The Life or Legend of Gaudama, the Buddha of the Burmese (Volume II)

by Paul Ambroise Bigandet

THE SEVEN WAYS TO NEIBBAN.

This is an abridgment of all the principles that constitute the system of Buddhism. In the Legend of Buddha the reader has become acquainted with the life of the founder of Buddhism, the establishment of his religion, and the promulgation of his chief doctrine. In the following pages he will find compressed within narrow limits the several observances to be attended to in order to reach the goal of quiescence. As it is chiefly and principally by the help of meditation and contemplation that such a point can ever be attained, the reader must be prepared to wade up to his very chin in the somewhat muddy waters of metaphysics if he has a wish to penetrate into the very sanctuary of Buddhism.

To encourage the reader, and console him in the midst of his fatiguing journey through such dreary tracts, the writer would remind him that he has first borne up the fatigues of such a journey, and that, impelled by friendly feelings, he has endeavoured to smooth the rugged path in behalf of those that would follow him on the same errand. How far he has succeeded in his well-meant efforts he will not presume to state. But he will say this much, that if his success be commensurate with his exertions he may entertain a well-founded hope that he will not be altogether disappointed in his anticipation, and feel somewhat confident that he has afforded to the uninitiated some help to go over the difficult ground of metaphysics.

Following, in this instance, the line of conduct he has adopted through the foregoing pages of this book, the writer will allow the Buddhist author to speak for himself and explain his own views on the different subjects under consideration. His sole aim will ever be to convey as faithfully and as succinctly as possible the meaning of the original he has under his eyes. The task, however simple it may appear, is far from being an easy one, as the Burmese are utterly incapable of fully understanding the metaphysical portion of their religious system. Their ignorance is calculated to render even more obscure what is per se almost beyond the range of comprehension, because they must have frequently put an erroneous interpretation on many Pali words, the meaning of which is far from being accurately determined.

Our Buddhist doctor begins his work with enumerating the advantages to be derived from a serious and constant application to the earnest study of these seven ways. “Such an exercise,” says he, “has the virtue to free us from all evils; it expands the intelligence in the highest degree, and leads straight to Neibban. Man, through it, is delivered from all errors, is happy, and becomes during his life an honour to the holy religion of Buddha.”

The various subjects he intends to treat of in this work are arranged under seven heads, which are laid down in his own original way as follows:—The observance of the precepts and the practice of meditation are the two-fold foundation of the spiritual edifice. The consideration of the nature and form of matter shall be the right foot of the sage; the investigation about the causes and principles of living beings shall be as his left foot; the application of the mind to find out the four high-roads to perfection, and the obtaining the freedom from all passions, shall be as his right and left hands; and the possession of the perfect science or knowledge shall be as his head. The happy man who shall have reached so far will be certain to obtain the deliverance.

This summary is thus divided by our guide into seven distinct parts, which will be condensed into six articles.

It is as well to add that this work, an abridged translation of which is now set before the reader, was composed at first in the Siamese language at Bangkok, and has been subsequently translated into Burmese. We find, therefore, that all the principles expounded throughout are received as genuine on the banks of the Irrawaddy as well as on those of the Meinam, and may be looked upon as a faithful exposition of the highest tenets of Buddhism, such as they are held in both countries. This observation confirms a notion which has been denied by many, viz., that the chief doctrines of Buddhism are pretty nearly the same in all the places where it has become the dominant creed. The discrepancies to be met here and there relate principally to practices and observances which present to the eyes of the observer an infinite variety of hues and forms. When Buddhism was established in several countries, it did not destroy many observances and practices that were found deeply engrafted on the customs and manners of the people; it tolerated them, and made with them a tacit compromise. As, for instance, the worship of Nats existed among the tribes of the Irrawaddy valley long before the introduction of Buddhism. Most of the superstitious rites now prevailing in Burmah originate from that belief. With the Chinese the worship of ancestors continues to subsist side by side with Buddhism, though the latter creed has nothing to do with it. In Nepaul and at Ceylon, Hindu superstitions obtrude themselves on the view of the observer to such an extent that it is not easy to state which of the two creeds obtains the preference.

ARTICLE I.
OF THE PRECEPTS.

Our author, in a truly philosophical spirit, at first puts to himself the three following questions: What is the origin of the law? What is man, the subject of the law? What is the individual who is the promulgator of the law? The three questions he answers in the following manner: 1st. All that exists is divided into two distinct parts, the things which are liable to change and obey the principle of mutability, such as matter, its modifications, and all beings which have a cause;[45] and those which are eternal and immutable, that is to say, the precepts of the law and Neibban. These have neither author nor cause; they are self-existing, eternal, and placed far beyond the reach of the influence that causes mutability. 2d. As to the publisher of the law, Buddha, he is a mere man, who during myriads of centuries has accumulated merits on merits, until he has obtained the Neibban of Kiletha, or the deliverance from all passions. From that moment till his death this eminent personage is constituted the master of religion and the doctor of the law. Owing to his perfect science he finds out and discovers all the precepts that constitute the body of the law. Impelled by his matchless benevolence towards all beings, he promulgates them for the salvation of all. He is not the inventor of those precepts; he merely discovers them by the power of the supreme intelligence, in the same manner as we perceive clearly during the night, by the help of a light, objects hitherto wrapped in utter darkness. 3d. Man, who is to be subjected to the observance of the law, is distinguished by the following characteristics. He possesses more knowledge than the animals and other beings, except the Nats and Brahmas; his intelligence and thoughts reach farther than those of other beings; he is capable of reflecting, comparing, drawing inferences, and observing freely the rules of life;[46] despite the allurement of his passions, he can free himself from the three great passions, concupiscence, anger, and ignorance; finally, he is a descendant from those Brahmas who, in the beginning of this world, came from their seat, lived on earth, and, by their eating the rice Tsale, lost all their glorious privileges, and became beings similar to those who are known to us under the denomination of men.

The great end to be aimed at in the observance of the precepts of the law and the exercise of meditation is the obtaining of a state of complete indifference to all things. The state of indifference alluded to does not consist in a stupid carelessness about the things of this world. It is the result of a knowledge acquired with much labour and pain. The wise man who has possessed himself of such science is no longer liable to the influence of that vulgar illusion which makes people believe in the real existence of things that have no reality about them, but subsist only on an ephemeral basis, which incessantly changes and finally vanishes away. He sees things as they truly are. He is full of contempt for things which are at best a mere illusion. This contempt generates a complete indifference for all that exists, even for his own being. He longs for the moment when it shall be given to him to cast away his own body, that he may no longer move within the circle of endless and miserable forms of existence. In this sense must be understood the state of perfect quietism or indifference, which is the last stage the wise man may reach by the help of the science he possesses. The religious of the Brahminical creed have professed the same indifference for all the accidents of life. Hence our Buddha, when he became a perfected being, looked on the wicked Dewadat with the same feelings as he did on the great Maia, his mother. Numberless Rathees or anchorites have ever been eulogised for having allowed themselves to be devoured by ferocious beasts or bit by venomous snakes, rather than offer the least resistance that could exhibit a sign of non-indifference. Entire was their unconcern towards their very body, which they knew well is, as everything else, a compound of the four elements, a mere illusion, totally distinct from self.

Five commandments constitute the very basis whereupon stand all morals, and are obligatory on all men without exception. They include five prohibitions. (It is not a little surprising that the five precepts obligatory on all men are merely five prohibitions designed not to teach men what they have to do, but warning them not to do such things as are interdicted to them. This supposes that man is prone to do certain acts which are sinful. The Buddhist law of the five precepts forbids him to yield to such propensities, but it does not teach him particular duties to perform. It does not elevate man above his original level, but it aims at preventing him from falling lower.) The five prohibitions are: Not to destroy the life of any being; not to steal; not to commit adultery; not to tell lies; not to drink any intoxicating liquors or beverages.

Our author seems to be a perfect master in casuistry, as he shows the greatest nicety and exactness in explaining all the requisite conditions that constitute a trespassing of those precepts. We will give here but a few samples of his uncommon proficiency in this science. As regards the first prohibition, he says, five things are necessary to constitute an offence against the first commandment, viz., a being that has life, the intention and will of killing that being, an act which is capable of inflicting death, and the loss of life of that being consequent on the inflicting of that action. Should but one of these conditions be wanting, the sin could not be said to have taken place, and therefore no complete trespassing of the first prohibition.

Again, as regards the second precept, five circumstances or conditions are necessary to constitute a trespassing, viz., an object belonging to another person, who neither by words nor signs showed any intention to part with it; the knowing that the owner intends to keep possession of it; having the actual intention to take away secretly or forcibly that object; an effort to become possessed of the thing by deceiving, injuring, or by mal-practices causing the owner or keeper of the thing to fall asleep; and, finally, removing the thing from its place, however short may be the distance, should it be but that of the length of a hair of the head.

For the infraction of the third precept the following conditions are required: the intention and will of sinning with any person of another sex, which comes within the denomination of Akamani-jathan, that is to say, persons whom it is forbidden to touch; acting up to that intention and the consummating of such an act. Women that fall under the above denomination are divided into twenty classes. The eight first classes include those that are under the guardianship of their parents or relatives; the ninth class comprises those affianced before they be of age; the tenth, those reserved for the king. Within the ten other classes come all those who, owing to their having been slaves, or from any other cause, have become concubines to their masters, or married their seducers, &c.

The fourth prohibition extends not only to lies, but likewise to slander, coarse and abusive expressions, and vain and useless words. The four following conditions constitute a lie, viz., saying a thing that is untrue; the intention of saying such a thing; making manifest such an intention by saying the thing; and some one’s hearing and clearly understanding the thing that is uttered. That the sin of medisance may be said to exist, it is required that the author of it should speak with the intention of causing parties to hate each other or quarrel with each other, and that the words spoken to that end should be heard and understood by the parties alluded to.

The fifth precept forbids the drinking of Sura and Meria, that is to say, of distilled liquors and of intoxicating juices extracted from fruits and flowers. The mere act of putting the liquor in the mouth does not constitute a sin; the swallowing of it is implied.

Besides these five general precepts, obligatory on all the faithful without exception, there are three other precepts, or rather counsels, that are strongly recommended to the Upasakas, or pious laymen. They are designed as barriers against the great propensity inherent in nature which causes men to exceed in all that is used, through the senses of taste, hearing, seeing, smelling, and feeling. They are so many means that help to obtain a sober moderation in the daily use of the things of the world.

The first counsel regulates all that regards eating. It forbids using any comestible from noon to daybreak of the following morning. The second interdicts the assisting at plays, comedies, and the use of flowers and essences with the intention of fondly handling and smelling them. The third prescribes the form and size of beds, which ought never to be more than one cubit high, plain and without ornaments. The use of mattresses and pillows, filled with cotton or other soft substances, is positively prohibited. The very intention of lying upon these enervating superfluities, and a fortiori reclining on them, constitutes the breaking of such a command.

These three latter precepts are to be observed chiefly in the following days, on the 5th, 8th, 14th, and 15th of the waxing moon, and on the 5th, 8th, and 14th of the waning moon, as well as on the new moon. The pious Upasakas sometimes observe them during the three consecutive months of the season of Lent.

In the opinion of our author those men and women are deserving of the respectable title of Upasakas who have the greatest respect for and entertain a pious affection towards the three precious things, Buddha, the law, and the assembly of the perfect. They must ever view them as the haven of salvation and the securest asylums. They must be ready to sacrifice everything, their very life, for the sake of these three perfect things. During their lifetime, under all circumstances, they must aim at following scrupulously the instructions of Buddha, such as they are embodied in the law and preached by the Rahans.

Five offences disqualify a man for the honourable title of Upasaka, viz., the want of belief and confidence in the three precious things, the non-observance of the eight precepts, the believing in lucky and unlucky days,[47] or in good and bad fortune, the belief in omens and signs, and keeping company with the impious, who have no faith in Buddha.

We now come to the rules which are prescribed to all the Buddhist religious. They are 227 in number, and are found in a book called Patimauk. This book is the vade mecum of all religious. They study it and often learn it by heart. On certain days of each month the religious assemble in the Thein. The Patimauk is then read, explained, and commented upon by one of the elders of the fraternity. It is an abridgment of the Wini, the great book of discipline. It teaches the various rules respecting the four articles offered by the faithful to the religious; that is to say, vestments, food, mats, and the ingredients for mastication. These rules likewise regulate all that relates to the mode of making prayers, devotions, walking, sitting, reclining, travelling, &c. Everything is described with a minute particularity.

Here, if any interest could be awakened, would be the place to enter into the system of casuistry carried by Buddhist religious to a point of nicety and refinement truly astonishing. Suffice it to state that they have gone over the boundless field of speculative conjectures respecting all the possible ways of fulfilling or trespassing the precepts and regulations that concern the body of religious.

Every law and precept must have a sanction. This essential requisite is not wanting in the Buddhist system. Let us examine in what consists the reward attending a regular and correct observance of the precepts, and what is the punishment inflicted on the transgressors of these ordinances. As usual, we will follow our author and allow him to make known his own opinions on this important subject. It is often inquired of us, says he, why some individuals live here during many years, whilst others appear but for a short time on the scene of this world. The reason of the difference in the respective condition of these persons is obvious and evident. The first, during their former existence, have faithfully observed the first command and refrained from killing beings, hence their long life; the second, on the contrary, have been guilty of some trespassings of this precept, and therefore the influence of their former crimes causes the shortness of their life. In a similar manner we account for all the differences that exist in the conditions of all beings. The observance or trespassing of one or several precepts creates the positions of happiness and unhappiness, of riches and poverty, of beauty and ugliness, that chequer the lives and positions of mortals in this world.

In addition to the rewards bestowed immediately in this world, there are the six seats of Nats, where all sorts of recompenses are allotted, during immense periods, to those who have correctly attended to the ordinances of the law. There are likewise places of punishment in the several hells, reserved to the transgressors of the precepts. The conditions of animal, Athoorikes and Preittas, are other states of punishment.

A lengthened account of all that relates to the blissful regions of Nats and the gloomy abodes of hell is found in one of the great Dzats, or accounts of the former existences of Gaudama, given by himself to his disciples, when he was a prince under the name of Nemi. The writer has read and partly translated this work, which delightfully reminded him of the fine episodes on similar subjects he had read in the sixth book of the Æneid. The wildest, most fertile, and inventive imagination seems to have exhausted its descriptive powers, on the one hand, in multiplying the pleasures enjoyed in the seats of Nats, and beautifying and adorning those delightful regions; and, on the other, in representing with a dark and bloody pencil the frightful picture of the numberless and horrid torments of the regions of desolation, despair, and agony.

All that is so abundantly related of the fortunate abodes of Nats in their sacred writings supplies the Buddhist religious with agreeable and inexhaustible topics of sermons which they deliver to their hearers, to excite them more effectually to bestow on them abundant alms. The credulous hearers are always told that the most conspicuous places in those regions are allotted to those who have distinguished themselves by their great liberalities. We think it idle and superfluous, uninteresting and fatiguing to repeat those fabulous accounts of the seats of Nats and abodes of hell, as given at great length by Buddhist authors. The only particulars deserving to be attended to are these: the reward is always proportionate to the sum of merits, and punishment to that of demerit. There is no eternity of reward or of punishment.[48]

This first article shall be concluded by an important remark bearing upon the system under consideration. The seats of happiness, as already mentioned, are divided into two great classes; the one including the superior, and the other the inferior seats. The latter are the six seats of Nats, and are tenanted by beings as yet under the influence of concupiscence and other passions. Those who observe the five general precepts have placed, and, as it were, established themselves on the basis whereupon stands perfection, but not yet in perfection itself; they have just crossed the threshold thereof. They are as yet imperfect; but they have prepared themselves for entering the way that leads towards perfection; that is to say, meditation, or the science of Dzan. The very reward enjoyed in those seats is, therefore, as yet an imperfection. The superior seats can only be reached by those who apply themselves to mental exercises. These exercises are the real foundation of the lofty structure of perfection and the high-road to it.

ARTICLE II.
OF MEDITATION AND ITS VARIOUS DEGREES.

This and the following articles contain subjects of so abstruse and refined a nature, that it would require one to possess the science of a Buddha to come to a right understanding of them. The difficulties arising from this study are due to the confused and very unsatisfactory ideas of the Buddhist philosophers respecting the soul and its spirituality, and perhaps to the inability of the writer to understand the vague and undefined terms employed to convey their ideas on these matters. The field of Buddhist metaphysics is, to a European, in a great measure a new one; the meaning of the terms is half-understood by the Burmese translators; definitions of terms do not convey explanations such as we anticipate, and ideas seem to run in a new channel; they assume, if we may say so, strange forms: divisions and subdivisions of the various topics have no resemblance to what a European is used to in the study of philosophy. The student feels himself ushered into a new region; he is doomed to find his way by groping. Finally, the false position assumed by the Indian philosophers, and the false conclusions they arrive at, contribute to render more complicated the task of elucidating this portion of the Buddhist system. That the difficulties may be somewhat lessened, and the pathway rendered less rugged and a little smooth, the writer proposes to avoid as much as it is in his power overcharging with Pali terms the explanations he is about to afford, under the guidance of the Buddhist author.

In the preceding article we have treated of meritorious actions that are purely exterior, and briefly alluded to the nature of the rewards bestowed on earth and in the six seats of Nats upon those who have performed these good actions. Now we leave behind all the exterior good deeds, and turn the attention of our mind to something more excellent, to those acts that are purely interior, and are performed solely by the soul and the right exercise of its faculties; that is to say, by meditation and contemplation.

The root of all human miseries is ignorance. It is the generating principle of concupiscence and other passions. It is the dark but lofty barrier that encircles all beings and retains them within the vortex of endless existences; it is the cause of all existences, and of all those illusions to which beings are miserably subjected; it causes those continual changes which take place in the production of all beings. This great cause once found and proclaimed by Buddha, it was necessary to procure a remedy to counteract the action of ignorance, and successfully oppose its progress. Another antagonistic and opposite principle had to be found, adequate to resist the baneful agency of ignorance and stem its sad and misfortune-creating influence. That principle is science or knowledge. Ignorance is but a negative agent: it is only the absence of science. Let knowledge be, and ignorance shall vanish away in the same manner as darkness is noiselessly but irresistibly dissipated by the presence of light.

All beings in this universe, says our author, are doomed to be born and die. We quit this place to go and live in another; we die here to be born elsewhere. We can never be freed from pain, old age, and death. Whether we like it or not, we must suffer and always suffer. But why is it so? Because we do not possess the perfect science. Were we blessed with it, we would infallibly look towards Neibban, and then, escaping from the pursuit of pain and miseries, we would infallibly obtain the deliverance from those evils which now incessantly press upon us. It rests with us only to perfect our intelligence, so that we might gradually attain to the perfect science, the source of all good. But by what means is so desirable an end to be obtained? By the exercise of meditation, answers, with a decided tone, our philosopher. This word implies, besides, our intellectual operations of a superior order, such as contemplation, visions, ecstasy, union, &c., which are the more or less complete results of that intellectual exercise.

The act of meditating can take place but in the heart, where resides the mano, or the faculty of knowing. Its object can never be but the nam-damma, literally the name of the thing; or, in other terms, the things of a purely intellectual nature. But it can by no means happen in the seats of the other senses or organs, such as the eyes, the ears, &c., which are only channels to communicate impressions to the faculty of mano.

The constitutive parts of meditation are five in number. Witteka, the action of raising the mind to an object; Witzara, the attentive consideration of that object; Piti, the bringing of the soul and body to a state of satisfaction; Suka, the pleasure enjoyed in the thing considered; Ekatta, the perseverance or stability of the mind in that object. There is also Upekka, which implies a greater and more intense degree of fixity of the mind, extending not only to one object in particular, but to all things.

It may be called the absolute quietism of the soul, and the net result of a complete course of general meditation on the universality of things. It is the last and highest point that can ever be reached.

To explain more fully the nature and definitions of the two first parts, our philosopher has recourse to the following comparison. Let us suppose a man that has to cleanse a rusty copper vessel. With one hand he grasps the vessel, and with the other he rubs it up and down, right and left. This is exactly what is done by the means of Witteka and Witzara. The first gets hold of the object of meditation, and the second causes the mind to pass and repass over it, until it has perfectly seen it in all its particulars.

The third stage in the exercise of meditation is that of Piti, which consists in a sort of transitory delectation, experienced by him who has reached that third step of mental labour. It produces on the whole frame the following effects:—It seems to him that is engaged in that exercise that the hairs of his head stand on an end, so strong is the sensation he then feels; at other times it produces in the soul sensations similar to that of the lightning that rends the atmosphere. Sometimes it is in a commotion resembling that of mighty waves breaking on the shore; at other times the subject is, as it were, carried through the air, or only raised above the ground, and occasionally it causes a chill running throughout all the limbs. When these results have been, through persevering efforts, repeatedly experienced with an ever-increasing degree of intensity, the following effects are attained:—The body and the soul are completely restrained, subdued, and composed; they are almost beyond the influence of concupiscence. Both acquire a remarkable lightness, so that the exercise of meditation offers no further trouble or labour; the natural repugnance or opposition to self-recollection is done away with, then the exercise of meditation becomes pleasing from the pleasurable state of the soul and body, and finally both parts are in a true and genuine condition, so that what there was previously in them either vicious or opposed to truth disappears at once and vanishes away. Such are the various effects experienced by the soul that has reached the degree of Piti, or mental satisfaction.

When the soul and body have thus been perfectly subdued, and freed from all that could wrongly affect them, the soul then reaches the state of Suka, that is to say, of perfect and permanent pleasure and inward delight. The effects or results thereof are called Samati, or peace or quiescence of the soul. As a matter of course, that state of inward peace has several degrees both as regards the time it lasts and the intensity of the affection. It lasts sometimes for a moment, or for a period of uncertain duration, as it happens when we reflect on some subject, or we listen to a sermon. At other times its duration is longer; when, for instance, we are about to enter into contemplation or ecstasy, and it lasts as long as we are in one of these states.

From Piti originates the Samati-tseit, the idea or consciousness of inward quiescence. It is the secondary cause of the real joy and delight, and is followed by an unshaken resolution to adhere to all the precepts of the law. It produces in the soul a certain freshness, expansion, and ravishment in the practice of virtue. Such a state is illustrated by the following comparison. A traveller has to go over a very difficult road; he is exposed to an intense heat, and tormented with a burning thirst. Let us imagine the intensity of his delight when he finds himself on the brink of a rivulet of clear and cool water; such is precisely the state of the soul under the influence of Piti. The state of Suka follows it very soon. It is exemplified by the condition of the traveller who has been perfectly refreshed and relieved from thirst and fatigue, and enjoys the delightful and pleasurable effects resulting therefrom.

The last state or the crowning point to be arrived at by the means of meditation is that of Upekka, or perfect fixity, whence originates an entire indifference to love or hatred, pleasure or pain. Passions can no more affect the soul in that happy condition. But in this, as well in the preceding states, there are several degrees, according to the various objects it refers to. In the Upekka, relating to the five senses, man is no more affected by beautiful or unseemly objects, by harsh or melodious sounds, &c. As to what refers to creatures, man has neither love nor dislike for them. Man obtains the state of Upekka, relating to science or knowledge, by examining and considering all things through the medium of the three great principles, aneitsa, duka, anatta, that is to say, change, pain, and illusion. There is also the uirya upekka; as when a man, after great struggles and efforts to obtain a certain object, sees that he cannot reach it, he becomes indifferent to it, and without trouble or the least disquiet gives up the undertaking. There are many other effects of the Upekka mentioned by our author, the enumeration of which would prove tedious. What has been just stated is sufficient to afford a correct idea of the nature of the highest state of meditation that the human mind can ever reach. The last and most transcendent result of the condition of Upekka is this: when an individual, by successful exertions, has ascended to the top of the spiritual ladder, there is a certain virtue that attracts everything to him. He becomes a centre to which all appear to converge. He is like the central point of our planet, that ever remains distinct from the bodies it incessantly draws to itself. Seated in the centre of the most complete quietism, the sage contemplates, without the least effort, the unclouded truth that indefinitely unfolds itself before him. Hence, as our author observes, the sage that has reached the state of Upekka has no more to pass successively through the four preceding stages to be enabled to meditate; that is to say, he no more requires the help of thought, reflection, satisfaction, and pleasure. He is in the middle of the cloudless atmosphere of truth which he enjoys, and therein remains as unmoved as truth itself.

As stated in the previous article, the observance of the precepts, or the performance of exterior good actions, draws abundant rewards upon those who faithfully comply with them. These rewards are bestowed either in the seat of man or in the six abodes of Nats, which we will agree to call the six inferior heavens, where concupiscence as yet holds its empire.

The inward good deeds produced by the operation of the intellectual faculties of the soul being of an incomparably greater value than the external ones, the recompense of the former is of a higher order than that of the latter. Hence there are twenty superior heavens reserved to the sages that have made progress in meditation.[49] The accounts of the Buddhists respecting the extent of these seats, their respective distance in a perpendicular direction, the myriads of centuries to stay in each of them, &c., are puerilities not worth attending to, and in no way belonging to the genuine and original Buddhism. They are the inventions in subsequent ages of individuals who wished to emulate their neighbours and rivals, the Hindus, at a time when the latter substituted the gross and revolting idolatry of the Puranas for the purer doctrines of the Vedas. But what is directly to our purpose is the distinction of these twenty seats into two classes. The first comprises sixteen seats, under the designation of Rupa, or matter; the second includes four seats, called Arupa, or immaterial abodes or conditions. Here are located on a grand and immense scale, according to their respective proficiency in science and meditation, the beings that have striven to advance in knowledge by the exertion of the mental faculties. The general appellation given to each class bears a great meaning, and therefore deserves explanation. In the sixteen seats of Rupa are placed the contemplatives who have as yet a body, and have not been hitherto able to disengage themselves from some affection to matter. The subjects of their meditations are still the beings inhabiting this material world, together with some of the Kathain, or coarser portion of their being. But in the four seats called Arupa, which terminate the series of Buddhist heavens, the contemplatives are destitute of shape and body; they are almost brought to the condition of pure spirits. In their sublime and lofty flight in the regions of spiritualism, they seem to have bid a last farewell to this world, and to be no longer concerned with material things.

Let us glance rapidly over these various seats, and pay a visit to the beings that have been rewarded with a place in them, owing to their great proficiency in the mental exercise of meditation. We will begin with the lowest seat, and from it successively ascend to the loftiest. We must bear in remembrance that there are, as above stated, five degrees of meditation or five parts, viz., perception, reflection, satisfaction, happiness, and fixity. He who has been much exercised in the first degree shall inhabit one of the three first seats of Rupa. Those who, leaving aside the first degree, shall delight in the second and third, shall inhabit, according to their respective progress, one of the three following seats. Those who take delight only in the fourth degree, having no further aid of the three first parts, perception, consideration, and satisfaction, shall be located in the seventh, eighth, and ninth seats. When the fifth degree of Dzan, or meditation, has been attained, that is to say, when a privileged contemplative is able to meditate and contemplate, without having recourse to the representation and consideration of the object, without allowing himself to be influenced by pleasures or joy, then he has attained to the state of fixity and indifference; he occupies the tenth and eleventh seats. The five remaining seats bear the collective name of Thoodawata, or abodes of the pure or perfect, that is to say, the dwelling-place of those who have entered into the current of perfection. They are inhabited by the Kaliana Putadzans, and the four sorts of contemplatives called Thautapan, Thakadagan, Anagan, and Rahandas. The latter have entered into the Thoda, or current of perfection. The Thautapans and Thakadagans are pure and exempt from all influence of demerits; the Anagans are delivered from the five concupiscences. The Rahandas are enjoying a perfect indifference for all. They are strangers to such language as this: I am great, I am greater, I am greatest. Such terms of comparison are but mere illusions; they are deceitful sounds that confuse, distract, and bewilder the ignorant.

Above the Thoodawata seats are the four called Arupa, or immaterial. The denizens of these places first recognise that the miseries attending man in this world have their origin in the body. They then conceive the utmost disgust and horror for it; they long for the dissolution of this agent to all wickedness. So great is their horror for bodies and matter, that they no longer select them for subjects of meditation; they endeavour to cross beyond the limits of materiality, and launch forth into the boundless space, where this material world does not seem to reach. The inhabitants of the first seat have assumed for their subject of meditation the Akasa, the air, the fluid of the atmosphere, or the space. Those of the second meditate on the Winiana, or the spirit, or life of beings, taken in an abstract sense; those of the third contemplate the Akintzi, or immensity; those of the fourth, Newathagnia, lose themselves in the infinity.

By what mental process has the sage to pass in order to reach the first degree of sublime contemplation? He will have to begin with the consideration of the form of some material object, say one of the four elements. Let him afterwards set aside those Kathain, or material portions of the element brought under consideration, and occupy his mind with the ether, or fluid, or space; the former, that is to say, the kathain, shall disappear to give place to something divested of all those coarser forms, and the mind shall be fixed only on the akatha. The sage then shall repeat ten hundred thousand times these words,—The space or air is infinite, until there will appear at last the first tseit, or idea of arupa. In a similar manner, the tseit akan, or the idea of conformity with purpose, disappears; then begins the science of upekka, or indifference, with its four degrees; the idea that then succeeds is precisely that of akasa ananda, or infinite ether, or space. This unintelligible mental process is explained by a comparison. If they shut with a white cloth the opening of a window, the persons inside the room, turning their eyes in the direction of the opening, see nothing but the white cloth. Should the cloth be suddenly removed, they perceive nothing but that portion of the space corresponding with the extent of the window. The piece of cloth represents the material forms, that are the subjects of meditation, or contemplation, of those living in the seats of Rupa; the free opening of the window exemplifies the subjects of contemplation reserved to the first class of arupa. Having reached so far, the contemplative soon feels the utmost disgust for all material forms, and is entirely delivered from the three Thagnia, or false persuasions, supplied by matter, by the action of the senses, and by the result of merits and demerits. He is displeased with all the coarser forms of beings. The action of the contemplative has its sphere in the mano, or seat of knowledge. The ideas originating from the action of the senses have no share in that purely intellectual labour. In that state, the sage has fallen into a condition of so perfect abstraction, that all the accidents on the part of the elements can produce no effect over him. The action of the senses is completely suspended during all the time that the contemplation lasts. In fact this is nothing else but thamabat, or ecstasy.

The same course of meditation must be followed by the sages inhabiting the other three seats; only the object to be contemplated will be different.

Having explained the important subject of meditation, endeavoured to show the different parts or degrees of that intellectual exercise, and given a faint outline of the recompenses bestowed on those that have distinguished themselves by proficiency in that exercise, we have now to follow our author, and, with him, make ourselves acquainted with the principal subjects that attract the attention of the contemplative.

ARTICLE III.
OF THE NATURE OF BEINGS.

The Buddhist philosopher, in his earnest prosecution after the antidote of ignorance, that is, science, rightly states that all beings, and man, in particular, must ever be the first and most interesting subject the sage has to study. The knowledge of man in particular constitutes a most important portion of the science he must acquire, ere he can become a perfect being, and be deemed worthy to be admitted to the state of Neibban. In the very limited sketch of this part of the work under consideration, the attention of the reader will be directed on man as the most interesting of all beings. With our Buddhist author, therefore, he will take human beings as the subject of his investigations. Provided with the philosophical dissecting knife, he will anatomise all the component parts of that extraordinary being, whose nature has ever presented an insoluble problem to ancient sages. What is to be said on this subject will be sufficient to convey a correct idea of the mode of reasoning and arguing followed by Buddhist philosophers, when they analyse other beings and select them for the subjects of their meditations.

At the very beginning, our author proclaims this great maxim: All beings living in the three worlds, heaven, earth, and hell, have in themselves but two things or attributes, Rupa and Nam, form and name. Accustomed as we are to a language that expresses clear and distinct notions, we would like to hear him say, in nature there are but two things, matter and spirit. But such is not the language of Buddhists, and I apprehend that were we giving up their somewhat extraordinary, and, to us, unusual way of expressing their ideas, we could not come to a correct knowledge of the notions they entertain respecting the nature of man. Let us allow our author to speak for himself, and, as much as possible, express himself in his own way. By rupa, we understand form and matter; that is to say, all that is liable per se to be destroyed by the agency of secondary causes. Nam, or nama, is the thing, the nature of which is known to the mind by the instrumentality of mano, or the knowing principle. In the five aggregates constituting man, viz., materiality or form, the organs of sensation, of perception, of consciousness, and those of intellect, there is nothing else to be found but form and name. We are at once brought to this materialist conclusion, that in man we can discover no other element but that of form and that of name.

To convey a sort of explanation of this subject, our author gives here a few notions respecting the six senses. I say six senses, because with him, besides the five ordinary senses, he mentions the mano, or the knowing principle that resides in the heart, as one of the senses. The organs or faculties of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and knowing, he calls the inward senses. These same organs, as they come in contact with exterior objects, are called exterior senses. The faculty inherent in each of the senses whereby is operated the action between the organ and its object is designated by the appellation of the life of the senses, as, for instance, the eye seeing, the ear hearing, &c. In this treble mode of considering the senses, what do we meet with but form and name, ideas and matter? Supposing the organ of seeing to exist, and an object to be seen, there will necessarily result, as an essential consequence, the perception or idea of such a thing. Even as regards the mano, where there exists the heart on one side, and truth on the other, there will follow immediately the idea or perception of truth.

This materialist doctrine, if the meaning of our author be accurately understood, is further confirmed by the method he proposes for carrying on the investigation respecting the nature of things. He who desires to penetrate deeply into such a sublime science must have recourse to the help of meditation. Having selected an object, he considers it by the means of witekka. He passes successively through the ideas and impressions he derives from the contemplation of such an object. He then says to himself: the ideas obtained by means of witekka, or the first degree of dzan, or meditation, are nothing but nam-damma, since their nature is to offer themselves to the arom, as the thought to its object. But where is the seat of that arom? It resides in the substance of the heart, which, in reality, affords asylum both to it and to the nam-damma. It is nowhere else to be found. But what is the heart? Whence does it come? By what is it formed? To these three questions we answer, that the heart is composed of the four elements. It is but one and the same thing with them. This startling doctrine is explicit, and excludes at once the idea of a spiritual substance.

Our author has now reached the elements of the parts constituting all that exists with a form. He boldly asserts that all that has an existence is but an aggregate of earth, water, fire, and air; all the forms are but modifications and combinations of the four elements. The bare enumeration of this general principle is not sufficient to satisfy our philosopher. He wishes to know and explain the reason of everything. Here begins an analysis entirely unknown to our chemists and philosophers of the west. The body is divided into thirty-two parts, which are often enumerated in formulas of prayer by pious Buddhists. Each of these thirty-two parts is subdivided into forty-four. The hair, how slender soever it appears, is submitted to that minute analysis. The result of this subtle division is to show what is the proportion of each element that enters into the formation of these atomical parts. We have not the patience to write down these uninteresting details, nor do we believe that the reader will be displeased if we spare him the trouble of going over such worthless nomenclature. There is another division of matter, or body, into forty-two parts, called akan. This is based upon the distinction of the four elements that enter unequally into the formation of the body; twenty parts belong to the earth, twelve to water, six to fire, and six to wind. Then again the body is divided into sixty parts; the division is based upon the distinction of the ten constitutive parts belonging to each of the senses, as it will be hereafter explained. The object which Buddhist philosophers have in view in entering into so many divisions and subdivisions of the forms of the body is to prove, in their opinion to demonstration, that, by the nicest analysis of every part of the body, we find in the end nothing but the primary elements that are called the supports of all that exist.

We have now to follow our author through a path more difficult than the preceding one, and hear him explain the theory of ideas and their various modifications. These, says he, are known, not by their forms, since they have none, but only by their name. Through the practice of reflection and meditation we become acquainted with them. We call them arupa damma, things without a form or shape. They are designated under the name of tseit and tsedathit,[50] that is to say, ideas and the result of ideas. Where are these ideas to be met? Where have they their seat? In the six senses and nowhere else, is the answer. Having already become acquainted with the organs of the senses, it will be easy to find out the ideas that are as the tenants of the senses.

All the tseits inhabiting the organs of sense are called loki tseit, that is to say, ideas of the world, because they are to be met with in all the beings as yet subjected to concupiscence. They are distinct from lokoudra tseits, which belong properly to the beings free from passions, and who have entered into the four megga, or ways to perfection. The tseits of this world are eighty-one in number, classified as follows: the perception of each of the five organs, and the perception of the respective faculties of those organs. This gives ten tseits. There are three for the sense of the heart, the perception of the substance of the heart, of its faculty of knowing, and of the object of its knowledge.

Each of the six senses has ten constitutive forms or parts, viz.: earth, water, fire, air, colour, odour, taste, fluid, life, and the body attached primitively thereto. Now there is an action from each of these forms upon the subject. Thence ten tseits to each of the six senses.

There are no words so ill defined and so ill understood by our philosopher as the two words Tseit and Tsedathit. The first in a moral sense means idea, thought, perception, etc.; in a physical sense it means that secondary cause created by kan, producing the living being, the senses wherein reside the moral tseit. Tsedathit, being the result of ideas, must, of course, have likewise two meanings. In the first place it will designate the impressions made upon us by ideas; in the second, it will mean the secondary cause or life in the body, or the modifications of the principles of corporeal life.

This being premised, we may a little understand our author when he says: There are seven tsedathits existing at the same time as the eighty-one above-mentioned tseits, viz.: pasa tsedathit, so called because it is the real effect of the tsedathit to attain its object, and, as it were, to touch it. We may call it the agreement between the idea and its object. Wedana tsedathit, the feeling of the impression of an idea; thagnia tsedathit, the comprehension of the object; dzetana tsedathit, the inclination for the object; eketa tsedathit, the fixity on the object; dziwi-teindre tsedathit, the observance of what relates to form and name; and mana sikaramana tsedathit, consciousness. It is evident, therefore, that the tsedathit is neither the idea nor the object of the idea, but the result from the idea that has come in contact with an object. These seven results are, if we may say so, the third part of the idea. They do not give occasion to modifications of ideas. But those which really give rise to the greatest variety of results are the akuso tsedathit, or the results of evil thoughts and ideas, and their opposite, or kuso tsedathit, or the consequence of good and virtuous thoughts. To mention here all the kuso and akuso tsedathit would be but a dry exposition of the nomenclature of the vices and virtues, such as is met with in the catalogues of Buddhist moralists. They are all enumerated in the preceding note.

ARTICLE IV.
OF THE CAUSE OF THE FORM[51] AND OF THE NAME, OR OF MATTER AND SPIRIT.

The duty of our intelligence is to investigate the cause of all the modifications of forms and names. This being effected, we are delivered from all doubts and disquietude. When we perceive such a form, such an idea, &c., we are able forthwith to account for its causes. In this study we must copy the conduct of the physician, who, when attending a patient, sits by his bedside, closely examines the nature of the distemper and the causes that have given rise to it, in order to find out counteracting agents or remedies to check its progress at first, and gradually to uproot it from the constitution. In the moral order, the philosopher too has to examine the nature of all moral distempers, ascertain the principles or causes they spring from, and thereby become qualified to cure those disorders.

The beings that inhabit the three worlds, says our author, must have a cause. To say that they exist of themselves and without a cause is an absurdity. The very dissimilarity we observe among them indicates that their mode of existence results from certain causes. We, however, cannot agree with our antagonists, the Brahmins, who maintain that Maha Brahma is the cause of all that exists. This being is not out of the circle of Rupa and Nam; he is himself a compound of Nam and Rupa, that is to say, effect but not cause. In vain our opponents will add that all that is distinct of Maha Brahma is subjected to a cause, but that the Rupa and Nam, constituting his essence, are without a cause. This is removing the difficulty a little further, without advancing a step towards its solution; our answer must ever be the same.

Before expounding the opinions of our philosopher on this important subject, it is necessary to state the views entertained by that class of philosophers whose doctrines appear to have taken root in these parts. It is easy to perceive that they are modifications of the opinion of the Hindus on the same subject, and akin to that respecting the Adi Buddha, or supreme Buddha.

Some doctors maintain that there is a first cause or being that has made matter and spirit. Others, admitting the eternal co-existence of matter and of the supreme being, say that he is the remote cause of the organisation of matter, as we at present see it. But all agree in this, that no one can ever come to the knowledge of that first cause, and it is impossible ever to have an idea of it. Hence it is the height of folly and rash presumption to attempt to come to the knowledge of what is placed beyond the range of human investigation. It behoves us to apply all the powers of the mind to discover the immediate cause that certainly produces existence.

The sage, to be worthy of his sublime calling, must remain satisfied with striving to find out that immediate cause which brings into action the form and name, and causes the appearance of all those modifications which we call beings or forms of existence. He ought to strive to account for the organisation of matter and all its modifications, by discovering the hidden spring that effectually sets all in motion, in action, in combination of existences.

Now, our author puts this important question: What thing is to be considered as the mover of the forms and ideas? We know, says he, that the human body has its beginning in the womb of the mother; we are acquainted with its position in that fœtid and narrow prison; its being surrounded with nerves, veins, &c., having above it the new elements, and under it the old ones. The manner in which the body originates in the womb much resembles the process by which worms and insects are formed in rotten substances, and in putrid and stagnant water. But this is not accounting for the real cause of living bodies. The real causes, according to some doctors, are five in number, viz., ignorance, concupiscence, desire, kan (the influence of merits and demerits), and ahan (the aliments). They concur together in the formation of the living body in the following manner. Ignorance, concupiscence, and desire give asylum to the body, as the mother supplies the infant with a refuge in her womb. Kan, like the father, is the cause productive of the body. Ahan affords nourishment to the body.

The ideas are but the result of the formation of the organs of senses. Let us suppose, for instance, the organ of seeing. The Tsekkou Wignian, that is to say, the life of the eyes, or the ideas connected with the use of that sense, presupposes two things, the organ and a form or an object on which the organ acts. These existing, there necessarily result the idea of vision, the perception, &c., in a word, all the ideas arising from the action of the eyes upon various objects. The same mode of arguing is employed relatively to the other five senses.

Other philosophers argue in the following way. The primary causes of all ideas and thoughts are disposed under two heads, that of ideas which have a fixed place, and that of those that have no fixed place. Under the first head are comprised the six Ayatana, or seats of senses, and the six Arom, or the objects of senses. Thence flow all the ideas and consequences that relate to merit and demerit. Under the second head are placed the causes or agents that produce ideas and thoughts, the exercise of the intellect holding the first rank. He who applies his mind to the meditation of what is good, such as the commands and other parts of the most excellent law, and labours to find out that all that is in this world is subjected to change, pain, and illusion, opens at once the door to the coming in of the tseit, or ideas connected with merit. On the other hand, the application of the mind to things bad and erroneous, contrary to the prescriptions of the holy law, generates the idea of demerit. Such are the causes of the ideas and thoughts. As to the cause of form, they assert that kan, tseit, fire, and ahan are the sole agents in the formation of the living body. Kan, as the workman, makes the body and sets in it all that relates to its good and bad qualities. The tseit, seventy-five in number, are also principles of the existence of the body, of which forty-four are called Kamawatzara tseit; they relate to the demerit and merit of those who are still under the influence of concupiscence; fifteen rupa watzara tseit, relating to beings in the seats of rupa; eight arupa watzara tseit, relating to those in the seats of arupa; eight lokoudara tseit, relating to the beings that have entered on the four ways of perfection. The Tedzo-dat, or the element of fire, contributes its share by the head and rays of light, and ahan by supplying the required aliments.

Some other philosophers account for the causes of form and ideas following this course of argument. The form and ideas that constitute all beings are liable to miseries, old age, and death, because there is generation and death. Generation exists because there are worlds, worlds exist because there is desire, desire exists because there are organs, organs exist because there are form and name, form and name exist because there are concepts, concepts exist because there is merit and demerit, merit and demerit exist because there is ignorance. The latter is, indeed, the real cause of all forms and ideas. There is no doubt but this latter opinion is the favourite one with our author. It is based upon the theory of the twelve Nidanas, or causes and effects, and appears to be the orthodox opinion, and bears the stamp of great antiquity.

Having thus accounted in the best way he could for the existence of all that relates to the beings in the three worlds, our author fondly dwells on the benefits that accrue from the knowledge of causes. It dissipates all the doubts that had previously darkened the mind; it quiets all the anxieties of the heart, and affords perfect peace. For want of it, the impious fall from one error into another; the disciples of Buddha are chiefly perfected by its help.

We read in the Buddhist scriptures that a Brahmin went to consult Buddha on some points that much perplexed his mind. He said to him, “I am beset with doubts respecting the past, the present, and the future. Respecting the past, I ask myself, Have I passed through former generations or not? What was my condition during those existences? My answer is, I am ignorant on all those points. What was my position previous to those generations? I know it not. As to the present, is it true that I exist? or is my existence but an illusion? Shall I have to be born again or not? What are those living beings that surround me at present? Are they but so many illusions which deceive me by their appearance of reality? On these points I am sunk in complete ignorance. The future is likewise full of doubts and most perplexing uncertainties. Shall I have other generations or not? What shall be my condition during these coming existences? A thick veil hides from my eyes all that concerns my future destiny. What are the means to clear up all those doubts that encompass me on all sides?”

Buddha said to him, “Reflect first on this main point, that what we are wont to call self, or moi, is nothing but name and form—that is to say, a compound of the four elements, which undergoes perpetual changes under the action or influence of Kan. Having acquired the conviction of the truth of this principle, it remains with you to investigate carefully the causes which produce both name and form. This simple examination will lead you at once to the perfect solution of all your doubts. Behold the difference that exists between the holders of false doctrines and the true believers. The former, whom we may almost call animals, never take the trouble to examine the nature of beings or the causes of their existence. They are stubbornly attached to their false theories, and persist in saying that what the ignorant, delivered up to illusion, are used to call an animal, a king, a subject, a foot, and a hand, &c., is really an animal, a king, a subject, a foot, and a hand, &c.; whilst all living beings and their component parts are nothing else but name and form—that is to say, a compound made up of the four elements. Those impious are delivered up to error; hence it happens that they follow all different ways. We reckon among them more than sixty different sects, all at variance among themselves, but all uniting in a common obstinacy to reject the true doctrine of Buddha. They are doomed to move incessantly within the circle of endless and wretched existences.

“How different is the condition of the true believers, our followers! They know that the living beings inhabiting the world have a beginning. But they are sensible of the folly of attempting to reach this beginning or first cause. This is above the capacity of the loftiest intelligence. It is evident, for instance, that the seeds of plants and trees, which are continually in a state of reproduction, have a beginning; but what that beginning is, no one presumes to determine. So it is with man and all living beings. They know well, too, that what is vulgarly called man, woman, eyes, mouth, are all illusory distinctions, vanishing away in the presence of the sage, who sees nothing in all that but name and form, the production of Kan and Wibek, that is to say, of the first and second causes. These two things are not the man and the woman, &c., but they are the efficient causes of both. What we say respecting man and woman may be applied to animals and to all other beings. They are all the productions or results of Kan and Wibek, quite as distinct from these two agents as effect is distinct from its cause. To explain this doctrine, Buddhists have recourse to the comparison of a burning-glass. When there is such an instrument in one hand, and the rays of the sun pass through it to the other, fire is then produced; but fire is quite distinct from the two causes that have concurred jointly in producing it. Our disciples, too, are aware that the five khandas, or aggregates constituting a living being, succeed each other at each generation, but in such a way that the second generation partakes or retains nothing of the khandas of the first. But the causes producing them—such as Kan and Wibek—never change; they ever remain the same. Let us suppose lamps lighted up. If they burn always, it is owing to the action of individuals that supply them with oil, and light them as soon as they are extinguished. Such is the condition of the khandas. Those which belong to one existence have no more in common with those of the following one than the fire of the lamp just lighted anew has with that of the fire of the lamp that has just died away. As to the way beings are reproduced, we say that when a man is dying, the last tseit having appeared and soon disappeared, it is succeeded forthwith by the patti tseit or the tseit of the new existence; the interval between both is so short that it can scarcely be appreciated. This first tseit has nothing in common with the last one. It is, let it be well remembered, the production of kan, or of the influence of merits and demerits, as well as the khandas above alluded to.”

This article is by far the most important of all. The latter part, in particular, elucidates in a distinct manner the genuine opinions of Buddhism on points of the greatest concern. We may sum up the whole as follows:—

1. There is a first cause that has acted in bringing into being all that exists; but that first cause is unknown, nor can we ever come to the knowledge of it.

2. The immediate causes of all the modifications of beings, or states of being, are ignorance and kan.

3. All beings are but compounds of the four elements. The intellectual operations are carried on by the instrumentality of the heart, in the same manner as vision is obtained by the means of the eye and of an object to act upon.

4. Each succeeding existence is brought on and modified by the action of Kan, or the influence of merits and demerits.

5. The component parts of a new being are in no way connected with those of the previous being. This is the key to the difficulty many persons find in accounting, in a Buddhistic sense, for the process of metempsychosis. A new term ought to be coined to express that doctrine.

6. The question respecting Neibban may be theoretically resolved without difficulty, by application of the principles contained in this and the preceding article. There is no doubt that the solution forced upon the mind from what has been above stated is that the end of the perfected being is annihilation. Horrifying as this conclusion is, it is not, after all, worse than that which is the terminus of the theories of some modern schools. What an abyss is the poor human mind liable to fall into when it ceases to be guided by Revelation!

ARTICLE V.
OF THE TRUE MEGGAS OR WAYS TO PERFECTION.

The subject under consideration is a very important one. It comprehends and comprises a summary of many particulars already alluded to in the foregoing two articles. The reader will find the path he has to follow less rugged, and the ground he will have to go over not so arid.

Our author seems to lay great stress on this special point. The sage, says he, who is desirous to arrive at the supreme perfection, must apply all the powers of his mind to discern the true ways from the false ones. Many are deceived in the midst of their researches after wisdom. The real criterion between the true and false ways is this: when, in considering an object, and making a philosophical analysis of it, the sage finds it somehow connected with concupiscence and other passions so far that he cannot, as it were, dissolve it by the application of the three principles of aneitsa, duka, and anatta—that is to say, change, pain, and illusion, then he must conclude that he is out of the right ways; the high road to perfection is barred before him. But on the contrary, whenever, by the appliance of the three great principles, he sees that all the objects brought under his consideration are nothing more or less than the mere compound of the four elements, divested of these illusory appearances which deceive so many, then he may be certain that he is in the right position, and is sure of making progress in the way to perfection.

To facilitate the study of the Meggas, Buddhists have classified all real and imaginary beings under a certain number of heads. The sage, to complete his laborious task, has to examine separately each of these subjects and submit them to the following lengthened, difficult, and complicated process. He takes up one subject, attentively considers its exterior and interior compound parts, its connection and relation with other things, its tendency to adhere to or part with surrounding objects. Pursuing his inquiries into the past, he endeavours to make himself acquainted with the state and condition of that object during several periods that have elapsed; when his mind is satisfied on this point he follows up in future the same object, and calculates from the experience of the past what change it may hereafter become subjected to. This study enables him to perceive distinctly that it is subjected to the three great laws of mutability, pain, and illusion. This conviction once deeply seated in his soul, the sage holds that object in supreme contempt; far from having any affection for or attachment to it, he feels an intense disgust at it, and longs for the possession of Neibban, which is the exemption from the influence of mutability, pain, and illusion.

What we have now stated is tolerably clear and intelligible; but what follows is less evident. It partakes of that obscurity and complication so peculiar to Buddhist metaphysics. This state of things is created and maintained chiefly by a mania for divisions and subdivisions that would have puzzled even the schoolmen of the middle ages. We have to listen to what our author says respecting the method to be observed in carrying on the great examination of all subjects of investigation. If that labour be patiently and perseveringly prosecuted until all the objects of inquiry be exhausted, ample and magnificent shall be the reward for such labours. The sage will be in possession of the perfect science; Neibban will appear to him; he will long for it, and unremittingly shape his course in its direction: in a word, he shall have reached the acme of perfection. Seated on that lofty position, enjoying a perfect calm in the bosom of absolute quietism, the sage is beyond the reach of passions; there is no illusion for him; he has cut the last thread of future generations by the destruction of the influence of merits and demerits; he has obtained the deliverance from all miseries; he has reached the peaceful shores of Neibban. But such a prize is not easily obtained; it is to be purchased only at the expense of an immense amount of lasting and strenuous mental exertion.

The sage, agreeably to the old and always true saying, Know thyself, very properly begins his mightily difficult task with the examination of the five aggregates constituting a living being, the organs of the six senses, and all that relates to them. Then he applies himself to the studies of the five Dzan, or the parts of meditation and contemplation, and to all that is connected with the seats of Rupa and Arupa. All the objects of examination ranged on that scale are 600 in number. We shall rapidly glance over this table, indicating but the heads of the principal divisions.

We ought not to forget that the five aggregate, or khandas, constituting a living being, are form, sensation, perception, consciousness, and intellect. Supposing that we take the first of those attributes as subject of examination. We must represent it to the mind, carefully examine it in all its bearings and properties, respecting the past, the present, and the future. We must proceed on and bring it in contact with the three great principles of aneitsa, duka, and anatta, and inquire whether form be changeable or not, passive or impassive, transient or permanent. We thereby acquire the knowledge of the following great truth; viz., form is essentially liable to change, pain, and illusion. The examination of each of the four other attributes is proceeded on in a like manner, and a similar result ensues.

The six organs of the senses come next under consideration. These are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, or rather the skin that envelops it, and the heart in a physical sense, and mano in a moral one. Each of the six senses partakes of the eleven conditions or attributes we are about to describe; and each of these eleven attributes being brought successively into relation with each of the six senses, must be considered, as above stated, under the treble relation to mutability, pain, and illusion. This will supply the inquirer with a good amount of information. But to shorten this long enumeration, we will mention now successively those eleven attributes the senses may be affected by, and make the application of all to one of the senses, the eye. The same process may be easily repeated for each of the other senses. Nothing is to be changed but the name of the sense that has become the subject of examination.

1. Ayatana, the door, the opening of each of the senses. Applied to the eye, it is the opening through which exterior sensations are communicated to the heart by the organ of seeing.

2. Arom, the object of each of the senses. With regard to the eye, it is the appearance or form perceived by the eye; with respect to the ear, it is the sound.

3. Winian, the action of perceiving and knowing. Applied to the eyes, it is the eye seeing and perceiving, or the sight.

4. Phasa, literally the feeling or coming in contact with objects, applied to each of the senses. With the eye, it is the passive and active impression it derives from the objects it considers, and which it conveys to the heart. With the ear it is the impression it receives, and similarly communicates to the heart.

5. Wedana, the sensation of pain or pleasure obtained through the senses. With the eye it is the sensation created by the sight of objects perceived by the eye, and communicated to the heart.

6. Thangia, the idea or persuasion resulting from the six senses, or, according to some doctors, the identity of the appearance with reality. With the eye, it is the conviction we have that such an object, perceived by the eyes, is round or square, &c., according to the impressions received by that organ.

7. Dzetana, the inclination or rather adhesion to good or bad, consequently to the impressions received from each of the six senses.

8. Tahna, concupiscence originating from the impressions of agreeableness communicated by the six senses.

9. Witeka, the idea or representation of objects to the mind through the agency of the senses.

10. Witzara, the consideration of the objects offered to the mind by the instrumentality of the senses.

11. Dat, the matter or elements of the six senses, or, to speak the language of our author, that on which the organs rest, that which supports them.

After the examination of the senses and of the eleven subjects just related, we find the almost boundless field of inquiry to expand in proportion as we appear to make rapid progress. Then come successively for examination: 1. The ten Kasaings, or the ten parts or elements to be found in each part of a living being, viz., earth, water, fire, colour, odour, flavour, and grease, to which we add the Dziwa or life, and that of the organ to which belongs the part under consideration. 2. The thirty-two Akan, or thirty-two parts of the living body, of which the first are the hairs, the beard, the nails, the teeth, &c. 3. The twelve Ayatana, or seats of the six senses. Each sense is double, as far as it is considered in a double capacity, that of receiving and that of transmitting the impressions. 4. The eighteen Dat, or matter of the six senses. The organs afford six Dat; the objects that act upon the organs supply six other Dat; and the last six are afforded by the objects submitted to the action of the senses. 5. The twenty-two indre, or faculties or capabilities of the organs. Each organ has three. The eye, for instance, is capable of receiving an impression and of transmitting it; the eye really receives and transmits impressions. The mano, or heart, being a double organ, has six faculties; three if it be considered physically, and three if morally or intellectually. 6. The nine Bon, or seats occupied by the Brahmas. 7. The five Rupa Dzan, or degrees of contemplation proper to the Brahmas who have a form. 8. The four Megga, or ways that lead near to Neibban. They are followed by the Brahmas occupying the four superior seats of Rupa. 9. The Arupa Dzan, or contemplation proper to those who inhabit the four immaterial seats. 10. The nineteen Damma. This word means what we know as certain by the use of our mental faculties. When the mano, by a right use of its three faculties, has freed itself from the principle of illusion and error, then there will be the sixteen virtues or good qualities, known by the name of Phola and Megga. 11. Finally, the twelve Patan, or elements that are in the mano, which constitute the memory, and enable man to remember, and silently repeat the impressions transmitted by the senses.

Such is the immense extent of observations the sage has to range for obtaining the perfect science. This task is truly an Herculean one; very few can perform it.

Before coming to the last article, the writer will make a remark tending to show that there is more of the analytic spirit in all what is told us by Buddhist philosophers respecting those abstruse subjects than one may be tempted to give them credit for. We have seen that the number of precepts and counsels is almost countless, yet it is agreed by all doctors that the five general precepts are the basis of all, and that he who observes them in all their bearings is as much advanced in the path of righteousness as can be expected. Again, Buddhists can never exhaust the stores of all that they have to say about the mental operations and meditation. Yet all is summed up in the comparatively short doctrine of tseit and tsedathit. The living beings are by them infinitely modified, yet after all we find everything condensed in two words, Nama and Rupa. The theory respecting the generation of beings and their mutual dependence upon each other is a boundless field. We find, however, that, after all, kan, or the influence of merits and demerits, is the sole cause of and agent in the existence and modification of all beings. Mental operations are numbered by hundreds, but the six senses are, after all, the foundation on which that enumeration is raised. The general principles and primary ideas of all these metaphysical theories doubtless belong to genuine and early Buddhism. But such plain and elementary principles having been got hold of by heads of philosophical schools, and worked upon in their intellectual laboratory, there have come out therefrom at various periods those theories which have given to the doctrines of Buddhism so many different hues, and at the same time contributed so much to puzzle and torment the European student.

ARTICLE VI.
OF THE PROGRESS IN PERFECT SCIENCE.

In the preceding article we have reviewed the whole scale of beings, and analysed summarily some of them, merely to show the way to the general analysis of all others. The ultimate result of such an investigation is to acquire the conviction that all beings are subjected to mutability, pain, and illusion. This conviction, once seated in the soul, generates a generous contempt for such miserable objects. In this article we must see by what means this philosophical sentiment may be firmly rooted in the soul, and man may finally entertain a thorough disgust for all creatures, even for his own body. This loathsomeness for all that exists is immediately followed up by an ardent desire of becoming free and disentangled from all the ties and trammels that encompass other beings. When a man has become familiar with such a conviction to the extent that his thoughts, desires, and actions are entirely regulated by its immediate influence, he is free from the errors that deceive almost all other beings; he sees things as they are in their nature, and appreciates them by their real value. He estranges himself from them. He is in mind in the state of Neibban, until death will complete outwardly what was already existing inwardly in his mind.

We are all aware, says our author, that the principle of instability pervades all that exists in hell, on earth, and in the superior seats. But this important science is with many too superficially and but imperfectly understood. Our great object is to root it deeply in our mind, so that we might ever be preserved from those false impressions which too often tempt us to believe that mutability and changes are not affecting all beings. What are the obstacles that oppose in us the progress to true science? There are three. The first is Santi, or duration of existence. We allow ourselves to be lulled into the opinion that our life shall be much longer prolonged; that we have as yet many days, months, and years to spend in this world. This groundless supposition prevents us from attending to the principle of mutability. To counteract this dangerous impression, let us examine how all things are born only soon to die, and therefore let us have always death present to our mind. Let us consider the short duration and vanity of our being, then we will soon be convinced that the form of the body is like the waves of the sea, that swell for a moment and soon disappear; that sensation is produced like froth from the dashing of the waves; that the Thangia, or persuasion we acquire, has no more stability or reality than lightning; that the Sangkara, or concept, or production, is like the plantain-tree without strength, and that the view of objects through our senses deserves no more credit than the words of a quack. Let us reason in a similar manner on the ephemeral existence of all the beings that are in this world; we will easily come to a similar conclusion, that they are the victims of mutability, incessantly tossed about as a piece of wood by the billows of the sea.

A second obstacle to our perceiving the great principle that pain is heavily weighing on all creatures is the iriabot, or the four situations or positions which the body assumes, viz., sitting, standing, lying, and walking. If a man enjoys good health, he owes it chiefly to the change of situation. Were he doomed to occupy always the same place, or remain in the same situation, he would feel quite miserable. He momentarily relieves himself from his temporary afflictions by a change of situation. This relief makes him forgetful of the great principle of duka. But in truth our body is like a patient that requires the constant attendance of the physician. We must feed it, refresh it, wash it, clothe it, &c., to save it from hunger, thirst, dirt, and cold. What is all that but a sad and constant proof that we are slaves to pain? There is nothing but pain and affliction in this wretched world. The same fate awaits all other beings; they are all in a state of endurance and suffering, proclaiming aloud the irresistible action of duka.

A third obstacle to our being convinced that all is illusion in this world is that false persuasion which makes us to say, This is a foot, a hand, a woman, &c.; whilst these things have no reality, no consistence, but are mere shades, ready at any moment to vanish and disappear. These and like expressions being always used, impart at last a sort of conviction that they are true; but, after all, what are all these things but a compound of the four elements, or more simply nama and rupa?

In addition to this examination, the sage considers also our ideas and the operations of our mental faculties. Here he sees these ideas appearing for a moment and then disappearing; he concludes that ideas are likewise subjected to the great law of mutability. He finds as much misery in his own mind as he has met with in the exterior objects; all around his mind is only illusion. When he has reached this point, he is delivered at once of the three Nimeit that make one believe that there is something real in birth, existence, and action. The destruction of all beings, of all things, is ever present to his mind. In such a state, the sage is free from all erroneous doctrines; he is disgusted with life; the exercise of meditation is easy to him, and almost uninterrupted. He is free from all passions.

Our author has another chapter devoted to the consideration of the miseries attending all living beings. To make us better informed on this subject, he desires the sage to meditate upon the miseries attending birth, existence, old age, and death; he wishes him to examine attentively the condition of all creatures, that he might never be seduced by the dazzling appearance that encompasses them. He insists at great length upon the dangers surrounding the wise man, as yet compelled to remain in contact with this material world. To make us better understand this subject, he makes use of the following similitude. A man worn out with fatigue enters a cave wherein he longs to enjoy a refreshing rest. He is just lying down in the hope of abandoning himself to the sweet delight of undisturbed repose, when, on a sudden, he perceives close by him an infuriated tiger. At that moment all idea of rest, of sleep, of happiness, vanishes away; he is taken up solely with the imminent danger of his position. Such is the position of the sage who, living among creatures, may be tempted to allow himself to look on them with an idea of enjoyment. But when he has come to that state, to be disgusted with all the modifications matter is subjected to, he is likened to the pure swan who never sets his feet in low and dirty places, but delights to rest on the bosom of a beautiful lake, of limpid and clear water. Our sage, who has in abhorrence all the filth of this miserable world, is delighted only in the consideration of truth. He is displeased with the world and all things that are therein. His mind is busily engaged in finding out the most effectual means to break with this world, and rend asunder the ties that retain him linked to it. He is like a fish caught in the net, or a frog seized by a snake, or a man shut up in a dungeon. All three strive, to their utmost, to escape the danger that threatens them and regain their liberty. Such is the condition of the perfect who has attentively considered the many snares that are around them. He, too, has but one object in view, that of freeing himself from them and obtaining the deliverance.

The best and surest means to save himself from the dangers attending existence is a profound and unremitting meditation on the three great principles: aneitsa, duka, and anatta. We will select among many reflections supplied by our author, a few on each of these principles, to convey to the reader some ideas respecting the subjects that engross much of the attention of the Buddhist sage. Most of these reflections are strikingly true, and could as well find place in the mind of a Christian as in that of a Buddhist.

Speaking of aneitsa, our author says: Let us reflect on this, that there is nothing permanent or stable in this world. We hold all things as a sort of borrowed property, or on tenure; we are by no means proprietors of what we possess. We acquire goods but to lose them very soon. All in nature is subjected to pain, old age, and death; everything comes to an end, either by virtue of its own condition, or by the agency of some external cause. Shall we ever be able to find in this world anything stable? No; we leave one place, but only to go and occupy another, which, in its turn, is soon vacated. No one is able to enumerate the countless changes that incessantly take place. What exists to-day disappears to-morrow. In fact, all nature is pervaded from beginning to end by the principle of mutability, which incessantly works upon it.

On the miseries of this world our philosopher speaks as follows: Pain is the essential appendage of this world. Survey, if you can, the whole of this universe, and everywhere you will find a heavy load of pain and afflictions, so harassing and oppressing that we can scarcely bear them with a tolerable amount of patience. Look at birth, examine existence during its duration, consider senses, the organs of our life. In every direction our eyes will meet with an accumulation of pain, sufferings, and miseries; on every side we are beset with dangers, difficulties, and calamities; nowhere lasting joy or permanent rest is to be found. In vain we may go in quest of health and happiness; both are chimerical objects nowhere to be met with. Everywhere we meet with afflictions.

In speaking of the anatta, or illusion in which we are miserably rocked as long as we stay in this world, our philosopher is equally eloquent. If we consider with some attention this world, we will never be able to discover in it anything else but name and form; and, as a necessary consequence, all that exists is but illusion. Here is the manner we must carry on our reasoning. The things that I see and know are not myself, nor from myself, nor to myself. What seems to be myself is in reality neither myself nor belongs to myself. What appears to me to be another is neither myself nor from myself. The organs of senses, such as the eyes, the ears, &c., are neither myself nor to myself. They are but illusions, or as nothing relatively to me. The form is not a form; the attributes of a living being are not attributes; beings are not beings. All that is an aggregate of the four elements, and these again are but form and name, and these two are but an illusion, destitute of reality. In a being, then, there are two attributes, form and sensation, that appear to have some more consistency than other things. Yet they have no reality; their nature and condition is to be destitute of all reality and stability.[52] Penetrated with the truth of these and like considerations, the sage declares at once that all things are neither himself nor belong to himself. Nothing, therefore, appears worthy his notice. He at once divorces himself from the world and all the things that are therein. He would fain have nothing to do with it; he holds it in supreme contempt and utter disgust.

He who has reached this lofty point of sublime science is at once secure from the snares of seduction and the path of error. He will escape from the whirlpool of human miseries, and infallibly reach the state of Neibban. The most perfect among the perfect are so much taken upon with and deeply affected by the view of Neibban, that they tend in that direction without effort. Others, somewhat less advanced in the sublime science, discover, it is true, the state of Neibban at a distance, but its sight is as yet dimmed and somewhat obscured. They want as yet to train up their mind to and perfect it in the exercise of that meditation of which we have given an abbreviated analysis.

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NOTICE ON THE PHONGYIES, OR BUDDHIST MONKS,
SOMETIMES CALLED TALAPOINS.[53]

In the foregoing pages we have first given a sketch of the life of the founder of Buddhism, and in the accompanying notes endeavoured to explain the more important particulars respecting the extraordinary religious system he has established. Subsequently, in the way to Neibban, we have laid down, in as few words as possible, the great metaphysical principles upon which is raised the great structure of Buddhism, and pointed out the way leading to the pretended perfection, or rather the end of perfection, Neibban. It seems to be necessary to devote a particular notice to the religious Order which forms the most striking feature of that religion, which has extended its sway over so many nations. The association of devotees holds the first rank among the followers of Buddha; it comprises the élite of that immense body. The system of discipline to which the Buddhist religious are subjected, is the highest practical illustration of the doctrines and practices of Buddhism. We may see reflected in that corporation the greatest results that the working of these religious institutions can ever produce. All that Buddha, in his efforts, has been able to devise as most fit to lead man to the perfection, such as he understood it, will be found in the constitutions of that order. It is a living mirror in which we may contemplate the masterpiece of his creation. The Buddhist religious constitute the thanga, or assembly of the perfect, that is to say, of the disciples who have left the world, conformed their life to that of their teacher, and striven to acquire the science that will qualify them for entering into the way leading to perfection. They are the strict followers of Buddha, who, like him, have renounced the world, to devote themselves to the two-fold object of mastering their passions and acquiring the true wisdom which alone can lead to the deliverance.

The best method for obtaining correct information respecting the Buddhist religious is not, it seems, to consider their order from an abstract point of view, but rather in connection with the religion it has sprung from, as affording a perfect exemplification of its highest practices, maxims, and tendencies, as well as of the real nature and true spirit of that creed.

Buddhism is evidently an off-shoot of Brahminism. We find it replete with principles, practices, observances, and dogmas belonging to the great Hindu system. Gaudama, being himself a Hindu, reared in a Hindu society, trained up in the Hindu schools of philosophy, could not but imbibe, to a great extent, the opinions and observances of his contemporaries. He dissented from them, it is true, in many important points, but in the generality of his teachings he seems to have agreed with them. He found existing in his times a body of religious and philosophers, whose mode of life was peculiar and quite distinct from that of the people. When he laid the plan for the religious institution he contemplated to establish, he found around him most of the elements he required for that work. He had but to improve on what he saw existing, and make his new order agree with the religious tenets he innovated.

In the hope of tracing up the ties of relationship that must have existed between the religious of the Brahminical order, and those of the Buddhist one, the writer will begin this notice with establishing a short parallel between the former, such as they are described in the Institutes of Menoo, and the institution of the latter, such as it is explained in the Wini, or Book of discipline. Afterwards the nature of the Buddhist order and the object its members have in view in embracing it will be examined; next to that, the constituent parts of that body and its hierarchy shall receive a due share of attention. We will describe at the same time the ceremonies observed on the solemn occasion of admitting individuals into the religious society, and expound briefly the rules that direct and regulate the whole life of a professed member as long as he remains in the brotherhood. It will not be found amiss to inquire into the cause and nature of the great religious influence undoubtedly possessed by the members of the order, and examine the motives that induce the votaries of Buddhism to show the greatest respect and give unfeigned marks of the deepest veneration to the Talapoins or Phongyies. This will be concluded with a short account of the low and degraded state into which the society has fallen in these parts, particularly in what has reference to knowledge and information.

ARTICLE I.
A SHORT PARALLEL BETWEEN THE BRAHMINICAL AND THE BUDDHISTIC RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

It has been stated, on apparently incontrovertible grounds, in the foregoing pages, that Buddhism has originated to a considerable extent from Brahminism. The following remarks will corroborate the statement, and give an additional weight to the reasons already brought forward. In fact, both systems have the same objects in view, viz., the disentangling of the soul from passions and the influence of the material world, and its perfect liberation from metempsychosis and the action of matter. The final end to be arrived at is, however, widely different. The perfected Brahmin longs for his absorption in the infinite being; the perfect Buddhist thirsts after a state of complete isolation, which is nothing short of total annihilation. But the means for obtaining the ardently coveted perfection are in many respects the same. The moral observances enforced by both creeds differ so little from each other that they appear to be almost identical. In both systems, moreover, we find a body of individuals who aim at a complete and perfect observance of the highest injunctions, striving to reach the very summit of that perfection pointed out by the founders of their respective institutions: these are the Brahminical and Buddhist religious. To glance over the regulations enjoined on the Brahmins, such as we find them in the Institutes of Menoo, and those prescribed by the Wini to the Talapoins, cannot fail to be truly interesting. A summary comparison will enable the reader to perceive at once how closely allied are the two creeds, and how great is the resemblance between them both. He will see on the clearest evidence that to Buddha is not to be ascribed the merit of having originated so many fine moral precepts and admirable disciplinary regulations, but that he found in his own country, in the schools where he studied wisdom, already well-known, pure moral precepts, actually discussed, studied, and by many strictly observed, together with the disciplinary regulations. He was brought up in a society which beheld with astonishment and admiration a body of religious men entirely devoted to the great work of securing the triumph of the spiritual principle over the material one, and endeavouring by dint of the greatest and severest austerities, the most rigorous penances, and the most entire renouncing of all this material world, to break down the material barriers that had hitherto kept the soul captive, and prevented her from taking her flight into regions of blissful freedom and perfect quiescence. There is, however, a remarkable difference between the sacerdotal caste of Brahmins and the members of the Buddhist monkish institution. The position of the former is hereditary; he is rendered illustrious by his lineage and descent. That of the second is personal, and ends with him; it is the result of his own free choice; he derives all the glory that shines round him from his virtuous life and a strict adherence to the institutions of the Wini. The Brahmin owes everything to religion and to birth. The Buddhist religious is indebted for all that he is solely to religion; the monk’s title to distinction is the holy mode of the saintly life that he has embraced. Both are the greatest and most distinguished in their respective societies; but merit and intrinsic worth alone elicit veneration and respect in behalf of the humble religious, whilst the casual birth of the Brahmin from individuals belonging to the highest caste centres upon his person the reluctant homage of men belonging to inferior castes, who, in virtue of the prejudices in which they are reared, consider themselves obliged to do homage to him. The person of both is sacred and looked upon with awe and veneration, but from somewhat opposite and different motives.

Notwithstanding these and many other differences and discrepancies, it is not the less striking to find in the Brahminical body, such as it is constituted by the regulations of the Vedas, the germ of all the principal observances enjoined on the Buddhist that leaves the world, to follow the path leading to perfection.

The life of a Brahmin, not as it is now, but as it originally was, and now ought to be, if the regulations of the Vedas had not been partly set aside, is one of laborious study, austerity, self-denial, and retirement. The first quarter of his life is spent in the capacity of student. His great and sole object is the study of the Vedas, and the mastering of their contents. Worldly studies are not to be thought of. He is entirely under the control of his preceptor, to whom he has to yield obedience, respect, and service in all that relates to his daily wants. He must, moreover, daily beg his food from door to door. The Buddhist novice likewise withdraws from his family, enters the monastery, lives under the discipline of the head of the house, whom he obeys and serves in his daily necessities, and devotes all his undivided attention to the study of religious books. He pays no regard to worldly knowledge. He has likewise to go out every morning to beg the food that he will use during the day.

The second quarter of the Brahmin’s life is thus employed. He marries and lives with his family, but he must consider his chief employment to be the teaching of the Vedas and a zealous discharge of the religious observances and of all that relates to public worship. He must sedulously abstain from too sensual and worldly enjoyments, even from music, dancing, and other amusements calculated to lead to dissipation. The Buddhist monkish institution being not hereditary, and its continuance and development having not to depend upon generation, its members are bound to a strict celibacy, and to an absolute and entire abstinence from all sensual and worldly enjoyments inconsistent with gravity, self-recollection, and self-denial. Their chief occupation is teaching to children the rudiments of reading and writing, that they might read religious books, which are the only ones used in schools. He must pay a strict regard to devotional practices, and take care that the religious observances and ceremonies be regularly attended to in his monastery.

The third quarter of his life is spent by the Brahmin in solitude as an anchorite. He dwells in the forests, where he must procure what is necessary for food and raiment. The latter article is looked after when he thinks it to be a requisite to cover his nakedness. With many of them fanaticism has so far prevailed over reason and the sense of decency that they live in a state of disgusting nakedness. The roots of plants, the fruits and leaves of wild trees, will supply the needful for the support of nature. That time too must be devoted to the infliction of the severest penances and to the practice of the hardest deeds of mortification. To the Buddhist monk solitude and retirement must ever be dear. Ascetic life is much recommended, and praised as most excellent. It was formerly much in use among religious Buddhists. In Burmah several places are pointed out with respect as having been sanctified by the residence of holy anchorites. Now in our days a few zealots, to bear, as it were, witness to this ancient observance, retire into solitude during a portion of the three months of Lent. The spirit of mortification and self-renouncing is eminently Buddhist; but from the very days of Gaudama we remark a positive tendency on the part of his religious to give up and renounce those unnatural and ultra-rigorous penances regularly observed by their brethren of the opposite creed. The principle is cherished by them, but the mode of carrying it into practice is more mild, and more consonant with reason and modesty.

The last portion of the Brahmin’s life is devoted likewise to meditation and contemplation. He is no more subjected to the ordeal of rigorous penances; nature has been subdued; passions silenced and destroyed; the soul has obtained the mastery over the body and the material world. She is free from all the trammels and obstacles that impeded her contemplation of truth. She is ready to quit this world, as the bird leaves the branch of the tree when it pleases him. The Buddhist religious, having likewise crushed his passions and disentangled his soul from affection to matter, delights only in the contemplation of truth. As the mighty whale sports in the bosom of the boundless ocean, so the perfected Buddhist launches forth into abstract and infinite truth, delights in it, completely estranged from this world, which meditation has taught him to consider as a mere illusion, as destitute of reality. He is then ripe for the so ardently coveted state of Neibban.

When Buddha originated the plan of a society of religious, and framed the regulations whereby it was to be governed, he had but to look around him for patterns of a religious life. The country where he had been born, the society in which he had been brought up, swarmed with religious following the different systems of philosophy prevailing in those days. He saw them, conversed with them, and for some time lived in their company under the same disciplinary institutions. He was, therefore, thoroughly conversant with all that in his days constituted a religious life. But the same bold and enterprising spirit which made him dissent from his masters and contemporaries on many important questions of morals and metaphysics, and induced him to improve, as he thought, and perfect theories in speculative and practical philosophy, impelled him also to do something similar respecting the disciplinary regulations to which his religious were to be hereafter subjected. We freely confess that on this latter point he was eminently successful. The body of Buddhist religious is infinitely superior in most respects to the other societies of Indian religious. The regulations of the former breathe a spirit of modesty, mildness, and unaffectation, which in a striking manner contrasts with those disgusting exhibitions of self-inflicted penances so fondly courted by Brahmins, where immodesty seems to dispute the palm with cruelty. Buddha opened the door of his society to all men without any distinction or exception, implicitly pulling down the barriers raised by the prejudices of caste. Did he in the beginning of his public career lay down the plan of destroying all vestiges of caste, and proclaiming the principle of equality amongst men? It is, to say the least, very doubtful. The equalising principle itself was never distinctly mentioned in his discourses. But he had sown all the elements constitutive of that principle in his instructions. Every member put on the religious dress of his own free choice, and set it aside at his pleasure; no hereditary right, therefore, could be thought of; the dying religious could bequeath to his brethren but the example of his virtues. His complete separation from the world had broken all the ties of relationship. The double vow of strict poverty and of celibacy, cutting the root of cupidity and sensual enjoyments, precluded him from aiming at the influence and power which is conferred by wealth and rank. With the Brahminical religious the case is the very reverse. His sacerdotal caste, exclusive of his personal merits, confers on him an almost divine sacredness, which is to be propagated by generation. He may possess riches and have a numerous posterity. He is, therefore, almost irresistibly impelled to seize on a power which is forced on him by the treble influence of birth, religion, and wealth.

The subject of the comparison between the two societies of religious might receive further developments, but what has been briefly stated appears sufficient to bear out the point it was intended to establish, viz., the close resemblance subsisting between the two religious orders in both systems, and the necessary inference that the order of Buddhist religious is an improvement on the orders of religious subsisting in India in the days of Gaudama.

There is another characteristic of the religious order of Buddhists which has favourably operated in its behalf, and powerfully contributed to maintain it for so many centuries in so compact and solid a body that it seems to bid defiance to the destructive action of revolutions. We allude to its regularly constituted hierarchy, which is as perfect as it can be expected, particularly in Burmah and Siam. The power and influence of him whom we may call the general of the order in Burmah, and who is known under the appellation of Tha-thana-paing, when, as was very often the case, backed by the temporal power, was felt throughout the whole country, and much contributed to maintain good order and discipline in the great body of religious. The action of the provincial or superior of the religious houses of a province is more directly and immediately felt by all the subordinates. It does not appear that the religious of the Hindu schools, at least in our days, possess such an advantage that they may well envy their brethren of the Buddhist sect. The members of the Brahminical body are not kept together by the power and government of superiors, but by regulations that are so deeply rooted and firmly seated in the mind of individuals that they are faithfully observed. The superiority of caste, connected too with a certain amount of spiritual pride, has been hitherto sufficient to maintain that body distinct and separate from all that is without itself. The religious spirit that pervades that body in our days seems to have abated from its original fervour and energy. The Brahmin has maintained with the utmost jealousy the superiority that caste confers upon him, but appears not to have been so particular in keeping up the genuine spiritual supremacy, which a strict adherence to the prescriptions of the Vedas must have ever firmly secured to him.

ARTICLE II.
NATURE OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDER OF PHONGYIES.

He who has not seriously studied the religious system of Buddhism, nor acquired accurate notions of its doctrinal principles, is scarcely capable of forming a correct opinion of the religious order of those austere recluses, whom Europeans, with a mind biassed by educational influence, denominate priests of Buddha. Were we to apply to the members of that order the notions generally entertained of a priesthood, we would form a very erroneous conception of the real character of their institution. For in every religious system admitting of one or several beings superior to man, whose providential action influences his destinies either in this or the next world, persons invested with a sacerdotal character have always been considered as mediators between men and the acknowledged deity, offering to the supreme being on all public occasions the prayers and sacrifices of the people, and soliciting in return his gracious protection. When in the early ages of the world the sacerdotal dignity was coupled with the patriarchal or regal ones, when in the succeeding ages there existed a regular and distinct priesthood, such as subsisted under the Mosaic dispensation, or among the Greeks, Romans, Gauls, &c., the priests were looked upon as delegates of the people in all that related to national worship, carrying on in the name of the Deity the mysterious intercourse that links heaven to earth. Priesthood, therefore, necessarily implies the belief in a being superior to man and controlling his destinies. The moment such a belief is disregarded, the very idea of priesthood vanishes. Buddhism, such at least as it is found existing in Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, and other places, is a purely atheistical religious system, and presents the solitary instance, at least as far as my information goes, of a religious creed, admitted by various nations, the doctrines of which are not based upon the notion of a supreme being controlling more or less the affairs of this world. In support of an assertion that may appear to many somewhat hazardous, we will briefly lay down the leading tenets of the Buddhistic doctrine.

According to that system, matter is eternal. The existence of a world, its duration, destruction, and reproduction, all the various combinations and modifications matter is liable to, are the immediate results of the action of eternal and self-existing laws. Through life man is subjected to the continual but successive influences of his good and bad deeds. This double influence always attends him through his numberless existences, and inevitably awards him happiness or misfortune, according as the respective sum of good or evil predominates. There exists an eternal law, which, when obliterated from the memory of men, can be known again, and, as it were, recovered only and thoroughly understood by the incomparable genius and matchless wisdom of certain extraordinary personages, called Buddhas, who appear successively and at intervals during the various series or successions of worlds. These Buddhas announce that law to all the then existing rational beings. The great object of that doctrine is to point out to those beings the means of freeing themselves from the influence of passions, and becoming abstracted from all that exists. Being thereby delivered from the action of good or evil influence, which causes mortals to turn incessantly in the whirlpool of never-ending existences, men can obtain the state of Neibban, or rest, that is to say, according to the popular opinion, a situation wherein the soul, disentangled from all that exists, alone with herself, indifferent to pain as well as to pleasure, folded, as it were, upon herself, remains for ever in an incomprehensible state of complete abstraction and absolute rest. I say that such is the popular opinion, fortunately unbiassed by scholastic theories. But the opinion of the Buddhist doctors respecting Neibban is that it means the negation of all states of being; that is to say, a desolating and horrifying annihilation. A Buddha is a being who, during myriads of existences, slowly and gradually gravitates towards this centre of an imaginary perfection by the practice of the highest virtues. Having attained thereto, he becomes on a sudden gifted with a boundless genius, wherewith he at once discovers the wretched state of beings and the means of delivering them from it. He thoroughly understands the eternal law which alone can lead mortals in the right way, and enable them to come out of the circle of existences, wherein they have been unceasingly turning and moving in a state of perpetual agitation, opposite to that of fixity or rest. He preaches that law whereby man is taught the practice of those virtues which destroy gradually in him all evil influences, together with every affection for all that exists, and brings him at last to the end of existence, the possession of Neibban. His task fulfilled, Buddha dies, or rather, to use the language of Buddhists, he enters into the state Neibban. In that situation, which is truly inexplicable, he knows nothing of and enters no wise into the affairs of this world. He is as if he was not or had never been. He is indeed annihilated.

Buddhists venerate three precious things—Buddha, his law, and the assembly of the just or perfect—in the same sense as we venerate and admire what is morally good and beautiful, such as virtue considered abstractedly, and the acts originating from it. The statues of the last Buddha Gaudama are honoured by his followers, not with the idea that certain powers or virtues are inherent in them, but solely because they are the visible representations of Buddha, who, according to Buddhists, desired that the same honours should be paid to them as would be offered to his person, were he yet living among them. This faint outline of the Buddhistic creed is sufficient to bear out the above assertion, that it is in no wise based on the belief in a supreme being, but that it is strictly atheistical, and therefore that no real priesthood can ever be found existing under such a system. It may prove, too, of some assistance for better understanding what is to be said regarding the subjects of this notice.

The Talapoins are called by the Burmese Phongyies, which term means great glory: or Rahans, which means perfect. They are known in Ceylon, Siam, Thibet, under different names, conveying nearly the same meaning and expressing either the nature or the object of their profession.

What induces a follower of Buddha to embrace the Talapoinic state? What is the object of his pursuit in entering on such a peculiar and extraordinary course of life? The answer to these questions will supply us with accurate notions of the real nature of this singular order of devotees. A Buddhist on becoming a member of the holy society proposes to keep the law of Buddha in a more perfect manner than his other co-religionists. He intends to observe not only its general ordinances obligatory on every individual, but also its prescriptions of a higher excellency, leading to an uncommon sanctity and perfection, which can be the lot of but a comparatively small number of fervent and resolute persons. He aims at weakening within himself all the evil propensities that give origin and strength to the principle of demerits. By the practice and observance of the highest and sublimest precepts and counsels of the law, he establishes, confirms, and consolidates in his own soul the principle of merits, which is to work upon him during the various existences he has as yet to go through, and gradually lead him to that perfection which will qualify him for and entitle him to the state of Neibban, the object of the ardent desires and earnest pursuit of every true and genuine disciple of Buddha. The life of the last Buddha Gaudama, his doctrines as well as his examples, he proposes to copy with a scrupulous fidelity and to follow with unremitting ardour. Such is the great model that he proposes to himself for imitation. Gaudama withdrew from the world, renounced its seducing pleasures and dazzling vanities, curbed his passions under the yoke of restraint, and strove to practise the highest virtues, particularly self-denial, in order to arrive at a state of complete indifference to all that is within or without self; which is, as it were, the threshold of Neibban.

The Talapoin, fixing his regards on that matchless pattern of perfection, would fain reproduce, as far as it lies in his power, all its features in his own person. Like Buddha himself, he parts with his family, relatives, and friends, and seeks for admission into the society of the perfect; he abandons and leaves his home, to enter into the asylum of peace and retirement; he forsakes the riches of this world to practise the strictest poverty; he renounces the pleasures of this world, even the lawful ones, to live according to the rules of the severest abstinence and purest chastity; he exchanges his secular dress for that of the new profession he enters on; he gives up his own will, and fetters his own liberty, to attend, through every act and all the particulars of life, to the regulations of the brotherhood. He is a Talapoin for himself and for his own benefit, to acquire merits which he shares with nobody else. On the occasion of certain offerings or alms being presented to him by some benevolent admirers of his holy mode of life, he will repay his benefactors by repeating to them certain precepts, commands, and points of the law; but he is not bound by his professional character to expound the law to the people. Separated from the world by his dress and his peculiar way of living, he remains a stranger to all that takes place without the walls of his monastery. He is not charged with the care of souls, and therefore never presumes to rebuke any one that trespasses the law, or to censure the conduct of the profligate.

The ceremonies of the Buddhistic worship are simple and few. The Talapoin is not considered as a minister whose presence is an essential requisite when they are to be performed. Pagodas are erected, statues of Buddha are inaugurated, offerings of flowers, tapers, and small ornaments are made, particularly on the days of the new and full moon, but on all those solemn occasions the interference of the Phongyie is in no way considered as necessary, so that the whole worship exists independently of him. He is not to be seen on the particular occasions of births and marriages. He is, it is true, occasionally asked to attend funerals; but he then acts, not as a minister performing a ceremony, but as a private person. He is present for the sake of receiving alms that are profusely bestowed upon him by the relatives of the defunct.

The Buddhists have three months of the year, from the full moon of July to the full moon of October, particularly devoted to a stricter observance of the practices and ceremonies of the law. Crowds of people of both sexes resort to the pagodas, and often spend whole nights in the buildings erected close to those places. The most fervent among them fast and abstain from profane amusements during that period; they devote more time to the reading of their sacred books and the repetition of certain formulas calculated to remind them of certain important truths, or intended to praise the last Buddha Gaudama and the law he has published. Alms pour more abundantly into the peaceable dwellings of the pious recluses. During all the time the Talapoin quietly remains in his place, without altering his mode of life, or deviating in the least from his never-changing usages and ordinary habits. By the rules of his profession he is directed to pay, during that time, a particular regard to religious observances, to join his brethren from time to time in the recital of certain formulas, and in the reading of the book embodying the regulations of the profession. He enjoys, as usual, the good things which his liberal co-religionists take pleasure in proffering to him. On two occasions the writer has seen, and on many has heard of Talapoins withdrawing during the three months of Lent to some lonely place, living alone in small huts, shunning the company of men, and leading an eremitical life, to remain at liberty to devote all their time to meditations on the most excellent points of the law of Buddha, combating their passions, and enjoying in that retired situation a foretaste of the never-troubled rest of Neibban.

In many respects the Talapoinic institutions may be likened to those of some religious orders that appeared successively in almost every Christian country previous to the era of the Reformation, and that are, up to this day, to be met with amidst the Churches of the Latin and Greek rites. Like the monk, the Talapoin bids a farewell to the world, wears a particular dress, leads a life of community, abstracts himself from all that gives strength to his passions, by embracing a state of voluntary poverty and absolute renunciation of all sensual gratifications. He aims at obtaining, by a stricter observance of the law’s most sublime precepts, an uncommon degree of sanctity and perfection. All his time is regulated by the rules of his profession, and devoted to repeating certain formulas of prayers, reading the sacred scriptures, begging alms for his support, &c.

These features of exterior resemblance, common to institutions of creeds so opposite to each other, have induced several writers, little favourable to Christianity, to pronounce without further inquiry that Catholicism has borrowed from Buddhism many ceremonies, institutions, and disciplinary regulations. Some of them have gone so far as to pretend to find in it the very origin of Christianity. They have, however, been ably confuted by Abel Remusat, in his Memoir entitled “Chronological Researches into the Lamaic Hierarchy of Thibet.” Without entertaining in the least the presumptuous idea of entering into a controversy entirely foreign to his purpose, the writer will confine himself to making one or two remarks calculated to show that the first conclusion is, to say the least of it, a premature one. When in two religious creeds, entirely opposed to each other in their ultimate object, there are several minor objects equally set forth by both, it will necessarily happen that, in many instances, means nearly similar will be prescribed on both sides for effectually obtaining them, independent of any previously concerted plan or imitation. The Christian system and the Buddhistic one, though differing from each other in their respective objects and ends, as much as truth from error, have, it must be confessed, many striking features of an astonishing resemblance. There are many moral precepts equally commanded and enforced in common by both creeds. It will not be deemed rash to assert that most of the moral truths prescribed by the Gospel are to be met with in the Buddhistic scriptures. The essential, vital, and capital discrepancy lies in the difference of the ends to which the two creeds lead, but not in the variance of the means they prescribe for the attainment of them. The Gospel tends to reunite man to his Maker, points out to him the way he must follow for arriving at the possession and enjoyment of Him who is the great principle and end of all things, and teaches him, as a paramount duty, to conform his will and inclinations to His commands. Buddhism tends to abstract man from all that is without self, and makes self his own and sole centre. It exhorts him to the practice of many eminent virtues, which are to help him to rise to an imaginary perfection, the summit of which is the incomprehensible state of Neibban. It is the mildest expression which the writer can command when he has to speak of so sad a subject, the final end of a Buddhist. It would be more correct to say at once that the pretended perfect being is led, by the principles of his creed, into the dark and fathomless abyss of annihilation.

If the end aimed at by the followers of Buddha is widely different from that which the disciples of Christ strive to obtain, the means prescribed for the attainment of these two ends are, in many respects, very much similar to each other. Both creeds teach man to combat, control, and master the passions of his heart, to make reason predominate over sense, mind over matter, to root up from his heart every affection for the things of this world, and to practise the virtues required for the attainment of these great objects. Is there anything surprising that persons, having, in many respects, views nearly similar, resort to means or expedients nearly alike for securing the object of their pursuit, without having ever seen or consulted each other? He who intends to practise absolute poverty must of course abandon all his earthly property. He who proposes renouncing the world ought to withdraw from it. He who will lead a contemplative life must look out for a retired place, far from the gaze and agitation of the world. To control passions, and particularly the fiercest of all, the sensual appetite, it is required that one should keep himself separate from all that is calculated to kindle its fires and feed its violence. Every profession has its distinctive marks and peculiar characteristics. Hence peculiarity of dress, manners, and habits in those who have adopted a mode of life differing from that of the rest of the community. He who has bound himself to the daily recitation of certain prayers or devotional formulas a certain number of times will have recourse to some instrument, or devise some means for ascertaining the number of times he has complied with his regulation in this respect. He, too, who is eager to acquire self-knowledge and to carry on a successful war with himself will apply to a guide to whom he will lay open his whole soul, and ask spiritual advice that will enable him to overcome the obstacles he meets on his way to perfection.

These and many other points are common to all those that intend to observe not only the precepts but also the mere counsels of their respective creeds. Causes being the same, in many instances, in both systems, consequences almost analogous must inevitably result therefrom. Religious institutions always bear the stamp of the religious ideas that have given rise to them. They, together with their rules and regulations, are not the principle, but the immediate consequence or offspring of religion, such as it is understood by the people professing it. They exemplify and illustrate religious notions already entertained, but they never create such as are not yet in existence. When the learned shall have collected sufficient materials for giving an accurate history of the origin, progress, spread, and dogmatical revolutions of Buddhism, it will not be uninteresting to inquire into the causes that have operated in communicating to two religious systems essentially differing in their respective tendencies so many points of resemblance. But that study is yet to be made. We know very little on all those points. The best informed are compelled to acknowledge that in the present state of information we are still in the dark, the thickness of which is occasionally relieved by a few transient and uncertain glimpses which are insufficient to enlighten the mind, and enable the searcher after truth to guide safely his steps. In reading the particulars of the life of the last Buddha Gaudama, it is impossible not to feel reminded of many circumstances relating to our Saviour’s life, such as it has been sketched out by the evangelists. The origin of the close affinity between many doctrinal points and maxims common both to Christianity and Buddhism having been ascertained, it will not be difficult to find out and explain how the votaries of both have come to adopt so many practices, ceremonies, observances, and institutions nearly similar.

Having endeavoured to explain the nature of the institution of the Talapoins, and the object aimed at by its professed members, we will now proceed to examine its systematical organisation, or sacred hierarchy.

ARTICLE III.
HIERARCHY OF THE ORDER.

It is somewhat surprising to find in the middle of half-civilised nations, such as the Burmese, Siamese, Cingalese, and Thibetans, a religious order, with a distinct and well-marked hierarchy, constitutions and regulations, providing for the admission of members, determining their occupations, duties, obligations, and their mode of life, and forming, as it were, a compact, solid, and perfect body, that has subsisted, almost without change, during several centuries, and survived the destruction of kingdoms, the fall of royal dynasties, and all the confusion and agitation produced by political commotions and revolutions. It is in Thibet that the order is found existing in the greatest perfection, under the fostering care of the Grand Lama, or High Priest, who combines in his own person the regal as well as the sacerdotal dignity and power. In the city of Lassa, a pontifical court, an elective sacerdotal chief, and a college of superior Lamas impart to the order dignity, decency, respectability, and stability, which insure its continued existence, and more or less extend its influence over its members living in distant countries. The period of the introduction of Buddhism from India into Thibet is very uncertain, if not quite unknown. Buddhist annals mention that after the holding of the third council, 236 years after Gaudama’s death, some missionaries were deputed by the president of that assembly to go and preach religion in some parts of the Himalayan range. We may suppose that this had reference to the southern slopes of the mountains. Be that as it may, it appears certain that the establishment of a pontifical chief or sovereign, with royal prerogatives, was set up by one of the grandsons of the great Tartar warrior Gengis in or about the middle of the thirteenth century. In other countries, where the order has no connection whatever with the civil power, we can scarcely expect to see it surrounded with an equal splendour, or subsisting in the same state of splendour and regularity. Though this is the case in Burmah, it is impossible not to acknowledge the fact that the regulations of the Wini are more carefully attended to in this country than in Thibet. The conduct of the monks here is incomparably more regular. The public could not bear an open dereliction of the duties imposed by the vows of poverty and chastity. But, if credit be given to the narratives of travellers, the Thibetan monks do not scruple to forsake occasionally those duties, without appearing to fear the rising of a popular cry of indignation, on account of their misbehaviour in points considered of such vast importance. Extraordinary, indeed, would be its vital energies, were the remotest parts of this great and far-spread body to receive the same impulse and exhibit the same symptoms of vitality as those nearest to the heart or principle of life. Having never met with any detailed particulars regarding the Thibetan monks, we must remain satisfied with laying before the reader an account of all that relates to the constituent parts of the order, such as they are found existing in Burmah and developed in the sacred writings.

The whole fraternity is composed, 1st, of young men who have put on the Talapoinic dress without being considered professed members of the fraternity, or having hitherto passed through a certain ordeal somewhat resembling an ordinary; they are called Shyins; 2d, of those who, having lived for a while in the community in a probationary state, are admitted professed members with the ceremonies usually observed on such occasions, whereby the title and character of Phongyie are solemnly conferred; they are denominated Patzins; 3d, of the heads of each house or community, who have the power to control all the inmates of the house; 4th, of a provincial, whose jurisdiction extends over all the communities spread in the towns and villages of the province or district; 5th, of a superior general, residing in the capital or its suburbs, called Tsaia-dau, or great master, having the general management and direction of all the affairs of the order throughout the empire. He is emphatically called by the name of Tha-thana-paing, which means that he has the power over religion. Let us say something upon each of these five degrees of the Buddhistic hierarchy.

It is an almost universal custom among the Burmese and Siamese to cause boys who have attained the age of puberty, or even before that time, to enter for a year or two one of the many Talapoinic houses, to put on the yellow dress, for the double purpose of learning to read and write, and of acquiring merits for future existences. On the occasion of the death of certain persons, it happens sometimes that a member of the family will enter the community for six months or a year. When a young lad is to make his first entrance into a house of the order, he is led thereto, riding on a richly caparisoned pony, or sitting in a fine palanquin carried on the shoulders of four or more men. He is allowed to use one or several gold umbrellas, which are held opened over his head. During the triumphal march he is preceded by a long line of men and women, attired in their richest dresses, carrying a large quantity of presents destined for the use of the inmates of the Kiaong (such is the general name given to all the houses of the brotherhood in Burmah) which the young postulant is to reside in. In this stately order the procession, attended with a band playing on various musical instruments, moves on slowly and circuitously through the principal streets of the town towards the monastery that has been fixed upon. This display of an ostentatious pomp is, on the part of the parents and relatives, an honour paid to the postulant who generously consecrates himself to so exalted a calling, and on the part of the youth a last farewell to worldly vanities. He has no sooner descended from his splendid conveyance and crossed the threshold of the kiaong than he is delivered by his parents into the hands of the superior, and placed under his care. His head is instantly shaved; he is stripped of his fine secular dress, and habited in the plain and humble yellow garb; he must lay aside every sort of ornament, and remain contented with the unassuming simplicity becoming his new position. The kiaong is to become his home, and its inmates are substituted in the room of his father and mother, brothers and sisters.

The duty of the young shyin is to minister to the wants of the elders of the house, to bring and place before them at fixed times the usual supply of water, the betel-box, and the daily food; to attend them on some pious errand through the town or the country. A portion of his time is devoted to acquiring the art of reading and writing, and occasionally the elements of arithmetic. There are five general precepts obligatory on all men; but the shyin is bound to the observance of five additional ones, making ten altogether, by which he is forbidden—1st, to kill animals; 2d, to steal; 3d, to give himself up to carnal pleasures; 4th, to tell lies; 5th, to drink wine or other intoxicating liquors; 6th, to eat after mid-day; 7th, to dance, sing, or play on any musical instrument; 8th, to colour his face; 9th, to stand on elevated places, not proper for him; 10th, to touch or handle gold or silver.[54] The trespassing of the five first precepts is visited with expulsion from the kiaong; but that of the five last may be expiated by a proper penance.

The young shyins, as before observed, do not remain in the kiaong beyond the period of one or two years; they generally leave it and return to a secular life. There are, however, some of them, who, fond of the easy and quiet life of Talapoins, or actuated by other motives, prefer remaining longer in those places of retirement. They betake themselves to the study of the duties, rules, and obligations of the professed members of the society; they pay more attention to the reading of religious books, and endeavour to obtain the required qualifications. Being sufficiently instructed on all these points, and having attained the age of twenty years, they are solemnly admitted among the professed members of the brotherhood under the name of Patzin. The interesting ceremonies observed on the occasion will hereafter be fully described. The state of Patzin is, therefore, properly speaking, that of Phongyie, though that name is sometimes reserved for him who is the head of a monastery. Every other step or promotion in the hierarchy is purely honorary, in so far that it does not impose upon him who is so promoted any new duty or obligation different from what is obligatory on every professed member; but it confers a power or jurisdiction for commanding, controlling, and governing all the brethren under his care. In virtue of such distinctions, a superior, how high soever his rank may be, is bound to the observance of the same rules, duties, and obligations as the last Patzin; his sacred character is not enlarged or altered; he is only entrusted with a certain amount of jurisdiction over some of his brethren.

The Talapoin is bound to his community, so that in every kiaong or house of the order there are ordinarily to be met several Patzins and a good number of shyins. Each kiaong has a chief who presides over the community, under the appellation of Tsaya, or, as is more often the case, under that of Phongyie. He is, in most instances, the nominee of the individual who has built the monastery, and who is vested with a kind of right of patronage to appoint whom he likes to be the head of the house he has erected. He who is the head of the house has power over all the inmates, and every one acknowledges him as his immediate superior. He has the management of all the little affairs of the community, enforces the regular observance of the rules and duties of the profession, corrects abuses, rebukes the trespassers, spurs the lazy, excites the lukewarm, keeps peace and maintains good understanding amongst his subordinates. He receives, in his official character, the pious visitors who resort to his monastery, either for the sake of making voluntary offerings in token of their respect for and admiration of his eminent sanctity, or for conversing with him on some religious subjects, which, let it be said quietly, out of deference to human frailty, sometimes make room for those of a worldly character. If the alms-givers or advice-seekers belong, as often happens, to the fair and devout sex, they must remain at a distance of six or twelve cubits, as the place may allow, from their pious adviser. It is supposed that a nearer proximity might endanger the virtue of the holy recluse.

In every town a considerable number of kiaongs are found, either in the suburbs or within the walls, in a quarter reserved for the purpose. In every village the kiaong is to be met with, as the parson’s house in our villages of Europe. The poorest place is not without a small and often very humble house for the Phongyie who resides there, if not during the whole year, at least during the rainy season. One or several dzedis, a sort of flagstaff painted, and with some of its parts gilt, bearing the emblem of the sacred bird henza, or Brahminical duck, at three-fourths of its height, from which hang down gracefully several streamers, amid a grove of fruit trees, indicate to the traveller the habitation—sometimes humble, sometimes stately—with its superposed three roofs, where the Rahans dwell. The kiaong is also a place where the traveller is well received, and can stay for a day or two. During the dry season, when there are few boys remaining with the Phongyies, it is a place much safer than the dzeats. The inmates are generally very glad to receive strangers, who by their conversation afford them some moments of pleasant diversion which relieve the habitual monotony of their life. These various communities are placed under the jurisdiction of a general superior, or a provincial named Tsaia-dau, or great master; they form, under his authority, a province of the order; a division much similar to that of several religious orders in Europe. He enjoys a large share of public respect and veneration. His kiaong outshines the others in splendour and decorations. The first and wealthiest inhabitants of the place are proud to call themselves his disciples and supporters, and to supply him liberally with all that he may require. His chief duty is to settle disputes that not unfrequently arise between rival communities. The demon of discord often haunts these abodes of peace and retirement. The authority of the provincial interferes to put down feuds and contentions, which envy and jealousy, the two great enemies of devotees, not unfrequently excite. When a Talapoin is accused of incontinence or other serious infringement of the vital rules of the profession, he is summoned to the tribunal of the Tsaya-dau, who, assisted and advised by some elders, examines the case and pronounces the sentence. Superior intellectual attainments do not appear to be the essential qualifications for obtaining this high dignity. The writer has met with two or three of these dignitaries who, in his opinion, were vastly inferior to many of their subordinates in talents and capacity. They were old and good-natured men, who had spent almost all their lives within the precincts of the monastery. Their dress, manners, and habits were entirely similar to those of their brethren of inferior grade.

In the capital, or its suburbs, of the kingdom of Ava, where is the key-stone of the Talapoinic fabric, the superlatively great master resides. His jurisdiction extends over all the fraternity within the realm of his Burmese majesty. His position near the seat of government, and his capacity of king’s master or teacher, must have at all times conferred upon him a very great degree of influence over all his subordinates. He is honoured with the eminent title of Tha-thana-paing, meaning that he has power and control over all that appertains to religion. It does not appear that peculiarly shining qualifications or high attainments are required in him who is honoured with such a dignity. The mere accidental circumstance of having been the king’s instructor when he was as yet a youth is a sufficient, nay, the only necessary recommendation for the promotion to such a high position. Hence it generally happens that each king, at his accession to the throne, confers the highest dignity of the order on his favourite Phongyie. In that case the actual incumbent has to resign the place to his more influential brother, and becomes an ordinary member of the fraternity, unless he prefers leaving the society altogether, and re-entering the lay condition. Great indeed is the respect paid by the king to the head Phongyie. When on certain days of worship he is invited to go to the palace and deliver some instructions to his majesty, the proud monarch quits the somewhat elevated place he occupies, and takes one almost on a level with that of the courtiers, whilst the venerable personage goes to sit on the very same carpet just vacated by the king. When he happens to go out and visit some monasteries or places of worship, he is generally carried on a gilt litter, in great state, attended by a large number of his brethren and a considerable retinue of laymen. During the passage, marks of the greatest respect are given by the people. The monastery he lives in is on a scale of splendor truly surprising. Its form and appearance are similar to that of other religious houses, but in variety and richness of decorations it surpasses them all. It is entirely gilt both inside and out; not only are the posts covered with gold leaves, but often they are inlaid with rubies, which I suppose are of the commonest description and of little value.

To confer an additional sacredness to his person and position, the Tha-thana-paing lives by himself, with but one or two Phongyies, whom we may consider as his secretaries or major-domos, who remain in an apartment near to the entrance, to receive visitors and usher them into the presence of the great personage. Besides, there are lay guardians who take good care that not the least noise should ever disturb the silence of the place.

When the writer first visited that dignitary, he was much amused, on his approach to the place, to meet with those mute guardians, who by all sorts of signs and gestures were endeavouring to make him understand that he must walk slowly and noiselessly, and beware to speak aloud. When admitted to the presence of the Tsaya-dau, he was not a little surprised to find a man exceedingly self-conceited, who thought that to him alone belonged the right of speaking. His language was that of a master to whom no one was expected to presume to offer the least contradiction. He appeared quite offended when his visitor was compelled to dissent from him on certain points brought forward during the conversation. He was then about fifty years old. He was, for a Burman, of a tall stature, with regular and handsome features. The face was a little emaciated, as becomes a monk. His spiritual pride cast a darkish and unpleasant appearance on his person. He spoke quickly and sententiously; appearing all the while scarcely to notice his interlocutor. Admiration of self and vanity pierced through the thin veil which his affected humility spread over his countenance. The writer left him with an impression very different from that which a worthy English envoy, in the end of the last century, entertained of a similar personage, whose mild, benign, and pious exterior captivated him to such an extent as to elicit from him a request to be remembered in his prayers.

In our days, the power of the Tha-thana-paing is merely nominal; the effects of his jurisdiction are scarcely felt beyond his own neighbourhood. Such, however, was not the case in former times. Spiritual commissioners were sent yearly by him, to examine into and report on the state of the communities throughout the provinces. They had to inquire particularly whether the rules were regularly observed or not, whether the professed members were really well qualified for their holy calling or not. They were empowered to repress abuses, and whenever some unworthy brother, or black sheep, was found within the enclosure of a monastery, he was forthwith degraded, stripped of the yellow garb, and compelled to resume a secular course of life. Unfortunately for the welfare of the order, those salutary visits no more take place; the wholesome check is done away with. Left without a superior control, the order has fallen into a low degree of abjectness and degradation. The situation of Talapoins is often looked upon now as one fit for lazy, ignorant, and idle people, who, being anxious to live well and do nothing, put on the sacred dress for a certain time, until, tired of the duties and obligations of their new profession, they retire and betake themselves anew to a secular life. This practice, as far as my observation goes, is pretty general, if not almost universal. There are, however, a few exceptions. Though labouring under many serious disadvantages, the society continues to subsist with all its exterior characteristics; the various steps of its hierarchy are as well marked and defined now as they were before under more favourable circumstances. Its framework remains entire, but the materials composing it are somewhat imperfect and unsound.

There is in that religious body a latent principle of vitality, that keeps it up and communicates to it an amount of strength and energy that have hitherto maintained it in the midst of wars, revolutions, and political convulsions of all descriptions. Whether supported or not by the ruling power, it has remained always firm and unchanged. It is impossible to account satisfactorily for such a phenomenon, unless we find a clear and evident cause of such an extraordinary vitality; a cause independent of ordinary occurrences, time, and circumstances; a cause deeply rooted in the very soul of the populations, that exhibit before the observer this great and striking religious feature. That cause appears to be the strong religious sentiment, the firm faith that pervades the masses of Buddhists. The laity admire and venerate the religious, and voluntarily and cheerfully contribute to their maintenance and welfare. From its ranks the religious body is constantly recruited. There is scarcely a man that has not been a member of the fraternity for a certain period of time.

Surely such a general and continued impulse could not last long, unless it were maintained by a powerful religious conviction. The members of the order preserve, at least exteriorly, the decorum of their profession. The rules and regulations are tolerably well observed; the grades of hierarchy are maintained with a scrupulous exactitude. The life of the religious is one of restraint and perpetual control. He is denied all sorts of pleasures and diversions. How could such system of self-denial be ever maintained, were it not for the belief which the Rahans have in the merits that they amass, by following a course of life which, after all, is repugnant to nature? It cannot be denied that human motives often influence both the laity and the religious, but divested of faith and of the sentiments inspired by even a false belief, their action could not produce, in a lasting and persevering manner, the extraordinary and striking fact we witness in Buddhistic countries.

ARTICLE IV.
ORDINATION, OR CEREMONIES OBSERVED AT THE ADMISSION INTO THE SOCIETY.

We will now explain rather minutely, and describe as accurately as possible, the various ceremonies performed on the occasion of the promotion of a shyin to the rank of patzin, or professed member. It must be borne in mind that this ordeal through which he has to pass, or ordination, as we may aptly perhaps term it, which he has to receive, does not confer any peculiar character, or give any special spiritual power to the admitted candidate; but it merely initiates him to a more perfect course of life, and makes him the member of a society composed of men aiming at a higher degree of sanctity or perfection. The incumbent must be provided for the ceremony with a dress such as is used in the community; he must be found exempt from certain moral and physical defects that would render him unworthy of being admitted a member of the order; he must pledge himself to a rigorous observance of certain regulations which form the constitutions of the society.

The place where the ceremony is to be performed is a hall measuring at least twelve cubits in length, not including the space occupied by the Rahans whose presence is required on the occasion. The assembly of Phongyies, or Rahans, must include ten or twelve members at least if the ceremony be performed in towns, and four or six if it be in the country. He who presides over the ceremony is called Upitze, meaning master or guide; he has an assistant, named Cambawa Tsaia, whose office it is to read the sacred Cambawa, or book of ordination, to present the candidate to the Upitze and his assembled brethren, to put to him the requisite questions as prescribed by the ritual, and to give him instructions on certain points, the ignorance of which would prove highly prejudicial to and greatly offensive in a professed member of the order. All the regulations prescribed and the ceremonies observed on the occasion are contained in a book written in Pali, the sacred language. This book may be aptly termed the ritual of the Buddhists. It is held in great respect, and some copies written on sheets of ivory with gilt edges are truly beautiful, and bespeak the high value Buddhists set on the work. The copyists have retained the use of the old square Pali letters, instead of employing the circular Burmese characters. All the ordinances and prescriptions in this book are supposed to have been promulgated and sanctioned by no less an authority than Gaudama himself, the last Buddha and the acknowledged originator and founder of the Talapoinic order. Hence the high respect and profound veneration all Buddhists bear to its contents. The candidate, previously to the beginning of the ceremony, must be provided, as aforesaid, with his patta, or mendicant’s pot, and a tsiwaran, the clerical dress or monkish habit. The patta is an open-mouthed pot of a truncated spheroidal form, wherein each member of the brotherhood must receive the alms which every morning he goes to collect in the streets.

The tsiwaran or yellow[55] garment, the only dress becoming a Rahan, is composed first of a piece of cloth bound to the loins with a leathern girdle, and falling down to the feet; second, of a cloak of a rectangular form, covering the shoulders and breast and reaching somewhat below the knee; and, third, of another piece of cloth of the same shape, which is folded many times and thrown over the left shoulder, the two ends hanging down before and behind. Another article always required for completing the full dress of the Rahan is the awana, a sort of fan made of palm leaves, set in light oval-shaped wooden frame, with a serpentine handle, somewhat resembling in appearance the letter S.

The Burmese translator of the Pali text has interpolated his work with many remarks tending to elucidate the text, and to show the various motives and reasons that have induced Gaudama to decree and publish as obligatory the regulations laid down in the sacred Cambawa. It must be borne in mind, too, that the omission of some essential parts of the ceremonies annuls de facto the ordination, whilst the non-compliance with others of minor importance, though not invalidating the act of admission into the sacred family, entails sin upon all members of the brotherhood assembled ex officio for the ceremony. The reader must be prepared to observe many points of close resemblance between the ceremonies observed at the reception of a monk, or the ordination of a priest, and those performed in these parts on the solemn occasion of admitting a candidate to the dignity of Patzin.

The preparations for the solemnity being completed, and the assembled fathers having occupied their respective seats under the presidence of the Upitze, the candidate is introduced into their presence attended by the assistant or reader of the Cambawa, and carrying his patta and yellow garments. He is enjoined to repeat distinctly thrice the following sentence to the Upitze, kneeling down, and his body bent forward, with his joined hands raised to the forehead: “Venerable President, I acknowledge you to be my Upitze.” These words having been three times repeated, the assistant, addressing himself to the candidate, says: “Dost thou acknowledge this to be thy patta, and these thy sacred vestments?” To which he audibly answers, “Yes.”

Upon this the translator remarks that, on a certain day, a Rahan that had been ordained without being supplied with either patta or tsiwaran went out quite naked, and received in the palms of his joined hands the food offered to him. So extraordinary, one would have said so unedifying, a proceeding having been mentioned to Gaudama, he ordered that henceforward no Rahan should ever be ordained unless he had been previously interrogated regarding the patta and the vestments. Any disobedience to this injunction would entail sin on the assembled fathers.

The assistant having desired the candidate to withdraw from the assembly to a distance of twelve cubits, and the latter having complied with his request, he turns towards the assembled fathers and addresses them as follows: “Venerable Upitze, and you brethren herein congregated, listen to my words. The candidate who now stands in a humble posture before you solicits from the Upitze the favour of being honoured with the dignity of patzin. If it appears to you that everything is properly arranged and disposed for this purpose, I will duly admonish him. O candidate, be attentive unto my words, and beware lest on this solemn occasion thou utterest an untruth or concealest aught from our knowledge. Learn that there are certain incapacities and defects which render a person unfit for admittance into our order. Moreover, when before this assembly thou shalt be interrogated respecting such defects, thou art to answer truly, and declare what incapacities thou mayest labour under. Now this is not the time to remain silent and decline thy head; every member of the assembly has a right to interrogate thee at his pleasure, and it is thy bounden duty to return an answer to all his interrogations.”

“Candidate, art thou affected with any of the following complaints: the leprosy, or any such odious maladies? Hast thou the scrofula or other similar complaints? Dost thou suffer from asthma or coughs? Art thou afflicted with those complaints that arise from a corrupted blood? Art thou affected by madness or the other ills caused by giants, witches, or evil spirits of the forests and mountains?” To each separate interrogation he answers: “From such complaints and bodily disorders I am free.” “Art thou a man?” “I am.” “Art thou a true and legitimate son?” “I am.” “Art thou involved in debts?” “I am not.” “The bounden man and underling of some great man?” “No, I am not.” “Have thy parents given consent to thy ordination?” “They have given it.” “Hast thou reached the age of twenty years?” “I have attained it.”[56] “Are thy vestments and sacred patta prepared?” “They are.” “Candidate, what is thy name?” “My name is Wago,” meaning, metaphorically, a vile and unworthy being. “What is the name of thy master?” “His name is Upitze.”

The assistant, having finished the examination, turns his face towards the assembled fathers, and thus proceeds: “Venerable Upitze, and ye assembled brethren, be pleased to listen to my words. I have duly admonished this candidate, who seeks from you to be admitted into our order. Does the present moment appear to you a meet and proper time that he should come forward? If so, I shall order him to come nearer.” Then turning to the candidate, he bids him come close to the assembly and ask their consent to his ordination. The order is instantly complied with by the candidate, who, having left behind him the distance of twelve cubits that separated him from the fathers, squats on his heels, the body bending forward and the hands raised to his forehead, and says: “I beg, O fathers of this assembly, to be admitted to the profession of Rahan. Have pity on me; take me from the state of layman, which is one of sin and imperfection, and advance me to that of Rahan, a state of virtue and perfection.” These words must be repeated three times.

The assistant then resumes his discourse as follows: “O ye fathers here assembled, hear my words. This candidate, humbly prostrated before you, begs of the Upitze to be admitted into our holy profession; it seems that he is free from all defects, corporal infirmities, as well as mental incapacities, that would otherwise debar him from entering our holy state; he is likewise provided with the patta and sacred vestments; moreover, he has asked, in the name of the Upitze, permission of the assembly to be admitted among the Rahans. Now let the assembly complete his ordination. To whomsoever this seems good, let him keep silence: whosoever thinks otherwise, let him declare that this candidate is unworthy of being admitted.” And these words he repeats three times. Afterwards he proceeds: “Since, then, none of the fathers object, but all are silent, it is a sign that the assembly has consented; so, therefore, be it done. Let therefore this candidate pass out of the state of sin and imperfection into the perfect state of Rahan, and thus, by the consent of the Upitze and of all the fathers, let him be ordained.”

And he further says: “The fathers must note down under what shade, on what day, at what hour, and in what season the ordination has been performed.”

This being done, the reader of the sacred Cambawa adds: “Let the candidate attend to the following duties, which it is incumbent on him to perform, and to the faults hereafter enumerated, which he must carefully avoid.

“1. It is the duty of each member of our brotherhood to beg for his food with labour, and with the exertion of the muscles of his feet; and through the whole course of his life he must gain his subsistence by the labour of his feet. He is allowed to make use of all the things that are offered to him in particular, or to the society in general, that are usually presented in banquets, that are sent by letter, and that are given at the new and full moon and on festivals. O candidate, all these things you may use for your food.” To this he replies, “Sir, I understand what you tell me.”

The assistant resumes his instructions: “2. It is a part of the duty of a member of our society to wear, through humility, yellow clothes, made of rags thrown about in the streets or among the tombs. If, however, by his talents and virtue one procures for himself many benefactors, he may receive from them for his habit the following articles, cotton and silk, or cloth of red[57] and yellow wool.” The elect answers, “As I am instructed, so I will do.”

The instructor goes on: “3. Every member of the society must dwell in houses built under the shade of lofty trees.[58] But if, owing to your proficiency and zeal in the discharge of your duties, you secure to yourself powerful supporters who are willing to build for you a better habitation, you may dwell in it. The dwellings may be made of bamboo, wood, and bricks, with roofs adorned with turrets or spires of pyramidal or triangular form.” The elect answers: “I will duly attend to these instructions.”

After the usual answer, the instructor proceeds: “4. It is incumbent upon an elect to use, as medicine, the urine of the cow, whereon lime and the juices of lemon or other sour fruits have been poured. He may also avail himself, as medicines, of articles thrown out of bazaars and picked up in corners of streets. He may accept, for medicinal purposes, nutmegs and cloves. The following articles may also be used medicinally—butter, cream, and honey.”

Now the assistant instructs the new religious on the four capital offences he must carefully avoid, under penalty of forfeiting the dignity he has just attained to, and solemnly warns him against committing one of them. Those sins are fornication, theft, murder, and spiritual pride. The committing of one of these sins by religious after their ordination, in the days of Gaudama, induced him to declare those excluded de facto from the society who had been guilty of such offences; and he enjoined that the assistant should immediately after the ceremony solemnly admonish the newly ordained Patzin carefully to shun such odious offences.

The assistant, without delay, proceeds as follows: “O elect, being now admitted into our society, it shall be no longer lawful for you to indulge in carnal pleasures, whether with yourself or animals. He who is guilty of such sin can no longer be numbered among the perfect. Sooner shall the severed head be joined again to the neck, and life be restored to the breathless body, than a Patzin who has committed fornication recover his lost sanctity. Beware, therefore, lest you pollute yourself with such a crime.

“Again, it is unlawful and forbidden to an elect to take things that belong to another, or even to covet them, although their value should not exceed about six annas (one-fourth of a tical). Whoever sins even to that small amount is hereby deprived of his sacred character, and can no more be restored to his pristine state than the branch cut from the tree can retain its luxuriant foliage and shoot forth buds. Beware of theft during the whole of your mortal journey.

“Again, an elect can never knowingly deprive any living being of life, or wish the death of any one, how troublesome soever he may prove. Sooner shall the cleft rock reunite so as to make a whole, than he who kills any being be readmitted into our society. Cautiously avoid so heinous a crime.

“Again, no member of our brotherhood can ever arrogate to himself extraordinary gifts or supernatural perfections, or, through vainglory, give himself out as a holy man; such, for instance, as to withdraw into solitary places, and, on pretence of enjoying ecstasies like the Ariahs, afterwards presume to teach others the way to uncommon spiritual attainments. Sooner may the lofty palm-tree that has been cut down become green again, than an elect guilty of such pride be restored to his holy station. Take care for yourself that you do not give way to such an excess.” The elect replies as before: “As I am instructed, so I will perform.” Here ends the ceremony. The elect joins the body of Rahans, and withdraws in their company to his own kiaong.

It has already been mentioned that this ceremony or ordination does not impart any spiritual character inherent in the person of the elect; but it is a mere formality he has to go through, to enter into the family of the perfect. The admitted member is not linked indissolubly to his new state; he is at liberty to leave it when it pleases him, and re-enter secular life. He may, moreover, if inclined, apply for re-admission into the order, but he must go through the same ceremonies that were observed on his first ordination. It is not very common to meet among the Burmese Rahans men who from their youth have persevered to an old age in their vocation. Those form the rare exceptions. They are very much respected, and held in high consideration during their lifetime, and the greatest honours are lavished upon their mortal remains after their demise. They are often designated by the honourable denomination of “pure from their infancy.”

ARTICLE V.
RULES OF THE ORDER.

The obligations inherent in the dignity of Patzin, and the multifarious duties prescribed to the Buddhist monks, are contained in a book called Patimauk, which is, properly speaking, the manual of the order, and the Vade Mecum of every Talapoin, who is obliged to study it with great care and attention. It is even ordered that on festival days a certain number of recluses shall meet in a particular place called Thein, to listen to the reading of that book, or at least a part of it; that every brother should have always present to his mind the rules and regulations of his profession, and be prompted to a strict observance of all the points they enforce. This injunction is a very proper one, since it is a fact confirmed by the experience of ages that relaxation and dissipation find their way in all communities at the very moment the rules are partially lost sight of. So attentive to this duty are some Phongyies that they can repeat by heart all the contents of the Patimauk. We have read the book with a good deal of attention. Many wise and well-digested rules are to be met with here and there, but they are merged in a heap of minute, not to say ridiculous and childish, details, not worth repeating. In order, however, to give a correct and distinct outline of the mode of life, manners, habits, and occupations of the Talapoins, we will extract from it all that has appeared to be interesting and calculated to attain the above purpose, leaving aside the incongruous mass of useless rubbish.

Every member of the order, on his entering the profession, must renounce his own will and bend his neck under the yoke of the rule. So anxious indeed has been the framer of its statutes to leave no room or field open to the independent exertions of the mind, that every action of the day, the manner of performing it, the time it ought to last, the circumstances that must attend it, have all been minutely regulated. From the moment a Rahan rises in the morning to the moment he is to go to enjoy his natural rest in the evening, his only duty is to obey and follow the ever-subsisting will and commands of the founder of the society. He advances in perfection proportionately to his fervent compliance with the injunctions of, and to his conscientiously avoiding all that has been forbidden by, the sagacious legislator. The trespassing of one article of the rule constitutes a sin. The various sins a Rahan is liable to commit are comprised under seven principal heads. 1st, the Paradzekas; 2d, the Thinga-de-ceits; 3d, the Patzei; 4th, the Toolladzi; 5th, the Duka; 6th, the Dupaci; and 7th, the Pati-de-kani. These seven kinds of sins are subdivided and multiplied to the number of 227, which constitute the total amount of sins either of commission or omission that a Phongyie may commit during the time that he remains a member of the holy society. The Paradzikas are four in number: fornication, theft, killing, and vainglory in attributing to one’s self high attainments in perfection. A recluse, on the day of his admission, is, as before related, warned never to commit these four sins, under the penalty of being excluded from the society. They are irremissible in their nature. The meaning of this is, He who has had the misfortune of yielding to temptation, and committing one of these four offences, is no longer to be considered as a member of the Thanga, or of the assembly of the perfect. He is de facto excluded from the society. He may exteriorly continue to be a member of the Thanga, but inwardly he really no longer belongs to it. All other offences are subjected to the law of confession, and can be expiated by virtue of the penances imposed upon the delinquent after he has made a public avowal of his sins.

The reader will no doubt be startled by the unexpected information that the practice of confession has been established among the Talapoins, and is up to this day observed, though very imperfectly, by every fervent religious. Some zealous Patzins will resort to the practice once, and sometimes twice a day. Here is what is prescribed on this subject in the Wini, or book of scriptures, which contains all that relates to the Phongyies, the Patimauk being but a compendium of it: when a Rahan has been guilty of a violation of his rule, he ought immediately to go to his superior, and, kneeling before him, confess his sin to him. Sometimes he will do this in the Thein, the place where the brothers assemble occasionally to speak on religious subjects or listen to the reading of the Patimauk in the presence of the assembly. He must confess all his sins, such as they are, without attempting to conceal those of a more revolting nature, or lessening aggravating circumstances. A penance is then imposed, consisting of certain pious formulas to be repeated a certain number of times during the night. A promise must be made by the penitent to refrain in future from such trespasses. This extraordinary practice is observed now, one would say, pro forma. The penitent approaches his superior, kneels down before him, and having his hands raised to his forehead, says: “Venerable superior, I do confess here all the sins that I may be guilty of, and beg pardon for the same.” He enters upon no detailed enumeration of his trespasses, nor does he specify anything respecting their nature and the circumstances attending them. The superior remains satisfied with telling him: “Well, take care lest you break the regulations of your profession; and henceforward endeavour to observe them with fidelity.” He dismisses him without inflicting any penance on him. Thus an institution, so well calculated to put a restraint and a check upon human passions, so well fitted to prevent man from occasionally breaking commands given to him, or at least from slipping into the dangerous habit of doing it, is now, by the want of fervour and energy in the hands of that body, reduced to be no more than an useless and ridiculous ceremony, a mere shadow of what is actually prescribed by the Wini.

The punishments inflicted for the repeated transgressions of one or several points of the rule are, generally speaking, of a light nature, and seldom or never corporeal, as flagellations, &c. The superior sometimes orders a delinquent to walk through the courtyard during the heat of the day for a certain time, to carry to a distance a certain number of baskets-ful of sand, or a jug of water. Meekness, being a virtue most becoming a recluse, forbids the resort to penances of a more severe nature.

Humility, poverty, self-denial, and chastity are to him who has received the order of Patzin cardinal and most essential virtues, which he ought to practise on all occasions. He must, in all his exterior deportment, give unequivocal marks of his being always influenced by the spirit they inspire. The framer of the rules and regulations of the order seems to have had no other object in view than that of leading his brethren by various ways and means to the practice of these virtues, and inculcating on their minds the necessity of attending to the observances prescribed for this purpose. It is from this point we must view the statutes of the fraternity in order to understand them well and rightly, and appreciate them according to their worth and merit. We would indeed form a very erroneous opinion of institutions of past ages if we were to examine them, to praise or blame them, without a due regard being paid to the spirit that guided the legislator, and to the object he aimed at when he laid them down. Our own ideas, customs, manners, and education will often dispose us to disapprove at first of institutions made in former ages, amongst nations differing from us in all respects, under the pretext that they are not such as we would have them to be now, making unawares our own prejudices the standard whereby to measure the merit or demerit of all that has been established previously to our own times. The institutions of the middle ages, a celebrated modern historian has said, are intelligible to him that has entered into the spirit of those days, and who thinks, feels, and believes as did the people of those bygone centuries. This observation holds good to a certain extent, and, mutatis mutandis, in respect to Buddhistic institutions. The whole religious system must be understood, the object which the founder of the order had in view ought to be distinctly remarked and always borne in mind, ere we presume to pronounce upon the fitness or unfitness of the means he has employed for obtaining it.

For humility’s sake every Talapoin is bound to shave every part of his body. In complying with this regulation he must consider that the hairs that are shaved off are useless things, serving merely for the purposes of vanity, and he ought to be as unconcerned about them as a great mountain which has been cleared of the trees on its summit. Influenced by the same spirit, the religious must always walk barefooted, except in case of his labouring under some infirmity, or for some other good reason; he is then allowed to use a certain kind of plain and unornamented slipper, the shape, colour, and dimensions of which are carefully prescribed by the rule. When the Rahans travel from one place to another, they are allowed to carry with them the broad fan, made of palm-leaves, and a common paper umbrella to protect their bare head from the inclemency of the weather, or screen it from the heat of the sun. Their dress, consisting, as above mentioned, of three parts, is as plain as possible. According to the Patimauk, each separate part must be made of rags picked up here and there, and sewed together by themselves. This regulation, though disregarded by many, is to a certain extent observed by the greater number, but in a manner rather contrary to the spirit, if not to the letter, of the rule. On their receiving from benefactors a piece of silk or cotton, they cut it into several small square parts, which they afterwards contrive to have stitched in the best way they can, so as to make their vestments according to the prescription of the statutes. The vestment ought to be of one colour, yellow in those countries in which Mahometanism does not prevail. The yellow colour is a mark of mourning, as the black is amongst most of the nations of Europe.

Seven articles are considered as essential to every member of the holy family, viz., the kowot, thin-bain, dugout (the three pieces constituting his vestment), a girdle, a patta, a small hatchet, a needle, and a small apparatus for straining the water he drinks. The entire number of articles he is permitted to use and possess amounts to sixty. They are all plain, common, almost valueless, offering no incentive to cupidity and leaving him who is only possessed of them in the humble state of strict poverty.

The possession of temporal goods is strictly forbidden to the Rahans, as calculated to hinder them from meditating upon the law and attending to the various duties of the profession. Nothing indeed opposes a stronger barrier to the attainment of the perfect abnegation of self and a thorough contempt for material things, than the possession of worldly property. Hence a true Rahan has no object which he can, properly speaking, call his own. The kiaong wherein he lives has been built by benefactors, and is supplied by them with all that is necessary or useful to him. Food and raiment are procured for him without his having to feel concerned about them. The pious liberality of his supporters assiduously provides for his wants. But it is expected that he shall never concern himself with worldly business or transactions, of whatever nature they may be. He can neither labour, plant, traffic, nor do anything with the intent of deriving profit therefrom. Agreeably to the maxim, “Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,” the Rahan cannot make any stores for the time to come. He must trust in the never-failing generosity and ever-watchful attention of his supporters for his daily wants. Now, let it be said to the praise of the Buddhists, that he is seldom disappointed in the reliance he places on them.

That he may be more effectually debarred from a too easy and frequent use of the things of first necessity, a Talapoin is bound to go through a tedious ceremony, called Akat, or presentation, before he can lawfully touch anything. When he has occasion for food, drink, or anything else, he turns to his disciples and tells them to do what is lawful. Whereupon one of them, or several, as circumstances may require, rises from his place, and, taking the thing or things he wants with both hands, approaches him respectfully, and presents to him the articles, saying, This is lawful. Then the Rahan takes the things into his own hands, and uses them or lays them by, as may suit his convenience. When a thing is presented, the disciple must be at a distance of some cubits, otherwise the recluse is guilty of a sin; and if what he receives is food, he commits as many sins as he eats mouthfuls. Gold and silver being the two greatest feeders of covetousness, the rule forbids the Phongyies to touch them, and a fortiori to have them. But on this point, however, human covetousness has broken through the strong barriers the framer of the statutes has wisely devised for effectually protecting recluses from its dangerous allurement. Gold and silver are not indeed touched by the pious devotees, but the precious and dazzling metals are conventionally handed to the disciples, who put them into the box of the superior, who, whilst bowing obsequiously to the letter of the rule, disregards its spirit. Sometimes an innocent ruse is resorted to by a greedy religious for silencing the remorse of his conscience; he covers his hands with a handkerchief, and without scruple receives the sum that is offered to him. It would be unfair to pass a general and sweeping sentence of condemnation for covetousness upon all the members of the fraternity. There are some whose hands have not been polluted by the handling of money, and whose hearts have always been, we may say, strangers to the cravings of the auri sacra fames; but it cannot be denied that many among them are insatiable in their lust for riches, and not unfrequently ask for them.

No Rahan can ever ask for anything; he is allowed to receive what is spontaneously offered to him. In this point too the spirit of the rule is frequently done away with. The recluse will not ask an object he covets (I beg his pardon for making use of such a term) in direct words; but by some indirect means or circuitous ways he will give significantly to understand that the possession of such an object is much needed by him, and that the offering of it would be a source of great merits to the donor. In this manner he moves the heart of his visitor, and soon kindles in his breast a desire to present the thing, almost as eager as his own is to receive it.

Celibacy is strictly enjoined on every professed member of the society. On the day of his reception he is solemnly warned by the instructor never to do anything contrary to that most essential virtue. The founder of the order and the framer of its statutes has entered, on this subject, into the most minute details, and prescribed a multitude of regulations tending to fortify the Rahans in the accomplishment of the solemn vow they have made, and to remove from them all occasions of sin, even the most distant. We must give him credit for an uncommon acquaintance with the weakness of human nature, as well as with the violence of the fiercest passion of the heart, since he has laboured so much to strengthen and uphold the former, and bridle the latter by every means his anxious mind could devise. He was deeply read in the secrets of the human heart, and knew well that the surest tactics for carrying on successfully the warfare between the spirit and the flesh consist in rather avoiding carefully the encounter of the enemy, and skilfully manœuvring at a distance from him, than in boldly encountering him in the open field. Hence the repeated injunctions to shun all the occasions of sin.

The Phongyies are forbidden to stay under the same roof, or to travel in the same carriage and boat, with women; they cannot receive anything from their hands. To such a height are precautions carried that the religious are not permitted to touch the clothes of a woman, or caress a female child, however young, or even handle a female animal.[59]

When visited in their dwellings by women, who resort thither for the purpose of making offerings, or listening to the recital of a few passages of the sacred books, they must remain at a great distance from them, and be surrounded by some of their disciples. The Phongyies are to look upon the old ones as mothers and upon the young as sisters. The conversation must be as short as decency allows, and no useless or light expressions be ever uttered. On the festival days, when crowds of people, men and women, go to the kiaongs to hear the tara, or some parts of the law repeated, the Rahans, arrayed in front of the congregation, keep their fans before their faces all the while, lest their eyes should meet with dangerous and tempting objects. Much greater precautions are still required in their intercourse with the Rahanesses, a sort of female recluses, whose institute is greatly on its decline in almost all parts of Burmah. For better securing the observance of continence, a Phongyie never walks out of his monastery, or enters a private dwelling, without being attended by a few disciples. Popular opinion is inflexible and inexorable on the point of celibacy, which is considered essential to every one that has a pretension to be called a Rahan. The people can never be brought to look upon any person as a priest or minister of religion unless he live in that state. Any infringement of this most essential regulation on the part of a Rahan is visited with an immediate punishment. The people of the place assemble at the kiaong of the offender, sometimes driving him out with stones. He is stripped of his clothes; and often public punishment, even that of death, is inflicted upon him by order of government. The poor wretch is looked upon as an outcast, and the woman whom he has seduced shares in his shame, confusion, and disgrace. Such an extraordinary opinion, so deeply rooted in the mind of a people rather noted for the licentiousness of their manners, certainly deserves the attention of every diligent observer of human nature. Whence has originated among corrupted and half-civilised men such a high respect and profound esteem for so exalted a virtue? Why is its rigorous practice deemed essential to those who professedly tend to an uncommon degree of perfection? Owing partly to the weight of public opinion, and partly to some other reasons, the law of celibacy, externally at least, is observed with a great scrupulosity, and a breach of it is a rare occurrence. As the rule, in this respect, binds the Phongyie only as long as he remains in the profession, he who feels his moral strength unable to cope successfully with the sting of passion prefers leaving the fraternity and returning to a secular life, when he can safely put an end, by a lawful alliance, to the internal strife, rather than expose himself to a transgression which is to entail upon him consequences so disgraceful.

The sagacious legislator of the Buddhistic religious order, pre-occupied with the idea of elevating the spiritual principle above the material one, and securing to reason a thorough control over bodily appetites, has prescribed temperance as a fundamental virtue essential to every Rahan. In common with all their fellow-religionists, the Rahans are commanded to abstain from the use of spirituous liquors and of intoxicating substances. Such a prohibition is the wisest step that Gaudama could have adopted to preserve his followers from the shameful vice of drunkenness. All uncivilised people make use of spirits for the sole purpose of creating in them the effects of intoxication. Were it not for such an excellent regulation, the members of the Thanga would soon become, by their excesses, the laughing-stock of the laity. The time allotted for taking their meals extends from daybreak to the moment the sun has reached the middle of its course; but as soon as the luminous globe has passed the meridian, the use of food is strictly interdicted. A stomach, more or less loaded with nutritive substances taken in the evening, weighs down the body, enervates the energies of the soul, clouds the intellect, and renders a man rather unfit to devote himself to the high exercises of study, meditation, and contemplation, which ought to be the principal occupations of a fervent Rahan. He is allowed to make two meals in the forenoon, but it is expected that he will eat no more than is required to support nature. He must always take his meals in company with the members of his community. To stifle the craving of gluttony and eradicate immoderate desires, he ought to repeat frequently within himself the following sentence: “I eat this rice, not to please my appetite, but to satisfy the wants of nature;” just as he says when he puts on the habit, “I dress myself, not for the sake of vanity, but to cover my nakedness.” Rice and vegetables are, according to the statutes, the staple food of the Phongyies; the use of fish and meat is tolerated, and now it has become a daily prevailing custom which has rendered the practice a lawful one. Strictly speaking, a Talapoin must remain satisfied with rice and various sorts of boiled vegetables which he has received in his patta during his morning perambulations through the streets of the place.

As it happened among the Romans that the law repressing convivial sumptuousness and luxury proved an ineffectual barrier against gluttony and other passions, so amidst the Rahans the strict regulations prescribing a poor and unsavoury diet have been obliged to yield before the tendencies to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of appetite. Most of the Phongyies give to dogs, or to the boys who live in the monastery, the vulgar food they have begged in the streets, and feed on aliments of better quality supplied to them regularly by some persons in easy circumstances, who call themselves supporters of the kiaong and of its inmates. The ordinary fare consists of rice and several small dishes for seasoning the rice, in which are some little pieces of flesh, dressed according to the culinary abilities of the cooks of the country, which are not certainly of the highest order. To this are added some of the fruits of the season accompanied by sweetmeats, which female devotees are wont everywhere so carefully to prepare and so fondly to offer to those who are the objects of their pious admiration and respect. The aliments supplied to the humble recluses are of the best description for the country they live in. One would say that they live on the fat of the land. The most delicate rice and the finest fruits invariably find their way to the monasteries. But withal, the Phongyies are not to be charged with the sin of intemperance or gluttony.

The quantity of food they may take is also an object of regulation, as well as the very mode of taking, and even of swallowing it. Each mouthful must be of a moderate size; a second ought not to be carried to the mouth before the first has been completely disposed of by the masticatory process, and found its way down through the œsophagus. The contrary would be considered gluttony, and an evident sign that the eater has something else in view besides appeasing the mere wants of nature. It is rather an amusing sight to gaze at the solemn indifference of a Talapoin taking his meal. One would be tempted to believe that he is reluctantly submitting to the dire necessity of ministering to the wants of a nature too low and material. The rule forbids Talapoins to eat human flesh, or that of the monkey, snake, elephant, tiger, lion, and dog.[60] As a mitigation of the severity of the disciplinary regulation prohibiting the recluses from taking any food from twelve o’clock in the day until the next morning, the use of certain beverages is permitted during that time, such as cocoa-nut water, the juice of the sugar-cane, and other refreshing draughts.

The rule being silent regarding the consumption of the betel-leaf and other ingredients constituting the delicious mouthful for masticatory purposes, the Talapoins avail themselves largely of the liberty left to them on this subject. The quantity of betel and other accompanying substances which they consume is truly enormous. These articles hold a pre-eminent place amongst the objects that are presented to the inmates of monasteries. The dark-red substance adhering to the teeth and occasionally accumulating at the corners of the mouth, the incessant motion of the lower jaw, the stream of reddish spittle issuing frequently from the lips of the Talapoins, are unquestionable proofs of both their ardent fondness and copious consumption of that harmless narcotic. Except during the short moments allotted for taking meals, a Rahan’s mouth is always full of betel, and the masticating or chewing process is incessantly going on.

A great modesty must distinguish a member of the family of the perfect from a layman; that virtue must shine forth in his countenance, demeanour, gait, and conversation. Any sign on his face indicating the inward action of anger or any other passion is found unbecoming in a person whose composedness and serenity of soul ought never to be disturbed by any inordinate affection. He never speaks precipitately or loudly, lest it might be inferred that passion rather than reason influences him. Worldly or amusing topics of conversation are strictly interdicted, either with his brethren or laymen. The rule requires him to walk through the streets with affected simplicity, avoiding hurry as well as slowness, keeping his eye fixed on the ground in front, looking not further than ten or fifteen cubits.

Curiosity tends to expand the soul on surrounding objects; but a Rahan’s principal aim being to attend diligently to himself, to prefer the care of self before all other cares, and to concern himself very little about all that takes place without, he assiduously labours to keep his soul free from vain inquiry, from eager desire of hearing news, and from an idle or unnecessary interference in things or matters strange to him. It seems that he has the wise saying always present to his mind, “Where art thou when thou art not present to thyself? And when thou hast run over all things, what profit will it be to thee if thou hast neglected thyself?” During his perambulations he never salutes or notices the persons he meets on his way; he is indifferent to the attentions and marks of the highest veneration paid to him by the people; he never returns thanks for offerings made to him, nor does he repay with a single regard the kindness proffered to him. Objects most calculated to awaken curiosity by their novelty and interest ought to find him cold, indifferent, and unconcerned. His self-collection accompanies him everywhere, and disposes his soul to an uninterrupted meditation on some points of the law. It is a counsel of the Wini to observe particularly the four cleannesses, viz., great modesty in the streets and public places, the confession of all failings, the avoiding of all occasions of sins, and the keeping oneself free from the seven kinds of sin. Such a wise injunction can only be attended to and observed by keeping a vigilant watch over the senses, which are the very gates leading into the sanctuary of the soul. We could enter into fuller and more particular details regarding the regulations of the Talapoinic order, but they would prove little interesting, and only corroborate what has been previously stated, that every action of a brother, even the most common, such as the manner of sitting, rising up, sleeping, eating, &c., has become the object of the legislative attention of the founder of the order. Nothing seems to have escaped his clear foresight, and he has admirably succeeded in leaving no room for the exercise of individual liberty. The rule is as a great moral being whose absolute commands must be always obeyed. Every individual is bound to lay aside his own self, and unconditionally follow the impulse of his guiding influence.

ARTICLE VI.
OCCUPATIONS OF THE BUDDHIST MONKS.

The whole life of a recluse being confined within a narrow compass, we will have very little to say regarding his daily occupations. As soon as a Talapoin has left at an early hour the sleeping horizontal position, he rinses his mouth, washes his face, and recites a few formulas of prayers, which he lengthens or shortens according to his devotion. He attires himself in his professional costume, gets hold of his mendicant’s pot, and sallies forth, in company with some brethren or disciples, in quest of his food. He perambulates the streets in various directions, and, without any solicitation on his part, receives the rice, curry, vegetables, and fruits which pious donors have been preparing from two to three o’clock in the morning, watching at the door of their houses the arrival of the yellow-clad monks. Having received what is considered sufficient for the day, he returns to the monastery, and sets himself to eat either what he has brought, or something more delicate and better dressed which his supporter, if he has any, has sent to him.

On the principal festivals, or on extraordinary occurrences, abundant alms are brought to his domicile. Sometimes he is called by a pious donor to come and receive them in the pagodas, or in large temporary sheds erected for the purpose reserved for the occasion. They consist chiefly of mattresses, pillows, betel-boxes, mats, tea-cups, and various articles he is allowed to make use of. On these occasions he repays his benefactors by repeating to them the five great precepts, and some of the principal tenets of the Buddhistic creed, and the chief points of the law. He enumerates at great length the numerous merits reserved to alms-givers. On this point it must be confessed that he is truly eloquent, and his language flowing and abundant: his expressions are ready at hand and most glowing, calculated to please the ears of his hearers and warm their souls to make fresh efforts in procuring him more copious alms. Occasionally he will recite long praises in honour of Gaudama, the last Buddha, for having during his previous existence practised eminent virtues, and thereby qualified himself for the high dignity of Phra. The sermon goes on sometimes in Pali or sacred language, which neither he nor his hearers can understand.

The Phongyies are sometimes requested to visit the sick, not so much for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual wants of the sufferer as for affording him some relief by his presence. It is believed that the appearance of a holy personage may have some effect in freeing the diseased from his distemper, and frightening the evil spirits that may be the mischievous agents in harming patients. The visitor repeats over them some points of the law that are intended to act as antidotes against the agency of the wicked one. Phongyies are very particular on the point of etiquette. When one of them has to enter into upper-storied houses, the yellow-habited religious, previous to his venturing into the lower story, will make it sure that there is no one, and particularly no woman, in the upper apartments, as it would be highly unbecoming that any man, and a fortiori a woman, should have their feet above his head. To avoid such an indecorous contingency, in case the sick person lies in a room upstairs, the Phongyie has recourse to an expedient few, I presume, would have thought of. By his direction a ladder is brought, the lower part of which rests on the street, and the upper leans on one of the upper windows; up goes the pious visitor, who by such a contrivance reconciles the observance of etiquette with the compliance to his duty. The writer confesses that he was much amused the first time that he witnessed such a feat performed at Penang by a Siamese Phongyie. The little crowd, attracted by this novelty, exhibited a curious mixture of feelings. Some laughed; many remained silent; but their deportment was evidently indicative of the respect and admiration that seemed to them to inspire the scrupulously tender conscience of the religious.

We must allow that the Talapoins confer a truly invaluable benefit upon the people of these countries by keeping up schools, where the boys resort for the purpose of learning to read, write, and acquire the rudiments of arithmetic. In this respect they are eminently useful, and the institution, though to a certain extent burthensome to the people, in this respect deserves well of the country. The many abuses that at present attend it are almost fully atoned for by the great service its members gratuitously render to their countrymen. There are no other schools than those under their management. The tyrannical governments of Siam and Burmah do not take any steps to propagate instruction among their subjects, whom they look upon as slaves, fit only for bodily labour. The houses of Talapoins are so many little seats of elementary learning; and as they are very numerous throughout the country, every facility is afforded to male children to learn to read and write. The female children are excluded from partaking of this great boon by the strictness of the monastic regulations. It is a great misfortune, much to be lamented, as one half of the population is thus doomed to live in perpetual ignorance. Owing to the gratuitous education given by the Buddhist monks, there are very few men throughout the breadth and length of Burmah who are not able to read and write. It is true that too often the knowledge thus acquired is very superficial and incomplete. But as regards the other half of the population, it may be stated that scarcely a woman among thousands can be found capable of spelling one word.

The Talapoins being much addicted to sloth and indolence, the schools are undoubtedly miserably managed. The boys are often left to themselves without regular control or discipline. When a boy enters the monastery as student, his teacher places into his hands a piece of blackened board, whereupon are written the first letters of the alphabet. The poor lad has to repeat over and over the name of the letters, crying aloud with all the powers of his lungs. He is left for several weeks at the same subject, until his instructor is satisfied that he knows his letters. In the next step the boy is directed to study the symbols of the vowels which are to be joined with consonants so as to form syllables and words. When this is done he is initiated into the art of uniting together and articulating properly the several consonants with the symbolic characters. He slowly shapes his course through the apparently much-complicated system of all the combinations of letters, so as to be able to spell correctly all the words of the language. Owing to the lack of order and method on the part of the teachers, boys spend a long time, sometimes one or two years, in mastering those difficulties, which, if properly explained, would much shorten the time usually devoted to such a study.

The Burmese alphabet, with the various combinations of letters and symbols for making words, is based on a most perfect and scientific methodical and simple process, borrowed from the Sanscrit. The method is plain and easy, as soon as it is understood. Any person that has received some education, and whose mind is somewhat developed, will be able, with the occasional assistance of an intelligent master, to go all over the various combinations in less than two months. The results derived from the method adopted by the Burmans are so great and complete that, after having gone over the general alphabet with attention, the beginner is able to read all the Burmese words he may meet with. We do not mean, of course, to say that he will be able to pronounce every word correctly. This is another thing altogether. But it is no less evident that the system used by Burmese in the combinations of letters leads to results infinitely more satisfactory than those obtained through the system of elementary reading and spelling used in Europe.

Unacquainted with the rules of grammar, the teachers are incapable of imparting any sound knowledge of the vernacular language to their numerous pupils. Hence writing, as far as orthography goes, is extremely imperfect; the spelling of words, having no fixed standard, varies to an indefinite extent. As soon as the scholars have mastered the difficulties of the long and complicated alphabet, some portions of the sacred writings are put into their hands for reading. The result is that the Burmese in general acquire some knowledge, more or less extensive, of their religious creed. Though none among them can be found who understands comprehensively the Buddhistic system, yet most of them are possessed of a certain amount of more or less limited information concerning Buddha and his law. In this respect they are perhaps ahead of many nominal Christians in several countries of Europe, who dwell in large manufacturing towns and remote country districts and belong to the lower classes, and who live without even a slight acquaintance with the essential tenets of the Christian creed.

In addition to the eminently useful task of teaching youth, the Buddhistic recluse devotes occasionally some portion of his time to the useful labour of copying manuscripts on palm-leaves, either for his personal use or to increase the small library of his monastery. The work is considered as a very excellent one, deserving of great merits, and much recommended by the rules of the society. It is a matter of regret that the native laziness of the Phongyies, as well as their total want of order in acquiring knowledge, thwart to a great extent the practical working of the wise provisions made by the framer of the rules. Were it not for such causes, copies of all the best and most interesting works on the religious system of Buddhism would be greatly multiplied, and could be easily procured; whilst now they are exceedingly scarce and hardly to be had at all. The few copies to be had with much difficulty are to be paid for very high. All the books are made of palm-leaves. The leaves are about twenty inches in length, and from three to four in breadth. On each face of the leaf from seven to nine or ten lines are written. A copyist uses a style of iron by way of pen. With the sharp point he scratches the epidermis of the leaf to form the letters. In order to render the letters perfectly visible, he rubs over the page just written with a piece of rag some petroleum, which, penetrating into the parts scratched by the style, causes the letters to become quite distinct and apparent.

The Talapoins spend the best part of the day sitting in a cross-legged position, chewing betel and conversing with the many idlers that are always to be found in great numbers about their dwellings. When tired of the vertical position, they adopt the horizontal one, reclining the head on pillows and gently submitting to the soporific influence of good Morpheus. They have always in their hands a string of beads, on which they are wont to repeat certain devotional formulas. The most common is the following, “Aneitsa, duka, anatta;” meaning that everything in this world is subjected to the law of change and mutability, to that of pain and suffering, and to that of entire and uninterrupted illusion. There is, indeed, an immense field opened to a reflecting mind by these three very significative expressions for carrying on serious and prolonged meditation; but none of the Talapoins, at least of those I have been acquainted with, are capable of understanding comprehensively their meaning. They often repeat the forty great subjects of meditation, and the rule enjoins them to be zealously addicted to contemplation, which is pronounced to be the chief exercise of a true follower of Buddha. But how can there ever be expected from weak and ignorant persons the habitual practice of so high an exercise, requiring an intellectual vigour of the very first order? They must repeat on their beads at least a hundred and twenty times a day the four following considerations on the four things more immediately necessary to men, food, raiment, habitation, and medicine: “I eat this rice, not to please my appetite, but to satisfy the wants of nature. I put on this habit, not for the sake of vanity, but to cover my nakedness. I live in this kiaong, not for vainglory, but to be protected from the inclemency of the weather. I drink this medicine merely to recover my health, that I may with greater diligence attend to the duties of my profession.”

ARTICLE VII.
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE OF THE PHONGYIES—RESPECT AND VENERATION PAID TO THEM BY THE LAITY.

When we speak of the great influence possessed by the religious order of Buddhist monks, we do not intend to speak of political influence. It does not appear that in Burmah they have ever aimed at any share in the management or direction of the affairs of the country. Since the accession of the house of Alomphra to the throne, that is to say, during a period of above a hundred years, the history of Burmah has been tolerably well known. We do not recollect having ever met with one instance when the Phongyies, as a body, have interfered in the affairs of the State. They also seem to remain indifferent to family or domestic affairs. The regulations they are subjected to, and the object which they have in view in entering the religious profession, debar them from concerning themselves in affairs that are foreign to their sacred calling. But in a religious point of view alone, their influence is a mighty one. Upon that very order hinges the whole fabric of Buddhism. From it, as from a source, flows the life that maintains and invigorates religious belief in the masses that profess that creed. We may view the members of the order as religious, and as instructors of the people at large, and principally of youth. In that double capacity they exercise a great control and retain a strong hold over the mind of the people.

There is in man a natural disposition and inclination to admire individuals who, actuated by religious feelings, are induced to leave the world and separate from society in order to devote themselves more freely to the practice of religious duties. The more society is corrupted, the more its members value those persons who have the moral courage to estrange themselves from the centre of vice, that they may preserve themselves from contamination. In fact, religious are esteemed in proportion to the extent of the contempt they have for this world. The Phongyies occupy precisely this position in the eyes of their co-religionists. Their order stands in bold relief over the society they belong to. Their dress, their mode of life, their voluntary denial of all gratification of sensual appetites, centre upon them the admiring eyes of all. They are looked upon as the imitators and followers of Buddha; they hold ostensibly before ordinary believers the pattern of that perfection they have been taught so fondly to revere. The Phongyies are as living mementoes, reminding the people of all that is most sacred and perfect in practical religion. No one will deny that the view of a body of religious existing in a community, keeping an intercourse with its members, must ever have a powerful tendency to foster religious feelings in the mind of a half-civilised people as the Burmese are. It is in this manner that the Phongyies command the respect and veneration of the people, and exercise a considerable amount of religious influence over the masses.

But in the capacity of instructors of the people, the members of the order act as yet more directly and actively upon the people. In Burmah there are no schools but those kept by the religious. The monasteries are as so many little seminaries where male children receive elementary instruction. The knowledge that is imparted to them by their masters is not secular, but purely religious. It is a point upon which the undivided attention of a keen observer must be centred in order to understand the full meaning of the following remarks. We do not mean to say that the instructor has always present to his mind, as a professor, the direct teaching of religious tenets; but the fact is that no information is conveyed to the pupils except that which comes from religious books. No other books are ever used in schools.

As soon as boys are able to read, religious books are put into their hands. During all the time they remain at school they go over books that have a direct reference to religion. Without even being aware of it, they imbibe religious notions, and become acquainted with some parts of the religious creed, particularly with what relates to Gaudama’s preceding and last existence. When they grow up to manhood, if they happen to read, they have, as a general practice, no other books but such as have a reference to religion. When people assemble together, either in the dzeats on the occasion of festival days, or at home on other public occasions, particularly in the days following the death of some relatives, one or several elders read some passage of their scriptures, and thereby supply topics for conversation of a religious turn. This state of things originates almost entirely in the early education received in the monasteries at the hands of their masters, the Phongyies. It powerfully contributes to popularise and foster religious notions, whilst it indirectly heightens and brightens in the eyes of the people the position of the religious.

Moreover, the early intercourse between the youth and their masters tends to bring into closer contact and union both the religious and the laity. It draws nearer the ties that bind together these two fractions of the Buddhist society. The relation thus established between the teachers and the taught is further strengthened by the fact that the greatest number of the male portion of the community become affiliated, during a longer or shorter period, to the society, and subjected to its rules and regulations; they are cast in the mould of religious, and retain during the remainder of their life some of the features that have been at an early period stamped on their young minds. Their memory remains loaded with all that they learned by heart during the days they spent in the monasteries as students or members of the society.

Though the Phongyies or Talapoins are not remarkable for their zeal in delivering instructions or sermons to the people, they discharge occasionally that duty on the eve of and during festival days, and on all occasions when considerable offerings are brought to them in their monasteries. Sometimes, too, they are requested to go to certain places prepared for that purpose, to deliver instructions and receive offerings tendered to them by some pious laymen. The preaching never consists in expounding the text of the religious books, and developing certain points of the law; it is a mere rehearsal and repetition of the precepts of the law or of regular formulas in praise of Gaudama, and an enumeration of the merits to be gained by those who bestow alms on them. These and similar circumstances much contribute to keep up the position of the religious, and aid them in retaining a powerful religious hold over their respective communities. We repeat it as our deliberate opinion, that upon the religious association under consideration principally rests, as on a strong basis, the great fabric of Buddhism. Were such an institution to give way and crumble to the dust, the vital energies of that false creed would soon be weakened and completely paralysed. Buddhism would yield before the first attack that would be skilfully and vigorously directed against it.

In Burmah the Phongyies are highly respected by every member of the community. When they appear in public, walking in the streets, they are the objects of the greatest attention. The people withdraw before them to leave a free passage. Women are seen squatting on both sides of the way, through respect for the venerated personages. When visited in their dwellings, even by persons of the highest rank, the etiquette is that every visitor should prostrate himself three times before the head of the monastery, uttering the following formula:—“To the end of obtaining the remission of all the faults I have committed through my senses, my speech, and my heart, I make a first, second, and third prostration in honour of the three precious things—Phra, his law, and the assembly of the perfect. Meanwhile, I earnestly wish to be preserved from the three calamities, the four states of punishment, and the five enemies.” To which the recluse answers:—“For his merit and reward, may he who makes such prostrations be freed from the four states of punishment, the three calamities, the five sorts of enemies, and from all evil whatsoever. May he obtain the object of all his wishes, walk steadily in the path of perfection, enjoy the advantages resulting therefrom, and finally obtain the state of Neibban.” On the visitor withdrawing from his presence, the three prostrations must be repeated; he then stands up, falls back to a distance of ten feet, as it would be highly unbecoming to turn the back suddenly on the holy man, wheels round on the right, and goes out. This usage is doubtless very ancient, and is at the same time looked upon as a very important one. In the Life of Gaudama we have seen it mentioned on all occasions when visitors went to pay their respects to him. Princes and nobles observed the ceremony with the utmost punctuality.

The best proof of the high veneration the people entertain for the Talapoins is the truly surprising liberality with which they gladly minister to all their wants. They impose upon themselves great sacrifices, incur enormous expenses, place themselves joyfully in narrow circumstances, that they might have the means to build monasteries with the best and most substantial materials, and adorn them with all the luxury the country can afford.[61] Gold is often profusely used for gilding the posts, ceiling, and other parts of the interior, as well as several trunks or chests for storing up manuscripts. Two or three roofs superposed upon each other (a privilege exclusively reserved to royal palaces, pagodas, and kiaongs) indicate to the stranger that the building is a monastery. The recluse’s house is well supplied with the various articles of furniture becoming the pious inmates. The individual who builds at his own expense such a house, assumes the much-envied title of Kiaong-taga, or supporter of a monastery. This title is for ever coupled with his name: it is used as a mark of respect by all persons conversing with him, and it appears in all papers or documents which he may have to sign. The best, finest, and most substantial articles, if allowed by the regulations as fit for the use of the Talapoins, are generously and abundantly afforded by benevolent persons. When the king is religiously inclined, the best and most costly presents he receives are deposited in the monasteries, to adorn the place or hall where the principal idol is.

Government does not interfere or give any assistance in building pagodas or kiaongs; nor does it provide for the support of the pious Rahans; but the liberality of the people amply suffices for all contingencies of the kind. When a man has made some profit by trading, or any other way, he will almost infallibly bestow the best portion of his lucre in building a kiaong, or feeding the inmates of a religious house for a few months, or in giving general alms to all the recluses of the town. Such liberality, which is by no means uncommon, has its root, we believe, in a strong religious sentiment, and also in the insecurity—nay, the danger—of holding property to a large amount.

When a Talapoin is addressed by a layman, the latter assumes the title of disciple; and the former calls him simply Taga, or supporter. The attitude of the layman in the presence of the Phongyie is indicative of the veneration he entertains towards his person. He squats down, and he never addresses the yellow-dressed individual without joining his hands in token of respect, and raising them up with a little motion indicative of intended prostration. As there is in Burmah a court language, so there is a language, or rather a certain number of expressions, reserved to designate things used by Talapoins, as well as most of the actions they perform in common with other men, such as eating, walking, sleeping, shaving, &c. The very turn of the commonest sentence is indicative of respect when speaking to a Rahan. He is called Phra, the most honourable term the language can afford. His person is sacred, and no one would dare to offer him the least insult or violence. The influence of the Talapoin upon the people is considerable, in proportion to the great respect borne to his sacred character. So extraordinary has it been on certain occasions, that Phongyies have been seen rescuing forcibly from the hands of the police culprits on their way to the place of execution. No resistance, then, could be made by the policemen without exposing themselves to the danger of committing a sacrilege, by lifting their hands against them when such an occurrence takes place. The liberated wretches are then forthwith led to the next monastery. Their heads having been shaved, they are attired in the yellow garb, and their persons become at once sacred and inviolable.

The veneration paid to Talapoins during their lifetime accompanies them after their death. Their state is considered as one of peculiar sanctity. It is supposed that their very bodies too partake of the holiness inherent in their sacred profession. Hence their mortal remains are honoured to an extent scarcely to be imagined. As soon as a distinguished member of the brotherhood has given up the ghost, his body is opened, the viscera extracted and buried in some decent place without any particular ceremony, and the corpse embalmed in a very simple manner by putting ashes, bran, and other desiccative substances into the abdominal cavity. It is then swathed with bands of linen, wrapped round it many times, and a thick coat of varnish laid upon the whole. On this fresh varnish gold leaves are sometimes placed, so that the whole body is gilded over from head to feet. When the people are poor and cannot afford to buy gold for the above purpose, a piece of yellow cloth is considered as the most suitable substitute. The body, thus attired, is laid in a very massive coffin, made, not with planks, but of a single piece of timber hollowed in the middle for receiving the earthly frame of the deceased. A splendid cenotaph, raised in the centre of a large building erected for the purpose, is prepared to support a large chest wherein the coffin is deposited. The chest is often gilt inside and out, and decorated with flowers made of different polished substances of various colours. Pictures, such as native artists contrive to make, are disposed round the cenotaph. They represent ordinarily religious subjects. In this stately situation the body remains exposed for several days, nay several months, until preparations are completed for the grand day of the obsequies. During that period festivals are often celebrated about it, bands of music play, and people resort in crowds to the spot for the purpose of making offerings to defray the expense to be incurred for the funeral ceremony. When the appointed day for burning the corpse at last arrives, the whole population of the town will be seen flocking in their finest dresses to witness the display of fireworks which takes place on the occasion of burning the corpse. A funeral pile of a square form is erected on the most elevated spot. Its height is about fifteen feet, and it ends with a small room made for receiving the coffin. The corpse having been hoisted up and laid in the place destined for its reception, fire is set to the pile in a rather uncommon way. An immense rocket, placed at a distance of about forty yards, is directed towards the pile by means of a fixed rope guiding it thereto. Sometimes the rocket is placed on a huge cart, and pushed in the direction of the pile. In its erratic and uncertain course it happens occasionally that it deviates from its course, and plunges into the ranks of the crowd, wounding and killing those it meets. As soon as it comes in contact with the pile, the latter immediately takes fire by means of combustibles heaped for that purpose, and the whole is soon consumed. The few remaining pieces of bones are religiously collected, and buried in the vicinity of some pagoda. Here ends the profound veneration, amounting almost to worship, which Buddhists pay to their recluses during their life and after their demise.

Two chief motives induce the sectaries of Buddha to be so liberal towards the Talapoins, and to pay them so high a respect; viz., the great merits and abundant rewards they expect to derive from the plentiful alms they bestow upon them, and the profound admiration they entertain for their sacred character, austere manners, and purely religious mode of life. The first motive originates from interested views; the second has its root in that regard men naturally have for persons who distinguish themselves from others by a more absolute self-denial, a greater restraint and control of their passions, a renouncement of permitted pleasures and sensual gratifications from religious motives. According to the fundamental dogma of Buddhism, any offering made to, or indeed any action done for the benefit of, a fellow-man is deserving of reward during future existences, such as digging a well, building a resting-place, a bridge, &c.; but far more abundant are the merits resulting from presenting a Talapoin with one or several articles necessary to his daily use, as they increase proportionately to the dignity of the person to whom the things are offered. We may judge from the following instance of the plentiful harvest of merits which a supporter of Phongyies is promised to reap hereafter: He who shall make an offering of a mendicant’s pot or Thabeit shall receive as his reward cups and other utensils set with jewels; he shall be exempted from misfortunes and calamities, disquietude and trouble; he shall get without labour all that is necessary for his food, dress, and lodging; pleasure and happiness shall be his lot; his soul shall be in a state of steadiness and tranquillity, and his passion for the sex shall be considerably weakened. The offering of other objects secures to the donor wealth, dignity, high rank, pleasure, and an admittance into the fortunate countries or seats of the Nats, where all the things are to be met with and enjoyed that are calculated to confer on man the greatest sum of happiness. The people believe unhesitatingly all that is said to them in this respect, and they gladly strip themselves of many valuable things in order to obtain and enjoy, during coming existences, the riches and pleasures promised to them by their Rahans. The insecurity of property under tyrannical rulers may operate to a certain extent in determining people to part with their riches, and consecrate them to religious purposes, rather than see themselves violently deprived of them by the odious rapacity of the vile instruments of the avarice, tyranny, and cruelty of their heartless princes and governors.

It can scarcely be a matter of wonder that Buddhists so much honour and respect a Talapoin, when we consider that, in their opinion, he is a true follower of Buddha, who strives to imitate his great prototype in the practice of the highest virtues, particularly in his incomparable mortification and self-denial, that he might secure the ascendancy of the spiritual principle over the material one, weaken passions which are the real causes of the disorder that reigns in our soul, and finally disengage her from their baneful influences, and from that of matter in general. He is exceedingly reserved and abstemious regarding food, the use of creatures, and the enjoyment of pleasures, in order to secure to reason the noblest faculty of an intelligent being, a perfect control over the senses. He is indeed in the right way leading to Neibban, the summit of perfection. In the opinion of a Buddhist, nobody can be compared to a true and fervent Rahan in sterling worth and merit. His moral dignity and elevation cast into the shade the dazzling splendour that surrounds loyalty. He is a pious recluse, a holy personage, a true member of the holy Thanga, and deserving, therefore, of the highest admiration and respect.

As a consequence of the profound veneration in which Talapoins are publicly held, they are exempted from contributing to public charges, tribute, corvées, and military service. It is an immense favour, particularly among the nations of Eastern Asia, where the rulers look upon their subjects as mere slaves and tools under their command for executing the absolute orders of their capricious fancy. Under the present ruler of Burmah, the fathers and mothers of Phongyies are benefited by the fact of their sons being in a monastery. They are exempted from paying taxes, and are treated with some attention by the officials who wish to ingratiate themselves in the favour of his most Buddhist majesty. They have often the honorary affixes joined to their names.

In concluding this notice, we will briefly sketch the actual situation of the Talapoinic order in those parts where we have had the opportunity of observing it, and will allude to the causes that have operated in seducing it into vices, abuses, and imperfections which are lowering it greatly in the opinion of all foreigners and of a few well-informed natives.

The first and principal cause that has brought the Society into disrepute and opened the door to numberless abuses is the total absence of discernment in the selection of the individuals that seek for an admittance therein. Every applicant is indiscriminately received as a member of the brotherhood. No previous examination takes place for ascertaining the dispositions, capacity, and science of the postulant. No inquiry is ever made regarding the motives that may have induced him to forsake the world and take so important a step. His vocation is exposed to no trial. He has but to present himself and he is sure to be immediately received, provided he consent to conform exteriorly to the usual practices of his brethren. No account is taken of his former conduct. The very fact of his applying to be admitted into the society of the perfect atones amply for all past irregularities. The only respectability inherent in the modern Talapoins is that derived from the sacred yellow dress he wears. It may aptly be said of him that he is monk by the fact of his wearing the canonical dress. The houses of the order are, in many instances, filled with worthless individuals totally unfit for the profession, who have been induced by the basest motives to enter into them, chiefly by laziness, idleness, and the hope of spending quietly their time beyond the reach of want, and without being obliged to work for their livelihood. In confirmation of this, I will mention the following instance. During the second year of my stay in Burmah, I had with me, in the capacity of servant, an old stupid native. On a certain day he gravely told me that he intended to leave my service and become a Phongyie. I laughed at first at what I considered to be very presumptuous and impertinent language. The old man, however, kept his word. Having left my house a few days after our conversation on the subject of his new vocation, I heard no more of him till it happened a few months after that I met him in a monastery, attired in the full dress of a Phongyie, and so proud of his new position that he hardly condescended to put himself on a footing of equality with his former master.

Ignorance prevails to an extent scarcely to be imagined among the generality of the Phongyies. I have met with a great number of laymen who were incomparably better informed, and far superior in knowledge to them. Their mind is of the narrowest compass. Though bound by their profession to study with particular care the various tenets of their creed and all that relates to Buddhism, they are sadly deficient in this respect. They have no ardour for study. While they read some book, they do it without attention or effort to make themselves fully acquainted with the contents. There is no vigour in their intellect, no comprehensiveness in their mind, no order or connection in their ideas. Their reading is of a desultory nature, and the notions stored up in their memory are at once incoherent, imperfect, and too often very limited. They possess no general or correct views of Buddhism. I never met with one who could embrace the whole system in his mind and give a tolerably accurate account of it. The only faculty that they cultivate with great care is memory. It is surprising to hear them repeating by heart the contents of a book they have studied. As the number of books is very limited in countries where the art of printing has not been introduced, the pupils of the monasteries are compelled to commit to memory the greatest portion of the books they study. He who has lived in Burmah must have often heard, to his great surprise, laymen repeating, during sometimes a whole hour, formulas in Pali, or religious stories in Burmese, which they had learned in the school, or when they had put on the monkish habit.

Phongyies are fond of exhibiting their knowledge of the Pali language, by repeating from memory, and without stammering or stumbling, long formulas and sentences; but I have convinced myself that very few among them understood even imperfectly a small part of what they recited. Those who enjoy popularly a reputation for uncommon knowledge affect to speak very little, show a great reserve, despising as ignorant the person that approaches their abodes or holds conversation with them. But silence, which in a learned man is a sign of modesty, is too often with them a cloak to cover their ignorance, and a cunning device for disguising pride under the garb of humility. The latter virtue, though much recommended in the Wini, is not a favourite one with the Talapoins. It is indeed impossible that they could ever understand or practise it, since they are unacquainted with the two great ways that lead to it, viz., a profound knowledge of God and a thorough knowledge of self. Talapoins, who are distinguished among their brethren for their great austerity of manners and more perfect observance of their regulations, are the most unpleasing beings the writer has ever met with.

They are cold, reserved, speaking with affected conciseness: their language is sententious, seasoned with an uncommon dose of pretension. Sentences falling from their lips are half finished, and involved in a mysterious obscurity, calculated to fill with awe and admiration their numerous hearers; a certain haughtiness and contempt of others always shows itself through their affected simplicity and humble deportment. Vanity and selfishness, latent in their hearts, force themselves on the attention of an acute observer. In their manners they are occasionally so affected by a ridiculous reserve that one might be tempted to think that their brain is not quite sound. Talapoins, in general, entertain a very high idea of their own excellence; and the great respect paid to them by the people contributes not a little to foster it, and make them believe that nobody on earth can ever be compared to them. To such a height has their pride reached that they believe it would be derogatory to their dignity to return civility for civility, or thanks for the alms people bestow on them.

The most striking feature in the character of the Talapoins is their incomparable idleness. We may say that, in this respect, they resemble their countrymen, who are very prone to that vice. Two causes of a very different nature seem, in our opinion, to act together on the people of these countries to produce such a result. The first is a physical one; the heat of the climate, coupled with a perpetual uniformity in the temperature, producing a general relaxation in the whole system, which is never combated or counteracted by an opposite action or influence. The second cause is a moral one, the tyranny of the despotic governments ruling over the populations of Eastern Asia. Property is everywhere insecure. He who is suspected of being rich is exposed to numberless vexations on the part of the vile satellites of tyranny, who soon find out some apparent pretext for confiscating a part or the whole of his property, or depriving him of life, should he dare to offer resistance. In such a state of things every one is satisfied with the things of first necessity. Want forms the strongest tie that binds together individuals and races, and at the same time holds out the most powerful incentive to exertion. The people of these parts have but few wants, and therefore they lack inducement to labour for acquiring anything beyond what is strictly necessary. Emulation, ambition, the desire of growing rich, which are the main springs that move man to exertion, disappear and leave him in an abject and servile indolence, which soon becomes his habitual state, and the grave wherein is entombed all his moral energy.

Like their countrymen, Phongyies are exposed to the influence of the above causes, but their mode of life is a third additional reason why they are more indolent than others. They have not to trouble or exert themselves for the articles required for their subsistence and maintenance; these are abundantly supplied to them by their co-religionists. They are bound, it is true, to read, study, and meditate; but their ignorance and laziness incapacitate them for such intellectual exercises. They remain during the best part of the day sitting in a cross-legged position, or reclining, or sleeping, or at least attempting to do so. They occasionally resume the vertical position to get rid of ennui, one of their deadliest enemies, and by repeated stretchings of arms and legs, and successive yawnings, try to free themselves from that domestic foe. The teaching of their scholars occupies a few of them for a short time in the morning and in the evening. They are often relieved from their mortal ennui by visitors as idle as themselves, who resort to their dwellings to kill time in their company.

To keep up respectability before the public, the Rahans assume an air of dignity and reserve. They avoid all that could lead them into dissipation. Exterior continence is generally observed, and though there are occasional trespasses, it would be unfair to lay on them generally the charge of incontinence. Their life so far may be considered as exemplary. Though partly divested of that open-heartedness which is a peculiar characteristic of their countrymen, they are tolerably kind and affable with strangers. They, however, cannot relinquish in their conversation with them a certain air of superiority, inspired by the admiration of self and the high opinion they entertain of their exalted profession and sacred character. They are unwilling to see them sitting unceremoniously close to themselves; and when this cannot be avoided, they seek for an opportunity of removing to another place a little more elevated than that occupied by the visitor, as it would be highly unbecoming that laymen should ever presume to sit on a level with a recluse. Such a step would imply a sort of equality between them both, which is never to be dreamt of. Their smooth and quiet countenance, their meek deportment, are, as it were, slightly fretted with a certain roughness and rudeness peculiar to individuals leading a retired life, and estranging themselves, to a certain extent, from the place of society.

In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to give a faithful account of the great religious order existing in countries where genuine Buddhism is the prevailing creed. We have been obliged, for the sake of truth, to mention many abuses that have slowly crept into it; but we never entertained the slightest intention of casting a malignant contempt or a sneering ridicule upon its members. Most sincerely we pity those unfortunate victims of error and superstition who are wasting their time and energies in the fruitless pursuit of an imaginary felicity. No language can adequately express the ardour and intensity of our desires, sighs, and prayers to hasten the coming of the day when the thick mist and dark cloud that encompass their souls shall be dissipated, and the Sun of Righteousness shall shed into them his vivifying beams. However deplorable their intellectual blindness may be, we always felt that they have a right to be fairly and impartially dealt with. The religious order they belong to is, after all, the greatest in its extent and diffusion, the most extraordinary and perfect in its fabric and constituent parts, and the wisest in its rules and prescriptions, that has ever existed either in ancient or modern times without the pale of Christianity.

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