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$Unique_ID{bob00786}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{History Of Religions
Chapter IV}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Foot Moore, George}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{religion
gods
state
temples
chinese
buddhist
dead
god
earth
popular}
$Date{1913}
$Log{}
Title:       History Of Religions
Book:        Religions Of China
Author:      Foot Moore, George
Date:        1913

Chapter IV

The Religion Of The Masses

     Relation to the Religion of the State - Spirits of the Soil - Holy
Mountains - Various Gods - Temples and Images - Festivals - Priests - Domestic
Worship - Feng-shui - Divination - Salvationist Sects - Buddhist Influences -
Ancestor Worship - Tombs and Burial - Modern Funeral Ceremonies - Demon-lore.

     In the official religion of China the worship of the spirits of the soil
and grain fills a large place. ^1 They rank next below the imperial ancestors
in the hierarchy of divine powers, above all the nature gods except Heaven and
Earth.  The emperor sacrifices to the spirits of the soil and grain who
preside over the fertility of the whole empire, the provincial governors to
those of their provinces, and so on down through the administrative
subdivisions of the state.  To the people themselves are left only the
offering to the local spirit of the soil and grain at the village shrine, in
which a representative of each family is presumed to be present, and the
offering of the clan to the spirit of their own fields. This worship doubtless
goes back to the time when the ancestors of the Chinese established themselves
in the land and settled to till the soil; and the clan and communal sacrifices
perpetuate its oldest form, while the offerings of rulers for their states,
and of the emperor for the whole country, and of his vassals or officials for
the provinces and districts, is a subsequent development and systematisation.

[Footnote 1: See above, pp. 8, 10.]

     The same thing is true of the mountains, which govern wind and rain, hold
down the earth when it is upheaved by earthquake, and restrain the violence of
floods, and of the rivers whose floods have so often been the ruin of vast
regions: the local worship of these powers is far older than the state
religion, older than the state itself.  Nor has the appropriation of this
whole sphere by the state and its assertion of an exclusive right, through its
officials, to sacrifice to the mountains and rivers of the whole empire and
its several provinces ever supplanted or suppressed the ancient local cults.
When it is said, therefore, that the religion of the Chinese people consists
in part of the worship of the gods of the state religion - a worship not
recognised by the state - the facts are not seen in their historical relation.
The truth is, rather, that the state has attempted, with incomplete success,
to take a large part of the religion of the people out of its hands.  To the
local spirits of the ground, or the spirit of the earth and the soil, temples
or shrines are erected everywhere, especially by the country people.  As giver
of the fruits of the earth, the spirit of the soil is the god of wealth, and
as such is worshipped by shopkeepers and artisans whose gain does not come
directly from the earth.

     Besides the mountains of each region, some of the great mountains of the
systematized state religion are the object of a wide-spread popular worship,
in particular T'ai-shan, the Eastern Summit. ^1 Prayers are made to this deity
in the spring that he will favourably influence the growth of the crops, and
thanksgivings in the autumn for his benefits bestowed; he is appealed to to
restore the stability of the earth in time of earthquake and to restrain the
violence of flood.  Dominating the East, it is from him that life arises; in
his flanks are lodged all the souls that await their birth, and to T'ai-shan
all souls return at death - a popular belief which can be traced back to the
early centuries of our era.  Inasmuch as all souls issued from him and
returned to him, he determined the duration of life.  Finally, when the
Buddhist doctrine of retribution after death became part of popular belief,
T'ai-shan became the judge of the dead, and the old Elysian Fields in his
depths were transformed into seventy-five hells, whose ingeniously varied
torments are represented in as many chambers surrounding the court of his
temples.  With the god of the Eastern Summit is associated the goddess of the
rosy clouds of dawn, whose temple to-day is the most splendid of those which
crown the top of T'ai-shan, and who has many other temples in northern China,
where she holds a place similar to that of Kuan-yin in the south; her
attendants are functional deities who preside over maternity and children.  To
T'ai-shan thousands of pilgrims annually resort, and he, with his satellites,
have temples in all the cities of northern China.

[Footnote 1: E. Chavannes, Le T'ai Chan, 1910.  See also "Le dieu du sol dans
le Chine antique," ib., pp. 437. ff.]

     Multitudes of gods not acknowledged in the state religion are worshipped
among the people.  The various trades and callings have their patrons,
commonly supposed to have been men who invented the art or first practised the
occupation, or such as achieved the highest skill or fame in it.  The
principle is the same as that which gives such figures as the Father of
Husbandry, the First Physician, the God of War, their place in the state
religion.  There are gods who are specialists in curing different diseases as
well as general practitioners of healing.  Besides gods who are worshipped in
all parts of the empire are others whose cult is more restricted.  A temple of
no matter what god may acquire fame as a place where the desires of
worshippers are signally fulfilled and wonders are wrought; when this happens
men will throng to it in quest of like boons. After a time its repute may
wane, or be eclipsed by another of which more marvellous things are told, so
that the first is little frequented and falls into neglect.

     The nature gods of the old Chinese religion had neither temples nor
idols.  The local genius of the soil was worshipped at an altar or mound of
earth reared around the foot of a tree.  In the official cultus to-day the
gods are represented only by tablets on which their names are inscribed, and
the great sacrifices take place under the open sky.  In the modern popular
religion, however, doubtless in imitation of Buddhist example, the gods are
represented by images and housed in temples.  The idol of the chief deity of
the temple, commonly a seated human figure with distinctive attributes,
occupies a wooden shrine or tabernacle facing the main entrance; other gods,
his associates or ministers, have their places near him or in side chapels.
Large idols are of wood or pottery, smaller ones of the same material or of
metal.  Not only the deities who are believed to have been men, but the gods
of mountains and rivers are thus imaged. Before the god is a table for
offerings, on which stand permanently lamps, vases for flowers, and a vessel
filled with the ashes in which the lighted sticks of incense are set up.  The
temples are built and repaired by public subscription, and the most liberal
contributors become trustees or directors, on whom devolve also the
arrangements for the celebration of festivals and extraordinary services.  The
officials, who are responsible for the welfare of their districts and should
not neglect any means that may conduce to it, are expected in their personal
capacity to put their names down for respectable sums; but the government as
such does nothing for the support of the popular temples, which are indeed, in
strict view of the law, illegitimate, and always liable to be closed by the
authorities.

     To these temples individuals resort with their private needs.  A couple
of incense sticks set burning in the vase before the image, a prostration, and
a simple and direct request for help, are the commonest approach to the god,
but other offerings are brought in greater affairs, or the prayer may be
accompanied by a vow to be fulfilled if the petition be granted.  The vower
may pledge himself to offer the flesh of an animal, most commonly a pig, or to
supply oil for the lamps or objects for the decoration of the temple;
contributions to the celebration of festivals are often promised, also gifts
to the poor, and works of public benefit such as the repairing of roads and
bridges.

     Every temple has its festival seasons, which bring the worshippers
together, often in great numbers, for public services.  In the case of the
gods which are recognised by the state, these seasons generally follow the
calendar of the official cultus; for the others each temple has its own
custom.  Besides offerings on a larger scale, plays are enacted on a stage
within the temple precincts or adjoining them; the smaller shrines content
themselves with a puppet show.  Processions, in which the images of the gods
are carried through the streets of the quarter, also occur at these festivals.
Similar ceremonies are performed on divers special occasions, as when a new
temple is dedicated or an old one restored, or when some public calamity such
as an outbreak of disease is to be stayed.  In the last-named case, the
images, in which reside the spiritual substance and power of the gods, are
believed to dispel the demonic influences that cause sickness.  The
processions are frequently held at night, when the power of the spirits of
darkness is greatest, and a great uproar of gongs and drums and horns and the
firing of guns aid in putting the demons to flight.

     Such exercises, as well as the ceremonies at festivals, are usually
conducted by priests hired for the occasion.  These priests (Wu) are
frequently mentioned in the old books, and the description of their doings
makes it clear that they were successors of the Mongol shamans: they had the
power of inducing possession, that is, of causing spirits to enter into them
and speak and act through their bodily organs; in this state they not only
revealed the efficacious means of making the gods work for men's ends and of
thwarting the demons and driving them away, but were able, with supernatural
power, to perform the acts thus indicated.  The official religion eliminated
these "mediums," and the laws prohibit their dealings with "heterodox
spirits," but, notwithstanding the law, some of them still practise possession
according to the ancient model; such exhibitions are particularly to be seen
in processions to drive away the demons of plague.

     The priests live among their countrymen and engage in ordinary
occupations, to which many of them add as a side branch exorcism, the
preparation of amulets, and magical hocus-pocus of various kinds.  These arts
are handed down in certain families, and the calling is thus hereditary, but
the Wu do not in any other sense constitute a sacerdotal class; they are not
permanently attached to the temples and have no regular income from them.  On
their ceremonial robes, which they wear only when engaged in sacred functions,
they embroider the sun, moon, and stars, mountains, rivers, and seas,
indicating their character as nature priests, and with these the symbol of the
dual forces, Yang and Yin, which together make up the Tao, or one universal
order.  They like to call themselves Tao-shi, "Taoist Scholars," and regard
Lao-tse as the patron of their craft; what they have of Taoism, besides the
pretentious name, is, however, not the metaphysical mysticism of Lao-tse or
Chuang-tsze, but a magical philosophy of nature which is much more indebted to
the Yi-king than to the Tao-teh-king.  It may be surmised that it was partly
the reputation of the later Taoists for magic, including alchemy, which led
the Wu priests to assume the title "Taoist Doctors," partly, perhaps, that
under that name they might escape the laws against shamans.

     The gods of the popular religion are worshipped not only in the temples,
but in the homes of the people, where they are represented by pictures on the
wall or by small images set on the shelf with the tablets of the ancestors,
sometimes enclosed in a shrine.  Almost any god may be thus honoured.  The
favourites are the god of the soil or of the earth, in his quality as the god
of wealth, the fire god, the Buddhist goddess of compassion, Kuan-yin, the war
god of the Manchu dynasty, Kuan-yu, who by reason of his reputation for
uprightness and learning is chosen as a patron by many tradesmen and students.
The patron deities of the various callings are also frequently found in shops
and houses.  Offerings of food and wine are set up before these gods on their
calendar days.  On great occasions in the family, well-to-do people sometimes
call in a so-called Taoist priest to hold a special religious service similar
to those in the temples at festivals, and the exercises may be enlivened by a
play or puppet show.

     The Chinese philosophy of nature, with its two polar forces, Yang and Yin
(light and darkness, heat and cold, activity and receptivity), on whose
working everything depends, makes the choice of the right time for any
undertaking essential to its success.  If the favourable conjunction be
utilised, nature works with man and brings his enterprise to a happy issue; if
otherwise, he goes counter to nature, which thwarts and defeats him. One of
the most important functions of the government is the calculation of an
almanac by the use of which the auspicious moment may be seized, the
disastrous avoided.  Individuals, also, before embarking on any undertaking,
consult experts in the art of determining lucky and unlucky days.  It is no
less necessary to know whether a spot is so situated that, for example, a
dwelling erected there will enjoy in full measure the beneficent influences of
nature or will be exposed to the forces which work ruin.  This kind of
divination is called Feng-shui, literally, "Wind and Water"; we might say,
climatic influences, but should have to note that the climate with which it is
concerned is not that with which our meteorology deals, but the operation of
the dual principles, Yang and Yin, and of spirits of nature and of dead men.
Chinese climatology - in the sense just indicated - is an imposing
pseudoscience, whose effect on the whole civilisation is incalculable.  For a
time it declared itself obstinately against railways and telegraph lines,
which by disturbing the Feng-shui threatened to involve in disaster the
regions through which they ran, but the ingenuity of its professors presently
discovered - for a consideration - methods of averting such calamities.

     Nowhere is this science more necessary than in fixing on a site for a
tomb; the repose of the dead, and by consequence the welfare or even the life
of their families, depend upon the choice of a favourable location. Great
difficulty and corresponding expense are sometimes encountered in finding such
a spot; meanwhile the body remains, perhaps for months, unburied.  If
misfortune overtakes the family, this may be attributed to the bad Feng-shui
of the tomb, and experts with high fees called in to find a better place.  Not
only the natural configuration of the surroundings, hills, watercourses
(superficial or subterranean), and the like, affect the "climate," but
buildings, especially on conspicuous sites; for which reason Buddhist
monasteries and temples in such situations were sometimes spared by the
authorities and even rebuilt by them.

     In the ordinary concerns of life the outcome of which men desire to
foresee they have recourse to a divining apparatus usually found in the
temples.  A common consists of two wooden lots, half prolate spheroids divided
in the plane of the major axes, which are cast, and an omen taken from the way
they lie; or a slip of wood with a number on it is drawn from a bunch, and an
oracular sentence bearing the corresponding number taken from its pigeonhole
and read.  The two methods may of course be combined, the lots being cast to
try the oracle.

     The briefest sketch of the religion of the Chinese masses would be
incomplete without some mention of the salvationist sects.  The popular
religion which we have been describing, like the official religion, is a
religion for this life; the good things sought in it are mundane goods.  In
the sects of which we have now to speak, on the other hand, the end is the
salvation of the soul.  In this end, as well as in the ways in which they
pursue it, they show that they derive from Buddhism.  Buddhism had taught the
Chinese to ask the question, What must I do to be saved?  Tens of thousands of
seekers of salvation entered the order; its adherents among the people were
numbered by hundreds of thousands.  Apprehensive of the growing power of the
church, the government repeated broke up the monasteries and sent back the
monks and nuns to the secular life.  These measures, contrary to their
intention, probably contributed not a little to the leavening of the masses
with Buddhist ideas.  The laws restricted the number of religious
establishments and put many obstacles in the way of admission to the order,
but they could not keep the laymen from trying to save their own and their
neighbours' souls, or from associating themselves for this purpose.  Teachers
appeared among them, founders of sects, apostles, who gathered companies of
believers in many places.  Some of these sects spread widely through the
empire and had many thousands of members; some maintained themselves for
centuries, others flourished for a time and disappeared, merging perhaps in
stronger ones or surviving under other names.

     All these societies, or churches, were under the ban of the law, and were
thus compelled to take refuge in secrecy.  As secret societies they were
doubly obnoxious to the government, since they might easily become centres of
political agitation; in fact, they have not infrequently been so used.  On the
other hand, severe repressive measures have repeatedly goaded the sects into
revolt; some of the most obstinate rebellions in modern Chinese history have
been of this character.

     While the Buddhist strain in the beliefs and practices of these sects is
predominant, elements drawn from Taoism and Confucianism, as well as from the
popular religion, are not lacking, and in the T'ai P'ing books there are even
phrases picked up, perhaps at second-hand, from Christian sources.  An outward
sign which connects them all with Buddhism is their abstinence from animal
food, whence they speak of the brethren as "vegetarian friends," and in
official rescripts are often designated as "vegetarians" and their places of
assembly as "vegetarian halls." The five Buddhist commandments for the laity
are in general the foundation of their morals, curiously combined, however,
with Chinese dualistic philosophy and the Confucian "relations"; and selected
Buddhist Sutras constitute the greater part of their religious scriptures.
Besides these they have books of their own, which they diligently conceal from
the malevolent inquisitiveness of the authorities, and few of which have come
under the eyes of European scholars.  They meet in private houses, or, when
the vigilance of the mandarins is relaxed, in halls.

     One of them, the Lung-hua, of which we possess somewhat more detailed
knowledge than of others, has nine degrees, from the patriarch of the sect who
bears the title K'ong-k'ong, or "Supremely Empty," down to the most recent
novice of the "Little Vehicle" degree.  The initiations are patterned after
the Buddhist (Mahayana) ritual for the ordination of monks. This sect is
strongly ritualistic; another, closely related to it in origin, is addicted to
the doctrine of Wu-wei, or quietism, in which Buddhist notions of the
attainment of Nirvana by contemplation and inner concentration are fused or
confused with Taoist conceptions of the sublimity of living without reason or
intention.  It is not the specific methods of salvation employed by the sects,
however, that concern us so much as the fact that in these oppressed churches
multitudes of Chinese have found the satisfaction of their religious needs.

     The worship of ancestors was, as has been shown above, a large part of
the old Chinese religion as we know it from the classical books, and it has
lost none of its importance in the modern religion of the people.  The spirits
of the dead watch over the living to protect and prosper them, and the living
cherish and honour their dead.  Parental love and filial piety are not
dissolved by death; the relations and obligations they involve reach beyond
the tomb.  The strength of the family bond in China has its most significant
expression in the family cult; and, reciprocally, this cult, more than
anything else, cements the family and gives it the consciousness of its unity
and perpetuity through the passing generations. It is also a most effective
means of cultivating the filial piety which is the first principle of Chinese
ethics.  Inwrought thus into the whole structure of society and of thought, it
has survived, substantially unchanged, the great changes in notions about
souls and their destinies which Buddhism introduced, and presents the most
difficult problem to Christian missions.

     The main features of the cult of the ancestors in China, as in other
countries, are of immemorial antiquity.  The existence of the dead can only be
imagined as a continuation of their existence among the living; they have the
same needs, they do the same kind of things, they are prompted by the same
motives.  The survivors, therefore, provide habitations for them furnished
with articles of use and luxury appropriate to their rank and calling on
earth.  The tombs of the rulers in China are on a grander scale than any
except the Egyptian pyramids.  The crypt was a vaulted chamber in the heart of
an immense mound of earth, connected with the outside by a gallery or tunnel.
In some periods an avenue leading to the tumulus was lined on both sides by
stone images of men and animals - elephants, camels, and mythical nondescripts
- such as guard the approaches to the mausolea of the Ming emperors north of
Peking and to the tombs of the Manchu dynasty. The treasures hidden in the
tombs were a temptation to robbers; and the emperors not only surrounded them
with walls, but established garrisons, or military colonies, for their
protection.  The grandees imitated their masters and lavished fortunes in
erecting huge mausolea till the law stepped in to regulate the dimensions of
the tombs according to the rank of their owners.

     In former times objects of great value were deposited in the
burial-chamber, rich silks, works of art, precious stones, and quantities of
gold and silver, besides weapons and armour, musical instruments, vases,
mirrors, parasols, fans - in short, the house of the dead was as completely
and luxuriously furnished as the palace of the living; it was also stored with
a profusion of food of all sorts.  Horses are known to have been buried in the
imperial tombs, and in the historians are numerous records of the entombment
of men and women with their lord to serve him in the life beyond.  Thus in 619
B.C. a hundred and seventy persons, including three high ministers, followed
to the grave their master, Mu, ruler of the state of Ts'in.  Instances are
credibly reported from times so recent as the first century of the Ming
dynasty, e.g., in 1398 A.D., and - on more doubtful authority - of an emperor
of the Manchu dynasty in 1661.  Such records occur only sporadically, however,
and give the impression that the burial of the living with the dead was an
unusual event rather than a settled custom.  It is certain that from an early
time wooden puppets in human likeness were deposited in the tomb in place of
real men.  Confucius condemned even this, on the ground that it might lead to
the use of living victims, or, as we should interpret the situation, this
reminiscence of the custom might serve to revive it.

     No doubt in ancient time the poor also equipped the house of the dead
according to the measure of their ability with real things; but as puppets
were substituted for men and women, so toy imitations of furniture and
utensils, or block-print pictures of them, replaced the objects themselves,
and pasteboard covered with tinsel does duty for bars of gold and silver.
Another change of custom is significant; the burial-chamber is no longer
stored with provisions, but food is set out before or on the tomb; and the
bamboo and paper furniture is not deposited in the grave but burned.  The
assimilation to the offerings made to the powers above is obvious, and
involves a shift in the point of view: the things given to the dead are not
now, as in the beginning they were, a provision for physical needs, but an
offering to the manes.

     While the body is carried to the grave in a catafalque, the soul is
supposed to go along in a provisional tablet or in a streamer on which the
name of the deceased is inscribed.  When the interment is over the permanent
tablet is brought out, and solemnly "dotted," if possible by a mandarin of
rank, completing the inscription.  The effect of this ceremony is that the
soul takes up its seat in the tablet.  It is thus reconducted to the house,
where it is given a place on the shelf with the other ancestors in the
principal living-room.  A table standing before this shelf receives the
periodical or occasional offerings of the family. To the ancestors all
important happenings and concerns of the family are dutifully announced - for
example, a projected journey or the return from one, a business venture, a
marriage engagement.  Before the tomb also there is a table of brick or stone,
on which offerings are made at certain times in the first year after the
death, and thereafter annually in the spring.

     With the classic funeral rites recognised or prescribed by the state
religion people of all degrees, even the lettered classes who most affect to
despise everything unclassical, combine Buddhist masses for the dead, which
are performed for the most part, not by members of the cloistered brotherhood,
but by unordained secular "priests" - whose principal function, indeed, is the
reading of these masses; in the case of the sects the service is conducted by
some of their members.

     For Confucian philosophy the term of a man's life is fixed by the decree
of Heaven; popular religion may confer this office on another deity; for
example, on T'ai-shan.  But the mourning customs, classical as well as
popular, bear witness to the persistence of the more primitive belief that
death is the work of demons.  The lingering demonic influence makes the house
in which a death has occurred and the persons who have come in contact with
death or are akin to the dead dangerous to others; the funeral rites and the
rules of mourning are in great part precautions against demonic infection.

     Demons, ghosts, vampires, werwolves, populate China as densely as its
human inhabitants, and are the subject of a vast folk-lore, not a little of
which has got into writing.  They do all sorts of harm, from swallowing up the
sun in an eclipse to making a blank of a candidate's mind in an examination,
and life is an incessant battle with them; man defends himself by magic and
enlists the gods as allies by religion.  Mental and nervous disorders are
universally attributed to possession by evil spirits, and the only cure is
exorcism.

     The religion of the Chinese people to-day thus presents in many ways a
more primitive aspect than the official religion of the classics.  The latter,
indeed, bears plain marks of a reform from above in a spirit which we may call
Confucian, though it is older than Confucius.  The assumption of all the
functions of religion by the state and its minute regulation by law is itself
sufficient evidence of such a reform in an age which for us lies beyond the
historical horizon; and this inference is confirmed by the elimination from
the legitimate religion of the empire of many things which unquestionably
belonged to the actual religion of the time and have been conserved in the
religion of the masses to this day.