________________
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
*
not that they forfeit it by any conduct inconsistent with their profession, for, although there may be occasional exceptions, they seem in general to lead inoffensive, if useless, lives. In Ceylon, according to Sir Emerson Tennent, the people pay more respect to the garb than to the wearer, and take every opportunity of making it known that the yellow robe, and not the individual, is the object of their veneration. According to Mr. Hardy, the whole number of priests in Ceylon, although many of the communities possess extensive landed estates, the gifts of the piety of former princes, does not exceed 2,500, dispersed in monasteries, the largest of which has seldom more than twenty resident members. In Fa Hian's time there were, according to him, from 50,000 to 60,000 priests in Ceylon, and in one of the monasteries at Anuradhapura, there were 5,000. Mr. Hardy adds: "in no part of the island that I have visited, do the priests as a body appear to be respected by the people: although occasionally an individual may recommend himself by agreeable manners:" they are sometimes treated unceremoniously; and he mentions an instance in which a priest was driven out of a village by the women armed with their brooms, and threatening him with personal castigation. In the Burma country the priests are more numerous, but there also they are said to have but little influence over the minds of the people, who sometimes say, not without some reason in excuse of impropriety of conduct, that the precepts of
[Eastern Monachism, p. 309.]
369
24
