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This third order is nevertheless included among the three good orders.” The poor creatures who have sunk down into the next three orders of torment and punishment, the so- called “san wu tao” (= #8 21), the three evil ways, are very much worse off. First among these comes hades, the Buddhist hell (“‘ti-yii,”” Hh 3X), where punishment is carried out through long xons (kalpas), Chinese: chieh (3). Buddhism believes in a horrible and ingeniously cruel hell. In Many respects it re- sembles the hells of Hinduism, but in China a note of more abject terror coupled with a refinement of torture have been introduced. Eighteen hells, situated at the Tieh-wei Shan,” the “Tron-Encircled Mountain” (3 Fl ill), ranging from the most scorching heat down to the most icy cold, come first. Of these, ten are especially notorious, being ruled by the ten famous kings”? or hangmen- chieftains. All these hells belong to the “Wu-chien Ti-yii” (46 fi Hh HK), or the hells where everything is boundless. At the head of these ten hells with their hangmen stands the overlord, whose nature is stamped by the most inflexible severity and justice. His name is Tung-yii (3K #&) and he lives on the famous mountain T‘ai Shan (# 1h) in Shantung province. He rules through his head chieftain Yen-lo (4 #2). The latter [82] MASSES FOR THE DEAD figure is particularly feared. A recollection of Yen-lo will cause the most hardened Asiatic to blanch with terror. It is the Yama of Hinduism which is rep- resented in him. Among other parallels, the Minos of Plato’s system comes nearest to this sinister figure. In popular thought and speech these two overlords are often coupled with the ten ‘hangmen-chiefs.” Then it is said that the “ten kings in hades”’ mete out the penalties and execute the punishments either directly or through the numerous assistants who surround them, i. e., the host of devils. The names of these ten mighty kings, divided into the above-mentioned two groups, are as follows: Tung-yii (# %k), Overlord 1. Ch‘in-kuang (3 &) 6. Pi‘en-chéng (3 jk) 2. Ch‘u-chiang (# i) 7. T*ai-shan (& Il) 3. Sung-ti (R ‘) 8. Ping-téng (4 #) 4. Wu-kuan (ffi 2) 9. Tu-shih (4% ii) 5. Yen-lo (# #), chieftain 10. Chuan-lun (@ #) The close connection between supervision and pun- ishments has gradually come to be regarded as taking place in the following way. On earth there have always been greater and lesser spiritual princes and officers, who keep careful records of all men’s good and evil deeds. These report to the officials of both heaven and hades, and punishment or reward then follows in due time. If there is one thing that is made clear to the Chinese, it is that ‘“‘Good is recompensed, with good, Evil is recompensed with evil And if payment is slow in coming, It is because its hour has not yet arrived.” [83] TRUTH AND TRADITION IN BUDDHISM The idea of an officer who supervises and keeps a register on earth, is quite in keeping with the legal system of the whole orient in ancient days. The system is worked in the following method. The whole surface of the earth is divided into sections (ti-fang, i 37), each with its local superintendent. He is usually called “t‘u-ti” (+ 4h), and images of him and his family made of wood, clay, or metal, are placed in small temples or covered altars. Such “earth altars” and small local temples are seen in city and country all over China (t‘u-ti miao, ++ Hf J6i). The local superintendents are then ranged under a greater “official” (all-spiritual beings). In the cities these are called ch‘éng-huang (s& fi), city gods; in country districts ti-huang (Hi M2), district gods. These “gods”? are enthroned among consorts, children, and servants in stately temples (ch‘éng-huang miao, 3% [2 i), and ti-huang miao, +h fi By), and great festivals with street processions are arranged annually in their honour. Buddhism has allied itself with these ancient local deities, and by that very fact has secured a tremendous hold on the common people in China. For it is clear that just here the Buddhist priesthood with their masses and holy ceremonies can serve humanity bur- dened by sin and guilt, by pleading their cause with these dispensers of justice and retribution. In these same local temples one often sees portrayed the ten hangmen-chiefs with their two overlords, divided into two groups, in the act of torturing or tormenting their victims. One feels a special horror [84] MASSES FOR THE DEAD about these temples, a horror which recalls acutely the feeling one has on going into an ancient Chinese yamen, whence so many are led to the execution ground. A common name for the tortured, hungry, and thirsty spirits in hades is é-hun (f& Bi), hungry ghosts. We shall return later to these gloomy places, when we quote extracts from the curious literature which is connected with the masses for the dead. There are, in addition, five hundred small and one thousand very small hells, through which lost souls have to go. In the fifth order in the cycle come é-kuei (f® 52), the hungry spirits or order of devils. These are the creatures who have sunk so deep that they rejoice in evil, and who therefore gladly allow themselves to be used as assistants and co-laborers in all kinds of destructive enterprises by the more “ professional devil princes.” They enter gladly into the service of the “hangmen” and torture to their hearts’ content the lost in hades. Among them, too, there are many grades. Most numerous are the so-called “hungry devils” who constantly rove about, restless and unblest, in the boundless spheres of the kingdom of hades. There are tremendous numbers of these, for the greater part of the wicked people in the world are recruits for this restless and hungry horde when their thread of life is broken off. Special efforts must be made to reach these hungering spirits, as we shall see, otherwise they will irretrievably go over into that professional devil group which becomes hardened in evil and disfigured by ugliness (yeh-ch‘a, % X, or lo-ch‘a, # #!). [85] Finally, we have the “ch‘u- -shéng” Ge 4b), or the animal order. This lies the deepest down of the “ evil ways’’ and is recruited from the worst criminals and gee efactors on the earth. According to the nature of their sins, they go, at death, into various animal forms, from the horse, cow, wolf, and tiger, down to snakes and crawling things. Numerous books and pictures in China treat of this horrible transformation. One sees how the animal skin stretches slowly out over the human body, how the character of the eye is changed and the animal look appears. For the creatures of this order, there is also a feeble glimmer of hope in the interminable darkness. Buddhism does not hold the conception of an everlasting hell, which the peoples of the West have become familiar with. Countless eons, kalpas after kalpas, may pass, in number so great and in duration so long as to be uncountable, but the final result is still the “salvation of all living things.” Buddhism in general deals with such vast dimen- — sions and conceptions that one feels oneself cast into the endless spaces of the universe, and yet along — its own lines of thinking, it comes back to something — not unlike Professor Einstein’s position in our modern Western thought: space and time flow together, and the thought that is projected into the mysterious universe returns finally to its own starting-point. In connection with transmigration, there has been a deep and ingenious development of this thought. The stream of life moves in three great periods, which again form a cycle for further movement. The first period began with Sakyamuni Buddha and ended five [86] ve coe < — “ SAL MLL LI VAI AI RL LOS L OSS IS VM ERE NAGS y d ‘ ra 6 MBSR I ISIS Mr-to Fu, Lama Tempne, Perrine - aa tee one hae: a le ag MASSES FOR THE DEAD hundred years after his death. It is called “Chéng- fa” (JE %), here translated as the first right model period. The second period lasts from the end of Chéng-fa for another five hundred years and is called “Hsiang-fa’’ ({% Y), the period in which pictures must be used. In this period men must work their way to the truth through pictures and books. From the end of the second period and lasting for a further two thousand years comes ‘*Mo-fa”’ (4 4), the final period. Then sin and need are increased to such a degree that Buddhism itself apparently goes to pieces. At this point, Maitreya (Mi-lo Fu, i#f#() appears with his millen- nial kingdom. A new cycle of life begins, with hope and redemption for all living things. Thus one cycle follows another until all living things are redeemed. It can be more easily understood against this back- ground what tremendous significance masses for the dead must naturally have in Mahayana Buddhism. Without doubt we stand here before one of the most central beliefs of this whole religious system. One can also begin to have some understanding of the feeling of sympathy which so strongly characterizes Mahayana. When masses for the soul were first instituted, it was naturally thought important that they should have a firm objective foundation in the traditions of Sakya- muni Buddha. Such was found in the old legend of Ananda, told in the “ Yii-chia Yen-k‘ou”’ (i {in #& 4). Ananda saw the hungry spirits in hades (prefas) and in his pity asked Sakyamuni Buddha if there were not some way of satisfying their hunger. He then received é [87] TRUTH AND TRADITION IN BUDDHISM directions regarding a method by which food could be sent over into the other world through the special prayers of monks before the statue of Buddha, in the ‘assembly of the congregation.