ception of food in a proper manner. 3. The custom of eating any food that comes to hand, of what kind soever it may be. 4. Deliverance from the oppression of wicked men and of kings. 5. Freedom from all anxiety about such things as gardens, fields, and cattle. 6. Deliverance from the dread of thieves. 7. Deliverance from the dread of persons in authority, and release from the necessity of rising up when they approach. 8. Deliverance from fear, in whatever place.*

There are also ten things that cause men to neglect the assumption of the yellow robe, or tempt them to cast it off after it has been assumed :-1. The mother. 2. The father. 3. The wife. 4. Children. 5. Poor relations. The thought will come that these relatives ought to be provided for, which cannot be done by the recluse. 6. Friends. 7. Property. 8. The desire of obtaining wealth. 9. The desire of worldly honour. 10. The love of pleasure.†

Were any

The precepts must be obeyed from a pure motive. one to practise the Ten Obligations merely "to fill the belly," this man, deceiving the laity, greedy of fame, destitute of virtue, and unworthy to enjoy the privileges of the priesthood, will receive a double punishment; after death he will be born in the Awíchi hell, where he will have to reside myriads of years, in the midst of flames, hot, fierce, and overpowering, in which he will be turned upside down, and in every possible direction, covered with foam. When released from this hell, he will be born in the hell of sprites, where he will have a body extremely attenuated, and most loathsome in its appearance, whilst he will have to endure the severest privations, and will have to walk upon earth in misery, the spectre of a priest. Just as when a man of ignoble appearance and inferior family, by some deception succeeds in being anointed king: but he is afterwards punished: his arms, legs, nose, and ears are cut off; the scalp is torn away, and boiling gruel poured on his head; his skull is rubbed with gravel until it is white as a sea-shell; a lighted brand being put in his mouth, his body is rubbed with oil and set on fire; his frame is hacked; he is thrown down, and a spike being driven from ear to ear he is pinned to the ground; his flesh is torn with hooks, and cut with small pieces of metal like coins; the body is transfixed to the ground, and turned round and round by the legs, the pin serving as a pivot; he is flogged, until his body is of the consistence of a whisp of straw; he is eaten by hungry-dogs; his

tongue is fastened to a stake, and he remains there until he dies; or he is beheaded.* By these terrible allusions the novice is warned against becoming a recluse merely that he may secure a livelihood; and they may be received as illustrative of the modes of punishment then used.

The priest who does not obey the precepts is represented as being like a man who daubs himself all over with the most disgusting filth in order to render himself beautiful: he is like an ass among cattle; he is shunned by all; he is like the fire of a cemetery where bodies are burnt, or like one blind, or an outcaste.f

Upon another occasion it was declared by Budha, in the Aggikkhanda-pariyá-sútra, that it is better for a priest to embrace the flame than to approach a woman, however exalted her rank; that the consquence of the one act would be only temporary pain, or at most death; whilst the consequence of the other would be long-continued torment amidst the flames of hell. He said further, that it were better for the priest who does not keep the precepts to be bound with a cord made of hair, and dragged from place to place until his flesh is torn off, and his bones are laid bare, even to the marrow, than for such a one to receive worship from the faithful of any of the three great castes: that it were better for him to be cruelly pierced in the body than to receive service from the welldisposed among the laity: that it were better for him to have molten metal poured down his throat, until his lips, teeth, tongue, stomach, and intestines were all burnt, than for him to receive an offering of food given as alms: that it were better for him to be put in a red-hot iron chair or bed, or to be put into a caldron of molten metal with his head downwards, than for him to receive the gift of a residence. The misery in the one case is merely temporary, but in the other case it will endure long. The receiving of honour or assistance by the priest who breaks the precepts is like the eating of food upon which the serpent has left its poison: it is no benefit to him, and will be attended by intense suffering.‡

The course of asceticism upon which the novice enters is intended, not only to overcome the evils of the passing moment, but also to prevent the afflictions of the future. This is he taught from one of the conversations that took place between Milinda and Nágaséna. The king said to the sage, "Are the pains that you take intended to drive away past sorrow?" and when he answered that

* Wisudhi Margga Sanné

+ Ibid.

Ibid.

D

they were not, the king again asked, " Are they to drive away present sorrow?" but the answer was the same. Milinda: :-" Then if it be neither to drive away past sorrow nor present, why do you take pains at all?" Nágaséna::-"We thus exert ourselves that we may destroy present sorrow and drive away future sorrow." Milinda :"Is there future sorrow?" Nágaséna :-"No." Milinda :-"You are wise and learned, and yet do you take pains to destroy a sorrow that does not exist?" Nágaséna : :-"When the kings that are your enemies come to fight against you, do you just at that time dig the ditches of your fortifications, build the walls, place the guards in the watch-towers, and lay in provisions for the siege?" Milinda:-"No: I should prepare all these things before the day came." Nágaséna :-" Would you on that day begin to train the elephants, the horses, the charioteers, the archers, the swordsmen, and the mace-men?" Milinda:-"No: all this is done beforehand." Nágaséna:-"Why?" Milinda :-"To ward off future fear (or fear of the future.)" Nágaséna:-"Is there future fear?" Milinda:"No." Nágaséna :-" You are a wise and prudent king, and do you prepare all things necessary for the battle in order that you may drive away a fear that in reality has no existence?" The king requested further information. Nágaséna procceded and said, "When you are thirsty, and wish to drink water, do you tell your servants to dig the well or open the fountain? Do you not cause these places to be prepared beforehand? And thus you give orders relative to a thirst that has no existence. Again, when you are hungry, and wish to eat rice, do you tell your servants to plough the field and sow the grain? Do you not cause the rice to be cultivated beforehand? And yet you, a wise and prudent king, do all this relative to the driving away of a hunger that is still future, and has therefore no existence. In like manner the priest acts in relation to the future; that which he does is in order to drive away future sorrow."

It excited the wonder of Milinda that the priests should have any regard whatever to the body; but the novice is to bear in mind that this is done, not from complacency or pride, but that it may be the better adapted to carry into effect the ascetic rites he is called upon to exercise. The king said to Nágaséna, "Do the priests respect the body?" and when the sage replied in the negative, he again. asked, "Then why do they take so much pains to preserve it? Do they not by this means say, this is me, or mine?" Nágaséna :

Milinda :-

"Were you ever wounded by an arrow in battle?" "Yes." Nágaséna :—' "Was not the wound anointed? Was it not rubbed with oil? And was it not covered with a soft bandage? Milinda :-"Yes." Nágaséna :-"Was this done because you respected the wound, or took delight in it?" Milinda :-" No; but that it might be healed." Nágaséna "In like manner, the priests do not preserve the body because they respect it; but that they may have the power required for the keeping of the precepts."

There are some priests who throw off the robe and return to the state of a laic. This might be brought as a charge against the system of Budha; it may be said that it is without power, or they would not have acted in such a manner. But the novice is taught to reason thus. There is a tank full of water; now if a man have his body covered with dirt and dust, and his garments all soiled, where is the fault? Can it be charged upon the water? Again, there is a skilful physician; now if a man labour under a severe disease, and does not apply to the physician, the disease may increase in malignity, but is the skill of the physician thereby impeached? Is it not rather the fault of the man? Again, there is plenty of food provided, and plenty of water, and men are invited to partake of them; but if they refuse, and will rather suffer hunger and thirst than come, can blame be attached to the food or the water? In like manner, when the priest, without attaining nirwána, leaves his robe and becomes a laic, it is not the fault of the system but of the man; he is not sincere; therefore the system has no hold upon him, as the lotus does not allow the water to adhere to its petals, or as the sea casts upon the shore any body that may be thrown into its waves. When the warrior sees that he has to encounter an armed host, he becomes afraid, and runs away; he cannot face the enemy; so the priest who does not keep the precepts, by which he might be preserved, is overcome by evil desire, as he is without any defence or protection. When there are flowers upon a tree, those that are worm-eaten fall down and rot; whilst those that are not thus eaten continue to flourish, and send forth their perfume on every side; and again, there may be grass and rushes in the field where the best rice is sown, but whilst the rice ripens, the grass and rushes will wither and die. Now the priest who does not keep the precepts is like the worm-eaten flower, or the grass of the rice field.*

*Milinda Prasna.

Respecting some of the advantages that are expected to be gained by embracing the priesthood, the teachings of Budhism are not uniform. It is sometimes said that the sins of the man are to the priest as the sins that have been committed in a former state of existence, and are no bar to the reception of nirwána. Thus Anguli-mála, a student, who at the instigation of his preceptor committed 999 murders, became a rahat. But on another occasion it is said by Nágaséna that certain priests were prevented from attaining nirwána by the sins they had unknowingly committed before they abandoned the world. Milinda said to him, "There is a laic who unwittingly commits one of the five deadly sins; he afterwards embraces the priesthood, and still unaware that he has committed the sin, endeavours to become a rahat; can such a one succeed in attaining nirwána?" Nágaséna replied, "No; if even previously to the commission of the crime he had the merit whereby he might have attained nirwana, it would be destroyed, cut off, by his sin." Milinda:-"You have said on a previous occasion that when a man knows he has committed a deadly crime, he is in doubt; when he is in doubt his mind is prevented from rightly attending to the obligations and the other ordinances; and because his mind is thus agitated, he is unable to attain nirwána; but in this instance the crime is not known, and there is therefore no doubt." Nágaséna :- "A man takes good seed, and sows it in the fertile soil of a field that has been ploughed and prepared for its reception; he takes the same kind of seed, and sows it upon the bare rock; in the one case it is productive; in the other it is not for this reason; that upon the rock there is no hétu, that which is necessary for the fructifying of the seed is not there. Again, when sticks and stones are thrown upon the ground, there they remain; but when the same things are thrown into the sky, they do not remain there; they fall down; for this reason, that in the sky there is no hétu, nothing by which they can be supported. Again, when a fire is lighted upon the earth, it burns; but a fire cannot be kindled upon the water; for this reason: the water is ahétu as to fire, there is nothing in it upon which the fire can lay hold." Milinda :-" But explain to me how it is that when the crime is committed unwittingly, and there is therefore no doubt, no agitation, arising from it, still nirwána should not be obtained?" Nágaséna :-" When a man takes poison unknowingly, does it not injure him? When he treads upon fire unknowingly, does it not burn him? When a nayá bites him during sleep, or when in any