Topos and entelechy in the ethos of reclusion in China.

• Author: Berkowitz, Alan

In traditional "Confucian" China, the customary path to achievement was through service to the state. Yet at least since Confucius certain individuals have been acclaimed for doing just the opposite, for eschewing or withdrawing from appointments in the state bureaucracy. Men who chose to live outside of the traditional path for worldly success were said to be in reclusion (yin [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED], lit. hidden, or in hiding), hiding the jewel of their virtue from appropriation by their temporal rulers. They have been known throughout the history of traditional China as "men in reclusion" (yinshi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]), "men of lofty ideals" (gaoshi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]), "disengaged persons" (yimin [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]), "scholars.-at-home" (chushi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]), or the like, and for various euphemistic or euphuistic reasons sometimes were referred to as "men of the mountains and forests" (shanlin zhi shi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]) or, as in the title of a recent book, "men of the cliffs and caves" (yanxue zhi shi [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED]).(1)

Students of traditional China generally will have gained some understanding of the nature of reclusion in China, of the various rationales for eschewing officialdom, and of the diverse conduct of men in reclusion. They also may have noticed that some officers of state seemingly went in and out of reclusion, or when in office rationalized that they were in reclusion within the court, while i great number of literati wrote thematically in the persona of the man-in-reclusion. Students of early medieval China probably will also be aware that certain individuals, especially during the Southern Dynasties, found a certain utility in their status as "lofty gentlemen." Scholarship is not wanting in these areas,(2) yet there still is need for disambiguating the nature of reclusion and its role in the scholar-official ethos and literati culture of imperial China, especially early medieval China.

Reclusion as a phenomenon, it would seem, is multi-faceted; and various topoi of reclusion have been woven into the fabric of traditional Chinese culture. But this is reclusion in the broadest sense of the word, and might best be qualified as nominal reclusion or reclusion in the abstract. More circumspect is the actual practice of reclusion, the actualization into a way of life by a rather limited group of individuals; this might be termed substantive reclusion. The problem is one of definition: when discussing reclusion in China, we need to distinguish between reclusion sensu stricto and those aspects of withdrawal that generally informed the intellectual, political, literary, and artistic milieux of China's ruling intelligentsia.

The division in its most basic terms is demarcated by the conduct of the individual. With few exceptions, substantive reclusion meant unremitting eschewal of an official career. Nominal or abstract reclusion is evinced in the withdrawal of scholar-officials on an occasional (that is, relating to a particular occasion) basis, as manifest in particular actions and/or adopted personae. While this division is not perfectly empirical or categorical, and may seem somewhat polemical and structuralist, the division is apparent, ipso facto, in sources about the lives of early medieval - and later - personalities. Even a cursory look at accounts of the lives of those who were considered by their contemporaries and by posterity as having practiced reclusion will reveal the quiddity of reclusion.(3) With noticeably few exceptions, these men eschewed office throughout their lives; the exceptions are a very few men who served briefly in the central administration before withdrawing into reclusion. Countless others espoused the rationale and conduct characteristic of reclusion on an occasional basis@ the lives of these sometime-hiders, sometime-scholar-officials, however, invariably will not be found recounted in compilations devoted to men in reclusion. Medieval sources articulate the differentia of substantive reclusion; when translated into political, intellectual, literary, and artistic topoi, however, men in reclusion and scholar-officials share some common ground.

Practitioners of reclusion practiced it for life. The famous composer of threnodies, Cai Yong [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (133-92), wrote, in a tomb inscription for the Later Han scholar-at-home Juan Dian [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (95-169), who could not be humbled into accepting the eminent positions offered him,

He was summoned as an Erudite, and recommended as filial par excellence. But he was mortified at the thought of going forth, once having decided to remain at home - which would be like leaving unfinished something begun.(4)

Fan Teng [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (d.301) later minced no words in his response to a summons in 301. "Once the gate is closed, can it be reopened?"(5) And as put so succinctly centuries later by Wang Yangming [UNKNOWN TEXT OMITTED] (1473-1529): "In the end, a man in reclusion doubtless does not emerge. Should one be said to be in reclusion, and yet emerge, then doubtless he was not a man in reclusion."(6) Practitioners of reclusion habitually eschewed official positions; those who seemingly went in and out of reclusion, wrote in the persona of the man in reclusion, or eristically co-opted some of the putative noetic aspects of reclusion were, by all practical accounting, officials.

Accounts of the lives of a great number of officials reveal that many of the rationales for reclusion, as well as the idealized vision of the man in reclusion, often played a marked role in their intellectual development, in their discretionary conduct, and in their writings. Countless officials are portrayed as having adopted at one time or another, often in the zealous idealism of youth, the conduct and rationale characteristic of practitioners of reclusion @most doubtless were sincere, some perhaps simply were seeking recognition through proven pathways). Or, they found withdrawal or retirement compelling at a particular juncture in their official career; some even speciously maintained that they were in reclusion while holding office. Some officials, too, while actively Involved in the political flux of the age, found occasional diversion or solace in short-lived sojourns to a country estate, or in compositions about disengagement and its salutary release from the encumbrances and perturbations of the temporal world.

At the very least, this indicates the degree to which various topoi of reclusion had become a part of the culture of the scholar-official class; it also shows how "reclusion" could take on an occasional nature in the lives and/or personal of men who did not themselves practice reclusion as a way of life. The exigencies of holding...