Much of what F‚-hien tells his readers of Buddhist miracles and legends is indeed unreliable and grotesque; but we have from him the truth as to what he saw and heard.
In concluding this introduction I wish to call attention to some estimates of the number of Buddhists in the world which have become current, believing, as I do, that the smallest of them is much above what is correct.
In a note on the first page of his work on the Bhilsa Topes (1854), General Cunningham says: "The Christians number about two hundred and seventy millions; the Buddhists about two hundred and twenty-two millions, who are distributed as follows: China one hundred and seventy millions, Japan twenty-five millions, Anam fourteen millions, Siam three millions, Ava eight millions, NepŠl one million, and Ceylon one million." In his article on M.J. Barthťlemy Saint-Hilaire's "Le Bouddha et sa Religion," republished in his "Chips from a German workshop," vol. i. (1868), Professor Max MŁller says, "The young prince became the founder of a religion which, after more than two thousand years, is still professed by four hundred and fifty-five millions of human beings," and he appends the following note: "Though truth is not settled by majorities, it would be interesting to know which religion counts at the present moment the largest numbers of believers. Berghaus, in his 'Physical Atlas,' gives the following division of the human race according to religion: 'Buddhists 31.2 per cent., Christians 30.7, Mohammedans 15.7, Brahmanists 13.4, Heathens 8.7, and Jews O.3.' As Berghaus does not distinguish the Buddhists in China from the followers of Confucius and Laotse, the first place on the scale belongs really to Christianity. It is difficult in China to say to what religion a man belongs, as the same person may profess two or three. The emperor himself, after sacrificing according to the ritual of Confucius, visits a Tao-tsť temple, and afterwards bows before an image of Fo in a Buddhist chapel." ("Mťlanges Asiatiques de St. Pťtersbourg," vol. ii. p. 374.)
Both these estimates are exceeded by Dr. T.W. Rhys Davids (intimating also the uncertainty of the statements, and that numbers are no evidence of truth) in the introduction to his "Manual of Buddhism." The Buddhists there appear as amounting in all to five hundred millions:—thirty millions of Southern Buddhists, in Ceylon, Burma, Siam, Anam, and India (Jains); and four hundred and seventy millions of Northern Buddhists, of whom nearly thirty-three millions are assigned to Japan, and 414,686,974 to the eighteen provinces of China proper. According to him, Christians amount to about 26 per cent, of mankind, Hindus to about 13, Mohammedans to about 12-1/2, Buddhists to about 40, and Jews to about one-half of one per cent.
In regard to all these estimates, it will be observed that the immense numbers assigned to Buddhism are made out by the multitude of Chinese with which it is credited. Subtract Cunningham's one hundred and seventy millions of Chinese from his total of two hundred and twenty-two millions, and there remain only fifty-two millions of Buddhists. Subtract Davids's four hundred fourteen and one-half millions of Chinese from his total of five hundred millions, and there remain only eighty-five and one-half millions for Buddhism. Of the numbers assigned to other countries, as well as of their whole populations, I am in considerable doubt, excepting in the cases of Ceylon and India; but the greatness of the estimates turns upon the immense multitudes said to be in China. I do not know what total population Cunningham allowed for that country, nor on what principle he allotted one hundred and seventy millions of it to Buddhism; perhaps he halved his estimate of the whole, whereas Berghaus and Davids allotted to it the highest estimates that have been given of the people.
But we have no certain information of the population of China. At an interview with the former Chinese ambassador, Kwo Sung-t‚o, in Paris, in 1878, I begged him to write out for me the amount, with the authority for it, and he assured me that it could not be done. I have read probably almost everything that has been published on the subject, and endeavored by methods of my own to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion;—without reaching a result which I can venture to lay before the public. My impression has been that four hundred millions is hardly an exaggeration.
But supposing that we had reliable returns of the whole population, how shall we proceed to apportion that among Confucianists, T‚oists, and Buddhists? Confucianism is the orthodoxy of China. The common name for it is JŻ Chi‚o, "the Doctrines held by the Learned Class," entrance into the circle of which is, with a few insignificant exceptions, open to all the people. The mass of them and the masses under their influence are preponderatingly Confucian; and in the observance of ancestral worship, the most remarkable feature of the religion proper of China from the earliest times, of which Confucius was not the author but the prophet, an overwhelming majority are regular and assiduous.
Among "the strange principles" which the emperor of the K'ang-hsÓ period, in one of his famous Sixteen Precepts, exhorted his people to "discountenance and put away, in order to exalt the correct doctrine," Buddhism and T‚oism were both included. If, as stated in the note quoted from Professor MŁller, the emperor countenances both the T‚oist worship and the Buddhist, he does so for reasons of state; to please especially his Buddhistic subjects in Thibet and Mongolia, and not to offend the many whose superstitious fancies incline to T‚oism.
When I went out and in as a missionary among the Chinese people for about thirty years, it sometimes occurred to me that only the inmates of their monasteries and the recluses of both systems should be enumerated as Buddhists and Taoists; but I was in the end constrained to widen that judgment, and to admit a considerable following of both among the people, who have neither received the tonsure nor assumed the yellow top. Dr. Eitel, in concluding his discussion of this point in his "Lecture on Buddhism, an Event in History," says: "It is not too much to say that most Chinese are theoretically Confucianists, but emotionally Buddhists or Taoists. But fairness requires us to add that, though the mass of the people are more or less influenced by Buddhist doctrines, yet the people, as a whole, have no respect for the Buddhist church, and habitually sneer at Buddhist priests." For the "most" in the former of these two sentences I would substitute "nearly all;" and between my friend's "but" and "emotionally" I would introduce "many are," and would not care to contest his conclusion further. It does seem to me preposterous to credit Buddhism with the whole of the vast population of China, the great majority of whom are Confucianists. My own opinion is that its adherents are not so many as those even of Mohammedanism, and that instead of being the most numerous of the religions (so-called) of the world, it is only entitled to occupy the fifth place, ranking below Christianity, Confucianism, Brahmanism, and Mohammedanism, and followed, some distance off, by T‚oism. To make a table of percentages of mankind, and to assign to each system its proportion, are to seem to be wise where we are deplorably ignorant; and, moreover, if our means of information were much better than they are, our figures would merely show the outward adherence. A fractional percentage might tell more for one system than a very large integral one for another.