TIL

The Burmese Empire
a hundred years ago

As described by Father Vincenzo Sangermano
Edited and with notes by U Kyaw Tun, M.S. (I.P.S.T., U.S.A.). Set in html by UKT and staff of TIL Computing and Language Center, Yangon, for students and staff of TIL. Not for sale.

St. Josaphat and St. John of Damascus | UKT09

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Introduction

by John Jardine in the third edition published at Westminster in 1893
UKT: I have added my own notes as UKT01, UKT02, ... . John Jardine's notes are given as JJ01, JJ02, ... .

During all the past Burma has been a land of attraction to men of adventure, a region of delight to those, like the old travellers, whose eyes sought after what is picturesque and strange. This far-off part of India (UKT01) was, indeed, even in the later centuries, hardly known to European merchants who had seen the cities under the dominion of the Great Mogul, and the castles and church towers which at Ormus, Goa, and other points along the coasts, marked the rising power of the Portuguese. To the people of India Burma had been known as the Golden Land from remote time, and it may very likely be that this old region was the Golden Chersonese of Ptolemy. Here, on the shores where the rivers Salween {than°lwin mris} and Sitang {sis-taung: mris} join the sea, a number of powerful colonies from India, planted 2000 years ago, were engaged in constant struggles with the native tribes. The ruins of Golanagar, the town of the Gaudas or people from Gour in Bengal, are still to be seen. Here, in the time of Emperor Asoka (the third century B.C.), came the Buddhist missionaries Sona and Uttara, from the Council of Patna, to preach that faith which ultimately spread among the primitive peoples surrounding the colony. Albeit the Hindu communities fell in the end under the people of the land, they contrived for a time to establish powerful kingdoms, and left a strong impress of their own religions, science, and literature on the minds of these Talaings {ta.laing} of Pegu {pè:hku:}. In that country also, as in India and Cambodia, the conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism lasted long. Although in the course of centuries

UKT01:  King Thibaw, the last king of Burma, was taken prisoner and exiled to Madras in India by the British in December, 1885. And on Jan 1,1886, Lord Dufferin, Viceroy of India, officially proclaimed Burma to be part of British Empire to be administered by officers appointed by Viceroy and Governor-General of India.
   Burma was considered to be part of India until 1935 when the Government of Burma Act was passed and a new constitution created. -- Source: Ba Maw, Breakthrough in Burma, Memoirs of a Revolution, 1939-1946, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1968. Copyright 1968 by Theda Maw Sturtvevant and William C. Sturtvevant. Library of Congress catalog card number: 67-24504. Appendices by Theda Maw. p.427.

UKT: Golden Land -- From Burma and the Third Buddhist Council by Taw Sein Ko, Superintendent, Archeological Survey, Burma, First published in Burma between 1883-1913, http://web.ukonline.co.uk/buddhism/tawsein.htm : "The Golden Khersonese denotes usually the Malay Peninsula but more specially the delta of the Irrawaddi, which forms the province of Pegu, the Suvannabhumi (Pali from Suvannabhumi) of ancient times. The Golden Region, which lies beyond the interior, is Burma, the oldest province of which, above Ava {in:wa.}, is still as Yule informs us, formally styled in State documents Sonaparanta, i.e. Golden Frontier."—McCrindle's Ancient India describcd by Ptolemy, p. 198.
   "The identity of the Khryse of Ptolemy, of the Suvarnabhumi of the Buddhist legends and of the city of Thahtun (Thaton) in Pegu, all having the same signification, appears nearly certain "— Phayre's History of Burma, page 26.
   I wonder whether the three place names, "Chersonese" (Sangermano), "Khersonese" (McCrindle) and "Khryse" (Phayre) are referring to the same place -- the Golden Land.

UKT: Council of Patna -- The Third Buddhist Synod (241 B.C.) held at Patna under the patronage of Emperor Asoka. It was at this council that the two Buddhist traditions the Theravada (Southern school) and Mahayana (Northern school) split. (Facts to be checked further)

UKT: Buddhism and Brahmanism -- These two great religions which originated in India might appear similar to each other, but they are fundamentally different. Buddhism rejects the idea of a permanent Soul or Atta whereas, Brahmanism (commonly known as Hinduism) affirms the presence of an everlasting soul. However, it must be admitted that the many Myanmar-Buddhists believe in the presence of {wi-ñin~}

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the former became the prevalent religion of Burma, gaining converts on all sides, the ancient powers of the Brahmans can be traced in the history as well as in the ruins of old cities, in the popular traditions and on the carven stones, such as those which Dr.Forchhammer saw at Thatôn, one of which reveals an early endeavour to compromise disputes, where the Dravidian immigrants from the south of India portray Vishnu in his ninth incarnation as Buddha, the Enlightened One. We have in these early facts of history apparent proof of the high antiquity of the influence of India over the various nations dwelling in Burma; whether or no the legends and traditions which describe an ancient incursion of Indians from Kapilavastu, under a royal leader of the Kshatriya caste, by the landward route through Manipur, and the founding of the dynasty at Tagaung {ta.kaung:} (possibly the Tugma metropoils of Ptolemy), are to be treated as mere fable, or, as Sir A. Phayre, following Lassen, inclines to believe, as enshrining some foundation of fact, and accounting for the early use of Sanskrit in names of places and terms of art and law.

There is now more general agreement of scholars as to the races of men whom these Indians, colonists, and missionaries encountered in Burma. Into the upper region of the Irawadi the dominant race, now called the Burmese, had descended from Central Asia, which tract their physical resemblances and affinities of language with the people of Tibet show to have been the home of their forefathers. The clans became more or less welded into tribes, as among their 'younger brothers' the Chins of to-day; and in course of time we find dynasties of kings reigning at Tagaung, Panya, Pagan, and Prome, and others ruling the remoter countries of Arakan and Toungoo. The Tibeto-Burman tribes had, however, to contend with the Tai or Shan people, which in its different branches is perhaps the most widely spread of any race in the Indo-Chinese peninsula, including as it does the Ahoms of Assam, the Laos of Zimme, and the Siamese. Face and language point to racial

UKT: Irawadi -- The principal river which not only has its sources and delta in Myanmar, is the "Irrawaddy" river {E-ra-wa.ti-mris}. The orthography has been changed to "Ayeyarwaddy".

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connections with China, and the history and tradition of these tribes tell of an earlier home ages ago in Yunnan, of a Shan kingdom in the north of Burma, with its capital at Mong Maw Long on the Sheveli river, and another Shan kingdom of Tali, which fell under the conquering hand of Kublai Khan in A.D.1253. Nearer the sea, along the coasts and in the fertile plains bordering the great rivers and creeks, were found another race, the old dwellers of Pegu {pè:hku:} and the country round Moulmain {mau-la.mraing}, who call themselves Môns {mwun}. These obtained the mastery of the delta, driving out the Taungthu {taung-thu} tribe who originally tilled its soil, and establishing themselves so firmly there as to check for some centuries the ultimate conquest by the Burmans who in contempt styled the Môns ‘Talaings’ {ta.laing:} or ‘people trodden under foot’, and proscribed their language, after Alompra {a.laung:Bu.ra:} in 1757 had taken Pegu, and the Môns had made common cause with the British in 1824. The Talaing language, which, it is said, is likely to die out, as the nation tends to merge in the Burmese, belongs to the Môn-Annam group of those languages which use tone or variety of pitch of voice, where we employ inflection to modify meaning. Captain Forbes has shown that the language of the Talaings and the Cambodians was originally one, and that before the intrusion of the Siamese the Môn-Annam monarchy dominated the deltas of the rivers Irawadi, Salween, Menam, and Mekong. There is a theory held by Sir A. Phayre and others that the Talaings and their language came from Telingana (UKT02), in the south of India. But the researches of later scholars have shown that the Môns and Cambodian tongues are connected with those of China. It is true, however, that the Talaings were in closer touch than the Burman or Shan races with the higher civilisation of India -- firstly with the Indian colonies where Brahman views prevailed, and next with Buddhist missionaries, who began their teaching there, and soon became involved in conflict with the Brahmans. During the first five or six centuries of our era,

UKT02: A comparison of Telugu, a southern Indian script, and the script used by the Mons and Burmese to write their languages -- the Myanmar script -- shows very little similarity. However, a comparison to Asoka script shows some very interesting ones. Could it be that the script used by the Mons and the Burmese derived from the Asoka script of northern India, and not from any southern Indian scripts? Or, could it be that the script used by the Mons and Burmese a sister script of the Asoka script? It should be remembered that there is an overland route from Nepal, where Buddha was born, to Myitkyina in northern Myanmar through which the Gurhkas of Nepal had been travelling to the present day (based on episodes told to UKT by U Thein Aung aka Chandra Prasad (Lecturer in Chemistry, Bassein University), a native of Sitapur, a Gurhka village on the outskirts of Myitkyina, of how some of his villagers had gone back to Nepal in the 1950s, driving their herds of cattle with them, and how his own father had travelled from Nepal to settle in Sitapur.)

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when Buddhism had spread over India, there was constant traffic (UKT03)  between the Coromandel coast and the opposite shores (UKT: the Rakhine or Arakan coast) of the Bay of Bengal; and when the persecutions began to rage in India against Buddhism the victims sailed for refuge to the ports on the Burman side.

Conquered at last, and ill-treated by the Burmese kings, the trodden-down Talaings can apply to themselves what Seneca wrote of the Jews in the Roman Empire: ‘Victoribus victi leges dederunt.’ It was to the Talaings of Thatôn that about 450 A.D. the greatest Buddhist divine, Buddhaghosa, the author of the Visuddhi Magga, or Path of Holiness, brought a complete set of the Buddhist Scriptures in the Pali language from Ceylon. It was from Thatôn that the ecclesiastic went who converted King Anoarahta of Pagan to the orthodox Buddhist faith (UKT04); it was to Thaton that the royal convert sent an embassy to procure the Scriptures, the Tripitakka; and on meeting with a refusal, and invading the Talaing country, and razing this mother-city of Burman Buddhism to the ground with all its pagodas and ancient buildings (A.D. 1057), it was thence he carried off to his own capital the thirty-two elephant-loads of the Scriptures and the 1000 monks, and gave that impetus to pure Buddhism in the Upper Valley of the Irawadi, which some writers treat as the first real planting of the faith in that region. It was a Talaing monk of Dala, opposite Rangoon, Sariputta (obiit 1246 A.D.), honoured by the King of Pagan with the title of Dhammavilasa, who compiled the first of the Manu Dharmashasters known to the Burmese literature, the Dhammavilasa promulgated in Pagan. It was the Talaing or half-Shan king of Martaban {moat-ta.ma.}, Wagaru (obiit 1306 A.D.), who caused the edition of this famous Code of Manu which bears Wagaru's name to be compiled -- the same which the Talaing jurist Buddhaghosa translated two centuries later, and which the King of Toungoo adopted in 1580. It may therefore be said that the Burman races are indebted to India for their religion, their

UKT03: the original word used by J. Jardine was "intercourse". It has been replaced with words appropriate at the present time, such as <traffic>; <establishment of relationship>.

UKT04: Orthodox Buddhist Faith -- It was Shin Arahan who went to Pagan in the 11th century. However, according to J. Jardine, it was Buddhaghosa, the author of Visuddhi Magga. This is to be checked with my peers with reference to the following:
   "CE 400. The missionary yahan Buddhaghosa from Ceylon brings the Buddhist scriptures to Pegu and reforms the religious practice" -- source: " Chronological History of Myanmar (Burma). Burma History: the real and the fabulous"  http://www.se-asia.com/reference/index.php which was based on Max and Bertha Ferrars, "BURMA" Ava House Publishers from Burma: by Max & Bertha Ferrars, "Chronology of the History of Burma, Compiled from Spearman's Gazetteer of British Burma and Phayre's History of Burma".

UKT: Dala, opposite Rangoon -- The present-day village of Dala, now incorporated into Greater Rangoon, is not really the ancient city of Dala which lies deep in the jungle known as Twanté Tawgyidan. The village of Mayan (adjacent to the town of Kungyangon where I was born in the 1930s) from which my Mon-ancestors came is on the further side of the ancient city.

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literature and their law, received chiefly through the Talaings dwelling on the coasts and estuaries, and in close communication with the Hindu colonies which Anoarahta overthrew at last. By these same channels of religion, literature, and law, came also the astronomy, astrology, computation of time, the arts of medicine and divination, and the alphabets known at the present day, all which bear the Indian sign and superscription.

Until establishment of relationship (UKT03) with the nations of Europe began in later times, these influences of India were the most powerful that affected the contending Burmans and Talaings, from whom also the foreign civilisation spread to the Shans and other tribes connected with the Chinese -- a development which still goes on so prominently as to be discussed in the Census Report of 1891. The greatest influence of all was and is the Buddhist religion, with which came into the northern valley, according to Sir A. Phayre's opinion, the simple handicrafts, spinning and weaving, and the cultivation of the cotton-plant. Before, however, dealing with the vast effects of this mighty agency, it were well to estimate the conditions, material and moral, of the peoples before its advent. We wish to know what kind of institutions the Burmans possessed before the great changes of Anoarahta's reign. To this inquiry the learned Dr. Forchhammer gives an answer which is in general agreement with the opinions of our historians, and of those officials who have studied the rules and customs of the wilder tribes now under the Queen's sceptre (UKT05). The Chins of to-day reflect the Burman as he was of old. We find them divided into many clans, according to occupation; the unity of the family is preserved by the worship of a family ghost. To this manes are made over offerings of rice, beer, pork, and buffalo-flesh in safe-keeping, to be enjoyed by the giver in the world to come. The Chin also propitiates other spirits (not manes) of evil propensities, who dwell in houses, forests, rivers, and trees. These are the real indigenous Nats or demons of

UKT05: Victoria (1819-1901): Empress Victoria of the British-Indian Empire (1876-1901), a mere queen of Great Britain and Ireland (1837-1901). Though probably forgotten by many at the present, Victoria was proclaimed "empress" in 1876 by Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister (1868 and 1874-1880). It well worthy of note that John Jardine wrote his Introduction during Victoria's reign, and like Disraeli had a great affection for his queen and a low opinion of her unfortunate subjects like the Burmese. The same could also be said of Arthur Phayre.

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the tribes, carefully to be distinguished from the ogres, fairies, and dryads, the rakshasas, devas, and brahmas introduced through Buddhism and the Tantra school of India. Among these Nats is Maung Zein (UKT06), who in an image-house in old Pagan, is made to kneel before Gaudama Buddha. The Burmans affirm that this Zein was one of their chief Nats before they became Buddhists; and, as Forchhammer observes, it is an admirable act of religious policy on the part of the Burmans that, after adopting Buddhism, and probably moved by a lingering fear of his power, they began to stultify it by changing him into a devoted pupil and adorer of Gaudama. By a converse process the seven evil spirits appear in a Buddhist law-book as seven kinds of witches and wizards. Like beliefs are found among the wilder Karens and Shans; and among the Kachin tribes whose rites are described by Mr. George in the Census Report of 1891. These frontier people, he says, worship Nats or spirits, of whom the numbers are endless, for any one may become a Nat after his death. This general worship of the powers of nature was widely common all over Central Asia until the Buddhist religion spread there, as is testified by that learned Orientalist, Rehatsek, in his Essay on Christianity among the Mongols.

'The powers of nature had from the most ancient times been personified among Asiatic nations, and, according to them, not only the earth and its bowels, but also the sky, is full of spirits, who exert either a beneficent of maleficent influence on mankind; accordingly, it is no wonder that this belief was current not only among the Mongols, but also the Zoroastrians and Hindus. Every country, mountain, river, brook, tree or any other object of nature was by the Mongols believed to have a spirit for its tenant; not only violent natural phenomena, such as thunder, earthquakes, hurricanes, and inundations, but also bad crops, epidemics, all kinds of other diseases and evils, such as sudden attacks of epilepsy,

UKT06: Maung Zein -- Probably Min-maha-giri Nat who was believed to have been Maung Tint Dè, a black-smith of Tagaung. His extraordinary strength earned him the jealousy of the king of Tagaung who executed him by burning him alive in a smith's oven. The Zagar tree to which he was tied during execution was floated down the Irrawaddy river. When it reached Pagan, the tree with the spirit of the black-smith was recovered by the king of Pagan and the spirit was made the guardian of the homes of his subjects.
   I am citing this story to show how such an unfortunate event could be made a cause célèbre by a far-sighted king, who had used such a story for the national interest. It is unfortunate that later historians cited such stories to discredit a people whom they are looking down. See also Burma: Nats and the State in Nat in My Classroom! by M. J. Gilbert, Department of History and Sociology, North Georgia College and State University, Dahlonega, Georgia.

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lunacy, etc., were ascribed to the wrath of these gods, who are divided into many classes, greatly differing in power and effect.' --Journal of the R. A. Society, Bombay branch, vol. xiii. pp.152, 181

This Shamanism appears not to differ much from Taoism, the belief of the great majority of the Chinese, on which Confucianism and Buddhism have been grafted. Rehatsek adds that although the spread of Buddhism and Islam has greatly curtailed this extensive faith in demons, it has by no means entirely disappeared from among the Mongols and Tibetans, with whom it still prevails in the midst of Buddhist tenets and ceremonies, nor have its traces entirely vanished from the wandering Mussalman tribes. According to Mr. Leland, similar beliefs survive among some of the ignorant classes in Italy, pagans in two senses of the word -- those who delightedly believe in fays and talismans and spirits, and call this creed of theirs the vecchia religione, in spite of the Catholic Church and all the Christian centuries. Bishop Bigandet tells us that although Buddhism has a hold over the imagination and sentiments of the better educated, the Burmans all publicly and privately indulge in the worship of the Nats. Almost every city has its own patron spirit; and each household is under the guardian care of the family Nat. If calamity overtakes a Burman, he considers it to be the work of unfriendly Nats; and when he wishes to begin any important undertaking, he propitiates these direct representatives of the old animistic worship, the present cult of the Karens, Chins, and other wilder tribes. Still, we read in the Census Report of 1891 that Nat-worship is a decaying and despised religion, and that both Buddhism and Christianity have increased at its expense. Without giving up their aboriginal rites, the tendency of the unconverted races (UKT07) is to pass into Buddhism. The Chins, for instance, are not Buddhists, yet when living among Burmans they join in the Buddhist festivals, in the building of monasteries, and in the support of monks; they also prefer to secure

UKT07: The term "unconverted races" means those indigenous people of Myanmar who were not Christians.

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by a visit to the great Shway Dagon Pagoda at Rangoon the blessings of the Tavatimsa Heaven. The census returns show a Buddhist population of 6,888,075 persons; the proportion being 9056 out of every 10,000; that of the Nat-worshippers being only 221. The Net-worship is contrary to the principles of Buddhism; and although in Central Asia the Buddhist priests have organised the various kinds of spirits according to Hindu views, and act as exorcisers, magicians, and astrologers, in Burma the occult sciences are relegated to the Brahmans, Burma being the only Buddhist country in which the religious order is prohibited from such studies and arts. Gaudama of old classed them with palmistry, fortune-telling, oracles, and charms, as lying practices, and censured those who gain their living by such means, whom, it may be remarked, the law of England treats as rogues and vagabonds. It will, perhaps, be objected by the reader that in Christendom, even so late as the time of Burns, of Walter Scott, and the Ettrick Shepherd, the ancient beliefs in malicious or capricious ghosts and demons, and in the spells and charms of witches, lingered in the land, -- survivals of opinions which had once ruled the masculine intellects of such eminent Christians as Chief-Justice Hale, Sir Thomas Browne, and John Wesley. Yet it is beyond the reach of doubt that the dogmas, sacraments, and morals of the Christian religion had a constant, penetrating, and weighty force; and it is to be noticed that writers on Burma impute many effects on character, customs, and law to Buddhism. Mr Eales in his Census Report does indeed conclude that "the Buddhism of Burma at the present day is but a thin veneer of philosophy laid over the main structure of Shamanistic belief". On the other hand, Major Temple says with greater caution: "the Buddhism of Burma, as understood by the laity, may as be well compared to the Christianity of the Russian moujik. In both of these countries the imported civilized religion has not yet succeeded in completely ousting the uncivilized Shamanism that preceded it." The fact appears

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to be that the influences of the good and bad Nats are confined to the passing events of life, to good luck and calamity; the conduct of life, the moral sentiments, and the theology of the people are dominated, not by the old superstitions, but by the religion of Gaudama. It seems generally admitted that Buddhism in Burma has been a civilising institution; and, as Forchhammer tells us, the Burmans have in past centuries been zealous Buddhists; their ways of life, their social and private institutions, are thoroughly Buddhistic, and they would resent the idea of having still the tatters of their former savage condition clinging to them. But I have been unable to find any full estimate of the changes wrought by Buddhism or a summing-up of its elevating results. This desideratum is analogous to the absence of anything like a full account in the histories of India of the effect of Buddhism on laws and social life: scholars have been more fascinated by the theology and the ecclesiastical polity. Bigandet remarks that Gaudama paid little attention to the dogmatical portion of religion, but laid the greatest stress on morals; and there is abundant proof that the great ethical commands of the Buddhist system, as well as the formulas and creeds, have become familiar to the Burmans and Talaings, and more or less to the wilder tribes. The incessant teaching of the five binding precepts, not to kill, nor steal, nor tell a lie, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor commit adultery, must have had wide effect. The children of Burma are taught in the monasteries to read religious books, and the habit is kept up on holy days, and when they bewail the death of friends. 'They, without being aware of it, imbibe religious notions and become acquainted with some parts of the religious creed, particularly with what relates to Gaudama's preceding and last existence.' I quote my venerable friend Bishop Bigandet; and as to the persuasion towards virtue contained in the Life of Gaudama, whoever desires to know more should read his translation of the Burmese Legend, which, as Dr. Rhys Davids states,

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adheres very closely to the orthodox books of the Southern Church, introduced into Burma from Ceylon in the fifth century of our era (JJ01). The learned Prelate's notes and essays are on all hands treated as authority about Burmese Buddhism, combining, as they do, long experience of men and things with sagacious and judicial reflections. He describes the sermon preached by Gaudama to a Nat (UKT08), the specimen given by Sangermano, as a fair sample of similar performances; and this sermon is a compendium of almost all the moral virtues. Buddhism he calls 'a moral and practical system, making man acquainted with the duties he has to perform in order to shun vice and practise virtue.' Again, 'It will not be deemed rash to assert that most of the moral truths prescribed by the Gospel are to be met with in the Buddhist Scriptures.' The wonder therefore disappears that the Legend of Buddha should have been adapted into a Christian form by St. John of Damascus (UKT09), and the saintly hero canonised by the pope of Rome as St. Josaphat, to whom, according to Colonel Yule, a church at Palermo is dedicated. Monier-Williams believes the Buddhists to have been the first to introduce total abstinence from strong drinks into India. Rehatsek, after ascribing the civilisation of the Mongols to their conversion from Shamanism to Buddhism, writes: 'It is almost incomprehensible how the savage Mongols, who were accustomed to massacre whole populations in order to secure their rear from enemies, zealously submitted to a religion inculcating gentleness and kindness to all created beings, and how a nation that loved to raze cities to the ground, and to convert cultivated plains into deserts to obtain pastures, should have eagerly built temples, established convents, introduced useful institutions, and practised religious duties.' The

JJ01: To those who believe; with Tennyson, that the poets see 'through life and death, through good and ill,' I would commend Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia. No prose descriptions of the varied landscapes of Burma, with which I am acquainted, approach Mrs. Hemans's verses in "The Better Land.' All the scenes she imagines are beheld in Burma.

UKT08: Most probably the Mangala Sutta.

UKT09: St. John of Damascus was one of the very learned Christian scholars. Living among the Muslims, he must have a thorough knowledge of the Koran and the life of Prophet Mohamed. It is also evident that he knew something of Buddhism and of the life of the Buddha. It is noteworthy that a man of such knowledge should have a very high opinion of a non-Christian religion, which eventually lead to the beatification of the Buddha as St. Josaphat.

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tendency of the religion must have been the same among other savage tribes. Buddhism also supplies the mind with ideas of vastness and solemnity, not without elevating effect. The Burman woman, with her rosary in hand, may be heard any day repeating the formula about Vanity of Vanities -- the words 'Change, Pain, Illusion.' (UKT10) The other sentence of the three gems, wherein the weary soul takes refuge, is equally familiar: 'Buddha, the Law, and the Communion of Saints'. (UKT11)  We are told by Bigandet that the fervour and love with which Buddhists speak of the Law must be witnessed to be realised: in conversation regarding their faith they are sometimes moved to tears. This law, discovered by Buddha, governs the whole universe physical and moral, in heaven above and the earth beneath, through the operation of cause and effect. The dewdrop is formed, and the heart is tranquillised, and the practice of virtue is rewarded by means of causes that are alike in the manner of their operation. One must suppose that several generations passed away to their long home before the worshippers of ghosts and demons and tribal gods, people addicted to blood-feuds, and as ignorant of letters as the wilder Karens and Chins and Kachins of to-day, accepted a gigantic philosophical theory like this of Dharma.

Turning aside from the tendencies to what is known of the practical results of Buddhism in Burma, we find two of great importance -- a general diffusion of education through the teaching of the monks, and the elevation of the character and position of women. The genius of the religion disregards caste, allows no difference between man and man except what is proved by superiority in virtue, and insists on imparting knowledge to all. The Census Report of 1891, which is the latest official document I have come across, speaks of the exertions of the monks in matters of education in those terms of praise with which we have long been familiar; they seem willing, even in the newly conquered province, to combine the new with the old, to attempt a reconciliation between

UKT10: 'Change, Pain, Illusion.' is to be translated as: anicca , dukkha , anatta . If a Buddhist were to read Ecclesiates in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible, he or she would immediately see how similar the ideas in this "book" were to the Buddhistic ideas.

UKT11: The Three Gems are Buddha, Dhamma (the Teachings of Buddha), and Sangha (the order of monks responsible for dissemination of the Teachings of Buddha.). The reader should note that the Sanskrit word dharma in Hindu religion is different from the Buddhistic dhamma. The two religions are exactly opposite on the fundamental question of the "Soul". Hinduism is based on the presence, the permanence and the indestructibility of a personal soul or atta, whereas Buddhism is based on the non-presence or anatta. Buddhism treats atta as just an idea -- an assumption -- which together with all other ideas and assumptions, is to be get rid off for the attainment of real freedom or {wi.moat~ti.} or Nirvana.