Note 7 — Chapter I

The custom of making funeral orations for the purpose of eulogising distinguished individuals after their demise is of the highest antiquity. The sacred records bear witness to its existence amongst the Jews. The present legend offers repeated instances of eulogia made to honour the memory of the dead. On this occasion Buddha would not leave to another the honour of extolling the extraordinary merits and transcendent excellencies of the illustrious Thariputra. But he had a higher object in view when he exhibited to the eyes of the assembled Rahans the relics of the deceased, which were all that remained of so celebrated a disciple, who had lived with them for so many years, and had just parted from them. It was impossible to give them a more forcible illustration of the truth he had so often announced to them, that there is nothing permanently subsisting in this world, but that all things are liable to a perpetual and never-ending change. The stern Buddha gently rebuked the amiable Ananda for the signs of inordinate grief he gave on this occasion; because, said he, the law of mutability acting upon all that surrounds us, we must ever be prepared to be separated from what is dearest to our affections; grief on such occasions is useless, and quite inconsistent with the principles of a wise man.

To honour the memory of Thariputra, and perpetuate the remembrance of his virtues, Buddha directed that a dzedi should be erected on the very spot where he had heard the news of his death. A dzedi is a religious monument very common in Burmah, and to be seen on all rising grounds in the neighbourhood of towns. Within the enclosure of all monasteries, a dzedi is invariably erected; it is the only purely religious building to be found in Burmah. The traveller in that country is always delighted, and experiences the most pleasurable sensations on approaching some town or village, when he sees several dzedis of various heights raising their white cones capped with the gilt crown from the bosom of beautiful groves of tall cocoa-nut trees, graceful areca palms, and massive tamarind, mango, and jack trees, all loaded with a green and luxuriant foliage. When the monument is on a grand scale, niches are made in the middle of each side of the square, facing the four points of the compass. In those niches are placed statues of Buddha, exhibiting him in the usual cross-legged position. The size of those religious monuments varies much in dimensions. They range from the height of a few feet to the colossal proportions of the tall Dagon Pagoda at Rangoon.

The custom of raising monuments over the ashes of religious distinguished by their virtues and extraordinary attainments, is a very ancient one, coeval in all probability with the first ages of Buddhism. They were real tumuli, surmounted with some ornaments in the shape of a cone. Such ornaments are seen towering over nearly all the religious monuments in Burmah. Royalty, in its head paraphernalia, and in its abode, has appropriated them to its own uses. We may at once infer that they are of a Hindu origin. The great monarchs who are called Tsekiawade kings, because they ruled over the whole of the Dzampoudipa island, were, according to Buddha’s opinion, entitled to the honour of a dzedi after their demise.