Sidelights on Chinese Life

by J. Macgowan

We now turn to what to a casual onlooker might naturally seem to be the dominant and most powerful factor in the religious life of the people of this Empire of China, and that is idolatry. This popular and universal form of worship meets one everywhere and is practised by every class and condition of people throughout the country. The rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned, the common coolie who earns his living in the streets and the most learned scholar who has risen to the highest rank in his profession, men and women of all grades, good, bad, and indifferent, all more or less believe in the idols and worship them.

That this is so, is evident from the almost universal presence of the idols. Every house has at least one, which is the household god of the family, whilst the more religious and devout will have several others as well. Then the cities abound with temples dedicated to certain well-known gods that have been built, some of them at great expense, and are kept in constant repair by the free-will offerings of the people. The villages, too, not to be outdone by the towns, have each of them at least one public temple where the people can make their offerings to their patron god, and where on the birthday of the idol the whole population gather to witness the play which is performed in honour of it.

Then, again, there are monasteries scattered very liberally through the provinces, some of them so large that they will have over a hundred resident priests, all engaged in the one duty of chanting the praises of the various gods in them, and in superintending the worship of the throngs of people who crowd to such places to make their offerings to the different idols. There are also numerous nunneries where women devote their lives exclusively to the service of the Goddess of Mercy, and spend their years in trying to get from her the peace of mind they have not been able to obtain in their own homes. The inhabitants of these establishments are nearly always widows whose homes are unhappy, or married women who, dissatisfied with life, and with the consent of their husbands, have retired to the quiet and solitude of these retreats, in the hope that by prayer and meditation the unrest of spirit that has made life intolerable may be exchanged for one of calmness and contentment.

In addition to the above, there are mountain temples that abound in all the hilly regions, and little shrines built by the roadsides, where passing travellers may offer up their devotions to the gods enshrined within them, and a multitude of devices for drawing the attention of men and women to the duty of remembering the services they ought to pay to the gods of the land they live in. The more one studies this question, the more one is impressed with the fact that idolatry is a huge system that completely covers the whole of the Empire with its ramifications. If the faith of the Chinese is to be measured by the money that they are willing to put out for its support, then it must be profound indeed. When one considers the innumerable number of temples of all sizes and description that meet one in every direction, and that the expense of building them and keeping them in repair falls entirely upon the people, one cannot but be struck with the sacrifices they are willing to make for the sake of their gods. But when one considers further that the huge armies of Buddhist and Tauist priests who are connected with these religious establishments are all supported by voluntary gifts freely bestowed upon them, one stands amazed at the amount of money that must be annually expended throughout the Empire upon a system that has no State endowment, but which depends entirely upon the spontaneous offerings of the people at large for its very existence.

But it is now time to go into detail with regard to the working of idolatry in order to understand what is its exact effect on the masses who practise it, and in order to make the picture as vivid as possible, I shall first describe how the home is affected by this form of religion. Any house taken at random will do equally well for our purpose, for, like the Chinese themselves, they are all built on the same general model, and a description of one would do for all the rest.

As we pass through the courtyard and enter in at the front door which stands open all day long, no matter what the weather may be, the first thing that we catch sight of is an oblong table on which is seated the family idol. The most popular and the most generally worshipped is Kwan-Yin, or the Goddess of Mercy. Her face is placid, and there is a look of tenderness about it that has won the hearts of the millions of China so that in nearly every home in the land her image is found as the one conspicuous object towards which all hearts are drawn.

Her whole attitude and the air of benevolence that sits so naturally upon her agree well with the beautiful story we have of her life, and the reason why she, an Indian woman, should have become almost the national goddess of the Chinese nation.

Kwan-Yin was the daughter of an Indian prince, and as a child she showed herself to be possessed of a most loving heart. As a girl she used to run in and out of the houses of the common people that stood near her father’s palace, and she was so distressed at the sights of poverty and sorrow that she constantly witnessed that she made a vow that when she became a woman she would never marry, but would devote her life to alleviate the miseries that the women of India were compelled to endure.

This vow she carried out to the very letter, and her days were spent in ministering to the wants and ailments of women, no matter how low in society they happened to be. Her fame spread far and near, and the story of her devotion and self-denial touched every one that heard it. With true Oriental imagination people declared that she was a fairy that had been born into the world in human shape, for never had such tenderness and compassion been shown by any human being, and therefore her home must originally have been amongst the gods and the goddesses that lived in the land of eternal sunshine, where no shadow ever fell upon their hearts to dim the happiness that perpetually filled their lives.

When she died it was felt that such a woman should be deified, and that her name and image should be added to the list of those that were worshipped by the nation. The story of this beautiful life somehow or other travelled over the mountains and plains and deserts that divide India from China, and the “Black-haired race” became so enamoured with it, that those who heard it declared that she was worthy, even though she were a foreigner, of being placed amongst the gods that they trusted in. With wonderful rapidity her cult was adopted by all classes, but especially by the women, till to-day her image is found in nearly every home in the Middle Kingdom.