Summary and Comments on Yuichi Asano's "Sumiko" - Recommended to learn about the Sumika's philosophy of peace and benevolence in the Warring States period, including kaneai and non-offensive.
The book introduced here is "Sumiko" by Yuichi Asano, published by Kodansha in 1998.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
The Sumi school, founded by Sumi Zi at the end of the Spring and Autumn period, was a powerful school that divided the world of thought between the Confucian school and the Confucian school until the end of the Warring States period. The Mukong school advocated the doctrine of "love for self and others equally" and the philosophy of "non-aggression," which denied wars of aggression, and had its own armed forces. Two thousand years later, at the dawn of modern China, the full scope of Mokuke's thought came into the limelight, and the trajectory of its evolution is explained in detail by a leading expert in this field.
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In this work, you will learn about the philosophy of the Mokuke, a unique school of thought among the Hundred Families of the Chinese Zhuji.
Compared to the Confucianists of Confucius and Mencius, the Taoists of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and the Dharma School of Han Feizi, the Sumi School is not so well known in Japan, but as shown in the book introduction above, it was once a powerful thought group on par with the Confucian School.
I knew very little about Sumika until I studied Chinese thought, but I read a book I once read by Yoshihiro WatanabeSun Tzu: The Essence of the Art of War.I developed a strong interest in Mencius, Sun Tzu, and Sumi Tzu thanks to the following commentary on Mencius, Sun Tzu, and Sumi Tzu in
The first principle of the military philosophy of "Sun Tzu" is that although it is a book on the Art of War that discusses winning battles, it teaches to avoid actual combat as much as possible. The words that symbolize this are (1) "To win a hundred battles and win a hundred victories is not to be the best of the best. Even if one wins a hundred battles, one cannot avoid financial ruin due to war. In addition, as was stated at the end of the Fire Offensive Arc, the dead from war will not come back to life again, and the exiled nation cannot exist again. This is why "Sun Tzu" tells us from the beginning of the first chapter that war is a matter of national importance, that it determines the life and death of the people, and that it is the crossroads between the existence and death of a nation.
It is interesting to note that "Sun Tzu," a soldier, considers it best to win without fighting, while "Mokuke," who denies war, actively participates in battles. In the same way that the "Sumija" does not discard the idea of fighting as a contradiction while preaching non-aggression, we can get closer to the essence of the Art of War in "Sun Tzu" by considering why "Sun Tzu" considers not fighting to be the best form of warfare.
Herein lies the fundamental question of why we fight. Mencius' theory of "righteous warfare" was based on the pursuit of justice for the invader. However, justice is relative. For this reason, "Mencius" considered the invasion itself as an absolute evil and tried to carry out "non-offensive" by protecting the invaded party. In contrast, "Sun Tzu" does not judge battles according to right and wrong. Fighting already exists as a reality. Therefore, the purpose of the battle is to find out what the battle is about. In doing so, "Sun Tzu" does not seek the purpose of battle as the overthrow of the other country or the killing of human beings. He considers the purpose of battle to be to make the opponent follow him, and tries to make him follow him without hurting him as much as possible. This is expressed in the phrase (2), "It is the goodness of goodness that makes men's armies yield in battle.
Chuo Koron Shinsha, Yoshihiro Watanabe, Sun Tzu: Reading the Essence of the Art of War, p. 86-87
It was quite a surprise to learn that the Sumi family, which preached pacifism called "non-offensive" and philanthropism called "kaneai," was willing to take up arms and fight. However, this is not a simple story, but a story about how to survive in the harsh background of the Warring States period to the utmost limit.
The fact that they willingly took up arms while advocating non-aggression cannot be dismissed in one word as a contradiction. Why this was the case was very interesting to me.
This book explains how such ink houses were born, how they spread throughout China, and how they eventually disappeared.
This is a valuable reference book to learn about a unique group of thinkers who preached pacifism in a war-torn world. This was an inspiring book.
I highly recommend this work.
The above is "Yuichi Asano's "Sumiko" - Recommended to learn about the ideology of the Sumika family, which preached peace and benevolence in the Warring States period, including kaneai and non-aggression.
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