The most striking feature in the character of the Talapoins is their incomparable idleness. We may say that, in this respect, they resemble their countrymen, who are very prone to that vice. Two causes of a very different nature seem, in our opinion, to act together on the people of these countries to produce such a result. The first is a physical one; the heat of the climate, coupled with a perpetual uniformity in the temperature, producing a general relaxation in the whole system, which is never combated or counteracted by an opposite action or influence. The second cause is a moral one, the tyranny of the despotic governments ruling over the populations of Eastern Asia. Property is everywhere insecure. He who is suspected of being rich is exposed to numberless vexations on the part of the vile satellites of tyranny, who soon find out some apparent pretext for confiscating a part or the whole of his property, or depriving him of life, should he dare to offer resistance. In such a state of things every one is satisfied with the things of first necessity. Want forms the strongest tie that binds together individuals and races, and at the same time holds out the most powerful incentive to exertion. The people of these parts have but few wants, and therefore they lack inducement to labour for acquiring anything beyond what is strictly necessary. Emulation, ambition, the desire of growing rich, which are the main springs that move man to exertion, disappear and leave him in an abject and servile indolence, which soon becomes his habitual state, and the grave wherein is entombed all his moral energy.
Like their countrymen, Phongyies are exposed to the influence of the above causes, but their mode of life is a third additional reason why they are more indolent than others. They have not to trouble or exert themselves for the articles required for their subsistence and maintenance; these are abundantly supplied to them by their co-religionists. They are bound, it is true, to read, study, and meditate; but their ignorance and laziness incapacitate them for such intellectual exercises. They remain during the best part of the day sitting in a cross-legged position, or reclining, or sleeping, or at least attempting to do so. They occasionally resume the vertical position to get rid of ennui, one of their deadliest enemies, and by repeated stretchings of arms and legs, and successive yawnings, try to free themselves from that domestic foe. The teaching of their scholars occupies a few of them for a short time in the morning and in the evening. They are often relieved from their mortal ennui by visitors as idle as themselves, who resort to their dwellings to kill time in their company.
To keep up respectability before the public, the Rahans assume an air of dignity and reserve. They avoid all that could lead them into dissipation. Exterior continence is generally observed, and though there are occasional trespasses, it would be unfair to lay on them generally the charge of incontinence. Their life so far may be considered as exemplary. Though partly divested of that open-heartedness which is a peculiar characteristic of their countrymen, they are tolerably kind and affable with strangers. They, however, cannot relinquish in their conversation with them a certain air of superiority, inspired by the admiration of self and the high opinion they entertain of their exalted profession and sacred character. They are unwilling to see them sitting unceremoniously close to themselves; and when this cannot be avoided, they seek for an opportunity of removing to another place a little more elevated than that occupied by the visitor, as it would be highly unbecoming that laymen should ever presume to sit on a level with a recluse. Such a step would imply a sort of equality between them both, which is never to be dreamt of. Their smooth and quiet countenance, their meek deportment, are, as it were, slightly fretted with a certain roughness and rudeness peculiar to individuals leading a retired life, and estranging themselves, to a certain extent, from the place of society.
In the foregoing pages we have endeavoured to give a faithful account of the great religious order existing in countries where genuine Buddhism is the prevailing creed. We have been obliged, for the sake of truth, to mention many abuses that have slowly crept into it; but we never entertained the slightest intention of casting a malignant contempt or a sneering ridicule upon its members. Most sincerely we pity those unfortunate victims of error and superstition who are wasting their time and energies in the fruitless pursuit of an imaginary felicity. No language can adequately express the ardour and intensity of our desires, sighs, and prayers to hasten the coming of the day when the thick mist and dark cloud that encompass their souls shall be dissipated, and the Sun of Righteousness shall shed into them his vivifying beams. However deplorable their intellectual blindness may be, we always felt that they have a right to be fairly and impartially dealt with. The religious order they belong to is, after all, the greatest in its extent and diffusion, the most extraordinary and perfect in its fabric and constituent parts, and the wisest in its rules and prescriptions, that has ever existed either in ancient or modern times without the pale of Christianity.
ADDENDA.
Many persons have often put to the writer the following question:—Is it credible that the founder of Buddhism established from the beginning a body of religious, with so perfect an hierarchy and so complete an organisation as to elicit the wonder and astonishment of all those who contemplate it with a serious attention? No doubt, Buddhists attribute to Gaudama all the regulations contained in the Patimauk, or the book of the enfranchisement; they maintain that the contents of Cambawa, or book for the ordination of Patzins, have been arranged by the same hand. But the absurdity of such an assertion cannot fail to strike the eyes of even a superficial observer. These two books, with their elaborate divisions and subdivisions, must have been gradually prepared and arranged at an epoch when Buddhism had taken deep root and spread its branches far and wide, and had become the dominant religion in the countries where it is flourishing. To confer splendour on the admittance of individuals into the body of monks, the rules of the Cambawa were enacted. To render the life of religious an object of greater veneration in the eyes of the community, the regulations of the Patimauk were devised, and were very likely brought, by a slow process, to the state of completeness we see them at present.
Though Gaudama had nothing to do with the redaction of the books under examination, he is, nevertheless, the author of the principal and most important regulations. It is in the Thoots or instructions he has delivered on different occasions that we must search for discovering the germ and origin of the principal points contained in the Patimauk and the Cambawa. At the conclusion of many of his instructions we find some hearers believing in him, and applying for admittance into the society of his disciples. When he approved of their dispositions, the applicants had but to renounce the ordinary pursuits of life, exchange their dress for the one regularly prescribed, and engage to live in a state of strict chastity: they then became at once members of the Thanga, without having to go through a prescribed ordeal. Faith in Buddha on the one hand, and on the other willingness to live in poverty and chastity, were the only requisites for obtaining admittance into the spiritual family of Buddha. The applicants were obliged to live in poverty, and depend for their food on the alms they could procure by begging. Hence they were called Bickus, or mendicants. They had to wear a dress made with rags picked up in cemeteries and stitched together. They placed themselves under the guidance of Gaudama, and denied to themselves all sensual gratifications. Such were the first and principal obligations imposed on the new converts who embraced a religious life. The Bickunies, or women who had embraced the holy profession, were gradually subjected to the same regulations. The minor details of the rule were introduced as consequences flowing from the general principles. This has been the work of time, and perhaps of one of the councils.