From Peking to Mandalay / A Journey from North China to Burma through Tibetan Ssuch'uan and Yunnan

by Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

CHINESE PLAN WITH AMITABHA BUDDHA AS CENTRAL FIGURE.

KUAN YIN

To blame the Chinese Buddhists, however, for failing to preserve their religion from corrupt influences is hardly fair: for it must be admitted that the stream of Buddhist literature and tradition that flowed for centuries into China from Northern India and Nepal issued from a source that was already tainted. Sakyamuni Buddha probably died in the fifth century B.C. Buddhism did not obtain a foothold in China till five or six centuries later, and it was not till the fourth century of our era that native Chinese began in large numbers to take the vows as Buddhist monks. By this time primitive Buddhism had already been cruelly distorted. Where it was at all possible, the Mahayana dogmas were read into the simple scriptures that formed the Asokan canon; where the utmost ingenuity failed to find the germs of these dogmas in the canon, the doctors of the Mahayana school deliberately set themselves to compile a series of colossal forgeries by putting forth new sutras, purporting to have been uttered by the Buddha himself, but containing an entirely new book of doctrine.[48] Part of it was probably brought from Persia and Arabia, and nearly all was totally inconsistent with the primitive doctrine of the Buddha. Like the founder of the Mormons in after-ages, the pious forgers—let us hope they were unconscious of their guilt—pretended to be merely the "finders" of the new sutras. Sometimes they were said to have been discovered in caves guarded by demons. Nāgārjuna, for instance, who was one of the worst offenders, is supposed to have found in "the palace of the Dragon" the great Hua Yen sutra, already referred to, a work which justifies us in regarding Nāgārjuna as one of the principal inventors or adapters of the Mahayana doctrines, or at least as one of those who grafted them on the original Buddhistic stock. The Chinese admire him so much that they have elevated him into the position of a Bodhisattva, and celebrate his birthday on the 25th day of the seventh moon. Among the principal speakers in the Hua Yen sutra are the Buddha himself and the mythical Bodhisattvas P'u Hsien and Manjusri.

THE MAHAYANA

The Mahayana doctrine concerning this order of being is, as I have said, totally unknown to early Buddhism; and out of or beside this central doctrine of the Mahayana system grew up a cluster of dogmas which, like some parasitic weed, could only have the effect of choking and killing the original plant of which the Buddha himself had sown the seed. The Chinese "fathers" were not primarily responsible for all this. The vast mythology that culminates in the doctrine of Amitabha's heaven was accepted in China only too readily, but it was not a Chinese invention. If the history of these fanciful dogmas can be more readily traced in China and Tibet than elsewhere, it is only because Buddhism practically ceased to exist in the country of its origin. What Chinese Buddhism might have been if it had sought to establish itself upon the Asokan canon instead of upon a bundle of crude myths and grotesque allegories may be realised easily enough by comparing it with the Buddhism of Burma and Siam, which—in spite of their tolerance of a system of animistic worship alien to Buddhism—have preserved almost intact the body of doctrine that they inherited through Ceylon from the orthodox Church. What with the growth of the mystic schools derived from Bodhidarma, the Tantra schools with their magic spells and incantations, the Lin Tzŭ school that teaches religion in the form of enigmas, the Wu Wei school with its doctrine of a Golden Mother, the hideous demonology introduced into Buddhism by a debased wonder-working Taoism, and the innumerable schools that unite in their praises of the bejewelled Western Heaven which can be attained merely by repeating the name of Amitabha Buddha or Kuan Yin P'u Sa, it is no wonder that Buddhism in China has fallen a victim to the fangs of its own grotesque offspring.

CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

In the following chapter some further remarks on Mount Omei will, I trust, serve to emphasise the observations already made, and will perhaps help the European reader who has not visited China to form some conception of the theory and practice of Chinese Buddhism at the present day. I hope I may be excused if I depart so far from the usual practice of travellers in China as to refrain from entering into a discussion of the general question of religion, especially in connection with Christian propaganda. For my own part, I may perhaps venture to express the hope and belief that the missionary question is one which time will solve at no very distant date. As soon as a reformed China has earned for herself—by the reform of her legal codes and judicial procedure—the right to demand the total abolition of foreign consular jurisdiction within Chinese territory, missionaries will cease to be a thorn in the flesh of Chinese officialdom. They may obtain fewer converts, but they will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that such converts as they may then gain will not be actuated by the desire to secure foreign protection against the laws of their own country; whereas the official classes will no longer have cause to regard missionaries as a political danger. There is no doubt that many of the outbreaks of fanatical hatred against foreigners are directly or indirectly traceable to the missionary question.[49] In spite of this fact it will be generally conceded that, like most Orientals, the Chinese are, in purely religious matters, inclined to be extremely tolerant: far more so, needless to say, than Western peoples usually are. History proves that the Chinese people are not hostile to foreign religious doctrines as such, but only when foreign religions tend to introduce disintegrating forces into the social fabric. Similarly the official classes are not inimical to foreign religions as such, but only when foreign religions threaten the stability of the political fabric and the independence of the State. These dangers will no longer operate when foreign missionary enterprise absolutely ceases to have even the semblance of a connection with international politics, and foreign missionaries become in all respects amenable to the courts of the country in which they live and work.

RELIGION IN CHINA

Whether the change will tend to spread the doctrines of Christianity in China with greater rapidity, or will, on the other hand, bring about its ultimate extinction, is a question regarding which it would be rash to prophesy. Given fair field and no favour it might well seem that the disorganised forces of a corrupt Buddhism would be ill fitted to cope with such strenuous and well-equipped adversaries as the Churches of Christendom: yet perhaps it is more likely that the ultimate victory will rest with neither. The clashing of forces that must assuredly result from the weakening of the hold of Confucianism on the educated classes and the introduction of new political and social ideals may lead to an intellectual upheaval tending to the destruction of all religion. Even to-day, the only vigorous element in the heterogeneous religious systems of China consists in that expansion of the ideal of filial piety which takes the form of the cult of ancestors: a cult which has done so much in the past to preserve, consolidate and multiply the Chinese people and make them peaceful, law-abiding and home-loving, and which has nevertheless been condemned as idolatrous by the two great branches of the Christian faith. It was this rock of Chinese orthodoxy that shattered the power of the Church of Rome in China, and that rock is still a danger and an obstruction in the troubled waters through which glide the frail barks of the Christian missions. On the whole, it seems improbable that the dogmas, at least, of any of the Christian Churches will ever find general acceptance on Chinese soil. The moral and spiritual regeneration of China is more likely to be brought about by the growth of a neo-Confucianism frankly accepting such adaptations as the social and political conditions of modern times may render necessary; and if this is insufficient to satisfy the spiritual aspirations of the people, there may arise a reformed Buddhism drawing its inspiration either from the simple faith of Burma, Siam, and Ceylon, or—far more probably—from one of the complex systems (near in kinship to those of China but with a vitality of their own) that have evolved themselves upon the soil of Japan.