priests of _Lao-Kung_ devoted themselves to a state of celibacy, as
being more free from cares than the incumbrances which necessarily
attend a family connexion; and the better to accomplish this end, they
associated in convents. Here they deal out to their votaries the decrees
of the oracle agreeably to the rules prescribed by Confucius; and they
practice also a number of incantations, magic, invocations of spirits,
and other mystical rites that are probably as little understood by
themselves as by the gazing multitude. In performing these magic tricks
they march in procession round the altar, on which the sacred flame is
supposed to be kept perpetually burning, being a composition of wax and
tallow mixed up with sandal wood shavings and other perfumes; they
chaunt in unison a kind of recitative, and they bow their heads
obsequiously every time they pass before the front of the altar. The
great _Gong_ is struck at intervals, accompanied by tinkling sounds
emitted by gently striking small metal plates suspended in a frame as in
the plate of musical instruments. Their temples are crowded with large
and monstrous figures, some made of wood, some of stone, and others of
baked clay daubed over with paint and varnish, and sometimes gilt. To
such figures however they do not seem to pay any kind of homage. They
are intended merely to represent the good and evil genii under the
various passions to which human nature is liable. The good genii, or
pleasing affections, are placed on one side of the temple, and their
opposites on the other. Thus the personifications of mirth and
melancholy, love and hatred, pleasure and pain, are contrasted together.
The conditions of men are also represented, and their figures opposed to
one another. In this light at least they appeared to us; though the
priest at _Tong-tchoo_ informed us they were intended to pourtray the
different characters of the monks that had belonged to the monastery. In
some temples also are met with the statues of such Emperors or ministers
of state as had shewn themselves favourable to any particular convent.
If, for instance, a great man should occupy the apartments of a temple
and at his departure leave a considerable sum of money, the priests, out
of gratitude, would place his image in a niche of the temple. In looking
into one of these edifices a stranger would be apt to conclude that they
were Polytheists, which I do not understand to be the case. Like the
saints of the Catholics the great _Fo_, of whom I shall presently speak,
with _Poo-sa_, _Shing-moo_, and many others, are considered only in the
light of agents and intercessors, or as emanations of one creating,
destroying, and renovating power, whose good providence has divided
itself into a number of attributes for the better government of the
universe[45].
[45] Thus among the inscriptions written over the doors of
Temples, some are dedicated
_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._
Another has
_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 wave of the sea, that
shines like splendid pearls._
Next to this religion of the immortals, was introduced another of nearly
the same growth which, from being patronized by the court, soon became
no less popular than the former. The priests of _Fo_, coming by
invitation from India, imported with them a great portion of the Hindu
mythology, which some learned men have supposed to be the origin from
whence the Polytheism of Egypt and Greece had its source; and others the
direct contrary. Be that as it may, the affinity seems to be too strong
not to ascribe them to a common parent; and the representations and the
histories of many of the gods of these nations were imported, in all
probability, with the religion of _Fo_, from India into China. This will
better appear by comparing a few as they are observed in the different
nations.
The _Budha_ of the Hindus was the son of _Ma ya_, and one of his
epithets is _Amita_: the _Fo_ of China was the son of _Mo-ya_, and one
of his epithets is _Om-e-to_; and, in Japan, whose natives are of
Chinese origin, the same god _Fo_ is worshipped under the name of
_Amida_. I could neither collect from any of the Chinese what the
literal meaning was of _Om-e-to_, nor could I decypher the characters
under which it is written, but it appeared to be used as a common
ejaculation on most occasions, just as we Europeans are too apt to make
a familiar and impious use of the name of God. Perhaps it might not seem
inconsistent in considering it to be derived from the Hindu mystic word
_Om_.
Since the accession of the Tartar princes to the throne of China, the
court religion, or at least the Tartar part of the court, which before
adhered to the tenets of Confucius, has been that of _Fo_ or _Budha_.
The priests are numerous, mostly dressed in yellow gowns, live in a
state of celibacy in large convents or temples, which the Chinese call
_Poo-ta-la_, evidently derived from _Budha-laya_, or habitation of
_Budha_, this name being adopted by the Tartars, which the Chinese have
been under the necessity of following as nearly as their organs of
speech would admit. They wear a sort of chapelet round their necks,
consisting of a number of beads. In some of their ceremonies they march,
like the _Tao-tses_, in procession round the altar, counting their
beads, repeating at every bead _Om-e-to-fo_, and respectfully bowing the
head. The whole string being finished, they chalk up a mark, registering
in this manner the number of their ejaculations to _Fo_. This counting
of their beads was one of the ceremonies that very much exasperated the
missionaries.
The _Ganesa_ of the Hindus, the _Janus_ of the Romans, and the
_Men-shin_, or guardian spirit of the door of the Chinese, are obviously
one and the same deity. Sometimes he is painted with a club in one hand,
and a key in the other, representing the protector of the house. On
almost every door in China, where the inhabitants profess the religion
of _Fo_, is drawn the figure of _Men-shin_, or otherwise the two
characters of this word, agreeing exactly with what Sir William Jones
has observed of the new town of Gayá in Hindostan, "that every new built
house, agreeably to an immemorial usage of the Hindus, has the name of
_Ganésa_ superscribed on its door: and in the old town his image is
placed over the gates of the temples."
The _Vishnu_ of the Hindus, riding on an eagle, and sometimes attended
by an eagle, has been considered as the _Jupiter_ of the Greeks; and the
_Lui-shin_ of the Chinese, or spirit of thunder, is figured under a man
with the beak and talons of an eagle, sometimes surrounded with kettle
drums, carrying in one hand a batoon and in the other a flame of fire.
The _Osiris_ of the Egyptians, from whence the Greeks had their
_Jupiter_, comes still nearer to the _Lui-shin_ of the Chinese. When
represented as the emblem of the sun, he was drawn under the figure of a
man with an eagle's beak, carrying in his hand a batoon on which was
painted an eye. The ingenious and fertile imagination of the Greeks
separated the emblem from the god, and made the bird of prey the
attendant of the divinity, which the Egyptians and the Chinese united
under one symbol. It is a curious coincidence of opinion, if it be not
founded on fact, that the Chinese should assign the same reason for
giving an eagle's face to their _Lui-shin_, that Pliny has for the
consecration of that bird to _Jupiter_, namely, that no instance was
ever known of an eagle being destroyed by lightning. The Chinese have
also an observation with regard to this bird, which has been made by
other nations, and which is, that the eagle, in a thunder storm, always
mounts above the clouds.
The _Varuna_ of the Hindus, riding on a fish, the _Neptune_ of the
Greeks, and the Chinese _Hai-vang_, or king of the sea, reposing on the
waves, with a fish in his hand, are unquestionably one and the same
personage.
The giant _Briareus_, with his hundred hands, is truly in China of a
most stupendous and colossal stature, being commonly from fifty to sixty
feet in height, and sometimes as tall as eighty feet. But the largest of
all their deities is a woman of the family of _Poo-sa_[46], apparently a
personification of nature. This goddess is modelled in a variety of
ways; sometimes she is to be found with four heads, and forty or fifty
arms, the heads looking towards the four cardinal points of the compass,
and each arm holding some natural product of the earth subservient to
the use of man. Sometimes each arm produces several smaller arms, and on
the head stands a pyramidal groupe of smaller heads. Van Braam mentions
his having seen a statue of this goddess that was ninety feet high,
having four heads and forty-four arms. It is no uncommon thing to meet
with temples in ruins, in the midst of which these monstrous gods and
goddesses are seen entire, exposed to the elements. It seems the
inferior temples are generally upheld by the voluntary gifts of the
people; and that, whenever any unusual calamity befals a town or
village, such as severe famine, epidemic disease, inundations, or the
like, whose dire effects cease not on repeated applications to the
protecting saint, by way of punishing the gods, they literally pull down
the temple over their heads, and leave them sitting in the open air. The
grotesque and barbarous manner of representing the manifold powers of
nature, or the goddess of nature, by a plurality of heads and hands in
one idol, is by no means favourable to the supposition of a refined or
superior understanding in the people who adopt them into their religious
worship. It can be considered only as a very short step beyond the
conceptions of savages, who have no other idea than that of supplying by
number, or a repetition of the same thing, what may be wanting in power.
The same figure, with numerous arms, appears in the Hindu temples that
are excavated out of solid granite mountains, the most ancient and among
the most wonderful monuments of art and persevering labour that have
hitherto been discovered on the face of the globe, the fountain perhaps
from whence the arts, the sciences, and the religious mysteries of the
Egyptians and the Greeks derived their origin.
[46] _Poo-sa_ comprehends a class of superintending deities
inferior to those of _Fo_, who are consulted on trivial occasions, and
the ordinary affairs of life. Of course the greater number of temples
are called by the general name of _Poo-sa miau_, _temple of Poo-sa_. The
name implies _all-helping_. The character _poo_ signifies _support_, and
_sa_ has the character of _plant_ for its root or key united to that of
_preservation_; the _plant-preserving_, or _plant-supporting_ deity;
from whence it may perhaps be concluded, that _Poo-sa_ is the offspring
of the _Holy Mother_ of whom I am about to speak.
But the most common of all the female deities in China is the
_Shing-moo_, or holy mother, or rather the mother of _perfect
intelligence_[47]. This lady is the exact counterpart of the Indian
_Ganga_ or goddess of the river, the _Isis_ of the Egyptians, and the
_Ceres_ of the Greeks. Nothing shocked the missionaries so much on their
first arrival in China as the image of this lady, in whom they
discovered, or thought they discovered, the most striking resemblance to
the Virgin Mary. They found her generally shut up with great care in a
recess at the back part of the altar, and veiled with a silken screen to
hide her from common observation; sometimes with a child in her hand, at
other times on her knee, and a glory round her head. On hearing the
story of the _Shing-moo_ they were confirmed in this opinion. They were
told that she conceived and bore a son while yet a virgin, by eating the
flower of the _Lien-wha_ (the _Nelumbium_) which she found lying upon
her clothes on the bank of a river where she was bathing: that, when the
time of her gestation was expired, she went to the place where she had
picked up the flower and was there delivered of a boy; that the infant
was found and educated by a poor fisherman; and, in process of time,
became a great man and performed miracles. Such is her story, as told by
the Chinese priests. When the image of this goddess is standing, she
generally holds a flower of the Nelumbium in her hand; and when sitting,
she is usually placed upon the large peltate leaf of the same plant.
[47] The character _shing_ is compounded of _ear, mouth_, and _ruler_ or
_king_, intending perhaps to express _the faculty of hearing all that
ear has heard and mouth uttered_.
The Egyptian Lotos, not that esculent plant from the use of which the
_Lotophagi_ had their name, but another of a very different genus
consecrated to religious purposes, is said[48] to have been ascertained
from a statue of _Osiris_, preserved in the Barberini palace at Rome, to
be that species of water lilly which grows in abundance in most parts of
the eastern world, and which was known to botanists under the name of
_Nymphæa Nelumbo_; but I understand it is now considered as a new
_genus_, distinguished under a modification of its former specific name,
by that of _Nelumbium_. This plant, however, is no longer to be found
in Egypt. The two species that grow, at present, on the banks and canals
of the Nile are totally different, which furnishes a very strong
presumption that, although a sacred plant and cultivated in the country,
it might nevertheless be of foreign growth. In China, few temples are
without some representation of the Nelumbium; sometimes the _Shing-moo_
is painted as standing upon its leaves in the midst of a lake. In one
temple I observed the intelligent mother sitting upon the broad peltate
leaf of this plant, which had been hewn out of the living rock.
Sometimes she holds in her hand a cornucopia filled with the ears of
rice, of millet, and of the capsule or seed-vessel of the Nelumbium,
these being articles of food which fall to the share of the poorest
peasant. This very beautiful water lilly grows spontaneously in almost
every lake and morass, from the middle of Tartary to the province of
Canton; a curious circumstance, when we consider the very great
difficulty with which it can be preserved, even by artificial means, in
climates of Europe, whose temperature are less warm and less cold than
many of those where, in China, it grows in a state of nature, and with
the greatest degree of luxuriance. On the heights of Tartary it is found
in an uncultivated state where, in winter, the thermometer frequently
stands at, and generally far below, the freezing point. But here the
roots strike at the bottom of very deep waters only, a circumstance from
which we may perhaps conclude, that the plant may rather require
uniformity of temperature, than any extraordinary degree either one way
or other. Not only the seed of the Nelumbium, which is a kind of nut
nearly as large as an acorn, but the long roots, jointed like canes,
furnish articles of food for the table. In the capital, during the whole
summer season, the latter are sliced and laid on ice, and in this state
serve as part of the desert; the taste differs very little from that of
a good juicy turnip, with a slight degree of astringency.
[48] By Mr. Pauw.
There is something so very striking and remarkable in this plant, that
it is not surprizing the Egyptians and the Indians, fond of drawing
allusions from natural objects, should have considered it as emblematic
of creative power. The leaves of the succeeding plant are found involved
in the middle of the seed, perfect, and of a beautiful green. When the
sun goes down, the large leaves that spread themselves over the surface
of the water close like an umbrella, and the returning sun gradually
unfolds them. Now, as these nations considered water to be the primary
element, and the first medium on which creative influence began to act,
a plant of such singularity, luxuriance, utility and beauty, could not
fail to be regarded by them as a proper symbol for representing that
creative power, and was accordingly consecrated by the former to
_Osiris_ and to _Isis_, the emblems of the sun and moon, and by the
latter to _Ganga_, the river goddess, and to the sun. The coincidence of
ideas between those two nations, in this respect, may be drawn from that
beautiful Hindu hymn, addressed to Surya or the sun, and translated by
Sir William Jones--
"Lord of the Lotos, father, friend and king,
O Sun! thy powers I sing."--&c.[49]
[49] Captain Turner found the name of the Lotos inscribed over most of
the temples in Bootan and Thibet, and Colonel Symes, in the account of
his embassy to the kingdom of Ava, which with Pegu, Aracan, and Laos,
now constitute the Birman empire, describes the people as Budhists or of
the sect of Fo; indeed their customs and appearance, as well as their
religion, seem to indicate a Chinese or Tartar origin.
Whether the Chinese, like the Hindus, entertained the same notions of
creative power, or its influence upon water as the primary element, I
could not learn. No information as to the ground-work of their religion
is to be looked for from the priests of the present day, who are
generally very ignorant; but I suspect the dedication of the Lotos to
sacred uses to be much older than the introduction of Hindu mythology by
the priests of Budha. They even ascribe the fable of eating the flower
to the mother of their first Emperor _Foo-shee_; and the Lotos and the
lady are equally respected by all the sects in China; and even by the
Mantchoo Tartars, whose history commences with the identical story of a
young virgin conceiving and bearing a son, who was to be the progenitor
of a race of conquerors, by eating the flower of a water lilly. If,
indeed, any dependence is to be placed on the following well known
inscription found on an ancient monument of Osiris, Egyptian rites may
be supposed to have made their way into the east and probably into
China, or, on the other hand, those of the east adopted by the
Egyptians, at a period of very remote antiquity. "Saturn, the youngest
of all the gods, was my father. I am Osiris, who conducted a large and
numerous army as far as the deserts of India, and travelled over the
greatest part of the world, &c. &c."
It may not, perhaps, be thought improbable (I offer it, however, merely
as conjecture) that the story of _Osiris_ and _Isis_ was known in China
at a very early period of the history of this country. _Osiris_, king of
Egypt, and husband of _Isis_, was worshipped under the form of an ox,
from his having paid particular attention to the pursuits of
agriculture, and from employing this animal in the tillage of the
ground.
"Primus aratra manu solerti fecit Osiris."
Osiris first constructed ploughs with dext'rous skill.
Historians say, that _Isis_, on the murder of her husband, enjoined the
priests of Egypt, by a solemn oath, to establish a form of worship in
which divine honours should be paid to their deceased prince; that they
should select what kind of animal they pleased to represent the person
and the divinity of _Osiris_, and that they should inter it with solemn
funeral honours when dead. In consideration of this apotheosis, she
allotted a portion of land to each sacerdotal body. The priests were
obliged to make a vow of chastity; their heads were shaven and they went
barefooted. Divine honours were likewise conferred on _Isis_ after her
death, and she was worshipped under the form of a cow.
Now, although the festival in China, at which the Emperor holds the
plough in the commencement of the spring, be considered at this day as
nothing more than a political institution, and continued as an example
to the lower orders of people, an incitement for them to pursue the
labours of agriculture as the most important employment in the
state;--yet, as this condescension of the sovereign militates so
strongly against all their maxims of government, which place an immense
distance between him and the first of his people, it may not, perhaps,
be much amiss in supposing it to have originated in some religious
opinion. Indeed he still continues to prepare himself for the solemn
occasion, by devoting three days entirely to pious ceremonies and rigid
devotion. On the day appointed by the tribunal of mathematics, a _cow_
is sacrificed in the _Tee-tan_, or temple dedicated to the earth; and on
the same day, in some of the provinces, the figure of a cow of baked
clay, of an immense size, is carried in procession by a number of the
peasantry, followed by the principal officers of government and the
other inhabitants. The horns and the hoofs are gilded and ornamented
with silken ribbons. The prostrations being made and the offerings
placed on the altar, the earthen cow is broken in pieces and distributed
among the people. In like manner the body of _Osiris_, worshipped
afterwards under the form of an ox, was distributed by _Isis_ among the
priests; and the _Isia_[50] were long celebrated in Egypt in the same
manner as the festival of holding the plough is at this day observed in
China, both being intended, no doubt, to commemorate the persons who
had rendered the most solid advantages to the state, by the
encouragement they had held out for the cultivation of the ground.
[50] No festivals, perhaps, were so universally adopted and so
far extended, as those in honour of _Isis_. They not only found their
way into every part of the East, but from Greece they were also received
by the Romans, and from these they passed into Gaul. It has even been
conjectured, that the modern name of Paris has its derivation from a
temple that was dedicated to this goddess, [Greek: Para isin], not very
distant from this ancient capital of Gaul. The city arms are a ship,
which _Isis_ was depicted to hold in her hand, as the patroness of
navigation. In fact, a statue of _Isis_[51] is said to have been
preserved with great care in the church of Saint Germain until the
beginning of the sixteenth century, when the zeal of a bigotted cardinal
caused it to be demolished as an unsanctified relick of pagan
superstition.
[51] Encyclopédie des Connoissances Humaines.
The disputes, quarrels, persecutions and massacres, that have happened
at various times among the different sects of Christianity in Europe,
have not been much less violent, nor productive of less dreadful
consequences, between the sect of immortals and that of Fo, in China,
whenever the court, or rather the intriguing eunuchs, seemed to favour
the opinions of one sect in preference to those of the other.
Persecutions never failed to begin whenever either party was fortunate
enough to gain over to its side the chief of the eunuchs, who had always
sufficient influence with the reigning monarch to prevail upon him to
espouse the same cause. They were, however, wars of priests alone in
which the people remained neutral, or took no active part. Whole
monasteries have been levelled with the ground, and thousands of priests
put to death on both sides. Since, however, the accession of the present
Tartar dynasty, they have met with no particular marks of favour or
distinction; and, on that account, are apparently reconciled to each
other; indeed, they are scarcely distinguishable either by their temples
or by their dress. The prediction of future events being best suited to
the minds of the multitude, and most sought after, the oracle of fate
may be consulted in any temple, whether of _Fo_ or of _Tao-tze_. The
government interferes not in religious opinions, and it gives no support
to any particular sect, except that of the Lama, whose priests are paid
and maintained as a part of the Imperial establishment. The Tartar
officers of state are likewise attached to the faith of the Lama,
without the absurdities that have been mixed with it by the immortals.
However strictly the women may be kept at home by the customs of the
country, they are nevertheless permitted, on certain occasions, to
consult their destiny at the altar, without being exposed to the censure
of vulgarity or impropriety. Barren wives are even encouraged to visit
the temples, not so much for the purpose of knowing their destiny, as
under a firm belief that, by rubbing the bellies of certain little
copper gods, they shall conceive and bear children. But, the women in
general who, from habit, feel little inclination to stir abroad, except
on very pressing occasions, encourage a set of fortune-tellers,
mountebanks and jugglers, who thus pick up a livelihood by travelling
the country and telling fortunes from house to house. They are known by
a wretched squalling flute on which they play, and are beckoned to call
where their art is required. By being made acquainted with the day and
hour of a person's birth, they pretend to _cast his nativity_, which is
called _Swan-ming_, or the art of discovering events by means of
numbers. A Chinese, even in the higher ranks, has no great idea of a
man's learning, if he be ignorant of the _Swan-ming_. I was very
frequently applied to at _Yuen-min-yuen_, by persons in office, to know
if I could tell them their fortune; and it was difficult to persuade
them I had any knowledge of the astronomical instruments intended for
the Emperor, after professing my ignorance in _casting a nativity_.