The Chinese are emphatically not a religious people, though they are
very superstitious. Belief in a God has come down from the remotest
ages, but the old simple creed has been so overlaid by Buddhism as
not to be discernible at the present day. Buddhism is now the dominant
religion of China. It is closely bound up with the lives of the people,
and is a never-failing refuge in sickness or worldly trouble. It is no
longer the subtle doctrine which was originally presented to the people
of India, but something much more clearly defined and appreciable by
the plainest intellect. Buddha is the saviour of the people through
righteousness alone, and Buddhist saints are popularly supposed to
possess intercessory powers. Yet reverence is always wanting; and crowds
will laugh and talk, and buy and sell sweetmeats, in a Buddhist temple,
before the very eyes of the most sacred images. So long as divine
intervention is not required, an ordinary Chinaman is content to neglect
his divinities; but no sooner does sickness or financial trouble come
upon the family, than he will hurry off to propitiate the gods.
He accomplishes this through the aid of the priests, who receive his
offerings of money, and light candles or incense at the shrine of the
deity to be invoked. Buddhist priests are not popular with the Chinese,
who make fun of their shaven heads, and doubt the sincerity of their
convictions as well as the purity of their lives. "No meat nor wine may
enter here" is a legend inscribed at the gate of most Buddhist temples,
the ordinary diet as served in the refectory being strictly vegetarian.
A tipsy priest, however, is not an altogether unheard-of combination,
and has provided more than one eminent artist with a subject of an
interesting picture.
Yet the ordeal through which a novice must pass before being admitted to
holy orders is a severe tax upon nerve and endurance. In the process of
a long ritual, at least three, or even so many as nine, pastilles are
placed upon the bald scalp of the head. These are then lighted, and
allowed to burn down into the skin until permanent scars have been
formed, the unfortunate novice being supported on both sides by priests
who encourage him all the time to bear what must be excruciating pain.
The fully qualified priest receives a diploma, on the strength of which
he may demand a day and a night's board and lodging from the priests of
any temple all over the empire.
At a very early date Buddhism had already taken a firm hold on the
imagination of Chinese poets and painters, the latter of whom loved to
portray the World-honoured One in a dazzling hue of gold. A poet of the
eighth century A.D., who realized for the first time the inward meaning
of the Law, as it is called, ended a panegyric on Buddhism with the
following lines:--
O thou pure Faith, had I but known thy scope,
The Golden God had long since been my hope!
Taoism is a term often met with in books about China. We are told
that the three religions of the people are Confucianism, Buddhism, and
Taoism, this being the order of precedence assigned to them in A.D. 568.
Confucianism is of course not a religion at all, dealing as it does with
duty towards one's neighbour and the affairs of this life only; and it
will be seen that Taoism, in its true sense, has scarcely a stronger
claim. At a very remote day, some say a thousand, and others six
hundred, years before the Christian era, there flourished a wise man
named Lao Tzu, which may be approximately pronounced as _Loudza_ (_ou_
as in _loud_), and understood to mean the Old Philosopher. He was a very
original thinker, and a number of his sayings have been preserved to us
by ancient authors, whom they had reached by tradition; that is to say,
the Old Philosopher never put his doctrines into book form. There is
indeed in existence a work which passes under his name, but it is now
known to be a forgery, and is generally discarded by scholars.
The great flaw in the teaching of the Old Philosopher was its extremely
impractical character, its unsuitability to the needs of men and women
engaged in the ordinary avocations of life. In one sense he was an
Anarchist, for he held that the empire would fare better if there were
no government at all, the fact being that violence and disorder had
always been conspicuous even under the best rulers. Similarly, he argued
that we should get along more profitably with less learning, because
then there would be fewer thieves, successful thieving being the result
of mental training. It is not necessary to follow him to his most famous
doctrine, namely, that of doing nothing, by which means, he declared,
everything could be done, the solution of which puzzle of left everybody
to find out for himself. Among his quaint sayings will be found several
maxims of a very different class, as witness his injunction, "Requite
evil with kindness," and "Mighty is he who conquers himself." Of the
latter, the following illustration is given by a commentator. Two men
meeting in the street, one said to the other, "How fat you have grown!"
"Yes," replied his friend, "I have lately won a battle." "What do you
mean?" inquired the former. "Why, you see," said the latter, "so long
as I was at home, reading about ancient kings, I admired nothing but
virtue; then, when I went out of doors, I was attracted by the charms
of wealth and power. These two feelings fought inside me, and I began to
lose flesh; but now love of virtue has conquered, and I am fat."
The teachings of the Old Philosopher were summed up in the word _Tao_,
pronounced as _tou(t)_, which originally meant a road, a way; and
as applied to doctrines means simply the right way or path of moral
conduct, in which mankind should tread so as to lead correct and
virtuous lives. Later on, when Buddhism was introduced, this Taoism,
with all its paradoxes and subtleties, to which alchemy and the
concoction of an elixir of life had been added, gradually began to lose
its hold upon the people; and in order to stem the tide of opposition,
temples and monasteries were built, a priesthood was established in
imitation of the Buddhists, and all kinds of ceremonies and observances
were taken from Buddhism, until, at the present day, only those who know
can tell one from the other.
Although alchemy, which was introduced from Greece, via Bactria, in the
second century B.C., has long ceased to interest the Chinese public, who
have found out that gold is more easily made from the sweat of the
brow than from copper or lead; and although only a few silly people now
believe that any mixture of drugs will produce an elixir of life, able
to confer immortality upon those who drink it; nevertheless, Taoism
still professes to teach the art of extending life, if not indefinitely,
at any rate to a considerable length. This art would probably go some
way towards extending life under any circumstances, for it consists
chiefly in deep and regular breathing, preferably of morning air,
in swallowing the saliva three times in every two hours, in adopting
certain positions for the body and limbs, which are also strengthened
by gymnastic exercises, and finally, as borrowed from the Buddhists, in
remaining motionless for some hours a day, the eyes shut, and the mind
abstracted as much as possible from all surrounding influences. The
upshot of these and other practices is the development of "the pure
man," on which Chuang Tzu (_Chwongdza_), a Taoist philosopher of the
third and fourth centuries B.C., to be mentioned again, writes as
follows: "But what is a pure man? The pure men of old acted without
calculation, not seeking to secure results. They laid no plans.
Therefore, failing, they had no cause for regret; succeeding, no cause
for congratulation. And thus they could scale heights without fear;
enter water without becoming wet, and fire without feeling hot. The pure
men of old slept without dreams, and waked without anxiety. They ate
without discrimination, breathing deep breaths. For pure men draw breath
from their heels; the vulgar only from their throats."
Coupled with what may be called intellectual Taoism, as opposed to the
grosser form under which this faith appeals to the people at large, is
a curious theory that human life reaches the earth from some
extraordinarily dazzling centre away in the depths of space, "beyond
the range of conceptions." This centre appears to be the home of eternal
principles, the abode of a First Cause, where perfectly spotless and
pure beings "drink of the spiritual and feed on force," and where
likeness exists without form. To get back to that state should be the
object of all men, and this is only to be attained by a process of
mental and physical purification prolonged through all conditions of
existence. Then, when body and soul are fitted for the change, there
comes what ordinary mortals call death; and the pure being closes his
eyes, to awake forthwith in his original glory from the sleep which
mortals call life.
For many centuries Buddhism and Taoism were in bitter antagonism.
Sometimes the court was Buddhist, sometimes Taoist; first one faith was
suppressed altogether, then the other; in A.D. 574 both were abolished
in deference to Confucianism, which, however, no emperor has ever dared
to interfere with seriously. At present, all the "three religions"
flourish happily side by side.
The Chinese believe firmly in the existence of spirits, which they
classify simply as good and evil. They do not trouble their heads much
about the former, but they are terribly afraid of the latter. Hideous
devils infest dark corners, and lie in wait to injure unfortunate
passers-by, often for no cause whatever. The spirits of persons who have
been wronged are especially dreaded by those who have done the wrong.
A man who has been defrauded of money will commit suicide, usually by
poison, at the door of the wrongdoer, who will thereby first fall into
the hands of the authorities, and if he escapes in that quarter,
will still have to count with the injured ghost of his victim. A
daughter-in-law will drown or hang herself to get free from, and also to
avenge, the tyranny or cruelty of her husband's mother. These acts lead
at once to family feuds, which sometimes end in bloodshed; more often in
money compensation; and the known risk of such contingencies operates as
a wholesome check upon aggressive treatment of the weak by the strong.
Divination and fortune-telling have always played a conspicuous part in
ordinary Chinese life. Wise men, of the magician type, sit at stalls
in street and market-place, ready for a small fee to advise those
who consult them on any enterprise to be undertaken, even of the most
trivial kind. The omens can be taken in various ways, as by calculation
based upon books, of which there is quite a literature, or by
drawing lots inscribed with mystic signs, to be interpreted by the
fortune-teller. Even at Buddhist temples may be found two kidney-shaped
pieces of wood, flat on one side and round on the other, which are
thrown into the air before an altar, the results--two flats, two rounds,
or one of each--being interpreted as unfavourable, medium, and very
favourable, respectively.
Of all Chinese superstitions, the one that has been most persistent,
and has exerted the greatest influence upon national life, is the
famous Wind-and-Water system (_feng shui_) of geomancy. According to
the principles which govern this system, and of which quite a special
literature exists, the good or evil fortunes of individuals and
the communities are determined by the various physical aspects and
conditions which surround their everyday life. The shapes of hills,
the presence or absence of water, the position of trees, the height of
buildings, and so forth, are all matters of deep consideration to
the professors of the geomantic art, who thrive on the ignorance of
superstitious clients. They are called in to select propitious sites for
houses and graves; and it often happens that if the fortunes of a family
are failing, a geomancer will be invited to modify in some way the
arrangement of the ancestral graveyard. Houses in a Chinese street are
never built up so as to form a line of uniform height; every now and
again one house must be a little higher or a little lower than its
neighbour, or calamity will certainly ensue. It is impossible to walk
straight into an ordinary middle-class dwelling-house. Just inside the
front door there will be a fixed screen, which forces the visitor to
turn to the right or to the left; the avowed object being to exclude
evil spirits, which can only move in straight lines.
Mention of the ancestral graveyard brings to mind the universal worship
of ancestors, which has been from time immemorial such a marked feature
of Chinese religious life. At death, the spirit of a man or woman is
believed to remain watching over the material interests of the family to
which the deceased had belonged. Offerings of various kinds, including
meat and drink, are from time to time made to such a spirit, supposed to
be particularly resident in an ancestral hall--or cupboard, as the case
may be. These offerings are made for the special purpose of conciliating
the spirit, and of obtaining in return a liberal share of the blessings
and good things of this life. This is the essential feature of the rite,
and this it is which makes the rite an act of worship pure and simple;
so that only superficial observers could make the mistake of classifying
ancestral worship, as practised in China, with such acts as laying
wreaths upon the tombs of deceased friends and relatives.
With reference to the spirit or soul, the Chinese have held for
centuries past that the soul of every man is twofold; in a popular
acceptation it is sometimes regarded as threefold. One portion is that
which expresses the visible personality, and is permanently attached to
the body; the other has the power of leaving the body, carrying with it
an appearance of physical form, which accounts for a person being
seen in two different places at once. Cases of catalepsy or trance are
explained by the Chinese as the absence from the body of this portion
of the soul, which is also believed to be expelled from the body by any
violent shock or fright. There is a story of a man who was so terrified
at the prospect of immediate execution that his separable soul left his
body, and he found himself sitting on the eaves of a house, from which
point he could see a man bound, and waiting for the executioner's sword.
Just then, a reprieve arrived, and in a moment he was back again in his
body. Mr. Edmund Gosse, who can hardly have been acquainted with the
Chinese view, told a similar story in his _Father and Son_: "During
morning and evening prayers, which were extremely lengthy and fatiguing,
I fancied that one of my two selves could flit up, and sit clinging to
the cornice, and look down on my other self and the rest of us."
In some parts of China, planchette is frequently resorted to as a means
of reading the future, and adapting one's actions accordingly. It is a
purely professional performance, being carried through publicly before
some altar in a temple, and payment made for the response. The question
is written down on a piece of paper, which is burnt at the altar
apparently before any one could gather knowledge of its contents; and
the answer from the god is forthwith traced on a tray of sand, word by
word, each word being obliterated to make room for the next, by two men,
supposed to be ignorant of the question, who hold the ends of a V-shaped
instrument from the point of which a little wooden pencil projects at
right angles.
Another method of extracting information from the spirits of the unseen
world is nothing more or less than hypnotism, which has long been known
to the Chinese, and is mentioned in literature so far back as the
middle of the seventeenth century. With all the paraphernalia of altar,
candles, incense, etc., a medium is thrown into a hypnotic condition,
during which his body is supposed to be possessed by a spirit, and
every word he may utter to be divinely inspired. An amusing instance
is recorded of a medium who, while under hypnotic influence, not only
blurted out the pecuniary defalcations of certain men who had been
collecting in aid of temple restoration, but went so far as to admit
that he had had some of the money himself.
This same influence is also used in cases of serious illness, but
always secretly, for such practices, as well as dark _seances_ for
communicating with spirits, are strictly forbidden by the Chinese
authorities, who regard the employment of occult means as more likely to
be subversive of morality than to do any good whatever to a sick person,
or to any one else. All secret societies of any sort or kind are equally
under the ban of the law, the assumption--a very justifiable one--being
that the aim of these societies is to upset the existing order of
political and social life. The Heaven-and-Earth Society is among the
most famous, and the most dreaded, partly perhaps because it has never
been entirely suppressed. The lodges of this fraternity, the oath
of fidelity, and the ceremonial of admission, remind one forcibly of
Masonry in the West; but the points of conduct are merely coincidences,
and there does not appear to be any real connexion.
Among the most curious of all these institutions is the Golden Orchid
Society, the girl-members of which swear never to marry, and not only
threaten, but positively commit suicide upon any attempt at coercion. At
one time this society became such a serious menace that the authorities
were compelled to adopt severe measures of repression.
Another old-established society is that of the Vegetarians, who eat no
meat and neither smoke nor drink. From their seemingly harmless ranks it
is said that the Boxers of 1900 were largely recruited.
For nearly twenty-five centuries the Chinese have looked to Confucius
for their morals. Various religions have appealed to the spiritual side
of the Chinese mind, and Buddhism has obtained an ascendancy which will
not be easily displaced; but through all this long lapse of time the
morality of China has been under the guidance of their great teacher,
Confucius (551-479 B.C.), affectionately known to them as the "uncrowned
king," and recently raised to the rank of a god.
His doctrines, in the form sometimes of maxims, sometimes of answers to
eager inquirers, were brought together after his death--we do not
know exactly how soon--and have influenced first and last an enormous
proportion of the human race. Confucius taught man's duty to his
neighbour; he taught virtue for virtue's sake, and not for the hope of
reward or fear of punishment; he taught loyalty to the sovereign as the
foundation stone of national prosperity, and filial piety as the basis
of all happiness in the life of the people. As a simple human moralist
he saw clearly the limitations of humanity, and refused to teach his
disciples to return good for evil, as suggested by the Old Philosopher,
declaring without hesitation that evil should be met by justice. The
first systematic writer of Chinese history, who died about 80 B.C.,
expressed himself on the position and influence of Confucius in
terms which have been accepted as accurate for twenty centuries past:
"Countless are the princes and prophets that the world has seen in its
time--glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius, though only
a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains with us after
numerous generations. He is the model for such as would be wise. By all,
from the Son of Heaven down to the meanest student, the supremacy of his
principles is freely and fully admitted. He may indeed be pronounced the
divinest of men."
The Son of Heaven is of course the Emperor, who is supposed to be God's
chosen representative on earth, and responsible for the right conduct
and well-being of all committed to his care. Once every year he
proceeds in state to the Temple of Heaven at Peking; and after the due
performance of sacrificial worship he enters alone the central raised
building with circular blue-tiled roof, and there places himself
in communication with the Supreme Being, submitting for approval or
otherwise his stewardship during the preceding twelve months. Chinese
records go so far as to mention letters received from God. There is a
legend of the sixth century A.D., which claims that God revealed Himself
to a hermit in a retired valley, and bestowed on him a tablet of jade
with a mysterious inscription. But there is a much more circumstantial
account of a written communication which in A.D. 1008 descended from
heaven upon mount T'ai, the famous mountain in Shantung, where a temple
has been built to mark the very spot. The emperor and his courtiers
regarded this letter with profound reverence and awe, which roused
the ire of a learned statesman of the day. The latter pointed out
that Confucius, when asked to speak, so that his disciples might have
something to record, had bluntly replied: "Does God speak? The four
seasons pursue their courses and all things are produced; but does God
say anything?" Therefore, he argued, if God does not speak to us, still
less will He write a letter.
The fact that the receipt of such a letter is mentioned in the dynastic
history of the period must not be allowed to discredit in any way
the general truth and accuracy of Chinese annals, which, as research
progresses, are daily found to be far more trustworthy than was ever
expected to be the case. We ourselves do not wholly reject the old
contemporary chronicles of Hoveden and Roger of Wendover because they
mention a letter from Christ on the neglect of the Sabbath.
In Chinese life, social and political alike, filial piety may
be regarded as the keystone of the arch. Take that away, and the
superstructure of centuries crumbles to the ground. When Confucius was
asked by one of his disciples to explain what constituted filial piety,
he replied that it was a difficult obligation to define; while to
another disciple he was able to say without hesitation that the mere
support of parents would be insufficient, inasmuch as food is what
is supplied even to horses and dogs. According to the story-books for
children, the obligation has been interpreted by the people at large
in many different ways. The twenty-four standard examples of filial
children include a son who allowed mosquitoes to feed upon him, and did
not drive them away lest they should go and annoy his parents; another
son who wept so passionately because he could procure no bamboo shoots
for his mother that the gods were touched, and up out of the ground
came some shoots which he gathered and carried home; another who when
carrying buckets of water would slip and fall on purpose, in order to
make his parents laugh; and so on. No wonder that Confucius found filial
piety beyond his powers of definition.
Now for a genuine example. There is a very wonderful novel in which a
very affecting love-story is worked out to a terribly tragic conclusion.
The heroine, a beautiful and fascinating girl, finally dies of
consumption, and the hero, a wayward but none the less fascinating
youth, enters the Buddhist priesthood. A lady, the mother of a clever
young official, was so distressed by the pathos of the tale that she
became quite ill, and doctors prescribed medicines in vain. At length,
when things were becoming serious, the son set to work and composed a
sequel to this novel, in which he resuscitated the heroine and made
the lovers happy by marriage; and in a short time he had the intense
satisfaction of seeing his mother restored to health.
Other forms of filial piety, which bear no relation whatever to the
fanciful fables given above, are commonly practised by all classes. In
consequence of the serious or prolonged illness of parents, it is very
usual for sons and daughters to repair to the municipal temple and pray
that a certain number of years may be cut off their own span of life and
added to that of the sick parents in question.
Let us now pause to take stock of some of the results which have accrued
from the operation and influence of Confucianism during such a long
period, and over such swarming myriads of the human race. It is
a commonplace in the present day to assert that the Chinese are
hardworking, thrifty, and sober--the last-mentioned, by the way, in a
land where drunkenness is not regarded as a crime. Shallow observers
of the globe-trotter type, who have had their pockets picked by
professional thieves in Hong-Kong, and even resident observers who have
not much cultivated their powers of observation and comparison, will
assert that honesty is a virtue denied to the Chinese; but those who
have lived long in China and have more seriously devoted themselves to
discover the truth, may one and all be said to be arrayed upon the other
side. The amount of solid honesty to be met with in every class, except
the professionally criminal class, is simply astonishing. That the word
of the Chinese merchant is as good as his bond has long since become a
household word, and so it is in other walks of life. With servants from
respectable families, the householder need have no fear for his goods.
"Be loyal," says the native maxim, "to the master whose rice you eat;"
and this maxim is usually fulfilled to the letter. Hence, it is that
many foreigners who have been successful in their business careers, take
care to see, on their final departure from the East, that the old and
faithful servant, often of twenty to thirty years' standing, shall have
some provision for himself and his family. In large establishments,
especially banks, in which great interests are at stake, it is customary
for the Chinese staff to be guaranteed by some wealthy man (or firm),
who deposits securities for a considerable amount, thus placing the
employer in a very favourable position. The properly chosen Chinese
servant who enters the household of a foreigner, is a being to whom, as
suggested above, his master often becomes deeply attached, and whom
he parts with, often after many years of service, to his everlasting
regret. Such a servant has many virtues. He is noiseless over his work,
which he performs efficiently. He can stay up late, and yet rise early.
He lives on the establishment, but in an out-building. He provides his
own food. He rarely wants to absent himself, and even then will always
provide a reliable _locum tenens_. He studies his master's ways, and
learns to anticipate his slightest wishes. In return for these and other
services he expects to get his wages punctually paid, and to be allowed
to charge, without any notice being taken of the same, a commission on
all purchases. This is the Chinese system, and even a servant absolutely
honest in any other way cannot emancipate himself from its grip. But if
treated fairly, he will not abuse his chance. One curious feature of
the system is that if one master is in a relatively higher position than
another, the former will be charged by his servants slightly more than
the latter by his servants for precisely the same article. Many attempts
have been made by foreigners to break through this "old custom,"
especially by offering higher wages; but signal failure has always been
the result, and those masters have invariably succeeded best who have
fallen in with the existing institution, and have tried to make the best
of it.
There is one more, and in many ways the most important, side of a
Chinese servant's character. He will recognize frankly, and without a
pang, the superior position and the rights of his master; but at the
same time, if worth keeping, he will exact from his master the proper
respect due from man to man. It is wholly beside the mark to say that
he will not put up for a moment with the cuffs and kicks so freely
administered to his Indian colleague. A respectable Chinese servant
will often refuse to remain with a master who uses abusive or violent
language, or shows signs of uncontrollable temper. A lucrative place is
as nothing compared with the "loss of face" which he would suffer in the
eyes of his friends; in other words, with his loss of dignity as a man.
If a servant will put up with a blow, the best course is to dismiss
him at once, as worthless and unreliable, if not actually dangerous.
Confucius said: "If you mistrust a man, do not employ him; if you employ
a man, do not mistrust him;" and this will still be found to be an
excellent working rule in dealings with Chinese servants.