are frequently brought to light of the _ridis_, pieces of twisted silver
wire, which from their being sometimes bent with a considerable curve
have been called "_Fish-hook money_." These are occasionally impressed
with a legend, and for a time the belief obtained that they were a
variety of ring-money peculiar to Ceylon.[1] Of late this error has been
corrected; the letters where they occur have been shown to be not
Singhalese or Sanskrit, but Persian, and the tokens themselves have been
proved to belong to Laristan on the Persian Gulf, from the chief
emporium of which, Gambroon, they were brought to Ceylon in the course
of Indian commerce; chiefly by the Portuguese, who are stated by VAN
CARDAEN to have introduced them in great quantities into Cochin and the
ports of Malabar.[2] There they were circulated so freely that an edict
of Prakrama enumerates the _ridi_ amongst the coins in which the taxes
were assessed on land.[3]
[Footnote 1: This error may be traced to the French commentator on
RIBEYRO's _History of Ceylon_, who describes the fish-hook money in use
in the kingdom of Kandy, whilst the Portuguese held the low country, as
so simple in its form that every man might make it for himself: "Le Roy
de Candy avoit aussi permis á ses peuples de se servir d'une _monnoye_
que chacun peut fabriquer."--Ch. x. p. 81.]
[Footnote 2: "Les larins sont tout-à-fait commodes et nécessaires dans
les Indes, surtout pour acheter du poivre à Cochin, où l'on en fait
grand état."--_Voyage aux Indes Orientales._ Amsterdam, A.D. 1716, vol.
vi. p. 626.]
[Footnote 3: Rock-inscription at Dambool, A.D. 1200. The _Rajavali_
mentions the _ridis_ as in circulation in Ceylon at the period of the
arrival of the Portuguese, A.D. 1505.--P. 278.]
[Illustration: HOOK MONEY.]
In India they are called _larins_, and money in imitation of them,
struck by the princes of Bijapur and by Sivaji, the founder of the
Mahrattas, was in circulation in the Dekkan as late as the seventeenth
century.[1]
[Footnote 1: Prof. WILSON'S _Remarks on Fish-hook Money, Numism.
Chronic._ 1854, p. 181.]
CHAP. VI.
ENGINEERING.
It has already been shown[1] that the natives of Ceylon received their
earliest instruction in engineering from the Brahmans, who attached
themselves to the followers of Wijayo and his immediate successors.[2]
But whilst astonished at the vastness of conception observable in the
works executed at this early period, we are equally struck by the
extreme simplicity of the means employed by their designers for carrying
their plans into execution; and the absence of all ingenious expedients
for husbanding or effectively applying manual labour. The earth which
forms their prodigious embankments was carried in baskets[3] by the
labourers, in the same primitive fashion which prevails to the present
day. Stones were detached in the quarry by the slow and laborious
process of wedging, of which they still exhibit the traces; and those
intended for prominent positions were carefully dressed with iron tools.
For moving them no mechanical contrivances were resorted to[4], and it
can only have been by animal power, aided by ropes and rollers, that
vast blocks like the great tablet at Pollanarrua were dragged to their
required positions.[5]
[Footnote 1: See Vol. I. Part IV. chap. ii. p. 430.]
[Footnote 2: King Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437, "built a residence for the
Brahman Jótiyo, the chief engineer."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 66.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. p. 144.]
[Footnote 4: The only instance of mechanism applied in aid of human
labour is referred to in a passage of the _Mahawanso_, which alludes to
a decree for "raising the water of the Abhaya tank by means of
machinery," in order to pour it over a dagoba during the solemnisation
of a festival, B.C. 20.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 211;
_Rajaratnacari_, p. 51.]
[Footnote 5: No document is better calculated to Impress the reader with
a due appreciation of the indomitable perseverance of the Singhalese in
works of engineering than the able report of Messrs. ADAMS, CHURCHILL,
and BAILEY, on the great _Canal from Ellahara to Gantalawa_, appended to
the Ceylon Calendar for 1857.]
_Fortifications_.--Of military engineering the Singhalese had a very
slight knowledge. Walled towns and fortifications are frequently spoken
of, but the ascertained difficulty of raising, squaring, or carrying
stones, points to the inference which is justified by the expressions of
the ancient chronicles, that the walls they allude to, must have been
earthworks[1], and that the strength of their fortified places consisted
in their inaccessibility. The first recorded attempt at fortification
was made by the Malabars in the second century before Christ for the
defence of Wijitta-poora, which is described as having been secured by
walls, a fosse, and a gate.[2] Elala about the same period built
"thirty-two bulwarks" at Anarajapoora[3]; and Dutugaimunu, in commencing
to besiege him in the city, followed his example, by throwing up a
"fortification in an open plain," at a spot well provided with wood and
water.[4]
[Footnote 1: Makalantissa, who reigned B.C. 41, "built a rampart seven
cubits high, and dug a ditch round the capital."--_Mahawanso_, ch.
xxxiv. p. 210.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 212; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 151.]
[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 187.]
[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 216; _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv. p. 152.]
At a later time, the Malabars, when in possession of the northern
portion of the island, formed a chain of strong "forts" from the eastern
to the western coast, and the Singhalese, in imitation of them, occupied
similar positions. The most striking example of mediæval fortification
which still survives, is the imperishable rock of Sigiri, north-east of
Dambool, to which the infamous Kassyapa retired with his treasures,
after the assassination of his father, King Dhatu Sena, A.D. 459; when
having cleared its vicinity, and surrounded it by a rampart, the figures
of lions with which he decorated it, obtained for it the name of
Sihagiri, the "Lion-rock." But the real defences of Sigiri were its
precipitous cliffs, and its naturally scarped walls, which it was not
necessary to strengthen by any artificial structures.
Their rocky hills, and the almost impenetrable forests which enveloped
them, were in every age the chief security of the Singhalese; and so
late as the 12th century, the inscription engraved on the rock at
Dambool, in describing the strength of the national defences under the
King Kirti Nissanga, enumerates them as "strongholds in the midst of
forests, and those upon steep hills, and the fastnesses surrounded by
water."[1]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome and Appendix_, p. 95.]
_Thorn-gates._--The device, retained down to the period of the capture
of Kandy by the British, when the passes into the hill country were
defended by thick plantations of formidable thorny trees, appears to
have prevailed in the earliest times. The protection of Mahelo, a town
assailed by Dutugaimunu, B.C. 162, consisting in its being "surrounded
on all sides with the thorny _dadambo_ creeper, within which was a
triple line of fortifications."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 153. When Albuquerque attacked
Malacca in A.D. 1511, the chief who defended the place "covered the
streets with poisoned thorns, to gore the Portuguese coming in" FARIA Y
SOUZA, vol. i. p. 180. VALENTYN, in speaking of the dominions of the
King of Kandy during the Dutch occupation of the Low Country, describes
the density of the forests, "which not only serve to divide the earldoms
one from another, but, above all, tend to the fortification of the
country, on which account no one dare, on pain of death, to thin or root
out a tree, more than to permit a passage for one man at a time, it
being impossible to pass through the rest thereof."--VALENTYN, _Oud en
Nieuw Oost-Indien, &c._, ch. i. p. 22. KNOX gives a curious account of
these "thorn-gates." (Part ii. ch. vi. p. 45.)]
_Bridges_.--As to bridges, Ceylon had none till the end of the 13th
century[1], and Turnour conjectures that even then they were only formed
of timber, like the Pons Sublidus at Rome. At a later period stone
pillars were used in pairs, on which beams or slabs were horizontally
rested, in order to form a roadway [2], in the same manner that
Herodotus describes the most ancient bridge on record, which was
constructed by Queen Nitocris, at Babylon; the planks being laid during
the day and lifted again at night, for the security of the city.[3] The
principle of the arch appears never to have been employed in bridge
building. Ferries, and the taxes on crossing by them, are alluded to
down to a very late period amongst other sources of revenue.[4]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_ and _Notes_, p. 72. Major Forbes says,
however, there is reason to believe that the remains of stone piers
across the Kalawa-oya, on the line between Kornegalle and Anarajapoora,
are the ruins of the bridge erected by King Maha Sen, A.D. 301.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxv. UPHAM'S translation, pp. 340,349;
_Rajaratnacari_, pp. 104, 131. The bridge on the Wanny hereafter
described (see vol. ii p. 474) was thus constructed.]
[Footnote 3: Herodotus, i. 186.]
[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxiii. pp. 136, 138, ch. xxv. p. 150;
_Rajaratnacari_, p. 112.]
In forming the bunds of their reservoirs and of the stone dams which
they drew across the rivers that were to supply them with water, they
were accustomed, with incredible toil, infinitely increased by the
imperfection of tools and implements, to work a raised moulding in front
of the blocks of stone, so that each course was retained in position,
not alone by its own weight, but by the difficulty of forcing it forward
by pressure from behind.
The conduits by which the accumulated waters were distributed, required
to be constructed under the bed of the lake, so that the egress should
be certain and equal[1], as long as any water remained in the tank. To
effect this, they were cut in many instances through solid granite; and
their ruins present singular illustrations of determined perseverance,
undeterred by the most discouraging difficulties, and unrelieved by the
slightest appliance of ingenuity to diminish the toil of excavation.
[Footnote 1: The Lake of Albano presents an example of a conduit or
"emissary" of this peculiar construction to draw off the water. It is
upwards of 6000 feet in length. A similar emissary serves a like purpose
at Lake Nemi.]
It cannot but exalt our opinion of a people, to find that, under
disadvantages so signal, they were capable of forming such a work as the
Kalaweva tank, between Anarajapoora and Dambool, which TURNOUR justly
says, is the greatest of the ancient works in Ceylon. This enormous
reservoir was forty miles in circumference, with an embankment twelve
miles in extent, and the spill-water, ineffectual for the purpose
designed, is "one of the most stupendous monuments of misapplied human
labour."[1]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Mahawanso_, Index, p. xi. This stupendous work
was constructed A.D. 459. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 256.]
When to such inherent deficiencies were added the alarms of frequent
invasion and all the evils of almost incessant occupation by a foreign
enemy, it is only surprising that the Singhalese preserved so long the
degree of expertness in engineering to which they had originally
attained. No people in any age or country had so great practice and
experience in the construction of works for irrigation; and so far had
the renown of their excellence in this branch reached, that in the
eighth century, the king of Kashmir, Djaya-pida, "sent to Ceylon for
engineers to form a lake."[1] But after the reign of Prakrama I., the
decline was palpable and progressive. No great works, either of ornament
or utility, no temples nor inland lakes, were constructed by his
successors; and it is remarkable, that even during his own reign,
artificers were brought from the coast of India to repair the monuments
of Anarajapoora.[2] The last great work attempted for irrigation was
probably the Giant's Tank, north-east of Aripo; but so much had
practical science declined, that after an enormous expenditure of labour
in damming up the Moeselley river, whose waters were to have been
diverted to the lake, it was discovered that the levels were unsuitable,
and the work was abandoned in despair.[3]
[Footnote 1: A.D. 745. _Rajataringini_, b. iv. sl. 502, 505.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, UPHAM'S transl., ch. lxxv. p. 294. This
passage in the _Mahawanso_ might seem to imply that it was as an act of
retribution that Malabars, by whom the monuments had been injured, were
compelled to restore them. But in ch. lxxvii. it is stated that they
were brought from India for this purpose, because it "had been found
impracticable by other kings to renew and repair them."--P. 305.]
[Footnote 3: For an account of the present condition of the Giant's
Tank, see Vol. II. Part x. ch. ii.]
The talents of the civil engineer were likewise employed in providing
for the health and comfort of their towns and the _Dipawanso_, a
chronicle earlier in point of date than the _Mahawanso_, relates that
Wasabha, who reigned between A.D. 66 and 110, constructed a tunnel
("um-maggo") for the purpose of supplying Anarajapoora with water.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. vii. p. 933.]
CHAP. VII.
THE FINE ARTS.
MUSIC.--The science and practice of the fine arts were never very highly
developed amongst a people whose domestic refinement became arrested at
a very early stage; and whose efforts in that direction were almost
wholly confined to the exaltation of the national faith, and the
embellishment of its temples and monuments.
Their knowledge of music was derived from the Hindus, by whom its study
was regarded as of equal importance with that of medicine and astronomy;
and hence amongst the early Singhalese, along with the other "eighteen
sciences,"[1] music was taught as an essential part of the education of
a prince.[2]
[Footnote 1: This fact is curious, seeing that at the present day the
cultivation of music belongs to one of the lowest castes in Ceylon.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxiv.; UPHAM'S version, p. 256. An
ingenious paper on _Singhalese Music_, by Mr. Louis Nell, is printed in
the _Journ._ of the Ceylon branch of the _Roy. Asiat. Soc._ for 1856-8;
p. 200.]
But unlike the soft melodies of Hindustan, whose characteristic is their
gentle and soothing effect, the music of the Singhalese appears to have
consisted of sound rather than of harmony; modulation and expression
having been at all times subordinate to volume and metrical effect.
Reverberating instruments were their earliest inventions for musical
purposes, and those most frequently alluded to in their chronicles are
drums, resembling the tom-toms used in the temples to the present day.
The same variety of form prevailed then as now, and the _Rajavali_
relates, in speaking of the army of Dutugaimunu, that in its march, the
"rattling of the sixty-four kinds of drums made a noise resembling
thunder breaking on the rock from behind which the sun rises."[1] The
band of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 307, was called the _talawachara_, from the
multitude of drums[2]: chank-shells contributed to swell the din, both
in warfare[3] and in religious worship[4]; choristers added their
voices[5]; and the triumph of effect consisted in "the united crash of
every description, vocal as well as instrumental"[6] Although "a full
band" is explained in the _Mahawanso_ to imply a combination of "all
descriptions of musicians," no flutes or wind instruments are
particularised, and the incidental mention of a harp only occurs in the
reign of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 161.[7] JOINVILLE says, that certain musical
principles were acknowledged in Ceylon at an early period, and that
pieces are to be seen in some of the old Pali books in regular
notation; the gamut, which was termed _septa souere_, consisting of
seven notes, and expressed not by signs, but in letters equivalent to
their pronunciation, _sa, ri, ga, me, qa, de, ni._[8] At the present
day, harmony is still superseded by sound, the singing of the Singhalese
being a nasal whine, not unlike that of the Arabs. Flutes, almost
insusceptible of modulation, chanks, which give forth a piercing scream,
and the overpowering roll of tom-toms, constitute the music of the
temples; and all day long the women of a family will sit round a species
of timbrel, called _rabani_, and produce from it the most monotonous,
but to their ear, most agreeable noises, by drumming with the fingers.
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, pp. 217, 219. At the present day, there are
four or five varieties of drums in use:--the tom-tom or _tam-a-tom_,
properly so-called, which consists of two cylinders placed side by side,
and is beaten with two sticks;--the _daelle_, a single cylinder struck
with a stick at one end, and with the hand at the other,--the
_oudaelle_, which is held in the left hand, and struck with the
right;--and the _berri_, which is suspended from the beater's neck, and
struck with both hands, one at each end, precisely as a similar
instrument is shown in some of the Egyptian monuments.
[Illustration: ANCIENT EGYPTIAN AND MODERN SINGHALESE TOM-TOM BEATERS.]]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xvii, p. 104.]
[Footnote 3: B.C. 161. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv, p. 154.]
[Footnote 4: B.C. 20. _Rajavali_, p. 51.]
[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 157.]
[Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvi. 186.]
[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 180. The following passage in
UPHAM'S translation of the _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. vol. i. p. 274, would
convey the idea that the Æolian harp was meant, or some arrangement of
strings calculated to elicit similar sounds:--"The king Prakrama built a
palace at the city of Pollanarrua; and the stone works were carved in
the shape of flowers and creeping plants, _with golden networks which
gave harmonious sounds as if they were moved by the air_."]
[Footnote 8: JOINVILLE, _Asiat. Researches_, vol. vii. p. 488.]
_Painting_.--Painting, whether historical or imaginative, is only
mentioned in connection with the decoration of temples, and no examples
survive of sufficient antiquity to exhibit the actual state of the art
at any remote period. But enough is known of the trammels imposed upon
all art, to show that from the earliest times, imagination and invention
were prohibited by the priesthood; and although execution and facility
may have varied at different eras, design and composition were
stationary and unalterable.
Like the priesthood of Egypt, those of Ceylon regulated the mode of
delineating the effigies of their divine teacher, by a rigid formulary,
with which they combined corresponding directions for the drawing of the
human figure in connection with sacred subjects. In the relics of
Egyptian painting and sculpture, we find "that the same formal outline,
the same attitudes and postures of the body, the same conventional modes
of representing the different parts, were adhered to at the latest, as
at the earliest periods. No improvements were admitted; no attempts to
copy nature or to give an air of action to the limbs. Certain rules and
certain models had been established by law, and the faulty conceptions
of early times were copied and perpetuated by every succeeding
artist."[1]
[Footnote 1: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii. ch.
x. p. 87, 264.]
The same observations apply, almost in the same terms, to the paintings
of the Singhalese. The historical delineations of the exploits of Gotama
Buddha and of his disciples and attendants, which at the present day
cover the walls of the temples and wiharas, follow, with rigid
minuteness, pre-existing illustrations of the sacred narratives. They
appear to have been copied, with a devout adherence to colour, costume,
and detail, from designs which from time immemorial have represented the
same subjects; and emaciated ascetics, distorted devotees, beatified
simpletons, and malefactors in torment are depicted with a painful
fidelity, akin to modern pre-Raphaelitism.
Owing to this discouragement of invention, one series of pictures is so
servile an imitation of another, that design has never improved in
Ceylon; one scene is but the facsimile of a previous one, and each may
almost be regarded as an exponent of the state of the art at any
preceding period.[1]
[Footnote 1: The Egyptians and Singhalese were not, however, the only
authorities who overwhelmed invention by ecclesiastical conventionalism.
The early artists of Greece were not at liberty to follow the bent of
their own genius, or to depart from established regulations in
representing the figures of the gods. In the middle ages, the influence
of the churches, both of Rome and Byzantium, was productive of a similar
result; and although the Latins early emancipated themselves, the
painters of the Greek church, to the present hour, labour under the
identical trammels which crippled art at Constantinople a thousand years
ago. M. DIDRON, who visited the churches and monasteries of Greece in
1839, makes the remark that "ni le temps ni le lieu ne font rien à l'art
Grec: au XVIIIe siècle, le peintre Moréote continue et calque le peintre
Vénétien du Xe, le peintre Athonite du Ve ou VIe. Le costume des
personnages est partout et en tout temps le même, non-seulement pour la
forme, mais pour la couleur, mais pour le dessin, mais jusque pour le
nombre et l'épaisseur des plis. On ne saurait pousser plus loin
l'exactitude traditionnelle, l'esclavage du passé." _(Manuel d'
Iconographie Chrétienne Grecque et Latin_, p. ix.) The explanation of
this fact is striking. Mount Athos is the grand manufactory of pictures
for the Greek churches throughout the world; and M. DIDRON found the
artists producing, with the servility and almost the rapidity of
machinery, endless facsimiles of pictures in rigid conformity with a
recognised code of instructions drawn up under ecclesiastical authority
and entitled [Greek: Ermêneia tês Zographikês], "The Guide for
Painting," a literal translation of which he has published. This very
curious manuscript contains minute directions for the figures, costume,
and attitude of the sacred characters, and for the preparation of many
hundreds of historical subjects required for the decoration of churches.
The artist, when solicited by M. Didron to sell "cette bible de son
art," naively refused, on the simple ground that "s'il se dépouillait de
ce livre, il ne pourrait plus rien faire; en perdaut son Guide, il
perdait son art, il perdait ses yeux et ses mains" (_ib_. p. xxiii.). It
was not till the fifteenth century that the painters of Italy shook
themselves free of the authority of the Latin church in matters of art.
The second council of Nice arrogates to the Roman church the authority
in such matters still retained by the Greek; "non est imaginum structura
pictorum inventio sed ecclesiæ catholicæ probata legislatio et
traditio." In Spain, the sacro-pictorial law, under the title of _Pictor
Christianus_, was promulgated, in 1730, by Fray Juan de Ayala, a monk of
the order of Mercy; and such subjects are discussed as the shape of the
true cross; whether one or two angels should sit on the stone by the
sepulchre? and whether the Devil should be drawn with horns and a tail?
In the National Gallery of London there is a painting of the Holy Family
by Benozzo Gozzoli, and Sir Charles L. Eastlake has permitted me to see
a contract between the painter and his employer A.D. 1461, in which
every figure is literally "made to order," its attitude bespoke, and its
place in the composition distinctly agreed for. One clause, however,
contemplates progress, and binds the painter to make the piece his
chef-d'oeuvre--"che detta dipentura exceda ogni buona dipintura infino
aqui facto per detto Benozzo."]
Hence even the most modern embellishments in the temples have an air of
remote antiquity. The colours are tempered with gum; and but for their
inferiority in drawing the human figure, as compared with the Egyptians,
and their defiance of the laws of perspective, their inharmonious tints,
coupled with the whiteness of the ground-work, would remind one of
similar peculiarities in the paintings in the Thebaid, and the caves of
Beni Hassan.
Fa Hian describes in the fourth century precisely the same series of
subjects and designs which are delineated in the temples of the present
day, and taken from the transformation of Buddha. With hundreds of
these, he says, painted in appropriate colours and executed in imitation
of life, the king caused both sides of the road to be decorated on the
occasion of religious processions.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Foe Koue Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 335.]
Amongst the most renowned of the Singhalese masters, was the King Detu
Tissa, A.D. 330, "a skilful carver, who executed many arduous
undertakings in painting, and taught it to his subjects. He modelled a
statue of Buddha so exquisitely that he seemed to have been inspired;
and for it he made an altar, and gilt an edifice inlaid with ivory."[1]
Among the presents sent by the King of Ceylon (A.D. 459) to the Emperor
of China, the _Tsih foo yuen kwei_, a chronicle compiled by imperial
command, particularises a picture of Buddha.[2] The colours employed in
decorating their temples are mixed in _tempera_, as were those used in
the ancient paintings in Egypt; the claim of the Singhalese to the
priority of invention in the mixture of colours with oil, is adverted to
elsewhere.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 242.]
[Footnote 2: B. li. p. 7.]
[Footnote 3: See the chapter on the Fine Arts, Vol. I. p. 490.]
_Sculpture_.--In style Singhalese sculpture was even more conventional
and less imaginative than their painting; since the subjects to which it
was confined were almost exclusively statues of Buddha[1], and its
efforts were mere repetitions of the three orthodox attitudes of the
great archetype--_sitting_, as when in deep meditation, under the sacred
Bo-tree; _standing_, as when exhorting his multitudinous disciples; and
_reclining_, in the enjoyment of the everlasting repose of "nirwana." In
each and all of these the details are identical; the length of the ears,
the proportions of the arms, fingers, and toes; the colour of the eyes,
and the curls of the hair[2] being repeated with wearisome iteration. To
such an extent were these multiplied, and with an adherence so rigid to
the same recognised models, that the _Rajavali_ ventures to ascribe to
one king the erection of "seventy-two thousand statues of Buddha," an
obvious error[3], but indicative, nevertheless, that the real amount
must have been prodigious, in order to obtain credence for the
exaggeration. Many other sovereigns are extolled in the national annals,
who rendered their reigns illustrious by the multiplicity of statues
which they placed in the temples. It was doubtless from this incessant
study of one and the same figure, that the artists of Ceylon attained to
a facility and superiority in producing statues of Buddha, that rendered
them famous throughout the countries of Asia, in which his religion
prevailed. The early historians of China speak in raptures of works of
this kind, obtained from Singhalese sculptors in the fourth and fifth
centuries; they were eagerly sought after by all the surrounding
nations; and one peculiarity in their execution consisted in so treating
the features, that "on standing at about ten paces distant they appeared
truly brilliant, but the lineaments gradually disappeared on a nearer
approach."[4]
[Footnote 1: Mention is made of a figure of an elephant (_Rajavali_, p.
242), and of a horse (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxix. TURNOUR'S manuscript
translation), and a carved bull as amongst the ruins of Anarajapoora.]
[Footnote 2: M. ABEL REMUSAT has devoted a section of his _Melanges
Asiatiques_, 1825; vol. i. p. 100, to combating the conjecture of Sir W.
JONES in his third Dissertation on the Hindus, drawn from the curled or
rather the woolly hair represented in his statues, that Buddha drew his
descent from an African origin. (_Works_, vol. i. p, 12.) Another ground
for Sir. W. JONES'S conjecture was the _large ears_ which are usually
characteristic of the statues of Buddha. But it is curious that one of
the peculiar features ascribed to the Singhalese by the early Greek
writers was the possession of pendulous ears, possibly occasioned by
their heavy ear-rings.]
[Footnote 3: _Rajavali_, p. 255. Most of these were built of terra-cotta
and cement covered with chunam, preparatory to being painted. See p.
478.]
[Footnote 4: _Wei shoo_, a "History of the Wei Tartar Dynasty," written
A.D. 590. B. cxiv. p. 9.]
The labours of the sculptor and painter were combined in producing these
images of Buddha, which are always coloured in imitation of life, each
tint of his complexion and hair being in religious conformity with
divine authority, and the ceremony of "painting of the eyes,"[1] is
always observed by the devout Buddhists as a solemn festival.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii.; UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 275.]
Many of the works which were thus executed were either golden[1] or
gilt, with brilliants inserted in the eyes, and the draperies enriched
with jewels.[2] Fa Hian in the fourth century, speaks of a figure of
Buddha upwards of twenty-three feet in height, formed out of blue
jasper, and set with precious stones, that sparkled with singular
splendour, and which bore in its right hand a pearl of priceless
value.[3] This may possibly have been the statue of which the
_Mahawanso_ speaks in like terms of admiration: "the eye formed by a
jewel from the royal head-dress, each curl of the hair by a sapphire,
and the lock in the centre of the forehead by threads of gold."[4]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. pp. 180, 182; _Rajaratnacari_, pp.
47, 48; _Rajavali_, p. 237.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 258.]
[Footnote 3: "Parmi toutes les choses précieuses qu'on y voit, il y a
une image de jaspe bleu haute de deux _tchang_: tout son corps est formé
des sept choses précieuses; elle est étincellante de splendeur et plus
majestueuse qu'on ne saurait l'exprimer. Dans la main droite elle tient
une perle d'un prix inestimable."--_Foe Koue Ki_, ch. xxxviii. p. 333.]
[Footnote 4: A.D. 459. _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 258. Another statue
of gold, with the features and members appropriately coloured in gems,
is spoken of in the second century B.C. (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 180.)]
Ivory also and sandal-wood[1], as well as copper and bronze, served as
materials for statues; but granite was the substance most generally
selected, except in the rare instances where the temple and the statue
together were hewn out of the living rock, on which occasions gneiss was
most generally selected. Such are the statues at Pollanarrua, at
Mihintala, and at the Aukana Wihara, near Wijittapoora. A still more
common expedient, which is employed to the present time, was to form the
figures of Buddha with pieces of burnt clay joined together by cement;
and coated with highly polished chunam, in order to prepare the surface
for the painter. In this manner were most probably produced the
"seventy-two thousand statues" ascribed to Mihindo V.
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 72.]
Figures of elephants were similarly formed at an early period.[1] An
image of Buddha so composed in the 12th century, is still standing at
Pollanarrua[2], and every temple has one or more effigies, either
sedent, erect, or recumbent, carefully modelled in cemented clay, and
coloured after life.
[Footnote 1: A.D. 432. _Rajaratnacari_, p. 74.]
[Footnote 2: Possibly the "standing figure of Buddha" mentioned in the
_Rajavali_, p. 253.]
_Architecture_.--In Ceylon, as in Egypt, Assyria, and India, the ruins
which survive to attest the character of ancient architecture are
exclusively sacred, with the exception of occasional traces of the
residences of theocratic royalty; but everything has perished which
could have afforded an idea of the dwellings and domestic architecture
of the people. The cause of this is to be traced in the perishable
nature of the sun-dried clay, of which the walls of the latter were
composed. Added to this, in Ceylon there were the pride of rank and the
pretensions of the priesthood, which, whilst they led to lavish
expenditure of the wealth of the kingdom upon palaces and monuments, and
the employment of stone in the erection of temples[1] and monasteries,
forbade the people to construct their dwellings of any other material
than sun-baked earth.[2] This practice continued to the latest period;
and nothing struck the British army of occupation with more surprise on
entering the city of Kandy, after its capture in 1815, than to find the
palaces and temples alone constructed of stone, whilst the streets and
private houses were formed of mud and thatch.
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, pp. 78, 79.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 222.]
Though stone is abundant in Ceylon, it was but sparingly used in the
ancient buildings. Squared stones[1] were occasionally employed, but
large slabs seldom occur, except in the foundations of dagobas. The vast
quantity of material required for such structures, the cost of quarrying
and carriage, and the want of mechanical aids to raise ponderous blocks
into position, naturally led to the substitution of bricks for the upper
portion of the superstructure.
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 210; VALENTYN, _Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien_,
ch. iii. p. 45.]
There is evidence to show that wedges were employed in detaching the
blocks in the quarry, and the amount of labour devoted to the
preparation of those in which strength, irrespective of ornament, was
essential, is shown in the remains of the sixteen hundred undressed
pillars[1] which supported the Brazen Palace at Anarajapoora, and in the
eighteen hundred stone steps, many of them exceeding ten feet in length,
which led from the base of the mountain to the very summit of Mihintala.
A single piece of granite lies at Anarajapoora hollowed into an
"elephant trough," with ornamental pilasters, which measures ten feet in
length by six wide and two deep; and amongst the ruins of Pollanarrua a
still more remarkable slab, twenty-five feet in length by six broad and
two feet thick, bears an inscription of the twelfth century, which
records that it was brought from a distance of more than thirty miles.
[Footnote 1: The _Rajavali_ states that these rough pillars were
originally covered with copper, p. 222.]
The majority of the columns at Anarajapoora are of dressed stone,
octangular and of extremely graceful proportions. They were used in
profusion to form circular colonnades around the principal dagobas, and
the vast numbers which still remain upright, are one of the peculiar
characteristics of the place, and justify the expression of Knox, when,
speaking of similar groups elsewhere, he calls them a "world of hewn
stone pillars."[1]
[Footnote 1: Knox, _Relation_, vol. v. pt. iv. ch. ii. p. 165.]
[Illustration: COLUMN AT ANARAJAPOORA.]
Allusions in the _Mahawanso_ show that extreme care was taken in the
preparation of bricks for the dagobas.[1] Major SKINNER, whose official
duties as engineer to the government have rendered him familiar with all
parts of Ceylon, assures me that the bricks in every ruin he has seen,
including the dagobas at Anarajapoora, Bintenne, and Pollanarrua, have
been fired with so much skill that exposure through successive centuries
has but slightly affected their sharpness and consistency.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 165; ch. xxix. p. 169, &c.]
The sand for mortar was "pounded, sifted, and ground on a
grinding-stone;"[1] the "cloud-coloured stones,"[2] used to form the
immediate receptacle in which a sacred relic was enclosed, were said to
have been imported from India; and the "nawanita" clay, in which these
were imbedded, was believed to have been brought from the mythical
Anotattho lake in the Himalayas.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 175.]
[Footnote 2: The "cloud-coloured stone" may possibly have been marble,
but no traces of marble have been found in the ruins. Diodorus, in
describing some of the monuments of Egypt alludes to a "party-coloured"
stone, [Greek: lithon poikilon], which likewise remains without
identification.--_Diodorus_, l. i. c. lvii.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 179.]
_Dagobas_.--The process of building the Ruanwellé dagoba is thus
minutely described in the _Mahawanso_: "That the structure might endure
for ages, a foundation was excavated to the depth of one hundred cubits,
and the round stones were trampled by enormous elephants, whose feet
were protected by leather cases. Over this the monarch spread the sacred
clay, and on it laid the bricks, and over them a coating of astringent
cement, above this a layer of sand-stones, and on all a plate of iron.
Over this was a large pholika (crystallised stone), then a plate of
brass, eight inches thick, embedded in a cement made of the gum of the
wood-apple tree, diluted in the water of the small red coco-nut."[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxix. p. 169; ch. xxx. p. 178. The
internal structure of the Sanchi tope at Bilsah in Central India
presents the arrangement here described, _the bricks being laid in mud_,
but externally it is faced with dressed stone.]
The shape of these huge mounds of masonry was originally hemispherical,
being that best calculated to prevent the growth of grass or other weeds
on objects so sacred. Dutugaimumi, according to the _Mahawanso_, when
about to build the Ruanwellé dagoba, consulted a mason as to the most
suitable form, who, "filling a golden dish with water, and taking some
in the palm of his hand, caused a bubble in the form of a coral bead to
rise on the surface; and he replied to the king, 'In this form will I
construct it.'"[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 175. This legend as to the origin
of the semicircular form of the dagoba is at variance with the
conjecture of Major FORBES, that these vast structures were merely an
advance on the mounds of earth similar to the barrow of Halyattes, which
in the progress of the constructive arts, came to be converted into
brickwork.--_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, v. i. p. 222.]
Two dagobas at Anarajapoora, the Abay-a-giri and Jeyta-wana-rama, still
retain their original outline,--the Ruanwellé, from age and decay, has
partly lost it,--and the Thupa-ramaya is flattened on the top as if
suddenly brought to a close, and the Lanka-ramaya is shaped like a bell.
_Monasteries and Wiharas._--According to the annals of Ceylon the
construction of dwellings for the devotees of Buddha preceded the
erection of temples for his worship. Originally the anchorite selected a
cave or some shelter in the forest as his place of repose or
meditation.[1] In the _Rajavali_ Devenipiatissa is said to have "caused
caverns to be cut in the solid rock at the sacred place of
Mihintala;"[2] and these are the earliest residences for the higher
orders of the priesthood in Ceylon, of which a record has been
preserved. A less costly substitute was found in the erection of
detached huts of the rudest construction, in winch may be traced the
embryo of the Buddhist monastery; and the king Walagambahu was the
first, B.C. 89, to gather these scattered residences into groups and
"build wiharas in unbroken ranges, conceiving that thus their repairs
would be more easily effected."[3]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_ c. xxx. p. 174.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 184.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiii. p. 207.]
Simplicity and retirement were at all times the characteristics of these
retreats, which rarely aspired to architectural display; and the only
recorded instance of extravagance in this particular was the "Brazen
Palace" at Anarajapoora, with its sixteen hundred columns; an edifice
which, though nominally a dwelling for the priesthood, appears to have
been in reality a vast suite of halls for their assemblies and
festivals, and a sanctuary for the safe custody of their jewels and
treasure.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch, xxvii. p. 103. Like the "nine-storied"
pagodas of China, the palace of "the Lowa Maya Paya" was originally
_nine stories_ in height, and Fergusson, from the analogy of Buddhist
buildings in other countries, supposes that these diminished in
succession as the building arose, till the outline of the whole assumed
the form of a pyramid. _(Handbook of Architecture_, b. i. ch. iii. p.
44.) In this he is undoubtedly correct, and a building still existing,
though in ruins, at Pollanarrua, and known as the _Sat-mal-pasado_, or
the _"seven-storied palace_," probably built by Prakrama, about the year
1170, serves to support his conjecture. See a description of it, part x.
ch. i, vol. ii.]
Allusions are occasionally made to other edifices more or less fantastic
in their design and structure, such as "an apartment built on a single
pillar,"[1] a "house of an octangular form," built in the 12th
century[2], and another of an "oval," shape[3], erected by Prakrama I.
[Footnote 1: B.C. 504, _Mahawanso_, ch. ix, p. 56; ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S
version, p. 274.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 105.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii, UPHAM'S version, p. 274.]
_Palaces_.--The royal residences as they were first constructed, must
have consisted of very few chambers, since mention is made in the
_Mahawanso_ of the earliest, which contained "many apartments," having
been built by Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437.[1] But within two centuries
afterwards, Dutugaimunu conceived the magnificent idea of the Loha
Pasada, with its quadrangle one hundred cubits square, and a thousand
dormitories with ornamental windows.[2] This palace was in its turn
surpassed by the castle of Prakrama I. at Pollanarrua, which, according
to the _Mahawanso_, "was seven stories high, consisting of five thousand
rooms, lined with hundreds of stone columns, and outer halls of an oval
shape, with large and small gates, staircases, and glittering walls."[3]
[Footnote 1: Ibid., ch. x. p. 66.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xxvii, p. 163.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, p. 274.]
In what now remains of these buildings at Anarajapoora, there is no
trace to be found of an arch, truly turned and secured by its keystone;
but at Pollanarrua there are several examples of the false arch,
produced by the progressive projection of the layers of brick.[1]
[Footnote 1: FORBES'S _Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. ch. xvii. p.
414.]
The finest specimens of ancient brickwork are to be seen amongst the
ruins of the latter city, where the material is compact and smooth, and
the edges sharp and unworn. The mortar shows the remains of the pearl
oyster-shells from which it was burnt, and the chunam with which the
walls were coated, still clings to some of the towers, and retains its
angularity and polish.[1]
[Footnote 1: Expressions in the _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 104, show
that as early as the 2nd century, B.C., the Singhalese were acquainted
with this beautiful cement, which is susceptible of a polish almost
equal to marble.]
Of the details of external and internal decoration applied to these
buildings, descriptions are given which attest a perception of taste,
however distorted by the exaggerations of oriental design. "Gilded
tiles"[1] in their bright and sunny atmosphere, must have had a striking
effect, especially when surmounting walls decorated with beaded
mouldings, and festooned with "carvings in imitation of creeping plants
and flowers."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 73.]
[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. p. 274.]
_Carving in stone._--Carving appears to have been practised at a very
early period with singular success; but in later times it became so
deteriorated, that there is little difficulty at the present day, in
pronouncing on the superiority of the specimens remaining at
Anarajapoora, over those which are to be found amongst the ruins of the
later capitals, Pollanarrua, Yapahu, or Komegalle. The author of the
_Mahawanso_ dwells with obvious satisfaction on his descriptions of the
"stones covered with flowers and creeping plants."[1] Animals are
constantly introduced in the designs executed on stone, and a mythical
creature, called technically _makara-torana_, is conspicuous, especially
on doorways and balustrades, with the head of an elephant, the teeth of
a crocodile, the feet of a lion, and the tail of a fish.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. p. 274, UPHAM'S version.]
At the entrance to the great wihara, at Anarajapoora, there is now lying
on the ground a semi-circular slab of granite, the ornaments of which
are designed in excellent taste, and executed with singular skill;
elephants, lions, horses, and oxen, forming the outer border; that
within consisting of a row of the "hanza," or sacred goose; a bird that
is equally conspicuous on the vast tablet, one of the wonders of
Pollanarrua, before alluded to.[1]
[Footnote 1: A sketch of this stone will be seen in the engraving of the
Sat-mal-prasada, in the account of Pollanarrua. Part I. ch. i. vol. ii.]
Taken in connection with the proverbial contempt for the supposed
stolidity of the _goose_, there is something still unexplained in the
extraordinary honours paid to it by the ancients, and the veneration in
which it is held to the present day by some of the eastern nations. The
figure that occurs so frequently on Buddhist monuments, is the Brahmanee
goose (_casarka rutila_), which is not a native of Ceylon; but from time
immemorial has been an object of veneration there and in all parts of
India. Amongst the Buddhists especially, impressed as they are with the
solemn obligation of solitary retirement for meditation, the hanza has
attracted attention by its periodical migrations, which are supposed to
be directed to the holy Lake of Manasa, in the mythical regions of the
Himalaya. The poet Kalidas, in his _Cloud Messenger_, speaks of the
hanza as "eager to set out for the Sacred Lake." Hence, according to the
_Rajavali_, the lion was pre-eminent amongst beasts, "the _hanza_ was
king over all the feathered tribes."[1] In one of the Jatakas, which
contains the legend of Buddha's apotheosis, his hair, when suspended in
the sky, is described as resembling "the beautiful Kala hanza."[2] The
goose is, at the present day, the national emblem emblazoned on the
standard of Burmah, and the brass weights of the Burmese are generally
cut in the shape of the sacred bird, just as the Egyptians formed their
weights of stone after the same model.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 149. The _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 179, also
speaks of the "_hanza_," as amongst the decorations chased on the stem
of a bo-tree, modelled in gold, which was deposited by Dutugaimunu when
building the Ruanwellé dagoba at Anarajapoora in the 2nd century before
Christ.]
[Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. vii p. 161.]
[Footnote 3: See SYME'S _Embassy to Ava_, p. 330; YULE'S _Narrative of
the British Mission to Ava in 1855_, p. 110. I have seen a stone in the
form of a goose, found in the ruins of Nineveh, which appears to have
been used as a weight.]
[Illustration: From the Burmese standard.]
Augustine, in his _Civitas Dei_, traces the respect for the goose,
displayed by the Romans, to their gratitude for the safety of the
capital; when the vigilance of this bird defeated the midnight attack by
the Goths. The adulation of the citizens, he says, degenerated
afterwards almost to Egyptian superstition, in the rites instituted in
honour of their preservers on that occasion.[1] But the very fact that
the geese which saved the citadel were already sacred to Juno, and
domesticated in her temple, demonstrates the error of Augustine, and
shows that they had acquired mythological eminence, before achieving
political renown. It must be observed, too, that the birds which
rendered that memorable service, were the ordinary white geese of
Europe[2], and not the red goose of the Nile (the [Greek: chênalôpêx] of
Herodotus), which, ages before, had been enrolled amongst the animals
held sacred in Egypt, and which formed the emblem of Seb, the father of
Osiris.[3] HORAPOLLO, endeavouring to account for this predilection of
the Egyptians (who employed the goose hieroglyphically to denote _a
son_), ascribes it to their appreciation of the love evinced by it for
its offspring, in exposing itself to divert the attention of the fowler
from its young.[4] This opinion was shared by the Greeks and the Romans.
Aristotle praises its sagacity; Ælian dilates on the courage and cunning
of the "vulpanser," and its singular attachment to man[5]; and Ovid
ranks the goose as superior to the dog in the scale of intelligence,--
"Soliciti canes canibusve sagacior anser."
OVID, _Met_. xi. 399.
[Footnote 1: "And hereupon did Rome fall almost into the superstition of
the Ægyptians that worship birds and beasts, for they _henceforth_ kept
a holy day which they call the _goose's feast_."--AUGUSTINE, _Civitas
Dei, &c._ book ii. ch. 22: Englished by F.H. Icond. 1610.]
[Footnote 2: This appears from a line of Lucretius:
"Romulidarum arcis servator _candidus_ anser."
_De Rer. Nat._ I. iv. 687.]
[Footnote 3: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Manners and Customs, &c._, 2nd
Ser. pl. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312; vol. ii. p. 227. Mr. Birch of the
British Museum informs me that throughout the ritual or hermetic books
of the ancient Egyptians a mystical notion is attached to the goose as
one of the creatures into which the dead had to undergo a
transmigration. That it was actually worshipped is attested by a
sepulchral tablet of the 26th dynasty, about 700 B.C., in which it is
figured standing on a small chapel over which are the hieroglyphic
words, "_The good goose greatly beloved;_" and on the lower part of the
tablet the dedicator makes an offering of fire and water to "_Ammon and
the Goose._"--_Revue Archæo._, vol. ii. pl. 27.]
[Footnote 4: HORAPOLLO, _Hieroglyphica_, lib. i. 23.]
[Footnote 5: ÆLIAN, _Nat. Hist._, lib. v. c. 29, 30, 50. Ælian says that
the Romans in recognition of the superior vigilance of the goose on the
occasion of the assault on the Capitol, instituted a procession in the
Forum in honour of the goose, whose watchfulness was incorruptible; but
held an annual denunciation of the inferior fidelity of the dogs, which
allowed themselves to be silenced by meat flung to them by the
Gauls.--_Nat. Hist._ lib. xii. ch. xxxiii.]
The feeling appears to have spread westward at an early period; the
ancient Britons, according to Cæsar, held it impious to eat the flesh of
the goose[1], and the followers of the first crusade which issued from
England, France, and Flanders, adored a goat and _a goose_, which they
believed to be filled by the Holy Spirit.[2]
[Footnote 1: "Anserem gustare fas non patant."--CÆSAR, _Bell Gall._,
lib. v. ch xii.]
[Footnote 2: MILL'S _Hist. of the Crusades_, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 75.
Forster has suggested that it was a species of goose (which annually
migrates from the Black Sea towards the south) that fed the Israelites
in the desert of Sinai, and that the "winged fowls" meant by the word
_salu_, which has been heretofore translated "quails," were "red geese,"
resembling those of Egypt and India. He renders one of the mysterious
inscriptions which abound in the Wady Mokatteb (_the Valley of
Writings_), "the red geese ascend from the sea,--lusting the people eat
to repletion;" thus presenting a striking concurrence with the passage
in Numb. xi. 31, "there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought
quails (_salu_) from the sea."--FORSTER'S _One Primeval Language_, vol.
i. p. 90.]
It is remarkable that the same word appears to designate the goose in
the most remote quarters of the globe. The Pali term "_hanza_" by which
it was known to the Buddhists of Ceylon, is still the "_henza_" of the
Burmese and the "_gangsa_" of the Malays, and is to be traced in the
[Greek: "chên"] of the Greeks, the "_anser_" of the Romans, the
"_ganso_" of the Portuguese, the "_ansar_" of the Spaniards, the
"_gans_" of the Germans (who, PLINY says, called the white geese
_ganza_), the "_gas_" of the Swedes, and the "_gander_" of the
English.[1]
[Footnote 1: HARDY observes that the ibis of the Nile is called
"_Abou-Hansa_" by the Arabs, (_Buddhism_, ch. i. p. 17); but BRUCE
(_Trav_. vol. v. p. 172) says the name is _Abou Hannes_ or _Father
John_, and that the bird always appears on St. John's day: he implies,
however, that this is probably a corruption of an ancient name now
lost.]
In the principal apartment of the royal palace at Kandy, now the
official residence of the chief civil officer in charge of the province,
the sacred bird occurs amongst the decorations, but in such shape as to
resemble the dodo rather than the Brahmanee goose.
[Illustration: IN THE PALACE AT KANDY]
In the generality of the examples of ancient Singhalese carvings that
have come down to us, the characteristic which most strongly recommends
them, is their careful preservation of the outline and form of the
article decorated, notwithstanding the richness and profusion of the
ornaments applied. The subjects engraved are selected with so much
judgment, that whilst elaborately covering the surface, they in no
degree mar the configuration. Even in later times this principle has
been preserved, and the chasings in silver and tortoise shell on the
scabbards of the swords of state, worn by the Kandyan kings and their
attendants, are not surpassed by any specimens of similar workmanship in
India.
_Temples_.--The temples of Buddha were at first as unpretending as the
residences of the priesthood. No mention is made of them during the
infancy of Buddhism in Ceylon; at which period caves and natural
grottoes were the only places of devotion. In the sacred books these are
spoken of as "stone houses"[1] to distinguish them from the "houses of
earth"[2] and other materials used in the construction of the first
buildings for the worship of Buddha; such temples having been originally
confined to a single chamber of the humblest dimensions, within which it
became the custom at a later period to place a statue of the divine
teacher reclining in dim seclusion, the gloom being increased to
heighten the scenic effect of the ever-burning lamps by which the
chambers are imperfectly lighted.
[Footnote 1: The King, Walagambahu, who in his exile had been living
amongst the rocks in the wilderness, ascended the throne after defeating
the Malabars (B.C. 104), and "caused _the of stone or caves of the
rocks_ in which he had taken refuge to be made more
commodious."--_Rajavali_, p. 224.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 222.]
The construction of both these descriptions of temples was improved in
later times, but no examples remain of the ancient chaityas or built
temples in Ceylon, and those of the rock temples still existing exhibit
a very slight advance beyond the rudest attempts at excavation.
On examining the cave temples of continental India, they appear to
exhibit three stages of progress,--first mere unadorned cells, like
those formed by Dasartha, the grandson of Asoca, in the granite rocks of
Behar, about B.C. 200; next oblong apartments with a verandah in front,
like that of Ganesa, at Cuttack; and lastly, ample halls with colonnades
separating the nave from the aisles, and embellished externally with
façades and agricultural decorations, such as the caves of Karli,
Ajunta, and Ellora.[1] But in Ceylon the earliest rock temples were
merely hollows beneath overhanging rocks, like those still existing at
Dambool, and the Aluwihara at Matelle, in both of which advantage has
been taken of the accidental shelter of rounded boulders, and an
entrance constructed by applying a façade of masonry, devoid of all
pretensions to ornament.
[Footnote 1: See FERGUSSON'S _Illustrations of the Rock-cut Temples of
India_, Lond. 1845, and _Handbook of Architecture_, ch. ii. p. 23.]
The utmost effort at excavation never appears to have advanced beyond
the second stage attained in Bengal,--a small cell with a few columns to
support a verandah in front; and even of this but very few examples now
exist in Ceylon, the most favourable being the Gal-wihara at
Pollanarrua, which, according to the _Rajavali_, was executed by
Prakrama I., in the 12th century.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxvii.]
Taking into consideration the enthusiasm exhibited by the kings of
Ceylon, and the munificence displayed by them in the exaltation and
extension of Buddhism, their failure to emulate the labours of its
patrons in India, must be accounted for by the intractable nature of the
rocks with which they had to contend, the gneiss and quartz of Ceylon
being less favourable to such works than the sandstone of Cuttack, or
the trap formations of the western ghauts.
_Oil-painting_.--In decorative art, carving and moulding in chunam were
the principal expedients resorted to. Of this substance were also formed
the "beads resplendent like gems;" the "flower-ornaments" resembling
gold; and the "festoons of pearls," that are more than once mentioned in
describing the interiors of the palaces.[1] Externally, painting was
applied to the dagobas alone, as in the climate of Ceylon, exposure to
the rains would have been fatal to the duration of the colours, if only
mixed in tempera; but the Singhalese, at a very early period, were aware
of the higher qualities possessed by some of the vegetable oils. The
claim of Van Eyck to the invention of oil-painting in the 15th century,
has been shown to be untenable. Sir Charles L. Eastlake[2] has adduced
the evidence of Ætius of Diarbekir, to prove that the use of oil in
connection with art[3] was known before the 6th century; and
Dioscorides, who wrote in the age of Augustus, has been hitherto
regarded as the most ancient authority on the drying properties of
walnut, sesamum, and poppy. But the _Mahawanso_ affords evidence of an
earlier knowledge, and records that in the 2nd century before Christ,
"vermilion paint mixed with tila oil,"[4] was employed in the building
of the Ruanwellé dagoba. This is, therefore, the earliest testimony
extant of the use of oil as a medium for painting, and till a higher
claimant appears, the distinction of the discovery may be permitted to
rest with the Singhalese.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii, p. 163.]
[Footnote 2: EASTLAKE'S _Materials for a History of Oil Painting_, ch.
i. p. 18.]
[Footnote 3: Aetius [Greek: Biblion iatrikon.]]
[Footnote 4: Tila or tala is the Singhalese name for sesamum from which
the natives express the gingeli oil. SIR CHARLES L. EASTLAKE is of
opinion that "sesamum cannot be called a drying oil in the ordinary
acceptation of the term," but in this passage of the _Mahawanso_, it is
mentioned as being used as a cement. A question has been raised in
favour of the claim of the Egyptians to the use of oil in the decoration
of their mummy cases, but the probability is that they were coloured in
tempera and their permanency afterwards secured by a _varnish_.]
_Style of Ornament_.--In decorating the temporary tee, which was placed
on the Ruanwellé dagoba, prior to its completion, the square base was
painted with a design representing vases of flowers in the four panels,
surrounded by "ornaments radiating like the five fingers."[1] This
description points to the "honeysuckle border," which, according to
Fergusson, was adopted and carried westward by the Greeks, and eastward
by the Buddhist architects.[2] It appears upon the lat column at
Allahabad, which is inscribed with one of the edicts of Asoca, issued in
the 3rd century before Christ.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 193; ch. xxxviii. p. 258.]
[Footnote 2: FERGUSSON'S _Handbook of Architecture_, vol. i. ch. ii. p.
7.]
[Illustration: FROM THE CAPITAL OF A LAT]
The spire itself was "painted with red stick-lac," probably the same
preparation of vermilion as is used at the present day on the lacquered
ware of Burmah, Siam, and China.[1] Gaudy colours appear at all times to
have been popular; yellow, from its religious associations,
pre-eminently so[2]; and red lead was applied to the exterior of
dagobas.[3] Bujas Raja, in the 4th century, painted the walls and roof
of the Brazen Palace blue[4], and built a sacred edifice at
Anarajapoora, which from the variety and brilliancy of the colours with
which he ornamented the exterior, was known as the Monara Paw Periwena,
or Temple of the Peacock.[5]
[Footnote 1: A species of lacquer painting is practised with great
success at the present day in the Kandyan provinces, and especially at
Matelle, the colours being mixed with a resinous exudation collected
from a shrub called by the Singhalese Wæl-koep-petya (_Croton
lacciferum_). The coloured varnish thus prepared is formed into films
and threads chiefly by aid of the thumb-nail of the left hand, which is
kept long and uncut for the purpose. It is then applied by heat and
polished. It is chiefly employed in ornamenting the covers of books,
walking-sticks, the shafts of spears, and the handles of fans for the
priesthood. The Burmese artists who make the japanned ware of Ava, _use
the hand_ in laying on the lacquer--which there, too, as well as in
China, is the produce of a tree, the _Melanorhoea glabra_ of Wallich.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 184.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p. 212.]
[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 291. The _blue_ used for this purpose was
probably a preparation of indigo; the red, vermilion; the yellow,
orpiment; and green was obtained by combining the first and last.]
[Footnote 5: _Rajavali_, p. 73.]
CHAP. VIII.
DOMESTIC LIFE.
CITIES.--_Anarajapoora_.--Striking evidences of the state of
civilisation in Ceylon are furnished by the descriptions given, both by
native writers and by travellers, of its cities as they appeared prior
to the 8th century of the Christian era. The municipal organisation of
Anarajapoora, in the reign of Pandukábhaya, B.C. 437, may be gathered
from the notices in the _Mahawanso_, of the "_naggaraguttiko_," who was
conservator of the city, of the "guards stationed in the suburbs," and
of the "chandalas," who acted as scavengers and carriers of corpses. As
a cemetery was attached to the city, interment must have frequently
taken place, and the _nichi-chandalas_ are specially named as the
"cemetery men;"[1] but the practice of cremation prevailed in the 2nd
century before Christ, and the body of Elala was burned on the spot
where he fell, B.C. 161.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 65, 66.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxv. p. 155.]
The capital at that time contained the temples of numerous religions,
besides public gardens, and baths; to which were afterwards added, halls
for dancing and music, ambulance halls, rest-houses for travellers[1],
alms-houses[2], and hospitals[3]; in which animals, as well as men, were
tenderly cared for. The "corn of a thousand fields" was appropriated by
one king for their use[4]; another set aside rice to feed the squirrels
which frequented his garden[5]; and a third displayed his skill as a
surgeon, in treating the diseases of elephants, horses, and snakes.[6]
The streets contained shops and bazaars[7]; and on festive occasions,
barbers and dressers were stationed at each of the gates, for the
convenience of those resorting to the city.[8]
[Footnote 1: These rest-houses, like the Choultries of India, were
constructed by private liberality along all the leading highways and
forest roads. "Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging-place of
wayfaring men."--_Jer_. ix. 2.]
[Footnote 2: Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.]
[Footnote 3: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 39; _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 67; HARDY'S
_Eastern Monachism_, p. 485.]
[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxviii. UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 246.]
[Footnote 5: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 249.]
[Footnote 6: _Ibid_., p. 244, 245.]
[Footnote 7: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 139.]
[Footnote 8: _Ibid_., ch. xxviii. p. 170; ch. xxxix. p. 214.]
The _Lankawistariyaye_, or "Ceylon Illustrated," a Singhalese work of
the 7th century, gives a geographical summary of the three great
divisions of the island, Rohuna, Maya, and Pihiti, and dwells with
obvious satisfaction on the description of the capital of that period.
The details correspond so exactly with another fragment of a native
author, quoted by Colonel Forbes[1], that both seem to have been written
at one and the same period; they each describe the "temples and palaces,
whose golden pinnacles glitter in the sky, the streets spanned by arches
bearing flags, the side ways strewn with black sand, and the middle
sprinkled with white, and on either side vessels containing flowers, and
niches with statues holding lamps. There are multitudes of men armed
with swords, and bows and arrows. Elephants, horses, carts, and myriads
of people pass and repass, jugglers, dancers, and musicians of all
nations, with chank shells and other instruments ornamented with gold.
The distance from the principal gate to the south gate, is four gows;
and the same from the north to the south gate. The principal streets are
Moon Street, Great King Street, Hinguruwak, and Mahawelli Streets,--the
first containing eleven thousand houses, many of them two stories in
height. The smaller streets are innumerable. The palace has large ranges
of buildings, some of them two and three stories high, and its
subterranean apartments are of great extent."
[Footnote 1: _Eleven Years in Ceylon,_ vol. i. p. 235. But there is so
close a resemblance in each author to the description of the ancient
capital of the kings of Ayoudhya (Oude) that both seem to have been
copied from that portion of the Ramayana. See the passage quoted in Mrs.
Spier's _Life in Ancient India,_ ch. iv. p. 99.]
The native descriptions of Anarajapoora, in the 7th century, are
corroborated by the testimony of the foreign travellers who visited it
about the same period. Fa Hian says, "The city is the residence of many
magistrates, grandees, and foreign merchants; the mansions beautiful,
the public buildings richly adorned, the streets and highways straight
and level, and houses for preaching built at every thoroughfare."[1] The
_Leang-shu,_ a Chinese history of the Leang Dynasty, written between
A.D. 507-509, describing the cities of Ceylon at that period, says, "The
houses had upper stories, the walls were built of brick, and secured by
double gates."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Foë-Kouë-k[)i],_ ch, xxxviii. p. 334.]
[Footnote 2: _Leang-shu,_ B, liv. p. 10.]
_Carriages and Horses._--Carriages[1] and chariots[2] are repeatedly
mentioned as being driven through the principal cities, and carts and
waggons were accustomed to traverse the interior of the country.[3] At
the same time, the frequent allusions to the clearing of roads through
the forests, on the approach of persons of distinction, serve to show
that the passage of wheel carriages must have been effected with
difficulty[4], along tracks prepared for the occasion, by freeing them
of the jungle and brushwood. The horse is not a native of Ceylon, and
those spoken of by the ancient writers must have been imported from
India and Arabia. White horses were especially prized, and those
mentioned with peculiar praises were of the "Sindhawo" breed, a term
which may either imply the place whence they were brought, or the
swiftness of their speed.[5] In battle the soldiers rode chargers[6],
and a passage in the _Mahawanso_ shows that they managed them by means
of a rope passed through the nostril, which served as a bridle.[7]
Cosmas Indicopleustes, who considered the number of horses in Ceylon in
the 6th century to be a fact of sufficient importance to be recorded,
adds that they were imported from Persia, and the merchants bringing
them were treated with special favour and encouragement, their ships
being exempted from all dues and charges. Marco Polo found the export of
horses from Aden and Ormus to India going on with activity in the 13th
century.[8]
[Footnote 1: B.C. 307, _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80, 81; B.C. 204, Ib.,
ch. xxi. p. 128. A carriage drawn by four horses is mentioned, B.C. 161,
_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxi. p. 186.]
[Footnote 2: B.C. 307, _Mahawanso_, ch, xv. p. 84; ch xvi. p. 103.]
[Footnote 3: B.C. 161, "a merchant of Anarajapoora proceeded with carts
to the Malaya division near Adam's Peak to buy ginger and saffon"
(_Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii. p. 167); and in the 3rd century after Christ a
wheel chariot was driven from the capital to the Kalaweva tank twenty
miles N.W. of Dambool.--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 260. See _ante_
Vol. II. p. 445.]
[Footnote 4: FORBES suggests that on such journeys the carriages must
have been pushed by men, as horses could not possibly have drawn them in
the hill country (vol. ii. p. 86).]
[Footnote 5: _Sigham_, swift; _dhawa_, to run; _Mahawanso_, ch, xxiii.
p. 142,186.]
[Footnote 6: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii. p. 132; ch. xxiii. 142.]
[Footnote 7: The Prince Dutugaimunu, when securing the mare which
afterwards carried him in the war against Elala, "seized her by the
throat and boring her nostril with the point of his sword, secured her
with his rope."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 60.]
[Footnote 8: _Marco Polo_, ch. xx, s. ii,: ch. xl.]
_Domestic Furniture._--Of the furniture of the private dwellings of the
Singhalese, such notices as have come down to us serve to show that
their intercourse with other Buddhist nations was not without its
influence on their domestic habits. Chairs[1], raised seats[2],
footstools[3], and metal lamps[4], were articles comparatively unknown
to the Hindus, and were obviously imitated by the Singhalese from the
East, from China, Siam, or Pegu.[5] The custom which prevails to the
present day of covering a chair with a white cloth, as an act of
courtesy in honour of a visitor, was observed with the same formalities
two thousand years ago[6]. Rich beds[7] and woollen carpets[8] were in
use at the same early period, and ivory was largely employed in inlaying
the more sumptuous articles.[9] Coco-nut shells were used for cups and
ladles[10]; earthenware for jugs and drinking cups[11]; copper for
water-pots, oil-cans, and other utensils; and iron for razors, needles,
and nail-cutters.[12] The _pingo_, formed of a lath cut from the stem of
the areca, or the young coco-nut palm, and still used as a yoke in
carrying burdens, existed at an early period[13], in the same form in
which it is borne at the present day. It is identical with the _asilla_
an instrument for the same purpose depicted on works of Grecian art[14]
and on the monuments of Egypt.
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 80; ch. xv. p. 84; _Rajaratnacari_
p. 134.]
[Footnote 2: Ibid., ch. xiii. p. 82.]
[Footnote 3: Ibid., xxvii. p. 164.]
[Footnote 4: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxx. p. 182; ch. xxxii. p. 192.]
[Footnote 5: _Asiatic Researches,_ vol. vi. p. 437. Chairs are shown on
the sculptures of Persepolis; and it is probably a remnant of Grecian
civilisation in Bactria that chairs are still used by the mountaineers
of Balkh and Bokhara.]
[Footnote 6: B.C. 307, King Devenipiatissa caused a chair to be so
prepared for Mahindo.]
[Footnote 7: _Mahawanso_, ch. xv. p. 84; ch. xxiii. p. 129. A four-post
bed is mentioned B.C. 180. _Mahawanso._ ch. xxiv. p. 148.]
[Footnote 8: Ibid., ch. xiv. p. 82.]
[Footnote 9: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxvii. p. 163.]
[Footnote 10: _Ibid_., ch. xxvii. p. 104.]
[Footnote 11: _Ibid_., ch. xv. p. 85.]
[Footnote 12: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 134.]
[Footnote 13: _Ibid.,_ p. 103. This implement is identical with the
"yoke" so often mentioned in the Old and New Testament as an emblem of
bondage and labour; and figured, with the same significance; on Grecian
sculpture gems. See _ante_. Vol. I. Pt. i ch iii. p. 114]
[Footnote 14: ARISTOTLE, _Rhet_. i 7.]
[Illustration: EGYPTIAN YOKE.]
[Illustration: SINGHALESE PINGO.]
_Form of Government_--The form of government was at all times an
unmitigated despotism; the king had ministers, but only to relieve him
of personal toil, and the institution of Gam-sabes, or village
municipalities, which existed in every hamlet, however small, was merely
a miniature council of the peasants, in which they settled all disputes
about descent and proprietorship, and maintained the organisation
essential to their peculiar tillage; facilitating at the same time the
payment of dues to the crown, both in taxes and labour.
_Revenue_.--The main sources of revenue were taxes, both on the land and
its produce; and these were avowedly so oppressive in amount, that the
merit of having reduced or suspended their assessment, was thought
worthy of being engraved on rocks by the sovereigns who could claim it.
In the inscription at the temple of Dambool, A.D. 1187, the king boasts
of having "enriched the inhabitants who had become impoverished by
inordinate taxes, and made them opulent by gifts of land, cattle, and
slaves, by relinquishing the revenues for five years, and restoring
inheritances, and by annual donations of five times the weight of the
king's person in gold, precious stones, pearls, and silver; and from an
earnest wish that succeeding kings should not again impoverish the
inhabitants of Ceylon by levying excessive imposts, he fixed the revenue
at a moderate amount, according to the fertility of the land."[1]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR's _Epitome_ App. p. 95; _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxiv. p.
211]
There was likewise an imperial tax upon produce, originally a tenth, but
subject to frequent variation.[1] For instance, in consideration of the
ill-requited toil of felling the forest land. In order to take a crop of
dry grain, the soil being unequal to sustain continued cultivation, the
same king seeing that "those who laboured with the bill-hook In clearing
thorny jungles, earned their livelihood distressfully," ordained that
this _chena_ cultivation, as it is called, should be for ever exempted
from taxation.
[Footnote 1: Rock inscription at Pollanarrua, A.D. 1187.]
_Army and Navy._--The military and naval forces of Ceylon were chiefly
composed of foreigners. The genius of the native population was at all
times averse to arms; from the earliest ages, the soldiers employed by
the crown were mercenaries, and to this peculiarity may be traced the
first encouragement given to the invasion of the Malabars. These were
employed both on land and by sea In the third century before Christ[1];
and it was not till the eleventh century of our era, that a marine was
organised for the defence of the coast.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_., ch. xxxix.; TURNOUR'S MS. Transl. p. 269.]
The mode of raising a national force to make war against the invaders,
is described in the _Mahawanso[1];_ the king issuing commands to ten
warriors to enlist each ten men, and each of this hundred in turn to
enrol ten more, and each of the new levy, ten others, till "the whole
company embodied were eleven thousand one hundred and ten."
[Footnote 1: _Ibid_., ch. xxiii. p. 144.]
The troops usually consisted of four classes: the "riders on elephants,
the cavalry, then those in chariots, and the foot soldiers,"[1] and this
organisation continued till the twelfth century.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Rajavali_, p. 208, The use of elephants in war is
frequently adverted to in the _Mahawamso_, ch. xxv. p. 151-155, &c.]
[Footnote 2: See the inscription on the tablet at Pollanarrua, A.D.
1187.]
Their arms were "the five weapons of war," swords, spears, javelins,
bows, and arrows, and a rope with a noose, running in a metal ring
called _narachana._[1] The archers were the main strength of the army,
and their skill and dexterity are subjects of frequent eulogium.[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch, vii 48; ch. xxv p. 155.]
[Footnote 2: One of the chiefs in the army of Dutugaimunu, B.C. 160, is
described as combining all the excellences of the craft, being at once a
"sound archer," who shot by ear, when his object was out of sight; "a
lightning archer," whose arrow was as rapid as a thunderbolt; and a
"sand-archer," who could send the shaft through a cart filled with sand
and through hides "an hundred-fold thick."--_Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiii. p.
143. In one of the legends connected with the early life of Gotama,
before he attained the exaltation of Buddhahood, he is represented as
displaying his strength by taking "a bow which required a thousand men
to bend it, and placing it against the toe of his right foot without
standing up, he drew the string with his finger-nail."--HARDY'S _Manual
of Buddhism,_ ch. vii. p. 153. It is remarkable that at the present day
this is the attitude assumed by a Veddah, when anxious to send an arrow
with more than ordinary force. The following sketch is from a model in
ebony executed by a native carver.
[Illustration: VEDDAH DRAWING HIS BOW]
I am not aware that examples of this mode of drawing the bow are to be
found on any ancient monument, Egyptian, Assyrian, Grecian, or Roman;
but that it was regarded as peculiar to the inhabitants of India is
shown by the fact that ARRIAN describes it as something remarkable in
the Indians in the age of Alexander. "[Greek: Hoplisios de tês Indôn ouk
hôutos eis tropos, all oi men pezoi autoisi toxon te echousin, isomêkes
tps phoreonti to toxon, kai touto katô epi tên gên thentes kai tps podi
tps aristerps antibantes, outôs ektoxeuousi, tên neurên epi mega opisô
apagagontes."--ARRIAN, _Indica_, lib, xvi. Arrian adds that such was the
force with which their arrows travelled that no substance was strong
enough to resist them, neither shield, breast-plate, nor armour, all of
which they penetrated. In the account of Brazil, by Kidder and Fletcher,
Philad. 1850, p. 558, the Indians of the Amazon are said to draw the bow
with the foot, and a figure is given of a Caboclo archer in the
attitude; but, unlike the Veddah of Ceylon, the American uses both
feet.]
The _Rajaratnacari_ states that the arrows of the Malabars were
sometimes "drenched with the poison of serpents," to render recovery
impossible.[1] Against such weapons the Singhalese carried shields, some
of them covered with plates of the chank shell[2]; this shell was also
sounded in lieu of a trumpet[3], and the disgrace of retreat is implied
by the expression that it ill becomes a soldier to "_allow his hair to
fly behind_."[4]
[Footnote 1: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 101.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 217.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxv. p. 154.]
[Footnote 4: _Rajavali_, p. 213.]
_Civil Justice_.--Civil justice was entrusted to provincial judges[1];
but the King Kirti Nissanga, in the great tablet inscribed with his
exploits, which still exists at Pollanarrua, has recorded that under the
belief that "robbers commit their crimes through hunger for wealth, he
gave them whatever riches they required, thus relieving the country from
the alarm of their depredations."[2] Torture was originally recognised
as a stage in the administration of the law, and in the original
organisation of the capital in the fourth century before Christ, a place
for its infliction was established adjoining the place of execution and
the cemetery.[3] It was abolished in the third century by King
Wairatissa; but the frightful punishments of impaling and crushing by
elephants continued to the latest period of the Ceylon monarchy.
[Footnote 1: Inscriptions on the Great Tablet at Pollanarrua.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid_.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p.]
CHAP. IX.
ASTRONOMY, ETC.
EDUCATION.--The Brahmans, as they were the first to introduce the
practice of the mechanical arts, were also the earliest instructors of
youth in the rudiments of general knowledge. Pandukabhaya, who was
afterwards king, was "educated in every accomplishment by Pandulo, a
Brahman, who taught him along with his own son."[1] The Buddhist priests
became afterwards the national instructors, and a passage in the
_Rajavali_ seems to imply that writing was regarded as one of the
distinctive accomplishments of the priesthood, not often possessed by
the laity, as it mentions that the brother of the king of Kalany, in the
second century before Christ, had been taught to write by a tirunansi,
"and made such progress that he could write as well as the tirunansi
himself."[2] The story in the _Rajavali_ of an intrigue which was
discovered by "the sound of the fall of a letter," shows that the
material then in use in the second century before Christ, was the same
as at the present day, the prepared leaf of a palm tree.[3]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 60.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 189.]
[Footnote 3: _Ibid._]
The most popular sovereigns were likewise the most sedulous patrons of
learning. Prakrama I. founded schools at Pollanarrua[1]; and it is
mentioned with due praise in the _Rajaratnacari_, that the King Wijayo
Bahu III., who reigned at Dambeadinia, A.D. 1240, "established a school
in every village, and charged the priests who superintended them to take
nothing from the pupils, promising that he himself would reward them for
their trouble."[2]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. lxxii. UPHAM'S version, vol. i. p. 274.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p. 99.]
Amongst the propagators of a religion whose leading characteristics are
its subtlety and thin abstractions, it may naturally be inferred that
argument and casuistry held prominent place in the curriculum of
instruction. In the story of Mahindo, and the conversion of the island
to Buddhism, the following display of logical acumen is ostentatiously
paraded as evidence of the highly cultivated intellect of the neophyte
king.[1]
[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xiv. p. 79.]
For the purpose of ascertaining the capacity of the gifted monarch,
Mahindo thus interrogated him:--
"O king; what is this tree called?
"The Ambo.
"Besides this one, is there any other Ambo-tree?
"There are many.
"Besides this Ambo, and those other Ambo-trees, are there any other
trees on the earth?
"Lord; there are many trees, but they are not Ambo-trees.
"Besides the other Ambo-trees, and the trees that are not Ambo, is there
any other?
"Gracious Lord, _this Ambo-tree._
"Ruler of men, thou art wise!
"Hast thou any relations, oh, king?
"Lord, I have many.
"King, are there any persons not thy relations?
"There are many who are not my relations.
"Besides thy relations, and those who are not thy relations, is there,
or is there not, any other human being in existence?
"Lord, _there is myself._
"Ruler of men, Sadhu! thou art wise."
The course of education suitable for a prince in the thirteenth century
included what was technically termed the eighteen sciences: "1. oratory,
2. general knowledge, 3. grammar, 4. poetry, 5. languages, 6. astronomy,
7. the art of giving counsel, 8. the means of attaining _nirwana_[1], 9.
the discrimination of good and evil, 10. shooting with the bow, 11.
management of the elephant, 12. penetration of thoughts, 13. discernment
of invisible beings, 14. etymology, 15. history, 16. law, 17. rhetoric,
18. physic."[2]
[Footnote 1: "Nirwana" is the state of suspended sensation, which
constitutes the eternal bliss of the Buddhist in a future state.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_ p. 100.]
_Astronomy_.--Although the Singhalese derived from the Hindus their
acquaintance, such as it was, with the heavenly bodies and their
movements, together with their method of taking observations, and
calculating eclipses[1], yet in this list the term "astrology" would
describe better than "astronomy" the science practically cultivated in
Ceylon, which then, as now, had its professors in every village to
construct horoscopes, and cast the nativities of the peasantry.
Dutugaimunu, in the second century before Christ, after his victory over
Elala, commended himself to his new subjects by his fatherly care in
providing "a doctor, an astronomer, and a priest, for each group of
sixteen villages throughout the kingdom;"[2] and he availed himself of
the services of the astrologer to name the proper day of the moon on
which to lay the foundation of his great religious structures.[3]
[Footnote 1: A summary of the knowledge possessed by the early Hindus of
_astronomy_ and _mathematical science_ will be found in MOUNTSTUART
ELPHINSTONE'S _History of India during the Hindu and Mahomedan Periods_,
book iii. ch. i. p. 127.]
[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_ p. 40.]
[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxix. p. 169-173.]
King Bujas Raja, A.D. 339, increased his claim to popular acknowledgment
by adding "an astrologer, a devil-dancer, and a preacher."[1] At the
present day the astronomical treatises possessed by the Singhalese are,
generally speaking, borrowed, but with considerable variation, from the
Sanskrit.[2]
[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S _Epitome_, p. 27.]
[Footnote 2: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. i. p. 22.]