rently our nightmare. The
ghosts of children dying soon after birth are apt to kill their
mothers and in general women are liable to be possessed by Phis. The
ghosts of those who have died a violent death are dangerous but it
would seem that Siamese magicians know how to utilize them as familiar
spirits. The better sort of ghosts are known as Chao Phi and shrines
called San Chao are set up in their honour. It does not however appear
that there is any hierarchy of Phis like the thirty-seven Nats of
Burma.

Among those Phis who are not ghosts of the dead the most important
is the Phi ruen or guardian spirit of each house. Frequently a
little shrine is erected for him at the top of a pole. There are also
innumerable Phis in the jungle mostly malevolent and capable of
appearing either in human form or as a dangerous animal. But the tree
spirits are generally benevolent and when their trees are cut down
they protect the houses that are made of them.

Thus the Buddhism of Siam, like that of Burma, has a certain admixture
of Brahmanism and animism. The Brahmanism is perhaps more striking
than in Burma on account of the Court ceremonies: the belief in
spirits, though almost universal, seems to be more retiring and less
conspicuous. Yet the inscription of Rama Komheng mentioned above
asserts emphatically that the prosperity of the Empire depends on due
honour being shown to a certain mountain spirit.[239]

It is pretty clear that the first introduction of Hinayanist Buddhism
into Siam was from Southern Burma and Pegu, but that somewhat later
Ceylon was accepted as the standard of orthodoxy. A learned thera who
knew the Sinhalese Tipitaka was imported thence, as well as a branch
of the Bo-tree. But Siamese patriotism flattered itself by imagining
that the national religion was due to personal contact with the
Buddha, although not even early legends can be cited in support of
such traditions. In 1602 a mark in the rocks, now known as the Phra:
Bat, was discovered in the hills north of Ayuthia and identified as a
footprint of the Buddha similar to that found on Adam's Peak and in
other places. Burma and Ceylon both claim the honour of a visit from
the Buddha but the Siamese go further, for it is popularly believed
that he died at Praten, a little to the north of Phra Pathom, on a
spot marked by a slab of rock under great trees.[240] For this reason
when the Government of India presented the king of Siam with the
relics found in