es of the plantains all about. Within the monastery it will be all
bare. However beautiful the building is without, no relaxation of his
rules is allowed to the monk within. All is bare: only a few mats,
perhaps, here and there on the plank floor, a hard wooden bed, a box or
two of books.

At one end there will be sure to be the image of the teacher, wrought
in alabaster. These are always one of three stereotyped designs; they
are not works of art at all. The wealth of imagination and desire of
beauty that finds its expression in the carved stories in the facades
has no place here at all. It would be thought a sacrilege to attempt in
any way to alter the time-honoured figures that have come down to us
from long ago.

Over the head of the image there will be a white or golden umbrella,
whence we have derived our haloes, and perhaps a lotus-blossom in an
earthen pot in front. That will be all. There is this very remarkable
fact: of all the great names associated with the life of the Buddha, you
never see any presentment at all.

The Buddha stands alone. Of Maya his mother, of Yathodaya his wife, of
Rahoula his son, of his great disciple Thariputra, of his dearest
disciple and brother Ananda, you see nothing. There are no saints in
Buddhism at all, only the great teacher, he who saw the light. Surely
this is a curious thing, that from the time of the prince to now, two
thousand four hundred years, no one has arisen to be worthy of mention
of record beside him. There is only one man holy to Buddhism--Gaudama
the Buddha.

On one side of the monasteries there will be many pagodas, tombs of the
Buddha. They are usually solid cones, topped with a gilded 'tee,' and
there are many of them. Each man will build one in his lifetime if he
can. They are always white or gold.

So there is much colour about a monastery--the brown of the wood and the
white of the pagoda, and tender green of the trees. The ground is always
kept clean-swept and beaten and neat. And there is plenty of sound,
too--the fairy music of little bells upon the pagoda-tops when the
breeze moves, the cooing of the pigeons in the eaves, the voices of the
schoolboys. Monastery land is sacred. No life may be taken there, no
loud sounds, no noisy merriment, no abuse is permitted anywhere within
the fence. Monasteries are places of meditation and peace.

Of course, all monasteries are not great and beautiful buildings; many
are but huts of bamboo and straw, but li