in front of the
chairman;--they dare not presume to sit on couches in front of the
community. The laws and ways, according to which the kings presented
their offerings when Buddha was in the world, have been handed down to
the present day.

All south from this is named the Middle Kingdom. In it the cold and heat
are finely tempered, and there is neither hoarfrost nor snow. The people
are numerous and happy; they have not to register their households, or
attend to any magistrates and their rules; only those who cultivate the
royal land have to pay a portion of the gain from it. If they want to go
they go; if they want to stay on, they stay. The king governs without
decapitation or other corporal punishments. Criminals are simply fined,
lightly or heavily, according to the circumstances of each case. Even in
cases of repeated attempts at wicked rebellion, they only have their
right hands cut off. The king's body-guards and attendants all have
salaries. Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living
creature, nor drink intoxicating liquor, nor eat onions or garlic. The
only exception is that of the Chandalas. That is the name for those who
are held to be wicked men, and live apart from others. When they enter
the gate of a city or a market-place, they strike a piece of wood to
make themselves known, so that men know and avoid them, and do not come
into contact with them. In that country they do not keep pigs and fowls,
and do not sell live cattle; in the markets there are no butchers' shops
and no dealers in intoxicating drink. In buying and selling commodities
they use cowries. Only the Chandalas are fishermen and hunters, and sell
flesh meat.

After Buddha attained to pari-nirvana the kings of the various countries
and the heads of the Vaisyas built viharas for the priests, and endowed
them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along with the resident
populations and their cattle, the grants being engraved on plates of
metal, so that afterwards they were handed down from king to king,
without any one daring to annul them, and they remain even to the
present time.

The regular business of the monks is to perform acts of meritorious
virtue, and to recite their Sutras and sit wrapped in meditation. When
stranger monks arrive at any monastery, the old residents meet and
receive them, carry for them their clothes and alms-bowl, give them
water to wash their feet, oil with which to anoint them, and th