Lion and Dragon in Northern China

by Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

As time went on Taoism became ninety-nine parts "ism" to one part Tao: it dabbled in alchemy, fortune-telling and astrology, and its votaries (who included several Chinese emperors) gave themselves up to a search for the elixir of immortality and the elusive secret of the transmutation of metals. The torch of a lofty philosophy passed into the hands of men who, instead of using the light to aid them in the search for the sublime Tao, soon quenched it in the stagnant waters of witchcraft and demonology. Some writers seem to have assumed that Lao Tzŭ, in spite of the acknowledged fact of his intellectual and moral greatness, was in some mysterious way the unwitting cause of the later corruptions: but, as has been said, a clear distinction must be drawn between popular Taoism (which has little or nothing to say of Tao) and the philosophic Taoism which has made a noble and permanent contribution to the ethical consciousness of the Chinese people.[342] Popular Taoism probably existed, in some form or other, long before the time of the compiler of the Tao Tê Ching. The astrology and alchemy and demonology that give the former many of its characteristic features may have existed in China from a very remote age. The extreme antiquity of superstitions of this kind in other parts of Asia is an undeniable fact: the records of the early civilisation of Chaldæa give us statements concerning the sorcerers and astrologers of that country that might be applied almost without alteration to the charm-mongerers and adepts of Chinese Taoism.[343] The philosophy of Lao Tzŭ may be compared with a pure sparkling stream that bubbled up amid the crags of a lofty range of mountains; when it had flowed down the hillside and began to meander through the fields and villages below, its limpid waters became ever more and more defiled by the foulness and refuse of the plains. Perhaps it would be equally true to say that the source of the river of popular Taoism lies among the mists and marshes of some trackless and pestilential jungle; that its waters throughout the whole of its visible course are muddy and impure; and that the clear mountain stream that flowed from the doctrines of Lao Tzŭ and his interpreters and successors was only a tributary stream whose crystal waters were soon lost in the turbid flood of the main river. It was a clear perception of the fundamental difference between the philosophy of Lao Tzŭ and popular Taoism that induced a recent Japanese writer, Kakasu Okakura, to confer upon the former the name of Laoism, after its founder, and to relinquish to the latter the barren glory of the name of Taoism;[344] thus in contemplating the unattractive mythology and crude rituals of the Taoism of the temples we must beware of laying any of the responsibility for such follies on the grand though shadowy figure of "the Old Philosopher," in spite of the fact that his image has taken its place in the Taoist Trinity of gods who are supposed to reign (though not to rule) over the phenomenal Universe.

If it can be confidently asserted that the people of Weihaiwei know little or nothing of Laoism, it must be admitted that they still cling with apparent fondness to the puerile imaginings of Taoism. In respect of Confucianism they perform (with zeal and sincerity) the traditional rites of ancestor-worship, and with respect to Buddhism they support (with less zeal and less sincerity) a few priests to burn incense for them on stated days before the image of the Buddha or some favourite p'u-sa such as the "Goddess of Mercy": but in other respects Taoism may be said to be the religion that monopolises the largest share of their attention. The greater number of temples in the Territory are Taoist—excluding the Ancestral Temples (Chia Miao), which are not open to the public. Most of these Taoist edifices are poor in outward appearance and their interiors are often dirty and evil-smelling; while the images of the numerous Taoist deities are of cheap manufacture and tawdry in ornament. A casual visitor might suppose the gods were left entirely to themselves; for he may go through a dozen temples and not find a single worshipper or a single priest. But if he scrutinises the altars he will find, amid the dust and cobwebs, the ashes of incense-sticks and sometimes the remains of little offerings in the shape of cakes or sweetmeats,—just enough to show that the gods are not quite forgotten. It is only the largest temples that have resident priests; the smaller ones are either in charge of apprentices or pupil-priests or are visited from time to time (as on occasions of annual festivals or theatrical shows) by priests who exercise spiritual superintendence over a group of temples scattered over a considerable area.

The Taoist priests as a class are neither well-educated nor zealous in discharge of their simple duties, but it would be a mistake to suppose that they are all abjectly lazy or energetic only in vice and crime. The Weihaiwei priests are as a rule fairly respectable in private life; one of them has done and is doing really good work by inducing people to cure themselves of the opium habit. A Taoist temple is generally the property of a group of villages and the "living" is in their gift. When a vacancy occurs in a "living," a new priest is selected by the hui-shou or committee of elders who transact most of the public business of the villages concerned, and the appointment is absolutely within their discretion. But once a priest has been appointed it is (or was) as difficult to turn him out as it is to remove a clergyman from his benefice in England. In Weihaiwei the usual procedure for getting rid of a disreputable priest (whether Taoist or Buddhist) is to present a petition to the magistrate, setting forth the reasons why the priest's continued residence in the locality is considered undesirable. The British Government, needless to say, makes no difficulty about his prompt expulsion as soon as satisfactory evidence against him is forthcoming.

Some of the priests of Weihaiwei are office-bearers in the Tsai Li Sect—a "total abstinence" society (in some places semi-political in character) which has claimed a large membership in the Weihaiwei district ever since the days of the military colonists. There are gradations of rank among the Taoist priests, but as a rule each is practically independent of the rest. The Taoist "Pope" himself—the dispenser of amulets and charms who resides in the Dragon-Tiger Mountains (Lung-hu Shan) of southern Kiangsi—has no direct authority over the priests of eastern Shantung, or if such authority exists in theory it is not exercised in practice. The official duties of the priests consist in very little more than looking after the temple buildings, seeing to the repair of the images when their clay arms and legs fall off (this is a duty they often shirk), and calling the attention of the deities to the presence of lay visitors who have brought offerings and desire to offer up prayers. Their services as magicians and retailers of charms are also invoked from time to time by private persons.

Men and women (especially women) pay occasional visits to the temples when they wish to implore the aid of a favourite deity in connection with some family matter such as the approaching birth of a child, or some hazardous business venture, or the illness of a relative; and in such cases they often make vows to the effect that if their prayers are granted they will make certain additional offerings of money and incense.

Apart from these visits the temples are usually deserted except on one or two annual occasions such as the celebration of a local festival. The temple then becomes one of the centres of attraction—indeed in all probability it is a god's birthday that is being celebrated—and its precincts are thronged from morning to night by crowds of well-dressed men and women and children, eager to register their vows or make their petitions. The worshippers knock their heads on the ground as an acknowledgment of humility and powerlessness, while the priest strikes a tinkling bronze bowl with a view to awaking the god from his slumbers. In front of every image stand jars containing sticks of burning incense, sending up clouds of fragrant smoke. The courtyard resounds with fire-crackers and bombs which are supposed to frighten away any wandering spirits of evil. Dense fumes arise from heaps of burning paper representing money, prayers and charms, all of which, through the spiritualisation wrought by fire, are expected to reach the immaterial region of the unseen spirits.

In front of the temple stands the open-air stage where a group of masked or painted actors, clad in robes resplendent with colour and gleaming with gold embroidery, strive by means of extravagant gestures and high-pitched voices to interpret, for the benefit of a dense crowd of eager sightseers, their conception of some fantastic old-world legend or some tragic episode in the bygone history of China.

To enumerate all the gods and goddesses, great and small, that crowd the Taoist pantheon would be tedious. Popular Taoism provides deities or spiritual patrons for all the forces of nature, diseases (from devil-possession to toothache), wealth and rank and happiness, war, old age, death, childbirth, towns and villages, trades, mountains and rivers and seas, lakes and canals, heaven and hell, sun, moon and stars, roads and places where there are no roads, clouds and thunder, every separate part and organ of the human body, and indeed for almost everything that is cognisable by the senses and a great deal that is not. It need hardly be said that no Taoist temple in existence contains images of all these spiritual personages, or a hundredth part of them. Each locality possesses its own favourites.

The Ts'ai Shên or God of Wealth is popular in Weihaiwei no less than elsewhere. He has become so important a deity to the Chinese that though he belongs to Taoism the Buddhists have been compelled to find room for him in their temples in order to attract worshippers who might otherwise go elsewhere. China's guests from the Western hemisphere have sometimes selected the "god of wealth" as a mark for special scorn and ridicule, though why they should do so is not quite apparent, inasmuch as the devotion to money-getting is quite as strong and prevalent among Englishmen and Germans and Americans as it is among the Chinese. Moreover, after a careful consideration of the kind of prayers that are addressed to the god of wealth and the popular attitude towards him and his gifts, I am satisfied that he is merely regarded as the dispenser in moderate quantities of the ordinary good things of life. The farmer who prays to Ts'ai Shên in the local temple does so in the hope that the god will enable him to sell his crops for fair prices so that he may continue to bring up his family amid modest prosperity. It is very much as if he were to say "Give us this day our daily bread": in fact he sometimes uses almost those very words.