naturally favoured large, imposing multi-storeyed brick and concrete structures in the then prevailing Palladian, neo-Renaissance and neo-classical styles over wooden edinccs for public buildings If eastern' touches were desired, colonial architects not unnaturally turned to India where they had been for close on two hundred years, rather than to the newly acquired outlying province of Burma Although on the protected monuments' list, the wooden monasteries built by former Konbaung royalry continued to be occupied and remained in the custody of their presiding abbots Consequently, they could not be strictly classified as government proper which meant that the Archaeological Survey did not feel obligated lo provide the necessary resources required for uheir sys- tematic maintenance and restoration Little help was also forthcoming from Burmese Buddhists in this task, for according to the way the merit system operates in Burma, with the excepuon of an especially sacred shrine, there is a widely held belief that it is an exercise in fuulily Lo refurbish the religious works of another, parucularly monasteries Konbaung period wooden By the 1930s the remaining monasteries had fallen into a truly sorry state which son of King so moved HRH Prince Damrong, disciplines of Chulalongkorn and founding father of the when monastery in 1936, that he noted