Chinese religion is inherently an attitude toward the spirits or gods with the object of obtaining a benefit or averting a calamity.  We shall deal with it more fully in another chapter.  Suffice it to say here that it originated in ancestor-worship, and that the greater part of it remains ancestor-worship to the present day.  The State religion, which was Confucianism, was ancestor-worship.  Taoism, originally a philosophy, became a worship of spirits—­of the souls of dead men supposed to have taken up their abode in animals, reptiles, insects, trees, stones, etc.—­borrowed the cloak of religion from Buddhism, which eventually outshone it, and degenerated into a system of exorcism and magic.  Buddhism, a religion originating in India, in which Buddha, once a man, is worshipped, in which no beings are known with greater power than can be attained to by man, and according to which at death the soul migrates into anything from a deified human being to an elephant, a bird, a plant, a wall, a broom, or any piece of inorganic matter, was imported ready made into China and took the side of popular superstition and Taoism against the orthodox belief, finding that its power lay in the influence on the popular mind of its doctrine respecting a future state, in contrast to the indifference of Confucianism.  Its pleading for compassion and preservation of life met a crying need, and but for it the state of things in this respect would be worse than it is.

Religion, apart from ancestor-worship, does not enter largely into Chinese life.  There is none of the real ‘love of God’ found, for example, in the fervent as distinguished from the conventional Christian.  And as ancestor-worship gradually loses its hold and dies out agnosticism will take its place.

Superstitions

An almost infinite variety of superstitious practices, due to the belief in the good or evil influences of departed spirits, exists in all parts of China.  Days are lucky or unlucky.  Eclipses are due to a dragon trying to eat the sun or the moon.  The rainbow is supposed to be the result of a meeting between the impure vapours of the sun and the earth.  Amulets are worn, and charms hung up, sprigs of artemisia or of peach-blossom are placed near beds and over lintels respectively, children and adults are ‘locked to life’ by means of locks on chains or cords worn round the neck, old brass mirrors are supposed to cure insanity, figures of gourds, tigers’ claws, or the unicorn are worn to ensure good fortune or ward off sickness, fire, etc., spells of many kinds, composed mostly of the written characters for happiness and longevity, are worn, or written on paper, cloth, leaves, etc., and burned, the ashes being made into a decoction and drunk by the young or sick.