Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 70

But the hall which contains the figures of Buddha, and which const.i.tutes the "temple" proper, is always detached from the domestic buildings, and is frequently placed on an eminence from which the view is commanding.

The interior is painted in the style of Egyptian chambers, and is filled with figures and ill.u.s.trations of the legends of Gotama, whose statue, with hand uplifted in the att.i.tude of admonition, or reclining in repose emblematic of the blissful state of Nirwana, is placed in the dimmest recess of the edifice. Here lamps cast a feeble light, and the air is heavy with the perfume of flowers, which are daily renewed by fresh offerings from the wors.h.i.+ppers at the shrines.

[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]

In no other system of idolatry, ancient or modern, have the rites been administered by such a mult.i.tude of priests as a.s.sist in the pa.s.sionless ceremonial of Buddhism. Fa Hian, in the fourth century, was a.s.sured by the people of Ceylon that at that period the priests numbered between fifty and sixty thousand, of whom two thousand were attached to one wihara at Anaraj.a.poora, and three thousand to another.[1]

[Footnote 1: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 336, 350. At the present day the number in the whole island does not probably exceed 2500 (HARDY'S _Eastern Monachism_, p. 57, 309). But this is far below the proportion of the Buddhist priesthood in other countries; in Siam nearly every adult male becomes a priest for a certain portion of his life; a similar practice prevails in Ava; and in Burmah so common is it to a.s.sume the yellow robe, that the popular expedient for effecting divorce is for the parties to make a profession of the priesthood, the ceremonial of which is sufficient to dissolve the marriage vow, and after an interval of a few months, they can throw off the yellow robe and are then at liberty to marry again.]

As the vow which devotes the priests of Buddha to religion binds them at the same time to a life of poverty and mendicancy, the extension of the faith entailed in great part on the crown the duty of supporting the vast crowds who withdrew themselves from industry to embrace devotion and indigence. They were provided with food by the royal bounty, and hence the historical books make perpetual reference to the priests "going to the king's house to eat,"[1] when the monarch himself set the example to his subjects of "serving them with rice broth, cakes, and dressed rice."[2] Rice in all its varieties is the diet described in the _Mahawanso_ as being provided for the priesthood by the munificence of the kings; "rice prepared with sugar and honey, rice with clarified b.u.t.ter, and rice in its ordinary form."[3] In addition to the enjoyment of a life of idleness, another powerful incentive conspired to swell the numbers of these devotees. The followers and successors of Wijayo preserved intact the inst.i.tution of caste, which they had brought with them from the valley of the Ganges; and, although caste was not abolished by the teachers of Buddhism, who retained and respected it as a social inst.i.tution, it was practically annulled and absorbed in the religious character;--all who embraced the ascetic life being simultaneously absolved from all conventional disabilities, and received as members of the sacred community with all its exalted prerogatives.[4]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 198. Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, describing Anaraj.a.poora in the seventh century, says: "A cote du palais du roi; on a construit une vaste cuisine ou l'on prepare chaque jour des aliments pour dix-huit mille religieux. A l'heure de repas, les religieux viennent, un pot a la main, pour recevoir leur nourriture.

Apres l'avoir obtenue ils s'en retournent chacun dans leur chambre."--HIOUEN THSANG, _Transl._ M. JULIEN, lib. xi. tom. ii. p.

143.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 82.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xii.; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. i. p. 37, ch.

ii. p. 56, 60, 62.]

[Footnote 4: Professor Wilson, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ vol. xvi. p.

249.]

Along with food, clothing consisting of three garments to complete the sacerdotal robes, as enjoined by the Buddhist ritual[1], was distributed at certain seasons; and in later times a practice obtained of providing robes for the priests by "causing the cotton to be picked from the tree at sunrise, cleaned, spun, woven, dyed yellow, and made into garments and presented before sunset."[2] The condition of the priesthood was thus reduced to a state of absolute dependency on alms, and at the earliest period of their history the vow of poverty, by which their order is bound, would seem to have been righteously observed.

[Footnote 1: To avoid the vanity of dress or the temptation to acquire property, no Buddhist priest is allowed to have more than one set of robes, consisting of three pieces, and if an extra one be bestowed on him it must be surrendered to the chapter of his wihara within ten days.

The dimensions must not exceed a specified length, and when obtained new the cloth must be disfigured with mud or otherwise before he puts it on.

A magnificent robe having been given to Gotama, his attendant Ananda, in order to destroy its intrinsic value, cut it into thirty pieces and sewed them together in four divisions, so that the robe resembled the patches of a rice-field divided by embankments. And in conformity with this precedent the robes of every priest are similarly dissected and reunited.--Hardy's _Eastern Monachism_, c. xii. p. 117; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. pp. 60, 66.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 104, 109, 112. The custom which is still observed in Ceylon, of weaving robes between sunrise and sunset is called _Catina dhwana_ (_Rajavali_, p. 261). The work is performed chiefly by women, and the practice is identical with that mentioned by Herodotus, as observed by the priests of Egypt, who celebrated a festival in honour of the return of Rhampsinitus, after playing at dice with Ceres in Ilades, by investing one of their body with a cloak made in a single day, [Greek: pharos autemeron exyphenantes], _Euterpe_, cxxii. Gray, in his ode of _The Fatal Sisters_, has embodied the Scandinavian myth in which the twelve weird sisters, the _Valkiriur_, weave "the crimson web of war" between the rising and setting of the sun.]

CHAP V.

SINGHALESE CHIVALRY.--ELALA AND DUTUGAIMUNU.

[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 266.]

For nearly a century after the accession of Devenipiatissa, the religion and the social development of Ceylon thus exhibited an equally steady advancement. The cousins of the king, three of whom ascended the throne in succession, seem to have vied with each other in works of piety and utility. Wiharas were built in all parts of the island, both north and south of the Maha-welli-ganga. Dagobas were raised in various places, and cultivation was urged forward by the formation of tanks and ca.n.a.ls.

But, during this period, from the fact of the Bengal immigrants being employed in more congenial or more profitable occupations (possibly also from the numbers who were annually devoting themselves to the service of the temples), and from the ascertained inapt.i.tude of the native Singhalese to bear arms, a practice was commenced of retaining foreign mercenaries, which, even at that early period, was productive of animosity and bloodshed, and in process of time led to the overthrow of the Wijayan dynasty and the gradual decay of the Sinhala sovereignty.

[Sidenote: B.C. 266.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 237.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 205.]

The genius of the Gangetic race, which had taken possession of Ceylon, was essentially adapted to agricultural pursuits--in which, to the present day, their superiority is apparent over the less energetic tribes of the Dekkan. Busied with such employments, the early colonists had no leisure for military service; besides, whilst Devenipiatissa and his successors were earnestly engaged in the formation of religious communities, and the erection of sacred edifices in the northern portion of the island, various princes of the same family occupied themselves in forming settlements in the south and west; and hence, whilst their people were zealously devoted to the service and furtherance of religion, the sovereign at Anaraj.a.poora was compelled, through a combination of causes, to take into his pay a body of Malabars[1] for the protection both of the coast and the interior. Of the foreigners thus confided in, "two youths, powerful in their cavalry and navy, named Sena and Gottika,"[2] proved unfaithful to their trust, and after causing the death of the king Suratissa (B.C. 237), retained the supreme power for upwards of twenty years, till overthrown in their turn and put to death by the adherents of the legitimate line.[3] Ten years, however, had barely elapsed when the attempt to establish a Tamil sovereign was renewed by Elala, "a Malabar of the ill.u.s.trious Uju tribe, who invaded the island from the Chola[4] country, killed the reigning king Asela, and ruled the kingdom for forty years, administering justice impartially to friends and foes."

[Footnote 1: The term "Malabar" is used throughout the following pages in the comprehensive sense in which it is applied in the Singhalese chronicles to the continental invaders of Ceylon; but it must be observed that the adventurers in these expeditions, who are styled in the _Mahawanso, "damilos"_ or Tamils, came not only from the south-western tract of the Dekkan, known in modern geography as "Malabar," but also from all parts of the peninsula, as far north as Cuttack and Orissa.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, xxi.; _Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii.]

[Footnote 4: Chola, or Solee, was the ancient name of Tanjore, and the country traversed by the river Caveri.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 161.]

Such is the encomium which the _Mahawanso_ pa.s.ses on an infidel usurper, because Elala offered his protection to the priesthood; but the orthodox annalist closes his notice of his reign by the moral reflection that "even he who was an heretic, and doomed by his creed to perdition, obtained an exalted extent of supernatural power from having eschewed impiety and injustice."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, xxi. p. 129. The other historical books, the _Rajavali_, and _Rajaratnacari_, give a totally different character of Elala, and represent him as the desecrator of monuments and the overthrower of temples. The traditional estimation which has followed his memory is the best attestation of the superior accuracy of the _Mahawanso_.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 161.]

But it was not the priests alone who were captivated by the generosity of Elala. In the final struggle for the throne, in which the Malabars were worsted by the gallantry of Dutugaimunu, a prince of the excluded family, the deeds of bravery displayed by him were the admiration of his enemies. The contest between the rival chiefs is the solitary tale of Ceylon chivalry, in which Elala is the Saladin and Dutugaimunu the Coeur-de-lion. So genuine was the admiration of Elala's bravery that his rival erected a monument in his honour, on the spot where he fell; its ruins remain to the present day, and the Singhalese still regard it with respect and veneration. "On reaching the quarter of the city in which it stands," says the _Mahawanso_[1], "it has been the custom for the monarchs of Lanka to silence their music, whatsoever cession they may be heading;" and so uniformly was the homage continued down to the most recent period, that so lately as 1818, on the suppression of an attempted rebellion, when the defeated aspirant to the throne was making his escape by Anaraj.a.poora, he alighted from his litter, on approaching the quarter in which the monument was known to exist, "and although weary and almost incapable of exertion, not knowing the precise spot, he continued on foot till a.s.sured that he had pa.s.sed far beyond the ancient memorial."[2]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi.]

[Footnote 2: FORBES' _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 233.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 161.]

Dutugaimunu, in the epics of Buddhism, enjoys a renown, second only to that of King Tissa, as the champion of the faith. On the recovery of his kingdom he addressed himself with energy to remove the effects produced in the northern portions of the island by forty years of neglect and inaction under the sway of Elala. During that monarch's protracted usurpation the minor sovereignties, which had been formed in various parts of the island prior to his seizure of the crown, were little impeded in their social progress by the forty-four years' residence of the Malabars at Anaraj.a.poora. Although the petty kings of Rohuna and Maya submitted to pay tribute to Elala, his personal rule did not extend south of the Mahawelli-ganga[1], and whilst the strangers in the north of the island were plundering the temples of Buddha, the feudal chiefs in the south and west were emulating the munificence of Tissa in the number of wiharas which they constructed.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii., _Rajavali_, p. 188, _Rajaratnacari_, p. 36. The _Mahawanso_ has a story of Dutugaimunu, when a boy, ill.u.s.trative of his early impatience to rid the island of the Malabars. His father seeing him lying on his bed, with his hands and feet gathered up, inquired, "My boy, why not stretch thyself at length on thy bed?" "Confined by the Damilos," he replied, "beyond the river on the one side, and by the unyielding ocean on the other, how can I lie with outstretched limbs?"]

Eager to conciliate his subjects by a similar display of regard for religion, Dutugaimunu signalised his victory and restoration by commencing the erection of the Ruanwelle dagoba, the most stupendous as well as the most venerated of those at Anaraj.a.poora, as it enclosed a more imposing a.s.semblage of relics than were ever enshrined in any other in Ceylon.

The ma.s.s of the population was liable to render compulsory labour to the crown; but wisely reflecting that it was not only derogatory to the sacredness of the object, but impolitic to exact any avoidable sacrifices from a people so recently suffering from internal warfare, Dutugaimunu came to the resolution of employing hired workmen only, and according to the _Mahawanso_ vast numbers of the Yakkhos became converts to Buddhism during the progress of the building[1], which the king did not live to complete.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. xxix. x.x.x. x.x.xi.]

[Sidenote: B.C. 161.]

But the most remarkable of the edifices which he erected at the capital was the Maha-Lowa-paya, a monastery which obtained the name of the _Brazen Palace_ from the fact of its being roofed with plates of that metal. It was elevated on sixteen hundred monolithic columns of granite twelve feet high, and arranged in lines of forty, so as to cover an area of upwards of two hundred and twenty feet square. On these rested the building nine stories in height, which, in addition to a thousand dormitories for priests, contained halls and other apartments for their exercise and accommodation.

The _Mahawanso_ relates with peculiar unction the munificence of Dutugaimunu in remunerating those employed upon this edifice; he deposited clothing for that purpose as well as "vessels filled with sugar, buffalo b.u.t.ter and honey;" he announced that on this occasion it was not fitting to exact unpaid labour, and, "placing high value on the work to be performed, he paid the workmen with money."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 163.]

The structure, when completed, far exceeded in splendour anything recorded in the sacred books. All its apartments were embellished with "beads, resplendent like gems;" the great hall was supported by golden pillars resting on lions and other animals, and the walls were ornamented with festoons of pearls and of flowers formed of jewels; in the centre was an ivory throne, with an emblem on one side of a golden sun, and on the other of the moon in silver, and above all glittered the imperial "chatta," the white canopy of dominion. The palace, says the _Mahawanso_, was provided with rich carpets and couches, and "even the ladle of the rice boiler was of gold."

[Sidenote: B.C. 161.]