The Sangha from the first was an order of Cœnobites, not Solitaries, and it was an exception for a mendicant to be alone; for with his practical insight Buddha seems to have discovered that the life of solitude has more disadvantages and dangers than that of fellowship. So he ordained that the newly admitted monk must attach himself for five years to a tutor and teacher,[284] one of whom must have been ten years in the Order, rendering to them such personal offices as Elisha rendered to Elijah, and receiving such parental instruction as St. Paul bestowed upon his son in the faith. No vow of obedience, so essential to the monastic rule of Christendom, unless in regard to the laws of the Order, was exacted. No man could be called Rabbi among them, for the knowledge which brought deliverance could be and must be acquired by each man for himself.[285] A monk was expected to reverence his superior in age and knowledge, but his obedience was to be rendered not to his brother, who was simply his equal in respect of need and capability of deliverance, but only to _The Law_ which alone could secure it. While obedience to a superior was not exacted, the law of poverty and chastity was as obligatory upon the Buddhist monk as on the members of the Christian Orders. Francis of Assisi could not more highly have eulogised poverty as “the way to salvation, the nurse of humility, the root of perfection,” than did the Indian monks who compiled the Buddhist scriptures. “In supreme felicity live we, though we call nothing our own. Feeding on happiness, we are like the gods in the regions of light.”[286] Food a monk could receive, but not ask for, and of what he so received he could only have one meal a day. Gold or silver he could on no account accept, though he might accept its equivalents in food or medicine. If like Achan’s wedge it was found to have been secreted by any covetous member, one of the brethren had to hide it away in the jungle, in a place which could not again be recognised. Bitter controversies regarding this prohibition seem to have exercised the primitive Sanghas, and though it was successfully maintained for long, concessions in relation to it were eventually agreed upon. These however proved as fatal to the prosperity of the Buddhist, as similar concessions proved to that of the Western monastic establishments. They were seeds of evil which speedily grew up into thickets of trouble. The individual member professed to observe the original law and maintain the principle that “a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of his goods,” but the several fraternities came speedily to abound in lands and property of every kind, so that in the East as in the West it may be said the monasteries fell, because crushed with their weight of wealth.