The Jewish Community of Kaifeng
From China and Religion by Edward Harper Parker, 1905.
From: 1000 C.E. To: 1900 C.E.
Location: Kaifeng, Henan, China
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From China and Religion by Edward Harper Parker, 1905.
The Jews may be said to have disappeared from China with the nineteenth century [current estimates place China’s Jewish population at less than .1 percent), and with the publication in the year 1900 of their official obsequies by the Jesuit, Pere Jerome Tobar. Yet, strange to say, the history of their arrival in China from Persia in 1163 (Sung dynasty), since when they have lived in almost complete seclusion and obscurity, is as clear and positive as the coming of the first Moslems, now counted perhaps in the whole of China by tens of millions, is lost in the mistiness of oblivion.
The authority is of the highest, being nothing less than the original stones of 1489 and 1512 (Ming dynasty), and that of 1663 (present Manchu dynasty), commemorating the rebuildings and repairs of the synagogue in which they were found; moreover, they are still in situ. The first inscription begins by stating that Abraham, "founder of the Israel religion," was nineteenth in descent from Adam (as stated in the first chapter of the Chronicles), none of the intervening patriarchs between those two having worshipped idols or believed in any but one God.
Abraham, observing that the tao of Heaven did not speak, set himself to draw it out from God by faithful service, and thus founded the religion as transmitted to this day. After over 500 years of successive transmissions, the true religion came to the charge of Moses, who retired to Mount Sinai in order to seek the Scripture amid fasting and prayer. All this took place during the Chou dynasty (b.c. 1122-206, — a chronology which requires elucidation): and so things went on up to Esdras, a descendant of the first patriarchs.
The tao, or "way" to honour Heaven, though obvious in itself, needs to be based upon the overt acts of li-pai (rite-kneeling), and on the principles of ts'ing-chen (purity-truth). Heaven must be for ever present to the mind; and the tao of Heaven, though without form, is always there above, if only we pursue it with our hearts. After this follows a further dissertation upon tao, proof that, as in the case of the Nestorians, every effort has been to accommodate the new religion so far as possible to Chinese notions. Thus Adam is styled 'P'an-ku Adam,'' P'an-ku being the legendary Chinese "creator" as adopted from fiction by the literary men of the Sung dynasty; and there are various quotations from the "Book of Changes," other ancient classics, and even popular ouranology.
Stress is then laid upon the duty of making offerings to ancestors in the spring and autumn, purification, good works, and fasting. The seventh day closes each round of observances; however, the question of resting from labour on that day is prudently omitted. But there is a vague allusion to “seven days' fasting at the four seasons, in commemoration of our patriarchal ancestor's tribulations," which may possibly refer to the four fasts enumerated by Zechariah.
The inscription goes on to say that Jewish traditions ascribe the immigrants' origin to India (a term in which the Chinese often include parts of Ta-ts'in and of Persia), whence seventy families came by command (it is not stated of whom) with tribute of foreign cloth to Sung. The Emperor invited them to stay at Pien-liang (then the capital; now K'ai-feng Fu in Ho Nan). In the year 1163 the ustad [similar to Rabbi] Levi was in charge, and Am-tu-la (? Abdullah) built the first synagogue. In the year 1279 of the Mongol Emperor Kublai the ustad rebuilt the place, or Ts'ing-chen Sz ("Purity-truth Monastery") as it was called.
On the advent of the Ming dynasty (1368), the founder granted liberty to all who submitted to his will, and a certain number of mwan-la (mollahs) were appointed to the charge. In the year 1421 the second Ming emperor presented the synagogue with some incense, and authorised its extensive repair; tablets in honour of the Emperor (for monthly worship) were placed within it, and the front part of the work was completed by the year 1445. A flood of the Yellow River in the year 1461 did immense damage, but funds and official sanction were obtained to rebuild on the devastated site; and the whole, including the back parts, was magnificently reconstructed. Meanwhile more sacred books had been procured from Ningpo (in those times a place of Japanese trade), and large subscriptions were made amongst the Jews in order to provide the necessary furniture and ornaments.
Finally the composer of the inscription indulges in a few general reflections; he says:
“The three teachings (religions) have each their way of honouring their lord. The literates honour Confucius in their Halls of Great (Musical) Perfection; the S'akya honour [S'akya] Muni in their Halls of the Sacred Effigy; the Taoists (i.e. the modern degenerates) have their Jewel Emperor Hall (dates from 1116, 1600 years after Lao-tsz' death). So those of Purity-truth have their Israel Hall, where they honour August Heaven."
It is interesting to note the absence of all mention of Manicheans, Nestorians, and, above all, of Mussulmans, who, if they existed then in that city, were probably as hostile as they are now, when they are known to be numerous. Then he goes on to say:
"Confucianists and ourselves in the main believe the same thing, but differ in detail; the essential points of both parties being to respect the tao of Heaven, to honour our ancestors, be loyal to our princes, dutiful to father and mother, kind to wife and children, content with our grade in life, and sociable with friends; in a word, we do not ignore any of the Five Relationships (of the Book of Rites)."
Here follow some political remarks flattering to the Ming dynasty.
The second stone of 1512 once more enters into the question of Jewish tao from the Chinese classical point of view, but contains little of historical novelty. The authors, — officials, and evidently not all Jews, — condense the history of the synagogue as given in the earlier stone, but add a few new touches of their own. Thus, Adam came from the Western Regions (a term always applied to West Asia) of India; the first Jewish Scriptures date from the Chou dynasty; the four local copies (i.e, the three originally there and the Ningpo copy) are divided into fifty-three sections (Persian Jews' computation).
"The original faith has been in China since Han times (B.C, 206-A.D. 220)." The followers of this religion, it appears, are to be found in other places besides Pien (K'ai-feng Fu); but, wherever they may be, they revere the same Scripture and the same tao. Then after a long dissertation and comparison the authors give us a few more historical facts: — "After the Creation, the first patriarch Adam transmitted to Noah, who in turn transmitted to Abraham." 'Raham (thus euphoniously contracted, and written with the Buddhist sounds for Arhan) passed it on to Isaac, who did the same to Yahakuvuh (Jacob). 'Kuvuh transmitted to the Twelve Tribes, whence in due course to Moses and Aaron. Aaron transmitted to Yhe-shu-wo (Joshua), and 'Shu-wo to Esdras, from whose time the religion obtained a brilliant development.
The third inscription dates from 1663, the second year of K'ang-hi (Manchu dynasty), and introduces one or two new surprises. Adam was nineteenth in descent from P'an-ku, and Arhan taught his people to do God's will with their whole heart, and also to do their utmost to discover tao. Then follows a lengthy sermon on filial piety, Heaven, prayer, sacrifice, purification, and fasting, in which the "Book of Changes" and the Chinese classics are raked for apt allusions. Moses is discovered to have thought out the Chung-yung or Golden Mean of Confucius.
The religion was first preached in China during the Chou dynasty, "and" (evidently with the intention of suggesting "when") the synagogue was erected at Ta-liang (another name for Pien, or Pien-liang). Through the Han, T'ang, Sung, and Ming dynasties (B.C. 206-A.D. 1644) there have been many vicissitudes, but no swerving from the true doctrine. The synagogue was built by Am-tu-la in 1163, and rebuilt by an Ustad in the Mongol year 1356 (sic). It was destroyed by the flood of 1461, and again rebuilt.
At the close of the Ming dynasty (1642) the rebels and the imperial troops both cut the banks of the Yellow River with the object of damaging each other; the city was flooded, 100,000 persons were drowned, and the synagogue was again destroyed. In 1646, under the first Manchu emperor, the books saved from the flood were collated and placed for temporary safety in a hired dwelling; meanwhile a military officer of the Jewish religion exerted himself to recover the situation, and in 1653 steps were taken to rebuild once more.
There are various other lengthy details, in which the term mwan-la (mollah) twice occurs; but there is nothing further of great historical interest. In ten years the place was finished and this third stone inscription set up.
Nothing could thus be clearer than the fact that for 500 years the Jews had flourished peaceably at K'ai-feng Fu; the statements about their earlier arrival during the Chou dynasty are self-contradictory, the later inscriptions manifestly ranking in value below the earlier, from which they were necessarily inspired; perhaps the allusion in the first to Abraham and Moses "during the Chou dynasty," (who, according to the usually accepted chronology, both lived before even the beginning of the Chou dynasty), caused the authors of the two later to believe that the earliest Chinese Jews came in the Chou or Han dynasties.
Pious aspirations, are, of course no evidence, and there is no tittle of real evidence to be found that any Westerners, still less any Western religion, came to China before the Chinese themselves discovered the Oxus region in b.c. 130-120. The fact that Buddhists really did arrive in a.d. 67 has most likely been mentally extended, as in the case of the later literature on Islam, to cover more than stern evidence will justify; even the Catholics (Missions Etrangeres) avail themselves of this Buddhist event to turn it into a Christian one in their teaching manuals. But the questions still remain, How was all this about the 1163 Jews found out by Europeans, and What has become of these Persian Jews since 1663?
When the Jesuit Matthew Ricci was in Peking three centuries ago, he was visited by a Chinese Jew who had heard of his arrival in China, and had taken the opportunity of an official visit to Peking to call and see if he perchance belonged to their faith, seeing that report said he was no Mussulman, and yet worshipped a single God. He told Ricci that there were twelve families of Israelites at K'ai-feng, and that they possessed a fine synagogue (this was, of course, before the disaster of 1642), with a scroll of the Law over five hundred years old; he added that there was another synagogue, with a still larger number of Jewish families at Hangchow.
Scattered over other parts of China there were yet other fragments of Jewish communities, who, for want of meeting-places, were gradually being absorbed by the pagans. Ricci at once sent some native Christians to make enquiry at K'ai-feng, and found that the story of Mr. Ngai (one of the family names of the 1163 immigrants) was in the main quite true.
Pere Nicholas Trigault, who had been in Peking for a short time in 1610, the year of Ricci's death, was stationed at K'ai-feng Fu in 1623. Leaving Figuereido in charge, he proceeded to Si-an Fu, where he was the first European to see the celebrated Nestorian Stone discovered in 1623; during his stay in K'ai-feng he must have had opportunities of inspecting the Jewish inscriptions too, and possibly also the synagogue of Hangchow, where he died in 1627; but it is not on record that he ever did so. It was not until about a century or more after this that PP. Gozani (1707), Domenge, Cibot (1770), and Gaubil in turn sent home abridged translations of the inscriptions, afterwards collated by P. Brotier.
In 1850 the Bishop of Hongkong (Protestant) took the lead in sending a deputation of Chinese Christians to K'ai-feng Fu, and two of the Jews were induced the following year to come to Shanghai, bringing with them numerous beautifully inscribed scrolls of white sheepskin. But the synagogue had by this time already ceased to exist, and the remnant of the Jews were in a deplorable condition of poverty. In 1866 the Rev. W. A. P. Martin, an American Protestant missionary (still working for the Chinese in an educational capacity), himself visited the site of the synagogue; he gives a graphic account of his visit in the Journal of the Shanghai Asiatic Society for 1866.
He also alludes to the fact that the ordinary Chinese had some difficulty in distinguishing these "sinew-picking Hwei-hwei from the local Mussulmans, who had six mosques in the city, and who, so far from sympathising with the Jews in their distress, rejoiced in the destruction of their synagogue, and even denounced them as Kafirs (unbelievers). One solitary stone was all that was left in the open space where the synagogue used to be, and on the two faces of this stone were the above described records of 1489 and 1512; the stone of 1663 was in a separate place originally. Several Jews stepped out, in answer to a call, from the crowd which stood round Dr Martin, and their features in his opinion unmistakably marked them as being such; notwithstanding these external evidences of feature, thus surviving after 700 years of pagan Chinese surroundings, they had lost all knowledge of Hebrew, ceased to hand down the traditions of their forefathers, and discontinued the ritual.
The male children had not even been circumcised, and the wretched adults confessed that they had been driven by want to pull down the sacred building with their own hands. Seven of the original immigrant families named in 1489 still had representatives there, and the whole colony as then existing fell short of 400 souls; but they never assembled, had no registers, and were unable to follow back their tribal pedigrees. One of the men present was the son of the last rabbi, who had died in the distant province of Kan Suh about the year 1830. Of course the devastating T'ai-p'ing rebellion, the back of which had only been completely broken in 1864, was largely responsible for this distress.
Since then several Europeans have visited the site — Mr Libermann in 1867, the Rev. D. J. Mills in 1898. In 1902 a party of eight Jews visited Shanghai, and declared that the number of adults in the colony was now reduced to 140. Most of the rituals, scrolls, and other interesting objects connected with these interesting people have now been secured and deposited in the British Museum, or in the museums of Shanghai, Hongkong, and places in India. The Jewish community at Shanghai is believed to have taken the matter in hand with a view of preserving the colony from extinction, and one of the Jewish lads who accompanied the visitors of 1902 is receiving instruction at that treaty port. According to an article published two or three years ago in the East of Asia Magazine by Mr Edward Isaac Ezra, a Jewish merchant of Shanghai, many of the rituals are Persian, and there are many Persian words in the Hebrew scrolls; in his opinion the immigrants must have come by way of Khorasan and Samarcand.
The modern Chinese writers on Mohammedanism call Christians Ou-jo-pa (Arabic Our abba), or "Europeans," just as the Arabs of the seventh century used the word Afrangh, in a loose way, concurrently with "Ourobbaween" and "Al Roum" for "the Byzantines"; hence the West Turks, when in the sixth century they came into intimate relation with Persia and Byzantium, brought the word Fuh-lin (Afrangh, Ferenghi, etc.) back with them to China. It is a curious fact that from first to last the Turkish race, whether as Hiung-nu, Eptals, Turks proper, Ouigours, or Mongols, have been almost the sole medium of connecting by religious links China with Europe. Even now the Turks, besides being leaders of the faithful, are in possession of both Jewish and Christian headquarters, and, in their mixed condition as Mongols or Moguls, may be said to have held until a century ago possession of the headquarters of Buddhism.
The same modern Chinese writers call the Jews Chu-hu-ti, and this gives a clue by which we are enabled with greater certainty to trace the existence of Jews in China during the Mongol dynasty, which was in possession of the whole empire a century after the first immigration of the Persian Jews in 1163. Thus in the year 1329 (midway between the years 1279 and 1356 of the Jewish inscriptions) a decree ordained that: "traders belonging to the Erkuns (Christians), Shuh-hu (in Cantonese still pronounced shut fut), and Danishmends should still pay duties under the former laws."
Mention has already been made of the Censor's recommendation of 1340 that uncles (fathers' brothers) of the Danishmends, Buddhists, Taoists, Mussulmans, and Chu-wu people should not be allowed to intermarry — possibly meaning that their children should not. In 1355 an order was issued by the Emperor Toghun Timur calling upon the good archers of Ning-hia (Marco Polo's Egrigaia, where he says there were Nestorians), and the rich men of the Mussulmans and Shuh-hu to proceed to the capital for military service. It might be that the repairs made (according to the third tablet) to the K'ai-feng synagogue in 1356 were an official reward for these services in 1355.
It is also remarkable to notice that whilst the Nestorians and Jews, both of whom clearly came to China from Persia, were, according to the evidences of their respective stones, eager to compound with Chinese philosophy in defining their faith, there is no evidence that the Mussulmans, at any place in China, have ever condescended to depart one jot from their "Allah is great, and Mohammed is his prophet," or that they have ever felt the need of imperial patronage. The Emperor K'ien-lung's pompous dedication of 1767 was purely gratuitous, and, moreover, historically incorrect. So far from adapting the Mussulman beliefs to Chinese ideas, he graciously sympathises with his conquered foes for having never heard of any literature but the Rouz Nameh.
References
Parker, Edward Harper. China and Religion. E.P. Dutton. 1905.
“The World Factbook: CHINA.” Central Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, 12 July 2018, www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html.
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