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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 erroneous 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, 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." *

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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.

*

besides the officiating chaplains, the monks, and their servants. Before the dissolution of the cathedral priory of Norwich, the establishment consisted of the following persons:-The lord prior, sub-prior, sixty monks, sacrist, sub-sacrist, cellarer or bursar, sub-cellarer or butler, camerarius or chamberlain, almoner, refectorer, pittancier, chaplains, precentor, sub-chantor, infirmarer, choristers, and keeper of the shrines; with the following lay officers: prior's butler, clerk of the infirmary, miller, cooper, maltster, carpenter, porter of the cellar, porter of the fish-house, caterer, woodherds, gardener's men, more than sixty servants for the monks, janitor, keeper of the sanctuarium, keepers of the garners, tokener, grooms, stallarius, provendarius, swanherd, gaoler, grangers, servants of the larder and of the kitchen, carters, scullions, &c., &c.f In Sumner's Antiquities of Canterbury there is a list of forty persons who were attached to the cellarer of the monastery of St. Augustine. In 1174 there were sixty-seven monks in the abbey of Evesham, with three nuns, three paupers at command, and three clerks, who had equal privileges with the monks. They had fiftynine servants: five attended in the church, two in the infimary, two in the chancery, five in the kitchen, seven in the bakehouse, four in the brewery, four in the bath, two as shoemakers, two in the pantry, three as gardeners, one at the gate of the cloister, two at the great gate, five in the vineyard, four waited on the monks who went abroad, four as fishermen, four in the abbot's chamber, three in the hall, and two as watchmen.‡

The countenances of the priests in Ceylon are frequently less in

* In some instances there was a fourth and fifth prior, and the general arrangement of the household differed from that of the priory of Norwich. The magister operis was the master mason; the eleemosinarius had the oversight of the alms; the pitantiarius had the care of the pietancies or pittances, which were extra allowances upon the usual provisions; the sacrista, or sexton, had the care of the vessels, books, and vestments belonging to the church, accounted for the oblations at the altars and images, and provided bread and wine for the sacrament; the camerarius, or chamberlain, had the care of the dormitory; the cellerarius, or cellarer, procured the provisions, and had the care of the kitchen; the thesaurarius, or bursar, received all rents and revenues, and paid all common expences; the precentor had the care of the choir, provided the music-books, parchment, ink, and colours, had the custody of the seal, and kept the chapter-book; the scriptores, or writers, transcribed the missals and books for the use of the library, for which they had frequently grants from pious individuals; the hostilarius, or hospitilarius, attended to the strangers; the refectiorarius provided vessels and servants for the refectory; and the infirmarius had the care of the infirmary, provided medicines, and prepared the dead for burial.-Burton's Monasticon.

Taylor's Index.

Tindal's History of Evesham, from Stevens's Appendix.

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