RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
China
of the passions, and especially with the exorcising of demons. It is extensively mixed with Buddhist ideas, having borrowed from that system the notion of a trinity of Pure Ones. A being having the same title as the Shang Ti of the Confucianists is worshiped, but his fimctions are practically delegated to a divinity called Pearly Emperor Supreme Ruler, who is regarded as an apotheosis of a man named Chang who lived in the Han dynasty (189 B.C.), and whose supposed successors, into each of whom the soul of the founder transmigrates, hves on the Dragon-Tiger mountain in Iviangsi, and is by foreigners termed " the Taoist Pope." Eight " Immortals," each of great capacity, some of them objects of worship, figure largely in popular Taoism. In almost all villages there is a temple to the local god (or god of the soil) who is regarded as a constable reporting deaths, etc., to the city god (Ch'eng Huang) in whose temple are represented by images the most horrible tortures of the future life, visited upon the wicked. A Sea Dragon King rules the waters, and is often worshiped in the form of water (or even land) snakes. Taoism boasts an immense literature, but with the exception of the classic named it is of little value, and is not reducible to a system. It descends into animal worship of the " Five Great Families," viz., the Fox, the Rat, the Weasel, the Snake, and the Hedgehog, each of which is spoken of in terms of the highest respect, and considered to be endowed with supernatural powers.
The dense ignorance of the Chmese regarding the uniformity of nature, and the apparent absence of any intuition of cause and effect,
2. Super- make the popular mind a fertile seedof the ^^'^ ^'^^ cultivation of superstitious
Chinese, germs of every sort. Every few years a wave of fanaticism seems to be propagated throughout the empire, issuing in tales of cue-cutting without visible agency, kidnaping of children, and the like. The whole Boxer movement in China was stimulated by beliefs which negative and defy the laws of nature.
Men who are confident that no sword that was ever forged can cut them, that no rifle-bullet can penetrate their charmed bodies, that no artillery can destroy them are dangerous elements in any civilized land, and China is full of such men. It is difficult to find in Taoism at the present day a single redeeming feature. Its assumptions are wholly false, its bald materialism inevitably and hopelessly debasing.
3. Buddhism: This Indian religion is supposed to have been introduced into China in the Han dynasty, by the Emperor Ming Ti, in consequence of a dream. At different periods it encountered great opposition both from the agnostic Confucianists and the materialistic Taoists. The essential doctrines of Buddhism (q.v.) are the vanity of all material things, the supreme importance of charity, and the certainty of rewards and punishment by means of the transmigration of souls. The Five Precepts of Buddhism forbid the taking of life, stealing, lust, improper speech, and the use of wine.
The Buddhist habit of renouncing one's family
and becoming priests or nuns is in theory totally opposed to Confucian teaching and instincts, yet like the belief in the transmigration of souls, and the bliss of attaining to be a Buddha, it is commended to the Chinese by long custom. The poverty of thousands of Chinese makes their children available for service in the temples, though Confucianism has never assented to it. Yet whatever their theoretical views, Chinese of all ranks call in Buddhist or Taoist priests, or both, upon due provocation, especially at funerals. The \mlimited utterance of the name of Omito Fo (Amita Buddha) will bring great felicity, and its incessant enunciation is one of the principal industries of the Mongols. The power of Buddhism has arisen from the fatal weakness of Confucianism, which has nothing to say of the hereafter. The literature of Buddhism, like that of Taoism, is appallingly extensive, embracing both translations from the Sanskrit (which embodies the northern form of Buddhism as the Pali language does the southern), and also attempts to write Sanskrit texts in Chinese characters. Although Buddhist tenets are deeply enshrined in the hearts of the Chinese people, Chinese scholars, even when adopting Buddhism, have always affected to despise it. It has rendered the Chinese more compassionate to the brute creation than they would otherwise have been, and it has introduced the graceful but costly pagoda, as well as the dagoba, or memorial tope. While often displaying the negative activity arising from the cohesive power of ancient, vested interests, Buddhism in China has long since lost the virility which it attained through persecution, and has passed into a hopeless and senile decay.
4. Mohammedanism: Mohammedans are scattered throughout China, particularly in the cities, being strongest in the southwestern provinces, their total number being estimated at twenty millions. They reached China in the T'ang dynasty, over a thousand years ago. Their mosques are especially in evidence in such great centers as Peking, Tien-Tsin, Canton, etc. The Mohammedans are much more lax in their practises than their coreligionists in India. They do not intermarry with the Chinese, but sometimes adopt Chinese children. They do nothing to propagate their faith, and apparently have never done so. The Chinese consider them as more violent in temper and more cruel in disposition than themselves, but the days of their early persecution have long since passed away. With the exception of their monotheism there is often very little distinction between the followers of the Prophet and the Chinese.
5. Chinese Sects: China is honeycombed with many varieties of secret societies, nearly all of which profess to " practise virtue " as an end. Many of them are, however, semipolitical, and all of them are tabooed by the government. Their manuals are copied by hand, and are practically inaccessible, and their tenets are compounded of fragments of Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism brewed in a common kettle. Their practises have imquestionably had their origin in Indian sources, the Chinese intellect not being sufficiently
I metaphysical to originate, or even to comprehend,
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