Rest Days; A Sociological Study 79 



moon, on the day when there is no moon, and on the two days 

 which are eighth from the full and new moon. On these days 

 selling and buying, work and business, hunting and fishing, are 

 forbidden, and all schools and law-courts are closed. The upo- 

 satha has always been a fast-day from sunrise to sunset; hence, 

 as no cooking is allowed to taint its sanctity, the Buddhist pre- 

 pares his evening meal in the early morning before the sun 

 appears.'^ 



Although Buddhism died out in India, its ancient home, Bud- 

 dhist missionaries from Ceylon carried the new faith to Burma 

 in the fifth century A. D., whence it afterwards penetrated to 

 Siam. In both these lands the iiposatha is still observed. Ac- 

 cording to an old traveller, the " eighth day of the increasing moon, 

 the fifteenth or full moon, the eighth of the decreasing moon, and 

 the last day of the moon, are religiously observed by Birmans as 

 sacred festivals. On these hebdominal {sic) holidays no public 

 business is transacted in the Rhoom : mercantile dealings are sus- 

 pended; handicraft is forbidden; and the strictly pious take no 

 sustenance between the rising and the setting of the sun ; but the 

 latter instance of self-denial is not very common, and, as I under- 

 stood, is rarely practiced, except in the metropolis, where the 

 appearance of sanctity is sometimes assumed as a ladder by which 

 the crafty attempt to climb to promotion. "'^^ The Siamese sab- 

 bath was also an institution introduced by Buddhist missionaries. 

 " Their Sunday, which they call varnpra, is always on the fourth 

 day of the moon ; in each month they have two grand ones, at the 



" H. Kern, Der Biiddhismus, Leipzig, 1884, ii. 258 ; R. C. Childers, 

 Dictionary of the Pali Language, London, 1875, p. 535. In Ceylon, the 

 dark day of new moon is pay a (supra) ; full moon, paholawaka ; and the 

 eighth day after new and full moon, atazvaka (R. S. Hardy, Manual of 

 Budhism," London, 1880, pp. 22, 50, 52). 



'" M. Syme, " Embassy to Ava," London, 1800, in Pinkerton's Voyages 

 and Travels, ix. 507 sq. These " duty days " have been sympathetically 

 described by a recent authority who notes that the second and fourth days, 

 that is, those of full moon and new moon, are the more sacred. The 

 passage of the holy day into the holiday is well illustrated by these Bur- 

 mese sabbaths. See Shway Yoe [Sir J. G. Scott], The Burman: his Life 

 and Notions^ London, 1910, pp. 217 sqq. 



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