Great Indian Religion

SR No.: 007305
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: G T Bettany
Publisher: Ward Lock Bowden and Co
Publication Year: 1892
Total Pages: 312
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 42 MB

Page 213

SIAMESE TEMPLES.
open teak building called a "monastery for the dead," hung with gift-paintings of all kinds of subjects and various other gifts, and is visited by streams of pilgrims, who say their religious sentences, make offerings of flowers and fruit, and give contributions towards the final ceremony. This is the erection and burning of the funeral pyre: an elaborately decorated seven-roofed building, with a spire rising to seventy feet, is erected in a space cleared of jungle; the funeral car, previous to the coffin being placed upon it, is the subject of a prolonged “tug of war," the victory of those who are privileged to drag the car bringing abundant merit to them and being highly prized. The coffin is at last dragged to the pyre and lifted to its platform, beneath which an abundant supply of combustibles is heaped. Finally the whole is lighted by rockets fired from a distance. The bones of the deceased are gathered up and buried near the pagoda. Unlike other Buddhist countries, a shrine or pagoda is not erected over the dead in Burmah.
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SIAMESE BUDDHISM.
After this account of Burmese Buddhism it will not be necessary to say much of its Siamese form, which is very similar. The Siamese monks, though their monasteries are sometimes elaborate buildings, only remain in them during the rainy season. The sacred footprint of Buddha, five feet long by two broad, known as the Phra Bat, is greatly venerated, and has a shrine erected over it, at which valuable gifts are offered. There is no real likeness to a foot, and the cavity has scarcely any markings on it; but it is venerated as a genuine relic. There are plenty of markings on the supposed genuine copies of it, divided into 108 compartments, with figures having an elaborate symbolic relationship to Buddhism. On the whole, it may be said that Buddhism is more strictly observed in Siam than in Burmah.
The great temple, "Wat Poh," in Bangkok, contains an enormous gilt figure of the dying Buddha, about 160 feet long, constructed of bricks, temples. lacquered and heavily gilt. The huge foot-soles are in
Siamese