Buddhist Monks

The men with Safran clothing are very visible in Asia 

The community of monks is the Sangha it has a great influence on a Buddhist's life. It was created after Buddha’s enlightenment. The monks try to become Arahants or Enlightened Ones and spread the religion. 
All this started on a very low scale since his first disciples were five ascetic wanderers with whom he had lived for a time in his earlier life it has been reported. They were converted as a result of his first sermon at Benares, the sutta of turning the wheel of the doctrine. Later two Brahman ascetics, Sariputta and Mogallana, joined him and attained the status of arahants.


He made these two his main disciples, perhaps the best known of the early disciples is Ananda, who became his personal attendant, and by his faithfulness and affection earned the title of the ‘beloved disciple’. 

Besides the ‘beloved disciple’, there is was a Judas, this was Devadatta, a powerful disciple who when the Buddha became advanced in age suggested that he should resign and that the leadership of the order should be vested in himself. This was refused and from that time he becomes an enemy until finally he was expelled from the Order. Buddhist monks have a different status as priests in the Christian world.

They are primarily concerned with their own quest for enlightenment and Nirvana, though many of them expound the law for the benefit of the laity, and all of them afford a means of gaining merit.

He was spiritually the most immature of all the disciples and in the scriptures is constantly asking questions which however result in the clarifying of the teaching in the monastery. It is said that he did not attain to complete enlightenment until after the Buddha’s death in 483 B.C., but such was the reverence in which he was held that at the council which followed his death the version of the Dhamma which he recited (Sutta-Pitaka) was accepted as the standard.

Buddhist Monks are very active

The original name of Buddhist Monks was Bhikkhu, meaning mendicant or homeless one. In Burma (Myanmar) they are known as Pongyi meaning ‘Great Glory’, thus showing the great reverence in which they hold by the people, who in speaking to him use a whole set of honorific words to describe his daily actions, an example: He does not ‘walk’, he `processes’, he does not ‘speak’ but ‘pronounces’, he does not ‘sleep’ but ‘reposes’ and more.