DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45392#0220
Buddha the Gospel of Buddhism
Hall, in modern Burma “the supervision exercised by
the people over their monks is most stringent. As
long as the monks act as monks should, they are held in
great honour, they are addressed by titles of great respect,
they are supplied with all they want within the rules of
the Wini (Vinaya), they are the glory of the village. . . .
Directly he breaks his laws, his holiness is gone. The
villagers will have none such as he. They will hunt him
out of the village, they will refuse him food, they will
make him a byword, a scorn.”
The monastery is also in many cases the village school;1
and in Burma it is the custom for almost every young
man to take the monastic vows for a short time, and to
reside for that period within the monastery walls. This
possibility of using the Order as a ‘ Retreat ’ also explains
how it was possible for Asoka to assume the monastic
robes without finally relinquishing his throne.
It is above all important to realize that the Buddhist
Brother, Monk, Religious mendicant (Bhikkhu, the word
in most general use), Wanderer, or however we speak of
him, is not a priest. He does not belong to an apostolic
succession, nor has he any power to save or condemn, to
forgive sins or to administer sacraments; he has no other
1 “All monasteries are schools.”—Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People.
Of course, teaching is not an essential duty of the Brother, but a task
voluntarily undertaken. Similar conditions prevailed, until recently,
in Ceylon: " Besides the relation- in which the priests stand to
their tenants as landlords, and the religious influence of their possession,
they have other holds on the possession of the people. Their pansalas
(monasteries) are the schools for village children, and the sons of even
the superior headmen are very generally educated at them. They have
also frequently some knowledge of medicine, and when this is the case
they generally give the benefit of their advice gratuitously . . . their
influence among the people is, in a social point of view, usefully
employed.”—Ceylon, Service Tenures Commission Report, 1872.
154
Hall, in modern Burma “the supervision exercised by
the people over their monks is most stringent. As
long as the monks act as monks should, they are held in
great honour, they are addressed by titles of great respect,
they are supplied with all they want within the rules of
the Wini (Vinaya), they are the glory of the village. . . .
Directly he breaks his laws, his holiness is gone. The
villagers will have none such as he. They will hunt him
out of the village, they will refuse him food, they will
make him a byword, a scorn.”
The monastery is also in many cases the village school;1
and in Burma it is the custom for almost every young
man to take the monastic vows for a short time, and to
reside for that period within the monastery walls. This
possibility of using the Order as a ‘ Retreat ’ also explains
how it was possible for Asoka to assume the monastic
robes without finally relinquishing his throne.
It is above all important to realize that the Buddhist
Brother, Monk, Religious mendicant (Bhikkhu, the word
in most general use), Wanderer, or however we speak of
him, is not a priest. He does not belong to an apostolic
succession, nor has he any power to save or condemn, to
forgive sins or to administer sacraments; he has no other
1 “All monasteries are schools.”—Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People.
Of course, teaching is not an essential duty of the Brother, but a task
voluntarily undertaken. Similar conditions prevailed, until recently,
in Ceylon: " Besides the relation- in which the priests stand to
their tenants as landlords, and the religious influence of their possession,
they have other holds on the possession of the people. Their pansalas
(monasteries) are the schools for village children, and the sons of even
the superior headmen are very generally educated at them. They have
also frequently some knowledge of medicine, and when this is the case
they generally give the benefit of their advice gratuitously . . . their
influence among the people is, in a social point of view, usefully
employed.”—Ceylon, Service Tenures Commission Report, 1872.
154