tions known
as the Songs of the Monks and Nuns, this feeling is still stronger: we
are among anchorites who pass their time in solitary meditation in the
depths of forests or on mountain tops and have a sense of freedom and a
joy in the life of wild things not found in cloisters. These old monkish
poems are somewhat wearisome as continuous reading, but their monotonous
enthusiasm about the conquest of desire is leavened by a sincere and
observant love of nature. They sing of the scenes in which meditation is
pleasant, the flowery banks of streams that flow through reeds and
grasses of many colours as well as the mysterious midnight forest when
the dew falls and wild beasts howl; they note the plumage of the blue
peacock, the flight of the yellow crane and the gliding movements of the
water snake. It does not appear that these amiable hermits arrogated any
superiority to themselves or that there was any opposition between them
and the rest of the brethren. They preferred a form of the religious
life which the Buddha would not make compulsory, but it is older than
Buddhism and not yet dead in India. The Sangha exercised no hierarchical
authority over them and they accepted such simple symbols of union as
the observance of Uposatha days.

The character of the Sangha has not materially changed since its
constitution took definite shape towards the end of the master's life.
It was and is simply a body of people who believe that the higher life
cannot be lived in any existing form of society and therefore combine to
form a confraternity where they are relieved of care for food and
raiment, where they can really take no thought for the morrow and turn
the cheek to the smiter. They were not a corporation of priests and they
had no political aims. Any free man, unless his parents or the state had
a claim on him and unless he suffered from certain diseases, was
admitted; he took no vows of obedience and was at any time at liberty to
return to the world.

Though the Sangha as founded by the Buddha did not claim, still less
exact, anything from the laity, yet it was their duty, their most
obvious and easy method of acquiring merit, to honour and support monks,
to provide them with food, clothes and lodging and with everything which
they might lawfully possess. Strictly speaking a monk does not beg for
food nor thank for what he receives. He gives the layman a chance of
doing a good deed and the donor, not the recipient, should be