CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. 689 



The difFerence between Laniaisin and the ordinnrv fonii of ('liinese 

 Buddhism is shown most, str()ni2:ly by their discordant conc('j)(ions of 

 Maitreya, the eomin«i^ Bnddha. ITis Chinese statuette lias been de- 

 scribed above, under th(^ name of Mih) Vo, as it is placed in the vesti- 

 bule of a tenijde, and he is. besides, worshiped at many pi-ivate 

 houses and sliops, so that he is almost as i)oi)ular a divinity with men 

 at Kuan ^'in, the so-called "goddess of mercy," is with Chinese 

 women. In Japan Hotei, the merry monk witli a hempen l)ag, is 

 claimed by some to be an incarnation of the Bodhisat Maitreya, and 

 is endowed tliere with national traits in the spirit of playful rever- 

 ence which characterizes the Japanese artist. The Lanui conception 

 of Maitreya, on the contrary, is that of a dignified and colossal fig- 

 ure, robed as a prince, with the jeweled coronet of a bodhisat, tower- 

 ing above the other crests of the roofs of a lamasery, or occasionally 

 carved on the face of a cliff. There is a gigantic image of Maitreya 

 in the Yung Ho Kung, at Peking, made of wood, over TO feet high, 

 the body of which passes through several successive stories of the 

 lofty building in which it is installed. The devout votary must 

 climb a number of winding staircases to circumambulate the sacred 

 effigy in the orthodox way, till he finally reaches the immense head. 

 Yung Ho Kung was the residence of the Elmperor Yung Cheng be- 

 fore he came to the throne, and it was dedicated to the Lama Church, 

 in accordance with the usual custom, when he succeeded in 1T2'2. 

 When the Emperor visits the temple a lamp is lit over the head of 

 Maitreya, and a huge praying wheel on the left, which reaches up- 

 ward as high as the inuige, is set in motion on the occasion. The 

 resident lamas, mostly jNIongols, number some 1,500, under the rule 

 of a Gegen, or living Buddha, of Tibetan birth, who rejoices in the 

 title of Changcha-Hutuktu Lalitavajra. An excellent portrait of 

 this dignitary, from a miniature on silk, is given in l*rof. A. (Jrun- 

 wedel's Buddhist Art in India. 



Lamaism may be said to rank as the state church of the reigning 

 Manchu dynasty. The Bama temple illustrated in plate xvi was built 

 by the Emperor K'ang Hsi, in the vicinity of the summer residence 

 at Jehol, outside the Great Wall of China, where Earl Macartney 

 Avas received by the grandson of the founder in 1793. The temple is 

 built in the style of the famous palace-temple of Potala at Lassa, the 

 residence of the Dalai Lama. But the resemblance is only super- 

 ficial ; deceptive as it may be when seen at a distance from one of the 

 pavilions in the Imperial Park, on closer inspection the apparently 

 storied walls prove to be a mere shell, with doors and windows all 

 unj^erforated. The temple buildings erected upon the hill behind, 

 the double roofs of which appear above the walls in the picture, are 

 SM 1904 44 



