The Burmans, like most nations of the East, are essentially a religious people, and pay great regard to the religious usages and institutions in which they have been brought up.

Chief amongst these is the monastic institution of Buddhism. Buddha was not only a great philosopher and thinker, but a great organiser too, and he provided in the monastic system a social bond of union that knits the entire community together in the Buddhist faith. This is made more obvious by the fact that every male Burman must be a monk at some time in his life, for a longer or shorter period, otherwise the demerit attaching to him would so overbalance his merits, as to render it impossible for him ever to make any improvement in his future existences. His ill deeds would swell the sum of his demerits, but no act of charity or pious devotion would be recorded to his advantage. Hence, in Upper Burma, almost every youth dons the yellow robe and becomes a monk. It may be for a week, a month, or a season or two, or it may be for many years, or it may prove to be lifelong. The longer they stay in the monastery the more sanctity attaches to them. But the Buddhist monk, unlike some other monks, is at liberty to terminate his monastic vows at pleasure, and return to ordinary life. The monks reckon the continuance of their monastic condition by the number of Wahs spent in the monastery, the Wah being the annual recurrence of a kind of Buddhist Lent, extending from July to October.

This recruiting of the monks from the entire population—so different from Hinduism, which acknowledges a rigidly exclusive, priestly caste—immensely strengthens the hold Buddhism has on the people, and widens the popular basis upon which it rests. In my missionary life amongst the Hindus in Ceylon, I have observed in reading and expounding the parable of “The Good Samaritan” to a heathen congregation, a great readiness to apply, of their own accord, the cases of the Priest and the Levite, who passed by on the other side, to their own Brahmin priests, and they were always ready to take sides against them as quite a separate caste; but there can never be the same alienation between monks and laity in a Buddhist land like Burma, where the monks are their own kith and kin.

The monasteries are very extensively spread over the country. Mandalay, at the time of the annexation, was officially stated to have close upon 6,000 monks, and you can visit scarcely any town or village, however small or remote, which has not its monastic establishment. The monastery is always the best building in the place, and has the cleanest enclosure of any house in the village, and there is an air of sanctity and repose about it. The monks are very approachable. The stranger, whether native or foreigner, is always made welcome; indeed, that is a characteristic of the Burmans everywhere, that they receive strangers freely and affably, and being free from those caste scruples so usual amongst the Hindus, one is not for ever fearful of transgressing their notions of propriety, or unwittingly hurting their dignity. As the monasteries are spacious, and often supplied with additional zayats or rest-houses, it will rarely happen in travelling that they will be unable or unwilling to assign the stranger some humble place of rest, where he may tie up his pony, eat his food, and spread his mat and pillow for the night. To the poor and destitute the monastery is a place of relief, where they can always hope to obtain a little food out of that which is daily given to the monks in their house to house morning visits.

It must be frankly admitted that the monasteries of the country do a useful work in the way of imparting elementary education. To them is chiefly due the creditable fact that there are comparatively few of the men who cannot read and write; and this does much to bind the people to the support of the Order. But the education scarcely ever goes beyond the most elementary stage. They learn to read Burmese, and they learn to repeat a few Pali prayers and forms of devotion. Pali is the sacred language; very few even of the monks understand the meaning.

On the other hand, the monks’ life is a very idle one. They live in perfect ease, all their wants are supplied by the people, and they are not expected to work at all, except some of them at teaching. There are usually far more of them in the monastery than are required for that purpose, so that they spend a vast amount of idle time, and it is thought by many that the indolent, easy-going habits, and the lack of discipline and enterprise the Burmans display as a nation, is largely owing to the idle life of the monastery, which is continually before their eyes, for there they receive their teaching when young.

The Buddhist monk is not a minister of religion in our sense. He has no pastoral charge. He is for himself, and for his own deliverance, and the merit he acquires he shares with nobody. He may occasionally be called to attend this or that function, when the presence of a monk is customary, or he may expound the law occasionally, if he so choose, reciting some of the sacred writings for that purpose; but he undertakes no responsibility for the guidance of the souls of others. In Buddhism a man must save himself, and nothing that a monk or any one else may do can alter the balance of his merits and demerits. Even if the monk be summoned to the couch of a dying man, as he is sometimes, it is not that he may speak words of consolation, or offer him the comforts of religion. It is merely that the presence of the holy man may drive away the evil spirits that would be liable to haunt the place on such an occasion.

The habits of the monastic Order are very simple. In the morning, after the few Pali prayers have been uttered, the monks invariably go forth through the village, attended by the boys carrying the alms-bowls, to collect their daily food from the people. Not that they beg. There is no occasion for that. Their rules forbid them to ask; and in going from door to door amongst their own people they do not ask. But privately, I must own, I have found occasionally amongst the Buddhist monks of my acquaintance some of the most arrant cadgers I ever met with. Few, indeed, are the matrons who do not put something in the way of food in the alms-bowl. Nor do they thank the people for what they receive. They would never think of doing so. In fact, the obligation is all on the other side. The monks are conferring a favour by giving the people the opportunity to do this work of high merit by means of their alms. A useful hint, by the way, to collectors for good and useful objects in England!

In their walks abroad, and in the performance of such functions as bring them into mixed companies, many of the monks carry a large palm-leaf fan in their hands, in order that, as celibate ascetics, they may shut off the sight of feminine charms from their eyes.

The education given at the monasteries is very poor, but the acquisition of any learning at all by the children is a matter for wonder, when we consider how poor the instruction is. What they do succeed in learning is not so much by means of teaching, as we understand it, but is almost entirely due to the system of noisy repetition of the lessons, at the full pitch of their voices in unison, in which all the children engage, the elder ones leading, and the younger following. For this reason the little learning imparted at these schools is of a mechanical sort, and lacks intelligence. Arithmetic is very low indeed. Geography, if taught at all, must of course square with the orthodox Buddhist cosmogony; and as there is much that is doubtful about that, it is perhaps best left alone, and is accordingly. Burmese history is abundant in quantity, but in quality it only consists of what we call fiction, and has but a poor foothold upon fact, and is left out of the curriculum. All other branches of study are unknown, except a little of Pali in the form of devotions, which, however, is mostly taught in mere parrot fashion.

The Director of Public Instruction in Burma told me a good story of his first visit to Mandalay. He had been calling on the great Thathanabine or Buddhist Archbishop of Burma, and had sought to impress upon that venerable ecclesiastic the desirability of improving the education given at the monastery schools. He mentioned arithmetic and geography as very desirable subjects to be taught, offering to supply teachers already trained and able to teach them. One of the attendant monks, an elderly brother of the yellow robe, remarked that for his part he could not see any great need for learning geography, especially now that the English Government had been good enough to construct a railway. “If you want to go anywhere all you have to do is to take your ticket and get into the train.” Where was the use of learning geography?

The honour paid to the monks by the people is quite extraordinary. In the Burmese language the commonest acts of life as performed by the monks are spoken of with respectful expressions, which are never applied to similar acts as done by the common people. The oldest layman honours the youngest monk, and gives place to him. The ordinary posture before a monk is down on their knees, and often on their elbows also, with the palms of the hands joined together, and raised as if in supplication, and the title “Paya” is used—the very name which has to do duty for the deity.

An instance is on record of a venerable monk being called from Mandalay to settle a dispute between two parties concerning some religious point, in a town on the banks of the Irrawaddy. On his arrival the whole population lined both sides of the path up to the monastery, and kneeling, they loosed down their long black hair, for the men as well as the women wear it long, and spread it across the path, so that he walked all the distance from the river bank to the monastery on human tresses.

The pagodas are the ordinary resorts of the people as places of worship; not all of them, however, for the great majority are merely erected as works of merit, and never attain any celebrity as places of worship; only the chief and most notable shrines. There the people assemble of an evening, and are to be seen in the flagged open space around the pagoda, on their knees in the open air, repeating their devotions in Pali. Though many of them come together, it is not of the nature of congregational worship, nor is any one appointed to lead their devotions. It is each one for himself. There is no prayer in our sense of that term, that is, petition. With no God to address, what place is there for prayer? Buddhism knows no higher being than the Buddha, and he is gone, twenty-four centuries ago, into Nirvana. The sentences they utter in Pali consist of expressions in praise of Buddha, the Law, and the Monastic Order. Images of Buddha are extensively used, but for all that, the people can hardly be called idolaters. The burning of candles and of incense at worship time is customary.

The Burmese “duty days,” of which there are four in the month, are observed on the eighth of the crescent, the full, the eighth of the waning, and the change of the moon. These are kept more strictly as worship days during what is called the Wah than at any other time. That is the period from July to October, which is observed as a time of special fasting and solemnity, ever since the days of their founder, who used to spend this, the rainy season, when travelling about in India is scarcely practicable, in retirement and meditation. During the Wah there is a cessation of all festivities, and of the theatrical performances of which the Burmans are so fond.

At the end of the Wah there is a time of general rejoicing. For some days before amusements are observed to be in progress in the streets. Effigies of animals, very well executed, are carried about. Here a buffalo of gigantic size, made of some light material, cunningly finished and coloured to the life, with horns and hide and all complete, is seen walking about on two pairs of human legs, the said legs being clad in the very baggy dark trousers worn by the Shans; its head balanced so as to swing with the walk in a most realistic and natural manner.

Yonder, in the Chinese temple, a huge pasteboard demon is seen disporting himself, with head of frightful aspect and enormous size, and body of cloth. You may freely walk in; and as you look around and admire the excellence of the building and the expensive and choice furniture, lamps and decorations, you may also see the huge creature writhing about, with all manner of contortions, to the deafening din of drums and the clash of cymbals. Somehow Orientals seem to be able to combine amusement with devotion. My three little children who have walked in with me, scared almost out of their wits with the noise, and still more with the portentous sight of the demon, promptly take to their heels and rush out of the temple, and cannot be induced to return, so I go out in search of them. At the corner of the next street an enormous representation of a tiger, ten times life size, in teeth and claws complete, and with a most ferocious aspect, has been glaring at the passers-by for some days. And, as you look, here comes a rude likeness of a gigantic lady ten feet high, who, however, seems to move along very ungracefully, and bows very stiffly in acknowledgment of the cheers of the crowd. The Chinese are particularly fond of getting up a very brilliantly executed figure of a serpent, in great splendour and in very bright colours, many yards long, which is borne high overhead through the streets on these occasions, with quite a procession. This particular show seems to afford scope for high art in representing the wrigglings of the monster as it is carried along.

But this is all only preparatory to the festival called Wah-gyoot (literally “the release from the Wah”). It is a festival of lights. For three nights the whole city of Mandalay is one blaze of illumination. Every house has its complement of candles or oil lamps; the rich in keeping with their means, and the poor according to their poverty. At that season the air is still, there is little or no wind, all the lights are out of doors and burn brightly. The streets are lit up with candles at every ten paces; the pagodas are effectively illuminated with hundreds of lights far up into their spires. Little children are trundling extemporised carts with bamboo wheels, each carrying a tiny illumination, covered with a lamp of thin, coloured paper. In addition to the house illuminations, paper lanterns are quite the fashion in China Street, where the well-known ingenuity of John Chinaman produces fantastic shapes in various colours, representing sundry animals, fishes, ships and what not. On the great river, as soon as it grows dark, the villagers row out into the middle of the stream and set adrift multitudes of oil lamps, each fastened to a little float of bamboo or plantain stem. Thousands of them are sent out by each village, so that the whole Irrawaddy is one blaze of twinkling lights.

Another very prominent and popular festival of the Burmans is the Water Feast, which occurs at their New Year in April. For two or three days at that time “the compliments of the season” consist in walking up to you in the street, or even in your own house, and discharging a jar of clean water over you, with the expression, “I will do homage to you with water”; and it would be considered very bad form to show any resentment for this kind and polite attention. It is obvious that such a custom as this must afford great scope to the rollicking Burmans of both sexes. It leads to abundance of larking and merriment in the streets. Everybody who ventures forth stands a great chance of a thorough drenching. Fortunately it occurs in April, the time of the sun’s greatest power, and the sweltering heat renders it less of an inconvenience than it would be in a colder climate.

There is nothing the Burmans are more scrupulous about than the taking of life. A mother has been seen to pick up the scorpion that stung her child, between two pieces of bamboo, and merely drop it gently outside the door. Twice when I have found a deadly cobra lurking about the house where the children were playing—the most venomous of snakes, whose bite is death—and have asked a Burmese servant to help me to kill it, he has declined, and I have had to kill it myself. But though the Burman will not kill a snake, he will not scruple to take it home to cook and eat it after some other person has killed it. Animal food seldom comes amiss to them, whether it has been killed by another or has died of itself. They are not very choice in their food.

Mandalay swarms with thousands of half-starved, mangy, miserable animals—nobody’s dogs. No matter how they increase and multiply, no Burman is willing to “put them out of their misery”; the firm belief in transmigration prevents this. I have known half a dozen such dreadful creatures quarter themselves uninvited on the Mission premises. One of the half-dozen, a savage brute, living under the school on the Mission premises, one day bit a little Burman boy, and tore his bare arm very badly. This was too much for me. Fearing it might do further mischief, and might even be mad, I waylaid and shot it. The Burmans thought I had done very wrong. Their tender care for animals often appears in touching forms. I have noticed a Burman coolie engaged in mixing mortar, on finding he had brought a number of tadpoles from the neighbouring pond in his bucket of water, take them all out with great care, and carry them back to the pond, though it was 150 yards away and he had to go on purpose. And yet, so strangely inconsistent is human nature, there are perhaps few countries in the world, with any pretensions to civilisation, where human life is held so cheap as in Burma, and where the people have commonly such a propensity to the crime of dacoity or robbery with violence, and often with murder. And yet, again, with strange inconsistency, the coarse and hardened criminal, the Burman dacoit, who has imbrued his hands in his neighbour’s blood more than once, will scruple to harm the vermin that infests his couch.

Some of the great Buddhist shrines in Burma are buildings of wonderful magnificence. The Shwê Dagohn Pagoda at Rangoon is one of the most important and sacred. It is considered to be over two thousand years old. Originally it was very small, but now it rises to a height of 370 feet, or a little higher than St. Paul’s Cathedral, and is a quarter of a mile in circumference at the base. It is situated on the top of a very high hill, of which the summit has been, at vast labour and expense, made into a level platform, and carefully paved. This immense platform is partly occupied by many smaller pagodas, resting places for worshippers, and chapels containing colossal images of Buddha; and considerable open space is left for the immense crowds of worshippers that assemble there. In the centre rises the great pagoda in the usual bell shape, one vast, solid mass of masonry terminating in a spire. Four flights of stone steps lead up from the plain beneath, one on each side of the hill. On the summit of the pagoda is the htee, or gilt iron framework in the form of an umbrella, with multitudes of gold and silver bells, richly bejewelled, which tinkle with every passing breeze. The htee was presented by King Mindohn, the father of King Theebaw, and cost £50,000. The pagoda itself with the adjacent buildings must have cost, from first to last, a fabulous sum. This pagoda, like many others of the principal ones, is covered with pure gold leaf. Every few years it has to be regilt. Sometimes this has been done by some particular king, as a great work of merit. One king is said to have spent his own weight of gold upon it. In 1887 there was a regilding by public subscription. The accounts when published showed an expenditure of some £9,000; and this money, be it known to all Christians, was raised at once, without leaving any debt for the next generation to defray. And not only so, but it was raised in money actually contributed directly for this purpose. There was no need to resort to any of the well-known, artful, coaxing methods of raising funds, which have to be adopted in more civilised countries. There was not even a bazaar, not even a raffle! I have no hesitation in stating that it is my belief that Buddhists spend on their religion, in edifices, on the support of the monks, and on other works of charity, much more per head in proportion to their means than the average of Christians spend on theirs.

Another remarkable thing about the Shwê Dagohn Pagoda is its bell, 14 feet high, 7½ feet across, and weighing 42 tons, the third largest bell in the world. This bell has a history. After the second Burmese war in 1853, the English made an attempt to carry it off as a trophy to Calcutta, but ere they shipped it the monster toppled over into the Rangoon river, and sank to the bottom. With the appliances then at hand they were unable to get it up again. After a time the Burmans made request that they might have it.

Yes, they might have the bell if they could get it.

They succeeded in raising it out of the river, and hauled it back in triumph to the position it occupies to-day.

When great shrines like this exist in Burma, on such a vast scale and with such splendour, it is not much to wonder at if there should be some specimens of unfinished and abortive undertakings, by which the kings of Burma, in their ambition to obtain great merit and a name, sought to equal or excel the great shrines of antiquity, but which had to be relinquished because the resources, even of despotic kings, are not unlimited. Such a one is the great unfinished Mengohn Pagoda, which is built in a pleasant spot on the right bank of the Irrawaddy, about nine miles above Mandalay. It is supposed that this must be the largest mass of solid brickwork in the world, and it is now nearly a century old. It covers a square of 450 feet, and has therefore an area of 4¾ acres. Its height is 155 feet, which is much less than it would have been had it gone on to completion. An Englishman, Captain Cox, was there, and saw the beginning of this huge structure. He says in his book that there was a great square chamber built in the basement of the pagoda as usual, to receive the offerings of the king and the people, and amongst many peculiarly Burmese and Buddhist articles, such as models of precious relics in gold caskets, and gold and silver miniature pagodas and images, the miscellaneous collection included an article of Western manufacture—a soda-water machine, at that time almost as great a novelty in England as it was in Burma. Close by this large unfinished pagoda is the second largest bell in the world; the largest is at Moscow. An earthquake, which occurred in 1839, cracked this enormous mass of brickwork, and dislodged a portion of it; but so solid is it that it would take many earthquakes utterly to destroy it.

Notwithstanding the failure to complete this gigantic enterprise, it did not deter a later king, the father of King Theebaw, from attempting a still larger and more ambitious effort. Four miles to the east of Mandalay there was to have been erected the Yankeen-toung Pagoda, built of stone quarried from the adjoining hill; and it was to have been larger considerably than the unfinished Mengohn. The whole kingdom was laid under contribution to furnish men to labour by turns, a few months at a time, on this pious work.

After four years’ labour, so vast was the extent that the basement had only reached a height of four feet. At this stage a French engineer was called in to make an estimate and report upon it. His calculation was that if 5,000 men worked every day on the building, it might at that rate be finished in eighty-four years. It never went beyond the basement.

Since the annexation of Upper Burma, the practical British mind, finding the Yankeen-toung stone eminently suitable for road-making, and seeing that the roads in Mandalay, with its 188,000 people, were not, up to that time, made of anything better than black clay, has devoted this stone, intended for the pagoda, with which King Mindohn had purposed, so to speak, paving his own way to Nirvana, to the humbler, but more generally useful enterprise of mending the people’s ways about the town.