XXIII
RELIGIOUS AND MISSIONARY CHINA
Buddhism, the religion of China which owns most of the finer pagodas and temples, celebrated in 1912 the 2500th anniversary of Buddha. They do not celebrate Buddha’s birth in the body, but rather birth in the mind or soul, the celebration being called “the anniversary of Buddha’s enlightenment.” Despite the troubles that Buddhism has encountered at the instigation of the government’s amban in Tibet, the celebration occurred there with avidity, as it did also in Mongolia, at Kuren, etc. Throughout the rest of the land, despite the prominence of Confucianism, Taoism and Christianity, the Buddhists made their anniversary well known. Every one was interested in those who once taught that man should be clean, and sincere in good works, and should love his fellow man disinterestedly. The thousand little rules for purchasing a specific pardon in the next world have, however, confused the Chinese mind, and many of those who looked on called the ritual now merely a mass of superstition. No one can deny that this is the world’s most picturesque religion which the Chinese imported from India so long ago, and of which they are now the leading exponents. There are temples in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and London also. If Buddhism were purified from its accretion of rites, and took up again vigorous sermons on the virtues, responsibility and self-sacrifice, as in the days when Asoka’s preachers started out to convert the world to doctrines of service, it would not be a long step from Buddhism to Christianity.
Architecturally, the world enthuses over Buddhism, and now that travel to China is increasing, a cry is going up over the artistic world: “Save the incomparable pagodas and temples for art’s sake, for they can never be repeated, the spirit having departed.” Many of the temples are dropping to pieces, as in the break-up of old faiths the bonzes have been unable to collect the money which is necessary for upkeep. The government is maintaining some of the temples, but it uses them as schools, and the monks themselves have turned some of the temples into inns. The nation, rich merchants and interested foreigners might take part in preserving these beautiful monuments, and Christianity, which is spreading in China, is wide enough in its charity to appreciate and wish to preserve the beautiful architecture of Buddhism. Let experiments be tried; let the government, with its supreme authority, buy out some beautiful Buddhist temples and pagodas and turn them over as headquarters to Christian schools or medical missions. The Buddhist monks are a forlorn-looking set, their parishioners contributing too little for their support. This parsimony has induced the monks to invent the system of superstitious credit indulgences and absolutions, which, by working on their fears regarding the future life, they compel the Chinese—particularly the women—to buy.
As a rule the statues of Buddha are solemn or gentle-faced, as in the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii at Canton. But there is one hilarious exception, the laughing gilded Buddha of the Ming Hong Temple, near Shanghai. The god’s eyebrows, nose, eyes, mouth and chin all curve into great bows of mirth, like the irresistible Coquelin’s face in a full-blooded comedy, or DeWolf Hopper’s face in Wang! The Buddhist priests who run inns keep a guests’ literary book, in which one will find sentiments written by many of the world’s noted travelers. The priests wear a yellow gown. Over the left shoulder hangs an over-gown, made of square red patches, sewed together, typifying the vow and rags of poverty. On the walls of the famous Lung Chang Buddhist Monastery, near Chingtu, in Szechuen province, hangs a celebrated text reconciling Buddhist and Christian teachings on the doctrine of peace. The Chinese hang a popular text on the walls, which corresponds with “God bless our home.” It is “Tien Kun Kong Fuk” (May Heaven send happiness).
Disfiguring by branding, just as the Romanists used to flagellate themselves, has not died out in China, for some of the Buddhist and Taoist monks of Soochow and elsewhere bear regular scars on their shaven heads and on their limbs, placed there to show penance during fasts, and to gain a reputation for holiness, or to use the Chinese phrase, “attain virtue.” The late Empress Dowager Tse Hsi liked to assume the character of the Buddhist goddess Kwan Yun, and have herself painted with bare feet riding on a lotus leaf; in her hand a rosary; and wearing a blue veil, gray robes, a gold, garnet and pearl crown, earrings and necklaces. The eunuchs and friends of the empress always referred to her as the “Old Buddha,” which was the nickname that she liked the best. It is worthy of note that the Taiping rebels in the 60’s destroyed Buddhist temples and slew the bonzes, largely because the Buddhists of that time were opposed to progress and oppressed the poor with their “privileged orders.” On account of his not marrying, the Chinese call a bonze a “Chek Ke” (forsake family). They are, therefore, despised by Chinese men, but have a stronger hold on the women, with their picturesque religion, and good omens whenever they are paid for them.
On the first and fifteenth of each month, a musical service is held before dawn in the two thousand Confucian temples scattered throughout China. These temples all contribute a little toward the support of Confucius’s seventy-seventh direct descendant, Prince Kung Fut Tsze (which Latinized is Confucius), of Shangtung, though some of the Kungs are Christians. The Confucian temples contain red and gold tablets of Confucius and his disciples instead of the statues appearing in the Buddhist, Taoist and War temples of the land. When Kwang Hsu, the reform emperor, issued an edict in 1898 that modern schools should be formed, he ordered that some of the Confucian temples should be impressed. Confucius did not institute ancestor worship in 550 B. C. He found that it existed in his own state of Lu (present Shangtung province) and in the adjoining states of Tsi on the north and Wei and Sung on the west, all of whom had taken it, with the sacred tripods, from the parent Chou clan, which brought them from misty prehistoric days thousands of years back. To Confucius, credit should be given for adopting ancestor worship as an indispensable rite in the organization of the growing Tsu clan and of the future conqueror and federator of China, the Tsin clan, which latter eventually ended feudalism, which was then, however, adopted by Japan and carried forward to our own day. Let us quote here the stern Carlyle’s sympathetic tribute to the ancestor worship of the Chinese: “The emperor and his millions visit yearly the tombs of their fathers; each man the tomb of his father and his mother; alone there, in silence, with what of worship or of other thought there may be, pauses solemnly each man; the divine skies all silent over, the divine graves—and this divinest grave—all silent under him; the pulsings of his own soul alone audible. Truly it may be a kind of worship. Truly if a man can not get some glimpse into the Eternities, looking through this portal, through what other need he try it?” Attempts have been, and doubtless will continue to be made to revivify or modernize Confucianism. The most notable of the viceroys, Chang Chih Tung, of Wuchang, wrote a book called China’s Only Hope with this in view. Confucius was averse to liquor. One of the odes of the Book of Odes, written 1100 B. C., and edited by Confucius, rails against drunkenness. The ode realistically describes a riotous banquet which might have taken place in hilarious Vladivostok in 1904, previous to the war, when sweet Roederer ran like water.
The Pope of Taoism dwells on Lung Hu Mountain, in Kiangsi province. Taoism’s book, the Tao Teh King, written in 604 B. C. by Lao Tsz, speaks of the Triune God of reason, nature and virtue. The sect is now one of astrologers and nature worshipers, and is strong in the southern and eastern provinces. It builds temples and teaches the nature superstition of Feng Shui (Wind and Water), which until recently held the land in thrall against mining, industry and railways. The Taoists have been bitterly anti-foreign. Bows and arrows are sometimes hung up in the green Taoist temples as votive or thank offerings, the sentiment being that they are to kill one’s unpropitious influence or adverse Feng-shui. Taoist priests sometimes wear gorgeous gowns completely covered with embroidery of flowers, insects, birds, animals and the exorcised devil himself. They make a pretty penny by publishing or interpreting an almanac, the day selected possibly reading as follows:
June 10th
LUCKY:
To set sail to-day.
To begin a land journey to-day.
To begin a suit to-day.UNLUCKY:
To bury your father to-day.
To begin a new well to-day.
To bargain for a wife for your son to-day.
To buy oil to-day.
To sweep your shop to-day.
To hire a cook to-day.
The traveler who has everything ready at Ichang to start on the long journey through the glorious Yangtze gorges and rapids often wonders why his men can not be induced to start. The reason is that they are wading through the Luck Book, thus wasting an unnecessary week. Oil is needed, but it can not be bought on June 5th. Fish are needed, but can not be bought on June 6th. Rope can not be bought on June 7th, and when June 9th comes along it is unlucky to sail on that day. The Taoist priest makes his money by selling your laota (captain) an indulgence to sail on June 9th, for which you have to pay handsomely about ten cents, and the kinshan incense and firecrackers extra! The tiger and the dragon represent the early gods of the terrified aboriginal Chinese, and predate the ancestor worship of the first Chou clan of the north. These emblems have been adopted by the Taoist priests. The grotesque shrines are found among the mountains, a dominating view being necessary for the casting of the “influence.”