So she did not remember the story of Ma Pa Da.
Women often pray, I think—they pray that their husbands and those they love may be well. It is a frequent ending to a girl's letter to her lover: 'And I pray always that you may be well.' I never heard of their praying for anything but this: that they may be loved, and those they love may be well. Nothing else is worth praying for besides this. The queen would pray at the pagoda in the palace morning and evening. 'What did she pray for?' 'What should she pray for, thakin? Surely she prayed that her husband might be true to her, and that her children might live and be strong. That is what women pray for. Do you think a queen would pray differently to any other woman?'
'Women,' say the Buddhist monks, 'never understand. They will not understand; they cannot learn. And so we say that most women must be born again, as men, before they can see the light and understand the laws of righteousness.'
What do women care for laws of righteousness? What do they care for justice? What for the everlasting sequences that govern the world? Would not they involve all other men, all earth and heaven, in bottomless chaos, to save one heart they loved? That is woman's religion.
CHAPTER XIII
FESTIVALS
'The law is sweet, filling the soul with joy.'
Saying of the Buddha.