of Gotama.  Meals are taken in the Sala at about 7 and 11 a.m.,[321] and prayers are recited there on ordinary days in the morning and evening.  The eleven o’clock meal is followed by a rather long grace.  The prayers consist mostly of Pali formulae, such as the Three Refuges, but they are sometimes in Cambojan and contain definite petitions or at least wishes formulated before the image of the Buddha.  Thus I have heard prayers for peace and against war.  The more solemn ceremonies, such as the Uposatha and ordinations, are performed in the Vihear.  The recitation of the Patimokkha is regularly performed and I have several times witnessed it.  All but ordained monks have to withdraw outside the Sima stones during the service.  The ceremony begins about 6 p.m.:  the Bhikkhus kneel down in pairs face to face and rubbing their foreheads in the dust ask for mutual forgiveness if they have inadvertently offended.  This ceremony is also performed on other occasions.  It is followed by singing or intoning lauds, after which comes the recitation of the Patimokkha itself which is marked by great solemnity.  The reader sits in a large chair on the arms of which are fixed many lighted tapers.  He repeats the text by heart but near him sits a prompter with a palm-leaf manuscript who, if necessary, corrects the words recited.  I have never seen a monk confess in public, and I believe that the usual practice is for sinful brethren to abstain from attending the ceremony and then to confess privately to the Abbot, who assigns them a penance.  As soon as the Patimokkha is concluded all the Bhikkhus smoke large cigarettes.  In most Buddhist countries it is not considered irreverent to smoke,[322] chew betel or drink tea in the intervals of religious exercises.  When the cigarettes are finished there follows a service of prayer and praise in Cambojan.  During the season of Wassa there are usually several Bhikkhus in each monastery who practise meditation for three or four days consecutively in tents or enclosures made of yellow cloth, open above but closed all round.  The four stages of meditation described in the Pitakas are said to be commonly attained by devout monks.[323]

The Abbot has considerable authority in disciplinary matters.  He eats apart from the other monks and at religious ceremonies wears a sort of red cope, whereas the dress of the other brethren is entirely yellow.  Novices prostrate themselves when they speak to him.

Above the Abbots are Provincial Superiors and the government of the whole Church is in the hands of the Somdec prah sanghrac.  There is, or was, also a second prelate called Lok prah sokon, or Brah Sugandha, and the two, somewhat after the manner of the two primates of the English Church, supervise the clergy in different parts of the kingdom, the second being inferior to the first in rank, but not dependent on him.  But it is said that no successor has been appointed to the last Brah Sugandha who died in 1894.  He was a distinguished scholar and introduced the Dhammayut sect from Siam into Camboja.  The king is recognized as head of the Church, but cannot alter its doctrine or confiscate ecclesiastical property.