The great anniversary of Buddha's incarnation, celebrating his 2950th birthday, has brought to a focus the rapidly-increasing interest in the doctrines of Sakyamuni in this centre. In Wuchang the notice of all has been called to this festival by the big arches at Ssumenk'ou and outside the Governor's yamen, inscribed with the characters 0, mi, to, fu, as also by the proclamation of the Wuchang magistrate Chven, that all slaughtering of pigs and other animals is forbidden for that day. The night before the great day, i.e., on the 7th of the 4th month, there was an imposing lantern procession through the chief streets of Hankow, to which several of the neighbouring districts sent lanterns from their local temples. The movement has received the|active sympathy of the Governor Hsiao Tao-nan, who not only attended the main Buddhist service of celebration held in Hankow on Wednesday, and ordered' each hsien Magistrate to suspend all punistiments and to prohibit) butchers from slaughtering, but also appears to have personally instituted a fast of five days, during which time 10,000 chin of eels were bought daily to illustrate the "fang sheng," of release of life doctrine, by releasing them again into the Yangtze. Whatever others thought of this, it seems to have met with the hearty approval of the fishermen. Large quantities of tortoises, turtles and black seemed to have shared the happy fate of the eels, and rejoined their old friends in the Yangtze. local movement derives great strength from the support of men like Li K'ai-hen, once Acting Chief Civi] Administrator in Kuangtung (1913) and afterwards Chief Secretary to the President (1917), and the notorious Hankow merchant, Wang Sen-fu, whose brother was so widely respected. There are also able and Jearned priests such as T'ai Hsu-ho-shang, whose exposition of the principles of Buddhism has made a strong appeal.
The Buddhists have made skilful use of the press and have recently sold large quantities of literature from their book-stores. On the two days previous to the festival, they used the Popular Extension Lecture-Halls for their meetings, and on tthe day itself held an important This, however, merely shows the, illusory character of our life and the blind error of mankind. The best date to follow is that fixed by Fa Lin, i.e., the year Chia Yin in the reign of Chao Wang of the Chou dynasty. They accept the 8th of the 4th month, frankly only because it has been the common custom, and propose to fix the date according to the Western calendar as soon as it is generally accepted by the common people.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.