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EAST ASIA.
No revelation having been made from above, no interpreters of the divine word
were needed ;
but a hierarchy corresponding with that of the spirits themselves was
naturally developed in the social body. Thus to the Emperor was reserved the
privilege of presenting offerings to heaven and earth, to the chief rivers and to the
sacred mountains of the empire, which from age to age varied in number from five
to nine. The feudal lords sacrificed to the secondary deities, while the devotions of
private persons were restricted to trees, rocks, and streams. Worship having
become one of the functions of the State, its minutest details were regulated by
ceremonial codes. Between the speech and religion of the Chinese there has thus
been maintained a remarkable analogy.
both still remain at one of the lowest stages of human culture.
Both have been refined to the utmost, but
The propitiatory sacrifices form an element which has been attributed rather to
the surrounding populations than to the Chinese themselves. From the nomad
Mongol tribes the " Sons of Han " are supposed to have adopted the sanguinary
rites formerly practised on a large scale. Hundreds of courtiers have at times
caused themselves to be buried alive in order to accompany their master to the
other world. At the death of Hoangti, about two hundred years before the
Christian era, several of his wives and body-guard followed him to the grave, and
ten thousand working-men were buried alive around his funeral mound. Traces
of these savage rites still survive in remote districts, where the people often seek to
guard against witchcraft by throwing their new-born babes into the running
waters. Wishing to put a stop to these abominations, a mandarin on one occasion
caused several of the infanticides to be cast into the Kiang, charging them to
convey his compliments to the water gods.
To Confucius and his disciples is usually attributed the cessation of human
sacrifices in China. Yet long before that time religious sacrifices had ceased to be
offered, while long after it such rites continued to be occasionally practised.
Confucius deserves none the less to be regarded as the true founder of the national
religion, as regulated by the book of ceremonies. He aimed especially
at the
revival of the ancient practices associated with ancestral worship, the glorification
of the past, as handed down by tradition, being, according to him, the best means of
insuring the permanent prosperity of the empire. The supernatural element, which
plays such a large part in other systems, he almost excludes "
altogether. How,"
he "
asks, should I pretend to know anything about heaven, since it is so difficult
to clearly understand what takes place on earth ? " " You have not yet learnt to
live," he said to one of his disciples, " and you already rave about what may
happen to you after death." The duties of man to his superiors, to his neighbour,
to the State, were what he was most concerned with, and religion in the strict sense
of the term was dealt with only so far as it formed an element in the general system
of government. Well balanced by nature and habit, without religious zeal, and
ever striving to observe the golden mean, the Chinese have recognised themselves
in the sage of Shantung, who has
gradually taken the foremost rank in the memory
of his people. The accurate historic records left by his disciples, as well as his own
simple life, have prevented his name from being obscured by myths and miracles.