elaborate ceremonies on special occasions in the Buddhist temples,
which could be likened to what is known as 'public worship' and
'common prayer' in the West. Worship had for its sole object either
the attainment of some good or the prevention of some evil.

Generally this represents the state of things under the Republican
_régime_; the chief differences being greater neglect of ecclesiastical
matters and the conversion of a large number of temples into schools.


Professional Institutions

We read of physicians, blind musicians, poets, teachers, prayer-makers,
architects, scribes, painters, diviners, ceremonialists, orators,
and others during the Feudal Period, These professions were of
ecclesiastical origin, not yet completely differentiated from the
'Church,' and both in earlier and later times not always or often
differentiated from each other. Thus the historiographers combined the
duties of statesmen, scholars, authors, and generals. The professions
of authors and teachers, musicians and poets, were united in one
person. And so it continued to the present day. Priests discharge
medical functions, poets still sing their verses. But experienced
medical specialists, though few, are to be found, as well as women
doctors; there are veterinary surgeons, musicians (chiefly belonging
to the poorest classes and often blind), actors, teachers, attorneys,
diviners, artists, letter-writers, and many others, men of letters
being perhaps the most prominent and most esteemed.