The majority of priests readily acknowledge mercenary motives for assuming the yellow robe. “The wats are more comfortable than our dwellings,” they say. “Disciples paddle our canoes; our food and clothes are given us; we are not required to work. Before we became priests the people looked upon us as vagabonds; now they almost worship us.” Yet in most instances the only change is the shaven head and yellow robe and the alms-bowl. Some Buddhist monks are devout, spending their lives in wats, or in forests and caves as hermits, meditating on the virtues of Buddha and striving to attain Nipan. Over these exceptional studious and moral monks Buddhism doubtless exerts a restraining influence, yet even such lives are dreary, and manifest little zeal constraining to efforts for national reform.
The ceremonial details of wat-life are monotonous. Monks rise at daybreak. At about seven the streets of Bangkok are crowded with these yellow-robed gentry paddled around with their rice-bowls from door to door. At eight they return to breakfast in a large hall, which, with the kitchen and its enormous rice-boilers, is worthy of a passing look. The last meal of the day is taken before noon. Priests are supposed to devote themselves to meditation and study, but the majority are illiterate and often vicious—“idleness personified.” About sunset, assembled for united prayer, their loud singsong drawl can be heard some distance off. The beating of a drum closes the wat-day.
Each chapter is under the direction of a chief priest, and the larger ones have a sort of second chief priest. Their authority is confined to reproof, and in extreme cases to expulsion. They can only enforce the rules of the order.
Wats built by the royal family or nobility are called Wat Hluang, or “royal wats.” The wats of the people are Wat Ratsadom. Church and State are one. The king is supreme in religion as in the government, and appoints two hierarchs—one for the north and one for the south. The title of this high priest is Pra Sang Karat, and he resides in one of the chief wats, and has no spiritual or temporal authority except over the wats and monks. He has an assistant second only in rank. No priest is qualified to ordain without a license from the Sang Karat. Then come the Somdet Chows, from whom the head-priests of the royal wats are chosen—the abbots of the great monasteries, I suppose we would call them. The Tananookans, one of whom assists each head-priest, are next in clerical rank. The head-priests of the common people’s wats are called Sompans. Lastly come the mass of ordinary priests, among whom there are Palats and other minor officers, who take a certain rank above the ordinary brotherhood. The Nains, or novitiates, are not included in the above classes, though they too don the yellow robes, shave their heads and fast as their elders. A lad must be at least eight years old and receive the consent of his parents before becoming a priest. He usually begins his connection with the wat as a pupil, living for some years under the care of some priest who is a friend of the family.
Worldly concerns connected with wats are in the hands of secular attendants clad in white, who also perform the menial services about the grounds and at funerals. We would call them sextons.
Nuns are not numerous in Siam. The profession does not command respect. The people look upon it as a more respectable mode of begging. Those who take such vows are mostly poor old women, who wear white and live in humble huts near, but not within, the wat-grounds.
When the king pays his annual visit to the royal wats, on entering the temple he takes off his shoes, then, lifting his hands containing the offerings above his head, he bows low before the image of Buddha. He concludes by making similar obeisance to the superior priests and bestowing the customary gifts. The chief priests and monks sit unmoved during the ceremony.
No one can be long in Siam without being astonished at the large part which the wat occupies as a social centre in the every-day life of the people. The Siamese traveler rests in the salas. You meet a Siamese woman and ask where she is going; the probability is she is on her road to some temple to make merit with her offerings or by listening to preaching. Go to the priests’ quarters, and you find there not only a large proportion of the fathers, brothers and older sons, but mere children of seven and eight years old. The bodies of the dead are carried there to be burned. The people also frequently meet together at the different temples to make feasts and give presents to their priests.
The wats outside of Bangkok, though the buildings are generally of cheaper construction, occupy delightful sites and have extensive grounds. Dr. McFarland, going to Petchaburee, stopped at the sala of a country wat. “We found the grounds,” he says, “crowded with men and boys in great excitement, evidently awaiting some unusual occurrence. Presently boats began to arrive and unload their treasures of fruit and depart, perhaps for more. Before our company had all finished their breakfast we found it difficult to keep our place at the landing. We were told that this was a lakon. This immense gathering of fruits and other offerings is presented with ceremonies of music and dancing to their god, and afterward the priests stow it away and feast upon it for many days to come. Thus spending the day in amusement, at the same time they make merit for the future. Some things in this heathen ceremony reminded the missionary of the county fairs he had attended in the West, crowds of people—men, women and children—in their richest apparel, bringing their choicest fruit and most valuable articles, but not for exhibition; they come to spend the day in frolic and offer their fruits to a heathen deity.”
The Siamese wat embodies “a theory which extracted and remodeled the best ideas of ancient Brahmanism—a religion that has not only been able to subsist for more than two thousand years, but which has drawn within the meshes of its own peculiar church organization, and brought more or less under the influence of its peculiar tenets, fully one-third of the human race. Such a system ought to have enough importance in our eyes to deserve something more than passing or passive attention.”