From Peking to Mandalay
by Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston · English · Gutenberg #49561 · 825,744 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: From Peking to Mandalay
Author: Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston
Release date: July 31, 2015 [eBook #49561]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY ***
FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY
[Illustration: CROSSING THE YALUNG RIVER. (_See p. 191._)
_Frontispiece._]
FROM
PEKING TO MANDALAY
A JOURNEY FROM NORTH CHINA TO
BURMA THROUGH TIBETAN SSUCH'UAN
AND YUNNAN
BY R. F. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.G.S.
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY
DISTRICT OFFICER AND MAGISTRATE, WEIHAIWEI
WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1908
TO
DAVID PLAYFAIR HEATLEY
WHOSE PRESENCE IN THE EAST WOULD BRING HAPPINESS
TO EXILE, AND WHOSE ABSENCE IN THE WEST HAS
CAUSED HIS BANISHED FRIEND TO TURN
MANY TIMES WITH LONGING TO
THE SETTING SUN.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. PEKING TO ICHANG 10
III. ICHANG TO WAN-HSIEN THROUGH THE YANGTSE
GORGES 24
IV. WAN-HSIEN TO CH'ÊNG-TU 31
V. CH'ÊNG-TU TO OMEI-HSIEN 43
VI. MOUNT OMEI AND CHINESE BUDDHISM 54
VII. MOUNT OMEI 82
VIII. OMEI-HSIEN TO TACHIENLU 112
IX. TACHIENLU 131
X. TACHIENLU TO PA-U-RONG, YALUNG RIVER 153
XI. PA-U-RONG TO MULI 186
XII. MULI TO YUNG-NING 213
XIII. YUNG-NING TO LI-CHIANG 234
XIV. LI-CHIANG TO TALI-FU 248
XV. ETHNOLOGY OF THE CHINESE FAR WEST 265
XVI. TALI-FU TO BHAMO 293
XVII. BHAMO TO MANDALAY 322
XVIII. CONCLUSION 354
APPENDIX A: VOCABULARIES 391
APPENDIX B: ITINERARY 399
NOTES 411
GENERAL INDEX 447
INDEX OF NAMES 453
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CROSSING THE YALUNG RIVER _Frontispiece_
A FLEET OF JUNKS _To face page_ 10
SOUTH BANK OF YELLOW RIVER, WITH VIEW OF
RAILWAY BRIDGE " 14
A CHINESE "BRAVE" " 32
A CHINESE WALLED CITY " 44
CHILDREN OF CHINA " 53
CHINESE BUDDHIST MONKS IN "UNDRESS" " 65
CHINESE PLAN WITH AMITABHA BUDDHA AS CENTRAL
FIGURE " 74
"JIM" ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT OMEI " 102
CHINESE PLAN OF MOUNT OMEI, SURMOUNTED BY
THE SEAL OF THE MONASTERY OF THE GOLDEN
SUMMIT " 105
TEA-CARRIERS ON THE ROAD TO TACHIENLU " 118
APPROACH TO TACHIENLU " 118
VIEW FROM THE "SUMMER PALACE" NEAR TACHIENLU " 142
CHINESE HALF-RUPEE AND TIBETAN COINS " 152
REDUCED FACSIMILE OF SILVER PLAQUE WORN BY
WOMEN IN THE YALUNG VALLEY " 152
CLAY VOTIVE TABLETS FROM MULI, WITH MINIATURE
BUDDHAS " 152
EAR-RING WORN BY MO-SO WOMEN OF YUNG-NING " 152
"THE GATE OF TIBET" " 154
OCTAGONAL TOWER AT RI WA " 170
HOUSE OF T'U PAI HU " 172
THE AUTHOR'S CARAVAN " 172
A RUSTIC BRIDGE " 174
TIBETANS OF WESTERN SSUCH'UAN " 177
MOUNTAIN SCENERY NEAR SIN GO LA " 177
A HALT ON THE ROAD TO MULI " 188
MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY ON THE ROAD TO MULI " 202
THE AUTHOR'S CAMP, 2ND MAY " 208
RUSTIC BRIDGE CROSSING LITANG RIVER ON THE
ROAD TO MULI " 210
LAMASERY OF MULI " 220
THE AUTHOR'S MULETEERS, NEAR YUNG-NING " 226
YUNG-NING " 229
THE YANGTSE RIVER, NEAR YUNG-NING, ABOVE THE
FERRY " 236
THE YANGTSE RIVER AT THE FERRY " 238
TALI-FU " 260
VIEW AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA " 332
MONASTERY AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA " 349
RUINS AT ANURADHAPURA, CEYLON " 354
A VILLAGE FAIR IN CHINA, WITH OPEN-AIR
THEATRE " 356
A TEMPLE-THEATRE IN NORTH CHINA " 371
THE GRAVE OF "JIM," WEIHAIWEI " 376
MAP--AUTHOR'S ITINERARY FROM HANKOW TO
BHAMO _At the End_
FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The journey of which an account is given in the following pages was not
undertaken in the special interests of geographical or other science
nor in the service of any Government. My chief object was to gratify
a long-felt desire to visit those portions of the Chinese Empire
which are least known to Europeans, and to acquire some knowledge of
the various tribes subject to China that inhabit the wild regions of
Chinese Tibet and north-western Yunnan. Though nearly every part of
the Eighteen Provinces has in recent years been visited and described
by European travellers, my route between Tachienlu and Li-chiang was
one which--so far as I am aware--no British subject had ever traversed
before me, and of which no description in book-form has hitherto
appeared in any European language.
From the ethnological point of view the Chinese Far West--to which the
greater part of this book is devoted--is one of the most interesting
regions in the world, and presents problems the solution of which
would settle many of the vexed questions relating to the origin and
inter-relations of the Asiatic peoples. As for its geographical
interest, it may be sufficient to say here that the principalities of
Chala and Muli contain what are probably the highest spots inhabited by
man on the face of the globe, and that several of the passes crossed by
my little caravan are loftier than the highest of the passes existing
along the route traversed by the British expedition to Lhasa. My
own contributions to geographical and ethnological lore are of the
slenderest; but if I can persuade some of my readers that Tibetan
Ssuch'uan and western Yunnan are worth visiting, be it only for the
glory of their mountain scenery, I shall consider that my book has
fulfilled the most useful purpose to which it aspires.
For those who are seized by a craving to revert for a time to something
like the nomadic life of our remote forefathers, or to pass like
the old Hindu ascetics into "the homeless state," there can be no
country in the world more full of charm than some of the wilder and
less-peopled regions of the Chinese Empire. There are enormous areas
in that country covered with primeval forests in which man's foot has
never trod, lofty mountains whose peaks are crowned with sparkling
diadems of eternal snow, grand and savage gorges in which Nature has
carved for herself in indelible letters the story of the world's youth,
and gloomy chasms through which rush the mighty rivers that carry to
the Indian Ocean and the Pacific snows that melted on the white roof
of the world. And amid all this magnificence and desolation there are
lovely valleys and stretches of garden-land that might have been
chosen as the Edens of a hundred mythologies, and which in historic
times have been the homes of religious recluses and poets, who, like
others of their kind in Western lands, found in silence and solitude
a refuge from the bitterness and pain of the world, or a hermitage in
which, amid scenes of perennial beauty, they could weave their flowers
of thought into immortal garlands of human words.
[Sidenote: LOVE OF NATURE IN CHINA]
It is a mistake to regard the Chinese as essentially a prosaic race,
caring only for material things and nothing at all for what we should
call things of the spirit. If they have less power of artistic creation
than the Japanese--and even that may be doubted--they are quite as
sensitive as the people of any other race to the magic of beauty in
either nature or art; and especially do they--like our own Ruskin--take
a vivid delight in the loveliness of mountain scenery. There is a
well-known story of a Chinese scholar who, like the scholars of most
lands, was blest with few of this world's goods, and, unlike a great
many of them, was noted for his zealous devotion to the service of his
country's gods. One night he heard the voice of an invisible being that
spoke to him thus: "Your piety has found favour in the sight of heaven;
ask now for what you most long to possess, for I am the messenger of
the gods, and they have sworn to grant your heart's desire." "I ask"
said the poor scholar "for the coarsest clothes and food, just enough
for my daily wants, and I beg that I may have freedom to wander at
my will over mountain and fell and woodland stream, free from all
worldly cares, till my life's end. That is all I ask." Hardly had he
spoken when the sky seemed to be filled with the laughter of myriads of
unearthly voices. "All you ask?" cried the messenger of the gods. "Know
you not that what you demand is the highest happiness of the beings
that dwell in heaven? Ask for wealth or rank, or what earthly happiness
you will, but not for you are the holiest joys of the gods."
[Sidenote: ISOLATION]
To those of our own day--and there are many such--whose highest ideal
of happiness is that of this poor Chinese scholar, to roam at will
through the beautiful places of the world, or perhaps even to dwell in
some lonely hermitage far removed from
"The weariness, the fever and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan,"
it must be a bitter reflection that man is by his own works dooming
himself to lose for evermore the privilege of freedom and the solace of
isolation. When an authoritative voice informs us, in connection with
wireless telegraphy, that "our ultimate ideal must be instantaneous
electrical communication with every man on earth, ashore or afloat,
at a cost within the reach of every one," what becomes of the unhappy
man who finds one of the greatest joys of travel in the very fact of
his utter loneliness, and in the knowledge that he is for the time
being severed from all possibility of communication with his civilised
fellow-men? The writer I have just quoted[1] assures us that owing
to the recent triumphs of science "a severance of communication
with any part of the earth--even the Antipodes--will henceforth be
impossible. Storms that overthrow telegraph posts, and malice that
cuts our cables, are impotent in the all-pervading ether. An explorer
like Stanley in the tropical forest, or Geary amid ice-fields, will
report daily progress in the _Times_.... Sir William Preece's dream of
signalling to Mars may (say by utilising Niagara for the experiment)
yet be realised." Thus even a flight to the virgin continents of
another planet will not give the future traveller the delicious sense
of freedom that comes from the knowledge of complete isolation or of
entire severance from the cares of civilised life. How can we expect
our mistress Nature to be gracious to us if we, with our unholy
inventions, woo her so much more rudely and roughly than did her
lovers of the golden time when the earth was young? For my own part
I rejoice that a wireless-telegraphy apparatus has not yet become an
indispensable item in every traveller's equipment, and that no law
has yet been enacted penalising any individual who presumes to sever
himself from communication with his fellows.
If it appears churlish and ungrateful to speak of the pleasures
of separation from all those comforts and delights that Western
civilisation has placed within our grasp, and without which the
normal European would hardly find life worth living, it is only fair
to remember that no one is in a position to appreciate such comforts
and delights so heartily as the man who has been temporarily deprived
of them; though the depth of his appreciation will, of course, vary
according to the extent of his dependence on the amenities of civilised
life during his ordinary existence as a social unit.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: TRAVELS IN THE FAR EAST]
The journey described in this book was not the first undertaken by me
in the countries of the Far East. Towards the close of 1902 I travelled
through the French province of Tongking (erstwhile tributary to the
Chinese Empire) and ascended the Red River to the high plateau of
Yunnan. After traversing that province from east to west I reached
the town of Ssumao, and thence struck southwards into the Chinese
Shan States and the French Protected States of Upper Laos. A journey
of many days in a dug-out canoe down one of the most beautiful
rivers of that country gave me a delightful opportunity of becoming
acquainted with the domestic life of the Lao-Shans--surely among the
most attractive and hospitable races in the world. Leaving my canoe at
the charming little Laos capital, Luang Prabang, I proceeded down the
Mekong on a raft and visited the ruins of the obliterated kingdom of
Vien-chan. There I left the Mekong and wandered overland through the
great dry plain of eastern Siam to Korat. From Korat I was speedily
conveyed by the prosaic means of a railway to the perplexing city
of Bangkok, with its curious medley of East and West, old and new,
its electric trams, its royal white elephants, its gilded pagodas and
State umbrellas, and its forlorn collection of European legations.
Except for the baggage-coolies hired at intervals along my route, I
was for the greater part of this four months' journey unaccompanied by
friend or servant. At one point, indeed, I was literally alone: for in
the country of the Lao-Shans my four baggage-coolies, owing to some
unreasonable dread of perfectly non-existent dangers, suddenly left me
to my own devices, and returned to their homes, obliging me to abandon
all my baggage except what I was able to carry in my own hands and
pockets. It was then that my eyes were first opened to the fact that
civilised man encumbers himself with a great many material possessions
which he could quite well do without; for at no time did I suffer the
least inconvenience from the loss of any of the articles which up to
that point I had considered absolutely essential to my comfort and
well-being. Servants and heavy baggage can indeed easily be dispensed
with in any tropical country in which the natives are not unfriendly,
and provided that the traveller is willing to subsist entirely on such
food as the country affords; and it is undoubtedly the case that a
traveller with few _impedimenta_ can penetrate with ease into remote
places that are inaccessible to one whose train includes numerous
coolies and beasts of burden. One who is travelling with some definite
scientific object in view must, of course, carry a suitable equipment
of scientific instruments, and may require a retinue of servants and
surveyors; but it is the mere wanderer--especially he who wanders in
search of things strange and beautiful--not the scientific explorer,
whose requirements I am here considering. It is perhaps unwise to
render oneself absolutely dependent for supplies on the friendliness of
natives, but in my own case it so happens that I have never met with
inhospitable treatment from any of the Asiatic peoples among whom I
have travelled, whether Chinese, Tongkingese, Tibetans, Shans, Siamese,
or Burmese. I leave it to others who have had different experiences to
tell their own tales.
At other times during my residence in China I have found opportunities
to make tours, either in connection with official business or on leave
of absence, in other parts of the Far East. In China I have made
several excursions into the interior of the provinces of Kwangtung,
Kwangsi, Kiangsi, and Shantung. In 1904 I travelled through the German
colony of Kiaochou and the provincial capital, Chinan-fu, on my way
to the little town of Ch'ü Fou, where I visited the tomb of Confucius
and was entertained by the Duke K'ung, said to be the seventy-sixth
descendant of the great sage in a direct line; and on the same occasion
I ascended the famous sacred mountain of T'ai Shan, where the Emperor
Shun is said to have sacrificed to heaven in the third millennium B.C.
At the close of the same year, while the Russo-Japanese war was still
raging, I was enabled through the kindness of a distinguished naval
officer to pay an interesting visit to the capital of the distracted
kingdom of Korea.
[Sidenote: OUTLINE OF JOURNEY]
The journey described in the following pages was of a more ambitious
character than those just mentioned, and occupied the greater part
of a year. My intention was to ascend the Yangtse to the province of
Ssuch'uan, and thence to make my way across that province to those
principalities of eastern Tibet that now own allegiance to the emperor
of China. I intended if possible to make my way southward through those
states, and so enter the province of Yunnan; whence, as I knew from
the narratives of former travellers, I should have no difficulty in
making my way into Upper Burma. The details of my route I left to be
determined by circumstances. Though I was occasionally subjected to
minor disappointments and delays, the assistance of the various local
officials and the friendly spirit shown by the people among whom I
travelled enabled me to carry out my plans with success.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr J. Henniker Heaton, M.P., in _The Nineteenth Century and After_,
September 1906.
CHAPTER II
PEKING TO ICHANG
The first part of my journey was accomplished with great rapidity,
and my description of it will not occupy long in the telling. I had
no desire to spend a longer time than was absolutely necessary in
northern China, and was glad enough to avail myself of every facility
for reaching Ichang--the port on the Yangtse where steam navigation
ceases--as soon as possible. The recent completion of the northern
section of the great trunk railway of China has rendered it possible
to travel from Peking to Hankow in four days,[2] and so makes it
unnecessary to undertake a long and somewhat dreary journey on
horseback or in springless carts over hundreds of miles of dusty plains
and impossible roads.
I left Wei-hai-wei on 6th January 1906 in the steamer _Shuntien_,
and reached the ugly and depressing little port of Chin-wang-tao on
the 8th. In the evening of the following day, after a night spent
in Tientsin, I reached the capital, and was glad to exchange the
discomfort of a monotonous railway journey for the luxury of that
excellent Peking hostelry the "Hôtel des Wagons Lits." The next four
days were spent in paying visits at the British Legation and elsewhere,
and in fighting ineffectual battles against an unusually aggressive
dust-storm. No one, except perhaps a traveller in the desert of Gobi
or over the sand-dunes of Khotan, can form any conception of the
penetrating power of Peking dust. Parched throats, husky voices,
bloodshot eyes, are the price that must be paid for the pleasure of a
walk through the streets of Peking during a dust-storm; even one's own
residence is no sanctuary, for double window-sashes and padded doors
are alike powerless to withstand the scourge. Most of the legations are
fairly well protected by their lofty park-walls, but how to keep an
ordinary Peking house or hotel free of dust is as insoluble a problem
as that which baffled Alice's Walrus and Carpenter.
[Illustration: A FLEET OF JUNKS. [_To face p. 10._]
[Sidenote: PEKING]
Peking being now one of the ordinary objectives of the modern
globe-trotter, I will not encroach upon the province of the compiler
of tourist guidebooks by attempting a description. Even the Englishman
who has never left his native soil knows something of the city
that defied all the Powers of Europe seven years ago, and paid so
bitterly for her defiance. There have, of course, been great changes
in Peking since those dark days; but away from the railway stations
and the legation quarter, with its bristling guns, its battlemented
walls and its heterogeneous army of foreign guards, there is little
to show that Peking was so recently in the grip of a victorious and
remorseless enemy. Its streets, temples, shops and palaces are very
much as they were in 1900, showing the same mixture of grandeur and
sordidness, splendour and decay. As for its people, who will venture
to say how much or how little they have changed? That they love the
people of Europe no better than they did eight years ago may be taken
for granted: I am not aware that we have done anything to win their
affections. That they have learned something of the secret of European
prowess, and have realised why our arms were resistless, even against
their Boxer champions, is no doubt true; and if this lesson does not,
for some strange reason, fill them with admiration and reverence for
Europe, it is certainly teaching them where to seek a cure for the
ills of their own country. Events are now making it clearer every day
that a true spirit of national feeling is rising among the people, and
that the best minds in China are devoting themselves to the problem
of their country's salvation. Nowhere is this state of things more
obvious than in Peking, but it is not only in the capital that the
new spirit is working strange wonders among the Chinese people. China
is, indeed, rapidly growing to be more than a mere geographical term.
The racial solidarity that is the underlying cause of her wonderful
power of passive resistance shows no signs of disintegration at the
present time, and it will form the best possible foundation for a
new national patriotism. Only ten years ago an English traveller and
politician, predicting the partition of China, explained that he used
the word "China" only for convenience, for "there is really no such
thing as 'China' at all."[3] For such a view there was some excuse at a
time when humbled China was lying wounded and helpless at the feet of
victorious Japan, but few, I fancy, will be inclined to endorse it now.
[Sidenote: CHINESE POLITICS]
The position of Peking at the present time is one of peculiar interest,
for all the different forces that are now at work to make or mar China
issue from, or converge towards, the capital. There, on the Dragon
Throne, beside, or rather above, the powerless and unhappy emperor, the
father of his people and their god, sits the astute and ever-watchful
lady whose word is law to emperor, minister, and clown alike. There
dwell the heads of the Government boards, the leaders of the Manchu
aristocracy and the great political parties, the drafters of new
constitutions and imperial decrees, and the keen-witted diplomatists
who know so well how to play against European antagonists the great
game of international chess. To Peking come the memorials of viceroys
and provincial governors; indictments and denunciations against high
officials for ultra-Conservatism or for Radicalism; bulky petitions
from visionary students who have studied Western politics, and hope
against hope that their proposed measures of reform may chance to
come under the imperial eye. And there the great Powers of the West,
reproducing in miniature the mighty armed camps of Europe, watch each
other with jealous eyes from the gates of their embattled legations.
The Lu-Han railway, by which I left the Capital on 13th January,
brought me to Hankow on the evening of the 16th. The total distance
is 1,223 kilometres, or about 759 miles. The provinces traversed by
this great trunk line are Chihli, Honan, and Hupei. The line for the
most part lies through a rich, flat country, studded with innumerable
trees, villages, and farmsteads, but presenting no features of special
interest to the ordinary traveller. The train stopped every evening,
and resumed the journey early each morning, the first stage being
completed at Shun-tê-fu, in Chihli. The second day we entered the
province of Honan and crossed the Yellow River by the great bridge
which has been the subject of so much criticism and discussion in
engineering circles in the East. The construction of this bridge--a
screw-pile structure almost two miles long--was by far the most serious
and costly work that faced the French and Belgian engineers in the
course of their labours, the chief difficulties consisting in the
enormous rise and fall in the river and the shifting sands and almost
fathomless mud of its bed. What must strike most travellers who are
devoid of any technical knowledge of engineering are the great length
of the bridge, the flimsiness of its appearance (for its massive
supports are sunk far below the bed of the river), and its narrowness.
Whether it is really fit to stand the strain of an abnormal summer
flood, and whether its piers have been sunk sufficiently deep to ensure
permanent stability, are questions which time and experience alone can
solve. It had only been opened a few weeks before I crossed it, and
since then traffic has had to be suspended more than once. Only one
train could pass over the bridge at a time, and each was taken across
by a special light engine.
[Illustration: SOUTH BANK OF YELLOW RIVER, WITH VIEW OF RAILWAY BRIDGE.
[_To face p. 14._]
[Sidenote: RAILWAY-TRAVELLING IN CHINA]
The second day's journey was completed at Chêng-chou, half an hour's
journey from the south bank of the Yellow River. Here I found a
quasi-European inn named the "Hotel Pericles," kept by an Italian
ex-railway employee. Macaroni and chianti and the genial conversation
of our host, Mr P. Mouchtouris, and two of his compatriots, afforded a
cheerful interlude in a somewhat monotonous journey.
At the close of the third day we found ourselves at a place called Chu
Ma-tien--a railway depôt only, not within sight of any large centre
of population. On the following day we passed through the mountainous
country that divides the provinces of Honan and Hupei, with scenery the
most picturesque to be found anywhere between the two railway termini.
Hankow itself, which was reached a few hours later, lies on the flat
banks of the Yangtse, at a distance of about 600 miles from Shanghai.
On the opposite bank of the great river lies the provincial capital,
Wu-ch'ang, the seat of Government of the viceroy or governor-general;
while on the same side of the river as Hankow, but separated from it by
the Han river, lies Han-Yang. These three places together form what is
practically one vast city of something like two million inhabitants: a
city so favourably situated in the heart of China that it can hardly
fail to become a commercial capital of pre-eminent importance. The
large European trading community is fully alive to this fact, and
building land is rapidly increasing in value. It is the terminus of the
ocean-going vessels, and the starting-point of the smaller cargo and
passenger-steamers bound for Ichang, about 390 miles further up the
river. Hankow also derives great advantage from its position--denoted
by its name--at the mouth of the Han, one of the Yangtse's greatest
tributaries, itself navigable for native cargo boats for no less than
1,200 miles. Finally, Hankow is at present the terminus of China's
only trunk railway, that by which I travelled from Peking, and it will
soon be similarly connected with Canton in the south. It is perhaps no
exaggeration to say that there is hardly a city in the whole world that
has a greater commercial and industrial future before it than Hankow.
[Sidenote: RAILWAYS IN CHINA]
That the railway will pay, and pay enormously--especially when the
connections with Canton and Kowloon are completed--is a matter beyond
all possibility of doubt. That it will be of real benefit to the people
of China is more to the point. It will undoubtedly enable the native
merchants and farmers to send their goods and produce to markets which
were formerly unattainable by them, and will go far towards minimising
the misery caused by local famines. There is plenty of evidence that
the Chinese are everywhere anxious and delighted to avail themselves of
the wonderful new force that has been introduced into their country:
the old days when the Shanghai-Wusung railway had to be sold by the
foreign owners to the Chinese Government, and was then deliberately
wrecked and abolished to appease the prejudices of anti-foreign
mobs,[4] have passed for ever away. The final proof--if one were
needed--that the Chinese Government has definitely surrendered its
old anti-railway policy, lies in the fact that it is itself promoting
the construction of purely Chinese lines such as that from Peking to
Kalgan; lines not only owned by Chinese capitalists, but actually
engineered and constructed by Chinese engineers and contractors.
The recent opposition of the Government to the construction of such
lines as that from Kowloon to Canton, or from the Burmese frontier
to T'êng-yüeh, lies simply in the rapidly-growing national hostility
to the monopolisation of Chinese industrial enterprises by foreign
capital, and the interference of foreign Powers--based on their
subjects' pecuniary stake in the country--in the internal affairs of
the empire. Therefore, though we hear a great deal just now about the
difficulties placed by Chinese officialdom in the way of the employment
of foreign engineers and foreign capital in railway construction
and the exploitation of mines, this must not be interpreted as a
reluctance on the part of China to have railways built or to have
the mineral wealth of the country opened up. It is merely that the
Chinese wish to build their own railways, and to work their own
mines, in order that international disputes and political dangers may
be avoided and that China may be exploited for the primary benefit
of the Chinese Government and people, rather than for the benefit of
foreign Governments and foreign capitalists. The European points out
that the Chinese, either from want of money or from lack of technical
knowledge and experience, are incapable of giving effect to these
admirable ideals, however much they might wish to do so; to which the
Chinese retort that rather than tolerate foreign interference, they
prefer to wait until these disadvantages can be obviated, even if the
country's advance in wealth and civilisation is thereby retarded. This
attitude, even if economically unsound, is quite a natural one in
the circumstances; but, unfortunately, there are a number of people
in Europe and in the Far East who seem to regard any attempt made by
China to keep or regain control of her own resources as a kind of
international crime, which must, if necessary, be punished by gun-boats
and bayonets. We resent the introduction of a Chinese element into
British Columbia, Australia, and South Africa, but we make bitter
protests against the "anti-foreign feeling in China" if the responsible
statesmen of that country refuse to silence the cry of "China for the
Chinese."
[Sidenote: CHANG CHIH-TUNG ON RAILWAYS]
The Viceroy Chang Chih-tung--one of those able statesmen who prevented
the spread of Boxerism in the Yangtse valley and so saved foreign
commercial interests there from a serious disaster--was one of the
first high officials in China to realise the benefit that would accrue
to all classes of the community from the construction of railways.
"Is there any one power," he wrote, "that will open the door of
learning for the scholar, the farmer, the workman, the merchant, and
the soldier? To this question we reply emphatically, there is, and it
is the Railway. The potentialities of the scholar lie in extensive
observation; of the farmer, in finding a ready sale for farm products;
of the workman, in the increase of machinery; of the merchant, in
cheap and rapid transit; and of the soldier, in the quick despatch of
the munitions of war.... The Railway is the source of the wealth and
power of Western countries.... How can the people of our Flowery Inner
Land progress, or even exist, without railways?"[5] This emphatic
declaration by one of the greatest and most patriotic of Chinese
officials is significant in more ways than one. China is to have
railways, not merely as a means of rapid transport for merchandise and
produce, but for the purpose of consolidating the military strength of
the empire.
It must be a matter of serious regret to Chinese statesmen that
the resources of the country--both in capital and in engineering
skill--were not sufficient to enable China to undertake the whole
financing and construction of the great trunk railway; and there can be
little doubt that as soon as China is in a position to act upon Article
V. of the Belgian Agreement, which she is entitled to do any time
after 1907, she will refund all the Franco-Belgian capital advanced to
her under the terms of that Agreement, and take over entire control of
the whole northern section of the railway. It would probably be to the
entire advantage of legitimate foreign trade and enterprise in China
that she should do so, and the eventual benefit to be derived by China
herself would be incalculable--provided, of course, that she honourably
fulfilled her commercial treaties with the Western Powers.
* * * * *
On arrival at Hankow I spent two days in making such meagre
preparations as I considered necessary for my long journey into the
interior; for Hankow--being only four days distant by steamer from
Shanghai--is the last town where it is possible to purchase European
stores at a reasonable price.
[Sidenote: AN UNLUCKY STEAMER]
Shallow-draft steamers with excellent accommodation for both Chinese
and Europeans leave Hankow for Ichang two or three times a week. The
traffic is divided among British, Chinese and Japanese companies. It
was by a Japanese steamer that I started for the Upper Yangtse on 18th
January. Our journey was not devoid of unforeseen incident. All went
well until the 21st, when we ran on a shoal. All our efforts to get off
proved unavailing till the 23rd, when by means of the process known
to naval men, I understand as kedging, we hauled ourselves into deep
water. This, however, was not effected without breaking a chain-cable
and losing a valuable anchor, which sank irrecoverably in the mud.
Our Japanese captain then announced that the vessel drew so much water
that he could not then attempt the only available channel, and that
there was no alternative but to return to Hankow and discharge some of
the cargo. This caused intense dissatisfaction among the hundreds of
Chinese passengers, most of whom were on their way to their homes to
spend Chinese New Year's Day (which fell on 25th January) with their
families. Some of the passengers, I was informed, actually threatened
to use force to compel the captain to proceed, and were only pacified
when they were given the option of going ashore in the ship's boats,
and finding their own way to their several destinations. Twenty or
thirty passengers availed themselves of this offer, and were packed
into a single boat towed by the ship's steam-launch. On their way to
the shore some unfortunate accident caused the boat--which was by no
means over-crowded--to upset, and all the passengers were thrown into
the water. I never learned the exact number of those who were drowned,
for no proper tally of the passengers who had embarked appears to have
been kept, but it was almost certainly not more than three. The rescued
passengers were all bundled into the steam-launch, the boat (which was
bottom upwards) temporarily abandoned, and the survivors brought back
to the ship. The families of the poor fellows who paid so severe a
penalty for their anxiety to reach their homes were doubtless waiting
to welcome them with all the exuberant joy that the New Year festival
brings into even the poorest Chinese household; and it was sad to
reflect that in all probability no word of the tragedy would reach them
until those whom they were waiting to greet were laid down at the doors
of their homes in their coffins.
This sad event did not complete the chapter of our accidents. After
we had anchored for the night some miles lower down the river, on our
return journey to Hankow, our vessel was swung round by a back-eddy
and crashed into several junks moored close to the shore. The damage,
fortunately, was not very serious, and was promptly paid for by the
captain of our ship. On the following day the ship's compradore came to
me and asked if I could give him any medicine for a Chinese passenger
who was showing signs of lunacy or delirium. As I had no remedies of
the kind required, I could only recommend him to keep his patient
under careful control until we reached Hankow. But about the middle
of the day the poor man eluded the vigilance of those who, I presume,
were looking after him, and deliberately jumped overboard. The ship
was immediately stopped, a boat lowered with great promptitude, and
the man rescued: he had never sunk below the surface, and it was
obvious that he owed his safety entirely to his thickly-wadded winter
garments, which were tied tightly at the waist and ankles and served
as a temporary life-buoy. The cold waters of the wintry Yangtse had a
more beneficial effect upon him than any drug, for on our arrival at
Hankow he appeared to be completely restored to health. Just before
we dropped anchor off the Hankow bund, one of the Chinese crew fell
down the companion and damaged his ankle. Whether any further disasters
occurred on board this unlucky vessel is unknown to me, as the same
evening I hastily transferred my luggage, my dog and myself to the ship
_T'ai Yuan_, which was due to leave for Ichang early the following
morning. I was not surprised to hear that the loss to the owners owing
to this unfortunate journey was estimated at not less than $10,000.
Fortunately for the shareholders, the company is subsidised by the
Japanese Government.
[Sidenote: ACCIDENTS ON THE YANGTSE]
The _T'ai Yuan_, which was the property of the same company, was
evidently smiled upon by a less malevolent star, for nothing except an
hour's fog on the second morning interfered with our passage to Ichang.
On arriving at the little treaty port of Sha-shih, on the morning
of 30th January, I found from conversation with one of the Customs
officials stationed there that the news of the tragedy described above
had reached that port in a very distorted form. He asked me if it were
true that twenty passengers had been drowned! In the evening of the
same day we cast anchor at Ichang, where the number of the men reported
to have lost their lives had risen to thirty.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Since reduced to thirty-six hours.
[3] _The Far East_, by Sir Henry Norman, p. 593.
[4] But there is another side to this story which does not reflect much
credit on the foreigners concerned. This aspect of the matter has been
fully detailed by Mr Chester Holcombe, in _The Real Chinese Question_,
chap. i.
[5] _China's Only Hope_, by Chang Chih-tung, translated by S. I.
Woodbridge, 1901.
CHAPTER III
ICHANG TO WAN-HSIEN, THROUGH THE YANGTSE GORGES
Just before Ichang is reached, the appearance of the Yangtse valley
undergoes a sudden change. The great flat plains of the Lower Yangtse
are left behind, and rugged hills creep gradually up to the river's
edge. Ichang owes its importance to the fact that it is situated at
the eastern entrance of the great gorges of the Upper Yangtse, at the
highest point of the river which is at present attainable by steamers.
Its distance from the mouth of the Yangtse is almost exactly 1,000
miles. Its situation on the left bank of the river, facing a striking
mountain the shape and size of which are said to be almost identical
with those of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, is very picturesque. The
town is not large, the population being barely 40,000, including about
thirty or forty Europeans, the majority of whom are missionaries. There
are also consular and customs officials, and a few merchants. The port
has been opened to foreign trade for many years, but there has not as
yet been any great commercial boom. It is, indeed, little but a port of
trans-shipment. The main item in the out-going trade is native opium,
for the poppy is grown very extensively in the valleys above Ichang.
The town will therefore be considerably affected by the new anti-opium
regulations.
[Sidenote: NAVIGATION ON UPPER YANGTSE]
Cargoes arriving by steamer and destined for the markets of the rich
province that lies beyond the gorges are at Ichang transferred to large
river junks. These junks, if they are fortunate enough to escape the
manifold dangers of rocks and rapids, are hauled through the gorges
by small armies of trackers, and take a month at least--sometimes far
more--to cover the 400 miles between Ichang and Chung-king. With a
favourable wind they can travel under their own sail in the smooth
water between the rapids, but even then, owing to the strong current,
the rate of progress is slow.
The right of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtse from Ichang to
Chung-king and Hsü-chou-fu (Sui-fu) has existed since 1894, but the
problem of the rapids is still an unsolved one, and steamboats can
only attempt the journey at a great risk. The dangerous portion is
the 200 miles between Ichang and Wan-hsien. Mr Archibald Little
successfully navigated his _Lee-chuen_ through the gorges in 1898, but
few attempts have since been made to connect Ichang and Chung-king by
steam, though it is obvious that owing to the great cost and risk of
the present methods of carrying on trade with the markets of Ssuch'uan,
the development of a flourishing trade with that exceedingly rich and
prosperous province is a matter of great difficulty. France, no doubt,
hopes that by the extension of her Yunnan railway beyond Yunnan-fu
the trade of Ssuch'uan will to some extent be diverted to Tongking
and Haiphong, but she is, of course, fully cognisant of the fact that
once the problem of the Yangtse rapids is solved by engineering skill,
any such trade as she may have captured will inevitably find its way
back to its natural channel. It is to be hoped, therefore, in the
interests of China and Great Britain, that the problem will before long
be tackled in real earnest by competent persons; it is certainly not
one on which the opinion of amateurs is of any value. British river
gun-boats have surmounted the obstacles on several occasions,[6] and
a couple of such vessels are now kept in permanent commission in the
tranquil waters between Wan-hsien and Hsü-chou-fu. In summer they also
ascend the Min river (which enters the Yangtse at Hsü-chou-fu) as far
as Chia-ting, a distance from Shanghai of about 1,680 miles.
[Sidenote: CHINESE RED-BOATS]
Apart from the serious question of the rapids, there is no doubt that
the Yangtse, with its tributaries, forms a magnificent system of
navigable rivers. Not only can gun-boats ascend the Min river as far
as Chia-ting, but native craft further ascend at all times of the year
as far as Ch'êng-tu, the capital of Ssuch'uan, a distance of 133 miles
above Chia-ting, and over 1,800 miles from Shanghai. The main stream
of the river known to Europeans as the Yangtse is navigable only to
P'ing-shan, 40 miles above Hsü-chou-fu, making a total distance from
the Pacific Ocean of about 1,600 miles. It is on account of the shorter
navigable distance of the main stream that the Chinese popularly regard
the so-called Min as the true Great River. Chia-ting is within a day's
journey of Mount Omei, and from the summit of Mount Omei one can see
the Great Snow Mountains which form the eastern buttress of the Tibetan
plateau. It is thus possible to penetrate by steam-boat or other vessel
so far into the interior of China as to be within sight of her western
boundary. This fact may surely be adduced in support of the contention
that China possesses the finest system of navigable waterways in the
world.
At Ichang, through the kind assistance of Mr H. H. Fox, British Consul
at that port, and by the courtesy of the local Chinese officials, I
procured a "red-boat" to convey myself and my faithful bull-terrier
Jim up the rapids and through the gorges to Wan-hsien. The so-called
red-boats are Chinese Government life-boats. There are several
stationed in the neighbourhood of each of the most dangerous rapids,
and they are manned by skilful and daring water-men. Every year a
large percentage of the trading junks are wrecked in the rapids, and
the annual loss of life, great as it is, would be appalling if it were
not for the red-boats. This life-saving institution is maintained
by Government with the assistance of voluntary contributions. A
subscription towards the up-keep of the service is granted annually by
the British Admiralty. There is no institution in China which reflects
more credit on the government of the country, and is more deserving of
unqualified praise.
In a red-boat I was more cramped in space than I should have been in
one of the large house-boats usually chartered by European travellers,
but my rate of progress was much more speedy. My only shelter was a
mat-awning, open at both ends, and as the thermometer rarely went above
45°, and at night often went down to 36°, I should have suffered some
inconvenience from the cold had I not been able to exercise myself
by scrambling along the rocks and boulders ahead of my trackers. The
red-boat in which I travelled was, of course, specially detached for my
use and exempted from the performance of its ordinary duties, though
for part of the way it acted as escort to a naval officer who was going
up the river in one of the ordinary house-boats to join his ship.
[Sidenote: YANGTSE GORGES]
So many descriptions--good, bad, and indifferent--of the wonders of
the Yangtse gorges have already been thrust into the hands of a more
or less grateful public, that most of my readers may be glad to learn
that I do not intend to add to the number. The travellers who in
recent years have endeavoured to emulate the excellent accounts of
such pioneers as Mr Archibald Little are so numerous that I would in
all diffidence suggest to those who may hereafter desire to publish
their "impressions" of the gorges, that it would be a graceful act
on their part to pay a small fine--let it be a large one if the
public receives their work with cordiality--towards the funds of the
life-boat service. It would certainly be impossible to find a worthier
object for their generosity. All I will venture to say myself--though
I have already paid my fine--is that no description of the scenery of
the gorges can do justice to the reality. For though I have beheld
scenery more beautiful and quite as grand, I never saw anything in
my travels that filled me with a deeper sense of awe. Perhaps one
of the secrets of the fascination of the gorges is the ever-present
contrast between the dumb forces of nature and evanescent humanity.
For ages past human muscle has matched itself in a brave struggle
with those titanic forces. The very rocks themselves, the standing
symbol of changelessness, reveal something of the history of this
unending strife. The smooth grooves worn deep into the jagged summits
of innumerable crags have been scooped out by the ropes hauled by a
hundred generations of dead trackers, and just above the water-line
the deep holes in the hard lime-stone made by the poles of millions of
toiling junkmen in past centuries are still used as hooks and points
of leverage by their descendants of to-day. When it is remembered that
more than a hundred trackers are sometimes required to haul a single
junk against the current of the greater rapids, and that a junk may
take half a day in covering a distance of 200 yards, some idea will be
formed of the permanent difficulties that confront, and always have
confronted, the indomitable Chinese navigator on these inland waters.
Much has been written by former travellers on the subject of the
terribly hard lives led by the Yangtse trackers, but I am not sure that
the degradation of the tracker and the wretchedness of his life have
not been greatly over-stated. Hard as the work is, the trackers' mode
of life can be by no means unhealthy, and their daily food is, from
the Chinese point of view, both plentiful and good. Better than all,
their work is in its way interesting, and of such a nature that it can
never become really monotonous. That they take a genuine satisfaction
in its accomplishment, quite apart from the reward they are to receive,
seemed to me, as I watched them at their labours, an obvious fact. I
fancy that Ruskin would have supported the view that the tracker's
lot is by no means so pitiable as that of myriads of factory hands in
the hideous industrial centres of modern Europe. Personally, if I had
to choose between hauling junks over rapids in the magnificent gorges
of the Yangtse, and pulling cranks and levers in a dismal Lancashire
factory, I should not for a moment hesitate in my choice: and I should
not choose the cranks and levers.
My journey from Ichang to Wan-hsien occupied eleven days. We started on
2nd February, reached Pu-tai K'ou (the boundary between the provinces
of Hupei and Ssuch'uan) on the 6th, passed through the Fêng Hsiang
gorge--perhaps the grandest of all the defiles--on the 8th, and beached
ourselves under the walls of the city of Wan-hsien on the morning
of the 12th. Here I paid off my hardy boatmen, and prepared for my
overland journey to Ch'êng-tu.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] It was accomplished very successfully by a British river gun-boat
as recently as the summer of 1907.
CHAPTER IV
WAN-HSIEN TO CH'ÊNG-TU
Wan-hsien, though one of the most beautifully situated cities on the
Yangtse, is, like most Chinese towns, more pleasing at a distance than
close at hand. It lies on a slope at a bend of the river 200 miles
above Ichang, and 1,200 miles from the ocean. It is not yet an open
port, though I was shown a spot said to have been selected by the
British consular authorities as the site of the future Consulate. The
only resident Europeans are a few missionaries and a postal agent. The
trade of the city is brisk and developing, for the numerous roads that
lead from here into the interior of the province are much used by the
native merchants of Ssuch'uan for the conveyance of their goods to the
river. In time to come Wan-hsien will no doubt reap a large profit
from its advantageous position at the point of contact of several main
arteries of traffic.
At Wan-hsien I was very hospitably entertained for a day and a night by
the Rev. J. C. Platt, of the China Inland Mission, who was also most
courteous in assisting me in the engagement of coolies for the next
stage of my journey.
My caravan consisted of three coolies to carry my sedan chair
(purchased at Wan-hsien), which I very seldom used, three to carry my
baggage, and a temporary "boy," or personal servant, who was engaged
to accompany me as far as Ch'êng-tu, the capital of the province. I
was also furnished by the _chih hsien_, or district magistrate, with
the usual escort of two or three Chinese soldiers who, whether they
are wanted or not, always accompany Europeans on overland journeys
in China. From this point onwards my method was to engage temporary
coolies and "boys" at various stages of my journey, discharging them as
soon as I had passed out of the district in which their local knowledge
rendered them specially useful. I lived entirely on native food, except
on the rare occasions on which I enjoyed the hospitality of European
missionaries. My knowledge of Chinese rendered me independent of
interpreters or guides, though the changes of dialect were sometimes
disconcerting.
[Illustration: A CHINESE "BRAVE." [_To face p. 32._]
[Sidenote: SCENERY OF EASTERN SSUCH'UAN]
The journey from Wan-hsien to Ch'êng-tu consisted of fourteen long
stages, the total distance being nearly 400 miles.[7] The road lies
through one of the fairest and most fertile portions of the great
province of Ssuch'uan, and is one of the best I have met with in the
interior of China: a circumstance which is partly due to the fact that
Chinese officials generally use this road in travelling from the east
of China to the provincial capital. The inns are numerous and--from
the Oriental point of view--fairly comfortable. The innkeepers, so far
from showing any aversion to entertaining foreigners, tout eagerly
for their custom, and generally greet one with the amiable remark
"_t'zŭ hou ta jên_" ("At your Excellency's service") as one enters
their courtyards. The people are peaceful and industrious, and annoy
foreigners only by their insatiable curiosity. Europeans have not very
often travelled by this road, as they generally prefer--having a good
deal of heavy baggage--to keep to the Yangtse as far as Chung-king,
and thence ascend the Min river; but there are now several missionary
stations between Wan-hsien and Ch'êng-tu, and the country is quite
well known to foreigners. The road lies partly over undulating hills,
generally cultivated almost to their summits with rice, rape, wheat,
maize, and many other crops, and partly over rich and densely-populated
plains. The scenery is always picturesque, and sometimes,--among the
hills--exceedingly beautiful. The villages, farm-houses, and temples
are generally situated amid little forests of feathery bamboo. The
hill-sides are studded with charming little _châlets_, and very
often the submerged rice-fields in their immediate vicinity give the
appearance of artificial lakes in an English park, especially when
the banks or balks are lined with graceful vegetation. My dog, I was
glad to find, attracted much greater attention than I did myself: for
bull-terriers are unknown in China. Delighted cries of "_K'an yang
kou_" ("Look at the foreign dog!") greeted us whenever we entered a
village street, and in some places delight was tempered by amazement.
"Call that a dog?" I heard a village patriarch remark rebukingly. "It's
a bear!" My readers may rest assured that my four-footed travelling
companion was no more like a bear than a unicorn.
Though the climate of Ssuch'uan is always comparatively mild, the
mornings were generally chilly enough to make walking a pleasanter
mode of progression than chair-riding. The method adopted by the
peasantry to keep themselves warm struck me as distinctly novel. They
carry in their hands little wicker-baskets, in which is a diminutive
metal receptacle containing glowing charcoal. This is the Ssuch'uanese
equivalent to a European lady's muff; but sometimes they hide it away
under their clothes, in which case their appearance is apt to be rather
comic.
My second night after leaving Wan-hsien was spent in the small district
city of Liang-shan, where the late Mrs Bishop, as she relates in
her _Yangtse Valley and Beyond_, was mobbed and assaulted. No such
unpleasant experience awaited me, and I found the people orderly and
good-humoured. The evening of the fourth day brought me to Ta Chu,
where I found an unusually good inn. Those who have travelled much in
China need not be reminded of the joy with which one finds comfortable
quarters awaiting one at the end of a tiring day's journey; the
experience is none too common. During the fifth day's march I passed
several out-crops of coal. It seems to exist in great abundance,
though mining operations do not appear to have been carried far below
the surface. The coal is used in the inns of this district, and burns
well. On the sixth day we crossed the Ch'ü river in a ferry-boat. This
stream, which is navigable for local craft, rises in the high range
of hills in the north-east of Ssuch'uan, and for part of its course
is known as the Pai Shui, or White Water. Ch'ü-hsien and Kuang-an are
the only fair-sized towns on its banks, the point at which I crossed
being between these two towns. The river joins the Chia-ling, with
other tributaries, at Ho-chou, and so goes to swell the Yangtse at
Chung-king. The water is remarkably clear. The summer rise, judging
from the appearance of the banks, is probably not more than 10 feet, if
so much.
[Sidenote: SHUN-CH'ING-FU]
On the eighth day from Wan-hsien I reached the prefectural city
of Shun-ch'ing-fu,[8] once a prosperous industrial centre but now
somewhat decayed. A great industry here used to be the preparation of
vegetable dyes from the safflower, but the trade has been killed by the
introduction of aniline dyes from Austria. Sericulture, however, is
still a flourishing industry. Three or four years ago a disaster befell
the city in the shape of floods, which destroyed whole streets and
undermined portions of the city wall.
Soon after leaving Shun-ch'ing our road lay over an excellent
four-arched bridge called the Jung An Ch'iao ("Everlasting Peace
Bridge"), and we then began the ascent of a hill commonly known locally
as the Hsi Shan, or West Hill. Here there are cavern-shrines, and a
number of honorific portals and tablets, which indeed are exceedingly
common along all the main roads of Ssuch'uan. Many of the inscriptions
consist of "legends of good women," but the great majority commemorate
the virtues of local officials. The carved figures on the buildings
of the Hsi Shan are curious and interesting, and would probably repay
study. Some distance beyond this point I observed a large flat rock
close to the road, bearing the significant inscription: _Ch'i ssŭ wu
kao chuang_ ("Die of anger but don't go to law"). This is part of a
well-known proverb which goes on to say: _O ssŭ wu tso tsei_ ("Die of
hunger but don't be a thief"). It would be well for the peasantry of
China--who as often as not ruin themselves over their law-suits--if
they would pay as much respect to the first of these injunctions as
they generally do to the second.
On the 25th February my road descended from an undulating range of
hills to the edge of the great plain, in the middle of which is
situated the provincial capital, Ch'êng-tu; but it was not till the
close of the following day, the fourteenth since leaving Wan-hsien,
that we entered the city.
[Sidenote: HIGHWAYMEN]
As in all wealthy centres, the contrast between the rich and poor in
the Ch'êng-tu plain is very striking. I never met so much evidence of
great wealth elsewhere in China, and certainly never encountered so
many beggars. One of them, seeing that I was alone and on foot--for
I had left my chair some distance behind--offered to carry me to
Ch'êng-tu on his back. Another tried to impress upon me the advantages
of his wheelbarrow as a mode of conveyance, though its wooden wheel
was nearly broken in half. The number of bad characters in the city and
neighbourhood seemed to me unusually large, and I was constantly warned
against highway robbers. I hardly expected to have the good fortune to
meet so picturesque a villain as a real highwayman, but such was my
fate during my last day's journey before entering Ch'êng-tu. There were
two of them, armed with pistols that were not only loaded, but could
be discharged--a feature that is not characteristic of all Chinese
firearms. They were lurking behind some bamboos on the side of the
road, apparently waiting for an opportunity to attack and plunder any
one whose docility of appearance marked him out as a suitable victim.
One of them took fright at the sudden apparition of the three soldiers
of my escort, who were walking in front of my chair, and bolted. He was
immediately followed by his companion, and close on their heels came my
scarlet-coated warriors, emboldened, no doubt, by the knowledge of the
fact that they were three to two. I caused my chair to be put down in
order that I might the better observe the race, and the fight which I
supposed would ensue. But there was no struggle. Both the highwaymen,
encumbered by the weight of their unwieldy pistols and a couple of
heavy knives, were speedily overtaken and captured, and, when brought
back to me, threw themselves to the ground and made a piteous appeal
to my generosity. They explained that they had found the knives and
pistols in a field, and were trying to find the original owner in order
to return them to him, and that they had no idea (until we demonstrated
the fact by firing off the weapons) that the pistols were loaded.
Whether they took up the same line of defence in the presence of the
magistrate to whose care I consigned them, I do not know, nor have I
learned their subsequent fate.
The Ch'êng-tu plain, with its marvellous system of irrigation and its
three or four crops a year, is the richest and most populous district
in the whole of the Chinese Empire. This extraordinarily productive
plain is about 90 miles long by 70 wide, and supports a population
estimated at no less than 4,000,000, of whom about 350,000 reside
within the capital itself. It is studded with many prosperous towns and
villages, and is cultivated to its utmost extent. Among the crops are
rice, wheat, tea, tobacco, maize, the opium-poppy, which was not yet in
bloom, and the yellow rape that turned hundreds of acres of land into
seas of bright gold. The plain is connected by a navigable waterway
(the Min) with the Yangtse, and it is in the heart of the richest
province in China. The city of Ch'êng-tu has been identified with Marco
Polo's Sindafu. "This city," wrote Marco in the thirteenth century,
"was in former times a rich and noble one, and the kings who reigned
there were very great and wealthy." Of the Min river--which had not
then been subdivided to the same extent as at present into artificial
channels for irrigation--he says: "The multitude of vessels that
navigate this river is so vast that no one who should read or hear
the tale would believe it. The quantities of merchandise also which
merchants carry up and down this river are past all belief."[9]
[Sidenote: CH'ÊNG-TU]
Ch'êng-tu is a city of less importance now, but it is still one of the
greatest and most prosperous in China. Its population is much smaller
than that of Canton, but its general appearance is more attractive as
well as far more imposing. Its streets are broad and clean, and its
wall exceedingly well preserved. In mediæval times it was a frontier
city of great political and strategic importance, for the Tibetan
principalities extended then as far east as the lofty mountains that
flank the Ch'êng-tu plain on the west. Even now large numbers of
Tibetan traders are often to be seen in the streets of Ch'êng-tu,
though most of their commercial transactions are carried on at the city
of Kuan-hsien, about 30 miles away, a place which is also remarkable
for the sluices which regulate the waters of the Min and divert them,
as occasion demands, into the irrigation canals. The governor-general
of Ssuch'uan, whose yamen is in Ch'êng-tu, is more like a real viceroy
than any other provincial ruler in China, for he it is who, on behalf
of the emperor, holds sway over, and receives the embassies of, the
various Tibetan princes and tribal chiefs of the extreme west. There
is at present a project to connect Ch'êng-tu by rail with a point on
the Yangtse, probably in the neighbourhood of K'uei-chou-fu, a town
which I passed on my way from Ichang to Wan-hsien. The provincial
government--for the railway project is entirely a Chinese one--is at
present actively engaged in trying to raise the funds necessary for
so large an undertaking, one method being--so I was told--to compel
every local official to take a definite number of shares, the number
to vary according to the official's rank and reputed wealth, each
shareholder being permitted to get rid of his shares in the best way
possible by distributing them among the well-to-do people subject to
his jurisdiction. In passing through the towns and villages of eastern
Ssuch'uan, I noticed many Chinese proclamations giving the people an
outline of the railway scheme, pointing out the great benefits to
the trade and prosperity of the province that would result from its
fulfilment, and inviting or commanding popular co-operation. It may be
that this railway will offer one solution of the problem of the Yangtse
rapids: in any case, the enthusiasm with which the scheme was being
discussed in both official and commercial circles was another proof of
the gradual breaking-down of the old Chinese prejudice against railways.
Though so remote from the sea-board, the people of Ch'êng-tu--or
perhaps I should say the officials--are among the most progressive and
enlightened in China. This is especially so in the matter of education.
The city possesses a Provincial College, where about three hundred
young men are now being educated in Western as well as in Chinese
branches of learning. There is an Englishman who lectures on chemistry
and physics, there are several Japanese lecturers, and a staff of
Chinese teachers who have a knowledge of European languages. I have
heard of an enterprising Chinese schoolmaster who once advertised that
in his establishment English was taught "up to letter G." They are
more ambitious than that in the college of Ch'êng-tu. Among the local
industries the most important is that of silk-weaving. For this, as
well as for other industrial purposes, foreign machinery and Western
methods are being gradually imported and adopted.
[Sidenote: BABER'S MONOLITH]
Those who are acquainted with Baber's charming descriptions of
Ssuch'uan and Yunnan[10]--descriptions which can never be superseded,
though they are often neglected nowadays--will remember that he was
much interested in a curious circular monolith which he discovered on
the side of an artificial hill or mound in Ch'êng-tu. He was unable to
get any satisfactory account of its history, though tradition said that
it marked the grave of an emperor's son. It is, indeed, not improbable
that the mound, which is oblong in shape, with a depression in the
middle, and resembles, as Baber remarked, a half-buried dumbbell, was
raised in memory of some distinguished prince or leader of old times,
perhaps when the Ch'êng-tu plain was still occupied by the so-called
Man-tzŭ. I visited the spot, and found that the stone was still lying
in the position in which he saw it. The portion that appears above
the soil presents something of the appearance of the tilted end of a
huge stone barrel, badly damaged at one corner. The diameter of the
circular face--of which barely half can be seen--I found to be about
17 feet. The greatest length of the visible body of the barrel is only
about 2 feet 3 inches, but it is impossible to say how much of it is
underground. An excavation of the mound at the spot where the stone
lies might lead to some interesting results: but Baber was assured that
any attempt to dig would cause the sky to darken and goblins to appear,
so he left it alone, and I decided to follow his example.
Something of the grandeur of Ch'êng-tu in its most palmy days may be
realised by a reference to extant Chinese books, as well as from the
eulogies of Marco Polo. From the _Shu Hua Shih_[11] we learn that
under the T'ang dynasty (618-905 of the Christian era) it was a great
art centre, and a long list of paintings and frescoes relating to the
Buddhist religion are mentioned in that work as hanging on the walls
of the palaces of Ch'êng-tu. Some of the temples are worthy of a long
visit, though the finest in the district is not in the city itself but
in the neighbouring town of Kuan-hsien, where Li Ping and his son,
the deified founders of the great irrigation system of the Ch'êng-tu
plain, have had raised in their honour a temple that is said to be the
most beautiful in China. But as has been well remarked of Li Ping by
a recent English traveller,[12] the perennially fertile fields around
Ch'êng-tu are his finest monument.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] For Itinerary, see Appendix B.
[8] The word _fu_ attached to so many Chinese place-names is usually
translated "prefecture," which is an administrative division including
several _hsien_ or district-magistracies. _Chou_ also signifies an
administrative division or "department," smaller than a _fu_.
[9] Yule's _Marco Polo_, edited by Cordier, vol. ii. pp. 36-37.
[10] First published in the Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary
Papers_, vol. i.
[11] 書畫史.
[12] Clive Bigham, in _A Year in China_, p. 125.
CHAPTER V
CH'ÊNG-TU TO OMEI-HSIEN
My next objective after leaving Ch'êng-tu was the sacred summit of
Mount Omei, one of the most famous of the many historic mountains
of China. I left Ch'êng-tu on 1st March in a small, leaky, and most
uncomfortable craft, which took me down the Min river to Chia-ting
in four days, the total distance being slightly over 130 miles. The
Kuan-hsien sluices having not yet been opened to give the great plain
its spring flooding, there was very little water in the stream till
we reached Chiang K'ou[13] on the morning of the third day, and in
some places it was necessary to pull the boat over some mud shoals. At
Chiang K'ou the various subdivided waters (of which the branch that
brought me down from the east gate of Ch'êng-tu was one) reunite and
form a river which is broad and deep enough at all seasons of the year
for cargo-junks of a considerable size. This is the Min river, which,
as already stated, is regarded by the Chinese of central Ssuch'uan as
the true Upper Yangtse. The far greater but unnavigable stream which
rushes impetuously from the Tibetan mountains in the north-west and is
joined by the Min at Hsü-chou-fu,[14] is known by the Chinese for a
great part of its course as Chin Ho (Gold River) and as the Chin Sha
Chiang[15] (the River of Golden Sand). The name Min being apparently
unknown to the Chinese, Baber suggested that it had been invented
by the early Jesuit geographers.[16] If so, it was no doubt derived
from the range of mountains known to the Chinese as the Min Shan (岷山)
in the north-west of the province, for it is there that the river
rises. But all the rivers of China have a multitude of names; in fact
the Chinese do not appear to be endowed with a proper sense of the
continuity of rivers, and the country people who dwell on the banks of
a stream from which they derive their livelihood are seldom aware of
where it comes from or whither it goes. This circumstance has been a
source of embarrassment to many European travellers, whose passion for
geographical exactness is incomprehensible to the rustic mind in China.
The scenery of the Min is always picturesque. The river flows for the
most part through richly cultivated districts, broken only here and
there by low hills. Nearly opposite the town of P'êng-shan-hsien, on
the third day from Ch'êng-tu I visited a fine twelve-storied pagoda
(the So Chiang T'a or Lock-River Pagoda), which, unlike most buildings
of the kind, is in sufficiently good repair to enable one to ascend
it by a spiral staircase. The pagoda is built of hard brick and the
staircase is of sandstone blocks. The scenery on the river becomes
finer as one approaches Chia-ting. Well-wooded hills come close to the
water's edge, and broken cliffs covered with verdure reveal openings
into fairy vistas of greenery and mysterious grottoes that would have
delighted the soul of a Keats.
[Illustration: A CHINESE WALLED CITY. [_To face p. 44._]
[Sidenote: CHIA-TING-FU]
The town of Chia-ting, which I reached on the evening of 4th March,
is beautifully situated on the right bank of the Min, just above its
junction with the T'ung (more generally known as the Ta Tu) and Ya
rivers. From this point onwards the three streams flow in a broad,
navigable river for a distance of about 130 miles, when they join the
Yangtse at Hsü-chou-fu. My river-journey, however, ended at Chia-ting.
Apart from its proximity to the sacred mountain of Omei, Chia-ting
is interesting for its temples, its prehistoric cave-dwellings, its
sericulture, and for the white-wax industry. High on a rocky hill on
the left bank of the river is a remarkable monastery known as "The
Monastery of the Voice of the Waters." It was founded in the T'ang
dynasty, nearly twelve hundred years ago, and restored in 1667 by
the munificence of a Provincial Judge. It bears the alternative name
of "The Great Buddha Monastery," the reference being to a huge image
which has been carved out of the face of a cliff that overhangs the
waters of the Min. The story goes that a holy monk named Hai T'ung came
to this locality in the eighth century of our era and determined to
perform some act of religious devotion which would save the surrounding
country from the ruin and desolation caused by the overflowing of the
three neighbouring rivers. He therefore spent nineteen years in hewing
out of the rock an immense image of Maitrêya Buddha. The carving,
which is in bold relief, must have been a work of immense labour and
considerable danger; but its artistic merits are obscured by the
partial decomposition of the rock and the growth of vegetation in the
fissures. Parts of the body are almost indistinguishable. The whole
figure is about 386 feet high. An exceedingly steep and rather perilous
scramble down a cutting in the precipice enabled me to study the great
figure from various points of vantage, and also to inspect some little
rock-shrines containing innumerable small Buddhas. It is doleful to
reflect that in spite of Hai T'ung's piety and extraordinary industry
the three rivers have not yet ceased to cause periodical floods.
[Sidenote: MAN-TZŬ CAVES]
Amongst other objects of great interest in the monastic grounds are
some of the prehistoric cave-dwellings which were first described by
Baber. One of these caves, in close proximity to the monastery, has
been diverted from its original uses (whatever they may have been), and
is now a Buddhist chapel, with altar, bell, and images all complete.
These caves, of which there are many in the neighbourhood of Chia-ting
and a great quantity in other parts of what is known as the "Red Basin"
of Ssuch'uan, constitute one of the unsolved problems of Chinese
archæology. I visited several of them during the two days I spent at
Chia-ting, but am not in a position to add much to the information
already available, or to offer any novel theory regarding their
origin. The caves are entirely artificial, and have been hewn out of
the sandstone by people who were evidently skilful in the handling of
their tools. There is little evidence of a strong artistic instinct,
but it is curious to note that the decoration, such as it is, bears no
resemblance to any Chinese work, and seems rather of Hindu type. The
square or oblong doors are generally on the face of a cliff, and the
majority are at the present time quite inaccessible without the use
of ropes and ladders. In some cases the cliffs are honey-combed with
caves, the insides of which have never been trodden by human foot for
untold ages. Other caves, however, are quite easily accessible. The
interiors vary in details, but in general design they are alike. The
door leads into a long room, which is in most cases connected with
other rooms, and there are holes and grooves in the walls which show
that there must at one time have been wooden partitions. Within the
rooms, which are quite lofty and broad enough for human habitation,
there are cistern-like troughs, deep recesses, bench-like seats, and
projections that may have been used as shelves: all of which are hewn
out of the rock and remain immovable. No one can now say definitely
whether the caves were used as strongholds, as tombs, as houses or as
places of worship. Arguments may be adduced in support of each and
all of these theories. The inaccessibility of the majority of the
cave-apertures lends support to the stronghold theory. Perhaps they
were reached by temporary ladders which were drawn up on the approach
of an enemy. Possibly the enemies to be feared in those remote days
were wild beasts as well as human beings. The narrow rooms, with their
immovable stone coffers and shallow recesses, suggest mausolea; yet
the existence in some cases of fire-places (without chimneys) and
stone projections that were evidently intended to be sat upon are more
suggestive of dwelling-places. As regards the temple theory, all that
can be said is that some of the more accessible of the caves have been
turned into Buddhist shrines, as in the case already mentioned; but
there is no evidence whatever that they were originally intended for
religious purposes. On the whole, it seems probable that the caves
were actually used as the ordinary dwelling-places of a primitive
people that lived chiefly by hunting and fishing, had attained a fair
degree of civilisation and social organisation, and found themselves
in constant danger of attack by hostile tribes, perhaps Tibetans, by
whom--if not by advancing Chinese--they were eventually scattered or
exterminated.
[Sidenote: CAVE-DWELLERS]
All I propose to add by way of comment is this. In the _Journal_
of the Royal Asiatic Society for July 1904 and January 1906, Mr E.
Crawshay-Williams described some mysterious rock-dwellings which he
discovered at Raineh, in Persia. Now from his description of those
caves I gather that they must be exactly similar in situation,
size, and general appearance to those which we are now considering.
Unfortunately, neither the Raineh caves nor those of Ssuch'uan contain
inscriptions. Whether the resemblance is purely accidental or has some
deeper significance is a question which I leave to archæologists. It
might, if we had corroborating evidence, tend to show that regions
so far apart as Persia and the Min valley of Ssuch'uan were once
inhabited by allied races, perhaps of Indian origin. As we shall see
later,[17] there is, indeed, some reason to believe that the Chinese
cave-dwellers were connected with the Vaggians or Licchavis, a race
that attained to great political strength in the extreme north-east of
India, and which--according to one authority at least--is identical
with the Yüeh-chi.[18] The latter, however, who after their disastrous
defeats by the Hiung-nu on the confines of China in the second century
B.C. migrated to western Asia, never seem to have penetrated so far
west as Raineh in Persia. Their empire was founded on the ruins of
the Græco-Bactrian dominion in Sogdiana and on the left bank of the
Oxus, and their ambitions led them south rather than west. It may
be that future explorers will discover in other regions caves of a
similar pattern to those of Persia and China, and in that case it may
be possible to trace the migrations of the cave-dwellers and so find
a clue to their identification. The caves noticed by the abbé Huc on
the fringe of the Mongolian desert, and those that exist near the
Yamdok lake on the road to Lhasa[19] have not been described fully
enough to justify our drawing many deductions. The rock-cut caves on
the Murghab near the Afghan frontier, and those of Bamian close to
the Indian Caucasus on the road between Kabul and Turkestan,[20] have
many characteristics in common with those of Ssuch'uan, but appear to
have served only religious uses. Professor Parker has discovered in
the records of the T'ang dynasty (seventh to tenth century A.D.) what
appear to be references to the existence of a race of cave-dwellers in
Ssuch'uan as late as that time, and a further reference to cave-chiefs
(one of whom was named T'ien Shih Ch'iung) in records corresponding
to the year 1012 of our era.[21] But there is nothing to prove that
these were the descendants of the original cave-dwelling race, and the
probabilities are rather against their being so.
What the Chinese themselves say is that the caves were inhabited by the
"Man-tzŭ" in prehistoric times; but Man-tzŭ is a term which has a very
elastic meaning, for, as we shall see below,[22] it has been made to
embrace Tibetan border tribes, Lolos and "savages" generally. It must
reluctantly be admitted that until a proper archæological enquiry has
been made into the subject and the more inaccessible caves have been
thoroughly searched for relics, the only theory with which no fault can
be found is the illuminating one propounded by Baber. "My own theory,"
he said, "which I offer with diffidence, is that these excavations are
of unknown date, and have been undertaken, for unexplained purposes, by
a people of doubtful identity."
[Sidenote: CHINESE INNS]
On 6th March I set out for Omei-hsien, the little city that lies at
the foot of Mount Omei. The distance from Chia-ting is only about 16
miles, and was easily covered during the day. My retinue consisted of
three chair-bearers, three baggage coolies and a useless "boy" whom I
had picked up at Ch'êng-tu and hoped to get rid of as soon as I could
find a suitable man to take his place. The road led us over the river
Ya and across a great plain almost entirely occupied by myriads of the
dwarf ash-trees which are used in connection with the production of
the famous white wax. The wax-insects, which are brought annually in
baskets from the Chien-ch'ang valley south of the Ta Tu, are placed on
the branches of this tree, and in due time proceed to cover themselves
and the branches with a thick coating of the wax. The branches are
then cut off and the wax carefully removed. The whole process has been
carefully described by Sir Alexander Hosie in several Foreign Office
reports and in his _Three Years in Western China_.
The inns of Omei-hsien are unusually good, and as the pilgrim season
had not yet begun I was able to select the best quarters that the city
could provide. Western readers must not suppose that even the best of
Chinese inns would meet with commendation in England or America. If in
China I am shown into a room that has been moderately well swept, and
possesses a wooden floor which does not give way, and walls without
holes; that contains a steady table, an unbroken chair, a window
recently papered, and that does not smell too offensively of stale
opium; and if the room is not next door to the stables and opens into
a yard that is reasonably clear of garbage and filth, and is not the
common resort of peripatetic pigs and diseased dogs,--I then consider
that good fortune has brought me to an inn that may be described as
excellent. The furniture is, of course, in all cases of the simplest
description, the principal guest-room generally containing only a
table and a couple of chairs. The walls are either of bare stone or
brick, or of mere lath and plaster. Sometimes they are adorned with
a few hanging scrolls containing "antithetical couplets" or crude
paintings--probably New Years' gifts to the landlord from his "foolish
younger brothers." Washing-stands, dressing-tables and side-boards
and similar luxuries are unknown, and the bed consists either (in
north China) of a _k'ang_, which is built of bricks, or (in the warmer
regions) of a couple of planks placed on trestles. For several reasons
a camp-bed is to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most
modest travelling equipment. If such are the good inns, what is to be
said of the worst? Earthen floors saturated with damp and filth and
smelling of decaying refuse; windows from which the paper (glass being,
of course, unknown) has been torn away; tables which collapse under
the weight of the traveller's frugal dinner unless they are propped
up by his portmanteau and gun-case; roofs from which hang trailing
cobwebs spun by spiders of a vanished generation; walls of mud through
which the village urchins make holes by the simple pressure of their
grimy fingers; wicked-looking insects of uncouth shapes that issue at
night-time from a hundred gloomy lurking-places and crawl over the
edge of one's rice-bowl; an entire lack of means of illumination except
a single sputtering wick protruding from a saucer filled with rancid
oil: these are but a few of the more obvious discomforts of many a
Chinese hostelry. The inns of the large towns are with a few exceptions
no better than those of the villages, and often much less comfortable
on account of the greater amount of noise and dirt. As a rule it is
preferable, if possible, to complete a day's march at a village rather
than in a town; not only for the sake of quietness and peace, but also
because one is less likely to be disturbed by inquisitive crowds if one
ventures outside the door of the inn.
[Illustration: CHILDREN OF CHINA. [_To face p. 53._]
[Sidenote: OMEI-HSIEN]
The people of Omei-hsien, however, are unusually amiable. Many of them
earn their living by attending to the wants of pilgrims to the great
mountain, and vie with each other in their efforts to show civility
to the stranger within their gates. Not many Chinese venture to climb
Mount Omei so early in the year as March, as it is still covered with
snow for several thousand feet of its height; but I observed a large
number of Tibetan pilgrims on their way to and from the mountain,
and ascertained from them that there was no great difficulty in the
ascent. On the morning of the 7th March, therefore, I left my servant
(who was appalled by the mere shadow of the mountain) to look after my
baggage in Omei-hsien, and started the ascent in the company of the two
soldiers of my escort. The town of Omei-hsien lies at 1,500 feet above
sea-level: the summit of the mountain is about 9,500 feet higher.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] 江口.
[14] See Map.
[15] It will be observed by those acquainted with Chinese that here
and elsewhere I have, for the sake of uniformity, transliterated all
Chinese names according to the sounds of Pekingese, except in the case
of a few stereotyped words.
[16] It is used, however, in the official Annals of the province
(_Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih_).
[17] See chap. xv. p. 286 (note 1).
[18] S. Beal in the _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society, January
1882, p. 39. His view does not seem to have attracted much attention.
[19] See Waddell's _Lhasa and its Mysteries_ (John Murray, 1905), pp.
289-290.
[20] See _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society, January and July 1886.
[21] See _China Review_, vols. xv. and xix.
[22] See chap. xv.
CHAPTER VI
MOUNT OMEI AND CHINESE BUDDHISM
The forests and ravines of Mount Omei[23] teem with mystery and marvel,
for there are legends that carry its story far back into the dim days
when the threads of history meet together in the knots of myth. There
is hardly a peak un-garlanded with the flowers of romance, hardly a
moss-grown boulder that is not the centre of an old-world legend. The
many stories of wonderful visions and wizard sounds that have come to
the eyes and ears of the pilgrims to the shrines of Omei may raise
a smile of amusement at human credulity, yet they are easily enough
explained when we remember how strangely both sights and sounds may be
affected by mountain-mists; and it is seldom that the giant bulk of
Omei is bathed from peak to base in clear sunshine.
"The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn."
[Sidenote: LEGENDARY ASSOCIATIONS]
It is, indeed, true that "many-fountain'd" Omei would lose a great
part of its spell if the mists were to melt away into garish daylight.
No more could the pilgrim pour into the ears of wondering listeners
tales of how, when ascending the mountain amid gloom and silence, he
had suddenly heard his own praises of the Lord Amitabha re-chanted by
spirit voices; how a rift in the curtain of white cloud had suddenly
disclosed landscapes of unearthly loveliness, with jewelled palaces
and starry pinnacles such as were never raised by the hands of men;
how he had caught glimpses of airy forms that passed him with a sigh
or a whisper, but left no traces in the forest or the snow and made no
sound of footfall; or how when approaching unwittingly the edge of some
terrible abyss he had felt the touch of a ghostly finger that led him
back to safety.
It is believed that the Lolos, who are not Buddhists, worshipped on
Mount Omei a triad of deities of their own, and it is at least certain
that men of that race are sometimes met on Omei's slopes. But the
earliest legendary associations of the mountain are in Chinese minds
naturally connected with those mythical progenitors of the Chinese
people--Fu Hsi and Nü Wo. This carries us back to the twenty-ninth
century B.C. Both these mysterious persons have their "caves" on Mount
Omei, but they are in such inaccessible situations that no mortal eye
has ever seen them. The first of the legendary hermits was a holy
man named T'ien Chên Huang Jên,[24] the Heavenly Sage and Imperial
Man. He lived in the age of phœnixes and unicorns; and on Mount Omei
he once received a visit from Huang Ti,[25] the Yellow Emperor, who
flourished in the twenty-sixth century B.C. Though one of the few of
the world's monarchs who appear to have lived long enough to celebrate
the centenary of their succession to the throne, Huang Ti wished to
attain the crowning distinction of immortality. It was to acquire
the elixir of life from the Heavenly Sage that Huang Ti paid him his
memorable visit. A short record of the conversation between the Sage
and his imperial disciple has been preserved, and we may gather from it
that Huang Ti derived from the interview a good deal of sound practical
advice, but the Sage seems to have skilfully evaded the main point. He
kept his secret, but made such excellent personal use of it that he is
supposed to have lived for at least a millennium or two, and indeed
his death has not yet been recorded. In order to keep count of time he
acquired the useful habit of changing his name with each successive
epoch,[26] and his name in the Chou dynasty--which occupied the throne
about a millennium and a half after the Yellow Emperor's time--was the
singularly appropriate one of The Old Man.
[Sidenote: THE MONK OF A THOUSAND YEARS]
Omei-shan--like other sacred mountains in China--has always been famous
for the medicinal value of its roots and herbs, and the monks still
derive no little benefit from their sale. Perhaps it was among these
herbs that The Old Man found his elixir of life, and if so he did not
remain in exclusive possession of the secret. The records of Omei are
full of accounts of recluses and others whose span of life extended far
beyond the normal. One of them is known to legend as Pao Chang,[27] but
more popularly as Ch'ien Sui Ho Shang,[28] or "The Monk of a Thousand
Years." The period of his long and useful life is given in the records.
He was born in the twelfth year of Wei Lieh Wang of the Chou dynasty,
and died in the eighth year of Kao Tsung of the T'ang dynasty at the
ripe old age of precisely one thousand and seventy-one. He was a native
of India, but came to China in the Chin dynasty (265-419 of our era)
and went to worship at the shrine of P'u Hsien Bodhisattva on Mount
Omei, where he spent the declining centuries of his life. According
to another account his arrival at Omei was a good deal earlier than
the Chin period, for his name is connected with the most famous of all
the Omei stories--one which refers to the reign of Ming Ti of the Han
dynasty.
This story relates to the foundation of what may be called the
Buddhistic history of Omei and the beginning of its long religious
association with its patron saint, P'u Hsien Bodhisattva. We are told
that in the reign of Ming Ti (58-75 of the Christian era) a certain
official named P'u[29] happened to be on Mount Omei looking for
medicinal herbs. In a misty hollow he suddenly came upon the footprints
of a deer. They were shaped not like the footprints of an ordinary
deer but like the flower of the lotus. Amazed at the strange sight, he
followed the tracks up the mountain. They led him continually upwards
until at last he found himself on the summit, and there, at the edge of
a terrible precipice, they disappeared. As he gazed over the brink he
beheld a sight most strange and wonderful. A succession of marvellous
colours, luminous and brilliant, gradually rose to the surface of the
vast bank of clouds that lay stretched out below, and linked themselves
together in the form of a glorious iridescent aureole. P'u, full of
wonder at so extraordinary a spectacle, sought the hermitage of the
famous "Monk of a Thousand Years" and told him his strange story. "You
are indeed happy!" said the monk. "What you have seen is no other than
a special manifestation to you of the glory of the great Bodhisattva
P'u Hsien: fitting it is, therefore, that this mountain should be the
centre from which his teachings may be spread abroad. The Bodhisattva
has certainly favoured you above all men." The end of the whole matter
was that P'u built, on the spot from which he had witnessed the sublime
manifestation, the first of the Buddhist temples of Mount Omei, and
dedicated it to P'u Hsien Bodhisattva; and the present monastic
buildings known as the Hsien Tsu Tien and its more modern neighbour
the Chin Tien occupy in the twentieth century the site chosen for the
original P'u Kuang Tien, or Hall of Universal Glory,[30] in the first
century.
[Sidenote: LEGENDS]
This story is interesting as carrying back the Buddhistic traditions of
Omei to the very earliest days of Buddhism in China. My readers will
probably remember that it was in the same epoch--the reign of Ming
Ti--that the emperor had his famous vision of the Golden Man, which is
supposed to have led to the introduction of Buddhism into China under
direct imperial patronage. The story is also of interest as embodying
the first record of the remarkable phenomenon known as the Glory of
Buddha, which has always been one of the principal attractions of the
mountain and may well have been the real cause--as the story itself
indicates--of its special sanctity.
The other curiosities of Omei are so numerous that most of them cannot
even be referred to. Near the foot of the mountain is a scooped-out
rock which is said to have once formed a bath in which pilgrims were
required to go through a course of purification before ascending
the mountain. This, if true, is curious and suggestive. There is a
spot shown where a miraculous lotus-plant--the lotus is sacred to
the Buddha--used to blossom in every season of the year. There is a
flying bell, the tolling of which has been heard in many different
parts of the mountain, though it is never moved by human hands.
There are rock-inscriptions written by emperors and empresses and by
the great Sung dynasty poet, Su Tung-p'o. Not far from the Wan-nien
monastery--perhaps the second oldest on the mountain--is a stream
called the Black Water. In the T'ang dynasty a wandering monk, looking
for a home, came to this stream and wished to cross it, for he espied
on the further bank a spot which he thought would make an excellent
site for a hermitage. But the stream was turbulent and violent and he
could not cross. Suddenly out of the midst of the torrent came a huge
tiger. The tiger looked at the monk, and the monk, unabashed, looked at
the tiger. The wild beast recognised a teacher of the Good Law, and lay
down at his feet, tamed and obedient. The monk mounted on his back and
was carried safely across the water. The tiger has gone and the monk
has gone, but the story must be true, for a bridge was built to span
the Black Water at the spot where the miracle occurred, and it is known
as the Tiger Bridge to this day. In another place there is a great
split rock inside which a mighty dragon slumbered for untold ages.
One night in a terrible thunderstorm the rock was cleft asunder by
lightning. The dragon flew away and was never seen again, but the story
is true, because the sundered rock is still there and can be touched.
[Sidenote: FAMOUS CAVES AND TREES]
The numerous caves on the mountain have endless stories connected
with them. One is supposed to be the haunt of nine great demons. Once
upon a time some audacious monks determined that they would probe
its mysteries. They advanced some distance into the interior without
accident, when suddenly they were met by a prodigious bat that breathed
fire. The monks turned round and walked away, wiser and sadder.
Another cave--the Thunder Cavern--is the haunt of a ghostly dragon, who
lurks in the depths of a gloomy tarn. This cave, with its lake, has
probably a very ancient history, for it seems to be associated in some
way with animistic worship, of which there are many traces on Omei.[31]
In seasons of drought it is or was formerly the custom to go to the
cave with offerings of rich silks. If rain did not speedily fall as a
result of the offerings, the correct procedure was to insult the dragon
by throwing into his cave a dead pig and some articles of a still more
disagreeable nature. This infallibly raised the wrath of the dragon,
who immediately issued forth from his damp and gloomy home and roared.
This meant thunder, and then the rain fell and all was well.
Mount Omei has several famous trees. Of one of them this story is told.
In the Hui Tsung period (1101-25) of the Sung dynasty there was a very
old tree, which about the year 1112 was torn open by a violent storm.
Inside it was found a Buddhist monk, alive, in a state of ecstatic
trance. The whole of his body was covered with his long hair and
whiskers, and his nails were so long that they encircled his body. The
emperor having heard of this living relic of the past, directed that
he was to be carefully conveyed to the capital. Having with difficulty
induced him to emerge from his tree, the messenger asked him his name.
"I am the disciple," he replied, "of Yüan Fa-shih of Tung Lin. My name
is Hui Ch'ih. I came to Omei on pilgrimage and entered into meditation
in this tree. How is my master Yuan? Is he well?" "Your master Yuan,"
said the imperial emissary, "lived in the time of the Chin dynasty,
and died seven hundred years ago." Hui Ch'ih answered not a word,
but turned his back and resumed meditation in his tree. A somewhat
similar story is as follows. In the fourteenth century of our era
there was a monk who had chosen for the scene of his meditations the
hollow interior of an ancient decayed tree. There he sat cross-legged
in silent contemplation until he was about eighty years of age. His
piety apparently communicated some mysterious vitality to the tree, for
suddenly it underwent an extraordinary change: the withered branches
put forth fresh shoots, green foliage reappeared, and the gaping
fissure in the trunk closed up, leaving the contemplative monk inside.
The chronicler goes on to remark with ill-timed levity that the monk
had begun by taking possession of the tree, but the tree had ended by
taking possession of the monk. It is understood, however, that the
accident by no means interrupted his meditations, and that he is still
sitting cross-legged in the darkened interior of his sylvan retreat,
wrapped in profound reverie.
There is a legend that the Buddha himself visited Mount Omei, and his
footprint in a rock is still shown near the summit, though in this age
of little faith its outline is scarcely recognisable. As one of the
monasteries also possesses an alleged Buddha's tooth it is clear that
the fame of Omei ought to be as far-reaching as that of Adam's Peak and
Kandy combined; but Ceylon and China are not the only countries that
rejoice in the possession of footprints and teeth of the Buddha.
[Sidenote: MYTHS OF THE PATRON SAINT]
The local myths that have gathered round the name of the patron saint
of Omei, P'u Hsien[32] Bodhisattva, who is said to have brought
the sacred books of Buddhism from India to China on the back of an
elephant, and deposited them on the mountain, are quite devoid of
historical foundation, for P'u Hsien was merely one of the numerous
figures invented by the Mahayana Buddhists to fill up the broad
canvas of their vast symbolical system.[33] He represents, or rather
is, the Samanta Bhadra of Indian Buddhism, and figures as such in
that great Chinese Buddhist work, the _Hua Yen Ching_,[34] one of
the voluminous productions of Nāgārjuna.[35] The monks of Omei have
invented the famous elephant-ride simply because Samanta Bhadra is
always associated with an elephant in such authoritative Mahayana works
as the Saddharma-Pundarîka. The third last chapter of that work (in
Kumarajiva's translation) deals with P'u Hsien, who is represented as
declaring to the Buddha that he will "mount a white elephant with six
tusks" and take good monks under his special protection, shielding
them from gods, goblins and Mara the Evil One. The monks of Omei
say that having come to the mountain on his elephant he established
himself there as a teacher of the Law of Buddha, and attracted
three thousand pupils or disciples. It is quite possible that one of
the original Buddhist hermits or monks of Omei acquired so great a
celebrity that he became identified in the popular imagination with P'u
Hsien. Something of the kind certainly happened in the case of other
Bodhisattvas--Manjusri and Avalokiteçvara, for instance. But all trace
of historic truth soon vanished in myth. In a Buddhistic work that
relates to Omei, P'u Hsien is described as the eldest son of the Buddha
himself. "The Tathâgata (Buddha) sits on a great lotus consisting
of 1000 leaves. Each leaf has 3000 Universes. Each Universe has a
Buddha to expound the Law, and each Buddha has a P'u Hsien as eldest
son (_changtzŭ_)." This is not an attempt to identify P'u Hsien with
Rahula, the son of the historical Buddha; it refers to the Mahayana
doctrine that Samanta Bhadra or P'u Hsien is the spiritual son or
reflex of the celestial Vairocana, one of the five mythical Buddhas,
just as Gautama Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha) was supposed to be
the earthly embodiment of the celestial Bodhisattva Avalokiteçvara,
the spiritual son or reflex of the celestial Buddha Amitabha. As
regards the significance of the elephant, it need only be mentioned
here that in Indian Buddhistic mythology this animal (apart from its
sacred association with the well-known dream of the Buddha's mother) is
symbolical of self-control.[36]
[Illustration: CHINESE BUDDHIST MONKS IN "UNDRESS." [_To face p. 65._]
[Sidenote: CHINESE BUDDHISM]
The earliest religious buildings on Mount Omei were no doubt solitary
hermitages, erected by recluses whose religious enthusiasm impelled
them to find in the deep recesses of its forests and gorges a welcome
retreat from the noise and vanity of a world that they despised. As
time went on, richly-endowed monasteries--nobler and more splendid
than any now existing--rose in its silent ravines and by the side
of its sparkling water-courses, and opened their doors to welcome
those whom spiritual ecstasy or longing for a life of philosophic
contemplation, or perhaps the anguish of defeated ambition, drove from
the haunts of men. But gradually as religious fervour died away, the
mountain recluses and solitary students of early days were succeeded
by smaller men, distinguished neither for piety nor for scholarship.
It must, indeed, be confessed that no tradition of sound learning
has been kept up in the Buddhist Church in China. To some extent the
lack of scholarship among Chinese Buddhists may perhaps be traced not
too fancifully to the practice and teaching of Bodhidarma,[37] the
so-called twenty-eighth patriarch of the Indian Buddhists, and the
first of the patriarchs of China. He it was who, having landed in China
early in the sixth century of our era, at once made it his business
to discourage book-learning in the monasteries and to inculcate the
doctrine that supreme enlightenment or mystical union with the Buddha
can only be achieved by disregarding all exoteric teaching and by
passive contemplation. By the recognition of all phenomena, including
one's own personality, as illusory, the mind was to be maintained in
a condition of intellectual quiescence and receptivity, whereby it
would be in a fit state to enter into communion with the Absolute.
Of Bodhidarma the story is told that he sat for nine years in one
position looking at a wall, which is a crude way of explaining that he
was a contemplative mystic. In China his teachings have undoubtedly
had a sterilising influence on thought, somewhat similar--though for
different reasons--to the baneful influence exercised in Europe by
the too-exclusive devotion of the mediæval schoolmen to Aristotle and
Thomas Aquinas.
It may seem a far-fetched hypothesis to attribute part of the present
degeneracy of the Buddhist monkhood in China to the teachings of a
wall-gazing recluse who died nearly fourteen centuries ago. It might
be urged that in searching for the cause of the present state of
decay one need only point to the low orders of society from which the
monks are recruited, the disfavour with which Buddhism is and always
has been regarded by the orthodox Confucian, and the contempt which
the thoroughly practical and worldly-minded Chinese layman almost
invariably feels and expresses for the monastic profession. That these
causes have powerfully assisted in accelerating the corruption that
we witness to-day is unquestionably true; but there is a good deal of
historical justification for the view that they are results rather
than causes of Buddhist decay, and that the first and third would
never have come into existence if Buddhism in China had not sunk into
a state of intellectual torpor. If it had retained sufficient vigour
and independence to reject all esoteric teachings and alien dogmas,
even the great controversies with Confucianism would probably never
have assumed the bitterness they did. Unfortunately, the extravagances
of the later Mahayana doctrines and the foolish eclecticism which led
the Buddhist Church to admit into its own system the crudities and
banalities of corrupt Taoism, rendered the Buddhist position liable
to attack at indefensible points, and compel us to admit that the
controversial victories gained by Confucianism over its rival were
the victories of light over darkness. It is strange that the repeated
defeats and persecutions of Buddhism in China have not had the effect
of bringing about either extinction or reform.
Chinese Buddhism is _sui generis_, and without a qualifying adjective
it can scarcely be said to be Buddhism at all. This is no place to
attempt a sketch of the history of that great religion in either its
orthodox or its heretical aspects, but a few words may be necessary
to enable the general reader to judge for himself whether Buddhism
in China--quite apart from its present stagnant condition or the
corruption of the monkhood--is entitled to the name it bears.
[Sidenote: KARMA]
If there is one tenet of real Buddhism--by which I mean the doctrines
on religious, philosophical and ethical subjects taught or sanctioned
by the historical Buddha--which is more characteristic of that system
than any other, it is the doctrine of the non-existence of the _attā_
(_âtman_) or "soul." It was this doctrine, among others, which
made Buddhism a Brahmanical heresy, for it involved the rejection
of the Vedas as the final and supreme authority on matters of
religion. The crude impression of some people that Buddhism teaches
the "transmigration of souls" is absurd, for the simple reason that
in the Buddhist system "souls" in the Western sense do not exist.
What survives the death of the individual and transfers itself to
another living being is not his soul but the cleaving to existence, a
_tanha_ or thirst for life, an unconscious--or semi-conscious--"will
to live"; and with this _tanha_ is inevitably associated _karma_,
the integrated results of action or character. Buddhism regards the
cleaving to existence as the outcome of the worst kind of ignorance
or delusion--the mistaking of the phenomenal for the real, the false
for the true; and until this delusion has been completely removed
and the character purified from all lusts and all evil tendencies,
the reintegration of karma in a world of pain, sorrow, sickness and
death cannot by any possibility be avoided. Karma,[38] apart from its
technical connotation, signifies "action" or "deeds." In the Buddhist
sense it represents the accumulated results of the past actions and
thoughts which every individual has inherited from countless multitudes
of dead men, and which he will hand on, modified by the newly-generated
karma of his own life-span, to countless generations yet unborn. It is
karma which forms the character of each individual, and determines the
condition of life in which he finds himself placed. The man dies, and
his conscious individuality ceases to be; but his karma continues, and
determines the character and condition of life of another individual.
Each individual may make or mar the karma that he has inherited: if he
spoils it he may literally sink lower than the beasts; if he improves
it he may literally rise higher than the gods. But to the Buddhist
the final goal to be aimed at was not a continued personal existence,
either in this world or elsewhere: it was the total extinction of
reproductive karma by the attainment of Arahatship or Nirvana, and
final release from the ever-circling wheel of existence, with its
endless rotation of birth, disease, sorrow and death.[39]
[Sidenote: NIRVANA]
On the question of a _primum mobile_--the force which produced the
conditions under which arose the will-to-live with its illusions, and
which brought into being the first appearance of karma --Buddhism
is agnostic or silent,[40] just as it is on the question of the
existence of a supreme God. What Buddhism emphatically teaches is
that karma once produced, continues ceaselessly to reproduce itself,
carrying with it the modifications impressed upon it by the successive
individuals through whom it has "transmigrated"; that the only way to
release karma from the wheel of phenomenal existence is to eradicate
the desire for a continuance or renewal of conscious personality; and
that this end can only be attained by following the Noble Eightfold
Path,[41] leading to Nirvana, which was pointed out by the Buddha.
Mystical and fanciful interpretations of the meaning of Nirvana were
forthcoming at an early date, but the canonical scriptures know nothing
of such interpretations. It is quite clear that Nirvana was not the
infinite prolongation of individual existence in a state of spiritual
beatitude nor an absorption into a pantheistic Absolute; nor was the
word intended to be a euphemism for death. It was simply a release from
the thraldom of sense and passion; a "blowing-out" of personality and
selfishness, of ignorance and delusion; an enfranchisement which in
this present life would confer the boon of "the peace which passeth all
understanding," and after this life would prevent rebirth, or rather
reintegration of karma, in a world of pain and sorrow. To the Buddhist
the whole world of sense, in which while subject to karma we live and
move and have our being, is an illusion and unreal,--far more so than
to the Platonist, to whom the phenomenal world is the reflexion,
though an imperfect one, of an ideal archetype; and as the early
Buddhist believed that the idea of self or personality was closely
interwoven with the net of illusion, he was quite consistent when he
held that the destruction of the one must involve the destruction of
the other, and that release from the net is a desirable consummation.
Nirvana may thus be described as full enlightenment as to the unreality
and impermanence of phenomena, the removal of delusions about the self,
and the eradication of the cleaving to life. Those who attained this
enlightenment were the saints or "arahats" of primitive Buddhism.[42]
The Buddha himself, it must be remembered, never laid any claim to
godhead or even to personal immortality. His disciples reverenced him
as the Fully Enlightened Sage, the Blessed One, the Teacher of gods and
men, and he was the expounder of truths by the grasp of which men would
be enabled to realise the condition of arahatship; but in the last
resort it was to themselves and not to Buddha that men must look for
salvation. "Therefore, O Ananda," said the Buddha in one of his last
discourses, "be ye lamps unto yourselves. Be ye a refuge to yourselves.
Betake yourselves to no external refuge. Hold fast to the truth as a
lamp. Hold fast as a refuge to the truth. Look not for refuge to any
one besides yourselves."[43]
[Sidenote: AMITABHISM]
How vastly different are the teachings of Chinese Buddhists from
those of the simple creed promulgated by the Buddha is obvious to all
who have visited a Chinese monastery, or glanced at the wearisome
sutras, in which the unorthodox dogmas are so elaborately set forth.
The Brahmanical belief in the _âtman_ or "soul" is practically
reintroduced; arahatship is no longer the ideal to be aimed at by the
virtuous man; Nirvana ceases to have any intelligible meaning; faith
takes the place of works as a means to salvation. Celestial (Dhyâni)
Buddhas are invented as heavenly reflexes of the various human Buddhas
that are supposed to have lived on earth, and some of them receive
worship as immortal gods; arahats are regarded as inferior to a class
of mythical Bodhisattvas, who purposely refrain from entering into
the state of Buddhahood in order that they may continue to exercise
a beneficent influence among the beings who are still bound to the
wheel of existence; the most glorious lot attainable by the ordinary
man is held to be not a release from delusion and the pains of birth,
sickness, and death, but a final rebirth in the glittering Paradise
of the West. In this Paradise reigns the Lord of Eternal Life and
Boundless Light, the great Dhyâni Buddha Amitabha; on his right and
left are enthroned the Bodhisattvas Mahâsthâma and Avalokiteçvara,[44]
the lords of infinite strength and pity, the saviours of mankind.
To win utter happiness in Sukhâvatî, the Western Paradise, is the
object of the longings and prayers of the devout Chinese Buddhist.
The name of Sakyamuni Buddha means little to him, and he may even be
ignorant of who the Buddha was, and where he lived; but the names
of "O-mi-to-fo" (Amitabha Buddha)[45] and of Kuan Yin P'u Sa (the
Bodhisattva Avalokiteçvara) stand to him for everything that is
holiest and most blissful. To such an extent have Amitabha and his
attendant Bodhisattvas taken the place of the "Three Refuges"[46] of
orthodox Buddhism that one almost feels justified in suggesting that
the prevailing (though not the only) form of Buddhism in China should
once and for all be differentiated from that of Burma and Ceylon, by
the adoption of the name of Amitabhism, just as the corrupt religion of
Tibet has rightly been given the special name of Lamaism.
If the Mahayana teachers in China had been satisfied with substituting
the doctrine of a more or less sensual heaven for that of the orthodox
arahatship or Nirvana on the ground that it was more suited to the
comprehension of the ordinary layman, and would be more effective
in teaching the people to lead virtuous lives, their distortion of
the early teachings might, perhaps, to some extent be justified;
but unfortunately the form which the new doctrine took at a very
early stage shows that no such theory was in their minds. Instead of
exhorting to strenuous lives of virtue and good works, they went out of
their way to teach that nothing was really necessary to salvation but
loud and frequent appeals to the name of Amitabha Buddha and zealous
repetitions of the appropriate sutras. One of the principal sutras
of this class contains the following emphatic statement:--"Beings
are not born in that Buddha country of the Tathâgata Amitâyus as a
reward and result of good works performed in this present life. No,
whatever son or daughter of a family shall hear the name of the blessed
Amitâyus, the Tathâgata, and having heard it, shall keep it in mind,
and with thoughts undisturbed shall keep it in mind for one, two,
three, four, five, six or seven nights,--when that son or daughter of
a family comes to die, then that Amitâyus, the Tathâgata, surrounded
by an assembly of disciples and followed by a host of Bodhisattvas,
will stand before them at their hour of death, and they will depart
this life with tranquil minds. After their death they will be born in
the world Sukhâvatî, in the Buddha country of the same Amitâyus, the
Tathâgata. Therefore, then, O Sâriputra, having perceived this cause
and effect, I with reverence say thus, Every son and every daughter
of a family ought with their whole mind to make fervent prayer for
that Buddha country."[47] Numerous Buddhist tracts are in existence and
widely circulated among the people, in which it is explicitly stated
that if a man calls sufficiently often on the name of Kuan Yin, he will
be delivered from any danger or difficulty in which he may be placed,
quite regardless of his deserts. There are popular stories in which it
is told that even if a man be guilty of grave crimes for which he has
been imprisoned and condemned to death, the knife of the executioner
will break in pieces and do him no hurt provided only he has, with a
believing heart, summoned to his aid the "Goddess of Mercy." Stories of
this kind, even if educated men do not believe in them, can hardly have
a beneficent effect upon morality, and hardly redound to the credit of
the monks who invented them.
[Illustration: CHINESE PLAN WITH AMITABHA BUDDHA AS CENTRAL FIGURE.
[_To face p. 74._]
[Sidenote: KUAN YIN]
To blame the Chinese Buddhists, however, for failing to preserve
their religion from corrupt influences is hardly fair: for it must be
admitted that the stream of Buddhist literature and tradition that
flowed for centuries into China from Northern India and Nepal issued
from a source that was already tainted. Sakyamuni Buddha probably
died in the fifth century B.C. Buddhism did not obtain a foothold
in China till five or six centuries later, and it was not till the
fourth century of our era that native Chinese began in large numbers
to take the vows as Buddhist monks. By this time primitive Buddhism
had already been cruelly distorted. Where it was at all possible,
the Mahayana dogmas were read into the simple scriptures that formed
the Asokan canon; where the utmost ingenuity failed to find the germs
of these dogmas in the canon, the doctors of the Mahayana school
deliberately set themselves to compile a series of colossal forgeries
by putting forth new sutras, purporting to have been uttered by the
Buddha himself, but containing an entirely new book of doctrine.[48]
Part of it was probably brought from Persia and Arabia, and nearly all
was totally inconsistent with the primitive doctrine of the Buddha.
Like the founder of the Mormons in after-ages, the pious forgers--let
us hope they were unconscious of their guilt--pretended to be merely
the "finders" of the new sutras. Sometimes they were said to have been
discovered in caves guarded by demons. Nāgārjuna, for instance, who was
one of the worst offenders, is supposed to have found in "the palace of
the Dragon" the great Hua Yen sutra, already referred to, a work which
justifies us in regarding Nāgārjuna as one of the principal inventors
or adapters of the Mahayana doctrines, or at least as one of those who
grafted them on the original Buddhistic stock. The Chinese admire him
so much that they have elevated him into the position of a Bodhisattva,
and celebrate his birthday on the 25th day of the seventh moon. Among
the principal speakers in the Hua Yen sutra are the Buddha himself and
the mythical Bodhisattvas P'u Hsien and Manjusri.
[Sidenote: THE MAHAYANA]
The Mahayana doctrine concerning this order of being is, as I have
said, totally unknown to early Buddhism; and out of or beside this
central doctrine of the Mahayana system grew up a cluster of dogmas
which, like some parasitic weed, could only have the effect of choking
and killing the original plant of which the Buddha himself had sown
the seed. The Chinese "fathers" were not primarily responsible for all
this. The vast mythology that culminates in the doctrine of Amitabha's
heaven was accepted in China only too readily, but it was not a
Chinese invention. If the history of these fanciful dogmas can be more
readily traced in China and Tibet than elsewhere, it is only because
Buddhism practically ceased to exist in the country of its origin.
What Chinese Buddhism might have been if it had sought to establish
itself upon the Asokan canon instead of upon a bundle of crude myths
and grotesque allegories may be realised easily enough by comparing it
with the Buddhism of Burma and Siam, which--in spite of their tolerance
of a system of animistic worship alien to Buddhism--have preserved
almost intact the body of doctrine that they inherited through Ceylon
from the orthodox Church. What with the growth of the mystic schools
derived from Bodhidarma, the Tantra schools with their magic spells and
incantations, the Lin Tzŭ school that teaches religion in the form of
enigmas, the Wu Wei school with its doctrine of a Golden Mother, the
hideous demonology introduced into Buddhism by a debased wonder-working
Taoism, and the innumerable schools that unite in their praises of the
bejewelled Western Heaven which can be attained merely by repeating
the name of Amitabha Buddha or Kuan Yin P'u Sa, it is no wonder that
Buddhism in China has fallen a victim to the fangs of its own grotesque
offspring.
[Sidenote: CHRISTIAN MISSIONS]
In the following chapter some further remarks on Mount Omei will, I
trust, serve to emphasise the observations already made, and will
perhaps help the European reader who has not visited China to form
some conception of the theory and practice of Chinese Buddhism at
the present day. I hope I may be excused if I depart so far from the
usual practice of travellers in China as to refrain from entering
into a discussion of the general question of religion, especially in
connection with Christian propaganda. For my own part, I may perhaps
venture to express the hope and belief that the missionary question
is one which time will solve at no very distant date. As soon as a
reformed China has earned for herself--by the reform of her legal codes
and judicial procedure--the right to demand the total abolition of
foreign consular jurisdiction within Chinese territory, missionaries
will cease to be a thorn in the flesh of Chinese officialdom. They may
obtain fewer converts, but they will at least have the satisfaction of
knowing that such converts as they may then gain will not be actuated
by the desire to secure foreign protection against the laws of their
own country; whereas the official classes will no longer have cause to
regard missionaries as a political danger. There is no doubt that many
of the outbreaks of fanatical hatred against foreigners are directly
or indirectly traceable to the missionary question.[49] In spite of
this fact it will be generally conceded that, like most Orientals, the
Chinese are, in purely religious matters, inclined to be extremely
tolerant: far more so, needless to say, than Western peoples usually
are. History proves that the Chinese people are not hostile to foreign
religious doctrines as such, but only when foreign religions tend to
introduce disintegrating forces into the social fabric. Similarly the
official classes are not inimical to foreign religions as such, but
only when foreign religions threaten the stability of the political
fabric and the independence of the State. These dangers will no longer
operate when foreign missionary enterprise absolutely ceases to have
even the semblance of a connection with international politics, and
foreign missionaries become in all respects amenable to the courts of
the country in which they live and work.
[Sidenote: RELIGION IN CHINA]
Whether the change will tend to spread the doctrines of Christianity in
China with greater rapidity, or will, on the other hand, bring about
its ultimate extinction, is a question regarding which it would be rash
to prophesy. Given fair field and no favour it might well seem that the
disorganised forces of a corrupt Buddhism would be ill fitted to cope
with such strenuous and well-equipped adversaries as the Churches of
Christendom: yet perhaps it is more likely that the ultimate victory
will rest with neither. The clashing of forces that must assuredly
result from the weakening of the hold of Confucianism on the educated
classes and the introduction of new political and social ideals may
lead to an intellectual upheaval tending to the destruction of all
religion. Even to-day, the only vigorous element in the heterogeneous
religious systems of China consists in that expansion of the ideal
of filial piety which takes the form of the cult of ancestors: a
cult which has done so much in the past to preserve, consolidate and
multiply the Chinese people and make them peaceful, law-abiding and
home-loving, and which has nevertheless been condemned as idolatrous
by the two great branches of the Christian faith. It was this rock
of Chinese orthodoxy that shattered the power of the Church of Rome
in China, and that rock is still a danger and an obstruction in the
troubled waters through which glide the frail barks of the Christian
missions. On the whole, it seems improbable that the dogmas, at least,
of any of the Christian Churches will ever find general acceptance on
Chinese soil. The moral and spiritual regeneration of China is more
likely to be brought about by the growth of a neo-Confucianism frankly
accepting such adaptations as the social and political conditions of
modern times may render necessary; and if this is insufficient to
satisfy the spiritual aspirations of the people, there may arise a
reformed Buddhism drawing its inspiration either from the simple faith
of Burma, Siam, and Ceylon, or--far more probably--from one of the
complex systems (near in kinship to those of China but with a vitality
of their own) that have evolved themselves upon the soil of Japan.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] 蛾眉.
[24] 天真皇人.
[25] 黃帝.
[26] 隨時易名.
[27] 寶掌.
[28] 千歲和尚.
[29] This name (蒲) is not to be confused with the P'u (普) of P'u Hsien.
The sound is the same but the Chinese characters are different.
[30] The word P'u, which means Universal, is also the first character
in the name of P'u Hsien.
[31] See Note 1 (p. 411).
[32] 普賢.
[33] He must not be confused with the Adi-Buddha or primordial deity of
Red Lamaism, though the name is the same.
[34] 華嚴經. See especially _chüan_, 7-10.
[35] 龍樹 (_Lung Shu_) in Chinese.
[36] See _Dhammapada_, chap. xxiii. _S.B.E._ vol. x. p. 78.
[37] See Note 2 (p. 412).
[38] The Pali word is _Kamma_, which, like the Sanskrit, simply means
"doing; action; work; labour; business." See Childers' Pali Dictionary,
_s.v. Kammam_. Mr A. E. Taylor, in his admirable work _The Elements of
Metaphysics_, describes the Buddhist karma as "the system of purposes
and interests" to which a man's "natural deeds give expression."
[39] Cf. Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 719-721:
"O pater, anne aliquas ad caelum hinc ire putandumst
Sublimes animas iterumque ad tarda reverti
Corpora? Quae lucis miseris tam dira cupido?"
The whole passage from 703 to 751 is of great interest to those who
like to trace Buddhistic thought in non-Buddhistic literature. Lines
66-68 of the Third Georgic are equally striking in this respect:
"Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi
Prima fugit, subeunt morbi tristisque senectus
Et labor et durae rapit inclementia mortis."
It was just such reflections as this that filled the heart of the
Sakya prince with pity and love for mankind. _Sunt lacrimae rerum et
mentem mortalium tangunt_, the beautiful utterance of "the chastest
and royalest" of poets, expresses the feeling that prompted the Great
Renunciation and gave to the world a Buddha.
[40] See Note 3 (p. 412).
[41] The Chinese 八聖道分.
[42] See Note 4 (p. 413).
[43] The Mahâ-Parinibbâna Suttanta, translated by Rhys Davids (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xi. p. 38).
[44] Avalokiteçvara is the Chinese Kuan Yin, generally represented in
China (where temples to this divinity are exceedingly numerous) as a
female, and known to Europeans as the "Goddess of Mercy." The change of
sex is due to an identification of this Bodhisattva with a legendary
Chinese princess, who devoted herself to saving human lives, especially
from the dangers of the sea. She has thus become in a special sense the
guardian deity of sailors; but she is also worshipped by women as the
goddess who grants male offspring. Mahâsthâma is the Chinese Ta Shih
Chih, the Bodhisattva of Great Strength. Eitel, in his _Handbook of
Chinese Buddhism_, says that this Bodhisattva is perhaps the same as
Maudgalyâyana; but this is a mistake, as is quite clear from the fact
that, in certain sutras, such as the Amitâyur-Dhyāna Sutra, they figure
as separate personalities.
[45] The Japanese Amida.
[46] "The Buddha, the Dharma, and the Samgha": _i.e._ the Buddha, the
law and doctrine of the Buddha, and the Church or Community of Brethren
established by the Buddha.
[47] The Smaller Sukhâvatî Vyûha, translated by Max Müller (_Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xlix.).
[48] See Note 5 (p. 414).
[49] Any one who is not hopelessly narrow-minded can thoroughly
sympathise with the missionary position. The missionaries as a body are
men of religious enthusiasm. They believe they have been summoned by
their Master to preach to non-Christians a faith which they believe to
be the only true faith; and some of them believe that an acceptance of
this faith is "necessary to salvation." From their point of view, all
missionary work is entirely justified; and from any point of view the
work the Christian missions have done in alleviating sickness and pain
in China is wholly admirable. As regards the purely religious aspect of
the question, I am glad to refrain from expressing a personal opinion.
It is a subject which requires to be handled with extraordinary
delicacy, for many people are unable to discuss it dispassionately, and
it gives rise to endless arguments which from the nature of the case
are and must be utterly devoid of persuasive power. Now that Religion,
as distinct from any systematised Creed, has taken its place among the
recognised subjects of philosophical investigation (and psychological
also, as in Professor James's brilliant book, _The Varieties of
Religious Experience_), we may expect to hear missionary work discussed
(at least by educated persons) with less bitterness and strong language
than has sometimes disgraced the controversialists on both sides. A
short and incomplete but very interesting discussion of the missionary
question from an obviously impartial point of view may be found in
Professor Knight's _Varia_, pp. 31-35. (John Murray: 1901.)
CHAPTER VII
MOUNT OMEI
[Sidenote: BUDDHIST MONASTERIES]
Very few of the buildings now existing on Mount Omei can boast of
antiquity, for a damp climate and the ravages of fire have in the past
made short work of their fragile timbers. The monasteries are humble
structures, being simply one-storied bungalows of wood. Compared with
the richly-carved teakwood _wats_ of Siam and _kyaungs_ of Burma, they
are unpretentious buildings with little decoration, and what there is
possesses small artistic merit. Over the doorways and under the eaves
hang sundry massive wooden boards, resplendent with richly-gilded
characters, giving the name of the monastery and brief quotations from
the Buddhist scriptures. Most of the tablets containing inscriptions or
quotations have been presented by devout pilgrims, but the periodical
regilding of the characters is paid for out of the corporate funds. The
interiors are generally more imposing; for every monastery on Mount
Omei is also a temple, and the decoration of the halls containing the
images of the Buddha and his saints is generally on a fairly lavish
scale. The larger temples have a series of such halls one behind
the other, with courts or quadrangles intervening, the sides of each
quadrangle being occupied by the monks' living quarters. There are also
spacious quarters for visitors. The office in which the financial and
other secular affairs of the monastery are administered is generally a
small room on the left side of the first hall of images, corresponding
to a room on the other side which is used as a kind of porter's lodge.
In the latter room the monks spend a great deal of their time in the
cold weather, and sit huddled round a charcoal brazier. From the
middle of the room they can see, through the open door, every one who
enters and leaves the temple by the main entrance; and one of them is
generally deputed to attend on every group of visitors or pilgrims.
All pilgrims bring their own food with them--the Chinese their rice,
and the Tibetans their _tsamba_; but those whose appearance entitles
them to respect, or who have given a substantial donation to the funds
of the establishment, are invited to drink tea and eat sweetmeats, and
warm themselves by the charcoal fire. The Buddhistic injunction to
avoid taking life is rigorously obeyed on Mount Omei by visitors as
well as residents, all of whom conform to a strictly vegetarian diet.
The only persons who ever disregard this rule are some inconsiderate
Europeans. Small subscriptions--generally in the form of copper
"cash"--are placed on an offertory plate, or on the altar table in
front of one of the principal images, and are deposited there by the
pilgrims after they have finished their devotions. Those who wish to
leave a permanent record of their visit, or whose donation exceeds
a _tael_ (say three shillings), inscribe their names or paste their
cards in the subscription book, with a statement of the amount of their
donations. An ingenious plan has been devised to relieve pilgrims of
the necessity of carrying large quantities of coin up the mountain, and
at the same time to invalidate excuses of want of money. In the town
of Omei-hsien, where every pilgrim spends the night before beginning
the ascent, he is visited by a banker or broker, who offers him little
paper notes or chits called _fei tzŭ_, bearing various face-values from
ten taels down to one hundred cash (about twopence). They are printed
from wooden blocks, and in many cases the amount of money represented
is inserted in writing. The pilgrim selects as many _fei tzŭ_ as he
thinks he may require or can afford, and pays over their face-value to
the banker. The notes are handed as occasion requires, or benevolence
prompts, to the temple treasurers, or are deposited on the altars, and
are received in the temples as readily as coin. When a considerable
collection of them has been made in any monastery they are sent down
to the banker, who deducts his very small commission and settles
the account either by sending silver in return, or by crediting the
monastery with the amount in his books.
[Sidenote: MONASTIC ENDOWMENTS]
The monasteries naturally vary in size. Some of them are the homes
of a score or more of monks and acolytes, while the smaller ones
shelter but three or four. When a monastery is destroyed by fire
or other cause, its elderly or infirm inmates lodge themselves
temporarily in one of the neighbouring religious houses, while the
more energetic go forth on a pilgrimage--sometimes as far as the
Eastern sea-board--carrying with them a donation book for the purpose
of collecting funds for rebuilding. When the monastery arises again
from its ashes it is practically a new foundation with new endowments,
even its name being sometimes altered. In spite of the apathy
concerning religious matters that strikes every European observer as
characteristic of China to-day, it is a significant fact that large
subscriptions for religious purposes can always be obtained from the
Chinese layman notwithstanding his protestations of contempt for the
monastic ideal and for the idle and useless lives led by the vast
majority of Chinese Buddhist monks.
Passing by the Pao-ning monastery, which is situated on the plain
between the city and the mountain-base, I visited the monasteries of
the White Dragon (Pai Lung Ssŭ), and the Golden Dragon (Chin Lung Ssŭ),
and stopped for the night at the Wan-nien Ssŭ, formerly the White Water
Monastery of P'u Hsien. This is one of the largest establishments on
the mountain, and its written history goes back to the third century,
if not further. It contains many objects of interest, the chief of
which is the life-size bronze elephant discovered, or rather first
described, by Baber. The very curious spiral-roofed brick building
in which it stands--believed by Baber to have been erected by Hindu
Buddhists not later than the sixth century of the Christian era--is
unfortunately so small and shut in that it is impossible either to
photograph the elephant or to view it from a proper standpoint. Baber
believed that this edifice was, next to the Great Wall, the oldest
building in China of fairly authentic antiquity, and he considered that
the elephant was the most ancient bronze casting of any great size in
existence,--perhaps fifteen centuries old. I have some reason, however,
to doubt the alleged antiquity of both building and elephant.[50] Upon
the animal's back is a bronze statue of P'u Hsien P'u Sa (Samanta
Bhadra Bodhisattva), who, as I have said, is supposed to have come from
India to Mount Omei on an elephant. Among modern curiosities at the
Wan-nien Ssŭ is a small alabaster image of Gautama Buddha, which was
recently brought from Burma by a Chinese Buddhist monk who had been on
pilgrimage to the shrines of Mandalay and Rangoon. The same pilgrim
presented a coloured print of the great Shwe Dagon pagoda at Rangoon,
which is regarded by the monks of Wan-nien as a precious work of art,
though its intrinsic value is, of course, trifling. There is also, in a
separate building called the Hai Hui T'ang,[51] a supposed tooth-relic
of Buddha, which is treated with strange lack of reverence.[52] But it
is only an elephant's molar, and the monks know it.
[Sidenote: FLORA OF MOUNT OMEI]
Wan-nien Ssŭ is situated at a height of about 3,500 feet above the
sea-level. The summit of the mountain (11,000 feet[53]) is therefore
still a long way off; but as I succeeded in reaching it on the evening
of the day on which I left Wan-nien Ssŭ, in spite of the fact that
the path was often obliterated by snow and ice, I satisfied myself
that the difficulty of the climb has often been much exaggerated. In
dry weather, indeed, there is no reason why a healthy man of average
physical vigour should not accomplish in one day the whole climb from
base to summit: though such a feat of endurance would prevent him
from paying much attention to the objects of interest on the way. The
mountain sides are luxuriantly wooded, and it is only when the path
approaches the edge of a precipice or a steep slope that any extensive
view can be obtained during the greater part of the ascent. The silver
fir, evergreen-oak, pine, cypress, laurel, birch, chestnut, spruce,
_nan-mu_, maple (several species) and _camptotheca acuminata_ are all
to be met with, and there are innumerable flowering plants and ferns;
but the character of the flora naturally varies a great deal at the
different altitudes. On the exposed parts of the summit there is little
but dwarf bamboos, junipers and rhododendrons, though in sheltered
places I noticed the silver fir, liquidambar, yew, willow, pirus, and
several kinds of shrubs. Other trees, like the alder, Chinese ash,
and banyan, are confined to the plain or to the lower slopes. The
banyans[54] of the Omei plain are magnificent trees, some of them of
enormous girth.
Below Wan-nien Ssŭ I left behind me spring warmth and sprouting
vegetation. By the time I had reached a height of 4,000 feet there were
patches of snow on the roadside; 2,000 feet higher all visible trace of
the path was gone, icicles hung from the leafless trees, while small
acolytes from the monasteries, clad in their wadded winter garments,
were busily sweeping away the snow in front of the gateways. When I
left Omei-hsien my thermometer registered 64° Fahr. At Wan-nien Ssŭ the
temperature had sunk to 49°; on the summit of the mountain there were
13 degrees of frost after sunset.
The next temple to Wan-nien Ssŭ is the Kuan Hsin Ting,[55] a poor
building which was apparently in sole charge of a child of nine. The
next is the Hsi Hsin So.[56] These words may be interpreted as "The
Haven of the Tranquil Heart," but they also mean "The Pilgrim's Rest,"
for _hsi hsin_ are the words used to translate or explain the Sanskrit
term _sramana_,[57] an ascetic or monk. The records of the mountain
explain the name by saying that when the pilgrim reaches this place, he
can no longer hear the growlings and mutterings of the "dusty world":
his heart therefore becomes as peaceful as his surroundings. In the
building is a large image of Maitrêya, the "Buddha of the Future," who
is supposed to be in the Tushita heaven, awaiting incarnation.
[Sidenote: ARAHATSHIP]
Passing by the Ch'ang Lao P'ing[58] temple, the next is the Ch'u
Tien,[59] otherwise known as the Tsu Tien. _Tsu_ is a kind of red-eyed
duck, and the allusion is to the duck-like shape of a neighbouring
rock. The temple contains rather life-like images of the eighteen
_lo-han_.[60] These Chinese words represent the Sanskrit _arhat_ or
_arahat_, "venerable" or "worthy." We meet with arhats in the oldest
Buddhist scriptures. They were the worthiest and most enlightened
of Buddha's disciples; men who fully understood the doctrine as it
was delivered to them by their master, and accepted it as a final
statement of truth. Arahatship, as we have seen in the last chapter,
is the goal aimed at by all true Buddhists, and implies a release from
all delusion, ignorance and sorrow. In technical language the arahat
is the man who has acquired the "four distinctive qualifications"
(_patisambhidâ_) and has attained the state of "final sanctification."
In the hands of the Mahayanists the arahats come to be persons
possessing magical powers,[61] such as that of moving without support
through space, in which respect they are the nearest approach to the
mysterious Tibetan beings invented by the self-styled "theosophists":
but arahatship as an ideal becomes altogether subordinate to that
of Bodhisattship, the state of the holy man who, having arrived at
the stage next preceding that of Buddhahood, voluntarily refrains
from taking the final step, in order that he may remain as a teacher
and saviour among men. In the Chinese Buddhistic system there are
several classifications of the arahats or _lo-han_: we find them in
groups of twelve hundred, five hundred, eighteen and sixteen. The
twelve hundred are only met with, so far as I am aware, in books; but
many large temples in China contain images of the five hundred. In
Canton, for example, there is what Europeans have rather foolishly
named the Hall of the Five Hundred Genii. Some wag once fancied he
saw a resemblance in one of the figures there to Marco Polo, and for
some reason or other the idea struck the professional Canton guides
as such a happy one that for many years past they have been in the
habit of deluding thousands of European and American travellers with
the belief that Messer Marco has been turned into a Chinese "god." The
mistake assumes a somewhat grotesque character when we remember that,
according to the Chinese belief, each of the five hundred lo-han is
destined at some remote period to become a Buddha.[62] In the majority
of Chinese temples--as in those of Mount Omei--the number of lo-han
represented by images is only eighteen; but there is a difference of
opinion among the followers of different schools as to the identity
of two of these. In Korea and Japan the temples generally contain
sixteen lo-han, while Tibetan Lamaism sometimes recognises sixteen and
sometimes eighteen.[63] The two extra ones seem to have been added as
an after-thought by Chinese Buddhists in comparatively modern times.
[Sidenote: LOTUS-FLOWER]
Above the Temple of the Red-eyed Duck comes the Hua Yen Ting.[64]
As already mentioned, the name _Hua Yen_ is that of a famous sutra
"discovered" by Nāgārjuna. The temple contains the eighteen lo-han and
figures of Sakyamuni Buddha and the two Bodhisattvas P'u Hsien and
Manjusri.[65] Behind these three central figures is a small Kuan Yin
(Avalokiteçvara). On leaving this temple the road strikes downwards for
a short distance, and, soon after recommencing the ascent, we arrive
next at the monastery known as the Lien Hua Shih[66] ("Lotus Flower
Stone"), where there is a holy relic consisting of the curiously
shaped stone from which the place derives its name. I found a number
of Tibetan pilgrims rubbing coins on it; the coins to be afterwards
carefully preserved as charms. The stone is said by the monks (on
no authority that I can discover) to have been brought up from deep
waters by miraculous agency, and to have floated on the surface like
the flower of the lotus. The lotus myth in Buddhist cosmology is based
on a very picturesque allegory, with which most of my readers are
probably acquainted. Its meaning has been accurately described in the
following words by E. J. Eitel, who, though he possesses the usual
bias against "heathendom," is a fairly sympathetic writer on Buddhist
subjects. "The idea conveyed in this flowery language of Buddhism is of
highly poetic and truly speculative import, amounting to this: that as
a lotus flower, growing out of a hidden germ beneath the water, rises
up slowly, mysteriously, until it suddenly appears above the surface
and unfolds its buds, leaves, and pistils, in marvellous richness of
colour and chastest beauty of form; thus also, in the system of worlds,
each single universe rises into being, evolved out of a primitive germ,
the first origin of which is veiled in mystery, and finally emerges
out of the chaos, gradually unfolding itself, one kingdom of nature
succeeding the other, all forming one compact whole, pervaded by one
breath, but varied in beauty and form. Truly an idea, so far removed
from nonsense, that it might be taken for an utterance of Darwin
himself."[67] Visitors to Buddhist temples cannot fail to observe how
frequently the lotus allegory has been made to subserve religious and
artistic purposes, and we have seen in the last chapter how it has
been associated with the story of the beginning of P'u Hsien's worship
on Mount Omei. The images of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are nearly
always represented as sitting or standing in the centre of a huge open
lotus, and even P'u Hsien's elephant stands on the same sacred plant.
As regards the stone in the Lien Hua monastery, I may add that it does
not bear the smallest resemblance to a lotus or any other plant, and
apparently it is not supposed to do so. Its original crude shape has
evidently never been tampered with, though its surface has been worn
smooth by constant rubbing.
[Sidenote: "OM MANE PADME HOM"]
Into the same temple another stone--not a sacred one--has found its
way. It is a huge boulder, many tons in weight, that was brought down
the mountain side some years ago by an avalanche, and crashed into the
back of the main hall, where, for superstitious reasons--and perhaps
because its removal would be a matter of immense difficulty--it
has been allowed to remain. On a hanging scroll above the central
images I noticed a Chinese transliteration[68] of the well-known
Tibetan formula, "_Om Mane Padme Hom_ (or _Hung_),"[69] generally
translated--but this is a controversial matter--"Hail! The Jewel in the
Lotus." The first word _Om_ or _Aum_ is the well-known sacred syllable
of Brahmanism; practically it is simply a _syllaba invocationis_.
The Jewel may mean the Buddha, or his Law (Dharma), or the Buddhist
Church (Sangha), or all three combined, or more probably signifies
Avalokiteçvara (the Chinese Kuan Yin and Japanese Kwannon), who in
Lamaism is supposed to be incarnated in every successive Grand Lama.
But, as a matter of fact, very few of the Tibetans who mutter the
sentence as they walk or turn it in their prayer-wheels, or carve it on
stones and rocks by the wayside, can give any clear idea of what they
mean by it. Like the Chinese _Nam-Mo_ (or _Nan-Wu_) _O-mi-to-Fo_[70]
("Praise be to Amitabha Buddha"), it is regarded as a kind of _dhâranî_
or mystic spell, the constant repetition of which will lead the
believer to a life of bliss in Sukhâvatî, the Western Paradise. The
only Chinese whom I met on the mountain besides the residents were
Buddhist monks on pilgrimage, and the invocation to Amitabha was
constantly on their lips; the other was repeated with equal persistence
by the Tibetan pilgrims. During part of my climb the mountain was
enveloped in a thick mist, which muffled the sound of footsteps; but
there was seldom a moment that I did not hear one or other of these
mystic sentences floating weirdly in the air above me or below.
[Sidenote: WHITE CLOUDS MONASTERY]
A steep climb soon brought me to the Hsi Hsiang Ch'ih[71] ("The
Elephant's Bath"), where a temple has been built close to a pool
of water where P'u Hsien's famous elephant is said to have bathed
after his long journey. The temple contains images of Sakyamuni
Buddha, P'u Hsien and Manjusri. Behind them, in the same hall, are
three beautifully gilded figures, larger than life-size, representing
Amitabha Buddha attended by Kuan Yin and Ta Shih Chih[72] Bodhisattvas.
These are the three beings who are supposed to preside over the Western
Paradise; their images are therefore frequently found together,
Amitabha always in the centre. In another hall is an image of Kuan Yin
unattended.
The next temple is known as the Great Vehicle[73] or Mahayana
monastery. Here are images of Sakyamuni, Manjusri and P'u Hsien,
who are also constantly associated in this manner; and behind them,
facing in the opposite direction, is a large Maitrêya, the Coming
Buddha. After a fairly steep ascent thence and a short descent the
path rises to the Pai Yün Ku Ch'a[74] ("The Old Monastery of the
White Clouds")--which at the time of my visit I found to be a most
appropriate name. Here there is a colossal sedent image of Chang
Liang,[75] a warlike hero who died in the second century of our era,
after he had made an ineffectual attempt to achieve immortality by
starving himself. He was subsequently canonised by the name of Wên
Ch'êng.[76] In another hall are Sakyamuni Buddha, Manjusri and P'u
Hsien, supported by the eighteen lo-han. In ascending to the next
temple, the Lei Tung P'ing,[77] all pilgrims are expected to preserve
absolute silence. The Lei Tung or Thunder Cavern is that which shelters
the irascible Dragon of rain and thunder, to whom I referred in the
last chapter. An inscription that hangs in the temple apparently refers
to his controlling powers over lightning and rain-clouds.[78] The
slightest sound of the human voice, either in laughter or in speech, is
liable to produce a terrific whirlwind and thunderstorm.
[Sidenote: TEMPLE OF THE PRINCE ROYAL]
Next above this perilous locality comes the Chieh Yin Tien[79]--the
Temple of Amitabha. The words _chieh yin_ mean "to receive and lead,"
and are applied to Amitabha because he it is who is supposed to assist
the faithful to reach the Western Heaven in which he reigns. The
first hall contains a richly-gilded colossal statue of this Buddha,
standing upright. Behind him is a figure of Wei To[80] (_Vêda_), a
Bodhisattva who is regarded as a _vihârapâla_, or tutelary deity of
the Buddhist monkhood. He is responsible for seeing that the recluses
do not suffer through lack of nourishment, and that the monastery
is properly supplied with necessaries. The second hall contains the
eighteen lo-han in bronze. There are also the usual images of Sakyamuni
and his attendant Bodhisattvas, and a colossal gilded P'u Hsien sitting
on a lotus on the back of a white elephant. In the right-hand corner
of this well-populated hall is another triad of divinities: Yo Shih
Fo,[81] a mythical Buddha who dwells in an eastern world, with Ti Tsang
and Kuan Yin Bodhisattvas on his left and right. This is a favourite
Buddha in China, and is supposed to hold in the East a position
somewhat analogous to that of Amitabha in the West. In the popular
imagination he has replaced the Motionless (_wu tung_) Buddha Akchôbhya
(A-ch'u-p'o) and is worshipped as the healer of sickness. Ti Tsang[82]
is one of the great Bodhisattvas, like P'u Hsien, Ta Shih Chih and
Manjusri. The principal seat of his worship in China is in the province
of Anhui. He is the benevolent being who seeks to save human beings
from the punishments of hell. His prototype is said to have been a
Siamese prince.
A steep ascent from this interesting monastery leads to the Ku T'ai
Tzŭ P'ing,[83] the "Ancient Temple of the Prince Royal." It is said
that this building is named after a prince of the Ming dynasty, but
the monks of to-day prefer to regard the T'ai Tzŭ as Sakyamuni Buddha
himself, in the character of Prince Siddharta, son of the king of
Kapilavastu. The figure representing him is attired in real robes,
richly embroidered. On his right is P'u Hsien, seated on a white
tuskless elephant. As already mentioned, P'u Hsien's elephants are
generally characterised by their six tusks. On the prince's left is
Kuan Yin; and behind these three central figures are images of Ti
Tsang, Ta Shih Chih, Wên Ch'êng (Chang Liang) and Manjusri, all of whom
have been described.
[Sidenote: TAOIST DIVINITIES]
The next is the Yung-ch'ing Ssŭ[84] or Eternal Happiness monastery.
Here a many-armed Kuan Yin faces the entrance, and behind him (or
her) is an Amitabha. The only new figure among the rest is that of
Bodhidarma or Ta-mo, the St Thomas of the Catholic missionaries.[85]
He sits cross-legged with the first finger of the right hand raised.
A small P'u Hsien is seated on an elephant with four tusks, the other
two being lost. In this hall I observed some heaps of broken statues
in bronze and iron, the remains of a ruined temple. From here a level
path leads to the K'ai Shan Jou Shên Tsu Shih Tien,[86] which, as the
name partly indicates, contains a gruesome relic in the shape of the
mummified body of a former abbot, attired in the robes he wore in
life. The dried shrunken face has been lacquered with great care, and
no one would guess that the figure was not made of clay or bronze.
It is not the only mummy on the mountain. From here a short steep
path leads to the Eagle-wood Pagoda,[87] a monastery named after a
miniature nine-storied bronze pagoda, the gift of a Ming empress. The
next temple bears the imposing inscription of "The August Guard of
the Gate of Heaven,"[88] where there is a large Sakyamuni with the
usual attendant Bodhisattvas. Next comes the Ch'i T'ien Ch'iao[89]--The
Bridge of the Seventh Heaven--where there is a small temple in which
the three Bodhisattvas--P'u Hsien (in the middle) and Manjusri and
Kuan Yin (on the right and left)--sit in a row in front of a solitary
image of Sakyamuni. The next temple is the P'u Hsien Pagoda,[90] where
the patron saint of Mount Omei, as is natural, occupies the place of
honour in the middle of the hall facing the entrance. Behind him is
Amitabha, and at the back of the hall, right and left, are Sakyamuni
and Kuan Yin. On the left side of the hall is an image of one of the
favourite personages in the Chinese theogony--Ts'ai Shên, the "God of
Wealth."[91] This god is so popular in China that Buddhism could not
afford to neglect him, but as he is really a Taoist divinity he is only
allowed to appear in a Buddhist temple as an act of grace. The same may
be said of Kuan Ti,[92] the God of War, Lung Wang[93] the Dragon Raja
or Naga-king, and the San Kuan.[94]
From this temple a short walk over a wooden-paved path, kept clear
of snow by sedulous sweeping, leads to the Hsi Wa Tien[95]--the
Pewter-Roofed Hall. At one time there were three "halls," with roofs of
pewter, bronze and iron respectively. The metal roofs have vanished,
though the names remain. "Pewter-roof" is specially appropriate to a
Buddhist monastery, for pewter is the only metal that Buddhist monks
may--in theory--possess. Each monk is supposed to carry a pewter-headed
staff when he goes on pilgrimage or on his begging-rounds; and when he
lodges at a monastery he is said to _kua hsi_, which literally means
"to hang up the pewter." In south China there is a spring called the
Pewter Spring, because it bubbled up at the bidding of a thirsty monk
who struck the ground with his staff.
Another short climb brought me at last to the summit of Mount Omei,
where, at a height of about 11,000 feet, I found welcome and rest in
the spacious monastery that proudly describes itself as "The Golden
Hall of the True Summit."[96]
Though I was not expected by the monks--for my two soldiers had failed
to keep up with me in spite of my efforts to send them on as my
ambassadors--I was at once made comfortable in a large, clean apartment
on the first floor; and when my hosts heard that I was a humble student
of their religion they soon provided me with as ample a vegetarian
banquet as I could have desired, and treated me with great kindness.
[Sidenote: "THE GLORY OF BUDDHA"]
An hour after my arrival I stood outside the temple gateway watching
the sun set below a wild white ocean of clouds that laved the mountain
side about 2,000 feet below me and turned the summit of Mount Omei
into a snow-draped island. The air rapidly grew bitterly cold, and I
was glad to seek warmth indoors by the side of my charcoal fire. My
dilatory escort, carrying my modest baggage, came wearily in just as it
began to grow dark.
The next morning held in store a wonderful surprise. The vast ocean of
white clouds had entirely disappeared, and the wide country that lay
far below me was bathed in the glory of brilliant sunlight. The sun
rarely reveals himself in his full splendour in Ssuch'uan--so rarely
that when he does so the dogs are said to bark at him[97]--and on
Omei's summit sunshine is rare even for Ssuch'uan; but by good fortune
it was on one of those exceptional occasions that I spent there the
whole of one memorable day.
There are several monasteries on or near the summit. The one in which I
lodged for two nights is crowned with a gilded ball that scintillates
on its roof. Just behind the various buildings of this monastery is the
tremendous precipice from the edge of which fortunate pilgrims witness
the phenomenon known as the "Glory of Buddha."[98] As mentioned in the
last chapter, this is the appearance of a gleaming aureole floating
horizontally on the mist a few thousand feet below the summit. This
beautiful phenomenon, to which is probably due the special sanctity
of Mount Omei, has not yet been quite satisfactorily explained. It
has been likened to the famous Brocken Spectre, and to the Shadow of
the Peak in Ceylon, but the brilliant and varied colours of "Buddha's
Glory"--five colours, say the Chinese--give it a rainbow-like beauty
which those appearances do not possess.[99] The pious Buddhist pilgrim
firmly believes that it is a miraculous manifestation of the power and
glory of the Buddha--or of his spiritual Son P'u Hsien--and is always
much disappointed if he has to leave the mountain without catching
a glimpse of it.[100] The necessary conditions of its appearance
are said to be a clear sky above and a bank of clouds below, and as
those conditions were not fulfilled for me I must sorrowfully confess
that I cannot describe the spectacle from personal experience. But
the circumstance that deprived me of that privilege enabled me to
have a superb view of the surrounding country. Nearly 10,000 feet
below me to the north and east lay the rich rolling plains of central
Ssuch'uan; to the south the silver streak of the Ta Tu river and the
wild mountains that enable the mysterious Lolo races to maintain their
solitary independence; slightly to the south-west appeared the huge
mass of the Wa mountain, with its extraordinary flat summit and its
precipitous flanks; and, grandest sight of all, clear and brilliant
on the western horizon stood out the mighty barrier of towering peaks
appropriately known by the Chinese as the Ta Hsüeh Shan--Great Snow
Mountains. Those are the peaks--some of them 20,000 feet high, and
more--that keep watch and ward over the lofty Tibetan plateau on the
one side and the rolling plains of China on the other: the eastern
ramparts of the vast Himālayan range, whose icy fingers seem ever to
grope outward into the silent abyss of space as if seeking to grasp the
fringe of a mightier world than ours. Even at a distance of nearly 100
miles as the crow flies the pinnacles seemed too lofty to be real; but
it was pleasant to know that a few weeks hence I should be in the midst
of the great mountains, perhaps learning something of their hidden
mysteries.
[Illustration: "JIM" ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT OMEI. [_To face p. 102._]
[Sidenote: THE OMEI PRECIPICE]
The narrow gallery behind the monastery from which one watches for
a manifestation of Buddha's Glory is carefully railed, for a fall
from this spot would mean a sheer drop of more than a mile down the
face of a precipice which, as Baber has remarked, is perhaps the
highest in the world. Many are the stories told by the monks of men
and women who in moments of wild religious exaltation have hurled
themselves down to win death and paradise in one glorious instant by
throwing themselves into the bosom of their Lord Buddha: true stories,
which have well earned for this terrible precipice the name of "The
Rejection of the Body."[101] Less sinister names which have been given
it are the Diamond Terrace and the Silvery Boundary,--the latter[102]
perhaps because Mount Omei is regarded as the eastern buttress of the
Great Snow Mountains; or perhaps the words refer to the view of those
mountains on the western horizon. Near the edge of the cliff are the
remains of a once famous bronze temple, which was several times struck
by lightning and has never been restored since the date of the last
catastrophe. Some of the castings are exceedingly fine and well worthy
of preservation. A Chinese proverb says that Heaven grants compensation
for what the lightning has destroyed,[103] but in this instance it
seems to have failed of fulfilment.
The temple at which I stayed harbours about twenty monks and acolytes,
and visitors both lay and monastic are constantly coming and going. I
observed there the performance of an interesting custom, whereby the
monks who come on pilgrimage from distant monasteries produce papers
of identification and have them stamped with the seal of each of the
monasteries they visit. As their journeys are made that they may "gain
merit," not only for themselves but also for the religious communities
which they represent, it is important that on their return they should
be able to produce duly authenticated certificates that they have
actually attained the objects of their pilgrimage. In many cases
the establishment visited also grants Buddhist tracts or plans of its
own buildings. One such crude plan--representing the mountain of Omei
with its principal religious houses--is reproduced here on a reduced
scale. The monastic seal (in red in the original) appears at the top.
Some yellow-robed monks from a large monastery near Pao-ning-fu in
north-eastern Ssuch'uan, and a small group of lamas from Litang, on
the Tibetan border, were having their papers sealed at the time of my
arrival at the Golden Summit.
[Illustration: CHINESE PLAN OF MOUNT OMEI, SURMOUNTED BY THE SEAL OF
THE MONASTERY OF THE GOLDEN SUMMIT. [_To face p. 105._]
[Sidenote: BUDDHIST MATINS]
During my day's rest I attended two religious services, besides a
"choir-practice" of young boys who had not yet become fully-fledged
monks. The services were well intoned, and, considering one's strange
surroundings, had a singular impressiveness. The ordinary daily prayers
are very simple, consisting in little more than repeated invocations
of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas: they are "praises" rather than prayers.
The ordinary Morning Service or Matins (Tsao K'o)[104] begins with a
procession of monks into the principal hall or chapel--_Ta hsiung pao
tien_,[105] "The Precious Hall of the Great Lord (or Hero")--where,
after circling round the central figure of Sakyamuni, keeping one bared
shoulder towards the image, they take their seats on low benches on
left and right. In front of Sakyamuni are lighted candles and burning
sticks of incense. The service then begins by the general invocation,
_Nam Mo Pên Shih Shih Chia Mou-ni-Fo_:[106] "Praise to our Lord
Sakyamuni Buddha." This is followed by _Nam Mo Tan Lai Mi Lei Tsun
Fo_:[107] "Praise to the Honoured One Maitrêya, the Buddha that is to
be." The Buddhas of the past and future having thus been honoured, a
bell is sounded to announce a change in the manner of address, when
somewhat similar phrases of adoration, interspersed with short hymns
of praise, are sung in honour of some of the great Bodhisattvas,
those selected at the service attended by me being the following,
in the order named: _Wên Shu Shih Li_[108] (Manjusri, the Lord of
_Ta chih_,[109] Great Wisdom); _P'u Hsien_[110] (Samanta Bhadra, the
patron saint of Mount Omei); _Hu Fa Chu T'ien P'u Sa_[111] (all the
Bodhisattvas, Defenders of the Faith); _San Chou Kan Ying Hu Fa Wei
To Tsun T'ien P'u Sa_[112] (the Honoured Bodhisattva Wei-To,[113] the
Distributer of Rewards and Punishments throughout the three Continents,
Defender of the Faith); _Jih Kwang Pien Chao_ and _Yüeh Kuang Pien
Chao_[114] (the Bodhisattvas of the Far-Shining Light of the Sun and
of the Moon--who are regarded as attendant on Yo-Shih Fo, the Healing
Buddha of the East); _Tsêng Fu Ts'ai Shên_[115] (the Bodhisattva who
increases happiness and wealth--the Chinese "God of Wealth"[116]); and
finally _Shih Fang P'u Sa_[117] (the Bodhisattvas of the Ten Quarters
of the Universe).
[Sidenote: BUDDHIST VESPERS]
The most interesting part of the service consists in the short
"lections" of extracts from the scriptures, which take the place
of the lessons and sermons of Christian churches. The lections are
followed by short hymns, some of which have been specially composed
for liturgical purposes and are not to be found in the sacred books.
Several processions and prostrations take place during the service. The
intoning when heard from some distance is often not unlike a Gregorian
chant, but the words are uttered rather too quickly, especially in the
constantly-repeated invocations.
The Evening Service or Vespers (Wan K'o[118]) begins with a solemn
invocation to the mythical Buddha of the Western Paradise, the sublime
Amitabha.[119] Then follow the praises of Yo Shih Fo, the Healing
Buddha, who "averts calamity and lengthens human life."[120] Two
Buddhas, as in the Morning Service, having thus been invoked, the
next to be lauded are a new selection of the great Bodhisattvas, in
the following order: _Kuan Yin_ or _Kuan Shih Yin_, the "Goddess of
Mercy," and _Ta Shih Chih_, the Bodhisattva of Great Strength,[121] the
two who under Buddha Amitabha preside over the Western Paradise; _Ti
Tsang Wang_,[122] who saves men from the terrors of hell; _Wei To_,
Defender of the Faith--the only divinity whose name is included in both
Morning and Evening Services; _Chia Lan Shêng Chung P'u Sa_[123] ("the
holy Bodhisattvas, Protectors of the Monasteries," of whom Kuan-Ti,
the Taoist "God of War," is one); _Li Tai Tsu Shih P'u Sa_[124] (the
Patriarchs, the Bodhisattvas of Successive Ages); _Ch'ing Ching Ta Hai
Chu P'u Sa_[125] (all the Pure Bodhisattvas of the Great Ocean: _i.e._
of life and death or continual metempsychosis).
"Buddha's Glory" is not the only marvel that the fortunate pilgrim
may hope to behold when he reaches the Golden Summit. Night, on Mount
Omei, has its treasures hardly less glorious than those of day. These
take the form of myriads of little lights, moving and glimmering like
winged stars in the midst of an inverted firmament. They are known as
the Shêng Têng (Holy Lamps),[126] and have been described to me--for
alas! I saw them not--as brilliant specks of light darting hither
and thither on the surface of the ocean of mist on which in daytime
floats the coloured aureole. A fanciful monk suggested to me that they
are the scintillating fragments of the "Glory of Buddha," which is
shattered at the approach of night and reformed at the rising of the
sun. Foreigners have supposed that they are caused by some electrical
disturbance; but the monk's explanation, if the less scientific of the
two, is certainly the more picturesque.
[Sidenote: DESCENT OF MOUNT OMEI]
The monastery in which I was entertained is probably the largest on
the summit, but by far the most famous is its neighbour, the Hsien Tsu
Tien,[127] which is believed to occupy the site of the original temple
to P'u Hsien that according to the legend was built by P'u Kung in
the Han dynasty after he had tracked the lily-footed deer to the edge
of the great precipice and had beheld the wonderful sight thenceforth
known as the "Glory of Buddha." The temple contains a large sedent
image of the patron saint, and behind it is a terrace from which may
be seen the manifold wonders of the abyss. Not far from this building
is the Monastery of the Sleeping Clouds,[128] and further off are the
temples of the Thousand Buddhas (Ch'ien Fo) and the White Dragon.[129]
I regretfully left the summit of Mount Omei on my downward journey
early on the morning of 10th March, and, after many a slip and sprawl
on the snow, reached the Wan-nien monastery in the afternoon. Here I
spent a night for the second time, and continued the descent on the
following morning. Just below the temple of the Pai Lung (White Dragon)
which I had already visited, the road bifurcates; and as both branches
lead eventually to Omei-hsien, I naturally chose the one that was
new to me. By this time I had left far behind me the snow and icicles
of the higher levels, and had entered a region of warm air and bright
green vegetation. The change was startling, as though by some magic
power the seasons had been interchanged.
"I dreamed that as I wandered by the way
Bare winter suddenly was changed to spring,
And gentle odours led my steps astray,
Mixed with a sound of waters murmuring."
Shelley's dream would have been realised on the slopes of Mount Omei.
Between the bifurcation of the roads and the foot of the mountain there
are a number of monasteries, few of which possess any feature calling
for special remark, except the romantic beauty of their situations. The
most conspicuous are the Kuang Fu Ssŭ,[130] or "Monastery of Abounding
Happiness"; the Lung Shêng Kang,[131] or "Mountain Ascending Dragon,"
from which there is a splendid view of the Golden Summit; the Kuan Yin
Ssŭ,[132] or "Monastery of Avalokiteçvara"; the Chung Fêng Ssŭ,[133]
"Half-Way Monastery"; and the Ta O Ssŭ,[134] the "Monastery of Great
O" (_i.e._ Omei Shan, Mount Omei), which is a spacious building, often
visited by holiday-making Protestant missionaries from Chia-ting. After
passing this building the downward path leads across a small bridge,
called the "Bridge of the Upright Heart" (Chêng Hsin Ch'iao[135]),
to the monastery named Hui Têng Ssŭ[136] ("The Spiritual Lamp"), from
the neighbourhood of which the view of the mountain summit is of
exceptional beauty. A charming road leads thence past several other
monasteries, down to the level plain, whence the walk to Omei-hsien is
easy. Before I reached the city the great mountain had vanished from my
sight and I never saw it again: from peak to base it had disappeared
into impenetrable mist. There was only the soft sound of a distant
monastery bell to assure me that somewhere in the clouds the sacred
mountain might still be looked for not in vain.
[Sidenote: DEPARTURE FOR YA-CHOU-FU]
I have dwelt long upon the Buddhistic associations of Omei; and perhaps
the reader is wearied by an account of temples and of forms of belief
that he considers grotesque and uncouth. I should be sorry if I were
to leave him with the impression that Omei possesses no interest
beyond the glimmer that is shed upon it by the Light of Asia. If every
monastery were to crumble into dust, if the very memory of Buddhism
were to be swept utterly away from the minds of men, Omei would still
remain what it was before the first Buddhist recluse had built there
his lonely hermitage--it would still be a home of portent and mystery,
the abode of nameless spirits of mountain and flood, the source of
inspiration to poet and artist, the resort of pilgrims from many lands,
each of whom--whatever his faith--would find, as he gazed from the edge
of the Golden Summit into the white abyss below, a manifestation of the
Glory of his own God.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] See Note 6 (p. 414).
[51] 海會堂
[52] See Note 7 (p. 417).
[53] This is the usually accepted estimate; but Sir A. Hosie has
recently stated it to be only 10,158 feet.
[54] _Ficus infectoria._
[55] 觀心頂.
[56] 繫心所.
[57] Literally, "the quelling of the passions."
[58] 長老坪.
[59] 開山初殿. See Note 8 (p. 418).
[60] 阿羅漢.
[61] In the early Buddhist scriptures we learn that super-normal powers
were even then supposed to be characteristic of the arhats, but it was
generally considered undesirable to put such powers to the test.
[62] See the Saddharma-Pundarîka, translated by Kern in the _Sacred
Books of the East_, vol. xxi. The Chinese version is known as the Miao
Fa Lien Hua Ching (妙法蓮華經).
[63] See an article on this subject by T. Watters, in the _Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society_, April 1899. See also Edkins, _Chinese
Buddhism_, pp. 249 and 394-395.
[64] 華嚴頂.
[65] Manjusri (文殊師利) is a Bodhisattva who in China is practically
worshipped as the God of Wisdom. Like Ti Tsang, Kuan Yin and others,
he is supposed to have had a human prototype, or rather to have been
incarnated in the body of a historical personage. But the truth
probably is that any person of superlative wisdom was liable to be
identified by his admirers with Manjusri. There is an interesting
reference to him in I-Tsing's _Records of the Buddhist Religion_,
translated by J. Takakusu (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), p. 169. The
translator comments on the fact that Manjusri was even by the people
of India supposed, at one time, to be somehow connected with China,
and the actual place of his residence was identified as Ping Chou in
Chih-li.
[66] 蓮花石.
[67] _Three Lectures on Buddhism_, pp. 60-61.
[68] 唵嚤呢叭□吽.
[69] ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ
[70] 南無阿彌陀佛.
[71] 洗象池.
[72] 大勢至.
[73] 大乘寺. See Note 9 (p. 418).
[74] 白雲古剎.
[75] 張良.
[76] 文成.
[77] 雷洞坪.
[78] 掣電飛雲.
[79] 接引殿.
[80] 韋陀 or 護法韋陀: _Veda Fidei Defensor_--a Hindu deity who was
regarded as one of the protectors of the four "Continents" of the world
or Universe.
[81] 藥師佛, whose common title _Lui Li Fo_ (琉璃佛) translates the
Sanskrit _Vaidūrya_, _lapis lazuli_. This precious stone seems also to
have been associated with a favourite Assyrian deity, Ênu-rêstū.
[82] 地藏.
[83] 古太子坪.
[84] 永慶寺.
[85] See above, p. 66.
[86] 開山肉身祖師殿.
[87] 沉香塔. The aloes or eagle-wood is so-called because it sinks
(_ch'ên_) in water. It is supposed to be the aloes-wood mentioned in
the Bible.
[88] 威鎮天門.
[89] 七天橋.
[90] 普賢塔.
[91] 財神 or 財帛星神.
[92] 關帝.
[93] 龍王.
[94] 三官.
[95] 錫瓦殿.
[96] Chêng Ting Chin Tien (正頂金殿). There is another Chin Tien or
Golden Temple on the summit of a range of mountains north-east of
Tali-fu in Yunnan (the Chi Shan) which is also a noted centre for
Buddhist pilgrimages. A short account of the temples of this mountain
is given in a Foreign Office Report by the late Mr Litton. (China, No.
3: 1903, pp. 4-6.)
[97] 日出則犬吠.
[98] 佛光.
[99] A somewhat similar phenomenon, described as an "anthelia," may
be witnessed in Ceylon. Sir James Emerson Tennent, in his _Ceylon_
[Longmans: 1859, 2nd edition], states that phenomena of this kind
may have "suggested to the early painters the idea of the glory
surrounding the heads of beatified saints." He adds this description:
"To the spectator his own figure, but more particularly the head,
appears surrounded by a halo as vivid as if radiated from diamonds.
The Buddhists may possibly have taken from this beautiful object their
idea of the _agni_ or emblem of the sun, with which the head of Buddha
is surmounted. But, unable to express a _halo_ in sculpture, they
concentrated it into a _flame_."--Vol. i. 72 _seq._
[100] See Note 10 (p. 419).
[101] 捨身崖. There is a similar Suicide's Cliff near the summit of T'ai
Shan. _Shê shên_, it may be remarked, has a double meaning.
[102] 銀色界.
[103] 雷打天補.
[104] 早課.
[105] 大雄寶殿. The first two characters, rendered Great Lord or Hero,
represent the Sanskrit Vîra, used as the epithet of a Buddhist saint.
[106] 南無本師釋迦牟尼佛.
[107] 南無當來彌勒尊佛.
[108] 文殊師利.
[109] 大智.
[110] 普賢.
[111] 護法諸天菩薩.
[112] 三洲感應護法韋陀尊天菩薩.
[113] 韋陀.
[114] 日光 and 月光遍照菩薩.
[115] 增福財神.
[116] See above, p. 99.
[117] 什方菩薩.
[118] 晚課.
[119] 極樂世界阿彌陀佛.
[120] 消災延夀藥師佛.
[121] 大悲觀世音 and 大勢至 (Avalokiteçvara and Mahâsthâma: see footnote,
p. 72).
[122] 地藏王.
[123] 伽藍聖衆菩薩. The two first characters represent the Sanskrit
Sanghârâma, the park or dwelling-place of monks, equivalent to a
_vihara_ or monastery.
[124] 歷代袓師菩薩.
[125] 清淨大海諸菩薩.
[126] See Note 11 (p. 419).
[127] 先祖殿. See Note 12 (p. 420).
[128] 峰頂卧雲庵.
[129] 白龍池.
[130] 廣福寺.
[131] 龍昇岡.
[132] 觀音寺.
[133] 中峰寺. See Note 12 (p. 420).
[134] 大峨寺. See Note 12 (p. 420).
[135] 正心橋.
[136] 慧燈寺.
CHAPTER VIII
OMEI-HSIEN TO TACHIENLU
An easy journey of four days from Omei-hsien brought me to the
prefectural city of Ya-chou-fu. During the first day the road lay
through the northern portion of the same well-cultivated plain that
stretches to the south-east as far as Chia-ting. Large areas were
devoted to the cultivation of the small ash-tree which is used to
assist in the production of the insect-wax. The yellow blossom of
the rape was everywhere in bloom, and pervaded the air with the most
delicate of perfumes; while the wheat-fields were just beginning to
wear their spring raiment of bright green. Towards evening my road lay
across the river Ya to the small magisterial town of Chia-chiang, where
I spent the night. Next day, soon after starting, we again crossed
the Ya in a ferry-boat and thence proceeded for a few miles along the
right bank. Near the ferry-crossing I noticed on the left bank numerous
shrines and small caves hollowed by nature and by art out of the face
of a cliff. Sticks of incense were burning in front of several of the
miniature images contained in them. From this point onward the road lay
through a very picturesque district studded with groves of fine trees
and two or three good pagodas, and beautified by the fresh blossom
of peach and cherry and by wild primroses that seemed to grow out of
the solid rock. In the afternoon we again crossed to the left bank of
the river in order to reach the magisterial town of Hung Ya, the main
street of which we passed through. Another six miles brought us to
the poor village of Chih-kuo-chên. The accommodation was very bad, as
I had passed beyond the ordinary stage. The whole river-valley from
Chia-chiang upwards is the resort of great numbers of wild-duck, a few
of which fell to my gun, though the season was late, and they were not
at that time plentiful.
[Sidenote: BASKET-BRIDGES]
A curious feature of the shallower waterways of this district is the
basket-bridge. Large wicker baskets are filled with loose stones and
deposited in the bed of the river at even distances of about 10 feet.
Planks of that length are placed on the top of them and constitute
the bridge. This device has the merit of cheapness, but as soon as
the basket is rotted by the action of the water, the stones gradually
subside, and the planks are submerged. The Ya river, here as elsewhere,
is too full of rocks and rapids for navigation. Long timber rafts,
however, make the journey from Ya-chou to Chia-ting at all seasons
of the year, except in the height of the rainy season, and serious
accidents are rare.
Next day the road led tortuously through the river-valley and crossed
the stream several times. After one ferry-crossing I was faced by a
stiff climb of about 800 or 1,000 feet leading to a pass where there
is a primitive tea-house. A corresponding descent on the other side
soon led us back to the river's edge, at a point where the stream
is very turbulent. We crossed by a bridge called the "Bridge of the
Goddess of Mercy" (Kuan Yin Ch'iao), formed of long slabs of stone, and
immediately afterwards passed through the village of the same name.
Another 4 or 5 miles brought me to the small town of Ts'ao Pa, where I
spent the night. This town lies in a plain surrounded by hills in every
direction except the east and north-east. It lies on the left bank of
the river at a point where the current is gentle and the bed very broad
and shallow.[137]
On the morning of the following day, 14th March, I reached Ya-chou-fu,
the seat of government of a taotai, whose jurisdiction extends to
the Tibetan border. The town is important as being on the "mandarin"
road from Peking to Lhasa, and also as being the centre of a great
tea district.[138] It is in the plains surrounding Ya-chou that the
inferior tea which is considered good enough for the Tibetan market is
grown, and from here it is carried in long, narrow bundles on the backs
of coolies to Tachienlu. There it is cut into cakes or bricks, packed
in yak-hides, and carried by Tibetans all the way to Lhasa, and even to
the borders of India.
[Sidenote: AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSION]
At Ya-chou I was most hospitably entertained by the members of the
American Baptist Mission, who, judging from the friendliness with which
they were greeted in the streets, were evidently on excellent terms
with the people. The Mission has established a dispensary and a school,
and at the time of my visit was engaged in the construction of a large
hospital. To make invidious comparisons between different missionary
bodies in China is unbecoming for a traveller who has been treated by
all with every possible courtesy; but if I venture to refer to the
American Baptist Mission with special praise, it is only because the
members of that Mission whom I have had the good fortune to meet happen
to have been persons of broad sympathies and more than ordinary culture
and refinement.
The hospitalities of Ya-chou induced me to break my journey here for
one day, which I spent in exploring the town and neighbourhood. It
is situated in a rather confined plateau nearly surrounded by hills,
including one mountain, the Chou Kung Shan, which, as a place of
pilgrimage, is a humble rival of Omei.[139] At Ya-chou I paid off the
somewhat uncouth "boy" whom I had engaged at Ch'êng-tu, and found a
successor to accompany me to Tachienlu. I also engaged a new set of
coolies. A sedan-chair which I had bought on leaving the Yangtse at
Wan-hsien had been with me the whole way, but I very seldom used it,
except when entering and leaving large towns. At Ya-chou I might as
well have left it behind, and so reduced the number of my coolies
by half; for I did not enter it after the day I left that city. I
abandoned it finally at Tachienlu.
Almost immediately on leaving Ya-chou on the next portion of my journey
I entered into the mountainous region that fringes the Tibetan plateau.
Marco Polo evidently passed through the Ya-chou plain on his journey
from Ch'êng-tu to Yunnan-fu _viâ_ the Chien-ch'ang valley. In his day
Ya-chou must have been a frontier town on the extreme west of Cathay,
for all the mountainous region beyond belonged to Tibet. Like most
border regions this district was the scene of constant warfare, and
Messer Marco draws a pitiful picture of its utter desolation. It was
infested, apparently, by wild beasts, as well as by wild men. But
since his day the political boundary of China has been moved steadily
westwards, and the province of Ssuch'uan now nominally includes a
vast tract of country that was once, and still to a great extent is,
inhabited by Tibetans or allied tribes.
[Sidenote: GREAT ELEPHANT PASS]
On 16th March, a few miles' walk from Ya-chou brought me to the Flying
Dragon Pass (Fei Lung Ling), about 3,600 feet high. Hosie, describing
this road, says that "a long pull over a frightful road brought us
to the summit";[140] but the weather must have been against him, for
I experienced no difficulty, and found the road no worse than roads
in China usually are. About 65 _li_ (barely 20 miles) from Ya-chou
brought me to the village of Shih-chia Ch'iao, where I spent the night
in a rather good inn. Next day I went up the right bank of a stream
that flows north-east to meet the Ya, and after twice crossing it
reached the small district town of Jung-Ching, in the streets of which
I smashed a carved Buddha-headed mountain-pole that I had bought on
Mount Omei, in my efforts to beat off a dog that presented every
appearance of insanity. Late in the afternoon I reached the end of
the stage at Huang-ni-p'u, a small straggling village on the slopes
of the mountain range that was to be crossed on the following day.
The pass, which is known as the Great Elephant (Ta Hsiang Ling) is
9,200 feet high--less than 2,000 feet lower than the summit of Mount
Omei. Huang-ni-p'u lies at a height of about 3,870 feet; so the actual
climb that faced us on the 18th March was about 5,330 feet. The pass,
according to one interpretation, derives its name from the elephant on
which P'u Hsien rode from India to Mount Omei; but that legend, as we
have seen, has no basis in fact.[141] I started the ascent early in
the morning, amid the glorious weather that had smiled upon me ever
since I entered Ssuch'uan; and my dog Jim and I climbed the pass amid
slush and snow with a rapidity which entirely baffled the efforts of
the two soldiers who formed my escort to keep up with us. I reached
the summit about midday, and rested in one of the numerous refreshment
shanties that cater for the tea-coolies, of whom I passed many hundreds
during the journey from Ya-chou to Tachienlu. The weights that these
men carry on their backs are enormous. A single man carries as much
as 300 and sometimes 400 pounds weight.[142] They receive twenty or
thirty cents a day each, according to the weight carried, and spend
about three weeks on the journey. An unburdened traveller traverses
the same distance in eight days. The coolies walk very slowly, as a
slip might have dangerous consequences. My own greatest difficulty in
making the ascent of the Ta Hsiang Ling was to pass these people on the
narrow path, especially when a string of them stood sideways to rest
their burdens on their wooden props: for they never unload themselves
on the road, owing to the great difficulty of getting the burden on to
their backs again. I saw only one man meet with an accident. He was
passing under an overhanging ledge of rock, and tried to dodge a long
ice stalactite. This unbalanced him, and he fell on the path with his
huge load uppermost. Till we had extricated him I saw nothing but his
legs; but he rose up smiling, and some friendly hands assisted him in
replacing his burden.
The temperature at the summit was not lower than 43° in the shade,
according to my thermometer, but that was at midday. The snow was
melting fast under a hot sun. The view from the ridge was on both
sides magnificent. There was no mist, and the bright sunshine made the
distant peaks with their white caps stand out with marvellous vividness
against the deep-blue sky.
[Illustration: TEA-CARRIERS ON THE ROAD TO TACHIENLU.]
[Illustration: APPROACH TO TACHIENLU. [_To face p. 118._]
[Sidenote: BORDER WARFARE]
Having descended from the snowy heights of the Great Elephant Pass,
and so having left the plains of China out of sight for many weeks to
come, I found myself in the little city of Ch'ing-ch'i-hsien, which in
spite of its diminutive size and remoteness from Western influences
is so far advanced in civilisation as to possess a girls' school.
There is also a temple dedicated to Kuan-Ti (the so-called "God of
War"), which was an appropriate circumstance, as soldiers and military
supplies were being duly hastened through the town in connection with
the border warfare that was being carried on between the Chinese and
Tibetans south of Batang. I noticed a versified proclamation in the
streets warning the people not to be alarmed at the sight of the
soldiers, and promising that all supplies required for their use would
be paid for at current market rates. I passed several small bodies of
troops between Ya-chou and Tachienlu, and as far as I could observe
they were very well-behaved. There were no foreign-drilled troops
among them, and they carried the old-fashioned firearms that China is
now rapidly learning to discard. What was perhaps a more noteworthy
circumstance was the fact that the troops were being regularly paid,
and that the commissariat arrangements worked without a hitch. I heard
few details of what was actually taking place at the front until I
reached Tachienlu, but it was evident that the provincial authorities
were dealing with the trouble in a thoroughly energetic manner. The
difficulties of sending military supplies and munitions of war from
Ch'êng-tu to the borders of Tibet must have been enormous. Ta Hsiang
Ling was only one of a number of great passes that had to be crossed
before the scene of warfare could be reached. The dragging of field
artillery over a succession of wild mountains where the highest of the
passes rises to more than 15,000 feet, is a feat which can perhaps be
best appreciated by those who helped to perform a similar one during
the British march to Lhasa.
Ch'ing-ch'i-hsien was at one time a city of great strategic importance,
and was the scene of many a fierce struggle between the Chinese and the
Lolos--who have now retired many miles to the south. At other times,
too, the Chinese have been hard put to it to defend themselves against
the quasi-Tibetan tribes and Mantzŭ who still inhabit the mountains
to the west. Its natural position, at the edge of a ravine or natural
moat, is a very strong one, and a besieging force armed with primitive
weapons would have very little chance of taking it by storm unless they
first secured the Great Elephant Pass: for on that side only the city
has no natural protection except the mountain range itself.[143]
Immediately on leaving Ch'ing-ch'i by the west gate we descended
into the ravine which protects it on the west and south, and crossed
the sparkling mountain stream from which the city derives its name.
The road then gradually ascends along the flank of some bare hills,
picturesque but with little cultivation. It then descends and passes
between high hills, issuing thence into a broad valley in which flows
the stream Liu Sha ("Shifting Sands"). On its left bank is the village
of Fu Chuang.[144] A little further on the valley gradually contracts,
leaving only an insignificant area for cultivation. What there is of it
is said to be very rich, chiefly owing to the periodical inundations,
which render it suitable for rice. The hills are mostly bare, and trees
are few except in the neighbourhood of houses. The next place of any
importance is known as Ni (or I) T'ou Courier Stage, which is a large
village of comparative importance, and contains excellent inns. Here we
spent the night to recuperate our energies in anticipation of the pass
that lies just beyond.
[Sidenote: THE FEI YÜEH LING]
Ni T'ou lies about 4,900 feet above the sea-level, and the summit of
the Fei Yüeh Ling is 9,000 feet high, only slightly less than the
Great Elephant. For a considerable part of the way the path led up the
valley of the Liu Sha, which rises in the mountains on the east side
of the pass. Above Ni T'ou it is simply a turbulent mountain stream
rushing downwards through a picturesque gorge.[145] The final climb of
1,500 feet is very steep, but the dangers and difficulties of the pass
have been much exaggerated not only by the Chinese chroniclers--who,
like all the _literati_ of their country, are sure to have been bad
pedestrians--but also by at least one European. The _Hsi Tsang T'u
K'ao_ quite unnecessarily describes it as "the most dangerous place in
China."[146] The view from the top--which is a narrow ridge--is less
grand than that from the Ta Hsiang Ling, owing to the proximity of
other lofty ranges.
One of the poets of the present dynasty (Hsü Chang) has declared in a
pleasant poem that the ascent of this mountain is like the soaring of
a swan, the descent like the swooping of a hawk. This is a picturesque
description, but it could hardly be applied with appositeness to a
certain Buddhist monk who was met on the pass some years ago by a
Western traveller.[147] The monk was doing a pilgrimage from P'u T'o
(Chusan) to Lhasa, and had already been seven years on the road. His
somewhat slow progress was accounted for by the fact that at every
two steps of his journey he prostrated himself at full length on the
ground. He was quite cheerful, and anticipated that in two or three
years more he would reach Lhasa. Without assuming that there was
anything either swanlike or hawklike in my movements I may claim to
have crossed the Fei Yüeh Ling rather more rapidly than the monk, and I
reached the end of the day's stage--the village of Hua-lin-p'ing--early
in the afternoon.[148] Shortly before arriving there I turned off the
road to visit a picturesque temple which I espied embowered in a grove
of trees on the right bank of a mountain torrent. It is dedicated to
Kuan Yin, but the Guardian Deity of the Kao Shan ("Lofty Mountain")
also has a shrine in the temple grounds. Behind the main hall, which
contains the eighteen lo-han in miniature, and a cast-iron bell dated
the second year of Tao Kuang (1822), there is a timber-built monastery
in which a few monks reside. Higher up is a pavilion which contains
among other things a black wooden tablet recording the names of those
who had subscribed towards the restoration of the building after its
destruction by wind and rain. The grounds of the temple are well laid
out, and there is a fine view.
[Sidenote: MOUNTAIN SCENERY]
Hua-lin-p'ing is a village of two streets, one of them broader and
cleaner than is usual in Chinese villages. Most of the inhabitants,
however, are not pure Chinese. A proclamation on the walls stated
that a large number of coolies were being employed by Government on
transport service, in connection with the border war, and that if any
such coolie used any military supplies for his own purposes or sold
them to civilians he would be punished with relentless severity; and
that a like fate would befall any civilian who bought such goods from
him.
There is great abundance of coal in the hills about Hua-lin-p'ing,
and it is freely used by the poorest peasants for heating and cooking
purposes. Judging from the coal which was brought to me in a brazier
it appeared to be of excellent quality, for it burned well, and gave
out considerable heat with hardly any smoke. The temperature in
these mountain villages was generally low enough to make artificial
warmth very desirable; but the fumes of charcoal are not conducive to
cheerfulness or to health, and coal was a welcome surprise.
For the remaining three days of my journey to Tachienlu the scenery
was of great beauty and grandeur. I have seldom seen anything more
magnificent than the view of mighty mountains that greeted me as I
left Hua-lin-p'ing, and continued to face me nearly all the rest of
the way. The lustre of the snow, the rich azure of the sky and the
sombre shadows of the gorges and ravines combined to make a series
of pictures which no words can describe, and which time can never
efface from the memory. There are scenes which an artist could never
be weary of painting, a poet never weary of describing: yet both would
assuredly fail to communicate the secret of their loveliness to those
who had never seen. There are times, of course, when the glories of
the scenery are hidden by clouds or dimmed by rain and mist, and many
a traveller must have gone through this country with very little idea
of the wonderful sights that were hidden from him; but the good fortune
that accompanied me to the summit of Mount Omei did not forsake me for
even half a day during my long walk to Tachienlu, for the sun was never
eclipsed by a cloud, and the lustrous peaks that towered skyward never
once robed themselves in fog.
[Sidenote: LU TING BRIDGE]
From Hua-lin-p'ing the road descends steeply till it reaches the
beautiful valley of the Ta Tu. This great river I had not seen since I
left Chia-ting, where it joins the Min. Like the Ya river, its current
is too swift and the rapids are too dangerous to admit of navigation.
Between Lu Ting Ch'iao (which I reached the same day) and the junction
with the Min the fall of the river is no less than 3,750 feet.[149]
The road to Lu Ting keeps to the left bank of the river, sometimes at
a height above it of several hundred feet, and sometimes (as at the
village of Lêng Chi) close to the river bank. Lu Ting, which gives
its name to an important suspension bridge, is about 20 miles from
Hua-lin-p'ing. Shortly before reaching it I passed safely over a
somewhat dangerous section of the road, where from a steep bank rocks
and stones frequently crash down over the path and into the river,
with disastrous results to unwary passengers. Hosie describes how a
large stone the size of his head narrowly missed striking him, and how
he saw the body of a man who had been struck dead, his weeping wife
and friends trying to remove the corpse without endangering their own
lives. The vicinity of Lu Ting must be beautiful at all seasons, but
it was particularly so at the time of my arrival there, on account
of the wonderful display of myriads of fruit-tree blossoms. Had I
come at a later season I should no doubt have been able to endorse
Rockhill's verdict as to the excellence of the peaches.[150] The
town itself is small and dirty, but its position renders it of some
commercial importance, for through it all the trade that follows this
main route between China and Tibet must pass. The iron suspension
bridge towards which all the streets of the town converge affords the
only means of crossing the Ta Tu. This fine bridge, which has been
several times repaired since its construction more than two hundred
years ago, is about 120 yards long. It may now be regarded as the
iron chain that connects China and Chinese Tibet.[151] Geographically
and ethnologically the Ta Tu river is the eastern boundary of Tibet,
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