Reading section 29

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 557: For Chinese Buddhism see especially Johnston, _Chinese Buddhism_, 1913 (cited as Johnston). Much information about the popular side of Buddhism and Taoism nay be found in _Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine_ par le Père Henri Doré, 10 vols. 1911-1916, Shanghai (cited as Doré).]

[Footnote 558: A curious instance of deification is mentioned in _Muséon_, 1914, p. 61. It appears that several deceased Jesuits have been deified. For a recent instance of deification in 1913 see Doré, X. p. 753.]

[Footnote 559: The spirits called San Kuan [Chinese: ] or San Yüan [Chinese: ] are a good instance of Chinese deities. The words mean Three Agents or Principles who strictly speaking have no names: (_a_) Originally they appear to represent Heaven, Earth and Water. (_b_) Then they stand for three periods of the year and the astrological influences which rule each, (_c_) As Agents, and more or less analogous to human personalities, Heaven gives happiness, Earth pardons sins and Water delivers from misfortune. _(d)_They are identified with the ancient Emperors Yao, Shun, Yü. (_e_) They are also identified with three Censors under the Emperor Li-Wang, B.C. 878-841.]

[Footnote 560: [Chinese: ] Hsüan Chuang's own account of his travels bears the slightly different title of Hsi-Yü-Chi. [Chinese: ] The work noticed here is attributed to Chiu Ch'ang Ch'un, a Taoist priest of the thirteenth century. It is said to be the Buddhist book most widely read in Korea where it is printed in the popular script. An abridged English translation has been published by T. Richard under the title of _A Mission to Heaven_.]

[Footnote 561: I am writing immediately after the abolition of the Imperial Government (1912), and what I say naturally refers to a state of things which is passing away. But it is too soon to say how the new regime will affect religion. There is an old saying that China is supported by the three religions as a tripod by three legs.]

[Footnote 562: [Chinese: ] strictly speaking the title of his reign 1573-1620.]

[Footnote 563: Compare _Anal_. IX. 1 and xiv. 38. 2. See also _Doctrine of the Mean_, chap, xvi, for more positive views about spirits.]

[Footnote 564: [Chinese: ] and [Chinese: ] See De Groot, "Origins of the Taoist Church" in _Trans. Third Congress Hist. Relig_. 1908.]

[Footnote 565: Chang Yüan-hsü, who held office in 1912, was deprived of his titles by the Republican Government. In 1914 petitions were presented for their restoration, but I do not know with what result. See _Peking Daily News_, September 5th, 1914.]

[Footnote 566: Something similar may be seen in Mormonism where angels and legends have been invented by individual fancy without any background of tradition.]

[Footnote 567: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 568: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 569: The sixth Æneid would seem to a Chinese quite a natural description of the next world. In it we have Elysium, Tartarus, transmigration of souls, souls who can find no resting place because their bodies are unburied, and phantoms showing still the wounds which their bodies received in life. Nor is there any attempt to harmonize these discordant ideas.]

[Footnote 570: [Chinese: ] A somewhat similar pseudo-science called vatthu-vijjâ is condemned in the Pali scriptures. _E.g._ Digha N. I. 21. Astrology also has been a great force in Chinese politics. See Bland and Backhouse, _Ann. and Memoirs, passim_. The favour shown at different times to Buddhist, Manichæan and Catholic priests was often due to their supposed knowledge of astrology.]

[Footnote 571: I may again remind the reader that I am not speaking of the Chinese Republic but of the Empire. The long history of its relations to Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, though it concerns the past, is of great interest.]

[Footnote 572: De Groot and Parker. For an elaboration of the first thesis see especially De Groot's _Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China_.]

[Footnote 573: But it must be remembered that the Chinese canon is not entirely analogous to the collections of the scriptures current in India, Ceylon or Europe.]

[Footnote 574: The Emperor is the Lord of all spirits and has the right to sacrifice to all spirits, whereas others should sacrifice only to such spirits as concern them. For the Emperor's title "Lord of Spirits," see Shu Ching IV., VI. 2-3, and Shih Ching, III., II. 8, 3.]

[Footnote 575: The title is undoubtedly very ancient and means Son of Heaven or Son of God. See Hirth, _Ancient History of China_, pp. 95-96. But the precise force of _Son_ is not clear. The Emperor was Viceregent of Heaven, high priest and responsible for natural phenomena, but he could not in historical times be regarded as sprung (like the Emperor of Japan) from a family of divine descent, because the dynasties, and with them the imperial family, were subject to frequent change.]

[Footnote 576: Similarly it is a popular tenet that if a man becomes a monk all his ancestors go to Heaven. See _Paraphrase of sacred Edict_, VII.]

[Footnote 577: Japanese Emperors did the same, _e.g._ Kwammū Tennō in 793.]

[Footnote 578: [Chinese: ]

[Footnote 579: K'ang Hsi is responsible only for the text of the Edict which merely forbids heterodoxy. But his son Yung Chêng who published the explanation and paraphrase repaired the Buddhist temples at P'uto and the Taoist temple at Lung-hu-shan.]

[Footnote 580: See Johnston, p. 352. I have not seen the Chinese text of this edict. In Laufer and Francke's _Epigraphische Denkmäler aus China_ is a long inscription of Kang Hsi's giving the history both legendary and recent of the celebrated sandal-wood image of the Buddha.]

[Footnote 581: This indicates that the fusion of Buddhism and Hinduism was less complete than some scholars suppose. Where there was a general immigration of Hindus, the mixture is found, but the Indian visitors to China were mostly professional teachers and their teaching was definitely Buddhist. There are, however, two non-Buddhist books in the Chinese Tripitaka. Nanjio Cat. Nos. 1295 and 1300.]

[Footnote 582: It has been pointed out by Fergusson and others that there were high towers in China before the Buddhist period. Still, the numerous specimens extant date from Buddhist times, many were built over relics, and the accounts of both Fa-hsien and Hsüan Chuang show that the Stupa built by Kanishka at Peshawar had attracted the attention of the Chinese.

I regret that de Groot's interesting work _Der Thüpa: das heiligste Heiligtum des Buddhismus in China_, 1919, reached me too late for me to make use of it.]

[Footnote 583: The love of nature shown in the Pali Pitakas (particularly the Thera and Therî Gâthâ) has often been noticed, but it is also strong in Mahâyânist literature. _E.g._ Bodhicaryâvatâra VIII. 26-39 and 86-88.]

[Footnote 584: See especially Watters, _Essays on the Chinese Language_, chaps, VIII and IX, and Clementi, _Cantonese Love Songs in English_, pp. 9 to 12]

[Footnote 585: [Chinese: ]]

[Footnote 586: I cannot refrain from calling attention to the difference between the Chinese and most other Asiatic peoples (especially the Hindus) as exhibited in their literature. Quite apart from European influence the Chinese produced several centuries ago catalogues of museums and descriptive lists of inscriptions, works which have no parallel in Hindu India.]

[Footnote 587: There are said to have been four great schools of Buddhist painting under the T'ang. See Kokka 294 and 295.]

[Footnote 588: Preserved in the British Museum and published.]

[Footnote 589: [Chinese: ] of the [Chinese: ] dynasty.]

[Footnote 590: [Chinese: ]

CHAPTER XLIII

CHINA _(continued)_

HISTORY.

The traditional date for the introduction of Buddhism is 62 A.D., when the chronicles tell how the Emperor Ming-Ti of the Later Han Dynasty dreamt that he saw a golden man fly into his palace[591] and how his courtiers suggested that the figure was Fo-t'o[592] or Buddha, an Indian God. Ming-Ti did not let the matter drop and in 65 sent an embassy to a destination variously described as the kingdom of the Ta Yüeh Chih[593] or India with instructions to bring back Buddhist scriptures and priests. On its return it was accompanied by a monk called Kâśyapa Mâtanga[594], a native of Central India. A second called Chu Fa-Lan[595], who came from Central Asia and found some difficulty in obtaining permission to leave his country, followed shortly afterwards. Both were installed at Loyang, the capital of the dynasty, in the White Horse Monastery[596], so called because the foreign monks rode on white horses or used them for carrying books.

The story has been criticized as an obvious legend, but I see no reason why it should not be true to this extent that Ming-Ti sent an embassy to Central Asia (not India in our sense) with the result that a monastery was for the first time established under imperial patronage. The gravest objection is that before the campaigns of Pan Ch'ao[597], which began about 73 A.D., Central Asia was in rebellion against China. But those campaigns show that the Chinese Court was occupied with Central Asian questions and to send envoys to enquire about religion may have been politically advantageous, for they could obtain information without asserting or abandoning China's claims to sovereignty. The story does not state that there was no Buddhism in China before 62 A.D. On the contrary it implies that though it was not sufficiently conspicuous to be known to the Emperor, yet there was no difficulty in obtaining information about it and other facts support the idea that it began to enter China at least half a century earlier. The negotiations of Chang Ch'ien[598] with the Yüeh Chih (129-119 B.C.) and the documents discovered by Stein in the ancient military posts on the western frontier of Kansu[599] prove that China had communication with Central Asia, but neither the accounts of Chang Ch'ien's journeys nor the documents contain any allusion to Buddhism. In 121 B.C. the Annals relate that "a golden man" was captured from the Hsiung-nu but, even if it was an image of Buddha, the incident had no consequences. More important is a notice in the Wei-lüeh which gives a brief account of the Buddha's birth and states that in the year 2 B.C. an ambassador sent by the Emperor Ai to the court of the Yüeh Chih was instructed in Buddhism by order of their king[600]. Also the Later Han Annals intimate that in 65 A.D. the Prince of Ch'u[601] was a Buddhist and that there were Śramanas and Upâsakas in his territory.

The author of the Wei-lüeh comments on the resemblance of Buddhist writings to the work of Lao-tzŭ, and suggests that the latter left China in order to teach in India. This theory found many advocates among the Taoists, but is not likely to commend itself to European scholars. Less improbable is a view held by many Chinese critics[602] and apparently first mentioned in the Sui annals, namely, that Buddhism was introduced into China at an early date but was exterminated by the Emperor Shih Huang Ti (221-206) in the course of his crusade against literature. But this view is not supported by any details and is open to the general objection that intercourse between China and India _viâ_ Central Asia before 200 B.C. is not only unproved but improbable.

Still the mystical, quietist philosophy of Lao-tzŭ and Chuang-tzŭ has an undoubted resemblance to Indian thought. No one who is familiar with the Upanishads can read the Tao-Tê-Ching without feeling that if Brahman is substituted for Tao the whole would be intelligible to a Hindu. Its doctrine is not specifically Buddhist, yet it contains passages which sound like echoes of the Pitakas. Compare Tao-Tê-Ching, 33. 1, "He who overcomes others is strong: he who overcomes himself is mighty," with Dhammapada, 103, "If one man overcome a thousand thousand in battle and another overcome himself, this last is the greatest of conquerors"; and 46. 2, "There is no greater sin that to look on what moves desire: there is no greater evil than discontent: there is no greater disaster than covetousness," with Dhammapada, 251, "There is no fire like desire, there is no monster like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like covetousness." And if it be objected that these are the coincidences of obvious ethics, I would call attention to 39. 1̣, "Hence if we enumerate separately each part that goes to form a cart, we have no cart at all." Here the thought and its illustration cannot be called obvious and the resemblance to well-known passages in the Samyutta Nikâya and Questions of Milinda[603] is striking.

Any discussion of the indebtedness of the Tao-Tê-Ching to India is too complicated for insertion here since it involves the question of its date or the date of particular passages, if we reject the hypothesis that the work as we have it was composed by Lao-tzŭ in the sixth century B.C.[604] But there is less reason to doubt the genuineness of the essays of Chuang-tzŭ who lived in the fourth century B.C. In them we find mention of trances which give superhuman wisdom and lead to union with the all-pervading spirit, and of magical powers enjoyed by sages, similar to the Indian _iddhi_. He approves the practice of abandoning the world and enunciates the doctrines of evolution and reincarnation. He knows, as does also the Tao-Tê-Ching, methods of regulating the breathing which are conducive to mental culture and long life. He speaks of the six faculties of perception, which recall the Shaḍâyatana, and of name and real existence (nâmarûpam) as being the conditions of a thing[605]. He has also a remarkable comparison of death to the extinction of a fire: "what we can point to are the faggots that have been consumed: but the fire is transmitted and we know not that it is over and ended." Several Buddhist parallels to this might be cited[606].

The list of such resemblances might be made longer and the explanation that Indian ideas reached China sporadically, at least as early as the fourth century B.C., seems natural. I should accept it, if there were any historical evidence besides these literary parallels. But there seems to be none and it may be justly urged that the roots of this quietism lie so deep in the Chinese character, that the plant cannot have sprung from some chance wind-wafted seed. That character has two sides, one seen in the Chinese Empire and the classical philosophy, excellent as ethics but somewhat stiff and formal: the other in revolutions and rebellions, in the free life of hermits and wanderers, in poetry and painting. This second side is very like the temper of Indian Buddhism and easily amalgamated with it[607], but it has a special note of its own.

The curiosity of Ming-Ti did not lead to any immediate triumph of Buddhism. We read that he was zealous in honouring Confucius but not that he showed devotion to the new faith. Indeed it is possible that his interest was political rather than religious. Buddhism was also discredited by its first convert, the Emperor's brother Chu-Ying, who rebelled unsuccessfully and committed suicide. Still it flourished in a quiet way and the two foreign monks in the White Horse Monastery began that long series of translations which assumed gigantic proportions in the following centuries. To Kâśyapa is ascribed a collection of extracts known as the Sûtra of forty-two sections which is still popular[608]. This little work adheres closely to the teaching of the Pali Tripitaka and shows hardly any traces of the Mahâyâna. According to the Chinese annals the chief doctrines preached by the first Buddhist missionaries were the sanctity of all animal life, metempsychosis, meditation, asceticism and Karma.

It is not until the third century[609] that we hear much of Buddhism as a force at Court or among the people, but meanwhile the task of translation progressed at Lo-yang. The Chinese are a literary race and these quiet labours prepared the soil for the subsequent efflorescence. Twelve[610] translators are named as having worked before the downfall of the Han Dynasty and about 350 books are attributed to them. None of them were Chinese. About half came from India and the rest from Central Asia, the most celebrated of the latter being An Shih-kao, a prince of An-hsi or Parthia[611]. The Later Han Dynasty was followed by the animated and romantic epoch known as the Three Kingdoms (221-265) when China was divided between the States of Wei, Wu and Shu. Loyang became the capital of Wei and the activity of the White Horse Monastery continued. We have the names of five translators who worked there. One of them was the first to translate the Pâtimokkha[612], which argues that previously few followed the monastic life. At Nanking, the capital of Wu, we also hear of five translators and one was tutor of the Crown Prince. This implies that Buddhism was spreading in the south and that monks inspired confidence at Court.

The Three Kingdoms gave place to the Dynasty known as Western Tsin[613] which, for a short time (A.D. 265-316), claimed to unite the Empire, and we now reach the period when Buddhism begins to become prominent. It is also a period of political confusion, of contest between the north and south, of struggles between Chinese and Tartars. Chinese histories, with their long lists of legitimate sovereigns, exaggerate the solidity and continuity of the Empire, for the territory ruled by those sovereigns was often but a small fraction of what we call China. Yet the Tartar states were not an alien and destructive force to the same extent as the conquests made by Mohammedan Turks at the expense of Byzantium. The Tartars were neither fanatical, nor prejudiced against Chinese ideals in politics and religion. On the contrary, they respected the language, literature and institutions of the Empire: they assumed Chinese names and sometimes based their claim to the Imperial title on the marriage of their ancestors with Chinese princesses.

During the fourth century and the first half of the fifth some twenty ephemeral states, governed by Tartar chieftains and perpetually involved in mutual war, rose and fell in northern China. The most permanent of them was Northern Wei which lasted till 535 A.D. But the Later Chao and both the Earlier and Later Ts'in are important for our purpose[614]. Some writers make it a reproach to Buddhism that its progress, which had been slow among the civilized Chinese, became rapid in the provinces which passed into the hands of these ruder tribes. But the phenomenon is natural and is illustrated by the fact that even now the advance of Christianity is more rapid in Africa than in India. The civilization of China was already old and self-complacent: not devoid of intellectual curiosity and not intolerant, but sceptical of foreign importations and of dealings with the next world. But the Tartars had little of their own in the way of literature and institutions: it was their custom to assimilate the arts and ideas of the civilized nations whom they conquered: the more western tribes had already made the acquaintance of Buddhism in Central Asia and such native notions of religion as they possessed disposed them to treat priests, monks and magicians with respect.

Of the states mentioned, the Later Chao was founded by Shih-Lo[615] (273-332), whose territories extended from the Great Wall to the Han and Huai in the South. He showed favour to an Indian monk and diviner called Fo-t'u-ch'êng[616] who lived at his court and he appears to have been himself a Buddhist. At any rate the most eminent of his successors, Shih Chi-lung[617], was an ardent devotee and gave general permission to the population to enter monasteries, which had not been granted previously. This permission is noticeable, for it implies, even at this early date, the theory that a subject of the Emperor has no right to become a monk without his master's leave.

In 381 we are told that in north-western China nine-tenths of the inhabitants were Buddhists. In 372 Buddhism was introduced into Korea and accepted as the flower of Chinese civilization.

The state known as the Former Ts'in[618] had its nucleus in Shensi, but expanded considerably between 351 and 394 A.D. under the leadership of Fu-Chien[619], who established in it large colonies of Tartars. At first he favoured Confucianism but in 381 became a Buddhist. He was evidently in close touch with the western regions and probably through them with India, for we hear that sixty-two states of Central Asia sent him tribute.

The Later Ts'in dynasty (384-417) had its headquarters in Kansu and was founded by vassals of the Former Ts'in. When the power of Fu-Chien collapsed, they succeeded to his possessions and established themselves in Ch'ang-an. Yao-hsing[620], the second monarch of this line was a devout Buddhist, and deserves mention as the patron of Kumârajîva[621], the most eminent of the earlier translators.

Kumârajîva was born of Indian parents in Kucha and, after following the school of the Sarvâstivâdins for some time, became a Mahayanist. When Kucha was captured in 383 by the General of Fu-Chien, he was carried off to China and from 401 onwards he laboured at Ch'ang-an for about ten years. He was appointed Kuo Shih[622], or Director of Public Instruction, and lectured in a hall specially built for him. He is said to have had 3000 disciples and fifty extant translations are ascribed to him. Probably all the Tartar kingdoms were well disposed towards Buddhism, though their unsettled condition made them precarious residences for monks and scholars. This was doubtless true of Northern Wei, which had been growing during the period described, but appears as a prominent home of Buddhism somewhat later.

Meanwhile in the south the Eastern Tsin Dynasty, which represented the legitimate Empire and ruled at Nanking from 317 to 420, was also favourable to Buddhism and Hsiao Wu-Ti, the ninth sovereign of this line, was the first Emperor of China to become a Buddhist.

The times were troubled, but order was gradually being restored. The Eastern Tsin Dynasty had been much disturbed by the struggles of rival princes. These were brought to an end in 420 by a new dynasty known as Liu Sung which reigned in the south some sixty years. The north was divided among six Tartar kingdoms, which all perished before 440 except Wei. Wei then split into an Eastern and a Western kingdom which lasted about a hundred years. In the south, the Liu Sung gave place to three short dynasties, Ch'i, Liang and Ch'ên, until at last the Sui (589-605) united China.

The Liu Sung Emperor Wên-Ti (424-454) was a patron of Confucian learning, but does not appear to have discouraged Buddhism. The Sung annals record that several embassies were sent from India and Ceylon to offer congratulations on the flourishing condition of religion in his dominions, but they also preserve memorials from Chinese officials asking for imperial interference to prevent the multiplication of monasteries and the growing expenditure on superstitious ceremonies. This marks the beginning of the desire to curb Buddhism by restrictive legislation which the official class displayed so prominently and persistently in subsequent centuries. A similar reaction seems to have been felt in Wei, where the influential statesman Ts'ui Hao[623], a votary of Taoism, conducted an anti-Buddhist campaign. He was helped in this crusade by the discovery of arms in a monastery at Ch'ang-an. The monks were accused of treason and debauchery and in 446 Toba Tao[624], the sovereign of Wei, issued an edict ordering the destruction of Buddhist temples and sacred books as well as the execution of all priests. The Crown Prince, who was a Buddhist, was able to save many lives, but no monasteries or temples were left standing. The persecution, however, was of short duration. Toba Tao was assassinated and almost the first act of his successor was to re-establish Buddhism and allow his subjects to become monks. From this period date the sculptured grottoes of Yün-Kang in northern Shan-si which are probably the oldest specimens of Buddhist art in China. In 471 another ruler of Wei, Toba Hung, had a gigantic image of Buddha constructed and subsequently abdicated in order to devote himself to Buddhist studies. His successor marks a reaction, for he was an ardent Confucianist who changed the family name to Yüan and tried to introduce the Chinese language and dress. But the tide of Buddhism was too strong. It secured the favour of the next Emperor in whose time there are said to have been 13,000 temples in Wei.