Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch Volume III Part 38

[Footnote 862: More accurately reading the stras on their behalf, but this exercise is practically equivalent to intercessory prayer.]

[Footnote 863: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 864: The full t.i.tle is [Chinese: ] Pai Chang is apparently to be taken as the name of the author, but it is the designation of a monastery used as a personal name. See Hackmann in _T'oung Pao_, 1908, pp. 651-662. It is No. 1642 in Nanjio's Catalogue. He says that it has been revised and altered.]

[Footnote 865: See _T'oung Pao_, 1904, pp. 437 ff.]

[Footnote 866: It is probable that the older Chinese monasteries attempted to reproduce the arrangement of Nlanda and other Indian establishments. Unfortunately Hsan Chuang and the other pilgrims give us few details as to the appearance of Indian monasteries: they tell us, however, that they were surrounded by a wall, that the monks'

quarters were near this wall, that there were halls where choral services were performed and that there were triads of images. But the Indian buildings had three stories. See Chavannes, _Mmoire sur les Religieux Eminents_, 1894, p. 85.]

[Footnote 867: [Chinese: ] or [Chinese: ] For this personage see the article in _B.E.F.E.O._ 1916. No. 3, by Pri who identifies him with Wei, the general of the Heavenly Kings who appeared to Tao Hsan the founder of the Vinaya school and became popular as a protecting deity of Buddhism. The name is possibly a mistaken transcription of Skandha.]

[Footnote 868: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 869: [Chinese: ] See Lvi and Chavannes' two articles in _J.A._ 1916, I and II, and Watters in _J.R.A.S._ 1898, p. 329, for an account of these personages. The original number, still found in a few Chinese temples as well as in Korea, j.a.pan and Tibet was sixteen.

Several late stras contain the idea that the Buddha entrusted the protection of his religion to four or sixteen disciples and bade them not enter Nirvana but tarry until the advent of Maitreya. The Ta-A-lo-han-nan-t'i-mi-to-lo-so-shuo-fa-chu-chi (Nanjio, 1466) is an account of these sixteen disciples and of their spheres of influence.

The Buddha a.s.signed to each a region within which it is his duty to guard the faith. They will not pa.s.s from this life before the next Buddha comes. Pin?d?ola is the chief of them. Nothing is known of the work cited except that it was translated in 654 by Hsan Chuang, who, according to Watters, used an earlier translation. As the Arhats are Indian personalities, and their spheres are mapped out from the point of view of Indian geography, there can be no doubt that we have to do with an Indian idea, imported into Tibet as well as into China where it became far more popular than it had ever been in India. The two additional Arhats (who vary in different temples, whereas the sixteen are fixed) appear to have been added during the T'ang dynasty and, according to Watters, in imitation of a very select order of merit inst.i.tuted by the Emperor T'ai Tsung and comprising eighteen persons. Chavannes and Lvi see in them spirits borrowed from the popular pantheon.

Chinese ideas about the Lohans at the present day are very vague.

Their Indian origin has been forgotten and some of them have been provided with Chinese biographies. (See Dor, p. 216.) One popular story says that they were eighteen converted brigands.

In several large temples there are halls containing 500 images of Arhats, which include many Chinese Emperors and one of them is often pointed out as being Marco Polo. But this is very doubtful. See, however, Hackmann, _Buddhismus_, p. 212.]

[Footnote 870: Generally they consist of Skya-muni and two superhuman Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, such as O-mi-to (Amitbha) and Yo-shih-fo (Vaidrya): Pi-lu-fo (Vairocana) and Lo-shih-fo (Lochana): Wn-shu (Manjus-ri) and P'u-hsien (Samantabhadra). The common European explanation that they are the Buddhas of the past, present and future is not correct.]

[Footnote 871: [Chinese: ] and [Chinese: ]. For the importance of Ti-tsang in popular Buddhism, which has perhaps been underestimated, see Johnston, chap. VII.]

[Footnote 872: I speak of the Old Imperial Government which came to an end in 1911.]

[Footnote 873: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 874: De Groot, _l.c._ p.51.]

[Footnote 875: See Kern's translation, especially pp. 379 and 385.]

[Footnote 876: See Nanjio, Nos. 138 and 139. The practice is not entirely unknown in the legends of Pali Buddhism. In the Lokapaatti, a work existing in Burma but perhaps translated from the Sanskrit, Asoka burns himself in honour of the Buddha, but is miraculously preserved. See _B.E.F.E.O._ 1904, pp. 421 and 427.]

[Footnote 877: See I-Tsing, _Records of the Buddhist Religion_, trans.

Takakusu, pp. 195 ff., and for Tibet, Waddell, _Buddhism of Tibet_, p.

178, note 3, from which it appears that it is only in Eastern Tibet and probably under Chinese influence that branding is in vogue. For apparent instances in Central Asian art, see Grnwedel, _Budd.

Kultst._ p. 23, note 1.]

[Footnote 878: Branding is common in many Hindu sects, especially the Mdhvas, but is reprobated by others.]

[Footnote 879: It is condemned as part of the superst.i.tion of Buddhism in a memorial of Han Y, 819 A.D.]

[Footnote 880: See those cited by De Groot, _l.c_. p. 228, and the article of MacGowan (_Chinese Recorder_, 1888) there referred to. See also Hackmann, _Buddhism as a Religion_, p. 228. Chinese sentiment often approves suicide, for instance, if committed by widows or the adherents of defeated princes. For a Confucian instance, see Johnston, p. 341.]

[Footnote 881: See _e.g._ Du Bose, _The Dragon, Image and Demon_, p.

265. I have never seen such practices myself. See also _Paraphrase of the Sacred Edict_, VII. 8.]

[Footnote 882: [Chinese: ] This word, which has no derivation in Chinese, is thought to be a corruption of some vernacular form of the Sanskrit Updhyya current in Central Asia. See I-tsing, transl.

Takakusu, p. 118. Updhyya became Vajjha (as is shown by the modern Indian forms Ojha or Jha and Tamil Vddyar). See Bloch in _Indo-Germanischen Forschungen_, vol. XXV. 1909, p. 239. Vajjha might become in Chinese Ho-sho or Ho-shang for Ho sometimes represents the Indian syllable _va_. See Julien, _Mthode_, p. 109, and Eitel, _Handbook of Chinese Buddhism_, p. 195.]

[Footnote 883: For details see Hackmann in _T'oung Pao_, 1908.]

[Footnote 884: They apparently correspond to the monastic lay servants or "pure men" described by I-Ching, chap. x.x.xII, as living as Nlanda.]

[Footnote 885: _A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese_, pp.

339 ff.]

[Footnote 886: The abbot and several upper priests wear robes, which are generally red and gold, during the service. The abbot also carries a sort of sceptre. The vestments of the clergy are said to be derived from the robes of honour which used to be given to them when they appeared at Court.]

[Footnote 887: II. 16. Cf. the rituals in De la Valle Poussin's _Bouddhisme et Matriaux_, pp. 214 ff. Trantha frequently mentions burnt offerings as part of worship in medieval Magadha.]

[Footnote 888: I do not refer to the practice of turning disused temples into schools which is frequent. In some monasteries the monks, while retaining possession, have themselves opened schools.]

[Footnote 889: It is not clear to me what is really meant by the _birthdays_ of beings like Maitreya and Amitbha.]

[Footnote 890: _Actes du Sixime Congres des Orientalistes_, Leide, 1883, sec. IV. pp. 1-120.]

[Footnote 891: _E.g._ in Dipavamsa, XIII; Mahv. XIV. Mahinda is represented as converting Ceylon by accounts of the terrors of the next world.]

[Footnote 892: The merit of good deeds can be similarly utilized. The surviving relatives feed the poor or buy and maintain for the rest of its life an animal destined to slaughter. The merit then goes to the deceased.]

[Footnote 893: It may possibly be traceable to Manichism which taught that souls are transferred from one sphere to another by a sort of cosmic water wheel. See c.u.mont's article, "La roue puiser les mes du Manichisme" in _Rev. de l'Hist, des Religions_, 1915, p. 384.

Chavannes and Pelliot have shown that traces of Manichism lingered long in Fu-Kien. The metaphor of the endless chain of buckets is also found in the Yan Jn Lun.]

[Footnote 894: See Francke, "Ein Buddhistischer Reformversuch in China," _T'oung Pao_, 1909, pp. 567-602.]

CHAPTER XLVII

KOREA[895]

The Buddhism of Korea cannot be sharply distinguished from the Buddhism of China and j.a.pan. Its secluded mountain monasteries have some local colour, and contain halls dedicated to the seven stars and the mountain G.o.ds of the land. And travellers are impressed by the columns of rock projecting from the soil and carved into images (miriok), by the painted walls of the temples and by the huge rolled-up pictures which are painted and displayed on festival days.

But there is little real originality in art: in literature and doctrine none at all. Buddhism started in Korea with the same advantages as in China and j.a.pan but it lost in moral influence because the monks continually engaged in politics and it did not win temporal power because they were continually on the wrong side. Yet Korea is not without importance in the annals of far-eastern Buddhism for, during the wanderings and vicissitudes of the faith, it served as a rest-house and depot. It was from Korea that Buddhism first entered j.a.pan: when, during the wars of the five dynasties the T'ien-t'ai school was nearly annihilated in China, it was revived by a Korean priest and the earliest extant edition of the Chinese Tripitaka is known only by a single copy preserved in Korea and taken thence to j.a.pan.

For our purposes Korean history may be divided into four periods:

I. The three States (B.C. 57-A.D. 668).

II. The Kingdom of Silla (668-918).

III. The Kingdom of Korye (918-1392).

IV. The Kingdom of Chosen (1392-1910).