Buddhism -- Burma; Burma -- Religion; Burma -- Social life and customs
The Buddha stands alone. Of Maya his mother, of Yathodaya his wife, of
Rahoula his son, of his great disciple Thariputra, of his dearest
disciple and brother Ananda, you see nothing. There are no saints in
Buddhism at all, only the great teacher, he who saw the light. Surely
this is a curious thing, that from the time of the prince to now, two
thousand four hundred years, no one has arisen to be worthy of mention
of record beside him. There is only one man holy to Buddhism--Gaudama
the Buddha.
On one side of the monasteries there will be many pagodas, tombs of the
Buddha. They are usually solid cones, topped with a gilded 'tee,' and
there are many of them. Each man will build one in his lifetime if he
can. They are always white or gold.
So there is much colour about a monastery--the brown of the wood and the
white of the pagoda, and tender green of the trees. The ground is always
kept clean-swept and beaten and neat. And there is plenty of sound,
too--the fairy music of little bells upon the pagoda-tops when the
breeze moves, the cooing of the pigeons in the eaves, the voices of the
schoolboys. Monastery land is sacred. No life may be taken there, no
loud sounds, no noisy merriment, no abuse is permitted anywhere within
the fence. Monasteries are places of meditation and peace.
Of course, all monasteries are not great and beautiful buildings; many
are but huts of bamboo and straw, but little better than the villager's
hut. Some villages are so poor that they can afford but little for their
holy men. But always there will be trees, always the ground will be
swept, always the place will be respected just the same. And as soon as
a good crop gives the village a little money, it will build a teak
monastery, be sure of that.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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