明代における三敎思想 : 特に林兆恩を中心として

Abstract

It is needless to say that Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism are the three great schools of thought in China. These three have been sometimes in conflict and sometimes compromised. It was under the influence of the Yang Ming school in the sixteeth century that the tendency toward syncretism became dominant, and it was Lin Chao-ssu who developed the syncretism not only in the field of thought but also in its social and religious phases. Though, generally speaking, Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism were in the process of syncretism during the Ming Period, there were still some insurmountable barriers among them. These barriers were not only due to differences in creed but to social and political conditions. The problem was, then, how to bring them all to a compromise. Lin Chao-ssu was the one who tried to bring them to a successful compromise from the standpoint of the "phylosophy of mind" of tne Wang Ming school. Thus it was Lin Chao-ssu who put these three great schools of thought into a rationalistic syncretism, which still dominates the mind of the majority of the contemporary Chinese.