_A CHINESE ORDINATION._
Crowd.--Nuns.--Final Shaving.--Woven Paces.--Burning
Heads.--Relationships.--A Living Picture.
I have attended an ordination in St. John Lateran's at Rome, of which
my principal recollection is how the Italian young men wriggled as
they all lay flat upon the marble floor whilst something was sung over
them. Was it a _Te Deum_? It certainly was very long. The whole
service, indeed, seemed very long drawn out. I have also a remembrance
of nearly fainting from weariness at an ordination in Exeter
Cathedral; and can still recall the thrill of awestruck admiration
with which I regarded the reader of the gospel on that occasion, who,
as I understood, had passed first, and who yet was overcome by
emotion, so far was he from esteeming himself worthy of this honour,
in thinking of the work that lay before him. Certainly, long though
the proceedings were--and they must have been very long if they seemed
so to me, for in those days I was an enthusiast about cathedral
services--yet never for a second did reverence of the highest quality
cease to brood over all the scene. Thus, when invited by the abbot
himself to assist at an ordination in one of the strictest of Chinese
monasteries, there was some element of wonder mixed with the fortitude
with which I prepared for a barbarous burning rite, and _soupe maigre_
to see it on. Nor was that flask of whisky forgotten that is such a
support to the traveller, remaining always full under all emergencies
because never wanted. It was not in this case. But as the only
European, whose account of such a ceremony I had heard, reported two
or three monks carried away fainting, and a general odour of burning
flesh, I thought it might be.
[Illustration: AT FENGTU, CHINESE HADES.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
The large beautifully situated monastery was already full when I
arrived; and my husband, who had transmitted the abbot's invitation,
and himself had been there two days, informed me his was the only bed
with one man in it. "They sleep head and feet," he said, as if this
added to the comfort of it. "I can't think where they will put you.
They are very, very full; and they are playing cards or smoking opium
all the time in my room. But they are very polite,--some one is
always 'keeping me company.' I cannot read a word." Indeed, he wore
the dazed air of being too much kept company with. At the head of a
flight of steps, at the entrance to the women's quarter, a dark den
with two beds was, however, found for me; and though several ladies
most obligingly offered to occupy the other bed, and "keep me company"
all night, I retained undisturbed possession of the two, whenever the
door was barred. When it was not, people "kept me company" (_pei_);
ladies, priests, young men friends, and young men who were not
friends, but might become such, all crowded in together with some
young monks, whose behaviour somewhat surprised me.
Attending meals of an abundant, yet meagre, description with the other
ladies, and returning the ladies' calls, I was again and again
surprised by the easy behaviour of these young monks, who were
apparently especially taken by my gloves, and would feel my hand
gloved and feel my hand ungloved, and generally _hang around_. One
seemed very well brought up, and began every sentence with "Omito!"
generally finishing it in that way too, and accompanying every remark
by a set little bow. We thought perhaps he was a lad--a child--and my
husband positively screamed when, on being asked his age, he answered
twenty-six. "Did you ever see a young man of twenty-six with such an
innocent countenance?" he asked. "Well, I don't know," I said
evasively, "I suppose it is all right; but I may as well tell you that
never in all my life have I had my hand squeezed as since I came into
this monastery. They all do it, every one of them; so I suppose it
means nothing." I hastened to add, "But they are in all the ladies'
rooms too." "What! in the Chinese ladies' too?" "Yes!" I persisted.
"Oh, well, well!" We resigned ourselves to the ways of the country. It
was not till two days later the truth dawned upon us that this
innocent-faced young man, and some others, who were older and could
hardly be described in that way, were nuns, guests like ourselves, and
that there were besides sixteen young women going to be made nuns,
together with the fifty-two young men who were going to be made
priests. We were so glad we found out.
All the day through there were invitations to tea and sugar-plums with
the abbot and past abbots (each only rules for three years, and then
retires into a picturesque suite of rooms and garden to himself), and
all the while again and again sounds of gongs and drums and chanting,
and peeps at strange novices, young people with shaven heads, clad in
"Liberty-tinted" gowns--dull red, ruddy brown, old gold,
cream--kneeling, or prostrating themselves quite flat, or winding in
and out with pacings and slow and quick movements. On the morning of
_the_ day, after many services in the night and dawning, there was the
final shaving. Then each knelt in turn, and had his head felt all over
the front, and with great care, by a seated priest with immovable
countenance of the Indian type, and long taper, talonlike fingers. If
a hair could be felt, back to the barber! If quite smooth, little
circles were traced with Indian ink upon the polled pate--this was
done by the eye, and often one had to be effaced and retraced; then a
tiny packet was handed to the kneeling one. It was some time after
this ceremony the abbot, in dull cream, with over-gown of rich red
satin, like the others, all made of tiny bits sewn together to
simulate rags and poverty, and passed under the right arm, but clasped
over the left breast, black-hooded, and bearing in lifted hand before
his face a golden _jui_, or sceptre, entered the large principal
temple, and sat on a chair placed upon the altar, a scourge borne
behind him, draped with red silk, being placed to his left, and what
looked like a censer to his right. Then four priests, with many
kneelings and flat prostrations, stood before the altar, seven of the
novices following in like fashion, and joining the long line, seven at
either end. Each carried a long piece of cloth to spread upon the
floor on which to lie prostrate; and as the two lines stood facing
each other before the altar, the two in the centre raised the
kneeling-cloth to their eyes, and with it solemnly _tso-i'd_ to each
other; then each, turning quickly to the right, went through the same
ceremony with the man he now found himself confronted with; and so all
along the line, only the reverence growing less and less, till the
last man hardly got the cloth up as high as his shoulders, for they
had to be very quick. The wooden gong was being beaten faster and
faster. And now the priests led off; and each set of nine, keeping to
its own side of the temple, went through the quickest "woven paces" I
have yet seen, curving in and round upon one another, and round the
huge stone monoliths that support the vast graceful temple roof, whose
erection still remains a mystery, so lofty is it and so large its
span, so ample its unsupported roof-curves. It was like the quickest
possible follow-my-leader, so that the end of the tail came up always
smiling all over, and breathlessly trying to get through the figure.
Meanwhile, at the side, towards the back, another dignitary sat in
state, and two novices knelt, and went flat, and came forward, and
practised taking incense-sticks from the altar with fingers widely
spread after a fashion that does not look easy and does look mystic.
But what was the meaning of it, or the dance, no one seemed able to
say.
No number of inquiries, not even a direct letter and special messenger
to the monastery, had been able to elicit even the day of the great
ceremony, much less the hour; but, since the evening before, we had
heard of two o'clock, and at two o'clock precisely in they came. We
ladies were crowding on to the few seats in one corner; the male
guests, silken-clad, fur-lined, were swelling it about at the sides of
the temple, the centre of which appeared already quite filled up by
the priests of the monastery, and other priests and men guests, who
were all greeting one another, going about, standing in groups, and
generally wearing a pleased, excited appearance. Meanwhile, the
populace, in serried mass, were looking in through all the many
half-doors on all sides, the tops of all the doors being thrown wide
open. There was music. Was it the wooden gong or the drum? It was
quick, near. It seemed to throb with the intense excitement pervading
the building. And in twenty minutes all was over. Every one had come
in, the abbot clad as before, all the novices in over-gowns clasped
over the left shoulder--both over- and under-gowns of what we call art
colours. All had spread out their cloths and knelt and prostrated
themselves, before a priest took up his position standing behind each,
and extended both hands to hold the novice's head quite steady,
fingers wide dispread, so as especially to shield the eyes, all of
course closed. Some adhesive mixture was applied to the Indian ink
circles; then a priest, standing in front of each novice, took out of
the packet previously given him nice little cones of charred
sandalwood and saltpetre, and stuck them on the places indicated; and
some one else set them alight; and there were sixty-eight young men
and women, all kneeling, with their eyes closed, their faces turned up
to heaven, and with nine little charcoal cones smouldering on each of
their bare pates, whilst they prayed one and all, as it seemed, with
all their hearts. For if the heart is pure, you do not suffer, is the
saying. My husband says he kept his eyes fixed on the three nearest
him, and never saw them wince, or blanch, or utter a sound, or move a
muscle. But my place was by the nuns, and one moved, so that one of
the smouldering cones fell off and into her bosom, and had to be
replaced; and another did not cry out, but roared--roared like a
child. Yet such was the din made by the excitingly discordant music,
that when I stepped but two off I could not hear a sound from her; so
there may have been many others crying out also. I saw one nun press a
cloth again and again to her eyes, and take it away apparently soaked
by her tears; but her face was steady and upturned, and her expression
was that of very earnest prayer. Meanwhile, the cones smouldered down
till they just charred those marks with which we are familiar on
priests' heads; then they went out, though all that day and on into
the next several little unburnt lumps were still adhering to the poor
consecrated heads.
We went away to tea and sugar-plums, leaving the new-made monks and
nuns still praying; and when we came out, they had only adjourned to
another temple to pray. At ten o'clock at night they were calling on
Sergiafu (Buddha, Sakyamuni, what you will), thirty-four standing up
quite straight, chanting, whilst the other thirty-four were lying
prostrate, then going down in their turn whilst the others rose up and
chanted. This they did at the rate of three prostrations and uprisings
a minute. They are supposed to make ten thousand in the twenty days.
It seemed to make me drowsy; so, having twice fallen off asleep whilst
they prayed and rose and fell, I went to bed, leaving them still at
it, to be thrice awakened by the gong calling to fresh prayers, and,
when I arose the following morning, to find the whole set
processioning from one dead abbot's grave to the other, praying at
each. One of our Chinese gentleman friends we left in the temple at
night. At eleven o'clock he was turning in. Then some one proposed
ten more rounds of cards, and they played till daybreak. It was only
the week before we had been invited to the funeral feast of his
grandmother, when, with the coffin in the guest-room, a light
underneath it, the ladies of the family played cards all night in a
bedroom opening out of the guest-room, though their eyes were dilated
either from tears or want of sleep, their heads bound with white
mourning-cloths of the same coarse texture as those worn by the
peasant. Was it not something like this at one time in our own country
at a funeral feast?
Whilst in this monastery, we discovered another mistake we had fallen
into. We had long known this friend as the honourable member of a
certain mandarin family, and often mused over the condition of affairs
it revealed,--that we knew, as we thought, six young men of much the
same age, all sons of one father, but of different mothers. We had
known them for years, and had photographed the different mothers with
their sons, had assisted at their weddings and their funerals, dined
with them, and been dined by them, and often speculated as to the
character of the dead father and the previous social status of his
various wives. Now Squire No. 4 proposed to take us to a breakfast
party at the country seat of Squire No. 2 in that neighbourhood, on
which a stiff cross-questioning arose; and at last we discovered that
the numbers indicated daughters as well as sons, and amongst what we
believed to be brothers were three sets of cousins. "But we make no
distinction," said our friend suavely. "And you make no distinction
between elder brother and younger? Strange, we do." So it goes on.
Years in China only serve to show one one's mistakes.
[Illustration: BEGGING PRIEST, ONCE A GENERAL.
_By Mrs. Archibald Little._]
"Pray come back, and bring any of your friends who would like to spend
a happy time here," were the parting words of the priests; whilst the
nuns assured us there was going to be a much grander ceremony on the
morrow, if only we would stay for it, and we must and should. But we
had gone through our purgatory of intervening day and night with a
certain object, which happily we had gained, and could endure no more.
The lady guests had been very kind to us. They assured me they were
strict vegetarians at home as well as there, and were certainly devout
and greatly interested in the nuns, some coming forward to hold their
heads during the ordination ceremony. Two at least, however, appeared
to be regular opium-smokers--they said on account of illness. But it
was impossible to detect that they were in the least ashamed of
smoking opium, or that any one else, nun or priest or any one, thought
they had any reason to be. Yet this was a very strict monastery, where
neither wine nor flesh meat was allowed. We noticed, moreover, that
the abbey lands were bright with healthy-looking opium poppy-plants.
One further memory I have carried away. The temple treasures were all
set out for show on tables in the men's guests' dining-hall, which
looked out on to a tiny shut-in garden, the walls of which were
brightened by tufts of Chinese primroses in full fragrant flower.
Gowns of many rich soft tints were hanging on racks at one end, and
the sun was streaming in upon embroideries and satin vestments they
were showing me, when a dignitary, again of Indian type--long face,
very sad dreamy eyes, and high narrow forehead--came in and arrayed
himself in a gown of the most brilliant orange silk; then,
black-hooded, paused by a table, and, bending slightly, referred to a
large volume lying upon it. The pose, the colouring, and the lighting
made one of those perfect little pictures that one treasures in memory
for years; and now, when people denounce Buddhism to me, my mental eye
sees once more that living picture in vivid orange and sunset-lit
shadows, to which not the most consummate artist could have added one
touch without injury.
"How strange are the freaks of memory!
The lessons of life we forget,
While a trifle, a trick of colour,
In the wonderful web is set."
There may be many lessons to be learnt from a Buddhist ordination;
many deep meanings are doubtless signified by its ritual: I only
attempt here to recall the colouring.