As a committee member of The Dr Wu Lien-Teh Society, I am well aware of Abbot Beow Lean's self-inflicted injury. I think this is a very appropriate time to bring up the story of the abbot's wound again to set the story straight. In Dr Wu's own words, here is the passage from pages 250-252 of my own copy of the first edition of Plague Fighter which he published in 1959.
4. Castration in a Temple:
Among the best known sights in the island colony of Penang, which few tourists ever miss, is the Kek Lok See or "Monastery of Supreme Bliss," lying on the top of a hill and situated just five miles from the centre of the town. Soon after the founding of Penang by Francis Light, two temples were built by the Chinese in honour of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy - one in Pitt Street within the town area, for over a century the most frequented place of worship in the island, and the other on a hilly site known as Ayer Etam (Black Water), some five miles away. The former prospered from the very start and money poured in for improvement and new structures, while the latter had to await the arrival of a scholarly and devout Buddhist priest, named Beow Lean, from the ancient city of Foochow in southern China. He came at the end of the nineteenth century. His training and artistic temperament enabled Beow Lean to grasp at once the possibilities of constructing an immense temple amid the gorgeous scenery after the style of the famous Kusan monastery, where he received his initiation as priest.
Penang was full of women of leisure and wealth, who had inherited much property from early settlers who, in those days, paid neither income tax nor death duties. Besides, the opium and spirit farms in which they heavily invested their savings, brought in huge profits and, through intermarriage with other wealthy families, they became, indeed, well-off. In their declining years, these persons became more and more interested in religion, especially Buddhism, preached by both Chinese and Siamese priests. The Rev. Beow Lean approached these kindly ladies and interested them in his scheme of constructing a worthy monastery in Ayer Etam to replace the ramshackle Kuan Yin home. He asked men and women supporters to form committees and collect subscriptions. Although he asked for $500,000 - then considered a large sum - donations poured in, and when half this sum was reached, Beow Lean felt justified in starting construction work. For five years, tier after tier of most picturesque Chinese architecture made its appearance upon the undulations of the once thickly wooded slopes, resulting in a structure which never failed to arouse the admiration and wonder of streams of interested visitors who could order vegetarian meals on the spot at a relatively cheap price. Then rumours, originating doubtless from the jealous management of less popular places of worship, began to spread of orgies and secret underground tunnels used for vicious purposes.
Dr Wu Lien-Teh at Kek Lok Si
By the time the imposing monastery was completed in 1905, the wicked slanders had reached their zenith. The devoted and sensitive-minded artist-abbot, for he had thus been deservedly promoted, kept his patience for two years until late one night in the early months of 1907, I received an urgent call from a young novice priest of the Kek Lok See to attend his revered master for severe bleeding. There were, as yet, no motor cars in those days, and the long journey of five miles from my house to the hill temple by a slow horse carriage driven by a sleepy driver took over an hour. Then a steep climb of some hundred steps was undertaken before I could reach the sanctum of the abbot, with whom I had earlier established a cordial friendship, for he had come from the same city as my wife and they could speak the same dialect. I soon discovered the cause of the haemorrhage. In a moment of desperation caused by years of anonymous abuse and slander, especially after he had devoted his entire life to the establishment of the unrivalled Kek Lok See, he found no other way out of his misery than this supreme sacrifice which, according to Chinese religious traditions, was more worthy of honour than the mere taking of own's own life. In the cause of my studies, I had heard of the forcible castration of the famous historian general, Ssu-ma Chien (Han Dynasty), who after defeat in battle was ordered by his imperial master to be deprived of his sex organs, and also of generations of eunuchs in China and Turkey, who had once been normal young males but had been castrated in order that the imperial court might be served by sexless males side by side with aggressive females. But that any man could possess sufficient courage and strength of will to inflict such severe pain on himself, surpasses anything I have ever read, whether fact or fiction. Imagine this man, in the lonely hours of the night, alone in his secluded room in the temple, dimly lit by candle, his right hand holding a massive vegetable chopper, his left hand firmly grasping the entire group of his most intimate organs and, with perhaps a muttered prayer on his lips, severing them from his body with one determined stroke. It was, indeed, an unusual deed and worthy of historic record.
The abbot did not need to excuse himself nor I to commiserate with him, for we understood each other. My immediate job was to stop the bleeding, relieve the excruciating pain and prevent retention of urine.
It was already daybreak when I left the sacred precints of the temple, and I felt, indeed, fatigued. Thereafter, I took a daily trip to see my revered patient and to dress the sore wound caused by dripping urine and resulting sepsis, but it granulated in time, and at the end of the month the pain had ceased and sufficient new skin had been formed for me to cease attendance. I charged nothing for my month's work. I learnt afterwards that the abbot had recovered completely and managed to place his beloved monastery on a firm business footing, so that when he died and was cremated within the temple walls his good deeds were well remembered by all.
A rather faded water colour painting of the Reverend Beow Lean now hangs in the main reception hall of Kek Lok See.
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