Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and Topographical with Notices of Its Natural History Part 74

[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 Anaraj.a.poora; 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. x.x.xiii.]

[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 a.s.saults 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 pa.s.sions are aroused to stifle the symptoms of schism.[2]

[Footnote 1: Hence the indomitable hatred with which the Brahmans pursued the disciples of Buddhism from the fourth century before Christ to its final expulsion from Hindustan. "Abundant proofs," says Turnour, "may be adduced to show the fanatical ferocity with which these two great sects persecuted each other; and which, subsided into pa.s.sive hatred and contempt, only when the parties were no longer placed in the position of actual collision."--Introd. _Mahawanso_, p. xxii.]

[Footnote 2: In its earliest form Buddhism was equally averse to persecution, and the _Mahawanso_ extols the liberality of Asoca in giving alms indiscriminately to the members of all religions _(Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 23). A sect which is addicted to persecution is not likely to speak approvingly of toleration, but the _Mahawanso_ records with evident satisfaction the courtesy paid to the sacred things of Buddhism by the believers in other doctrines; thus the Nagas did homage to the relics of Buddha and mourned their removal from Mount Meru (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xi. p. 189); the Yakkhos a.s.sisted at the building of dagobas to enshrine them, and the Brahmans were the first to respect the Bo-tree on its arrival in Ceylon (_Ib._ ch. xix. p. 119). COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES, whose informant, Sopater, visited Ceylon in the sixth century, records that there was then the most extended toleration, and that even the Nestorian Christians had perfect freedom and protection for their wors.h.i.+p.

Among the Buddhists of Burmah, however, "although they are tolerant of the practice of other religions by those who profess them, secession from the national faith, is rigidly prohibited, and a convert to any other form of faith incurs the penalty of death."--Professor WILSON, _Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc._ vol. xvi. p. 261.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

This characteristic of the "religion of the Vanquisher" is in strict conformity, not alone with the spirit of his doctrine, but also with the letter of the law laid down for the guidance of his disciples. Two of the singular rock-inscriptions of India deciphered by Prinsep, inculcate the duty of leaving the profession of different faiths unmolested; on the ground, that "all aim at moral restraint and purity of life, although all cannot be equally successful in attaining to it." The sentiments embodied in one of the edicts[1] of King Asoca are very striking: "A man must honour his own faith, without blaming that of his neighbour, and thus will but little that is wrong occur. There are even circ.u.mstances under which the faith of others should be honoured, and in acting thus a man increases his own faith and weakens that of others. He who acts differently, diminishes his own faith and injures that of another. Whoever he may be who honours his own faith and blames that of others out of devotion to his own, and says, 'let us make our faith conspicuous,' that man merely injures the faith he holds. Concord alone is to be desired."

[Footnote 1: The twelfth tablet, which, as translated by BURNOUF and Professor WILSON, will be found in Mrs. SPEIR'S _Life in Ancient India_, book ii. ch. iv. p. 239.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 209.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 248.]

The obligation, to maintain the religion of Buddha was as binding as the command to abstain from a.s.sailing that of its rivals, and hence the kings who had treated the snake-wors.h.i.+ppers with kindness, who had made a state provision for maintaining "offerings to demons," and built dwellings at the capital to accommodate the "ministers of foreign religions," rose in fierce indignation against the preaching of a firm believer in Buddha, who ventured to put an independent interpretation on points of faith. They burned the books of the Wytulians, as the new sect were called, and frustrated their irreligious attempt.[1] The first effort at repression was ineffectual. It was made by the King Wairatissa, A.D. 209; but within forty years the schismatic tendency returned, the persecution was renewed, and the apostate priests, after being branded on the back were ignominiously transported to the opposite coast of India.[2]

[Footnote 1: The _Mahawanso_ throws no light on the nature of the Wytulian (or Wettulyan) heresy (ch. xxvii. p. 227), but the _Rajaratnacari_ insinuates that Wytulia was a Brahman who had "subverted by craft and intrigue the religion of Buddha" (ch. ii, p. 61). As it is stated in a further pa.s.sage that the priests who were implicated were stripped of their habits, it is evident that the innovation had been introduced under the garb of Buddha.--_Rajaratnacari_, ch. ii. p. 65.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 25, _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xvi. p. 232.

As the _Mahawanso_ intimates in another pa.s.sage that amongst the priests who were banished to the opposite coast of India, there was one Sangha-mitta, "who was profoundly versed in the rites of the demon faith ('bhuta')," it is probable that out of the Wytulian heresy grew the system which prevails to the present day, by which the heterodox _dewales_ and halls for devil dances are built in close contiguity to the temples and wiharas of the orthodox Buddhists, and the barbarous rites of demon wors.h.i.+p are incorporated with the abstractions of the national religion. On the restoration of Maha-Sen to the true faith, the _Mahawanso_ represents him as destroying the _dewales_ at Anaraj.a.poora in order to replace them with wiharas (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xvii. p. 237).

An account of the mingling of Brahmanical with Buddhist wors.h.i.+p, as it exists at the present day, will be found in HARDY'S _Oriental Monachism_, ch. xix. Professor H.H. WILSON, in his _Historical Sketch of the Kingdom of Pandya_, alludes to a heresy, which, anterior to the sixth century, disturbed the _sangattar_ or college of Madura; the leading feature of which was the admixture of Buddhist doctrines with the rite of the Brahmans, and "this heresy," he says, "some traditions a.s.sert was introduced from Ceylon."--_Asiat. Journ._ vol. iii. p. 218.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 275.]

The new sect had, however, established an interest in high places; and Sangha-mitta, one of the exiled priests, returning from banishment on the death of the king, so ingratiated himself with his successor, that he was entrusted with the education of the king's sons. One of the latter, Maha-Sen, succeeded to the throne, A.D. 275, and, openly professing his adoption of the Wytulian tenets, dispossessed the popular priesthood, and overthrew the Brazen Palace. With the materials of the great wihara, he constructed at the sacred Bo-tree a building as a receptacle for relics, and a temple in which the statue of Buddha was to be wors.h.i.+pped according to the rites of the reformed religion.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xvii. p. 235.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 275.]

So bold an innovation roused the pa.s.sions of the nation; the people prepared for revolt, and a conflict was imminent, when the schismatic Sangha-mitta was suddenly a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the king, convinced of his errors, addressed himself with energy to restore the buildings he had destroyed, and to redress the mischiefs chiefs caused by his apostacy.

He demolished the dewales of the Hindus, in order to use their sites for Buddhist wiharas; he erected nunneries, constructed the Jaytawanarama (a dagoba at Anaraj.a.poora), formed the great tank of Mineri by drawing a dam across the Kara-ganga and that of Kandelay or Dantalawa, and consecrated the 20,000 fields which it irrigated to the Dennanaka Wihare.[1] "He repaired numerous dilapidated temples throughout the island, made offerings of a thousand robes to a thousand priests, formed sixteen tanks to extend cultivation--there is no defining the extent of his charity"--and having performed during his existence acts both of piety and impity, the _Mahawanso_ cautiously adds, "his destiny after death was according to his merits."[2]

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_, p. 25.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xiii. p. 238.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

With King Maha-Sen end the glories of the "superior dynasty" of Ceylon.

The "sovereigns of the _Suluwanse_, who followed," says the _Rajavali_, "were no longer of the unmixed blood, but the offspring of parents, only one of whom was descended from the sun, and the other from the bringer of the Bo-tree or the sacred tooth; on that account, because the G.o.d Sakkraia had ceased to watch over Ceylon, because piety had disappeared, and the city of Anaraj.a.poora was in ruins, and because the fertility of the land was diminished, the kings who succeeded Maha-Sen were no longer reverenced as of old."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 289.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

The prosperity of Ceylon, though it may not have attained its acme, was sound and auspicious in the beginning of the fourth century, when the solar line became extinct. Pihiti, the northern portion of the island, was that which most engaged the solicitude of the crown, from its containing the ancient capital, whence it obtained its designation of the Raja-ratta or country of the kings. Here the labour bestowed on irrigation had made the food of the population abundant, and the sums expended on the adornment of the city, the mult.i.tude of its sacred structures, the splendour of its buildings, and the beauty of its lakes and gardens, rendered it no inappropriate representative of the wealth and fertility of the kingdom.

Anaraj.a.poora had from time immemorial been a venerated locality in the eyes of the Buddhists; it had been honoured by the visit of Buddha in person, and it was already a place of importance when Wijayo effected his landing in the fifth century before the Christian era. It became the capital a century after, and the King Pandukabhaya, who formed the ornamental lake which adjoined it, and planted gardens and parks for public festivities, built gates and four suburbs to the city; set apart ground for a public cemetery, and erected a gilded hall of audience, and a palace for his own residence.

The _Mahawanso_ describes with particularity the offices of the Naggaraguttiko, who was the chief of the city guard, and the organisation of the low caste Chandalas, who were entrusted with the cleansing of the capital and the removal of the dead for interment. For these and for the royal huntsmen villages were constructed in the environs, mingled with which were dwellings for the subjugated native tribes, and temples for the wors.h.i.+p of foreign devotees.[1]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 66.]

Seventy years later, when Mahindo arrived in Ceylon, the details of his reception disclose the increased magnificence of the capital, the richness of the royal parks, and the extent of the state establishments; and describe the chariots in which the king drove to Mihintala to welcome his exalted guest.[1]

[Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. xiv., xv., xx.]

[Sidenote: A.D. 302.]

Yet these were but preliminary to the grander constructions which gave the city its lasting renown; stupendous dagobas raised by successive monarchs, each eager to surpa.s.s the conceptions of his predecessors; temples in which were deposited statues of gold adorned with gems and native pearls; the decorated terraces of the Bo-tree, and the Brazen Palace, with its thousand chambers and its richly embellished halls. The city was enclosed by a rampart upwards of twenty feet in height[1], which was afterwards replaced by a wall[2]; and, so late as the fourth century, the Chinese traveller Fa Hian describes the condition of the place in terms which fully corroborate the accounts of the _Mahawanso_.

It was crowded, he says, with n.o.bles, magistrates, and foreign merchants; the houses were handsome, and the public buildings richly adorned. The streets and highways were broad and level, and halls for preaching and reading _bana_ were erected in all the thoroughfares. He was a.s.sured that the island contained not less than from fifty to sixty thousand ecclesiastics, who all ate in common; and of whom from five to six thousand were supported by the bounty of the king.

[Footnote 1: By WASABHA, A.D. 66. _Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xv. p. 222.]

[Footnote 2: TURNOUR, in his _Epitome of the History of Ceylon_, says that Anaraj.a.poora was enclosed by a rampart seven cubits high, B.C. 41, and that A.D. 66 King Wasabha built a wall round the city sixteen gows in circ.u.mference. As he estimates the gow at four English miles, this would give an area equal to about 300 square miles. A s.p.a.ce so prodigious for the capital seems to be disproportionate to the extent of the kingdom, and far too extended for the wants of the population.

TURNOUR does not furnish the authority on which he gives the dimensions, nor have I been able to discover it in the _Rajavali_ nor in the _Rajaratnacari_. The _Mahawanso_ alludes to the fact of Anaraj.a.poora having been fortified by Wasabha, but, instead of a wall, the work which it describes this king to have undertaken, was the raising of the height of the rampart from seven cubits to eighteen (_Mahawanso_, ch. x.x.xv. p.

222). Major Forbes, in his account of the ruins of the ancient city, repeats the story of their former extent, in which he no doubt considered that the high authority of Turnour in matters of antiquity was sustained by a statement made by Lieutenant Skinner, who had surveyed the ruins in 1822, to the effect that he had discovered near Alia-parte the remains of masonry, which he concluded to be a portion of the ancient city wall running north and south and forming the west face; and, as Alia-parte is seven miles from Anaraj.a.poora, he regarded this discovery as confirming the account given of its original dimensions.

Lieutenant, now Major, Skinner has recently informed me that, on mature reflection, he has reason to fear that his first inference was precipitate. In a letter of the 8th of May, 1856, he says:--"It was in 1833 I first visited Anaraj.a.poora, when I made my survey of its ruins.

The supposed foundation of the western face of the city wall was pointed out near the village of Alia-parte by the people, and I hastily adopted it. I had not at the time leisure to follow up this search and determine how far it extended, but from subsequent visits to the place I have been led to doubt the accuracy of this tradition, though on most other points I found the natives tolerably accurate in their knowledge of the history of the ancient capital. I have since sought for traces of the other faces of the supposed wall, at the distances from the centre of the city at which it was said to have existed, but without success." The ruins which Major Skinner saw at Alia-parte are most probably those of one of the numerous forts which the Singhalese kings erected at a much later period, to keep the Malabars in check.]

The sacred tooth of Buddha was publicly exposed on sacred days in the capital with gorgeous ceremonies, which he recounts, and thence carried in procession to "the mountains without fear;" the road to which was perfumed and decked with flowers for the occasion; and the festival was concluded by a dramatic representation of events in the life of Buddha, ill.u.s.trated by scenery and costumes, with figures of elephants and stags, so delicately coloured as to be undistinguishable from nature.[1]

[Footnote 1: FA HIAN, _Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, ch. x.x.xviii. p. 334, &c.]

CHAP. IX.

KINGS OF THE "LOWER DYNASTY."