A thousand miles on an elephant in the Shan States

by Holt S. Hallett

Zimmé may be said to be a city of temples and monasteries, and has no less than eighty temples within its walls and suburbs, which were mostly built during the Burmese régime. The monasteries are built in the Burmese style, and consist of a hall divided into two portions: one part level with the verandah, where the scholars are taught; and the other part, where the monks receive their visitors, two feet above the level of the rest of the building.

When the monastery is a large one, cloisters serving as dormitories, and separated by a central passage, surround two or three sides of the hall. In smaller buildings the monks sleep in the hall, and their beds may be seen rolled up, with those of the acolytes and schoolboys, round their pillows against the wall.

In the porch of one of the buildings, I noticed fresco-paintings illustrating the Jataka of Naymee picturing the punishments in the Buddhist hells for various sins. People were being thrown by black torturers into the fire, and thrust down with pitchforks; one man was being bled by a huge leech; another, fastened upright between two posts, was being sawn in two, whilst a dog was at the same time gnawing at him; three people, with their elbows fastened behind and their legs in chains, were being led by a black demon or jailer to punishment; and there were many other fearful sights.

When the monasteries are built of teak, the posts are sometimes of large girth, and the floor is raised 8 or 10 feet above the ground. If the staircase leading up to the broad verandah is of plastered brickwork, the parapets are sometimes coped with great nagas or dragons, or otherwise ornamented and finished off at the foot with images of ogres, rachasis, or other fabulous animals. If the staircase is of wood, the sides, like many other parts of the building, are generally beautifully and fantastically carved with mythological beings intertwined in the scroll-work.

On your entering a monastery the abbot does not rise, but, if accustomed to Europeans, he shakes hands, and calls for a mat for you to sit on, and three-cornered pillows to rest your back and elbows. After the usual compliments, and having partially satisfied his curiosity as to your purpose in visiting the country, where you have been, where you are going, and as to your age, he will very likely tell you his eyesight is much impaired, and more than hint that a present of a pair of spectacles would be acceptable.

If in search of curiosities, you may then express your admiration of the row of images of Buddha standing on a raised stand against the wall in the background, and ask permission to examine them. Before the images you will see offerings of taper candles, flowers, and prayer-flags; and you will notice perhaps that the largest image is made of alabaster, in which case it has been carried all the way from the famous quarries at Moway, which are situated in the range of hills above Sagain in Upper Burmah. Standing about this image, or on a lower shelf, will be other images, some of wood or clay covered with gold-leaf, some of silver having a core of a hard resin, others of soapstone, and some of terra-cotta, the latter resembling Roman Catholic saints in their sculptured niches.

If you wish to bargain for any one of these, the abbot will express himself shocked, and will say that he cannot part with it, as it has been offered to by the people. If you pull out some silver coins, and say that you much wish to have the one you have chosen, he will most likely begin to boggle his eyes, and will perhaps send his scholars off to play, under the pretence that they are a nuisance to you, and, as soon as their backs are turned, commence to haggle over the price like an old Jew. Even when you have come to terms with him, he will, to salve his conscience, exact a promise from you to treat the image with respect, for, if not, ill will happen to you as well as to himself.

Then you may notice several bundles of palm-leaf manuscripts at his side, and two or three manuscript chests near at hand, and express your curiosity as to their contents, which are generally birth-stories of Gaudama, or sermons preached by him, both in Pali or else Shan translations, and explanations by various learned writers. The leaves of these manuscripts are formed of strips, 2 inches wide and 20 inches long, cut out of the leaves of the corypha, or book-palm, rendered smooth and pliable by water and friction. Each collection of leaves is enclosed between two boards, sometimes beautifully carved and gilded, with two wooden pegs, one near each end, to keep the leaves in correct sequence, and to allow them to be raised one after the other as required. When not in use they are either bound round with a crocheted ribbon about an inch and a half broad, with the name, titles, and distinctions of the owner worked on it—or enclosed in a square piece of silk, often with narrow slips of bamboo worked in to give it stiffness.

Some of the larger monasteries have a handsome building erected in their grounds, and set apart for a library, in which are to be found, besides religious books, medical treatises, astrological and cabalistic books, and some treating of alchemy. Such books are not allowed in the monasteries in Burmah. In Siam the study of alchemy has led some of the monks to coin false money. In the Shan States the monks are generally more lax in their observances and rules than in Burmah, and, if rumour is to be credited, are frequently more immoral than laymen; but violations of the laws of chastity are less frequent in Siam than in the Shan States, as the monks in Siam, on their sin being exposed, are severely punished.

In Bangkok, when adultery or fornication is proved against a monk, the culprit is publicly caned, and then paraded round the city for three days, a crier going before him proclaiming his crime. He, and his posterity after him to the utmost remote generation, are then condemned to cut grass for the king’s elephants for life. The woman is condemned to turn the king’s rice-mill for life, and the same punishment is imposed upon her posterity from generation to generation for ever.