or a deer, or a blanket; but he must not sit on wood, nor on the earth, nor on cloth; his back, neck, and head, must be exactly erect and he must remain motionless, his eyes fixed on his nose. The devotee must first with his thumb and fingers prevent the air from issuing from his eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth, and with his feet bind up the two other avenues of respiration. This he is to practise by degrees till he is able to exist without inspiration and respiration. He who is thus far perfected will be able to subdue his passions, and to disrelish all the pleasures of the senses."

But although the same terms and rites are used by both Budhists and Brahmans, there is a difference in the meaning of the terms, and in the intention for which the rites are performed. "The meditating sage," according to the Vishnu Purána, "must think he beholds internally the figure of Vishnu. . . . When this image never departs from his mind, whether he be going or standing, or be engaged in any other voluntary act, then he may believe his intention to be perfect. .This process of forming a lively image in the mind, exclusive of all other objects, constitutes dhyána, or meditation, which is perfected by six stages; and when an accurate knowledge of self free from all distinction, is attained, by this mental meditation, that is termed samádhi." The six stages that belong to dhyana are: 1. Yama, acts of restraint and obligation. 2. Asana, sitting in particular postures. 3. Pránájáma, modes of breathing. 4. Pratyáhára exclusion of all external ideas. 5. Bháwaná, apprehension of internal ideas. 6. Dháraná, fixation or retention of those ideas. The result of the dhyána or samádhi is the absence of all idea of individuality, when the meditator, the meditation, and the thing or object meditated upon, are all considered to be but one. According to the text of Patanjali: Restraint of the body, retention of the mind, and meditation, which thence is exclusively devoted to one object, is dhyána: the idea of identification with the object of such meditation, so as if devoid of individual nature, is samádhi.*

The Brahmans believe that Brahm is the only entity in the universe; and that there cannot, by any possibility, be any other being existent, of any kind or degree whatever, created or uncreated, visible or invisible, known or unknown. The world, with all that it contains, is only a manifestation of the supreme spirit; it is part and parcel of his own individuality. The soul of man partakes of the *Notes to the Vishnu Purána, by Professor Wilson.

same essence; it is not a separate monad, but a portion of the deity. Nevertheless, as it is under the influence of awidya, ignorance, from being connected with prakriti, matter, it knows not its real nature, and supposes that it is a distinct and separate existence. The erro

66

neous notion that self consists in what is not self, and the opinion that property consists in what is not one's own, are said to constitute the double seed of the tree of ignorance. "Travelling the paths of the world for many thousands of births," Késidwaja is made to say, man attains only the weariness of bewilderment, and is smothered by the dust of imagination. When that dust is washed away by the bland water of real knowledge, then the weariness of bewilderment sustained by the wayfarer through repeated births is removed. When that weariness is relieved the internal man is at peace, and he obtains that supreme felicity which is unequalled and undisturbed. This soul is (of its own nature) pure, and composed of happiness and wisdom. The properties of pain, ignorance, and impurity, are those of nature (prakriti), not of soul. There is no affinity between fire and water, but when the latter is placed over the former in a caldron it bubbles and boils, and exhibits the properties of fire. In like manner when soul is associated with prakriti it is vitiated by egotism and the rest, and assumes the qualities of grosser nature, although essentially distinct from them, and incorruptible. Such is the seed of ignorance.. Where could man,

.

Attain

scorched by the fires of the sun of this world, look for felicity, were it not for the shade afforded by the tree of emancipation? ment of the divine being is considered by the wise as the remedy of the threefold class of ills that beset the different stages of life, conception, birth, and decay, as characterised by that only happiness which effaces all other kinds of felicity, however abundant, and as being absolute and final. It should therefore be the assiduous endeavour of wise men to attain unto god. The means of such attainment are said to be knowledge and works.” *

The Budhists deny the existence of any such entity as Brahm. They are not pantheists but atheists. With the Brahmans they deny also the existence of a separate ego, a self; but "the Brahman idea is this, that . I is Brahm; the Budhist, that . . I . is a nonentity." In the circle of sequence, inserted above, it will be seen that no individuality is introduced; nothing that can be regarded as the man: there is the body, and there are various powers,

* Wilson's Vishnu Purána.

such as the conscious, the sensitive, the perceptive, the reasoning, and the sensuous; but there is no mention made of any conscious, sensitive, perceptive, reasoning, or sensuous entity. There are attributes, and there are facultives, active and passive; but there is no concrete source from which these powers are derived, or to which they belong. The Budhist, therefore, does not seek for absorption, but for annihilation. This subject belongs rather to the psychology of Budhism, or it would not be difficult to prove that in all these errors the system is consistent with itself; materialism, atheism, and the entire cessation of existence, stand or fall together; if the two former could be proved, the third would follow as a matter of

course.

An explanation of what is intended by bhawo, which in the circle of sequence is translated existence, or state of existence, will render it the more probable that nirwána is literally annihilation. Absorption it cannot be, as there is no locality in which it can take place, no existence into which the sentient being can be merged. "Bhawo," it is said, "is two-fold; consisting of moral causative acts, and the state of being. Of these, what is kamma-bhawo, or what are moral causative acts? They are merit, demerit, and the thoughts of those in the corporeal (arúpa) worlds; and all those actions which lead to existence. Of these, what are the states in which beings are produced (or come into existence, whether by birth or otherwise)? 1. The state of sensual pleasures or pains, káma-bhawo (including the places of torment, the earth, &c. and six heavens.) 2. The brahmaworlds, rúpa-bhawo (where there are no sensible pleasures, and no pains, the enjoyments being intellectual, although there is bodily form). They are sixteen in number, and the duration of existence in them increases from one third of a kalpa to 16,000 kalpas. 3. The incorporeal worlds, arúpa-bhawo, where there is no bodily form. They are four in number, and the period of existence is from 20,000 to 40,000 kalpas. 4. A conscious state of being, including all except the asanyasattá. 5. An unconscious state of being, asanyasattá. 6. A state neither fully conscious nor yet altogether unconscious, néwasanyánásanyá-bhawo (the last of the incorporeal worlds, and the nearest approximation to nirwána.) (These states of existence may be) with one, with four, or with five of the component parts of a sentient being. The greatest number which any being can possess is five, viz. body, sensation, perception, the reasoning powers, and the conscious faculty. These five are possessed

by the inhabitants of the earth, the déwa-lokas, and fifteen of the brahma-lokas; four of them (omitting body), by the inhabitants of the four incorporeal worlds; and only one by the asanyasattá, viz. body.' ." From this extract we learn that nirwana cannot be a state of sensuous enjoyment; nor of intellectual enjoyment; nor of incorporeality; nor of consciousness; nor of unconsciousness; nor a state that is neither conscious nor unconscious. It must, therefore, be a non-entity; and the being who enters this state must become non-existent.

XXIII. THE MODERN PRIESTHOOD.

In nearly all the villages and towns of Ceylon that are inhabited by the Singhalese or Kandians, the priests of Budha are frequently seen, as they have to receive their food by taking the alms-bowl from house to house. They usually walk along the road at a measured pace, without taking much notice of that which passes around. They have no covering for the head, and are generally bare-footed. In the right hand they carry a fan, in shape not much unlike the hand-screens that are seen on the mantel of an English fire-place, which they hold up before the face when in the presence of women, that the entrance of evil thoughts into the mind may be prevented. The bowl is slung from the neck, and is covered by the robe, except at the time when alms are received. When not carrying the bowl, they are usually followed by an attendant, with a book or small bundle.

The exact number of priests that there are now in Ceylon cannot be ascertained; but I should think that it will not average more than one in four hundred of the whole population. This would give, for the island, about 2500 priests. This proportion is much less than in Burma, where again the priests are fewer than in Siam, though the temples are more numerous. According to Howard Malcom there is one priest to thirty inhabitants among the Burmans; and the same author informs us that, in the province of Tavoy, the number of priests is estimated at 400, with about 50 nuns. Be

*Gogerly's Essay on Budhism; Journ. Ceylon Branch Royal As. Soc. i. 16. This enumeration will enable the reader to understand some of the terms not hitherto explained, that appear on the 261st page.

sides the great temple in Rangoon, there are more than 500 smaller ones, occupying as much space as the city itself, if not more. There are more than a hundred temples in Canton, of which the most considerable portion belongs to the Budhists. The whole number of the priests in the same city is estimated at 2000. The largest monasteries belonging to the Singhalese are in Kandy; but even in them there are not more than from twelve to twenty priests. In many of the village pansals only one priest is resident. But it is stated by Fa Hian that, at the time of his visit to Ceylon, there were 5000 ecclesiastics in one of the monasteries at Anuradhapura, and that upon a mountain not far distant (probably Mihintala) 2000 priests were resident. From the reports of the people he gathered that there were 50,000 or 60,000 priests in the whole of Ceylon. In some of the monasteries upon the continent of India he met with 3000 priests. In the inscription at Mihintala more than one hundred persons are separately mentioned as connected with the temple, including a secretary, a treasurer, a physician, a surgeon, a painter, twelve cooks, twelve thatchers, ten carpenters, six carters, two florists (who had to supply 200 lotus flowers monthly), and twentyfour inferior menials.

With this account it may be interesting to compare the number of persons attached to the monasteries of the west. According to William of Malmesbury the monastery of Bangor contained 2100 monks, who maintained themselves by the produce of their own labour. In the times of the Anglo-Saxons the monks in one monastery were also more numerous than in more recent periods; at Winchelcomb there were 300, and 600 in the united monastery of Weremouth and Yarrow.* The usual number was from five to twenty resident brethren; but to this there were many exceptions. At Tewkesbury there were 38 brethren and 144 servants. The abbey of St. Albans was limited to 100 brethren. In 1381 the establishment at Sallay Abbey consisted of the lord abbot and prior, nearly thirty monks, including novices, and forty-five or forty-six servants. In the abbey at Whalley were a lord abbot, a prior, about twenty monks, besides an uncertain number of novices, twenty servants belonging to the abbot, and seventy in the general service of the house. In the abbey of St. Edmund's Bury there were thirtytwo officers under the abbot and 142 servants, in various departments, * Taylor's Index Monasticus. † Whitaker's History of Craven. Whitaker's History of Whalley.