preserved intact the institution of caste, which they had brought with
them from the valley of the Ganges; and, although caste was not
abolished by the teachers of Buddhism, who retained and respected it as
a social institution, it was practically annulled and absorbed in the
religious character;--all who embraced the ascetic life being
simultaneously absolved from all conventional disabilities, and received
as members of the sacred community with all its exalted prerogatives.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 198. Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim,
describing Anarajapoora in the seventh century, says: "A cote du palais
du roi; on a construit une vaste cuisine ou l'on prepare chaque jour des
aliments pour dix-huit mille religieux. A l'heure de repas, les
religieux viennent, un pot a la main, pour recevoir leur nourriture.
Apres l'avoir obtenue ils s'en retournent chacun dans leur
chambre."--HIOUEN THSANG, _Transl._ M. JULIEN, lib. xi. tom. ii. p.
143.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 82.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii.; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 37, ch.
ii. p. 56, 60, 62.]

[Footnote 4: Professor Wilson, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ vol. xvi. p.
249.]

Along with food, clothing consisting of three garments to complete the
sacerdotal robes, as enjoined by the Buddhist ritual[1], was distributed
at certain seasons; and in later times a practice obtained of providing
robes for the priests by "causing the cotton to be picked from the tree
at sunrise, cleaned, spun, woven, dyed yellow, and made into garments
and presented before sunset."[2] The condition of the priesthood was
thus reduced to a state of absolute dependency on alms, and at the
earliest period of their history the vow of poverty, by which their
order is bound, would seem to have been righteously observed.

[Footnote 1: To avoid the vanity of dress or the temptation to acquire
property, no Buddhist priest is allowed to have more than one set of
robes, consisting of three pieces, and if an extra one be bestowed on
him it must be surrendered to the chapter of his wihara within ten days.
The dimensions must not exceed a specified length, and when obtained new
the cloth must be disfigured with mud or otherwise before he puts it on.
A magnificent robe having been given to Gotama, his attendant Ananda, in
order to destroy its intrinsic value, cut it into thirty pieces and
sewed them together in four divisions, so that the robe resembled the
patches