_Medicine_.--Another branch of royal education was medicine. The

Singhalese, from their intercourse with the Hindus, had ample

opportunities for acquiring a knowledge of this art, which was practised

in India before it was known either in Persia or Arabia; and there is

reason to believe that the distinction of having been the discoverers of

chemistry which has been so long awarded to the Arabs, might with

greater justice have been claimed for the Hindus. In point of antiquity

the works of Charak and Susruta on Surgery and Materia Medica, belong to

a period long anterior to Greber, and the earliest writers of Arabia;

and served as authorities both for them and the Mediæval Greeks.[1] Such

was their celebrity that two Hindu physicians, Manek and Saleh, lived at

Bagdad in the eighth century, at the court of Haroun al Raschid.[2]

[Footnote 1: See Dr. ROYLE'S _Essay on the Antiquity of Hindu Medicine_,

p. 64.]

[Footnote 2: Professor Dietz, quoted by Dr. ROYLE.]

One of the edicts of Asoca engraved on the second tablet at Girnar,

relates to the establishment of a system of medical administration

throughout his dominions, "as well as in the parts occupied by the

faithful race as far as Tambaparni (Ceylon), both medical aid for men,

and medical aid for animals, together with medicaments of all sorts,

suitable for animals and men."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Journal Asiat. Soc. Bengal_, vol. vii. part. i. p. 159.]

These injunctions of the Buddhist sovereign of Magadha were religiously

observed by many of the Ceylon kings. In the "register of deeds of

piety" in which Dutugaimunu, in the second century before Christ, caused

to be enrolled the numerous proofs of his devotion to the welfare of his

subjects, it was recorded that the king had "maintained at eighteen

different places, hospitals provided with suitable diet and medicines

prepared by medical practitioners for the infirm."[1] In the second

century of the Christian era, a physician and a surgeon were borne on

the establishments of the great monasteries[2], and even some of the

sovereigns acquired renown by the study and practice of physic. On Bujas

Raja, who became king of Ceylon, A.D. 339, the _Mahawanso_ pronounces

the eulogium, that he "patronised the virtuous, discountenanced the

wicked, rendered the indigent happy, and comforted the diseased by

providing medical relief."[3] He was the author of a work on Surgery,

which is still held in repute by his countrymen; he built hospitals for

the sick and asylums for the maimed, and the benefit of his science and

skill was not confined to his subjects alone, but was equally extended

to the relief of the lower animals, elephants, horses, and other

suffering creatures.

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 196.]

[Footnote 2: Rock inscription at Mihintala, A.D. 262.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxvii. p. 242-245.]

_Botany._--The fact that the basis of their _Materia Medica_ has been

chiefly derived from the vegetable kingdom, coupled with the

circumstance that their clothing and food were both drawn from the same

source, may have served to give to the Singhalese an early and intimate

knowledge of plants. It was at one time believed that they were likewise

possessed of a complete and general botanical arrangement; but MOON,

whose attention was closely directed to this subject, failed to discover

any trace of a system; and came to the conclusion that, although well

aware of the various parts of a flower, and their apparent uses, they

have never applied that knowledge to a distribution of plants by classes

or orders.[1]

[Footnote 1: MOON'S _Catalogue of Indigenous and Exotic Plants growing

in Ceylon._ 4to. Colombo, 1824, p. 2.]

_Geometry._--The invention of geometry has been ascribed to the

Egyptians, who were annually obliged to ascertain the extent to which

their lands had been affected by the inundations of the Nile, and to

renew the obliterated boundaries. A similar necessity led to like

proficiency amongst the people of India and Ceylon, the minute

subdivision of whose lands under their system of irrigation necessitated

frequent calculations for the definition of limits and the division of

the crops.[1]

[Footnote 1: The "_Suriya Sidhanta,_" generally assigned to the fifth or

sixth century, contains a system of Hindu trigonometry, which not only

goes beyond anything known to the Greeks, but involves theorems that

were not discovered in Europe till the sixteenth century.--MOUNT-STUART

ELPHINSTONE'S _India,_ b. iii. ch. i. p. 129.]

_Lightning Conductors._--In connection with physical science, a curious

passage occurs in the _Mahawanso_ which gives rise to a conjecture that

early in the third century after Christ, the Singhalese had some dim

idea of the electrical nature of lightning, and a belief, however

erroneous, of the possibility of protecting their buildings by means of

conductors.

The notices contained in THEOPHRASTUS and PLINY show that the Greeks and

the Romans were aware of the quality of attraction exhibited by amber

and tourmaline.[1] The Etruscans, according to the early annalists of

Borne, possessed the power of invoking and compelling thunder storms.[2]

Numa Pompilius would appear to have anticipated Franklin by drawing

lightning from the clouds; and Tullus Hostilius, his successor, was

killed by an explosion, whilst attempting unskilfully the same

experiment.[3]

[Footnote 1: The electrical substances "lyncurium" and "theamedes" have

each been conjectured to be the "tourmaline" which, is found in Ceylon.]

[Footnote 2: "Vel cogi fulmina vel impetrari." --PLINY, _Nat. Hist._

lib. ii. ch. lii.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_. There is an interesting paper on the subject of the

knowledge of electricity possessed by the ancients, by Dr. FALCONER in

the _Memoirs of the Manchester Philosophical Society,_ A.D. 1788, vol.

iii. p. 279.]

CTESIAS, a contemporary of Xenophon, spent much of his life in Persia,

and says that he twice saw the king demonstrate the efficacy of an iron

sword planted in the ground in dispersing clouds, hail, and

lightning[1]; and the knowledge of conduction is implied by an

expression of LUCAN, who makes Aruns, the Etrurian flamen, concentrate

the flashes of lightning and direct them beneath the surface of the

earth:--

"dispersos fulminus ignes

Colligit, et terræ mæsto cum murmure cendit."

_Phars_. lib. i. v. 606.

[Footnote 1: PHOTIUS, who has preserved the fragment (_Bibl._ lxxii.),

after quoting the story of CTESIAS as to the iron it question being

found in a mysterious Indian lake, adds, regarding the sword, [Greek:

"phêsi oe peri autou hoti pêgnimenos en tê gê nephous kai chalazês kai

prêstêrôn estin apotropaios. Kai idein auton tauta phêsi Basileôs dis

poiêsantos."] See BAEHR'S _C'tesiæ Reliquiæ,_ &c., p. 248, 271.]

There is scarcely an indication in any work that has come down to us

from the first to the fifteenth century, that the knowledge of such

phenomena survived in the western world; but the books of the Singhalese

contain allusions which demonstrate that in the _third_ and in the

_fifth_ century it was the practice in Ceylon to apply mechanical

devices with the hope of securing edifices from lightning.

The most remarkable of these passages occurs in connection with the

following subject. It will be remembered that Dutugaimunu, by whom the

great dagoba, known as the Ruanwellé, was built at Anarajapoora, died

during the progress of the work, B.C. 137, the completion of which he

entrusted to his brother and successor Saidaitissa.[1] The latest act of

the dying king was to form "the square capital on which the spire was

afterwards to be placed[2], and on each side of this there was a

representation of the sun."[3] The _Mahawanso_ states briefly, that in

obedience to his brother's wishes, Saidaitissa "completed the

pinnacle,"[4] for which the square capital before alluded to served as a

base; but the _Dipawanso_, a chronicle older than the _Mahawanso_ by a

century and a half, gives a minute account of this stage of the work,

and says that this pinnacle, which he erected between the years 137 and

119 before Christ, was formed _of glass_.[5]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxii. p. 198. See _ante_, Vol. I. Pt.

III. ch. v. p. 358.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ch. xxxi. p. 192.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ch. xxxii. p. 193.]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid._, ch. xxxiii. p. 200.]

[Footnote 5: "Karàpesi _khara-pindun_ mahá thupè varuttame." For this

reference to the _Dipawano_ I am indebted to Mr. DE ALWIS of Colombo.]

A subsequent king, Amanda, A.D. 20, fixed a chatta (in imitation of the

white umbrella which is emblematic of royalty) on the spire[1], and two

centuries later, Sanghatissa, who reigned A.D. 234 to 246, "caused this

chatta to be gilt, and set four gems in the centre of the four emblems

of the sun, each of which cost a lac."[2] And now follows the passage

which is interesting from its reference, however obscure, to the

electrical nature of lightning. The _Mahawanso_ continues: "he in like

manner placed a glass pinnacle on the spire _to serve as a protection

against lightning_."[3]

[Footnote 1: _Mahawanso_, ch. xxxv. p. 215.]

[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi. p. 229.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi. p. 229. This belief in the power of

averting lightning by mechanical means, prevailed on the continent of

India as well as in Ceylon, and one of the early Bengalese histories of

the temple of Juggernauth, written between the years A.D. 470 and A.D.

520, says that when the building was completed, "a _neclchukro_ was

placed at the top of the temple to prevent the falling of thunderbolts."

In an account of the modern temple which replaced this ancient

structure, it is stated that "it bore a loadstone at the top, which, as

it drew vessels to land, was seized and carried off two centuries ago by

sailors."--_Asiat. Res._ vol. xv. p. 327.]

The term "wajira-chumbatan" in the original Pali, which TURNOUR has here

rendered "a glass pinnacle," ought to be translated "a diamond hoop,"

both in this passage and also in another in the same book in which it

occurs.[1] The form assumed by the upper portion of the dagoba would

therefore resemble the annexed sketch.

[Footnote 1: In describing the events in the reign of Dhaatu-Sena, the

king at whose instance and during whose reign the _Mahawanso_ was written

by his uncle Mahanamo, between the years A.D. 459, 477, the author, who

was contemporary with the occurrence he relates, says, that "at the

three principal chetyos (dagobas) he made a golden chatta and a diamond

hoop (_wajira-chumbaton_) for each."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 259.

Similar instances of gems being attached to the chattas of dagobas are

recorded in the same work, ch. xlii. and elsewhere.

The original passage relative to the diamond hoop placed by Sanghatissa

runs thus in Pali, "Wisun satasahassagghé chaturócha mahamanin majjhé

chatunnan suriyánán thapápési mahipati; _thupassa muddhani tatha anagghá

wajira-chumbatan_," which Mr. DE ALWIS translates: "The king caused to

be set four gems, each of the value of a lac, in the centre of the four

emblems of the sun, _and likewise an invaluable adamantine_ (or diamond)

_ring on the top of the thupa._" Some difficulty existed in TURNOUR'S

mind as to the rendering to be given to these two last words

"_wajira-chumbatan_." Prof. H.H. WILSON, to whom I have submitted the

sentence, says, "_Wajira_ is either 'diamond,' or 'adamant,' or 'the

thunderbolt of Indra;'" and with him the most leaned Pali scholars in

Ceylon entirely concur; De Saram, the Maha-Moodliar of the Governor's

Gate, the Rev. Mr. Gogerly, Mr. De Alwis, Pepole the Hight Priest of the

Asgiria (who was TURNOUR'S instructor in Pali), Wattegamine Unnanse of

Kandy, Bulletgamone Unnanse of Galle, Batuwantudawe, of Colombo, and De

Soyza, the translator Moodliar to the Colonial Secretary's Office. Mr.

DE ALWIS says, "The epithet _anagghan_, 'invaluable' or 'priceless,'

immediately preceding and qualifying _wajira_ in the original (but

omitted by Turnour in the translation), shows that a substance far more

valuable than glass must have been meant." "_Chumbatan_," Prof. Wilson

supposed to be the Pali equivalent to the Sanskrit _chumbakam_, "the

kisser or attractor of steel;" the question he says is whether _wajira_

is to be considered an adjective or part of a compound substantive,

whether the phrase is a _diamond-magnet pinnacle_, or _conductor_, or a

_conductor_ or _attractor of the thunderbolt_. In the latter case it

would intimate that the Singhalese had a notion of lightning conductors,

Mr. DE ALWIS, however, and Mr. GOGERLY agree that chumba_ka_ is the same

both in Sanskrit and Pali, whilst chumba_ta_ is a Pali compound, which

means a _circular prop_ or _support, a ring_ on which something rests,

or _a roll of cloth_ formed into a circle to form a stand for a vessel;

so that the term must be construed to mean _a diamond_ circlet, and the

passage, transposing the order of the words, will read literally thus:

thapapesi tatha muddhani thupassa

he placed in like manner on the top of the thupo

anagghan wajira-chumbatan.

a valuable diamond hoop.

TURNOUR wrote his translation whilst residing at Kandy and with the aid

of the priests, who being ignorant of English could only assist him to

Singhalese equivalents for Pali words. Hence he was probably led into

the mistake of confounding _wajira_, which signifies "diamond," or an

instrument for cutting diamonds, with the modern word _widura_, which

bears the same import but is colloquially used by the Kandyans for

"glass." However, as glass as well as the diamond is an insulator of

electricity, the force of the passage would be in no degree altered

whichever of the two substances was really particularised. TURNOUR was

equally uncertain as to the meaning of _chumbatan_, which in one

instance he has translated a "pinnacle" and in the other he has left

without any English equivalent, simply calling "wajira-chumbatan" a

"chumbatan of glass."--_Mahawanso_, ch. xxxviii. p. 259.]

[Illustration:

A. Crown of the Dagoba.

B. The capital, with the sun on each of the four sides.

C. The spire.

D. The umbrella or chatta, gilt and surrounded

by "chumbatan," a diamond circlet.]

The chief interest of the story centres in the words "_to serve as a

protection against lightning_," which do not belong to the metrical text

of the _Mahawanso_, but are taken from the explanatory notes appended to

it. I have stated elsewhere, that it was the practice of authors who

wrote in Pali verse, to attach to the text a commentary in prose, in

order to illustrate the obscurities incident to the obligations of

rhythm. In this instance, the historian, who was the kinsman and

intimate friend of the king, by whose order the glass pinnacle was

raised in the fifth century, probably felt that the stanza descriptive

of the placing of the first of those costly instruments in the reign of

Sanghatissa, required some elucidation, and therefore inserted a passage

in the "tika," by which his poem was accompanied, to explain that the

motive of its erection was "_for the purpose of averting the dangers of

lightning_."[1]

[Footnote 1: The explanatory sentence in the "tika" is as follows:

"Thupassa muddhani tathá naggha wajira-chumbatanti tathewa mahà thupassa

muddhani satasahasaggha nikan maha manincha patitha petwa ta--ahettà

asani upaddawa widdhanse natthan adhara walayamewn katwa anaggha

wajira-chumbatancha pujeseti atho."

Mr. DE SARAY and Mr. DE AIWIS concur in translating this passage as

follows, "In like manner having placed a large gem, of a lac in value,

on the top of the great thupa, he fixed below it, _for the purpose of

destroying the dangers of lightning_, an invaluable diamond chumbatan,

having made it like a supporting ring or circular rest." Words

equivalent to those in _italics_, Mr. TURNOUR embodies in his

translation, but placed them between brackets to denote that they wore a

quotation.]

The two passages, taken in conjunction, leave no room for doubt that the

object in placing the diamond hoop on the dagoba, was _to turn aside the

stroke of the thunderbolt_.

But the question still remains, whether, at that very early period, the

people of Ceylon had such a conception, however crude and erroneous, of

the nature of electricity, and the relative powers of conducting and

non-conducting bodies, as would induce them to place a mistaken reliance

upon the contrivance described, as one calculated to ensure their

personal safety; or whether, as religious devotees, they presented it as

a costly offering to propitiate the mysterious power that controls the

elements. The thing affixed was however so insignificant in value,

compared with the stupendous edifice to be protected, that the latter

supposition is scarcely tenable. The dagoba itself was an offering, on

the construction of which the wealth of a kingdom had been lavished;

besides which it enshrined the holiest of all conceivable

objects--portions of the deified body of Gotama Buddha himself; and if

these were not already secured, from the perils of lightning by their

own sanctity, their safety could scarcely be enhanced by the addition of

a diamond hoop.

The conjecture is, therefore, forced on us, that the Singhalese, in that

remote era, had observed some physical facts, or learned their existence

from others, which suggested the idea that it might be practicable, by

some mechanical device, to ward off the danger of lightning. It is just

possible that having ascertained that glass or precious stones acted as

insulators of electricity, it may have occurred to them that one or both

might be employed as preservative agents against lightning.

Modern science is enabled promptly to condemn this reasoning, and to

pronounce that the expedient, so far from averting, would fearfully add

to, the peril. But in the infancy of all inquiries the observation of

effects generally precedes the comprehension of causes, and whilst it is

obvious that nothing attained by the Singhalese in the third century

anticipated the great discoveries relative to the electric nature of

lightning, which were not announced till the seventeenth or eighteenth,

we cannot but feel that the contrivance described in the _Mahawanso_ was

one likely to originate amongst an ill-informed people, who had

witnessed certain phenomena the causes of which they were unable to

trace, and from which they were incapable of deducing any accurate

conclusions.[1]

[Footnote 1: I have been told that within a comparatively recent period

it was customary in this country, from some motive not altogether

apparent, to surmount the lightning conductors of the Admiralty and some

other Government buildings with, a _glass summit_.]

CHAP. X.

SINGHALESE LITERATURE.

The literature of the ancient Singhalese derived its character from the

hierarchic ascendency, which was fostered by their government, and

exerted a preponderant influence over the temperament of the people. The

Buddhist priesthood were the depositories of all learning and the

dispensers of all knowledge:--by the obligation of their order the study

of the classical Pali[1] was rendered compulsory upon them[2], and the

books which have come down to us show that they were at the same time

familiar with Sanskrit. They were employed by royal command in compiling

the national annals[3], and kings at various periods not only encouraged

their labours by endowments of lands[4], but conferred distinction on

such pursuits by devoting their own attention to the cultivation of

poetry[5], and the formation of libraries.[6]

[Footnote 1: _Pali_, which is the language of Buddist literature in

Siam, Ava, as well as in Ceylon, is, according to Dr. MILL, "no other

than the Magadha Pracrit, the classical form in ancient Behar of that

very peculiar modification of Sanscrit speech which enters as largely

into the drama of the Hindus, as did the Doric dialect into the Attic

tragedy of Ancient Greece." In 1826 MM. BURNOUF and LASSEN published

their learned "_Essai sur le Pali_," but the most ample light was thrown

upon its structure and history by the subsequent investigations of

TURNOUR, who, in the introduction to his version of the _Mahawanso_, has

embodied a disquisition on the antiquity of Pali as compared with

Sanskrit (p. xxii. &c.).]

[Footnote 2: _Rajaratnacari_, p, 106.]

[Footnote 3: _Ibid_., p. 43-74]

[Footnote 4: _Ibid_., p. 113]

[Footnote 5: _Rajavali_, p. 245; _Mahawanso_, ch. liv., lxxix.]

[Footnote 6: _Rajavali_, p. 244.]

The books of the Singhalese are formed to-day, as they have been for

ages past, of _olas_ or strips taken from the young leaves of the

Talipat or the Palmyra palm, cut before they have acquired the dark

shade and strong texture which belong to the full grown frond.[1] After

undergoing a process (one stage of which consists in steeping them in

hot water and sometimes in milk) to preserve their flexibility, they are

submitted to pressure to render their surface uniformly smooth. They are

then cut into stripes of two or three inches in breadth, and from one to

three feet long. These are pierced with two holes, one near each end,

through which a cord is passed, so as to secure them between two wooden

covers, lacquered and ornamented with coloured devices. The leaves thus

strung together and secured, form a book.

[Footnote 1: The leaves of the Palmyra, similarly prepared, are used for

writings of an ordinary kind, but the most valuable books are written on

the Talipat See _ante_, Vol. I. Pt I. ch. iii. p. 110.]

On these palm-leaves the custom is to write with an iron stile held

nearly upright, and steadied by a nick cut to receive it in the

thumb-nail of the left hand. The stile is sometimes richly ornamented,

shaped like an arrow, and inlaid with gold, one blade of the feather

serving as a knife to trim the leaf preparatory to writing. The case is

sometimes made of carved ivory bound with hoops of filigreed silver.

[Illustration: WRITING WITH A STILE.]

The furrow made by the pressure of the steel is rendered visible by the

application of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil[1], to the odour of

which the natives ascribe the remarkable state of preservation in which

their most sacred books are found, its aromatic properties securing the

leaves from destruction by white ants and other insects.[2]

[Footnote 1: For this purpose a resin is used, called _dumula_ by the

natives, who dig it up from beneath the surface of lands from which the

forest has disappeared.]

[Footnote 2: In Ceylon there are a few Buddhist books brought from

Burmah, in which the text is inscribed on plates of silver. I have seen

others on leaves of ivory, and some belonging to the Dalada Wihara, at

Kandy, are engraved on gold. The earliest grants of lands, called

_sannas_, were written on palm-leaves, but an inscription on a rock at

Dambool, which is of the date 1200 A.D., records that King Prakrama Bahu

I. made it a rule that "when permanent grants of land were to be made to

those who performed meritorious services, such behests should not be

evanescent like lines drawn on water by being inscribed on leaves to be

destroyed by rats and white ants, but engraved on plates of copper, so

as to endure to posterity."]

The wiharas and monasteries of the Buddhist priesthood are the only

depositaries in Ceylon of the national literature, and in these are to

be found quantities of ola books on an infinity of subjects, some of

them, especially those relating to religion and ecclesiastical history,

being of the remotest antiquity.

Works of the latter class are chiefly written in Pali. Treatises on

astronomy, mathematics, and physics are almost exclusively in Sanskrit,

whilst those on general literature, being comparatively recent, are

composed in Elu, a dialect which differs from the colloquial Singhalese

rather in style than in structure, having been liberally enriched by

incorporation from Sanskrit and Pali.[1] But of the works which have

come down to us, ancient as well as modern, so great is the

preponderance of those in Pali and Sanskrit, that the Singhalese can

scarcely be said to possess a literature in their national dialect; and

in the books they do possess, so utter is the dearth of invention or

originality, that almost all which are not either ballads or

compilations, are translations from one or other of the two learned

languages.

[Footnote 1: TURNOUR'S Introd. to the _Mahawanso_, p. xiii. A critical

account of the Elu will be found in an able and learned essay on the

language and literature of Ceylon by Mr. J. DE ALWIS, prefixed to his

English. translation of the _Sidath Sangara_, a grammar of Singhalese,

written in the fourteenth century. Colombo, 1852. Introd. p. xxvii.

xxxvii.]

I. PALI.--Works in Pali are written, like those of Burmah and Siam, not

in Nagari or any peculiar character, but in the vernacular alphabet. Of

these, as might naturally be expected, the vast majority are on subjects

connected with Buddhism, and next to them in point of number are

grammars and grammatical commentaries.

The original of the great Pali grammar of Kachchayano is now lost, but

its principles survive in numerous treatises, and text-books written at

succeeding periods to replace it.[1] Such is the passion for

versification, probably as an assistant to memory, that nearly every

Singhalese work, ancient as well as modern, is composed in rhyme, and

even the repulsive abstractions of Syntax have found an Alvarez and been

enveloped in metrical disguise.

[Footnote 1: The Rev. R. SPENCE HARDY, to whom I am indebted for much

valuable information on the subject of the literature current at the

present day in Ceylon, published a list in the _Journal of the Ceylon

Branch of the Asiatic Society_ for 1848, in which he gave the titles of

467 works in Pali, Sanskrit, and Elu, collected by himself during his

residence in Ceylon. Of these about 80 are in Sanskrit, 150 in Elu (or

Singhalese), and the remainder in Pali, either with or without

translations. Of the Pali book 26 are either grammars or treatises on

grammar.

This catalogue of Mr. Hardy is, however, by no means to be regarded as

perfect; not only because several are omitted, but because many are but

excerpts from larger works. The titles are seldom descriptive of the

contents, but in true Oriental taste are drawn from emblems and figures,

such as "Light," "Gems," and "Flowers." The authors' names are rarely

known, and the language or style seldom affords an indication of the age

of the composition.]

Of the sacred writings in Pali, the most renowned are the

_Pitakattayan_, literally "The Three Baskets," which embody the

doctrines, discourses, and discipline of the Buddhists, and so

voluminous is this collection that its contents extend to 592,000

stanzas; and the Atthakatha or commentaries, which are as old as the

fifth century[1], contain 361,550 more. From their voluminousness, the

Pittakas are seldom to be seen complete, but there are few of the

superior temples in which one or more of the separate books may not be

found.

[Footnote 1: They were translated into Pali from Singhalese by

Buddhaghoso, A.D. 420.--_Mahawanso_, c. xxxvii, p. 252.]

The most popular portion of the Pittakas are the legendary tales, which

profess to have been related by GOTAMO BUDDHA himself, in his _Sutras_

or discourses, and were collected under the title of

_Pansiya-panas-jataka-pota_, or the "Five hundred and fifty Births." The

series is designed to commemorate events in his own career, during the

states of existence through which he passed preparatory to his reception

of the Buddhahood. In structure and contents it bears a striking

resemblance to the Jewish Talmud, combining, with aphorisms and maxims,

philological explanations of the divine text, stories illustrative of

its doctrines, into which not only saints and heroes, but also animals

and inanimate objects, are introduced, and not a few of the fables that

pass as Æsop's are to be found in the Jatakas of Ceylon. There are

translations into Singhalese of the greater part of its contents, and so

attractive are its narratives that the natives will listen the livelong

night to recitations from its pages.[1]

[Footnote 1: HARDY'S _Buddhism_, ch. v. p. 98.]

The other Pali works[1] embrace subjects in connection with cosmography

and the Buddhist theories of the universe; the distinctions of caste,

topographical narratives, a few disquisitions on medicine, and books

which, like the Milindaprasna, or "_Questions of Milinda_,"[2] without

being canonical give an orthodox summary of the national religion.

[Footnote 1: A lucid account of the principal Pali works in connection

with religion will be found in the Appendix to HARDY'S _Manual of

Buddhism_, p. 509, and in HARDY'S _Eastern Manichian_, pp. 27, 315.]

[Footnote 2: The title of this popular work has given rise to a very

curious conjecture of Turnour's. It professes to contain the dialectic

controversies of Nagannoa, through whose instrumentality Buddhism was

introduced into Kashmir, with Milinda, who was the Raja of an adjoining

country, called Sagala, near the junction of the rivers Ravi and Chenab.

These dicussions must have taken place about the year B.C. 44. Now

Sagala is identical with Sangala, the people of which, according to

Arrian, made a bold resistance to the advance of Alexander the Great

beyond the Hydraotes; and it has been supposed by Sir Alexander Burnes

to have occupied the site of Lahore. Its sovereign, therefore, who

embraced the doctrines of Buddha, was probably an Asiatic Greek, and

TURNOUR suggests that the "Yons" or "Yonicas" who, according to the

Milinda-prasna, formed his body-guard, were either Greeks or the

descendants of Greeks from Ionia.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 523;

HARDY'S _Manual of Buddhism_, p. 512; REINAUD, _Mémoire sur l'Inde_, p.

65.]

But the _chefs d'oeuvre_ of Pali literature are their chronicles, the

_Dipawanso, Mahawanso,_ and others; of these the most important by far

is the _Mahawanso_ and its tikas or commentaries. It stands at the head

of the historical literature of the East; unrivalled by anything extant

in Hindustan[1], the wildness of whose chronology it controls; and

unsurpassed, if it be equalled, by the native annals of China or

Kashmir. So conscious were the Singhalese kings of the value of this

national monument, that its continuation was an object of royal

solicitude to successive dynasties[2] from the third to the thirteenth

century; and even in the decay of the monarchy the compilation was

performed in A.D. 1696, by an unknown hand, and, finally, brought down

to A.D. 1758 by order of one of the last of the Kandyan kings.

[Footnote 1: LASSEN, _Indis. Alt_., vol. ii. p. 13-15.]

[Footnote 2: COSMAS INDICO-PLEUSTES, EDRISI, ABOU-ZEYD, and almost all

the travellers and geographers of the middle ages, have related, as a

trait of the native rulers of Ceylon, their employment of annalists to

record the history of the kingdom.--EDRISI, _Clim._ i. sec. 8, p. 3.]

Of the chronicles thus carefully constructed, which exhibit in their

marvellously preserved leaves the study and elaboration of upwards of

twelve hundred years, PRINSEP, supreme as an authority, declared that

they served to "clear away the chief of difficulties in Indian

genealogies, which seem to have been intentionally falsified by the

Brahmans and thrown back into remote antiquity, in order to confound

their Buddhist rivals."[1]

[Footnote 1: PRINSEP, in a private letter to Turnour, in 1836, speaking

of the singular value of the _Mahawanso_ in collating the chronology of

India, says, "had your Buddhist chronicles been accessible to Sir W.

Jones and Wilford, they would have been greedily seized to correct

anomalies at every step."]

But they display in their mysterious rhymes few facts or revelations to

repay the ordinary reader for the labour of their perusal. Written

exclusively by the Buddhist priesthood, they present the meagre

characteristics of the soulless system which it is their purpose to

extol. No occurrence finds a record in their pages which does not tend

to exalt the genius of Buddhism or commemorate the acts of its patrons:

the reigns of the monarchs who erected temples for its worship, or

consecrated shrines for its relics, are traced with tiresome precision;

even where their accession was achieved by usurpation and murder, their

lives are extolled for piety, provided they were characterised by

liberality to the church; whilst those alone are stigmatised as impious

and consigned to long continued torments, whose reigns are

undistinguished by acts conducive to the exaltation of the national

worship.[1]

[Footnote 1: Asoca, "who put to death one hundred brothers," to secure

the throne to himself, is described in the _Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 21, as

a prince "of piety and supernatural wisdom." Even Malabar infidels, who

assassinated the Buddhist kings, are extolled as "righteous sovereigns"

(_Mahawanso_, ch. xxi. p. 127); but a Buddhist king who caused a priest

to be put to death who was believed to be guilty of a serious crime, is

consigned by the _Rajavali_ to a hell with a copper roof "so hot that

the waters of the sea are dried as they roil above it."--_Rajavali_, p.

192.]

The invasions which disturbed the tranquillity of the throne, and the

schisms which rent the unity of the church, are described with painful

elaboration; but we search in vain for any instructive notices of the

people or of their pursuits, for any details of their social condition

or illustration of their intellectual progress. Whilst the commerce of

all nations was sweeping along the shores of Ceylon, and the ships of

China and Arabia were making its ports their emporiums; the national

chronicles, whose compilation was an object of solicitude to successive

dynasties, are silent regarding these adventurous expeditions; and

utterly indifferent to all that did not affect the progress of Buddhism

or minister to the interests of the priesthood.[1]

[Footnote 1: It has been surmised that in the intercourse which

subsisted between India and the western world by way of Alexandria and

Persia, and which did not decline till the sixth or seventh century, the

influences of Nestorian Christianity may have left their impress on the

genius and literature of Buddhism; and in the legends of its historians

one is struck by the many passages that suggest a similarity to events

recorded in the Jewish Scriptures. The coincidence may also be accounted

for by the close proximity of a Jewish race in Afghanistan (the

descendants of those carried away into captivity by Shalmanasar) which

eventually extended itself along the west coast of India, and became the

progenitors of the Hebrew colony that still inhabits the south of the

Dekkan near Cochin, and are known as the "Black Jews of Malabar." The

influence of this immigration is perceptible in the sacred books, both

of the Brahmans and Buddhists; the laws of Menu present some striking

resemblances to the law of Moses, and it was probably from a knowledge

of the contents of the Hebrew rolls still possessed by this remnant of

the dispersion that the Buddhists borrowed the numerous incidents which

we find reproduced in the historical books of Ceylon. Thus the

aborigines, when subdued by their Bengal invaders, were forced, like the

Israelites, by their masters "to make bricks" for the construction of

their stupendous edifices (_Mahawanso_, ch. xxviii.). On the occasion of

building the great dagoba, the Ruanwellé, at Anarajapoora, B.C. 161, the

materials were all prepared at a distance, and brought ready to be

deposited in their places (_Mahawanso_, xxvii.); as on the occasion of

building the first temple at Jerusalem, "the stone was made ready before

it was brought, so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool

of iron heard whilst it was building." The parting of the Red Sea to

permit the march of the fugitive Hebrews has its counterpart in the

exploit of the King Gaja Bahu, A.D. 109, who, when marching his army to

the coast of India, in order to bring back the Singhalese from

captivity in Sollee, "smote the waters of the sea till they parted, so

that he and his army marched through without wetting the soles of their

feet."--_Rajaratnacari_, p. 59. King Maha Sen (A.D. 275), seeking a

relic, had the mantle of Buddha lowered down from heaven: and Buddha

had, previously, in designating Kasyapa as his successor, transmitted to

him his robe as Elijah let fall his mantle upon Elisha. (_Rajavali_, p.

238; HARDY'S _Oriental Monachism_, p. 119.) There is a resemblance too

between the apotheosis of Dutugaimunu and the translation of Elijah when

"in a chariot and horses of fire he went up into heaven" (2 Kings, ii.

11);--according to the _Mahawanso_, ch. xxii p. 199, when the Singhalese

king was dying, a chariot was seen descending from the sky and his

disembodied spirit "manifested itself standing in the car in which he

drove thrice round the great shrine, and then bowing down to the

attendant priesthood, he departed for tusita" (the Buddhists' heaven).

The ceremonial and dogmatic coincidences are equally

remarkable;--constant allusion is made to the practice of the kings to

"wash the feet of the priests and anoint them with oil."--_Mahawanso_;

ch. xxv.--xxx. In conformity with the denunciation that the sins of the

fathers were to be visited on the children, the Jews inquired whether a

"man's parents did commit sin that he was born blind?" (John, ix. 3) and

in like manner, in the _Rajavali_, "the perjury of Wijayo (who had

repudiated his wife after swearing fidelity to her) was visited on the

person of the King Panduwaasa," his nephew, who was afflicted with

insanity in consequence _(Rajavali_, pp. 174-178). The account in the

_Rajaratnacari_ of King Batiya Tissa (B.C. 20), who was enabled to enter

the Ruanwellé dagoba by the secret passage known only to the priests,

and to discover their wealth and treasures deposited within, has a close

resemblance to the descent of Daniel and King Astyages into the temple

of Bel, by the privy entrance under the table, whereby the priests

entered and consumed the offerings made to the idol (Bel and the Dragon,

Apocryp. ch. i.-xiii.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 45). The inextinguishable

fire which was for ever burning on the altar of God (Leviticus, ch. vi.

13) resembles the lamps which burned for 5000 years continually in

honour of Buddha (_Mahawanso_, ch. lxxxi.; _Rajaratnacari_, p. 49); and

these again had their imitators in the lamp of Minerva, which was never

permitted to go out in the temple at Athens, and in the [Greek: luchnon

asbeston], which was for ever burning in the temple of Ammon. The

miracle of feeding the multitude by our Saviour upon a few loaves and

fishes, is repeated in the _Mahawanso_, where a divinely endowed

princess fed Pandukabhaya, B.C. 437, and five hundred of his followers

with the repast which she was taking to her father and his reapers, the

refreshment being "scarcely diminished in quantity as if one person only

had eaten therefrom."--_Mahawanso_, ch. x. p. 62. The preparation of the

high road for the procession of the sacred bo-tree after its landing

(_Mahawanso_, ch. xix. p. 116), and the order to clear a road through

the wilderness for the march of the king at the inauguration of

Buddhism, recall the words of the prophet, "Prepare ye the way of the

Lord, make straight a highway in the desert." (Isaiah, xl. 3.) And we

are reminded of the prophecy of Isaiah as to the kingdom of peace, in

which "the leopard shall lie down with the kid and the calf with the

lion, and a young child shall lead them," by the Singhalese historians,

in describing the religious repose of the kingdom of Asoca under the

influence of the religion of Buddha, where "the elk and the wild hog

were the guardians of the gardens and fields, and the tiger led forth

the cattle to graze and reconducted them in safety to their

pens."--_Mahawanso_, ch. v. p. 22. The narrative of the "judgment of

Solomon," in the matter of the contested child (1 Kings, ch. iii.), has

its parallel in a story in every respect similar in the

Pansyiapanas-jataka.--ROBERT'S _Orient. Illustr_. p. 101.]

II. SANSKRIT.--In Sanskrit or translations from it, the Singhalese have

preserved their principal treatises on physical science, cosmography,

materia medica, and surgery. From it, too, they have borrowed the

limited knowledge of astronomy, possessed by the individuals who

combined with astrology and the casting of nativities, the practice of

palmistry and the interpretation of dreams. In Sanskrit, they have

treatises on music and painting, on versification and philology; and

their translations include a Singhalese version of those portions of the

_Ramayana_, which commemorate the conquest of Lanka.

III. ELU AND SINGHALESE.--There is no more striking evidence of the

intellectual inferiority of the modern, as compared with the ancient

inhabitants of Ceylon, than is afforded by the popular literature of the

latter, and the contrast it presents to the works of former ages.

Descending from the gravity of religious disquisition and the dignity of

history and science, the authors of later times have been content to

limit their efforts to works of fiction and amusement, and to ballads

and doggerel descriptions of places or passing events.

But, to the credit of the Singhalese, it must be said, that in their

compositions, however satirical or familiar they may be, their verses

are entirely free from the licentiousness which disfigures similar

productions in India; and that if deficient in imagination and grace,

they are equally exempt from grossness and indelicacy.

The Singhalese language is so flexible that it admits of every

description of rhythm; of this the versifiers have availed themselves to

exhibit every variety of stanza and measure, and every native, male or

female, can recite numbers of their favourite ballads. Their graver

productions consist of poems in honour, not of Buddha alone, but of

deities taken from the Hindu Pantheon,--Patine, Siva, and Ganesa,

panegyrics upon almsgiving, and couplets embodying aphorisms and morals.

A considerable number of the Sutras or Discourses of Buddha have been

translated into the vernacular from Pali, but the most popular of all

are the _jatakas_, the Singhalese versions of which are so extended,

that one copy alone fills 2000 olas or palm leaves, each twenty-nine

inches in length and containing nine lines in a page.

The other works in Singhalese are on subjects connected with history,

such as the _Rajavali_ and _Rajaratnacai_, on grammar and lexicography,

on medicine, topography, and other analogous subjects. But in all their

productions, though invested with the trappings of verse, there alike is

an avoidance of what is practical and true, and an absence of all that

is inventive and poetic. They contain nothing that appeals to the heart

or the affections, and their efforts of imagination aspire not to please

or to elevate, but to astonish and bewilder by exaggeration and fable.

Their poverty of resources leads to endless repetitious of the same

epithets and incidents; books are multiplied at the present day chiefly

by extracts from works of established popularity, and the number of

qualified writers is becoming annually less from the altered

circumstances of the island and the decline of those institutions and

prospects which formerly stimulated the ambition of the Buddhist

priesthood, and inspired a love of study and learning.

CHAP. XI.

BUDDHISM AND DEMON-WORSHIP.[1]

It is difficult to attempt any condensed, and at the same time

perspicuous, sketch of the national religion of Ceylon--a difficulty

which arises not merely from the voluminous obscurity of its sacred

history and records; but still more from confusion in the variety of

forms under which Buddhism exhibits itself in various localities, and

the divergences of opinion which prevail as to its tenets and belief.

The antiquity of its worship is so extreme, that doubts still hang over

its origin and its chronological relations to the religion of Brahma.

Whether it took its rise in Hindustan, or in countries farther to the

West, and whether Buddhism was the original doctrine of which Brahmanism

became a corruption, or Brahmanism the original and Buddhism an effort

to restore it to its pristine purity[2],--all these are questions which

have yet to be adjusted by the results of Oriental research.[3] It is,

however, established by a concurrence of historical proofs, that many

centuries before the era of Christianity the doctrines of Buddha were

enthusiastically cultivated in Baha, the _Magadha_, or country of the

Magas, whose modern name is identified with the _Wiharas_ or monasteries

of Buddhism. Thence its teachers diffused themselves extensively

throughout India and the countries to the eastward;--upwards of two

thousand years ago it became the national religion of Ceylon and the

Indian Archipelago; and its tenets have been adopted throughout the vast

regions which extend from Siberia to Siam, and from the Bay of Bengal to

the western shores of the Pacific.[4]

[Footnote 1: The details of the following chapter have been principally

taken from SIR J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Christianity in Ceylon_, ch. v.]

[Footnote 2: Those early writers on the religions of India who drew

their information exclusively from Brahmanical sources, incline to

favour the pretensions of that system as the most ancient of the two.

Klaproth, a profound authority, was of this opinion; but in later times

the translations of the Pali records and other sacred volumes of

Buddhism in Western India, Ceylon, and Nepal, have inclined the

preponderance of opinion, if not in favour of the superior antiquity of

Buddhism, at least in support of its contemporaneous development. A

summary of the arguments in favour of the superior antiquity of Buddhism

will be found in the "_Notes_," &c., by Colonel SYKES, in the 12th

volume of the _Asiatic Journal_--and in the _Essai sur l'Origine des

Principaux Peuples Anciens_, par F.L.M. MAUPIED, chap. viii. The

arguments on the side of those who look on Brahmanism as the original,

are given by MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE in his _History of India_, vol. i.

b. ii. c. 4. An able disquisition will be found in MAX MÜLLER's _History

of Sanskrit Literature_, pp. 33, 260, &c. Mr. GOGERLY, the most

accomplished student of Buddhism in Ceylon, says its sacred books

expressly demonstrate that its doctrines had been preached by the

twenty-four Buddhas who had lived prior to Gotama, in periods incredibly

remote; but that they had entirely disappeared at the time of Gotama's

birth, so that he re-discovered the whole, and revived an extinguished

or nearly extinct school of philosophy.--_Notes on Buddhism_ by the Rev.

Mr. GOGERLY, Appendix to LEE'S Translation of Ribeyro, p. 265.]

[Footnote 3: The celebrated temple of Somnauth was originally a Buddhist

foundation, and in the worship of Jaggernath, to whose orgies all ranks

are admitted without distinction of caste, there may still be traced an

influence of Buddhism, if not a direct Buddhistical origin. Colonel

Sykes is of opinion that the sacred tooth of Buddha was at one time

deposited and worshipped in the great Temple of Calinga, now dedicated

to Jaggernath, by the Princes of Orissa, who in the fourth century

professed the Buddhist religion. (Colonel SYKES, _Notes_, &c., _Asiatic

Journal_, vol. xii. pp. 275; 317, 420.)]

[Footnote 4: FA HIAN declares that in the whole of India, including

Affghanistan and Bokhara, he found in the fourth century a Buddhist

people and dynasty, with traditions of its endurance for the preceding

thousand years. "As to Hindostan itself, he says, from the time of

leaving the deserts (of Jaysulmeer and Bikaneer) and the river (Jumna)

to the west, _all the kings of the different kingdoms in India are

firmly attached to the law of Buddha_, and when they do honour to the

ecclesiastics they take off their diadems."--See also MAUPIED, _Essai

sur l'Origine des Principaux Peuples Anciens_, chap. ix. p. 209.]

Looking to its influence at the present day over at least three hundred

and fifty millions of human beings--exceeding one-third of the human

race--it is no exaggeration to say that the religion of Buddha is the

most widely diffused that now exists, or that has ever existed since the

creation of mankind.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 326. So ample are the materials offered by

Buddhism for antiquarian research, that its doctrines have been sought

to be identified at once with the Asiatic philosophy and with the myths

of the Scandinavians. Buddha has been at one time conjectured to be the

Woden of the Scythians; at another the prophet Daniel, whom

Nebuchadnezzar had created master of the astrologers, or chief priest of

the Magi, as the title is rendered in the Septuagint--[Greek: Archonta

Magôi]. An antiquarian of Wales, in devising a pedigree for the Oymri,

has imported ancestors for the ancient Britons from Ceylon; and a writer

in the _Asiatic Researches_, in 1807, as a preamble to the proof that

the binomial theorem was familiar to the Hindus, has traced Western

civilisation to an irruption of philosophers from India, identified the

Druids with the Brahmans, and declared Stonehenge to be "one of the

temples of Boodh." (_Asiat. Res_., vol. ii. p. 448.) A still more recent

investigator, M. MAUPIED, has collected, in his _Essai sur l'Origine des

Peoples Anciens_, what he considers to be the evidence that Buddhism may

be indebted for its appearance in India to the captivity of the Jews by

Salmanasar, 729 B.C.; to their dispersion by Assar-Addon at a still more

recent period; to their captivity in Babylon, 606 B.C.: their diffusion

over Media and the East, Persia, Bactria, Thibet, and China, and the

communication of their sacred book to the nations amongst whom they thus

became sojourners. He ventures even to suggest a possible identity

between the names Jehovah and Buddha: "Les voyelles du mot Buddha sont

les mêmes que celles du mot Jéhovah, qu'on prononce aussi _Jouva_; mais

d'ailleurs le nom de Boudda a bien pu être tiré du mot _Jeoudda_ Juda,

le dieu de Joudda _Boudda_."--Chap. ix. p. 235. To account for the purer

morals of Buddhism, MAUPIED has recourse to the conjecture that they may

have been influenced by the preaching of St. Thomas at Ceylon, and

Bartholomew on the continent of India. "_Or il nous semble logique de

conclure de teus ces faits que le Bouddhisme, dans ses doctrines

essentielles, est d'origine Juire et Chrétienne; conséquence inattendue

pour la plus de nos lecteurs sans doute_."--MAUPIED, ch. ix. p. 257; ch.

x. p. 263.]

From the earliest period of Indian tradition, the struggle between the

religion of Buddha and that of Brahma was carried on with a fanaticism

and perseverance which resulted in the ascendancy of the Brahmans,

perhaps about the commencement of the Christian era, and the eventual

expulsion some centuries later of the worship of their rivals from

Hindustan; but at what precise time the latter catastrophe was

consummated has not been recorded in the annals of either sect.[1]

[Footnote 1: The final overthrow of Buddhism in Bahar and its expulsion

from Hindustan took place probably between the seventh and twelfth

centuries of the Christian era. Colonel SYKES, however, extends the

period to the thirteenth or fourteenth (_Asiatic Journal_, vol. iv. p.

334).]

That Buddhism thus dispersed over eastern and central Asia became an

active agent in the promotion of whatever civilisation afterwards

enlightened the races by whom its doctrines were embraced, seems to rest

upon evidence which admits of no reasonable doubt. The introduction of

Buddhism into China is ascertained to have been contemporary with, the

early development of the arts amongst this remarkable people, at a

period coeval, if not anterior, to the era of Christianity.[1] Buddhism

exerted a salutary influence over the tribes of Thibet; through them it

became instrumental in humanising the Moguls; and it more or less led to

the cessation of the devastating incursions by which the hordes of the

East were precipitated over the Western Empire in the early ages of

Christianity.

[Footnote 1: MAX MÜLLER, _Hist. Sanskrit Literature_, p. 264.]

The Singhalese, and the nations of further Asia, are indebted to

Buddhism for an alphabet and a literature[1]; and whatever of authentic

history we possess in relation to these countries we owe to the

influence of their generic religion. Nor are its effects limited to

these objects: much of what is vigorous in the character of its northern

converts may be traced to the operation of its principles, in the

development of their peculiar idiosyncrasy, which, unlike that of the

unwarlike Singhalese, rejected sloth and effeminacy to aim at conquest

and power. Looking to the self-reliance which Buddhism inculcates, the

exaltation of intellect which it proclaims, and the perfection of virtue

and wisdom to which it points as within the reach of every created

being, it may readily be imagined, that it must have wielded a spell of

unusual potency, and one well calculated to awaken boldness and energy

in those already animated by schemes of ambition. In Ceylon, on the

contrary, owing more or less to insulation and seclusion, Buddhism has

survived for upwards of 2000 years as unchanged in all its leading

characteristics as the genius of the people has remained torpid and

inanimate under its influence. In this respect the Singhalese are the

living mummies of past ages; and realise in their immovable

characteristics the Eastern fable of the city whose inhabitants were

perpetuated in marble. If change has in any degree supervened, it has

been from the corruption of the practice, not from any abandonment of

the principles, of Buddhism; and in arts, literature, and civilisation,

the records of their own history, and the ruins of their monuments,

attest their deterioration in common with that of every other nation

which has not at some time been brought under the ennobling influences

of Christianity.

[Footnote 1: See BURNOUF et LASSEN, _Essai sur le Pali, ou Langue Sacrée

de la Presqu'ile au-dela du Gange_, ch. i., &c.]

In alluding to the doctrines of Buddhism, as it exists at the present

day, my observations are to be understood as applying to the aspect

under which it presents itself in Ceylon, irrespective of the numerous

forms in which it has been cultivated elsewhere. Even before the decease

of the last Buddha, schisms had arisen amongst his followers in India.

Eighteen heresies are deplored in the _Mahawanso_ within two centuries

from his death; and four distinct sects, each rejoicing in the name of

Buddhists, are still to be traced amongst the remnants of his

worshippers in Hindustan.[1] In its migrations to other countries since

its dispersion by the Brahmans, Buddhism has assumed and exhibited

itself in a variety of shapes. At the present day its doctrines, as

cherished among the Jainas of Guzerat and Rajpootana[2], differ widely

from its mysteries, as administered by the Lama of Thibet; and both are

equally distinct from the metaphysical abstractions propounded by the

monks of Nepal. Its observances in Japan have undergone a still more

striking alteration from their vicinity to the Syntoos; and in China

they have been similarly modified in their contact with the rationalism

of Lao-tsen and the social demonology of the Confucians.[3] But in each

and all the distinction is in degree rather than essence; and the

general concurrence is unbroken in all the grand essentials of the

system.

[Footnote 1: _Colebrooke's Essays on the Philosophy of the Hindoos_,

sect. v. part 5, p. 401.]

[Footnote 2: An account of the religion of the Jains or Jainas, will be

found in MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S _History of India_, vol. i. b. ii.

ch. 4. They arose in the sixth or seventh century, were at their height

in the eleventh, and declined in the twelfth. See also MAX MÜLLER,

_Hist. Sanskrit Literature_, p. 261, &c.]

[Footnote 3: Details of Buddhism in China and Chin-India will be found

in the erudite commentaries of KLAPROTH, REMUSAT, and LANDRESSE.]

Whilst Brahmanism, without denying the existence, practically ignores

the influence and power of a creating and controlling intelligence,

Buddhism, exulting in the idea of the infinite perfectibility of man,

and the achievement of the highest attainable happiness by the

unfaltering practice of every conceivable virtue, exalts the individuals

thus pre-eminently wise into absolute supremacy over all existing

beings, and attempts the daring experiment of an _atheistic

morality._[1] Even Buddha himself is not worshipped as a deity, or as a

still existent and active agent of benevolence and power. He is merely

reverenced as a glorified remembrance, the effulgence of whose purity

serves as a guide and incentive to the future struggles and aspirations

of mankind. The sole superiority which his doctrines admit is that of

goodness and wisdom; and Buddha having attained to this perfection by

the immaculate purity of his actions, the absolute subjugation of

passion, and the unerring accuracy of his unlimited knowledge, became

entitled to the homage of all, and was required to render it to none.

[Footnote 1: M. REMUSAT announces, as the result of his researches, that

neither the Chinese; the Tartars, nor Monguls have any word in their

dialects expressive of our idea of a God.--_Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, p. 138;

and M. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILLAIRE adds, that "il n'y a pas trace de

l'idée de Dieu dans le Bouddhisme entier, ni au début ni au térme."--_Le

Bouddha_, &c., Introd. p. iv. Colonel SYKES, in the xiith vol. of the

_Asiatic Journal_, pp. 263 and 376, denies that Buddhism is _atheistic;_

and adduces, in support of his views, allusions made by FA HIAN. But the

passages to which he refers present no direct contradiction to those

metaphysical subtleties by which the Buddhistical writers have carefully

avoided whilst they closely approach the admission of belief in a deity.

I am not prepared to deny that the faith in a supreme being may not have

characterised Buddhism in its origin, as the belief in a Great First

Cause in the person of Brahma is still acknowledged by the Hindus,

although honoured by no share of their adoration. But it admits of

little doubt that neither in the discourses of its priesthood at the

present day nor in the practice of its followers in Ceylon is the name

or the existence of an omnipotent First Cause recognised in any portion

of their worship. MAUPIED has correctly described Buddhism both in

Ceylon and China as a system of refined atheism (_Essai sur l'Origine

des Peuples Anciens_, ch. x. p. 277), and MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE gives

the weight of his high authority in the statement that "The most ancient

of Báudha sects entirely denies the being of a God; and some of those

which admit the existence of God still refuse to acknowledge him as the

creator and ruler of the world.... The theistical sect seems to prevail

in Nepaul, and the _atheistical to subsist in perfection in

Ceylon._"--_History of India_, vol. i. pt. ii. ch. 4. An able writer in

the fourth volume of the _Calcutta Review_ has also controverted the

assertion of its atheistic complexion; but whatever truth may be

developed in his views, their application is confined to Buddhism in

Hindustan and Nepal, and is utterly at variance with the practice and

received dogmas in Ceylon.]

Externally coinciding with Hinduism, so far as the avatar of Buddha may

be regarded as a pendant for the incarnation of Brahma, the worship of

the former is essentially distinguished from the religion of the latter

in one important particular. It does not regard Buddha as an actual

emanation or manifestation of the divinity, but as a guide and example

to teach an enthusiastic self-reliance by means of which mankind, of

themselves and by their own unassisted exertions, are to attain to

perfect virtue here and to supreme happiness hereafter. Both systems

inculcate the mysterious doctrine of the metempsychosis; but whilst the

result of successive embodiments is to bring the soul of the Hindu

nearer and nearer to the final beatitude of absorption into the essence

of Brahma, the end and aim of the Buddhistical transmigration is to lead

the purified spirit to _Nirwana_[1], a condition between which and utter

annihilation there exists but the dim distinction of a name. Nirwana is

the _exhaustion_ but not the _destruction_ of existence, the _close_ but

not the _extinction_ of being.

[Footnote 1: "Nirwana" is Sanskrit, _ni_ (_r_ euphon. causa) _wana_

desire. The Singhalese name "Nirwana" is also derived from _newanawa_,

to extinguish. See J. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILAIRE, _Le Bouddha_, 133, 177,

&c.]

In deliberate consistency with this principle of human elevation, the

doctrines of Buddha recognise the full eligibility of every individual

born into the world for the attainment of the highest degrees of

intellectual perfection and ultimate bliss; and herein consists its most

striking departure from the Brahmanical system in denying the

superiority of the "twice born" over the rest of mankind; in repudiating

a sacerdotal supremacy of race, and in claiming for the pure and the

wise that supremacy and exaltation which the self-glorified Brahmans

would monopolise for themselves.

Hence the supremacy of "_caste_" is utterly disclaimed in the sacred

books which contain the tenets of Buddha; and although in process of

time his followers have departed from that portion of his precepts,

still distinction of birth is nowhere authoritatively recognised as a

qualification for the priesthood. Buddha being in fact a deification of

human intellect, the philanthropy of the system extends its

participation and advantages to the whole family of mankind, the

humblest member of which is sustained by the assurance that by virtue

and endurance he may attain an equality though not an identification

with the supreme intelligence. Wisdom thus exalted as the sole object of

pursuit and veneration, the Buddhists, with characteristic liberality,

admit that the teaching of virtue is not necessarily confined to their

own professors; especially when the ceremonial of others does not

involve the taking of life. Hence in a great degree arises the

indifference of the Singhalese as to the comparative claims of

Christianity and Buddhism, and hence the facility with which, both under

the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British Government, they have

combined the secret worship of the one with the ostensible profession of

the other. They in fact admit Christ to have been a teacher, second only

to Buddha, but inferior, inasmuch as the latter, who was perfect in

wisdom, has attained to the bliss of Nirwana.[1]

[Footnote 1: Sir JOHN DAVIS in his account of the Chinese, states that

the Buddhists there worship the "_Queen of Heaven_," a personage

evidently borrowed from the Roman Catholics, and that the name of

"_Jesus_" appears in the list of their divinities. (Chap. xiv.)

A curious illustration of the prevalence of this disposition to conform

to two religions was related to me in Ceylon. A Singhalese chief came a

short time since to the principal of a government seminary at Colombo,

desirous to place his son as a pupil of the institution, and agreed,

without an instant's hesitation, that the boy should conform to the

discipline of the school, which requires the reading of the Scriptures

and attendance at the hours of worship and prayer; accounting for his

ready acquiescence by an assurance that he entertained an equal respect

for the doctrines of Buddhism and Christianity. "But how can you," said

the principal, "with your superior education and intelligence, reconcile

yourself thus to halt between two opinions, and submit to the

inconsistency of professing an equal belief in two conflicting

religions?" "Do you see," replied the subtle chief, laying his hand on

the arm of the other, and directing his attention to a canoe, with a

large spar as an outrigger lashed alongside, in which a fisherman was

just pushing off upon the lake, "do you see the style of these boats, in

which our fishermen always put to sea, and that that spar is almost

equivalent to a second canoe, which keeps the first from upsetting? It

is precisely so with myself: I add on _your_ religion to steady my _own,

because I consider Christianity a very safe outrigger to Buddhism._"]

As regards the _structure of the universe_, the theories of the

Buddhists, though in a great degree borrowed from the Brahmans, occupy a

much less prominent position in their mythology, and are less intimately

identified with their system of religion. Their attention has been

directed less to physical than to metaphysical disquisitions, and their

views of cosmogony have as little of truth as of imagination in their

details. The basis of the system is a declaration of the eternity of

matter, and its submission at remote intervals to decay and

re-formation; but this and the organisation of animal life are but the

results of spontaneity and procession, not the products of will and

design on the part of an all powerful Creator.

Buddhism adopts something approaching to the mundane theory of the

Brahmans, in the multiplicity and superposition of worlds and the

division of the earth into concentric continents, each separated by

oceans of various fabulous liquids. Its notions of geography are at once

fanciful and crude; and again borrowing from the Shastras its

chronology, extends over boundless portions of time, but invests with

the authority of history only those occurrences which have taken place

since the birth of Gotama Buddha.

The Buddhists believe in the existence of _lokas_, or heavens, each

differing in glory, and serving as the temporary residences of demigods

and divinities, as well as of men whose etherialisation is but inchoate,

and who have yet to visit the earth in farther births and acquire in

future transmigrations their complete attainment of Nirwana. They

believe likewise in the existence of hells which are the abodes of

demons or tormentors, and in which the wicked undergo a purgatorial

imprisonment preparatory to an extended probation upon earth. Here their

torments are in proportion to their crimes, and although not eternal,

their duration extends almost to the infinitude of eternity; those who

have been guilty of the deadly sins of parricide, sacrilege, and

defiance of the faith being doomed to the endurance of excruciating

deaths, followed by instant revival and a repetition of their tortures

without mitigation and apparently without end.[1]

[Footnote 1: DAVY'S _Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, p. 204.]

It is one of the extraordinary anomalies of the system, that combined

with these principles of self-reliance and perfectibility, Buddhism has

incorporated to a certain extent the doctrine of fate or "necessity,"

under which it demonstrates that adverse events are the general results

of _akusala_ or moral demerit in some previous stage of existence. This

belief, which lies at the very foundation of their religion, the

Buddhists have so adapted to the rest of the structure as to avoid the

inconsistency of making this directing power inherent in any Supreme

Being, by assigning it as one of the attributes of matter and a law of

its perpetual mutations.

Like all the leading doctrines of Buddhism, however, its theories on

this subject are propounded with the usual admixture of modification and

casuistry; only a portion of men's conduct is presumed to be exclusively

controllable by _fate_--neither moral delinquency nor virtuous actions

are declared to be altogether the products of an inevitable necessity;

and whilst both the sufferings and the enjoyments of mortals are

represented as the general consequences of merit in a previous stage of

existence, even this fundamental principle is not without its exception,

inasmuch as the vicissitudes are admitted to be partially the results of

man's actions in this life, or of the influence of others from which his

own deserts are insufficient to protect him. The main article, however,

which admits neither of modification nor evasion, is that neither in

heaven nor on earth can man escape from the _consequences_ of his acts;

that morals are in their essence productive causes, without the aid or

intervention of any higher authority; and hence forgiveness or atonement

are ideas utterly unknown in the despotic dogmas of Buddha.

Allusion has already been made to the subtleties entertained by the

priesthood, in connexion with the doctrine of the _metempsychosis_, as

developed in their sacred books; but the exposition would be tedious to

show the distinctions between their theories, and the opinions of

transmigration entertained by the mass of the Singhalese Buddhists. The

rewards of virtue and the punishment of vice are supposed to be equally

attainable in this world; and according to the amount of either, which

characterizes the conduct of an individual in one stage of being, will

be the elevation or degradation into which he will be hereafter born.

Thus punishment and reward become equally fixed and inevitable: but

retribution may be deferred by the intermediate exhibition of virtue,

and an offering or prostration to Buddha, or an aspiration in favour of

faith in his name, will suffice to ward off punishment for a time, and

even produce happiness in an intermediate birth; hence the most

flagitious offender, by an act of reverence in dying, may postpone

indefinitely the evil consequence of his crimes, and hence the

indifference and apparent apathy which is a remarkable characteristic of

the Singhalese who suffer death for their offences[1].

[Footnote 1:

Et vos barbaricos ritus, moremque sinistrum

Sacrorum Druidæ positis repetistis ab armis.

Solis nôsse deos, et coeli numina vobis

Aut solis nesclre datum: nemora alta remoti

Incolitis lucis: _vobis auctoribus umbræ

Non tacitas Erebi sedes Ditisque profundi

Pallida regna petunt: regit idem spiritus arius

Orbe alio: longæ (si canitis cognita) vitæ

Mors media, st. Certè populi quos despicit Arcios

Felices errore suo, quos ille timorum

Maximus haud urget leti metus, etc._

LUCAN, l. i. 450 ct seq.]

To mankind in general Buddha came only as an adviser and a friend; but,

as regards his own priesthood, he assumes all the authority of a

lawgiver and chief. Spurning the desires and vanities of the world, he

has taught them to aspire to no other reward for their labours than the

veneration of the human race, as teachers of knowledge and examples of

benevolence. Taking the abstract idea of perfect intelligence and

immaculate virtue for a divinity, Buddhism accords honour to all in

proportion to their approaches towards absolute wisdom, and as the

realisation of this perfection is regarded as almost hopeless in a life

devoted to secular cares, the priests of Buddha, on assuming their robe

and tonsure, forswear all earthly occupations; subsist on alms, not in

money, but in food; devote themselves to meditation and self-denial;

and, being thus proclaimed and recognised as the most successful

aspirants to Nirwana, they claim the homage of ordinary mortals,

acknowledge no superior upon earth, and withhold even the tribute of a

salutation from all except the members of their own religious order.

To mankind in general the injunctions of Buddha prescribe _a code of

morality_ second only to that of Christianity, and superior to every

heathen system that the world has seen.[1] It forbids the taking of life

from even the humblest created animal, and prohibits intemperance and

incontinence, dishonesty and falsehood--vices which are referable to

those formidable assailants, _rága_ or concupiscence, _doso_ or

malignity, and _moha_, ignorance or folly.[2] These, again, involve all

their minor modifications--hypocrisy and anger, unkindness and pride,

ungenerous suspicion, covetousness, evil wishes to others, the betrayal

of secrets, and the propagation of slander. Whilst all such offences are

forbidden, every excellence is simultaneously enjoined--the forgiveness

of injuries, the practice of charity, a reverence for virtue, and the

cherishing of the learned; submission to discipline, veneration for

parents, the care for one's family, a sinless vocation, contentment and

gratitude, subjection to reproof, moderation in prosperity, submission

under affliction, and cheerfulness at all times. "Those," said Buddha,

"who practise all these virtues, and are not overcome by evil, will

enjoy the perfection of happiness, and attain to supreme renown."[3]

[Footnote 1: "Je n'hésite pas à ajouter que, sauf le Christ tout seul,

il n'est point, parmi les fondateurs de religion de figure, plus pure ni

plus touchante que celle de Bouddha. Sa vie n'a point de tache."--_Le

Bouddha_, par J. BARTHELEMY SAINT-HILAIRE, Introd. p. v.]

[Footnote 2: The Rev. Mr. GOGERLY's _Notes on Buddhism_. LEE's

_Ribeyro_, p. 267.]

[Footnote 3: Discourse of Buddha entitled _Mangala_.]

Buddhism, it may be perceived from this sketch, is, properly speaking,

less a form of religion than a school of philosophy; and _its worship_,

according to the institutes of its founders, consists of an appeal to

the reason, rather than an attempt on the imagination through the

instrumentality of rites and parade. "Salvation is made dependent, not

upon the practice of idle ceremonies, the repeating of prayers or of

hymns, or invocations to pretended gods, but upon moral qualifications,

which constitute individual and social happiness here, and ensure it

hereafter."[1] In later times, and in the failure of Buddhism by

unassisted arguments to ensure the observance of its precepts and the

practice of its morals, the experiment has been made to arouse the

attention and excite the enthusiasm of its followers by the adoption of

ceremonies and processions; but these are declared to be only the

innovations of priestcraft, and the Singhalese, whilst they unite in

their celebration, are impatient to explain that such practices are less

religious than secular, and that the Perrehera in particular, the chief

of their annual festivals, was introduced, not in honour of Buddha, but

as a tribute to the Kandyan kings as the patrons and defenders of the

faith.[2]

[Footnote 1: Colonel SYKES, _Asiat. Journ._, vol. xii. p. 266.]

[Footnote 2: FA HIAN describes the procession of Buddhists which he

witnessed in the kingdom of Khotan, and it is not a little remarkable,

that along with the image of Buddha were associated those of the

Brahmanical deities _Indra_ and _Brahma_, the _Lha_ of the Thibetans and

the _Toeyri_ of the Moguls.]

In its formula, whatever alterations Buddhism may have undergone in

Ceylon are altogether external, and clearly referable to its anomalous

association with the worship of its ancient rivals the Brahmans. These

changes, however, are the result of proximity and association rather

than of incorporation or adoption; and even now the process of

expurgation is in progress with a view to the restoration of the

pristine purity of the faith by a formal separation from the observances

of Hinduism. The schismatic kings and the Malabar sovereigns introduced

the worship of Vishnu and Shiva into the same temples with that of

Buddha.[1] The innovation has been perpetuated; and to the present day

the statues of these conflicting divinities are to be found within the

same buildings: the Dewales of Hinduism are erected within the same

inclosure as the Wiharas of the Buddhists; and the Kappoorales of the

one religion officiate at their altars, almost beneath the same roof

with the priests and neophytes of the other. But beyond this parade of

their emblems, the worship of the Hindu deities throughout the

Singhalese districts is entirely devoid of the obscenities and cruelty

by which it is characterised on the continent of India; and it would

almost appear as if these had been discontinued by the Brahmans in

compliment to the superior purity of the worship with which their own

had become thus fortuitously associated. The exclusive prejudices of

caste were at the same remote period partially engrafted on the simpler

and more generous discipline of Buddha; and it is only recently that any

vigorous exertions have been attempted for their disseverance.

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, Vol. I. Part III. ch. viii. p. 378.]

On comparing this system with other prevailing religions which divide

with it the worship of the East, Buddhism at once vindicates its own

superiority, not only by the purity of its code of morals, but by its

freedom from the fanatical intolerance of the Mahometans and its

abhorrent rejection of the revolting rites of the Brahmanical faith. But

mild and benevolent as are its aspects and design, its theories have

failed to realise in practice the reign of virtue which they proclaim.

Beautiful as is the body of its doctrines, it wants the vivifying energy

and soul which are essential to ensure its ascendancy and power. Its

cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however calculated to exercise

the faculties of anchorets and ascetics, have proved insufficient of

themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and pursuit; and the

bold experiment of influencing the heart and regulating the conduct of

mankind by the external decencies and the mutual dependencies of

morality, unsustained by higher hopes and by a faith that penetrates

eternity, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless

failure. The inculcation of the social virtues as the consummation of

happiness here and hereafter, suggests an object sufficiently attractive

for the bulk of mankind; but Buddhism presents along with it no adequate

knowledge of the means which are indispensable for its attainment. In

confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect and the

enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the human heart, it

makes no provision for defence against those powerful temptations before

which ordinary resolution must give way; and affords no consoling

support under those overwhelming afflictions by which the spirit is

prostrated and subdued, when unaided by the influence of a purer faith

and unsustained by its confidence in a diviner power. From the

contemplation of the Buddhist all the awful and unending realities of a

future life are withdrawn--his hopes and his fears are at once mean and

circumscribed; the rewards held in prospect by his creed are

insufficient to incite him to virtue; and its punishments too remote to

deter him from vice. Thus, insufficient for time, and rejecting

eternity, the utmost triumph of his religion is to live without fear and

to die without hope.

Both socially and in its effects upon individuals, the result of the

system in Ceylon has been apathy almost approaching to infidelity. Even

as regards the tenets of their creed, the mass of the population exhibit

the profoundest ignorance and manifest the most irreverent indifference.

In their daily intercourse and acts, morality and virtue, so far from

being apparent as the rule, are barely discernible as the exception.

Neither hopes nor apprehensions have proved a sufficient restraint on

the habitual violation of all those precepts of charity and honesty, of

purity and truth, which form the very essence of their doctrine; and in

proportion as its tenets have been slighted by the people, its

priesthood are disregarded, and its temples neglected.

No national system of religion, no prevailing superstition that has ever

fallen under my observation presents so dull a level, and is so

pre-eminently deficient in popular influences, as Buddhism amongst the

Singhalese. It has its multitude of followers, but it is a misnomer to

describe them as its _votaries_, for the term implies a warmth and

fervour unknown to a native of Ceylon. He believes, or he thinks he

believes, because he is of the same faith with his ancestors; but he

looks on the religious doctrines of the various sects which surround him

with a stolid indifference which is the surest indication of the little

importance which he attaches to his own. The fervid earnestness of

Christianity, even in its most degenerate forms, the fanatical

enthusiasm of Islam, the proud exclusiveness of Brahma, and even the

zealous warmth of other Northern faiths, are all emotions utterly

foreign and unknown to the followers of Buddhism in Ceylon.

Yet, strange to tell, under all the icy coldness of this barren system,

there burn below the unextinguished fires of another and a darker

superstition, whose flames overtop the icy summits of the Buddhist

philosophy, and excite a deeper and more reverential awe in the

imagination of the Singhalese. As the Hindus in process of time

superadded to their exalted conceptions of Brahma, and the benevolent

attributes of Vishnu, those dismal dreams and apprehensions which embody

themselves in the horrid worship of Shiva, and in invocations to

propitiate the destroyer; so the followers of Buddha, unsatisfied with

the vain pretensions of unattainable perfection, struck down by their

internal consciousness of sin and insufficiency, and seeing around them,

instead of the reign of universal happiness and the apotheosis of

intellect and wisdom, nothing but the ravages of crime and the

sufferings produced by ignorance, have turned with instinctive terror to

propitiate the powers of evil, by whom alone such miseries are supposed

to be inflicted, and to _worship the demons_ and tormentors to whom

their superstition is contented to attribute a circumscribed portion of

power over the earth.

DEMON WORSHIP prevailed amongst the Singhalese before the introduction

of Buddhism by Mahindo. Some principle akin to it seems to be an

aboriginal impulse of uncivilised man in his first and rudest

conceptions of religion, engendered, perhaps, by the spectacle of

cruelty and pain, the visitations of suffering and death, and the

contemplation of the awful phenomena of nature--storms, torrents,

volcanoes, earthquakes, and destruction. The conciliation of the powers

which inflict such calamities, seems to precede, when it does not

supplant, the adoration of the benevolent influence to which belong the

creation, the preservation, and the bestowal of happiness on mankind;

and in the mind of the native of Ceylon this ancient superstition has

maintained its ascendancy, notwithstanding the introduction and

ostensible prevalence of Buddhism; for the latter, whilst it admits the

existence of evil spirits, has emphatically prohibited their invocation,

on the ground that any malignant influence they may exert over man is

merely the consequence of his vices, whilst the cultivators of virtue

may successfully bid them defiance. The demons here denounced are

distinct from a class of demigods, who, under the name of _Yakshyos_,

are supposed to inhabit the waters, and dwell on the sides of Mount

Meru, and are distinguished not only for gentleness and benevolence but

even by a veneration for Buddha, who, in one of his earlier

transmigrations, was himself born under the form of a Yakshyo, and,

attended by similar companions, traversed the world teaching

righteousness. One section of these demigods, however, the _Rakshyos_,

are fierce and malignant, and in these respects resemble the Yakkas or

demons so much dreaded by the Singhalese, and who, like the _Ghouls_ of

the Mahometans, are believed to infest the vicinity of graveyards, or,

like the dryads and hamadryads of the ancients, to frequent favourite

forests and groves, and to inhabit particular trees, whence they sally

out to seize on the passer by.[1] The Buddhist priests connive at demon

worship because their efforts are ineffectual to suppress it, and the

most orthodox Singhalese, whilst they confess its impropriety, are still

driven to resort to it in all their fears and afflictions.

[Footnote 1: Travellers from Point de Galle to Colombo, in driving

through the long succession of gardens and plantations of coco-nuts

which the road traverses throughout its entire extent, will not fail to

observe fruit-trees of different kinds, round the stem of which _a band

of leaves has been fastened_ by the owner. This is to denote that the

tree has been devoted to a demon; and sometimes to Vishnu or the

Kattregam dewol. Occasionally these dedications are made to the temples

of Buddha, and even to the Roman Catholic altars, as to that of St. Anne

of Calpentyn. This ceremony is called _Gok-band-ema_, "the tying of the

tender leaf," and its operation is to protect the fruit from pillage

till ripe enough to be plucked and sent as an offering to the divinity

to whom it has thus been consecrated. There is reason to fear, however,

that on these occasions the devil is, to some extent, defrauded of his

due, as the custom is, after applying a few only of the finest as an

offering to the evil one, to appropriate the remainder to the use of the

owner. When coco-nut palms are so preserved, the fruit is sometimes

converted into oil and burned before the shrine of the demon. The

superstition extends throughout other parts of Ceylon; and so long as

the wreath continues to hang upon the tree, it is presumed that no thief

would venture to plunder the garden.]

Independent of the malignant spirits or Yakkas, who are the authors of

indefinite evil, the Singhalese have a demon or _Sanne_ for each form of

disease, who is supposed to be its direct agent and inflictor, and who

is accordingly invoked for its removal; and others, who delight in the

miseries of mankind, are to be propitiated before the arrival of any

event over which their pernicious influence might otherwise prevail.

Hence, on every domestic occurrence, as well as in every domestic

calamity, the services of the _Kattadias_ or devil-priests are to be

sought, and their ceremonies performed, generally with observances so

barbarous as to be the most revolting evidence still extant of the

uncivilised habits of the Singhalese. Especially in cases of sickness

and danger, the assistance of the devil-dancer is implicitly relied on:

an altar, decorated with garlands, is erected within sight of the

patient, and on this an animal, frequently a cock, is to be sacrificed

for his recovery. The dying man is instructed to touch and dedicate to

the evil spirit the wild flowers, the rice, and the flesh, which have

been prepared as the _pidaneys_ or offerings to be made at sunset, at

midnight, and the morning; and in the intervals the dancers perform

their incantations, habited in masks and disguises to represent the

demon which they personate, as the immediate author of the patient's

suffering. In the frenzy of these orgies, the Kattadia having feigned

the access of inspiration from the spirit he invokes, is consulted by

the friends of the afflicted, and declares the nature of his disease,

and the probability of its favourable or fatal termination. At sunrise,

the ceremony closes by an exorcism chanted to disperse the demons who

have been attracted by the rite; the devil-dancers withdraw with the

offerings, and sing, as they retire, the concluding song of the

ceremony, "that the sacrifice may be acceptable and the life of the

sufferer extended."

In addition to this Yakka worship, which is essentially indigenous in

Ceylon, the natives practise the invocation of a distinct class of

demons, their conceptions of which are evidently borrowed from the

debased ceremonies of Hinduism, though in their adoption they have

rejected the grosser incidents of its ritual, and replaced them with

others less cruel, but by no means less revolting. The Capuas, who

perform ceremonies in honour of these strange gods, are of a higher rank

than the Kattadias, who conduct the incantations to the Yakkas, and they

are more or less connected with the Dewales and temples of Hinduism. The

spirits in whose honour these ceremonies are performed, are all foreign

to Ceylon. Some, such as Kattregam and Pattine, are borrowed from the

mythology of the Brahmans; some are the genii of fire and other elements

of the universe, and others are deified heroes; but the majority are

dreaded as the inflictors of pestilence and famine, and propitiated by

rites to avert the visitations of their malignity.

The ascendancy of these superstitions, and the anomaly of their

association with the religion of Buddha, which has taken for its deity

the perfection of wisdom and benevolence, present one of the most signal

difficulties with which Christianity has had, at all times, to contend

in the effort to extend its influences throughout Ceylon. The Portuguese

priesthood discovered that, however the Singhalese might be induced to

profess the worship of Christ, they adhered with timid tenacity to their

ancient demonology. The Dutch clergy, in their reiterated lamentations

over the failure of their efforts for conversion, have repeatedly

recorded the fact, that however readily the native population might be

brought to abjure their belief in the doctrines of Buddha, no arguments

or expedients had proved effectual to overcome their terror of the

demons, or check their propensity to resort on every emergency to the

ceremonies of the Capuas, the dismal rites of the devil-dancers.[1] The

Wesleyans, the Baptists, and other missionaries, who in later times have

made the hamlets and secluded districts of Ceylon the scene of their

unwearied labours, have found, with equal disappointment, that to the

present hour the villagers and the peasantry are as powerfully attracted

as ever by this strong superstition, bearing on their person the charms

calculated to protect them from the evil eye of the demon, consulting

the astrologers and the Capuas on every domestic emergency, solemnizing

their marriages under their auspices, and requiring their presence at

the birth of their children, who, together with their mother, are not

unfrequently dedicated to the evil spirits, whom they dread.[2]

[Footnote 1: HOUGH, _Hist. Christ. in India,_ vol. iv. b. xii. ch. v.]

[Footnote 2: HARVARD'S _History of the Wesleyan Mission in Ceylon_,

Introd., p. iii.]

As regards Buddhism itself, whilst there is that in the tenets and

genius of Brahmanism which proclaims an active resistance to any other

form of religion, Christianity in the southern expanse of Ceylon has to

encounter an obstacle still more embarrassing in the habitual apathy and

listless indifference of the Buddhists. Brahmanism in its constitution

and spirit is essentially exclusive and fanatical, jealous of all

conflicting faiths, and strongly disposed to persecution. Buddhism, on

the other hand, in the strength of its self-righteousness, extends a

latitudinarian liberality to every other belief, and exhibits a

Laodicean indifference towards its own. Whilst Brahmanism is a science

confided only to an initiated priesthood; and the Vedas and the Shastras

in which its precepts are embodied are kept with jealousy from the

profane eye of the people, Buddhism, rejoicing in its universality,

aspires to be the religion of the multitude, throws open its sacred

pages without restriction, and encourages their perusal as a meritorious

act of devotion. The despotic ministers of Brahma affect to be versed

only in arcana and mystery, and to issue their dicta from oracular

authority; but the priesthood of Buddha assume no higher functions than

those of teachers of ethics, and claim no loftier title than that of

"the clergy of reason."[1]

[Footnote 1: The sect of the _Lao Tsen_, or "Doctors of Reason," whom

LANDRESSE regards as a development of Buddhism, prevailed in Thibet and

the countries lying between China and India in the fifth and sixth

centuries; and FA HIAN always refers to them as the "_Clergy of

Reason_."--_Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_, chap. xxxviii.]

In the character of the Singhalese people there is to be traced much of

the genius of their religion. The same passiveness and love of ease

which restrain from active exertion in the labours of life, find a

counterpart in the adjustment by which virtue is limited to abstinence,

and worship to contemplation; with only so much of actual ceremonial as

may render visible to the eye what would be otherwise inaccessible to

the mind. The same love of repose which renders sleep and insensibility

the richest blessings of this life, anticipates torpor, akin to

extinction, as the supremest felicity of the next. In common with all

other nations they deem some form of religious worship indispensable,

but, contrary to the usage of most, they are singularly indifferent as

to what that particular form is to be; leaving it passively to be

determined by the conjunction of circumstances, the accident of

locality, and the influence of friends or worldly prospects of gain.

Still, in the hands of the Christian missionary, they are by no means

the plastic substance which such a description would suggest--capable of

being moulded into any form, or retaining permanently any casual

impression--but rather a yielding fluid which adapts its shape to that

of the vessel into which it may happen to be poured, without any change

in its quality or any modification of its character.

From this unexcitable temperament of the people, combined with the

exalted morals which form the articles of their belief, result phenomena

which for upwards of three hundred years have more or less baffled the

exertions of all who have laboured for the overthrow of their national

superstition and the elevation of Christianity in its stead. The

precepts of the latter, when offered to the natives apart from the

divinity of their origin, present something in appearance so nearly akin

to their own tenets that they were slow to discern the superiority. If

Christianity requires purity and truth, temperance, honesty and

benevolence, these are already discovered to be enjoined with at least

equal impressiveness in the precepts of Buddha. The Scripture

commandment forbidding murder is supposed to be analogous to the

Buddhist prohibition to kill[1]; and where the law and the Gospel alike

enforce the love of one's neighbour as the love of one's self, Buddhism

insists upon charity as the basis of worship, and calls on its own

followers "to appease anger by gentleness, and overcome evil by

good."[2]

[Footnote 1: The order of Buddha not to take away life is imperative and

unqualified as regards the priesthood; but to mankind in general it

forms one of his "_Sikshupada_," or _advices_, and admits of

modification under certain contingencies. A priest who should take away

the life of an animal, or even an insect, under any circumstances, would

be guilty of the offence denominated _Pachittvya_, and subject to penal

discipline; but to take away human life, to be accessory to murder, or

to encourage to suicide, amounts to the sin of _Parajika_, and is

visited with permanent expulsion from the order. As regards the laity,

the use of animal food is not forbidden, provided the individual has not

himself been an agent in depriving it of life. The doctrine of

prohibition, however, although thus regulated, like many others of the

Buddhists, by subtleties and sophistry, has proved an obstacle in the

way of the Missionaries; and, coupled with the permission in the

Scriptures "to slay and eat," it has not failed to operate prejudicially

to the spread of Christianity.]

[Footnote 2: From the Singhalese book, the "_Dharmma Padan_," or

Footsteps of Religion, portions of which are translated in "_The

Friend_," Colombo, 1840.]

Thus the outward concurrence of Christianity in those points on which it

agrees with their own religion, has proved more embarrassing to the

natives than their perplexity as to others in which it essentially

differs; till at last, too timid to doubt and too feeble to inquire,

they cling with helpless tenacity to their own superstition, and yet

subscribe to the new faith simply by adding it on to the old.

Combined with this state of irresolution a serious obstacle to the

acceptance of reformed Christianity by the Singhalese Buddhists has

arisen from the differences and disagreements between the various

churches by whose ministers it has been successively offered to them. In

the persecution of the Roman Catholics by the Dutch, the subsequent

supercession of the Church of Holland by that of England, the rivalries

more or less apparent between the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, and

the peculiarities which separate the Baptists from the Wesleyan

Methodists--all of whom have their missions and representatives in

Ceylon--the Singhalese can discover little more than that they are

offered something still doubtful and unsettled, in exchange for which

they are pressed to surrender their own ancient superstition. Conscious

of their inability to decide on what has baffled the wisest of their

European teachers to reconcile, they hesitate to exchange for an

apparent uncertainty that which has been unhesitatingly believed by

generations of their ancestors, and which comes recommended to them by

all the authority of antiquity; and even when truth has been so far

successful as to shake their confidence in their national faith, the

choice of sects which has been offered to them leads to utter

bewilderment as to the peculiar form of Christianity with which they may

most confidingly replace it.[1]

[Footnote 1: A narrative of the efforts made by the Portuguese to

introduce Christianity, and by the Dutch to establish the reformed

Religion, will be found in Sir J. EMERSON TENNENT'S _Christianity in

Ceylon_; together with an exposition of the systems adopted by the

European and American missions, and their influence on the Hindu and

Buddhist races, respectively.

Those who seek to pursue the study of Buddhism, its tenets and

economies, as it exhibits itself in Ceylon, will find ample details in

the two profound works published by Mr. R. SPENCE HARDY: _Eastern

Monachism_, Lond. 1850, and _A Manual of Buddhism, in its Modern

Development_, Lond. 1853.]