Page:Buddhism in Christendom, or, Jesus, the Essene.djvu/98

76 accurate picture than we can get elsewhere of ancient Palestine, for it is an ancient Asiatic civilization that has not yet passed away. When I campaigned against a rude tribe called Sonthals, in 1855, I saw everywhere the "booths of leaves" of the Bible, the pansil of early Buddhist books. Since the days of Job, thieves "dig into" the rude mud walls of the East. Visitors to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition may have seen several straw-thatched houses where this would have been feasible. Of such a pattern with mud or matted walls were the huts, perhaps, of the Therapeuts.

Father La Loubére, in his "Description du Royaume de Siam," gives us some very interesting details of Buddhist convent life. In a central quadrangle is the chief building surrounded by mortuary pyramidal columns, each covering the ashes of some rich man or saint, but dedicated to one of the Buddhas, and suggesting the columns in a Christian graveyard. In a second enclosure are the little mat-built pansils of the monks, surrounding the central building. Each holds a sṛamaṇa and his servant-pupils, to the number sometimes of three. Each, too, has two little chambers in which a wandering beggar can obtain food and shelter, as amongst the Essenes. "I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not: sick and in prison, and ye visited me not" (Matt. ).

Each monastery is presided over by a sancrat or bishop, whose insignia is an accurate mitre, carved on a stone pedestal, which fact satisfied the good father that the Buddhists had stolen many ideas from the Christians. Matins began when a monk could see the veins of his hand, or see clearly enough to prevent him destroying reptile life in walking to the temple. The chanting went on for two hours, and then the begging friars, two and two, as in the Catholic Church, went round the neighbourhood and collected their scanty food. The meal seems to have been something after the pattern of the Therapeut bloodless oblation, for a portion of the food is always solemnly offered to Buddha. Then comes teaching, reading,