The "child wife," a remarkably pretty little woman, dressed in pure white silk, stood in the hall beside a small marble fountain, with her two sons on either side of her. All round the fountain were huge China vases containing plants, covered with flowers, and between them were immense silver water-jars, each large enough to hold a couple of men, and each containing a huge silver ladle. Thirty or more young slave-women were engaged in filling them with cool fresh water drawn from a well in the garden.
The hall was freshly furnished with striped floor-matting, and with cushioned seats for a hundred guests. In the garden opposite the doors of the hall was a circular thatched roof supported on one great mast, like a single-poled tent, and this was the theatre erected for the occasion. In one part was an elevated stage for the marionettes, and the whole was very gracefully and prettily ornamented, showing, as did everything around, a desire to please and to entertain. Some fifty women-porters came from an inner court, hearing on their heads massive silver dishes of sweetmeats and choice viands, and placed them along the hall; then came some maidens dressed in pure white, and arranged flowers in small gold vases beside each of the seats designed for the expected guests; and when this was done they took their places behind their mistress.
It was early morning, just seven o'clock. But this entire woman's city had been up for hours engaged in the important work of rightly celebrating the great day. The grounds around the house were all in a glow with roses, and the pure silver of the water-jars glistened resplendently in the morning sunlight.
The gate was thrown wide open, and into this fairy-like scene, amid flowers and sunshine and fragrance, and the dew still trembling on the leaves, were ushered in the guests, one by one,—a hundred decrepit, filthy, unsightly looking beggar-women covered with dirt and rags and the vilest uncleanliness.
And the "child wife," who might have numbered twenty-five summers, but who looked as if she were only sixteen, blushing with a delicacy and beauty of her own, advances and greets her strange guests with all the more respect and tenderness because of their rags and poverty, leads them gently and seats them on low stools around her sparkling fountain, removes their disgusting apparel, and proceeds with the aid of her maidens to wash them clean with fragrant soap and great draughts of cool water ladled out of the silver jars. What a transformation, when the matted hair was washed and combed and parted and dressed with flowers, and the rags were replaced by new robes of purest white! Then she led them towards the hall, and seated them on the silk cushions before the silver trays, and bowed on her knees before them and served to them the delicacies prepared for them, as if they each one and all deserved from her some special token of her love and veneration. After breakfast the music struck up and the actors and puppets appeared on the stage. The music was particularly good. The royal female bands were assembled for the occasion, and relieved each other in succession; the acting was occasionally interspersed with the plaintive notes of female voices; the priestesses of this beautiful scene, who seemed sometimes deeply moved, collected from within themselves all the charms and joys of love to pour them forth with the inspiration of music at the feet of their lowly listeners.[47]
And at length, as the curtain of the last act dropped, and the prolonged cadence of the voices and the instruments died away, a loud buzz of delight and pleasure broke from the listening crowd of old, decrepit women, who received each a sum of money from their kind hostess, and went on their lonely way rejoicing.
"This," said my friend to me, "I do every year, to show my love and obedience to my dear teacher, the Buddha." And to my unaccustomed heart and eyes it seemed the sight in all the world the most worth gazing upon.
FOOTNOTES:
[44] I would here remark that all intelligent Buddhists make a very marked distinction between the Buddha and the Buddh. Buddh, or as he is sometimes called, Adi Buddha, is the Supreme Intelligence, from whom Buddha is only an emanation, has existed from all eternity.
[45] See "English Governess at the Siamese Court," Chap. XIII. p. 116.