Of course Buddhist theory and practice felt the influence of their new surroundings. The ornaments and embroidery of the faith are Chinese and sometimes hide the original material. Thus Kuan-yin, considered historically, has grown out of the Indian deity Avalokita, but the goddess worshipped by the populace is the heroine of the Chinese romance mentioned above. And, since many Chinese are only half Buddhists, tales about gods and saints are taken only half-seriously; the Buddha periodically invites the immortals to dine with him in Heaven and the Eighteen Lohan are described as converted brigands.

In every monastery the buildings, images and monks obviously bear the stamp of the country. Yet nearly all the doctrines and most of the usages have Indian parallels. The ritual has its counterpart in what I-Ching describes as seen by himself in his Indian travels. China has added the idea of fêng-shui, and has modified architectural forms. For instance the many-storeyed pagoda is an elongation of the stupa[582]. So, too, in ceremonial, the great prominence given to funeral rites and many superstitious details are Chinese, yet, as I have often mentioned in this work, rites on behalf of the dead were tolerated by early Buddhism. The curious mingling of religious services with theatrical pagents which Hsüan Chuang witnessed at Allahabad in the reign of Harsha, has its modest parallel to-day in many popular festivals.

The numerous images which crowd a Chinese temple, the four kings, Arhats and Bodhisattvas, though of unfamiliar appearance to the Indian student, are Indian in origin. A few Taoist deities may have side chapels, but they are not among the principal objects of worship. The greater part of the Chinese Tripitaka is a translation from the Sanskrit and the Chinese works (only 194 against 1467 translations) are chiefly exegetical. Thus, though Chinese bonzes countenance native superstitions and gladly undertake to deal with all the gods and devils of the land, yet in its doctrine, literature, and even in many externals their Buddhism remains an Indian importation. If we seek in it for anything truly Chinese, it is to be found not in the constituents, but in the atmosphere, which, like a breeze from a mountain monastery sometimes freshens the gilded shrines and libraries of verbose sutras. It is the native spirit of the Far East which finds expression in the hill-side hermit's sense of freedom and in dark sayings such as Buddhism is the oak-tree in my garden. Every free and pure heart can become a Buddha, but also is one with the life of birds and flowers. Both the love of nature[583] and the belief that men can become divine can easily be paralleled in Indian texts, but they were not, I think, imported into China, and joy in natural beauty and sympathy with wild life are much more prominent in Chinese than in Indian art.

Is then Buddhist doctrine, as opposed to the superstitions tolerated by Buddhism, something exotic and without influence on the national life? That also is not true. The reader will perceive from what has gone before that if he asks for statistics of Buddhism in China, the answer must be, in the Buddha's own phrase, that the question is not properly put. It is incorrect to describe China as a Buddhist country. We may say that it contains so many million Mohammedans or Christians, because these creeds are definite and exclusive. We cannot quote similar figures for Buddhism or Confucianism. Yet assuredly Buddhism has been a great power in China, as great perhaps as Christianity in Europe, if we remember how much is owed by European art, literature, law and science to non-Christian sources. The Chinese language is full of Buddhist phraseology[584], not only in literature but in popular songs and proverbs and an inspection of such entries in a Chinese dictionary as Fo (Buddha), Kuan Yin, Ho Shang (monk)[585] will show how large and not altogether flattering a part they play in popular speech.

Popular literature bears the same testimony. It is true that in what are esteemed the higher walks of letters Buddhism has little place. The quotations and allusions which play there so prominent a part are taken from the classics and Confucianism can claim as its own the historical, lexicographical and critical[586] works which are the solid and somewhat heavy glory of Chinese literature. But its lighter and less cultivated blossoms, such as novels, fairy stories and poetry, are predominantly Buddhist or Taoist in inspiration. This may be easily verified by a perusal of such works as the Dream of the Red Chamber, Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, and Wieger's Folk Lore Chinois Moderne. The same is true in general of the great Chinese poets, many of whom did not conceal that (in a poetic and unascetic fashion) they were attached to Buddhism.

It may be asked if the inspiration is not Taoist in the main rather than Buddhist. Side by side with ethics and ceremony, a native stream of bold and weird imagination has never ceased to flow in China and there was no need to import tales of the Genii, immortal saints and vampire beauties. But when any coherency unites these ideas of the supernatural, that I think is the work of Buddhism and so far as Taoism itself has any coherency it is an imitation of Buddhism. Thus the idea of metempsychosis as one of many passing fancies may be indigenous to China but its prevalence in popular thought and language is undoubtedly due to Buddhism, for Taoism and Confucianism have nothing definite to say as to the state of the dead.

Much the same story of Buddhist influence is told by Chinese art, especially painting and sculpture. Here too Taoism is by no means excluded: it may be said to represent the artistic side of the Chinese mind, as Confucianism represents the political. But it is impossible to mistake the significance of chronology. As soon as Buddhism was well established in China, art entered on a new phase which culminated in the masterpieces of the T'ang and Sung[587]. Buddhism did not introduce painting into China or even perfect a rudimentary art. The celebrated roll of Ku K'ai-chih[588] shows no trace of Indian influence and presupposes a long artistic tradition. But Mahayanist Buddhism brought across Central Asia new shapes and motives. Some of its imports were of doubtful artistic value, such as figures with many limbs and eyes, but with them came ideas which enriched Chinese art with new dramatic power, passion and solemnity. Taoism dealt with other worlds but they were gardens of the Hesperides, inhabited by immortal wizards and fairy queens, not those disquieting regions where the soul receives the reward of its deeds. But now the art of Central Asia showed Chinese painters something new; saints preaching the law with a gesture of authority and deities of infinite compassion inviting suppliants to approach their thrones. And with them came the dramatic story of Gotama's life and all the legends of the Jatakas.

This clearly is not Taoism, but when the era of great art and literature begins, any distinction between the two creeds, except for theological purposes, becomes artificial, for Taoism borrowed many externals of Buddhism, and Buddhism, while not abandoning its austere and emaciated saints, also accepted the Taoist ideal of the careless wandering hermit, friend of mountain pines and deer. Wei Hsieh[589] who lived under the Chin dynasty, when the strength of Buddhism was beginning to be felt, is considered by Chinese critics as the earliest of the great painters and is said to have excelled in both Buddhist and Taoist subjects. The same may be said of the most eminent names, such as Ku K'ai-chih and Wu Tao-tzŭ[590], and we may also remember that Italian artists painted the birth of Venus and the origin of the milky way as well as Annunciations and Assumptions, without any hint that one incident was less true than another. Buddhism not only provided subjects like the death of the Buddha and Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, which hold in Chinese art the same place as the Crucifixion and the Madonna in Europe, and generation after generation have stimulated the noblest efforts of the best painters. It also offered a creed and ideals suited to the artistic temperament: peace and beauty reigned in its monasteries: its doctrine that life is one and continuous is reflected in that love of nature, that sympathetic understanding of plants and animals, that intimate union of sentiment with landscape which marks the best Chinese pictures.

FOOTNOTES:

[557] For Chinese Buddhism see especially Johnston, Chinese Buddhism, 1913 (cited as Johnston). Much information about the popular side of Buddhism and Taoism nay be found in Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine par le Père Henri Doré, 10 vols. 1911-1916, Shanghai (cited as Doré).