Bhikkhu & Chao Rung

Abruptly last week the Buddhist religion produced an Italian in Siam and a Hungarian Jew in British Columbia who volunteered to save the world.

The Italian was Rev. Locanatha Bhikkhu, born Salvatore Cioffi 40 years ago, educated in Manhattan, now resident in Benchamabopitr Monastery near Bangkok. Next June, Buddhist Bhikkhu and 1,000 apostles will set out from India, proceed to Rome and the U. S. on foot save when waters are to be crossed. Begging as they go, the Buddhists expect to take two years in reaching Rome. Their twelve leaders will be called "Lions" because they think they will need lion hearts in such troublous spots as Mecca and Jerusalem. They will preach vegetarianism. "Westerners," said Bhikkhu, "make graveyards of themselves on account of the innocent animals they kill to eat."

More familiarly last week rang the name of the Abbot Chao Kung, born Ignatz

Timothy Trebitsch near Budapest in 1879. Going to England at 20, he tacked "Lincoln" on his name, became a Lutheran missionary, then an Anglican curate, then a Quaker. As secretary to a cocoa manufacturer he turned to politics, got elected an M. P. A censor during the War, Trebitsch-Lincoln proudly recounts that he was a spy for both sides. But when England tried and convicted him it was for forgery. In 1920 he was again a censor, this time in Berlin where he said he helped General Ludendorff in the Kapp putsch. Harried from nation to nation and everywhere unwelcome, Trebitsch-Lincoln looked eastward upon Buddhism, saw that it was good. He entered a monastery near Peiping, took the name Chao Kung, had his hair clipped and the twelve circular brands of the Buddhist wheel of life burned into his bullet pate. Two years ago he returned to Germany to gain converts. Jailed in Cologne for an old debt he had forgotten, he got out by swearing a pauper's oath, returned to China followed by such neophyte Buddhists as a French perfumer, a filling station manager, a professor's widow, an Italian composer. Chao Kung opened a monastery of his own, drew crowds with his lectures in Chinese and English. But last year he was still restless. Resolving to carry on his evangelizing in the West, he growled: "I will stand no more nonsense from any government."

Last week Chao Kung turned up in Victoria, B. C. Canadian officials offered no nonsense. Apparently well supplied with money, dressed in a black satin robe and accompanied by ten male and female Buddhists, Chao Kung said: "I want to be friends with the British and the world in general." He announced he would cross the continent, deliver some lectures, proceed to Germany. He explained that (like Locanatha Bhikkhu) he is a vegetarian. "It is not that we believe in unnecessarily castigating the body, but we believe the mind works better if the body is fed less. Buddhism demands precise, profound and correct thinking."

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