Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. III.pdf/25



PUTO is one among a group of more than one hundred islands which stud the Chusan Archipelago. With the single exception of Puto, all the rest of these isles are included in the jurisdiction of the district of Tinghai, in the Ningpo dependency. Puto is under the independent rule of the abbot of the great Buddhist monastery dedicated to the goddess Kwanyin, an important deity in the theogony of China, and whose name the monastery bears. This islet, which is not over four miles long, forms the chief Buddhist centre of the Empire, and is peopled solely with bonzes and nuns, the inmates of some sixty temples scattered among hills and dales there. This ecclesiastical population is said to number 2,000 souls, and its ranks are recruited from time to time by the purchase of young slaves, who are trained by the monks to devote their lives to the spirit-crushing service of the Buddhist faith, and finally are drafted, many of them, as mendicants to the mainland to seek support for the maintenance of the monasteries, and of the lusty, lazy monks, the pious paupers who spend their years in drowsily chanting to Buddha, and who, if dirt and sloth will foster the growth of piety, must indeed be accounted holy men. The lives of these Buddhist recluses are very low-pitched. They are not engaged, as a rule, in any active works of charity or benevolence, and the highest praise that can be accorded to them is, that they refrain from inflicting harm as well as from doing good. The greatest among them I ever saw was said to be a living Buddha; he was very dirty and very silent, looking more of a mummy than a man. A spider might have crawled down his capacious throat, or woven its silken curtain over his half-closed eyes, and yet not have disturbed his tranquillity, or roused his dormant faculties into action, so thoroughly, judging from the comatose signs of his Buddhahood, did he seem to have attained perfect repose. But I dare not be too severe, as I have met with hospitality at the hands of many of the less devout members of the creed. At the same time, I am bound to state with equal candour that the faithful mendicants, or Buddhist tOUterSj never failed to seek a recompense.

The chief monastery of Puto is shown in No. 1 5. The group of sacred buildings, embowered in rich foliage, and backed by the granite-topped hill, the bright colours of the roofs and walls, the sacred lotus lake spanned by a bridge of marble, together make up a picture of rare, romantic beauty. But the monks of China have always surrounded their retreats with the elements of the beautiful in nature, and have exhausted the resources of native art and architecture to embellish their shrines. Puto, the sacred isle, with its picturesque rocks and ravines, its woods and its temples, forms no exception to the rule. As we cross the marble bridge, and enter the wide portal to explore the multitude of courts and dormitories, the romance of the scene vanishes in the thick vapours that float above the altars, and which veil the smiling or glaring gods or goddesses, emblems of the holy ones, or of the fierce guardians of the Buddhist faith.

Temples were for the first time erected on this island as early as 550 a.d. The revenues for the support of these various religious establishments are derived from three sources : — the rent of church lands, the contributions of pilgrims, and the labours of the mendicant priests. The buildings seem to be gradually falling into decay, but in this respect the temples of Puto by no means stand alone. It is only fair, however, to add, that among many earnest Buddhists it is deemed a more pious act to build a fresh edifice than to restore an old one; and as to the resident priests, even if they had the means and energy to repair the buildings of their temple, they yet regard any zeal on such matters as indicating too marked an anxiety about purely mundane affairs. This, however, applies more especially to Buddhism in the countries where it probably retains more of its original purity than in China.