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Buddhism and Buddhists in China

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Title: Buddhism and Buddhists in China

Author: Lewis Hodus

Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8390] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was

first posted on July 6, 2003]

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BUDDHISM AND BUDDHISTS IN CHINA

LEWIS HODOUS, D.D.

[Illustration: EX LIBRIS: CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING Western Reserve University Library

From the Library of Charles Franklin Thwing Acquired in 1938]

PREFACE

This volume is the third to be published of a series on "The World's Living Religions," projected in 1920 by

the Board of Missionary Preparation of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America. The series seeks

Buddhism and Buddhists in China

to introduce Western readers to the real religious life of each great national area of the non-Christian world.

Buddhism is a religion which must be viewed from many angles. Its original form, as preached by Gautama in

India and developed in the early years succeeding, and as embodied in the sacred literature of early Buddhism,

is not representative of the actual Buddhism of any land today. The faithful student of Buddhist literature

would be as far removed from understanding the working activities of a busy center of Buddhism in Burmah,

Tibet or China today as a student of patristic literature would be from appreciating the Christian life of

London or New York City.

Moreover Buddhism, like Christianity, has been affected by national conditions. It has developed at least three

markedly different types, requiring, therefore, as many distinct volumes of this series for its fair interpretation

and presentation. The volume on the Buddhism of Southern Asia by Professor Kenneth J. Saunders was

published in May, 1923; this volume on the Buddhism of China by Professor Hodous will be the second to

appear; a third on the Buddhism of Japan, to be written by Dr. R. C. Armstrong, will be published in 1924.

Each of these is needed in order that the would be student of Buddhism as practiced in those countries should

be given a true, impressive and friendly picture of what he will meet.

A missionary no less than a professional student of Buddhism needs to approach that religion with a real

appreciation of what it aims to do for its people and does do. No one can come into contact with the best that

Buddhism offers without being impressed by its serenity, assurance and power.

Professor Hodous has written this volume on Buddhism in China out of the ripe experience and continuing

studies of sixteen years of missionary service in Foochow, the chief city of Fukien Province, China, one of the

important centers of Buddhism. His local studies were supplemented by the results of broader research and

study in northern China. No other available writer on the subject has gone so far as he in reproducing the

actual thinking of a trained Buddhist mind in regard to the fundamentals of religion. At the same time he has

taken pains to exhibit and to interpret the religious life of the peasant as affected by Buddhism. He has sought

to be absolutely fair to Buddhism, but still to express his own conviction that the best that is in Buddhism is

given far more adequate expression in Christianity.

The purpose of each volume in this series is impressionistic rather than definitely educational. They are not

textbooks for the formal study of Buddhism, but introductions to its study. They aim to kindle interest and to

direct the activity of the awakened student along sound lines. For further study each volume amply provides

through directions and literature in the appendices. It seeks to help the student to discriminate, to think in

terms of a devotee of Buddhism when he compares that religion with Christianity. It assumes, however, that

Christianity is the broader and deeper revelation of God and the world of today.

Buddhism in China undoubtedly includes among its adherents many high-minded, devout, and earnest souls

who live an idealistic life. Christianity ought to make a strong appeal to such minds, taking from them none of

the joy or assurance or devotion which they possess, but promoting a deeper, better balanced interpretation of

the active world, a nobler conception of God, a stronger sense of sinfulness and need, and a truer idea of the

full meaning of incarnation and revelation.

It is our hope that this fresh contribution to the understanding of Buddhism as it is today may be found helpful

to readers everywhere.

The Editors.

_New York city, December, 1923._

The Committee of Reference and Counsel of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America has

authorized the publication of this series. The author of each volume is alone responsible for the opinions

CHAPTER

expressed, unless otherwise stated.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTORY

II. THE ENTRANCE OF BUDDHISM INTO CHINA

III. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BUDDHISM AS THE PREDOMINATING RELIGION OF CHINA 1. The

World of Invisible Spirits 2. The Universal Sense of Ancestor Control 3. Degenerate Taoism 4. The

Organizing Value of Confucianism 5. Buddhism an Inclusive Religion

IV. BUDDHISM AND THE PEASANT 1. The Monastery of Kushan 2. Monasteries Control Fêng-shui 3.

Prayer for Rain (a) The altar (b) The prayer service (c) Its Meaning 4. Monasteries are Supported because

They Control Fêng-shui

V. BUDDHISM AND THE FAMILY 1. Kuan Yin, the Giver of Children and Protector of Women 2. Kuan

Yin, the Model of Local Mother-Goddesses 3. Exhortations on Family Virtues 4. Services for the Dead

VI. BUDDHISM AND SOCIAL LIFE 1. How the Laity is Trained in Buddhist Ideas 2. Effect of Ideals of

Mercy and Universal Love 3. Relation to Confucian Ideal 4. The Embodiment of Buddhist Ideals in the

Vegetarian Sects 5. Pilgrimages

VII. BUDDHISM AND THE FUTURE LIFE 1. The Buddhist Purgatory 2. Its Social Value 3. The Buddhist

Heaven 4. The Harmonization of These Ideas with Ancestor Worship

VIII. THE SPIRITUAL VALUES EMPHASIZED BY BUDDHISM IN CHINA 1. The Threefold

Classification of Men under Buddhism 2. Salvation for the Common Man 3. The Place of Faith 4. Salvation of

the Second Class 5. Salvation for the Highest Class 6. Heaven and Purgatory 7. Sin 8. Nirvana 9. The

Philosophical Background 10. What Buddhism Has to Give

IX. PRESENT-DAY BUDDHISM 1. Periods of Buddhist History 2. The Progress of the Last Twenty-five

Years 3. Present Activities (a) The reconstruction of monasteries (b) Accessions (c) Publications (d) Lectures

(e) Buddhist societies (f) Signs of social ambition 4. The Attitude of Tibetan Lamas 5. The Buddhist World

Versus the Christian World

X. THE CHRISTIAN APPROACH TO BUDDHISTS 1. Questions which Buddhists Ask 2. Knowledge and

Sympathy 3. Emphasis on the Æsthetic in Christianity 4. Emphasis on the Mystical in Christianity 5.

Emphasis on the Social Elements in Christianity 6. Emphasis on the Person of Jesus Christ (a) As a Historical

Character (b) As the Revealer (c) As the Saviour (d) As the Eternal Son of God 7. How Christianity Expresses

Itself in Buddhist Minds 8. Christianity's Constructive Values

APPENDIX ONE, Hints for the Preliminary Study of Buddhism in China

CHAPTER

APPENDIX TWO, A Brief Bibliography

BUDDHISM AND BUDDHISTS IN CHINA

INTRODUCTORY

A well known missionary of Peking, China, was invited one day by a Buddhist acquaintance to attend the

ceremony of initiation for a class of one hundred and eighty priests and some twenty laity who had been

undergoing preparatory instruction at the stately and important Buddhist monastery. The beautiful courts of

the temple were filled by a throng of invited guests and spectators, waiting to watch the impressive procession

of candidates, acolytes, attendants and high officials, all in their appropriate vestments. No outsider was

privileged to witness the solemn taking by each candidate for the priesthood of the vow to "keep the Ten

Laws," followed by the indelible branding of his scalp, truly a "baptism of fire." Less private was the initiation

of the lay brethren and _sisters,_ more lightly branded on the right wrist, while all about intoned "Na Mah Pen

Shih Shih Chia Mou Ni Fo." (I put my trust in my original Teacher, Säkyamuni, Buddha.)

The missionary was deeply impressed by the serenity and devotion of the worshipers and by the dignity and

solemnity of the service. The last candidate to rise and receive the baptism of branding was a young married

woman of refined appearance, attended by an elderly lady, evidently her mother, who watched with an

expression of mingled devotion, insight and pride her daughter's initiation and welcomed her at the end of the

process with radiant face, as a daughter, now, in a spiritual as well as a physical sense. At that moment an

attendant, noting the keen interest of the missionary, said to him rather flippantly, "Would you not like to have

your arm branded, too?" "I might," he replied, "just out of curiosity, but I could not receive the branding as a

believer in the Buddha. I am a Christian believer. To be branded without inward faith would be an insult to

your religion as well as treachery to my own, would it not? Is not real religion a matter of the heart?"

The old lady, who had overheard with evident disapproval the remark of the attendant, turned to the

missionary at once and said, "Is that the way you Westerners, you Christians, speak of your faith? Is the

reality of religion for you also an inward experience of the heart?" And with that began an interesting

interchange of conversation, each party discovering that in the heart of the other was a genuine longing for

God that overwhelmed all the artificial, material distinctions and the human devices through which men have

limited to particular and exclusive paths their way of search, and drew these two pilgrims on the way toward

God into a common and very real fellowship of the spirit.

A Buddhist monk was passing by a mission building in another city' of China when his attention was suddenly

drawn to the Svastika and other Buddhist symbols which the architect had skilfully used in decorating the

building. His face brightened as he said to his companion: "I did not know that Christians had any

appreciation of beauty in their religion."

These incidents reveal aspects of the alchemy of the soul by which the real devotee of one religion perceives

values which are dear to him in another religion. The good which he has attained in his old religion enables

him to appropriate the better in the new religion. A converted monk, explaining his acceptance of Christianity,

said: "I found in Jesus Christ the great Bodhisattva, my Saviour, who brings to fruition the aspirations

awakened in me by Buddhism."

Just as it has been said that they do not know England who know England only, so it may be said with equal

truth that they do not know Christianity who know it and no other faith. There are many in China like the old

lady at the temple, who have found in Buddhism something of that spiritual satisfaction and stimulus which

true Christianity affords, in fuller measure. The recognition of such religious values by the student or the

missionary furnishes a sound foundation for the building of a truer spirituality among such devotees.

CHAPTER

As will be seen in what follows, religion in China is at first sight a mixed affair. From the standpoint of cruder

household superstitions an average Chinese family may be regarded as Taoists; the principles by which its

members seek to guide their lives individually and socially may be called Confucian; their attitude of worship

and their hopes for the future make them Buddhists. The student would not be far afield when he credits the

religious aspirations of the Chinese today to Buddhism, regarding Confucianism as furnishing the ethical

system to which they submit and Taoism as responsible for many superstitious practices. But the Buddhism

found in China differs radically from that of Southern Asia, as will be made clear by the following sketch of

its introduction into the Flowery Kingdom and its subsequent history.

THE ENTRANCE OF BUDDHISM INTO CHINA

Buddhism was not an indigenous religion of China. Its, founder was Gautama of India in the sixth century

B.C. Some centuries later it found its way into China by way of central Asia. There is a tradition that as early

as 142 B.C. Chang Ch'ien, an ambassador of the Chinese emperor, Wu Ti, visited the countries of central

Asia, where he first learned about the new religion which was making such headway and reported concerning

it to his master. A few years later the generals of Wu Ti captured a gold image of the Buddha which the

emperor set up in his palace and worshiped, but he took no further steps.

According to Chinese historians Buddhism was officially recognized in China about 67 A.D. A few years

before that date, the emperor, Ming-Ti, saw in a dream a large golden image with a halo hovering above his

palace. His advisers, some of whom were no doubt already favorable to the new religion, interpreted the

image of the dream to be that of Buddha, the great sage of India, who was inviting his adhesion. Following

their advice the emperor sent an embassy to study into Buddhism. It brought back two Indian monks and a

quantity of Buddhist classics. These were carried on a white horse and so the monastery which the emperor

built for the monks and those who came after them was called the White Horse Monastery. Its tablet is said to

have survived to this day.

This dream story is worth repeating because it goes to show that Buddhism was not only known at an early

date, but was favored at the court of China. In fact, the same history which relates the dream contains the

biography of an official who became an adherent of Buddhism a few years before the dream took place. This

is not at all surprising, because an acquaintance with Buddhism was the inevitable concomitant of the military

campaigning, the many embassies and the wide-ranging trade of those centuries. But the introduction of

Buddhism into China was especially promoted by reason of the current policy of the Chinese government of

moving conquered populations in countries west of China into China proper, The vanquished peoples brought

their own religion along with them. At one time what is now the province of Shansi was populated in this way

by the Hsiung-nu, many of whom were Buddhists.

The introduction and spread of Buddhism were hastened by the decline of Confucianism and Taoism. The

Han dynasty (206 B. C.-221 A. D.) established a government founded on Confucianism. It reproduced the

classics destroyed in the previous dynasty and encouraged their study; it established the state worship of

Confucius; it based its laws and regulations upon the ideals and principles advocated by Confucius. The great

increase of wealth and power under this dynasty led to a gradual deterioration in the character of the rulers

and officials. The sigid Confucian regulations became burdensome to the people who ceased to respect their

leaders. Confucianism lost its hold as the complete solution of the problems of life. At the same time Taoism

had become a veritable jumble of meaningless and superstitious rites which served to support a horde of

ignorant, selfish priests. The high religious ideals of the earlier Taoist mystics were abandoned for a search

after the elixir of life during fruitless journeys to the isles of the Immortals which were supposed to be in the

Eastern Sea.

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