I saw Dragons

...the sacred dragon stands on the little column at the end of our village and ever since the beginning of human memory it has breathed out its fiery breath in the direction of Peking – but Peking itself is far stranger to the people in our village than the next world.

– Franz Kafka, ‘The Great Wall of China’

A referral for psychiatric care was clearly indicated. The statement as tendered to the doctor on duty and responsible for the committal of the patient is reproduced below. A note was appended at the time to indicate that the ‘poetic’ quality of the particular delusions described was not unusual for a patient of this kind. The question was, all things considered now, what kind of patient was this. His delusion having persisted over a long period of treatment, it is vexing to have this question go unanswered.

Case Notes: Presentation

The patient was attired raggedly, as if for some kind of theatrical production, perhaps a Cantonese opera. That had been the first thought. He had rambled in his speech and been only marginally coherent. He might have been drunk when brought in but no tests were conducted. He had had an odd smell about him and seemed extraordinarily dirty.

When he’d first regained consciousness in the ward he had muttered very strangely to himself, but grown louder and louder. His words had been hard to make out to begin with, but became clearer with repetition. He repeated the same formula many times and so it was recorded:

Guan Gong, La Za, Xun Ng Hon, Zu Ba Gai.

Lei yiu ng yiu Min Fen Gong Zai ar? Yiu Guan Gong ho ng ho? La Za le?[1]

Asked his occupation, the man had replied that he was a seller of Min Fen Gong

Zai ‘dough dolls’, those dolls made of flour, stuck on sticks, that parents buy for their children, dolls depicting characters from famous stories. The only other factual detail so far obtained about the man is that his name is Ng, or at least he believes it is. The idea of the dough dolls was in keeping with the idea of the theatre, and led the hospital doctors to wonder if the man had been in a theatrical production of some kind at the time of the trauma which had led to his present derangement. However, no record could be found of any recent production in which such a vendor had been featured.

At first it had been thought that he might have been an actor in a Cantonese opera. Then the idea was entertained that he had been an actor in a production – opera or theatre – which for the sake of authenticity had deployed the traditional hawkers to move about the audience. If either of these suppositions had credence, one might have assumed that eventually the man would have come out of character and been himself or at least adopted another acting role. He has not so far done so. The conclusion reached is thus that the man has consistently believed himself to be a street hawker of Min Fen Gong

Zai, one who did his best trade at the opera. There are no such hawkers in Macao today, nor is it credible that a man of his age could ever have had such an occupation.

The statement taken from the man corroborates all this, nor does it cast much more light on the circumstances in which he came to – or continues with – us. He seems to all intents and purposes an orphan. Here is his statement as far as it was able to be understood. Please note that, no doubt from his extensive stage experience, and the nature of his delusion, his speech had an archaic quality that made it difficult to catch all that he said.

The statement

It was the night of the gate’s opening. There had been theatre to celebrate and I had done a good trade. My pocket was full of coins. It still is. (At this point the man was able to show a string of late Ch’ing cash, of the kind one might obtain at any coin shop in Macao or Hong Kong or across the border.)

All the ceremony was over. All the officials had gone. I went with my sorrows to the chase the dragon. The joy of the town was too much for me. It made me mindful of my own miserable condition. It was because of the loss of my worthless wife and my daughter I sorrowed. Still it was rare that I could afford this pleasure. When I came out of the makeshift shop, one that had been thrown together just for the occasion, I found myself close by the new gate, the gate to the city of white ghosts, Ao Men.

Yes, I was fascinated by the prospect of what lay through there. I was a little unsteady on my feet but I came up square before the gate. Looking through I imagined I could see another world – the world of the foreign devils, the modern world, the future. How often had I heard it from those who had travelled? In China everything is old and nothing changes, in the West just the opposite. In England, in America, everything is in changes and nothing has time to grow old. The gate itself seemed proof of this. What a grand and beautiful object it was. But how grand and beautiful the world of men and heaven over them!

To pass through there! What could it mean? What would I find on the other side? I should not have even dared to think such thoughts. What business had I, could I claim? Of course I had no papers. I have none now. I am no one.

When one lies down and smokes the white powder one feels powerful, yes, but more than that, one feels great benevolence. It is as if I were an emperor and all men my subjects, it is as if none can harm me then. I wish only to do good by all. And so it was on that night, I smiled at those fearsome guards who yawned so noisily now on either side of the gate. And they smiled back and put out their lamps and no doubt within minutes they were asleep.

Darkness now, either side of the border. The hour of the rat or so I guessed. No criers for the hours in so remote a place. Of course I should have turned away. I should have found some awning under which I might have dreamt it all off, woken next morning to my old shabby state, the safe world I knew. But instead like a fool I gazed into the darkness on the other side of the gate. I gazed until it came to light. And out of the light their faces indistinct came beckoning, the faces I mean of my wife and of my daughter.

I was bereft and now I was enraptured, what could I do but follow? The rest – but why should I not tell it, when I see from your face you already think me mad? I followed and they vanished, the two of them, into a crowd of faces less distinct. And still I followed into a blaze like daylight. I had heard of the framed pictures of Europe, I had seen such a frame once, and now I had walked into their picture. When I passed through that gate I was no longer in the Middle Kingdom.

An hour before, had I not lain on my back on a bench chasing dragons? Now I saw dragons, a street full of them, blazing their eyes were. Each sat on a cart, its scales shone as if they were one. Each vast beast growled, hurtled forward into the night. The night was full of dragons. I worried they would chase me but they seemed not to know I was there. I followed them. It was what I had smoked gave me courage.

I followed them and then I realised they were everywhere. This was their town. People rode in them or on them. But whether the people were their prisoners or whether they had tamed them like horses I never learned. Whichever were true I was certain powerful magic was afoot.

Perhaps it was the poppy wearing off, but over time I became more fearful. I worried the dragons might turn to chase me yet. Surely they could see me, there was so much light. But then there were others on the street they did not molest. Then again those were dressed like the dragon tamers or prisoners, whichever they were. The only ones dressed as I was were beggars, they were the only people not in motion. The beggars were blind or crippled or both. When I gave one a coin hoping he would tell me what I needed to know, he laughed in my face. I went on. The night was more full of wonders than I could now account. At every corner I came to I saw the blinding glare of dragons’ eyes. Sometimes they could not even move, so many of them were there. I had to get away, get out of this incessant light.

Through narrow by-ways and smoky lanes I came at last to a crowded square. It was roofed with tin. There was a stage… the opera had been here, had only just finished.

And now on the empty stage I saw my chance… there was a screen and on it I could see a street, a street like any I had known before I had become trapped in this crazy dream. Here was a picture of my world, I had only to walk through this gate as I had walked through the other. Then I would be safe out of the dream, home again. Or so I hoped. I walked across the empty stage. No one minded me. I presented myself before the picture frame. A dusty street of two storied houses. I could smell the noodles brewing ahead of me. I drew a sharp breath but when I attempted to pass through the ‘gate’ the screen on which it had been painted collapsed around me like a sheet. Indeed, that’s what it was. This world was as real – more real to me now – than the one I had left. Now it wasn’t dragons pursuing me, but men. I fled from under the sheet, down more alleys where I saw now the noodles I’d smelt.

Coming away from the theatre I again saw the dragons. I must find my way back, or if not, then onwards to my destiny. It was then I decided I must follow the dragons, I had to keep them ahead of me. I had to chase them, not have them chase me. When I came to the water I saw that the dragons were returning to heaven… I saw them carried away into a cloud, a great procession they were… simply vanishing from their road into the air. High above the sea this was. I dared not follow them…

By now though I had become almost convinced that the dragons could not see me. Perhaps I was invisible? Perhaps I was myself no longer real? Was I a bodiless spirit? Had I become a ghost on entering the white ghosts’ town?

It was in this mind of frantic speculation, I saw the faces again, they were on the other side of the street now. The street was San Ma Lo. Their faces were receding from me, fading back into the crowd. The dragons were between me and them. It was true that my family seemed like spectral presences here, true that the dragons seemed real. But suddenly I knew things were other than they seemed. Now I saw that white lines appeared on the road before me, crossing the dragons’ paths. I followed them, as if by rights.

It was only at this point I recognised that the dragons in this picture I was in were no more real than the dragons in any other picture. I knew I had to follow or lose them forever…

***

That was the end of the man’s account. The next thing he was aware of was being in the ward. He has complained constantly about the brightness of the light here. Several nurses have had to be taken off the ward because he had ‘recognised’ them as either his wife or his daughter, or in one case, both.

As to the idea of ‘dragons ascending to heaven’, it seems plausible the patient had been watching the traffic on the old Macao Taipa Bridge. It had been a night of heavy mist when he was brought in. Perhaps it was the traffic ‘disappearing’ thus into the clouds which had suggested to him a kind of procession.

With regard to the opium references, it is entirely possible that the man might have been under some narcotic influence at the time of his being brought in. No tests having been conducted at the time however, this cannot be verified.

As a ‘reality check’, given his persistent fantasies of the past, the patient was asked if he thought there was anything unusual in the hospital, in the immediate surroundings in which the interview took place. Again, he complained of the light, but claimed that, as he had never been inside a hospital before, he had no expectation of what one might be like.

Asked what the date was, the man told us that it was the eighth year of the reign of Qing Tongzhi Di. This date was found to correspond with 1870 in the modern calendar, which was indeed the year in which the border gate was opened. It is not unusual with such delusional cases, for the patient to have a penchant for accuracy.

Over time the patient has come to seem less disoriented, although his speech has retained its strange archaic diction. There has as yet been no success in our efforts to trace the man through missing persons lists. There are many Ngs missing, but this one fits none of the descriptions for a man of his age.

---

[1] The names are the names of theatrical characters (the red faced God of Courage,

Guan Yin’s helper, the Monkey King and Pigsy from The Journey to the West. The ‘Lei yiu…’ is the call of the hawker who sells ‘dough dolls’ to children, for instance to help parents keen them quiet at the Cantonese opera.

Lao Tzu at the Border

Lao Tzu at the border

for my brother, Steve
with thanks to Chad Hansen

Endless, the series of things without name
On the way back to where there is nothing.
Tao Te Ching, Chapter 14

One of the privileges of fiction – usually too obvious to mention – is that of not having to tell the truth. In fact it’s more than a privilege, it’s a responsibility. If all you do in a story is tell the truth, tell that is what is already known and verifiable, then you don’t have a story at all. Or rather you might have a journalist’s story, but you don’t have a story in the fictional sense.

Is the writer of fiction dishonest then? One is inclined to hedge the question. Dishonest is word that carries a heavy moral load and it implies a certain amount of black and white distinction. When you say someone’s been dishonest, you’re already implying that they might have been honest. In other words you’re already in the realm of the hypothetical, which is exactly where fiction happens to be. Rather than chase the tail any further, let’s just say that it’s not necessary to consider the writer of fiction as dishonest, and that if one were to consider the writer of fiction in that light then the same pall would need to be cast over anyone who had ever imagined things as other than they are, would need to be cast over anyone who had ever used what the Romantics called the faculty of the imagination.

The hope of the fiction maker is usually to get to deeper truths by portraying people we haven’t exactly met, events which haven’t quite happened. The idea that truth is ‘layered’ is one many black and white thinkers would like to resist. It is nevertheless fundamental to the principle and to the pleasure of fiction.

How, as Danté put it, to furnish the beautiful lie revealing the truth? The methods are many and various and these are what the art of fiction is all about. One such method is anachronism: putting together places and events which shouldn’t or couldn’t under normal – true – circumstances, have come together. The cannons in Hamlet. Shakespeare was happy to meet the historical contexts of his dramas half way. Perhaps in doing so he was merely acknowledging that in practice this is difficult to avoid. We are creatures of our own times and conditions; when we touch the past we can’t help but remake it in our own image, or at least to some extent…

In the dim mists of the past where record runs into legend, one can perhaps be forgiven for running the characters of one dynasty or kingdom into those, from our point of view, proximate. When one deals with characters who may already be fictional or mythical, characters whose deeds are done and yet remain open to interpretation, then one’s licence is even further enlarged. On the basis of this train of fictional reasoning, I hope that the reader will indulge the liberties I have taken with the truth below.


***

Legend has it Lao Tzu wanted to leave China. It’s not difficult to speculate as to why this may have been so. He might have had any number (or any combination) of good reasons to get out of the Middle Kingdom. The difficult job for philosophy’s chroniclers is to narrow his range of possible motives. If we knew with any certainty why it was the great sage felt he had to leave China, then light might be cast on many of the original mysteries of Daoism, a system of belief widely regarded as inscrutable by observers east and west.

Such at least was the resignedness of the conventional wisdom on Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching until the recent discovery of the still little known text you see translated below. The torn and incomplete scroll is purportedly in the hand of one of the border guards who had been expressly charged with the duty of preventing the sage’s leaving China, but who apparently was persuaded to his doctrine in the course of his encounter. Even since the publication of this fragment there remain scholars who continue to doubt the historical veracity of some details. Still others maintain the old skepticism that there ever lived a sage named Lao Tzu. I leave it to the reader to judge whether tales of this nature may be constructed from fragments of truth and figments far otherwise, or whether rather their verisimilitude gives credence to the belief they inspire.

Lao Tzu you’ll recall is famous for a great many sayings, these not necessarily in the four character style of later received wisdom. The first of these which I transliterate here

dao ke dao fei chang dao
ming ke ming fei chang ming

one might regard as the most translated – or rather the most widely interpreted, the most contentious – lines of thought which ever came from one language into another. Lao Tzu – whether you regard him as historical personage or confabulation – was certainly a character of great profundity and as well a character of profound influence on that fifth and more of the world’s population which has for the last two and a half millennia found itself under the spell of a ‘Confucian Heritage’. As in the case of Jesus and Buddha, we have to guess at the man and the life hidden behind the text and the interpretation and the doctrine and dogma that came after. Even a man of Lao Tzu’s originality and insight can be reduced to cliché of the desk calendar variety: ‘the road of a thousand li begins with a single step.’

This is a story about the single most difficult step Lao Tzu took on his journey out of China. It is told in the voice of one charged with the duty of preventing the sage from taking that step.

***

The Old Master (Lao Tzu) had wanted to leave China because of the unbearable pressure brought upon him by the moralists (Confucians). We were sent to the pass for this reason, that we might guard it bodily against his passing, and that, schooled in the truths of the Great Master (Confucius or Kungzi), we might gently dissuade him from passing beyond the world, and at once learn how he had fallen into error. We were easily guided and provisioned en route because disciples of the tall man (Confucius) were everywhere. In the kingdoms we passed through there seemed to be few men who had not sat at the master’s knee.

Our mission was to return to the capital with the sage or failing that, with a record of his wisdom set down in his own hand. The Old Master was long known to have magical powers; who could say how he might evade us? Though he was rumoured rarely to speak, his oratorical powers were legend. Who had met him? The tall man had, or there were none to contradict him if he said he had, and he did say so. We brothers had been chosen for the task of apprehending the Old Master because we had long training and experience in the arts of magic and in resisting evasive speech and seductive inducements, and because as brothers we thought with one mind. When one of us slept the other would be wide awake. No one could slip between us when we were charged with the duty of watching. Our orders were the emperor’s. The emperor was unsure how dangerous or how valuable this man might be, to him, or indeed to someone else. He must be watched, not lost. The emperor had samples of the sage’s calligraphy and would trust nothing written in another hand to represent the sage’s truth. There had at that time recently been many famous cases of forgery. Our motive, as you must know, was pain of death should we fail. Should we succeed, the eternal gratitude of the kingdom would be ours. The wisdom of the Old Master would be preserved, harnessed for the benefit of the empire.

Days and months we had followed him – staying out of sight and out of earshot where possible – as he lumbered through the western provinces, li by slow li on his laborious ox. His progress – and ours – had been erratic, confused. Often he would appear ahead of us when we were sure we had moved into the lead and when we were sure that he had no way around our path. Was his progress magical – like of that of the sacred tortoise in the western legend – or was it merely the case that at his prodigious age the seer had an intimate knowledge of these parts which were foreign to us? Had he been in these strange places before, even in remote antiquity? Perhaps it was the case that he never slept. But then neither, between us, did we. Or did we? A thousand years might pass in the blinking of an eye, might it not? His hours were not the ones we knew.

At last we came to the pass he could not avoid: the way from the world you might think it, but to the people we encountered on our way there, the pass was just a rumour. What they saw on their western horizon, or never saw but had heard told, was a wall of stone none passed, an impenetrable mountain fastness.

A maze of ridges leads to the pass. But the pass itself is unmistakable. It cannot be missed should you, that is, survive through the maze of stone to come to it. Years it might take you and the only noodles you’d eat would be the ones you’d carried with you on your back. Time and again, tracks turn back on themselves, away from the only true passage. There’s no way around the pass itself though. Not even Lao Tzu can bluff his way through a solid rock face. The ridges rise so high above us the sun can only be seen for a few minutes each day.

To the pass we came and there we waited.

Picture the scene if you will. We are within hours of him, ahead now, but alert always, having lost his trail so many times before. Should we lose him here, should he pass us… – but it is impossible! – then we must follow him into the perilous void beyond. Our fears are founded in what no one knows. Such is the heart/mind with which we attend what will be.

The Old Master comes sidling up to the border on his fat ox, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Squat, slow steps of the beast, like he’s a peasant and he does this every day. As if he were making his way to a neighbour’s farm. But this man is no farmer, and our fear is that the world is about to be broken, its limit taken down. There was no silk road then, by land or by sea. China was the world, you can imagine how difficult it is leave the world. Remember the cautionary tales? O soul come back! The north is full of ice, the sea boils in the south, monsters mountain high to the east and in the west the moving sands stretch away for thousands of li. These were tales told to keep you at home, as if there were in every direction a limit to what humans might endure.[1] Even since then very few have passed beyond the borders of the kingdom.

Indeed, we were at one of the limits foretold in the poem. It was thunder’s chasm to which we had come, the chasm in the west, the eyrie of certain malevolent deities, or so we had been schooled by all who directed our steps, all that is except for the Old Master. To him we had not yet spoken. Yet neither could we believe that he had been unaware of our movements behind and before him. The moment of the encounter was upon us.

Now we know there are other worlds, we didn’t know then. The word ‘border’ is misleading here because this moment is the invention.

***

The Old Master comes slowly through the pass. These eyes the eyes of a farmer, an ox. But we know, he knows. He sees us, sees through us. When I say ‘us’, I do not mean that he saw us both. Our strategy was to avoid that possibility by never appearing before him together. He was to think we were the one man, the one guard. We were to intimidate him with our vigilance, our ferocious mien, by the glint of halberd, by the thickness of our beards. So we were commanded and so the empire would appear invincible. Vain hope that was! Before ever we set out from the city, he must have known we were brothers, known the story of our family back beyond its beginnings, known all.

The first words, do we trust our recollection of them? We had been warned about the ‘wordless teaching’. The first words are ours. They are as commanded. Do we understand even them?

‘Great Sage, Old Master. Kungzi says you are a great teacher. Mozi says great teachings must not be wasted. The emperor commands us that you must not leave this world without recording your dao. And so – though we are worthless and your way is great – yet we must detain you.’
‘So the kingdom has got underneath me.’
We were prepared for tricks, his riddle could not move us. We were silent till he spoke again.
‘Fine words demanding words, these.’
‘You must write your dao before you pass. So we are commanded.’
‘The way that can be told is not…’
We ask him if it his intention to pass beyond us, but he will not answer. Which way is he headed? But again, ‘The way that can be told is not…’
‘What is it you mean when you say this?’
‘The names that can be named are not…’
‘Can you write this, in your own hand?’
‘The names that can be named…’

He was, after these first moments, convivial with us, disarmingly so. Nothing I write now can capture his manner. He spoke of the things about us, with us. What he said made easy sense. He spoke of the road as any wayfarer might, of the way he and we had come. That night he cooked a tiny fish in our honour, mine or my brother’s, I can’t remember. Whenever we asked him to write, the riddling resumed as it had begun. Or, it seemed like riddling to us. It seemed to us he wanted to go on and that there was nowhere ahead. We thought he was weak in the head. He said, ‘In dao the only motion is returning.’ Then why should he set his face into the nothing, into deaf stone?

But then he was our friend, companion of the way, a man as I am, more knowledged in the world, having come farther, yet a man. A fund of stories. There were times we laughed loudly in the first days. We did not mean to show disrespect, there were times we thought he was joking, had to be.

He would have written nothing had we not insisted upon the gravity of our commission. And yet one feels now there was no need of insisting on what he already knew. He wrote for us a line at a time. After each line we would have questions. We wanted to get to the truth of his meaning. But each question – each word we spoke – led us further from… truth, from where it was we wished to be. How much must we bring back to the emperor? How many characters would suffice? How long is a man’s dao? Ridiculous, all ridiculous questions. What choice had we but to pursue them?

Of course the document left at the border consists of what was written in the hand of the sage, none of the dialogue was recorded until now[2]. Nor were the comments and explanations, the interpolations, unwillingly given by the Old Master.

The talk and the scribble, the fire under the pot, the pot filled miraculously as if out of air. There were I think months of this. At least the ice grew round us, the ice melted away. For weeks at a time we would feel our knowledge growing. But what was this knowledge we were coming into now? Words and more words.

‘Words and things, words and things,’ he would roar at us. ‘You wish to know why it is I avoid the use of words? Words regulate the roar of things! How could that be wise or well? Things that can be spoken are already said…’ And so on. It would not be possible for me to recover the discussion in any detail. Expect from this account no more than some of the memorable points of the encounter, delivered by one whose understanding is yet – and shall remain – feeble.

Words I think he meant were only as useful as what they could bring about it in the world. Knowledge as we understood it was only of words. Dao, his dao was what had brought him. How could that be spoken? A memory or a set of directions is not the way. The way is in steps left behind. To look for it is to seek the beams of the burnt house in its ashes.

And what could he hope to achieve by standing here talking to us through a blizzard, pretending with us, I now understand, that two were one, when he knew all along. He was a shrinking man, a man dwarfed by his years. There seemed to be less of him each day. We were young then, our halberds were heavy, we were several times his size, or so we felt. Why should he stand here with us dealing out words when words were nothing to him, when only – so he schooled us – only a practical purpose could justify their use?

We had furnished him with inkstone, brush, paper. A folding table and stool we provided for him. Of course we kept the chapter he had written each day. And yet, many times we imagined we would be best to start again. Had we left the pages with him, would he have destroyed them, left them to the tearing winds? This was a risk we could never run, because doom would overtake us should we return empty handed. Besides, the seer was so frail: were he not, as rumoured, immortal, then any day might be his last, and likewise any stroke of the brush. All that he wrote was precious, the palace scholars would interpret it later.

Truly we believed to begin that this place would mark his passage from the world. Daily we expected that he would vanish before our eyes. Would he turn to ashes? Would he rise and fly from us, fold silver wings high over the dark cliffs? These were mere fantasies and yet each of these notions was right in its way. He would go and with it his dao. What if the palace scholars were to sift through his words and whisper to the emperor that the dao was not there, was lost, would have to be cut from our flesh? And so daily we begged him to write what he meant. And so daily he obliged us.

So slight and yet speaking, he would shield his eyes as if the sun were there, as if he could see through the walls of stone which held us. He would shuffle his feet. Later, when we brothers spoke we could confirm with each other, that listening to him, we felt we were always looking at him sideways, we were always shifting our footing to follow his meaning. It retreated as we approached, dao – what dao did he mean?

Dao. Where was it? It was everywhere. How could we follow it? What difference would it make? How can you follow where you have already been? You might as well follow the air, follow nothing. Is dao something or nothing, a thing or the source of things. Every day we placed upon him the same demand to interpret. Every day the same answer, ‘I’ve said what I can; there’s nothing more. To mystify it increases mystery. You need to know dao to interpret dao.’

‘Dao, dao. Is it one or are there many daos?’ he would say. ‘How did you get here? That was only one way. Where you will go is also only one way. But that is a way you cannot follow – because you cannot miss it. You have many to choose from, but none is constant except the one you will choose.’
This we could confirm with him, so duplicitous were we. ‘Through the maze there is a way.’
‘Then how is it you did not see me come? Was there one step that brought you, brought me?’ He rarely answered with questions like this. ‘Each of us comes by a different way, such is our love. Your family field is in weeds while you stay.’
‘But my brother…’ I might have said. I said nothing. Whether in questions or in answers, in bold statements or in asides, his words – it seemed to us then – had many meanings, and so his meaning seemed obscure, wise beyond our ken, wide of our understanding. When we shook our heads he knew where we were lost. ‘More than one is never none,’ he would say.

Could there be an unchanging dao? He confided in us when we asked that he hoped to meet another sage, a mortal/immortal man of a thousand lives – not a man – but one who has been before, will come again. He was worried that there might be impostors. Might he himself be one? When, in the first days, we had told him of our mission, he had asked us why we would risk everything to return to face judgement, when here we were safe, free? Were we not satisfied with who, with what, we were? Here we had paused in time and nothing could harm us. It was obvious to us then our work was unfinished, our mission yet incomplete. Would we know more if we travelled back? Weren’t we learning more just by going nowhere? One felt clumsy to argue at times like this.

But we never ceased to dog him with questions about dao. To these he spoke of presence, of the here-and-now. ‘There isn’t even one step is there? I catch the arrow in my hand. That’s what words do. Do they? Can they? Where is the illusion? Heaven’s way is like the bending of the bow.’
And we would ask again after his meaning. And patiently, so patiently, he would return with, ‘Always more words you’re after. You want to understand, but you want words and words lead you further and further into error.’
We would protest at this that we wished for the true words, the words that would guide us. That, he would say, was not their dao. Where were the words once they were spoken? It was at such cues as this we would ask him to write. Then the stool and the table would be prepared for him. And still the sideways glance, still we would shift our ground, as we listened, as we read.

Where were words once gone? In other minds, in other mouths, so we thought. Were they not constant in their function between us? The border – this border between world and not – he would tell us it could be forward half a li, back some paces. But we would look into the solid rock and nod our heads, uncomprehending. Yet he went on insisting his only purpose with words and names was to make things, to make things happen. Should we abandon names then? He never said so but told us to abandon knowing. How could we know how not to know? He merely raised his eyebrows until that seemed to be all there was of him. ‘To know when one does not know is best,’ he said. We felt like fools then. Still, we would ask him how things should be, what to do, how to do it. But everything ‘depended’ with him. Without circumstances there could be no way. Words and the ways they told could never be immutable. We had been asking him as we might have asked the tall man. We expected tricks – irony, paradox – where the words merely were what they were. Inadequate perhaps, but with no more magic than any words have. We had tricked ourselves with expecting more. It was what was not there that confused us.

Even the words on the paper he gave us, he told us would shift with the wind. We stared hard at them then, as if our eyes could fix them. The words meant what they meant when he meant them, but in another eye, another mouth, surely they would mean otherwise. How could words mean in a town or a palace how they meant here in this cleft between rocks, between worlds. The words he said were less constant than the sky. We would look up when he spoke thus and see that high above the cliffs the pale firmament was all in changes.

It is true there were times he would write in the rain and the characters would be washed from the paper just as soon as they were formed… I was ashamed to admit that I could remember nothing of what was lost in this way… The sun would dry these sham traces of thought. How inconstant the world we would think then. How much less constant the way of words, the naming of the world and all it consists in.

We were dizzy now, dizzy with the arguments, with his sideways bird glancing at us. Sometimes we felt we were becoming birds ourselves. Dao was something we might peck at. We knew then that knowledge was how to do, neither more nor less. We had not yet learned how to need not to do, how to abandon ourselves, by abandoning knowledge. And yet we had begun to know how little we knew. The lessening had begun.

Then he was gone, vanished as we knew he would. But neither of us saw the vanishing. Too simple a paradox. Or was he gone? We must wait. And in the waiting time we persuaded ourselves this was a trick, or rather that it wasn’t, but that he would return, that his absence would then make sense, that if we began down the mountain through the maze of stone that he would be standing back at the pass, his bird’s head tilting us sideways to listen, dizzying us with his words. So we believed, so we imagined. He could not have gone on so he must have gone back. Did we believe that? Was he with us still, now merely invisible?

We waited a full month and then we finally resigned ourselves to our fate. We would return to the capital with all of his words. By these we would be judged. Heroes or criminals we would be, or both by turns, who could tell? The scholars would know, so we reasoned. If Lao Tzu were back in the capital then we would be returning with a record of his dao; others might pursue him for whatever detail or interpretation we had failed to glean. All would be well. If not, well, had we not proved that the kingdom was big enough to contain him?

And so we started down the mountain, just as we had come, together, alone. We remembered the turnings of the maze though it had been an age since our arrival. We knew though that the way back is never the same, for instance it’s always more rapid returning. But everything was familiar. Or so it seemed, before we knew we were lost.

We had come without losing our way. And now… Was that because his spirit had guided us before, was now leading us astray? Months had passed now since the pass, since our setting out. Was he back at the court, back at the pass? Was our failure – were even our deaths – old news? And then, when we had given ourselves up for lost, we found the tracks of his ox again. The tracks led us from the mountain. When we came out of the maze at last the village at the entrance was no longer there. Instead, we were met with a strange writing neither of us recognized. Was this his spell, the magic of which we had heard but never seen practised?

And now, out of the mountains, we see the sun is setting in the east. We gasp at this demonstration of the power of dao. He has turned the world around. Now we are walking on the floor of heaven. In the villages and towns we come to, no one can understand us. Nor can we follow them. Have so many centuries passed since we went into the mountain? Should we stop to learn the language? In every place it is different. The people too have changed. Their skins are different, everything. Perhaps time has passed backwards; people eat with their hands.

A full further month of travel into stranger and stranger lands it takes us to know what we hadn’t known, to recognize how simple dao is, his, ours. He hasn’t turned the world round, only us. East is still east, west west. Our dao is onward, direction the same. West is where we’ve been headed this last month and more. No one will praise us or doom us, no one will know us. We are in India. His sideways bird manner had turned us around.

And so we begin to ask ourselves, what kind of limit was this border. You cannot go on forever to keep up with one man. Had we not chosen this place thinking it already was something we had made it: border or end of the world?

When we come to the court of the Buddha, the Old Master is already gone.

We sat down at the feet of the Great One. That is where I have left my brother. Long before the scriptures ever came to China, he was disciple, boddhisatva, arhat.

I went on. I have not found the Old Master, I no longer pretend I am pursuing him. Some of his words we left at the border. Some I have with me still. The terrain on both sides of the border is much the same, I now know. We had found our way out of the maze following the tracks of his ox on into the west.

***

What am I but a chronicler? I am enrolled in the classes of Epicurus now, an old man and much younger than me. I have learned of the soul, of mind’s quiet. I spend my life finding words when I should find my way from them… I am pursuing…what? The dao, not the… a disappearance. There are bodies and there is a void. The soul’s knowledge is sensation. Should I dedicate myself to passing beyond this limit? Nothing comes from nothing, nothing passes there. I will stay here in the city of the goddess.


Editor’s note:

The last fragments of the journal are mere poetry:

the city is white, of heaven torn

the dawn pink marble

the moon’s horns, the star held

I have lost count of the sandals that brought me

sturdy hours I spend in love of wisdom, of the getting there, dao

the atoms in every thing; the soul, its stillness

but we have wives here too
from birth yet pleasure
ever dissolving
constant, inconstant as the wine dark sea

***


The final fragment breaks off here.

The translator notes the notorious unreliability of certain of the terms, their inadequacy to deal with the nuances of classical thought. Foremost among these inadequate terms are philosophy and truth. To replace them with more effective glosses would however have the effect of rendering the text unintelligible to the modern reader, and so they are retained.


[1] The poem referred to is Chu Tzu’s ‘The Summons of the Soul’.


[2] Editor’s note: We now, in what survives as the Tao Te Ching, have only fragments of what was undoubtedly a much longer work in antiquity.

Japanese translation below by Yumiko Kawano and Eric Honobe

老子、国境にて

弟スティーブ、そしてチャド・ハンセンに感謝する

“おぼろげな存在は明確にできず、結局は無の物へと戻り帰る”　

「縄縄不可名、復帰於無物」「老子道徳経」　第十四章

小説の特権の一つは　－述べるには明白すぎるが－　それは真実を言わなくてもよい、という事。しかし、本当は特権というよりも責任なのである。

もし、話の全てが真実を語っていたら、それは何かというと既に他人に知られており、立証できるものであり、小説ではない。すなわち、ジャーナリスト的な展開だが、フィクションの意味での話ではない。

では、小説家は不正直者なのか？

疑問の防御へ傾くが『不正直』は曇った重い道徳的な負担を帯びる言葉であり、そして白黒の区別を意味する。もし誰かに「お前は不正直者だ。」と言ったら、それは「お前は正直者だと思っていたのに。」という意味もあるだろう。

　言葉を変えると、我々はまさしく 「仮想の世界」に入ったという事になった。ちなみに、フィクションもちょうどその世界にある。しかし、そんな事を追跡しないで話を先に進めてみよう。で は、小説家は『不正直者』である。という考えを排除してみよう。もし、フィクションの小説家は『不正直者』だと思われたら、ロマン主義者が「想像の能力」 と呼んだ能力の豊かの皆でも『不正直者』だと思うべきだ。

　普通、小説作家の願いは、必ずし も一度も会ったことのない人物や必ずしも起こってない出来事を詳しく描写して、もっと深い真実に到達することである。事実は曖昧だということは、白黒の思 想家たちにはあまりにも受け入れにくい。しかし、その曖昧さはフィクションの原則や楽しさのために基礎となる。

　ダンテ（イタリアの詩人、「神 曲」の作家）が言った「真実を明らかにする美しい嘘」は、それはどうやって備えるのか。手法は多数そして多種であり、その手法はフィクションを書く技であ る。その手法のひとつは、時代錯誤。すなわち、時代的に、現実的に決して交わる事の無い場所や出来事を合わせてみること。時代的には未だ存在していなくて も大砲を『ハムレット』に登場させると、シェイクスピアは彼のドラマの歴史的な背景の妥協点に到達したと感じるだろう。

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おそらく彼は大砲を登場させて、実際的に時代錯誤を避ける事は難しいだと、彼は認めてたのではないか。私達は自分自身の時間と境遇を生きる人間だ。私達は過去と現在の自分自身の姿を接触させて、再建することはやむを得ないだろう。少なくともある程度までは。

　記録が伝説と衝突する過去の薄暗 い霧の中では、王朝、もしくは王国と近代の人物を衝突させる事が多分許されるだろう。そして、多分架空か伝説かである人物の場合、即ち、もう行為はなされ たが、まだその出来事の解釈が行われている人物の場合、著者の許される範囲はもっと広くなると考える。この架空の理論に基づいて、これ以下の真実を勝手に 借用した事において、読者の方々から許可されることを願います。

＊＊＊

　伝説によれば老子は中国を出たかった。何故そうなったのかと思い巡らすのはそんなに難しい事ではない。その中国(チュングオ)を離れる色んな理由があっただろうし、彼の可能性を絞る事は歴史哲学の仕事を困難にした。もし私達が、大賢人老子のチュングオを離れる理由を知っていたら、東西の学者にとっても不可思議の思想体系「老子道徳経」の原来の謎が解明できただろう。

少 なくても、以下に翻訳された文献が最近発見されるまで、老子と「老子道徳経」について一般の通念はこのような諦めたものだった。うわさによれば、裂かれて る不完全な巻物は一人の国境の護衛兵の手にあった。この護衛兵は哲人がチュングオを出ることを阻止するという特別な任務を任されていた。

しかしながら、彼は哲人と遭遇した 時、哲人の教義によって改宗されたらしい。だが、この破れた巻物が発表された時から、学識者はこの巻物の内容について歴史の真実性があるか疑っており、ま だ他の学者は、老子という名の賢人がかって本当に在住していたのだろうか。という古い懐疑論を論じている。

こういった物語は真実の断片と空想事から成り立っているのだろうか、もしくは、納得できる程の本当らしさで信頼させるのか、その判断は読者の方々に委ねます。

老子。この名前によっておそらく多くの有名な格言を思い出す。それは後世になって現れた四字熟語の知恵だけではない。

　「道」。「道(ダウ)」とは、人として守るべき条理。また、宇宙の原理。

＊＊＊

p. 36

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道可道,非常道,

明可明,非常明

　それは、一番翻訳された、もしくは、一番広く通訳された、一番、議論を呼んだ。

－　考えはかってひとつの言語から 他へ。老子　―読者は、彼を歴史的な名士でみなしても、作り話で見なしても　－　それは確かに、知的な深遠さののひとつの人物、そして、世界人口の五分の 一以上は＜儒教の遺産＞に魅せられて、老子は深い影響を与えた人物である。イェスキリストや仏同様、我々は後に現れた本文や解釈論文、学説、定説の裏に隠 された、その人物とその人生を推測しなくてはならない。その人物、老子たる人物の独自性と見識があっても、陳腐な卓上カレンダーのように「千里の道は一歩 から始まる」等によって価値を下げることもある。

　これは、老子が中国(チュングオ)を出るための旅した際に一番困難を極めた一歩についての一つの物語。それは、賢者のその一歩を防ぐという任務を受けた者の声で語られた物語だ。

＊　＊ ＊

　年老いた老子は儒教の道学者達からによる耐え難いプレッシャーの為中国(チュングオ)から離れたかった。彼の離国を防ぐ為、我々は肉体的に保護するため、通路へ派遣された。そして、孔子(偉大なる師)の真実を受けて、我々は、多分、老子の国境超えを思い留まらせ、その誤りを犯した理由をすぐさま知る事ができるかもしれない。途中でどこでも孔子(せのたかいひと)の弟子達がいて、我々は簡単に道案内と食糧を手にした。我々は通った王国の如何なる場所でも、孔子(偉大なる師)の膝の側で座ったことがない者はほとんど居なかった。

　我々の使命は、賢者と一緒に京城(けいじょう)へ 戻るであった。もし、これできなければ、老子自分自身の手で書かれた知恵を取り戻す事という使命であった。年老いた師範は奇術を操るという事はずっと前か ら皆知っていた。我々から逃げる方法は誰も推測できないだろう。彼は物静かな人物と噂されていたが、彼の捕らえどころのない話術は伝説と化していた。誰か 彼に逢った事があったのだろうか？孔子(せのたかいひと)で あった。まあ、孔子はそう言ったら、否定する者はいないし、彼は逢ったことがあると言った。偉大な老子を拘束するという任務の為に、私達の兄弟は選ばれ た。それは、我々は魔術や回避の為の演説、魅力的な誘因に抵抗する為、長い間訓練されてきた事と、我々は兄弟として一つの精神で考えれる、という理由から であった。

p.37

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我々二人の中の一人が寝ると、もう一人はすっかり目が覚める。見張るという任務を負っていると、誰も私達兄弟から逃れる事は出来なかった。我々は皇帝からの命令を受けた。

皇 帝は老子について、いかに危険か、皇帝にとってまたは他の者にとって、いかに価値があるか確信が無かった。彼は監視されなければならない、失ってはならな い。皇帝は賢者の書写の複製を持ち、他の手で書いた物であれば、皇帝は賢者の真実を代表する物だと信用しない。その頃、文書偽造の有名な事件はよくあっ た。読者が存知ているように、我々は失敗すると死刑になるが、成功すると王国の永遠の感謝の意を授与できる。という我々の動機があった。帝国の利益の為、老子(偉大なる師)の知恵は保存し利用されるようになる。

月 日が流れ、彼は勤勉な水牛に乗って西の省に一里づつゆっくり進んでいた時、我々はなるべく視界を外し、耳を逸らして、彼を追った。彼と我々の前進は不規則 に混合されていた。我々はリードしていたと確実に思ったのに、そこには、他の道は存在しないと確実に思ったのに、しばしば彼は直ぐ前方に現れていた。

そ れは、彼の前進は西洋の伝説の神聖な陸亀の様な魔術か。それとも、この予言者のとてつもない年齢で、我々にとって全く無関係な分野を熟知しているのか。彼 は、遥かかなた大昔に、この場所にいた事があったのか。たぶん彼はいつでも十分に睡眠を取らなかったかもしれない。しかし、我々二人も規則的には寝ること は無かったと言える。それとも、我々は寝たのか。あっという間に千年経過したかもしれない。彼の時間は我々の知っている「時間」ではない。

　ようやく、我々は、彼の避ける事 の出来ない通路まで来た。世界からの道と想像するだろうが、途中で出会った人々から聞いたのは、この通路は噂だけだった。西の地平線で見たのは、または見 た事がないが聞いた事があるのは、誰でも通れない石の壁、突き通すことのできない山の要塞であった。

　通路へは山岳の迷路がある。しか し、通路自体は間違いでは無い。ということは、石の迷路で生き残りができれば見当違いできない。何年もかかるだろうし、君は一食分の麺食しか背負っていな い。何度も、道が残した足跡を戻るのか、ただ本当の通路から逃げる。そこには、通路の周りを通り抜ける道なんて無い。老子でも固い石面にはったりをかけれ ない。山の尾根は我々の上にとてつもなく高くそびえ立って、一日に数分間しか太陽を見る事が出来ない。

　我々は通路に来て、ここで待った。

------------------- p.38 -------------------------------------------------

　情勢を心に描いてみてもらいた い。老子がいる場所から数時間しかかからない。今、我々は彼の前方にいるが、前何度も彼の通った跡を見失ったので、いま絶対油断出来ない。もし我々は彼を ここで見失ったら、もし彼は我々を追い越したら。でも、そんなハズは無い！そしたら、危険に満ちた空虚を超えて彼を追うしかない。我々の不安と恐怖は誰も わからないだろ事に基づいている。我々はそんな精神と心でこれから起こる事に応対していくのだ。

　老師は肥えた雄牛に乗って、一番 自然な事をするように、国境へにじり寄った。ずんぐりとゆっくりと歩く四足動物、彼は農民の営みのように毎日同じことをやってるように、近隣の農場へ行く ような雰囲気だった。しかし、この人物は農民ではない。この世界はもうすぐ破壊してしまう、限界、限度はもうすそこだという恐れを私達は感じていた。

糸綢之路(シルクロード)は 陸からでも海からでもなかった。中国は全ての世界であって、その世界から脱出する事が難しいということは想像できるだろう。色々な物語の警告を知っている だろうか。北は氷山だけ、南は煮沸の海だけ、東は獣のような高山だけ、西は危険な浮遊する砂が千里まで延びている。このような、如何なる方向でも人間の忍 耐を越えるものが存在すると言う物語 1)、その物語りは全ての人民にそのまま家に留(とど)まる為に語り伝えられていた。実は今まで国境を越える事が出来た人は決して多くない。

　私達は今、丁度この物語が言い伝 えている時空に立っていた。そして雷の峡谷まで来た、それは西の峡谷。悪意に満ちたの神の鷲。しかし、それはただ、道先案内人達の警告。その老師以外の皆 だった。彼とかって話したことはないが、今近くにいる私達の動きを全く意識していないということはとても信じにくかった。彼との遭遇の時刻はもうそこまで 迫っていた。

　そして今、今まで知らなかった世界の存在を知る。国境とは誤解し易い言葉であった。それは現在の時刻は自分達の創造の世界なのだから。

* * *

　老師はゆっくりと通路に来る。そ の目は農民の目、雄牛の目だ。しかし、我々も彼も知ってる。彼は我々を見る、我々を見透かす。「我々」と言うことは、二人共と言う意味ではない。我々の作 戦は、こうなる事を絶対に避ける為、二人で同時に彼の前に姿を見せないことだった。一人の護衛隊しか居ないという事を思わせ、厳重な警備、反り返った鋭い 鎌、厳めしい髭を用いて、ただ彼を怯えさせるつもりだった。それが、我々の任務だった。そうすれば帝国は無敵に見える。しかし、無駄な希望だった！

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我々が都から出発する前に彼はもう知ってただろう。我々が兄弟だということも、我々の家族の遥かなる遠い歴史も、彼は全てを知ってただろう。

老子と交わした最初の言葉。我々の 記憶力は果たして正しいだろうか。老子という人物は「言葉に頼らない教え」をするため特別な注意を払うようにと警告された。今、最初に放った言葉は我々の だ。その言葉は護衛隊として命令された通りだ。しかし我々はその言葉でも理解できているか。

「偉大な知人、老子様。孔子(こうし)曰く老子は偉大な師範であります。墨子(ぼくし)曰く偉大な指導は浪費してはなりませんと。我々は皇帝殿に命令されました。老子様の『道』を記録せずに、この世界から離れる事はならないと。申し訳ございませんが、老子様の『道』は偉大であるながらも、我々は貴方様を留置しなければなりません。」

「そうですか。ということは帝国は私の支配下になったのでしょうか。」

　我々は彼の使う不思議な力を知っていた。だから身構えていた。彼のその質問は我々を動かすことができなった。我々はずっと黙ってた。彼が次の言葉を口にするまで。

「偉大な言葉は、言葉を要求する。」

「老子様、老子様の『道』を書くまで通れません。我々はそう命令されてます。」

「伝えられる『道』はこうではなく、、、。」

　彼の意図は我々の守備を抜ける事かと彼に聞いたが、彼は答えてくれない。どの方向に向かっていたのか。しかし、

「伝えられる『道』はこうではなく、、、。」

「それはどういう意味ですか。」

「呼ばれる名前はこうではなく、、、。」

「それを自分の手に書いて下さいますか。」

「呼ばれる名前は、、、。」

彼は、しばらくの間、我々に対して敵意の無い陽気な態度があった。

私は、今、こうやって書いているが、彼の様子を上手く表現できない。彼は語った。我々の事を。我々と一緒に。彼の言ったことは簡単で合理的であった。彼は普通に歩いている旅行者と同じように道について語った。共に、今までに歩いてきた道について語った。

　この夜、我々との光栄なる出会い のために、彼は小さな魚を焼いた。私の光栄か私の兄の光栄か、覚えていない。毎回、我々は彼に書くように求める度、最初と同様の謎の質問が続いた。まあ、 我々にとって、謎々に見えた。彼は我々がそれに答え、次の問答に進んで欲しいかのようだったが、先が全く見えなかった。彼の頭は少し弱いのでは、と思っ た。彼は「『道』の唯一の動きは戻る事である」と言った。しかし、そうであれば、何故彼は「無」に目的を定めるのだろう。

　それでも、彼は我々の友、道の仲 間、私と同じように人間であった。長い間旅をしているためか、とてつもない広い知識を持っていたが、人間であった。彼の話しは豊かであった。最初の日々 は、時折我々は大声で笑った。彼に敬意を払わないということではなく、上手い冗談を言っているだけだろうと思った。

p.40

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もし、彼に自分達のこの任務の重要さについて説明しなかったら、彼は何も書かなかっただろうが、彼が既に気が付いていた事をわざわざ言う必要は全く無かったという気がする。彼は、我々のために一行づつ書いた。その度に質問をした。

我 々は彼の意図を見抜きたかった。しかし、何度も質問をして、言葉を放ち、そして答えは遠のいていった、真実から。いや、我々が故意に真実から離れた。そし て、ぼんやり考えていた。皇帝のために、どんな記録をどのぐらい持って帰るべきか。一体いくつの文字で足りるのか。人の「道」がどのぐらい長いのか。無意 味な疑問が頭の中をさ迷っていた。

　もちろん、国境に残された書は、賢者が書いた文字だけで、会話は全く記録されいなかった。2)　我々が願って老師範が加えた解釈も全く記録されていなかった。

　会話と写書。鍋の下の炎。奇跡み たい空気から満ちいてた鍋。数ヶ月間はこうだったと思う。少なくても、氷河は我々の周りで増し、そして溶けて消えた。会話の度に、そして数週間で我々の知 識がぐんと深まった気がした。しかしどういう知識の類に入っていったのだろうか。言葉、そしてもっと沢山の言葉は。

「言葉と事、言葉と事」彼は我々に叫ぶような大きい声でいった。

「何故、私が言葉を避けるか知りたいか。言葉は事の叫びをがんじがらめにするのだ。それは賢いことなのか。どういいことなのか。言葉で話せるような事はもう誰か既に言い尽くしているだろう。」

　そんな話が続いた。私にはその論議を詳細を取り戻すことは不可能だった。これからの回想については、彼と過ごした時間のいくつかの顕著な部分しか思い出せない。その上、この話しを解釈する力もまだ衰弱している。きっと、そんな力は先も同じく衰弱の一途だろう。

私 が記憶に留めた彼の言葉の意味がこの世界に貢献できるのか。我々が理解できるのは、その言葉だけだった。彼は、彼の「道」でここに来た。それはどうやって 言えるだろうか。記憶でも説明でもできない。正しい方法はその背後に残ってる足跡である。これを探すのは全焼した家屋の灰からその桁を探すことと同じだ。

　そして、彼は吹雪の中に立って我 々と話して、我々は一つだという素振りをして、何か達成できると見込んだか。彼は消えて小さくなりそうな人だった。彼の年齢を考えたら彼はずっと小さく見 えた。毎日、彼は段々消えるようになってた。当時、我々は重い斧やりを背負い、まだ若くて、彼の大きさの数倍だった。少なくともそう感じてた。彼にとって 言葉は何にもならないと言った。実際の目的にしか、その使用を正当化できないのに、何故彼は我々と一緒に立って、言葉を分かち合わないといけなかったか。

p.41

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　我々は彼に墨汁と筆と薄い紙を渡 した。傾いた机と椅子も用意した。もちろん、彼が毎日書いた文章は我々が保管した。しかし、何度も考えたのだが、彼の思考や理論を完全に理解するために、 そして、我々の記憶を鮮明にする為に、もう一度最初から始めたらよかったのか。もし彼に、それらの書を渡したら、彼は全て崩壊してしまうか、破り捨てて風 のなかに撒き散らしてしまうか。こういう事態になるのは絶対に許されない。何故かというと、我々は何の収穫も無い邪悪な運命に導かれてしまうからだ。それ に、千里眼の老子の目はとても衰弱に見えた。もし彼は噂のような不朽の人でなければ、すぐにでもこの世の最期を迎えるであろう。そして彼の筆使いも最期に なってしまう。彼の全て書いたことはとてつもなく貴重な物だった。後に、宮殿の学士は時間をかけて解釈できるだろう。

　実は我々は最初から毎日ずっと、 彼がこの世界から去ってしまうのではと思っていた。彼は我々の目の前からすっと消えてしまうのだろうと。彼は灰になってしまうか、それとも彼は上昇して飛 び立ってしまうか、暗い岩影の端で銀の羽を折るか。それは単なる幻想だったが、そのすべての想像はある意味で正しかった。彼も己の「道」を去るということ なのだ。もし宮殿の学士達が、彼の言葉を細かく一語づつ読んで解釈し、最後皇帝に「道」はもう存在しない、もう失ってしまった。そして「道」を取り戻すた めには我々の肉体から切り取らないといけない。と報告したらどうなるか。故に毎日、彼の言葉の示す意味を正確に書くように依頼した。そして、毎日彼はそれ に応えた。

ほ んの少しだけだったが、彼は語った。取り囲んでいる石の壁から、まるで太陽の光が射しているかように、彼は話しながら自分の目を覆った。彼の言葉を聞きな がら、いつでも横で彼を見ていたようなこと思い返して、後に、兄弟の間でお互いの記憶を確認しあった。それは、彼の真理を理解したいため、我々は足場の角 度を変えながら、色んな観点で彼の言葉を聞こうとした。しかし、我々が近づくと「道」は、即ち、彼の「道」はすぐ消え入りそうだった。

「道」、 「道」。何のことか。それは全ての中心だった。どうやって崇拝ができるのか。どんな犠牲を払わなければならないか。そして、どうやって自分の足跡になるよ うなところを崇拝できるのか。それであれば、空気を崇拝することのほうがよっぽどましか。では、無を崇拝することのほうがましなのか。無から形あるものに に変えて、それを崇拝することのほうがましか。毎日同じように、言葉を解釈するように我々は彼を求めた。だが、毎日同じ返事で

「意味も言った。これ以上なにも無し。神秘も何も解釈することも無し。」 彼は言い放った。

「『道』『その道』。どうして一つの『道』しかないのか。君はどうやってここにたどり着いたのか。一つの道だけがあったのか。君はその人物であるか。」

p.42

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　我々は揶揄の言葉でこれを確かめようとした。

「迷路を通るには一つの道しかないのです。」

「ではなぜ、私が来た時、私が見えなかったのだ。」

　彼がこんな返答をすることは珍しかった。そして彼はこう付け加えた。

「皆それぞれ違う道でやって来る。お前達が村に戻らず、ここに居続けるのなら、家族の水田は荒れ地になるのである。それが人間の思いやりである。」

「しかし、兄さんは、、、。」と言おうと思ったが、何も言わなかった。

　質問でも、その答えでも、強い声明でも、余談でも、彼の言葉は我々にとって、色々な意味を持った。だから、彼の啓示は薄暗く見えて、我々の理解の範囲を超えた明察さ、そして遥かに幅広い意味のように見えた。我々が頭を横に振ったとき、道に迷ったのかと彼は悟った。

「一つより多いのは絶対無ではない。」と彼は何度も言った。

　不変の「道」が有り得たか。と聞くと、彼は我々を受け入れながら言った。

「他の賢人も生身の人間であり千世の不死の人間ではないが、未来においても人間に戻ることを望む。また、心もない詐欺をはたらく人達がいることが気がかりである。」と言った。

彼 自身も詐欺師であるのか。最初に出会った日々、我々の任務について彼に言った時、彼が尋ねたのは、ここで我々は安全で自由の身であるのに、何故危険を冒す のか。やがて帰途に着いた後、審判も受けなければならないのに。我々は一体何なのである、一体誰であることで満足でないのか。ここでは時が止まり、危害を 加えるものはまったくなかった。　

　当時、我々の仕事は未完成であった。任務が未完成であるということは明白だった。旅を引き返したら、もっと知ることができるのでは。そして、どこにも行かない方がもっと沢山習えたのではないか。このような状況で討論すると、本当に自分は不器用だと感じた。

しかし、我々は「道」についての質問をしながら彼の後を追い続けた。そして、彼は存在と現世と現在について語った。

「一つの動作でもないだろうが、手で矢を素早く取る。言葉でこう表現するか、しないか。それができるか。幻影はどこにあるのか。来世の道は、弓を曲げるようなことであろう。」

　　そして、我々はまた言葉の意味について尋ね始めた。それでも、彼は辛抱強く、本当に辛抱強く言葉を返した。

「いつでももっとたくさんの言葉を求めてる。お前達は理解したいのだろうだが、言葉を欲しても言葉はだんだんとお前達を更なる錯誤に導いている。」

　我々はその戒めに反論して、真正 の言葉、我々を導く言葉が欲しいだけなのだと言った。それは我々の「道」ではない。と彼は言った。言葉が放たれた後それはどこにあるか。そういうきっかけ で我々は彼に書き留めるように頼んだ。そして、低い椅子と傾いた机を準備したのである。そして、まだ横から見つめ、我々は聞きながら、読みながら、視点を 変えた。

p．43

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　放たれた言葉は何処へ行くのか。 他人の精神か、他人の口腔か、と我々は思った。我々の間で言葉の機能は不変ではないか。境界は、即ち、この世界と無の間の境界、ここから半里向こうに存在 し、数歩前にあるだろうと彼は語った。我々は硬い岩を見ながら、それを理解できずに頷いていた。しかし、彼はそのまま語り続け、言葉と名を使う唯一の意図 は事を起こすことだと主張した。そして、我々は名を放棄するべきなのか。彼はそう言わなかったが「知道」を放棄しろと言った。我々はどうやって「不知道」 を知るのか。彼はただ眉を上げただけにすぎなかった。顔の中に彼の眉しか見えなくなるまで、彼は眉をあげた。

　「知らずということを知ることは最も良いことである」と彼は言った。

　我々は自分が愚人だと感じた。そ れでも、彼に色々聞き続けた。如何すればいいのか。一体何をする。如何やったらいいのか。でも彼はいつでも、全て時と場合によると言った。状況がないと 「道」も有り得ないのだ。言葉が語る「道」も言葉も決して不易ではない。我々は神なる人物の話しを聞いているような気がした。策略、偽り、矛盾を予期した が、言葉はそのまま言葉だった。不適当な言葉だったかも知れないが、普通の言葉より呪術を含むような言葉でもなかった。我々は最初から過度の期待をして、 自分で己を騙していた。そこに何も無かったことは我々を困惑させた。

　彼は、紙に書かれた彼の言葉まで 風のように移動することができると言った。我々は目でその言葉をしっかり固定するかのように凝視した。言葉の意味は彼が言った意味だったが、他人の目で見 ると、または他人の口で語ると、きっとほかの意味に変わってしまうだろう。言葉は都か宮殿で言われたら、どうやってこの世界の裂け目である岩の間で言われ ると同じ言葉の意味になれるだろうか。彼が言った言葉は天ほど不変ではなかった。その後、我々が岩壁より上を見上げたら、移り変わる薄暗い天空が見えた。

　時々彼は雨の中で書いて、文字は すぐに雨に洗われてしまったとことは事実だった。こうやって何を失ったかを覚えていないというのを認めるのは情けない。そして、太陽はこの思いつきの嘘っ ぱちの跡かたを乾かした。世界はなんて不実なのだと我々は思った。言葉も不変ではなく、世界とその付けられた全ての名も。

　我々は今眩暈がした。彼の道理に も、我々をちらりと見た鳥にも。時々我々も鳥になるような気がした。「道」はコツコツと啄ばまれることだろう。その時、知識はちょうど「如何やってする」 ということだと分かった。知識を捨てて自分を捨てて「すること」が必要なくなるということはまだ習っていなかった。しかし、こんなに少ししか知らないとい う事実を知り始めた。そんな少なくなることが始まった。

p. 44

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　そして去った。知っていた通り、 姿が見えなくなった。しかし我々二人共、この見えなくなることでさえも見えなかった。容易すぎた逆説か。または、本当に去ったのか。待ってみないと明確に わからない。そして、待ちながら、奇術だと。まあ、奇術というよりも、彼はきっと戻って来ると自分を説得した。きっと、彼の不在は道理にかなう。我々が山 を下って、石の迷路を通り抜けたら、きっと彼は通路に立っているだろう。彼の鳥が耳を傾けている間に、彼はあの議論で我々をきっと当惑させるだろう。我々 はそう信じた。きっと、彼は続ける事ができなくて戻って来るだろう。我々は本当にそう信じたのだろうか。いや、彼はただ姿を隠しているだけで実はまだ我々 と一緒にいたのか。

　ずっと一ヶ月間待った。そして、 仕方なく自分の運命に従った。彼の全ての言葉を持って都に帰るのだ。この言葉で審理されるだろう。我々は英雄か、それとも犯罪者になるだろうか。どちらに おいても誰も真実を確かめられないだろう。いや、学者は解かると我々は推測する。老子が都に戻って来た場合は、我々は「道」の記録を持って来たと言えるだ ろう。そして、あの時収集できなかった言葉と解釈があったら、彼に求めることができるだろう。良い結末になるだろう。でなければ、王国は彼を牽制する力が あったと証明できないと言えるのではないだろうか。

　そして、我々は来た時と同様に、 二人だけで山を下った。着いた時から久しくもまだ迷路の曲がり角を覚えていた。しかし、帰る道は必ず違うと知っていた。例えば、帰る道の方が速い。だが、 道には慣れていた。いや、道に迷ったと気が付いた時まで、道には慣れていたようだった。

　道に迷わずに来たのに。我々を導いていった彼の精神はいま我々を迷わせているのか。出発したから数ヶ月が過ぎた。彼は前の通路に戻り朝廷へ戻ったのだろうか。我々の失脚、いや、我々の死亡は既に報告されているか。

そして、道に迷ったまま諦めようと した時、もう一度、彼の水牛の足跡を見つけのだ。その足跡を追い掛けて、山から抜け出た。迷路からようやく脱出した時、入口にあったはずの村が無くなって いた。その代わりに、我々の見知らぬ筆跡を目にした。聞いたことはあったが、これが彼の呪術なのか。

　今、山脈から出ると、我々は太陽 が東に没するところを見る。この「道」の力の立証に、はっと息を呑む思いがした。彼は世界を廻した。我々はいま天堂の底を歩いている。辿り着く村や町に、 我々の言葉が通じない。我々も彼らが解らない。山脈に入った時から一体何世紀が過ぎたのか。この言語を習うことを止めたほうがいいのか。行く先々どんな処 でも違う言語だ。人々も変わってきた。彼らの肌も全部違う。時間が逆行したかもしれない。人々が手で食べる。

p.45

見 知らぬ土地から土地へと一ヶ月間の旅行をして、今まで沢山の知らなかった事をやっと知ることができた。「道」は、彼の、そして我々の「道」は、こんなに容 易だということをやっと理解できた。彼は世界を廻したとということではなく、我々が廻ったということだ。東西はまだ東西である。我々の「道」はそのまま前 方を向いてる。我々がこの一ヶ月間ずっと向いてる方向は西だ。しかし、誰も我々を賞賛したり、罪を宣告したりすることはしないだろう。我々は印度にいる。 彼の遠回しの物腰で我々は向きを変えた。

　この国境はどういう境界なのか、と我々自問した。一人の人物に永遠に付いて行き続けることはできない。我々はここをずっと国境か、この世の果てだと思って、この場所を選んだではないだろうか。

　仏陀の宮廷に辿り着いた時、老師の姿は既に無なかった。

　仏様の足元の前に座った。ここで兄弟子と離れた。経典が中国に来るずっと前から、彼は弟子か、菩薩か、阿羅漢だった。

　私は歩き続けた。まだ老師を見つ けていないが、もう彼を追い求めるという振りもしない。彼の言葉を国境に残した。ある言葉がまだ僕の脳裏に残っている。国境からの両側の地勢はほとんど同 じだと既に知っている。彼の水牛の足跡を西側まで追い掛けて、そして迷路から出る道を探しあてた。

＊　　＊　　＊

　私は年代記録家であろうか。現 在、哲学者エピクロスの授業に参加している。彼は老人であるが私より若い。精神や心の静寂さについて学んだ。言葉を離れる道を探すべきであるのに、私の全 ての人生は言葉をみつけようとしている。追い求めるのは何か。「道」、その「道」ではなく、消失だ。身体があって、空間もある。心の知識は感覚である。私 はこの限界を超える為に精進するべきか。無から何も来ない、そこに何も通らない。私はこの観音の都に留(とど)まるだろう。

編者の注：

　日記の最後の断片ただ詩である：

都は白い、裂かれた天国で

日の出は大理石の桃色

月の角、星が握った

私を連れて来た革靴が何足なのかわからなくなった

知恵の愛に費やす学ぶ時間、「道」の愛に

いくつかの時間を屈強に過ごす

全ての物に、精神に、心の静寂に、原子に

しかしここも妻達がいる

生から、なお喜び

いつでも融合して

不変、酒のような暗い海と同じく変わり易い

最後の断片はここで中断する

　翻訳者は用語について周知の通り 信頼性にかけることと、古典思想の表現について不適切な部分があることを注意します。この不適切な用語の主要用語は「哲学」と「真実」である。しかし、こ の用語の代用として更なる有効的な語句を使うならば、現代の読者は原典を理解しずらくなるという結果を考慮し、これらの用語で話の展開を行った。

１）楚辞(そじ)の詩：「招魂(しょうこん)」

２）現在、「道徳経」の残ってる部分は、古代の確かにもっとも長い作品の断片である。

ping pang qiu

Ping Pang Qiu

in memory of my father, Kelen Istvan (1912-2003), who came to Macao in 1938 for this express purpose

Man invented perfect movement and built it into the machine. Now he wants to recapture it through the medium of sport. The three factors of modern life are sport, technique and the cinderella of the moment – thought. The three have always been present in different quantities. It is the task of the present generation to bring these three elements into harmony, thus to improve the position of mankind. This should be the object of what remains of the twentieth century.
– Kelen Istvan, 1936

It is not uncommon – among the world’s many sports and pastimes – for the one board or field or set of equipment to meet the needs of different activities, of games differently conceived. The one field, with some minor modifications, will serve as well for the Australian or American variations as for the original version of the game of football. Raise a pitch in the middle and you can play cricket on the same oval. One board does for chess and chequers. Snooker and billiards and pool may all be transacted on the one green cloth. Conceptually very different games may as well be combined in interesting ways. Few people for instance know of the game slosh, played by hand on a full size snooker table, without recourse to cues but combining the rules of snooker with the rules of squash. Slosh was popular in the snooker rooms at the University of Sydney when I was an undergraduate, back in the seventies. Different games with the same gear, games combined to make new games: all of this inventive activity is a tribute to the restless genius of humanity. The participants in a particular sport saw the possibility of another. New rules were made by breaking old ones. The famous invention of rugby was the result of a particular player’s quite literal decision to pick up the ball and run with it.

It’s also true that two sides in a tournament may compete despite having radically different notions, both of what is at stake and of how it might be attained. Warfare is a good example of this phenomenon. Rarer – much rarer – is the case I wish to bring to your attention here: the case of the same equipment being used to play two radically different games, both given the same name, as if they were one.

The game in question was called gossamer when it was first celebrated in Europe, around the turn of the last century. But of course the game is much more ancient than that. What happened in Europe was a re-invention, a reconstruction, something akin to the nineteenth century philologists’ resuscitation of Proto-Indo-European, that notional ancestor language for every tongue from Hindi to Gaelic. From the European perspective this game’s origins are shrouded in the mists of eastern antiquity. What Europeans might be surprised to know is that from the Chinese point of view its provenance is equally mysterious and far-off, though the game must have come from somewhere far to the west of China. We do know that already two thousand years ago it was played in Japan at the imperial court, and went by the name of pom-pom.

I dedicate this story to the memory of my father because he was one of the game’s modern re-inventers. Or rather he was one of the modern re-inventers of one of the games I’m dealing with here. This story, constructed from various sources of evidence, some come only recently to light, is about ancient beginnings, about the dissemination of the rules (better to say maxims) and properties, all from a common source. Common origins – like universals – have been much loved and much hated by students of culture. They’re easy to assert and yet difficult to prove or disprove. Still, we know that alphabetical writing – though widespread in the ancient world – can be traced from a single origin in the Phoenecians. We know too that the Huns who harried the Roman Empire and the Hsiung-nyu who worried Han Dynasty China were in fact one and the same people, nomadic horseman who covered the vast distances that separated these worlds in antiquity. But how did palmistry come to China and to the West? Or astrology, the idea of a twelve sign zodiac? Many mysteries remain. Here, I hope, one such may be laid to rest.

***

Now it’s well known that the first emperor of Qin China – of the unified empire – Qin Shi Huang Di, was very interested in immortality. He pursued this prospect – as all his other policies – ruthlessly and remorselessly. It is perhaps ironic that many of his loyal subjects should have met their untimely fate because they were not able to come up with the goods that would guarantee their master eternal life. All kinds of elixirs and spells were brought to the king and as you’ll have no trouble guessing (the king being no longer with us) none of them worked. The brighter of the king’s servants sailed off well equipped into the sunset[1] and if they returned at all, did so under an alias, well into the next dynasty, the Han. (They didn’t have to wait very long.)

It’s well known also that in a similar region of China’s misty past, a certain rather notorious character of simian aspect had been enlisted in a famous journey to the West, the purpose of which was to bring back to the Middle Kindgom a basket of scriptures that would enlighten those benighted tracts with the word of the Buddha Shakyamani, and in particular with the fourfold truth and the five precepts, the true account of the life of the great sage, the rules for monastic life and sundry sutras to accompany these.

Now the astute reader at this point suspects a danger of anachronism. Let that fear be laid to rest. It’s true that the life of the historical Buddha precedes that of Qin Shi Huang Di by some centuries, it’s also true that Buddhist scripture was – as far as tradition allows – transmitted only orally until some generations after the Qin. One needs to remember however that – despite the first emperor’s personal failings on the immortality front – the saints and heroes of the classical world were long lived if not themselves immortal. So what’s described in the account given here is in fact an earlier journey to the West. It’s because of their experience on this earlier journey that Tripitaka and his dubious though loyal companions were able to make such swift progress the second time around, centuries later, much as Jason paved the way for Odysseus. What Wu Ch’eng En has omitted from his otherwise well documented narrative is the fact that it was for certain misdemeanours on the return leg of this first journey to the West that Monkey found himself re-imprisoned under the mountain, where he had previously been obliged to while away five hundred years. You’ll recall the story about the peaches and the wrecking of heaven and the boastful inscription Monkey made on the Buddha’s fingers and the little smelly something he left behind there. Well, don’t think that Sun Wukong’s misbehaviour ended there. He might have been a ‘Mind Ape’ and an Immortal and all that, he was also a naughty monkey. Space unfortunately does not permit me to deal with events outside of the outward journey in this brief account. The interested reader may care to pursue the other available chronicles.

It’s a little known fact that Monkey and Pigsy and Sandy, yes and Tripitaka too, all got tangled up in Qin Shi Huang Di’s quest for immortality. There were others in their party as well, whose names we shall probably never know. They all got mixed up with the emperor’s evil schemes because (and this has only recently come to light) Monkey – naughty Monkey – was in fact a double agent of sorts. Released by the Buddha to serve the priest Tripitaka, the Great Sage Equal of Heaven (one of Monkey’s characteristically boastful appellations) actually had a bet each way. Birth and death and life and desire all end in suffering. But Monkey you’ll recall already was an Immortal and so he had mixed feelings about karma. It was true our playful hero had, when challenged, never managed to get out of the hand of the Buddha. But who had rescued him the first time from under the mountain where he had been trapped those hundreds of years? Certainly, Wu Cheng En’s readers are given to understand that his release coincided with Tripitaka’s mission, but Qin Shi Huang Di’s spies would have given a different version of events. Secretly Monkey still harboured resentments against the Buddha for his having been tricked long before.

Qin Shi Huang Di’s interest in Monkey was clear cut. He had sent Han Chung and a scholar named Shih to go in search of the elixir of the Immortals. What they discovered was that Monkey had drunk all the currently available stock and that it would be generations before a new batch could be brewed. Han Chung and Shih knew that it would prove fatal for them if they returned to the emperor with such tidings and so they decided to seek out Monkey himself. If anyone could get them some Immortality elixir then surely it would be Monkey. Their journey was arduous and we have no time for its details here but to their advantage was the fact that they were not chasing a moving target. Monkey wasn’t going anywhere. He could however speak to them when they found him. And so it was they discovered that Monkey was kept entombed in the mountain by a very flimsy measure. All that was holding the mountain over the Monkey King was a piece of paper fixed on the summit by the disciple Ananda, a piece of paper on which the Buddha had written ‘om mani padme hum’. Of course Monkey had been begging passers by for centuries to remove it. None had been brave enough until Han Chung and Shih arrived, buoyed by the inscription the emperor had recently placed on Mount Chihfu, which read in part:

‘Great is he, indeed! The whole universe obeys his sagacious will!’

These two travelling functionaries weren’t Buddhists, but they were certain about the kind of reception they’d be receiving should they return to the court without the juice. To be owed a favour by the Great Sage Equal of Heaven was just the ticket, as far as they could see.

Perhaps it’s ironic then that as this motley company of pilgrims – Tripitaka and Monkey and Co. – set off for the West this first time, their quest was – depending on point of view and on which will should prevail – either to find the secret of immortality or the secret of annihilation, to enable either unlimited desire or else to achieve desire’s cessation, either to spread the word of truth to the world or to conceal one man’s evil intention. Would their wandering earn them Nirvana or Samsara?

Their second journey is well documented. They got the scriptures and returned with them, each receiving appropriate reward for his labours along the way. The first journey is only obscurely known and so the picture of events given here has been patched together from fragmentary sources, though each of impeccable provenance. It is in any case only the final phases of this first outward journey that must concern us here.

***


Now at much the same time in a city named Sagala, in the land of the Bactrian Greeks, there lived a King Milinda, a king who was about as wise as you could get to be without dispensing with the need for advice and enlightenment altogether.

It was in quest of such that this king had despatched a team of philosophers, headed by one I’m sure you’ve heard of, Socrates’ disciple, Plato. This story accounts at least in part for what classical scholars refer to as ‘the lost years’ in Plato’s career. And it goes some way to explain the fervour with which Plato promoted the Socratic theory of learning as recollection, in the Meno. Plato’s forgotten ‘journey to the East’ is a kind of ironic non-event in the history of philosophy.

You’ll recall the story of Er the Pamphylian, the son of Armenius, as told in the last book of the Republic? That character had the original near death experience, returning to step down from his funeral pyre reporting what he had seen of ‘the other side’. Unlike Er, Plato himself and his company had, on the way east and on his return to Athens, been obliged to bathe in the River Lethe and to drink the waters of unmindfulness, the water no vessel can hold. Hence, the lack of a record, hence the ‘lost years’.

On their way east King Milinda’s party had also come through the land of the lotus eaters. Picture it! Always afternoon, so many enlightened beings and so ethereal they would float on the pond’s surface, with only a leaf’s thickness separating them from the water. Former expeditions had been lost here, greedy for the lotus root. The faces of the drowned could still be seen in the shallows, contorted in last ecstasies of the passage into light. These lost were however not the enlightened. They were those who had hoped for a cut-rate ticket to Nirvana. Tennyson has faithfully recorded their dying song.

Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death or dreamful ease.

The serene beings – boddhisatvas, arhats, buddhas – never even looked down. They had transcended the world of desire and of suffering. How could it profit them ever to look on the empty shells of those cast once more onto the wheel of life? If it were necessary for them to leave their lotus pads for the sacred ablutions then this was not something seen by anyone in King Milinda’s party. It was only with the iron will of the watchful dog that Plato and the guardians of his expedition were able to pass through these parts and so approach the mysterious goal to which they had been lured.

***


Little could these two parties – the Chinese and the Greek – have suspected that their respective quests were leading them to a single point, high in the Himalayas, and from which their progress had been carefully monitored and controlled. Unknown to each party, obstacles had been placed in their way such as to slow or hasten progress so that all would arrive in the holy precincts at precisely the right moment.

I will omit for the sake of brevity the description of the ice bound cave entrances to which the companies came, one on the eastern, the other on the western side of the mountain. Suffice it to say that they were guided in unmistakable signs by the hand of a higher power.

Each group was met on its way by holy creatures: genderless beings who floated unwinged in the thinning mountain air. Each group was provided with a basket – not of scriptures – but containing mysterious implements, a pair of them: part rounded, the size of hand’s span, and each provided with a handle that seemed to be for holding. The Chinese instinctively held these as they might chopsticks, the Greeks as if they were shaking hands with a stranger. But however they were held, the question remained, how would the people be enlightened with these? How would the emperor be made immortal? There was no choice but to travel on to the place where truth would be told.

Once the holy mountain had been reached and the parties guided in through the secret ways fashioned by heaven just for these two pilgrimages which were orchestrated as one, our travellers found themselves passing through a long series of chambers and corridors. In some rooms a certain mantra may have been inscribed on the walls, in others were devotees chanting. There were particular corridors and turnings in the mountain where a form of words presented itself unaided to the mind of every member in each party. We know that this impressive telepathic experience especially served to quicken the faith of the pilgrims, to make them receptive to whatever might follow. The purpose of the process of induction experienced by both parties was to prepare them for a kind of silent teaching.

The record we have of the mantras and aphorisms received by them is confused and incomplete. For instance, we don’t know which party recorded which lines or whether both parties were tutored in the same texts as they made their way towards the holy of holies. Circumstantial evidence points however to the conclusion that all of the texts extant were heard or seen on the way in, none on the way out of the mountain. It is entirely possible that the parties leaving the mountain were differently comprised from those that had entered. Evidence strongly suggests they were fewer in number. There has of late been some speculation that the bulk of each party never returned but rather went on, the Chinese to Europe, the Greeks to China, perhaps in each case guided to their destination by just one of the original party. This of course is pure guesswork. Still there are those who will not content themselves till they have found traces of Monkey in Greece or of Plato in China.

In perusing the list of aphorisms presented below it hardly needs to be stressed that the caveats already mentioned should caution the student from drawing any firm conclusions as to the precise form or structure of the induction the pilgrims experienced. If we are able to abandon the religious framework into which such ideas were subsequently worked then it will be interesting to speculate as to who might have preceded our pilgrims to the holy mountain. If they were indeed tutored by humans rather than angels, then it is irresistible to speculate as to the place of origin of those who had preceded them, the antiquity of the civilization/s from which they had come to this remote and magical region.

A number of the fragments will be quite familiar – in form and also in content – to the student of the pre-Socratics, others seem curiously to prefigure the koan of the Zen school or even the riddles characteristic of early Anglo-Saxon poetry. But as it is not my intention here to lead the reader towards any specific interpretation or conclusion, I shall merely present some more striking of the extant fragments in the order in which they have come down to us. They are as follows:

the hollow world is dreaming, projects

the motion of a sphere is God’s

the wall laid flat is forest green

what’s held in the hand reverses the turning

void is a volume of tangents…described by the motion of the sphere

the forest world, the sun in flight, heaven the vectoral void

turns in its own light, music of timber struck

penhold and shakehand, wood touched to keep the world by turns

speech slows the spheres, speak not, propel

vacuity: two worlds in motion

spins down in dark absence, the globe untouched

the world will not move us, the world is not turning,
only by breath by limb laid on

no partner then this chase of tail: world slows, man whirls

imparting spin from one’s fingers: conjurer’s trick

the perfect stroke: the sphere’s forgetting

the honest palm is flat, not forward

two speak without words, the world passing between

Now it may well be – as some have speculated – that these fragments can be conveniently divided into those aphorisms designed to focus the mind and those one might describe as rules of play. The convenience of such an arrangement is appealing but lines such as these are difficult draw on such sparse evidence. These texts have come down to us on flimsy bamboo strips gathered in flimsier baskets. It is impossible to say either how complete a record of the parties’ experience is represented by the strips, or how many strips may have gone missing down through the centuries. Nor can the extant material be dated with much accuracy. As most of the strips have themselves had to be physically reconstructed in order that they be read, we cannot in every case even be certain that we have placed the characters on each strip in the correct order. Those scholars stretch credulity who ask us to believe that they have cracked the code and know beyond doubt how the text is to read.

What we do know with certainty is that – in whatever order these maxims were presented to the pilgrims – each party having received them was drawn on inexorably towards a common goal.

Beyond them – all the while as they come – in always a room beyond them, was heard a just slightly arrhythmic subtle tapping, a tapping as of something ethereally light on timber. It is the sound of a motion recorded and it is a curiously human sound. Imagine both parties then, following through the labyrinth of rooms and tunnels, coming closer and closer, each from the other side, closer and closer to this novel sound, a sound almost like horses’ hooves, almost like breath.

To the last room, the parties are admitted from either end at one stroke. Two of each side already have the sacred implements in their hands. When they enter the room the ball is already in motion. And so they are drawn into the game.

Some say that the first four are still there today. They require neither food, nor drink, nor sustenance of any kind…the secret of immortality is in the perpetual motion in which they were taken up the moment they entered the chamber.

We may suppose from the extant fragments of text that the rest in each party stared goggle-eyed for weeks at the trance in which their compatriots had been arrested.
Authorities are uniformly agreed that the ball in play today is still the first, that it has never been dropped. Some speculate that if it were ever to be dropped then all four players would instantly vanish into dust. Be that as it may, we are unlikely to learn much more of these circumstances as it appears the chamber has long since been buried under snowdrifts deep in one of the many lost valleys of the Himalayas.

And yet it remains true that despite the paucity of authoritative accounts, there is for philosophers, even today, only one game. And as you’d expect, it is two. At least. Perhaps the game is innumerable. How inadequate language must be to it! However many the game is, it tunes the body to the mind and more. It tunes the mind to the spheres. The spheres move as some god directs and the thinking person – pure of stroke – is wise to keep the sphere at arm’s length.

The romance of the game still stems today from the circumstances of this remote origin. Imagine the scene: that ball, those limbs, each movement minutely slower than the one that preceded it. Perfect harmony of hand and eye. Such is the secret of immortality Qin Shi Huang Di sought but never found. Perhaps if he had given up being an emperor and taken the trip to the Himalayas himself, perhaps then things might have been different.

Fix your mind on the scene and I believe you will soon begin to hear the game, a sound soothing as the fall of water, the pouring of tea…

***

That sound haunts me today: the sound of celluloid on painted timber. Matt green, gloss white the edges. Sound of my coming of age. Motes of dust and light through which the ball rises and falls. Will the hand fail to return it?

A complete collection of the fragments remembered by members of each party has been recently gathered together into a work familiarly known as The Philosophy of Table Tennis. The student of the game may wish to examine this text with care.

Still today there are two games that go by the name of table tennis. I’m not referring to the contrast between the ‘ping pong’ of slow amateurs lacking in the cultivation of strokes and the official game as played by the rules. What I mean is that there is a game in which the object is to prevent the opponent from connecting with and returning the ball to you. And there’s another game – a co-operative game – in which an opponent is entirely lacking. In that game the return of the ball for an indefinite time – for an indefinite number of bounces – is the object. As long as the ball is kept in motion, everybody wins; as soon as the ball stops, all lose. If only it were possible to keep the ball in perpetual motion then perhaps immortality too would be possible: such at least is the conclusion suggested by the legend.

As you’ll readily recognize, despite all the hints they were given, the observers in each party brought back the wrong game. So poor was their rendition of it that it was to take another two millennia and more before table tennis would be recognised as an Olympic sport.

It was left to my father’s generation to bring the wrong game to life again. He was one of the first to bring this ‘novel’ sport to life in his 1936 book Success at Table Tennis.

[1] Editor’s note: Strictly it would be more correct to say that they sailed off into the sunrise. It was the three fabled ‘fairy islands’ of Penglai, Fangchang and Yingchou – reputed domicile of the Immortals – that most interested Qin Shi Huang Di. According to Szuma Chien, the official Hsu Fu of Chi was sent to the isles with several thousand young boys and girls in his company. It’s true that they were not heard from again. I leave it to the reader to consider whether these were the Isles of the Blessed from the story of Cadmus or whether (more likely) one of these islands might have been the famed Luggnagg where Swift’s Gulliver met the immortal race of Struldbruggs. Might not both Hsu Fu and his retinue of boys and girls still be eking out a decrepit existence there? Certainly, both places occupy roughly the same place on the map.