CHAPTER XVI.

BUDDHIST PROCESSIONS, ASSOCIATIONS, PILGRIMAGES, AND CEREMONIES FOR THE DEAD.

Yu-lan-hwei, "Association for giving food to the dead"--Worship of ancestors--Liturgical services in the houses of the rich, for the liberation of the souls of the dead from hell--Village processions--Based on the old rural processions of classical times--Masquerades--Plays--Pilgrimages to Miau-feng shan--Pilgrims wearing iron chains--Supposed efficacy of the prayers of the priests--Zeal of the laity in promoting pilgrimages to celebrated shrines.

A STRIKING example of the popular influence of Buddhism is found in the associations called Yu-lan-hwei. The day for feeding hungry ghosts, the professed object of this association, is the 15th of the seventh month. The original hungry ghosts were the Hindoo Pretas. In China the hungry ghosts are the spirits of the dead, especially of ancestors. Buddhists are appealed to on behalf of the dead who have no descendants to worship them, and feed them by sacrifices. Thus the sentiment of compassion for the neglected dead and of ancestors is ingeniously made by Buddhism into an instrument for promoting its own influence among the people.

The belief in the metempsychosis among the Hindoos connected itself with the Chinese sacrifices to ancestors. The two things combined formed an engine of great power for affecting the public mind.

When the rich die in Peking, priests are invited to read liturgies for three days in their houses. Eight men are

sent. A priest told me that they read five books in particular on one occasion recently, when I made inquiry. They were the Leng-yen-king, the Kin-kang-king, the Fa-hwa-king (Lotus of the Good Law), the Ti-tsang-king, and the Ta pei-ch'an, a Tantra of the T'ang dynasty. They read for about six hours each day, with a particular intonation, which is determined by a certain musical notation and is learned specially. They took with them candlesticks, a picture of Buddha, and the wooden fish, and had no musical instruments. Their object was by prayers to liberate as early as possible the soul of the dead from misery. Buddhism found village processions of a religious character already existing in the country, and accepted them so far as seemed fitting. When it is considered that in the old religion of Greece and Rome, rural processions were in those countries a favourite amusement mixed with religious ideas, the examination of similar customs in China is of special interest.