These are the questions the appointment was sought for. They establish whether anything stands in the way of a valid ordination — certain illnesses, certain obligations, whether the candidate is who he says he is.

The candidate is addressed by his ordination name, and the questioning is done in front of the assembly rather than in private.

The opening is the part worth reading slowly, because it is not a question at all: อะยันเต สัจจะกาโล ภูตะกาโล — this is the time for truth, the time for what is so.

Then the instruction, in two halves that between them close every exit: what is present, say it is present; what is absent, say it is absent. The candidate is not asked to be honest in general. He is told what honesty consists of in the next few minutes.

Only after that do the questions themselves begin. Putting the warning first is the tradition's way of making the answers count, and it is the same move the invitation at the end of the rains makes — the difficulty is created deliberately, before anybody has a chance to slide past it.