China and the West

Cambridge, Richard Owen. The fakeer : a tale. (1756).
Preface.
It ought to be acknowledged, that the plan of the following lines is borrowed from M. Voltaire, who evidently took his hint from a passage in Pere le Comte’s History of China, which it is thought necessary to prefix, in order to support and illustrate the facts on which the tale is founded.
An Extract from Le Comte's Memoirs and Remards, &c. Octavo, 1737, Page 335.
The Bonzes (1) get a great deal of money by doing acts of penance publicly, which the people esteem them mightily for. I have seen them dragging after them a long chain of iron as thick as one’s arm, about thirty feet long, fastened to their neck, waist, or legs. Thus it is, say they, at every door as they pass, that we expiate your faults, sure this deserves some small alms. Others in public places knock their pates with all their force with large bricks, till they are almost covered with blood. They have several other (2) penitential actions ; but what I was most surprized at was this :
One day I met a Bonze in a sort of sedan, very close shut, the inside of which was like an harrow full of nails very thick, with their points sticking out towards the man in the chair, so that he could not bend either one way or the other without wounding himself. Two fellows were hired to carry him from house to house, where he begged the people to have compassion on him.
He told them he was shut up in that chair for the good of their souls, and was resolved never to go out from thence, till they had bought all the nails (of which there were above two thousand) at the rate of sixpence a-piece. If you buy any of them, says he, you will do an action of heroic virtue, and your alms are not bestowed on the Bonzes, to whom you may take other opportunities of bestowing your charity, but to the god FO, in whose honour we are going to build a temple. I told him, that he was very unhappy to torment himself thus in this world for no good, and did counsel him therefore to come out of his prison, to go to the temple of the true God, to be instructed in heavenly truths, and submit to penance less severe, but more salutary. He was so far from being in a passion with me, that he answered me calmly and courteously, that he was much obliged to me for my good advice, and would be more obliged to me still, if I would buy a dozen of his nails, which would certainly make me have a good journey.
Here hold your hand, says he, turning on one side, take these ; upon the faith of a Bonze, they are the very best in all my sedan, for they prick me the most, yet you shall have them at the same rate at which I sell the others.
(1) Bonzes is the general name for a priest. The proper term for the poor begging Dervise is Fakeer ; which both in the Turkish and Indian Language, signifies poor. Those of this sect who retire to desert places, and practise the utmost austerity of fasting and meditation, are called Jauguis ; that is, united with God. They seem for hours together absorbed in extacy, feeling, as they fancy, the divinity in the appearance of a clear and vivid light at the end of their nose, which they endeavour to effect by fixing both their eyes equally to that point, with inflexible constancy.
(2) Some keep a fire always burning on their heads : others tie their heels to a tree, and leaning downwards, are continually supplying a fire with wood, that the flame may rise to their breasts.