“Yuan”(Japanese :“en”),literally meaning “relationship by fate”,is a word still in current use both in China, including Taiwan, and Japan. The concept “yuan” was originally based on Buddhism, which was introduced into China supposedly toward the end of the Former Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-8 A.D.) and into Japan in the middle of the sixth century (538 or 552). Here I intend, chiefly by examining “yuan” in the romances of Tang (618-907) and in the tales of the Heian Period (794-1185), to give an outline of Chinese and Japanese fatalisms from the viewpoint of comparative study.
In China, from Later Han (25-220) onward, a great many Buddhist texts, mainly of Mahāyāna, were translated into Chinese, and the early Tang period (618-712) was the culminating point of Chinese Buddhism. However, since Chinese had have a strong fatalism “tian” from ancient times, “yuan” had no choice but to supplement the weak point of the preceding fatalism. In the romances of the Tang Dynasty, in fact, “tian” and “yuan” were compatible with each other.
Japanese, on the other hand, did not have such a strong preceding fatalism as “tian”,so they seem to have comparatively with ease accepted “yuan”. As a matter of fact, we can see the word “sukuse” (relationship by fate originating from the previous life) frequently appear in the tales of the Heian Period. This also shows that Japanese had a remarkable tendency to receive “yuan” as a sort of the concept of time.
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