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Confucian Appropriation of Self-sacrificing Jakata and the Change in Perception
The Journal of Chinese Cultural Studies
2020, (48),
pp.19-41
DOI :10.18212/cccs.2020..48.002
Publisher : The Society For Chinese Cultural Studies
Research Area : Chinese Culture
DOI :10.18212/cccs.2020..48.002
Publisher : The Society For Chinese Cultural Studies
Research Area : Chinese Culture
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Jakata story based on the folk tales of ancient India features Buddha’s distributing charity and perseverance in his previous life. Among them, the self-sacrificing stories show us the extreme sacrifice of one’s body. The Jakata stories about giving someone one’s flesh are a big part of the whole Jakata stories. When it entered in China, in contact with Confucian culture, it created a new and interesting aspect. This paper examined the narrative features of the self-sacrificing jakata tales, and grasped the underlying desire and the nature of human beings, futhermore looked at the process in which Shāma jakata and Sujāti jakata were appropriated in the Confucian context. As a result, the flesh-sacrificing story, through describing a cruelly damaged body and cannibalism, stimulates the original fears as a human being and the desires for violating a taboo on cannibalism. However, because of this feature, the stories attracted attention for its charm as a story, but those elements do not fit with Confucian sentiment, so they change into different forms. The cruel contents are purified, and the ideal relations between father and son are emphasized. In this process 割股 filial piety stories, which is about cutting thigh flesh for curing parents, are produced. As 割股 stories get popular, in reality there are many filial piety to practice 割股, and 割股 soon becomes essential behavior as a filial son. Finally, 割股 pandemic has expanded to the medical field, so human flesh was officially recognized as the best medicine in the Tang dynasty. This series of streams means that the ancient Chinese perception of cannibalism has changed. The cannibal, which was basically savage, naturally transformed into a civilization.
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