CHAP. IV.] THE EARLY BUDDHIST MONUMENTS. 



351 



preserved intact the institution of caste, which they had 

 brought with them from the valley of the Ganges ; and, 

 although caste was not abolished by the teachers of Bud- 

 dhism, who retained and respected it as a social institution, 

 it was practically annulled and absorbed in the religious 

 character ; all who embraced the ascetic life being si- 

 multaneously absolved from all conventional disabilities, 

 and received as members of the sacred community with 

 all its exalted prerogatives. 1 



Along with food, clothing consisting of three garments 

 to complete the sacerdotal robes, as enjoined by the 

 Buddhist ritual 2 , was distributed at certain seasons ; and 

 in later times a practice obtained of providing robes for 

 the priests by " causing the cotton to be picked from 

 the tree at sunrise, cleaned, spun, woven, dyed yeUow, 

 and made into garments and presented before sunset." 3 

 The condition of the priesthood was thus reduced to a 

 state of absolute dependency on alms, and at the earliest 

 period of their history the vow of poverty, by which 

 their order is bound, would seem to have been righteously 

 observed. 



B.C. 



289. 



1 Professor WILSON, Journ. Roy. 

 Asiat. Soc. vol. xvi. p. 249. 



2 To avoid the vanity of dress or 

 the temptation to acquire property, 

 no Buddhist priest is allowed to have 

 more than one set of robes, consist- 

 ing of three pieces, and if an extra 

 one be bestowed on him it must be 

 surrendered to the chapter of his 

 wihara within ten days. The dimen- 

 sions must not exceed a specified 

 length, and when obtained new the 

 cloth must be disfigured with mud or 

 otherwise before he puts it on. A 

 magnificent robe having been given 

 to Gotama, his attendant Ananda, in 

 order to destroy its intrinsic value, 

 cut it into thirty pieces and sewed 

 them together in four divisions, so 

 that the robe resembled the patches 

 of a rice-field divided by embank- 

 ments. And in conformity with this 

 precedent the robes of every priest 

 are similarly dissected and reunited. 

 HARDY'S Eastern Monachism, c. 

 xii. p. 117 : Rnjaratnacari, ch. ii. 



no. pp. w. 



3 Rajaratnacari, pp. 104, 109, 112. 

 The custom which is still observed 

 in Ceylon, of weaving robes between 

 sunrise and sunset is called Catina 

 dhwana (Rajavali, p. 261). The work 

 is performed chieny by women, and 

 the practice is identical with that 

 mentioned by Herodotus, as observed 

 by the priests of Egypt, who cele- 

 brated a festival in honour of the 

 return of Rhampsinitus, after playing 

 at dice with Ceres in Hades, by in- 

 vesting one of their body with a cloak 

 made in a single day, <pap avr^t^v 

 iZwfiiivavTie, Euterpe, cxxii. GRAY, 

 in his ode of The Fatal Sisters, has 

 embodied the Scandinavian myth in 

 which the twelve weird sisters, the 

 Valkirinr, weave "the crimson web 

 of war " between the rising and set- 

 ting of the sun. Amongst the Budd- 

 hists in Burmah the same practice 

 prevails, and there the weaving of the 

 robe is called matho thengan. See 

 BRIGGS' Heathen and Holy Lands, p. 

 92 : see also post, p. 452. 



