it is permissible to suppose that Buddhism took a more active part than Brahmanism in such works of charity.  It opens with an invocation first to the Buddha who in his three bodies transcends the distinction between existence and non-existence, and then to the healing Buddha and the two Bodhisattvas who drive away darkness and disease.  These divinities, who are the lords of a heaven in the east, analogous to the paradise of Amitabha, are still worshipped in China and Japan and were evidently gods of light.[312] The hospital erected under their auspices by the Cambojan king was open to all the four castes and had a staff of 98 persons, besides an astrologer and two sacrificers (yajaka).

5

These inscriptions of Jayavarman are the last which tell us anything about the religion of mediaeval Camboja but we have a somewhat later account from the pen of Chou Ta-kuan, a Chinese who visited Angkor in 1296.[313] He describes the temple in the centre of the city, which must be the Bayon, and says that it had a tower of gold and that the eastern (or principal) entrance was approached by a golden bridge flanked by two lions and eight statues, all of the same metal.  The chapter of his work entitled “The Three Religions,” runs as follows, slightly abridged from M. Pelliot’s version.

“The literati are called Pan-ch’i, the bonzes Ch’u-ku and the Taoists Pa-ssu-wei.  I do not know whom the Pan-ch’i worship.  They have no schools and it is difficult to say what books they read.  They dress like other people except that they wear a white thread round their necks, which is their distinctive mark.  They attain to very high positions.  The Ch’u-ku shave their heads and wear yellow clothes.  They uncover the right shoulder, but the lower part of their body is draped with a skirt of yellow cloth and they go bare foot.  Their temples are sometimes roofed with tiles.  Inside there is only one image, exactly like the Buddha Sakya, which they call Po-lai (=Prah), ornamented with vermilion and blue, and clothed in red.  The Buddhas of the towers (? images in the towers of the temples) are different and cast in bronze.  There are no bells, drums, cymbals, or flags in their temples.  They eat only one meal a day, prepared by someone who entertains them, for they do not cook in their temples.  They eat fish and meat and also use them in their offerings to Buddha, but they do not drink wine.  They recite numerous texts written on strips of palm-leaf.  Some bonzes have a right to have the shafts of their palanquins and the handles of their parasols in gold or silver.  The prince consults them on serious matters.  There are no Buddhist nuns.

“The Pa-ssu-wei dress like everyone else, except that they wear on their heads a piece of red or white stuff like the Ku-ku worn by Tartar women but lower.  Their temples are smaller than those of the Buddhists, for Taoism is less prosperous than Buddhism.  They worship nothing but a block of stone, somewhat like the stone on the altar of the God of the Sun in China.  I do not know what god they adore.  There are also Taoist nuns.  The Pa-ssu-wei do not partake of the food of other people or eat in public.  They do not drink wine.