Prologue

Twelve Sages

They weren’t the well-paid ministers who kept the people in line. They weren’t the hard-boiled consultants, sought for their advice on realpolitik.

These twelve Eastern sages were mavericks.¹ Most were marginalized or simply ignored by the establishment of their time and rediscovered centuries later by seekers of a better way. Some presented an orthodox face to society. Some remain anonymous, known today only by their writings. But they were all, in some fashion, proponents and practitioners of quiet influence: strength without force, mindfulness in action. Allow me to introduce them.

It’s the sixth century BCE. “Who are we?” “What is everything made of?” “How should we live?” “How should we lead?” “How can we deal with suffering?” These questions and more are emerging all over the world, fueling intellectual endeavors from the Hundred Schools of Thought in China to the philosophic discourses of Athens to the recording, in India, of the longest story ever told.

Our whirlwind tour (see “Sages at a Glance,” here) begins with that Indian story. Ten times the length of the Iliad and Odyssey combined, the Mahābhārata is a family saga (its name means “great tale of the Bhārata dynasty”) interwoven with myths, legends, spiritual guidance, cosmic musings, and trippy fantasies. “Whatever is found here—on law, on profit, on pleasure, and on salvation—is found elsewhere,” states the famous line, “but what is not here is nowhere else.”² The Bhagavad Gītā, “Glorious Song” of the Lord Krishna, is one short chapter in the epic. Traditionally attributed to the legendary sage Vyāsa but undoubtedly the work of many anonymous bards, the Mahābhārata begins to take shape orally in the ninth or eighth century BCE and begins to be transcribed sometime in the fifth century BCE.^*

Now is also the time of the first Upaniṣads, Sanskrit texts commenting on the Vedas, which are the earliest scriptures of the religion that will eventually become known as Hinduism.^† Their authors are expounding concepts such as Brahman (ultimate reality), māyā (perceived reality), ātman (the self or soul), and mokṣa (spiritual liberation). The Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata together are fueling the rise of Hindu literary and religious culture. Political leaders are already wondering whether they should ban the books as subversive.

Meanwhile, China is experiencing a golden age of philosophy. The so-called Hundred Schools of Thought—Confucianism to Taoism, Legalism to Yin-Yang, and a host of other theories about politics, strategy, ethics, manners, and nature—arise in the sixth century BCE and go on to vie with one another for ages after. The school with the most enduring effects is Confucianism, whose father is China’s first great teacher and moral thinker. Mencius, born a century after Confucius’ death, is a pupil of Confucius’ grandson; he synthesizes and develops his inspirer’s ideas, earning himself a place in history as the best-known Confucian.

Another important school is Taoism, whose two main originators are the legendary sage Laozi (“Old Master,” still known in the West by his romanized name, Lao Tzu) and the slightly better-documented but equally mysterious sage Zhuangzi (“Master Zhuang,” also known as Chuang Tzu).

Chinese rulers of this era like to hire itinerant scholars to advise them on government, war, and diplomacy. The sages named above, however, have mixed success at that game. Confucius is invited to several kings’ courts but in each case is soon asked to leave, Mencius teaches at a state academy but quits in disappointment at his failure to effect change, and any self-respecting Taoist prefers a hermit’s life to a political career.

Living in India at roughly the same time as Confucius is a young man named Gautama (later to be revered as “the Buddha”) with ideas that will become the platform for the world’s fourth largest religion.^* He’s a contemporary of the first Upaniṣad writers, but his sermons and discourses will not be committed to writing until at least a hundred years after his death. These earliest Buddhist scriptures, known as the Pāli Canon, recount Gautama’s search for enlightenment and his dissatisfaction with the elaborate paths to mokṣa advocated by Hindu teachers, paths that typically involve intensive study and painful austerities: consuming only water, standing on one foot for a week, that sort of thing.^* The brahmins are the Hindu priestly caste, the educated elite, who present themselves as holding the keys to salvation. Gautama declares, in contrast, that salvation’s keys are available to anyone who will follow his teachings.

Despite their deep differences, Hinduism and Buddhism continue to flourish side by side in India for centuries to come. There are six orthodox schools of Hindu philosophy, all of which accept the Vedas as authoritative; among them are Yoga and Vedānta. Philosophies that reject the Vedas include Buddhism and Jainism. The two principal branches of Buddhism are Theravāda (literally, “school of the elder monks”) and Mahāyāna (a more inclusive version, arising in southern India). Mahāyāna Buddhism spreads north to Nepal and Bangladesh and then to points east, eventually taking hold in China, Korea, Japan, and parts of Southeast Asia.

Meanwhile back in India, all these strands of thought go on stretching and clashing and combining, sometimes within one text, and the apotheosis of this process is the Yoga Vasiṣṭha, a vast compendium of stories and teachings presented by legendary sage Vasiṣṭha to the young prince Rāma in an effort to lift him out of existential despair. The Yoga Vasiṣṭha is said to be the third longest book ever written, behind only the epics Mahābhārata and Rāmāyana. Like the Mahābhārata, its precise dates are impossible to pin down, but it takes shape gradually between the ninth and thirteenth centuries CE, eventually displaying traces of all Indian philosophies tumbled together and glittering as in a cosmic kaleidoscope.

And now, 2,500 miles to the northwest, Islamic thought is in its heyday. Caliph al-Rashid of Baghdad launches the Islamic Golden Age with his House of Wisdom (eighth to thirteenth centuries CE), to which he summons the world’s scholars in order to translate classical knowledge—particularly that of Ancient Greece—into Arabic. The philosopher al-Kindi is explicit about the aim of the project: “first to record in complete quotations all that the Ancients have said on the subject; secondly to complete what the Ancients have not fully expressed.”³ These scholars’ translations of and commentaries on the works of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, and other classical thinkers eventually find their way into the libraries of Muslim Spain (aka Andalusia), where they await rediscovery by Christian clergy who have followed the Crusaders to the cosmopolitan centers of Toledo, Lisbon, and Cordoba.⁴

The famous political theorists of Islam are al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroës, but our attention will go to two figures more spiritually inclined. The first is Ibn Tufayl, an Andalusian Muslim polymath who in the early twelfth century writes the philosophical novel Hayy Ibn Yaqzān—which translates literally as Alive Aware-son but is usually rendered as The Self-Taught Philosopher. Often compared to Robinson Crusoe, it’s the story of a child alone on an island, growing up and learning about the world unaided by human society. The second thinker, Rumi, is a jurist and theologian from Persia, another center of Muslim culture. In midlife he meets an itinerant holy man named Shams, spends 40 days in his company, and consequently gives up everything to become an ascetic and write lyric poetry. Both Ibn Tufayl and Rumi are practitioners of Sufism, the mystical aspect of Islam.

Back to the Far East. All this time Buddhism has been spreading from India, over the steppes and mountain ranges of China, over the Korean Peninsula, and at last across the sea to Japan, where it mingles with Taoism and other Chinese influences. The Japanese Heian period (eighth to twelfth centuries) sees poetry and literature reaching their height, especially at Japan’s imperial court. Around 995, the empress invites a woman with a reputation as a fine writer to serve as lady-in-waiting there. Outwardly conventional but with a taste and aptitude for the Chinese classics (traditionally off-limits to females), Murasaki Shikibu continues her writing at court, eventually producing The Tale of Genji. Today’s critics debate whether Genji is the world’s first novel, the first modern novel, or the first psychological novel; there is no disagreement, however, on its status as a literary masterpiece.

Dōgen, another original thinker of Japan, is born just after the end of the Heian period. Initially a monk at the headquarters of the powerful Buddhist Tendai School, at age 23 he grows disillusioned with the institution’s internal politics and sets out to find a more authentic way. He travels through China training with various masters, and upon his return to Kyoto begins to promote the practice of zazen: sitting meditation. Later he breaks with the religious establishment altogether. Moving to the countryside, he founds a new monastery and a new Buddhist sect, the Sōtō school. Today, when people “meditate,” they are following the path to enlightenment prescribed by Zen Master Dōgen.

Two more sages are left to mention. One lived recently; he is Mohandas Gandhi, who led India’s liberation from the British Raj in the 1940s. Known worldwide as Mahātmā (“great-souled”), he has retained his stature as a folk hero. Less appreciated is his stature as a political theorist: his book Hind Swaraj, or Indian Home Rule, lays out the principles of nonviolent resistance that have underpinned nearly every major civil-rights movement since the mid-twentieth century. Though no saint—like many great leaders, he held some bigoted views and exhibited some doubtful behavior in his personal life—Gandhi is certainly one of the most influential individuals of all time.

Our final sage lived in the distant past and, having been a biographer of the influential rather than a man of influence himself, is little known today. Sima Qian was a gentleman of ancient China who, as the son of a court scribe and astrologer, had a ringside seat on the political action of the era. Father and son together planned an ambitious project: a history of the entire world as the Chinese then knew it. Sima Qian took up the work upon his father’s death, and some years later, after being convicted of a political offense and receiving a death sentence, he chose castration rather than suicide so that he might complete his 130-chapter Shi Ji (“Records”), including 12 accounts of the earliest emperors, 30 annals of noble families, and 70 biographies of individual rulers, ministers, rebels, and warlords. With his massive work, Sima Qian invented the genre of world history^* and earned the moniker Grand Historian of China.

And that, as the Chinese say, is “to look at flowers from a galloping horse.” No doubt my five-minute history of Eastern thought has the Grand Historian rolling in his grave. The Buddha, as ever, wears a serene smile.

SAGES AT A GLANCE

PRONUNCIATION GUIDE⁵

Chinese	Sanskrit
a like the “a” in father	a like each “a” in America
e like the “oeu” in French oeuf, but . . .	ā like the “a” in father*
after a vowel: like the “e” in egg	i like the “ea” in heat
i like the “ee” in see, but . . .	ī like the “ee” in see
after u: like the “ay” in way	u like the “u” in suit
after zh.ch.sh.z.c.s.r: a sound between	ū like the “oo” in pool
the “u” in suppose and “er” in her	ṛ like the “er” in river
o like the “aw” in awful
ü like the “u” in suit or French “u” in tu	e like the “ei” in weigh
	ai like the “ai” in aisle
an like the “un” in fun, but . . .	o like the “o” in pole
after a vowel: like the “en” in hen	au like the “ou” in loud
ang with a long “a” as in father
en like the “an” in announce	ś like the “sh” in shine (tongue a bit back)
un with a short “u” as in sugar
	ṣ like the “sh” in shut (tongue a bit forward)
ai like the “ai” in aisle
ao like the “ow” in how	t/ṭ like the “t” in top
ei like the “ei” in weigh	th/ṭh like the “t” in top(same as above; no lisp)
ou like the “o” in bowl
c like the “ts” in tse-tse fly	Gautama: gow-tumma
q like the “ch” in chin	Mahābhārata: ma-ha-BAH-rutta
t between English “t” and “d”	Yoga Vasiṣṭha: yoga va-seesh-ta
x like the “sh” in shin
z like “dz”	Japanese
zh like the “j” in Dijon mustard
	ō like the “o” in oboe
Gaozu: gow-dzoo	o like the “o” in confused
Han Xin: hahn shin
Laozi: low-dzeuh	Dōgen: dogen (with a hard “g”)
Qin: chin	Tenzo: tenzuh
Shun: shun (“u” as in sugar)
Sima Qian: seuh-ma chyen
	Arabic
Taoism: dow-ism	Hayy Ibn Yaqzān: hi ibben yuck-zahn
Yü: yoo	Ibn Tufayl: ibben too-file
Zhuangzi: jwahng-dzeuh	Rumi: roomy