Page 24 - Popular Deities of Chinese Buddhism (Illustrated) and Symbols

C II

hinese uddhist mages

Much abuse or unkind remarks have been heaped upon Chinese

Buddhists accusing them as being idolators because of their use

of images in their temples. Accusations of such nature only re-

veal the ignorance of those who made them as the principle of

the use of images in places of worship should be viewed as sym-

bolical and not idol worship. It should be stressed that all the

images that are found in the temples or home shrines only serve

as reminders of their respective qualities. For example, when a

Buddhist kneels down before the image of the Buddha, he does

not worship the holy image but brings to mind the great com-

passion of the Enlightened One who has taught him the way to

liberation.

Idolatory is not what Buddhists practise and only the unkind

person will choose to deride the use of holy images in the tem-

ples. He should have the wisdom to realise that no religion in

the world can do away with symbolism, whether they be human

or otherwise, for without symbolism, identification would be

quite impossible. e world, in fact, cannot exist without sym-

bolism and it can safely be said that only civilisations as old and

advanced in culture as China are able to bring forth symbolic

images such as those produced by the Chinese people. e im-

ages used in the Chinese temples are therefore useful aids to

generating faith and devotion in the minds of the believers and

are objects worthy of reverence.

 