[VOL II] ALTAR-PIECE IN THE GREAT TEMPLE, TING-HAI

ALTAR-PIECE IN THE GREAT TEMPLE, TING-HAI

Cover Image: Altar-piece in the Great MaZu Temple, Ting-hai / DingHai ZhouShan ZheJiang China / Drawn by T. Allom Engraved by W.Wetherhead – ALAMY Image ID:2X55MWR

*The Ma Zu belief that emerged in the Southern Song Dynasty was not accidental. It reflects the maritime awareness of the southern people and received recognition and development throughout society. Ma Zu was probably not the first “Sea Goddess” in Chinese history, but she was the first to be officially recognized by the government and included in official worship ceremonies.

“Such are thy creeds, O man! when thou art given
To thy own fearful nature – false and stern!
What were we now, but that all-pitying Heaven
Sent us a holier, purer faith to learn? –
Type of its message came the white-winged dove –
What is the Christian’s creed? – Faith, Hope, and Love.”

THIS singular production, which is a legitimate specimen of neither painting nor sculpture, but a combination of both, discloses, in some degree, the origin of Bhuddism, or exposes the motley character of the worship that now degrades the Chinese nation. It consists of a quantity of massive carved wood-work intermixed with stucco, all in alto-relievo, gaudily coloured and profusely gilt. The principal figure is a female, supported by a dolphin that swims breast-high through the waves, with an infant rising from her breast, a lotus-flower in her right hand, and a nimbus encircling her head. The cell, or recess, in which she is located, represents a grotto of rock-work, on the projecting angles of which little figures are placed, all appearing to supplicate or respect the deity of the waters. On one cliff is a soldier, on another a sailor; an agriculturist occupies a bold prominence, and a king with his mortal crown, extends his supplicating hands towards this patron of the helpless. From the monarch to the mendicant none seem to be exempt from the necessity of appeal to her wooden majesty. A large table or platform in front is covered with little images of various shapes, and with pastiles, and perfumes, and joss-sticks, the accompaniments of every altar of Bhuddism. It is immediately in front of this high altar that the devotees beat their foreheads against the pavement, to the measured tones of a monstrous drum, the loud vibrations of a huge gong, or the dulcet sounds of a great silver bell.

No temple in China is more celebrated for its wealth or magnitude, more admired for the elegance of its architecture, or more frequented from the supposed sanctity of its relics, than the Yun-stzoo-stzee. It is not only the greatest in Chusan, but in all China; and while no relaxation of those inhospitable laws, that closed their ports against the foreigner, was permitted in other instances, leave to visit this noble temple has always been granted to Barbarians; but, however grateful the traveller may be for the privilege, it is more than probable that his thanks are due to ostentation rather than hospitality.

Fo is the presiding deity over this vast assemblage of idols and curiosities, but the furniture of his temple resembles that of the Immortals; in both, a group resembling the lady and child occurs. Poo-sha, Shing-moo, Teen-how-neang, and Kuan-yin, all differ in certain minute particulars, but all agree in the general signification of “Queen of Heaven.” Over the entrances to the temples of the Immortals, the following dedicatory sentences are constantly inscribed—”To the Holy Mother, Queen of Heaven, the Goddess of Peace and Power, descended from the island of Moui-tao, who stills the waves of the sea, allays storms, protects the empire;” or, as this—”The ancient temple of the Goddess (Kin-wha) of the Golden Flower, through whose influence fields are green, and fertile like a grove of trees, and benefits are diffused as the frothy waves of the sea, that shine like splendid pearls.”

As the Tao-tzes, or Immortals, are mere dissenters from Bhuddism, they have carried away with them the worship of a Queen of Heaven; it remains therefore to be shown whence the latter derived this ceremony, so singularly analogous to the adoration of the Virgin Mary in the Catholic churches. It is a custom of ancient practice amongst the Hindos to inscribe a dedicatory sentence, on their door-posts, to the goddess Gamesa, in the same manner as the Tao-tzes now do to the holy mother; but, there is another Hindoo deity that still more closely resembles the Chinese sea-nymph than the Gamesa, which is generally represented riding on a fish, or reposing on the waves. From one or both of these the Celestial Queen of the Ocean may be derived.

But, curiosity, and a natural love of truth, will not rest satisfied with the explanation, that one set of idolatrous men copied from another history, or narrative, which is so obviously taken from the Book of Life. It cannot be otherwise than true, that the worship of the Queen of Heaven in China is a confused conception of that Christian religion, which the Jesuits most mischievously laboured to teach the nation, and which they have unhappily retained the cross but lose the mean! The legends of Kuan-yin say, that “the Queen of Heaven” was a pious virgin of that province, who saw, in a vision, her kindred in danger of being shipwrecked, and, boldly walking on the waters, rescued them from peril. This tale applies exactly to the figure “Kuan-yin,” in the accompanying illustration, which rides on a dolphin in a troubled sea, rescuing all that are in danger; an allegorical representation of her power to save and to rescue in the agitated ocean of life; but, her holding an infant to her breast is not mentioned in the legend of Fo-kien. The story of the Shing-moo, already related in these pages, in speaking of the lady and the lotus, corresponds so closely with the relation of our Saviour’s birth, that discrepancies appear to have arisen either from the want of a written history, or a desire to conceal the theft by disfiguring the truth. If, as is supposed by some writers, the Jesuits found the worship of the Queen of Heaven, under different names but the same idea, prevailing in China when they reached it, there is another source remaining to which its entrance into the empire may be traced—and that is, to those Nestorian Christians, whose degenerated faith may have become amalgamated with the idolatries by which they long continued to be surrounded.

Shing-moo, the most frequent epithet for “Holy Mother,” means, rather, “Omni-scient Mother”; Poo-sa, the “All-helping Deity,” would appear to be the offspring of Shing-moo; “Teen-how” signifies “Queen of Heaven”; and “Kuan-yin,” the “Goddess of Mercy.” All these are but synonyms for the same object, whether it be originally or partially Chinese. It should not be left unnoticed, as a further evidence that the Teen-how is not originally Chinese, but rather that it is borrowed from some Christian sect, that, the Buddhist priests distinctly deny that votaries are required to worship the images set up in their temples, while they refuse to remove them, but assert, that they are useful in suggesting the originals, to whom, as intercessors or mediators only, prayers are offered and beads are counted. Do the humble supplicants to the Teen-how perfectly comprehend this distinction, so that all danger of descending from the thoughts of the original to its worthless copy may be avoided, and graven images not thereby worshipped through misconception? Besides its celebrated altar-piece, this temple abounds in extraordinary images, relics, and curiosities. In common with the other places of worship at Ting-hai, it has been presented with objects of rarity by mandarins and foreigners, and is now one of the most complete cabinets in the empire. The little figures that stand on every projection, or fill every niche, are said to represent the priests who have passed to the paradise of Bhuddists; but their deformity and grotesqueness incline the visitor to doubt this explanation. We have, ’tis true, a singular instance, in our own cathedrals, of devices carved beneath the seats in the choir stalls, which cannot be exceeded in strangeness of design. These are said to have been executed by the lay-brothers of the monastery, to satirize secretly the priestly brotherhood, whose lives were less pure than their lips declared. Siam, too, has contributed to increase the mixture of elements in the composition of worship at Ting-hai, by sending thither a beautiful white elephant. This almost rational creature is lodged in the same temple with the remarkable altar-piece, but does not receive absolute adoration, although its comforts, in every respect, are most sedulously attended to.