Let us visit the great _Shwe Dagon_ pagoda in Rangoon, one of the
living centres of the Buddhist world, where amidst a splendid grove of
palms and forest trees the golden spire rises high above a vast
platform crowded with shrines and images of the Buddha. Far below is
the teeming city bathed in golden light, and humming with life; here
all is still save for the rustle of leaves and the tinkling of
innumerable bells upon the great pagoda pinnacle, and the shouting of
a class of boys in the monastery school near by.
(a) _A Monastic School_.--Some two score of them are seated round a
kindly old monk in his faded yellow robe. And all are shouting at the
top of their voices repeating in unison certain words, of whose
meaning they do not seem to think!
(b) _Its Moral Teaching_.--As we draw near we realise that these are
phrases from a popular Buddhist book known as _Mingala Thot_, a
summary of the Buddhist beatitudes, which describe the happy life of
the Buddhist layman. First they shout a word of Pāli[1] and then a
word of Burmese, and lastly the whole phrase. There are twelve verses,
of which the following is typical:--
"Tend parents, cherish wife and child,
Pursue a blameless life and mild:
Do good, shun ill and still beware
Of the red wine's insidious snare;
Be humble, with thy lot content,
Grateful and ever reverent."
Many times must these phrases be droned through before they are
learned by heart, but gradually their meanings sink in and simple
explanations and grammatical notes by the teacher help his class to
understand as well as to learn. These moral maxims still exert a
powerful influence for good.
(c) _Its Religious Instruction_.--Another favourite lesson is a short
summary of the excellent qualities of the "Three Jewels" of
Buddhism--the Buddha, his Order of Monks, and his Law or teaching; and
another celebrates eight victories of the Buddha over enemies temporal
and spiritual. Having mastered these preliminary books, the boys will
learn the chief _Jātakas_, a strange medley of folklore dressed up in
Buddhist guise, and purporting to be stories of the various
sacrificial existences of the founder of Buddhism, Sākyamuni, before
he became a Buddha. Buddhism is not only a body of moral teachings,
but a religion with an elaborate system of beliefs, which makes very
great demands upon the faith of its worshippers, and some of these
beliefs are embodied in these stories of the former lives of the
Buddha. Others are conveyed in legends and hymns, in popular summaries
and proverbial sayings universally known and used by the people.
(d) _The Importance of the Monks_.--This class of boys around the old
monk represents an educational system which covers all Burma and has
unbounded influence. It is an amazing fact that there are almost two
monasteries to every village. While this constitutes an enormous drain
upon the resources of the country, since all the monks retire from its
active industrial life, and live upon the alms of the laity, it has,
on the other hand, made Burma one of the most literate of all the
lands of the East, with a larger percentage of men who can read and
write than modern Italy. So great is the power of the monks that all
boys, before they can be regarded as human beings, must undergo a form
of ordination. It is not strange that some of them are caught by the
lure of the monastic life and the glamour of the yellow robe: yet most
of them, after a short experience, go back to the world.
The young _shin_ or novice, who chooses to stay in a monastery, may in
due course be admitted to ordination. At that time, dressed in
princely robes, he celebrates the sacrifice of the founder of
Buddhism, Sākyamuni, in leaving his royal state to become a
mendicant. His head is shaved, his gorgeous clothes are taken away,
and henceforward he is clad only in the yellow robe of the Buddhist
monks, an order older, more widespread, and more picturesque than any
other religious order in the world. He has "taken refuge in the Three
Jewels," and now takes up the regular life of the monk. He goes out
daily with a group of others to collect food for the monastery; he
attends to the various needs of the older monks and carries on the
simple household tasks assigned to him. A large portion of his time
must be given to studies, until he has a good working knowledge of the
three "Baskets,"[2] _i.e._ the Discipline, the Narratives or
Dialogues, and the Higher Religion, which make up the Buddhist canon.
In course of time he may himself become a teacher.
Let us turn again to the shrine. The great sun is going down and the
pagoda, splendid in the sunset as it changes from gold to purple and
from purple to gray, and then to silver as the glorious moon rises, is
thronged with devout worshippers. The monk prostrates himself before
the jewelled alabaster image of Buddha. He seems unaware of the people
around him, who honour him as a being of a superior order; or, if
conscious of them, it is with a sense of his own aloofness. "Sabbā
Dukkhā" (all is sorrow) he is murmuring: "Sabbā Anattā" (all is
without abiding entity). Mechanically the lay-folk repeat with him the
words which have been for twenty-five centuries the Buddhist challenge
to the world, calling it away from the lure of the senses and the ties
of family and home.
Do the people really believe it? Let us look at this group of women
before one of the many shrines on the spacious pagoda platform. Are
they intent on giving up the world or on making the most of it? Are
they persuaded that it is all sad and transient? Here kneels a young
wife offering strands of her hair, and praying that her child may have
hair as long and beautiful. Near by is an unhappy wife who prays that
her husband may become as pure as the flower which she lays at the
feet of the Buddha. Not far away is one very old and trembling woman
who, after bowing to the impassive image and lighting her little
candle before it, has turned back to pat a great old tree lest the
_nat_, or spirit, which lives within, be offended. "The spirits are
always malignant and have to be propitiated. The world-renowned one,
is he not benign?" She must not risk offending this tree-spirit, in
her desire to please the Buddha. "The Burman tries to keep both in
mind and to serve them faithfully, for both may help to make this life
pleasant; but he is most anxious concerning the demons. Whilst in
every village in the country there is at least one pagoda and
monastery, there is sure to be a spirit-shrine in every home, where
the spirits are consulted and appeased before homes are built,
marriages arranged, purchases made, or journeys undertaken." It is
these things, after all, that make up life for most of us.