Note 56 — NOTICE ON THE PHONGYIES, OR BUDDHIST MONKS, SOMETIMES CALLED TALAPOINS.[53]

The writer does not think it worth repeating the reasons that induced Gaudama to lay down those several regulations. They owe their origin to the fact that some individuals contrived to be ordained though labouring under physical defects, and thereby became a sort of standing disgrace to the society. It was at the request of his father that Buddha forbade receiving to ordination sons who had not the consent of the parents, and fixed twenty years as the age requisite in him who would offer himself for the promotion to the order of Patzin. No slave, no debtor, could be ordained, because a man in such a condition does not belong to himself, and cannot dispose of his person, which to a certain extent is the property of his master and creditor.