The number of such monks is said to be about 8,000, and their chief duties are supposed to be to meditate a great deal, to perform Baṇa, that is, to recite the Tri-piṭaka with its commentary the Aṭṭha-kathā in a sing-song voice, to repeat constantly the three-refuge formula (p. 78)[119], to teach and to preach, to fast and to make confession to each other on at least four days in every month, at the four changes of the moon called Uposatha (or commonly Poya) days (see p. 84); these days being generally in modern times made to coincide with the Christian Sunday. True Buddhism does not require monks to perform public religious services in temples. Nor is it the daily practice of monks to set the people an example of worshipping and presenting offerings there. So far as I was able to observe, the duty of visiting temples belongs rather to the laity. The monks receive offerings, rather than present them. As to their dress, it resembles that represented in the Buddha’s images, and ought to consist of three pieces of cloth stained yellow or of a dull yellowish colour. The principal garment is in one piece, but torn and sewn together again, the object being to reduce its value and assimilate it to a dress made of rags. The end of the dress is brought over the left shoulder, and generally so as to leave the right shoulder bare. In some cases both shoulders are covered, or the right partially so. A good deal of care seems to be taken in Ceylon to instruct the youthful members of the Order in Pāli; that is, in the language of their sacred books (p. 60), and to make them conversant with the sacred texts. I visited two principal colleges for monks at Kandy, which enjoy a reputation rather like that of Oxford and Cambridge in our own country. One is called Mālwatte, and the other Āsgīrīya. In the former I noticed a large central hall, in which the ceremony of admission to the monkhood takes place. At Colombo there has been recently a revival of learning, and a modern Oriental College (called Vidyodaya), for the cultivation of Sanskṛit, Pāli, and Sinhalese, has been established under the superintendence of the learned Sumaṅgala, ‘the High Priest of Adam’s Peak,’ mentioned before.