The Philosophers' Library by Adam Ferner;Chris Meyns;

Author:Adam Ferner;Chris Meyns;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quarto Publishing Group
Published: 2021-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

7 Assorted writings

Further east, relative prosperity had spurred Japan to assert greater independence from mainland China. The island state began to turn inwards and the openness of the early Heian era, which had welcomed Dàoist, Rúist and other Chinese systems, came to an end. The Japanese began suspending missions to the mainland and placed heavy restrictions on Chinese imports (both material and intellectual). We see a related shift in the literature composed in this era towards texts written in the vernacular, in hiragana (a script ‘of the people’), as well as the traditional kanji, with a distinctively Japanese focus. Works in this form include The Pillow Book (c. 1002) and The Tale of Genji (c. 1010).

Composed largely in hiragana, The Pillow Book collects essays, free reflections and poems by Sei Shōnagon (c. 966–1025), who served at the imperial court as an assistant to Empress Consort Fujiwara no Teishi. A member of the powerful Fujiwara family, Sei philosophised about issues arising in her day-to-day imperial duties, from moral behaviour to the virtues of letter writing and ‘things that make one nervous’. The Pillow Book also contains interesting resonances with the debates about reason and religion. Sei insists on the importance of acquiring knowledge for oneself and appears sceptical about the efficacy of prayer and revealed religion; ‘You have to feel sorry for a god who is said to “answer each and every prayer”,’ she observes.).

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