Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume III Part 37

[Footnote 849: [Chinese: ] See the account by Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 271 ff.]

[Footnote 850: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 851: [Chinese: ] See _China Mission Year Book_, 1896, p.

43.]

[Footnote 852: For some account of them, see Stanton, The Triad Society, White Lotus Society, etc., 1900, reprinted from _China Review_, vols. XXI, XXII, and De Groot, _Sectarianism and religious persecution in China_, vol. I. pp. 149-259.]

[Footnote 853: The Republic of China has not changed much from the ways of the Empire. The Peking newspapers of June 17, 1914, contain a Presidential Edict stating that "the invention of heretical religions by ill-disposed persons is strictly prohibited by law," and that certain religious societies are to be suppressed.]

[Footnote 854: See, for an account of such a reformed sect, O.

Francke, "Ein Buddhistischer Reformversuch in China," _T'oung Pao_, 1909, p. 567.]

CHAPTER XLVI

CHINA _(continued)_

CHINESE BUDDHISM AT THE PRESENT DAY

The Buddhism treated of in this chapter does not include Lamaism, which being identical with the religion of Tibet and Mongolia is more conveniently described elsewhere. Ordinary Chinese Buddhism and Lamaism are distinct, but are divided not so much by doctrine as by the race, language and usages of the priests. Chinese Buddhism has acquired some local colour, but it is still based on the teaching and practice imported from India before the Yan dynasty, whereas Lamaist tradition is not direct: it represents Buddhism as received not from India but from Tibet. Some holy places, such as P'uto and Wu-t'ai-shan are frequented by both Lamas and Chinese monks, and Tibetan prayers and images may sometimes be seen in Chinese temples, but as a rule the two divisions do not coalesce.

Chinese Buddhism has a physiognomy and language of its own. The Paraphrase of the Sacred Edict in a criticism, which, though unfriendly, is not altogether inaccurate, says that Buddhists attend only to the heart, claim that Buddha can be found in the heart, and aim at becoming Buddhas. This sounds strange to those who are acquainted only with the Buddhism of Ceylon and Burma, but is intelligible as a popular statement of Bodhidharma's doctrine.

Heart[855] means the spiritual nature of man, essentially identical with the Buddha nature and capable of purification and growth so that all beings can become Buddhas. But in the Far East the doctrine became less pantheistic and more ethical than the corresponding Indian ideas.

The Buddha in the heart is the internal light and monitor rather than the universal spirit. Amida, Kuan-yin and Ti-tsang with other radiant and benevolent spirits have risen from humanity and will help man to rise as they have done. Chinese Buddhists do not regard Amida's vows as an isolated achievement. All Boddhisattvas have done the same and carried out their resolution in countless existences. Like the Madonna these gracious figures appeal directly to the emotions and artistic senses and their divinity offers no difficulty, for in China Church and State alike have always recognized deification as a natural process. One other characteristic of all Far Eastern Buddhism may be noticed. The Buddha is supposed to have preached many creeds and codes at different periods of his life and each school supposes its own to be the last, best and all inclusive.

As indicated elsewhere, the essential part of the Buddhist Church is the monkhood and it is often hard to say if a Chinese layman is a Buddhist or not. It will therefore be best to describe briefly the organization and life of a monastery, then the services performed there and to some extent attended by the laity, and thirdly the rites performed by monks on behalf of the laity, especially funeral ceremonies.

The Chinese Tripitaka contains no less than five recensions of the Vinaya, and the later pilgrims who visited India made it their special object to obtain copies of the most correct and approved code. But though the theoretical value of these codes is still admitted, they have for practical purposes been supplemented by other manuals of which the best known are the Fan-w.a.n.g-ching or Net of Brahm[856] and the Pai-chang-ts'ung-lin-ch'ing-kuei or Rules of Purity of the Monasteries of Pai Chang.

The former is said to have been translated in A.D. 406 by k.u.mrajva and to be one chapter of a larger Sanskrit work. Some pa.s.sages of it, particularly the condemnation of legislation which forbids or imposes conditions on the practice of Buddhism[857], read as if they had been composed in China rather than India, and its whole att.i.tude towards the Hinayanist Vinaya as something inadequate and superseded, can hardly have been usual in India or China even in the time of I-Ching (700 A.D.). Nothing is known of the Indian original, but it certainly was not the Brahmajlasutta of the Pali Canon[858]. Though the translation is ascribed to so early a date, there is no evidence that the work carried weight as an authority before the eighth century. Students of the Vinaya, like I-Ching, ignore it. But when the scholarly endeavour to discover the most authentic edition of the Vinaya began to flag, this manual superseded the older treatises.

Whatever external evidence there may be for attributing it to k.u.mrajva, its contents suggest a much later date and there is no guarantee that a popular manual may not have received additions. The rules are not numbered consecutively but as 1-10 and 1-48, and it may be that the first cla.s.s is older than the second. In many respects it expounds a late and even degenerate form of Buddhism for it contemplates not only a temple ritual (including the veneration of images and sacred books), but also burning the head or limbs as a religious practice. But it makes no allusion to salvation through faith in Amitbha and says little about services to be celebrated for the dead[859].

Its ethical and disciplinary point of view is dogmatically Mahayanist and similar to that of the Bodhicaryvatra. The Hnayna is several times denounced[860] and called heretical, but, setting aside a little intolerance and superst.i.tion, the teaching of this manual is truly admirable and breathes a spirit of active charity--a desire not only to do no harm but to help and rescue.

It contains a code of ten primary and forty-eight secondary commandments, worded as prohibitions, but equivalent to positive injunctions, inasmuch as they blame the neglect of various active duties. The ten primary commandments are called Prtimoksha and he who breaks them is Prjika[861], that is to say, he _ipso facto_ leaves the road leading to Buddhahood and is condemned to a long series of inferior births. They prohibit taking life, theft, unchast.i.ty, lying, trading in alcoholic liquors, evil speaking, boasting, avarice, hatred and blasphemy. Though infraction of the secondary commandments has less permanently serious consequence, their observance is indispensable for all monks. Many of them are amplifications of the ten major commandments and are directed against indirect and potential sins, such as the possession of weapons. The Bhikshu may not eat flesh, drink alcohol, set forests on fire or be connected with any business injurious to others, such as the slave trade. He is warned against gossip, sins of the eye, foolish practices such as divination and even momentary forgetfulness of his high calling and duties. But it is not sufficient that he should be self-concentrated and without offence. He must labour for the welfare and salvation of others, and it is a sin to neglect such duties as instructing the ignorant, tending the sick, hospitality, saving men or animals from death or slavery, praying[862] for all in danger, exhorting to repentance, sympathy with all living things. A number of disciplinary rules prescribe a similarly high standard for daily monastic life. The monk must be strenuous and intelligent; he must yield obedience to his superiors and set a good example to the laity: he must not teach for money or be selfish in accepting food and gifts. As for creed he is strictly bidden to follow and preach the Mahyna: it is a sin to follow or preach the doctrine of the Srvakas[863] or read their books or not aspire to ultimate Buddhahood. Very remarkable are the injunctions to burn one's limbs in honour of Buddhas: to show great respect to copies of the scriptures and to make vows. From another point of view the first and forty-seventh secondary commandments are equally remarkable: the first bids officials discharge their duties with due respect to the Church and the other protests against improper legislation.

The Fan-w.a.n.g-ching is the most important and most authoritative statement of the general principles regulating monastic life in China.

So far as my own observation goes, it is known and respected in all monasteries. The Pai-chang-ch'ing-kuei[864] deals rather with the details of organization and ritual and has not the same universal currency. It received the approval of the Yan dynasty[865] and is still accepted as authoritative in many monasteries and gives a correct account of their general practice. It was composed by a monk of Kiang-si, who died in 814 A.D. He belonged to the Ch'an school, but his rules are approved by others. I will not attempt to summarize them, but they include most points of ritual and discipline mentioned below. The author indicates the relations which should prevail between Church and State by opening his work with an account of the ceremonies to be performed on the Emperor's birthday, and similar occasions.

Large Buddhist temples almost always form part of a monastery, but smaller shrines, especially in towns, are often served by a single priest. The many-storeyed towers called paG.o.das which are a characteristic beauty of Chinese landscapes, are in their origin stupas erected over relics but at the present day can hardly be called temples or religious buildings, for they are not places of worship and generally owe their construction to the dictates of Fng-shui or geomancy. Monasteries are usually built outside towns and by preference on high ground, whence _shan_ or mountain has come to be the common designation of a convent, whatever its position. The sites of these establishments show the deep feeling of cultivated Chinese for nature and their appreciation of the influence of scenery on temper, an appreciation which connects them spiritually with the psalms of the monks and nuns preserved in the Pali Canon. The architecture is not self-a.s.sertive. Its aim is not to produce edifices complete and satisfying in their own proportions but rather to harmonize buildings with landscape, to adjust courts and pavilions to the slope of the hillside and diversify the groves of fir and bamboo with shrines and towers as fantastic and yet as natural as the mountain boulders. The reader who wishes to know more of them should consult Johnston's _Buddhist China_, a work which combines in a rare degree sound knowledge and literary charm.

A monastery[866] is usually a quadrangle surrounded by a wall.

Before the great gate, which faces south, or in the first court is a tank, spanned by a bridge, wherein grows the red lotus and tame fish await doles of biscuit. The sides of the quadrangle contain dwelling rooms, refectories, guest chambers, store houses, a library, printing press and other premises suitable to a learned and pious foundation.

The interior s.p.a.ce is divided into two or three courts, bordered by a veranda. In each court is a hall of worship or temple, containing a shelf or alcove on which are set the sacred images: in front of them stands a table, usually of ma.s.sive wood, bearing vases of flowers, bowls for incense sticks and other vessels. The first temple is called the Hall of the Four Great Kings and the figures in it represent beings who are still in the world of transmigration and have not yet attained Buddhahood. They include gigantic images of the Four Kings, Maitreya, the Buddha designate of the future, and Wei-to[867], a military Bodhisattva sometimes identified with Indra. Kuan-ti, the Chinese G.o.d of War, is often represented in this building. The chief temple, called the Precious Hall of the Great Hero[868], is in the second court and contains the princ.i.p.al images. Very commonly there are nine figures on either side representing eighteen disciples of the Buddha and known as the Eighteen Lohan or Arhats[869]. Above the altar are one or more large gilt images. When there is only one it is usually Skya-muni, but more often there are three. Such triads are variously composed and the monks often speak of them vaguely as the "three precious ones," without seeming to attach much importance to their ident.i.ty[870]. The triad is loosely connected with the idea of the three bodies of Buddha but this explanation does not always apply and the central figure is sometimes O-mi-to or Kuan-yin, who are the princ.i.p.al recipients of the worship offered by the laity. The latter deity has usually a special shrine at the back of the main altar and facing the north door of the hall, in which her merciful activity as the saviour of mankind is represented in a series of statuettes or reliefs. Other Bodhisattvas such as Ta-shih-chi (Mahsthmaprpta) and Ti-tsang also have separate shrines in or at the side of the great hall[871]. The third hall contains as a rule only small images. It is used for expounding the scriptures and for sermons, if the monastery has a preacher, but is set apart for the religious exercises of the monks rather than the devotions of the laity. In very large monasteries there is a fourth hall for meditation.

Monasteries are of various sizes and the number of monks is not constant, for the peripatetic habit of early Buddhism is not extinct: at one time many inmates may be absent on their travels, at another there may be an influx of strangers. There are also wandering monks who have ceased to belong to a particular monastery and spend their time in travelling. A large monastery usually contains from thirty to fifty monks, but a very large one may have as many as three hundred. The majority are dedicated by their parents as children, but some embrace the career from conviction in their maturity and these, if few, are the more interesting. Children who are brought up to be monks receive a religious education in the monastery, wear monastic clothes and have their heads shaved. At the age of about seventeen they are formally admitted as members of the order and undergo three ceremonies of ordination, which in their origin represented stages of the religious life, but are now performed by acc.u.mulation in the course of a few days. One reason for this is that only monasteries possessing a licence from the Government[872] are allowed to hold ordinations and that consequently postulants have to go some distance to be received as full brethren and are anxious to complete the reception expeditiously. At the first ordination the candidates are accepted as novices: at the second, which follows a day or two afterwards and corresponds to the upasampad, they accept the robes and bowl and promise obedience to the rules of the Prtimoksha. But these ceremonies are of no importance compared with the third, called Shou Pu-sa-chieh[873] or acceptance of the Bodhisattva precepts, that is to say the fifty-eight precepts enunciated in the Fan-w.a.n.g-ching.

The essential part of this ordination is the burning of the candidate's head in from three to eighteen places. The operation involves considerable pain and is performed by lighting pieces of charcoal set in a paste which is spread over the shaven skull.

Although the Fan-w.a.n.g-ching does not mention this burning of the head as part of ordination, yet it emphatically enjoins the practice of burning the body or limbs, affirming that those who neglect it are not true Bodhisattvas[874]. The prescription is founded on the twenty-second chapter of the Lotus[875] which, though a later addition, is found in the Chinese translation made between 265 and 316 A.D.[876] I-Ching discusses and reprobates such practices. Clearly they were known in India when he visited it, but not esteemed by the better Buddhists, and the fact that they form no part of the ordinary Tibetan ritual indicates that they had no place in the decadent Indian Buddhism which in various stages of degeneration was introduced into Tibet[877]. In Korea and j.a.pan branding is practised but on the breast and arms rather than on the head.

It would appear then that burning and branding as part of initiation were known in India in the early centuries of our era but not commonly approved and that their general acceptance in China was subsequent to the death of I-Ching in A.D. 713[878]. This author clearly approved of nothing but the double ordination as novice and full monk. The third ordination as Bodhisattva must be part of the later phase inaugurated by Amogha about 750[879].

This practice is defended as a trial of endurance, but the earlier and better monks were right in rejecting it, for in itself it is an unedifying spectacle and it points to the logical conclusion that, if it is meritorious to cauterize the head, it is still more meritorious to burn the whole body. Cases of suicide by burning appear to have occurred in recent years, especially in the province of Che-Kiang[880]. The true doctrine of the Mahyna is that everyone should strive for the happiness and salvation of all beings, but this beautiful truth may be sadly perverted if it is held that the endurance of pain is in itself meritorious and that such acquired merit can be transferred to others. Self-torture, seems not to be unknown in the popular forms of Chinese Buddhism[881].

The postulant, after receiving these three ordinations, becomes a full monk or Ho-shang[882] and takes a new name. The inmates of every monastery owe obedience to the abbot and some abbots have an official position, being recognized by the Government as representing the clergy of a prefecture, should there be any business to be transacted with the secular authorities. But there is no real hierarchy outside the monasteries, each of which is an isolated administrative unit.

Within each monastery due provision is made for discipline and administration. The monks are divided into two cla.s.ses, the Western who are concerned with ritual and other purely religious duties and the Eastern who are relatively secular and superintend the business of the establishment[883]. This is often considerable for the income is usually derived from estates, in managing which the monks are a.s.sisted by a committee of laymen. Other laymen of humbler status[884] live around the monastery and furnish the labour necessary for agriculture, forestry and whatever industries the character of the property calls into being. As a rule there is a considerable library. Even a sympathetic stranger will often find that the monks deny its existence, because many books have been destroyed in political troubles, but most monasteries possess copies of the princ.i.p.al scriptures and a complete Tripitaka, usually the edition of 1737, is not rare. Whether the books are much read I do not know, but I have observed that after the existence of the library has been admitted, it often proves difficult to find the key. There is also a printing press, where are prepared notices and prayers, as well as copies of popular stras.

The food of the monks is strictly vegetarian, but they do not go round with the begging bowl nor, except in a few monasteries, is it forbidden to eat after midday. As a rule there are three meals, the last about 6 p.m., and all must be eaten in silence. The three garments prescribed by Indian Buddhism are still worn, but beneath them are trousers, stockings, and shoes which are necessary in the Chinese climate. There is no idea that it is wrong to sleep on a bed, to receive presents or own property.

Two or three services are performed daily in the princ.i.p.al temple, early in the morning, about 4 p.m., and sometimes in the middle of the day. A specimen of this ritual may be seen in the service called by Beal the Liturgy of Kuan Yin[885]. It consists of versicles, responses and canticles, and, though strangely reminiscent both in structure and externals (such as the wearing of vestments) of the offices of the Roman Church[886], appears to be Indian in origin. I-Ching describes the choral services which he attended in Nalanda and elsewhere--the chanting, bowing, processions--and the Chinese ritual is, I think, only the amplification of these ceremonies. It includes the presentation of offerings, such as tea, rice and other vegetables. The Chinese pilgrims testify that in India flowers, lights and incense were offered to relics and images (as in Christian churches), and the Bodhicaryvatra[887], one of the most spiritual of later Mahayanist works, mentions offerings of food and drink as part of worship. Many things in Buddhism lent themselves to such a transformation or parody of earlier teaching. Offerings of food to hungry ghosts were countenanced, and it was easy to include among the recipients other spirits. It was meritorious to present food, raiment and property to living saints: oriental, and especially Chinese, symbolism found it natural to express the same devotion by offerings made before images.

In the course of most ceremonies, the monks make vows on behalf of all beings and take oath to work for their salvation. They are also expected to deliver and hear sermons and to engage in meditation. Some of them superintend the education of novices which consists chiefly in learning to read and repeat religious works. Quite recently elementary schools for the instruction of the laity have been inst.i.tuted in some monasteries[888].

The regularity of convent life is broken by many festivals. The year is divided into two periods of wandering, two of meditation and one of repose corresponding to the old Va.s.sa. Though this division has become somewhat theoretical, it is usual for monks to set out on excursions in the spring and autumn. In each month there are six fasts, including the two uposatha days. On these latter the 250 rules of the Prtimoksha are recited in a refectory or side hall and subsequently the fifty-eight rules of the Fan-w.a.n.g-ching are recited with greater ceremony in the main temple.

Another cla.s.s of holy days includes the birthdays[889] not only of Skya-muni, but of other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, the anniversaries of events in Skya-muni's life and the deaths of Bodhidharma and other Saints, among whom the founder or patron of each monastery has a prominent place. Another important and popular festival is called Y-lan-pn or All Souls' day, which is an adaptation of Buddhist usages to Chinese ancestral worship. Of many other festivals it may be said that they are purely Chinese but countenanced by Buddhism: such are the days which mark the changes of the seasons, those sacred to Kuan-ti and other native deities, and (before the revolution) imperial birthdays.

The daily services are primarily for the monks, but the laity may attend them, if they please. More frequently they pay their devotions at other hours, light a few tapers and too often have recourse to some form of divination before the images. Sometimes they defray the cost of more elaborate ceremonies to expiate sins or ensure prosperity. But the lay attendance in temples is specially large at seasons of pilgrimage. For an account of this interesting side of Chinese religious life I cannot do better than refer the reader to Mr.

Johnston's volume already cited.

Though the services of the priesthood may be invoked at every crisis of life, they are most in requisition for funeral ceremonies. A detailed description of these as practised at Amoy has been given by De Groot[890] which is probably true in essentials for all parts of China. These rites unite in incongruous confusion several orders of ideas. Pre-Buddhist Chinese notions of the life after death seem not to have included the idea of h.e.l.l. The disembodied soul is honoured and comforted but without any clear definition of its status. Some representative--a person, figure, or tablet--is thought capable of giving it a temporary residence and at funeral ceremonies offerings are made to such a representative and plays performed before it.

Though Buddhist language may be introduced into this ritual, its spirit is alien to even the most corrupt Buddhism.

Buddhism familiarized China with the idea that the average man stands in danger of purgatory and this doctrine cannot be described as late or Mahayanist[891]. Those epithets are, however, merited by the subsidiary doctrine that such punishment can be abridged by vicarious acts of worship which may take the form of simple prayer addressed to benevolent beings who can release the tortured soul. More often the idea underlying it is that the recitation of certain formul acquires merit for the reciter who can then divert this merit to any purpose[892]. This is really a theological refinement of the ancient and widespread notion that words have magic force. Equally ancient and unBuddhist in origin is the theory of sympathetic magic. Just as by sticking pins into a wax figure you may kill the person represented, so by imitating physical operations of rescue, you may deliver a soul from the furnaces and mora.s.ses of h.e.l.l. Thus a paper model of hades is made which is knocked to pieces and finally burnt: the spirit is escorted with music and other precautions over a mock bridge, and, most singular of all, the priests place over a receptacle of water a special machine consisting of a cylinder containing a revolving apparatus which might help a creature immersed in the fluid to climb up. This strange mummery is supposed to release those souls who are condemned to sojourn in a pool of blood[893]. This, too, is a superst.i.tion countenanced only by Chinese Buddhism, for the punishment is incurred not so much by sinners as by those dying of illnesses which defile with blood. Many other rites are based on the notion that objects--or their paper images--ceremonially burnt are transmitted to the other world for the use of the dead. Thus representations in paper of servants, clothes, furniture, money and all manner of things are burned together with the effigy of the deceased and sometimes also certificates and pa.s.sports giving him a clean bill of health for the Kingdom of Heaven.

As in funeral rites, so in matters of daily life, Buddhism gives its countenance and help to popular superst.i.tion, to every kind of charm for reading the future, securing happiness and driving away evil spirits. In its praise may be said that this patronage, though far too easy going, is not extended to cruel or immoral customs. But the reader will ask, is there no brighter side? I believe that there is, but it is not conspicuous and, as in India, public worship and temple ritual display the lower aspects of religion. But in China a devout Buddhist is generally a good man and the objects of Buddhist a.s.sociations are praiseworthy and philanthropic. They often include vegetarianism and abstinence from alcohol and drugs. The weakness of the religion to-day is no doubt the want of intelligence and energy among the clergy. There are not a few learned and devout monks, but even devotion is not a characteristic of the majority. On the other hand, those of the laity who take their religion seriously generally attain a high standard of piety and there have been attempts to reform Buddhism, to connect it with education and to spread a knowledge of the more authentic scriptures[894].

When one begins to study Buddhism in China, one fears it may be typified by the neglected temples on the outskirts of Peking, sullen and mouldering memorials of dynasties that have pa.s.sed away. But later one learns not only that there are great and nourishing monasteries in the south, but that even in Peking one may often step through an archway into courtyards of which the prosaic streets outside give no hint and find there refreshment for the eye and soul, flower gardens and well-kept shrines tended by pious and learned guardians.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 855: [Chinese: ] For a specimen of devotional literature about the heart see the little tract translated in China Branch, _R.A.S._ XXIII. pp. 9-22.]

[Footnote 856: [Chinese: ] For text translation and commentary, see De Groot, _Code du Mahyna en Chine_, 1893, see also Nanjio, No.

1087.]

[Footnote 857: De Groot, p. 81.]

[Footnote 858: The ident.i.ty of name seems due to a similarity of metaphor. The Brahmajla sutta is a net of many meshes to catch all forms of error. The Fan-w.a.n.g-ching compares the varieties of Buddhist opinion to the meshes of a net (De Groot, _l.c._ p. 26), but the net is the all-inclusive common body of truth.]

[Footnote 859: See, however, sections 20 and 39.]

[Footnote 860: See especially De Groot, _l.c._ p. 58, where the reading of the Abhidharma is forbidden. Though this name is not confined to the Hnayna, A-pi-t'an in Chinese seems to be rarely used as a t.i.tle of Mahayanist books.]

[Footnote 861: The Indian words are transliterated in the Chinese text.]