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MODERN BUDDHISM. A large monastery has numerous rooms devoted to specific uses, including a library, study, reception-rooms for distinguished guests, and a place for keeping living animals, not for food, but as a work of merit. Sometimes there is a fish-pond full of fine fish which must not be caught or eaten. Special provision is made for cattle, swine, goats, fowls, etc., many being deposited by lay people in fulfilment of a vow, together with money or grain to support them until their death. The monks pro
fessedly refuse all animal food, but it is believed that some transgress. On the whole, the mass of the Chinese do not highly reverence the Buddhist monks, because they transgress the principles of filial obedience so deeply rooted among them; but they are nevertheless much employed to conduct private religious ceremonies, whether on behalf of recently deceased persons, those suffering in hells, or the sick and infirm. Frequently the succession of novices in the monasteries is kept up by the purchase of boys from their parents.
Within the monastery ranks
there are frequently ascetics BUDDHIST NUN, WITI CAP AND who for years together have ROSARI.
no intercourse with the outside world, but sit in constant silent meditation in their
cells, receiving their food through a hole in Ascetics.
0108. the door. Usually the bodies of deceased monks are burned in a special cremation-building, the ashes and unconsumed bones being afterwards collected and deposited, in an earthen vessel, in a special room or building of the monastery.
There are numerous Buddhist nunneries in China, under the especial patronage of Kwan-yin, and while many join
