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CHAPTF. R 18

Mach and Buddhism i

Mach dcveloped an carly inicrest in Chincsc and Indian culturc.¹ tle was cspccialiy pleascd by Chincsc art, at least partly bccause it tended to ignore shading in the same way as he himself had donc in his own drawings during his childhood: "I remember cjuitc wcll that, in my childhood, all shadows of a drawing appeared to mc an unjustifiablc disfigurement, and that an outlinc drawing was much morę satisfactory to mc. It is likcwise wcll-known that wholc peoplcs, for instance, the Chincsc, despite a well developcd artistic tcchniąuc, do not shadc at all, or shadc only in a defcctive way."²

Mach was cqually impressed by Chincsc sight-scc tharactcrs and social ethies:

In Chincsc writing, wc havc an actuał examplc of a truć idcographic languagc, pronounced divcrscly in different provinces, yet cvcrywherc carry-ing the same meaning. Wcrc the system and iis signs only of a simplcr charactcr, the use of Chincsc writing might bccomc univcrsal. The drop-ping of unmeaning and nccdlcss accidcnts of grammar, as English tnostly drops them, would be cjuitc rcquisitc to the adoption ol such a system. But univcr5ality would not be the sole merit of such a charactcr; sińce to rcad it would be to understand it. Our children often rcad what they do not understand; but that which a Chinaman cannot understand, he is preeluded frorn rcading.³

But hcalthier (ihan Christian moralityj is an ethies, which, likc the Chincsc is bascd only on \actt. Ethies and justicc bclong to sccial cultural training, and stand the higher the morc rational thinking rcplaccs vulgar thought in both fields.⁴

Mach’s closest fricnd, Joscf Popper-Lynkeus, was also an cnthusiastic admirer of Chinese civilization. In particular, hc bclicvcd that Con-fucian ethies could benefit the Western world: "I indicatcd in my work Pas lndividuum the usefulness of Confucian ethies in raising the lcvci of civilization in Arian Europę (and America)."⁵

Mach’s interest in Indian literaturę and science ranged from an ac-quaintance with classical Indian drama, through familiarity with the Hindu pantheon, to an attraction toward Indian mathematics and logie:

The old Hindu mathematicians wrote their theorems tn verses, and lotus flowers, roses, and lilacs, bcautiful sccneries, lakes, and mountains figured in their problcms.⁵

The Hindus make use of the principles of symmetry and similarity . . . with a generality which is totally forcign to the Grccks. Hankcls proposal to unitę the rigor of the Greek method with the pcrspicacity of the Indian in a new modę of presentation is wcll worthy of encouragcmcnt.⁷

II

From his carlicst years, Mach showed a Buddhist rcspcct for the lifc and fcclings of animals. The first cxplicit declaration, howcvcr. of his "Buddhist conscicncc" camc in his 1875 book Outlines of the Theory of the Motor Sensations in which hc rcjectcd the scicntific ncccssity of viviscction.⁸ Two of Mach’$ friends, Paul Carus and Theodor Bcer, seem to have influcnccd him toward greater awareness of the epistemo-logical and ontological similarities of his philosophy with Buddhism. On hcaring about the suicidc of Machs son, Heinrich. Carus wrote the following letter to Ernst Mach (September 2S, 1894): "Pure Buddhism is a scrious religion which possesses its advantagc pre-ciscly by looking death and the cvils of cxistcncc straight in the cyc. Buddhism is the religion which will bccome the ncxt religion of science. ... In the coursc of the following fourtccn days to thrcc wceks you will rcccivc the ncxt fruit of my labor, The Gospel of Buddha."

Mach showed his apprcciation for Carus’s sympathy and books in the following footnotc which he added to the first American edition of his Analysis of Sensations:

But to ask that the ohsener \hould imaginc himself as standing upon the sun instead of upon the c.uth, is a merc trifle in comjMtison with the

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