Travels in China, Sir John Barrow [phonics readers txt] 📗
- Author: Sir John Barrow
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The Egyptian Lotos, not that esculent plant from the use of which the Lotophagi had their name, but another of a very different genus consecrated to religious purposes, is said[48] to have been ascertained from a statue of Osiris, preserved in the Barberini palace at Rome, to be that species of water lilly which grows in abundance in most parts of the eastern world, and which was known to botanists under the name of Nymphæa Nelumbo; but I understand it is now considered as a new genus, distinguished under a modification of its former specific name, by that of Nelumbium. This plant, however, is no longer to be found in Egypt. The two species that grow, at present, on the banks and canals of the Nile are totally different, which furnishes a very strong presumption that, although a sacred plant and cultivated in the country, it might nevertheless be of foreign growth. In China, few temples are without some representation of the Nelumbium; sometimes the Shing-moo is painted as standing upon its leaves in the midst of a lake. In one temple I observed the intelligent mother sitting upon the broad peltate leaf of this plant, which had been hewn out of the living rock. Sometimes she holds in her hand a cornucopia filled with the ears of rice, of millet, and of the capsule or seed-vessel of the Nelumbium, these being articles of food which fall to the share of the poorest peasant. This very beautiful water lilly grows spontaneously in almost every lake and morass, from the middle of Tartary to the province of Canton; a curious circumstance, when we consider the very great difficulty with which it can be preserved, even by artificial means, in climates of Europe, whose temperature are less warm and less cold than many of those where, in China, it grows in a state of nature, and with the greatest degree of luxuriance. On the heights of Tartary it is found in an uncultivated state where, in winter, the thermometer frequently stands at, and generally far below, the freezing point. But here the roots strike at the bottom of very deep waters only, a circumstance from which we may perhaps conclude, that the plant may rather require uniformity of temperature, than any extraordinary degree either one way or other. Not only the seed of the Nelumbium, which is a kind of nut nearly as large as an acorn, but the long roots, jointed like canes, furnish articles of food for the table. In the capital, during the whole summer season, the latter are sliced and laid on ice, and in this state serve as part of the desert; the taste differs very little from that of a good juicy turnip, with a slight degree of astringency.
There is something so very striking and remarkable in this plant, that it is not surprizing the Egyptians and the Indians, fond of drawing allusions from natural objects, should have considered it as emblematic of creative power. The leaves of the succeeding plant are found involved in the middle of the seed, perfect, and of a beautiful green. When the sun goes down, the large leaves that spread themselves over the surface of the water close like an umbrella, and the returning sun gradually unfolds them. Now, as these nations considered water to be the primary element, and the first medium on which creative influence began to act, a plant of such singularity, luxuriance, utility and beauty, could not fail to be regarded by them as a proper symbol for representing that creative power, and was accordingly consecrated by the former to Osiris and to Isis, the emblems of the sun and moon, and by the latter to Ganga, the river goddess, and to the sun. The coincidence of ideas between those two nations, in this respect, may be drawn from that beautiful Hindu hymn, addressed to Surya or the sun, and translated by Sir William Jones—
O Sun! thy powers I sing."—&c.[49]
Whether the Chinese, like the Hindus, entertained the same notions of creative power, or its influence upon water as the primary element, I could not learn. No information as to the ground-work of their religion is to be looked for from the priests of the present day, who are generally very ignorant; but I suspect the dedication of the Lotos to sacred uses to be much older than the introduction of Hindu mythology by the priests of Budha. They even ascribe the fable of eating the flower to the mother of their first Emperor Foo-shee; and the Lotos and the lady are equally respected by all the sects in China; and even by the Mantchoo Tartars, whose history commences with the identical story of a young virgin conceiving and bearing a son, who was to be the progenitor of a race of conquerors, by eating the flower of a water lilly. If, indeed, any dependence is to be placed on the following well known inscription found on an ancient monument of Osiris, Egyptian rites may be supposed to have made their way into the east and probably into China, or, on the other hand, those of the east adopted by the Egyptians, at a period of very remote antiquity. "Saturn, the youngest of all the gods, was my father. I am Osiris, who conducted a large and numerous army as far as the deserts of India, and travelled over the greatest part of the world, &c. &c."
It may not, perhaps, be thought improbable (I offer it, however, merely as conjecture) that the story of Osiris and Isis was known in China at a very early period of the history of this country. Osiris, king of Egypt, and husband of Isis, was worshipped under the form of an ox, from his having paid particular attention to the pursuits of agriculture, and from employing this animal in the tillage of the ground.
Osiris first constructed ploughs with dext'rous skill.
Historians say, that Isis, on the murder of her husband, enjoined the priests of Egypt, by a solemn oath, to establish a form of worship in which divine honours should be paid to their deceased prince; that they should select what kind of animal they pleased to represent the person and the divinity of Osiris, and that they should inter it with solemn funeral honours when dead. In consideration of this apotheosis, she allotted a portion of land to each sacerdotal body. The priests were obliged to make a vow of chastity; their heads were shaven and they went barefooted. Divine honours were likewise conferred on Isis after her death, and she was worshipped under the form of a cow.
Now, although the festival in China, at which the Emperor holds the plough in the commencement of the spring, be considered at this day as nothing more than a political institution, and continued as an example to the lower orders of people, an incitement for them to pursue the labours of agriculture as the most important employment in the state;—yet, as this condescension of the sovereign militates so strongly against all their maxims of government, which place an immense distance between him and the first of his people, it may not, perhaps, be much amiss in supposing it to have originated in some religious opinion. Indeed he still continues to prepare himself for the solemn occasion, by devoting three days entirely to pious ceremonies and rigid devotion. On the day appointed by the tribunal of mathematics, a cow is sacrificed in the Tee-tan, or temple dedicated to the earth; and on the same day, in some of the provinces, the figure of a cow of baked clay, of an immense size, is carried in procession by a number of the peasantry, followed by the principal officers of government and the other inhabitants. The horns and the hoofs are gilded and ornamented with silken ribbons. The prostrations being made and the offerings placed on the altar, the earthen cow is broken in pieces and distributed among the people. In like manner the body of Osiris, worshipped afterwards under the form of an ox, was distributed by Isis among the priests; and the Isia[50] were long celebrated in Egypt in the same manner as the festival of holding the plough is at this day observed in China, both being intended, no doubt, to commemorate the persons who had rendered the most solid advantages to the state, by the encouragement they had held out for the cultivation of the ground.
The disputes, quarrels, persecutions and massacres, that have happened at various times among the different sects of Christianity in Europe, have not been much less violent, nor productive of less dreadful consequences, between the sect of immortals and that of Fo, in China, whenever the court, or rather the intriguing eunuchs, seemed to favour the opinions of one sect in preference to those of the other. Persecutions never failed to begin whenever either party was fortunate enough to gain over to its side the chief of the eunuchs, who had always sufficient influence with the reigning monarch to prevail upon him to espouse the same cause. They were, however, wars of priests alone in which the people remained neutral, or took no active part. Whole monasteries have been levelled with the ground, and thousands of priests put to death on both sides. Since, however, the accession of the present Tartar dynasty, they have met with no particular marks of favour or distinction; and, on that account, are apparently reconciled to each other; indeed, they are scarcely distinguishable either by their temples or by their dress. The prediction of future events being best suited to the minds of the multitude, and most sought after, the oracle of fate may be consulted in any temple, whether of Fo or of Tao-tze. The government interferes not in religious opinions, and it gives no support to any particular sect, except that of the Lama, whose priests are paid and maintained as a part of the Imperial establishment. The Tartar officers of state are likewise attached to the faith of the Lama, without the absurdities that have been mixed with it by the immortals.
However strictly the women may be kept at home by the customs of the country, they are nevertheless permitted, on certain occasions, to consult their destiny at the altar, without being exposed to the censure of vulgarity or impropriety. Barren wives are even encouraged to visit the temples, not so much for the purpose of knowing their destiny, as under a firm belief that, by rubbing the bellies of certain little copper gods, they shall conceive and bear children. But, the women in general who, from habit, feel little inclination to stir abroad, except on very pressing occasions, encourage a set of fortune-tellers, mountebanks and jugglers, who thus pick up a livelihood by travelling the country and telling fortunes from house to house. They are known by a wretched squalling flute on which they play, and are beckoned to call where their art is required. By being made acquainted with the day and hour of a person's birth, they pretend to cast his nativity, which is called Swan-ming, or the art of discovering events by means of numbers. A Chinese, even in the
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