The _government_ of Independent Burmah is an absolute despotism. The king has supreme power over the life and possessions of every subject. He may confiscate property, imprison, torture, or execute at his pleasure,—his only restraint being fear of an insurrection. An English writer relates that at the sovereign’s command one of the highest officers of the State was seized by the public executioner, and stretched on the ground by the side of the road, under a scorching sun, with a heavy weight upon his chest, and afterward restored to his high position. There are, indeed, two Councils of State, by which the government is administered, but the members of these councils are appointed by the king, and may be degraded or executed at his word. The late monarch of Burmah saw the evils of this despotic system, and, in arranging for the succession, formed a plan by which his successor should be subject to limitation by his prime ministers. But the new king, Thebaw, a brutal and licentious boy of 20, frustrated this benignant purpose. He murdered his counsellors, massacred his blood relations, and Burmah, that had roused herself for a moment from her long nightmare of despotism, sank again into sleep.
The whole country is divided into provinces, townships, districts, and villages. Over each province is a governor, or as the Burmese call him, an _Eater_. Through his underlings he taxes every family. His officers receive a share of what they can extort, and the rest he divides with the king. In this way the whole land is a scene of enormous extortion. There are no fixed salaries for Government functionaries. The higher officer _eats_ a certain province or district. The lower officer lives on fees and perquisites. Courts of law are corrupted by bribery. It is customary to torture witnesses. The criminal is usually executed by decapitation. He may, however, be disembowelled, or thrown to wild beasts, or crucified, or have his limbs broken with a bludgeon—if he can not effect his escape by the plentiful use of money.
“On the 7th of February, 1817, seven persons found guilty of sacrilege were conveyed to the place of execution near Rangoon, and secured in the usual way to the stake. The first of them was fired at four successive times by a marksman without being hit. At every shot there was a loud peal of laughter from the spectators. The malefactor was taken down, declared to be invulnerable, pardoned, and taken into a confidential employment by the governor. He had paid a large bribe. The second culprit was shot, and the remaining five were decapitated.”[13]
Who can estimate the miseries which the peasantry must suffer under such a system of bribery and extortion? It is not strange that the late Burman monarch, when he came to the throne, uttered the exclamation, “Great God, I might as well be king over a desert!”
The _religion_ of Burmah is Buddhism. Here and in the Island of Ceylon, this cult exists in its purest form. Buddhism originated in India about 500 years before Christ. Here it succeeded in supplanting the ancient religion of the Hindoos, derived from the Vedas, and called Brahminism.
India was in former times saturated with Brahminical philosophy and Brahminical ceremonial. The people were completely priest-ridden. Buddhism was an outgrowth from Brahminism, or perhaps rather a recoil from it. It was related to it somewhat as Christianity is to Judaism, or Protestantism to the Romish Church. For one hundred and fifty years Buddhism had a very rapid and vigorous growth in India, but soon after the beginning of the Christian era it began to decay, and in the eighth and ninth centuries A.D., in consequence of a great persecution, Buddhism was completely extirpated in India. The ancient religion, Brahminism, was reinstated, and Gaudama has no worshipper in the land of his birth.
But a prophet is not without honor save in his country. Buddhism is pervaded by a missionary spirit, and has won its way by peaceful persuasion into Ceylon, Burmah, Siam, Thibet, and China. It is, at the present day, the religion of more than four hundred millions of human beings—about one-third of the population of the globe.
Having considered the distribution of Buddhism, let us contrast it with Brahminism. Buddhism, like Brahminism, holds the doctrine of transmigration of souls. The soul is at first united with the lowest forms of organic life. By successive births it may climb into the bodies of spiders, snakes, chameleons, and after long ages may reach the human tenement. Then comes the period of probation. According to its behavior in the flesh it either rises still higher to occupy the glorious forms of demigods and gods, or it relapses little by little into its low estate, and again takes up its wretched abode in the degraded forms of the lower animals.
“Life runs its rounds of living, climbing up, From mote, and gnat, and worm, reptile and fish, Bird and shagged beast, man, demon, deva, God, To clod and mote again.”[14]