Page 39 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

RELIGION. n

The priests shave the entire head as a token of purity ; they
are, or profess to be, vegetarians, wear no skin or woollen
garment, live by begging, the sale of incense sticks, charms,
gilt paper and candles, the alms of worshippers, the fees for
services at funerals, the of
feeding hungry ghosts on All-Souls'
or other of the services
Day, many performed. They also
derive some income from the cultivation of
temple grounds,
the of and the of theatrical
entertaining strangers, profits
exhibitions. The is the
priesthood perpetuated chiefly by
purchase of orphans and poor children, who are brought up in
the or monasteries. The few nunneries that exist are
temples
"
all dedicated to the Queen of Heaven." The sisters
nearly
may have become so by self-consecration, or by purchase when
young, but the feet of girls so purchased are not cramped.
Nuns shave the whole head ; novices have the front part only
shaved, the back hair being plaited in a queue. The nuns
dress much in the same as the monks, wear
very way clumsy
shoes, long stockings drawn over full trousers, and short
Dr. Morrison " Buddhism in China is decried
jackets. says,
by the learned, laughed at by the profligate, yet followed by
all." This does not to which has
apply Mongol Tartary,
remained Buddhist, although the emperors of the present
Tartar dynasty are, as we have seen, head of the State religion
of China, and the indifference the Government
displayed by
towards Buddhism in China becomes
proper quite altered in
Tartary.
Mohammedanism
seems to have been as the of a consider-
recognized religion
able of the soon after the
part population Mongol conquest
in the thirteenth and it meets with toleration
century, perfect
at the its admitted to Govern-
present day, professors being
ment offices. The native Mohammedans are chiefly in the
north and west of China, but is not them that we
it
through
find the trace of this on so much as in
religion porcelain, pieces
made for to India, Persia, etc. In its hatred of
export idolatry,
the Koran forbids the of in earth or heaven,
depicting anything
which has forced art into it to
very narrow channels, limiting
patterns such as we find on Turkey and Persian carpets. To
meet this the had to be
difficulty, porcelain specially decorated,