Below Wan-nien Ssŭ I left behind me spring warmth and sprouting vegetation. By the time I had reached a height of 4,000 feet there were patches of snow on the roadside; 2,000 feet higher all visible trace of the path was gone, icicles hung from the leafless trees, while small acolytes from the monasteries, clad in their wadded winter garments, were busily sweeping away the snow in front of the gateways. When I left Omei-hsien my thermometer registered 64° Fahr. At Wan-nien Ssŭ the temperature had sunk to 49°; on the summit of the mountain there were 13 degrees of frost after sunset.
The next temple to Wan-nien Ssŭ is the Kuan Hsin Ting,[55] a poor building which was apparently in sole charge of a child of nine. The next is the Hsi Hsin So.[56] These words may be interpreted as "The Haven of the Tranquil Heart," but they also mean "The Pilgrim's Rest," for hsi hsin are the words used to translate or explain the Sanskrit term sramana,[57] an ascetic or monk. The records of the mountain explain the name by saying that when the pilgrim reaches this place, he can no longer hear the growlings and mutterings of the "dusty world": his heart therefore becomes as peaceful as his surroundings. In the building is a large image of Maitrêya, the "Buddha of the Future," who is supposed to be in the Tushita heaven, awaiting incarnation.
ARAHATSHIP
Passing by the Ch'ang Lao P'ing[58] temple, the next is the Ch'u Tien,[59] otherwise known as the Tsu Tien. Tsu is a kind of red-eyed duck, and the allusion is to the duck-like shape of a neighbouring rock. The temple contains rather life-like images of the eighteen lo-han.[60] These Chinese words represent the Sanskrit arhat or arahat, "venerable" or "worthy." We meet with arhats in the oldest Buddhist scriptures. They were the worthiest and most enlightened of Buddha's disciples; men who fully understood the doctrine as it was delivered to them by their master, and accepted it as a final statement of truth. Arahatship, as we have seen in the last chapter, is the goal aimed at by all true Buddhists, and implies a release from all delusion, ignorance and sorrow. In technical language the arahat is the man who has acquired the "four distinctive qualifications" (patisambhidâ) and has attained the state of "final sanctification." In the hands of the Mahayanists the arahats come to be persons possessing magical powers,[61] such as that of moving without support through space, in which respect they are the nearest approach to the mysterious Tibetan beings invented by the self-styled "theosophists": but arahatship as an ideal becomes altogether subordinate to that of Bodhisattship, the state of the holy man who, having arrived at the stage next preceding that of Buddhahood, voluntarily refrains from taking the final step, in order that he may remain as a teacher and saviour among men. In the Chinese Buddhistic system there are several classifications of the arahats or lo-han: we find them in groups of twelve hundred, five hundred, eighteen and sixteen. The twelve hundred are only met with, so far as I am aware, in books; but many large temples in China contain images of the five hundred. In Canton, for example, there is what Europeans have rather foolishly named the Hall of the Five Hundred Genii. Some wag once fancied he saw a resemblance in one of the figures there to Marco Polo, and for some reason or other the idea struck the professional Canton guides as such a happy one that for many years past they have been in the habit of deluding thousands of European and American travellers with the belief that Messer Marco has been turned into a Chinese "god." The mistake assumes a somewhat grotesque character when we remember that, according to the Chinese belief, each of the five hundred lo-han is destined at some remote period to become a Buddha.[62] In the majority of Chinese temples—as in those of Mount Omei—the number of lo-han represented by images is only eighteen; but there is a difference of opinion among the followers of different schools as to the identity of two of these. In Korea and Japan the temples generally contain sixteen lo-han, while Tibetan Lamaism sometimes recognises sixteen and sometimes eighteen.[63] The two extra ones seem to have been added as an after-thought by Chinese Buddhists in comparatively modern times.
LOTUS-FLOWER
Above the Temple of the Red-eyed Duck comes the Hua Yen Ting.[64] As already mentioned, the name Hua Yen is that of a famous sutra "discovered" by Nāgārjuna. The temple contains the eighteen lo-han and figures of Sakyamuni Buddha and the two Bodhisattvas P'u Hsien and Manjusri.[65] Behind these three central figures is a small Kuan Yin (Avalokiteçvara). On leaving this temple the road strikes downwards for a short distance, and, soon after recommencing the ascent, we arrive next at the monastery known as the Lien Hua Shih[66] ("Lotus Flower Stone"), where there is a holy relic consisting of the curiously shaped stone from which the place derives its name. I found a number of Tibetan pilgrims rubbing coins on it; the coins to be afterwards carefully preserved as charms. The stone is said by the monks (on no authority that I can discover) to have been brought up from deep waters by miraculous agency, and to have floated on the surface like the flower of the lotus. The lotus myth in Buddhist cosmology is based on a very picturesque allegory, with which most of my readers are probably acquainted. Its meaning has been accurately described in the following words by E. J. Eitel, who, though he possesses the usual bias against "heathendom," is a fairly sympathetic writer on Buddhist subjects. "The idea conveyed in this flowery language of Buddhism is of highly poetic and truly speculative import, amounting to this: that as a lotus flower, growing out of a hidden germ beneath the water, rises up slowly, mysteriously, until it suddenly appears above the surface and unfolds its buds, leaves, and pistils, in marvellous richness of colour and chastest beauty of form; thus also, in the system of worlds, each single universe rises into being, evolved out of a primitive germ, the first origin of which is veiled in mystery, and finally emerges out of the chaos, gradually unfolding itself, one kingdom of nature succeeding the other, all forming one compact whole, pervaded by one breath, but varied in beauty and form. Truly an idea, so far removed from nonsense, that it might be taken for an utterance of Darwin himself."[67] Visitors to Buddhist temples cannot fail to observe how frequently the lotus allegory has been made to subserve religious and artistic purposes, and we have seen in the last chapter how it has been associated with the story of the beginning of P'u Hsien's worship on Mount Omei. The images of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are nearly always represented as sitting or standing in the centre of a huge open lotus, and even P'u Hsien's elephant stands on the same sacred plant.
As regards the stone in the Lien Hua monastery, I may add that it does not bear the smallest resemblance to a lotus or any other plant, and apparently it is not supposed to do so. Its original crude shape has evidently never been tampered with, though its surface has been worn smooth by constant rubbing.
"OM MANE PADME HOM"
Into the same temple another stone—not a sacred one—has found its way. It is a huge boulder, many tons in weight, that was brought down the mountain side some years ago by an avalanche, and crashed into the back of the main hall, where, for superstitious reasons—and perhaps because its removal would be a matter of immense difficulty—it has been allowed to remain. On a hanging scroll above the central images I noticed a Chinese transliteration[68] of the well-known Tibetan formula, "Om Mane Padme Hom (or Hung),"[69] generally translated—but this is a controversial matter—"Hail! The Jewel in the Lotus." The first word Om or Aum is the well-known sacred syllable of Brahmanism; practically it is simply a syllaba invocationis. The Jewel may mean the Buddha, or his Law (Dharma), or the Buddhist Church (Sangha), or all three combined, or more probably signifies Avalokiteçvara (the Chinese Kuan Yin and Japanese Kwannon), who in Lamaism is supposed to be incarnated in every successive Grand Lama. But, as a matter of fact, very few of the Tibetans who mutter the sentence as they walk or turn it in their prayer-wheels, or carve it on stones and rocks by the wayside, can give any clear idea of what they mean by it. Like the Chinese Nam-Mo (or Nan-Wu) O-mi-to-Fo[70] ("Praise be to Amitabha Buddha"), it is regarded as a kind of dhâranî or mystic spell, the constant repetition of which will lead the believer to a life of bliss in Sukhâvatî, the Western Paradise. The only Chinese whom I met on the mountain besides the residents were Buddhist monks on pilgrimage, and the invocation to Amitabha was constantly on their lips; the other was repeated with equal persistence by the Tibetan pilgrims. During part of my climb the mountain was enveloped in a thick mist, which muffled the sound of footsteps; but there was seldom a moment that I did not hear one or other of these mystic sentences floating weirdly in the air above me or below.
WHITE CLOUDS MONASTERY