 |
[Footnote 1: B.C. 504.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 51, ix. p. 57; Rajavali, part i. p. 177, 186; and TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 12, 14.]
[Footnote 3: The district of Rohuna included the mountain zone of Ceylon, and hence probably its name, rohuno meaning the "act or instrument of ascending, as steps or a ladder." Adam's Peak was in the Maya division; but Edrisi, who wrote in the twelfth century, says, that it was then called "El Rahoun."—Geographie, &c. viii, JAUBERT'S Transl. vol. ii. p. 71. Rahu is an ordinary name for it amongst Mahometan writers, and in the Raja Tarangini, it is called "Rohanam," b. iii. 56, 72.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 504.]
The patriarchal village system, which from time immemorial has been one of the characteristics of the Dekkan, and which still prevails throughout Ceylon in a modified form, was one of the first institutions organised by the successors of Wijayo. "They fixed the boundaries of every village throughout Lanka;"[1] they "caused the whole island to be divided into fields and gardens;"[2] and so uniformly were the rites of these rural municipalities respected in after times, that one of the Singhalese monarchs, on learning that merit attached to alms given from the fruit of the donor's own exertions, undertook to sow a field of rice, and "from the portion derived by him as the cultivator's share," to bestow an offering on a "thero."[3]
[Footnote 1: It was established by Pandukabhaya, A.D. 437.—Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 67, Rajaratnacari, ch. i.]
[Footnote 2: Rajaratnacari, ch. ii., Rajavali, b. i. p. 185.]
[Footnote 3: The king was Mahachula, 77 B.C.—Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv.]
From the necessity of providing food for their followers, the earliest attention of the Bengal conquerors was directed to the introduction and extension of agriculture. A passage in the Mahawanso would seem to imply, that previous to the landing of Wijayo, rice was imported for consumption[1], and upwards of two centuries later the same authority specifies "one hundred and sixty loads of hill-paddi,"[2] among the presents which were sent to the island from Bengal.
[Footnote 1: Kuweni distributed to the companions of Wijayo; "rice and other articles, procured from the wrecked ships of mariners." (Mahawanso, ch. vii. p. 49.) A tank is mentioned as then existing near the residence of Kuweni; but it was only to be used as a bath. (Ib. c. vii. p. 48.) The Rajaratnacari also mentions that, in the fabulous age of the second Buddha, of the present Kalpa, there was a famine in Ceylon, which dried up the cisterns and fountains of the inland. But there is no evidence of the existence of systematic tillage anterior to the reign of Wijayo.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xi. p. 70. Paddi is rice before it has been freed from the husk.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 504.]
In a low and level country like the north of Ceylon, where the chief subsistence of the people is rice, a grain which can only be successfully cultivated under water, the first requisites of society are reservoirs and canals. The Buddhist historians extol the father of Wijayo for his judgment and skill "in forming villages in situations favourable for irrigation;"[1] his own attention was fully engrossed with the cares attendant on the consolidation of his newly acquired power; but the earliest public work undertaken by his successor Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was a tank, which he caused to be formed in the vicinity of his new capital Anarajapoora, the Anurogrammum of Ptolemy, originally a village founded by one of the followers of Wijayo.[2]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. vi. p. 46.]
[Footnote 2: The first tank recorded in Ceylon is the Abayaweva, made by Panduwasa, B.C. 505 (Mahawanso, ch. ix. p. 57). The second was the Jayaweva, formed by Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437. (Ib. ch. x. p. 65.) The third, the Gamini tank, made by the same king at the same place, Anarajapoora.—Ib. ch. x. p. 66.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 307.]
The continual recurrence of records of similar constructions amongst the civil exploits of nearly every succeeding sovereign, together with the prodigious number formed, alike attests the unimproved condition of Ceylon, prior to the arrival of the Bengal invaders, and the indolence or ignorance of the original inhabitants, as contrasted with the energy and skill of their first conquerors.
[Sidenote: B.C. 307.]
Upwards of two hundred years were spent in initiatory measures for the organisation of the new state. Colonists from the continent of India were encouraged by the facilities held out to settlers, and carriage roads were formed in the vicinity of the towns.[1] Village communities were duly organised, gardens were planted, flowers and fruit-bearing trees introduced,[2] and the production of food secured by the construction of canals,[3] and public works for irrigation. Moreover, the kings and petty princes attested the interest which they felt in the promotion of agriculture, by giving personal attention to the formation of tanks and to the labours of cultivation.[4]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xiv. xv. xvi.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xi. p. 60 (367 B.C.), ch. xxxiv. p. 211 (B.C. 20), ch. xxxv. p. 215 (A.D. 20). Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 29. Rajavali, p. 185, 227.]
[Footnote 3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 210 (B.C. 42), ch. xxxv. p. 221, 222 (A.D. 275), ch. xxxvii. p. 238. Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 49, and Rajavali, p. 223, &c.]
[Footnote 4: Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 61, xxii. p. 130, xxiv. p. 149. Rajavali, p. 185, 186. The Buddhist kings of Burmah, at the present day, in imitation of the ancient sovereigns of Ceylon, rest their highest claims to renown on the number of works for irrigation which they have either formed or repaired. See Yule's Narrative of the British mission, to Ava in 1855, p. 106.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 307.]
Meantime, the effects of Gotama's early visits had been obliterated, and the sacred trees which he planted were dead; and although the bulk of the settlers had come from countries where Buddhism was the dominant faith, no measures appear to have been taken by the immigrants to revive or extend it throughout Ceylon. Wijayo was, in all probability, a Brahman, but so indifferent to his own faith, that his first alliance in Ceylon was with a demon worshipper.[1] His immediate successors were so eager to encourage immigration, that they treated all religions with a perfect equality of royal favour. Yakkho temples were not only respected, but "annual demon offerings were provided" for them; halls were built for the worshippers of Brahma, and residences were provided at the public cost, for "five hundred persons of various foreign religious faiths;"[2] but no mention is made in the Mahawanso of a single edifice having been then raised for the worshippers of Buddha, whether resident in the island, or arriving amongst the colonists from India.
[Footnote 1: According to the Mahawanso, Vishnu, in order to protect Wijayo and his followers from the sorceries of the Yakkhos, met them on their landing in Ceylon, and "tied threads on their arms," ch. vii.; and at a later period, when the king Panduwasa, B.C. 504, was afflicted with temporary insanity, as a punishment in his person of the crime of perjury, committed by his predecessor Wijayo, Iswara was supplicated to interpose, and by his mediation the king was restored to his right mind.—Rajavali, p. 181.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. x. p. 67; ch, xxxiii, p. 203.]
It was not till the year B.C. 307, in the reign of Tissa, that the preacher Mahindo ventured to visit Ceylon, under the auspices of the king, whom he succeeded in inducing to abstain from Brahmanical rites, and to profess faith in the doctrines of Buddha. From the prominent part thus taken by Tissa in establishing the national faith of Ceylon, the sacred writers honour his name with the prefix of Dewanan-pia, or "beloved of the saints."
[Sidenote: B.C. 307.]
The Mahawanso exhausts the vocabulary of ecstacy in describing the advent of Mahindo, a prince of Magadha, and a lineal descendant of Chandragutto. It records the visions by which he was divinely directed to "depart on his mission for the conversion of Lanka;" it describes his aerial flight, and his descent on Ambatthalo, the loftiest peak of Mihintala, the mountain which, rising suddenly from the plain, overlooks the sacred city of Anarajapoora. The story proceeds to explain, how the king, who was hunting the elk, was miraculously allured by the fleeing game to approach the spot where Mahindo was seated[1]; and how the latter forthwith propounded the Divine doctrine "to the ruler of the land; who, at the conclusion of his discourse, together with his forty thousand followers, obtained the salvation of the faith."[2]
[Footnote 1: The story, as related in the Mahawanso, bears a resemblance to the legend of St. Hubert and the stag, in the forest of Ardennes, and to that of St. Eustace, who, when hunting, was led by a deer of singular beauty towards a rock, where it displayed to him the crucifix upon its forehead; whence an appeal was addressed which effected his conversion. "The king Dewananpiyatissa departed for an elk hunt, taking with him a retinue; and in the course of the pursuit of the game on foot, he came to the Missa mountain. A certain devo, assuming the form of an elk, stationed himself there, grazing; the sovereign descried him, and saying 'it is not fair to shoot him standing,' sounded his bowstring, on which the elk fled to the mountain. The king gave chase to the flying animal, and, on reaching the spot where the priests were, the thero Mahindo came within sight of the monarch; but the metamorphosed deer vanished."—Mahawanso, c. xiv.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xiv. p. 80.]
Then follows the approach of Mahindo to the capital; the conversion of the queen and her attendants, and the reception of Buddhism by the nation, under the preaching of its great Apostle, who "thus became the luminary which shed the light of religion over the land." He and his sister Sanghamitta thenceforth devoted their lives to the organisation of Buddhist communities throughout Ceylon, and died in the odour of sanctity, in the reign of King Uttiya, B.C. 267.
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
But the grand achievement which consummated the establishment of the national faith, was the arrival from Magadha of a branch of the sacred Bo-tree. Every ancient race has had its sacred tree; the Chaldeans, the Hebrews[1], the Greeks, the Romans and the Druids, had each their groves, their elms and their oaks, under which to worship. Like them, the Brahmans have their Kalpa tree in Paradise, and the Banyan in the vicinity of their temples; and the Buddhists, in conformity with immemorial practice, selected as their sacred tree the Pippul, which is closely allied to the Banyan, yet sufficiently distinguished from it, to serve as the emblem of a new and peculiar worship.[2] It was whilst reclining under the shade of this tree in Uruwela, that Gotama received Buddhahood; hence its adoption as an object of reverence by his followers, and in all probability its adoration preceded the use of images and temples in Ceylon.[3]
[Footnote 1: "They sacrifice upon the tops of mountains, and burn incense under oaks, and poplars, and elms, because the shadow thereof is good."—Hosea, iv. 13.]
[Footnote 2: The Bo-tree (Ficus religiosa) is the "pippul" of India. It differs from the Banyan (F. indica), by sending down no roots from its branches. Its heart-shaped leaves, with long attenuated points, are attached to the stem by so slender a stalk, that they appear in the profoundest calm to be ever in motion, and thus, like the leaves of the aspen, which, from the tradition that the cross was made of that wood, the Syrians believe to tremble in recollection of the events of the crucifixion, those of the Bo-tree are supposed by the Buddhists to exhibit a tremulous veneration, associated with the sacred scene of which they were the witnesses.]
[Footnote 3: Previous Buddhas had each his Bo-tree or Buddha-tree. The pippul had been before assumed by the first recorded Buddha; others had the iron-tree, the champac, the nipa, &c.—Mahawanso, TURNOUR'S Introd. p. xxxii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
In order that his kingdom might possess a sacred tree of the supremest sanctity, king Tissa solicited a branch of the identical tree under which Gotama reclined, from Asoca, who then reigned in Magadha. The difficulty of severing a portion without the sacrilegious offence of "lopping it with any weapon," was overcome by the miracle of the branch detaching itself spontaneously, and descending with its roots into the fragrant earth prepared for it in a golden vase, in which it was transported by sea to Ceylon[1], and planted by king Tissa in the spot at Anarajapoora, where, after the lapse of more than 2000 years, it still continues to flourish and to receive the profound veneration of all Buddhist nations.[2]
[Footnote 1: The ceremonial of the mysterious severance of the sacred branch "amid the din of music, the clamours of men, the howling of the elements, the roar of animals, the screams of birds, the yells of demons, and the crash of earthquakes," is minutely described in an elaborate passage of the Mahawanso. And its landing in Ceylon, the retinue of its attendants, the homage paid to it, its progress to the capital, its arrival at the Northern-gate "at the hour when shadows are most extended," its reception by princes "adorned with the insignia of royalty," and its final deposition in the earth, under the auspices of Mahindo and his sister Sanghamitta, form one of the most striking episodes in that very singular book.—Mahawanso, ch. xviii. xix.]
[Footnote 2: The planting of the Bo-tree took place in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Devenipiatissa, B.C. 288; it is consequently at the present time 2147 years old.]
CHAP. IV.
THE EARLY BUDDHIST MONUMENTS.
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
Almost simultaneously with the establishment of the Buddhist religion was commenced the erection of those stupendous ecclesiastical structures, the number and magnitude of whose remains form a remarkable characteristic in the present aspect of the country.
The architectural history of continental India dates from the third century before Christ; not a single building or sculptured stone having as yet been discovered there, of an age anterior to the reign of Asoca[1], who was the first of his dynasty to abandon the religion of Brahma for that of Buddha. In like manner the earliest existing monuments of Ceylon belong to the same period; they owe their construction to Devenipiatissa, and the historical annals of the island record with pious gratitude the series of dagobas, wiharas, and temples erected by him and his successors.
[Footnote 1: FERGUSON, Handbook of Architecture, b. i. c. i. p. 5.]
Of these the most remarkable are the Dagobas, piles of brickwork of dimensions so extraordinary that they suggest comparison with the pyramids of Memphis[1], the barrow of Halyattys[2], or the mounds in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates.
[Footnote 1: So vast did the dagobas appear to the Singhalese that the author of the Mahawanso, in describing the construction of that called the Ruanwelle at Anarajapoora, states that each of the lower courses contained ten kotis (a koti being equal to 100 lacs) or 10,000,000 bricks.—Mahawanso, ch. xxx, p. 179.]
[Footnote 2: "The ancient edifices of Chi-Chen in Central America bear a striking resemblance to the topes of India. The shape of one of the domes, its apparent size, the small tower on the summit, the trees growing on the sides, the appearance of masonry here and there, the shape of the ornaments, and the small doorway at the base, are so exactly similar to what I had seen at Anarajapoora that when my eyes first fell on the engravings of these remarkable ruins I supposed that they were presented in illustration of the dagobas of Ceylon."—HARDY's Eastern Monachism, c. xix. p. 222.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
A dagoba (from datu, a relic, and gabbhan, a shrine[1]) is a monument raised to preserve one of the relics of Gotama, which were collected after the cremation of his body at Kusinara, and it is candidly admitted in the Mahawanso that the intention in erecting them was to provide "objects to which offerings could be made."[2]
[Footnote 1: Deha, "the body," and gopa, "what preserves;" because they enshrine hair, teeth, nails, &c. of Buddha.—WILSON'S Asiat. Res. vol. xvii. p. 605.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xvii. p. 104.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
Ceylon contains but one class of these structures, and boasts no tall monolithic pillars like the lats of Delhi and Allahabad, and no regularly built columns similar to the minars of Cabul; but the fragments of the bones of Gotama, and locks of his hair, are enclosed in enormous masses of hemispherical masonry, modifications of which may be traced in every Buddhist country of Asia, in the topes of Affghanistan and the Punjaub, in the pagodas of Pegu, and in the Boro-Buddor of Java. Those of Ceylon consist of a bell-shaped dome of brick-work surmounted by a terminal or tee (generally in the form of a cube supporting a pointed spire), and resting on a square platform approached by flights of stone steps. Those, the ruins of which have been explored in modern times, have been found to be almost solid, enclosing a hollow vessel of metal or stone which had once contained the relic, but of which the ornament alone and a few gems or discoloured pearls set in gold, are usually all that is now discoverable.
Their outline exhibits but little of ingenuity or of art, and their construction is only remarkable for the vast amount of labour which must necessarily have been expended upon them. But, independently of this, the first dagoba erected at Anarajapoora, the Thuparamaya, which exists to the present day, "as nearly as may be in the same form in which it was originally designed, is possessed of a peculiar interest from the fact that it is in all probability the oldest architectural monument now extant in India."[1] It was raised by King Tissa, at the close of the third century before Christ, over the collar-bone of Buddha, which Mahindo had procured for the king.[2] In dimensions this monument is inferior to those built at a later period by the successors of Tissa, some of which are scarcely exceeded in diameter and altitude by the dome of St. Peter's[3]; but in elegance of outline it immeasurably surpassed all the other dagobas, and the beauty of its design is still perceptible in its ruins after the lapse of two thousand years.
[Footnote 1: FERGUSON'S Handbook of Architecture, b. i. c. iii. p. 43.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xvii. The Rajavali calls it the jaw-bone, p. 184.]
[Footnote 3: The Abhayagiri dagoba at Anarajapoora, built B.C. 89, was originally 180 cubits high, which, taking the Ceylon cubit at 2 feet 3 inches, would be equal to 405 feet. The dome was hemispherical, and described with a radius of 180 feet, giving a circumference of 1130 feet. The summit of this stupendous work was therefore fifty feet higher than St. Paul's, and fifty feet lower than St. Peter's.]
The king, in addition to this, built a number of others in various parts of Ceylon[1], and his name has been perpetuated as the founder of temples, for the rites of the new religion, and of Wiharas or monasteries for the residence of its priesthood. The former were of the simplest design, for an atheistical system, which substitutes meditation for worship, dispenses with splendour in its edifices and pomp in its ceremonial.
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 15.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
The images of Grotama, which in time became objects of veneration, were but a late innovation[1], and a doubt even been expressed whether the religion of Buddha in its primitive constitution, rejecting as it does the doctrine of a mediatorial priesthood, contemplated the existence of any organised ministry.
[Footnote 1: The precise date of their introduction is unknown, but the first mention of a statue occurs in an inscription on the rock at Mihintala, bearing date A.D. 246, and referring to the house constructed over a figure of Buddha.]
Caves, or insulated apartments in imitation of their gloom and retirement, were in all probability the first resort of devotees in Ceylon, and hence amongst the deeds of King Tissa, the most conspicuous and munificent were the construction of rock temples, on Mihintala, and of apartments for the priests in all parts of his dominions.[1]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR's Epitome, p. 15.]
The directions of Gotama as to the residence of his votaries are characterised by the severest simplicity, and the term "pansala," literally "a dwelling of leaves,"[1] by which the house of a priest is described to the present day, serves to illustrate the original intention that persons dedicated to his service should cultivate solitude and meditation by withdrawing into the forest, but within such a convenient distance as would not estrange them from the villagers, on whose bounty and alms they were to be dependent for subsistence.
[Footnote 1: It is questionable whether the Sarmanai, mentioned by Megasthenes, were Buddhists or Brahmans; but the account which he gives of the class of them whom he styles the Hylobii, would seem to identify them with the Sramanas of Buddhism, "passing their lives in the woods, [Greek: zontes en tais ulais], living on fruits and seeds, and clothed with the bark of trees."—MEGASTHENES' Indica, &c., Fragm. xlii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
In one of the rock inscriptions deciphered by Prinsep, King Asoca, in addressing himself to his Buddhist subjects, distinguishes them as "ascetics and house-holders." In the sacred books a laic is called a "graha pali," meaning "the ruler of a house;" and in contra-distinction Fa Hian, the Chinese Buddhist, speaks of the priests of Ceylon under the designation of "the house-less," to mark their abandonment of social enjoyments.[1] Anticipating the probable necessity of their eventually resorting to houses for accommodation, Buddha directed that, if built for an individual, the internal measurement of a cell should be twelve spans in length by seven in breadth[2]; and, if restricted to such dimensions, the assertions of the Singhalese chronicles become intelligible as to the prodigious number of such dwellings said to have been raised by the early kings.[3]
[Footnote 1: "Les hommes hors de leur maisons."—FA HIAN, Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ch. xxxix. This is the equivalent of the Singhalese term for the same class, agariyan-pubbajito, used in the Pittakas.]
[Footnote 2: HARDY'S Eastern Monachism, ch. xiii. p. 122.]
[Footnote 3: The Rajaratnacari says that Devenipiatissa caused eighty-four thousand temples to be built during his reign, p. 35.]
But the multitudes who were thus attracted to a life of indolent devotion became in a short time so excessive that recourse was had to other devices for combining economy with accommodation, and groups of such cells were gradually formed into wiharas and monasteries, the inmates of which have uniformly preserved their organisation and order. Still the edifices thus constructed have never exhibited any tendency to depart from the primitive simplicity so strongly enjoined by their founder; and, down to the present time, the homes of the Buddhist priesthood are modest and humble structures generally reared of mud and thatch, with no pretension to external beauty and no attempt at internal decoration.
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
To supply to the ascetics the means of seclusion and exercise, the early kings commenced the erection of ambulance-halls; and gardens were set apart for the use of the great temple communities. The Mahawanso describes, with all the pomp of Oriental diction, the ceremony observed by King Tissa on the occasion of setting apart a portion of ground as a site for the first wihara at his capital; the monarch in person, attended by standard bearers and guards with golden staves, having come to mark out the boundary with a plough drawn by elephants.[1] A second monastery was erected by him on the summit of Mihintala[2]; a third was attached to the dagoba of the Thuparamaya, and others were rapidly founded in every quarter of the island.[3]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xv. p. 99.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xx. p. 123.]
[Footnote 3: Five hundred were built by one king alone, the third in succession from Devenipiatissa, B.C. 246 (Mahawanso, ch. xxi, p. 127). About the same period the petty chiefs of Rohuna and Mahagam were equally zealous in their devout labours, the one having erected sixty-four wiharas in the east of the island, and the other sixty-eight in the south.—Mahawanso, ch. xxiv. p. 145, 148.]
It was in all probability owing to the growth of these institutions, and the establishment of colleges in connection with them, that halls were eventually appropriated for the reception of statues; and that apartments so consecrated were devoted to the ceremonies and worship of Buddha. Hence, at a very early period, the dwellings of the priests were identified with the chaityas and sacred edifices, and the name of the Wihara came to designate indifferently both the temple and the monastery.
But the hall which contains the figures of Buddha, and which constitutes 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 illustrations of the legends of Gotama, whose statue, with hand uplifted in the attitude 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 worshippers at the shrines.
[Sidenote: B.C. 289.]
In no other system of idolatry, ancient or modern, have the rites been administered by such a multitude of priests as assist in the passionless ceremonial of Buddhism. Fa Hian, in the fourth century, was assured 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 Anarajapoora, and three thousand to another.[1]
[Footnote 1: FA HIAN, Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ch. xxxviii. 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 assume 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 butter, 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 institution 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 institution, 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 Anarajapoora 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. xxxii.; 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 canals. 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 inaptitude 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 Anarajapoora 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 illustrious 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 passes 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 Anarajapoora, 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 assured that he had passed 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 Anarajapoora. 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, illustrative 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 Anarajapoora, as it enclosed a more imposing assemblage of relics than were ever enshrined in any other in Ceylon.
The mass 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. xxx. xxxi.]
[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 butter 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.]
The vicissitudes and transformations of the Brazen Palace are subjects of frequent mention in the history of the sacred city. As originally planned by Dutugaimunu, it did not endure through the reign of his successor Saidaitissa, at whose expense it was reconstructed, B.C. 140, but the number of stories was lowered to seven.[1] More than two centuries later, A.D. 182, these were again reduced to five[2], and the entire building must have been taken down in A.D. 240, as the king who was then reigning caused "the pillars of the Lowa Pasado to be arranged in a different form."
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvi.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii.]
The edifice erected on its site was pulled to the ground by the apostate Maha Sen, A.D. 301[1]; but penitently reconstructed by him on his recantation of his errors. Its last recorded restoration took place in the reign of Prakrama-bahu, towards the close of the twelfth century, when "the king rebuilt the Lowa-Maha-paya, and raised up the 1600 pillars of rock."
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 161.]
Thus exposed to spoliation by its splendour, and obnoxious to infidel invaders from the religious uses to which it was dedicated, it was subjected to violence on every commotion, whether civil or external, which disturbed the repose of the capital; and at the present day, no traces of it remain except the indestructible monoliths on which it stood. A "world of stone columns," to use the quaint expression of Knox, still marks the site of the Brazen Palace of Dutugaimunu, and attests the accuracy of the chronicles which describe its former magnificence.
[Sidenote: B.C. 137.]
The character of Dutugaimunu is succinctly expressed in his dying avowal, that he had lived "a slave to the priesthood."[1] Before partaking of food, it was his practice to present a portion for their use; and recollecting in maturer age, that on one occasion, when a child, he had so far forgotten this invariable rule, as to eat a chilly without sharing it with the priest, he submitted himself to a penance in expiation of this youthful impiety.[2] His death scene, as described in the Mahawanso, contains an enumeration of the deeds of piety by which his reign had been signalised.[3] Extended on his couch in front of the great dagoba which he had erected, he thus addressed one of his military companions who had embraced the priesthood: "In times past, supported by my ten warriors, I engaged in battles; now, single-handed, I commence my last conflict, with death; and it is not permitted to me to overcome my antagonist." "Ruler of men," replied the thero, "without subduing the dominion of sin, the power of death is invincible; but call to recollection thy acts of piety performed, and from these you will derive consolation." The secretary then "read from the register of deeds of piety," that "one hundred wiharas, less one, had been constructed by the Maharaja, that he had built two great dagobas and the Brazen Palace at Anarajapoora; that in famines he had given his jewels to support the pious; that on three several occasions he had clothed the whole priesthood throughout the island, giving three garments to each; that five times he had conferred the sovereignty of the land for the space of seven days on the National Church; that he had founded hospitals for the infirm, and distributed rice to the indigent; bestowed lamps on innumerable temples, and maintained preachers, in the various wiharas, in all parts of his dominions. 'All these acts,' said the dying king, 'done in my days of prosperity, afford no comfort to my mind; but two offerings which I made when in affliction and in adversity, disregardful of my own fate, are those which alone administer solace to me now.[4] After this, the pre-eminently wise Maharaja expired, stretched on his bed, in the act of gazing on the Mahatupo."[5]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxiv, xxv.]
[Footnote 3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii.]
[Footnote 4: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii.]
[Footnote 5: Another name for the Ruanwelle dagoba, which he had built.]
CHAP. VI.
THE INFLUENCE OF BUDDHISM ON CIVILISATION.
[Sidenote: B.C. 137.]
After the reign of Dutugaimunu there is little in the pages of the native historians to sustain interest in the story of the Singhalese monarchs. The long line of sovereigns is divided into two distinct classes; the kings of the Maha-wanse or "superior dynasty" of the uncontaminated blood of Wijayo, who occupied the throne from his death, B.C. 505, to that of Maha Sen, A.D. 302;—and the Sulu-wanse or "inferior race," whose descent was less pure, but who, amidst invasions, revolutions, and decline, continued, with unsteady hand, to hold the government clown to the occupation of the island by Europeans in the beginning of the sixteenth century.
[Sidenote: B.C. 137.]
To the great dynasty, and more especially to its earliest members, the inhabitants were indebted for the first rudiments of civilisation, for the arts of agricultural life, for an organised government, and for a system of national worship. But neither the piety of the kings nor their munificence sufficed to conciliate the personal attachment of their subjects, or to strengthen their throne by national attachment such as would have fortified its occupant against the fatalities incident to despotism. Of fifty-one sovereigns who formed the pure Wijayan dynasty, two were deposed by their subjects, and nineteen put to death by their successors.[1] Excepting the rare instances in which a reign was marked by some occurrence, such as an invasion and repulse of the Malabars, there is hardly a sovereign of the "Solar race" whose name is associated with a higher achievement than the erection of a dagoba or the formation of a tank, nor one whose story is enlivened by an event more exciting than the murder through which he mounted the throne or the conspiracy by which he was driven from it.[2]
[Footnote 1: There is something very striking in the facility with which aspirants to the throne obtained the instant acquiescence of the people, so soon as assassination had put them in possession of power. And this is the more remarkable, where the usurpers were of the lower grade, as in the instance of Subho, a gate porter, who murdered King Yasa Silo, A.D. 60, and reigned for six years (Mahaw. ch. xxxv. p. 218). A carpenter, and a carrier of fire-wood, were each accepted in succession as sovereigns, A.D. 47; whilst the "great dynasty" was still in the plenitude of its popularity. The mystery is perhaps referable to the dominant necessity of securing tranquillity at any cost, in the state of society where the means of cultivation were directly dependent on the village organisation, and famine and desolation would have been the instant and inevitable consequences of any commotions which interfered with the conservancy and repair of the tanks and means of irrigation, and the prompt application of labour to the raising and saving of produce at the instant when the fall of the rains or the ripening of the crops demanded its employment with the utmost vigour.]
[Footnote 2: In theory the Singhalese monarchy was elective in the descendants of the Solar race: in practice, primogeniture had a preference, and the crown was either hereditary or became the prize of those who claimed to be of royal lineage. On reviewing the succession of kings from B.C. 307 to A.D. 1815, thirty-nine eldest sons (or nearly one fourth), succeeded to their fathers: and twenty-nine kings (or more than one fifth), were succeeded by brothers. Fifteen reigned for a period less than one year, and thirty for more than one year, and less than four. Of the Singhalese kings who died by violence, twenty-two were murdered by their successors; six were killed by other individuals; thirteen fell in feuds and war, and four committed suicide; eleven were dethroned, and their subsequent fate is unknown. Not more than two-thirds of the Singhalese kings retained sovereign authority to their decease, or reached the funeral pile without a violent death.—FORBES' Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. i. ch. iv. p. 80, 97; JOINVILLE, Religion and Manners of the People of Ceylon; Asiat. Res. vol. vii. p. 423. See also Mahawanso, ch. xxiii. p. 201.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 119.]
One source of royal contention arose on the death of Dutugaimunu; his son, having forfeited his birthright by an alliance with a wife of lower caste, was set aside from the succession; Saidaitissa, a brother of the deceased king, being raised to the throne in his stead. The priests, on the death of Saidaitissa, B.C. 119, hastened to proclaim his youngest son Thullatthanako[1], to the prejudice of his elder brother Laiminitissa, but the latter established his just claim by the sword, and hence arose two rival lines, which for centuries afterwards were prompt on every opportunity to advance adverse pretensions to the throne, and assert them by force of arms.
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii. p. 201.]
In such contests the priesthood brought a preponderant influence to whatever side they inclined [1]; and thus the royal authority, though not strictly sacerdotal, became so closely identified with the hierarchy, and so guided by its will, that each sovereign's attention was chiefly devoted to forwarding such measures as most conduced to the exaltation of Buddhism and the maintenance of its monasteries and temples.
[Footnote 1: It was the dying boast of Dutugaimunu that he had lived "a slave to the priesthood." The expression was figurative in his case; but so abject did the subserviency of the kings become, and so rapid was its growth, that Bhatiya Tissa, who reigned A.D. 8, rendered it literal, and "dedicated himself, his queen, and two sons, as well as his charger, and state elephant, as slaves to the priesthood." The Mahawanso intimates that the priests themselves protested against this debasement, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 119.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
A signal effect of this regal policy, and of the growing diffusion of Buddhism, is to be traced in the impulse which it communicated to the reclamation of lands and the extension of cultivation. For more than three hundred years no mention is made in the Singhalese annals of any mode of maintaining the priesthood other than the royal distribution of clothing and voluntary offerings of food. They resorted for the "royal alms" either to the residence of the authorities or to halls specially built for their accommodation [1], to which they were summoned by "the shout of refection;" [2] the ordinary priests receiving rice, "those endowed with the gift of preaching, clarified butter, sugar, and honey."[3] Hospitals and medicines for their use, and rest houses on their journeys, were also provided at the public charge.[4] These expedients were available so long as the numbers of the priesthood were limited; but such were the multitudes who were tempted to withdraw from the world and its pursuits, in order to devote themselves to meditation and the diffusion of Buddhism, that the difficulty became practical of maintaining them by personal gifts, and the alternative suggested itself of setting apart lands for their support. This innovation was first resorted to during an interregnum. The Singhalese king Walagam Bahu, being expelled from his capital by a Malabar usurpation B.C. 104, was unable to continue the accustomed regal bounty to the priesthood; dedicated certain lands while in exile in Rohuna, for the support of a fraternity "who had sheltered him there."[5] The precedent thus established, was speedily seized upon and extended; lands were everywhere set apart for the repair of the sacred edifices[6], and eventually, about the beginning of the Christian era, the priesthood acquired such an increase of influence as sufficed to convert their precarious eleemosynary dependency into a permanent territorial endowment; and the practice became universal of conveying estates in mortmain on the construction of a wihara or the dedication of a temple.[7]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xx. p. 123; xxii. p. 132,135.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxviii. p. 167.]
[Footnote 3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii. p. 196-7.]
[Footnote 4: Mahawanso, ch. xxxii. p. 196 xxxvii. p. 244; Rajaratnacari, p. 39, 41.]
[Footnote 5: Mahawanso, ch, xxxiii. p. 203. Previous to this date a king of Rohuna, during the usurpation of Elala, B.C. 205, had appropriated lands near Kalany, for the repairs of the dagoba.—Rajaratnacari, p. 37.]
[Footnote 6: In the reign of Batiya Tissa, B.C. 20. Mahawanso,, ch. xxxiv. p. 212; Rajaratnacari, p. 51.]
[Footnote 7: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 214.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
The corporate character of the recipients served to neutralise the obligations by which they were severally bound; the vow of poverty, though compulsory on an individual priest, ceased to be binding on the community of which he was a member; and whilst, on his own behalf, he was constrained to abjure the possession of property, even to the extent of one superfluous cloth, the wihara to which he was attached, in addition to its ecclesiastical buildings, and its offerings in gems and gold, was held competent to become the proprietor of broad and fertile lands.[1] These were so bountifully bestowed by royal piety, by private munificence, and by mortuary gifts, that ere many centuries had elapsed the temples of Ceylon absorbed a large proportion of the landed property of the kingdom, and their possessions were not only exempted from taxation, but accompanied by a right to the compulsory labour of the temple tenants.[2]
[Footnote 1: HARDY'S Eastern Monachism, ch. viii. p. 68.]
[Footnote 2: The Rajaratnacari mentions an instance, A.D. 62, of eight thousand rice fields bestowed in one grant; and similar munificence is recorded in numerous instances prior, to A.D. 204.—Rajaratnacari, p. 57, 59, 64, 74, 113, &c. Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 223, 224; ch. xxxvi. p. 233.]
As the estates so made over to religious uses lay for the most part in waste districts, the quantity of land which was thus brought under cultivation necessarily involved large extensions of the means of irrigation. To supply these, reservoirs were formed on such a scale as to justify the term "consecrated lakes," by which they are described in the Singhalese annals.[1]
[Footnote 1: Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 37; Rajavali, p. 237.]
Where the circumstances of the ground permitted, their formation was effected by drawing an embankment across the embouchure of a valley so as to arrest and retain the waters by which it was traversed, and so vast were the dimensions of some of these gigantic tanks that many yet in existence still cover an area of from fifteen to twenty miles in circumference. The ruins of that at Kalaweva, to the north-west of Dambool, show that its original circuit could not have been less than forty miles, its retaining bund being upwards of twelve miles long. The spill-water of stone, which remains to the present time, is "perhaps one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human labour in the island."[1]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR, Mahawanso, p. 12. The tank of Kalaweva was formed by Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459.—Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii. p. 257.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
The number of these stupendous works, which were formed by the early sovereigns of Ceylon, almost exceeds credibility. Kings are named in the native annals, each of whom made from fifteen to thirty[1], together with canals and all the appurtenances for irrigation. Originally these vast undertakings were completed "for the benefit of the country," and "out of compassion for living creatures;"[2] but so early as the first century of the Christian era, the custom became prevalent of forming tanks with the pious intention of conferring the lands which they enriched on the church. Wide districts, rendered fertile by the interception of a river and the formation of suitable canals, were appropriated to the maintenance of the local priesthood[3]; a tank and the thousands of acres which it fertilised were sometimes assigned for the perpetual repairs of a dagoba[4], and the revenues of whole villages and their surrounding rice fields were devoted to the support of a single wihara.[5]
[Footnote 1: Rajaratnacari, p. 41, 45, 54, 55; King Saidaitissa B.C. 137, made "eighteen lakes" (Rajavali, p. 233). King Wasabha, who ascended the throne A.D. 62, "caused sixteen large lakes to be enclosed" (Rajaratnacari, p. 57). Detu Tissa, A.D. 253, excavated six (Rajavali, p. 237), and King Maha Sen, A.D. 275, seventeen (Mahawanso, ch, xxxviii. p. 236).]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch, xxxvii. p. 242.]
[Footnote 3: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 210; xxxv. p. 221; xxxviii. p. 237, Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 57, 59, 64, 69, 74.]
[Footnote 4: Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 215, 218, 223; ch. xxxvii. p. 234; Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 51. TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 21.]
[Footnote 5: Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 218, 221; Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 51; Rajaviai, p. 241.]
So lavish were these endowments, that one king, who signalised his reign by such extravagances as laying a carpet seven miles in length, "in order that pilgrims might proceed with unsoiled feet all the way from the Kadambo river (the Malwatte oya) to the mountain Chetiyo (Mihintala)," awarded a priest who had presented him with a draught of water during the construction of a wihara, "land within the circumference of half a yoyana (eight miles) for the maintenance of the temple."[1]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv, p. 3.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
It was in this manner that the beautiful tank at Mineri, one of the most lovely of these artificial lakes, was enclosed by Maha Sen, A.D. 275; and, together with the 80,000 amonams of ground which it waters, was conferred on the Jeytawana Wihara which the king had just erected at Anarajapoora.[1]
[Footnote 1: Rajaratnacari, ch. ii. p. 69.]
To identify the crown still more closely with the interests of agriculture, some of the kings superintended public works for irrigating the lands of the temples[1]; and one more enthusiastic than the rest toiled in the rice fields to enhance the merit of conferring their produce on the priesthood.[2]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 33.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. The Buddhist kings of Burmah are still accustomed to boast, almost in the terms of the Mahawanso, of the distinction which they have earned, by the multitudes of tanks they have constructed or restored. See YULE'S Narrative of the Mission to Ava in 1855, p. 106.]
These broad possessions, the church, under all vicissitudes and revolutions, has succeeded in retaining to the present day. Their territories, it is true, have been diminished in extent by national decay; the destruction of works for irrigation has converted into wilderness and jungle plains once teeming with fertility; and the mild policy of the British government, by abolishing raja-kariya[1], has emancipated the peasantry, who are no longer the serfs either of the temples or the chiefs. But in every district of the island the priests are in the enjoyment of the most fertile lands, over which the crown exercises no right of taxation; and such is the extent of their possessions that, although their precise limits have not been ascertained by the local government, they have been conjectured with probability to be equal to one-third of the cultivated land of the island.
[Footnote 1: Compulsory labour.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
One peculiarity in the Buddhist ceremonial served at all times to give a singular impulse to the progress of horticulture. Flowers and garlands are introduced in its religious rites to the utmost excess. The atmosphere of the wiharas and temples is rendered oppressive with the perfume of champac and jessamine, and the shrine of the deity, the pedestals of his image, and the steps leading to the temple are strewn thickly with blossoms of the nagaha and the lotus. At an earlier period the profusion in which these beautiful emblems were employed in sacred decorations appears almost incredible; the Mahawanso relates that the Ruanwelle dagoba, which was 270 feet in height, was on one occasion "festooned with garlands from pedestal to pinnacle till it resembled one uniform bouquet;" and at another time, it and the lofty dagoba at Mihintala were buried under heaps of jessamine from the ground to the summit.[1] Fa Hian, in describing his visit to Anarajapoora in the fourth century, dwells with admiration and wonder on the perfumes and flowers lavished on their worship by the Singhalese[2]; and the native historians constantly allude as familiar incidents to the profusion in which they were employed on ordinary occasions, and to the formation by successive kings of innumerable gardens for the floral requirements of the temples. The capital was surrounded on all sides[3] by flower gardens, and these were multiplied so extensively that, according to the Rajaratnacari, one was to be found within a distance of four leagues in any part of Ceylon.[4] Amongst the regulations of the temple built at Dambedinia, in the thirteenth century, was "every day an offering of 100,000 flowers, and each day a different flower."[5]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv.; Rajaratnacari, p. 52, 53.]
[Footnote 2: FA HIAN. Foe Koue Ki, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.]
[Footnote 3: Rajavali, p. 227; Mahawanso, ch. xi. p. 67.]
[Footnote 4: Rajaratnacari, p. 29, 49. Amongst the officers attached to the great establishments of the priests in Mihintala, A.D. 246, there are enumerated in an inscription engraven on a rock there, a secretary, a treasurer, a physician, a surgeon, a painter, twelve cooks, twelve thatchers, ten carpenters, six carters, and two florists.]
[Footnote 5: Rajaratnacari, p. 103. The same book states that another king, in the fifteenth century, "offered no less than 6,480,320 sweet smelling flowers" at the shrine of the Tooth.—Ib., p. 136.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
Another advantage conferred by Buddhism on the country was the planting of fruit trees and esculent vegetables for the gratuitous use of travellers in all the frequented parts of the island. The historical evidences of this are singularly corroborative of the genuineness of the Buddhist edicts engraved on various rocks and monuments in India, the deciphering of which was the grand achievement of Prinsep and his learned coadjutors. On the pillars of Delhi, Allahabad, and other places, and on the rocks of Girnar and Dhauli, there exist a number of Pali inscriptions purporting to be edicts of Asoca (the Dharmasoca of the Mahawanso), King of Magadha, in the third century before the Christian era, who, on his conversion to the religion of Buddha, commissioned Mahindo, his son, to undertake its establishment in Ceylon. In these edicts, which were promulgated in the vernacular dialect, the king endeavoured to impress both upon his subjects and allies, as well as those who, although aliens, were yet "united in the law" of Buddha, the divine precepts of their great teacher; prominent amongst which are the prohibition against taking animal life[1], and the injunction that, "everywhere wholesome vegetables, roots, and fruit trees shall be cultivated, and that on the roads wells shall be dug and trees planted for the enjoyment of men and animals." In apparent conformity with these edicts, one of the kings of Ceylon, Addagaimunu, A.D. 20, is stated in the Mahawanso to have "caused to be planted throughout the island every description of fruit-bearing creepers, and interdicted the destruction of animal life,"[2] and similar acts of pious benevolence, performed by command of various other sovereigns, are adverted to on numerous occasions.
[Footnote 1: It is curious that one of these edicts of Asoca, who was contemporary with Devenipiatissa, is addressed to "all the conquered territories of the raja, even unto the ends of the earth; as in Chola, in Pida, in Keralaputra, and in Tambapanni (or Ceylon)." This license of speech, reminding one of the grandiloquent epistles "from the Flaminian Gate," was no doubt assumed in virtue of the recent establishment of Buddhism, or, as it is called in the Mahawanso "the religion of the Vanquisher," and Asoca, as its propagator, thus claims to address the converts as his "subjects."]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. p. 215. The king Upatissa, A.D. 368, in the midst of a solemn ceremonial, "observing ants, and other insects drowning in an inundation, halted, and having swept them towards the with the feathers of a peacock's tail, and enabled them to save a themselves, he continued the procession."—Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii p. 249; Rajaratnacari, p. 49, 52; Rajavali, p. 228.]
CHAP. VII
FATE OF THE ABORIGINES.
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
It has already been shown, that devotion and policy combined to accelerate the progress of social improvement in Ceylon, and that before the close of the third century of the Christian era, the island to the north of the Kandyan mountains contained numerous cities and villages, adorned with temples and dagobas, and seated in the midst of highly cultivated fields. The face of the country exhibited broad expanses of rice land, irrigated by artificial lakes, and canals of proportionate magnitude, by which the waters from the rivers, which would otherwise have flowed idly to the sea, were diverted inland in all directions to fertilise the rice fields of the interior.[1]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxv. xxxvii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
In the formation of these prodigious tanks, the labour chiefly employed was that of the aboriginal inhabitants, the Yakkhos and Nagas, directed by the science and skill of the conquerors. Their contributions of this kind, though in the instance of the Buddhist converts they may have been to some extent voluntary, were, in general, the result of compulsion.[1] Like the Israelites under the Egyptians, the aborigines were compelled to make bricks[2] for the stupendous dagobas erected by their masters[3]; and eight hundred years after the subjugation of the island, the Rajavali describes vast reservoirs and appliances for irrigation, as being constructed by the forced labour of the Yakkhos[4] under the superintendence of Brahman engineers.[5] This, to some extent, accounts for the prodigious amount of labour bestowed on these structures; labour which the whole revenue of the kingdom would not have sufficed to purchase, had it not been otherwise procurable.
[Footnote 1: In some instances the soldiers of the king were employed in forming works of irrigation.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxviii.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., ch. xxvii.]
[Footnote 4: Rajavali, p. 237, 238. Exceptions to the extortion of forced labour for public works took place under the more pious kings, who made a merit of paying the workmen employed in the erection of dagobas and other religious monuments.—Mahawanso, ch, xxxv.]
[Footnote 5: Maharwanso, ch. x.]
Under this system, the fate of the aborigines was that usually consequent on the subjugation of an inferior race by one more highly civilised. The process of their absorption into the dominant race was slow, and for centuries they continued to exist distinct, as a subjugated people. So firmly rooted amongst them was the worship both of demons and serpents, that, notwithstanding the ascendency of Buddhism, many centuries elapsed before it was ostensibly abandoned; from time to time, "demon offerings" were made from the royal treasury[1]; and one of the kings, in his enlarged liberality, ordered that for every ten villages there should be maintained an astrologer and a "devil-dancer," in addition to the doctor and the priest.[2]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. x.; TURNOUR'S Epitome. p. 23.]
[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 27; Rajaratnacari, ch. ii.; Rajavali, p. 241.]
Throughout the Singhalese chronicles, the notices of the aborigines are but casual, and occasionally contemptuous. Sometimes they allude to "slaves of the Yakkho tribe,"[1] and in recording the progress and completion of the tanks and other stupendous works, the Mahawanso and the Rajaratnacari, in order to indicate the inferiority of the natives to their masters, speak of their conjoint labours as that of "men and snakes,"[2] and "men and demons."[3]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. x.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xix, p. 115.]
[Footnote 3: The King Maha-Sen, anxious for the promotion of agriculture, caused many tanks to be made "by men and devils."—Mahawanso, ch. xxxvii.; UPHAM'S Transl.; Rajaratnacari, p. 69; Rajavali, p. 237.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
Notwithstanding the degradation of the natives, it was indispensable to "befriend the interests" of a race so numerous and so useful; hence, they were frequently employed in the military expeditions of the Wijayan sovereigns[1], and the earlier kings of that dynasty admitted the rank of the Yakkho chiefs who shared in these enterprises. They assigned a suburb of the capital for their residence[2], and on festive occasions they were seated on thrones of equal eminence with that of the king.[3] But every aspiration towards a recovery of their independence was checked by a device less characteristic of ingenuity in the ascendant race, than of simplicity combined with jealousy in the aborigines. The feeling was encouraged and matured into a conviction which prevailed to the latest period of the Singhalese sovereignty, that no individual of pure Singhalese extraction could be elevated to the supreme power, since no one could prostrate himself before one of his own nation.[4]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. x.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. x. p. 67.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., p. 66.]
[Footnote 4: JOINVILLE'S Asiat. Res, vol. vii. p. 422.]
For successive generations, however, the natives, although treated with partial kindness, were regarded as a separate race. Even the children of Wijayo, by his first wife Kuweni, united themselves with their maternal connexions on the repudiation of their mother by the king, "and retained the attributes of Yakkhos,"[1] and by that designation the natives continued to be distinguished down to the reign of Dutugaimunu.
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. vii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
In spite of every attempt at conciliation, the process of amalgamation between the two races was reluctant and slow. The earliest Bengal immigrants sought wives among the Tamils, on the opposite coast of India[1]; and although their descendants intermarried with the natives, the great mass of the population long held aloof from the invaders, and occasionally vented their impatience in rebellion.[2] Hence the progress of civilisation amongst them was but partial and slow, and in the narratives of the early rulers of the island there is ample evidence that the aborigines long retained their habits of shyness and timidity.
[Footnote 1: Ibid., p. 53.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch, lxxxv.]
Notwithstanding the frequent resort of every nation of antiquity to its coasts, the accounts of the first voyagers are almost wholly confined to descriptions of the loveliness of the country, the singular brilliancy of its jewels, the richness of its pearls, the sagacity of its elephants, and the delicacy and abundance of its spices; but the information which they furnish regarding its inhabitants is so uniformly meagre, as to attest the absence of intercourse; and the writers of all nations, Romans, Greeks, Arabians, Chinese and Indians, concur in their allusions to the unsocial and uncivilised customs of the islanders.[1]
[Footnote 1: See an account of these singular peculiarities, Vol. I. P. IV. c. vii.]
As the Bengal adventurers advanced into the interior of the island, a large section of the natives withdrew into the forests and hunting grounds on the eastern and southern coasts.[1] There, subsisting by the bow[2] and the chase, they adhered, with moody tenacity, to the rude habits of their race; and in the Veddah of the present day, there is still to be recognised a remnant of the untamed aborigines of Ceylon.[3]
[Footnote 1: Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese geographer, who visited India in the seventh century, says that at that time the Yakkhos had retired to the south-east corner of Ceylon;—and here their descendants, the Veddahs, are found at the present day,—Voyages, &c., liv. iv. p. 200.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxiv. p. 145, xxxiii. p. 204.]
[Footnote 3: DE ALWIS, Sidath Sangara, p. xvii. For an account of the Veddahs and their present condition, see Vol. II. P. ix. ch. iii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
Even those of the original race who slowly conformed to the religion and habits of their masters, were never entirely emancipated from the ascendency of their ancient superstitions. Traces of the worship of snakes and demons are to the present hour clearly perceptible amongst them; the Buddhists still resort to the incantations of the "devil dancers" in case of danger and emergency[1]; a Singhalese, rather than put a Cobra de Capello to death, encloses the reptile in a wicker cage, and sets it adrift on the nearest stream; and in the island of Nainativoe, to the south-west of Jaffa, there was till recently a little temple, dedicated to the goddess Naga Tambiran, in which consecrated serpents were tenderly reared by the Pandarams, and daily fed at the expense of the worshippers.[2]
[Footnote 1: For an account of Demon worship as it still exists in Ceylon, see Sir J. EMERSON TENNANT'S History of Christianity in Ceylon, ch. v. p. 236.]
[Footnote 2: CASIE CHITTY'S Gazetteer, &c., p. 169.]
CHAP. VIII
EXTINCTION OF THE "GREAT DYNASTY."
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
From the death of Dutugaimunu to the exhaustion of the superior dynasty on the death of Malta-Sen, A.D. 301, there are few demonstrations of pious munificence to signalise the policy of the intervening sovereigns. The king whom, next to Devenipiatissa and Dutugaimunu, the Buddhist historians rejoice to exalt as one of the champions of the faith, was Walagam-bahu I.[1], whose reign, though marked by vicissitudes, was productive of lasting benefit to the national faith. Walagam-bahu ascended the throne B.C. 104., but was almost immediately forced to abdicate by an incursion of the Malabars; who, concerting a simultaneous landing at several parts of the island, combined their movements so successfully that they seized on Anarajapoora, and drove the king into concealment in the mountains near Adam's Peak; and whilst one portion of the invaders returned laden with plunder to the Dekkan, their companions remained behind and held undisputed possession of the northern parts of Ceylon for nearly fifteen years.
[Footnote 1: Called in the Mahawanso, "Wata-gamini".]
[Sidenote: B.C. 104.]
In this and the frequent incursions which followed, the Malabar leaders were attracted by the wealth of the country to the north of the Mahawelli-ganga; the southern portion of the island being either too wild and unproductive to present a temptation to conquest, or too steep and inaccessible to afford facilities for invasion. Besides, the highlanders who inhabit the lofty ranges that lie around Adam's Peak; (a district known as Malaya, "the region of mountains and torrents,")[1] then and at all times exhibited their superiority over the lowlanders in vigour, courage, and endurance. Hence the petty kingdoms of Maya and Rohuna afforded on every occasion a refuge to the royal family when driven from the northern capital, and furnished a force to assist in their return and restoration. Walagam-bahu, after many years' concealment there, was at last enabled to resume the offensive, and succeeded in driving out the infidels, and recovering possession of the sacred city, an event which he commemorated in the usual manner by the erection of dagobas, tanks, and wiharas.
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. vii.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 89.]
But the achievement by which most of all he entitled himself to the gratitude of the Singhalese annalists, was the reduction to writing of the doctrines and discourses of Buddha, which had been orally delivered by Mahindo, and previously preserved by tradition alone. These sacred volumes, which may be termed the Buddhist Scriptures, contain the Pittakataya, and its commentaries the Atthakatha, and were compiled by a company of priests in a cave to the north of Matelle, known as the Aloo-wihara.[1] This, and other caverns in which the king had sought concealment during his adversity, he caused to be converted into rock temples after his restoration to power. Amongst the rest, Dambool, which is the most remarkable of the cave temples of Ceylon from its vastness, its elaborate ornaments, and the romantic beauty of its situation and the scenery surrounding it.
[Footnote 1: Rajaratnacari, ch. i. p. 43. Abouzeyd states that at that time public writers were employed in recording the traditions of the island: "Le Royaume de Serendyb a une loi et des docteurs qui s'assemblent de temps en temps comme se reunissent chez nous les personnes qui recreillent les traditions du prophete, et les Indiens se rendent aupres des docteurs, et ecrivent sous leurs dictee, la vie de leurs prophetes et les preceptes de leur loi."—REINAUD, Relation, &c., tom. i. p. 127.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 62.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 50.]
The history of the Buddhist religion in Ceylon is not, however, a tale of uniform prosperity. The first of its domestic enemies was Naga, the grandson of the pious Walagam-bahu, whom the native, historians stigmatise by the prefix of "chora" or the "marauder." His story is thus briefly but emphatically told in the Mahawanso: "During the reign of his father Mahachula, Chora Naga wandered through the island leading the life of a robber; returning on the demise of the king he assumed the monarchy; and in the places which had denied him an asylum during his marauding career, he impiously destroyed the wiharas.[1] After a reign of twelve years he was poisoned by his queen Anula, and regenerated in the Lokantariko hell."[2]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiii.; Rajarali, p. 224; TURNOUR'S Epitome, p. 19; Rajaratnacari, ch. i. p. 43, 44.]
[Footnote 2: Mahawanso, ch. xxxiv. p. 209.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 47.]
[Sidenote: B.C. 41.]
His son, King Kuda Tissa, was also poisoned by his mother, in order to clear her own way to the throne. The Singhalese annals thus exhibit the unusual incident of a queen enrolled amongst the monarchs of the great dynasty—a precedent which was followed in after times; Queen Siwalli having reigned in the succeeding century, A.D. 37, Queen Lila-wati, in A.D. 1197, and Queen Kalyana-wati in A.D. 1202. From the excessive vileness of her character, the first of these Singhalese women who attained to the honours of sovereignty is denounced in the Mahawanso as "the infamous Anula." In the enormity of her crimes and debauchery she was the Messalina of Ceylon;—she raised to the throne a porter of the palace with whom she cohabited, descending herself to the subordinate rank of Queen Consort, and poisoned him to promote a carpenter in his stead. A carrier of firewood, a Brahman, and numerous other paramours followed in rapid succession, and shared a similar fate, till the kingdom was at last relieved from the opprobrium by a son of Prince Tissa, who put the murderess to death, and restored the royal line in his own person. His successors for more than two centuries were a race of pious faineants, undistinguished by any qualities, and remembered only by their fanatical subserviency to the priesthood.
[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]
Buddhism, relieved from the fury of impiety, was next imperilled by the danger of schism. Even before the funeral obsequies of Buddha, schism had displayed itself in Maghadha, and two centuries had not elapsed from his death till it had manifested itself on no less than seventeen occasions, and in each instance it was with difficulty checked by councils in which the priesthood settled the faith in relation to the points which gave rise to dispute; but not before the actual occurrence of secessions from the orthodox church.[1] The earliest differences were on questions of discipline amongst the colleges and fraternities at Anarajapoora; but in the reign of Wairatissa, A.D. 209, a formidable controversy arose, impugning the doctrines of Buddhism, and threatening for a time to rend in sunder the sacred unity of the church.[2]
[Footnote 1: Mahawanso, ch. v. p. 21.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xxxiii.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]
Buddhism, although, tolerant of heresy, has ever been vehement in its persecution of schism. Boldly confident in its own superiority, it bears without impatience the glaring errors of open antagonists, and seems to exult in the contiguity of competing systems as if deriving strength by comparison. In this respect it exhibits a similarity to the religion of Brahma, which regards with composure shades of doctrinal difference, and only rises into jealous energy in support of the distinctions of caste, an infringement of which might endanger the supremacy of the priesthood.[1] To the assaults of open opponents the Buddhist displays the calmest indifference, convinced that in its undiminished strength, his faith is firm and inexpugnable; his vigilance is only excited by the alarm of internal dissent, and all his passions are aroused to stifle the symptoms of schism.[2] |
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