. Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants. the ancient patron of medicine ; the spirits of scholars and statesmen ; thegods of the earth and its produce; the gods of heaven, earth, and the pas-sing year ; the god of a thoroughfare through which an army must pass ; thequeen-goddess of heaven and earth ; — the heavens, or the imperial concaveexpanse ; the earth ; the principal temple of ancestors ; the sun, the moon,and the stars ; the four elements ; the five principal mountains of China;the four seas, the highest hills, the larges
. Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants. the ancient patron of medicine ; the spirits of scholars and statesmen ; thegods of the earth and its produce; the gods of heaven, earth, and the pas-sing year ; the god of a thoroughfare through which an army must pass ; thequeen-goddess of heaven and earth ; — the heavens, or the imperial concaveexpanse ; the earth ; the principal temple of ancestors ; the sun, the moon,and the stars ; the four elements ; the five principal mountains of China;the four seas, the highest hills, the largest rivers; military-flags, banners,and trophies : these are the chief objects of worship. Two thousand and nearly four hundred years have elapsed since thedeath of Confucius ; yet his name continues to be held in as much venera-tion as ever throughout the Chinese empire ; and although he did not pre-tend to divine inspiration like Mohammed, or profess to be endowed withmore than human attributes, he is worshipped as a superior being, and manytemples are dedicated to him in all the provinces of Portrait of Confucius. The sect of the Budhists is supposed to have been founded about fourhundred and fifty years before the birth of Confucius, by an Indian sage ofroyal birth, who is said to have devoted his whole life to the instruction andmoral improvement of the people and the reformation of their religion, 2G8 CHINA, HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE. which was that of tlie Bramins. The name of the illustrious sage wasBudha; and one of the leading features of his spiritual doctrines was themetempsychosis, or transmigration of souls; according to which doctrine,the Budhists believe that the soul only quits one corporeal frame to animateanother, not necessarily of the human species ; and for that reason a Bud-hist is forbidden, by the laws of his creed, to destroy animal life in anyshape. When Budha died, his followers believed that he was transformedinto the god Fo, by which name
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Keywords: ., bookauthorsearsrob, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, bookyear1851
