[VOL I] TEMPLE OF BUDDHA, IN THE SUBURBS OF CANTON

TEMPLE OF BUDDHA, IN THE SUBURBS OF CANTON

Cover Image: Temple of Buddha, Canton / GuangZhou GuangDong China / Drawn by Unknown Engraved by W.H.Capone – ALAMY Image ID:2X2MWE1

*This illustration depicts a scene of Chinese people worshipping Buddha.

The tocsin’s clang, the drum, the gong’s deep boom,
And trumpet’s bray, and bonze’s awful cry,
In Buddha’s name calls (like the voice of doom
To courts of death) the crouching votary.
Hark! with the din the groan of pain unites,
And crowns the music of his idol-rites.

C. J. C.

THERE are three ancient state religions prevalent in China, the principles of which have been explained with more elaboration and erudition, than their morals or their origin deserve. The first, or most orthodox, is that of Confucius (Koong-foo-tse), which is rather a system of ethics than a systematic faith, and never intended as a distinct theological structure, but as the basis or foundation upon which new theories might be built. The sect of Tao-tsze, or “Sons of Immortals,” called also “Rationalists,” embrace doctrines dangerous in practice and disreputable in precept: they exalt reason above revelation, from which they have evidently plundered their specious philosophy, — all recollection of the past, and thought of the future, being repudiated. This is that sect before-mentioned which, like the Cartesians of Europe, disgraced their philosophy by the pretended discovery of a nostrum, or specific, for the prolongation of human life beyond those limits which the wisdom and pleasure of the Creator had assigned. Lao-kung and Confucius were either contemporaries, or lived at a short interval from each other; but their doctrines are widely separated. The one sought to captivate the heart and the judgment by virtuous and rational theories — the other to surprise and win them by means that ministered to the gratification of the passions. Time has disclosed the hypocrisy of one, but sanctified the dignity of the other: for the “Sons of Immortals” are little higher in national esteem than mountbankers and jugglers, while the élite of the empire are disciples of Confucius. The third predominant faith is the second in popularity; and however exposed to the ridicule, or rather pity, of those upon whom the light of revelation has beamed, it derives many of its maxims from the holy writings; the histories and prophecies of which have obviously been conveyed into China either by zealous missionaries or by travelled Chinamen.

These three theories of Confucians, Rationalists, and Buddhists must be viewed as totally distinct and separate sources, in each of which respectively a multitude of sects or sectaries originate. Dissension appears to prevail in every country that has adopted a settled general system of worship, and discord has almost invariably attended its path; but in China this is not found to be the case. Here universal toleration is said to prevail: — yet how can the term “toleration” be appropriate, where “religion,” to which alone Christians apply it, has de facto no existence? The aristocracy are disciples of the Confucian philosophy—the monarch bends his head and bows his knee before the golden shrine of Thibetian Buddhism; and idolatry prevails throughout the land.

Yu, the theory of Confucius, is purely philosophical, Tao, that of Lao-kung, fabulous, and Fo, that of Buddha, political. The first is merely the doctrine of the Stoics—the second, of the Epicureans—and the third, of Pythagoras. They have each separately borrowed their ruling dogmas from their favourite prototype, but all have combined in spoliating the ancient Scriptures.

Buddhism is most probably of Indian or Hindoo origin; but being expelled thence by the learning, zeal, and influence of the Brahmins, sought an asylum elsewhere. Its doctrines spread into Japan, Thibet, and China; in all which great countries, as well as in the island of Ceylon, it still exists. It is also asserted that the exiled priesthood visited Colchis and Mingrelia, and, passing thence into Thrace, there laid the foundation of those institutions which civilized the Hellenes and Pelasgi. According to Indian writers, Buddha, whose historic name was Tshakia-muni, was born under the reign of Tshao-wang, of the Tsoo dynasty, b.c. 1029, and died b.c. 950, in the reign of Mou-wang. Having initiated his disciple, Maha-kaya, in the mysteries of his doctrine, this priest became the senior patriarch of the religion, and is placed at the head of thirty-three holy Buddhists, whose names and chronological succession are carefully recorded. Buddha is regularly deified; and the patriarchs, several of whom voluntarily cast themselves into the flames, and expired in torture to attest their faith, are duly canonized and placed in Chinese mythology. Maming, (in Chinese, Phut-sa—in Sanskrit, Deva Bodhisattva), who gave names to the gods of the second class, is worshipped as the son of Buddha, and as born from his mouth, because by his eloquence he perfected and established his doctrines. Other patriarchs were also celebrated in India, from which Bodhichorma withdrew the last of all, and finding a safe retreat at the foot of the famous Sung mountain in China, there passed the residue of his exemplary life.

The wealth, influence, and resources of this ancient order, were inconceivably great. They were enabled, by the terrors of their doctrines alone, to raise up vast heaps of treasure, and to acquire immense gratuitous contributions of labour. The evidences of their influence upon the feelings of their followers is well attested by the gigantic proportions of the ruined temple of Boro-Budur, in Java, and by the five subterranean halls of Pantsh-Pandu, near the city of Bang, on the route from Guzerat to Malwa. It is from the Hindoo patriarch, who died in the fifth century of the Christian era, that the general Oriental histories deduce the establishment of Bhuddism in the Celestial Empire, and the first ordination of those priests called “spiritual princes of the law”; but their actions differed considerably from that of the Chinese. The Hindoos represent their saint as of royal race, and an avatar or incarnation of Vishnu. In the century that preceded our era, Bhuddism was the predominant religion in India, and embraced, amongst others, by the famous monarch, Vikramaditya; but the triumph of Brahminism in Hindostan was completed in the sixth century by the writings of Camiila Bhatta.

The Chinese origin of this contemptible creed, while it almost demonstrates the assertion made in the preceding page, that Confucius only designed his philosophy as the moral substructure of a religious fabric, assigns a much earlier date to its introduction than has just been stated. Amongst the sayings of Confucius that assume a prophetic tone, there is one that foretells the advent of some saint from the West, Ming-ti, of the Han dynasty, who reigned in the century before our vulgar era, influenced by this passage, despatched emissaries to India in search of the promised holy person. Their efforts were soon crowned with success; and they quickly returned, bringing with them, not one only, but a multitude of Bhuddist priests, with their books, and their idols, and instruments of sacrifice and ceremony. These learned immigrants told a tale that the founder, who had abdicated his throne and retired to a monastery, was metamorphosed, after a life of prayer and abstinence, directly into the god Fo—his transmigration being an example of the metempsychosis, the medium through which his followers inculcate the doctrine of rewards and punishments. They added, that the queen-mother of this demi-god once dreamed that she had swallowed a white elephant, to which circumstance is to be traced the reverence paid to this sagacious animal in Pegu and Ava. Bhuddism recognizes “three precious ones”—the past, present, and future: for Fo, “although one person, has three forms,” analogous to, or identical with Bhudda, Dharma, and Sangha; that is, “Intelligence, Law, and Union.” It is sufficiently evident that Bhuddism, although so ancient, far-spread, and popular amongst the Chinese, is a mere concoction of traditions imported by crafty priests, and precepts extracted from the sacred Scriptures. Their moral code partakes of the same character: it prohibits murder, or the act of killing, theft, impurity, falsehood, and intemperance.

But its plagiarism from the Scriptures proceeds much farther. Amongst the countless idols that occupy the Bhuddist and indeed all other temples, there is one that cannot fail to attract the notice of the Christian visitant; nor is his astonishment dispelled by the explanation which the Bonze gives of its origin and object. This is a female figure, usually represented with an infant in her arms, which they designate as Tien-how, “Queen of Heavens”; and also, “Shing-moo,” Holy Mother. The greatest care is employed in preserving this figure from injury: it is generally placed in a niche behind the altar, and veiled with a silken screen; and a glory, or nimbus, encircles its head. The legend says that a virgin having gone to bathe in the great river, left her garments on the bank, and on her return found a beautiful lotus flower lying upon them. Having eaten the flower, she bore a son, whom a poor fisherman educated, and the miracles which he performed established the divine origin of his birth. It is unnecessary to state the real source of this fable. The figure of the Shing-moo is sometimes in the attitude of prayer, sometimes upright holding the lotus-flower in her hand; at others, seated on the peltate leaf of that beautiful plant. In paintings, the Shing-moo is often represented standing upon the leaves of the waterlily in the midst of a lake. Egyptians and Hindoos have attributed an influence or charm to this remarkable species of water-lily, considering it emblematic of creative power. “The leaves of each succeeding plant are found evolved in the middle of the seed, perfect, and of a beautiful green. When the sun goes down, the large leaves that spread themselves over the surface of the water, close like an umbrella, and the returning sun gradually unfolds them. Now, as these nations considered water to be the primary element, and the first medium on which creative influence began to act, a plant of such singularity, luxuriance, utility, and beauty, could not fail to be regarded by them as a proper symbol for representing that creative power, and was accordingly consecrated, by the one, to Osiris and Isis, emblems of the sun and moon; by the other, to the goddess Ganga and to the sun.” This coincidence is alluded to in the well-known Hindoo hymn to Surya or the sun—

“Lord of the Lotus, father, friend, and king,
O Sun! I thy powers I sing,”

It may be supposed that the dedication of the lotus to sacred objects was prior to the introduction of Bhuddism into China: for we find that the fable of eating the lotus-flower is ascribed to the mother of their first emperor, Foo-shee; nor is there any sect in the Celestial Empire which neglects to reverence the lady and the lotus; all concurring also in the belief, that it is from the flower of this lily that the bodies of their saints are to be reproduced.

Bhuddism encourages its votaries by promises of sensual indulgence in the “Paradise of the West,” and deters them from apostasy and sin by threats of the most painful corporal punishment in their imagined Tartarus. The pleasures appear less attractive than those which Mahomet describes, the penalties infinitely more barbarous than those which other false doctrines menace. When the ten kings of darkness have passed sentence upon a soul in their shadowy hall of justice, the guilty are submitted to the most frightful tortures. Some are tied to burning pillars of brass—some are brayed in a mortar—others are sawn in two—liars have their tongues cut out—thieves their hands amputated, or are themselves cast upon a surface of knife-blades. The blessed, and the virtuous, having first witnessed these heart-rending exhibitions, which must prove no moderate penalty upon benevolent souls, ascend to paradise, and thence pass into other bodies; the guilty enter and animate the corporeal forms of lower animals, whose lots are of the most agonizing and unhappy character.

This system of fable, falsehood, and folly has many millions of admirers, and actually some millions of ministers, who assume the highest degree of sanctity and devotion to their calling. In every part of the empire are temples and monasteries of this absurd faith, sustained in some instances with an extravagance that is seldom exceeded by the followers of any other. In Canton there is one, situated a little to the west of the old English factory, less gorgeous in its decorations than those of Honan or Poo-too, but held in boundless esteem by the sect. The front, or entrance, consists of a low colonnade, ascended by a central flight of steps leading into a quadrangle, on one side of which is a long range of corridors, where a gallery enclosed by railing, occupied by the “three precious Buddhas.” Every frieze, or panel, of that which occurs in the architectural design, is inscribed with a sentence from the sacred writings, inculcating a moral precept, or alarming the indolence of the votaries. This practice is in itself a proof of the diffusion of education, to a certain extent, amongst the Chinese, for it is not confined to places of worship, where the hierophants are present to decipher the maxims—private houses, villas, entrances to all places of business, are also inscribed with the name or object of the building or locality. Passing from the first court, a second is reached, which is placed under the tutelage of two huge grim-visaged golden giants, in the act of gnashing their great teeth, and at the same time grasping their monstrous sabres. A third court is to be crossed, before the principal hall of the temple, the place of the high altar, is entered. In the centre of this apartment, which is less spacious than that appropriated to the Bhuddist triad, is a pillar or pedestal of yellow gypsum, formed from a single block, and carved with a degree of skill and excellence scarcely to be surpassed. On its front panel is the figure of a female seated on a lion, and holding an infant in her lap; the character of the countenance is not Chinese, neither is the contour of the head. Above the square pillar rises a spiral cone, terminating in two elongated balls. The superiority of the design and perfection of the workmanship favour the conclusion that this exquisite sculpture is the production of foreign artists; but the avowed contempt in which the performances of strangers have always been held by the Celestials, presents an insurmountable objection. The temple-hall is an oblong area, the roof being sustained by wooden pillars resting on stone feet or pedestals. A spacious lantern admits a full flood of light, and drapery of richly-embroidered silk depends from its outline, while midnight lanterns of various patterns hang from the cross-beam of the roof. An altar-table, encircling the pillar, is crowded with censers, vases filled with artificial flowers, burning tapers, and torches ready for illumination. Beautiful china jars are laid along at intervals, containing a fine blue earth, into which the joss-sticks are fixed, and beside them bowls or cups with sticks-of-fate for fortune-telling. The joss-sticks are combustible, and are constantly burning in the temples and joss-houses:—the sticks-of-fate are consulted by both sexes, and upon occasions of little as well as great importance. Before the altar, mandarins are frequently seen bowing their heads, sometimes striking their foreheads against the pavement; a ceremony generally, and not unnaturally, followed by a deep groan. Around are loiterers, musicians, servants waiting to hold umbrellas over their mandarin-masters’ heads, even during the solemn ceremony of knocking them against the stone, besides numerous officials of the temple. The chief duty of the latter is to strike a tremendous gong, and beat a deep-toned drum of monstrous size and covered with ox-hide, while a great bell is tolled occasionally, and small ones rang without cessation, to arouse the votaries, and perhaps the sleepy gods themselves are also included in the vain expectation.

It would be an endless task to describe the number of objects that fill these idol-houses, and an impossible one to explain with truth and accuracy the ideas attached to the worship of each image; the very hierophants themselves are ignorant of the origin and meaning of many of their idols, being so long habituated to image-worship, that they select from the multitude of their gods, the one most pleasing to their own conceptions, and bestow upon it the largest share of their mistaken veneration. — Vide Poo-ta-la, p. 20.

---