The recitation of the Pirit continues uninterruptedly, day and night, for seven days. Twenty-four priests are employed, two of whom are constantly seated on the platform and engaged in reciting. Moreover three times in each day—at sunrise, mid-day, and sunset—they all assemble together and chant in chorus. Of course, when the recitation of the Suttas constituting the Pirit is concluded, it is recommenced, and in this way all the Suttas are recited again and again. On the morning of the seventh day a messenger is sent to a neighbouring temple to invite the attendance of the gods. Then by a stretch of the imagination certain of the gods and spirits are believed to answer the summons, and on their supposed arrival, the protective Suttas are chanted more energetically than ever till the morning of the eighth day, when a benediction concludes the ceremony, and offerings of robes are made to the priest-reciters. We now pass on to Tibet and Mongolia. The ceremonies of admission to the monkhood in those countries do not deviate sufficiently from the practices just described to require special notice. With regard, however, to the dress of Lāmistic monks after their admission to the Order, the ancient rule, as we have seen, obliged them to wear only three garments of a dirty yellowish colour, made out of rags, or picked up in cemeteries or on dust heaps. But the necessities of a colder climate have compelled the Lāmas to increase their official vestments, and the higher Lāmas sometimes wear bright silken robes enriched with ornament. The law is sufficiently obeyed by putting a patch or two at one corner. A full equipment is supposed to consist of an under vestment, a sort of tunic worn over it, a mantle, a kind of scarf worn over the left shoulder, a loose robe brought round over the same shoulder, and a cap[142]. The right shoulder is rarely bare, as it generally is in Southern Buddhist countries. The colour of these six articles of clothing, especially of the cap, is yellow or red, according to the sect to which a monk belongs. The cap is an important mark of sectarian difference, and is of various forms, and when it has five points, has been compared to a bishop’s mitre, but the five points really denote the five Dhyāni-Buddhas and their Bodhi-sattvas.