[888] I do not refer to the practice of turning disused temples into schools which is frequent. In some monasteries the monks, while retaining possession, have themselves opened schools.
[889] It is not clear to me what is really meant by the birthdays of beings like Maitreya and Amitâbha.
[890] Actes du Sixième Congres des Orientalistes, Leide, 1883, sec. IV. pp. 1-120.
[891] E.g. in Dipavamsa, XIII; Mahâv. XIV. Mahinda is represented as converting Ceylon by accounts of the terrors of the next world.
[892] The merit of good deeds can be similarly utilized. The surviving relatives feed the poor or buy and maintain for the rest of its life an animal destined to slaughter. The merit then goes to the deceased.
[893] It may possibly be traceable to Manichæism which taught that souls are transferred from one sphere to another by a sort of cosmic water wheel. See Cumont's article, "La roue à puiser les âmes du Manichéisme" in Rev. de l'Hist, des Religions, 1915, p. 384. Chavannes and Pelliot have shown that traces of Manichæism lingered long in Fu-Kien. The metaphor of the endless chain of buckets is also found in the Yüan Jên Lun.
[894] See Francke, "Ein Buddhistischer Reformversuch in China," T'oung Pao, 1909, pp. 567-602.