CHAPTER IX THE TEMPLES
There are temples everywhere in Siam, some not much bigger than barns; others, great buildings with high roofs and stately surroundings. Some are quite new, gay in all their glory of gold and varied colour; others are old, dirty, and crumbling to dust. Temples are not usually repaired; they are built and then allowed to go to ruin. A temple is not a place to worship in; for, strictly speaking, there is no one to worship. Buddha does not ask for people to kneel to him. He was a man, not a god, and he became holy because he lived a sinless life. Any other man who lived a life like his would become a Buddha too. And a temple is not built to pray in, because there is no one to whom to pray. Every man must save himself by his own deeds, and Buddha does not pretend to hear and answer prayers. In the temples sacred books are read, chants are sung, and occasionally sermons are preached, but there is no worship and no prayer quite in the way we understand and practise these things.
To understand, then, why so many temples are built, you must know something more about the Buddhist religion. Buddha taught that when we die our souls pass into other bodies. If we have been very wicked in this life, we may be reborn as cats, or toads, or beetles. If we have been very good, we may reappear as nobles or princes, or perhaps live in another world as angels. The man who has lived the perfect life, who has neither thought, said, nor done anything wrong, goes to Nirvana, where there is everlasting peace, and where no trouble, sorrow, or sickness of any kind is ever known. When Nirvana is reached, the soul rests for ever, and is not born again, either in the heavens or on the earth.
When a person dies, all the good and all the evil he has done are added up, and a kind of balance is struck. The happiness or misery of the person in his next life depends on whether he has a good or a bad balance. There are many things that we may do in this life that go to the good side of the account. To do these things is to "make merit." Some actions only make a little merit; others make a great deal of merit. One of the best ways of getting a big figure on the right side of the account is, according to the priests, to build a temple. Hence, when a man is rich enough, he builds a house for the Buddha, where his image may be seen, his lessons learned, and his praises sung. But once the temple is built, the matter is finished, and there is no need to repair it. The Buddhist says that though the temples will crumble away, yet his children will build others, so that there will always be plenty of churches, and many opportunities of making merit in this way.
THE TEMPLE OF WAT POH. Chapter IX.
The Siamese word wat means all the buildings enclosed in the sacred wall, and includes the houses where the priests live, the holy buildings where the images are kept, and numerous spiral ornaments that cover relics. The most sacred of these buildings is the bawt. Near the four corners, north, south, east, and west, there are four stones, carved in the shape of the leaf of the Bo-tree, the tree under which Gautama became Buddha. When the bawt is erected, consecrated water is poured over these stones, and evil spirits are thus for ever prevented from entering.