Ripened Fruit of Non-Christian Faiths
In setting before the reader the following account of painful scenes,
most of which I have witnessed, in connection with religious rites, I
am aware that some may say that these facts, though admitted to have
taken place, are not characteristic of the religion in which they
are found. Having given much attention to this pertinent question, I
am convinced that they are some of the legitimate fruit of religious
systems without Christ. This book is not written to theorize about
religion, so much as to give an account of what a missionary sees
living in Burma in direct contact with its varied people.
The theoretical teaching of Buddhism, Mohammedanism, or Hinduism may
be one thing, while the practical religious usages may bear quite
another character. A people may naturally be very agreeable and have
many lovable traits, and yet their religious rites may degrade and not
uplift the natural man. The saddest part of the following account is
found in its degradation of the ordinary healthful sentiments of the
people, in the name of religion.
Then, again, what is done openly in the name of any religion, is done
that it may be seen and recognized as of that religion. Therefore, it
is certainly characteristic. If the observance of this is repeated, or
is related to that which is of frequent occurrence, it is certainly
characteristic. That which is here recorded is the natural fruitage of
the religions which cheat the natural hunger of the human heart for the
favor of God, whom all have sinned against, but whose loving mercy is
not known among these Christless millions.
Before giving an account of the cruelties still observed by devotees
and fanatics, it is well to remember some terrible practices which have
been abolished in recent years. These include suttee, or widow-burning,
hook-swinging, the Juggernaut, and marriage of little girls. These were
all religious practices, but they were abolished by the Government.
Theoretically and practically, the English Government in India is
neutral in religion. Only a Christian Government could be strictly
neutral in religious matters, though other Governments at times have
been tolerant of other faiths to some extent. By proclamation, the
English rule in India is neutral in religion. This proclamation is
adhered to literally, so that a Mohammedan, Hindu, or Buddhist has just
as much protection under the law as a Christian, and neither has any
powers above the other.
How, then, does it come to pass that the Government has interfered
in religious rites? This was done only when such rites actually took
life, or endangered life. The Government’s first duty is to protect
the lives of its subjects, even against self-destruction, where that
is possible. Many questionable deeds are yet done by devotees in which
the Government has not interfered, though some of them are exceedingly
cruel, because they have not actually endangered life.
But suttee, or widow-burning, has been prohibited by the Government,
though still practiced among the Hindus beyond the English border.
Bishop Thoburn gives an account of the burning of four widows in Nepal,
a little more than a quarter of a century ago. The dead husband had
been high in the service of the Indian Government, and had been honored
with a title by Queen Victoria. He was a Hindu, and he died over the
border in Nepal, and four of his widows were burned with his body. This
shows the spirit of Hinduism where it is not restrained by a Christian
law. You can not burn people on any pretext under the British flag.
Hook-swinging was another horrible practice, which was put down in
the same way. Devotees were placed on hooks suspended on long ropes
fastened high above, and the hooks fastened deep in the flesh of the
devotees. The body was then swung from side to side till its momentum
tore the hooks from the flesh, and the torn and bleeding body fell to
the ground, perhaps to die, certainly to be permanently maimed. The law
suppressed this practice, and it is no longer perpetuated except in
remote regions and under great secrecy.
The car Juggernaut, with its great idol, when drawn along the roads
at the Juggernaut festival evoked such fanaticism that men threw
themselves under its great wheels, and were crushed. This practice has
been prohibited by law. The festival is still observed, but men do not
throw themselves under the wheels. I have seen the great car, with its
hideous idol, drawn past our mission-house in Rangoon, attended by
thousands of Hindus, with all the noise and confusion of an Oriental
procession; but there is no blood on its wheels now, and no crushed
bodies are left in the street.
There was another even more terrible custom prevalent in India for
ages, in which the Government had to interfere. It has for centuries
been the custom of Hindus to give their little girls in marriage when
tender children. They were married at ten or eleven years of age, or
even at nine years. To appreciate this monstrous cruelty it should
be remembered that a child of the same age in Western lands is much
stronger than a child in India. There were many mothers in India at
twelve years of age. The cruelties of this practice of child marriage
were such that they can not be written. Let it be remembered that this
practice existed for hundreds of years, and that practically all the
Hindus approved it, although the sufferers were their own children. And
when the terribleness of the practice was so pressed on the Government
that it could not avoid taking action, and consequently framed a bill
to raise the age of consent to twelve years, before which it would
be unlawful to consummate marriage, the whole Hindu world rose up in
protest. They charged the bill to the oppression of the Government.
Fifty thousand Hindus met in public protest in the city of Calcutta.
This protest was from Hindus directed against a righteous law for the
protection of their children from this age-old cruelty!
To the writer it has been an experience of a painful kind to find a few
Americans crying out against the “Oppression of England in India,” when
they are only echoing the cry of the Hindus against the righteous law.
But the law was enacted, and has had a wholesome effect so far as it is
not evaded by false statements of the age of the girls, which are often
made.
But if England had no other justification for her Government in India
than these four enactments, the Government would have much to its
credit. But these are legal protections thrown around her people to
prevent them taking life, or perpetuating cruelty in the name of
religion. If monstrous things are still done, it is a comfort to know
that these named have been abolished.
Once each year a sect of Mohammedans torture themselves by running
through the fire. This torture occurs during the feast which follows
the Mohammedan fast, or lent. During this fast the Mohammedan community
eat nothing from sunrise to sunset. They may eat a great deal after
sunset and before sunrise. Having fasted in this manner for forty
days, they feast for three days. But this does not include all of the
community. There is a division of the Mohammedans dating back to the
death of Mohammed. A quarrel then arose over his successor as leader
of the Mohammedans. One party held to Hassan and Hoosan, the sons of
the prophet; and the opposing party stood for another leader. This
division led to war, in which Hassan and Hoosan were slain and their
party defeated. This contention has been maintained until the present,
and those of the conquering party are known as _Sunni_ Mohammedans, and
the followers of Hoosan and Hassan are called _Shia_ Mohammedans. The
latter will not feast with the other party, and take this occasion to
torture themselves by running through the fire, as a protest against
the opposing sect.
The preparations for this torture by fire are made deliberately, and
it is carried out on a large scale. First of all, they must secure
the permission of the Rangoon magistrate to this ordeal. Then they
publish the places where it will occur, for it is celebrated in
several localities on the same night. Ditches are dug deep enough to
hold a great mass of coals, and two or more rods in length. On the
day appointed, a large supply of dry wood being provided, a fire is
kindled in the ditches about noon, and is kept burning until long
after dark. Meantime the ditch has been filled with coals smoldering,
and kept alive, but not allowed to burn to ashes. As the earlier
hours of the night have been passing, multitudes of all nationalities
have gathered at the scene of fire-running. They have to be kept at a
distance by a cordon of rope stretched about a considerable circle.
As midnight passes, a spirit of expectancy takes possession of the
waiting multitude, which is increased by shouts and excitement in a
side street not far away. These are all according to the Oriental’s
idea of working up a climax of interest in his spectacular display. A
little after midnight the fanatics who have been selected to undergo
this torture come rushing from a side street, carrying banners and
shouting in increasing excitement as they enter the arena and approach
the fire on the run. Crowding close together at the end of the ditch of
fire, they wave their banners, chant, shout, and shriek until a frenzy
possesses them, and then they plunge into the fire with their bared
feet and legs! The first man to leap into the fire sinks more than
half way to his knees in the fiery pit, and the next step also, and so
through the ditch. As might be supposed, he plunges through as fast as
possible with his greatest strides. He is followed in turn by every
other of the twenty or more fanatics of his company.
They immediately collect at the other end of the ditch, and with even
greater frenzy than before scream, stamp the coals from feet, and
plunge again through the ditch. So from end to end they rush till the
coals are dragged out of the ditch clinging to their feet and legs, or
are kicked out on the surrounding ground. Then the fanatics disappear,
and the multitude of curious onlookers disperse.
This cruel practice is carried out every year among these Mohammedan
immigrants to the province of Burma. The idea seems to be a frenzied
appeal to God that their contention, settled by the sword in the
defeat of their party twelve centuries ago, was right. This particular
revolting exhibition may be a modern development; but if so, it is
but another evidence of the growth of fanatical extravagance of an
imperfect faith. But viewed in any light, it is a sad commentary on the
Christless Mohammedan world in this twentieth century of the Christian
era. It is a fact to be lamented that Christian missions are not
generally directed to the adherents of the Mohammedan faith.
Lest it be thought that such fanaticism is only representative of the
lower class of people, let this circumstance be noted. On one occasion
my wife saw this “fire-running.” Just before the expected approach
of the company designated to run through the fire, a finely-dressed
Mohammedan merchant came within the ropes, with the air of a man who
intended to act as a self-appointed master of ceremonies over these
fanatics, lest they act too outrageously. But when the excitement of
the occasion was on, and these common people were rushing through the
fire, he began to show every indication of rising excitement. He sat
down, rose up, sat down again. He took off one shoe, jumped up, and sat
down again; then off came both stockings, and he plunged into the fire
like any other of these frenzied people. This shows the terrible power
of such enormities over even the self-poised Mohammedan merchant.
Another scene we witnessed among the Hindus, even more revolting than
this annual exhibition among the Mohammedans. It was on a Sabbath-day,
and Bishop Thoburn was with us on his biennial visit to Burma. The
early morning service at the English Church had been concluded, and we
were going to the mission-house in the cantonments. The day was growing
almost intolerably hot, especially under the direct rays of the sun, as
it was in the latter part of April, the hottest time of the year. As
we rode along under the protection of our covered tum-tum, we saw just
ahead of us in the middle of the Signal Pagoda Road, the main street
between the city and the suburbs, an excited company of Hindu pilgrims
and their attendants. It is a striking fact, too, that the scene
we beheld was very near a Christian church located on that road--a
Christian church dedicated to the worship of Him who died for all
men--and here by the side of that edifice on that Lord’s-day, nearly
twenty centuries after the gospel was proclaimed to a sin-darkened
world, was enacted one of the most distressing cruelties of heathenism,
and it is doubtful if the devotees, or their attendants, even dreamed
of the salvation which every Christian temple should suggest! That
Church does nothing for missions, being content to preach only to those
who bear the Christian name.
There was a company of about twenty men, eight of whom were devotees,
while the others urged them on their terrible way. Around each
devotee’s neck was an iron ring supporting twenty-four small chains
about two feet in length. On the end of each chain was a large hook
made of wire, and these two dozen hooks were buried deep in the chest,
sides, and back of each poor man. The flesh was raised in great welts
over the buried hooks! But to add to the horrors of this torture, each
man had an iron rod about the size of a slate-pencil thrust through
both cheeks, passing through the mouth, of course. Another rod of
equal size pierced the tongue, which was drawn out of the mouth as far
as could be done without plucking it from its roots, the rod holding
it in that drawn condition, as it was held against the face by the
strained muscles. These hooks and iron rods piercing the flesh of body
and face must have produced all the agony that the human frame could
endure. Yet the cruelties of the heathen could add to even this. Most
of the poorer natives of India go barefooted. But these devotees wore
wooden sandals, not to protect the feet, but to torture them. Through
these sandals from below nails were driven and sharpened above, so that
every step each poor man took the weight of his body pressed upon the
upturned nails, and must have produced a refinement of agony. To the
natural weight of the body was added a wooden arch often used among
this class of Hindus in Rangoon as a symbol, this arch being carried
on the shoulder and adding possibly twenty pounds to press down his
tortured body upon those upturned nails! These poor deluded sons of
our unhappy race, these devotees of a Christless faith, were agonizing
along this highway under a pitiless tropical sun, making their way to
a Hindu shrine eight miles away! Their condition was indescribable.
Their attendants were urging them forward with shouts, and were dashing
water on their protruding tongues, seemingly untouched with pity at
their agony.
The very sight of this torture made the heart sick. I doubt if any
Christian man could have endured the sight for any length of time. An
indescribable faintness began to sweep over me; and the bishop, who has
a heart of great tenderness, could hardly speak; but as he turned to
me I noted an expression of anguish on his face, as he said in broken
tones: “That is the worst sight I have witnessed in thirty-five years
in India; but that is the _ripened fruit of idolatry_.”
Let the reader again recall that this occurred in the closing years of
the nineteenth century of our gospel era. Let him also be informed that
among all these thousands of Hindu immigrants to India there is not one
missionary giving his time to preaching Christ. The only reason there
is not such a missionary is because there is no money in any mission
treasury to send him. There is plenty of money in Christian hands. If
the Christian men and women of those lands that are the heirs of all
temporal blessings, and of the Christian joys of the gospel centuries,
could realize the blackness of the night that has settled down on the
Christless nations, who are heirs of thousands of years of increasing
idolatry, they would hasten the messengers of life and light to these
poor people.
If we turn to Buddhism and ask for correspondingly desperate
conditions, we are at once assured that they are not found. Its friends
would assure us of its elevated character as a religion. But I am
sure we find a sad enough condition among some of the most faithful
Buddhists, and a refinement of cruelty in all classes of the adherents
of the teachings of Gautama. The building of a pagoda is regarded as
the most meritorious deed, and even its repair or partial regilding
gives a man honor and merit. But the serving of a pagoda renders a man
an outcast. The only real outcast ever recognized in Burmese Buddhism,
which is free from the Indian caste system, is the “pagoda slave.”
Perhaps we ought to speak of this in the past tense, as the English
rule has made it possible for these slaves to find their freedom, which
was impossible under Burmese rule, though even this legal liberty is
not recognized by the Buddhists.
Under Buddhist, or Burmese, order, whole families were set apart
for the pagoda service. Once in that service they were despised by
their self-respecting co-religionists, and their children after them
forever suffered their disabilities. Sometimes a certain number of
families in a village were arbitrarily picked up and set down at the
pagoda for this purpose, henceforth to be banished from the circle of
respectability. Never could any man get out of this degraded service.
The heaviest penalties were laid upon any who tried to aid him or his
family to escape to any other calling.
Why this strange degradation of men and women who serve the pagoda,
when the building of a pagoda exalts its builder here and hereafter,
does not seem to be explained. Personally, I think it one of the
stony-hearted cruelties natural to this faith. The priests were fed
daily out of the household’s store; but the pagoda caretaker had to
fight with the ownerless dogs, with which Burma abounds, for some of
the food offered to the images of Gautama! When the slave died he could
not have respectable burial. Sometimes his body was thrown out with
the refuse for the dogs to eat. This settled policy of Buddhism may
be truly said to be one of its perfected fruits, not mentioned by the
friends of the faith from Western lands.
Under British rule these people were allowed to become sellers of
supplies for the pagoda service, or to go away where, unknown and
carefully disguising their former life, they might work into some
respectable occupation, but never with the consent of Buddhist priests
or self-respecting laymen, who had always despised the servant of the
temple. But the sight which always met the observers when visiting the
great Sway Dagon Pagoda in Rangoon until recent years, was the line
of lepers always piteously begging along its ascending steps. They
were classed with the pagoda slave, and were despised. It can not be
said that they were really pitied, even though some corn or rice and
an occasional copper coin were thrown them by the Buddhist climbing
the stair to Gautama’s shrine. These lepers were born on these steps,
diseased, rotted, and died there! A more pitiable sight was never
witnessed than these poor, suffering creatures, practically expelled
outside the bounds of Buddhist sympathy for no fault of character
or conduct. Of course, the Buddhist would say that the leper’s foul
disease was the _demerit_ of some past existence, and therefore he
suffers justly in his loathsome condition, and his ostracism from
human sympathy! But this is only another heartless invention of a much
overrated religion.
The reader will have made the contrast. Centuries of labor and millions
in gifts to raise and perfect the great pagoda and to gild it and to
bejewel its tinkling bells, all in honor of eight human hairs; while
its own faithful adherents suffer and die without so much as a shed
being built to shelter them! Millions for gilding brick and mortar, and
not the least coin to build a hospital for suffering and despairing
men! This is Buddhism’s fruitage of the centuries. Let him praise the
tender sympathies of this faith who will. To me it is one of the most
heartless systems taught among men. The leper was an outcast here, and
taught to believe millions of years of existence in hell were awaiting
him hereafter. This was his portion in Buddhism.
Turn now and witness what Christianity has done for him. Within the
decade of my writing, the Christian missions of Burma became strong
enough to put their sympathies underneath the long suffering lepers.
A Scotch leper mission is aiding the Wesleyans at Mandalay. Later
the Baptists in Moulmein, and the Catholics on their own account in
Rangoon, built leper asylums, the Government aiding also in their
support; and the lepers in every municipality in Burma have been
gathered into these Christian institutions, their sores bound up,
medicines to alleviate their sufferings given, abundant food and
suitable clothing provided, the first time to most of them during their
agonized lives. Best of all, the gospel, with its help, love, and hope,
is preached to them who had been bound to suffering for ages to come
by their own religious system! If to the question, “Do missions to the
Burmese Buddhists pay?” there could be offered only these three leper
asylums, they would warrant the answer, “Yes.”
One very hot afternoon I went with an assistant of the Wesleyan Leper
Asylum, and took twenty-five of those lepers off the steps of the
Sway Dagon Pagoda, and securing their passage money from the Rangoon
municipality, I sent them off to Mandalay. Later I visited that city
and the asylum, and there beheld one hundred and forty of the lepers
gathered from many places in Burma. They were so well cared for as to
seem almost content in spite of their physical suffering. They were
fed, clothed, and had the gospel preached to them in the true Christian
spirit. Some of them were filled with peace and joy by conscious
communion with Him who is so mightily preached by this institution of
mercy. There was one leper, with hands and feet fallen off, an eye
gone, and the tongue nearly eaten away; still on the piece of a face
that remained there shone a light seen only on the face of the man
who communes with God. In this glad vision I had my reward in having
aided in a small way to send so many afflicted ones to this Christian
haven. A thousand times since I have been made glad with the memory of
what seemed that hot afternoon a very commonplace piece of work. But
as it retreats into the past, and I know every poor sufferer will have
had Christian care all his days, it came to be recognized as one of my
greatest privileges as a missionary to have had some part in this work.
When in the future the traveler comes to Burma and visits the pagoda,
and when the resident passes through Rangoon’s streets, and is not
pained with the vision of lepers begging at his feet, let them remember
that for centuries these Buddhist lepers were spurned by their own race
and countrymen, and that it was the Christian missionaries who gathered
them into homelike asylums, there to receive loving Christian care. Let
them reflect that this contrast is one of principle in the two faiths.
The leper, agonizing in hopeless despair on the pagoda steps, was the
perfected fruit of centuries of the teaching of the purest Buddhism to
be found.
One more illustration of the practical teaching of Buddhism presents
itself. At Kemmendine, near Rangoon, is a Buddhist burial-ground.
There is a large pavilion near the entrance to the graveyard, on the
ceiling of which there have been various pictorial representations of
the teachings of Buddhism. Much of this is a portrayal of the many
Buddhist hells. But there was for years a succession of pictures along
one border representing the Buddhist priest in the process of crushing
out all sentiment and sympathy with even the greatest human distress.
The candidate for _neikban_ must destroy all desire; the last desire
to give way is that for existence. This pictorial representation was
evidently made to show the process of this suppression in progress.
The yellow-robed priest, who should represent the system, is seated
in perfect composure looking on the distress of a sick man. There is
none to attend the sick, and the priest, of course, gives no aid. The
next picture shows the man approaching the crisis of death; in the next
he is actually dying. Then follows a succession of pictures showing
other stages of dissolution, until only the scattered bones remain.
Through all the series of representations the priest sits with a face
as expressionless as marble, and has not moved a muscle. Complete
indifference to all experiences of human life is the virtue aimed at.
To show that this crushing out of all natural sensibility is a
difficult process, the artist has made another picture with a little
humor in it. The scattered bones suddenly become articulated, and the
skeleton makes a wild leap upon the priest. This unexpected jump of the
skeleton would be calculated to affright ordinary mortals to a degree;
but not so the priest. He only slightly turns his head. _He has nearly
conquered all natural sentiment._ The last picture shows a skull and
crossbone, and the motionless priest sitting in perfect composure of
features and of person. He has conquered all desire!
This is the picture on the pavilion; but now with the writer look on
the living reality. On one occasion I attended a cremation in that
burial-ground. Sometimes bodies are buried, and sometimes cremated if
the person was rich or much respected in life. The funeral pyre was
crudely made, and the burning presented a revolting sight that need
not be given in detail. When the body was nearly consumed some of the
people returned to the pavilion, and with them the widow, a grown son
and daughter, and some smaller children of the deceased. Meantime
five priests had come in from the monastery, and sat in a row upon a
platform at one end of the structure. They had not been present at the
place of burning. They had rendered no service of consolation at all,
though they may have preached at the home the usual pronouncement of
Buddhism, that all existence leads to misery, and therefore the way
out of misery is to strive to get into neikban and cease to exist.
More than this, the funeral is the occasion over all others in which
costly presents far above the ability of the family are given to the
_poungyis_, or priests. But real consoling service to the sorrowing
they give none. There is nothing springing from sympathy, pity, or hope
in this religion.
As these five well-fed priests sat on that platform, the broken-hearted
widow, son, and daughters came forward, and bowed down and worshiped
them. The bruised and broken human heart cried in anguish and must
cry for help, and Buddhism offers only the worship of a yellow-robed
priest! Buddhism has no God. It tries to crush all human pity. But
where shall the broken-hearted find rest? Worship these yellow-robed
priests! That is all. What about the priests? There they sat, and
chewed betel-nut and tobacco, spitting lazily at the cracks in the
platform, looking about idly and vacantly, utterly indifferent to the
prostrate and broken-hearted family before them! Not a look of sympathy
or pity, not even a glance of recognition cast in the direction of
the prostrate forms! This is the very real illustration in the living
priest, of the pictorial representation of the priest of the Buddhist
religion given above! The Buddhist system is devoid of hope, pity,
consolation, or even ordinary human sympathy. It is as heartless as its
own stony or brazen images of Gautama so universally worshiped. Men
become like their gods.
[Illustration: FESTIVITIES AT A POUNGYI’S CREMATION]