nk lived there all
his life, and taught the children, and preached the marvellous teaching
of the great Buddha, till at length his time came again and he returned;
for of monks it is not said that they die, but that they return.

This is the common belief of the people. Into this has the mystery of
Dharma turned, in the thoughts of the Burmese Buddhists, for no one can
believe the incomprehensible. A man has a soul, and it passes from life
to life, as a traveller from inn to inn, till at length it is ended in
heaven. But not till he has attained heaven in his heart will he attain
heaven in reality.

Many children, the Burmese will tell you, remember their former lives.
As they grow older the memories die away and they forget, but to the
young children they are very clear. I have seen many such.

About fifty years ago in a village named Okshitgon were born two
children, a boy and a girl. They were born on the same day in
neighbouring houses, and they grew up together, and played together, and
loved each other. And in due course they married and started a family,
and maintained themselves by cultivating their dry, barren fields about
the village. They were always known as devoted to each other, and they
died as they had lived--together. The same death took them on the same
day; so they were buried without the village and were forgotten; for the
times were serious.

It was the year after the English army had taken Mandalay, and all Burma
was in a fury of insurrection. The country was full of armed men, the
roads were unsafe, and the nights were lighted with the flames of
burning villages. It was a bad time for peace-loving men, and many such,
fleeing from their villages, took refuge in larger places nearer the
centres of administration.

Okshitgon was in the midst of one of the worst of all the distressed
districts, and many of its people fled, and one of them, a man named
Maung Kan, with his young wife went to the village of Kabyu and lived
there.

Now, Maung Kan's wife had born to him twin sons. They were born at
Okshitgon shortly before their parents had to run away, and they were
named, the eldest Maung Gyi, which is Brother Big-fellow, and the
younger Maung Nge, which means Brother Little-fellow. These lads grew up
at Kabyu, and soon learned to talk; and as they grew up their parents
were surprised to hear them calling to each other at play, and calling
each other, not Maung Gyi and Maung Nge, but Maung San Nye