Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons. Arabella M. Willson
the natural, if not necessary consequences of a system which leaves the people entirely at the mercy of those who bear rule over them.
The religion is Buddhism, one of the most ancient and wide-spread superstitions existing on the face of the earth. Its sacred Divinity, or Buddh, is Gaudama, who has passed into a state of eternal and unconscious repose, which they consider the summit of felicity; but which seems to us to differ little from annihilation. Images of this god are the chief objects of worship. These are found in every house, and are enshrined in pagodas and temples, and in sacred caves which appear to have been used from time immemorial for religious purposes. The wealth and labor bestowed on the latter show how great the population must have been in former ages. Dr. Malcom describes one cave on the Salwen, which is wholly filled with images of every size, while the whole face of the mountain for ninety feet above the cave is incrusted with them. "On every jutting crag stands some marble image covered with gold, and spreading its uncouth proportions to the setting sun. Every recess is converted into shrines for others. But imposing as is this spectacle, it shrinks into insignificance compared with the scene presented on entering the cavern itself. It is of vast size, and needs no human art to render it sublime. The eye is confused and the heart appalled at the prodigious exhibition of infatuation and folly. Everywhere—on the floor, over head and on every jutting point, are crowded together images of Gaudama—the offerings of successive ages. A ship of five hundred tons could not carry away the half of them."
Pagodas are innumerable. In the inhabited parts there is scarcely a peak, bank, or swelling hill, uncrowned by one of these structures. In general, they are almost solid, without door or window, and contain some supposed relic of Gaudama.
The religious system of the Burmans contains many excellent moral precepts and maxims, which, however being without sanction or example, are utterly powerless to mould the character of the people to wisdom or virtue.
A curious feature of Buddhism is, that one of the highest motives it presents to its followers is the "obtaining of merit." Merit is obtained by avoiding sins, such as theft, lying, intoxication, and the like; and by practising virtues and doing good works. The most meritorious of all good works is to make an idol; the next to build a pagoda. It confers high merit, also, to build a zayat, to transcribe the sacred books, to erect any useful public edifice, to dig public wells, or to plant shade or fruit-trees by the wayside. If they give alms, or treat animals kindly, or repeat prayers, or do any other good deed, they do it entirely with this mercenary view of obtaining merit. This "merit" is not so much to procure them happiness in another world, as to secure them from suffering in their future transmigrations in this; for they believe that the soul of one who dies without having laid up any merit, will have to pass into the body of some mean reptile or insect, and from that to another, through hundreds of changes, perhaps, before it will be allowed again to take the form of man.
This reliance on 'merit,' and certainty of obtaining it through prescribed methods, fosters their conceit, so that ignorant and debased as they are, "there is scarcely a nation more offensively proud." It also renders them entirely incapable of doing or appreciating a disinterested action, or of feeling such a sentiment as gratitude. If you do them a favor, they suppose you do it to obtain merit for yourself, and of course feel no obligation to you; the simple phrase, "I thank you," is unknown in their language.
Like the ancient Romans, the Burmans believe in dreams, omens, and unlucky days; observe the flight and feeding of fowls, the howl of dogs, and the aspect of the stars; they regard the lines in the hand, the knots in trees, and a thousand other fortuitous circumstances, and by these allow their actions to be governed.
The priesthood in Burmah is arranged into a regular hierarchy. The highest functionary is a kind of archbishop, who presides over all the other priests in the empire, and appoints the presidents of the monasteries. He resides at the imperial court, where he has a high rank, and is considered one of the greatest men in the kingdom. Below him are various ranks of priests, each having his appointed sphere and appropriate duties, and all supported by the so-called voluntary contributions of the people. The number of priests is exceedingly great, and their sway over the minds of the people almost unlimited.
"But great and potent as the priests of Buddh are," says a writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review, "there is a kind of sacred personage still greater than the highest of them, and next in rank to the sovereign; this is no other than that diseased animal, the White Elephant, far more highly venerated here than in Siam. The creature is supposed by the Burmans to lodge within its carcass a blessed soul of some human being, which has arrived at the last stage of the many millions of transmigrations it was doomed to undergo, and which, when it escapes, will be absorbed into the essence of the Deity." This most sacred personage has a regular cabinet composed of a prime minister, secretary of state, transmitter of intelligence, &c., possesses estates in various parts of the country, and receives handsome presents from foreign ambassadors. His residence is contiguous to the royal palace, and connected with it by a long open gallery, at the further end of which a curtain of black velvet embossed with gold, conceals his august person from vulgar eyes. His dwelling is a lofty hall splendidly gilded, and supported by sixty-four pillars, to four of which he is chained with massive silver chains. His bed is a thick mattress, covered with blue cloth, over which is a softer one of crimson silk. His trappings are magnificent, being gold, studded with diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and other precious stones; his betel-box, spittoon, and the vessel out of which he feeds, are of gold inlaid with precious stones. His attendants, according to Hamilton, from whom we take a part of this description, amount to over a thousand persons.
"Buddhism in its moral precepts is perhaps the best religion ever invented by man. The difficulty is, its entire basis is false. It is a religion of Atheism. Instead of a Heavenly Father forgiving sin, and filial service from a pure heart, as the effect of love—it presents nothing to love, for its Deity is dead; nothing as the ultimate object of action but self; and nothing for man's highest and holiest ambition but annihilation."
"Their doctrine of merit, leaves no place for holiness, and destroys gratitude either to God or man." It also ministers to the grossest pride, for the very fact of his being now a man, assures the Buddhist that in numberless former unremembered transmigrations, he must have acquired incalculable merit, or he would not now occupy so distinguished a rank in the scale of being.
Their system of balancing evil with good, reduces all sin to a thing of little importance. "If any man sin" in Burmah, his religion tells him of no "advocate with the Father" on whose altar he may lay the tribute of a believing, penitent, obedient and grateful heart; but instead, it tells him he may repeat a form of words, he may feed a priest, he may build a pagoda, he may carve an idol, and thus balance his iniquity with merit. If any man suffer in Burmah, his religion points him to no place where "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest," and where "God himself will wipe away all tears from all faces;" but it dictates a proud submission to unalterable fate, and flatters him that his sufferings here may purchase immunity from torment in some unknown future existence; and finally if any man die, in Burmah, his religion tells him of no Saviour who has "passed through the grave and blessed the bed," and "swallowed up death in victory;" but it threatens degradation, perhaps into a soulless brute; or at best, a place of expiatory misery;—in short, "living or dying," the Burman may be said emphatically to be "without hope, and without God in the world."
Such was the stupendous system of superstition and ignorance, which two feeble missionaries armed like David when he met the Philistine with "trust in the Lord his God," ventured to attack, and hoped to subdue.
CHAPTER V.
RANGOON; LETTERS FROM MRS. JUDSON.
Rangoon, one of the chief seaports of the Burman Empire, situated on one of the numerous mouths of the Irrawaddy, and having a splendid harbor, is yet one of the meanest, and most uninteresting cities that can well be imagined. It is situated in a flat, marshy plain, and is merely a vast collection of bamboo huts, with narrow streets, and here and there an ugly building of