Tang Yongtong (1893.6.21 – 1964.5.2) was a philosopher, Buddhist scholar, educator, and master of traditional Chinese studies. His ancestral home is Huangmei County, Hubei Province, and he was born in Weiyuan County, Gansu Province. In 1917, after graduating from Tsinghua Xuetang, he studied in the United States and entered Hamlin University and Harvard University for further study, and obtained a master's degree in philosophy. After returning to China, he successively served as a professor at National Southeast University (renamed Central University in 1928 and Nanjing University in 1949), Nankai University, Peking University, and Southwest United University.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he successively served as vice president of Peking University, member of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, member of the First National Committee and The Third Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and deputy to the First, Second and Third National People's Congresses.
Tang Yongtong is one of the few masters of traditional Chinese studies in the history of modern Chinese scholarship who can connect The East and the West, connect Hua Fan, and forge ancient and modern, and is called "Harvard Three Masters" together with Chen Yinke and Wu Mi. His works include "History of Buddhism in the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Han and Wei Dynasties", "Outline of the History of Indian Philosophy", and "Treatise on the Metaphysics of Wei and Jin".
Regarding the introduction of Mr. Tang Yongtong, we have shared with you the father in the eyes of his son Yuichisuke. Through the tip of Mr. Tang Yijie's pen, we see a typical father who is kind and kind to the elder, has a harmonious family, eats and lives, and works and rests, just like a pure Confucianism. Today, through the perspective of the President of the Chinese Comparative Literature Society, the advisor of Sanzhi College, the professor of Peking University, and the wife of Mr. Tang Yijie, Le Daiyun, we will see this mr. Tang Yongtong, who is also a teacher and friend, like a warm and beautiful jade!
A group photo of Mr. Tang Yongtong's family (The back row from left are: Tang Yixuan, Tang Yijie, Mrs. Tang, Tang Yongtong, Lin Wencai, and Le Daiyun's brother. The front row is Le Daiyun, granddaughter Tang Dan, Tang Yixuan's classmates)
My first close encounter with Mr. Tang Yongtong was at the graduation ceremony of the whole school in 1952. At that time, he was the chairman of the school council, and I was the student representative who presented flowers and gifts to the chairman. Since we were the first batch of students to formally graduate after liberation, the graduation ceremony was quite solemn, and it was held in Democracy Square, the starting place of the "May Fourth" parade that year. At that time, all the graduates made a decision, and after leaving the school, each of them sent fifty cents from the first salary to build a flagpole for the new school site. The purpose is to hope that when Peking University moves to Yanyuan, the first five-star red flag of the school will be raised from our flagpole! At the graduation ceremony, on behalf of everyone, I solemnly delivered the flagpole model to Mr. Tang. Today, more than 50 years later, the flagpole has disappeared, and the stone inscriptions on the flagpole seat have been scattered, but the flagpole seat still stands on the side of the West Gate of Peking University.
It was in this year that I entered Mr. Tang Yongtong's home and married his eldest son, Tang Yijie, who had just graduated from the Philosophy Department of Peking University in 1951. Our weddings were special, even in the early '50s, and probably not very common. At that time, I wanted my classmates to attend my wedding before they left school, so they got married in September 1952. The wedding ceremony was held at the Tang family in Xiaoshizuo Hutong. According to our plan, only candy, peanuts and melon seeds and tea were prepared for the wedding. It was a large courtyard with a patio in the middle that could accommodate dozens of people. At 8 p.m., my classmates, comrades-in-arms of the Communist Youth League Committee, and some leading comrades of the Party Committee all came, and the atmosphere was lively and lively, as I thought. It was an "anti-traditional" wedding, with no etiquette, not even a salute to the parents, and no parents or leaders to speak.
Mr. Tang and my mother-in-law sat in the corridor of the North House, smiling and squinting at everyone frolicking. Later, everyone got into a booing and asked me to give a wedding speech. I also did not have any "shyness of the bride" and happily delivered a speech. I still remember roughly what I mean by that I was willing to enter this harmonious family, and that my parents were very kind, but that I did not enter a proletarian family, and therefore I had to draw a clear line with the bourgeoisie. The people at that time were really revolutionary! The two old men had a very good temper, did not move at all, and applauded happily to express their approval. Later, the two old men entered the house to rest, followed by free speeches, and friends laughed and joked. I don't remember what everyone said, but I only remember an old friend of Tang Yijie, Wen Lihe, the eldest son of Mr. Wen Yiduo, who joked more and more excessively, and even advised Tang Yijie that at night he must study Chairman Mao's strategic thinking well, saying things like "the enemy advances and I retreat" and "the enemy retreats and I attack." The meaning of ridicule is self-evident.
I immediately became angry, felt insulted, and severely reprimanded him for not making such a joke with the words of the great leader Chairman Mao! Everyone saw that I was serious, and they all felt very embarrassed... My wedding ended in displeasure. Yuichi and I drove unhappily to our "new house." In order to "draw a clear line and support ourselves", our "new house" is not at home, but in a very simple cottage in the dormitory of the Party School of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee where Tang Yijie works.
The next day, Mr. Tang and the old lady invited two tables of close friends and relatives at the Senlong Hotel in the old Dongdan Market, announcing that we were married, after all, Tang Yijie was the son of Tang Yijie. Mr. Tang and my mother-in-law asked us to attend this wedding banquet, but I think this is not the practice of the proletarian family, and the first thing to resist after marriage is this old custom. After discussing with Yuichisuke, I decided that neither of us would go. This behavior does seem excessive now. It must have hurt the hearts of the two old men. But Mr. Tang was still completely silent, not even a word of reproach.
After graduation, I was assigned to work at Peking University, and after the adjustment of the department, Mr. and Mrs. Tang also moved into the spacious No. 58 Yannan Garden. The school decided that there was no reason to assign me another house, so I lived with the old man. The mother-in-law is a gentle and elegant person, she is very beautiful, she has read a lot of classical literature and new novels, "Dream of the Red Chamber" and "The Golden Powder Family" have been read five or six times. She was particularly patriotic, and when she resisted us and aided Korea, she donated all the gold and jewelry she had saved, and I heard that together with the families of other professors at Peking University, she donated a whole plane. She never asked anything of me, helped us with our children, shared the housework, and gave us peace of mind.
I'm not an unreasonable person either, and gradually I don't mention any "boundaries" anymore. Her arm had been broken once, and I took good care of her. They have a lot of boxes, stacked high together. She was looking for some clothes, or she was going to dry her clothes, and I helped her move them down one by one. Mr. Tang and my mother-in-law are very cultured people, we have been together for so many years, we have never seen them both with red faces. I remember once at breakfast, my mother-in-law mistakenly took the black sesame powder that Mr. Tang usually ate with steamed buns into tea powder, and he actually ate it without any doubt, only saying "Today's sesame powder is a bit astringent"! Therefore, in the old Peking University, there was the name of "Tang Bodhisattva". That's what an old driver in the school's car crew told me years after his death, and they still miss his approachability and kindness to people.
Mr. Tang lao is indeed a person who does not care much about fame! A scholar like him, who is recognized as very learned, and once called "Harvard Three Masters" with Chen Yinke and Wu Mi in the United States, did not let him manage teaching and scientific research after the adjustment of the department, but became the vice president in charge of "infrastructure"! At that time, many parts of the campus were undergoing a lot of construction. On the dusty construction site, his slow steps and not tall figure can often be seen. He himself didn't think there was anything wrong with it, and often said that things always needed to be done by people, and everything was the same.
Unfortunately, such peaceful days are not long. The class struggle is always continuous. In 1954, at the meeting organized by the People's Daily to criticize Hu Shi, the leader asked him to speak. He is a very moral person, and he will not follow the leader's intentions and follow others to talk about Hu Shi, but he may be very conflicted and uneasy in his heart. According to Mr. Zheng Xin, the head of the Philosophy Department who was sitting with him at the time, he also knocked over the wine glass in front of him at dinner.
He and Hu Shi did have an extraordinary friendship. At that time, he went from Nanjing Central University to teach at Peking University, which was recommended by Hu Shi. Hu Shi valued him very much, and on the eve of liberation, Hu Shi flew to Taiwan and entrusted the affairs of the school to him and Zheng Tianting, the secretary general of the College of Letters. The People's Daily organized a criticism of Hu Shi, which dealt a great blow to him and also had great psychological pressure. That night, back at home, his expression was wooden, and the corners of his mouth were also a little crooked. If there was some experience, we should have taken him to the hospital at that time, but we all thought he was tired and would be fine after a night's rest. Unexpectedly, the next day he was unconscious, and the doctor said that it was a large-scale cerebral hemorrhage! Immediately take to Union Hospital. Principal Ma Yinchu was very concerned about him, consulted with Soviet experts, and sent special nurses from the school. He fell asleep like this for more than a month.
After that, he could not write with his hands, could not walk on his legs, and could only sit in a wheelchair. But he still couldn't release the scroll, always reading books and thinking about problems. I tried to help him find books, listen to him dictate, and then take notes. Many of the chapters thus written are collected in his Notes on Gluttony.
During this time, there was one thing that had a profound impact on me. In his dictation, Mr. Tang once mentioned a poem in the Book of Poetry: "Whoever was born with a strong rank is still a stem." "I haven't read it, I don't know which words they are, and I don't know what they mean. He was so surprised that he even said, "Haven't you read through the Book of Verses?" I don't even know these two frequently quoted sentences in the Book of Verses, but are you still a graduate of the Chinese Department? I was so ashamed that I had to say that when we went to college, we played sports all day; And I was engaged in modern literature, and the teacher did not teach this lesson.
Later, he patiently explained to me that "lijie" means "disaster" and "stem" means "disaster". This poem is from the "Poetry Classic Sang Rou", the meaning of the whole poem is to lament the fainting and tyrannical tyranny of King Li of Zhou, the appointment of non-human beings, the suffering of the people, and the death of the country. I was so humiliated by this that I was so excited that I began to recite the Book of Verses. At that time, I was already a secretary and teacher in the Chinese Department, and I often had meetings, so I wrote the Book of Verses silently on the corners of the pages while taking notes for the meetings. To this day, I still have the notebook of the time, surrounded by verses from the Book of Poetry. I realized that as a Chinese scholar, everything you do must have the foundation of Chinese culture, which began with the lessons of Tang Lao.
In 1958 I was classified as far right, and the old gentleman was very confused and did not understand why this was the case. In his eyes, how can I, a young child who has always been so revolutionary, who has worked diligently and earnestly, and who has to draw a clear line with the bourgeois family, be a rightist? Moreover, when I was classified as a rightist, the anti-right climax was long past. My right wing was the last to be added in February 1958. The reason is that the new principal said that the anti-rightist opposition is not thorough, and it is necessary to catch the rightists who have slipped through the net. As a result of this "digging deep and digging deep", 8 of the 10 young teachers who were newly retained after the liberation of our Chinese Literature Teaching and Research Department have become rightists. I was the secretary of the communist teachers' branch at that time, of course, the leader, and I became a far rightist. I happened to have my second child, and I was on the party just after the full moon! The case was quickly finalized in a few days. Of the 6 levels of dealing with rightists, I belong to the second category: expulsion from public office, expulsion from the party, immediately going to the countryside to accept supervised labor, and living expenses of 16 yuan per month.
In the winter of 1963, Professor Tang Yongtong took a photo while holding his granddaughter Tang Shan in his apartment at No. 58 Yannan Garden
Mr. Tang Lao was a gentleman who had experienced such a stormy class struggle, and this struggle actually tossed into his own home! He has always been clean and self-righteous, the most reluctant to ask for people, and rarely asked for anyone, this time, for the sake of his eldest grandson, my son who had just turned to the full moon, he very much went to Jiang Longji, the vice principal of the school at the time, and said that the child's mother was breastfeeding, for the sake of the next generation, can he postpone the period to accept supervision and labor.
Jiang Longji joined the party in 1927, studied in Germany, and is a very decent person. He agreed to let me stay for 8 months. Later, he was transferred to Lanzhou University as president, and was persecuted and hanged himself during the Cultural Revolution. On the day I had just turned 8 months old, the notice to go to the countryside was immediately issued. I remember when I left home, Tang Yijie was still engaged in "four qing" in Huangcun and failed to meet him. While my son was asleep, I staggered away from home through the back door. Occasionally looking back, I saw Mr. Tang waving at me through the glass door.
I think Mr. Tang still has feelings for me, the "ultra-left daughter-in-law". When he talked to my mother-in-law about me, he once said that she was a person with a straight heart and a blessed appearance! When I returned home in 1962, giving medicine and water to Mr. Tang every day became my first priority. There is one thing at this stage that I will never forget. It was May Day in 1963, and Tiananmen Square held a grand garden party, and the collective dance was very lively. This was an era of recovery, the negative impact of the "Great Leap Forward" gradually became a thing of the past, the rural areas began to contract production to households, the anti-rightist struggle seemed to have passed, the country was relatively stable, and it should be greatly celebrated. Chairman Mao was very happy and invited some intellectuals to go to Tiananmen Square on the evening of May Day to watch the fireworks and participate in the party. Mr. Tang also received an invitation to watch the ceremony.
The invitation note indicates that it is possible to bring a wife and children. Mr. Tang thought about it, should he take our family, or take Tang Yijie's brother's family? We were all living together at the time, and it was okay to take anyone with us. Mr. Tang was a very attentive person, and he might have thought at the time that if I brought my brother's family, I would be particularly sad, because at that time I was still a "hat-picking rightist". The old man knows how becoming a "far rightist" has deeply broken my heart. In everyday life, even the slightest detail, he also tries to avoid making me feel discriminated against. The two elders are really considerate of this. I think it was for the same reason, and perhaps the Confucian "orderly growth and childhood", that in the end, he decided to take our family with him.
So, two old men, plus our husband and wife and two children, went to Tiananmen Square together. That night, Chairman Mao came over and shook hands with Mr. Tang and said that he had read mr. Tang's article and hoped that he would continue to write. Chairman Mao also shook hands with us and the children. I think that Mr. Tang was not completely unprepared for the possible consequences of taking me to Tiananmen, but he was willing to take this risk in order to give me a little inner comfort and balance! After returning, someone wrote an anonymous letter accusing Mr. Tang of taking a rightist element to Tiananmen! Brought to Chairman Mao's side! If she said something reactionary, or did something reactionary, could the old man bear this responsibility? This letter, as we know, was written by a neighbor who lived opposite, and no one else could have reacted so quickly! The old gentleman was silent and calm. It was as if everything had been expected.
Unfortunately, the old man's condition began to deteriorate again. In 1964, Meng Chun had to be admitted to the hospital again. At that time, Yuichisuke was suspected of stomach cancer and was being closely examined, and his sister-in-law was giving birth to a second child and could not go out. The hospital does not have a nursing system, and the "special nurse" is too expensive. The matter of escorting can only be undertaken by my mother-in-law and me. My mother-in-law was in the hospital day and night, and I also went to the hospital at night to replace my mother-in-law so that she could rest a little. I remember that spring, I was writing a political essay in the political department, and I wrote an essay every two weeks. I used to go to the hospital with a stack of texts to accompany the old gentleman. He fell asleep and I changed the composition; He couldn't sleep, so he talked to him for a while. He often felt chest tightness, sometimes held his breath, and broke out in a lot of cold sweat.
I feel sorry for him, but there's nothing I can do about it! At such a time, anyone can only face their own fate alone! In this way, it finally came to May Day in 1964. On that day, the sun was shining, and after my mother-in-law got up, I left the hospital at about 6 o'clock. As I was leaving, the old gentleman waved at me as usual, and everything seemed to be normal. However, as soon as I got home, I received a call from my mother-in-law. She was crying, and she could faintly hear what she was saying repeatedly: "He's gone!" Let's go! I didn't look favorably on him! He shouted a long live May Day and left!" In this way, Old Mr. Tang ended his life calmly, seemingly without particular pain.
In the past, I had long heard that Mr. Tang's classes at Peking University included "History of Chinese Buddhism", "Wei and Jin Metaphysics", "History of Indian Philosophy", and "Philosophy of Continental Europe". Everyone says that there are probably few scholars like him who can look at the three major cultural systems of China, India, and Europe. After saying goodbye to Mr. Tang for 17 years, I had the privilege of coming to Harvard University, where he had studied, and I looked up mr. Tang's relevant materials there, only to find that he not only studied Sanskrit, Buddhism, and Western philosophy at the Harvard Institute, but also had a special interest in "comparison", especially the comparison between Western theory and Eastern theory. When Mr. Tang was in the United States, he was originally studying at another university, and it was Wu Mi who wrote a letter suggesting that he transfer to Harvard.
He was heavily influenced by the famous comparativeist Birch Bender at Harvard, and his first class at Harvard was comparative literature. Wu Mi and Mr. Tang Lao were originally old friends, very good when they were at Tsinghua University, and wrote a martial arts novel together. I was amazed that such an "old-fashioned" gentleman as he had had such romantic feelings! Mr. Bai Bide is the head of the Department of Comparative Literature, the main founder of this discipline and this department, and attaches great importance to Chinese culture, especially Confucianism. Under his influence, a group of young Chinese scholars began to re-study Chinese culture in the context of world culture. After Mr. Tang returned to China, he organized the "Xueheng Magazine" with Wu Mi and others.
Now it seems that in the May Fourth New Culture Movement, the difference between the radicals and the "xueheng faction" lies in the fact that one side must completely abandon the old culture, and the other side believes that history cannot be cut off. The Xueheng school clearly put forward the idea of "Changming national essence and melting new knowledge". At that time, Mr. Tang particularly emphasized the intersection of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign cultures, and proposed to understand where the world's problems are and where his own problems are; To understand what is the best thing in others, but also to understand what is the best thing in yourself; You also need to know how to adapt to your needs and move forward. He wrote a special article called "Cultural Studies on The Critics" to illustrate his claims. Studying the academic philosophy of the Heng School and Mr. Tang Lao was a starting point for my study of comparative literature.
It is from this point of view that I think that Chinese comparative literature is different from Western comparative literature. Western comparative literature is produced in the classroom and belongs to the academic school; Chinese comparative literature, however, arose from the needs of the times and society. Whether it was during the May Fourth period or in the 1980s, Chinese intellectuals learned from the West from their own needs. Chinese comparative literature arose in such cultural exchanges between China and the West. In fact, those who learned from the West during the "May Fourth" period all had very deep Chinese cultural heritage, such as Wu Mi, Chen Yinke, Mr. Tang Lao, and later Qian Zhongshu, Zong Baihua, Zhu Guangqian, etc., who all knew how to proceed from Chinese culture and what they should ask the West for, rather than "following along" and "following along".
Mr. Tang has been away from us for nearly half a century, and his Confucian style and his tolerance and gentleness have always lingered in my heart, always reminding me of the warm jade that the ancients said, "even if it is warm". I remember one late night in the hospital, when we were chatting, he used to say to me, do you know the meaning of the word "sinking"? Sinking, that is, to have a heavy accumulation, really sink to the bottom; Diving is to hide deeply and develop in the unknown bottom layer.
He seemed to be explaining the word "sinking" to me, but I knew that of course he was speaking to me. I was used to everything pouring out of my heart without deep consideration; And pay more attention to the surface, lack of deep potential; At that time, I was in the abyss of "taking off the hat and right faction" that could not be seen to the end, and I could not help but feel depressed. The word "deep dive" is exactly the prescription that Mr. Tang has observed me for many years and after careful consideration, and it is also what he is most looking forward to me. Mr. Tang's voice and smile, together with these two words, are deeply engraved in my heart and will always accompany me until the end of my life.