The poorer classes cannot afford the money to pay for fireworks, theatres, and processions, but they do all that they possibly can to show their respect for the dead, with becoming ritual. When a man is thought to be nearing his end, the priests are called to his bedside. They read to the dying man of his future births, of the blessed Nirvana, and endeavour to drive all fear from his mind. When life is extinct they sprinkle the body with water, and join the relatives in the chorus "Pra Arahang, Pra Arahang". The body is washed, and wrapped in a clean cloth, and money is placed in the mouth. It is then put into an urn, if the friends can afford to buy one; but if not, it rests simply in the coffin. The coffin is an oblong wooden box, covered outside with wall-paper and tinsel, and has no lid. Food is placed inside, and very often the body lies face downwards so that the spirit shall not find its way back again. The coffin is removed from the house through a hole in the wall, and not through the door, for if the spirit of the deceased should be lingering near, it might refuse to pass through the doorway into the outer world, and would then remain to haunt the house and disturb its inhabitants. The coffin is carried round and round the house three or four times, so as to baffle the spirit that it may not be able to return to its former home. For it must be remembered that these people believe that it takes the soul seven days to reach its final destination, and there is always the possibility of its being re-called from its onward flight by earthly attractions, or by non-observance of the ceremonies that should be performed.

The bearers next proceed to one of the temples which possesses a public "Pramane" or crematorium. After the burning has taken place the bones, or charred objects that look like bones, are collected from the ashes, to be reverentially preserved by the relatives. As they have no gold urns in which to store these relics, they keep them in common thick glass tumblers of foreign manufacture, over which they place a pagoda-like covering made of red lacquer and gilded by some native artisan. On very particular occasions these remains are brought out and distributed about the rooms, perhaps as a reminder to the pleasure-seekers that death is ever with them.

Those who have died of cholera or by lightning, and who have consequently been buried, are dug up a few months later, and what is left of them committed to the flames.

Paupers and criminals are disposed of in a barbarous and revolting manner. At one of the city temples a flock of vultures, numbering over a hundred, is kept. The vultures are repulsive, dirty-looking birds who sit stolidly hour by hour upon the roof or walls of the temple, apparently without life or motion except when a body is brought for their repast. Then they become keenly excited at the prospect of the coming feast, for which, however, they must first do battle with the crowd of pariahs that also haunt the vicinity of the same temple. They flock down with noisy croaking and great flapping of wings, but are beaten off by the attendants, who first prepare the body for the feast by cutting it open in different places with large sharp knives. They cast a few pieces of flesh to the dogs and then retire. In a second the body is hidden by the birds, who settle upon it from head to foot. Nothing is to be seen but a compact mass of quivering feathers. The vultures gorge themselves with the flesh, never ceasing as long as anything remains to be consumed, unless it be to make a vicious grab at the head of some venturesome pariah who dares to interfere with their enjoyment of the feast. It is a sickening spectacle, and its only merit is that it is safer from a sanitary point of view to allow the flesh to be eaten in this way than to bury it beneath the damp soil near some human dwelling.

The meal over, the feathered cannibals return to their perches upon roof and wall. The relatives gather up the clean white bones, put them loosely in a wooden coffin, light wax tapers, and bearing the coffin with them, march three times round the funeral pyre. They then light the fire, place the coffin on the burning fuel, and scatter sweetly smelling incense in the leaping flames.

There are two spirits who watch over and take charge of all burning-places. They are familiarly spoken of as the "Grandfather cocoa-nut shell," and the "Grandmother cocoa-nut shell."

To neglect the cremation ceremony would be as fatal to the happiness of the departed soul in its future existence, as to neglect the shaving of the top-knot would be to the success of a child in this. The soul of the man whose body has not been consumed with fire passes into everlasting and fearful servitude. It becomes the bond-slave of a horrid master whose distinguishing personal characteristics are a dog's head on a human body and a ferocious temper. He sits for all time with his feet in the fires of hell, enjoying the infernal heat, but as his enjoyment would cease were his extremities to be consumed, he requires a body of servants to cool them. The souls of the uncremated are his slaves, and it is their duty to carry through the long years of eternity, water in open wicker baskets. Their way to the wells lies across a long and perilous bridge, but over it they must pass day by day without end as they perform their thankless task. When the body is burned the soul is liberated from this terrible bondage. There have been times when some frightful epidemic has ravaged the city, and when the attendants in fear and trembling have left the sick to die alone. Then the soldiers have been sent to gather up the dead and cast them into the public graves. When the scourge has spent itself and the minds of the living have become calm again, the relatives of those who have not been burned begin to reflect upon the awful fate that has overtaken the departed souls. Were they to go to the public grave and dig up a body and burn it, it might not be that of him they seek, and their efforts would be of no avail. But they free the fettered soul in another manner. They believe that the horrid monster of the nether regions knows all the names both of the living and the dead, so that if they endeavour to perform any act of propitiation he will know by whom and for whom the deed is done. They obtain the release of the soul by promising to call themselves in this life the relatives of the demon. It is merely a nominal relationship, but it pleases the fiend with the burning feet, and in return for the homage thus paid to his power he allows the captured soul to go its way.

The worldly relations of the infernal spirit acknowledge their relationship by getting from the priests several red and yellow strings and binding them upon their necks, wrists and ankles. They also make a little cart, and model two clay oxen which they harness to the tiny shafts. In this they put clay images, one for each member of the family. Round the chief joints of these toy images, red and yellow strings are fastened by their owners. Offerings of flowers and fruit are put in the cart and then it is taken to the rice-fields and deposited in some convenient spot. The cart and its contents are soon destroyed by the birds, the wind, and the little field-mice, but they are never restored.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE ORDER OF THE YELLOW ROBE.

Among the crowd of brightly dressed people who throng the streets and alleys, the canals and rivers of Eastern Venice, there are none who so soon command the attention of the new arrival, or who appeal more strongly to the eye of the oldest inhabitant of the city, than the yellow-robed priests of the Buddhist faith. In the capital of Siam there are over ten thousand of them, while in the whole kingdom there are more than one hundred thousand. No ancient order of Grey or White Friars ever exhibited their individuality either with such frequency, persistency, or picturesqueness as these representatives of a far more ancient if less noble worship. It is scarcely necessary in these days when Oriental creeds and faiths have been so fully and widely discussed, to point out that the primal elements of that philosophy which announced the necessity of the Buddhist priesthood are entirely different to those which caused the creation of similar institutions in the West. The monk of the Western orders claims to be an intercessor between God and man. The Buddhists have no God, and therefore they do not make intercession for their brethren. The Western monk is a teacher and a preacher, the Buddhist priest may be, but is by no means necessarily so. The order rests upon a basis something like this:—The evil in the world is the result of past evil and will be productive of future evil. The only way to eradicate the general wickedness of the world is by casting it separately out of each individual in the world. This can only be accomplished by the individual himself, and as long as he remains in contact with the world he is under constant temptation to indulge in its pleasures, to gratify his passions, and to add in a thousand ways to the sum of human misery. By retirement he no longer craves for fine food and raiment, but has every opportunity for long and careful meditation upon his own evil doings and desires, and upon the way to get rid of them. The monastic institution finds its parallel in the life of a layman, when such a one, with a large amount of work to be performed, shuts himself up in his own room and denies himself friends and rest that his labours may be properly accomplished.

There is no real division between priest and layman; either may become the other at will. In Siam the monastic vow is not binding for life, but is cancelled by the superior of the monastery whenever a request to that effect is made. Every man in Siam enters the priesthood for at least three months of his life, during which time he is supported by the voluntary offerings of the people. The original purity and simplicity of the mendicant order has long been lost. The Society has often been endowed by kings and chiefs with gold and silver; idleness and worthlessness are too often the characteristics of the temporary priests. Still, there are a few who desire to live the noble life of their Founder and to follow faithfully in his paths of wisdom and virtue. For years they have been the schoolmasters and the doctors, and the copiers and makers of books. They are known in Siamese as "Pra," a word which means both "sacred" and "great."

Each monk has eight requisite and lawful possessions; namely, three robes of yellow cloth which are all worn at the same time; a bowl for the collection of the daily food; a razor with which to shave the head and eyebrows; a case of needles for the repairing of clothes; a girdle; and a filtering cloth. But the Siamese monks often have many possessions besides these. There is a rule that all other property except the above shall be given up to the common use of the monastery, but the rule is not obeyed. The three patched yellow robes are often represented by seven or more; and in the wealthier monasteries they are not of common cloth, but of rich and beautiful silk. The term "yellow" as applied to the priest's vestments is apt to convey a wrong impression to the minds of those not acquainted with Buddhist countries. In these degenerate times the monks desire that ornament in dress which their religion forbids, and they render themselves very artistic in appearance by a combination of colours not strictly yellow, but ranging from a rich chocolate through shades of saffron, gold and orange to the palest tints of the orthodox colour. The following note from Alabaster's "Wheel of the Law" is an interesting comment upon the priestly robes:

Each priest also possesses a large fan. It is intended to assist him in keeping his eyes from the things of the world, and so to keep his thoughts from straying as he walks along the streets. A priest is forbidden to look more than a plough's length in front of him, and must keep his eyes fixed upon the ground; but the Siamese monk who obeys this rule must be diligently sought for in out of the way corners. The fan is generally carried by a boy attendant, who holds it so as to screen the priest's head from the sun, while his eyes roam at will, seeking for novelty and amusement.

All those who wear the yellow robe are not men. Many children can daily be seen with shaven heads and eyebrows, dressed in the priestly garments. These are novices or "nanes," not fully ordained monks. They are not admitted before they are eight years old, and, unless their parents intend them to remain in the monasteries for life, they wait until the top-knot has been shaved off before entering into the service of the temple, so that their average age is about thirteen. After a time they leave the temple, return to the world, and get married. But about the age of twenty or twenty-one they must re-enter the priesthood, for in early manhood every male, including the king himself, must seek full ordination. The "nane" during his noviciate has only about ten rules to observe, whereas the fully ordained priest has to obey over two hundred.

The ceremony of ordination if respectfully and devoutly performed would be a very impressive one, but as at present carried out, the only persons in the temple who are at all reverent are the priests themselves. The behaviour of the congregation is marked by indifference and often by extreme levity. When an applicant desires admission to the priesthood he signifies his request sometime beforehand to the president of the chapter, who then appoints a day for him to be formally received. The applicant arrives at the temple with a host of relatives and friends dressed as for a holiday. He is clothed in white, and over his ordinary garments he wears a mantle of gauze decorated with gold and silver spangles. A procession is formed, and to the sound of a band that plays in the open air, he and his male friends march three times round the outside of the temple. He next enters the building and sits down on the floor in a place reserved for him. The women of the party sit on one side of the temple and the men on the other. They all chew betel-nut, and the men smoke, while all refresh their thirst from the numerous tea-pots that circulate round and round the congregation. At the far end of the building the priests are arranged in two or more rows, facing each other, with the president at their head.

One of the friends of the candidate who has already been ordained, leads him to the superior, saying, "I present this person who wishes to become a priest." The applicant prostrates himself before the president three times, with his hands pressed against his forehead, palm to palm, and says, "Venerable president, I own you as my ordainer." The president fastens the bundle of robes round his neck, and he goes to the entrance of the temple, where two friends who are members of the chapter, fasten the begging bowl round his neck. The three men then return to the altar and bow. The candidate retires a little way, and kneels in reverential attitude while he answers several questions. A private examination has previously taken place. The president now reminds him that he is expected to give truthful replies to the questions put to him, and then puts him publicly through the following catechism.

The candidate goes forward on hands and knees, and with palm-joined hands salutes the president three times, saying, "O father benefactor, I pray to be admitted to the sacred dignity of the priesthood. Take pity on me and raise me from the lowly condition of the laity to the perfect condition of the priesthood."

The presiding priest next asks the monks of the chapter whether any of them know any just or lawful reason why the candidate should not have his request granted. If none of them state any objection, the president signifies his willingness to admit the candidate to full ordination. The name, age, and address of the applicant are now written down in the records of the monastery, after which he goes to one side of the temple to be robed. He takes off the clothes he has been wearing and puts on his new garments in full view of the whole congregation. This is not at all an easy matter, and he is always assisted by some friend who has previously gone through the same ordeal. If the friend gets the robes entangled, as he frequently does, the congregation laughs immoderately at the uncomfortable dilemma in which the candidate is placed. The difficulty is solved by some kindly-disposed priest, who leaves his place and comes to assist in the robing. With fan in hand and the alms-bowl slung over the shoulder, the wearer of the yellow robe kneels once more before the superior, saying:—

He follows this by taking ten vows:—

Then the president says to him, "You are now received into the brotherhood. I will therefore instruct you what duties you are to perform and what sins you are to avoid. You will daily collect alms and will never put off your yellow robes. You must dwell continually in a monastery and never with the laity, and you must forsake all carnal pleasures," and so on.

The ceremony concludes with the paying of homage to the newly made priest. He sits on the floor, and then all present who are acquainted with him come, one by one, and prostrate themselves to the ground before him, at the same time giving him some present. If he has many friends, the floor of the temple round him is soon covered with about as motley an assortment of articles as it is possible to gather. There are robes, incense sticks, books, pens and ink, pencils, cigars, tobacco, betel-nut, clocks, vases of wax flowers, umbrellas, fans, flowers, fruit and cakes. When all the presents have been given and the congregation have paid their respects to the new monk, they go to their homes, and he at once takes up his residence in the cell allotted him. As long as he remains at the monastery he must obey orders and regard the superior as a second father.

The monks are not allowed to take food after noon. They may drink tea, chew betel-nut, or smoke tobacco, but they must not partake of solid food of any description. This rule is certainly far more rigidly observed than most of those that are laid down to regulate the conduct of the order. One of the commonest sights in any part of Siam is the procession of priests, soon after sunrise, seeking their daily bread. They carry a bowl, basin or bag, and go straight on from house to house, each in the district appointed him. They stand outside the houses, but make no request for alms. If anything is given to them they bless the giver; if they receive nothing they pass silently on their way. Having collected their food, they return to the monastery to eat, and to meditate meanwhile upon the perishableness of the body. On such occasions as weddings, hair-cuttings, and funerals, wealthy laymen entertain the priests at their own houses, and send them away afterwards with further gifts of food.

Buddha's early life as a mendicant was passed in the forest, and he held that the solitude and quiet of such a place was conducive to that long process of self-examination and renunciation which constitutes the distinguishing feature of the order. But as he afterwards found that he could be more useful to men by living amongst them, he permitted his disciples to live in companies in different places. The charity of the pious soon provided them with temples and monasteries, some of which were built even in his own time.

During the whole of the dry weather the monks travel from place to place, but in the rainy season, which is the Buddhist Lent, they settle down in some particular monastery. They are not allowed to sleep outside the temple they have chosen for their habitation during this period of retirement, except for some very important reason, and then only with the direct sanction of the superior. As at this time the jungle is flooded, and malaria common, there is much wisdom in the rule that forbids travelling about until the dry weather comes again. The priests, during Lent, preach to the people, who come in large numbers to listen, and to bring offerings. It is a very busy religious season as far as outward appearances are concerned, but the apparent indifference of the majority of the worshippers raises a doubt as to whether these observances possess any moral influence upon their lives.

The catalogue of the sins which the priests may not commit is a lengthy one and is religiously neglected. For instance, it is a sin to inhale flowers, to sit or sleep more than twelve inches above the ground, to break up the soil, to listen to music, to sing, to dance, to use perfumes, to sit or sleep in a higher position than the superior, to use gold or silver, to hold conversation on any but religious topics, to take gifts from or give gifts to a woman, to borrow, to ask for alms, to possess warlike weapons, to eat too much, to sleep too long, to take part in any sports or games, to judge one's neighbours, to swing the arms when walking, to bake bricks, to burn wood, to wink, to stretch out the legs when sitting, to look contemptuously at any one or anything, to buy, to sell, to slobber or make a noise when eating, to have any hair anywhere about the head or face, to keep the leavings of meals, to have many robes, to meddle with royal affairs except in so far as they concern religion, to cook rice, to ride on an elephant, to put flowers in the ears, to wear shoes, to love one man more than another, to eat seeds, to sleep after meals, to make remarks about the alms given to them, to wear any colour but yellow, to pander to popular taste when preaching sermons, to wash in the dark, to destroy either animal or vegetable life, and to whistle.

There are five sins that will certainly lead to everlasting punishment, whether committed by a priest or layman, viz., to murder one's father, to murder one's mother, to murder a priest, to treat the words or temples of Buddha with contempt, expressed as "to wound Buddha's foot so as to make it bleed," and to persuade priests to act falsely.

Members are expelled from the order on commission of the following sins:—Sexual intercourse, theft, and murder. After such expulsions they can never be re-admitted. Confessions of sin are made twice a month, at full and new moon, when the chapter meets to listen to the reading of the rules of the order. There is no inquisition; confession is purely voluntary. Slight punishments, such as sweeping the courtyard, or sprinkling dust round the holy Bo-tree follow the acknowledgment of slight breaches of duty. Serious offences are tried in the ecclesiastical courts, for the priestly body is not amenable to the ordinary laws of the land. In these courts, presided over by the chief priest, no oath is taken. An ordinary affirmation or negative answer to any question is given in silence by the raising and lowering of a fan. If the defendant is found guilty he is unfrocked, publicly flogged, and then expelled from the order.

The priest must rise before daylight, wash himself, sweep the room in which he lives, sweep round the Bo-tree, fetch the drinking water for the day, filter it to prevent killing any creatures it may contain when drinking it. These practical offices concluded, he is supposed to retire to a solitary place and there fix his mind in pious meditation upon the rules that regulate his daily life. He rises to place offerings of flowers before the sacred image, the sacred dome-shaped shrine or the Bo-tree, thinking the whole time of the great contrast between his own weaknesses and Buddha's virtues. The next portion of the daily routine is strictly and regularly followed. He takes the begging-bowl, follows his superior, collects his food, returns, eats his meal, asks a blessing for the donor, performs little duties for his superior, and washes the alms-bowls. For the next hour he should again meditate upon the kindness of Buddha, and then study the sacred books. At sunset he sweeps the holy place, lights the lamps, and listens to the teaching of the superior. As the novices do all the manual work, the superior is expected to devote himself more fully to study and meditation. Many of the chief priests of the different temples are profound Sanscrit and Pali scholars. The minute routine set forth in the ecclesiastical books is rarely followed in Siam. Priests walk about after sunset, and return late to the temples, their attendants lighting the way with torches. The time they give to meditation and worship is far short of that prescribed in the rules, and they are always ready to turn out for a chat with any visitor to their temple.

Meditation is the Buddhist substitute for prayer. There are five distinct classes of meditation.[H]

This is not the place to discuss the philosophy of Buddha, as we are here concerned only with the mendicant order in Siam. But in order to gain a more complete idea of the duties and character of the monastic body as contemplated by their founder, the following facts taken from Professor Rhys Davids's work on "Buddhism" are here given.

Buddha before his death told his disciples that they were to propagate his Laws, viz., (1) The four earnest meditations. (2) The four great Efforts. (3) The four roads to Iddhi. (4) The five moral Powers. (5) The seven kinds of Wisdom; and (6) The Noble Eightfold Path.

All these different Powers, Laws, etc., are again subdivided and re-subdivided; but the above lines will be sufficient to outline the moral philosophy of that system which not only the priests should bear out in their lives, but to which every true believer in Buddhism is expected to conform. Practically, however, these counsels are so many obsolete laws, long since dead and forgotten. Outside the permanent priests and a few students, the vast majority of the people know nothing whatever about the system, and if some of the learned writers upon Buddhism in Europe were to preach their Buddhist sermons to the subjects of the only independent Buddhist king remaining, the people would stare in wonder at their new teachers and ask one another what strange doctrines were these that were being preached unto them.

Buddha's own sermons as to the duties of the priesthood are worth a moment's notice, though the priests as a rule have never heard them, or heard them with indifferent ears. The following passages are quoted from the book mentioned above, and are translations of passages in those sermons whose authenticity is established.

The mendicant that Gautama had in his mind when he uttered the above passages, may be as easily discovered amongst the thousands that wear the yellow robe to-day, as a needle in a mountain of hay.

After a short interval the priests put off their robes and return to the world. If they are wanted for corvée or conscription they stay an indefinite period in their safe retreat. The yellow robes are never taken away, but are given by him who is leaving them, to one of the inmates of the same monastery. If a priest is thought to be dying the robes are taken from him, for they must not be contaminated with death. They are afterwards hung on the sacred Bo-tree, but never burned. Anyone who has once been a priest, but has returned to a secular life, may re-enter the priesthood whenever he chooses, but he must be again formally presented and ordained.

In the vicinity of several temples women with shaven heads and white dresses are sometimes seen. They are not always mourners for the dead, but belong to an order of nuns. The first nun was Buddha's foster-mother, who after the death of his father, wished to be ordained. Buddha at first refused to comply with her wishes, but on the intercession of his favourite disciple, Ananda, he granted the request. Ananda's wife, a half-sister of Buddha, was also subsequently ordained as a nun. The order of nuns does not appear to have been at any time half as flourishing as that of the monks. Nuns in Siam are very old widows. They do no teaching, sewing, or work of any description. To them the temple is a form of alms-house where they will be lodged and fed as long as they live.

CHAPTER XIV.

AMONG THE TEMPLES.

Every single town and village of Siam is crowded with temples, or "wats," as they are locally called. Compared with similar religious institutions in England, their number seems to be out of all proportion to the number of the population. Their variety of size and method of decoration, as well as their number, is sufficiently conspicuous to make even the most casual observer enquire why they abound to such an extent. And the reason for this superabundance of religious edifices is not to be found in the immense number of people who are popularly supposed to believe in the teachings of Buddha, but rather in a very prevalent, but degraded form of one of the tenets of an originally pure doctrine. For though it is usually stated that five hundred millions of people are believers in, and followers of "The Light of Asia," no one who has lived in a Buddhist country will venture to assert that half that number are regular attendants at the temple on the Buddhist Sunday, or that the vast majority of the people do anything more than passively accept the superstitions of their forefathers without ever enquiring or even caring whether they are the true teachings of Buddha or not. Ask any person you meet a few questions about the sage who propounded the faith that they are supposed to hold, and it will be speedily discovered that even those who are most assiduous in their attendance at the temple, and who are most charitable in the offerings they give to their priests, know little of the life and less of the teachings of him whom they apparently worship. It will be at once evident to the readers of the foregoing chapters of this book, that the people whose customs are here treated of, though nominally Buddhists, and classed en masse as such in Western calculations of the number of those who worship the great Indian teacher of old, are guided in their daily lives, not by the principles of an old world faith, but rather by a number of powerful superstitions gathered at different times from the different nations by whom they are surrounded, or with whom they have come into close contact, which superstitions have little if anything to do with Buddhism. It is not possible to call them Buddhists at all, if the term is to be used as comparable to the term Christian as applied to the believers in Christ in Western lands. The great moral precepts of their religion are not taught to them, are unknown to them, and it is very questionable if the Sanskrit words for benevolence, gratitude, charity, and kindred virtues have any parallel in the ordinary everyday vocabulary of the people. Even if such words do exist, they are only understood by the learned few, and would be as utterly incomprehensible to the great mass of the people as Greek and Latin.

Temples then, not being required as houses of continual or devout worship, why do they abound, not only in the capital, but in every village, and on the banks of every river and canal throughout the length and breadth of the whole kingdom? The explanation is found in the fact that the people believe that in order to make merit during this life to save themselves from misery in some future existence, they must among other things follow "the religion which teaches alms-giving." "Make merit." That is the sum and substance of their religious faith and worship. As every reader of Buddhism knows, the soul is said to pass through many stages of existence before it reaches the mysterious region of Nirvana, and that it is possible for any soul to pass even beyond the shadowy confines of this debatable territory and finally attain the perfect condition of Buddhahood. At death, the merit and demerit of the soul are balanced, and the next condition of the wandering soul determined according to a system of debit and credit. The wicked king may be re-born as a slave or even pass into the body of a toad. The soul of a slave may be re-born in one of royal degree or may even ascend to an habitation in the celestial spheres. Hence it behoves every living being during this life upon earth to make as much merit as it possibly can, and as the custom of alms-giving is held to be a very profitable method of investment for the future, it is widely practised by king and peasant alike, each giving to the priests or to those of his fellow-men who may be in distress, according to the abundance of his possession of this world's goods. That portion of Buddha's teaching which deals with the law of cause and effect in its relation to the progression or retrogression of migrating souls, has been lost to all except the few, and a mere superstition reigns in its stead.

An English resident in Siam had a servant who frequently absented himself from his duties. On each occasion, when questioned by his master as to the cause of his absence, he replied, "Please, sir, I went to make merit." Said the Englishman, perhaps a little too irreverently, "At the rate you are making merit, I should think you would be an archangel when you die."—"Ah no," replied the servant, "I don't want to be an angel. I don't want to get to Nirvana. I shouldn't like to make enough merit to get to Nirvana; I only want to make just enough merit to be born back again into this world as a royal prince, with lots of money, plenty of wives and heaps of fun."

"Merit" is made in many other ways besides alms-giving and feeding the priests. A woman who was robbed devoted the lost money to merit-making, and gave it charitably away. Even the scattering of limes containing lottery tickets at important cremations and public ceremonies is considered merit-making. Tradition relates that when Buddha was being sorely tempted by the evil Mara, he appealed to the fiend to answer whether or not, he, the tempted one, had not in his lifetime on earth been conspicuous for generous alms-giving, and the world made affirmative answer for him by a gigantic earthquake. And so the modern Buddhist believes that his merit-making and his alms-giving will cry out on his behalf when he passes from this earthly life into some other condition at present unrevealed to him.

Even their reluctance to kill any living thing is merely another form of the same belief. That it is wrong to destroy the life of anything, be it that of a seed or that of a snake, for the reasons taught by Buddha, they do not seem to know. But they have it firmly established amongst their current superstitions that to take life would be an act of demerit that would be reckoned against them in the future, and so they abstain from killing, though they will readily eat what others have destroyed. They justify their fishing operations by saying that they do not kill the fish, but that they only pull them out of the water, after which they die a natural death.