RYAN JOHNSON “Une origine oubliée”: Global Modernity and East-West Debates over Classical Heritage I N HIS STUDY OF SUICIDE in Japan, Maurice Pinguet includes a note on the apparent affinities between classical philosophy in Europe and East Asia: En un mot, selon Dōgen, “le temps est d’emblée l’être et tout être est temps.” Put-on jamais concevoir plus radical refus de la différence métaphysique? Zoroastrisme, védantisme, judaïsme, christianisme, islam, manichéisme, tant de traditions diverses au cours des siècles recherche l’être au-delà du temps — ce sont tout à coup leurs bases mêmes qui se dérobent dans cette formule: tout être est temps, Sein ist Zeit . Dōgen semble nous replonger à la pensée grecque, nous ramener vers Héraclite et vers Pindare, avant que ne s’étende l’ombre que l’éternité porta sur la vie. Notre Occident moderne retrouve, après un long périple, ces institutions d’une origine oubliée. (21) In a word, as Dōgen says, “time is at once being and every being is time.” Has one ever conceived of a more radical rejection of metaphysical di fferentiation? Zoroastrianism, Vedanta, Judaism, Chris- tianity, Islam, Manicheism, a myriad of diverse traditions has for centuries sought being beyond time —their foundations collapse with this formula: every being is time, Sein ist Zeit .Dōgen seems to take us back to Greek thought, carry us toward Heraclitus and Pindar, to a time before the shadow of eternity was cast over life. Our modern occident recovers, after a long journey, these institutions of a forgotten origin. 1 Pinguet strangely hearkens back to earlier, often notorious efforts to show a ffin- ities between European and East Asian thought — almost invariably cast as “we” Europeans versus “those” East Asians, or vice versa — by figures such as Ernest Fenollosa andOkakuraKakuzō. Yet however clumsy the division between “Notre Occident” and the rest of the world, Pinguet’s attempt to return to “a forgotten” origin from which spring Heraclitus and Dōgen alike are, I want to suggest in this essay, part of a larger and continuing scholarly debate in which the tension I thank Mark Byron, Paul Giles, Jessica Sun, and the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions. 1 Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. For Watsuji Tetsurō’s Koji junrei (Pilgrimage to the Temples at Nara), I have consulted and translated the text as it appears in the 1979 edition of Watsuji’s collected works. However, as Hiroshi Nara has admirably translated this text with some differences from my own rendering, I have provided both citations of the 1979 Japanese edition and Nara’s 2012 translation to enable the reader to consult an existent English version. Comparative Literature 76:4 DOI 10.1215/00104124 -11316381 © 2024 by University of Oregon Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/comparative-literature/article-pdf/76/4/492/2166538/492johnson.pdf by UNIV OF MELBOURNE user on 06 December 2024