1898
ANURADHAPURA
In the year 1898, business took me once more to Ceylon. One of my sons
had gone out there to start in life as a tea-planter, and I must needs
go to see how he was faring and what were his prospects for the future.
And so we set out, my daughter Iris and I, and my old friend Reginald
Yorke, the best of shipmates, came with us. He, too, had a son in Ceylon,
who some years later was crushed to death against a tree by a wounded
elephant in East Africa.
When I first saw Ceylon in 1865 Point de Galle was the place of call for
steamers—a bad and dangerous harbour, but so prodigally beautiful, with
its coral reefs and its palm groves fringing the sea, studded with the
quaint outrigged boats of the fisher-folk, that one could fancy oneself
arriving in such an island as those into which Captain Cook felt his way
in the Pacific. Galle was quite unspoilt and primitive—just like the
pictures of the spice islands in the travel books of our childhood—a
fitting approach to one of the fairest of God’s creations. I felt as if
I should never weary of watching the intensely blue sea lapping the very
roots of the cocoanut palms, which tradition said could never flourish
far from the sound of its waves. Here was indeed the poetry of travel,
the reward of them “that go down to the sea in ships ... and see the
works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep.”
Colombo is very different, and I am glad that my first amazed sight of
the tropics was at Galle, and not in a place, safe indeed, but eminently
prosaic and uninspiring. Colombo is Ceylon, the land of business men,
planters, jewel merchants and Dutch-hybrids; Galle was Lanka, that
ancient island from which Wijayo, the invader, expelled the demons; the
land of saints and heroes and kings; the land of romance and holy lore,
of which the Mahawanso, “The Genealogy of the Great,” is the epic.
There was no temptation to spend a needless hour in Colombo. Happily the
train soon whirls the traveller into the midst of the baffling beauty of
the scenery that lies between the sea and Kandy, scenery so lovely that
the traveller feels inclined to rub his eyes and ask whether this can be
real, whether he is not asleep, and tasting a dream-vision of paradise.
Hatton, whither we were bound, is less beautiful, for the glory of the
jungle has been ruthlessly swept away to make room for the tea-plant.
Every available inch is under cultivation of what at first sight look
like euonymus plants set out in a nursery gardener’s rows. Here and
there are pretty villas, with gardens full of all manner of strange and
attractive plants: for Hatton is a great centre, and, lying high, is
very healthy, so there are many planters who come here for refreshment
after months spent in the feverish damp of the lowland rubber and
cocoanut plantations. And yet even here a man may turn his back upon the
rupee-bearing tea-plant and feast his eyes upon a great mountain shaped
like a crouching lion, or upon the distant majesty of Adam’s Peak, with
its legends and its ghost. Here we stayed for some while, for there was
plenty to do.
Along the road, not more than a mile or so, if my memory serves me, from
Hatton, there was a small Roman Catholic chapel and graveyard, to which
some good priest came from time to time, to say mass, hear confessions,
and shrive his flock. It was no more than a tiny plaster hut, fifteen
feet by eight, with an altar, and on the altar two candlesticks on either
side of the Figure on the Cross, to which some humble, pious soul had
added as ornaments his two most precious treasures: two empty Huntley and
Palmer biscuit-tins! It was a most touching offering, reminding me of the
widow’s mite.
Once before I had come across the traces of the great Reading potentates
in a strange place. It was in Mongolia, three or four hundred miles
north of Peking. I had taken refuge from the noon-day sun in a Mongol
encampment, and the chieftainess, a fat, hideous old woman, shapeless in
her sheepskin robe, allowed me and my companion, for a consideration, to
rest in her _yurt_, a leathern tent with an opening at the top to let out
the smoke of the camel-dung fire. She was a great lady in her way, though
very dirty, and the outward and visible sign of her high position was a
large Huntley and Palmer tin, in which were growing a few heads of garlic
wherewith to flavour the mess of mutton and millet, with chunks of brick
tea and salt, which was stewing in her gipsy kettle. Of that tin she was
as proud as a duchess of her strawberry leaves.
When the preliminaries of my business were settled I had a few days
on my hands, while the lawyers were playing their part. If the law is
slow in England it will readily be conceived that it acquires no speed
in the sweltering heat of Colombo; so Yorke and I determined, after
seeing Neuara Eliya and Kandy, to go and explore the mysteries of the
buried city of Anuradhapura far away in the north. I believe that it
is now brought into touch with the rest of the world by a railway; but
seventeen years ago that did not exist. So we hired a carriage and
started from Matalé. We saw the carved cave temples of Dambulla and in
the distance the great rock fortress of Sigiri—marvels in their way; but
the attraction was Anuradhapura, the capital of the kings when Lanka had
not yet become degraded into Ceylon.
For many miles the road ran through the thick, impenetrable forest—a
little thinner in places close to the wayside. Here and there a small
clearing and a few native huts; but for the most part not a human
habitation, nor a brown man, woman, or child, to be seen. The steamy air
was full of that subtle, mysterious perfume of heavily-scented flowers
and rich, pungent spices which is wafted far out to sea. The very
leaves of the forest seemed to thrill at the voluptuous caress of the
soft, perfumed breeze. A delicious, languorous, enervating atmosphere,
in which to dream and never to do. Some of the huge butterflies are
very beautiful. Of birds we did not see many, nor did we hear their
song—though some are said to pipe most sweetly. One bird there is that
breaks the stillness with its hoarse melancholy croak in which the
Singhalese imagination hears the words, “Ko Hattha Paroa! Ko Hattha
Paroa! Where are the seven axes!” Just as our children hear in the call
of the cushat the exhortation to the thief to “take two coos, Taffy—take
two coos, Taffy.”
Once upon a time there lived in a village of Lanka a woman who had
several sons, all of whom dwelt with her. One day the seven brothers
went out into the forest to cut wood. The night fell, the evening meal
of rice was prepared, but no sons came home to partake of it. Their
mother wondered, but took no great heed, thinking that some accident had
delayed them, until the next day men from a neighbouring village came and
told her that her sons had been killed and eaten by wild beasts. But she
being a covetous and greedy woman uttered no wail of sorrow for the lost
children whom she had borne, but only cried out: “Ko Hattha Paroa! Where
are the seven axes?” Oh, cruel! cruel! oh, heartless mother! whose sons
were dead and she only mourned over the loss of the axes! So the Gods
were wroth, and to punish her turned her into a bird, laying upon her
this curse, that till the crack of doom, knowing no rest, she should flit
through the darkness of the jungle, ever uttering her unhappy cry: “Where
are the seven axes? Where are the seven axes?”
The road itself is the only sign of man’s handiwork. The forms and
colours of the jungle are often startlingly beautiful. Some of the trees
remind one of home; others, roped together by graceful lianes, are a
revelation—their branching, their foliage, and their flowers a new
sensation. Mixed with them are feathering bamboos, barbarously gorgeous
crotons and poinsettias, and here and there an orchid, peering out of
a cranny in a rock. From a great picturesque stone by the roadside I
brought back two deliciously scented odontoglossums which flourished for
years at Batsford.
All of a sudden, as we drove along, we were aware of a large company of
monkeys, some thirty or forty of them, of all sizes and ages, running
by the side of the road, just inside the thicket. They were led by an
old and venerable ape, very grey, with white whiskers, the image of a
Hyde Park preacher—had he only worn a shabby black coat, shiny in greasy
patches and at the elbows, he would have acted the part to perfection. He
was a dictatorial old gentleman, whose word was a law unto his people. I
say “word,” for that he had some means of issuing his commands to them
was certain; that they understood him and obeyed his orders was equally
certain. Sometimes he led the way, sometimes he dropped back and gathered
in stragglers. He was apparently much agitated, though we could not have
been the cause, for he made no attempt to avoid us, but led his troop
parallel to our carriage. After running like that for three or four
hundred yards, he gave the word of command, and the whole troop crossed
the road in front of us. We stopped the carriage to see what happened.
After, perhaps, a hundred more yards, the monkeys disappeared into the
jungle on the other side.
Suddenly we heard a rustling on the side on which the monkeys had first
appeared. I was aware of two gleaming yellow eyes, and presently a
great leopard, cautiously, stealthily, crept out of the dense foliage,
evidently following the spoor. I could have shot him at less than ten
yards. In a moment he caught sight of us as our carriage stood still in
the road, gave one spring back and vanished. He doubtless was the cause
of the old preacher’s strategic retreat, and our presence helped him to
make it good.
When I saw those yellow eyes I could but think of the myriads of eyes
lurking in the jungle, watching unseen, like Fates—eyes of birds, eyes
of beasts, eyes of strange, weird insects, little beadlike eyes peering
sleeplessly out of flat, triangular heads that lie deadly in the centre
of glistening scaled coils. Two little pricks, no more of a wound
than could be made by the point of a tiny needle, and in half an hour
death—death unshriven. What a wicked, sinful, murderous jungle! How
beautiful and how mysterious!
Men talk of the silence of the jungle. Is the jungle ever silent? Is
there not always the murmur of leaf and bough, stirred in some mysterious
way like the quivering aspen—the legendary tree of the Holy Cross, never
at rest—even when there seems to be no wind? Is there not always the
rustling whisper of malevolent creatures in ambush, waiting to destroy
something feebler or less cunning than themselves? What a sight it would
be if, as God paraded the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air
before Adam that he might name them, we might cause the creatures of
just one square mile of the Singhalese forest to be driven in procession
before us! The variety of forms, the contrast of stature and girth,
from the huge elephant down to the minutest of creeping things—what a
wonder-world it would reveal!
As we neared the mystic city, the night fell. In this land there is
no twilight, no delicious gloaming, no opalescent fading of the glare
of day into the soft, loving mystery of night. The darkness came down
like a dense black veil upon the jungle: the death of the day was
sudden, remorseless. But all at once, out of the gloom there shone a
great light. There was no moon, but millions upon millions of fireflies
floated gracefully, dancing in the air over the jungle; it was as if the
stars which were shining gloriously overhead had sent down shower after
shower of dazzling sparks—tiny jewelled morsels of the Southern Cross—to
illuminate our triumphant entry into what now looked like the city of
some wonder-working magician. We could see the outlines of buildings,
temples, palaces, and above all, here and there the great Dagobas, rising
out of the plain like isolated hills covered with a pall of dense trees
and lianes, piercing the darkness of the night. Once they were noble
shrines of brickwork, proudly rearing their tiara-like towers heavenward,
built to encase some relic of the Wise One, the Buddha; but centuries of
neglect have smothered them with vegetation out of all shape, till only
their great height remains of all their former glory.
Wonderful are the ways of the jungle! A leaf falls and decays into dust,
settling into some chink of a mouldering wall. Little by little other
leaves join it and decay into mould. A bird drops a seed; tropical
rains wash it into the haven of rest; there, fulfilling its mission, it
germinates in the ever moist soil, to which as a pious child it in time
adds its tribute of falling foliage. More seeds are borne by other birds,
or carried on the wings of the wind. More decay breeds more life, until
by degrees all trace of building vanishes, swallowed up by an omnivorous
parasitic growth. The work of man’s hand, the record of the ambition of
kings and of a priestly caste would be lost and forgotten, but for the
inquisitive West, which never rests from digging into the secrets of the
East, guarded in vain by the seven-headed cobras, the Nagas of Hindu myth.
Had it not been for the learned curiosity of Mr. Turnour, the Mahawanso,
the great epic poem of Ceylon, the Book of Kings of the island, would
perhaps never have been deciphered, and the secrets of the ruins of
Anuradhapura would have remained as great a riddle as those of Stonehenge
or the Rollright Stones. Although the reading of the Mahawanso did not
present the same gigantic difficulties as the cuneiform inscriptions of
Nineveh, it was yet a task of great difficulty. The records were kept
by priests; they were written in Pali, the language of the Buddhist
priesthood, imperfectly understood by themselves, but in diction so
mystic and obscure that the ancient scribes found it necessary to write a
commentary, or translation into the vulgar tongue of the dark original.
This _tika_, as it was called, appears to have been lost until about
the year 1826, when it was discovered among a collection of manuscripts
which were given to Mr. Turnour by the high priest of Saffragam. Even the
priests, lazy and ignorant, could make nothing of the precious legacy of
their predecessors. Once he was possessed of the invaluable clue, Mr.
Turnour’s task must have been comparatively lightened. Still it remained
a great feat, thanks to which we are the richer by a human document of
the highest interest. Sir James Emerson Tennent’s account of Mr. Turnour
and his labours is well worth reading.
Strip the old Pali Poem of its monkish legends and fairy tales, and we
have the authentic story of an ancient civilization, some five hundred
years older than our own era. It is the tale of men who lived and loved
and hated and fought; of men who bought and sold and were moved by the
same greed of gain, the same passions, the same ambitions that move us
to-day. Whatever their faults or their crimes may have been, all that
they did was on a colossal scale. Their ideas were magnificent, heroic.
When in the sixth century before Christ, the great conqueror Wijayo came
from India as a merchant and established his power in Ceylon, the first
need was to assure the food supply of the island, which up to that time
had been mainly dependent upon imported rice; food meant agriculture,
and agriculture meant irrigation; hence those vast reservoirs in which
the great crocodiles still lurk, basking lazily on the sunburnt rocks
at Anuradhapura. Two hundred years later came the Apostle of Buddhism,
Mahindo.
Tissa—Dewananpia Tissa—the beloved of the saints—was at that time king;
he quickly became converted and begged Mahindo to pray Asoka, the famous
King of Maghada, to bestow upon him a cutting of the sacred Bō tree
(ficus religiosa) under which Prince Siddartha sat in the Mrigadeva,
the deer forest near Benares, where he preached his first sermon after
he had attained perfect wisdom. Asoka was willing, but there was a
difficulty—the sacred tree must not be cut with a knife; so a miracle was
required and the miracle came. With a vermilion pencil the king painted a
circle round the chosen branchlet. Immediately heavenly music was heard,
the wind raged and the thunder roared, the beasts of the forest howled,
birds screamed, demons yelled, men shouted; the little branch detached
itself and planted itself in a golden vase prepared by Mahindo’s sister,
the holy Sanghamitta, when it happily took root and was transported with
great solemnity and pomp to Ceylon, where with more miracles and divine
manifestations of the elements, it was planted in that sacred enclosure
in which it stands to this day. It is undoubtedly the oldest tree in the
world for the planting of which the date can be fixed. For upwards of
two thousand years there it has stood, the object of worship by pilgrims
from all those countries where the memory of Buddha is held sacred. For
all those centuries the same litanies have been recited before it, the
perfume of the champak and other flowers, the offering beloved of Buddha,
laid in the same patterns, has risen from its four altars.
Kings and High Priests, men mighty in many lands, have carried hither
their sins and their penitence, praying for the mercy of a pure life
and the attainment of that mysterious hereafter which men call Nirvana.
And the sacred tree itself?—The wonderful tree before which throughout
the ages millions upon millions of men have prostrated themselves in
adoration? Not a majestic specimen as such trees go—indeed, it is
undutifully dwarfed by its own descendants mounting guard over it in
the various courtyards of the Temple. Yet there it stands in all its
sanctity, just as it was described by the old Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien,
who saw it in the fourth century. The Temple, or, rather, perhaps I
should say the enclosure, occupies about two or three acres. It is
surrounded by an outer wall some twelve feet high. To the left and
to the right of the entrance gate are two huge Bō trees, each with a
palm-tree growing out of it, said to be emblems connected with primitive
forms of nature worship. Some of the masonry is curious. The stones are
laid upon their edges, lozenge-wise, and of these the alternate stones
are omitted, leaving a series of lozenge-shaped niches blackened with the
grease and smoke of ages, for on high days and holy days myriads of lamps
are set a-burning in them.
Travelling makes us feel the narrow boundaries which have been set for
the working of man’s brain. Wander over the face of the earth and you
will find the same proverbs, the same fairy-tales, the same legends, the
same ghosts, the same superstitions—even the same jokes. You will find
the stories of Boccaccio and the “Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles” repeated
in China and Japan. In all these cases the difference is only in the
clothing in which local custom dresses them. So with religious offerings:
we lay our roses and lilies and violets upon the altar; the Singhalese
brings the champak; the idea is the same. Flowers and lamps! Like the
vestal virgins, all men light fire in their sacred places.
Other relics were given by King Asoka. Dagobas were raised to contain
these—colossal structures of solid brickwork with a tiny receptacle for
the sacred treasure. So the new religion flourished greatly and the piety
of successive kings founded great monasteries containing thousands of
monks, little heeding that these comfortable homes were the negation
of a rule as strict as that of St. Francis, which enjoined upon the
yellow-robed shavelings no better dwelling than a “pansala,” a shelter of
leaves.
Fancy and imagination are wonderful architects, but it is hard even for
them to build up a semblance of the glories of Anuradhapura as they must
have been in the days when the great Brazen Palace, of which the sixteen
hundred jagged stone pillars still stand, upheld a colony of some two
thousand monks in its nine stories: days when, scattered over the vast
plain, buildings the magnificence of which is witnessed in the sculptured
stones, seven-headed Nagas, and elaborately carved moonstones, huge half
discs of granite decorated with processions of elephants, lions, horses
and the sacred goose (hansa), and scroll-work that is almost Italian in
feeling, rose at the bidding of an art which had reached its zenith when
we were still in darkness. Gold, precious gems, and colours were used
in profusion to adorn what is now the mere wreckage of a past barbaric
grandeur, swallowed up in the riotous vegetation of the tropics. Fa Hsien
bears eloquent witness to the wealth of flowers used in the worship at
the temples, and the richness of the innumerable royal gardens is a
matter of history.
As regards the authenticity of the Bō tree, Tennent argues well that it
must be the identical tree and no substitute planted to replace one that
had died. Had that tree, sacred throughout the East, died, its death
could not have been concealed; the emotion created by the news would have
been too deep. The story of the loss must have penetrated furthest Asia.
There is indeed much in the story of the ancient Buddhist Kings of Ceylon
which calls up wonder and praise. They were great gentlemen. Here is
a story of knightly virtue that is worth retailing. Two hundred years
before our era Elala, a Malabar adventurer, invaded Ceylon, defeated
and killed the reigning King Asela, and reigned for forty years over
the island. At the end of that time Dutugaimunu, a prince of the old
royal family, whose dream it had been from boyhood to exterminate the
Malabars, raised an army against Elala and after prodigies of valour
defeated and slew him. There his enmity ceased. Full of admiration for
the dead usurper’s courage, and for the justice which he had shown during
forty years—even though a Brahman, protecting the Buddhist priesthood—he
erected a great monument on the spot where Elala died, and there it
still stands a record of a true knight’s generosity. Moreover he issued
a decree that even the Kings of Lanka should on nearing the monument
silence the music of their processions and dismount from their litters,
and this custom continued well into the nineteenth century, when the
kings had long since disappeared. Could a Bayard have shown greater
chivalry towards a dead enemy?
There are now probably more travellers who visit Anuradhapura than there
were when I was there. As for the residents, there were men who had
passed the best years of their lives in Ceylon and had barely heard of
it. The old city was to them as are St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower
of London to the average West End Londoner—something so near that there
is no need to hurry to go and see it. For myself, I would gladly have
spent weeks among the scattered ruins, and even have gone further afield
to see and learn—but time pressed and we had to hie back.
I was loth to leave the wilds without obtaining a glimpse of the Veddahs,
those primitive savages whom the Indian Conqueror, Wijayo, drove into
the forests and rock caves which are still their lairs, just as Jimmu
Tennō, perhaps a century earlier, had hunted the Ainus of Japan. There
is no doubt that these are the lineal descendants of the ancient Yakkos
described in the Mahawanso, of the truthfulness of which they are a
living proof. The testimony is reciprocal. No wonder that the Brahmans in
all their pride of race and high breeding should have looked upon these
hideous and degraded savages as Demons. Perhaps nowhere on the face of
this earth does there exist a more untamed race. They know no God and
have no religion; a few guttural sounds, which are their only means of
communication, can scarcely be called a language. Twelve arrows were once
given to them to be distributed equally among four recipients. There was
no man among their chiefs who was capable of so abstruse a calculation.
Their food is of the filthiest, though they cook the flesh of the
monkeys and giant lizards which are their most relished dainties—the
former almost cannibalism. Their weapons are the bow and a sort of rude
hatchet; their clothes as little as maybe; they have not to contend with
cold, and decency is the least of their cares. In their persons they are
appallingly ugly and repulsive. Their misshapen limbs are deformed, their
mouths and teeth animal and revolting. Long and filthy matted black hair,
and in the men beards, reach to their middle, falling in tangled strands.
Such is the description given of them by Tennent and others. The picture
of a race belonging to a prehistoric age, to a long since forgotten
world. And yet in spite of all this, so great is the respect paid to
pedigree by the Singhalese, ashamed of their mixed ancestry, that these
degraded but pure-raced outcasts are looked upon as beings of a high
caste, their very barbarism shrouding them in the glamour of eld.
How many of these poor wretches there may be cannot be reckoned with
accuracy; among scattered tribes living in hiding-places no census is
possible. In the opinion of an old and well-informed settler in Ceylon,
they do not exceed two thousand—if indeed there are as many. It is
not too much to say that the Veddahs are one of the greatest of human
curiosities. It is difficult to think of a race living for twenty-five
centuries unchanged, untouched by any vestige of progress, and that too,
not cast away upon a desert island—not lost like Stanley’s pygmies in the
baneful swamps of the dark African forest, but living cheek by jowl with
five successive civilizations, the Brahman, the Buddhist, the Portuguese,
the Dutch, and the British. It is difficult to believe that as time
speeds on some measure of civilization will not at last penetrate even
this survival of the unfittest.
Professor Tiele, the learned Dutch author of “The History of Religion,”
says: “The statement that there are nations or tribes which possess no
religion, rests either on inaccurate observation, or on a confusion of
ideas. No tribe or nation has yet been met with destitute of belief in
any higher beings; and travellers who asserted their existence have been
afterwards refuted by the facts.” Ceylon is easily accessible and it
would be interesting if some scientific investigator would tell the truth
of what has been said of the Veddahs. That they should believe in no
spirit, worship no fetish, seems incredible.
This was a delightful journey, with something of the charm of the olden
time about it. We rode in our own carriage, such as it was; started at
our own time, stopped where we pleased, and lingered by the way as our
fancy might dictate. Nowadays—well, as Thackeray once put it, “We arrive
at places, but we travel no more.”[47]
I am loth to bid farewell even to the memory of the beautiful island.
Eight years later, in 1906, I was there again, but only on a flying
visit, when Prince Arthur’s mission was on its way to Japan to invest
the Mikado with the Order of the Garter. We had to make the most of the
few hours which were allotted to us, but we managed to run up through
dreamland to Kandy, to stand in wonder by the side of the beautiful
lake. Through a motley crowd, in which the picturesque old-world dresses
of the chieftains, the bright yellow robes and brown shaven pates of
the Buddhist monks were conspicuous, we were taken to see the Temple of
the Tooth and its sacred relic, which was to be shown in honour of a
Royal Prince, but which no man but the ordained priest must touch. When
the King of Siam visited the Temple, he wished to be allowed to hold
the Tooth in his hand. But the priests would not hear of it. In vain
he pleaded that in his youth he, too, had been ordained. No! said the
priests; he had forsaken the priesthood and abjured his vows and it must
not be. He insisted, but they were obdurate, and so in his misery, like
the Israelites by the waters of Babylon, the King of Siam sat down and
wept.
Once, as we were told, the priest-guardians of the Holy Tooth were
outwitted. Between forty and fifty years ago there arrived from Siam
a company of pious monks, bearing with them a vessel of their temple
filled with holy water, into which it was their purpose to dip the sacred
Tooth in order that they might carry back with them to their own country
some of its mystic virtues. On arriving at Kandy, they were told that
to obtain this favour would be no easy matter—indeed, that it would be
well-nigh impossible. However, they made their wish known to one Tikiri
Banda, a Singhalese of high caste and a man of authority, and he, not
without due bribes, promised to make an agreement with the priests of the
Temple in order that their wishes might be fulfilled. On a certain day
they went to the Temple, bearing with them their sacred vessel of holy
water. In the meantime it had become noised abroad that some desecration
of the Tooth was contemplated; a crowd flocked into Kandy from the
neighbouring villages, full of wrath lest this evil thing should be done:
as at Ephesus when the holiness of the Temple of Diana was threatened,
there was a mighty stir and great confusion. The priests were willing
enough to show the Tooth to their brethren from Siam, but they were not
willing that it should be touched or dipped in the water. So there arose
a hot dispute, in which Tikiri Banda was attacked by both sides.
As it fell out, the Government agent happened to be passing that way,
and being aware of a great commotion, went into the Temple to see what
was amiss; recognizing Tikiri Banda, he called upon him to explain.
“Sir,” said Tikiri Banda, “this is a small matter not worthy of your
Excellency’s attention. These pious men do but wish to do thus in order
that their country may have a share in the virtues of this holy relic
of our Lord Buddha.” And fitting the action to his words, before the
dumbfoundered and gaping priests of the Temple could stop him, he took
the Tooth reverently between his fingers and dipped it in the bowl. The
trick was done.
And that is how by this man’s cunning the priests of the Temple were
discomfited and the priests from Siam having obtained their pious wish
were able to carry back the blessed water to their own country, where no
doubt it has performed many notable miracles and wonders.
The Tooth has often been described. It is of enormous size, and by
heretics it is believed to be the tooth of an elephant. It must be
remembered that according to monkish legend Buddha was of supernatural
stature—one authority says that he was eighteen feet high; another
thirty. A suitable tooth had to be found. Monasteries appear to be all
over the world schools for the painting of lilies and the embroidery of
fine gold.
Close to the Shrine of the Tooth there is another temple, which we were
told was mixed Hindu and Buddhist. Only once in the year does a priest
enter the sacred building; for the rest of the time its solitary tenant
is a very old cobra, whom the priests feed with milk passed in under
the door in a platter. When the priest goes in the snake retires into
a corner, where he sits up, with his hood spread out, to watch the
proceedings. Sheltered under the piety of his hosts, who may not take
life, not even that of a poisonous snake, he is safe from all hurt. Now
since cobras as is well known always live in pairs, as they came out of
the Ark, this ancient snake on the contrary seems to have followed the
monastic rule of celibacy appropriate to his holy domicile. Seeing that
Buddhism was in its inception a revolution against Brahmanism, it seems
incongruous, if true, that one sacred building should harbour the two
religions. Hardly more incongruous, perhaps, than that a sacred Bō tree,
a scion of the old tree of Anuradhapura, growing in the enclosure of the
British church, and surrounded by two tiers of ornamental masonry, should
be hung with rags and _ex votos_ by humble penitents. It is good to think
of the generosity of a clergyman who can respect the heartfelt religion
of those among whom he dwells, even though it be not his own.
It was sad to be obliged to rush away from Ceylon as soon as we had
reached it. A mere glimpse of its loveliness was tantalizing, but the
furthest East was calling, and we must obey the summons.