Page:Once a Week Volume 8.djvu/214

206 But, if this be all, why this infinity of statues which the Buddhist unquestionably venerates with a deeply religious feeling? Is the honour he pays to them an act, strictly speaking, of worship, or merely the outward symbol of his gratitude that such a man ever lived on earth? Ask the Buddhist, and he will tell you that Gaudama is full of benevolence; wishes to deliver them out of their miseries, and help them to obtain the state of Niban, which, if construed into English, can hardly be more literally translated than by the words “existent annihilation.” Yet, in the same breath, he will tell you he expects no assistance from Gaudama, inasmuch as long since all his interference with this world’s affairs ceased; that he sees no one, hears no prayer, and can afford no help, either here on earth, or in any other state of existence—in short, that he wishes them good, but is powerless to ensure it in the slightest degree whatsoever.

Yes, you may well dream away a moon-lit hour on the Pagoda platform, meditating on so barren and lifeless a creed as this, with the sage’s white statues glimmering at you on all sides; now staring you boldly out of countenance; now peeping at you from under the dark shade of some noble tamarind-tree, with the distant sound of the bells from aloft; and now also, carried on the breeze from the mess-house of Her Majesty’s 68th Regiment, comes the old familiar air of “God save the Queen,” played as few other bands can play it, which, as it finishes their after-dinner performance, reminds you that it is time to seek your hospitium, and dream beneath the musquito curtains of the Pagoda and its saint.

In a few days after your evening visit, you will be morally certain to have a Burmese holy-day; and then, as you have seen the sun set from the Pagoda platform, go and see it rise. You will also see, rising along each thoroughfare that leads to the great centre of attraction, not tens nor hundreds only, but thousands of men, and women, and little children, clad in all hues and shades—a sort of walking tulip-bed it looks, as one watches their approach—the greater number of women and children with their baskets of offerings (offerings to whom, or to what?) composed of rice, cocoa-nut, plantains, flowers, small flags, tawdry streamers of cloth or of paper, small wax candles, incense, and such like. In a short time the enormous terrace, so dreamy and melancholy at night, will be so densely crowded, that you might walk along the heads of the worshippers, if such they may be called. But truly the Burmese appear to spell the word holy-day in the more modern English way, an i and a y instead of two y’s. There is a Babel sound of tongues, many a peal of honest laughter, and very little of the outward forms of worship. Were you uncharitably disposed, you might think those variegated garments, in which the younger ladies disport themselves, were not put on solely in honour of the saint whose images look down upon them. No, indeed; and were that excellent man still living, it is just possible he might not altogether approve of this gay assemblage round the base of this sacred building. For the rules enjoined upon his disciples with respect to the female sex are somewhat stringent. When one of them asked him how the Rahan, or priestly candidate, should conduct himself, when women resorted to their monastery, the sage answered:—

“Let the Rahan keep the door fast, and never so much as look at them.”

“But suppose,” the disciple urged, “they come to bring food to the inmates of the monastery?” (the monastic Buddhist priests being strictly a mendicant order).

The reply is, “Even then receive their food; but not their words. Much better to converse with one who, sword in hand, threatened to cut off your head if you spoke, than to speak to them.”

“But,” pursued the indefatigable disciple, “what if they come for religious instruction, or spiritual counsel, must the Rahan then be silent? Will they not say that Rahan is deaf, or too well fed, and therefore he cannot, or will not, speak?”

The sage, thus driven into a corner, replied:

“When on such special occasions a Rahan must speak, let him consider as his mothers, or his sisters, the elder women, and as his children the younger women.”

It is probably in accordance with these rules that the Phoonghees, or Buddhist priests, in their saffron-coloured garments and with shaven heads, are not generally seen on the Pagoda platform at these holy-day gatherings. If you would see them, you need but to walk along any street of the town in the early morning, as they go on their rounds to collect the voluntary contributions for the day’s meals. Each Phoonghee is fortified with a respectably sized wooden lacquered box; empty when he starts, and well filled before his return. It must be a curious mélange when the box is filled—curds, spice, rice, vegetables, fruit; but the mendicants seem to thrive well on what they get, and look as though their food thoroughly agreed with them. They never vouchsafe one word of thanks when the largest dish of rice is tossed into their box. They honour the giver by their acceptance of his gift; and, what is still more to the point, the giver appreciates the honour thus conferred.

Well-knit, muscular fellows are many of our Burmese subjects; but indolent in the extreme. Never to do to-day what may be done to-morrow is their maxim; and it is a maxim which rarely answers. To the European, however, they are more attractive than the races of Hindustan: far less cringing, more open and more English in their habits. Like the native of India, the Burman, male or female, is an inveterate smoker: and cheroots are the form in which the weed is taken. A Burmese will smoke whilst he works or walks, which no native of Bengal or northern India ever dreams of doing. It does not increase the attractiveness of Burmese women, in European eyes, to see a half-consumed cheroot stuck into their ear-ornament, which is shaped something like a thimble, or a thimble with the end off, and is inserted into the lobe of the ear. Even when not used as a cheroot-holder, and even when made, as is not unfrequently the case, of gold, this remarkable kind of ear-ring, or ear-tube, is singularly unbecoming. Their dress, moreover, is neither