BUDDHISM IN CHINA

II. BUDDHISM IN CHINA

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The followers of this meditative school are to be found throughout the monasteries of China and Korea where they are known as the Chan sect; but here more than in Japan their quietism is mingled with the devotion to Amitābha or Omito-Fo, and though in many places such as the exquisite island of Putoshan they are faithful in the practice of meditation, they seem to have carried it to a far less perfect pitch than the more scholarly followers of the Japanese school.

A Chinese Temple.

Let us get a glimpse of Chinese Buddhism in one of these great monasteries. The day is a round of worship[15] and the worship is divided amongst many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Here some rich layman is making an offering for masses for his dead; Buddhism in China has indeed become largely a matter of such masses, and the filial Chinese spend yearly scores of millions upon them.[16] The priests have turned out in force, and the abbot is reciting the praises now of Omito-Fo, now of Pilochana, the great sun-Buddha, now of the merciful Kwanyin whose ears are ever open to human prayer, and now of Titsang, guardian of the dead. Beautiful figures these, and especially that of this strong conqueror of death so popular amongst the Japanese as the guardian of the little ones who have gone into the dark under-world. Innumerable figures of him adorned with baby garments tell their own pathetic tale, and he is unimaginative indeed who cannot find here in these ideal figures traces of the Spirit of God at work in human hearts.

It is harder to sympathise with and to admire the Lama Buddhism which has penetrated China from Tibet, but even here there are some beautiful figures such as the Tāras, and amongst the mummery and moral corruption of a Lama temple one may find some sparks of the divine spirit, even if one fails to meet the Lama of Kim!

Buddhism in China, decadent though it is in many places, is reviving itself; there is great building activity at certain centres such as Ningpo and Hangchow; there are probably nearly half a million monks, and at one ordination in 1920 a thousand candidates were ordained in Changchow. Many men, indeed, disillusioned at the failure of the revolution, are seeking the quiet otherworldly retreats of Buddhism, and others of scholarly bent delight in the classical scriptures which the early missionaries from India translated into Chinese, and which are still models of beauty.

Among laymen also there is an increasing interest in the Buddhist scriptures. Turn into this bookstore at Peking and you will find over a thousand copies of different texts and commentaries, and there are publishing-houses in most of the great cities. Two notable works are the reprint of the whole of the Scriptures and a new dictionary of Buddhist terms, containing over three thousand pages. At Ningpo one will find a small group of young enthusiasts working for a "neo-Buddhism." Antipathetic to Christianity, and especially to the aggressions of "Christian" nations, these men, like some of the propagandists in Ceylon, use weapons which are two-edged and dangerous to all religion, not only to Christianity; they seem to feed upon the publications of the rationalist press, and must not be taken too seriously. Yet we can sympathise with their resentment of Western aggression, which is a large factor in these Buddhist movements everywhere. "Buddhism: the Religion of Asia" often accompanies and reinforces another cry, "Asia for the Asiatics."

Of great significance are these Pan-Buddhist movements attempting to unite the Buddhist peoples in a strong Eastern civilisation such as that which welded them together for a thousand years in the Golden Age of the past. One such movement originates in Ceylon with the vigorous layman Dharmapala, in whom resentment against the West blends with a real enthusiasm for Buddhism. In 1893 he visited China, and stirred up some of the Chinese monks, calling upon them to go to India as missionaries; in Japan he attacked some of the great abbots as wine-drinkers and corrupt, and every where he is a pungent and provocative influence. In 1918 a Pan-Buddhist Association was started in Tokyo and in the following year a rival one was founded in Peking. It is, in fact, rather pathetic to find Buddhism being promoted by the Japanese in Korea as a part of their propaganda to Japanise the Koreans, and at the same time claiming in China to be the religion for democratic nations.

In justification of such claims, however, Buddhism is doing some good work in social service, and in education, and takes its part in famine relief, prison visitation, and the beneficent work of the Red Cross.

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The Chinese are a religious people, whatever critics may say. Vast armies of monks and innumerable temples and shrines witness to this other-worldly strain, and though much of their religion is superstitious, and almost all of it needs moralising, the sympathetic observer will find on every hand the evidences that these are not a "secular-minded" people.

In almost every house are not only ancestor-tablets, but images of Kwanyin and other Buddhist deities, and pilgrimages play in China as elsewhere in Asia a great part in the national life.

Follow this merry throng as it climbs the slopes of some great mountain; note the groves and the poetical inscriptions on the rocks; enter this noble group of temples with them and watch their acts of worship.

Here before Kwanyin a young apprentice bows: carelessly he tosses the bamboo strips which will tell him if his prayer is to be answered, and defiantly he tosses his head as he turns away with a refusal from the goddess: but here is an old widow, with sorrowful persistence importuning the Compassionate One, and in even the most careless is a belief that Heaven rules in the affairs of men and that Heaven is just.

Here prayers are offered for rain and harvest, for children and wealth, for release from suffering and demons.

As in many Christian nations the bridge between natural religion and the essential truths of Christian Theism is a very shaky one—so here in China and Japan, whilst there is a widespread belief in Karma and in Heaven's laws, this is but vaguely connected with the polytheistic cults of the masses. And as in some other Christian lands, the worship of the saints and local gods—even of the great Kwanyin—is not always moralised. Habitual sinners—opium fiends who, it may be, are ruining scores of lives, prostitutes and murderers—will pay their daily court to the family or local god: not conscious of any demand from the Compassionate that they should show compassion, or from the Righteous that they should be righteous. Buddhism has indeed lost its early salt of morality. It is for these and other reasons that China and Japan urgently need the Gospel of Jesus and of His Kingdom. In their own religious development is a noble preparation for this New Order: and in the Jesus of History they are finding a Norm and a Vision of God which makes their old ideals real and vital, and which purifies their idea of God. In this faith the Church is at work in these wonderful lands, believing that they have rich gifts for the Kingdom of God, and that it will greatly enrich them and carry to its fulfilment their noble civilisations whilst it emancipates their masses from fear and superstition. With all its achievements Buddhism has failed because it has had no power to cast out fear, and its Confucian critics even accuse it of playing upon the superstition of the people and of letting loose more demons to plague them. Yet it has done much for China, not only ennobling her art and culture but giving a new value to the individual, a new respect for women, a new love of nature, and many noble objects of worship to hungry human hearts.

Whilst then the Gospel wins its way slowly but surely in Asia, leavening and giving new and abundant life, there are those in Christendom who hold that it is played out, and that Buddhism is destined to supersede it as the religion of the intelligent!

The student should investigate their activities in London, Breslau, and other Western cities; and he may find Appendix I a finger-post to guide him in his quest.

Appendix II is offered as a similar guide to a course of reading.

[15] The chief services are at 2 a.m. and at 4 p.m.

[16] During the war many such masses were said for the fallen, whether friend or foe.