Burma : A Handbook of Practical Information - Khamkoo

IGNORANCE, ROOT OF EVIL 361
toxicating drink. To observe them brinsfs no reward.
To break them implies demerit, and a descent in the
ladder of existence. To ascend it is necess.iry to do
good deeds. Only by accumulated merit can a man
ascend. Additional five precepts are : thou shalt not
eat after midday ; thou shalt not sing, dance, or play on
any musical instrument ; thou shalt not use cosmetics
or colour the face ; thou shalt not sit, stand, or sleep on
platforms or elevated places ; thou shalt not touch gold
or silver. These are incumbent on all living in a monastery,
and on all laymen on sacred or duty days. Monks,
those who have formally put on the yellow robe, are
bound by the Book of the Enfranchisement, the Palimauk,
which contains 257 precepts.
But the fundamental principle is really that ignorance is
the root of all human evil. With the presence of knowledge
ignorance vanishes as darkness is dispelled by light.
Meditation brings knowledge. If in some of the religious
meditation passes too lightly into sleep, that is due to
the illusions to which all beings are subjected—illusions
which form a barrier that retain many for countless aeons
in the vortex of existences.
Gautama did not invent the doctrine of metempsychosis,
or rather, as it is better called, of trans-incorporation.
That came to him from the Hindus. The Egyptians had
it at least as early as the Hindus. The philosophers of
Magna Graecia got it from the Egyptians. It is probable
that it began with the first religions— with the hunting
tribes, who worshipped beasts ; with the pastoral people,
who deified plough cattle ; with the agriculturists, who
held feasts to Ceres and Demeter, to Liber and Bacchus,
to Libera and Persephone. It is a juster and less terrifying
form of determent to transgressors than the doctrine
of etei'nal damnation.
There are no definite services in Buddhism, no preaching
of sermons, no holding of religious meetings, no
religious forms for marriages or burials. Each individual
must work out his own salvation, and no one else can help
him, except by example, and it is technically only as a
reminder of the great example that presentments of the
Buddha are set up in shrines and elsewhere. They are