Nirvana and Anarchy: the Doctrine of the “Five Negations” by Zhang Binglin
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Nirvana and Anarchy: the Doctrine of the “Five Negations” by Zhang Binglin
Annotation
PII
S004287440000747-6-1
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Dmitry E. Martynov 
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga region) Federal University
Address: Russian Federation, Kazan
Yulia Martynova
Affiliation: Kazan (Volga region) Federal University
Address: Russian Federation, Kazan
Edition
Pages
164-181
Abstract

The article anticipates the first Russian translation of the utopian doctrine by Zhang Binglin

(Zhang Taiyan, 1869–1936), expressed in the article Wu wu lun (On the Five Negations, 1907). Formally, this doctrine can be considered the most radical of utopias proposed by Chinese anarchists. For the liberation of mankind in the global perspective, Zhang Binglin envisaged the universal enlightenment of mankind (Bodhi), the attainment of Nirvana and the liquidation for the physical universe, subject of Karma. In this connection, N.M. Kalyuzhnaya and Kondo Kuniyasu considered this project as a kind of accident in the ideological heritage by Zhang. However, apparently, this view needs to be corrected. The doctrine by Zhang Binglin is internally consistent and directed against popular at the beginning of the 20th century in China theories of Evolutionism and Social Darwinism. Zhang Binglin realizing for the first time the duality of social changes that require the transformation of both objective reality and human subjectivity, offered the most radical way beyond the prevailing conditions, using the Yogachara Buddhism. Human beings are hostile not only to social institutions and cultural achievements (since weapons and murder are primarily developed), but even a sedentary way of life, since there is no equality in nature.

 

Keywords
utopia, anarchism, Buddhism, nirvana, the Qing dynasty, Zhang Binglin
Date of publication
03.10.2018
Number of purchasers
10
Views
714
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0.0 (0 votes)
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References

1. Batkin, Leonid M. (1995) The Italian Renaissance. Problems and people, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow (In Russian).

2. Kalyuzhnaya, Nina M. (1995) Tradition and revolution. Zhang Binglin (1869–1936) Chinese thinker and politician of modern times, Moscow (In Russian).

3. Kondō Kuniyasu (1984) “Ichi nihonjin no me kara mita Shō Heirin no shisō [Thought of Zhang Binglin Viewed from the Standpoint of One Japanese]”, Tokyō daigaku shakaikagaku kenkyū, Vol. 35 (5), pp. 253–275 (in Japanese).

4. Levenson, Joseph (1968) Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy, University of California Press, Berkeley.

5. Martynov, Dmitry E., Zainullin, Gabgulzyamil’ G. (2017) The idea of the Great Unity (Datong) in the history of Chinese social thought at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries and Kang Youwei, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Kazan (In Russian).

6. Murthy, Viren (2011) The political philosophy of Zhang Taiyan: the resistance of consciousness, Brill, Leiden.

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