Note 8 — Chapter XXIII

Mina Fu-yeh's abbotship came to rather an abrupt termination owing to a quarrel with another influential Buddha called Shertoch Fu-yeh. At the time of the rebellion the priests were greatly exercised in their minds as to whether they should fight against the rebels or not. Most of the older men said that fighting was no part of a priest's duty, while the younger men were keen to be in the thick of it. Mina Fu-yeh, who was then abbot, said that they should not go out to fight, but that they should make every preparation, and if the monastery was attacked they should defend it to the last, otherwise they ought not to mix in worldly strife. This did not please the war party, who were headed by Shertoch Fu-yeh, and who made up their minds that fight they would. They went out on three separate occasions, and without doing any good; several were killed, a terrible thing for a devout Buddhist, for he who dies a violent death is reincarnated in an animal, and must complete a cycle of sixty lifetimes before he can again become a man. This made the war party even more bitter against Mina Fu-yeh, as they realised how much wiser the course he had recommended would have been, and so inimical did they become that he had to resign his post and for some time was in fear of his life. Most of them speak rather disparagingly of his successor, who is, they said, an insignificant Buddha, only in his third or fourth lifetime.