Religions of Ancient China Part 4

At peace within their own hearts, they readily adapted themselves to the necessities of the family and of the State. Happy in life, they were remembered after death. Their sacrifices were grateful to the G.o.d of Heaven, and the spirits of the departed rejoiced in the honours of ancestral wors.h.i.+p."

His mind seems to have been open on the subject of a future state. In a lamentation on the death of a favourite nephew, he writes,

"If there is knowledge after death, this separation will be but for a little while. If there is no knowledge after death, so will this sorrow be but for a little while, and then no more sorrow for ever."

His views as to the existence of spirits on this earth are not very logical:--

"If there is whistling among the rafters, and I take a light but fail to see anything,--is that a spirit? It is not; for spirits are soundless.

If there is something in the room, and I look for it but cannot see it,--is that a spirit? It is not; spirits are formless. If something brushes against me, and I grab at, but do not seize it,--is that a spirit? It is not; for if spirits are soundless and formless, how can they have substance?

"If then spirits have neither sound nor form nor substance, are they consequently non-existent? Things which have form without sound exist in nature; for instance, earth, and stones. Things which have sound without form exist in nature; for instance, wind, and thunder. Things which have both sound and form exist in nature; for instance, men, and animals.

And things which have neither sound nor form also exist in nature; for instance, disembodied spirits and angels."

For his own poetical spirit, according to the funeral elegy written some two hundred and fifty years after his death, a great honour was reserved:--

Above in heaven there was no music, and G.o.d was sad, And summoned him to his place beside the Throne.

His friend and contemporary, Liu Tsung-yuan, a poet and philosopher like himself, was tempted into the following reflections by the contemplation of a beautiful landscape which he discovered far from the beaten track:--

"Now, I have always had my doubts about the existence of a G.o.d; but this scene made me think He really must exist. At the same time, however, I began to wonder why He did not place it in some worthy centre of civilisation, rather than in this out-of-the-way barbarous region, where for centuries there has been no one to enjoy its beauty. And so, on the other hand, such waste of labour and incongruity of position disposed me to think that there could not be a G.o.d after all."

Letter from G.o.d.--In A.D. 1008 there was a pretended revelation from G.o.d in the form of a letter, recalling the letter from Christ on the neglect of the Sabbath mentioned by Roger of Wendover and Hoveden, contemporary chroniclers. The Emperor and his Court regarded this communication with profound awe; but a high official of the day said, "I have learnt (from the Confucian Discourses) that G.o.d does not even speak; how then should He write a letter?"

Modern Materialism.--The philosopher and commentator, Chu Hsi, A.D.

1130-1200, whose interpretations of the Confucian Canon are the only ones now officially recognised, has done more than any one since Confucius himself to disseminate a rigid materialism among his fellow-countrymen. The "G.o.d" of the Canon is explained away as an "Eternal Principle;" the phenomena of the universe are attributed to Nature, with its absurd personification so commonly met with in Western writers; and spirits generally are a.s.sociated with the perfervid imaginations of sick persons and enthusiasts.

"Is consciousness dispersed after death, or does it still exist?" said an enquirer.

"It is not dispersed," replied Chu Hsi; "it is at an end. When vitality comes to an end, consciousness comes to an end with it."

He got into more trouble over the verse quoted earlier,

King Wen is on high, In glory in heaven.

His comings and his goings Are to and from the presence of G.o.d.

"If it is a.s.serted," he argued, "that King Wen was really in the presence of G.o.d, and that there really is such a Being as G.o.d, He certainly cannot have the form in which He is represented by the clay or wooden images in vogue. Still, as these statements were made by the Prophets of old, there must have been some foundation for them."

There is, however, a certain amount of inconsistency in his writings on the supernatural, for in another pa.s.sage he says,

"When G.o.d is about to send down calamities upon us, He first raises up the hero whose genius shall finally prevail against those calamities."

Sometimes he seems to be addressing the educated Confucianist; at other times, the common herd whose weaknesses have to be taken into account.

CHAPTER V -- BUDDHISM AND OTHER RELIGIONS

So early as the third century B.C., Buddhism seems to have appeared in China, though it was not until the latter part of the first century A.D.

that a regular propaganda was established, and not until a century or two later still that this religion began to take a firm hold of the Chinese people. It was bitterly opposed by the Taoists, and only after the lapse of many centuries were the two doctrines able to exist side by side in peace. Each religion began early to borrow from the other. In the words of the philosopher Chu Hsi, of the twelfth century, "Buddhism stole the best features of Taoism; Taoism stole the worst features of Buddhism. It is as though one took a jewel from the other, and the loser recouped the loss with a stone."

From Buddhism the Taoists borrowed their whole scheme of temples, priests, nuns, and ritual. They drew up liturgies to resemble the Buddhist _Sutras_, and also prayers for the dead. They adopted the idea of a Trinity, consisting of Lao Tzu, P'an Ku, and the Ruler of the Universe; and they further appropriated the Buddhist Purgatory with all its frightful terrors and tortures after death.

Nowadays it takes an expert to distinguish between the temples and priests of the two religions, and members of both hierarchies are often simultaneously summoned by persons needing religious consolation or ceremonial of any kind.

Doubts.--In a chapter on "Doubts," by the Taoist philosopher Mou Tzu, we read,

"Some one said to Mou, The Buddhist doctrine teaches that when men die they are born again. I cannot believe this.

"When a man is at the point of death, replied Mou, his family mount upon the house-top and call to him to stay. If he is already dead, to whom do they call?

"They call his soul, said the other.

"If the soul comes back, the man lives, answered Mou; but if it does not, whither does it go?

"It becomes a disembodied spirit, was the reply.

"Precisely so, said Mou. The soul is imperishable; only the body decays, just as the stalks of corn perish, while the grain continues for ever and ever. Did not Lao Tzu say, 'The reason why I suffer so much is because I have a body'?

"But all men die whether they have found the truth or not, urged the questioner; what then is the difference between them?

"That, replied Mou, is like considering your reward before you have put in right conduct for a single day. If a man has found the truth, even though he dies, his spirit will go to heaven; if he has led an evil life his spirit will suffer everlastingly. A fool knows when a thing is done, but a wise man knows beforehand. To have found the truth and not to have found it are as unlike as gold and leather; good and evil, as black and white. How then can you ask what is the difference?"

Buddhism, which forbids the slaughter of any living creature, has wisely abstained from denouncing the sacrifice of victims at the Temple of Heaven and at the Confucian Temple. But backed by Confucianism it denounces the slaughter for food of the ox which tills the soil. Some lines of doggerel to this effect, based upon the Buddhist doctrine of the transmigration of souls and put into the mouth of an ox, have been rendered as follows:--

My murderers shall come to grief, Along with all who relish beef; When I'm a man and you're a cow, I'll eat you as you eat me now.

Fire Wors.h.i.+ppers.--Mazdeism, the religion of Zoroaster, based upon the wors.h.i.+p of fire, and in that sense not altogether unfamiliar to the Chinese, reached China some time in the seventh century A.D. The first temple was built at Ch'ang-an, the capital, in 621, ten years after which came the famous missionary, Ho Lu the Magus. But the lease of life enjoyed by this religion was of short duration.

Islamism.--Mahometans first settled in China in the year of the Mission, A.D. 628, under Wahb-Abi-Kabcha, a maternal uncle of Mahomet, who was sent with presents to the Emperor. The first mosque was built at Canton, where, after several restorations, it still exists. There is at present a very large Mahometan community in China, chiefly in the province of Yunnan. These people carry on their wors.h.i.+p unmolested, on the sole condition that in each mosque there shall be exhibited a small tablet with an inscription, the purport of which is recognition of allegiance to the reigning Emperor.

Nestorians.--In A.D. 631 the Nestorian Church introduced Christianity into China, under the t.i.tle of "The Luminous Doctrine;" and in 636 Nestorian missionaries were allowed to settle at the capital. In 781 the famous Nestorian Tablet, with a bilingual inscription in Chinese and Syriac, was set up at Si-ngan Fu, where it still remains, and where it was discovered in 1625 by Father Semedo, long after Nestorianism had altogether disappeared, leaving not a rack behind.

Manichaeans.--In A.D. 719 an amba.s.sador from Tokharestan arrived at the capital. He was accompanied by one Ta-mou-she, who is said to have taught the religion of the Chaldean Mani, or Manes, who died about A.D.

274. In 807 the Manichaean sect made formal application to be allowed to have recognised places of meeting; shortly after which they too disappear from history.

Judaism.--The Jews, known to the Chinese as those who "take out the sinew," from their peculiar method of preparing meat, are said by some to have reached China, and to have founded a colony in Honan, shortly after the Captivity, carrying the Pentateuch with them. Three inscriptions on stone tablets are still extant, dated 1489, 1512, and 1663, respectively. The first says the Jews came to China during the Sung dynasty; the second, during the Han dynasty; and the third, during the Chou dynasty. The first is probably the correct account. We know that the Jews built a synagogue at K'ai-feng Fu in A.D. 1164, where they were discovered by Ricci in the seventeenth century, and where, in 1850, there were still to be found traces of the old faith, now said to be completely effaced.

Christianity.--With the advent of the Jesuit Fathers in the sixteenth century, and of the Protestant missionaries, Marshman and Morrison, in 1799 and 1807 respectively, we pa.s.s gradually down to the present day, where we may well pause and look around to see what remains to the modern Chinese of their ancient faiths. It is scarcely too much to say that all idea of the early G.o.d of their forefathers has long since ceased to vivify their religious instincts, though the sacrifices to G.o.d and to Earth are still annually performed by the Emperor.

Ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, and the cult of Confucius, are probably very much what they were many hundreds of years ago; while Taoism, once a pure philosophy, is now a corrupt religion. As to alien faiths, the Buddhism of China would certainly not be recognised by the Founder of Buddhism in India; Mahometanism is fairly flouris.h.i.+ng; Christianity is still bitterly opposed.

CHRONOLOGICAL SYLLABUS

Legendary Period (Twenty-ninth Century to Tenth Century B.C.)--P'an Ku and Creation--First Wors.h.i.+p of Spirits--Wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, with incense--Sacrifices to Mountains and Rivers--Wors.h.i.+p of Sun, Moon, and Stars--Inst.i.tution of Ancestral Wors.h.i.+p--G.o.d enjoys music, dancing, and burnt offerings--G.o.d resents bad government--Revelation in a Dream--Anthropomorphism--Fetis.h.i.+sm--No Devil--No h.e.l.l--Terms for G.o.d--The Character for "G.o.d" is a picture of a Man--G.o.d and Jehovah--G.o.d in the _Odes_--Hou Chi and Parthenogenesis--Superst.i.tions and Supernatural Manifestations--Sacrifice--Ancestral Wors.h.i.+p--Filial Piety.

Feudal Age (Tenth Century to Third Century B.C.)--The Influence of Confucianism--His Agnosticism--Weakening of Supernatural Beliefs--Consolidation of Confucianism--Human Sacrifices--Prayers for Rain--The Philosophy of Taoism--A Rival to Confucianism--But uniting to weaken the old Monotheistic Faith--Its Theory of Spirits--Modifications of Taoism--The Elixir of Life--Evidences of a Spiritual World--Mysticism.