*

old.* * * They behold the lotus flowers and trees of gems delightfully waving, like the motion of a vast sheet of embroidered silk. On looking upwards, they see the firmament full of the To-lo flowers, falling in beautiful confusion like rain. The felicity of that kingdom may justly be called superlative, and the age of its inhabitants is without measure. This is the place called the paradise of the west."

The hell of the Chinese Budhists may be described from a translation,* made by Dr. Morrison, of the explanatory letterpress on ten large woodcuts, which are exhibited on particular occasions in the temples, and copies of which have been mistaken sometimes in Europe for the criminal punishments of China, giving rise to very unfounded notions of penal jurisdiction in that country. Prior to their final condemnation, the souls are exposed to judgment in the courts of the She-ming-wang, "the ten kings of darkness." The proceedings in these courts are represented exactly after the manner of the Chinese judicial trials, with the difference in the punishments, which in these pictures of the infernal regions are of course sufficiently appalling. In one view are seen the judge with his attendants and officers of the court, to whom the merciful goddess Kuányin appears, in order to save from punishment a soul that is condemned to be pounded in a mortar. Other punishments consist of sawing asunder, tying to a burning pillar of brass, &c. Liars have their tongues, cut out; thieves and robbers are cast upon a hill of knives; and so on. After the trials are over, the more eminently good ascend to paradise; the middling class return to earth in other bodies, to enjoy riches and honours; while the wicked are

* Chinese Gleaner, vol. iii. p. 288.

There is a festival to the honour of these about the month of August. See Festivals, vol. i. p. 354.

tormented in hell, or transformed into various animals, whose dispositions and habits they imitated during their past lives.

One of the emperors of the Ming dynasty, who was much attached to the Budhist tenets, and who meditated sending, about the commencement of the 16th century, an ambassador with expensive presents to India, for the purpose of bringing some of the most learned of that sect to court, to explain their doctrines, was addressed by one of his ministers in the following strain :-"That for which the people of the world most honour and love Shakia himself amounts to this, that he continued to teach his doctrines during the space of forty years, and that he died aged eighty-two. This was indeed a great age, but the years of Shun were a hundred and ten; those of Yaou a hundred and twenty. Supposing that your majesty's extreme affection for the sect of Fo springs from a genuine wish to discover the good way, I venture to entreat your majesty not to love the name merely, but to seek diligently the reality; not to regard the end only, but carefully to search for the principle; and not to seek them from Fŏ, but from the spotless sages; not from foreigners, but in our own country. Could your majesty be persuaded to regard our sacred sages with the same ardour with which you love Fo, to seek the doctrines of Yaou and Shun with the earnestness which leads you to those of Shakia, there will be no need to send many thousand miles to the happy land of the west, for the object is at hand, and before your eyes. I adduce the testimony of Confucius, who

****

says, 'The very moment that I desire to be virtuous, the attainment is made.'" &c. It is by arguments allied to these that the introduction of foreign innovations has perpetually been restrained and checked in China, although occasionally, as in the case of Budhism, they

have been tolerated, and for short periods gained some strength.

We may include within our sketch of Chinese Budhism some extracts from Mr. Hodgson's account* of that religion, as he found it in the 'Bauddha Scriptures of Nipal,' much nearer to its source, and greatly better understood, than it is in China. The primary motive for doing good, and worshipping Budha, according to these scriptures, is the hope of obtaining absorption into the nature of the god, and being freed from transmigrations. Between the highest class of votaries and Budha there is no difference, because they will eventually become Budhas. Those who do good from the fear of hell are also above the class of sinners, and their sufferings will be lessened; but they will be constrained to suffer several transmigrations, and endure pain and pleasure in this world, until they obtain mukti, or absorption.

The mystic syllable AUM is not less reverenced by the Budhists than the Brahmins; but the latter apply it to their own Trimurti, or Triad of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva; while by the former it is applied to Budha, Dharma, and Sanga, which is the Triad represented by the three gilded images in the Canton temple, described at pages 44, 45, and alluded to in the Chinese books, when they say that "Fo is one person, but has three forms." Their scriptures contain in native characters, which imitate as nearly as possible the Sanscrit sounds, the following invocation to the Triad, Namo Buddhâya, Namo Dharmaya, Namah Sangaya-Om! that is to say, "Adoration to Buddha, adoration to Dharma, adoration to Sanga-AUM!" concluding thus with the mystical monosyllable which represents the three terms united in

* Royal Asiatic Transactions, vol. ii. p. 232.

one sign. The three divinities are called by the Chinese "the three pure, precious, or honourable Fo," concerning whom Rémusat has given the following explanation:"According to the interior doctrine, Buddha, or the Intelligence, produced Dharma, the Law, and the two united constituted Sanga, the Union, or combination of several. According to the public doctrine, these three terms are still the Intelligence, the Law, and the Union; but considered in their external manifestations, the intelligence in the Buddhas to come, the law in the writings revealed, and the union in the multitude of the believers, or the assembly of priests. Hence it arises that the last have, among all the Buddhist nations, the title of Sanga, united, which, being abridged in the Chinese pronunciation, has formed the word Seng, rendered by the missionaries 'bonze,' but which signifies literally, ecclesiastic. Such are the sense and the origin of this well-known word, the etymology of which has not before been investigated."

The same writer has the following observation concerning the goddess Kuân-yin, one of the most important divinities in the Budhist mythology :-" De Guignes (he says), wishing to explain the Chinese names of Poo-sa and Kuân-she-yin, adduces a passage from Kircher, who supposes that the being to whom these names are applied is Nature, and calls her the Cybele of the Chinese. He remarks that she is also called Lotus-eyed, and born of the lotus flower. Kuân-yin, then, he concludes, is the Lakshmi of the Indians. Rémusat, with apparent reason, combats this notion, and gives his own explanation in the following terms:†-The supreme intelligence (Budha) having by his thought (Dharma) produced union or multiplicity (Sanga), from the existence of this Triad arose

* Abel Rémusat, sur la Doctrine Samanéenne, p. 27.
† Observations, p. 51.

five abstractions or intelligences of the first order, that is, Budhas, each of which produced an intelligence of the second order, Bhodisatua.* It is from this name that the Chinese have, by abbreviation, formed that of Poo-sa, common not only to these five secondary intelligences, but to all the souls which have attained the same degree of elevation. Kuân-she-yin, or Kuân-yin, is placed in the first rank; but Padmanetra (Lotus-eyed) is the name of another divinity of the same kind. The Sanscrit name of the former (Kuân-yin) is Padmapâni, who represents, on account of her productive power, the second term of the Triad, and in the exterior doctrine is characterized by several signs of a female divinity. It is certain that no idol in China is more honoured than Kuân-yin.†

In the name of Poo-ta-la, a temple, or rather monastery, described in Lord Macartney's mission, may be recognised the Chinese pronunciation of Budha. This extensive establishment, which was found in Manchow Tartary beyond the Great Wall, is described as a quadrangular structure of considerable height, each of its sides. measuring two hundred feet, and the whole building. affording shelter to no less than eight hundred priests or lamas. In the square court or quadrangle within is a gilded chapel, with representations of the Triad, and the whole description assimilates it, though on the largest scale, to the monasteries in Nipal, as they are described by Mr. Hodgson. "The vihar is built round a large

*Poo-te-să-to, an Indian word introduced with the Budha sect; now, according to the genius of the Chinese language, contracted to Poosa."-Morrison's Chinese Dictionary, part ii. p. 682.

+ M. Rémusat observes very truly that Chinese Budhism can only be duly investigated by comparing the Chinese versions with the Sanscrit texts, and thus combining two departments of learning which have not as yet been united in the same person.

Staunton, vol. ii. p. 258.