Since ordination is for Buddhists merely self-dedication to a higher life and does not confer any sacramental or sacerdotal powers, the importance assigned to it may seem strange. But the idea goes back to the oldest records in the Vinaya and has its root in the privileges accorded to the order. A Bhikkhu had a right to expect much from the laity, but he also had to prove his worth and Gotama's early legislation was largely concerned with excluding unsuitable candidates. The solicitude for valid ordination was only the ecclesiastical form of the popular feeling that the honours and immunities of the order were conditional on its maintaining a certain standard of conduct. Other methods of reform might have been devised, but the old injunction that a monk could be admitted only by other duly ordained monks was fairly efficacious and could not be disputed. But the curious result is that though Ceylon was in early times the second home of Buddhism, almost all (if indeed not all) the monks found there now derive their right to the title of Bhikkhu from foreign countries. The Sinhalese Sangha is generally described as divided into four schools, those of Siam, Kelani, Amarapura and Ramanya, of which the first two are practically identical, Kelani being simply a separate province of the Siamese school, which otherwise has its headquarters in the inland districts. This school, founded as mentioned above by priests who arrived in 1750, comprises about half of the whole Sangha and has some pretensions to represent the hierarchy of Ceylon, since the last kings of Kandy gave to the heads of the two great monasteries in the capital, Asgiri and Malwatte, jurisdiction over the north and south of the island respectively. It differs in some particulars from the Amarapura school. It only admits members of the highest caste and prescribes that monks are to wear the upper robe over one shoulder only, whereas the Amarapurans admit members of the first three castes (but not those lower in the social scale) and require both shoulders to be covered. There are other minor differences among which it is interesting to note that the Siamese school object to the use of the formula "I dedicate this gift to the Buddha" which is used in the other schools when anything is presented to the order for the use of the monks. It is held that this expression was correct in the lifetime of the Buddha but not after his death. The two schools are not mutually hostile, and members of each find a hospitable reception in the monasteries of the other. The laity patronize both indifferently and both frequent the same places of pilgrimage, though all of these and the majority of the temple lands belong to the sect of Siam. It is wealthy, aristocratic and has inherited the ancient traditions of Ceylon, whereas the Amarapurans are more active and inclined to propaganda. It is said they are the chief allies of the Theosophists and European Buddhists. The