TEMPLES AT BANGKOK.—THE FOUNDER OF BUDDHISM.
A letter from Fred was in the same mail with Frank's. The dutiful boy remembered his mother, and wrote as follows:
"Frank has told all about our arrival in Bangkok, and what we saw on our first day in the city. I know you will hand our letters around for both families to read, and so I will try to avoid repeating what he has said.
"One of the first things we wanted to see was the temples, for which Bangkok is famous. You must know that Siam is a country where the Buddhist religion has a very strong hold; and the king is supposed to be the defender of the ancient faith. A large part of the annual revenue of the country is expended in the repair of the temples now in existence, or the construction of new ones; and also in processions and other religious ceremonies. We are fortunate in coming here at the season of the year when the king goes to make his visits to all the temples; and, as there are many of them in the city, he has enough to do for two or three weeks. We have seen one of these processions, and expect to see more: as the one we have seen is not the grandest of them, I will keep the description of this part of our sights in Bangkok for another letter.
BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF BANGKOK.
"The first temple we went to was the one known as Wat Seh Kate. It has the general appearance of a pyramid, and is about two hundred and fifty feet high, with a winding pathway that leads to the top. From the platform, on the summit, there is a fine view of Bangkok, or rather the form of the city can be seen, though the most of the houses are concealed by the trees. It is a curious sight, as the trees are nearly all tropical ones, and wherever you look you see palms in some form or other, with their long leaves bending in the wind, and their stems rising, often as straight as arrows, for fifty or a hundred feet. Off in the distance there are rice-fields, some of them of great extent; and close below you is a bewildering mass of temples, and palaces, and pagodas, with the river shining here and there, and forming a sharp contrast to the dark green of the foliage. Some of the spires of the temples look as pointed as needles; and though you might think they would fall down with the first high wind, I am told they have stood for a long time, and are apparently as firm as ever.
"I enclose a picture representing a view from one of the temples, so that you can see what Bangkok is like.
"Some foreigners have been talking of proposing to the government to convert this temple into a reservoir for water, which would be brought into the city by an aqueduct, just as water is supplied to New York and other American cities. Wouldn't that be a novel idea? The city has no aqueduct whatever, but all the water that the people use must be taken from the river or caught in cisterns during the rainy season.
TEMPLE OF WAT CHANG.
"The temple is not yet finished, and therefore the view from the top is the most interesting thing about it. On the other side of the river is another remarkable temple known as Wat Chang; it stands in a large enclosure, perhaps fifteen or twenty acres in extent, and this enclosure contains small gardens, the houses of the priests, and a great quantity of stone statues, some of them very grotesque in character. There are some nice fish-ponds full of fish; and in two or three places we saw grottoes of stone and brick that were very pretty. I should think that the priests had considerable taste, and were not the lazy fellows one often finds around these temples. Perhaps they did not do the work themselves, but only laid it out for others; even if that is the case, they deserve some credit for their good taste.
"The general shape of Wat Chang is that of a bell; and there is a spire at the top that would make a very good handle, if some one could be found large and strong enough to take it up and ring it. Doctor Bronson guessed that the building was two hundred and fifty feet high, and about the same in diameter; it is built of brick, and the outside is covered with plaster, which was stuck full, while it was moist, with all sorts of curious things. These include plates, and cups and saucers, and all manner of dishes with as many colors as the rainbow, and arranged into a mosaic that forms figures of animals, fruits, flowers, and other things, some of them hideous and unnatural. As you might suppose would be the case in the Land of the White Elephant, the largest animal that we know of is frequently represented. Sometimes he has only one head, as he has in actual life; but occasionally they give him three heads, which the Doctor says is to symbolize the Buddhistic Trinity. Besides these mosaics, there are other elephants in the form of statues, which are set in niches half-way to the summit. The sun was shining brightly when we visited this temple, and at every step the rays were flashed into our eyes till they almost ached with pain.
TEMPLE OF THE SLEEPING IDOL.
"We went to the 'Temple of the Sleeping Idol,' which is one of the wonders of Bangkok. It is not a great ways from the royal palace, and gets its name from the fact that there is a statue of Buddha in a horizontal position that fills the most of the interior of the building. The figure is one hundred and sixty feet long, and lies on its side; the soles of the feet are sixteen feet long, and each of them is inlaid with mother-of-pearl as delicately as though it was a finger-ring. The figures represented by this inlaid work are entirely fruits and flowers; Doctor Bronson says the fable is that fruits and flowers sprung from the earth wherever Buddha planted his footsteps. The figure of Buddha is built of brick, and then heavily gilded, so that you might easily suppose it was of gold. When I tell you that the arm at the elbow is six feet in diameter, you will get an idea of the greatness of the work.
"The Sleeping Idol is not the only wonder of this temple. There are nearly a thousand other idols there, most of them of life size, and they are so thickly packed as to make you think they would be liable to get in each other's way. The temple itself is about two hundred feet long, and has a high roof with sharp peaks at the ends, and three stages rising one above another. The eaves are supported by tall columns, and thus quite a veranda is formed between them and the doors of the building; and there is a high wall around the temple, so that it would not be easy to get in without permission. The enclosure contains the houses of the priests, and some small pagodas and temples; and the priests evidently have an eye to business, as they would not open the doors till we had paid a tical for each person of our party. The tical is the Siamese coin in which everything is reckoned; it is worth about sixty cents of our money, and consequently the price of admission to the temple seemed rather dear to us.
BRASS IDOL IN A TEMPLE.
"There is another temple that has a statue of brass nearly fifty feet high, and, like most of the statues, it is intended to represent the divine Buddha. It is in a sitting posture, with the legs crossed, and the pedestal on which it sits is of the same material, and delicately ornamented. In front of the altar there are cups and flower-vases in great variety—some of brass, others of copper, and others again of bronze thickly covered with gold. Offerings of fruit and flowers were lying on the altar, and on each side of the figure of Buddha there was the statue of a priest, standing erect, and with his hands folded in the attitude of prayer. We could not help admiring the beauty of the work, and regretting that so much money and labor had been devoted to the worship of a heathen god. The temple of the Sleeping Idol is said to have cost not less than a million of dollars, and probably ten millions would not cover the expense of the temples within half a mile of the royal palace, to say nothing of the others in the city.
"The Chinese that live in Bangkok have a great many temples of their own, but none of them are as fine as the Siamese ones. The temples that the Chinese build must be paid for out of their own contributions; while those of the Siamese are erected by the government, and the priests that take care of them have an official character. There were formerly thirty or forty thousand priests in Bangkok: they were so numerous that the father of the present king determined to compel them to work for a living, and so he took away the government support and turned them out. For a few years after he did so they were not very numerous; but they have gradually increased, until their number is now reckoned at twenty thousand. They can be recognized by their yellow robes, and they have their heads shaved as smooth as door-knobs. They live about the temples, and every morning they go around begging.
"This morning we started out early, in order to see the priests on their begging missions; and it was a curious sight, you may believe.
"Each begging priest has a boat, and generally a boy to paddle it. In front of the priest there is a basket with a cover, and as the boat is rowed up to a house the priest says not a word, but raises the cover of the basket. On the platform in front of the door there is a kettle of freshly boiled rice, and somebody, generally a woman, lifts out a quart or so of the rice with a ladle and pours it into the basket. When the operation is completed, the priest moves on; he never says 'Thank you,' and the giver never speaks. If another priest comes a moment after, he gets the same quantity, and the same silence is preserved. Charity is enjoined by the Buddhist religion, and what is given is given from a sense of religious duty. Captain Salje says that nobody need starve in Bangkok, as it is the privilege of every one to go to the temples and be fed. The priests receive from the people, and are expected in turn to give to those that need. But if you went to the temples you would get nothing more than boiled rice, with an occasional fish; and, as I should tire of those things in a short time, I don't think either Frank or myself will become a mendicant in the capital of Siam.
PRIESTS PLAYING CHESS.
"The priests have a very lazy life of it. They lie around the temples and spend much of their time in sleep; some of them study the sacred books of their religion, and for those who are inclined to read there is a library attached to each of the principal temples. They are fond of games like chess, and several times we have found groups of them seated around tables and completely absorbed in their sport. Their chessmen are like buttons, and they hold them in little baskets, which are kept under the hands of the players. Many of them are great smokers, and when a party is at chess they usually have their pipes where they can be ready for use at a moment's notice.
"Talking about the priests naturally leads up to the religion of the country. Doctor Bronson says it is Buddhism of the purest character, and was brought to Siam from Ceylon hundreds of years ago. There is considerable difference in the authorities about the origin of the religion, but the statement most generally received is that it began about two thousand three hundred years ago in India. Prince Gautama, who afterward became Buddha, was famous for the goodness of his disposition and his care for the happiness of his fellow-men. The religion of his time was mixed up with a great deal of cruelty, and he determined to reform it. With his title of prince, he belonged to a very rich family near Benares, which was then considered one of the most sacred cities in India; and it remains so to this day in the eyes of the native people. He became a wanderer, and for five years he travelled over the country, living on charity, and doing all the good that he could.
"At the end of five years he came back to Benares to establish a new religion, and dispute with the teachers of the old. The people were ready to listen to him, and in a short time, under his new name of Buddha, he had many converts. Among them were his father and brothers, and other members of his family; and in a few years he was able to send out apostles to all parts of India and to Ceylon, and other countries. Conversions were made very fast, and the histories say that in less than two hundred years from the time Buddha began his work five hundred millions of people in Asia had embraced the new doctrines. Temples were erected everywhere, and priests became numerous; but the new religion led to a bitter war with the old, which lasted for centuries. Buddhism was finally driven out of the most of India, and the only places where it now exists are the countries to which it was carried by the missionaries.
"An English author and journalist, Edwin Arnold, who lived some time in India, has written a poem, entitled 'The Light of Asia,' in which he endeavors to portray the life and character of Prince Gautama of India, the founder of Buddhism. In the preface to his interesting and highly instructive production, Mr. Arnold says:
"'A generation ago little or nothing was known in Europe of this great faith of Asia, which had nevertheless existed during twenty-four centuries, and at this day surpasses, in the number of its followers and the area of its prevalence, any other form of creed. Four hundred and seventy millions of our race live and die in the tenets of Gautama; and the spiritual dominions of this ancient teacher extend, at the present time, from Nepaul and Ceylon over the whole Eastern Peninsula to China, Japan, Thibet, Central Asia, Siberia, and even Swedish Lapland. India itself might fairly be included in this magnificent empire of belief; for, though the profession of Buddhism has for the most part passed away from the land of its birth, the mark of Gautama's sublime teaching is stamped ineffaceably upon modern Brahminism, and the most characteristic habits and convictions of the Hindoos are clearly due to the benign influence of Buddha's precepts. More than a third of mankind, therefore, owe their moral and religions ideas to this illustrious prince, whose personality, though imperfectly revealed in the existing sources of information, cannot but appear the highest, gentlest, holiest, and most beneficent, with one exception, in the history of Thought.'
"Another authority says that the real name of Buddha was Sakya Muni, and he was the son of the Rajah of Kapila, a small territory north of Benares. According to some of the accounts, he acquired his divine character by silent meditation; and it is one of the principles of his creed that any one can, by meditation and good works, become equal to divinity. He was said to be thirty-five years old when he attained these powers, and it required seven years of meditation to reach this condition. He lived to be nearly eighty years old, and was actively engaged in pushing his new doctrines until the time of his death.
GATE-WAY OF A TEMPLE AT BANGKOK.
"There are two reasons why I shall not write much about the religion of this wonderful man. One is that I am afraid you would not be greatly interested in what we call Paganism, and the other is that I don't feel able to describe it so that you would understand it. People who have lived here for years say it is full of mysteries, and they are not able to comprehend it. If that is the case, you could hardly expect a traveller who is only a few months in the East to tell you all about the beliefs of the natives, and their modes of worship. I am told that the creed of Buddha is a very simple one, and is founded on kindness and benevolence. It is enjoined on all believers to be charitable, and never to inflict pain on anything that lives. This part of the doctrine is not closely observed by the ordinary followers, and its strict observation is specially appropriate for the priests. They are not allowed to kill any animal for the sake of food, but they may eat what others have killed, though they are not expected to do so if vegetable food is to be obtained. They are expected to remain poor, like the monks of the Catholic Church, and whatever is given to them belongs to the temple they are attached to. The temples are sometimes very rich, but the priests have nothing they can call their own property.
"Children are instructed in the temples, and one of the duties of the priests is to give instruction when it is required. Some of the temples have schools attached to them; and there are Buddhist colleges that have acquired considerable reputation for the learning of the men attached to them.
"Attempts have been made to convert the Siamese from their present religion to Christianity, and a good many missions have been established here. The Roman Catholics came to Siam three hundred years ago, and began to preach their religion; and in the early part of this century the Protestant missions were established. The government allows the missionaries full liberty to preach and teach among the people, and makes them gifts of land when any is wanted for the erection of a church or school-house. Some of the missionaries have exercised considerable influence over the high authorities, and it is largely due to their efforts that many reforms have been adopted.
TEMPLE OF THE EMERALD IDOL.
"I will close this letter by telling you something about the last of the temples we visited. It is the Wat P'hza Keau, or the Temple of the Emerald Idol, and is so called on account of an idol of emerald a foot high and eight inches wide. It stands on an altar about fifty feet high, and all over the surface of the altar there are images representing idols, human figures, and animals, the latter including some forms that are very grotesque. The emerald idol stands in a niche which is beautifully ornamented, and the altar terminates in a long spire above the idol's head. There are paintings on the walls superior to anything we saw in the other temples, and we found that the bricks on the floor were of polished brass instead of baked clay. The hair and collar of the idol are of pure gold, and from the way the light fell upon them it looked as though they were thickly set with precious stones. Some one who has seen it more closely than we did, says that while the gold was in a melted state a handful of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and other precious stones were stirred into it; perhaps this was so, but I should think it would be injurious to the diamonds to be thrown into melted gold, which must be of a very great heat.
"This is the temple where the king comes most frequently to say his prayers. We had hoped to see him there, but were disappointed."