Burmese Sketches - Khamkoo

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BURMESE SKETCHES.
At about 9-30 a.m. we reached home with the sweet satis-
faction that our morning had not been spent in vain.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THEINS.
According to the sacred books of the Buddhists, one of the
essential conditions of the validity of an ordination ceremony
lis, that the thein (Pali i sim^), wherein it is performed, must be
a properly constituted one. Such a thein must be situated on
land called withdngama (Pali : visumgama), that is to say,
land of a specified, but always small and insignificant, area,
set apart for the purpose, over which the temporal power has
absolutely relinquished its rights of ownership.
The difference between a kyaung land and a. thein land is,
that in respect of the former the secular power has a right to
resume possession after giving another land in exchange.
This right is, however, circumscribed by the reservation that,
where a kyaung has been declared by its builder to be thingika
or belonging to the whole Buddhist priesthood as a body,
possession of the land on which it stands cannot be resumed.
Even where a kyaung is thingika^ according to a legal fiction.
Government has a right, but which has never been exercised,
to claim one-tenth of the produce or usufruct of the land on
which it is situated. Therefore, whenever it is desired to build
a theiny both within the limits of a kyaung land and elsewhere,
the permission of the temporal power is a sine qua non in validating
its constitution. Such permission is a mere matter of
form, and is granted—in the case of kyaung lands, without reference
to the builder or trustees of the kyaung^ whose rights of
ownership over the building ceased as soon as it was consecrated—to
a layman and not to a monk, in whose favour
Government irrevocably alienates its rights of ownership in
respect of both the land and its produce or usufruct. The
right of ownership, however, ceases to be vested in the
grantee or its trustees as soon as the thein has been con-
secrated, when the thein and the land on which it stands are
held to belong to the whole body of the Buddhist priesthood.
No apprehension need be entertained that land on which a
thein was built would be devoted to any other purpose, because
it is held sacred in the eyes of the people, and also because,
according to their religious beliefs, no building other than a
thein must be built on it when the former edifice falls into