 343–345, 347, 359, 362–363 Empirical evidence appeal to, 29, 127 and attempt to prove existence of soul, 131 ignored, 28, 55, 73, 117, 237 and interpretation of scripture, 5, 81 and karma/rebirth, 102, 128, 233–234 and need for interpretation, 30 not applicable to spiritual truths, 5, 22 Empirical observation and decreasing Hindu interest in, 111 in Jainism, 186, 191 in modernist Buddhism, 320 Emptiness in Buddhism, 222, 233, 327, 331, 362 in Daoism, 303 Encyclopedia of Ignorance, 52–53 Engels, Friedrich, 252 Enlightenment, Buddhist, 3, 215, 217–218, 220–222, 224, 226–227, 229–233, 353, 357 Enlightenment, European, 9, 27, 212 Epistemological issues, 7, 191, 194, 224, 246, 313 Esoteric Christianity (Besant), 174 Essay on Spiritual Evolution, An (Bryce), 171 Essentialism, 38, 94 Ethical humanism, 328, 330 Ethical process, 152, 260, 263, 265–267, 269, 275–277, 280–282 Eugenics, 359 Evolution ambiguous meaning of, 10, 20, 102, 143–145, 148, 151, 161, 210, 363 as amoral process, 2, 113, 121, 218 and analogical arguments against, 49, 77, 86 cultural/political/social, 253, 282, 310, 312, 313, 323, 328, 332, 341, 346, 357 and education, 20–22, 30, 60

374 Evolution (cont.) as diversification and unification, 356–357, 364 in Hindu texts, 147–149, 172 as "just a theory", 49–50, 56, 93–94 knowledge of, irrelevant in market place, 31–33 as natural process, 76, 102, 213 and Operation of Heaven, 301, 305 progressive and regressive, 339, 348, 354–355, 358, 364 of religion, 351–353 and teleology, 6–8, 19, 31, 37, 120, 132, 144, 153, 158, 172, 182–183, 200, 218, 235, 278, 332 See also Darwinism Evolution and Ethics (Huxley), 4, 152, 247, 259, 261–262, 264–266, 268–269, 271, 274–276, 280–281, 287, 288, 294 Evolution, guided or theistic, 31, 120, 169–170, 343 in Buddhism, 236 in Christianity, 52, 182, 346 in Hinduism, 171–172, 176 in Islam, 20–21, 31, 46, 48, 69, 81, 83, 92, 93 in Sikhism, 12 Evolution, karmic or spiritual in Hinduism, 102–103, 108, 123, 125, 127, 152–155, 168–172, 174, 176, 180, 183 in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 210, 217–218, 220–221 in Jainism, 185, 192, 194, 196–201, 204 in Japanese Buddhism, 332, 343, 347, 364 Evolution of Animals, The (Morse), 340 Evolution, theory of acceptance of in Japan, 338 and alleged scientific doubts about, 57 anticipated by traditional religions, 8, 10, 46–48, 84, 148, 149, 152, 212, 333, 353 as conspiracy/myth, 50, 93 as corrosive of morality/religion, 2–4, 8, 20–21, 38, 49–50, 169 and cultural/political/social implications of, 261, 330, 349 as lacking spiritual dimension, 152, 154–155, 364 Kropotkin’s, 362–364 and nationalism, Chinese, 258–259, 262, 269–270, 281, 292, 294, 295, 314

Index and nationalism, Japanese, 10, 344 Evolutionary History of Man, The (Haeckel), 281, 298 Evolutionism, Vedic, 123, 125–126, 128 Expertise, 22–30, 33 Extinction, 255 in Buddhism, 222 of Chinese race, 262, 274–275 of species, 132, 194, 213, 221, 232 F Falsafat al-nushū’ wa al-irtiqā’ (Shumayyil), 68, 84–85 Feng Zikai, 326 Fenollosa, Ernest Francisco, 341, 343, 348 Figuier, Louis, 67 Terre avant le deluge, La, 67 First Principles (Spencer), 144, 174, 342 Five Principles of Propagation, Nichiren’s, 352–353 Flood geology, 21 Forms, ideal, 244–245 Foucault, Michel, 182 Furqania Academy, 51 G Galileo, 57, 320 Galileo, trial of, 320 Gandhi, Mohandas K., 130 Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism, 160 Gender issues, 53, 200–201 Genesis, book of, 2, 4, 21, 44 Genesis, Buddhist account, 213–214 Genetic inheritance, 10, 19, 78, 127, 129, 153, 221, 231–232, 245 Ghose., see Aurobindo Ghose Ghulām Aḥmad, Mirzā, 42, 48 Gish, Duane, 52, 54 Glick, Thomas F., 59 Goblet d’Alviella, Eugène, 169 God as creator/final cause, 2, 44, 52, 70, 84, 86, 95, 156 dismissed, 181, 235, 345 vs. evolution, 53, 76, 212 vs. karma, 130 proof of, 76, 87, 178, 245 Goldman, Robert P., 107, 112, 131 Goreh, Nehemiah Nīlakaṇṭha Ṣaḍdarśanadarpaṇa, 147 Gosling, David L., 120

Index Gould, Stephen Jay, 4, 54, 116, 131, 237 “Gradual Teaching of the Mahayana and the Theory of Evolution” (Taixu), 329 Grassé, Pierre-Paul, 52, 54, 57 Gray, Asa, 170, 183 Darwiniana, 170 Great chain of being/scale of nature, 2, 5, 74 Greek/Hellenistic philosophy, 2, 41, 45, 47, 84, 178–179, 244, 246 Guénon, René, 54 Gülenists, 28, 32–33 Guru Granth Sahib, 11 H Habermas, Jürgen, 29 Hadāʾiq al-ṭabīʿiyya (Kashani), 70 Hadith., see Prophetic tradition(s) Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich, 46, 149–150, 153, 155, 158, 341, 344 History of Creation, The, 342, 344 Riddle of the Universe, The, 149, 344 Welträthsel, Die, 47 Haeri, Mohhamad Ali Sonqori, 79 Mirʾāt al-ʿaql, 79 Haiguo Tuzhi (Wei Yuan), 295 Halbfass, Wilhelm, 109–111, 113–117, 119, 139 Hall, Fitzedward, 147 Hanafī school of law, 39–40 Hanfei Zi, 263, 290 Haqīqat-e maẕhab-e naycherī va bayān-e ḥāl-e naycheriyān (Afghani), 71 Hariharānanda Āraṇya, 150, 154, 156, 162 Karmatattva, 150 Harmony of Virtue, The (Aurobindo), 171 Harun Yahya, 27, 59 Heaven Fan Yu’s interpretation of, 250, 265, 270–272, 274–275, 277–280, 282, 284, 301, 307, 312–313 Shen’s interpretation of, 248 Xun Zi’s interpretation of, 278–279, 282 Heaven and Earth, 300–303, 307–308 Heaven, free reign of (Spencer), 260, 262, 275 Hekmat, Ali Asghar, 68 Henderson, Mark, G., 59 Henri Milne-Edwards Zoologie, 67 “Heredity and Karma” (Kiyozawa Manshi), 349 Heshang Gong, 290, 297, 307 Laozi heshang gong zhu, 291

375 Histoire naturell des animaux quadrupeds (Buffon), 66 History of Animals (Aristotle), 74 History of Creation, The (Haeckel), 342, 344 Hobbes, Thomas, 220 Hominids, 51, 55–56 Honda Nisshō, 350–354, 357–363 On Result of the Problem Involving Ideological Issues and the Lotus Sūtra, 363 Power of Eastern Civilization, 360 Hoodbhoy, Pervez, 59 Houguan yanshi pingdianlaozi (Yan Fu), 288 Human descent/evolution in Buddhism, 214, 332, 347 in Confucianism/Daoism, 252–253, 281 in Darwinism, 6, 213, 250 and descent from apes or monkeys, 65, 72, 84, 126, 252, 298, 360 in Hinduism, 122, 126, 151, 174, 181 in Islam, 5, 20–21, 45, 47, 56–57, 65, 72–73, 84, 89–93, 95 in Jainism, 193, 201 in Spencer, 261, 310 Human exceptionalism/uniqueness and animal-human continuity, 6, 148, 178, 202, 228 challenged by evolution, 2, 4, 7, 25, 30–31, 33, 37, 280 in Chinese Buddhism, 324 in Chinese religions, 7 in Christianity, 2, 5, 324 in Confucianism/Daoism, 281, 314 in Darwinism, 6, 121, 128, 154, 232 in Hinduism, 109, 112, 126, 128, 152 in Huxley, 266 in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 220, 229–232, 235 in Islam, 4, 5, 7, 21, 70, 73, 81, 84, 91–93, 95 in Jainism, 192–193, 201–202 in Japanese religions, 7 and reincarnation, 5 Human nature, 168, 254, 263, 331, 360, 363–364 Humanism confucian , 255 secular, 231, 234 “Humanistic Science”(Taixu), 329, 331 Humanization of nature, 253–255 Humankind/man origin or creation of, in Hinduism, 109

Index

376 Humankind/man (cont.) origin or creation of, in Islam, 4, 21, 45, 50–52, 70, 73, 77, 81, 84, 89, 91, 93, 95 origin or creation of, in Jainism, 193 origin or creation of, in Sikhism, 12 place in universe/nature, 7, 70, 228–229, 231, 258, 265–266, 338 relation to nature, 253, 276–277 responsibilities of, 7, 42, 201, 249–250, 253, 278–279, 314 Hurani, Ibrahim al-, 68 Hu Shi, 321 Huxley, Thomas, 80, 150–151, 153, 156, 223, 246–248, 260–282, 288, 294, 342 Evolution and Ethics, 4, 152, 247, 259, 261–262, 264–266, 268–269, 271, 274–276, 280–281, 287, 294 Man’s Place in Nature, 266, 281 On the Origin of Species: or the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature, 342 “Prolegomena” in Evolution and Ethics, 276 “Struggle for Existence in Human Society”, 261 I Idealist view of reality, 108, 234–235 İmam Hatip, 33 İmam Hatip schools, 26, 28 Impermanence, Buddhist idea of, 210, 213, 338 Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, 120, 141, 149, 155 “Influence of Darwinism on Philosophy, The” (Dewey), 243–244 Inheritance of traits, 124, 126–129, 153, 349 Inoue Enryō, 347–348, 351, 354 Introduction to the Revitalization of Buddhism, 348 Inoue Tetsujirō, 347–348 In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Schwartz), 260, 275 Intelligent Design, 20, 31 Intelligent Design movement, 19 International Society for Krishna Consciousness., see ISKCON Introduction to the Revitalization of Buddhism (Inoue Enryō), 348 Involution-evolution, 123–126, 151, 162, 169–170, 173–177, 179, 181

Isfahani, Mohammad Reza, 79–85, 92, 94–95 Naqd falsafat Dārwūn, 80 Ishikawa Chiyomatsu, 340, 344 Isis Unveiled (Blavatsky), 170, 174 ISKCON, 122, 131, 160 Islam and Rationality (Aḥmad), 48 Islam and the Plight of Modern Man (Nasr), 93 Islām awr jadīd sāʾins (Qādrī), 52 Islamic law (sharia), 43, 44, 47 Islamism/Islamists, 39, 42–43, 54, 58, 59 Islamist government, 28 Islamization of knowledge, 54 Īśvarakṛṣṇa (Sāṃkhya-kārikā ), 146 J Jahiz, al-, 74 Kitāb al-ḥayawān, 74 Jaini, Padmanabh, 196–197 Jamāʿat-i islāmī, 44, 50, 53 Jānevarnāma (Kashani), 67, 69 Jansma, Rudi, 197–199, 204 Jeans, James, 233 Jesus, 89–90, 126, 148, 153, 159, 160 Jhutti-johal, Jagbir, 11 jinn, 41, 43, 48, 51 Jisr, Husayn al, 5, 49–50 jīva., see soul/jiva Jones, Richard, 211, 218 Joshi, Nalini, 190, 193, 201 Joshi, Padmanabh, 198 K Kachhara, Narayan, 198, 200 Scientific Explorations of Jain Doctrines, 197 Kant, Immanuel, 155, 245 Critique of Judgment, 245 Karma and rebirth in Asian religions generally, 3, 7, 10, 113 in Chinese Buddhism, 324 in Hinduism, 151–154, 174 as beyond human understanding, 115, 127, 131 and final dying thought, 104, 106, 124 history of, in ancient India, 103, 109–110 and illusion, 106, 108, 117, 125–126, 168 and Indian medical theory, 118–119

Index and infant predispositions, 115, 116, 124, 128 as a law of nature, 102, 105, 107, 151, 153 mechanics/process of, not explained, 105, 110, 112–113, 125, 128 meliorative or retributive aspects of, 124–125, 127–128, 130, 153, 154, 160, 168 overseen by god, 105, 107–108, 117, 122, 125 philosophical justifications of, 113, 115–116, 118, 124, 127, 130 problems in theory of, 107, 112, 114, 125, 130, 132 rejected by Sircar, 120 and soul's choosing rebirth species, 124, 152 and the unseen force(s), 105, 115–117 in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 214–216, 219, 221, 223, 226–228, 230–232, 236 in Jainism, 186, 193–196, 198, 202 in Japanese Buddhism, 349, 358, 364 Karmatattva (Hariharānanda), 150 “Karmayogin, The” (Aurobindo), 172–173, 176 Kashani, Mohammad Taqi Ansari, 67, 69–70 Ḥadāʾiq al-ṭabīʿiyya, 70 Jānevarnāma, 67, 69 Tazkerat al-arz-e Nāṣerī, 67 Kātibī, Najm al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī al-, 76 Katō Hiroyuki, 343–346, 348, 359–360 New Theory of Human Rights, A, 345 Kayani, Saheeb Ahmed, 8 Keshub Chunder Sen, 148, 149, 154, 157, 159, 160, 162, 173–174, 177 Ketāb-e mortafaq (Najafi), 85–86 Khalq ul-insān ʿalā mā fī l-Qurʾān (Sayyid Aḥmad Khān), 45 Khān, Sayyid Aḥmad., see Sayyid (Sayyed/ Syed) Aḥmad Khān Khān, Wahīduddīn, 53 Quran—the Book of God, 53 Kharaqānī, Asad Allāh, 83, 94 Resāla-ye tanqīd-e maqāla-ye Dārvīnīsthā), 83 Khelqat-e ensān (Sahabi), 88, 90–91 Kidd, Benjamin, 266, 342, 346 Social Evolution, 342, 346 Killingley, Dermot, 177 Kitāb al-ḥayawān (Jahiz), 74 Kitahara-Frisch, Jean, 6 Kiyozawa Manshi, 348–349, 354, 358

377 “Buddhism and Evolutionary Theory”, 348 “Heredity and Karma”, 349 Knox, Robert, 158 Kobayashi Ichirō, 357 Kōtoku Shūsui, 345 Kozaki Hiromichi, 346 Kropotkin, Peter, 4, 9, 14, 327–332, 342, 345, 361, 363–364 “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal”, 329, 331 Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, 328, 343, 345, 361, 363 Kṛṣṇa, 104, 159–161 Kṛṣṇa-saṃhitā (Bhaktivinod), 160, 161 Kuhn, Thomas, 182 Kundakunda, 194 L Lafont, Eugène, 141, 155, 156 Lamarckism, 49, 52, 54, 69, 73, 83, 116, 153, 300, 304 Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 9, 80, 82, 149, 304, 327 Lamb, Ramdas, 130 Lao Zi/Laozi, 250, 264, 288–314 Daodejing. (see Daode Jing/Daodejing (Lao Zi/Laozi)) Laozi Benyi (Wei Yuan), 295 Laozi daode jing wangbi zhu (Wang Bi), 291 Laozi heshang gong zhu (Heshang Gong), 291 Laszlo, Ervin, 235 Lavoie, Jeffrey, 170 Law of conservation of energy, 123, 148, 151, 162 Law(s) of nature/natural law in Büchner’s thought, 68 in Chinese Buddhism, 324 in Confucianism/Daoism, 253, 260, 301 and critique of Huxley’s exempting humans, 261, 266 in Darwin’s thought, 301 in Huxley’s thought, 267, 282 in Islam, 41, 44, 47, 82 in Japanese Buddhism, 352, 358, 360 in Katō’s thought, 344 in Kropotkin’s thought, 331 Laws of probability and impossibility of evolution, 53, 57 Lectures on Evolutionary Theory (Oka Asajirō), 342 Legalism, 263

378 Le Phénomène Humain (Teilhard de Chardin), 52 Li Si, 263 Li Zehou, 244, 252–255 Chinese Aesthetic Tradition, 253 “Outline of the Origin of Humankind, An”, 252 Liang Qichao, 259, 264 Liberation in Buddhism, 217 in Hinduism, 117, 128 in Jainism, 188–190, 196, 199–203, 205 Life Divine, The (Aurobindo), 168, 176, 180–181, 183 Life on Earth, divinization of, 168–169, 177–178 Life, origin of, 31, 45, 48–49, 53, 92, 102, 122, 169, 192, 232 Logos, 149, 159, 175, 244 Long, Jeffery, 203 Lopez, Donald S., 211, 219, 222–223, 229, 233, 321 Lotus Sūtra, 339–355, 358–359, 361, 363, 364 Loy, David, 234, 236 Lyell, Charles, 4, 44 M Mabud, Abdul, 54–55 Madrasa, 25, 43 Mahābhārata, 103, 107, 145–146, 159, 171 Maharaj, Ayon, 176 Mahāvīra, 188, 199, 202–205 Maḥmūd, Mirzā Bashīruddīn, 48 Making of Buddhist Modernism, The (McMahan), 320 Māṇḍavya, story of, 103, 107–108 Man’s Place in Nature (Huxley), 265, 281 Manu, lawbook of, 145, 154 Marx, Karl, 71, 212, 252, 345 Marxism/Marxists, 49, 87, 88, 94, 333 Mashriqī, ʿInāyatullāh, 43, 46–47, 59, 60 Massey, Gerald, 170, 175 Concerning Spiritualism, 170 Materialism, 67 and Buddhist modernism, 233–234 and consciousness, 235–236 and Darwinism/evolution, 48, 66–68, 87, 95, 213, 358, 364 as delusion, 60 embraced by Katō, 345 Japanese Buddhist opposition to, 359

Index Muslim opposition to, 51, 68, 71, 74–76, 78–82, 84–85, 93–94 and modern science, 30, 236 as reaction to Christian irrationalism, 57 Matter as created or eternal, 54, 85–86 in Jainism, 192, 194 and origin of life, 45, 48 Mawdūdī, Abū l-A ‘lā, 42–44, 49–51 Mayr, Ernst, 37–38 McCauley, Robert N., 9, 113 McMahan, David, 321, 333 Making of Buddhist Modernism, The, 320 Medlicott, Henry Benedict or Joseph, 142 Mencius, 249, 263, 270 Meshkini, ʿAli, 92–94 Takāmol dar Qurʾān, 92 Metaphysics Buddhist, 210–211, 213, 232, 234 Chinese Buddhist, 330–332 Confucian-Daoist, 246, 288–292, 294, 299, 300, 306, 313 European, 244–246 Milne-Edwards, Henri, 82 Mind and Cosmos (Nagel), 182 Mind-body dualism, 216, 233–236 Minhāj al-Qurʾān, 40 Miracles in the Qur’ān, 41, 43–44 Mirʾāt al-ʿaql (Haeri), 79 Missing links, 47, 53, 56 Missionary activity., see Christianity:and missionary activity\influence Modernism/modernists and Buddhism, 231–237, 320 and Islam, 34, 40–41, 44, 52, 58, 59, 88, 93 Modernity, 58, 232, 320, 322–323, 325, 333, 350, 353 Modernization in China, 293 in Japan, 340, 347, 350 in Turkey, 20–21, 25–27, 30, 34 Monism, 148, 155, 344 Monotheism, 28, 71, 95, 140, 157, 320, 325, 347, 352 Montesquieu Spirit of Laws, The, 259, 294 Moore, John, 52 Morris, Henry, 54 Morse, Edward Sylvester, 340–341, 343 Evolution of Animals, The, 340 Motahhari, Mortaza, 88, 93–94 Mukhopadhyay, Bhudev, 141 Muller, Max, 180

Index Mumme, Patricia Y., 132 Muskuya (Miskawaih), 84 Mutation(s) alleged to be always deleterious, 48, 53 randomness of, 76–77, 84, 125, 128, 132, 225, 227, 228, 232, 234 Mutual aid, 328–331, 342, 345, 361–363 Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (Kropotkin), 328, 343, 346, 361, 363 N Nadwī, Shihābuddīn, 50–52, 59 Nagel, Thomas, 182 Mind and Cosmos, 182 Naik, Zakir, 55–58 Najafi, Mahdi Isfahani Masjedshahi, 85–87, 94 Ketāb-e mortafaq, 85–86 Naohide, Isono, 6, 338 Naqd falsafat Dārwūn (Isfahani), 80 Naser al-Din Shah, 67 Nasr, Seyyed Hossein, 54, 93–94 Islam and the Plight of Modern Man, 93 Nationalism, 4, 44 Chinese, 258–265, 267–269, 272–275, 279–281, 288, 292–295, 308, 312–314, 323, 325 ethno-religious, 24, 27, 30 Japanese, 10, 344–345, 347, 359–360 Turkish, 26 Natural Law in the Spiritual World (Drummond), 266 Natural selection, 143, 170, 257 anticipated by early Arab thinkers, 74 in Chinese Buddhism, 324 in Confucianism/Daoism, 252, 258–259, 265, 272, 281, 283, 294, 298, 309–311, 314 in Darwin’s theory, 2, 78, 82, 120, 144, 154, 158, 169, 182, 212, 225, 228, 304 in Hinduism, 125, 157, 178 in Huxley’s thought, 266, 272, 282 and introduction to Japan, 6 in Islam, 5, 45–46, 72–74, 82–85, 92–93, 95 in Jainism, 194, 197, 200, 202, 206 in Japanese Buddhism, 362 as opposed to design/divine plan, 2, 37, 46, 48, 116, 120, 144, 324 in Sikhism, 11 in Spencer’s thought, 199–220

379 Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (Paley), 1 Nature Buddhist attitudes toward, 6 Confucian/Daoist attitudes toward, 248–250, 253–254, 279, 300–302, 309, 313 in Darwinian-Daoist thought, 252 Hindu attitudes toward, 106, 111, 116, 125 Nebular hypothesis, 85, 354 Neicherī(s) (naturist), 41, 70–71, 73–75, 94 Neo-Darwinism, 182, 210 New Theory of Human Rights, A (Katō), 345 Nichiren, 356, 358 Nigoda(s), 189 Nigoda(s) (simplest life form), 196–197, 202 Nikhilananda, 123, 131 Nirvana/nirvāṇa, 3, 217, 222, 227 Non-Overlapping Magisteria, 131, 237 Nur movement, 26, 28 Nurbaki, Haluk, 53 Nyāya, 115, 149 Nyāya-Sūtra, 115, 124, 128 Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika, 121, 150 O Oka Asajirō, 6, 342 Lectures on Evolutionary Theory, 342 Omniscience, 173 human, 185, 191, 196–197, 200, 203 On Natural Evolution., see Tianyan lun (Yan Fu) On Result of the Problem Involving Ideological Issues and the Lotus Sūtra (Honda), 363 On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 1, 68, 82, 138, 142–144, 148, 178, 199, 210, 212, 220, 228, 244–245, 304, 322, 338, 342 On the Origin of Species: or the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature (Huxley), 342 Opium Wars, 261, 268, 293, 295 Organic Evolution Cross-Examined (Campbell), 179 Origin of Earth\universe, 11, 52, 55, 67, 85, 324 Ƭsugi Sakae, 342, 345, 361 Osūl-e falsafa va ravesh-e reālīsm (Tabataba’i, et al.), 88 Ottoman Empire, 20, 25, 60

380 “Outline of the Origin of Humankind, An” (Li), 252 P Paley, William, 2, 78, 116, 245 Natural Theology, or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, 2 Pāli canon, 211, 214, 230 Pangenesis, 73, 349 Pantheism, 351–352, 364 Parwez, Ghulām Aḥmad, 42–43, 48, 58 Patañjali, 153 Yoga-Sūtra, 149, 152 Persian language, sources, terms, translations, 66–68, 79, 83, 87, 89, 93 Plato, 5, 171, 244 Pokharna, Surendra Singh, 197, 200, 204 Political philosophy Confucian/Daoist, 263, 301, 307, 309–312 Western, 22, 27, 343 Politics, international, 265, 268, 281, 294, 307, 311 Positivism, 88, 142 Potter, Karl H., 110, 114 Power of Eastern Civilization (Honda), 360 Prabhupada, A.C. Bhaktivedānta Svāmī, 122, 160 Prakṛti, 105, 117, 146–147, 173, 179 Pratt, John Henry Scripture and Science not at Variance, 143 Progress in Chinese Buddhism, 321, 327 in Confucianism/Daoism, 250–251, 255, 307–310, 313, 314 in Darwin’s thought, 82, 144, 158, 250 and Darwinism/evolution, 10, 85, 323, 327, 332, 354 and degeneration, 355 in Hinduism, 123, 126–127, 153–154, 158, 160–161, 172 in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 218–219 in Jainism, 196, 205 in Japanese Buddhism, 353–354 in Katō’s thought, 345 in Kropotkin’s thought, 328, 330 of natural sciences, 41, 92, 130, 252 questioned, 182 and Social Darwinism, 323, 325, 328 in Victorian world view, 158, 337 in Western socio-political thought, 82, 144, 153, 251, 255, 261, 275, 308–310, 312–313, 333, 344 “Progress: Its Law and Cause” (Spencer), 309

Index “Prolegomena” in Evolution and Ethics (Huxley), 276–277, 280 Prophetic tradition(s), 39, 42, 50, 52, 94–95 Providence, 170, 178–179 Punctuated equilibrium, 54 Purāṇas, 104, 146, 148, 158, 161, 178 Purpose/purposiveness in cosmic sense. absence of, in Darwin’s theory, 31, 213, 231, 301 allegedly confirmed by modern science, 126 in Confucianism/Daoism, 3, 7, 246, 248–250, 255, 300–309, 314 and creation or evolution of world, 48, 82, 88, 128, 168, 182 lack of, as broad challenge to religion, 2–3, 6 as part of divine plan, 7, 25 in Sikhism, 11 See also Teleology Purpose/purposiveness in general sense and childhood intuitions of, 9 and childhood or adult predilection for, 108 and human need for, 183 in Huxley, 282 Puruṣa/puruṣa, 151, 154, 179 as Cosmic Man, 109, 215 as Self/Ātman, 109, 112 in Sāṃkhya, 117, 146, 173 Pusey, James Reeve, 250 Pyysiӓinen, Ilkka, 108, 117 Q Qādrī, Ṭāhir ul-, 40, 52–53 Quantum physics, 11, 30, 114, 205, 227, 233–234 Quasem, Abul, 54 Qun (community\group), 264–265, 269–274 Qur’ān and absence of detailed creation stories, 21 and astronomy, 41, 79, 87 and compatibility with evolution/modern science, 41, 46, 52, 55, 57–58, 71, 80, 88, 91–93 and conflict with evolution/modern science, 55, 78 on creation of life/species, 45–46, 49, 52 interpretation of, 5, 7, 41, 50, 52, 56, 81, 89, 92–94 miracles in, 41, 43–44 Qurʾānocracy, 42 Quran—the Book of God (Khān), 53 Quṭb, Sayyid, 44

Index R Racism, 53, 72, 119, 141, 150, 158, 360 Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, 102, 126–128, 157, 162 Rebirth., see Karma and rebirth Reconciliation of religion and evolution/ modern science, 8 in Christianity, 132 in Confucianism/Daoism, 294 in Hinduism, 102, 108, 122, 151, 160 in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 232, 234 in Islam, 51, 88 in Jainism, 190, 192, 205 in Sikhism, 11 types of, 121 Reichenbach, Bruce R., 107, 113, 114 Reincarnation., see Karma and rebirth Religion and business, 21, 26, 32 and politics, 25, 33, 246, 307 and state, 26, 322, 359, 363 as obstacle to social change, 344 as problematic category, 321–322 evolution of, 351–352 Religion and science as compatible, 8, 25, 55, 80–81, 87, 92, 143, 168–169, 186 as conflicting or in tension, 23, 25, 111, 173, 182, 186, 205–206, 320, 347 as distinct or separate, 11, 22, 28, 58, 80, 94 Religions, hierarchy of, 157, 351–353 Republican Party (USA), 24, 27 Resāla-ye Dārvīn va ḥukamā-ye Mashreq Zamīn (Shirazi), 84 Resāla-ye tanqīd-e maqāla-ye Dārvīnīsthā (Kharaqānī), 83 Riddle of the Universe, The (Haeckel), 149, 344 Rig Veda, 109 Rituals and social evolution\regulation, 253, 254, 263, 274 Roy, Rammohan, 121, 140, 148 S Saḍdarśanadarpaṇa (Goreh), 147 Sahabi, Yadallah, 88–95 Baḥthī dar bāra-ye maqāla-ye, 91 Khelqat-e ensān, 88, 90 Śākyamuni, 347, 351–355 Sāṃkhya, 8, 117, 145–151, 171–173, 175, 177, 180

381 Sāṃkhya-kārikā (Īśvarakṛṣṇa), 146 Sāṃkhya-Yoga, 150 Saṃsāra, 117, 187, 196, 199, 216–217, 220–222, 224–226, 229, 232 Samurai Darwinism, 343–345, 360 Saṃyutta Nikāya, 230 Śaṅkara, 110, 116–117, 125 Brahmasūtra-Bhāṣya, 116 Sarvarkar, V. D., 180 Sat-cit-ānanda, 172, 181 Satish Mukherjee, 8 Satkāryavāda, 146–148, 150, 151, 175 Satomi Kishio, 353 Satyartha Prakash (Dayananda), 121 Sayyid (Sayyed/Syed) Aḥmad Khān, 41–45, 71 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 155 Schuon, Fritjof, 54 Schwartz, Benjamin In Search of Wealth and Power Yen Fu and the West, 260, 275 Science and religion., see religion and science Science, indigenous, 140, 293 Science, modern ambivalence towards, distrust of, or indifference to, 9, 29–30, 40 and accounts of nature vs. ancient accounts, 112 as anticipated in ancient traditions, 55, 122, 150, 186, 191, 203, 205, 332 applied vs. abstract, 23, 28, 32–33, 251 atheistic/materialistic / naturalistic nature of, 9, 54, 171, 236, 351 authority of, 8, 26, 321, 332, 363 and Chinese Buddhism, 319, 320, 327, 332 and Christianity, 346–347 and colonialism, 9, 38 as counterintuitive and unnatural, unlike religion, 31, 113 and Confucianism/Daoism, 248, 255, 260, 262, 265, 269, 280, 290, 294, 323 as foreign import, 87 and Hinduism, 108, 111, 113, 122–123, 126, 128, 139, 150, 156, 169, 173 and Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 233–234, 236 and Islam, 39–42, 44–45, 49–50, 53–56, 58–59, 70, 71, 75–76, 79–80, 87–88, 91, 94 and Jainism, 186, 189, 191, 194, 201, 203–206 and Japanese Buddhism, 351, 354, 360, 363–364

382 Science, modern (cont.) limits of, regarding prime or ultimate cause, 81, 82, 155 limits of, regarding spiritual matters, 169, 170, 192, 197, 200, 204, 228, 358, 363 methodology of, 59, 108, 191, 212, 236, 251 and morality, 113, 123, 328, 330 and need for Asian countries to study, 25, 51, 56, 340 religious appeals to, 58, 123, 150, 186, 354 and Sikhism, 11 spiritualization of, 59, 120–121, 142, 156 and supernatural causation, 131, 181 Sciences as taught to humans by God, 78 higher and lower, 128, 131 Science, Western., see science, modern Scientific Explorations of Jain Doctrines (Kachhara), 197 Scientific fact(s), and inadequacy of mere collecting, 30, 33 Scientific theories, 52, 59–60, 93, 114, 131 Scopes trial, 23 Scripture not intended to describe factual events, 81, 93 as written for popular understanding, 41 Scripture and Science not at Variance (Pratt), 143 Secret Doctrine, The (Blavatsky), 171, 174–175 Self/Ātman, 106, 109, 112, 151, 154, 155, 168, 172–173 Sentient beings, 210, 216–218, 220, 222–223, 225–226, 228–229, 231–232, 237, 324, 339, 362, 364 Shahrestani, Mohammad Hosayn, 69, 73, 75–81, 83, 86–87, 95 Āyāt-e Bayyenāt, 75, 86 Shahristani, Hibat al-Din al-, 79 al-Haiʾa wa al-Islām, 79 Shahrūr, Maḥmūd, 58 Shao Yong, 309 Sharia., see Islamic law Sheldrake, Rupert, 57 Shen, Vincent Tsing-song, 247 Shi’ite clergy/scholars, 69, 79–80, 85, 90, 95 Shirazi, Enayatallah Dastghayb, 84 Resāla-ye Dārvīn va ḥukamā-ye Mashreq Zamīn, 84 Shirazi, Sadr al-Din i, 84 Shumayyil, Shibli, 68, 84–85, 87

Index Falsafat al-nushū’ wa al-irtiqā’, 85 Sikdar, J. C., 191–193, 197–198 Sikhism, 11–12 Sino-Japanese War, 258–259, 261–262, 293, 294 Sircar, Mahendralal, 120, 129, 141–142, 155–156 Smith, Adam Wealth of Nations, The, 259, 294 Social bond, strengthening of, 262, 265–268 Social Darwinism, 220 and Chinese Buddhism, 319, 320, 325, 327, 332 and Chinese or Japanese thought, 4 and Confucianism/Daoism, 260, 262, 265, 269, 280, 290, 294, 323 and Hinduism, 155 in Huxley, 153, 261, 262, 265, 269, 280 introduction into Japan, 341 and Islam, 93 and Japanese Buddhism, 360 and Kropotkin, 328 in Spencer, 3, 153, 269 Social Evolution (Kidd), 342, 346 Soteriology and devaluation of or disinterest in world, 111, 116, 118–119, 202 Soul (Abrahamic conception of), 5, 84, 324 Soul/jīva, 5–7 absence of, in Buddhism, 210, 324, 331–332 in Hinduism, 104–106, 110–111, 115–118, 122–127, 131, 152–154, 160, 161, 168, 173, 174 in Jainism, 191–199, 201–204 Species in Aristotle, 74, 244 and common ancestry or descent, 48, 66–67, 83, 91 in Christianity, 2 as created/developed by God, 2, 52, 69, 74, 76, 78, 81–83, 92, 95, 144 extinction of, 132, 221, 245 as illusory forms, 106 impermanence of, 210 and intraspecies cooperation, 328, 330–331, 361, 364 as karmic vehicles, 106, 110–111, 117, 121–126, 128, 151–152, 198, 214, 219–220, 227, 324, 338 kinds or numbers of, 192–194, 201, 219, 229 origin of, in ancient Buddhist myths, 212, 214 origin of, in ancient Hindu myths, 108–110

Index and punctuated equilibrium, 54 random evolution of, 76, 95, 125, 178–179, 226, 232, 234, 300 and self-preservation/survival, 223, 298, 360 and similarities to nations/societies, 258, 268, 272, 281, 323, 328 as unchanging, 74, 78, 88, 109, 126, 151, 193 transcending of, 231 transformation of, 2, 4, 6, 45, 48, 72, 84, 89, 144, 194, 212, 218, 228, 245, 304 Spencer, Herbert, 9, 82, 148–150, 157, 174, 260, 262, 296, 312, 314, 357, 361 First Principles, 144, 174, 342 and let-alone policy, 261, 312, 313 and Social Darwinism, 153 and the phrase, “survival of the fittest”, 199, 220, 261, 323 “Progress: Its Law and Cause”, 309 Study of Sociology, The, 259, 261–262, 294, 310, 312 and use of term evolution, 144 Spencer-Huxley debate, 259–262, 281 Spencerism, 307, 310, 312, 341, 344, 346–347, 351 Spirit of Laws, The (Montesquieu), 259, 294 Spontaneous generation, 80, 86, 192 Śrīvaiṣṇavism, 132 Stevenson, Ian, 233 Stewart, Balfour, 169, 183 Unseen Universe: Physical Speculations of a Future State, The, 169 Structure of Animal Life, The (Agassiz), 178 “Struggle for Existence in Human Society” (Huxley), 261 Study of Sociology, The (Spencer), 259, 261–262, 294, 310, 312 Sturdy, E. T., 155–156 Suffering in Buddhism, 210, 215–217, 220, 221, 224, 229, 324 in Jainism, 199 and release from, in South Asian religions, 177 Suffering, problem of, 7, 130 Sufism, 39–40 Sunni Islam, 26, 40–41, 44 Supermind, 168, 176–177, 181 Superstition(s), 26, 149, 322

383 Surveys on evolution of Buddhists, 209 of Hindus, 102 of Pakistani Muslims, 60 Survival of the fittest/struggle for existence and cooperation vs. competition, 266–267, 271, 360–362 as broad challenge to traditional religion, 2 as corrosive of morality/religion, 4, 21, 93, 121, 364 in Chinese Buddhism, 325, 327 in Confucianism/Daoism, 250, 255, 262, 268–269, 272, 281, 282, 298, 314 in Darwinism, 85, 199, 206, 212, 221, 223, 225, 232, 304 in Hinduism, 127, 155 in Huxley’s thought, 152, 223, 265–268, 276–277, 279–281 in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 210, 220–223, 232 and introduction to Japan, 6 in Islam, 46–47, 74, 82, 86, 87, 93 in Jainism, 193, 199–200 in Japanese Buddhism, 223, 359–362, 364 in Japanese thought, 338, 341, 345 and religious competition, 347, 359 in Sikhism, 12 and Social Darwinism, 93, 323 and social/political/international competition, 10, 86, 255, 258, 359–361 in Spencer’s thought, 220, 261, 275, 310, 313, 323 Sutra of Brahma’s Net, 331 Sūtrakṛtāṇga-sūtra, 200 Śvetāmbara, 188–189, 196 System of Logic, A (Mill), 294 Szent-Györgyi, Albert, 57 T Tabataba’i, Mohammad Hosayn, 88, 90–93, 95 al-Mīzān fī tafsīr al-Qurʾān, 90 Tabataba’i, Mohammad Hosayn, et al. Osūl-e falsafa va ravesh-e reālīsm, 88 Tadhkira (Āzād), 45 tafsīr ʿilmī (scientific exegesis), 56 Tagore, Debendranath, 148 Tagore, Rabindranath, 130 Taḥrīk-i Khāksār, 43, 58, 60 Tait, P. G., 169, 170, 183 Unseen Universe: Physical Speculations of a Future State, The, 169

384 Taixu/T’ai Hsu, 6, 325, 327, 329–331 “Critique of Shen’s Translation of Kropotkin’s Ethics, A”, 329 “Gradual Teaching of the Mahayana and the Theory of Evolution”, 329 “Humanistic Science”, 331 Takāmol dar Qurʾān (Meshkini), 92 Takhlīq-i Ādam awr naẓariyya-i irtiqā (Nadwī ), 51 Tanaka Chigaku, 350–353, 355–357, 359–362 Tarbiya: dar qavāʿid-e taʿlīm va tarbiyat-e aṭfāl (Kashani), 70 Tarjumān ul-Qurʾān (Āzād), 46 Tattvārtha-sūtra (Umāsvāti), 185 Tazkerat al-arz̤-e Nāṣerī (Kashani), 67 Teazis, Christos, 27 Technology, in Confucianism/Daoism, 278, 280, 282, 283, 308–309 Technology, modern/Western, 139, 251 adopted as defense against West, 20, 25, 268, 293, 308, 340, 345 and ascendency of West, 9, 120, 278 and religion, 24, 33–34, 59 Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre, 182–183 Le Phénomène Humain, 52 Teleology absence of in modern science, 112 in Aristotle, 244, 245 in Chinese religions, 258, 282 and diversity of species, 78 as innate in human thinking/feeling, 130 and karma, 108, 118 in Kant, 245 in Lamarckism, 83 and reinterpretation of evolution, 46, 58 in Sikhism, 11 See also Darwinism; Evolution; Purpose/ purposiveness in cosmic sense; Teleology Telos, 218, 231, 250 Tendai Buddhism, 6 Terre avant le deluge, La (Figuier), 67 Thānwī, Ashraf ʿAlī, 49 The Ancient Wisdom (Besant), 175 The Descent of Man (Darwin), 201 Theodicy, 113 Theophobia, 49–50 Theosophical Society, 170–171 Theosophy, 142, 171, 175, 210 Thompson, Evan, 235–236 Thompson, Richard, 122 Thurman, Robert, 233 Tian (heaven/nature), 248–249, 252 Tiandao (nature), 248, 253

Index Tianming (mandate of heaven), 249, 251 Tianyan lun (Yan Fu), 247, 259, 260, 262, 264–265, 267–269, 271–272, 275, 278–281, 288, 294, 296, 297, 323 Tiele, Cornelis Petrus, 351 Tilak, B. G., 149–151, 155, 162 Time, as cyclical, 146, 158, 175, 189–190, 197, 214, 324, 339, 348, 354 tīrthaṅkaras, 187, 190, 201, 203 Traditions of the Prophet, 40–41, 51–52, 87 Truth about the Neicheri Sect (Afghani), 75 Tulūʿ-i Islām movement, 48, 58 Turkish Academy of Sciences, 27–28 U Uchimura Kanzō, 346 Udayana, 117 Ulema, 43 Umāsvāti Tattvārtha-sūtra, 185 Unification, age of, in Nichirenism, 356–357 Universe as created, 2, 4, 12, 52, 55, 109 as creative organism, 234 as eternal, 189, 217, 227 as evolved/evolving, 85, 126, 149, 157, 161, 181 Universe in a Single Atom, The (Dalai Lama), 223 Unseen Universe: Physical Speculations of a Future State, The (Stewart and Tait), 169 Upaniṣads, 104, 117, 145–147, 151, 155, 169, 172, 176–180 Bṛhadāraṇyaka, 109, 122, 145 Chāndogya, 110–111, 116, 145 Īśa, 172, 176–177 Māṇḍūkya, 173 Śvetāśvatara, 145, 172, 178 Taittirīya, 156, 176 Urdu language, sources, terms, translations, 38, 41, 46, 49 V Vācaspati Mitra, 152 Vaiśeṣika, 115–118, 150 Vallely, Anne, 202 Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, The (Darwin), 349 Vedānta, 146–148, 151, 169, 171–173, 175–176, 179–180 Vedānta-Sāṃkhya evolution, 179

Index Vedas/Vedic literature, 121–122, 145, 149, 157, 169, 176, 179, 215 Vedic Creationism, 121–122 Vedic Evolutionism, 121, 123 Vedic Golden Age, 119 Victorian context/world view, 10, 158–159, 171, 261–262, 265, 269, 280–281, 288, 314 Viṣṇu, 146, 159 Viṣṇu Purāṇa, 103, 104, 106, 145–147 Vivekananda, 123–125, 128, 130, 149–158, 160, 162, 173, 175, 204 W Wagner, Rudolph G., 302 Waheguru, 12 Waldron, William, 211 Wallace, Alan, 233 Wallace, Alfred Russel, 4, 5, 46, 80, 170, 183 Wang Bi, 290–292, 298–299, 301–303, 305, 307–308, 313–314 Laozi daode jing wangbi zhu, 291–292 Wang Fuzhi, 249, 253 Watanabe, Masao, 2, 10 Way of Lao Tzu, The (Chan), 288 Wealth of Nations, The (Smith), 259, 294 Weeraratne, D. Amarasiri, 210 Wei Yuan, 295 Haiguo Tuzhi, 295 Laozi Benyi, 295 Weiss, Mitchell G., 115 Welträthsel, Die (Haeckel), 47 Whewell,William, 77 Whitehead, Alfred North, 183 Williams, George M., 125 Wilson, Edward O., 129

385 Wilson, Horace Hayman, 145–147, 154 Wood, Charles, 139, 140 X Xun Zi/Xunzi, 249, 260, 263–265, 270–275, 278–280, 282, 294 Xun Zi, 268, 270, 273, 275, 282 Y Yamakawa Chiō, 353 Yan Fu, 8, 243–244, 246–248, 250–252, 255, 257, 262–283, 287–314, 323 Houguan yanshi pingdianlaozi, 288 Tianyan lun. (see Tianyan lun (Yan Fu)) “Yuan Qing”, 258 Yi (righteousness), 273–274 Yoga school, 114, 117, 146, 171 Yoga-Sūtra (Patañjali), 149, 152 Young Earth Creationists, 24, 52, 54 Yu (desire), 297–298 Yu Deyuan, 330 “Yuan Qing” (Yan Fu), 258 Z Zheng (competition), 268, 270, 274 Zheng Xiong, 249 Zheng Xuan, 309 Zhifen (duties), 271–274 Zhifeng, 330 Zhuang Zi, 294–295 Zhu Xi, 249–250 Ziran (natural action), 250, 254 Zoologie (Milne-Edwards), 67