MOUNT OMEI AND CHOU KUNG SHAN
There are vague traditions that Mount Omei was a centre of primitive nature-worship long before the days of Buddhism. There is a passage in the Shu Ching from which we learn that the semi-mythical emperor YÜ (about the twenty-third century B.C.), after the completion of some of the famous drainage and irrigation works with which his name is associated, offered sacrifices on (or to) certain hills named Ts'ai and MÊng. It is a disputed point among the commentators where these hills are. MÊng is said to be one of the mountains that overlook Ya-chou, and we shall see in Chapter VIII. that one of those mountains is still the resort of pilgrims. As to Ts'ai, one commentator at least has inclined to the opinion that it must be looked for in the Omei range (see Legge's Chinese Classics, vol. iii. part i. p. 121). If this identification be correct, we must regard the brief notice in the Shu Ching as the oldest reference in extant literature to Mount Omei. The student of Chinese who wishes to pursue further the vexed question of MÊng and Ts'ai will find a discussion of it in the 16th chÜan of the Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih. The probability seems to be that both MÊng and Ts'ai were close to Ya-chou, and that neither of them should be identified with Omei. MÊng seems to be one of the hills that lie to the south of the city; Ts'ai may or may not be the somewhat famous mountain generally known as Chou Kung Shan, or the Hill of Duke Chou, which is situated a couple of miles to the east. Chou Kung, who is said to have died in B.C. 1105, is perhaps chiefly known to Europeans as the legendary inventor of the famous "south-pointing chariot," but he is regarded by the Chinese as a pattern of many virtues. His zeal for the public good was so great that he seems—if we may believe Mencius—to have anticipated the all-night sittings of the House of Commons. His merits indeed were of so extraordinary a nature that, as we know from the Lun YÜ, Confucius regarded it as a sign of his approaching dotage that for a long time he had ceased to dream of Chou Kung.
Other people besides Confucius were in the habit of dreaming of this great and good man. The hill near Ya-chou, according to a story preserved in the official annals of Ssuch'uan, owes its name to a dream-vision that came to the famous Chinese general, Chu-ko Liang. This distinguished warrior flourished in the second and third centuries of our era. He made his name by his successful campaigns against the Wild Men of the West—the Man-tzu and others—and on one occasion when he was proceeding at the head of his army to inflict chastisement upon them he spent a night on the slopes of the Ya-chou Hill and dreamed that Chou Kung paid him a visit. He regarded this as of such happy omen for the success of his expedition that he immediately caused a temple to Chou Kung to be erected on the auspicious spot. Since that time, the hill—which may or may not have been already sacred, under the name of Ts'ai, to the memory of the Emperor YÜ—has always been known as Chou Kung Shan. The fame of the general Chu-ko Liang has almost rivalled that of Chou Kung himself. This "darling hero of the Chinese people," as Professor Giles calls him, has had temples erected in his honour in many towns of Ssuch'uan, and he is a well-known and popular figure on the Chinese theatrical stage.
BODHIDARMA
Bodhidarma (????) is the original of the Ta Mo so often found in Ssuch'uanese temples. Catholic missionaries, struck by the sound of the name and the fact that Ta-Mo is sometimes found wearing an ornament shaped like a Christian cross, have clung to the idea that Ta-Mo was no other than the Apostle St Thomas. (See Croix et Swastika, by Father Gaillard, pp. 80 seq.) Bodhidarma is regarded as the founder of the Zen sect in Japan. Japanese children know him well, for he is a conspicuous object in the toy-shops in the form of the legless Daruma. (See Lafcadio Hearn's charming essay in A Japanese Miscellany.)
"GODS" IN BUDDHISM
NIRVANA
On this subject may be consulted the passage on the "Eel-wrigglers" in the Brahma-gÂla Suttanta, translated by Rhys Davids in the Sacred Books of the Buddhists, vol. ii. Buddhism refrains from denying, rather than distinctly affirms, the existence of the Brahmanical gods; but these gods, if existent, are regarded as neither omnipotent nor immortal. They are subject to the law of karma just as man himself is subject. The Arahat is greater than any "god" because released from all change and illusion, to which the "gods" are still subject. (See Rhys Davids, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 210 seq., 4th edn.) The abolition or retention of the Brahmanical deities would really make little or no difference to the philosophical position of canonical Buddhism.
NIRVANA
The view of Nirvana set forth in the text is that taught by Professor Rhys Davids, the veteran scholar to whom all European students of Buddhism owe so deep a debt of gratitude. (See his Buddhism, Hibbert Lectures, American Lectures, and his valuable contributions to the Sacred Books of the East. With regard to Nirvana, see especially his Questions of King Milinda, vol. i. pp. 106-108 and vol. ii. pp. 181 seq.) As regards the tanha or "thirst" for existence, which according to the Buddhist theory keeps us in the net of illusion and prevents the attainment of Nirvana, Huxley (Evolution and Ethics) mentions as a curious fact that a parallel may be found in the aviditas vitae of Stoicism.
The Japanese views of Nirvana are set forth clearly and authoritatively in Fujishima's Le Bouddhisme Japonais. "Selon les Écoles du MahÂyÂna, ce qui est vide au dedans et au dehors c'est l'existence composÉe et visible (samkrita): l'anÉantissement de ce vide n'est donc pas lui-mÊme le vide, mais plutÔt la plÉnitude." The author goes on to quote from a sutra which declares that "illusion passes away; reality remains; that is Nirvana." To an English reader this naturally recalls some of Shelley's lines in Adonais, too well known to quote. Japanese Buddhism has, of course, developed somewhat on lines of its own. The popular Buddhism of Japan is portrayed with rare insight by Lafcadio Hearn, as in his Gleanings from Buddha-Fields, pp. 211 seq.
Among recent attempts to escape from the pessimistic conclusion that, according to strict Buddhism, Arahatship must lead after all to complete extinction, Schrader's interesting essay in the Journal of the Pali Text Society, 1904-1905, is worth consulting. The question is one of deep philosophic interest, but a discussion of it cannot be attempted in the narrow space at our disposal here.
THE MAHAYANA
For explanations of the rise of the Mahayana, see (among many other authorities) Max Muller's India, p. 87 (1905 edn.) and his Last Essays (First Series) pp. 260 seq. (Longmans: 1901); see also p. 376 in R. Sewell's essay on Early Buddhist Symbolism (J.R.A.S., July, 1886). For the growth of the Mahayana and kindred schools in China, the works of Beal, Edkins, Eitel and Watters are among the first that should be consulted. There is still a great deal that is mysterious in the early history of Mahayana and allied systems, and it is reasonable to hope that the discoveries recently made, and still being made almost daily by Stein and others in Chinese Turkestan and neighbouring regions, will throw a flood of light on the whole subject, and perhaps destroy many existing theories regarding the history of Buddhism during the ten or twelve first centuries of the Christian era.
ANTIQUITIES OF MOUNT OMEI
As Baber's discovery of the chÜan tien or spiral-shaped brick hall and the bronze elephant which it contains aroused very natural enthusiasm among persons interested in Far Eastern antiquities, and is still repeatedly referred to in connection with Chinese archÆology, it is with hesitation that I suggest a doubt as to whether either the building or the elephant is as old as Baber—and others after him—have supposed. (See Supplementary Papers, R.G.S., vol. i. pp. 34-36, and Archibald Little's Mount Omi and Beyond, pp. 64-5.)
In the 41st chÜan of the Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih there are two passages relating to the Wan-nien Ssu, and one of them Baber apparently overlooked. It was written about 1665 in commemoration of a restoration of the Wan-nien and Kuang Hsiang monasteries under the auspices of a Provincial Governor. In it occur some remarks of which the following is a rough translation. "From the T'ang to the Sung dynasties the name of the monastery was Pai Shui P'u Hsien Ssu. In the time of Wan Li of the Ming, its name was changed to ShÊng-shou Wan-nien Ssu. As originally built (yÜan chien) it contained a tsang ching ko (i.e. a library) consisting of a revolving (circular?) spiral structure of brick, strongly built, of exceptionally delicate workmanship, very lofty and imposing, and of a beauty unsurpassed in the world." Now the existing tien is a most curious building of a foreign (probably Indian) type, but to describe it as lofty and imposing and of delicate and elaborate workmanship would be to spin a traveller's yarn of the baser sort. How, without impugning the good faith of the chronicler, can we reconcile such a glowing description with existing facts?
MOUNT OMEI
When we learn from the local records that the Wan-nien Ssu has been several times destroyed by fire, the obvious supposition is that the original splendid structure described in my quotation perished with the rest of the monastic pile. Baber himself points out that the tusks of the elephant inside the tien are of late date, the old ones having been "melted off," he was told, "by the intense heat." It seems natural to suppose that when the rebuilding of the monastery took place (and it was rebuilt, as we know, late in the sixteenth or early in the seventeenth century, and again about 1665) the monks had neither funds nor skill sufficient to enable them to restore the chÜan tien to its pristine magnificence, and contented themselves with putting up a much smaller and meaner building, preserving as far as possible the original peculiarities of design.
This, however, is mere supposition. I now return to our Chinese authorities, and in the 9th chÜan of the Omei-hsien Chih I find an allusion to the Wan-nien Ssu by one Li Hua Nan (???), an official who apparently flourished in the seventeenth century. He states most emphatically that the monastery was restored or rebuilt in both the Sung and the Ming periods, but had undergone such complete destruction by fire that nothing was left except a chÜan tien belonging to the period of Wan Li. Wan Li was the reign-title of a Ming emperor who reigned from 1573 to 1619. That the chÜan tien was carefully and thoroughly restored under Wan Li is admitted by the authority quoted by Baber himself: the only question seems to be whether the restoration left enough of the original building to justify our regarding it as a veritable monument "fifteen centuries old"—as Baber conjectured—or whether, as the evidence seems to indicate, the restoration was such that we have only a small and inferior copy of "a lofty and imposing building, of a beauty unsurpassed in the world."
No one, so far as I know, has yet drawn attention to the fact that the spiral building of the Wan-nien Ssu is not—or was not—the only building of its kind on Mount Omei. Among the few monasteries on the lower slopes of the mountain which I did not enter is the Hua Yen Ssu (not to be confused with the temple of the Hua Yen Ting mentioned on page 91). It was not till after I had left the province that I came across a description of this monastery, which made me much regret that I had not visited it. I translate the following passage from the Omei-Shan Chih (quoted in the 41st chÜan of the T'ung Chih): "There is a very ancient and wonderful revolving (circular?) spiral building (???????), and a tablet of the Shao Hsing period of the Sung dynasty, on the left side of which are carved the words '15 li to Omei-hsien' and on the right the words '70 li to the summit of the mountain.'" The words used to describe the shape of the "revolving spiral" building are identical—so far as they go—with those applied to the brick edifice in the Wan-nien Ssu: and the whole passage certainly implies that, whatever the date of the spiral building in the Hua Yen Ssu might be, it was at any rate prior to the Sung dynasty. The next visitor to Mount Omei should not fail to examine the curiosities of the Hua Yen Ssu; a close inspection of its spiral building—if it still exists—and a comparison of it with that of the Wan-nien Ssu might assist us in assigning a date to the latter, and might perhaps prove that however old the latter may be it is not without a rival in mere antiquity.
So much for the brick building. What is to be said about the bronze elephant that Baber so properly admired, and which he believed to be "the most ancient bronze casting of any great size in existence"?
Li Hua Nan, the writer who ascribes the chÜan tien to the Wan Li period, goes on to add a piece of information which is much to our purpose. "There is a P'u Hsien 1 chang 6 ch'ih in height, with a gilded body, riding a bronze elephant, set up in the JÊn Tsung period of the Sung dynasty." The sentence is somewhat ambiguous, for the date might refer to the image of P'u Hsien only and not to the elephant. Baber believed, on artistic grounds, that the P'u Hsien was of much later date than the elephant. On the whole, however, it seems probable that Li Hua Nan referred to both images. The JÊn Tsung reign lasted from 1023 to 1063, so that if we select the middle of the period we may assign the elephant approximately to the year 1043. This cuts many centuries off the age of the elephant as reckoned by Baber.
There is no reason for doubting whether so fine a bronze casting of an animal unknown to China could have been made as late as the eleventh century. There were still Buddhists in India at that time, and Chinese pilgrims had not yet given up the habit of visiting India in search of relics and pei to yeh (palm-leaf manuscripts). Indian Buddhists, too, frequently came to Mount Omei. There is, indeed, no necessity for mere guesswork, for the monastic and provincial records contain ample evidence that the casting of large bronzes for Buddhist shrines was, during the Sung period at least, a regular industry in the city of Ch'Êng-tu.
BUDDHA'S TEETH
The numerous miniature "Buddhas" that line the walls of the present chÜan tien have attracted the attention of several European visitors, and perhaps deserve a few words of comment. Some are the property of pilgrims who leave them in the holy building in order that they may acquire sanctity, but the greater number are evidently antique and seem to be of uniform pattern. Baber was informed that they were of silver—darkened with age and the smoke of incense. Mr Archibald Little says they are of bronze. I made my own enquiries on the matter and was assured by the monks that they were of iron. Where did they come from? I conjecture that they are the images that once adorned a vanished hall of the Wan-nien Ssu, known as the San Ch'ien T'ieh Fo Tien—Pavilion of the Three Thousand Iron Buddhas. I cannot find any history of this building, but from a poem by Ku Kuang HsÜ, a Ssuch'uan chief justice of the Ming dynasty, I gather that it was remembered but had disappeared by his time. It existed in the Sung dynasty, for it is mentioned by one Fan Ch'Êng Ta (???) who visited it during that period. The number of the images is easily explained as an allusion to the three thousand disciples who are said to have sat at the feet of P'u Hsien in the days when, according to the legend, that great Bodhisattva expounded the Good Law amid the forests of Mount Omei.
"BUDDHA'S TEETH"
The most famous of the supposed teeth of Buddha is, of course, the celebrated relic preserved in Kandy. The Buddhists of Ceylon will have none of the story that the original tooth was ground into powder by a pious Portuguese archbishop of the sixteenth century, and they firmly believe that the genuine relic still reposes in Kandy at the Malagawa Vihara. China possesses, or is supposed to possess, several of the alleged Buddha's teeth, but they seem to have acquired no more than a local reputation. One—similar in appearance to that of Mount Omei—is described by Fortune as being in possession of a monastery at Fu-chou. A writer in the Fan Ju Tzu Chi (????), commenting upon the specimen in the Wan-nien Ssu, remarks that it weighs 15 catties, equivalent to about 20 lbs. He says that in the Ching Yin (???) in Ch'Êng-tu there is one that weighs 3-1/3 lbs., and another in the Chao Chiao Ssu (???) in the same city that weighs 9-1/2 lbs. He goes on to describe a far more remarkable specimen that had the singular property of producing out of its own substance myriads of other shÊ li or Buddhistic relics, some of which flew off into space while others fell on the floor and knocked against the furniture with a jingling sound. This surprising tooth appeared by special command before the emperor, but we are not informed whether the sÉance was a successful one. Our historian shows something of a tendency to indulge in frivolous speculations regarding the capacity and measurements of the mouth that could accommodate teeth of such monstrous sizes and singular properties, and he points out that according to tradition a true Buddha's tooth is always marked with certain sacred symbols, such as the dharma chakra or Wheel of the Law.
Marco Polo mentions a great embassy sent by the emperor of China to Ceylon in 1284 for the purpose of obtaining certain relics of "our first father Adam," such as his hair and teeth and a dish from which he ate; and he remarks that the ambassadors, besides acquiring the dish, which was of "very beautiful green porphyry," and some of the hair, "also succeeded in getting two of the grinder teeth, which were passing great and thick." It need hardly be said that the monarchs of the YÜan dynasty took a very considerable interest in Buddha, but none at all in "our first father Adam." That they sent embassies to Ceylon for Buddhist relics is probably true, for the fact is mentioned in Chinese Chronicles; but it is impossible to say whether any of the numerous "teeth of Buddha" that have appeared in different localities in China formed part of the relics then brought from Ceylon. (The notes appended to Cordier's edition of Yule's Marco Polo, vol. ii. chap. xv., should be consulted by all interested in the subject of the migrations of Buddhist relics.)
THE K'AI SHAN CH'U TIEN
The name of this monastery shows that it claims to be one of the original religious foundations of Mount Omei. According to tradition it was here that P'u Kung, as related in Chapter VI., was gathering herbs when he came across "in a misty hollow" the tracks of the lily-footed deer that led him to the mountain-top. The monastery is supposed to have been founded in commemoration of the occurrence.
TA SHÊNG SSU OR GREAT VEHICLE MONASTERY
THE HOLY LAMPS
The old name of this monastery was Hua Ch'Êng (??), and the name was chosen by its founder, "a holy monk from the foreign countries of the West," who said that the scenery reminded him of his native country. Tradition says that he built the original hermitage of the bark of trees; hence the additional name Mu-p'i by which the foundation was known for centuries afterwards. One of the stories about this part of the mountain is that two hungry pilgrims were fed with fruit here by a wonderful white monkey.NOTE 10 (p. 102)
"THE GLORY OF BUDDHA"
Several Chinese descriptions of the Fo Kuang will be found in the chronicles of Mount Omei and of Omei-hsien, notably those of Ho Shih HÊng (???) and YÜan Tzu Jang (???). According to the latter, there are more than five colours. He describes the appearance somewhat as follows. The central circle is of jade-green; the outermost circle consists of a layer of pale red, and the successive inner circles are of green, white, purple, yellow and crimson. Each beholder, he says, sees his own shadow in the mist of the central circle.
A crude drawing of the "Glory" may be noticed near the upper left-hand corner of the Chinese plan of Mount Omei, which is reproduced in this book.
"THE HOLY LAMPS"
Among good Chinese descriptions of this phenomenon may be mentioned those of YÜan Tzu Jang (???) of the Ming and Ho Shih HÊng (???) of the present dynasty. Both writers have been mentioned in the preceding note. The former wrote a delightful account of his visit to Mount Omei. It is in a flowing unpedantic style, and it proves that its writer had a keenly observant eye and a great liking for old-world legends combined with a power of working them up into a graceful narrative.
THE HSIEN TSU TIEN, CHUNG FÊNG SSU AND TA O SSU
The Hsien Tsu Tien represents the earliest of the Mount Omei monasteries, and is said to have been built by P'u Kung in the reign of Ming Ti of the Han dynasty after the famous episode of the lily-footed deer. Probably if the searchlight of strict historical enquiry were to be turned on the legends and records of Mount Omei, it would be found that the mountain knew nothing of Buddhism until the third or fourth centuries of our era. It is a significant fact that some of the legends about P'u Kung—the herb-gathering official who followed the deer and first saw the "Glory"—state or imply that he belonged to the Chin period, which did not begin till the year 265. There is more than a likelihood that the historians of such ancient monasteries as the Hsien Tsu Tien and the Wan-nien Ssu deliberately ante-dated their foundation in order to throw back the beginnings of Omei's Buddhistic history to the earliest possible period. It is almost inconceivable that Omei can have become the resort of Buddhist monks during the very reign of the emperor who is credited with the first introduction of Buddhism into China.
According to the monastic chronicles, the earliest name of the monastery we are considering was P'u Kaung Tien, "The Pavilion of Universal Glory." The name was subsequently altered to Kuang Hsiang Ssu (???), and so it was known during the T'ang and Sung periods. In the time of Hung Wu, first emperor of the Ming, it was rebuilt and roofed with iron. Associated with it were four small bronze pagodas, some of the remains of which are still lying on the ground within the precincts of the present Chin Tien (which was apparently first built in the reign of Wan Li of the Ming). A thorough restoration—carried out during a period of three years—took place in the second half of the fifteenth century. At the end of the Ming period it was utterly destroyed—presumably by fire. It was again rebuilt during the reign of K'ang Hsi of the present dynasty under the auspices of a Provincial Governor named Chang (see note 6, paragraph 2), and minor restorations on a smaller scale have taken place more recently.
The Chung FÊng Ssu or Half-way Monastery bears the alternative name of "The Gathering Clouds," an allusion to the fact that here the upward-bound pilgrim enters into the region of mist. It dates from the Chin dynasty (about the third century of our era) and was restored in the Sung and Ming periods.
THE TA HSIANG LING
The Ta O Ssu is an ancient foundation rebuilt in the first year of K'ang Hsi (1662). It is one of the principal religious houses on the mountain, and has a finer site than most of its rivals. An alternative name is Fu Shou An. This name is due to the fact that the words Fu Shou—"Happiness and Longevity"—were carved on a neighbouring rock by a celebrated recluse of the Sung dynasty named Hsi I, known as the Wizard of Omei.
YA-CHOU-FU
The military importance of this city was very great so long as the tribal chiefs and Tibetans had not been reduced to comparative quiescence. The commander-in-chief of the military forces of the province was permanently stationed at this frontier city. (ShÊng Wu Chi, 11th chÜan.)
THE TA HSIANG LING
There is a small unsettled controversy regarding the name of the Ta Hsiang Ling. It is possible that the mountain owes its name not to the legend of P'u Hsien's elephant, but to the famous general Chu-ko Liang (see note 1). Devout Buddhists are bound to hold that the name means "The Great Elephant," and this is the view taken in all Buddhistic accounts of western Ssuch'uan and in the maps issued by the monks of Mount Omei. But other authorities—including the official Topography and the ShÊng Wu Chi (5th chÜan)—give the central character not as ? (hsiang, elephant) but as ? (hsiang, minister of state), thereby changing the mountain's name into "The Great Mountain of the Minister." This minister is none other than Chu-ko Liang, who is said to have crossed the mountain during his western campaigns. The "Small Elephant Pass" in the Chien-ch'ang Valley is similarly metamorphosed into "The Small Mountain of the Minister," and for a like reason. This latter mountain, however, is also known officially as the Nan Shan or South Mountain. (??????????????????: ShÊng Wu Chi, loc. cit.)
This note will throw a light on a passage that occurs in Mr Archibald Little's Mount Omi and Beyond (pp. 204-205) and exonerate Captain Gill from the charge of inaccuracy.
It may be worth mentioning that a neighbouring mountain bears the officially-recognised name of Shih-tzu Shan, or Lion Hill, but the T'ung Chih explicitly states that this is owing to its peculiar shape. There is nothing in the contour of the Ta Hsiang Ling to suggest an elephant.
CH'ING-CH'I-HSIEN
This little town has had a variety of names during its long and chequered history, and it frequently changed hands. Its position was for centuries somewhat analogous to that of Berwick-on-Tweed during the Anglo-Scottish border wars. The T'ung Chih states that it passed into the hands of the Chinese after one of the numerous "pacifications of the West," in the 30th year of Han Wu Ti (111 B.C.), but it was lost to China many times after that. Its present name and status as a magistracy date from the eighth year of Yung ChÊng (1730). This was an epoch in which a series of able Chinese emperors were making determined and, on the whole, successful efforts to reduce the Wild West to obedience.
THE LIU SHA RIVER
The Liu Sha is also known as the Han Shui or Chinese water. It is said to rise in the "Fairy's Cave" (hsien jÊn tung) in the Fei YÜeh range. Thence it flows to the Shih Chien Shan or Trial-of-the-Sword Hill and joins the Chien Shui (??) and thereafter enters the Ta Tu. According to the Huan YÜ Chi (???) an evil miasma arises from this river every winter and spring, causing fever.NOTE 17 (p. 122)
THE FEI YÜEH LING AND HUA-LIN-P'ING
LU TING BRIDGE
This great pass has for centuries been regarded by the Chinese as a very important strategic point in connection with their western wars. During the eighteenth century, when strenuous warfare was being carried on against the Chin Ch'uan chiefs and others, the summit of the pass was permanently held by a Chinese guard, and the village that lies at the mountain's western base—Hua-lin-p'ing—was garrisoned by a considerable body of troops.
THE TA TU RIVER
The Ta Tu (Great Ferry) is said to derive its name from the fact that it was crossed by the ubiquitous Chu-ko Liang. In the neighbourhood of Chia-ting it is commonly known as the T'ung, and above Wa Ssu Kou its two branches are always known as the Great and Small Chin Ch'uan. (ShÊng Wu Chi, 5th chÜan.)
LU TING BRIDGE
The Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih makes the following remark in connection with the suspension bridge at Lu Ting. "Formerly there was no bridge. The waters of the river are swift and turbulent, and boats and oars cannot be used. Travellers used to cross by hanging on to a rope stretched across the river—a dangerous proceeding." (We shall see, when we come to the Yalung, that rope bridges are still in use.) In the fortieth year of K'ang Hsi (1701) it was decided with imperial sanction to construct an iron suspension bridge, not merely for the convenience of travellers to and from Tibet, but also to facilitate the military operations which during the reigns of K'ang Hsi, Yung ChÊng and Ch'ien Lung were carried on with great vigour against the Tibetan tribes. The bridge is accurately described in the Chih and in the Hsi Tsang Tu K'as as being 31 chang 1 ch'ih in length and 9 ch'ih broad, and as possessing 9 chain-cables supporting wooden planks, and side-railings of cast-iron. A chang is 11-3/4 English feet, and a ch'ih about 14-1/10 English inches. The bridge is similar in construction to those that span the Mekong, Salwen and other rivers in Yunnan. They are remarkable examples of Chinese engineering skill, and never fail to astonish European travellers who behold them for the first time.
The completion of the Lu Ting bridge seems to have had a considerable moral effect on the border tribes, for the Chih contains the names of dozens of t'u ssu (tribal chiefs) who immediately afterwards submitted to Chinese overlordship and consented to pay tribute. The more remote chiefs came in later, but most of those in the neighbourhood of the road to Tachienlu and the Ta Tu River hastened to become vassals of China during the five first years of the eighteenth century. The vassalage consisted—and for the most part still consists—merely in the payment of a small annual tribute. But the chiefs of the Greater and the Smaller Chin Ch'uan—the country that includes the valley of the Ta Tu and its branches above Wa Ssu Kou—resisted Chinese encroachments for many years in a most vigorous and courageous manner, and it was not till the reign of Ch'ien Lung, towards the end of the century, that the resistance of the last Chin Ch'uan roitelet was finally quelled—with the usual accompaniments of slaughter and devastation. Even as it was, the Chinese owed their ultimate success more to the assistance rendered them by other tribal chiefs—of whom the Ming ChÊng Ssu or King of Chala was the most important—than to their own military skill. The war is well described—though from an exclusively Chinese standpoint—in the ShÊng Wu Chi (???).
TACHIENLU
The Chinese characters (see Itinerary) used for the name Tachienlu are three separate words signifying strike, arrow, forge. These characters were originally chosen merely to represent the sound of the Tibetan name Tar-rTse-Mto or Dartsendo (derived from the names of the streams that meet there), but Chinese archÆologists contrived to forget this and insisted upon finding an interpretation of the word that would suit the meaning of the three Chinese characters. Accordingly they constructed an ingenious legend to the effect that the famous Chu-ko Liang—always as useful in literary as he used to be in military emergencies—came to Tachienlu in the third century of our era, and ordered his lieutenant, Kuo Ta, to forge arrow-heads there for the imperial army. The actual forge is said to have been in a cave on a hill at a short distance to the north-east of the city. The proof of the absolute truth of this story consists in the incontrovertible fact that the hill in question is called the Kuo Ta hill to this day, and there is a cave in it. The story is further embellished by the statement that when the forge was in use a blue-black ram ran round the hill and frightened away the barbarians (i jÊn) so that the good work could proceed without interruption.
An ancient name of the Tachienlu district is said to have been Mao Niu Kuo—the Land of Yaks.
THE KING OF CHALA
SINO-TIBETAN TRADE
Chinese accounts of Tachienlu as a trading centre may be found in the Hsi Tsang T'u K'ao, the Tachienlu T'ing Chih and the more easily accessible ShÊng Wu Chi. In the fifth volume of the last-named work the town is aptly described as being (from the commercial point of view) the hub of a wheel—the centre at which all the spokes meet.
THE KING OF CHALA
Tachienlu is not a correct name for the state as a whole: it is strictly applicable only to the city. The state may be described as Chala or as Ming ChÊng. Ming ChÊng (??) corresponds with the Chinese title of the king—Ming ChÊng Ssu (???)—which was conferred upon an ancestor no less than five hundred years ago. The meaning of the Chinese words—"bright" and "correct"—are of no consequence. The word "Chala" we have already discussed on page 136.
The king's Chinese rank is that of a hsÜan wei shih ssu (????)—one of the numerous titles invented by the Chinese for their vassal chiefs. This title carries with it the Chinese rank 3b. As a hsÜan wei shih ssu the king of Chala takes precedence of the chiefs of Litang and Batang, his neighbours on the west, both of whom are hsÜan fu shih ssu (????) with Chinese rank 4b. All three take precedence of the ruler of Muli, who is an an fu shih ssu (????), with rank 5b. (For an explanation of these titles and ranks, see Mayers' Chinese Government, 3rd edn., pp. 46-47. The Chinese official hierarchy consists of nine ranks, subdivided into a higher and a lower grade, or a and b.) Special decorations may be and often are conferred upon an individual chief, and these may carry with them the "button" of a superior rank: the button and its privileges, however, are not hereditary. The rank of the chiefs qu Chinese officials does not affect their position qu rulers of native states. The "kings" of Litang, Batang and Muli are within their own borders quite as powerful as the "king" of Chala. The latter, however, holds his kingship by strict hereditary right, whereas the "regalities" of Litang and Batang are not necessarily hereditary, though in practice they may be generally so. The kingship of Muli is hereditary in one family (see Page 215), but as the king is also a lama, and therefore a celibate, the descent can only be collateral.
It must be remembered that there are many other semi-independent kings and chiefs along the borderland of Burma, Tibet, Turkestan and Mongolia. Some are the vassals of China, others the vassals of Tibet, while there are probably some even to-day who pay no tribute and acknowledge no suzerain. Few of these chiefs, however, have the importance and dignity of those mentioned in this note.
The greatest length of the state of Chala, from Rumi-changu on the north, to Lo Jang and Muli on the south, is 1,050 li (say 350 miles); the greatest breadth, from Lu Ting on the east, to the Yalung on the west, 400 li (say 133 miles). Under the king's control are 49 sub-chiefs, including 1 t'u ch'ien hu (???) and 48 t'u pai hu (???). A t'u ch'ien hu nominally presides over 1,000 households, a t'u pai hu over 100. These terms, however, are quite elastic in meaning. The former takes precedence of the latter, but he does not necessarily control a wider territory, or a larger population. The population of the whole state—not including Tachienlu—consists of 6,591 households. (This is the figure given in the Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih, the latest edition of which belongs to the nineteenth century.) The number seems a small one, but a Tibetan household—the members of which are all farm-hands or herdsmen—is generally large, though the average family is so small that the population of Chinese Tibet is probably—apart from Chinese immigration—at the present time stationary. The annual tribute payable to China by the king himself amounts to 161 taels 7 candareens—a sum which, according to our reckoning, amounts to about £25. His 49 sub-chiefs or headmen pay between them a further tribute of about 180 taels 9 mace 2 candareens—equivalent to about £27. The total revenue raised by China out of this large tract of country is, therefore, only slightly over £50 a year. But this amount was assessed at a time when the tael was worth far more than it is worth now, and its purchasing power in the Tibetan states is in any case considerably greater than in the east of China; moreover, the money is not, strictly speaking, a tax, but a mere acknowledgment of China's suzerainty. Ula (see pp. 136-137) is the real tax paid to China by the tributary states of the west, and China exacts it in case of need to the grim uttermost. Over and above the exaction of ula and the payment of tribute the people are, of course, obliged to pay taxes to the king himself. The king's powers in the matter of taxation appear to be unlimited, for the principle of "no taxation without representation" has not yet been accepted as a political axiom in the state of Chala. But the only direct tax consists of a kind of likin, or toll on merchandise in transit; this is ample to defray the cost of administration, and the king's private exchequer is apparently chiefly dependent for its supplies on the revenues of his hereditary property, which are very considerable. The king of Chala succeeds in doing what the kings of England used at one time to get into serious trouble for not doing—he "lives of his own."
The position of the t'u ch'ien hu and t'u pai hu is a peculiar one. Though they are under the jurisdiction of the king, they may be regarded as possessing a certain amount of independence. The Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih states that the king became a vassal of China in the year 1666, but his t'u ch'ien hu did not follow suit till 1700, while the 48 t'u pai hu all "came in" together in 1701 (the fortieth year of K'ang Hsi). The Suzerain Power, however, is careful to differentiate between the great vassals and the little ones: the king of Chala—like others of his rank—receives, in return for his homage, sealed "letters of authority" and a stamped warrant; each t'u pai hu receives only the warrant. All these formalities are of small practical consequence: the Chinese insist upon controlling the high-road to Lhasa, and upon receiving their just dues in the shape of ula service and tribute, but otherwise the kings and t'u pai hu of the western border are just as free as they were before they "tied their heads"—as the Tibetan saying goes—to the emperor of China. It may be worth while adding that the king of Chala is expected to prostrate himself before the imperial throne at Peking once in twelve years. In practice it appears that he does not do so with great regularity. The expenses entailed by such a journey—chiefly in connection with the valuable presents always expected by the Court on such occasions—must be a very severe tax on his majesty's privy purse.
The first appearance of a ruler of Chala in Chinese history may be assigned to the first years of the Ming dynasty, in the second half of the fourteenth century, when the king showed his good-will to his mighty neighbour by assisting the imperial troops in the frontier warfare of those days. In the fifth year of Yung Lo (1407) he received the title of Ming ChÊng Ssu, and in the fifth year of K'ang Hsi (1666) his successor definitely abjured his allegiance to Tibet and became a vassal of China. In 1771 the king—whose name was Chia Mu Ts'an—received official recognition from the emperor for his valuable assistance against the Chin Ch'uan rebels, and received a Peacock's Feather and the "button" of the Second Rank. Twenty years later his successor had a similar honour conferred upon him for like services, and in the fourteenth year of Chia Ch'ing (1809) the king went with a retinue to Peking to do homage to the emperor. Since then the history of the little state has gone through few vicissitudes; but, now that the relations between China and Tibet are going through a process of re-adjustment, it is probable that the new administrative arrangements will tend to the gradual effacement of the powers and privileges of all the Sino-Tibetan kings and chiefs, including the ruler of Chala, and the conversion of their territories into magistracies and prefectures under the direct control of China. Perhaps this is a fitting time, while "the old order changeth, yielding place to new," to put on record some account of systems of government and constitutions that no doubt have in the past fulfilled some useful purposes, but seem destined before long to pass utterly away.
HEIGHTS OF PASSES
With regard to the elevations given in this book it is very necessary to say that those referring to localities between Tachienlu and Li-chiang must be regarded as tentative and provisional only. Future travellers, better equipped with instruments than I was, will doubtless find much to correct. My readings were for the most part dependent on aneroids, which are very untrustworthy at great altitudes. Wherever possible, I have accepted the results of previous travellers, especially those of such accomplished surveyors as Major Davies.
POPULATION OF YALUNG WATERSHED
M. Bonin appears to have had the same experience. He states that in travelling from Chung-tien vi Muli to Tachienlu—a journey of about a month's duration—he did not meet a single Chinese. "All the inhabitants," he says, "belong to the Tibetan race." (Bulletin de la Soc. de GÉog., 1898, p. 393.)
RACE-TYPES OF YALUNG WATERSHED
THE PA-U-RONG T'U PAI HU
These people owe their tall and well-built frames to their non-Tibetan blood. It is probably the "Man-tzu" blood that tells. "The stature of the Tibetans of Lhasa," says Colonel Waddell, "is even less than that of the Chinese, and considerably below the European average; whilst the men from the eastern province of Kham are quite up to that standard." (Lhasa and its Mysteries, p. 347.) Kham or Khams includes or included the greater part of Chinese Tibet.
ATTITUDE OF MULI PEOPLE TOWARDS STRANGERS
M. Bonin states that he had to spend ten days in negotiation before he was allowed, in 1895, to cross into the Muli country. He approached it from the Yunnan side. (Bulletin de la Soc. de GÉog., 1898, p. 396.) Major Davies informs me that he also had difficulty in persuading the people of Muli to allow him to cross the Yalung in the course of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien. It was doubtless owing to the friendliness and tact shown by these travellers and by Mr Amundsen that I met with no opposition on entering the country.
EXPLORATION OF THE TA LIANG SHAN
It is reported that the country of the Independent Lolos (the Ta Liang Shan) has at last been traversed by a European. The successful traveller was a French officer named D'Ollone. (See Geographical Journal, October, 1907, p. 437.) The account of his journey should be awaited with interest.
THE PA-U-RONG T'U PAI HU
The t'u pai hu of Pa-U-Rong (Pa-U-Lung according to the Pekingese sound of the Chinese characters) is to be accounted one of the most important of all the 49 sub-chiefs of the king of Chala, if the amount of tribute paid is the test of importance. His annual tribute is 7 taels, whereas the single t'u ch'ien hu only pays a little more than 9 taels. The highest of all the tributes is that of the t'u pai hu of Rumi Cho-rong, in the northern part of the state. His payment is 12 taels 5 mace. The Pa-U-Rong t'u pai hu nets a modest revenue by causing travellers and merchants who cross the Yalung at this point to pay him a small toll.
NAME OF THE YALUNG
M. Bonin calls the Yalung the RiviÈre Noire, apparently supposing its Tibetan name to be Nag Ch'u (??????) "Black Water." But I know of no authority for this. The true Tibetan name appears to he Nya(g)-ch'u (??????). The nya(g) reappears in the tribal or district name Mi-nya(g) or Miniak (Menia), ??????; and the Chinese "Yalung" is an attempt to pronounce the Tibetan Nya-Rong (???????) or "Valley of the Nya."
THE CHIN SHA CHIANG
MULI—KHON—OFFICIAL TITLES
It may not be generally known that according to the Chinese authorities there are two rivers bearing the name of Chin Sha Chiang. One is the Ta (Great), the other the Hsiao (Small) Chin Sha Chiang, and the "small" one is the Yangtse. In a first attempt to identify the Ta Chin Sha Chiang—which must obviously be a very great river—we are apt to be much puzzled; for we read of it as flowing from western Tibet and also as flowing through Burma into the "Southern Ocean." But the mystery is explained when we remember that the great river of southern Tibet—the Tsangpo or Yaru Tsangpo (literally "Upper River")—used to be believed not only by Chinese but also by European geographers to be the main feeder of the Irrawaddy. We now know that the Tsangpo is no other than the main upper branch of the Brahmaputra: or rather we assume it from much circumstantial evidence. No European has yet followed the course of the Brahmaputra up to the point where it receives the icy waters of the Tibetan Tsangpo—which hurls itself over the edge of the Tibetan plateau and creates there a series of waterfalls that must be among the grandest sights in the world—but we now know, from the reports of our native surveyors, the approximate position of the falls.414 The country between Assam and Tibet is unfortunately inhabited by tribes that are apparently violently hostile to all strangers. Their own domestic habits are of a somewhat repellent nature: it is said,415 for instance, that on occasions of the celebration of marriages it is the genial custom of one of the tribes to serve up the bridegroom's mother-in-law at the nuptial banquet.
The Chinese geographers know the Tsangpo by its Tibetan name (calling it the Ya-lu-tsang-pu-chiang, where chiang is tautological) but they also call it the Great (Ta) Chin Sha Chiang; and readers of their topographical works must beware of confusing this river with the Small (Hsiao) Chin Sha Chiang of China: though when the adjective is omitted the river referred to is always the Chinese river, and therefore identical with the Yangtse.
MULI
I have adopted the spelling "Muli" instead of "Mili" on the authority of the Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih. The Chinese characters there given are ??, (Mu-li), and though I have seen others used I think there can be no doubt that the T'ung Chih is the best authority to follow.
KHON
The name of the third lamasery was given to me as Khon, but I observe that Mr Amundsen calls it Kang-u, and locates it half-way between Muli and the Yalung, almost due east. Major Davies's map, again, places a lamasery named K'u-lu at almost the same spot. K'u-lu, Khon and Kang-u are probably one and the same place, and as Major Davies's route seems to have led him past it the name given by him is probably the correct one. It seems strange that the residences of the k'an-po should all be within a comparatively short distance of each other. If the real object of the periodical movements of the "Court" were to enable the k'an-po to keep in close touch with all parts of his territory, it would naturally extend its peregrinations somewhat further afield.
OFFICIAL TITLES IN MULI
Most of these official titles are well known in connection with the administrative arrangements of all the great lamaseries of Tibet; but the authority of the Muli officials is not confined to the management of lamaseries.
THE KING AND PEOPLE OF MULI
The ruler of Muli holds the rank, vis-À-vis the Chinese suzerain, of an An Fu Ssu (see note 22). In his own territory he is a gyal-po or king, but he is also a lama, and the succession must therefore go to a collateral branch of the "royal" family. In practice, the heir is generally a nephew who has been inducted into Lamaism at an early age, and has risen high in the hierarchy. The king of Muli first became tributary to China in the seventh year of Yung ChÊng (1729). He received from the Chinese Government sealed "letters of authority" and a stamped warrant similar to those bestowed on the king of Chala. The greatest length of the territory, from the frontier of the Litang principality on the north to the territory of the Ku Po Chu t'u ssu on the south, is 900 li (say 300 miles); its greatest breadth is from the frontier of Chala on the east to that of Chung-tien on the west, 1,300 li (say 430 miles). These distances, as in the case of Chala, are measured by length of actual paths, and not by bee-lines. Though the Yalung forms the eastern boundary at Pa-U-Rong, the Muli territory extends for a distance of some scores of miles across the Yalung further south. According to the Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih (published in the first half of the nineteenth century) the total number of i jÊn ("barbarians") under the king's rule comprises 3,283 households. This figure hardly enables us to assess the present population, which—if we include the large body of lamas—can hardly be judged to be less than 25,000. It should be remembered that there are no towns in Muli, very little trade, and great areas of mountainous country practically uninhabitable. The king's annual tribute consists of 120 piculs of buckwheat (16,000 lbs.) estimated in cash value at 74 taels 4 mace and 3 horses, each valued at 8 taels, or a total of 24 taels for the three. The total tribute thus amounts (in money-value) to 98 taels 4 mace. These assessments of value were, of course, made many years ago. Probably re-assessments are made from time to time, as otherwise the monetary values would bear no proper ratio to the value of the articles forming the basis of the tribute. Payment is made at Yen-yÜan-hsien, and is supposed to be applied to the expenses of the local military establishment. It is the custom of the country that one out of every three, or two out of every five, male members of a family enter the priesthood. All the lay population can be called upon for military service; but it is hardly necessary to say that the king keeps no standing army, and his people are only called to arms when serious disputes arise with the neighbouring Tibetan chiefs. The T'ung Chih goes on to say that the people of the land of Muli consist of six different kinds of Barbarians: (1) lamas; (2) Chia-mi or Chieh-mi (??); (3) YÜeh-ku or Yo-ku (??); (4) HsÜ-mi (??); (5) Mo-so; (6) Hsi Fan. The lamas, of course, are not a distinct race; the Mo-so and Hsi Fan are discussed in Chapter XV. of this book; as for the three others, the remarks made upon them in the T'ung Chih leave us very much in the dark. The characteristics of the i jÊn are dismissed in four lines. We are told that the Chia-mi and YÜeh-ku are very like one another, and that the women allow their hair to hang over their shoulders. The HsÜ-mi males cultivate a queue, and the women do up their hair into a pointed coiffure. They are docile, and of an amiable disposition. The Mo-so and Hsi Fan are like each other, and honest and tractable by nature. Their clothes are made of woven cloth, and their coats button under the left arm (tso jÊn; cf. the Confucian Lun YÜ, p. 282, Legge's edn.) The men wear queues and the women do up their hair. They live by agriculture. They are fond of hunting wild animals. This is all the T'ung Chih has to tell us about the people of Muli. The section ends with the laconic remark that lawsuits are decided by the k'an-po.
THE LANGUAGE-TEST OF RACE
Chinese customs certainly seem to be losing rather than gaining ground in Muli: the queues worn by some of the men do not hang down the back but are coiled round the head; and it is not a mark of respect, as in China, to uncoil the queue. Moreover the front of the head is not shaved, as in China. The remarks about the women are true enough: a large proportion wear their hair loose, so that they look like rather overgrown and unwieldy school-girls; the rest have more or less elaborate coiffures, but the female fashions of China in this respect are totally ignored. I will leave the task of identifying the Chia-mi, YÜeh-ku and HsÜ-mi to some future investigator with more time and leisure than fell to my lot. Tibetans, Li-so, Man-tzu or Lolos, Kachins and Mo-so are all doubtless to be found among the people of Muli, and it seems not improbable that the predominant type is Mo-so.
THE LANGUAGE-TEST OF RACE
The collection of hastily-compiled and doubtless very inaccurate vocabularies to be found in Appendix A need not be taken as indicating any belief in the value of such lists of words from either the philological or the ethnological point of view. They are given merely for what they are worth, as an infinitesimal addition to the small stock of general knowledge that we already possess with regard to the tribes of western China. The old faith in language as a sure test of race has long been given up. A page or two of skull measurements would help us more towards settling the racial problems of western China than the completest equipment of grammars and dictionaries. Unfortunately the methods employed by many of the tribes for the disposal of their dead will seriously hamper the investigations of the craniologist who, in the hopes of a rich harvest of inexorable bones, may take his measuring-tape to the graveyards of western China.
HIGHEST HABITATION ON THE GLOBE
The land of Muli is as wild and mountainous as that of Chala. It was between Muli and the Yalung that M. Bonin discovered what he believes to be the highest inhabited station on the globe, at a height of 16,568 feet, "a hamlet occupied in the dead of winter by a few yak-herdsmen." The mines of Tok-ya-long in western Tibet, he says, which have hitherto been considered the highest habitation in the world are 525 feet lower, and moreover are not inhabited all the year round. There are other spots both in Muli and Chala, probably of a greater height than 16,000 feet, that are inhabited, though the huts are probably not occupied in winter.
FEMALE CHIEFS
In the Shan States female rulers are apparently not uncommon. (See Gazetteer of Upper Burma, pt. i. vol. i. p. 262.) For an interesting note on several Tibetan "queens" (derived from native and Chinese sources) see Rockhill's Land of the Lamas, pp. 339-341. Sa-mong is better known as So-mo. A recent European visitor to this country says that the "queen" or nÜ-wang of So-mo is only a myth, "the real monarch being actually a man, who for some obscure reason calls himself a Queen." (W. C. Haines Watson, A Journey to Sung-p'an, in J.R.A.S. (China), vol. xxxvi., 1905.) The Ssuch'uan T'ung Chih contains references to several female t'u ssu. A female t'u pai hu, with a territorial name of six syllables, is mentioned as becoming tributary to China in K'ang Hsi 60. She paid 20 taels annually as "horse-money." The Ch'ang Kuan Ssu of Sung Kang is—or may be—a woman. One is mentioned as receiving honours from China in K'ang Hsi 23. Another female ch'ang kuan ssu in the Chien-ch'ang Valley (Hu-li-ho-tung) is described as being a tribute-payer to the extent of ten horses a year.
LI-CHIANG-FU
An old name of Li-chiang was Sui (?), and its inhabitants, in the days of the Early Han dynasty, appear to have been known as the K'un Ming (??). Their fierceness and lawlessness were instrumental in preventing the Emperor Wu Ti, in the second century B.C., from establishing a trade route from China to India through their territory. (See T. W. Kingsmill's Intercourse of China with Eastern Turkestan, J.R.A.S., January 1882.)
THE REBELLION IN YUNNAN
The best account of the Mohammedan rebellion is to be found in M. Émile Rocher's La Province Chinoise du Yunnan, vol. ii. pp. 30-192. The origin of the rebellion is to be traced to a comparatively trifling dispute among miners, which took place in 1855 in a mining centre situated between Yunnan-fu and Tali-fu. The Mohammedan section of miners, who all worked together, aroused envy and hatred because they had struck richer veins of metal than the "orthodox" Chinese miners in a neighbouring locality, and the result was a violent dispute which ended in blows. The official who was responsible for good order in the district was seized with panic and fled to Yunnan-fu, where he submitted reports that were unjustifiably hostile to the Mohammedans. The latter meanwhile had rendered themselves masters of the situation, and drove their opponents off the field. The people of the neighbouring town of Linan avenged this insult by attacking the Mohammedans in overwhelming force and expelling them to the forests. This was the beginning of a series of bloodthirsty combats, which in a short time set the whole province in a blaze, and caused the loss of millions of human lives.
So far as race went, the Mohammedans of Yunnan were no other than ordinary Yunnanese. They were marked off from their fellow-provincials solely by their religion. This, however, was sufficient to cause them to be treated almost as foreigners, for they had little intercourse with orthodox Chinese, and seem to have intermarried among themselves. Whether the Mohammedans of Yunnan and other parts of China were—and are—strict observers of the rules of their religion is a doubtful point. Rocher says of the Yunnanese Mohammedans that "they have preserved intact the beliefs of their ancestors, and they rigorously observe the rules imposed upon them by the Koran." Other observers, however,—including Mohammedan natives of India—have scoffed at their co-religionists of Yunnan, declaring that they know nothing of the tenets of Islam, and obey none of the rules of their faith except that of abstinence from pork. I have myself seen Chinese Mohammedan children undergoing the pains of having page after page of Arabic drilled into their little heads, though both they and their teachers admitted that they did not understand the meaning of a single word. The fact remains, however, that some Chinese Mohammedans do still occasionally make the pilgrimage to Mecca; and well-attended Mohammedan mosques may yet be found in at least half the provinces of China.
Chinese Mohammedans have often proved a thorn in the flesh of the official classes, not only in Yunnan, but also in Kansu and elsewhere. Yet it cannot be said that they have shown much of that fiery religious fanaticism which has sometimes characterised Islam elsewhere. The great rebellion in Yunnan did not originate in any religious dispute, and it would never have developed into a war that lasted nearly twenty years and laid waste a province, if only a few able and impartial officials had given their attention to the matter in its early stages.
Two circumstances helped to prolong the struggle. The first was the great T'ai P'ing rebellion in eastern China, which rendered the central Government powerless to deal effectually with the situation in Yunnan; the second was the military skill of the Mohammedan leaders, which led to the concentration of the whole Mohammedan strength in the hands of a few able men.
OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF WESTERN TRIBES
The history of the war cannot be sketched here. It may be sufficient to say that at one time nearly the whole province was in the hands of the Mohammedan rebels; even Yunnan-fu itself capitulated to their victorious arms. Before this took place, the great Mohammedan leader, Tu WÊn-hsiu, had already greatly distinguished himself in the west of the province. Against the will of the viceroy, who committed suicide, the officials had in 1856 planned and carried out a massacre of all Mohammedans found within a radius of 800 li from the capital. The news of the massacre naturally roused in Tu WÊn-hsiu intense feelings of indignation and hatred against the provincial Government which had sanctioned an act of such hideous barbarity, and his natural abilities and high reputation for courage and integrity soon singled him out for leadership. His first great victory secured him the city of Tali, which became the Mohammedan headquarters. In 1867 he was proclaimed Imam or Sultan, and Tali became the capital of a short-lived Mohammedan state. It was held till 1873, when Tu WÊn-hsiu, faced by hopeless odds, surrendered it and poisoned himself. Before this time the genius of General Gordon had put an end to the T'ai P'ing rebellion, and the imperial Government was in a position to oppose the Sultan with an overwhelming force. Only one result was possible. With the capitulation of Tali and the death of Tu WÊn-hsiu the Mohammedans were able to make no further headway against the imperial troops.
One of the most terrible results of this hideous civil war was the recrudescence of the deadly disease now too well known to us all as the plague. After the war the pestilence gradually spread far beyond the limits of the province, and is still the annual scourge of south China and India. It is probable, however, that plague has for many centuries been endemic in the valleys of western Yunnan. The accounts given of it by such writers as Rocher and Baber, who witnessed its ravages in Yunnan long before the fatal year when it was first observed in Hong Kong (1894), are of great interest. The curious fact that rats always seemed to be attacked before human beings was noted by Rocher many years before the disease began to be studied by medical experts. (See Rocher, op. cit., vol. i. p. 75; vol. ii. pp. 279-281.)
CHINESE OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF WESTERN TRIBES
Several volumes of the official Provincial Annals of Yunnan are devoted to a most elaborate quasi-ethnological enquiry into the various tribal communities of that province. Unfortunately, the conscientious industry of the compilers coupled with their bland credulity and lack of critical training led them to fill their pages with a great deal of matter that is useless and misleading. The numbers and names of the tribes are quite unnecessarily multiplied, and there is hardly any attempt at classification or at the tracing of origins. Subdivisions of the same race are treated as entirely separate, and any similarities between them are either ignored or merely mentioned as unexplained facts. Yet it must be admitted that as descriptions of tribal customs and as store-houses of tradition and folk-lore the ethnological sections of the Annals are by no means to be despised. The T'ung Chih of Ssuch'uan is less satisfactory in this respect than that of Yunnan.NOTE 41 (p. 284)
THEORY OF INDIAN ORIGIN OF TRIBES
It seems quite clear that the Licchavis—or the great Vaggian or Vrijian clan-system to which they belonged and from which the Mauryans sprang—were neither Aryans nor Dravidians. In all probability they were of Kolarian or Munda race. The Kolarians seem to have entered India from the north-east—just as the Aryans afterwards entered it from the north-west—and extended themselves over vast areas from which they were subsequently driven by Dravidians and Aryans. They must have originally come from the countries that lay to the east, which we now know as Burma, China and Indo-China. They probably left many of their Kolarian kinsfolk behind them, and it may have been through keeping up communications with the latter that they were able to introduce into their old homes something of the new culture and civilisation that they acquired in their new homes in India. The Kolarian dialects are known to be akin to those of certain tribes in Burma, and so far as personal characteristics are concerned a description of the Kolarian tribes as they are known to-day in parts of Bengal would be applicable, word for word, to some of the peoples of Indo-China and Yunnan. "The Kolarian people," says Mr J. F. Hewitt, who lived among them, "may generally be described as gregarious, excitable, turbulent when roused, but generally peaceable and good-humoured. They are brave and adventurous, witty, and very fond of amusement, not given to work more than is necessary, and as a rule very careless of the future." (J.R.A.S., vol. xx. p. 330.) It must be remembered, however, that the Burmese people, to whom these words are also applicable, are now believed by the best authorities to have come from "the Mongolian countries north of Magadha." (Sir George Scott's Burma, p. 66.)
Many of the tribes of western China—some of the Lolos and Min-chia, for instance—are often described as possessing a type of features that is almost European; and Mr Kingsmill seems to derive from this fact some support of his theory of their Indian (Aryan) origin. "The distinctive colouring," he says, "closely approximates to the Aryan type of the Indian peninsula," etc. (J.R.A.S. (China Branch), vol. xxxv. p. 95.) But the Mauryans themselves, as we have seen, were not of Aryan origin. The Licchavis are referred to in Manu as one of the "base-born" castes for that very reason—in spite of the fact that they possessed great power and prestige and very wide influence. It seems very doubtful whether an Aryan emigration from India to China took place at any time. India always offered full scope for all Aryan energies; indeed we know that the Aryans by no means became so universally predominant, even in India, as one might gather from the early and wide extension of their language and religion. If there really is an Aryan element among the tribes of western China it would be curious to speculate on the possibility of its having come by a non-Indian route.
CHANDRAGUPTA AND ASOKA
Chandragupta's reign probably began in 320 B.C., and his grandson Asoka ruled from ? 264 to ? 228. The chronology is not yet absolutely fixed, but I rely with some confidence on the dates recently selected by J. F. Fleet (J.R.A.S., October 1906, pp. 984 seq.) who, it may be remarked incidentally, assigns the death of the Buddha to B.C. 482.
VESÂLI AND THE LICCHAVIS
For further information regarding VesÂli and the Licchavis see W. W. Rockhill's Life of the Buddha, pp. 62 seq., and 203 (footnote), Dr Rhys Davids' Buddhist India, pp. 40-41, and two articles by Mr Vincent Smith in the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal for April 1902 and January 1905. One of Mr Rockhill's Tibetan authorities connects the Licchavis with the Sakyas or Çakyas to whom the Buddha himself belonged. "The Çakyas," says this authority, were "divided into three parts, whose most celebrated representatives were Çakya the Great (the Buddha), Çakya the Licchavi, and Çakya the Mountaineer. Grya Khri btsan po, the first Tibetan King, belonged to the family of Çakya the Licchavi. Many other Buddhist sovereigns of India and elsewhere claimed the same descent." This note is of interest as showing the wide extent and long duration of Licchavi influence, and the desire of powerful races and kings to trace a connection with the family of the Buddha. "Çakya, the Licchavi" may, of course, have become a member of the clan by adoption. Caste-rules (even supposing they precluded adoption) did not hold good among the Licchavis, who were not Aryans. With respect to the possible connection of the Buddha's family with the Licchavis, all that can be said for certain is that the Licchavis were among the earliest and most devoted supporters of the Buddhist faith, and that VesÂli soon became a city of great religious importance. Buddhism, indeed, was less of an Aryan religion than people have been in the habit of supposing. The Sakyas themselves were almost certainly an Aryan people; we know that their exclusiveness and intense pride of birth brought about the destruction of their capital at the hands of Vidudabha. But it seems quite clear that Buddhism progressed most rapidly and won its greatest victories among people of non-Aryan race, and this not only in foreign lands but in India itself. Buddhism did not achieve its wonderful successes in India in the third century B.C. and afterwards by means of the conversion of Brahmans. It is far truer to say that Buddhism spread on account of its adoption by northern non-Aryan tribes which, in spite of Aryan conquests, remained very powerful both in numbers and in political influence. (See on this point B. H. Baden-Powell's Notes on the Origin of the "Lunar" and "Solar" Aryan Tribes, J.R.A.S., April 1899, pp. 298-299.)
THE SERES
The Seres are mentioned by Virgil, Strabo, Lucan, Pliny and Pomponius Mela. Lucan seems to have supposed that they were an African race—neighbours of the Ethiopians. Such ignorance in Nero's age may be excused when we remember the wild theories prevalent in mediÆval Europe as to the local habitation of Prester John!
ARCHÆOLOGICAL WORK
Some valuable work—of special interest to the student of Buddhism—has quite recently been carried out at Pagan by Mr I. H. Marshall and Dr Sten Konow. (See J.R.A.S., October 1907, pp. 1003 seq.) It is earnestly to be hoped that that Government will some day see fit to provide for the proper support of the ArchÆological Department, which cannot be expected to carry out good work at Pagan or elsewhere without funds. Every year's delay will render the work of excavation more difficult and more costly. It is not pleasing to observe that the ArchÆological Departments of India, Burma and Ceylon are all starved. Only a few weeks after the conclusion of the recent Franco-Siamese treaty it was announced in the French press that steps were being taken forthwith to carry out some expensive archÆological and preservative work at the magnificent ruins of Angkor Wat, which are within the Cambodian territory acquired by France under the treaty. Is England always to lag behind France in matters of this kind?
THE BURMESE LABOUR QUESTION
One aspect of the labour question in Burma does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserves. In spite of Mr Fielding Hall's optimism, the belief that the apathetic Burman is being shouldered out of his own country by more hard-working immigrants, especially natives of India, is a very prevalent one, not only among European observers, but even among some classes of the Burmese themselves. At present no Burman dares to raise a protest against the influx of labourers, who, if they do not utterly crush him in the course of the struggle for existence, may at least degrade him from the high level of comfort and social well-being in which he now lives. The day may come when the Burman will demand that this alien immigration be interdicted. If he does so, what will be the attitude of the Government? Probably anything but sympathetic. The White races of Australia, British Columbia and California object to the influx of Chinese and Japanese labourers for reasons practically identical with those that would actuate the Burman, and if their attitude is a justifiable one can it be argued that the Burmese attitude would not be equally so? The Burman would doubtless be told by the European, whose material interests in Burma depend on the unrestricted immigration of hard-working aliens, that his country cannot be allowed to go to waste; that if he, through his laziness, will not develop it to the utmost, some one else must be found who will develop it in his stead. But the Chinese and Japanese might if they were strong enough—and perhaps some day they will be strong enough—knock at the gates of Australia, Canada and the United States, and demand admission on precisely similar grounds. No one will deny that the scarcity and high price of labour in those countries have seriously retarded, and are still retarding, nearly every form of industrial and agricultural development; yet the Yellow races are excluded on the grounds that they would lower the White man's standard of living, and that they are in the habit of sending their earnings out of the country. I do not say the White man's attitude is unreasonable: but I do not see how, on our own principles, we could refuse to restrict the immigration of black aliens into Burma if the Burmese people—on grounds identical with those that actuate our own conduct in Canada and elsewhere—demanded that we should do so. Such action would no doubt be an artificial restriction of natural economic tendencies, and so might bring its own punishment in the long-run; but the same remark applies to the policy adopted in our own colonies.
We have recently become so much accustomed to hear of the antagonism and rivalry of interests between East and West—as if all Eastern countries represented one set of immutable ideals and all Western countries another—that we are apt to lose ourselves in a mist of generalities. The East has problems of its own to solve, some of which reproduce in a more restricted area the racial problems that are beginning at a late hour to agitate the minds of statesmen in Europe and America. The European speaks with half-hearted contempt (behind which lurks a secret dread) of a Yellow Peril: the Burman is disquieted by a no less threatening Black Peril that is already within his gates, and his gates still stand open with a dangerous hospitality.
MILITARY QUALITIES OF ORIENTALS
The British officers who trained and led the recently-disbanded Chinese Regiment are known to have formed a high opinion of the personal courage of the Chinese as represented by the men of that regiment. When it is remembered that the very existence of the regiment as a unit in the British Army was an anomaly, and that at Tientsin and Peking the men fought as mercenaries against their own countrymen, the fact that they behaved well under fire is all the more noteworthy. It may be taken for granted that even the Japanese soldier, if ordered to charge an unruly mob of his own countrymen, would hardly show the brilliant daring that he displayed before Port Arthur.
When Europe was startled by the news of some of the great Japanese victories in Manchuria, an English newspaper made the somewhat hasty suggestion that the Japanese were "scientific fanatics," and the phrase was caught up and repeated with approbation by many. Why fanatics? Simply because the Japanese troops had behaved with such unheard-of heroism that Europe was unable to reconcile such conduct with its own ideas of what constituted bravery. What many Englishmen said, in effect, was this: "The conduct ordinarily shown by British troops in action is bravery; to go beyond this is fanaticism. The criterion of true courage is the average conduct of the average British soldier on the field of battle." The Japanese who with reckless gallantry gave their lives for emperor and country on the battle-fields of Liao-tung, and who considered it a disgrace to return home without a wound, were fanatics. Well, if so, it is a kind of fanaticism that every European Government would like to see spread among its own fighting-men when the day of battle comes.
"THE YELLOW PERIL"
With some people the antipathy to the Oriental amounts to a positive horror, inexplicable even by themselves in ordinary language, and very often based on no personal experience. "I know not," said De Quincey, "what others share in my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to forego England, and to live in China, among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep, and some of them must be common to others.... In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, by the barrier of utter abhorrence placed between myself and them, by counter-sympathies deeper than I can analyse. I could sooner live with lunatics, with vermin, with crocodiles or snakes." When we have made all allowances for the excited utterances of an opium-dreamer, these words indicate the existence of intensely strong feelings of racial antipathy, and there is no reason to regard De Quincey as the only European who has entertained such feelings. Does our subliminal consciousness retain dim ancestral memories of mighty struggles waged Æons ago for the survival and supremacy of our own racial type? And does it harbour a vague prophetic dread of a more terrific warfare yet to come?
What is perhaps at the root of this horror of Asiatics felt by some Europeans is an instinctive feeling that the world is not large enough to contain or afford free play for the energies of both races; coupled perhaps with an ugly doubt whether, in spite of all the great material achievements of the West in recent years, the European type is after all the fittest to survive in the struggle for existence. Huxley long ago reminded us that the "survival of the fittest" does not necessarily imply the survival of the "best" or most highly developed. He points out, for instance, that if certain conceivable changes were to come about in atmospheric conditions, the law of the survival of the fittest might bring about the extinction of all living things except "lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as those which give red snow its colour."416 They would be the sole survivors of the struggle for existence because they alone were adapted to the new environment. It may be that at some future period in the course of the struggle—though long before we have reached the lichen and diatom stage—certain conditions may prove hostile to the continued existence of the White races and favourable to that of the Yellow. Lafcadio Hearn, who in spite of his "de-occidentalisation" admitted the superiority of the Western races—without explaining what he meant by "superiority"—expressed the belief that in the "simple power of living" they are immensely inferior to those of the East. "The Occidental," he says, "cannot live except at a cost sufficient for the maintenance of twenty Oriental lives. In our very superiority lies the secret of our fatal weakness. Our physical machinery requires a fuel too costly to pay for the running of it in a perfectly conceivable future period of race-competition and pressure of population." He conjectures that some day the Western peoples may be crushed out of existence, their successors scarcely regretting their disappearance "anymore than we ourselves regret the extinction of the dinotherium or the ichthyosaurus." Why indeed should they? When we consider how seldom the memory even of our own dead ancestors touches our sympathies or prompts an affectionate thought it will not seem strange that in the days to come the victorious Yellow man may regard the extinct White man with no more emotion than the visitor to a museum now regards the wire-linked bones of a prehistoric monster. No creature that is doomed to failure in the struggle for existence need look to the conquerors for the least sign of pity or sympathy. The poor dodo has vanished from the scene of its joys and sorrows for ever, but that is not the reason why the nightingale's song is sometimes a sad one. No less cheerfully warbles the thrush because the great auk will flap his ineffectual wings no more. Even the crocodile refrains from shedding tears over the fossil remains of the Triassic stagonolepis.
It behoves us to remember that victory in the struggle for existence is not a victory once and for all. The doom of the conqueror in this fight is that he must never sheathe his sword. The prize goes always to him who deserves it, but no rest is allowed him when the battle is over. New challengers are ever pressing into the lists, and the challenged must go ever armed and with lance in rest.
The grim tragedy once enacted periodically at Aricia might be interpreted, not too fancifully, as a miniature representation of the more terrible struggle that is for ever in progress throughout the whole world of animate nature. The guardian of the Golden Bough—
retained his position and his life only so long as they were not challenged by one more vigorous or more dexterous than himself.
The great nations of the West have won their material pre-eminence by overcoming weaker competitors, who in their turn had once been conquerors. They will keep their prizes so long as they deserve to keep them, and no longer. Exclusion laws and trades-unions and cunning appliances wrought by scientific and intellectual skill may stave off the day of disaster, but if the White races have no better support than such things as these, for them the day of doom will assuredly dawn.
Yet a struggle for predominance among great sections of the human race need not imply actual physical warfare. If the Yellow races are to be supreme, it will be partly because the White races have suicidally contributed to their own ruin. If White men become too intensely careful of the individual life, and too careless of the welfare of the race; if they allow luxury to sap their energies and weaken their moral fibre; if they insist too strongly on "rights" and show too slack a devotion to "duty"; if they regard the accumulation of wealth as the be-all and end-all of existence; if selfishness impels their young men to avoid matrimony, and their young women to shun the duties of maternity; if they give way to these and other social vices to which our age bears witness, they cannot reasonably expect to compete advantageously with people who have no craving for luxury, and scarcely know what it means; who look not to wealth as a means for individual aggrandisement; who are at all times willing to sink personal interests in the larger interests of family and clan; who are tireless and uncomplaining workers; among whom parenthood is a religious necessity, and artificial restrictions of the birth-rate are practically unknown; and whose women are free from political aspirations and willing to do their duty at the domestic fireside and in the nursery.
The Yellow Peril, then, is no mere myth: let so much be granted. Yet the recognition of its existence need not drive us to utter pessimism, so long as our faults are not irremediable, and our virtues not reduced to inactivity. The shaping of our fate lies, to some extent at least, in our own hands, and, after all, the outlook for the West is not entirely gloomy. The mere proximity of a peril does not make the brave man falter and tremble; on the contrary, it braces his nerves, and increases his alertness. If the East has qualities and virtues that make for great strength, it is no less clearly lacking in other qualities and virtues that still find a home in the West. The Yellow Peril, so far from driving us to a cowardly despair, may and should have the effect of raising our courage, ennobling our ideals, up rooting our selfishness and purifying Western society. It may enable us to see that in some respects our aims have been false ones, and that our views of the essentials of progress and of civilisation must be partially modified. The recognition of the existence of our own diseases may lead to the discovery of the means of cure. The East has begun in recent years to learn some valuable lessons from the West; is it not time that we returned the compliment? If we could but bring ourselves to do so, perhaps at no very distant period the Yellow Peril might turn out to be the White Salvation.
