where rice and gruel are prepared in the morning, will not be allowed to be absent. . . . If the servants attached to the places where offerings are made embezzle or squander the offerings made thereat, laborious work shall be imposed upon them. . . . Those who have only assumed the yellow robe, but engage in traffic inconsistently therewith, and destroy life (by such occupations as the chase) shall not be permitted to dwell around the mount. . . . Throughout the domains of this wihára, neither palm-trees, nor mee-trees, nor any other fruit-bearing trees, shall be felled, even with the consent of the tenants. . . . If a fault be committed by any of the cultivators, the adequate fine shall be assessed according to usage, and, in lieu thereof, the delinquents shall be directed to work at the lake, in making an excavation not exceeding sixteen cubits in circumference and one cubit in depth. If he refuse so to labour, the assessed fine shall be levied."*

Not long previous to his death, Gótama Budha, in the city of Rajagaha, propounded unto Ananda various precepts, in sections of seven, which were declared to be imperishable. The first series was to the following effect:-The priests were enjoined to meet frequently (for the performance of religious ordinances), and to assemble in great numbers; to rise from these meetings simultaneously, and simultaneously and unanimously discharge their sacerdotal duties; to abstain from establishing that which has not been prescribed, from abrogating that which has been established, and to accept the precepts as they are laid down, and inculcate and maintain them; to support, reverence, respect, and obey the elders of the priesthood, of great experience, venerable by their ordination, fathers of the community, and chiefs of the sacerdotal body, and to learn from them that which ought to be acquired; to overcome the desires that cause the wish for regeneration in another mode of existence; to delight to dwell in the wilderness, and to keep their minds embued with pious aspirations. It is declared that, as long as these precepts are observed, the designs of the priests must prosper, and cannot fail.

The priests were enjoined in the second series to abstain from excessive indulgence in allowable gratifications; to abstain from unprofitable gossip; to abstain from an indolent existence; to avoid. the omission of meeting together in chapters; to shun the society of evil-doers; to abstain from becoming the friends of the unwise; and never to relinquish the pursuit of the rahatship.

* The Ceylon Almanac, 1834.

In the Analysis of the Tibetan Kah-gyur, by Csoma Körösi, there are allusions to many of the observances of the priesthood, among which the following may be enumerated :-The observances are of a very comprehensive description, extending not only to moral and ceremonial duties, but to modes of personal deportment, and the different articles of food or attire. The precepts are interspersed with legendary accounts, explaining the occasion on which Sákya thought it necessary to communicate the instructions given. The order in which converts are received into the order of the priesthood, either by Sakya or his disciples, is particularized; two presidents are appointed, and five classes of teachers ordained; the questions to be propounded are given, and the description of persons inadmissible from bodily imperfections or disease explained; a variety of rules on the subject of admission is laid down; the behaviour of the person after admission is regulated; the cases in which he should require the permission of his principal specified, and various moral obligations prescribed, particularly resignation and forbearance, when maltreated or reviled. No person is to be admitted except in full conclave, nor any one allowed to reside among the priests without ordination. Confession and expiation should be observed every new and full moon, in a public place and congregation, the ceremony being fully detailed. There are a number of precepts of a whimsical character, such as that a priest shall not wear wooden shoes, nor lay hold of a cow's tail in assisting himself to cross a river. There is a treatise on the subject of dress, particularly on the fitness of leather or hides for the shoes of the priests, and on the drugs and medicaments the priests are allowed to use or carry about. The priests are permitted to eat treacle, to cook for themselves in time of famine, to cook in ten kinds of places, to eat meat under certain restrictions, and to accept gifts from the laity. They are to wear not more than three pieces of cloth, of a red colour, to wear cotton garments when bathing, to be clean in their dress and in their bedding, and never to go naked. Refractory or disputatious brethren are first to be admonished in the public congregation (of the priests), and if impenitent to be expelled from the community.*

* Abstract of the Contents of the Dul-vá, or first Portion of the Káh-gyur, from the Analysis of Mr. Alexander Csoma de Körös. By H. H. Wilson, Sec. A. S. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No. 1, Jan. 1832.

XVII. THE ORDER OF NUNS.

In the commencement of Budhism there was an order of female recluses. The names they receive are generally equivalent to those that are given to the males, with a feminine termination; but the name of priestess is applied to them less properly than that of priest to the men. In their case, as well as in that of the other sex, it is not an intact virginity that is lauded, but the future abandonment of sexual intercourse.

The first female admitted to profession was Maha Prajapati, the foster-mother of Gótama Budha. The wife of the sage, Yasodhara, and several other of his principal female relatives, abandoned the world at a subsequent period. It was stated upon the admission of the queen-mother that there were eight ordinances to which the priestesses would be required to attend. "Women are hasty," said Gótama; "they are given to quarrel, they exercise hatred, and are full of evil. If I exalt them to the principal places in this institution, they will become more wilful than before; they will despise my priests; but unto them who act thus there can be no benefit from profession; they cannot attain the paths (that lead to nirwana). There must therefore be eight ordinances of restraint, that they may be kept in, as the waters of the lake are kept in by the embankment. 1. The female recluse, though she be a hundred years old, when she sees a sámanéra novice, though he be only eight years old and just received, shall be obliged to rise from her seat when she perceives him in the distance; go towards him, and offer him worship. 2. The female recluses shall not be permitted to go to any place at their pleasure. When they go to receive instruction, they must retire at the conclusion of the service, and not remain in any place beyond their appointed limit. 3. Upon the day of every alternate póya festival they must go to the priest and request to be instructed. 4. At the end of the performance of wass they must join with the priests to conclude the ceremony. 5. Any female who wishes to perform the act of meditation called wap may be allowed to retire for the purpose during the period of two póyas, or fifteen days, but not for a longer time. 6. When any female recluse wishes to become upasampadá, and receive the superior profession, she must previously exercise herself in all things that * Pújáwaliya.

are appointed, for the space of two years, and at the end of this period must receive the privilege in a chapter composed of the professed of both sexes. 7. The female recluse is not to speak to the priest in terms of disparagement or abuse. 8. She must not be allowed to teach the priest, but must herself listen to the instruction he gives, and obey his commands. These eight ordinances are enjoined upon all the female recluses who would receive profession in this institute, and are to be observed continually until the day of their death." The better sex is not treated with much respect by Budhist writers. One sentence will be sufficient to show this:-Mátu gámo námo pápo.* "That which is named woman is sin;" i. e. she is not vicious, but vice. Upon another occasion Gótama said, "Any woman whatever, if she have a proper opportunity, and can do it in secret, and be enticed thereto, will do that which is wrong, however ugly the paramour may be; nay, should he be even without hands and without feet." But in order to show that this declaration is not true, the king of Ságal, in one of his conversations with Nágaséna, repeated the instance of a woman, Amará, who, though a thousand times solicited by a man whose appearance was like that of a king, in a place where there was no second person to see what was done, resisted his entreaties, and kept herself pure. Nágaséna replied, that the declaration of Budha was made when relating the crime committed in a former age by the queen Kinnará, who secretly stole away from the palace when the king slept, and committed sin with a man whose hands and feet had been cut off, and who was ugly as a préta sprite. "And think you," said the priest, "that if Amará had met with a proper opportunity she would not have done the same? This opportunity was not presented; she was afraid of others, and of the sorrow she must have endured in the world to come; she knew the severity of the punishment she would have to receive for such a sin; she was unwilling to do anything against the husband whom she loved; she respected that which is good and pure; she abhorred that which is mean; she was a faithful and virtuous wife; and all these things (with many others of a similar kind) took from her the opportunity of doing wrong. She might have been seen by men; if not seen by men, she might have been seen by the préta sprites, or by the priests who have divine eyes, or by the prétas that know the

* Gogerly's Essay on Transmigration and Identity. Ceylon Friend, Oct.

1838.

thoughts of others; or, if unseen by any of these, she could not have hid herself from her own sin and its consequences; and it was by these causes she was prevented from doing wrong." This was a curious mode of confirming the declaration of Budha; folds before us the Budhistical motives for resisting sin.

but it un

In the works I have read there are few allusions to the female recluses, and it is probable that this part of the system, from being found to be connected with so many evils, was gradually discontinued. The priestesses carried the alms-bowl from door to door, in the same manner as the priests, and are represented as being present at the meetings of the sangha, or chapter. They could only be admitted to the order by a chapter composed entirely of females. The convents were in some instances contiguous to the residences of the priests; but the intercourse between members of the two orders was guarded by many restrictions. To violate a priestess involves expulsion from the priesthood, without the possibility of restoration.

Clemens Alexandrinus, in his account of the eastern ascetics, notices the virgins called Σεμναι. In one of the caves of Ajunta there is painted a female worshipper of Budha, in the act of teaching, surrounded by a group of smaller figures who are attentively listening, one of whom is supposed to be a Brahman. There åre

at present no female recluses in Ceylon. It is said by Robert Knox that, at the period of his captivity, the ladies of Kandy were accustomed to beg for Budha. "The greatest ladies of all," he says, "do not go themselves, but send their maids, dressed up finely, in their stead. These women, taking the image along with them, carry it upon the palms of their hands, covered with a piece of white cloth; and so go to men's houses, and will say, We come a begging of your charity for the Budha, towards his sacrifice. And the people are very liberal; they give only of three (four?) things to him; either oil for his lamp, or rice for his sacrifice, or money, or cotton yarn for his use." Occasionally, in more recent times, a female has been known to shave her head and put on a white garment; but these instances are rare.

The priestesses or nuns, in Burma, are called Thilashen: they are far less numerous than the priests. The greater part of them are old women; but there are also some that are young, who, however, forsake the sisterhood as soon as they can procure husbands. The Burman nuns shave the head, and wear a garment of a parti

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