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He started to be his own master following the great Buddhist Manual, The Path of Purity written by Buddhaghosa, a famous Buddhist exegete of the fifth century A.D.. Once he was on dhutanga in Supan Buri and was about to set up his klod at a deserted temple near Wat Phrasri Ratana Mahathat when he saw children driving a herd of oxen into the area. "Don’t let the cows come one step further lest you earn yourselves a grave demerit," he warned. "Take no notice of him," said the children. "The monk doesn’t know what he’s talking about — he probably wants the place to himself," they presumed. "Don’t you know that there are Buddha images under the ground here?" asked Candasaro, gesturing. "If you don’t believe me, try digging at that spot." The childrens’ curiosity was aroused. They dug where he said and precisely where he had pointed found several Buddha images. The precision of the monk’s knowledge gained the childrens’ respect and they apologized to him for having been so presumptuous. In fact that temple was half-ruined. There were over a hundred large and small Buddha images left in a poor state of repair by vandalism or simply old age. Some Buddha images had heads or arms missing. Candasaro felt he must try to remedy this neglect and started teaching meditation to the locals and encouraging the faithful to help with repair work by teaching the meritorious fruits of such acts. A good deal of progress was made with the repairs as the number of people increased. The large number of faithful and the single-hearted devotion to the restoration of the 40