The dreams had their interpretations, and in those interpretations we may see the gradual decay of the institutions which S'akyamuni had founded, and which As'oka had been at such trouble to propagate. (1) The disciples had, in obedience to their master's commands, left their homes to follow him, but the surrender had not been complete. The elephant's tail had refused to pass through the door, and presently the monks made new homes for themselves, and became attached to their comfortable monasteries, as they had once been to their mansions and villas. (2) The disciples were like a well, bubbling over with the water of life; but the laity had no thought of religion, and possibly a contempt, more or less openly expressed, for the comfortable recluse. So the fountain had to pursue thirsty men, who, while perhaps craving for the truth, were yet unwilling to quench their thirst at that particular fountain. (3) Thus there resulted a

cheapening of religious instruction. In their anxiety to win adherents, the preachers tickled the ears of their audience with the highest truths, when the simpler ones would have been more suitable; and in return for the measure of pearls they offered received but a poor meed of gratitude--a mess of porridge. (4) In the same way, the fear of losing disciples caused the monks to tolerate the existence of heresy in the community; the teachings of heretics were esteemed as highly as those of the orthodox--sandalwood was sold at the same price as common fuel. (5) The monasteries were rich and well endowed with lands and estates. The revenues should have been for the poor; the monks used them for their own profit. (6) Good disciples (the rutting elephants) were driven away by worthless ones (children). As early as the days of As'oka complaints were made of this, the better sort of monks preferring to retire rather than be forced into religious contact with worthless and evil brethren. (7) These worthless men were like dirty monkeys, covered with mud. They threw the dirty mud of slander at their fellows, and so made them appear as dirty as they were themselves. (8) Then, having got rid of the worthy monks, they proceeded to elect superiors of their own type in the monasteries, till it came that the monkey was anointed as king. (9) Thus it came to pass that the Buddhist community, which, like Christ's garment, had once been a seamless vesture of whole cloth, had been torn and rent into eighteen pieces, corresponding to the eighteen sects

into which the Hinayana had been torn. (10) And the result of sectarianism was religious strife.