Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume III Part 31

[Footnote 682: At the present day an ordinary Chinese regards a Lama as quite different from a Hoshang or Buddhist monk.]

[Footnote 683: The Yan Emperors were no doubt fond of witnessing religious theatricals in the Palace. See for extracts from Chinese authors, _New China Review_, 1919, pp. 68 ff. Compare the performances of the T'ang Emperor Su Tsung mentioned above.]

[Footnote 684: For the ecclesiastical abuses of the time see Kppen, II. 103, and de Mailla, _Histoire de la Chine_, IX. 475, 538.]

[Footnote 685: See Wieger, _Textes Historiques_, III. p. 2013, and De Groot, _Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China_, I. p. 82. He is often called Hung Wu which is strictly speaking the t.i.tle of his reign. He was certainly capable of changing his mind, for he degraded Mencius from his position in Confucian temples one year and restored him the next.]

[Footnote 686: See de Mailla, _Histoire de la Chine_, IX. p. 470.]

[Footnote 687: Often called Yung-Lo which is strictly the t.i.tle of his reign.]

[Footnote 688: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 689: See Nanjio, Cat. 1613-16.]

[Footnote 690: See Beal, _Catena of Buddhist Scriptures_, p. 398. The Emperor says: "So we, the Ruler of the Empire ... do hereby bring before men a mode for attaining to the condition of supreme Wisdom. We therefore earnestly exhort all men ... carefully to study the directions of this work and faithfully to follow them."]

[Footnote 691: Nanjio, Cat. 1620. See also _ib._ 1032 and 1657 for the Empress's stra.]

[Footnote 692: Or Kalima [Chinese: ] In Tibetan Karma de bshin gshegs-pa. He was the fifth head of the Karma-pa school. See Chandra Das's dictionary, _s.v._, where a reference is given to kLong-rdol-gsung-hb.u.m. It is noticeable that the Karma-pa is one of the older and more Tantric sects.]

[Footnote 693: [Chinese: ], [Chinese: ]. Yan Shih K'ai prefixed to this latter the four characters [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 694: See Yule, _Cathay and the Way Thither_, pp. 75 ff.]

[Footnote 695: When Ying Tsung was carried away by the Mongols in 1449 his brother Ching-Ti was made Emperor. Though Ying Tsung was sent back in 1450, he was not able to oust Ching-Ti from the throne till 1457.]

[Footnote 696: [Chinese: ], [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 697: [Chinese: ] His real name was w.a.n.g Shou Jn [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 698: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 699: Though the ecclesiastical study of Sanskrit decayed under the Ming dynasty, Yung-lo founded in 1407 a school of language for training interpreters at which Sanskrit was taught among other tongues.]

[Footnote 700: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 701: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 702: De Groot, _l.c._ p. 93.]

[Footnote 703: Some authorities say that he became a monk before he died, but the evidence is not good. See Johnston in _New China Review_, Nos. 1 and 2, 1920.]

[Footnote 704: See _T'oung Pao_, 1909, p. 533.]

[Footnote 705: See E. Ludwig, _The visit of the Tcshoo Lama to Peking_, Tien Tsin Press, 1904.]

[Footnote 706: The Ta-yn-lung-ch'ing-y-ching. Nanjio's Catalogue, Nos. 187-8, 970, and see Beal, _Catena of Buddhist Scriptures_, pp.

417-9.]

[Footnote 707: See for an account of his visit "The Dalai Lamas and their relations with the Manchu Emperor of China" in _T'oung Pao_, 1910, p. 774.]

CHAPTER XLIV

CHINA (_continued_)

THE CANON

The Buddhist scriptures extant in the Chinese language are known collectively as San Tsang[708] or the three store-houses, that is to say, Tripitaka. Though this usage is justified by both eastern and European practice, it is not altogether happy, for the Chinese thesaurus is not a.n.a.logous to the Pali Canon or to any collection of sacred literature known in India, being in spite of its name arranged in four, not in three, divisions. It is a great _Corpus Scriptorum Sanctorum_, embracing all ages and schools, wherein translations of the most diverse Indian works are supplemented by original compositions in Chinese. Imagine a library comprising Latin translations of the Old and New Testaments with copious additions from the Talmud and Apocryphal literature; the writings of the Fathers, decrees of Councils and Popes, together with the _opera omnia_ of the princ.i.p.al schoolmen and the early protestant reformers and you will have some idea of this theological miscellany which has no claim to be called a canon, except that all the works included have at some time or other received a certain literary or doctrinal hall-mark.

1

The collection is described in the catalogue compiled by Bunyiu Nanjio[709]. It enumerates 1662 works which are cla.s.sified in four great divisions, (_a_) Stra, (_b_) Vinaya, (_c_) Abhidharma, (_d_) Miscellaneous. The first three divisions contain translations only; the fourth original Chinese works as well.

The first division called Ching or Stras amounts to nearly two-thirds of the whole, for it comprises no less than 1081 works and is subdivided as follows: (_a_) Mahyna Stras, 541, (_b_) Hnayna Stras, 240, (_c_) Mahyna and Hnayna Stras, 300 in number, admitted into the canon under the Sung and Yan dynasties, A.D.

960-1368. Thus whereas the first two subdivisions differ in doctrine, the third is a supplement containing later translations of both schools. The second subdivision, or Hnayna Stras, which is less numerous and complicated than that containing the Mahyna Stras, shows clearly the character of the whole collection. It is divided into two cla.s.ses of which the first is called A-han, that is, Agama[710]. This comprises translations of four works a.n.a.logous to the Pali Nikyas, though not identical with the texts which we possess, and also numerous alternative translations of detached stras. All four were translated about the beginning of the fifth century whereas the translations of detached stras are for the most part earlier.

This cla.s.s also contains the celebrated Stra of Forty-two Sections, and works like the Jtaka-nidna. The second cla.s.s is styled Stras of one translation[711]. The t.i.tle is not used rigorously, but the works bearing it are relatively obscure and it is not always clear to what Sanskrit texts they correspond. It will be seen from the above that the Chinese Tripitaka is a literary and bibliographical collection rather than an ecclesiastical canon. It does not provide an authorized version for the edification of the faithful, but it presents for the use of the learned all translations of Indian works belonging to a particular cla.s.s which possess a certain age and authority.

The same characteristic marks the much richer collection of Mahyna Stras, which contains the works most esteemed by Chinese Buddhists.

It is divided into seven cla.s.ses:

1. [Chinese: ] Pan-jo (Po-jo) or Prajnpramit[712].

2. [Chinese: ] Pao-chi or Ratnakt?a.

3. [Chinese: ] Ta-chi or Mahsannipta.

4. [Chinese: ] Hua-yen or Avatamsaka.

5. [Chinese: ] Nieh-pan or Parinirvn?a.

6. [Chinese: ] Stras in more than one translation but not falling into any of the above five cla.s.ses.

7. [Chinese: ] Other stras existing in only one translation.

Each of the first five cla.s.ses probably represents a collection of stras a.n.a.logous to a Nikya and in one sense a single work but translated into Chinese several times, both in a complete form and in extracts. Thus the first cla.s.s opens with the majestic Mahprajnpramit in 600 fasciculi and equivalent to 200,000 stanzas in Sanskrit. This is followed by several translations of shorter versions including two of the little stras called the Heart of the Prajnpramit, which fills only one leaf. There are also six translations of the celebrated work known as the Diamond-cutter[713], which is the ninth stra in the Mahprajnpramit and all the works cla.s.sed under the heading Pan-jo seem to be alternative versions of parts of this great Corpus.

The second and third cla.s.ses are collections of stras which no longer exist as collections in Sanskrit, though the Sanskrit text of some individual stras is extant. That called Pao-chi or Ratnakt?a opens with a collection of forty-nine stras which includes the longer version of the Sukhvatvyha. This collection is reckoned as one work, but the other items in the same cla.s.s are all or nearly all of them duplicate translations of separate stras contained in it. This is probably true of the third cla.s.s also. At least seven of the works included in it are duplicate translations of the first, which is called Mahsannipta, and the stras called Candragarbha, Ks.h.i.tig., Sumerug., and Aksag., appear to be merely sections, not separate compositions, although this is not clear from the remarks of Nanjio and Wa.s.siljew.

The princ.i.p.al works in cla.s.s 4 are two translations, one fuller than the other, of the Hua-yen or Avatamsaka Stra[714], still one of the most widely read among Buddhist works, and at least sixteen of the other items are duplicate renderings of parts of it. Cla.s.s 5 consists of thirteen works dealing with the death of the Buddha and his last discourses. The first stra, sometimes called the northern text, is imperfect and was revised at Nanking in the form of the southern text[715]. There are two other incomplete versions of the same text. To judge from a specimen translated by Beal[716] it is a collection of late discourses influenced by Vishnuism and does not correspond to the Mahparinibbnasutta of the Pali Canon.

Cla.s.s 6 consists of stras which exist in several translations, but still do not, like the works just mentioned, form small libraries in themselves. It comprises, however, several books highly esteemed and historically important, such as the Saddharmapun?d?arka (six translations), the Suvarn?aprabhsa, the Lalitavistara, the Lankvatra, and the Shorter Sukhvatvyha[717], all extant in three translations.

In it are also included many short tracts, the originals of which are not known. Some of them are Jtakas, but many[718] deal with the ritual of image worship or with spells. These characteristics are still more prominent in the seventh cla.s.s, consisting of stras which exist in a single translation only. The best known among them are the Srngama and the Mahvairocana (Ta-jih-ching), which is the chief text of the Shin-gon or Mantra School[719].