The Japanese imperial court began to learn a lot of China culture from the ancient times. At the end of the 6th century, the Japanese imperial court carried out the reform of pushing the ancient dynasty. Under the sponsorship of Shoto Kutaishi, who advocated Buddhism in China, he studied the national system and ideology and culture of China. The Japanese drew lessons from China's Buddhism and a hundred schools of thought, and formulated Article 17 of the Constitution. Shoto Kutaishi personally annotated many Buddhist classics, extensively built Buddhist temples in China, and publicized Buddhist thoughts.
Shoto Kutaishi
Before Japanese Sinology and Lan Xue appeared in the Edo period in Japan, the so-called learning in Japan mainly came from Confucianism and Buddhism in China, especially Confucianism.
Later, Japanese traditional culture was developed on the basis of Confucianism, Buddhism and other cultures in China, combined with local ideas. Some Japanese scholars believe that if China culture is abandoned, there will be no traditional culture in Japan.
Because China culture had an absolute advantage in the East before the early Qing Dynasty, China culture was highly respected in ancient Japan. The learning direction before Meiji Restoration in Japan was called "Harmony with Soul and Scholars". In other words, the Japanese should have the spirit of Japan, but their hearts should also be full of China's knowledge.
During the Tang Dynasty in China, the Japanese carried out a large-scale and all-round strategy of "learning from foreigners" and sent 18 missions to the Tang Dynasty, with more than 8 00 missions at most. They left domestic talents in China to study China's political system, medicine, architecture, art and other aspects. Some of them have been studying for twenty or thirty years, and after returning to Japan, they are often reused by the government to promote China culture. Because it benefited a lot from learning from China, at that time, the Japanese called China "the father country" and called itself "the son country".
Japanese envoy to the Tang Dynasty
When the Mongols ruled China and established the Yuan Dynasty, the Japanese thought that China was ruled by the barbarian Mongols and lost its orthodox China culture. Orthodox China culture has been inherited by the Japanese, so it has long claimed that it has orthodox China culture. It can be seen that Japanese respected China culture at that time.
First of all, Japanese characters evolved from Chinese characters.
Due to the dominant position of China culture in ancient East Asia, China Chinese characters have long been the only common characters in East Asia, such as Japan, Korean Peninsula, Ryukyu and Viet Nam, and they were the standard writing characters in these countries before the 20th century.
Before Chinese characters were introduced to Japan, the Japanese only used voice to communicate with each other, and there were no words. When Chinese characters were introduced, the Japanese still spoke in the local voice and began to write in Chinese characters.
Later, many Japanese people felt that foreign Chinese characters were not used to writing, so they began to simplify the writing of Chinese characters, thus forming pseudonyms. For example, the Chinese character "He" is abbreviated as "よヨ", the Chinese character "Nai" is abbreviated as "の" and so on.
Japanese pseudonym
In modern Japanese, there are more than 2 100 commonly used Chinese characters, and Chinese characters are still the main ones in Japanese official documents. 1964, the National Institute of Japan investigated 90 kinds of magazine terms, and came to the conclusion that Chinese accounted for 47.5%, Japanese for 36.7%, and western languages accounted for nearly 10%.
Second, Confucianism has influenced many aspects of Japanese society.
According to Japanese historical records, in 248 AD, Dr. Wang Ren, a doctor of China's Five Classics, came to Japan from North Korea, and brought China Confucian classics such as The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Filial Piety and Thousand-character Works to Japan. This is the first time that Confucian books have spread from China to Japan.
In the process of learning from China, Sui and Tang Dynasties, Japan gradually began to use Confucianism and Confucius' thoughts of "loyalty, benevolence, righteousness and propriety" to govern the country. In the Edo era, Japan had already adopted the Confucian thought of "self-cultivation, keeping the family in order, governing the country and leveling the world".
In modern Japan, many Confucian life and moral principles are still respected, such as loyalty, filial piety, honesty and justice. Confucian classics such as Shangshu, Analects of Confucius and Yijing are well-known in Japan.
Japanese appellations from ancient times to the present, except the present "Linghe", are all taken from China ancient books. For example, the number "Dahua" in the first year in ancient Japan comes from China's Confucian classic "Shangshu", which means great changes. Meiji, the title of Meiji Restoration in Japan, also comes from the Confucian Book of Changes, which means to repair the political affairs of the Ming Dynasty.
minister
Thirdly, Shintoism, the main religion in Japan, absorbed a lot of Buddhism and Confucianism from China, and also included China's theory of Yin-Yang and Five Elements.
The name Shinto comes from the Book of Changes in China. Japanese Shintoism absorbed a lot of Confucianism. Such as "loyalty to the monarch" and "great harmony society".
Fourthly, China's theory of traditional Chinese medicine had a great influence on the development of Japanese medicine.
In the 5th century A.D., North Korean emissaries treated the Japanese emperor with Chinese medicine technology, which made Japan begin to see the value of Chinese medicine theory. The theory of traditional Chinese medicine was introduced into Japan from the Korean peninsula, which is the origin of Japanese medical development. The classics of Chinese medicine in Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties spread from China to Japan and became the mainstream theory of Japanese medicine. Classic Chinese medicine books spread to Japan include Huangdi Neijing, Treatise on Febrile Diseases and Compendium of Materia Medica.
Later, Japan gradually localized China's theory of traditional Chinese medicine, and finally formed a real traditional Japanese medicine in the middle of the Edo period, which was both oriental medicine and China medicine and developed independently in Japan.
After the Meiji Restoration in Japan, Western medicine gradually overwhelmed Chinese medicine to occupy a dominant position in Japan. However, because Chinese herbal medicine is less toxic than western medicine, in recent decades, the Japanese government has re-supported the development of Chinese medicine and turned it into a "national treasure" industry. Internationally, the development of Japanese traditional Chinese medicine has a great momentum of catching up with that of China. By 20 10, the proportion of Japanese taking traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has increased from 19% 40 years ago to 72%. Chinese medicine has a great revival momentum in Japan.
knight
Fifth, the Japanese Bushido spirit is deeply influenced by Confucianism and Buddhism in China.
Bushido is the moral standard of samurai class in Japanese feudal society, the core of Japanese spiritual culture and has a profound influence on Japanese national character. Bushido originated in the Kamakura shogunate period in Japan and was formed by absorbing the thoughts of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism in the Edo period.
Nitobe Inazo, a famous Japanese scholar in modern times, believes that Confucius thought is the most important ideological source of Bushido, and the excellent qualities such as "courage, benevolence and honesty" in The Analects of Confucius are the ideological essence of Bushido.
Bushido also absorbed the Confucian thought of "loyalty and courage". However, compared with China, Japanese attitude towards loyalty and heroism is very radical. When a samurai can't complete some tasks assigned by his master, he needs to commit suicide by caesarean section.
Sixth, a large number of Japanese customs are from China.
Japan's three most famous "flower path, tea ceremony and book path" all originated in China and developed with Japanese local characteristics.
Japan's kimono was improved on the basis of Wu's costume in China's Three Kingdoms period, so it is also called Wu's costume in Japan.
Japanese sumo, judo, chopsticks, tatami, clogs and sliding doors and windows were all learned from ancient China.
Japanese traditional style street
The architectural style of many streets in modern Japanese cities is still similar to that of China in the Tang Dynasty. Walking on the road of modern Japan, signs with Chinese characters can be seen everywhere.
Japan and China are separated only by a strip of water, which is one of the countries that are most influenced by China culture in China cultural circle. The introduction of China culture greatly accelerated the development of Japanese history.