Buddhist charm for ending drought. Chinese superstition.

Buddhist charm for ending drought.

Buddhist “Tso-fu-sze” ceremony performed to evoke rain and end drought, illustrated in a charm.

The annexed is a Buddhist prayer-charm.

When the country has suffered from prolonged drought, Buddhist priests offer prayer, and perform the ceremony known as “Tso-fu-sze”. This is similar to that called K’iu-yü, begging for rain. Then the Dragon stirs up the seas, and a beneficent rain falls on the parched earth.

All this is graphically expressed in the annexed picture. The four characters: Fung-tiao-yü-shun written in the four corners, mean “genial distribution of wind and rain”.

Source: Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine par Henri Doré. Le Panthéon Chinois, Zi-Ka-Wei 1916.

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