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Updated: May 1, 2025
When the begging-bowls are full they generally contain a strange mixture, for everyone pours in anything he or she happens to have; there will certainly be rice, both cooked and raw, peas, perhaps fish, and this may be wrapped up in a leaf to keep it separate, which is necessary when it is curried; then there will be some cakes or cucumbers; possibly, in the season, mangoes and plantains.
One of the greatest delicacies of the Burmese is a horribly smelly stuff called ngapé, made of rotten fish laid in salt; no feast is complete without it. The monks are supposed to live on what they get in their begging-bowls, but, as a matter of fact, in wealthy monasteries they don't; they empty it out for the pariah dogs, which explains why so many dogs always hang around the monasteries.
And behind them, in their yellow robes, their faces cast upon the ground, and the begging-bowls in their hands, follow the monks.
First of all, there was the morning procession of the stately pongyes, carrying their empty begging-bowls, and looking neither to the right nor left; there were delicious hours in the forests; boating and fishing expeditions on the rivers, or rides to the ruins of ancient cities, half buried in jungle.
In the morning, very early, the monks wander forth, dressed in yellow robes and carrying begging-bowls and fans. They do not beg, however, they are much too proud; they merely stop and stand about where there are houses, and the people rush to pour food into their bowls. It is a privilege for them to be allowed to do this, as they are supposed to "gain merit" by so doing.
Or a band of mendicant ascetics, their almost naked bodies smeared all over with fresh ashes and the trident of Shiva painted on their foreheads, return with well-filled begging-bowls from some favourite shrine. Or an excited crowd, all wearing the little white Gandhi cap, rend the air with shouts of Mahatma Gandhi-ki jai! in honour of some travelling apostle of "Non-co-operation."
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