Page:Siam and Laos, as seen by our American missionaries (1884).pdf/282

 primitive monastic and ecclesiastical forms in languid torpor, but with tolerable fidelity. Yet still, Burmese and Siamese Buddhism under the influence of Brahmanism went so far as to amalgamate with the Buddhist religious notions derived from the primitive tree- and serpent-worship, which was a form of religion not only prior to Buddhism, but indigenous in Burmah and Siam. The consequence is, that practical Buddhist worship there is marked by the prevalence of Brahmanic mythology."

At the cremations, during plagues, epidemics and floods, our missionaries tell us, more attention is given to spirit-worship than to Buddhism proper. During the rice-planting and harvest the favor of the spirits of the air, earth and water is sought. Spirit-offerings may be found in the homes of the people, in the boats, fish-poles, threshing-floors, and even hanging to the sacred Bô tree itself.

As you turn into the principal avenue of the grounds of a wat you will be very apt to find figures of enormous stone griffins, representing the demon kings of the four regions who guard the world against the attacks of evil spirits; and crouching lions, stone emblems of Shakyamuni (literally, "Shakya the lion"), who is, according to the Buddhists, by his strength the king of the beasts, as he is by his moral excellence the king of men.