As we have seen, there has been a great deal of debate and discussion on the origin(s) of the Yulanpen Sūtra and the meaning of the word, yulan/yulanpen. Because of no such sūtra or word found extant in Indic sources and also because of its stress on filial piety and ancestor worship, among others, the sūtra is now overwhelmingly viewed as an indigenous Chinese Buddhist text, although it has never been labelled as an apocryphal scripture in Chinese Buddhist catalogues. A critical review of the major arguments prevailing in modern scholarship against the authenticity of the sūtra and a close examination of extensive textual and contextual evidence concerning the Yulanpen Sūtra strongly suggest a conclusion – contrary to the popular view – that the Yulanpen Sūtra is not a Chinese Buddhist creation but most probably a Chinese creative translation. Although there is no extant story or sūtra in Indic sources known to us, the storyline and subject matter of the Mulian myth are first and foremost Indian as evidenced by numerous Jātaka, and particularly Avadānaśataka and Petavatthu stories in Indian Buddhist literature as well as in pre- and non-Buddhist classics such as the Manusmṛti and Mahābhārata.

The same may be said of the Yulanpen Festival on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. Rather than modelled on the Zhongyuan Festival, the Yulanpen Festival was directly inspired by the Yulanpen Sūtra with its roots going back to the Pravāraṇā/Kathina Ceremony performed at the close of rainy-season (summer) retreat throughout the cultural sphere of Indian Buddhism, although there is no denying the absorption into it of ritual and religious elements from Daoism and Confucianism in its historical development from a Buddhist ritual of sacrifice to a popular ghost festival widely observed in the Sinitic world and beyond.

With regards to filial piety and ancestor worship that feature prominently in the Yulanpen Sūtra, they are not at all in conflict with Indian Buddhism but entirely in conformity with Indian religious practices that are traceable to the Vedic Age (ca. 1500–ca. 500 BC) and still observable in the rite of śrāddha, although they may not be so central to Buddhism as to Confucianism.

Last but not least, the occurrence in the Yulanpen Sūtra of the words and expressions that are found native to Chinese culture is actually a widespread phenomenon in early Chinese translations of Indian Buddhist texts.

7.1 An Independent Mongolia: Historical Context—From World Domination to the Fight for Independence

7.1.1 Pax Mongolica

Mongolia, the country that once dominated the world in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is now the smallest power in Northeast Asia in terms of population (3.29 million) and economy (US$ 15.1 billion GDP as of 2021). However, despite their modest presence in the present day, the Mongols, through their conquest and expansion throughout the thirteenth century, left a profound political, economic, and cultural impact on the Asian and European continents and changed the course of all nations therein. At its height, the Mongol Empire formed the largest land empire in history, spanning from the Pacific Ocean in the east to the Danube River in the west, as illustrated in Figure 7.1.

The Mongols’ military success was unprecedented. The Mongols possessed an impressive cavalry, which could travel up to 100 miles (160 kilometers) a day and move without heavy supplies—unlike other armies at the time. The military genius of Mongolian leaders and generals (such as Chinggis Khan and General Subutai), supported by such powerful cavalry forces, led to unparalleled conquest within a few decades. The Mongol conquest was brutal and destructive, destroying the world's then greatest cities such as Herat, Kyiv, and Baghdad and claiming many lives therein. However, once the Mongol Empire had substantially completed its conquests by the mid-thirteenth century, it brought political unity and stability to the world, including Northeast Asia, often described as the “Pax Mongolica.” The Mongols set up an extensive postal relay system (“jam” system) throughout their empire, which was comprised of fixed relay stations that provided official travelers with horses, lodging, and other necessities for their journeys. The jam system expanded and became the most extensive network of communication and transportation in the pre-modern era, which facilitated the exchange of people, goods, information, and cultures between the East and the West.

The Mongol domination continued for over a century but ended with the dissolution of the Mongol Empire in 1368. The empire had been split into four Khanates (territories ruled by Mongolian leaders, “Khans”): the Golden Hordes in the Northwest (present-day Russia), the Yuan Dynasty in China, the Ilkhanate in the Southwest and Persia, and the Chagatai Khanate in Central Asia. These Khanates retained a strong sense of shared identity and ruled under the laws and traditions of Chinggis Khan, but they operated as autonomous states.

The emotional centre of ‘Catharine’ is arguably the protagonist's bonds with the Wynne sisters, her close friends from childhood who are now forced to be geographically distant both from Catharine and from each other. That is, the story was not self-evidently heading towards a courtship plot focussed on Catharine's entanglements with prospective suitors. In Lady Susan, the world of the story is dominated by female interactions. Except for a narrative ending, the text consists of 41 letters, 36 of which are written by women: the other five are produced by men, but only two of these are between men. The strong family and friendship networks salient in the text are those among women, primarily that between Lady Susan Vernon herself and her friend and confidant Mrs Alicia Johnson, and that between Mrs Catherine Vernon and her mother Lady de Courcy. A major driver of the plot, too, involves the two women who, although they do not write to each other, are the most prolific correspondents in the text: sisters-in-law Lady Susan Vernon and Catherine Vernon.

Catherine Vernon is from the outset suspicious of and antagonistic towards Lady Susan and never alters her attitude throughout the story, while Lady Susan identifies Catherine Vernon as the greatest obstacle to her plans and would very much like to disarm her hostility. Lady Susan can sometimes reduce Catherine Vernon to silence – their verbal antagonism is never overt – but she fails to make a friend of her enemy. On the other hand, Lady Susan has in Alicia Johnson a close ally to whom she expatiates on her feelings and explains her ever-changing plans. Although much of Lady Susan's activity is centred on men, including an adulterous liaison and two potential marriages for herself, the text conveys the impression that her closest emotional bond is with Alicia Johnson.

Lady Susan is a very different kind of fiction from ‘Catharine’, however, not just because it has a mostly epistolary format but also because its primary dynamics are those of older, sexually experienced women. There is a younger potential couple, in Catherine Vernon's brother Reginald and Lady Susan's daughter Frederica, and the narrative summary at the end suggests that they will wed. But throughout most of the text, Reginald is manipulated by Lady Susan (and to some extent by his sister), and Frederica is habitually cowed by her self-willed and self-confident mother.

IN consequence of the determination of Messrs. Dalrymple and Beaver, to attempt a settlement on the island of Bulama, they had made known their intentions on that subject to some of their military friends, who eagerly joined in their views, and in a few days the following gentlemen

met at Old Slaughter's Coffee-house, and formed themselves into a society for the purpose of establishing a settlement upon an eligible spot on the western coast of Africa: and, being the original subscribers, constituted themselves a committee to open a subscription, and to form regulations for the purpose of carrying their views into effect.

The island of Bulama, at the mouth of the Rio Grande, on the western coast of Africa, in the 11th degree of north latitude, was the spot fixed upon as the best adapted to the commencement of our undertaking.

We knew that it was uninhabited, and had every reason to believe that there would be no difficulty in purchasing it from those neighbouring chiefs who might claim it as their property; to establish ourselves on an island, instead of on the continent, was thought most eligible, as we should be more secure from any hostile attack, if any quarrel should unfortunately arise with the natives; and quarrels with them would be less likely to occur, as our insular situation would put it out of the power of the colonists to wander into any of the native villages; moreover, Mr. Dalrymple, when serving with his regiment last war, on the island of Goree, had collected much information, relative to this island – its harbours, productions, soil, &c. But what finally induced us to make this choice, was the very favourable account given of it by Mons. De la Brue, who had been director-general of the French Senegal Company, and who had visited this island in the year 1700.

THE following pages will make the reader acquainted with the melancholy, and unfortunate, result of an ill-contrived and badly executed, though well intended, expedition to the coast of Africa, in the year 1792: this expedition was proposed and undertaken by a few gentlemen, with a view to ascertain whether or not it were practicable to cultivate tropical productions on the coast of Africa, by means of its free natives. The question of the abolition of the slave trade had, at that time, for four or five years, been violently agitated; and some of those, who were advocates for its continuance, boldly asserted that the Africans were incapable of enjoying freedom, or being in any great degree civilized: and it was thought that this expedition would decide the injustice of such an opinion. Unfortunately however, for the Africans, it was so exceedingly ill conducted, that it was totally given up, ere the latter part of that opinion could be put to the proof; though the former part of it was unequivocally ascertained to be erroneous.

The ill success of this attempt, the report of the numbers killed by the natives, of those who had died from the unhealthiness of the climate, and of the mortality which had taken place on board the ship Hankey, all of which, moreover, were greatly magnified, were sufficient of themselves to deter others from engaging in such an enterprize; and would (if peace had even continued) have prevented those few, who remained upon the island of Bulama, from receiving any considerable reinforcement to their numbers, before the pernicious effects of these exaggerated reports had been considerably weakened. War however took place; and all hope of succouring the few who still kept possession of that island was at an end. Thus, without succour or assistance of any kind, after having maintained their position for nearly a year and a half, they were obliged to abandon the island, and the only two white men left, of those who had sailed on the expedition, returned to Europe.

5.1 A Restored Power

5.1.1 Economic restoration: From defeat in World War II to success in the global market

By the end of World War II, much of Japan had been destroyed. While the allied forces did not invade the main Japanese islands during the war, heavy U.S. bombing destroyed cities, villages, and much of its infrastructure. According to a Japanese government report on war damages, Japan lost 25 percent of its buildings and structures, 33 percent of its urban housing, 34 percent of its industrial machines, 81 percent of its commercial ships, 16 percent of its telegraph, telephone, and water supplies, 11 percent of its electricity and gas supplies, and 10 percent of its railroad and other land transportation. Over two million Japanese citizens also died during the war, while survivors suffered through food shortages and inflation. Economic production sharply decreased because of this war destruction. Figure 5.1 illustrates the low Japanese production of food, textiles, steel, and machinery in 1946 compared to its pre-war production.

The Japanese economy has gradually recovered since 1946. To foster recovery, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) initiated land reform in occupied Japan. Before the war, approximately two-thirds of the Japanese farmers did not own land. The SCAP's policy transferred land ownership to the farmers and improved farm tenancy practices. The reform was successful: the percentage of owner-operated cultivated land increased from 54 percent to 90 percent by 1950 (although the land reform had only a limited impact on agricultural production). An economically more significant development was the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. The destructive war was a tragic event for the Koreans, but it provided Japan with decisive momentum for economic recovery. Due to its proximity to the Korean peninsula, Japan served as the supply base for U.N. forces, and money poured into the Japanese economy for supplies from Japanese producers. As a result, production increased by nearly 70 percent during the war—as much as US$ 590 million in 1951 and over US$ 800 million in 1952 and 1953 (which amounted to 60 to 70 percent of its exports at the time) was pumped into the Japanese economy. Thanks to this wartime economic boom, the Japanese economy recovered to its pre–World War II level by 1952.

The Japanese economy continued to grow—an increase of 2.8 to 4.8 times every decade as shown in Table 5.1

FROM looking over the map of that part of Africa whose outline is traced in the beginning of Chapter VIII, and from what is there said, it will appear that on the western coast of Africa there is a fertile country, inhabited by various tribes, or nations; bounded by high mountains, two large navigable rivers, and the sea; intersected with many small rivers, with more than 500 miles of navigable coasts for ships of burthen, and many more than a thousand navigable for boats; having on its southern side, one vast, continued, safe and commodious harbour, of more than 100 miles in length from Jatt's island to the mouth of the Rio Grande.

In this great extent of fertile and navigable country, comprized between the rivers Gambia and Grande, there is only one European factory, and that indeed not upon the continent, but upon the island of Bissao, and no attempt has hitherto been made, except our fruitless one, by any European power, to settle any of these countries, for the purposes of cultivation; and no European power has certainly any claim to the soil, which belongs to its present possessors, the native Africans, except only so much as we have already purchased from them.

Admirably adapted as this country is to facilitate its own internal commerce, by means of its large rivers, and the numerous small ones, which, in a very great portion of it, admit the approach of small vessels to carry off its produce by water; yet it is not less eligibly situated for external commerce, its distance from this country being scarcely more than half that to the West Indies; and communication with it, at all seasons, practicable, and easy; without the dread of tiphoons and hurricanes; or being cramped, and retarded, by trade winds and monsoons.

This country then I should propose to colonize. I am well aware that this proposition will be opposed by a very respectable, and weighty, body of men, the West India planters; as well as by all those concerned in carrying out the slave trade: but even though it might be hostile to their interests, which I by no means concede, yet if it will be beneficial to the country at large, it is a measure that ought to be adopted.

Reality is a manifold of variation; the variety, diversity, and complexity the world affords is virtually endless: individually and collectively, its constituents exhibit an ever-proliferating array of features and characteristics. But the human mind, though also vastly complex, cannot keep in step. Its focus has to be not in the endless detail of real individuality, but in its patterns and regularities. The world deals in the variant detail of specifics, while the mind has little choice but to address this via types and in kinds. Reality proliferates, the mind categorizes, in effect endeavoring to deal with an analog Reality by digital means.

Categorization as a Conceptual Necessity

To be intelligibly and usefully managed, information must be systematized. To this end categories are an indispensable resource. Categories provide for the conceptual basis of generalization and identification. Categorization is an essential and unavoidable instrumentality for conceptually navigating a world – indeed for being able to conceptualize a world that needs to be navigated.

Categories map out the conceptual structure by whose means we map out the domain of our knowledge. They provide for the table of contents and the index by whose means our knowledge is organized and made accessible. They render our otherwise incoherent mass of information cognitively manageable and provide an informatively convenient framework for our cognition about the realms of the actual and the possible.

All cognition beyond a dull mental hum demands categorization. All experience beyond passive reception of a perceptual blast demands categorization. All action beyond flailing – and perhaps even that – requires the guidance of categorization. Categories are essential in any cognition, any experience, and any action as we know them, and indeed in any cognition, experience, or action for beings to any degree like us. Successful action in the world demands information about the world, and information as we know it is conceptualized in terms of categories. As creatures that must operate by means of information, we must categorize.

There is a long philosophical tradition in which the emphasis is on a search for the highest or most general categories. Suppose that someone says, with sublime vagueness, “I am thinking of something.” What would this be? And suppose that we can get answers to just ten questions. What should we ask? We would be well advised to adopt something like the following list:

Is it concrete or abstract?

Is it unique or does it have many instances?

Having brought my Journal to a conclusion, it may be necessary to say a few words on two or three points which might appear to require explanation, and to anticipate some objections which it is probable may be made to some of the transactions related therein.

Had I foreseen the exact situation in which I was to be placed, on the departure of the Calypso from the island of Bulama, I am not sure that I should have sailed on the expedition; not that the prospect of the difficulties to be encountered would have deterred me; but, the persuasion that, if I remained behind after the sailing of that ship, the law had armed me with no power to act with energy, would, I trust, have deterred persons less scrupulously obedient to the laws of their country than myself, from voluntarily placing themselves in such a situation.

To begin by avowing that the first act of mine, in the direction of the reduced colony, was an illegal one, seems to argue a degree of moral turpitude, inconsistent with the virtues which such a situation required. But when it is proved that such a situation could not possibly have been foreseen, and that such an act arose from absolute and unconditional necessity, it will not, it is hoped, be condemned.

It has already been related that we were ignorant of having committed any misdemeanour, in drawing up our constitution of government, previous to the arrival of the ships at Gravesend; and, that in consequence of our memorial to government, we were permitted to proceed, on condition only of our ‘having disclaimed and set aside a certain printed memorandum of agreement, and constitution of government, for a colony about to be established on or near the island of Bulam, &c’. Now this was taking from us every semblance of command over the colonists; however, having gone so far, it was deemed, even under that disadvantage, better to proceed than to abandon the undertaking.

The subsequent events, which led to the abandoning of the island by the majority of the settlers, no one could possibly have foreseen; but they were all such as rendered a coercive power, on the part of the governor, more necessary than ever.

It is not merely in terms of logic, metaphysics, and the natural world around us that we use categories in an attempt to predict, explain, manipulate, and understand. We employ and apply categories in ethical and social cognition as well. Categorical misapplications with regard to the natural world can result in failed attempts to predict, explain, understand, or intervene in the course of nature. Categorical misapplications in the social realm can carry an additional burden of ethical mistake and negative social consequences.

There are a range of lessons to be learned here, both regarding the nature of categories – studied here in a realm independent of “nature's joints” – and with regard to social construction and ethical action.

Categorization Errors in Social Cognition: Oversimplification

A major purpose of categorization is simplification. The world around is a complex place, with no event exactly repeated in all particulars and no process repeatable without some variation. Effective cognition and effective action demand that we work with a simplified representation of such a world, in which items, events, and processes are conceptually grouped in terms of categories.

One clear danger in any such categorization is oversimplification: a categorization that is too simple to do justice to the genuine complexity with which we are attempting to deal. That oversimplification can be particularly troublesome when it is complex social realities which we are trying to address.

Consider for example categories very often used in thinking about groups of people in our society, and the ethical emotions we find appropriate for different groups:

• • The homeless.

• • The mentally ill.

• • The drug-addicted.

• • Petty criminals.

We sympathize with the homeless and want to relieve their plight. A similar sympathy seems appropriate with the mentally ill, though the measures to be taken would seem to be very different. With regard to the drug-addicted we may have mixed emotions, particularly in recognizing lives that have been characterized by repeated bad but voluntary choices. In thinking of petty criminals our sympathy may waver or disappear.

What is wrong with this exercise is the illusion that these categories are genuinely distinct. Many people fall into several or all of them. The most extensive survey of the homeless, taken on a single night in 2014, reached the consensus that 45% of the homeless had some form of mental illness, with serious mental illness in an estimated 25% (Torrey 2021).

As noted in the Introduction, there is doubt about the period of composition of The Watsons, but evidence points to a date of around 1804. Compared to those of ‘Catharine’ and Lady Susan, the manuscript is more inchoate, without pagination or chapter divisions, nor clear paragraphing. The number of alterations, too, is considerable, with many additions and deletions. It is worth giving detailed attention to these revisions, as they point to the kinds of emphases Austen was working towards in her style – especially her creation of mood and atmosphere – as well as in her characterization and the dynamics among characters. The Watsons is very much a work in progress.

The courtship plot will also be a prominent motif in discussing The Watsons, because there is a mismatch between the heroine's circumstances here and the kind of story Austen deploys in her published work which relies on such a convention. This contrast emerges especially when this fragment is compared with Pride and Prejudice.

The chapter will explore too the completions of the text which date from 1850 right up to 2018 and which are plentiful but – I will argue – often unconvincing. An exception is the play by Laura Wade from 2018, because it tackles head-on the frustrations involved in ending an unfinished text in a plausible but satisfying way. Relevant to these completions is the temptation to follow what were taken as Jane Austen's intentions for the story. These came from Austen-Leigh's summary of the proposed plot developments, deriving from Cassandra Austen. Heroine Emma Watson was eventually to marry clergyman Mr Howard, but he would have a serious rival in local aristocrat Lord Osborne, while Lord Osborne's widowed mother would complicate matters through her own feelings for Howard. Before the happy ending, too, Emma's father, an invalid clergyman, was to die and leave her dependent for a home on her hard-hearted older brother Robert and his status-obsessed wife Jane. Although the outline comes from family lore rather than from any writings of Jane Austen herself, the fragment as it is contains the beginnings of all these plot elements.

‘Catharine, or the Bower’ is the third of Jane Austen's early writings that were dedicated to her elder sister Cassandra: dated ‘August 1792’ (when Jane was 16), it follows ‘The Beautifull Cassandra’ (1788, after August, when Jane was 12) and ‘The History of England’ (26 November 1791, just before Jane's 16th birthday). This third Dedication pays an extravagant tribute to ‘Miss Austen’, referring to the two earlier works, and declaring that through Cassandra's ‘generous support’, these ‘have obtained a place in every library in the Kingdom, and run through threescore Editions’. ‘The Author’ of the third effort hence seeks similar support for this new novel, affirming that it ‘possesses Merit beyond any already published, or any that will ever in future appear’ – other than her own.

All this is of course a sort of in-joke, directed not only at Cassandra but also at the other family members and friends who were, in Austen's lifetime and for decades beyond, the only other readers of her early works. The Dedication thus expresses, on the one hand, a fantasy about a kind of literary success unlikely to be achieved by anyone in 1792, and on the other, a satirical take on literary hubris.

However hyperbolic and tongue-in-cheek the claims of this tribute may be, the earlier works dedicated to Cassandra Austen, like this Dedication, focus on female agency. In ‘The Beautifull Cassandra’, the heroine, named obviously for Cassandra Austen, is a milliner's daughter who jauntily moves through the streets of London, having uplifted a bonnet intended by her mother for a Countess. She gives short shrift to a Viscount, then buys six ices and knocks down the pastrycook rather than paying him; she makes a round trip to Hampstead by coach, and can defiantly – but conveniently – give the coachman the bonnet in lieu of pay. Returning home, Cassandra declares that ‘This is a day well spent’ (56). This Cassandra is obviously mobile, shows no respect for her social betters, has no interest in a possible marital ‘catch’, breaks the law and suffers no consequences for her transgressive behaviour. In a parody of narratives focussed on change and development, Cassandra returns to where she started out; in a parody of narratives dealing with courtship, she simply curtseys to the Viscount, despite his being ‘a young man, no less celebrated for his Accomplishments and Virtues, than for his Elegance and Beauty’ (56).

The Yulanpen Festival, also known as the Middle-Primordial (Zhongyuan) Festival (Zhong yuan jie), the Hungry Ghost Festival (egui jie) or simply as the Ghost Festival (guijie) (Figures 1.1–1.3), has its scriptural origin in the Yulanpen Sūtra Expounded by the Buddha (Fo shuo Yulanpen jing, T16n0685), a Buddhist text in the fangdeng (lit. ‘square and equal’) or vaipūlya (‘[works of ] great extent’) category of the Chinese Buddhist canon.

The Yulanpen Sūtra

This is a fairly short text of approximately 800 Chinese characters (Figure 1.4a–c) and is worth citing here in its entirety because it is crucial to our understanding of this Buddhist scripture as a creative translation from some Indic source(s) and also as the canonical source of the Yulanpen Festival that is still widely celebrated in China and beyond.

Yulanpen Sūtra Expounded by the Buddha Translated into Chinese by Dharmarakṣa (Zhu Fahu), Tripițaka Master from Gandhāra in the Western Jin Dynasty

Thus have I heard, at one time, the Buddha is dwelling in the Garden of the Benefactor of Orphans and the Solitary in the Jetavana Monastery in Śrāvastı̄ when Maudgalyāyana had just obtained the six spiritual penetrations (liutong). He wished to deliver his parents from rebirth into a lower realm to repay their kindness for raising and nurturing him. Thus, he regarded the world with his divine eyes (daoyan) and found that his deceased mother had been reborn into the Preta realm. With nothing to eat or drink, she was but skin and bones.

Feeling deep pity and sadness, Maudgalyāyana filled a bowl with cooked rice and went forward to feed his mother. Having received the bowl, his mother screened it with her left hand while taking some rice with her right hand, but before the food entered her mouth, it turned into burning charcoal that could not be eaten. Maudgalyāyana ana cried out in agony and rushed back to the Buddha to tell him what had happened to his mother.

The Buddha said, ‘Your mother's sins are so grave and deeply rooted that it is beyond your individual power to save her. Although your filial devotion and submission (xiaoshun) and your sound of crying have moved Heaven and Earth, there is nothing that heavenly gods, earthly deities, Māras (xiemo), non-Buddhist monks (waidao), Buddhist monks (daoshi) and the Four Great Heavenly Kings (Si tianwan shen) can do to save her.