『抱朴子』外篇における隠者賛美の意味

The Real Intention of the Admiration of Hermits

Shimomi Takao

哲学

Tetsugaku : The Journal of Hiroshima Philosophical Society

Kê Hung (葛洪), a scholar early in the 4th century A. D., wrote his 'Pao pu tzu' (抱朴子) and explained his famous Immortal being in its Nei pien (内編), while he admired the way of hermit life in its Wai pien (外編).

In this paper, the auther of these lines focused his eyes mainly on the Wai pien and tried to make it clear where lies the real intention, of Kê Hung's admiration of such kind of existence as hermits. Although the admiration of hermit itself might be understood merely as a manifestation of the ideal figure of human existence, it is, in reality, dealt as the symbolic expression of a certain social phenomenon.

That is to say, Kê Hung tried to explain that hermits would appear with such backgrounds as the weakening of the dynastical authority and the confusion and instability of the political administration. Therefore, the admiration of hermit-like existence couid conversely be taken as the tacit implication of the social confusion and of the crisis of its collapse.

Oriental thought [ 120 ]

jpn

広島哲学会

[ISSN] 0495-2200

[NCID] AN00150441