Since writing the foregoing prefatory remarks, I have observed with much
concern that a prevalent error, in regard to Buddhism, is still
persistently propagated. It is categorically stated in a newspaper
report of a quite recent lecture, that out of the world’s population of
about 1500 millions at least 500 millions are Buddhists, and that
Buddhism numbers more adherents than any other religion on the surface
of the globe.
Almost every European writer on Buddhism, of late years, has assisted in
giving currency to this utterly erroneous calculation, and it is high
time that an attempt should be made to dissipate a serious
misconception.
It is forgotten that mere sympathizers with Buddhism, who occasionally
conform to Buddhistic practices, are not true Buddhists. In China the
great majority are first of all Confucianists and then either Tāoists or
Buddhists or both. In Japan Confucianism and Shintoism co-exist with
Buddhism. In some other Buddhist countries a kind of Shamanism is
practically dominant. The best authorities (including the Oxford
Professor of Chinese, as stated in the Introduction to his excellent
work ‘The Travels of Fā-hien’) are of opinion that there are not more
than 100 millions of real Buddhists in the world, and that Christianity
with its 430 to 450 millions of adherents has now the numerical
preponderance over all other religions. I am entirely of the same
opinion. I hold that the Buddhism, described in the following pages,
contained within itself, from the earliest times, the germs of disease,
decay, and death (see p. 557), and that its present condition is one of
rapidly increasing disintegration and decline.
We must not forget that Buddhism has disappeared from India proper,
although it dominates in Ceylon and Burma, and although a few Buddhist
travellers find their way back to the land of its origin and sojourn
there.
Indeed, if I were called upon to give a rough comparative numerical
estimate of the six chief religious systems of the world, I should be
inclined, on the whole, to regard Confucianism as constituting, next to
Christianity, the most numerically prevalent creed. We have to bear in
mind the immense populations, both in China and Japan, whose chief creed
is Confucianism.
Professor Legge informs me that Dr. Happer—an American Presbyterian
Missionary of about 45 years standing, who has gone carefully into the
statistics of Buddhism—reckons only 20 millions of Buddhists in China,
and not more than 72½ millions in the whole of Asia. Dr. Happer states
that, if the Chinese were required to class themselves as Confucianists
or Buddhists or Tāoists, 19/20ths, if not 99/100ths, of them would, in
his opinion, claim to be designated as Confucianists.
In all probability his estimate of the number of Buddhists in China is
too low, but the Chinese ambassador Liū, with whom Professor Legge once
had a conversation on this subject, ridiculed the view that they were as
numerous as the Confucianists.
Undeniably, as it seems to me, the next place after Christianity and
Confucianism should be given to Brāhmanism and Hindūism, which are not
really two systems but practically one; the latter being merely an
expansion of the former, modified by contact with Buddhism.
Brāhmanism, as I have elsewhere shown, is nothing but spiritual
Pantheism; that is, a belief in the universal diffusion of an impersonal
Spirit (called Brăhmăn or Brăhmă)—as the only really existing
Essence—and in its manifesting itself in Mind and in countless material
forces and forms, including gods, demons, men, and animals, which, after
fulfilling their course, must ultimately be re-absorbed into the one
impersonal Essence and be again evolved in endless evolution and
dissolution.
Hindūism, with its worship of Vishṇu and Ṡiva, is based on this
pantheistic doctrine, but the majority of the Hindūs are merely
observers of Brāhmanical institutions with their accompanying Hindū
caste usages. If, however, we employ the term Hindū in its widest
acceptation (omitting only all Islāmized Hindūs) we may safely affirm
that the adherents of Hindūism have reached an aggregate of nearly 200
millions. In the opinion of Sir William Wilson Hunter, they are still
rapidly increasing, both by excess of births over deaths and by
accretions from more backward systems of belief.
Probably Buddhism has a right to the fourth place in the scale of
numerical comparison. At any rate the number of Buddhists can scarcely
be calculated at less than 100 millions.
In regard to Muhammadanism, this creed should not, I think, be placed
higher than fifth in the enumeration. In its purest form it ought to be
called Islām, and in that form it is a mere distorted copy of Judaism.
The Empress of India, as is well known, rules over more Muhammadans than
any other potentate in the world. Probably the Musalmān population of
the whole of India now numbers 55 millions.
As to the number of Muhammadans in the Turkish empire, there are no very
trustworthy data to guide us, but the aggregate is believed to be about
14 millions; while Africa can scarcely reckon more than that number,
even if Egypt be included.
The sixth system, Tāoism (the system of Lāo-tsze), according to
Professor Legge, should rank numerically after both Muhammadanism and
Buddhism.
Of course Jainism (p. 529) and Zoroastrianism (the religion of the
Pārsīs) are too numerically insignificant to occupy places in the above
comparison.
It is possible that a careful census might result in a more favourable
estimate of the number of Buddhists in the world, than I have here
submitted; but at all events it may safely be alleged that, even as a
form of popular religion, Buddhism is gradually losing its
vitality—gradually loosening its hold on the vast populations once loyal
to its rule; nay, that the time is rapidly approaching when its capacity
for resistance must give way before the mighty forces which are destined
in the end to sweep it from the earth.
M. M.-W.
88 Onslow Gardens, London.
_January 15, 1889._