s act as monks should, they are held in
great honour, they are addressed by titles of great respect, they are
supplied with all they want within the rules of the Wini, they are the
glory of the village. But do you think a Burman would render this homage
to a monk whom he could not respect, who did actions he should not? A
monk is one who acts as a monk. Directly he breaks his laws, his
holiness is gone. The villagers will have none such as he. They will
hunt him out of the village, they will refuse him food, they will make
him a byword, a scorn. I have known this to happen. If a monk's holiness
be suspected, he must clear himself before a court, or leave that place
quickly, lest worse befall him. It is impossible to conceive any
supervision more close than this of the people over their monks, and so
the breaches of any law by the monks are very rare--very rare indeed.
You see, for one thing, that a monk never takes the vows for life. He
takes them for six months, a year, two years, very often for five
years; then, if he finds the life suit him, he continues. If he finds
that he cannot live up to the standard required, he is free to go. There
is no compulsion to stay, no stigma on going. As a matter of fact, very
few monks there are but have left the monastery at one time or another.
It is impossible to over-estimate the value of this safety-valve. What
with the certainty of detection and punishment from his people, and the
knowledge that he can leave the monastery if he will at the end of his
time without any reproach, a monk is almost always able to keep within
his rules.

I have had for ten years a considerable experience of criminal law. I
have tried hundreds of men for all sorts of offences; I have known of
many hundreds more being tried, and the only cases where a monk was
concerned that I can remember are these: three times a monk has been
connected in a rebellion, once in a divorce case, once in another
offence. This last case happened just as we annexed the country, and
when our courts were not established. He was detected by the villagers,
stripped of his robes, beaten, and hunted out of the place with every
ignominy possible. There is only one opinion amongst all those who have
tried to study the Buddhist monkhood--that their conduct is admirable.
Do you suppose the people would reverence it as they do if it were
corrupt? They know: they have seen it from the inside. It is not
outside knowledge they have. And