Page:A Record of the Buddhist Religion as practised in India and the Malay Archipelago.djvu/105

 adopted by Bodhisattva Nâgârguna. If this be too hard to put in practice, to drink water is also good. When a man gets used to these practices he is less attacked by sickness. The dirt at the roots of the teeth hardened by time must all be cleaned away. Washed with warm water, the teeth will be freed from the dirt for the whole of life. Tooth- ache is very rare in India owing to their chewing the tooth-wood.

It is wrong to identify the tooth-wood with a willow-branch. Willow- trees are very scarce in India. Though translators have generally used this name, yet, in fact, the Buddha's tooth-wood-tree (for instance) which I have personally seen in the Nâlanda monastery, is not the willow. Now I require no more trustworthy proof from others than this, and my readers need not doubt it. Moreover, we read in the Sanskrit text of the Nirvâna-sûtra thus: 'The time when they were chewing tooth-woods.'

Some in China use small sticks of willow which they chew completely in their mouth without knowing how to rinse the mouth and remove the juice. Sometimes it is held that one can cure a sickness by drinking the juice of the tooth-wood. They become impure, in so doing, contrary to their desire for purification. Though desirous of being released from a disease, they fall into a greater sickness. Are they not already aware of this fact? Any argument would be in vain! It is quite common among the people of the five parts of India to chew the tooth-wood. Even infants of three years old are taught how to do it.

The teaching of the Buddha and the custom of the people correspond on this point, and help each other. I have thus far explained the com- parative merit of the use of the tooth-wood in China and India. Each must judge for himself as to whether he will adopt or reject the custom.

briefly describe the ceremony of inviting priests, in India as well as in the islands of the Southern Sea. In India the host comes