st belt, but still it was a point of honour with most native sovereigns to protect the national religion so far as their distressed condition allowed. For the seventeenth century we have an

God "unto whom the salvation of souls belongs," and for whom "above all others they have a high respect and devotion." He also describes the ceremonies of pirit and bana, the perahera procession, and two classes of Bu

d that many so-called monks had families. He therefore decided to apply to Dhammika, king of Ayuthia in Siam, and like his predecessor despatched an embassy on a Dutch ship. Dhammika sent back a company of "more than ten monks" (that is more than sufficient for the performance of all ecclesiastical acts) under the Abbot Upali in 1752 and another to relieve it in 1755.[99] They were received by the king of Ceylon with great honour and subsequently by the ordination which they conferred place

o had to prove his worth and Gotama's early legislation was largely concerned with excluding unsuitable candidates. The solicitude for valid ordination was only the ecclesiastical form of the popular feeling that the honours and immunities of the order were conditional on its maintaining a certain standard of conduct. Other methods of reform might have been

and prescribes that monks are to wear the upper robe over one shoulder only, whereas the Amarapurans admit members of the first three castes (but not those lower in the social scale) and require both shoulders to be covered. There are other minor differences among which it is interesting to note that the Siamese school object to the use of the formula "I dedicate this gift to the Buddha" which is used in the other schools when anything is presented to the order for the use of the monks. It is held that this expression was correct in the lifetime of the Buddha but not after his death. The two schools are not mutually hostile, and members of each find a hospitable reception in the monasteries of the other. The laity patronize both indifferently

hed history Sinhalese Buddhism has been truly the national faith, as opposed to the beliefs of various invaders, and has also ministered to the spiritual aspirations of the nation. As Knox said in a period when it was not particularly flourishing, the Hindu gods look after worldly affairs but Buddha after the soul. When the island passed under British rule and all religions received impartial recognition, the result was not disastrous to Buddhism: the number of Bhikkhus gre