XI. FROM KANDY TO ANURADHAPURA
The Alu-Vihara—Dambulla Rock Temple—Sigiri—Murder of Dhatu Sena— Rita-gala—Restoration of Kala-wewa and other tanks—Ancient system of irrigation—Serfdom—Opening ceremonial—Vigita-pura—Colossal Buddha at the Aukana Vihara.
Of course one of the objects most to be desired in visiting Ceylon is to accomplish an expedition to the ruins of the pre-Christian city of Anuradhapura, in the heart of the North-Central Province, and of the more recent, but almost equally ruined, city of Pollanaruwa, which lies inland on the eastern coast—both buried in the depths of the jungle.
Even now these are not easily accessible to ordinary mortals, and involve somewhat troublesome and expensive travelling, as it is necessary to arrange for hiring a carriage for the whole trip, unless one is content to travel part of the way by a wretched two-horse coach, and the rest by public bullock-cart, which proceeds at the rate of two-and a-half miles per hour, the bullocks being adorned with necklaces of jingling bells—a hateful addition to the creaking of wooden wheels and the clouds of hot dust. I was, therefore, fully conscious of singular good fortune when the Governor most kindly arranged that I should form one of his party to Anuradhapura in the month of June; while the Bishop, having occasion to visit many places on the east coast in the autumn, promised that I should then see Pollanaruwa.
Leaving Kandy at daybreak on June 6, we drove down the Ballacaduwa Pass to Matale—i.e., the Maha-talawa, or great plain, which lies 560 feet lower than Kandy. It is a lovely drive to a very pretty, long, straggling town, with rich foliage on all hands, and glimpses of a fine river, the Pinga-oya, and beautiful hills crowning all. (A railway is now open thus far, so that this first stage is made easy for travellers.)
I would advise any artist in search of characteristic scenery to ride from here to the summit of Vicarton Gorge, which is about 3,500 feet above the sea. It is a very steep eight miles uphill, through rocky coffee plantations—of course without a bit of shade—but on reaching the summit the view is rewarding. You look down between two mighty crags of chocolate-coloured rock, crowned with green forest, to a fertile valley far below, all laid out in thousands of small rice-fields, with here and there hillocks of rock and timber. These are not prosaic angular fields, like the familiar fields of Britain, but a multitude of small crescents terracing every undulation of the land, and at the season when I saw them each was a glittering lakelet. And the great valley itself winds like the course of a wide stream, vanishing in the distance amid interminable ranges of shapely blue hills.
About 100 B.C. Matale was one of the royal residences of King Walagam-bahu, who lived in stormy times, his country being invaded by great armies from Malabar. The king was driven from his throne, and, like our own Prince Charlie, he wandered about, finding concealment in rocky caves known only to the natives. When, after fifteen years, he was restored to the throne, he remembered the caves which had given him sanctuary, and elaborated many of them into rock temples, in one of which, by his command, a company of Buddhist priests and scribes assembled, and committed to writing on palm-leaves, and in the Pali language, the Scriptures, which till then had been preserved by tradition only.
The cave of so great literary interest is the Alu-Vihara, rather more than two miles from Matale. We visited it after breakfast, and found it, like nearly all the so-called cave-temples in Ceylon, to be by no means what we understand by a cave, but merely a series of recesses among huge fragments of fallen crag and gigantic weather-worn boulders of dark gneiss, some of which form overhanging canopies, so leaving partial caves. These are artificially walled up in front, and a thatched or tiled verandah is added in front, while the inside is furnished with divers images, and the rock-walls are frequently decorated with gaudy frescoes of mythological scenes. Some of these are wiharas, or temples, others pansalas, or priests’ cells.
We ascended by steep stairs, hewn in the rock, to visit some little relic-shrines; but the powerful smell of multitudes of small bats, which cluster among these rocks, was sickening. Their presence, however, is useful, as the dark-brown soil is greatly valued as manure, and the natives even obtain nitre with which to make gunpowder by boiling and filtering this dust.
Thence we drove on, up hill and down dale, passing various finely-shaped hills, especially Aran-galla, which formed a noble background for an interesting ruined Hindoo temple (Gedigé) near Nalande, where we spent the first night. There was the usual gathering of village head-men and other picturesque natives to receive the Governor; and the approach to the rest-house, which is very prettily situated among dark trees, was beautifully decorated with a most graceful pandal (the great honorific arch), and a long line of low arches, fringed with foliage. The house was all decorated with calico and flowers; while a group of cadjan— i.e., plaited palm-leaf huts—had been erected for the gentlemen. The wind, however, was so wild as effectually to murder sleep: so we were all rather tired for next morning’s early start en route to Dambulla (hitherto called Dambool), where we spent the day and night, to allow time for seeing the most remarkable group of rock-caves in Ceylon.
The road was very beautiful, partly a steep descent between rocky mountains, and overshadowed by great trees. On our way we crossed the dry beds of several streams—the Mirisgoni-oya, the Dambulu-oya, the Malwatta-oya, and the Nalanda-oya, which are typical Ceylonese rivers. For nine months of the year they are at best feeble rills, trickling through an expanse of dry sand, but in the rain torrents of the N.E. monsoon in November and December the rivers are in flood, pouring down from the hills in raging torrents, and impassable for days together. Strange to say, the system adopted in opening up this country was to make excellent roads first, and leave the bridges to be constructed by the next generation; whereas it certainly seems as if the bridges were the primary necessity. These have now been supplied, and fine iron lattice bridges now allow of secure travel at all seasons.
The banks of some of these streams are suggestive of coarse basket-work, so close is the network of interlacing roots of great trees. One which is conspicuous is the kabuk tree, which is very large, and seems not to mind drought—in fact, the natives say it attracts a reservoir for its own use, and they can always find water near its roots. The red timber is prized as being very durable, so the tree is valuable in all its stages.
Though the road from Matale seems to wind as much up hill as down, we were steadily losing level, Dambulla being only 533 feet above the sea. Here from a level plain rises a solitary huge mass of bare dark-red gneiss rock, about 500 feet in height and 2,000 in length. It is certainly more curious than beautiful, and the sketch with which I beguiled the heat of the noontide was largely indebted to its foreground of luxuriant palmated cacti with yellow blossoms. The great tree-cactus, with arms like a gigantic candelabra, also flourishes in this hot district, a very weird-looking plant. I might have included a white ant’s castle, as these are numerous and conspicuous objects.
A few human beings, looking like moving mites on the summit, gave me a good idea of the great size of this smooth rounded mountain of rock, chief among many which tower like dark-reddish islands from the green levels of rice or jungle, forming a very remarkable geological feature of this part of Ceylon. One of just the same character and apparent height as this towers above Kurunegalla, and, in common with most of these, is crowned by a venerated temple and great relic-shrines: some, as at Dambulla, have caves in ledges near the summit, which have been fashioned into temples, and curious weather-worn pot-holes are supposed to have been the baths of sundry kings and saints.
In the afternoon we started by a jungle path to the base of the rock, and then passing the pansala, or monk’s cell, began the steep ascent by a path across the bare rock, which, however, gives a firm foothold, and at last landed us on the platform of arid rock in front of the temples, where, strange to say, a large bo-tree and a few cocoa-palms contrive to subsist. Of course some of the yellow-robed fraternity were waiting to do the honours, their colouring and gracefully worn drapery being specially harmonious with the surroundings of dark rock.
Though I had begun to realise that memories of India must really not be allowed to force themselves into comparison with scenes in Ceylon, the mention of famous rock temples insensibly suggested thoughts of Elephanta and Ellora, with the inevitable result of a feeling of disappointment at the roughness of detail, and general jar to one’s sense of artistic beauty. But once comparisons are dismissed, one realises how strange are the succession of pictures presented by these five caves, each full of idols, dimly seen by the subdued light.
The first cave is the Maha Dewa Dewale—i.e., ‘the Temple of the Great God,’ a name familiar in Hindoo cities as that of Siva, but which here is applied to Vishnu, whose wooden image is here present, and so greatly venerated that ordeal by oath is still practised in its presence. So was ordeal by boiling oil, which happily is now illegal. It stands facing a gigantic recumbent figure of Buddha in the sleep of Nirvana, lying on one side, with the head resting on the hand, and sacred lotus-blossoms engraven on the soles of the feet. At the feet stands a wooden statue of a disciple watching his master’s long sleep, and several small images of Buddha. The great one is forty-seven feet in length, and is said by the priests to be sawn from the solid rock, which in this case seems impossible, unless the whole cave were artificial, of which there is no trace.
The adornment of this cave is attributed to King Walagam Bahu, about 80 B.C., after he had conquered the Malabar invaders, so it is singular that such a devout Buddhist should have dedicated his work to Vishnu. The finely sculptured stone doorway is decorated with many figures, and two guardians canopied by the seven-headed cobra.
In the next cavern—the Maha-raja-Wihare, ‘the Temple of the Great King’— there is a large statue of the king himself. This cave is simply a gallery about 170 feet long by 70 feet wide, and 22 feet in height at the outer edge; but this curves backward, so that the back is barely four feet high. In this dark cool chamber are grouped about forty-eight images of Buddha, most of them larger than life: there is something rather impressive about this great company of idols dimly seen through the subdued light, and seated around a relic-shrine. Some are canopied by the seven-headed cobra. There are also images of the Hindoo gods Vishnu, Mata, and Saman, and the goddess Patiné (who has to be propitiated in times of smallpox).
Here, too, is a large wooden image of King Kirti Sri Nissanga, who about A.D. 1193 restored the temple, which had been sacrilegiously injured by Malabar invaders. He had all the statues re-guilded, and the walls gaudily painted with such a predominance of yellow, that the cave was then named Rangiri, the golden rock.
On the roof and sides of the rock are painted curious frescoes in the crudest colours, which are periodically renewed, in which all manner of subjects are oddly blended—Hindoo divinities, Buddha and his disciples represented as of divers nations and colours, and crowned with aureoles, that of Buddha himself having semicircles of sacred geese and other sacred emblems. A tiny image of Buddha is shown kneeling at the feet of his predecessor, praying that he may attain to Buddhahood.
There are also historical scenes, such as the famous duel, fought B.C. 164, between the Singhalese Prince Dutugemunu and the Malabar usurper Elala, a prince of Mysore, each mounted on a great elephant. They met in single contest in presence of their armies, outside the walls of Anuradhapura. After a desperate combat Elala was slain, and Dutugemunu was proclaimed king. As a pious Buddhist, he devoted the rest of his days to all possible acts of atonement for the blood he had shed in war. With chivalrous honour he erected a monument to Elala, and enacted that thenceforth, as processions passed the tomb, music must cease, and even kings must alight from their palanquins. So firmly was this custom rooted, that when, nineteen hundred years later, in 1816, the Kandyan leader of an unsuccessful insurrection was making his escape viâ Anuradhapura, weary and worn, he caused his palanquin-bearers to halt that he might alight, and walk past the venerated monument. The story was told to us as we stood beside the earthen mound which marks the tomb of Elala.
There are also quaint representations (with figures ludicrously out of proportion, and fish larger than the ships, popping up their heads from blue waves) of the first landing (B.C. 543) of the Indian Prince Wijeyo with his Singhalese followers, illustrating their conquest of the aborigines. But when our kinsman, Campbell of Islay, visited these caves, with a mind imbued with the quaint parallel myths he had traced in so many lands, he descried many mystic meanings, and found that the priest in charge knew some of them—as, for instance, when the little daughter of the Yakkas, alias demons, alias aborigines, stands pleading before the conquering king, who presently is shown holding up two fingers of his left hand to bless her, who has saved his seven hundred giants in the lotus swamp. Then comes a strange white steed prancing about with the king among a lot of headless black trunks, with heads rolling about all over the place.
‘She became a mare,’ said the priest, ‘and helped the king to kill the Yakshas, and he married her, and that was the first king of Ceylon.’ To which Mr. Campbell replied: ‘I know a Gaelic story in which a lady turns herself into a grey mare and helps a man to slay no end of people, and escape, and conquer a kingdom. And is not the story of the Master Maid, in Dasent’s translation of Norse tales, founded on the same set of incidents in which a “grey mare is the better horse”?... In Scotland it is the King of Norway and the Princess of Ireland. Here it is the king who comes from the sea and the princess of the demons on shore.... But in Barra, Japan, and Ceylon, at three ends of the world, the same myths are fathered on the fathers of the conquering people and on their little demon mothers.’[101]
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Footnote 101:
‘My Circular Notes,’ vol. ii. p. 155. By J. F. Campbell. Macmillan.
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Wijeyo married Kuweni, the princess who had helped him to conquer her own relations, but afterwards he sought to strengthen his position by marrying the daughter of an Indian king, and so dismissed her and her children. Mr. Campbell might in this story have found another connecting link between the myths of Scotland and of Ceylon. For, as every good Highlander knows, a red thread bound round any person or object is an effectual safeguard against witchcraft;[102] and here in Ceylon, no sooner had Wijeyo landed with his followers than he was met by a ‘devo,’ or god, who blessed them, and tied a thread round the arm of each as a protection against sorcery. Hence Wijeyo’s deliverance from the sorceries practised by his princess.
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Footnote 102:
‘In the Hebrides,’ pp. 197, 297. By C. F. Gordon Cumming. Published by Chatto & Windus.
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Pure water for the service of the temple is provided by a dripping well, whose cool crystal drops fall from a fissure in the roof with ceaseless splash into a small tank on the rock pavement.
The third cave, though only about half the size of the last, contains fifty-four images, including another wooden image of the Rajah Kirti Sri Nissanga, and one of Buddha reclining, thirty feet long.
The fourth and fifth are still smaller, but each contains a considerable assortment of worshipful images, and the last, which is quite modern, contains a Buddha thirty-five feet in length.
On various parts of the rock there are ancient inscriptions, one of which, I was told, records, how ‘the Sovereign Lord of Lanka, Prakrama-Bahu Chakkravarti [i.e., the Lord of the Umbrellas], of the dynasty of Kaalinga, the Heroic and Invincible Royal Warrior [who reigned from A.D. 1153 to 1186], enriched the inhabitants, who had become impoverished by inordinate taxes. To this end he relinquished his revenues for five years, bestowed on the people gifts of land, cattle, and slaves, together with an annual donation of five times his own weight in gold, silver, and precious stones. He restored roads which had fallen into disuse, rebuilt the temples at Anuradhapura and many other places, and caused seventy-two statues of Buddha[103] in the three postures [recumbent, sitting, and standing] to be placed within these rock temples. These images were gilded, and seven lacs of rupees [according to Maver’s edition of Johnson’s Dictionary, a lac is one hundred thousand] were expended on a magnificent festival to celebrate this event.’
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Footnote 103:
The erection of seventy-two images and the gilding of the temple is generally ascribed to Kirti Nissanga, who succeeded to the throne A.D. 1192, and whose image is preserved in two of the caves, but on the Galpota or Stone Book at Pollonarua there is a reference to his having simply re-gilded the images.
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In the same inscription the king ordains that ‘when permanent grants of lands are made to requite meritorious service, such behests shall not be recorded on palm-leaves, which are liable to be destroyed by rats and white ants, but shall be engraven on plates of copper, so as to endure for ages.’
Three great dagobas at one time crowned the summit of this huge rock, but they have wholly disappeared. A point of interest, however, is a pool of water very near the summit, which is said never to fail, even when in seasons of drought every water-spring far and near is dried up. A few trees are dotted about the hill-top, affording a grateful shade, and there is a small slope of short sun-scorched grass.
The view from the summit is very fine, overlooking a vast expanse of country—fertile lands pertaining to this temple, a sea of green jungle dotted with bare dark rocks of the same character as Dambulla, great tanks, the gigantic reservoirs constructed in olden days, fine mountain-ranges, and sundry spots whose old historic interest appeals to those versed in the semi-mythical early history of the Isle, in the days of gods and heroes, and in its later wars.
Foremost amongst these is the wellnigh inaccessible rock fortress of Sigiri, clearly seen, although distant about fifteen miles, as it rises almost perpendicularly from the brink of a neglected tank encircled with forest-trees. The lake is beautified by the red and white blossoms of the lotus, but these are guarded by a legion of grim crocodiles. The rock itself is a huge square crag towering 400 feet above the plain, and is all bare except on the summit, which is crowned with stunted vegetation. It bulges and overhangs so as to have made it exceedingly difficult of access in the first instance.
It is supposed to have been originally fortified by the aborigines (whom the Singhalese always describe as ‘Yakku,’ or demons), but the fortifications and other traces of habitation date from about A.D. 478, and are a memorial of King Kaasyapa the parricide, who, having dethroned his father Dhatu Sena, stripped him naked, loaded him with chains, and caused him to be built up in a wall, which was plastered over with clay to hide all trace of this tomb of the living.
Kaasyapa then tried to murder his younger half-brother Mogallana, but failed in the attempt, the latter escaping to India, whence he eventually returned to avenge his father. Meanwhile the parricide, haunted by the remembrance of his crime, sought security by constructing a dwelling or palace on this lonely crag, round the base of which he erected a massive stone rampart, enclosing divers fortifications.
The ascent from the base to the summit is effected by a series of artificially constructed galleries, dependent for their support on a foundation of brickwork built into a groove which had previously been cut spirally round the rock, to a depth of about four inches. On this slender foundation, assisted by every available atom of natural support, was built a platform about six feet wide, edged with a wall about nine feet high, the whole coated with hard polished chunam, once white, but now red from the action of water tinged with iron. The galleries, which are haunted by innumerable bats and swallows, are now in a very ruinous condition, and are connected here and there by rickety bamboo ladders; and the further ascent to the summit by scarcely perceptible fissures on the face of almost perpendicular rock is a thing to try the nerves of the hardiest cragsman.
The summit is a level of about an acre in extent, and here Kaasyapa’s palace must have stood, but of this, little if any trace remains, a thick growth of jungle having taken possession of the ground. Water was supplied by two tanks one 90 feet square by about 15 feet deep, and the other 15 feet square by 6 feet deep. These were apparently constructed to catch rain-water, but there is also a natural spring near the summit, and the water-supply seems to have been good. Kaasyapa, however, did not stand a siege here. For eighteen years he lived as an ascetic lay devotee, striving to atone for his crimes by showing favour to the priests. Then Mogallana returned from India at the head of an army, and Kaasyapa came forth to give him battle, and was slain by the hand of his own brother.[104]
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Footnote 104:
Probably no other history more fully illustrates how
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’
than does that of Ceylon; so very many of the kings reigned less than one year ere they were murdered, or else were so weary of their own crimes that they committed suicide. One was murdered on the very day of his accession. One died of strong drink. Several, who were deposed by usurpers, had their eyes put out.
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The fortified palace, constructed with such incredible toil, was thenceforth abandoned to bears and leopards, owls and bats, the people deeming it accursed, and haunted by demons.
The origin of the name Sigiri is disputed, some maintaining that it should be Sikhari, a hill-fort; the general impression, however, being that it is a contraction of Singha-giri, ‘the Lion’s Rock’ (like Singa-pore, ‘the Lion’s City’). Forty years ago an adventurous traveller described the paintings of lions on the white chunam of the great gallery, as white as if it were only a month old, though constructed nearly 1,400 years ago. It seems probable, however, that that traveller drew on his imagination, as the chunam is now iron-stained, and the only frescoes to be seen are several large human figures, supposed to be of Buddha, in a hollow rock chamber 60 feet above the gallery, with a sheer drop of 160 feet to the base of the crag.
How the artist got there, and how he was supported in his perilous position, were insoluble mysteries till June 1889, when Mr. Alick Murray determined to solve the problem. This proved no easy matter. The local chiefs and people absolutely refused to help in any way, having been warned by the Buddhist priests that inevitable destruction awaited any one who should dare to intrude into the demon-guarded chamber.
Nothing daunted, Mr. Murray secured the services of some Tamil stone-cutters from Southern India, who bored holes in the rock-face, one above the other, and therein inserted iron jumpers, which were secured with cement, and to these wooden staging was lashed. The man of lightest weight was selected to make the necessary holes, but after a while even he declared that it was impossible for him to ascend any higher, but he added that, if he were allowed to devote three days to fasting and prayer to his gods, he thought he might succeed. This he accordingly did, and effectually overcame that difficulty.
But even when the rock chamber was reached, the slope of the floor was found to be so steep that no one could even sit on it, so there was no rest for the explorers till more iron stanchions were driven in, and a wooden staging prepared, on which was erected a platform, on which (notwithstanding a fierce wind which shook the woodwork in the most alarming manner) Mr. Murray spent the livelong day, lying on his back from sunrise till sunset, for a whole week, patiently tracing the frescoes, which are painted on the roof and round the summit of the cave.
He found that these really represent thirteen female figures (others have been obliterated by time and weather). These are mostly in couples, each showing a very high-caste lady loaded with jewels, but naked to the waist, and attended by a Tamil girl of darker colour, and wearing exactly the same jacket and jewels still worn by girls of the same race. These damsels are offering to their mistresses sacred lotus-blossoms on a tray. The fact of these ladies being nude above the waist points to their being natives of the Malabar coast, where one race (the Nairs, I think) have adopted this singular badge of nobility, and their high-caste women will on no account cover their shoulders. So it would appear that a Singhalese king married a few Nair princesses.
It was strange to be thus suddenly brought face to face with the work of an artist of fourteen hundred years ago, the colouring almost as fresh as when first laid on, and with a singular predominance of green, a colour now rarely used by native artists. Here and there pieces of plaster had fallen off, showing how the rock had been prepared by being chiselled to a smooth surface, and then coated with two layers of fine clay, the under layer being mixed with rice husk, the upper layer very smooth.
All the time Mr. Murray was at work, a number of most interested spectators, including a few village head-men and Buddhist priests, watched at the foot of the rock, expecting to witness some awful catastrophe, when the vengeful demons asserted themselves. On the third day curiosity overcame prudence, and a minor chief asked Mr. Murray whether he would protect him if he ventured to ascend to the demon-haunted chamber. He was so amazed and delighted with all he saw, that on his safe return to earth a young Buddhist monk found courage to follow, on Mr. Murray’s assuring him that it was really quite safe; and so, gathering up his yellow robes, he cautiously ascended the first bamboo ladder, when a shout of warning from friends below made him hesitate, and again appeal to Mr. Murray to know whether he might really venture to beard the demons in their cave. On a renewed assurance of safety from supernatural foes, he clambered up, his countenance betraying how sore had been his mental struggle. Then came the physical anguish of the descent: however, that likewise was accomplished in safety; and when the week was ended, and all the tracings successfully secured, the many prophets of evil were all compelled to admit that the demons must have taken flight.
A point of some interest connected with Dambulla is, that the last insurrection against British rule broke out at this place in 1848. It was a small affair, stirred up by a few Kandyan chiefs and Buddhist priests, and was chiefly remarkable as showing how very little influence the latter possessed over the people, when not supported by the ruling power. Though the insurgents numbered about four thousand, they were quickly quelled by the Ceylon Rifles and part of the 15th Regiment, who attacked them first at Matale and afterwards at Kurunegalla, in each case routing them effectually. A few necessary executions followed, including that of a Buddhist priest, who was shot in his robes, greatly to the disgust of some Europeans. His own brethren, however, acknowledged the justice of his sentence, and voluntarily declared that they did not consider the fact of his being shot in his robes as any indignity to their order. We saw one of the chiefs who had been concerned in this last struggle against foreign rule—a very fine old man.
About sunset we returned to the rest-house, whence in the evening we witnessed a pretty show of native fireworks, and the burning of orange and blue lights in cocoa-nut shells, both on the top of the rock and in the rest-house.
Early the next morning we drove ten miles to Ellagamuwa, where, as usual, crowds of people had come some way to meet the Governor, making the most appalling noise of tom-tom beating and other evidences of rejoicing. There were the usual temporary huts hung with calico, and very ornamental pandals (the arches of welcome). The view from here of the blue Rita-gala hills is very beautiful, though the foreground of dead-level paddy-fields laid out in small squares like a chess-board is not attractive.
Though I speak of blue hills, Rita-gala is in fact an isolated mountain-spur rising to a height of 2,506 feet, and specially interesting as having been the last refuge of the ‘Yakkos,’ or aboriginal inhabitants of the Isle, when invaded by the conquering Singhalese; consequently many legends attach to certain very ancient ruins on the mountain. It is further interesting as being the northernmost mountain of any importance in the Isle. Beyond its base commences the great level extending over the northern half of Ceylon. We were told that the view from the summit is very fine, and it is spoken of as a desirable situation as a sanitarium.
About five miles to the west of Ellagamuwa lies the Kala-balalu-wewa, or Kala-wewa, alias Kala-wapi, which is the second largest of the great tanks, or rather artificial lakes, of Ceylon, being thirty-two miles in circumference, and formed by means of an embankment of earth and huge blocks of stone, the whole about 60 feet in height and 20 feet wide at the top. Tennant said this was twelve miles long, but more recent measurement says six miles, natural high ground doing the rest. The spill-water, all of hewn granite, measures 260 feet in length, 200 feet in width, and is about 40 feet high.
It was originally two distinct tanks, the Kala-wewa and the Balalu-wewa, fed by different streams, the Dambulla-oya, the Hawanweli-oya, and the Mirisgoni-oya. But the waters of the great twin lakes contrived to effect a meeting, and now the great united lake is known as the Kala-wewa, and the united waters of the three rivers flow on as the Kala-oya, which enters the sea near Puttalam.
These grand reservoirs, in which was stored water for the irrigation of the whole Province, were constructed about the year A.D. 460 by King Dhatu-Sena, who was so horribly murdered by his own son. On pretext of pointing out where his treasures were concealed, the captive monarch was permitted to revisit it, and was sent thither in a shabby cart with broken wheels, the driver of which, for very pity, shared his meal of parched rice with the king.
On reaching the tank, he bathed in the beautiful lake he had made for the good of his people, and having drunk of its waters, and having conversed with his friend, the priest Mahanamo, he declared that this friend and the great lake were the only treasures he possessed, and so was carried back to Anuradhapura to meet his awful doom. In recording this incident, Mahanamo, the priest, remarks that this living entombment of the king was the just retribution for his own impiety, in that while making the embankment of the great tank, he therein buried a priest who was so deeply absorbed in meditation that he could not be aroused; so the earth was heaped upon him, and he perished.
Of all the wonderful traces which remain in Ceylon of the work of the mighty Singhalese kings, none are more impressive than those of the great artificial lakes, and of the canals by which water was carried thence to innumerable village tanks, and distributed according to the need of each separate field. The perfection of the whole system of irrigation, designed and carried out by the hydraulic engineers of those ancient days, could scarcely be surpassed, and the ingenuity and skill whereby the heavy rainfall of certain seasons was secured, and the precious water treasured to save the thirsting land in times of drought. And water is doubly precious under a burning tropical sun, having apparently the same fertilising influence that the richest manures could have in colder lands.
In all parts of the Island, in wildest solitudes and most unhealthy jungles (where stagnant swamps and dense forests now cover the plains, once fertile and rich with waving rice-fields), these ruined tanks are found, of all sizes, from the small village tank to the great artificial lake. These last were formed by erecting a vast embankment of huge blocks of stone, strongly cemented, and covered with turf—a mighty barrier of solid masonry—perhaps 100 feet wide at the base, narrowing to 40 feet at the top, and furnished with mighty sluices to regulate the escape of the water.
And then, when one of these large-minded kings took to this sort of work, it was done in such a wholesale fashion, several of these great tanks being perhaps constructed simultaneously in remote districts. Thus King Maha-Sen, who about A.D. 275 constructed the beautiful artificial Lake of Minery, near Polonarua, which is twenty miles in circumference, also constructed sixteen large tanks, including Kanthalay, near Trincomalee.
The gigantic tank of Padivil in the Northern Province (which is marked on some maps as Vavuniya-vilan-kulam) has also been attributed to him; but an inscription on the sacred rock at Mehintale records that this great lake was temple property at an earlier date. It must have been by far the largest of all these ancient lakes, having an area of fifteen miles: its dam is eleven miles long, 200 feet wide at the bottom, 30 feet wide at the top, some parts being 70 feet high, and the whole is faced by steps of large squared stones, many of them 12 feet in length. Many great stone blocks are finely sculptured.[105]
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Footnote 105:
Sir James Emerson Tennant states (vol. ii. pp. 501-508) that although it was the dry season when he visited the Padivil-kulam, the water still covered an area of ten miles in diameter, and the stream issuing from it by the great breach in the embankment was about 300 feet broad, and so impetuous that the horses had difficulty in crossing it.
Sir James gives a most fascinating description of the many thousands of water-birds which he, arriving long before dawn, saw nesting on trees or among the swampy sedges of this utter solitude,—tall flamingoes, herons, egrets, storks, ibises, and many more, as also a vast colony of pelicans, who had built their heavy nests, each containing three eggs, in the tops of tall trees. When the sun rose, all the birds soared slowly away to the sea-shore, distant about twenty miles, there to seek their breakfast. The lake was swarming with crocodiles hungrily watching for the fall of young birds.
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Due west from Padivil, on the coast of Manaar, are the stupendous ruins of the Giant’s Tank, which (like Padivil) was designed on a magnificent scale for the irrigation of that vast district known as ‘The Wanny,’ now chiefly arid jungle, but capable of being so fertile were irrigation possible. At present such land as is cultivated only returns about one crop in three years. With full irrigation it would give two crops annually. The embankment of this ‘Giant’s Tank’ is 300 feet wide at the base, and can be traced for fifteen miles. A causeway of hewn granite, 15 feet high and 750 feet in length, was to have connected the river with the feeding canal. Enormous labour must have been expended on the whole, and the result should have been the formation of a lake as large as Geneva. But by some lamentable miscalculation of levels, the great canal by which the waters of the Malwatte river were to have been led into the lake carried them back to the channel of the river, and all the toil and expenditure were proved to have been in vain.
So the people returned to live as best they could on the arid land, and in A.D. 1791 the Dutch found no less than twenty-four villages in the area of what should have been the lake. Strange to say, the native records which so minutely detail all that was deemed creditable in the acts of the kings, make no mention whatever of this great abortive effort. Tradition ascribes it to a nameless king of the fourteenth century, who, with the best possible intentions, strove to emulate the good deeds of his predecessors. But in that short lapse of time the hydraulic engineers had lost their cunning, and so all alike reaped the meed of failure in mortification and oblivion.
About the centre of the Isle, and due east from Kala-wewa, lies Lake Minery, which was formed by diverting the waters of the Kara-ganga, or, as it is now called, the Amban-ganga, by means of a dam twenty-four miles in length, ranging in height from 40 to 90 feet, and averaging 80 feet for many miles. This dam was repaired about the year A.D. 1153 by King Prakrama Bahu I., who thus formed a series of lagoons navigable by boats, which are supposed to have been the celebrated ‘Seas of Prakrama,’ though that name may have been applied to the multitude of tanks which he created, and of canals by which rivers were diverted to these great reservoirs. He is said to have constructed 1,407 tanks, besides 100 for the exclusive use of the priests, and to have restored 1,395! That, of course, involves connecting canals and much other work.
Some of these must have been exceedingly ancient, the earliest of which we have any certain information being the Bassawa-kulam at Anuradhapura, which is supposed to have been constructed about B.C. 500 by King Panduwasa, and was restored in 1867. Probably next to this ranks the Tissawewa tank near Kattregam, in the Southern Province, a great lake covering an area of about 3,000 acres, made about B.C. 307 by King Deveni-pia-tissa, and restored in 1876.
The account of King Prakrama’s enormous energy in regard to these irrigation works, as also in the matter of building temples and palaces, would be quite bewildering but for the knowledge that these autocratic kings had the right and power to claim from all their subjects a very large amount of free labour, or, as it was called, Rajah-karia, ‘King’s service’—a system which, of course, was often very gravely abused, but which, when applied to work for the common weal, such as this storing and distributing of precious water, had certainly great advantages in a country where the cares of agriculture do not claim more than half a man’s working days.
Its necessity was proven by the fact that so soon as the strong controlling hand was removed, these great works, which were for the good of all, were grievously neglected. Probably the mischief began long ago, when, owing to wars and other political causes, the seat of Government was so frequently moved from place to place; and though the villagers must have remained to profit by the blessed waters, attention to keeping the tanks in repair was doubtless relaxed, and so ‘little leaks’ were established, and sluices got out of order, and general efficiency was impaired.
But it is certain that the reign of ruin set in in earnest when the disorganising presence of Europeans became permanent, and the finishing stroke was given in 1832, when (too hastily and without fully understanding the character of the people, and the need of exercising a certain amount of control for their own good) the British Government proclaimed absolute freedom, and the total abolition of Rajah-karia.
In this proclamation of freedom exception was made for the very large[106] lands belonging to Buddhist and Hindoo temples, where the people continued in absolute serfdom to the priests, holding their lands on the condition of cultivating those of the temples, and of rendering all manner of other service, which included taking part in idolatrous ceremonies, in some cases against the bidding of an awakening conscience. Better would it have been for the people had this exemption been reversed, and the only compulsory work retained in some modified form been that for the upkeep of roads and irrigation.
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Footnote 106:
In Mr. Mitford’s report for Sir Hercules Robinson, on the existing state of serfdom on temple lands in 1868, he says:—
‘The Order in Council by which in 1832 compulsory labour was abolished in Crown villages, by excepting royal temple and private villages from its advantages, is now the strongest ground on which the existing state of servitude is built. Here is a great wrong legalised. We found the despotic principles in existence, and superadded British forms, and THUS RIVETED THE CHAINS OF THIS GALLING TYRANNY ON ONE-THIRD OF THE POPULATION.
‘Under this system men are bought and sold with the land, agriculture and industry are checked, oppression is legalised, and Christianity prohibited. The exaction of services is arbitrary. I have known instances of men working for three months in the year, and others even for six months, during which time their own lands were lying waste. Besides agricultural and menial tasks, each landholder’s family was allotted a portion of the temple service, such as repairing the temples and idols, carrying the images at festivals, furnishing musicians, devil-dancers, &c. If a temple serf should become a Christian, he could not, of course, perform any of these services in a heathen temple, consequently he would lose his land.
‘I maintain that we have no right to hold any British subject in a position compelling him to perform idolatrous ceremonies, with the alternative of ruin.... I have often felt a blush of shame when obliged to decide cases against temple serfs, in violation of the rights of humanity and the first principles of justice.’
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I have already shown (p. 65) that in 1870 an Act was passed to enable temple serfs (in other words, the tenants of temple lands) to pay an equivalent in money in lieu of rendering these services—an Act which, however, from various causes, has not yet wrought the expected deliverance. For one thing, the exemption of these lands from paying grain-tax renders them peculiarly desirable holdings, so that most tenants fear to take any step which would risk the loss of their tenure.
As regards the roads, it was after a while found necessary for their maintenance to require every man between the ages of eighteen and fifty-five to work thereon for six consecutive days annually, or, as an equivalent, to pay a sum of about two rupees.
Then, when the salvation of the country was found to depend on the restoration of the ancient irrigation works, it was found positively necessary so far to revive the old system that the men of each village have been obliged to help in the reconstruction of their own particular tank, and are bound to take their annual share in its repair, in proportion to the number of acres for which each requires irrigation. Moreover, though paid labour was employed for the restoration of the great Kala-wewa and its canal, the landowners who profit thereby are now each required to give about fourteen days’ work annually to keeping the whole in repair. Of course, the re-imposition of even this shadow of the old law, which had been so rashly abolished, has called forth a certain amount of grumbling from the men whose very lives and those of their families have thereby been saved.
The immediate result of the abolition of compulsory ‘service for the king’ was the destruction at one blow of the whole machinery by which great national works were kept up by the native rulers, for when every man suddenly found himself absolutely free from all necessity of taking any share in keeping up public works, although a few individuals might do their part, the necessary combination became impracticable, and tanks and watercourses very soon fell into ruin, the perpetually recurring monsoon floods soon converting small fissures into extensive breaches: thus the precious waters all ran to waste. There was no reserve for seasons of drought, and the cultivation of rice was impossible. The tanks themselves and the adjacent lands became unhealthy swamps, breeding poisonous miasma; and the ever-increasing unhealthiness of the districts under these conditions compelled the villagers to disperse, and to make a scanty living by the cultivation of such unwholesome grain as can be grown on very dry soil—chiefly millet (Panicum miliacæum) and Kurukkan (Eleusine indica). The latter bears a seed something like clover, and the meal prepared from it makes tolerable porridge; but the natives use it chiefly in the form of most indigestible cakes, as tough as leather. Pulse and kollu are also grains which grow on dry soil, as also does gingelly, an oil-giving grain—which, however, flourishes only on newly cleared forest-land, and speedily exhausts the soil.
As to water, which is the only drink in the interior of the Isle where cocoa-palms do not grow, the people were (and are still in some districts) occasionally reduced to drinking mud from little pools in which the buffaloes have wallowed. Sir John Douglas mentions that, having to halt at one of these villages in the hottest season, he asked for a bath, and the people laughed at the very idea. They told him he could get some water if he sent six miles to fetch it. This he did, and longed for the return of his water-carriers; but when at last they arrived the water they brought was so foul, and smelt so bad, that, after filtering it six times through towels, he could not bring himself to wash in it, and so sacrificed three bottles of soda-water, and therein luxuriated, only wishing there were more of it!
Unfortunately, poor Singhalese villagers cannot indulge in soda-water baths, and their consequent state of unavoidable filth (in these jungle villages in the dry season), combined with bad air to breathe, bad water to drink, and unwholesome and insufficient food, produces a condition of utter debility, resulting too often in the frightful disease of parangi, resembling leprosy—loathsome to behold, and most terrible to the sufferer. In some districts the population has been literally decimated by the scourge.
In the almost abandoned tank districts, luxuriant jungle rapidly overspread the rich rice-fields, while the shallow waters became the favourite haunt of all manner of wild-fowl. Here troops of elephants and great herds of wild buffaloes, deer, pigs, and other animals, came to drink in the cool of the day. Grim crocodiles lay basking on the shore; monkeys of all sizes chattered and screamed among the branches, and the jackals lent their music to the chorus. Peacocks and golden orioles flashed in the sunlight; great pelicans, tall white cranes, and pink flamingoes stalked along among the sedgy shallows. In short, these ruined tanks were each centres of attraction to sportsmen and naturalists.
I rejoice to speak of all this in the past tense, because, although very much remains to be done, so much has been effected, in the way of restoration, in the last fifteen years. About thirty years ago Sir Henry Ward strongly urged the British Government to take the matter in hand, and a commencement was made by restoring some tanks in the Batticaloa country, in the heart of a settled population, by whom their inestimable value was at once recognised.
Sir Hercules Robinson carried on the good work, and secured an enactment for the annual expenditure of £20,000 by Government on irrigation work, to be repaid by the cultivators by payment of a water-rate. Kanthalai, near Trincomalee, and Tissa-Maharama, in the Southern Province—capable respectively of irrigating 10,000 and 15,000 acres—were next restored. These, till recently, were deemed failures, because the disheartened villagers could not shake off their apathy and return to the cultivation of abandoned lands. So those who grumbled at what seemed unremunerative outlay deemed their prophecies of ill omen all fulfilled. Happily these proved to be only deferred successes, for each of these great tanks now irrigates a vast tract of luxuriant rice-land.
In 1867 Government called for a return of all the tanks in Ceylon, and obtained a list of 4,903, many of which, of course, were small village tanks, and the majority quite out of repair. The report for the North Central Province in 1871 stated that out of 1,600 village tanks not a single one had sluices, or was capable of containing water to any extent. This was on the vast plain of Nuwara-Kalawiya, around Anuradhapura, once so fertile as to have been known as the granary of Ceylon, but where at that time rice (which to the Singhalese is the equivalent of beef, mutton, and potatoes) was simply not to be obtained.
When in the following year Sir William Gregory first visited this once luxuriant district, and saw for himself the pitiful condition of the people, few in number, dirty, diseased, and apathetic from semi-starvation, having apparently lost all heart and hope, with characteristic energy he resolved that their case must be taken up in real earnest. At that time the North Central Province was little visited by Europeans, the roads being mere tracks, and all the streams unbridged. It was sixteen years since any Governor had made his way thither.
To secure a larger share of attention and care, Sir William separated this great district from the Northern Province, and formed it into the new North Central Province. (In like manner, a few years later, Sir Arthur Gordon divided the Southern Province, creating the new provinces of Sabaragamua and Uva, that those neglected regions might receive a due share of recognition.)
In commencing work on Nuwara-Kalawiya, it was evident to Sir William that the first necessity was to reconstruct the village tanks, and this could only be done by the work of the villagers themselves, every man on the earthworks of his own village tank. By the agency of the village councils this was effected, each man being required to work without remuneration for thirty days per annum, until the particular tank with which he is connected is completed, Government undertaking to provide and construct free of cost to the village the ironwork and masonry required for the sluice and waste-weir. By the close of 1882 Mr. Fisher reported that, as the result of nine years of the villagers’ earthwork, 199 tanks had been restored, and that Government had supplied 206 sluices. In May 1884 Sir William Gregory was able to state at the Royal Colonial Institute in London that, out of the total of 1,600 tanks, 1,200 were either repaired or in process of being so, a large number being already in such thorough working order that when Sir William returned to revisit Ceylon, he had the joy of beholding near every village a wide tract of well-cultivated and luxuriant crops, and of knowing that the people had home-grown rice in such abundance as to be far beyond their own powers of consumption; paddy—i.e., rice in the husk—actually selling at 5_d._ per bushel, whereas in Colombo, where the cost of freight has to be added, its price ranges from 1_s._ 8_d._ to 2_s._ per bushel. But the most surprising and delightful change was that of the people themselves. All the hopelessness had vanished, the skinny half-starved children were fat and healthy, the horrible parangi had almost disappeared, and the population was increased by the return of many, anxious to share the blessings of abundant cheap food and comparatively good water.
But all these village tanks were dependent for their supply on the rains, consequently in times of prolonged drought they must inevitably fail. It was, therefore, a matter of the gravest importance to secure a supply as nearly permanent as it is possible for any such to be in the tropics; and when Sir Arthur Hamilton-Gordon succeeded to the office of Governor, he was deeply impressed with the absolute necessity of yet more extended and systematic action in restoring the full irrigation system of the old rulers.
The primary necessity was the restoration of the great Kala-wewa, and of the Yódi Ela, or Giant’s Canal, which is fifty-three miles in length and forty feet wide, and by means of which water was carried from the great reservoir of Kala-wewa to eighty village tanks along its course, and ultimately to many more, and so flowed on to Anuradhapura, the ancient capital, where it supplied the three great tanks of Tissa-wewa, Bassawa-kulam, and Bulan-kulam. A second great canal carried water from the Balalu-wewa to the north-west.
At that time the beds of the great lakes, and of the canals, were, in common with all the surrounding country, overgrown with the densest forest of large trees, with such thick undergrowth that in many places a horse could not pass through it, and the only way in which it was possible to get an idea of the country was by climbing to a sort of ‘crow’s nest’ built in the top of a very tall tree. Of water there was no trace.
The first thing to be done was to fell and burn all this dense jungle, and then it became possible to see exactly what was necessary. It was estimated that the cost of restoration would amount to about 550,000 rupees. In point of fact the work was done for 510,000 rupees, and the sum originally named covered the cost of making necessary roads and other items.
As a matter of course, the mere suggestion of such an expenditure on a sparsely peopled arid jungle, at a time when the colony was in pecuniary difficulties, aroused strenuous opposition, to which Sir Arthur turned a deaf ear, taking for his motto the old English proverb, ‘It’s dogged as does it’; and so through all the storm of criticism he carried the work steadily on, having good proof of how certainly irrigation affected both agriculture and sanitation, and how much it had already accomplished in raising the people from a state of misery and degradation.
Mr. Ievers, the acting Government agent, and Mr. Wrightson, the engineer, worked heart and soul, the latter never leaving his post for four years, notwithstanding repeated attacks of malignant fever. All that time there was an average of six hundred men employed on the tank and canal works. The breaches were repaired; a new spill-wall of solid granite and real English Portland cement, and various regulating sluices, were constructed at the great lake and on the canal.
Their work was not all plain sailing. In 1884 the drought was so intense, that the officer in charge of the irrigation works was obliged to suspend all operations except those of surveying and collecting materials for future masonry work. No water could be obtained for miles round, so it was impossible to assemble large bodies of men. Even for small working parties, drinking-water had to be carried several miles. The ground was so thoroughly baked that it was like sun-dried bricks, and no ‘mamotie’ could make any impression upon it.
In the following year the difficulties were all the other way. Heavy floods seriously endangered the half-finished earthworks, and one breach in the embankment was so quickly enlarged by the sudden breaking of the coffer-dams, that one of the working elephants and his caretaker were swept away by the mighty rush of waters, and it was feared that both were lost. Happily, after a breathless interval, the great creature’s legs appeared three or four hundred yards lower down, and presently it contrived to get its head above water, when, to the amazement of all, the driver was seen clinging to the neck of the elephant, which eventually swam safely ashore.
On February 22, 1888, Sir Arthur had the happiness of formally opening the effectually restored works.
That was a scene much to be remembered by all who took part in it. Close to the embankment of the clear blue lake was a camp of over fifty white tents and temporary huts, about twelve feet square, as sleeping quarters, besides large dining and refreshment rooms, and reception rooms. These were all built of green boughs, thatched with straw, and lined with white calico hangings. This was the European camp. There was also a grand durbar-hall, somewhat apart, which, though only temporary, was a really handsome building, with open sides, and pillars supporting a double roof, the whole most gaily decorated with brightly coloured draperies, mats, and graceful treasures of the forest, with a raised and carpeted daïs for the Governor. At night this was transformed into a fine dining-hall, lighted by many Japanese lanterns—a most fairy-like scene, to have sprung up in the heart of the desert jungle.
There was also abundant accommodation for natives, of whom about three thousand assembled from far and near for this great occasion of rejoicing, not only on account of the restoration of the tank, but as a special celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee. All provision of ‘good entertainment for man and beast’ was made on the most liberal scale, and perfect weather added all that was desired to this gigantic picnic. (One luxurious detail in the caterer’s provision list was ten hundredweight of ice, brought from Colombo in perfect condition!)
Of course there was a profusion of native decoration, one conspicuous inscription being, ‘Hail, Sir Arthur Gordon, G.C.M.G., the Restorer of Dhatu-Sen’s Great Tank, the Kala-wewa.’ The same recognition was gracefully expressed in the address of the Singhalese head-men, who prophesied that ‘the great tank of Kala-wewa and its magnificent canal will in the distant future carry the name of Arthur Gordon down the river of Time, along with those of Sri Raja Dhatu-Sen and Prakrama Bahu the Great.’
The members of the great picnic had assembled in the previous week, the Governor’s party arriving on Monday. On the following afternoon there was a most picturesque reception of all the native chiefs and head-men in the fine durbar-hall, and at sunset the foundation-stone of a commemorative monument was laid by the Governor in the name of the Most Holy Trinity.
The Buddhist priests, however, had previously had their full share in the ceremonial, in the manner most calculated to impress the native mind, a group of about forty priests being assembled in the durbar-hall to open proceedings by a special chant of welcome to the Governor. Their yellow robes, and the gorgeous dresses of the Kandyan chiefs and the more statuesque village head-men, mingling with other very varied costumes, combined to make an altogether unique scene in that long-desolate region, as they stood on the banks of the blue lake in the golden light of the setting sun, which glorified the great sea of forest, and the beautiful distant Matale hills.
Then a great procession was formed of all Government officials, gorgeous chiefs and richly caparisoned elephants, torch-bearers, devil-dancers, men dressed as dancing-girls, noisy musicians, and natives of every degree. The aforesaid elephants had earned a good right to take part in the procession, having by their strength and sagacity lent valuable aid to the workers. The great embankment was illuminated by long lines of fairy lights; then followed much feasting of tired and hungry people, with fires blazing in every direction, and all the picturesque details of a jungle camp; and finally, the memorable day ended with displays by wonderfully apparelled Singhalese dancers and Tamil actors. Conspicuous among the latter was a company who had come from Jaffna, in the far north of the Isle, and who performed a pathetic Sanskrit drama called ‘Arichandra’ (the Martyr for Truth), showing how an ancient Indian king had sold his wife, his only son, and finally himself, to a man of the lowest caste, rather than tell a lie. That certainly must have occurred in pre-historic times, judging by the prevalence of unblushing perjury in the present day!
There was also a very successful display of fireworks, which were let off from the end of the bund, blending with the silvery moonlight which illumined the twin lakes and the surrounding forests, all combining to form a lovely scene.
At the same time that this grand work was being accomplished, smaller details in the great irrigation scheme were being vigorously pushed on, and no less than two hundred village tanks in the North-Western and North Central Provinces were restored and provided with sluices in the course of 1887-88. Thus it is hoped that new life will be restored to one district after another, till the whole land ‘shall stand so thick with corn that it shall laugh and sing.’ With much practice the work of tank restoration has become very much simpler and cheaper than it was when first tried, one very important reduction being due to the invention by Mr. A. Murray, Provincial Engineer, of how to make sluice pipes of concrete or baked clay, instead of the expensive iron sluices which were used at first. Thus in the year 1890 alone, 300 tanks were restored, and 500 sluices were provided at a very much lower figure than half that number would have cost fifteen years ago.
In the report of the Central Irrigation Board, it is stated that between the years 1850 and 1889 there have been restored 59 large tanks and 2,250 small ones. Two hundred and forty-five anicuts have been constructed, and 326 irrigation channels have been constructed or repaired, making a total length of 699 miles.
Within the three years immediately following its completion, Kala-wewa fully justified its restoration. For five successive seasons were the fields so abundantly irrigated that heavy crops were reaped twice a-year, in striking contrast with the fields belonging to villages dependent on rainfall, where, in consequence of an insufficient water-supply, even the ‘Maha’ or great crop was very poor, and cultivation for the ‘Yala’ season was not even attempted.
But as the drought continued during two years, the rivers by which alone Kala-wewa is fed ceased to flow, and in September 1890 the great reservoir was almost dry—only a few shallow pools remained in the bed of the grand lake, and all the lesser tanks were either hard-baked soil, or at best contained a few puddles of black liquid mud which the wretched inhabitants scooped up in gourds—perhaps laboriously collecting about a cupful at a time, as it slowly trickled into exhausted wells. Rice-growing was impossible—the villagers had to return to the cultivation of kurukkau, and very soon the terrible old story was repeated. Foul water to drink and scanty unwholesome food, together with the unavoidable filth of having no water for bathing or for washing clothes, and that in fierce tropical heat, produced a renewed outbreak of the terrible disease parangi, which once again was seen on every side.
Even in view of the good already done, there were not lacking murmurers who could only see in all this a proof that, after all the expenditure, the great tank had failed to keep up the water-supply. To these came an answer from one[107] who, when the restoration was under discussion, had strongly opposed it, but who confessed that he had been mistaken, and was now convinced of the wisdom of what had been already done, and the incalculable benefits certain to accrue ere long.
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Footnote 107:
The Editor of the ‘Ceylon Observer.’
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He pointed out that when there are two consecutive years without rain, many rivers cease to flow, and that the Matale rivers had actually not run since Kala-wewa was completed. The Malwatu-oya, which is the chief river in the whole of this great district, had, for the second time in the memory of the living, been quite dry, and had never flowed in 1890. Moreover, springs which had never before been known to fail had dried up. Nevertheless, so well had Kala-wewa stored every drop of precious water which reached it (rising from 3 feet to over 15, under the influence of a single rain-storm in which 18 inches of rain fell), that five consecutive harvests had been secured, and that but for these (not to speak of the supply of good water for man and beast) the North Central Province might as well have been at once abandoned to the bears, for its population would have speedily altogether vanished. Could the restoration work be deemed a failure because, in a year of almost unprecedented drought, the feeding rivers had failed to supply it? It had been shown to have a storage capacity sufficient, in a year of good rainfall, for the irrigation of 20,000 acres, or in a year when it was called upon to supplement a deficient rainfall, for 10,000 acres. The object, therefore, to be aimed at was to secure the water of a perennial stream which might keep it full; and this, it is hoped, can be effected without excessive outlay. Moreover, every foot added to the height of the embankment would increase the storage capacity of the lake.
In Mr. Ievers’ report on the North Central Province in 1890, he states that, but for the restoration of the elaborate system of irrigation works, enabling the cultivators to utilise the scanty supplies of rain which fell, a grievous famine must have swept away the already meagre population.[108] He says: ‘In calculating the cost of the restoration works, we must always regard them in the aspect of insurance against famine, and the fatal fever which ever follows in the wake of famine. The question is one of money expenditure, against the extinction of human life, and the reversion of territory into desolation.’
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Footnote 108:
70,000 persons.
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Even as I write, news reaches me of the heavy rainfall at Anuradhapura in May 1891—nine inches in a week. The rivers Malwatu-oya and Mirisgoni-oya were overflowing, the waters rising fast in Kala-wewa, Tisa-wewa, and Bassawakkulam, while several village tanks had burst. The people were rejoicing in the certainty of a magnificent Yala harvest.
Year by year improvements of all sorts are progressing, one item being the planting of many thousands of palms and useful timber-trees all along the course of the great canal. In short, there is every reason to hope that the restoration of the great system of irrigation will do more for Ceylon than even its original construction. What that first change was, we gather from the old chronicle, which tells how, when Wijeho, the Indian conqueror, landed with his followers, the friendly princess fed them with rice which had been obtained from wrecked ships. But after the completion of the irrigation works, rice became so abundant, that the large surplus appears to have been exported to the mainland. It was, however, reserved for foreigners[109] to insist on the multiplication of cocoa and palmyra palms, which now form so important a part of the national diet.
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Footnote 109:
See Chapter xx.
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The bed of the great lake and the Giant Canal were not the sole traces of ancient days which lay so long hidden in the dense forest. At one end of the embankment stands a dagoba of the usual bell shape, about fifty feet high, said to contain the jawbone of Buddha. (How carelessly he must have been cremated!) Round it are four altars, and near it are the ruins of a preaching-hall and of a monastery, with sculptured stones guarding the entrance. The dagoba is approached by twelve stone steps, on each of which is an inscription now illegible, but said to be in the Nagara character. It is supposed that this great relic-shrine was built of bricks taken from the ancient city wall, when, in the twelfth century, the great king, Prakrama Bahu I., rebuilt the chief monuments in this deserted city.
This place is called Vigitapura, ‘the town of Vigita’ (so named after a relation of King Wijeyo, the leader of the original Singhalese invasion), and dates from about 500 B.C., having been a stronghold and a place of note ere Prince Anuradha had founded the mighty city which bears his name,[110] and which lies at a distance of about thirty-five miles, as the crow flies. This, by the way, is a contested derivation, as it has generally been assumed that the name was Anu-rajah-pura, and meant ‘the City of the Ninety Kings,’ who reigned here from the date of its foundation, about 500 B.C. to A.D. 726, and of whom Emerson Tennant gives a complete list. But as the city bore the name of Anuradha through all these centuries, we need scarcely assume that this was given in prophetic reference to ninety future kings. So this derivation might well be deemed an exploded fallacy; but, as we all know, such die hard.
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Footnote 110:
Wijeyo having repudiated his island-wife and her children in favour of an Indian princess (see p. 244), found himself without an heir, the sovereignty devolving on his nephew Panduwaasa, who likewise sought a bride from India. She arrived escorted by six stalwart brothers, who settled in various parts of Ceylon, Vigita and Anuradha founding the cities which bore their names.
It is stated in the Mahāwansa that Anuradhapura was so called on account of its having been the settlement of Anurādho, and also because it was founded under the constellation of Anurādho.
The still more ancient chronicles of the Dīpavamsa say that the city was founded by the minister who was called after the asterism. Knowing the immense reverence with which the Singhalese have ever regarded the stars and their interpreters, the astrologers, this statement seems to leave no room for further discussion.
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The ancient annals record that Vigitapura was surrounded by a triple battlement, and entered by a gate of iron. Its capture (about B.C. 160) was a most picturesque incident. It had been seized by Malabar invaders, and the Singhalese, led by King Dutugemunu, besieged the usurpers. For months the rocky fortress held out; then it was determined to carry it by assault, and the famous War-Elephant, Kadol, was directed to charge the eastern gate.
On he rushed, through a pitiless hail of large stones, spears and arrows, which were hurled at him from the walls. But on his attempting to charge the gate, he met with a still warmer reception—one very familiar in the medieval warfare of Britain in the defence of Border-keeps, namely showers of molten lead poured down from the battlements above the gateway.
This proved too much for even so docile and plucky an elephant as Kadol, who, refusing to listen to the voice of his mahout, fled precipitately, and sought refuge and alleviation for his cruel burns by immersion in the cool waters of a neighbouring tank (not Kala-wewa, of course—it was constructed six hundred years later).
After a while his pain lessened, and his wounds were dressed. Then his whole body was protected by a thickly padded coat, and over that a suit of armour made of plates of copper. Thus equipped, he was once more induced to face the molten lead, and rushing to the assault, he succeeded with the sheer strength of his mighty head in bursting open the gate, whereupon the besieged were compelled to submit.
I have already alluded[111] to that chivalrous duel between Dutugemunu and Etāla, Prince of Mysore, when the latter was slain, and the Malabars defeated before the walls of Anuradhapura.
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Footnote 111:
P. 243.
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All through the surrounding jungle are pillars and ruins, suggestive of much that may yet reward patient excavation. Below the lake, and crossing the bed of the Kala-oya, a path has been cut for two and a half miles through dense forest to the summit of a low hill crowned by a great square mass of rocks. In ancient days temples and houses for priests were built up in the fissures between the rocks, and this Aukana Vihare must have been a place of great fame.
Here in utter solitude stands a gigantic statue of Buddha, with the right hand raised to bless the worshippers who have so long forsaken this shrine, and (as is the case in all the images I have specially noticed) wearing the robe so as to leave the right shoulder bare, in the manner which distinguishes the priests of the Siamese sect from the purer Buddhists of Burmah.
This huge statue, hewn from the solid granite crag by order of King Prakrama Bahu, is 39 feet 9 inches in height, and the colossal foot measures 7 feet 8 inches in length. The big toe is 1 foot 4 inches in length and 9 inches wide! It was accidentally discovered by a sportsman while following the track of a herd of wild elephants. A priest, whose solitude was shared only by one pupil, made his home among the rocks, devoting his own existence and training his young companion to striving after the attainment of that state of perfection which consists in the total extinction of all care for and interest in anything except one’s own progress in this laudable effort—and all this in order to obtain the final great reward of NIRVANA, which is the highest ideal of every devout Buddhist, and of which the most accurate description is said to be THE CONDITION OF A FLAME WHICH HAS BEEN BLOWN OUT—a poor substitute indeed for CHRIST’S GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE IN THE CONSCIOUS GLADNESS OF HIS PRESENCE.
XII. ANURADHAPURA
Factory of cement pipes—Tiripane—Galkulum—Ruanweli Dagoba—The Abayagiria—Thuparama Dagoba—Jetawanarama Dagoba—Temple of the Tooth— Tomb and relic dagobas—Square and circle building material—Peacock Palace—Brazen Palace—Successive capitals—The Sacred Ark—Stone bulls— Pilgrims’ tents—The sacred Bo-tree.
Continuing our drive through the jungle (occasionally passing through fine forest, and sometimes crossing a bit of open plain with rice-fields), we came to Maradankadawalla, where we spent the night, and where, in addition to the usual deafening tom-toming and shrieking of shrill pipes, we were favoured with an exhibition of most repulsive barbaric dancing. Here, and also at Ellagamua, we were told that the tom-toming is considered equal to the best French drumming—in which case I can only say, may I never be compelled to hear either!
In 1890 a valuable industry was started at Maradankadawalla—namely, the manufacture of cement concrete pipes for road culverts and for sluices, similar to those now made in the modern city of Anuradhapura, the cost of transport being saved by establishing these factories as near as possible to new centres of work. It is encouraging to those who have so energetically promoted the work of restoration, to learn that in this district the villagers have of their own accord commenced the restoration of sixty abandoned Government tanks, each of which will become the centre of a new village and careful cultivation.
On the following morning we drove early to the Tiripane Tank, which is like a pretty natural lake, surrounded by grassy land and forest, and then on to Galkulum, altogether eleven miles. There we found graceful arches, and a most picturesque camp of temporary huts in the jungle, the breakfast house being quite a fine room. All the handsome white-humped oxen grazing near their respective large thatched waggons, and the groups of servants and drivers cooking under the shady trees, combined to make a most interesting scene.
In the afternoon (leaving the main road, which runs due north and south from one end of the isle to the other) we rode the remaining ten miles by a bridle-path, through fine jungle till we reached the far-famed pre-Christian city—the wonderful Anuradhapura.
The Government Agent’s pleasant house had been prepared for the reception of the Governor’s party, and its approach embellished by sundry fine pandals of jungle treasures, and a great display of coloured calico. Here we found ourselves in the very heart of the ruins of the once mighty capital—ruins totally unlike anything which I have seen in other countries. For my own part, the feeling they inspire is not so much admiration as wonder and bewilderment, as one wanders in every direction, walking or riding, only to come to more, and more, and more ruins,—ruins wrought by war and by ruthless treasure-seekers, but far more extensively and effectually by the silent growth of vegetation, which, fastening into every neglected crevice, has overthrown massive masonry, which, but for these insidious parasites, might have defied time.
Two characteristics are specially striking: the incalculable multitude of tall monoliths—not rude stone monuments, but accurately hewn pillars of stone or granite, which in some cases must evidently have supported roofs, or some form of building; while a great number, capped with a beautifully sculptured crown, form the ornamental surroundings of the cyclopean dagobas or relic-shrines, which are the most prominent features of the whole place. These are gigantic masses of solid brickwork, built in the form of a half-egg or a bell, and crowned with a sort of spire called a tee, which symbolises the honorific umbrella. These huge piles are estimated to contain millions of cubic feet, and somewhere near the summit of each a secret chamber was constructed, wherein was deposited some worshipful fragment of Buddha himself, or of one of his saints, surrounded by costly offerings.
The means of access to this chamber was known only to the priests, but it is recorded in the book of the chronicles of Ceylon, the Maha-wanso, that when, about B.C. 161, King Dutugemunu had built the Ruanweli dagoba, he ascended to the summit by means of a temporary winding staircase, and thence descended into the sacred chamber, wherein he deposited the precious casket containing the relic, whatever it was, and various other treasures.
This Ruanweli or ‘Golden Dust’ dagoba is close to the house in which we lived, so it afforded the first and ever-present impression—a huge conical mass of crumbling red brickwork, partly veiled by quite large trees, which have grown up from seeds dropped into crevices all over the building, and have somehow contrived to obtain not only a footing but a living in that seemingly unnourishing soil. It is believed to have been originally 270 feet high, but is now only 189, and is crowned by an ornamental sort of spire, which I suppose must have been added at some time of restoration.
It stands in the centre of a granite pavement, forming a square platform, which measures 500 feet in every direction. It is raised on a second platform, likewise square, and round the upper square you can still trace the broken fragments of what was once a whole regiment of elephants, which, like the huge shrine itself, were all coated with the smoothest cream-coloured chunam, like polished marble. The old chronicles say that each of these elephants was originally provided with real ivory tusks: if this were so, tusked elephants must have been more abundant in Ceylon in those days than in the present century! There are also several large stone statues of ancient kings and saints, and a small temple, surrounded by a frieze of grotesque figures in high relief.
King Dutugemunu had previously built the Miris-wetiya dagoba, to commemorate his victory over Prince Elāla, and as he pitied his people, burdened as they had been by long wars, he refused to avail himself of his right to employ their forced labour. So he paid all his workers at a very liberal rate, and perhaps for that reason his building did not progress quite so fast as it might otherwise have done. Besides, he had many great works on hand, one of which was the erection of the Great Brazen Palace for the priests.
At all events, he did not live to complete his ‘Golden-Dust’ relic-shrine, so his devoted brother, Saidai-tissa, had a framework of wood made on the summit, and covered it with white cloth, that his dying eyes might behold it as it would appear when finished. The king was carried round the great building, and then laid down upon a carpet, that he might die gazing on this work which the priests told him was so meritorious. But in the hour of death the great king could find no comfort in any of the good deeds extolled by the priests, but only in recalling some acts of unselfish kindness known only to himself. A large slab of granite, surrounded by small pillars, marks the spot where the king lay in those last hours. A ruinous mound at a considerable distance is pointed out as his tomb.
It is said that in his last hours the king spoke somewhat bitterly of the state of absolute slavery to the priests in which he had lived all his life, an instance thereof commonly quoted being the erection of the Miris-wetiya dagoba, of which it is averred that he built it as a penance for having on one occasion so far forgotten his rule of giving the priests a share of everything, that he had eaten his curry, with the usual accompaniments of chillies and sambal (Miris-wetiya), without setting aside a portion for the priests! However, as I have just mentioned, a more plausible origin is assigned for the erection of this monument.
A Siamese prince has recently provided funds for the restoration of this dagoba (whether in memory of the king’s atonement anent the curry-stuff, or of his victory over the Malabar invaders, I cannot say). It is said that the sculptures and tracery on the three chapels connected with this dagoba, now exposed to view for the first time in the present century, are the most delicate and artistic that have as yet been disinterred. But the addition of some handsome brick arches, far up the sides, are criticised as being an incongruous though effectual method of arresting the process of disintegration.
The native chronicles give minute details of the building of the Ruanweli dagoba, and of the enormous labour expended on preparing a foundation capable of sustaining so ponderous a weight. It was dug to the depth of a hundred cubits, and filled with round stones, which were trampled by the largest elephants, their feet being protected by leather boots. These stones were embedded in clay, and over them was poured a layer of cement, then of sandstone, and over all were laid great plates of iron and of brass.
After the king’s death, his brother, who succeeded to the throne, surmounted the great edifice with a spire of glass as a protection against lightning. The great damage was done about the year A.D. 1214 by Maagha, a ruthless treasure-seeker, who, in his determination to reach the relic-chamber, tore down all the upper part of the structure, which accounts for its present reduced height.
I found a capital point whence to sketch this huge red ruin, veiled with green and grey foliage, with a wonderful foreground of a multitude of handsome stone pillars with elaborately sculptured square capitals—some upright, some leaning, others fallen and half overgrown with trailing vines—and overshadowed by fine trees with quaintly twisted stems.
In the distance, to the left of the Ruanweli dagoba, towered another—the Abayagiria dagoba, or Fortress of Safety, originally the greatest of all these monstrous piles, its full height having been about 405 feet (i.e., fifty feet higher than St. Paul’s) and its circumference 1,130 feet! Its height is now considerably reduced, but the square platform on which it stands still covers an area of eight acres! And around it are the ruins of various chapels and other buildings connected with a great college of priests; and among the ruins are many finely sculptured stones, a gigantic seven-headed cobra, and sundry flowers and figures. All this was the work of King Walagambahu, who thus (B.C. 89) commemorated the expulsion of the Malabar invaders and his own recovery of the throne.
A few years ago the Government explorers tunnelled right into the heart of this huge ‘Fortress of Safety,’ through 200 feet of solid brickwork, because of a tradition that therein were buried very ancient books inscribed on metal plates. But on reaching the jealously guarded secret chamber, nothing whatever was found save a few beads, of no value beyond that due to their antiquity. The prisoners who were employed on this work of excavation, and on the restoration of the summit tower, have left rude steps along the side of the brickwork by which it is now possible to ascend to a height of 231 feet above the platform—i.e., 549 feet above sea-level—which, amid such very level surroundings, secures a wide-spread view in every direction over the wide expanse of park, land, and forest, dotted with the huge monuments of olden days, glimpses of stone pillars, and of glistening lakes and tanks, and bounded on the one side by the blue Ritigala and Matele hills, and on the other by Mihintale, the sacred mountain, so rich in ruins and in legends.
I found another fascinating spot for a very comprehensive sketch—seated beneath an overhanging tree whose roots were all entwined with a flight of beautifully sculptured steps, quaint animals, and other carved stones, which, with a couple of dark miniature dagobas to the left, formed an effective foreground for the really beautiful Thuparama dagoba, which stands on a raised mound approached by a fine flight of steps, and surrounded by 128 most elegant slim white columns with beautifully sculptured capitals. They are in three circles, the fifty-two nearest the dagoba being twenty feet high: all of these are monoliths. The great building itself was cleared of jungle, restored and recoated with chunam about sixty years ago. It is crowned by a gigantic tee or spire, apparently representing seven honorific umbrellas, piled in the manner still realistically done in Burmah; and the eye is carried still higher by a group of tall palmyra palms, while a great temple-tree loaded with creamy fragrant blossom stands in relief against a background of dark foliage.
Then to the left, on lower ground, another stairway, with more quaint sculptured beasts and figures, leads up to a group of monoliths (two of which still support a third like a capstone). Here stand a group of pillars with most curiously sculptured capitals, quite unlike any others in the neighbourhood. They are described as ‘cuneiform mouldings,’ but some prosaic person has compared them to a gigantic double tooth with fangs!—that image being suggested by the fact that this is indeed the original Dalada Maligawa, or Palace of the Tooth, having been the first of the many resting-places of the famous Tooth of Buddha, of which, as also of the many palaces erected for it in the course of its wanderings in Ceylon, I have already spoken, so need only add that this building, where it was welcomed in the first instance, was erected by King Kirti Sri Megaha-warna in A.D. 311.
Fa-Hian, the Chinese traveller who visited Ceylon about A.D. 413, gives a wonderful account of the gorgeous ceremonials in honour of the Sacred Tooth—showing how, after great festivities, it was carried in procession to its summer home in the mountains, along a road so thickly strewn with flowers that the whole air was perfumed. Then strange miracle-plays were enacted, representing the chief events of Buddha’s life, with appropriate scenery and costumes, and introducing figures of elephants and stags so delicately coloured as to be scarcely discernible from life.
Strange, is it not, to find these curious religious plays in favour wellnigh two thousand years ago!
As I have frequently referred to my selection of scenes for ‘Comprehensive Sketches,’ I may mention that in all my travels, from the Himalayas to the remotest corners of the South Seas, I have always carried, in addition to a considerable variety of smaller sketching-blocks, one large sheet of galvanised zinc, turned over at the edges to give additional strength, and measuring 31 by 23 inches. On this (no matter how tired at night, in tent or in rest-house, where very often my large sheet of American waterproof, laid on the floor, formed my only sponging-table) I stretched a fresh sheet of drawing-paper as soon as it was possible to remove the last sketch, which was then laid with its predecessors in a flat tin box, proof against rain, white ants, and other foes.
The large zinc block was pinned up in white cloth, and strapped up in the aforesaid waterproof, which was the carpet on which I sat while sketching. I found that, from not being cramped for space, I could work much more rapidly, and produce a far more comprehensive and realistic picture, than by smaller studies of separate portions. In every case I always devoted several hours to most careful pencil-drawing, in order to secure accuracy of detail, before indulging in the joy of colour.
I think I have alluded elsewhere to the impossibility of preserving drawing-paper for water-colour painting in the damp tropics. The rapid development of mildew is so inevitable, that the artist has no alternative but just to make the best of it, and by long experience I found that the only thing to do was, just before beginning to colour, to wash over the whole paper with pure water. Then when great stars of mildew revealed themselves, I fed each hungry fungus with a good brushful of white paint. In colouring it is necessary to avoid these patches as much as possible, or work over them finely with a very dry brush. By observing these precautions I have produced many effective pictures on paper, which at first sight seemed absolutely hopeless, but on which now no one would suspect the presence of the once rampant mildew. At the same time, my rash attempt to ‘improve’ a sketch done in the tropics, by a wash of colour or even of water, will inevitably reveal countless troublesome stars and patches, previously invisible.
To return to the Thuparama dagoba, which is the oldest and most venerated of all these great buildings. It was built by King Dewananpia-tissa, ‘the Delight of the Gods,’ who ascended the throne B.C. 307, and having obtained possession of Buddha’s right collar-bone, proceeded to build this wonderful shrine for its reception. (I cannot refrain from reiterating how culpably careless were poor Prince Gautama’s cremators! We have seen the dagoba at Kala-wewa purporting to contain his jawbone, while another at Bintenne was erected B.C. 164 to contain a bone from his thorax.) The height of the Thuparama dagoba is about 63 feet.
The slim monolithic columns all round it are peculiarly elegant, though unmeaning except as ornaments. A similar arrangement of three rows of pillars of equally delicate workmanship, numbering respectively 20, 28, and 40, surround the Lankarama, which is a smaller but very fine dagoba, of unknown date. It is attributed to King Maha-Sen, who succeeded to the throne A.D. 275, and who having in the earlier years of his reign adopted a creed known to orthodox Buddhists as ‘the Wytulian heresy’ (supposed to have been Brahminical), had done all in his power to suppress Buddhism and destroy its monuments; but finding that the inevitable result would be to raise a general rebellion, he recanted, and became a zealous Buddhist, not only rebuilding all the monuments and priests’ houses which he had destroyed, but building new ones to outvie those of his predecessors.
The chief of these is the Jetawanarama, which, though not originally quite so large as the Abayagiria, was 316 feet high, and is still 249 feet high, with a diameter of 360 feet. Sir James Emerson Tennant calculated that even now it measures twenty millions of cubical feet, giving sufficient material to raise eight thousand houses, each with 20 feet frontage, which would form thirty streets half a mile in length, and would construct a town the size of Ipswich or Coventry, or form a wall one foot in thickness and two feet in height, reaching from London to Edinburgh!
Now this mountain of brickwork is covered to the very summit with large trees, of such frugal habit as apparently to live on air, for they surely can find no sustenance in the crumbling bricks!
Those slim columns with the ornamental crown, which never supported anything, are most puzzling, no one having any idea why they were erected. The only rude parallel that occurs to me, as possibly throwing light on the subject, is a custom which prevails in certain tribes in the Kassia hills on the confines of Upper India, where a cromlech is erected over the ashes of the dead, whose spirits are invoked by the living. Should the prayers thus offered be granted, a great monolith is erected close to the tomb, in acknowledgment thereof, and in due course of time these multiply, so that some favoured tombs are surrounded with a large group of such tributes of gratitude. It is just possible that this rude phase of ancestor worship may give us the clue to the more elaborate productions of a highly civilised race, whose object was equally the invocation of the dead. Whatever meaning may have once attached to them is now utterly forgotten, even by the priests.
As regards the dagobas themselves, there are two classes. First, those which were built as depositories for sacred relics (these include all the cyclopean buildings); and secondly, a multitude of small ones, which were merely hollow circular domes, built over a lower square chamber which was the receptacle for the ashes of some cremated monk or nun. Apparently the only means of access to this chamber, beneath the square platform, was by a square opening beneath the dome; but when once the dome has been erected, the living might no more enter the chamber of the dead. Within the chamber, at the four corners, forming a sort of octagon, were stone slabs bearing the name of the dead, and a short catalogue of his or her good deeds, together with a representation of Buddha’s feet, the trident, the sun and moon, and other Buddhistic emblems.
Unfortunately, at Anuradhapura most of these tomb dagobas have been destroyed by sacrilegious treasure-seekers.
Though the dagobas in this place are specially interesting as being the largest and oldest in Ceylon, the same form is reproduced in many more modern cities, and in connection with Buddhist temples all over the Isle, all[112] built on the same pattern—namely, a circular building on a square platform.
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Footnote 112:
The Thuparama and Lankarama dagobas are apparently exceptions to this rule, for though the tall circular spire rests on a square platform, on the summit of the dagoba, the great massive buildings are raised on circular mounds.
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(At Chi-Chen, in Central America, there are ancient buildings, which in size, form of dome, and the ornamental tower or tee on the summit, are said to be apparently identical with those of Ceylon. It would be interesting to know whether they also have the square platform.)
It is worthy of note that the commonest type of grave all over North China, from Shanghai to Peking, simply consists of a circular earthen mound erected on a square platform of earth, the mound being generally crowned by a spire or knob. These are made in miniature for the very poor, very large for the wealthy, and cyclopean for emperors. This combination is the mystic symbolism which, to the Chinaman, represents the dual principle in nature. The square is the feminine symbol, and represents the earth. The circle suggests the male principle, and symbolises heaven. The same principle is worked out in the construction of the great Temples of Heaven and Earth at Peking.[113]
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Footnote 113:
These I have described fully in ‘Wanderings in China,’ vol. ii. pp. 172, 175, 180, 322. See also a ground-plan of the Temple of Heaven, and notes on tomb-temples in ‘Meeting the Sun,’ by Will Simpson, F.R.G.S., pp. 176, 190-193. Longmans, Green, & Co.
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It is interesting and curious to find this ancient symbolism revered and perpetuated by the professors of a creed to which such details are certainly foreign.
The external square was repeated by an internal pillar which marked the exact centre of the dagoba: in the case of the tomb-dagoba the pillar was sometimes square, sometimes circular. It was about a foot square, and rose about four feet above ground, and on it rested the casket containing the ashes of the dead. Such caskets were generally miniature dagobas of the same bell shape.
In the construction of the gigantic relic-shrines, it appears that, in the first place, the exact centre was marked by an upright monolith accurately squared, and placed so as to have the four sides true to the points of the compass. The squares of the platform and outer wall were then marked out,—also the true circle for the dagoba,—and the whole was built up solidly; no chamber of any sort till the appointed height was reached, perhaps 15 feet from the summit. But so soon as the central square pillar was built up, another was placed on the top of it, ‘truly perpendicular, and securely fixed in position by mortice and tennon.’ Thus it was carried right up from the base to a height of from 200 to 400 feet, to the relic chamber, which was formed as a perfect square facing the cardinal points; and here, as in the tomb dagobas, this stone pillar projected about four feet through the floor. It was overlaid with gold, and supported a circular golden tray, on which was laid the casket containing the precious relic, which may have been only a hair from a saint’s eyebrow, or a revered toe-nail, but was probably accompanied by treasures of very much greater interest, which fully accounts for the anxiety of ruthless marauders to pillage these depositories.
Here, for example, is a list published by Mr. Wickremasinghe of the various objects enshrined in a dagoba at Hanguranketa: ‘Two gold chains and two medals, studded with valuable gems; 160 silver images, 199 bronze images, 604 precious stones, 2,000 uncut stones, and many other objects, including two boards for binding a book, of silver and gold, studded with gems; five books of the Vinaya Pitaka written on silver plates; seven books of the Abhidharma Litaka on silver plates, as also a number of other books; one book written on 900 copper plates, each three spans long, and extracts from various religious books written on 37 plates of gold, each plate weighing five English sovereigns.’
Of the cyclopean relic-dagobas,[114] there are seven within the limits of Anuradhapura itself, without reference to those at Mehintale and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. These seven are—
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Footnote 114:
Various derivations are given: datu, ‘a relic,’ and gabbhan, ‘a shrine’; or, deha, ‘the body,’ and gopa, ‘that which preserves.’
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Supposed Present Diameter Date original height. at base. begun. height. Thuparama — 62½ 59 B.C. 307 Mirisawetiya — 82½ 164 B.C. 164 Ruanweli 270 189 379 B.C. 161 Abayagiria 405 231 325 B.C. 89 Jetawanarama 316 249 360 A.D. 302 Lankarama — 32½ 44 Unknown. Seta 20 Too ruinous to ascertain. B.C. 119 Chaitiya
The latter, though generally known by this name, which means ‘the Stone Temple,’ is properly called the Lajjikavihara, having been built by King Lajji-tissa. Though small, and in very ruinous condition, it is deemed highly sacred, and its stone carving and stairways are considered very fine.
Of the other dagobas which are scattered about in the jungle, I may mention the Kiri Wihara (Milk Temple), which is so entirely buried beneath encroaching earth, that its existence is only known by the tradition which declares it to lie buried beneath a huge grassy mound.
All the dagobas at Anuradhapura are built of brick, and perhaps their erection here was suggested by the fact of finding building material in such abundance, in the form of beds of clay ready for the manufacture of millions of bricks—though, strange to say, the ancient chronicles relate how, to facilitate the building of the Ruanweli dagoba, one of the gods created the requisite quantity of bricks at a place sixteen miles distant; but there is no record of their having been miraculously transported to the spot.
Of course, in viewing these ruinous red mounds, it requires an effort of imagination to picture them as they appeared when so thickly coated with chunam as to resemble huge domes of polished cream-coloured marble. This chunam was still in use when the oldest European bungalows were built, and gives their pillared verandahs a delightfully cool appearance; but, as I have already mentioned, this manufacture is a lost art, though it is known that chunam was a preparation of lime made from burned oyster-shells, mixed with the water of cocoa-nuts and the glutinous juice of the fruit called paragaha.[115]
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Footnote 115:
Dillena dentata.
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As regards the multitude of great columns, ‘moon-stones,’ and other large monoliths, some were obtained from masses of rock very near the city, which still bear the marks of the wedges by which the pillars were split off from the rock. But many were quarried from beds of mountain limestone and granitic gneiss in the neighbourhood of Mihintale, a very sacred mountain about eight miles from Anuradhapura. In these quarries you still discern the holes from which, two thousand years ago, the huge blocks and slabs were chiselled,—a stone so hard as to defy the ravages of time and-weather, for the most delicate sculptures remain as perfect as though only completed yesterday—each bead on the ornaments of the figures, each detail of flower or foliage, retaining all its original sharpness.
Of course, in exploring any scene of ancient historic interest, it is essential to have previously gathered as much information as possible regarding it, for nowhere does the eye so truly see what it brings the capacity for seeing as in visiting the ruined cities of bygone ages. This is certainly true of this labyrinth of ruinous brickwork and sculptured stones, so bewildering till one begins to get something like a clue to its main features.
In point of fact, most of what remains of the once mighty city of Anuradhapura, the magnificent, lies buried beneath from six to fifteen feet of soil, waiting for a whole army of excavators to come and supplement the feeble force now working for Government. And yet, although the forest now overgrows the whole plain, so that the only break in your long ride is coming to an occasional open tract, where fine old trees grow singly as in an English park, enough remains above ground to enable you to recall vivid visions of the past.
For a space of sixteen square miles the somewhat scrubby jungle, stunted by the prevalence of droughts, is but a veil for the masses of masonry and brickwork; a wilderness of granite pillars with richly carved capitals, and flights of steps, some covered with intricate carving, as perfect to-day as when, two thousand years ago, they were trodden by the unsandalled feet of reverent worshippers or busy merchants. The designs of these stairs are beautiful—on either side supported by rich scroll-patterns, and graceful figures overshadowed by the seven-headed cobra, supposed to be the emblem of vigilance; while the huge semicircular stone which forms the lowest step (commonly called ‘moon-stone’) generally represents a sacred lotus-blossom, round which circle rows of horses, elephants, bullocks, and the invariable geese held sacred by all ancient nations. These stones are peculiar to Ceylon. Strange to say, no two of these are exactly alike in arrangement of detail.
Broad roads have been cleared through the dense jungle, embracing the chief points of interest, and as you ride slowly along these or any of the innumerable pilgrim-paths which here intersect the forest, you see on every side the same wilderness of hewn stones, heaped up in dire confusion, all overturned by the insidious growth of vegetation, and at last you emerge at some huge bathing tank, all of carved stonework; or it may be on the brink of a great artificial lake, formed by an embankment of cyclopean masonry. Or else you find yourself in presence of some huge figure of Buddha, perhaps reclining in the dreamless repose of Nirvana, perhaps sitting in ceaseless contemplation of the lonely forest—a mighty image of dark stone brought from afar, at some remote time when worshippers were legion. Now, perhaps, a handful of flowers, or some ashes of burnt camphor, tell of some solitary villager who has here offered his simple prayer.
Or the object which suddenly presents itself to your amazed sight may be one of the gigantic dagobas of which I have already spoken—one of many similar buildings which lie scattered in various parts of Ceylon, in the silent depths of vast forests which now cover the sites where once stood busy populous cities.
It is recorded in the ancient chronicles that on great festivals these dagobas were festooned from base to summit with endless garlands of the most fragrant and lovely flowers, till the whole building resembled some huge shrub in blossom. Others were literally buried beneath heaps of jessamine. One of the relic-shrines which was thus adorned, the Jetawanarama, towered, as I have said, to a height of 316 feet.
Though no reverent hands now garland this desolate shrine, kind nature still strews it with fairest blossoms, and has covered it, right up to the summit, with trees of largest growth, all matted together with beautiful flowering creepers. These have now been in a measure cleared away so as to reveal the form of the gigantic dome, capped with a ruinous red spire four storeys high, circular, on a square base. Tall monoliths and sculptured figures at the base of this huge mass of masonry afford the eye a standard by which to estimate its height. My own feeling as I sat at work sketching it, as in duty bound, was of amazement that any human beings could have constructed an object so oppressively large, useless, and hideous.
Of vanished glories, one of the chief must have been the Monara- or Mayura-paya—i.e., the Peacock Palace of the kings, so called not only from the brilliancy of the colours with which it was painted externally, but also from the abundance of precious stones, gold, and silver employed in its decoration. It is described as having been a building three storeys high, with ranges of cool rooms underground. Whatever may still remain of it is all underground, buried beneath a grassy mound; but round it, as if keeping sentry round the royal palace, stand a circle of fine stone pillars with beautifully sculptured capitals.
But the crowning marvel of Anuradhapura was the Lowa-maha-paya, or Great Brazen Palace, a monastery built by King Dutugemunu about B.C. 164, for the accommodation of one thousand priests. It was nine storeys high, probably pyramidal, so that the top storey was much smaller than the lowest. The latter was built up from a foundation supported by sixteen hundred granite pillars, all of which, the Rajavali implies, were covered with copper. Each priest (or rather monk) had his own little dormitory, and (as no great man could possibly allow his inferior to sit higher than himself) the poor old monks of highest rank had to occupy the uppermost rooms, just under the roof with its glittering brazen tiles—rather warm quarters on a hot summer’s day!
A most interesting account of this palace, and its various apartments, has been preserved in the Maha-wanso, which is the book of ancient national chronicles. In one great hall were golden pillars, supported by golden statues of lions and elephants, while the walls were inlaid with flower-patterns of costly gems, and festoons of pearls. In the centre stood a magnificent ivory throne of wondrous workmanship, for the high priest, while above it was the white chatta or umbrella, the oriental type of sovereignty. On either side of this throne were set a golden image of the Sun, and a silver one of the Moon; and the whole palace was richly carpeted, and full of luxurious couches and divans.
Amongst the curious statistics of the Great Brazen Palace, we hear of a stone canoe, twenty-five cubits long, made to contain some special drink for the thousand priests—a very capacious punch-bowl! A huge hollowed stone, 63 feet long, 3-1/2 feet broad, and 2 feet 10 inches in depth, was pointed out to us among the ruins of this great monastery as having been used for this purpose; while another hollowed block of granite, 10 feet long, 2 feet deep, and 6 feet wide, lying near the Jetawanarama, was shown as that wherein the daily allowance of rice was measured out. Certainly the proportion of sack was largely in excess of the solids.
Minute details are given of the daily rations provided for all these priests by the king’s bounty, as also of the vessels of sugar, buffalo butter, and honey provided for the builders, whose work, however, did not prove enduring, for in the following reign this ‘Tower of Babel’ had to be taken down, and it was rebuilt only seven storeys high. Two hundred years later these were reduced to five storeys, and seventy years afterwards, in A.D. 240, it must have been entirely rebuilt, as the reigning monarch changed the position of the supporting pillars.
When (A.D. 275) King Maha-Sen succeeded to the throne, full of iconoclastic zeal, he demolished this lofty ‘clergy-house,’ as well as many more buildings connected with Buddhism, and used them as quarries for the erection of new shrines for the images supposed to have been sanctioned by ‘the Wytulian heresy.’ But when he threw over his new love to return to the old, he rebuilt the Brazen Temple and all else that he had destroyed. Unfortunately some of the 1,600 granite monoliths had been broken; so, to make up the number, several were split. This was done by boring holes in the stone, and therein driving wooden wedges, into which water was poured to make the wood swell,—a simple but effective device, which was first adopted in England about two thousand years later.
How strange it is to think that when our ancestors sailed the stormy seas in their little skin-covered wicker boats, or paddled canoes more roughly hollowed from trees than those quaint outriggers which here excite our wonder, Ceylon was the chief centre of eastern traffic, having its own fleet of merchant ships, wherein to export (some say) its superfluous grain—certainly other products—to distant lands! Possibly its traffic may even have extended to Rome, to whose historians it was known as Taprobane, and of whose coins as many as eighteen hundred, of the reigns of Constantine and other emperors, have been found at Batticaloa.
Think, too, that while Britons wore a full-dress of only woad, and lived in wattle huts, these islanders had vast cities, with stately palaces and other great buildings, and monuments whose ruins even now vie in dimensions with the Egyptian pyramids.
Besides these massive ruins and this endless profusion of sculptured granite columns, and noble stairs which once led up to stately temples, how poor and mean all the modern temples do appear, with their wooden pillars and walls of clay, the work of pigmy descendants of giants!
Here, four hundred years before the birth of Christ, all that constituted Eastern luxury reigned supreme: great tanks watered beautiful gardens, and in the streets busy life fretted and toiled.
Even allowing largely for Oriental exaggeration we can form some idea of the greatness of the city from the native annals, which tell how, including these tanks and gardens, it covered two hundred and fifty-six square miles, the whole of which was enclosed by a strong outer wall, which was not completed till the first century after Christ. From the north gate to the south gate measured sixteen miles, and the old chronicles tell that it would take a man four hours to walk from the north to the south gate, or across the city from the rising to the setting sun.
The writer enumerates the principal streets, and it gives a strangely familiar touch to hear of Great King Street, while Moon Street reminds us of the planet-worship of the early Singhalese. Moon Street consisted of eleven thousand houses, many of which were large beautiful mansions two storeys high. There were lesser streets without number, bearing the name of the caste or profession of its inhabitants.
All were level and straight; the broad carriage-way was sprinkled with glittering white sand, while the footpath on either side was covered with dark sand. Thus the foot passengers were protected from the dangers of the swift riders, chariots, and carriages. Some carriages were drawn by four horses. There were elephants innumerable, rich merchants, archers, jugglers, women laden with flowers for temple offerings, and crowds of all sorts.
Not only had they cunning craftsmen of all manner of trades, but the most minute care was bestowed on such practical matters as the sanitation of their cities. Thus in Anuradhapura there was a corps of 200 men whose sole work was the daily removal of all impurity from the city, besides a multitude of sweepers: 150 men were told off to carry the dead to the cemeteries, which were well cared for by numerous officials. ‘Naked mendicants and fakirs,’ ‘castes of the heathen,’ and the aboriginal Yakkos and Nagas—i.e. the demon and snake worshippers— each had distinct settlements allotted to them in the suburbs.
Within the city there were halls for music and dancing, temples of various religions (all of which received liberal support from the earlier kings), almshouses and hospitals both for men and beasts, the latter receiving a special share of attention. One of the kings was noted for his surgical skill in treating the diseases of elephants, horses, and snakes. Another set aside rice to feed the squirrels in his garden, and a third devoted the produce of a thousand fields to provide for the care of sick animals.
At every corner of the countless streets were houses for preaching, that all the passers-by might learn the wisdom of Buddha, whose temples, then as now, were daily strewn with the choicest flowers, garlands of jessamine, and the fragrant champac-blossoms, and beautiful white and pink water-lilies (the sacred symbolical lotus). On all great festivals the streets were spanned by arches covered with gold and silver flags, while in the niches were placed statues holding lamps or golden vases full of flowers.
At a later date the records of Pollonarua are almost identical with these. Yet ere long both these cities were doomed to be forsaken. The huge tanks which watered the beautiful gardens and irrigated all the land were left to go to utter ruin; and for centuries all has lain hushed and still. When foreigners invaded the Isle, it was the policy of the Kandyans to keep the interior inaccessible, so there were only difficult paths through dense jungle. Consequently, although Knox had written of the wonderful ruins through which he had passed when making his escape from his long captivity in Kandy, they continued unknown till they were re-discovered by Lieutenant Skinner about 1833, when surveying for his great work of road-making.
At that time the site of the ancient city was the haunt of vast herds of elephants, sambur and fallow deer, buffalo, monkeys, and jackals. Porcupines and leopards sought shelter among the ruins, the tanks were alive with pelicans, flamingoes, and other aquatic birds, and large flocks of peafowl sought refuge in the cool shade, or sunned themselves in the green glades where once were busy streets. Of course, with the return of so many human beings, these shy creatures have retreated to more secluded hiding places.
Here and there, on the outskirts of Anuradhapura, there are great heaps of stones—huge cairns, to which, even to this day, each passer-by must, without fail, add a stone, though the people have long since utterly forgotten what event they commemorate.
Imagine such a fate as this creeping over the great capitals, where a hundred and sixty-five successive kings reigned in all the pomp and luxury of an Oriental court.[116] Their history has been handed down to us in the Mahawanso, or ‘Genealogy of the Great,’—that precious manuscript to which frequent reference is so necessary to a right understanding of events in Ceylon. Its first section—which was compiled about the year A.D. 470 from native annals—treats of the Great Dynasty— i.e., the kings who reigned from 543 B.C. to 310 A.D., after which comes the history of those who are classed as the Sulu-wanse, or ‘lower race,’ although that list includes the great king Prakrama Bahu, by whose orders the work was completed up to his time—i.e., 1266 A.D. Finally, it was carried on to the year 1758 A.D. by command of the last King of Kandy, all compiled from authentic native documents.
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Footnote 116:
The reigns of most of these kings have been neatly summarised, as so many tales in which ‘irrigation, subjugation, and assassination’ form the main incidents, to which we may add the building of useless relic-shrines. Many of the kings were distinguished only for their amazing superstition, and the first queen who held the throne was so bad as to be remembered only as ‘the infamous Anula.’ Having poisoned her husband, King Chora Naga—i.e., Naga the Marauder—and also her son Tisso, she successively selected a porter of the palace, a carpenter, a carrier of firewood, a Brahman, and various other lovers, to share her throne, till she was finally put to death by her own grandson.
About A.D. 30 there reigned a king, by name Yatalaka Tissa, whose history affords a curious true version of ‘The Prince and the Peasant.’ His gate-porter Subha resembled him so strikingly, that sometimes the king amused himself by exchanging dresses with him. Subha, however, found these tastes of royal honour so attractive, that he contrived to effect the exchange in good earnest. The king was dethroned, and the porter took his place, and reigned till he was slain by the next man. And so the long tale goes on.
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Being written in Pali verse, none but the most learned priests could possibly read it, and, as a matter of fact, no one seems to have been able to do so, until in 1826 Mr. Turnour, of the Ceylon Civil Service, set himself to master this terribly difficult task, and, with marvellous patience and ingenuity, succeeded in so doing. Therein we obtain the clue to what at first seems such a mystery—how a race which produced work so wonderful as these great cities, a people so powerful, and in some respects so wise, as those old Singhalese (themselves, we must remember, conquerors from Northern India), should have been driven from province to province till all their old power and energy seems to have died out.
The mischief seems to have begun when the King of Anuradhapura first took into his pay mercenary troops from Malabar. These were the Tamils, whose descendants remain to this day. They rebelled, slew the king, and held the throne for twenty years. Driven from the Island, they returned, and again held it for forty years. Once more they were expelled, and once more fresh hordes poured in from Malabar, and landing simultaneously on all parts of the Island, again took possession of the capital, where some settled, while others returned to the mainland laden with plunder.
During all these years an ever-recurring contest was maintained between the Buddhists and their Brahmin invaders. There was the usual pulling down and building up of temples, so that by A.D. 300 the native records declare that the glory of the city was utterly destroyed, and that the royal race of children of the Sun had been exterminated. Nevertheless, it still continued to be a great powerful town, enclosed by strong walls.
The struggle with the Malabars continued till about A.D. 726, when the kings forsook Anuradhapura and made Pollonarua, farther to the south, their capital, and more beautiful than the old city. Still the Malabars pushed on, and overran every corner of the Island.
At length, A.D. 1153, a mighty king arose, by name Prakrama Bahu, who with a strong hand delivered his country, and, driving out the invaders, established peace and security. He rebuilt the temples of Buddha, and made or restored fifteen hundred tanks, and canals without number, to irrigate and fertilise the thirsty land. Yet thirty years after the death of this great, good man, his family had become so utterly weak through their incessant quarrels, that the Malabars once more returned and seized the tempting prize.
And so the story of strife continued, till in 1505 the Portuguese came, and then followed the further complications of the struggles between Portuguese and Dutch, and later the French and English took their turn as disquieting elements.
But the consequence of all these fightings was the removal of the seat of Government from one part of the Isle to another, so that in many a now desolate jungle there still remain some ruins of ancient cities which successively claimed the honour of being the capital for the time being. The oldest of these was Tamana-nuwara, which was the capital of Wijayo, the conqueror, B.C. 543. His successor founded Oopatissa-nuwara, calling it after himself. Then Maagama and Kellania had their turns before Anuradhapura asserted its supremacy. With the exception of those eighteen years when Kaasyapa (the parricide and suicide) lived on the fortified rock of Sigiri,[117] and one year when King Kaloona removed the capital to Dondra or Dewa-nuwara, the city of the gods, and likewise committed suicide, Anuradhapura reigned supreme for 1,353 years, when it was abandoned in favour of Pollonarua: three hundred years later Anuradhapura became the capital during one stormy reign, and Roohoona, Kalu-totta, and Kaacha-ragama were each the royal home for a brief interval.
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Footnote 117:
P. 246.
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Then came the reign of the great King Prakrama, when the glory of Pollonarua was at its height, and continued the capital during the seventeen changes of sovereignty which followed in the twenty years after his death. From 1235 to the end of the century, Dambadeniya was the chief city. Then Pollonarua had another turn. After this, Kurunegalla, Gampola, Sengada-galla-nuwara, Kandy, and Cotta were successively the royal headquarters.
Now one after another of these great centres has fallen into comparative neglect, and several into total oblivion. Giant trees have overgrown both palaces and markets; beautiful parasitic plants have loosened the great blocks of stone, and the dark massive ruins are veiled by lovely creepers, and all the wealth of tropical scenery, through which (as they did so recently in Anuradhapura) bears and leopards roam undisturbed, while birds of all glorious hues flit through the foliage. Only at the time of certain great festivals do devout pilgrims still wend their way through the silent depths of these dark forests, to do homage at these shrines; and the stillness of night is broken by their pious ejaculations as they circle round the huge relic-shrines.
At the time of our visit to Anuradhapura, the pilgrims had assembled in vast numbers to celebrate the festival of the Midsummer New Moon, and their simple camps—yellow tents of great taliput palm-leaves, of which each pilgrim carries one section, to act as sunshade or umbrella—formed a very picturesque feature in the scene. Half-a-dozen pieces of leaf, supported by sticks, form the slight shelter which is all they need. (Many carry one of the tough fibrous sheaths which has enveloped the young flower of the areca-palm, and which serves as a simple rice-plate, while an ingeniously folded palmyra-palm leaf forms an excellent water-bucket.)
With reverent steps they trod the green forest-glades, marking the course of the main streets of the holy city, and guided by yellow-robed Buddhist priests. Many of the pilgrims carried small flags and banners, and one group carried a miniature ark containing a golden lotus-blossom, to be offered to the sacred Bo-tree.
The ark, I may observe, holds the same place of honour in Ceylon as it does in many other nations. To all travellers in the Himalayas, the ark veiled with curtains, within which is concealed the idol most deeply reverenced, is a familiar object—an ark which is carried on staves through the forests, with music and dancing, and which, both in its proportions and in all the ceremonies connected with it, bears strange affinity to the sacred ark of the Israelites.[118] We find it again in the Christian Churches of Abyssinia and in the Buddhist temples of Japan; and here in Ceylon every important dewali (that is, every Malabar temple) has an ark very similar to that of the Himalayas, the sacred objects, which are so jealously concealed from the gaze of even devout worshippers, being in this case the mystic arrows of the god or deified hero there held in reverence. Once a year, at a great full moon festival, this ark is borne forth on its staves, and carried in sunwise circuit round the temple amid great rejoicing.
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Footnote 118:
I have described many such arkite ceremonies in ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 361-371, 436. Published by Chatto & Windus.
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That tiny ark, containing the mystic lotus-blossom, was not the only link we noticed to the customs of far-distant lands. At the entrance to the Wata Daghè, at Pollonarua, lies a stone precisely similar to the Clach Brach at St. Oran’s Chapel in Iona, with a row of hollows, said to have been worn by the continual action of stone or crystal balls, which the passers-by turned sunwise to bring them luck. And here, in Anuradhapura, are three stone bulls, which women who have not been blessed with offspring also drag round sunwise, that they may ensure the speedy birth of an heir. One of these seems to have formerly revolved on a pivot, but now main force does all.
Certainly the most venerated objects of superstition are not often impressive to the eye, and these are three insignificant little animals, measuring respectively 3 feet 6, 2 feet 9, and 1 foot 7. They lie on the turf beneath a great tree—a curious foreground to a most picturesque pilgrim’s camp of yellow palm-leaves like gigantic fans, banked up with withered boughs; women and children busy round their camp fires, and beyond the curling blue smoke rise the pillars of the Brazen Palace.
Thousands of these primitive tents were scattered about in groups in the park-like grounds, and I had the good fortune to witness a very striking scene on the night of our arrival, when all night long, by the light of a glorious full moon, great companies, guided by bare-armed and bare-footed yellow-robed priests, circled round the Ruanweli dagoba, shouting ‘Saadhu!’ the Buddhist form of ‘All hail!’ But in making their circle they kept their left side towards the relic-shrine, which in sun-lore all the world over is the recognised form of invoking a curse instead of a blessing! But on the beautifully sculptured ‘moon-stones’ at the base of the great temple and palace-stairs, all the animals— elephants, oxen, horses, lions, sacred geese—have their right side towards the central lotus-blossom; so they are making the orthodox sunwise turn.
On returning to Britain I compared notes with my kinsman, J. F. Campbell, of Islay, and found that he also had been impressed by these various peculiarities of sunwise and anti-sunwise turns; and he noticed, moreover, that all creeping plants in the jungle coil with their left side towards the centre.
But the object of deepest reverence to the pilgrims, and of exceeding interest to us all, was the Peepul or sacred Bo-tree (as irreverent Britons, in their love for abbreviation, call the Maha Jaya Sri Bodingahawahanse, or great illustrious sacred Tree of Wisdom, which is really believed to be the very identical tree which was planted here in the year B.C. 288, and which consequently must now be 2,180 years old). What was shown to us as the original tree was such a wizened little old stump, that we agreed it might very well be the genuine article, and the ancestor of the generations of old Bo-trees which surround it within the sacred enclosure, to say nothing of all others in every corner of Ceylon, all of which have been propagated from seed.
Assuredly no other tree has ever occupied so important a place in history, or had its own story so minutely recorded from generation to generation. Sir James Emerson Tennant[119] quotes twenty-five extracts from various native chronicles, and other ancient sources (and these, he says, are but a few out of a multitude), stating the various honours paid to the sacred tree in different reigns, from its first arrival, nearly three hundred years before the Christian era, till that of the very last King of Kandy, who in 1739 caused it to be inscribed on a rock that he had dedicated certain lands in the Wanni to the sacred tree.
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Footnote 119:
‘Ceylon,’ vol. ii. pp. 617, 632.
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One of the passages quoted from the Mahawanso, written about 470 A.D., concludes: ‘Thus this monarch of the forest, endowed with miraculous powers, has stood for ages in the delightful Maha-mego gardens in Lanka, promoting the spiritual welfare of its inhabitants and the propagation of true religion.’
It is somewhat remarkable that in one of these quotations Fa Hian, the Chinese traveller, describes the tree as having sent forth a branch which descended to earth and there took root. Now as this is the habit of the banyan (Ficus indica), and not of the Peepul or Bo (Ficus religiosa), certain heretics have suggested that the priests may occasionally have renovated the old tree by placing a healthy seedling in some crevice, and that by mistake a seedling of the wrong sort had at that time been introduced.
However, the leaves of these two cousins are so essentially different that such a mistake could not really have been made, those of the banyan being thick and leathery, while those of the Bo are very thin and light. They are like very large birch-leaves, heart-shaped, with a long ribbon-like point, and are attached to the stem by such a long slender stalk that they tremble incessantly, like the leaves of the aspen. This, say the Buddhists, is because of their sympathetic joy that beneath their shade Gautama attained to the perfection of all knowledge—a legend which to Christian ears recalls the tradition which attributes the quivering of the aspen leaf to the memory of that dread day when the bitter Cross on Calvary was fashioned from its unwilling wood.
The story of the tree is that it was a branch of the sacred Peepul at Uruwelle (now known as Gaya or Buddha-Gaya, the capital of Behar) beneath which Buddha sat absorbed in contemplation—some say he lived beneath its shade for four years. Those who seek most closely to assimilate the ‘Light of Asia’ with the True Light of the World, say, forty days.[120] The mighty Indian King Dharm-Asoka—i.e., the righteous Asoka—having zealously embraced Buddhism, his children followed in his footsteps, his son Mahindo becoming a priest, and his daughter Sanghamitta the abbess of a Buddhist nunnery. Mahindo, the royal missionary, came to Ceylon B.C. 307, and preached so effectually that not only Dewenipiatissa, the King of Anuradhapura, but also Queen Anula, and many women of the Isle, declared themselves converts to the new creed, and desired to take the vows of devotion thereto.
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Footnote 120:
The original tree at Buddha-Gaya has long since disappeared, but as with kings, so with sacred trees, ‘Le roi est mort, vive le roi!’ A descendant has ever flourished to receive homage from the 100,000 pilgrims who annually flock to Gaya, no longer to reverence the memory of Buddha, but of Vishnu, to whom the tree is now dedicated. The modern tree was a very grand one, estimated at about two hundred years of age, but about ten years ago it was blown down, and only a sapling remained, which, however, has now developed into a fine tree. Close to it were the ruins of the ancient dagoba, erected on the spot where Buddha is supposed to have sat. It had been so entirely demolished by Hindoo successors that little more than the foundations remained. With more consideration for Buddhist traditions than for England’s credit as a Christian nation, this stately pyramidal dagoba was actually rebuilt at great expense by the British Government, at the time when Sir Ashley Eden was Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.
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Mahindo recommended that his sister Sanghamitta should come to instruct the women; so King Tissa sent an embassy to Behar inviting the royal Abbess to come to Ceylon, and praying Asoka to bestow upon him a branch or graft of the Tree of Wisdom. This the king was willing to do, but dared not risk the sin of sacrilege by cutting the tree with any instrument. He therefore approached it reverently at the head of a thousand priests; they worshipped the tree, and presented offerings of flowers to it; then having prepared a golden vase filled with perfumed earth, he took vermilion paint in a golden pencil, and therewith drew a line round a branch, and prayed it to sever itself from the tree, and transplant itself into the vase, which it most obligingly did forthwith, while the assembled multitudes shouted ‘Saadhu!’ to the holy tree.
Then Sanghamitta, with five hundred Buddhist nuns, started for Ceylon, in charge of the precious branch, where it was received with indescribable devotion. A whole chapter of the Mahawanso is devoted to the account of its reception, and how the king, the lord of chariots, commanded that it should be lifted by the four high-caste tribes, and by eight persons of each of the other castes, and so it was duly planted, and much worshipped.
The fact of the Peepul being held in veneration by Hindoos of all sects, as being alike sacred to Brahma and Vishnu, accounts for its having been not only spared, but honoured by the conquerors who in different centuries overran the Isle with fire and sword.[121]
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Footnote 121:
Various trees hold a place in the legends of the twenty-five Buddhas whose presence has already blessed this world. Gautama selected the Bo, as did also one of his predecessors; another was connected with the Champac; and the next will, it is said, confer similar honour on the ironwood tree with the scarlet tips of young foliage.
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In the history of successive kings, their devotion to the Bo-tree is duly recorded—how one built up the tiers of stone terraces around it; another paved the enclosure with marble; another erected stone stairs leading up to it from four sides; others made many images of Buddha in stone and in metal, and built halls to receive these and various relics. King Waahsabo, who reigned A.D. 62, kept up an illumination of a thousand lamps here and at other shrines, and also ‘caused statues to be formed of the four Buddhas, of their exact stature, and he built an edifice to contain them, near the delightful Bo-tree.’ If the exact size of the other Buddhas was at all on the scale of Gautama’s tooth and footprint, it must have been rather a large edifice!
After the destruction of Sitawacca by the Portuguese, it was prophesied that the town would be rebuilt when the Bo-tree lost one of its branches.
In A.D. 1674 a branch of the tree was stricken by lightning, and the Dutch verified the prophecy by restoring some of the old buildings.
It would be interesting to know whether the present phoenix-like birth of a modern Anuradhapura has any connection with the disaster which befell the tree on October 4, 1887. After a prolonged drought, which continued for eight months, the tom-tom was beaten to invite all good Buddhists to assemble on the 7th to take part in the ceremony of Kiri Utura-wanawa—i.e., the outpouring of milk, at the shrine of the sacred tree, while invoking rain. But on that very day (without waiting for the milk-offering!) there arose a mighty tempest of thunder, lightning, and rain, accompanied by a violent north wind which snapped the main stem: it fell with a crash, carrying with it part of the iron railing round the enclosure. Now a stump about four feet high is all that remains of the original tree.
A smaller branch had been broken in 1870, and was cremated with all honour, and said to have attained its Nirvana. But the fall of the ‘Great Lord’ itself was a more serious matter, and was deemed a very evil omen. Sadly and solemnly the fallen branch was sawn into logs by men attired in mourning and having handkerchiefs tied over their mouths. One log was preserved by the high priest, to be sold to pilgrims in small chips, as precious worshipful relics; the others were laid on a bullock-cart canopied with white cloth, and borne in procession to a funeral pyre erected near the Thuparama dagoba, where they were cremated with all the ceremonial observed at the funeral of a Buddhist high priest, and to a terrific accompaniment of tom-tom beating.
On the following day the ashes were collected, and a second great procession conveyed them to the neighbouring lake, the Tissa-wewa on whose waters they were to be scattered. Apparently, however, some ashes were reserved, and a small dagoba was erected to their honour, so doubtless these now receive their full share of worship.
Except to the eye of faith, the disappearance of this preternaturally old branch will make small difference, as there are so many branches, all apparently about the same age, and none exceeding two feet in diameter, growing up through the pyramidal stonework which is built round the tree in four terraces. It is impossible to guess how much trunk there may be, as it is so effectually built up out of sight. Each of these terraces forms a platform round which the pilgrims walk in procession, and feed the great company of monkeys of all sizes and ages which play in the branches.
At one festival—the Wandanawa—these branches are plastered over with gold paper, and the boughs are decorated with hundreds of brightly coloured handkerchiefs fluttering gaily in the breeze—a pretty elaboration of the decoration of sacred bushes with rag-offerings, as practised in so many lands, from Ireland and Scotland to the Himalayas.
At night pilgrims come bearing tiny lamps, and burn camphor to the tree as they circle round within the railing. To the priests they offer more practical gifts of rice and coin. Much good milk is also poured out in offerings to the thirsty tree.
You can well understand that the withered leaves which fall from so sacred a tree are priceless treasures, and jealously guarded. The priests spread white cloths of honour beneath the tree to collect all such, and distribute or sell them to eager pilgrims. If the supply exceeds the demand, the superfluous leaves are cremated. Of course to gather one would be accounted unpardonable sacrilege.
At night the tree is illuminated by very primitive lamps, half-cocoa-nut shells filled with oil and with floating wicks, which give a feeble flickering light. I wondered that the monkeys did not upset them, but probably they have learnt by experience to respect flame.
In the outer court, overshadowed by Bo-trees of a younger and more vigorous generation, and by cocoa and palmyra palms, are various images and finely sculptured stones, including sundry five- and seven-headed cobras. So here we stand in the very presence of the ancient tree and serpent worship—the former as real as ever, the latter obsolete except in quiet corners.[122]
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Footnote 122:
See Chapter v., p. 91.
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Yet even here you may sometimes see ashes of burnt camphor, and bits of wax and a few flowers, on these snake sculptures, proving that they have received their share of night worship, and images of cobras made of painted clay are offered on the altar of the Bo-tree which stands on the outer side of the inner wall. So Buddhism incorporates and sanctions every conceivable variety of worship, provided that of Buddha himself is paramount. Thus the serpent worship, which could not be eradicated, was made subservient to Buddhism, by the legend of how the gigantic king of all the cobras proved his reverence for Gautama by rearing its great hood above his head, to protect him from the sun as he sat lost in meditation. Hence the hydra-headed serpent which forms the canopy of such innumerable images of Buddha.
The Rev. Samuel Langdon mentions that he has known various instances in which the priests or their attendants have kept tame cobras within the enclosure which generally surrounds each sacred Bo-tree, notably at the gigantic tree which overshadows the place where the kings of Kandy were cremated. These gentle pets are fed at regular hours, and it is suspected that the protection afforded them is not unmingled with some feeling of reverence.
In the same way in India, the Brahmin priests find it convenient to sanction proceedings which they cannot prevent, and are present at many ceremonies of the simplest serpent-worship.[123]
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Footnote 123:
Some of which I have described in ‘In the Himalayas,’ pp. 249, 250. Published by Chatto & Windus.
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Both Tamils and Singhalese have a legend of how a cobra and the even more deadly tic polonga came together to a well in a time of great drought, and finding a little girl drawing water, each asked for a drink. This she agreed to draw, provided they would promise never to bite her. Both promised and both drank, and the cobra glided gratefully away, but the treacherous tic bit the child, who died in great agony.
So the cobra is called Nallu pambu, ‘the good snake,’ because he kept his promise, and he and the tic hate one another so cordially that the Singhalese equivalent for the old English saying about hating a thing ‘as the devil hates holy water’ is, ‘They hate one another as the tic hates the polonga.’
It has been suggested that the various proverbs and folklore referring to this enmity really owe their origin to ancient feuds between clans of the Nágas or serpent worshipping tribes who inhabited Ceylon ere its conquest by the Singhalese.
Pollonarua, the mighty medieval city which became the capital of the Isle after the downfall of Anuradhapura, is said to have been named in honour of the two serpents aforesaid—Polon and ná, the polonga and naga—in order to propitiate both.
Some years ago Mr. Layard opened a dagoba near Colombo which was supposed to have been built to commemorate the conversion of the Nága king of Kelany to the faith of Buddha. The treasure-chamber contained some fragments of bone wrapped in thin gold-leaf, a few pearls, gold rings and bits of brass, a brass lamp, a small pyramid made of cement and A CLAY COBRA wrapped up in cotton cloth.
I lingered long, alone with my sketching-block, amid these strangely suggestive surroundings, the stillness broken only by the ceaseless rustling of the trembling leaves, or an occasional stampede of inquisitive monkeys.
The entrance to this sacred enclosure is by a double-roofed red-tiled gateway (what a multitude of reverent pilgrims from far and near have passed through that old portal in the course of these two thousand years!). Just beyond are forty rows of roughly-hewn stone pillars, which even now stand twelve feet above the soil and are doubtless sunk to a depth of many more—a strange and unique sight. In each row there are forty of these granite monoliths, making sixteen hundred in all. Some have fallen, some are half buried among the ruins, but there they are— and these are all that now remain above ground to mark the spot where the stately Brazen Palace once stood, with all its crowds of learned priests. Of course there is not a vestige of the copper which once covered the pillars, nor of the resplendent brazen tiles.
I was told a legend—whether authentic or not I cannot say—that the final destruction of this grand building was due to fire kindled by a queen, who when sore beset by the Malabar armies, and seeing no hope of escape from beleaguering foes, resolved that at least they should not enjoy the pillage of the palace, and so caused all her most precious possessions to be brought here and heaped together, and having with her own hands set fire to this costly funeral pyre, thereon sought death.
Now the desolate ruins are forsaken alike by priests and worshippers. I wandered alone through the labyrinth of grey pillars where only a flock of shaggy, long-legged, reddish goats were nibbling the parched grass, just as I have seen British sheep finding greener pasture beneath the shadow of the mighty rock-temple of our own ancestors at Stonehenge.
XIII. ANURADHAPURA AND MIHINTALE
Isurumuniya—Yoga-stones—Proverbs—Water-lilies—Beautiful jungle shrubs— The Kuttam Pokuna—The oldest tanks—Rainfall—The modern town— Mihintale—Mahindo—The great mountain-stair—Dagobas—Naga Pokuna— Mahindo’s bed—Rock cells—Inscriptions.
Amid such a labyrinth of ruins, all on such level ground, the network of jungle paths would be bewildering were it not for two broad grassy roads which have been cleared, forming an inner and outer circle, so as greatly to facilitate finding all the chief objects of interest.
One of these is Isurumuniya, an ancient temple which, three hundred years before the birth of Christ, was hewn out of a mass of solid rock, by order of King Dewenipiatissa, the ‘Delight of the Gods.’ There are temple buildings and sculptures all about and around the rock, and a number of very remarkable grotesque frescoes—so grotesque and so unlike orthodox Buddhist art that they are attributed to Hindoo sculptors (that is to say, Hindoo in religion: as regards nationality, we know that Wijayo and his Singhalese followers also came to Ceylon from the valley of the Ganges).
The name of this temple, however, seems to mark this spot as one revered by the islanders ere either Buddhism or Brahminism was here established— at least it seems probable that it was derived from ‘Eiswara’ and ‘Muniya,’ i.e., ascetic.
The worship of Eiswara,[124] the Almighty, as still observed on the Saami Rock at Trincomalee, seems to have been the original worship of Ceylon, and probably this rock also was specially sacred from the earliest days. But the Hindoo worshippers of Siva artfully identified Eiswara with Siva, and it is probable that, in some of their many invasions, a community of Sivites may have settled in the neighbourhood of King Tissa’s temple, which otherwise presents all the usual features of Buddhist art—the fine semicircular moon-stone at the base of sculptured stairs, at each flight of which stand the invariable janitors, canopied by a seven-headed cobra.
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Footnote 124:
See Chapter xix.
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Within the Rock Temple sits a small image of Buddha, hewn from the solid rock, and flanked by two very ancient wooden figures, apparently preaching. Four boldly designed elephants’ heads stand out from the rock in low relief, and there are other details of interest.
Near the temple is a pansala, or dwelling house for the priests; but the chief-priest has a galgé, or cell to himself—a most uninviting little room, cut out of the solid rock. These occupy themselves in doing homage to a Sri-patula, or sacred footprint, recently cut on the summit of the rock to represent the footmark on the summit of Adam’s Peak—as also in offering flowers on the altar of a young Bo tree, which has been carefully planted in a crevice of the rock. Some very incongruous foreign-looking modern building has in recent times been erected on the rock, and looks thoroughly out of place in the strange jungle temple.
Amongst the minor objects of interest pointed out to us were certain ‘Yoga’-stones, most puzzling to the uninitiated, as they are simply square stones, each having a certain number of square holes cut into them: these holes vary from nine to twenty-five in number. One might suppose they were designed for playing some game; but those who are learned in Buddhist mysteries tell us that they were an aid to intensify meditation, used by such of the priests as desired to attain the highest grade of sanctity. The method adopted was for the devotee to fill these holes with sweet-oil, sandal-wood, and other ingredients, and then sit hour after hour gazing intently on the stone, till at last the weary dazed eyes began to see a dazzle of light, which gradually increased till the watcher beheld through that medium all the hells and purgatories of the under-world. Then, raising his eyes, he beheld through the same dazzle all the graduated heavens of the demi-gods, and the glory of Buddha in the highest heaven.
I remembered how at Benares I had watched the Brahmin priests practising habsidum, or ‘the retention of breath,’ as a similar method of attaining sanctity! Verily, ‘men have sought out many inventions’!
We were also shown some interesting old stone coffins, made of solid blocks of stone, hollowed out so as just to fit the figure of the dead. The cover, which is more or less sculptured, is a heavy slab of stone cemented to the main block. One of these was said to have been the coffin of King Dutugemunu (of whose death, about B.C. 150, I have already spoken): if so, it speaks little of reverence for the mighty dead that his tomb should have been thus rifled. But most of these have been taken from graves of
Chiefs who under their grey stone So long have slept, that fickle Fame Hath blotted from her rolls their name.
With regard to the king’s sarcophagus, however, there is a tradition that this was not his coffin, but his medicine-bath, in which he lay to counteract the poison of a serpent’s bite. It is to be hoped the bath was ready beforehand!
Recent excavations have brought to light many things intensely interesting to archæologists, such as a very remarkable stone railing, peculiar to Buddhist architecture, various images of Buddha, and portions of ancient buildings. But until quite recently the Goths and Vandals made such free use of any building-stone that seemed suitable for any modern work—bridge-building or repairs—and so many stones, inconvenient to farmers, disappeared, when portions of the jungle were chenaëd (i.e., cleared for temporary cultivation), that the work of excavation and restoration is very much less satisfactory now than it would have been twenty years ago.
Of course nowadays every stone is rigidly protected; but in too many cases this is too late to avert the mischief. By the way, the Singhalese version of ‘locking the door when the steed is stolen’ is ‘fencing the field while the oxen are within devouring the corn.’
Many of the time-honoured proverbs of Europe have their equivalent among the common sayings of the Singhalese. Thus, for ‘Parmi les aveugles les borgnes sont rois,’ we find ‘In the tank where there is no loolā, kanapaddi is the pundit’ (the latter being an insignificant fish as compared with the loolā).
For ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ we have ‘Why awaken sleeping cheetas?’ i.e., leopards. For ‘Chat échaudé craint l’eau froide,’ the Eastern equivalent shows that the man who was beaten with a firebrand shrinks from the glimmer of the firefly.
In place of forbearing to ‘add fuel to the fire,’ these travellers through thorny jungle bid us ‘not sharpen thorns.’
That ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ is suggested by the wisdom which prefers ‘a snipe to-day to an elephant on the morrow,’ and esteems crow’s flesh which is near above peacock’s flesh which is far off.
To ‘run with the hare and hunt with the hounds’ is described by ‘drinking of the river but praising the sea.’
Divers social grades are justified by asking ‘whether all five fingers are of one size?’ while of a man overwhelmed with trouble, it is said, that when the waters have risen above his head it matters little whether their height be a span or a cubit.
Notwithstanding all the new attractions opened up by the extensive clearing of the forest, I almost doubt whether the ancient city can be quite so charming or so romantic now that she has become a centre of so much interest, as in the lonely days of her utter desolation. But certainly there is no doubt as to the advantages for the inhabitants, who from a mere handful of poor, sickly, half-starved villagers, now number about three thousand healthy well-fed people, chiefly owing to the clearing of great tracts of jungle and the restoration of the tanks— the one dispelling malaria, and the other securing a fair supply of good water, which, it is hoped, may ere long be made quite permanent.
At the time of our visit there was sufficient drought to enable us to realise what the lack of water might be. The beautiful river—the Malwatte-oya (‘river of the Garden of Flowers’)—which in time of monsoon rains flows in a rushing flood, was almost dried up, the small artificial lakes had scarcely sufficient water to float the lovely water-lilies, and the minor tanks were altogether dried up.
Oh, the beauty of those water-lilies!—white, blue, yellow, or pink— nestling among their glossy leaves on the still waters. The fragrant, large, pink manel (the true lotus)[125] is, I think, the handsomest of all water-plants. Of course it is not so splendid as the Victoria regia of South America (on the great leaves of which, six feet in diameter, and with upturned rims four or five inches high, Indian mothers deposit their babies while they do the household washing), nor is it so dainty as some of the smaller lilies, with flat glossy leaves; but it certainly is a beautiful object, as, with the first ray of the morning, it rises high above the surface of the water, and unfolds its rosy petals to drink in sunlight all the day, closing them again at sunset, when the blossoms hide beneath the great blue-grey leaves, and I am told, sink beneath the surface of the water.
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Footnote 125:
Nelumbium speciosum.
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When the flower fades the petals fall, leaving a seed-pod the shape of a funnel, and internally divided like a honeycomb, each cell containing one seed about the size of a filbert, and with much the same flavour, only rather more oily, like an almond. The roots are also very good food; but fortunately, the blossom is so much prized for offering in the temple (the lotus being especially sacred to Buddha), that it escapes being pulled up wholesale.
Notwithstanding the drought, all through the jungle every now and again there arose a general fragrance like the scent of a hothouse wafted from blossoms often hidden from sight. But there were a tree and a shrub whose wealth of flower and intensity of colour formed a very marked and attractive feature in the forest. The former, called Cassia fistula, is like a magnificent laburnum, but grows to the size of an English ash-tree, and its bunches of large golden blossom are each about two feet in length. Its foliage is also something like that of the ash. The French name for laburnum—‘golden rain’—would in this case describe a truly tropical shower!
And instead of bearing neat little seeds like our familiar friend, these gorgeous blossoms develop into very peculiar jet-black pods, perfectly cylindrical, and from two to three feet long, divided into a number of compartments, each containing one seed. It has been suggested that the tree at this stage seems as though it had borne an abundant crop of ebony rulers, each suspended to the bough by a short string! There is another species of cassia which bears a shorter thicker pod, only about a foot in length. Each seed of both species is embedded in a sweet, sticky, black pulp, which has valuable medicinal properties. Unfortunately, its bark is also very highly valued for other medical purposes, consequently it is difficult to preserve this beautiful tree near cities, because the natives almost invariably contrive to find some opportunity to peel the poor thing, and leave it to perish.
The other shrub which so fascinated me was one which I have never seen elsewhere; but as its blossoms only last three or four days, I may have passed it often at other times without observing it. During that short period it is covered with such a luxuriant wealth of small flowers of the very purest cobalt blue, that it seems as though a bit of the blue heaven overhead had fallen on this favoured bush. I am told that this lovely plant rejoices in the name of Memecylon tinctorium, and that its glossy green leaves, strange to say, yield a delicate yellow dye; also that it bears dark-blue berries something like our blaeberry, which the natives eat, and which possess astringent qualities.
Another very pretty common jungle shrub is the ipecacuanha, which bears clusters of bright orange-coloured flowers.
And besides the flowers there were the butterflies—such beauties, and so many of them, of such infinite variety!—floating in the hot quivering air. And hot it certainly was beneath the noonday sun, when the atmosphere seemed to our tired eyes to be visibly vibrating and dazzling. Still, by taking rational precautions—such as carrying a large white umbrella, and wearing a damp sponge suspended inside my solar hat, so as to keep a cool damp atmosphere above my head, and a fairly thick jacket to protect the spine—I never found any evil from sitting out sketching the livelong day; and I am inclined to think that women in general live far too much in the dark in tropical countries.[126]
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Footnote 126:
May I be forgiven for referring to one small medical detail, attention to which has, I know, proved my own safeguard in many years of travel. The commonest of all forms of illness in tropical countries is diarrhœa; and the general impulse seems to be at once to check it by the use of brandy or chlorodyne, whereas common-sense might surely suggest that when Nature thus endeavours to throw off some irritant she ought rather to be helped in so doing. I therefore strongly recommend a small bottle of castor-oil in a wooden case as part of every traveller’s indispensable outfit and safeguard—quite as essential as quinine.
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I referred just now to the medicinal use of cassia-bark. The native Singhalese doctors are fully aware of the value of many plants and shrubs, such as the sarsaparilla, nux-vomica, and gamboge tree. The latter yields its golden juice on the bark being stabbed, and its intensely acid fruit is dried and used in curries. The bark of the cashew-tree yields tannin. Charcoal obtained from the burnt root of the jak-tree is a remedy for malignant sores and ulcers.
In 1886 Dr. Trimen, the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, had collected samples of 362 of the vegetable drugs in use among the native village doctors in the Central Province, and considered his series to be by no means complete. They seem to include remedies for every ill that flesh can possibly endure; but though really good in themselves, most are villainously prepared, and so many are given in combination to make up huge doses that they often neutralise one another. Besides, as each phase of the moon is supposed to preside over a different set of organs, remedies are not administered on the day when the patient requires them, but according to astronomical laws. Thus, however necessary may be a purgative medicine, it must on no account be administered on the day when the moon influences the bowels, nor may an emetic be given on the day when the stomach is under lunar control!
In looking over this list, I see sixteen different plants which are accounted remedies in cases of snake-bite: for instance, the resin of the Kekuna[127] is used with other drugs in preparing a vapour-bath in cases of cobra-bite. It is also used as a fumigation to drive away serpents from houses. In cases of bite by the polonga, the poison is expelled by stroking the wound hundreds of times with a bundle of the leaves of the Madatiya.[128] These leaves and the bark also reduce sprains. The flour obtained from the seeds of the Madu[129] is useful in rheumatic affections and polonga bites. The resin of the Bú-hora[130] is applied in cobra-bites, and the oil which oozes from the bark is applied to cattle afflicted with murrain. The leaves of the Kurinnan[131] are used in cases of dysentery and snake-bite, and are eaten as a vegetable by nursing mothers to increase their supply of milk.
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Footnote 127:
Canarium Zeylanicum.
Footnote 128:
Adenanthera pavonina.
Footnote 129:
Cycas circinalis.
Footnote 130:
Dipterocarpus hispidus.
Footnote 131:
Gymnema lactiferum.
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The tuberous roots of the gorgeous Niyangala lily—the Gloriosa superba—are used in snake-bite, and also in difficult cases of childbirth. The Nidi-kumba[132] is distinguished as a REAL CURE for cobra-bite; and it is added that should anything fall into the eye, the sufferer must chew the whole plant, when the foreign body will be driven out. The roots of the Attana (Datura fastuosa) are used as a remedy against the bite of mad dogs, and also as a cure for insanity. The whole plant dried and smoked as tobacco is a useful remedy in cases of asthma.
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Footnote 132:
Mimosa pudica.
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However, I need not pursue this subject further. Suffice it to say that those native prescriptions, many of which are of great antiquity, and have been handed down from generation to generation, provide for every conceivable ailment—from a wasp’s sting, a hiccough, or a headache to all stages of indigestion, fever, cutaneous diseases, and internal complications.
But while speaking of divers remedies, I may mention that though the Singhalese pharmacopœia is apparently free from such horrible decoctions of animals as figured so largely in the materia medica of our own ancestors,[133] some curious recipes for the preparation of charms are quite in the style of our best witch’s cauldrons. Here, for instance, is one for the preparation of a deadly poison known as the cobra-tel, which was obtained by Mr. Morris in 1840, on the occasion of a trial for murder by means of this poison.
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Footnote 133:
I have quoted many examples of extraordinary ‘Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms’ in a paper on ‘Strange Medicines’ in ‘The Nineteenth Century’ for June 1887.
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First of all, a cock must be sacrificed to the yakkos or demons. Then live venomous snakes—the hooded cobra, the cara wella, and the tic polonga—must be taken, and a sharp cut made on the head of each. They are then suspended alive over a chattie, that their poison may drip into it. To this is added arsenic and other drugs, together with the froth from the lips of three wretched kabragoyas (gigantic lizards), which are tied up on three sides of the fire, with their heads towards it, and are tormented with whips to make them hiss that the fire may blaze. All these horrid ingredients are then mixed and boiled in a human skull, and so soon as the oily scum rises to the surface the cobra-tel is ready.
The fat of the kabragoya applied externally is good for various skin diseases, but taken internally is accounted poisonous. (It is said, however, that the Veddahs eat a kabragoya with as much relish as we would eat a hare.)
A horrid magic love-potion is said to be prepared by Singhalese sorcerers from the large beautiful eyes of the little loris—nice little furry beasts which creep slowly about on trees, and roll themselves up like a ball, to sleep. It is said that the barbarous mode of preparing the love-charm is by holding the poor little creature close to the fire till its eyeballs burst.
Special virtue is believed to attach to a Narri-comboo or jackal’s horn—a small horny cone, about half an inch long, which occasionally grows on the head of a jackal, and is hidden by a tuft of hair. Both Singhalese and Tamils believe that this horny knob is a talisman, and that the happy man who owns one is certain to have every wish fulfilled, and his jewels and other treasures are safe from robbers.
As regards medicines obtained from animal substances, the musk-gland of the civet cat is greatly prized in certain maladies; peacock’s flesh is considered desirable food for persons suffering from contraction of the joints; and bezoar stones, which are smooth dark-green concretions, occasionally found inside of monkeys and other animals, are greatly esteemed in Ceylon, as well as in India, as an antidote to poison.
I may add that with the Ceylon Medical College annually turning out its complement of medical students, highly trained in all the learning of European schools, such details as these are happily fast receding to their right place as antiquarian curiosities, soon, we may hope, to be as wholly memories of the past as are the grey ruins of this ancient city.
Among the various remarkable objects to which I have not alluded, I must mention a group of tall grey monoliths standing upright, each 16 feet above ground, and 2 feet square, the mere placing of which must have been a wondrous difficulty. They must have supported some palace; but now large trees, matted with jungle-vines like enormous ropes, have grown up amongst them.
Still more worthy of note are the Kuttam Pokuna, or twin bathing-places— two beautifully constructed tanks, lined with great stones laid in terraces, and flights of steps, with handsome balustrade descending from every side to where water once was. The twins are only separated by a narrow grassy path. The largest is 132 feet long by 51 feet wide, and the depth is about 30 feet. I thought this strange ruin of ancient luxury, now encompassed by the great lonely forest, was as remarkable a scene as any in the jungle city. One of these tanks has now been restored as a bathing-place, and the other is left as an interesting archæological study.
Not very far from here sits a great dark stone image of Buddha, quite by itself in the heart of the forest.
Smaller pokunas are found in connection with almost all the old buildings.
Of course the semi-marshy artificial lakes were very attractive spots, none the less so for the numerous dark objects which, on nearer inspection, invariably turned out to be crocodiles! These are from 12 to 18 feet in length, and by no means pleasant bathing companions. I think Anuradhapura owns eight large tanks, and a good many small ones: about three of the former may be dignified with the name of lake.
The oldest of all is that now known as the Basawa-kulam, but originally as the Abaya-wewa, constructed B.C. 505 by King Panduwaasa. (I may mention that kulam and wewa both mean tank.) The second and third were the Jaya-wewa and the Gamini tank, both constructed about B.C. 437 by Panduka-abaya. Then, about B.C. 300, King Dewenipiatissa made the Tissa-wewa, which is more than three miles in circumference. (This was restored in 1878.)
Within a short distance of the town lies the Nuwara-wewa, ‘the city tank,’ which is supposed to be the aforesaid Jaya-wewa, a very pretty tank-lake, covered with water-lilies, and with sedgy shores haunted by many wild-fowl. It lies embosomed in forest, beyond which rise Mihintale and other blue hills. We rode to see its interesting old sluice, 2,000 years old, but were nearly sickened by the horrid smell of bats.
Now, thanks to the energy of the recent governors, all these tanks have been restored, and are in good working order. The Giant’s Canal, the Yoda Ela, brings the blessed water from the great reservoir at Kala-wewa to supply Tissa-wewa, whence it is distributed to the other tanks, great and small. Three of the latter are severally reserved, one for cooking and drinking, a second for bathing, the third for washing clothes, and for horses and cattle. Every Sunday evening all these are emptied, the water finding its way back to the river. Then the tanks are refilled with fresh water from Tissa-wewa. To avoid the possibility of pollution, no one is allowed to take water from the lake itself.
As regards the direct gifts of the clouds, the rainfall of Anuradhapura averages 54 inches; 50 inches falling in the course of a hundred days annually. Its longest period of drought in recent days was from May to September, 1884, when the land endured 121 ‘fine sunny days.’ (Manaar in the far north gets on an average 15 inches less rain, and so recently as 1887 it numbered 159 consecutive days of blazing scorching sun! Well may its inhabitants pray for the speedy restoration and multiplication of their irrigation works.)
Responsive to the gift of water, the greatful land now yields her increase in abundant crops of luxuriant rice; the Government Hospital reports fewer and fewer patients from malarial fevers, parangi, and other diseases due to dirt and hunger, bad air, bad water, and bad food; and in a corner of the long desolate city there has arisen a pleasant modern town, with post office, telegraph, courthouse, rest-house, Church Mission school, and neat, well-ordered bazaars.
I recently heard a little incident of that school, very suggestive of the work it is doing, as one has said, in confronting the dreary negations of Buddha with the glorious affirmations of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was on the occasion of the first baptism in the school. When it became known that two or three boys had resolved to accept Christ as their Master, some of the leading boys called on all to declare themselves. ‘Let Buddha’s boys come to Buddha’s side, and let Christ’s boys go to Christ’s side,’ they said. All except two went to Buddha’s side. Then said the others, ‘What! only you two?’ And then one began to waver, and his courage failed him.
When the time came for the candidates for baptism to present themselves, both lads came forward, but one objected. ‘You denied the Lord,’ he said. Humbly and contritely the penitent answered, ‘I was tempted, and I was overcome. I repent, and I believe.’ So both were baptised in presence of many witnesses, and these were the first-fruits of the Christian school in Anuradhapura.
When, on July 4, 1891, Sir Arthur Havelock, the present Governor, paid his first visit to this historic city, he was received by the children of this school singing ‘God save the Queen,’ and by a great gathering of the people. All the tanks were full, everything around was fresh and green. At every turn there were graceful arches of welcome, decorated with the choicest spoils of the forest; the broad grassy roads were in perfect order; and at night these and the principal buildings and one of the great dagobas were all illuminated, a grand display of fireworks completing the attractions of the scene. Of course native music and dancing were inevitable, but there was the consolation of knowing that if the guests did not fully enjoy these details, the entertainers did so themselves.
Leaving Anuradhapura, we rode eight miles eastward to Mihintale, a rocky mountain which from time immemorial has been held in the highest veneration. It is about a thousand feet high, densely clothed with forest, and crowned with huge granite rocks. It is alluded to in pre-historic legends as the Cliff of Ambatthalo, and was the sanctuary where, long ere the dawn of the present era of Buddhism, the Buddhas of earlier ages appeared for the enlightenment of races whose name and history are alike forgotten.
Consequently, when in B.C. 307 Mahindo, ‘the royal missionary,’ King Asoca’s son, was impelled to leave his father’s court at Patali-puri (now Patna), to make known the doctrines of Buddha, he was miraculously transported through the air and deposited on the summit of this mountain which now bears his name. It so happened that King Dewenipiatissa was hunting the great sambur deer, when a devo, or good spirit, assuming the form of a deer, enticed him onward almost to the summit of the mountain, when Mahindo appeared to him and spoke so persuasively, that the king was converted then and there, and forty thousand of his people immediately followed suit.
Naturally the mountain where such a miracle had occurred became the centre around which gathered all manner of saintly men and supernatural legends. The ascent from the base to the summit, once so toilsome, was made easy by the piety of royal pilgrims; and now a rudely laid stair of 1,840 great slabs of dark gneiss rock enables one to mount without the slightest difficulty: indeed, it is possible to ride to the summit, which doubtless accounts for many of the steps being broken and somewhat displaced. Each of these great stones averages 18 feet in length, some are over 20 feet. Near the summit the steps are hewn in the solid rock. Ancient records attribute this good work to King Maha Dailiya, whose reign ended A.D. 20. But inasmuch as this mountain has been held sacred from time immemorial, it is supposed that in the dim twilight of remote antiquity many successive generations contributed their share to facilitating the ascent, so probably it is partly of incalculable age.
That grand stairway is of itself a most striking picture, with pilgrims and yellow-robed priests ascending and descending, and the dark forest overshadowing it on either side, while great weird tree cacti stretch out far-reaching arms, like uncanny spirits. Some of these have stems from three to four feet in circumference.
In the days of old, the whole distance from Anuradhapura to Mihintale was one continuous street, along which passed solemn processions, pausing to worship at countless shrines and temples; for traditions cluster thick along the way, and on the mountain itself every crag is sacred: and so they toiled up the long stairs, as we also did, but I fear less reverently, till they reached the Etwehera dagoba on the top of the highest peak, and there adored one single hair plucked from a mole which grew between Buddha’s eyebrows, and which, in the year 1 A.D., was enshrined in this mass of solid brickwork, about 100 feet high, by the devout Rajah Battiyatissa.
He was so pleased with his work, that when it was completed he is said to have enveloped it in a jewelled covering ornamented with pearls, and to have spread a carpet all the way from the sacred rock to Anuradhapura, that pilgrims might walk thence with unsoiled feet!
Happily there was no difficulty in obtaining water near the summit wherewith to wash soiled feet, for the Naga Pokuna, or snake bathing-place, lies near the path. It is a pool about 130 feet in length hewn out of the rock, and guarded by a mighty five-headed cobra, sculptured in high relief from the background of dark rock. It is only about seven feet high and six feet across the hood, but somehow it looks much larger as it rises from the dark still pool, where small white lilies float so peacefully. It impressed itself on my memory as a very suggestive picture.
I found a good point for a comprehensive picture from the Maha-Seya dagoba, overlooking two great dagobas built on huge rounded shoulders of rock, and surrounded by tall fruit-bearing cocoa-palms, whose presence at this height, and so far inland, is very unusual; and far beyond all extended the vast panorama of the great plain. From another point I overlooked the site of the distant city itself, with its glittering lakes, and the great monuments towering above the level expanse of forest. But here the chief interest centred round one of those near dagobas—namely, the Ambustele—which is of graceful form, and differs from most others in that it is built of stone instead of the usual brick. It is surmounted with the customary pinnacle—circular on a square base; and around it are grouped about fifty very slender octagonal pillars, some of which retain their finely sculptured capitals, on which the sacred goose figures alternately with grotesque human beings. Some of these had fallen, and lay half buried in creeping plants.
This dagoba is said to have been erected on the very spot where Mahindo and the king first met, and is supposed to contain the ashes of the royal Teacher, who died here B.C. 267.
It was decidedly hot on that hill-top, and never was drink more acceptable than were the cool young cocoa-nuts provided for us by the considerate priests. It is one of the ever-recurring miracles in the Tropics, that all newly gathered fruit—especially cocoa-nuts, pineapples, oranges, and mangoes—are so deliciously cool when first gathered, even under a scorching sun; but within a very few minutes after being separated from the parent stem all their freshness vanishes, and they are subject to the laws of heat like all other things animate and inanimate.
A singularly dangerous and uncomfortable ledge on a high rock-summit was pointed out as having been the bed of the royal priest. It is canopied by another rock-mass, forming a natural arch over it; but the rocky bed is but 5 feet by 2, with a precipice on either side, suggestive rather of penitential vigil than of repose. However, for any one thoroughly awake and owning a good head, it is a fine resting-place, commanding a grand view. It is said that on a very clear day you can see the ocean on either side to east and west. On the one hand you overlook the widespread forest with patches of level rice-fields, and the road along which, two thousand years ago, King Tissa sent his chariot to bring Mahindo from his mountain sanctuary to the capital, and along which the Lady Abbess, Princess Sanghamitta, travelled with her company of nuns and all their retinue to deposit on Mihintale the sixteen precious relics which were to add sanctity to the holy hill. On the other side lies a deep ravine, where huge masses of grey gneiss or granite lie partly veiled by luxuriant creepers.
One high shoulder of the mountain is crossed with such enormous angular boulders, that one marvels how they can possibly have got there. They are suggestive of the blocs perchés left by old glaciers; but I believe there is no trace in Ceylon of any glacial action. Campbell of Islay, speaking of all this district, says: ‘The plains are studded with hills which are rocks; many of these are rounded as rocks are in glaciated countries. On top of some are large loose stones of the same rock, gneiss—nothing but gneiss and angular débris of gneiss. Some have caves which look like sea-caves.... These rocks, plains, and hills might easily be mistaken for glacial work; ... but in travelling over 600 miles in Ceylon, I could find no mark whatever of glaciation.... I looked for ice marks, and found none.... After careful study, I believe them to be the work of the Indian Ocean, aided by a tropical sun and tropical rains.’
I may mention that this gneiss is capable of taking a beautiful polish, and specimens from the Mahara quarries near Colombo (which furnished material for the great breakwater) show a most harmonious blending of grey, green, and black; while a short distance to the north, near Heneretgodda, there is a fine granitic gneiss like our own red granite.
Not far from ‘Mahindo’s bed’ we came to a curious galge, or rock-cut chamber, where ascetics of old must have lived in much discomfort. It looks as if there had originally been a small cave, and this has been divided into cells, with portals of solid masonry, altogether out of proportion to the humble interior. A number of tall stone pillars seem to have supported a temple, and water was supplied by the Kaludiya Pokuna close by. Now a group of banyan-trees have taken possession of the rock; and their white twisted stems and roots form a strange network overspreading the whole, while a large colony of bats hold undisputed possession of the rocky cells.
Birds of bright plumage chatter in the trees, careless butterflies float in the sunshine, squirrels and lizards of various sorts dart to and fro, and give a touch of life to the deserted shrines; while sundry wild-flowers and graceful silver and maidenhair ferns adorn many a crevice in the rocks and in the crumbling ruins.
These are too numerous to name. One group, however, impressed itself vividly on my mind—namely, the Gal Sannaso looking up a flight of steps through the jungle to two great upright oblong stone slabs, whereon are sculptured inscriptions in the ancient Pali, granting lands to the temple. All around are the usual lot of tall monolithic pillars, which seem to have once supported a temple protecting these ‘stone books,’ and high above all towers a red crumbling dome, seen through a framework of dark foliage.
Such inscriptions are numerous, both on rocks and on old buildings. Some are in the Nagara or square character, said to have been introduced by Mahindo himself. On a huge rock slab near the Naga Pokuna there is a very lengthy inscription, supposed to have been cut about A.D. 262, in the reign of King Sri Sangabo, recording curiously minute regulations for the daily lives of the priests, and the ordering of all matters, temporal and spiritual, concerning the Buddhist monasteries and temples in this place. So many cells are assigned to each ecclesiastical rank— the readers, the expounders, the preachers—each of whom took up a separate branch: some taught metaphysics, and some Buddhist law. The hour of rising, subjects for meditation, ceremonial ablution, the correct manner of assuming the yellow robe, the morning service in the temple, the breakfast on rice and congee (rice-water), and the care of sick priests, are all minutely detailed. So also are the duties of the servants, the cooks, the workmen, the overseers of the village, and all who had services and offices allotted to them.
It is enacted that none who follow the chase, kill poultry or otherwise destroy life, shall be permitted to dwell near the mountain. All matters relating to temple lands and offerings are minutely regulated; and it is required that all details of daily expenditure shall be entered in account books, which shall be collected monthly, and that in like manner the year’s accounts shall be duly examined and verified by the assembled priests.
Another long inscription specifies the exact allowance of rice, and of money for the purchase of flowers, to be made to every person engaged in the service of the temple, from the bana (i.e., preaching) priest down to the hewers of wood and drawers of water. In this list we find mention of the persons who furnish lime, the plasterers, and the whitewashers— those who spread the cloths on the floor, and those who do likewise for the ceiling; there is the shoemaker who keeps the monastery in sandals; the chief thatcher and the eleven inferior thatchers; the five potters, who are to furnish five earthenware chatties daily, and another who supplies ten water-pots each month; a new water-strainer is also supplied every month. To some of these are allotted temple lands for cultivation.
Amongst the inmates of the monastery we find mention of the warder of the granary, the warder of the preaching-house, the receivers of the revenues, various clerks, a manager of the festivals, an upper servant, ‘who communicates orders to the twenty-four menials,’ several watchmen, twelve cooks, the man who procures fuel, the man who goes errands, and last, not least, a physician, who receives what appears to be a good allowance, besides holding a farm, whereas the surgeon receives less than a common watchman or a thatcher.
The laundry department is not forgotten—the washing of cloths, vestments, and bed-linen is all ordered; but the most characteristic details are those which provide for the regular supply of incense, oil, and flowers for daily offering at each of the sacred shrines. The cultivator of lotus flowers in the village Sapoogamiya undertakes to furnish one hundred and twenty blossoms each month, while some one else ekes out a living by daily sweeping away the withered flowers.
How little those who graved these words on the enduring rock foresaw that, after the lapse of sixteen centuries, when they themselves were altogether forgotten, pale-faced men from far away isles would come to decipher this record of their domestic regulations!
XIV. RATNAPURA—GEMS
To Ratnapura—The City of Rubies—Adam’s Peak apparently triple— Rest-houses—Full moon festival—Fireflies and glow-worms—Visit to the gem pits—Red sapphires and blue rubies—Other gems.
The Bishop most kindly arranged that I should accompany him and his daughter on one of his extensive rounds of visitation, riding and driving circuitously right across Ceylon; the journey from Colombo on the west coast, to Batticaloa on the east of the Isle, to occupy a month; thence travelling inland through the district of Tamankadua to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Pollanarua, and so viâ Trincomalee to Jaffna, in the extreme north of the isle.
We accordingly started from Colombo in the beginning of August, following the course of the beautiful Kelani River right inland, i.e., due east, halting the first night at Hanwella, and the next at Avissawella, all the time rejoicing in lovely river scenery, embowered in most luxuriant and infinitely varied foliage—all manner of palms, feathery bamboos with bright yellow stems, and fine trees, with the richest undergrowth of bananas, ferns, caladium, and innumerable beautiful plants.
One fairy-like detail was the abundance of exquisitely delicate climbing ferns, of several varieties, which in some places literally mat the jungle and veil tall trees with their graceful drapery. One of these is identical with that whose beauty is so fully recognised by the Fijians that they call it the Wa Kalou, ‘the fern of God,’ and in heathen days wreathed it around the ridge-pole of their temples.
In Ceylon it is cut wholesale, and laid as a covering over thatch, its long, glossy, black stems, like coarse horse-hair, acting as rain conductors. Near Avissawella I sketched a very peculiar covered bridge, with wooden pillars supporting a high thatched roof, which was thus protected.
Our route lay thence south-east to Ratnapura, skirting so near the base of Adam’s Peak that we obtained a succession of grand views of it towering above white clouds beyond the nearer wooded ranges. As seen from this side, a group of three stately peaks tower so conspicuously above all their blue brethren, that they seem to form one majestic triple mountain, and one of these peaks, known as the Bana Samanala, or ‘nephew’ of the Sacred Mount, appears somewhat higher than the true Sri Pada (the mountain of the Holy Foot).[134] A grand view of this group is obtained from below a wooden bridge at Ratnapura, looking up the Kalu-Ganga or Black River, the whole framed in dark trees, whose stems and boughs are covered with parasitic ferns. Picturesque groups of natives of divers nationality, in bright draperies and with gaily-coloured umbrellas or palm-leaf sunshades, crossing the bridge, add life to the scene. All around are abrupt rocks, high peaks, and hills clothed with forest. A small fort on a rocky hillock protected the village at its base during the Kandyan wars, and is now a pleasant spot from which to watch a peaceful sunset.
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Footnote 134:
See Chapter xxv.
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(After leaving Ratnapura, still driving in a south-easterly direction, these three peaks, now more distant, tower to a greater and apparently uniform height, with fewer intervening ranges. For the benefit of future sketchers, I may mention that they are seen to great advantage from the 57-1/4 mile-post, with a foreground of luxuriant rice-fields surrounded with clumps of bamboo and all manner of palms.)
Here, as in all mountainous countries, one’s enjoyment of these glimpses of the upper regions is perhaps intensified by their uncertainty. After watching a glorious sunrise or sunset, when these lofty summits are glorified by the flood of golden light, or one of those clear mornings when every crag and ravine can be plainly discerned, you turn away for a little while, and when you look again, there is nothing whatever to suggest the existence of a mountain—only quiet banks of fleecy clouds. So he who would sketch such scenes must have his materials ever at hand, and take for his motto, ‘Ready, aye ready.’
We found all the rest-houses along this route delightfully situated, and commanding such views that there was comparatively little temptation to leave their cool shade during the hottest hours of the day. As I write, I have before me sketches of the Kalu-Ganga from the rest-house at Ratnapura, of the Kelani-Ganga from Hanwella Fort, and many another suggestion of cloud-reflecting rivers and dreamy shores, where foliage of all loveliest forms blend in visions of delight.
These rest-houses for the accommodation of travellers are kept up all along the principal roads, under the occasional supervision of a committee of the gentlemen in charge of the district roads. They are each in charge of a native, with one or more coolies to assist him. The furnishings consist of table, chairs, crockery, knives, forks, spoons, and very rude bedsteads, every traveller being supposed to carry his own bedding and mosquito-nets. Where there is bedding, it is essential to turn over the cushions and anything of the nature of a mattress, as being only too likely to conceal centipedes and scorpions—possibly snakes. The rest-house keeper provides food, but of course in unfrequented districts it is only fair to let him have notice beforehand when guests may be expected. Each detail is charged according to a fixed tariff.
On the principal roads some of these houses are quite luxurious, but in out-of-the-way districts we halted at some which were very much the reverse. Some of the road bungalows yield shelter and nothing more; for instance, that at Aralupitya, on the Batticaloa road, which consisted of two minute rooms of sun-dried mud (whitewashed), one on each side of the open space which acted as dining-room. Happily the projecting thatch, supported on rude wooden posts, afforded some shelter from the blazing sun. Of course such houses are liable to be inhabited by many creatures, more objectionable than even swarms of flies, and their natural spider foes, while the high-pitched thatch is invariably the home of a menagerie of divers reptiles, from graceful little lizards to large and energetic rat-snakes, which are the true rat-catchers of Ceylon. The verandahs of even the best rest-houses are invariably haunted by pariah dogs and carrion crows, all too familiar, and all seeking what they may devour. An ambulam is a rude rest-house for native travellers, raised eight or ten feet on a foundation of masonry, so as to be above the miasma which always clings to the ground.
However, I need not have digressed into the matter of rest-houses while speaking of Ratnapura, where we were so speedily carried off to the charming home of a most kind family (Mrs. Atherton). A very pretty Singhalese princess, Kumarahami Eckmalagoda, came with her father, Eckneligoda, to luncheon, and to invite us to their house for the evening festivities, namely, the Perahara, or procession in honour of the August full moon.
These continue every evening for a week. I have already described the festival as observed at Kandy,[135] when the treasures from all the temples are carried to the river, and at an auspicious moment the priests cut the water with golden swords, and rapidly empty and refill their temple water-vessel at the very spot thus struck.
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Footnote 135:
See Chapter x.
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At Ratnapura the ceremony was very weird. First there was a rather pretty dance by a company of women. These were quickly succeeded by a very horrible apparition of men dressed to represent demons and wearing hideous masks suggestive of divers diseases. It is odd to see the conventional expression by which every variety of bodily ailment is depicted—fever by a red face, deafness by a vacant look, lameness or paralysis by twisted faces, idiotcy by distorted features, projecting eyes, and mouth drawn up.
The masquers who thus personated the powers of evil each carried a three-pronged flaming torch, which they brandished while dancing a wild whirling dance, occasionally refreshing the torches by throwing on them a resinous gum, which produced a burst of flame and smoke. The whole scene was truly demoniacal.
After the dance we adjourned to the temple, which is a Dewale or Saami house (i.e., a house of Hindoo gods), with a small Buddhist Vihara alongside.
I think that no priest of either religion was present, only temple headmen, of whom our host, Eckneligoda, was chief. First from the Buddhist temple a silver relic-shrine was brought forth with great pomp, carried by the temple headman, before whose footsteps white carpets were spread and sprinkled with white jessamine blossom; above the relic was borne a white canopy and an umbrella.
Then from the temple of Saman Dewiyo, alias Rama, a much-venerated gilt bow and three arrows were solemnly brought forth. They are said to have been placed here by Rama himself after he had therewith slain Rawana, the demon king of Lanka, who had carried off the beautiful Sita, wife of Rama. These precious relics were sprinkled with the holy water preserved since the previous year, and placed in the mysterious ark, very much like those used in Arkite ceremonies in the Himalayas. It is really a palanquin with rich hangings, about 4 feet 6 inches by 20 inches, and slung on a central pole. The four bearers who carried it were each robed in white, and had their mouth covered with a strip of white linen. The foremost couple carried a large silver umbrella of honour. A strip of white carpet was also spread for these to walk on.
Each temple possesses one of these sacred arks, which is only used on this festival. We had seen a party of pilgrims start from Colombo some time previously, in order to reach Kataragam, far in the south-east, in time for this feast, and they carried their deo or god in a similar ark.
The precious arrow having been satisfactorily started, the bow was next carried downstairs with equal solemnity, and the mystic wand of the Kapuwas followed. Then the small Juggernath car was dragged out—rather a pretty object, only 12 feet high, with a crimson body on very large gilt wheels, and forming a three-storeyed square pagoda, each storey having a white roof with bells at the corners.
Amid much blowing of horns and shouting, the procession then formed in the moonlight, elephants bearing headmen who carried large honorific umbrellas above precious objects, devil-dancers with astounding head-masks going before the ark, and men on foot carrying more umbrellas, one of which overshadowed another precious arrow. They made a sun-wise procession round the temple, and then, as it was Saturday night and somewhat late, we had to come away.
The drive home by moonlight, through vegetation of marvellous loveliness, was a dream of beauty, and the breeze was scented with a general perfume of orange blossom, citron, and lime, blossoms of the areka palm, temple flowers, and jessamine, each by turn sending us a breath of delicious fragrance; and the dark foliage overhead and around us was illuminated by the dainty green lanterns of myriads of luminous beetles, flashing to and fro in mazy dance, like glittering sparks, while from many a roadside bank came the far more brilliant, but likewise intermittent, light which tells of the presence of a glow-worm, a fat white grub about two inches in length. As in the case of our own garden centipede, the light is more attractive than the light-bearer.
When captured, the light of the Ceylonese firefly proves to be a very tiny glimmer, but that of the glow-worm is so brilliant as to enable one to read even small print by its light. Scientific men have experimented as to whether this light was extinguished on the death of the creature, and so have killed poor glow-worms, and extracted from the tail a gelatinous fluid so highly phosphorescent that they could read by its light.
I returned on Monday to the Dewali to sketch the car and the ark, and found a great fair going on, at which I invested in sundry oddities.
But previously the great Gem-Notary of Ratnapura (owner of three-fourths of the native town) had sent his carriage in the early morning to convey us to his gem-pits, where white awnings had been erected, carpets spread, and all made ready that we might sit in the utmost comfort to see the whole process of digging and washing the gemmiferous gravel, and its various stages of examination. First the ‘illan,’ as it is called, is dug up, and placed in wicker baskets, which are washed in a stream close by to get rid of the clay; then the gravel is washed in long sloping wooden troughs, with divisions, at intervals, of perforated zinc, with holes of various sizes. By these first the largest and then the smaller stones are kept back, so that only the fine gravel passes through the last grating, thence to be transferred to the final trough for critical inspection.
It is a curious sight to see the keen, eager faces of the Moormen (Mahommedans), to whom most of the gem-pits belong, and who sit perched on raised seats overlooking the great troughs wherein a long row of coolies (all but naked) are sifting and washing the gravel, which, perchance, may yield some priceless gem, only to be recognised in its rough exterior by experienced eyes, but which a clever coolie would detect as quickly as his master, so that the latter needs to practise keen vigilance to prevent any attempt at concealment of treasure-trove. Should his attention be distracted for a second, some precious gem may be swallowed, as the only possible means of securing it. So the man on duty sits with hawk-like eyes intently fixed on the trough, and must not even wink till his successor relieves guard. Another walks about keeping a general look-out, just to ‘mak’ sicker.’
These Moormen, who are fine, tall, well-built men, dressed in white, with high white calico hats and large sun-umbrellas, look quite the superior race among their squad of workers, with neither clothes nor turbans. They keep the trade of polishing and cutting gems chiefly in their own hands; the commoner stones are intrusted to provincial lapidaries, but all really good gems are forwarded to the masters of the art, most of whom live in Colombo. Unfortunately they adhere with rigid conservatism to their primitive tools and system of cutting, so as to retain the largest possible size and weight at the sacrifice of brilliancy; consequently the size of Ceylon gems is generally greatly reduced, and their value equally enhanced, when they have been re-cut by European lapidaries.
No stone of any value was found on the occasion of our visit, but the Gem-Notary invited us to breakfast at his house, and there exhibited his own priceless collection of sapphires of every size and shade of colour, and also showed us the whole process of cutting and polishing. This great ‘gemmer’ is said to have amassed a fortune of twenty lacks of rupees. He confesses to having cleared 800,000 rupees from one alluvial mine near Ratnapura; and one of his relatives pointed out some huge gneiss rocks from beneath which he had washed out 20,000 rupees’ worth of sapphires, the average price in Ceylon of a good sapphire being £6 a carat; but of course a specially fine or large stone commands a purely fancy price, according to what some wealthy purchaser may be willing to pay for it. Ceylon is, par excellence, ‘The Land of the Sapphire,’ these being so abundant and rubies comparatively rare, therein proving the converse of Burmah, where the ruby is pre-eminent and sapphires comparatively scarce.
Ratnapura, as is implied by its name, ‘The City of Rubies,’ is the centre of the district chiefly noted for the abundance and value of the precious stones which have been found in its alluvial deposits, chiefly in the beds of clay or of fine gravel washed down from inaccessible mountain crags—which of course suggests that if these only could be reached, such wealth of gems could be obtained as would outshine all fables of Eastern romance.
Though gem-bearing deposits exist in other provinces, and many precious stones are annually collected from the beds of rivers and from extemporised gem-pits in many parts of the Isle, this province of Sabaragamuwa and some parts of the Morawa Korale have supplied the largest number and the most perfect gems.
I believe that in no other country is there found so great a variety of gems as in Ceylon; in fact, true diamonds, emeralds, and turquoise are said to be the only absentees. Sapphires, rubies, topazes, amethysts, garnet, alexandrite, chalcedony, chrysoberyl, pleonaste, jacinth, carbuncle, diamond-spar, aquamarine, cat’s-eyes, moonstones, and tourmalines are abundant, and every now and again some fortunate ‘gemmer’ picks up a treasure worth a fortune. The total absence of diamonds is singular, as the famous Golconda diamond-mines lie so near in Southern India.
But Nature keeps all these treasures enfolded in such ugly crusts that only a practised eye can ever guess which of all the fragments of coarse gravel is in truth the priceless gem. I think that the garnet and its first cousin, the cinnamon-stone, are almost the only exceptions to this jealous concealment. Here and there in the forests of the eastern and southern provinces there lie masses of gneiss which literally gleam in the sunlight by reason of myriads of tiny sparkling garnets embedded in the rock. The cinnamon-stone presents itself in the same unveiled style, certain great rock-masses being so thickly encrusted therewith that gem collectors occasionally carry off large pieces in order to extract the cinnamon-stones at their leisure.
Very beautiful masses of garnets were found while cutting the tunnels on the new line of railway above Haputale, with individual crystals about a quarter of an inch in length, and there too were found lumps of quartz ranging in colour from a rich red to a milky white, and some of a clear blue, said to prove the presence of true cobalt.
If only Mother Earth would yield all her crystals ready polished like the glittering garnet, then Ceylon would really be a fairy Isle of Gems; for not only do her hidden treasures include almost every recognised precious stone save the three I have named, but her list acquires inconceivable variety owing to Nature’s freaks in the matter of colouring, whereby she assimilates different stones so closely as to prove hopelessly confusing to the eye of any ordinary mortal.
For instance, when we talk of sapphires, we naturally think of lovely rich blue crystals; and though it is easy to recognise as legitimate members of the family innumerable shades ranging from the deepest invisible blue, too dark to be of any ornamental use, to the palest clear azure, it becomes extremely perplexing to be shown pure white crystals, strangely resembling diamonds, and yellow crystals, exactly like cairngorms or topazes, and to be assured that they are all sapphires. Mr. E. W. Streeter, who is the great authority on these matters, enumerates the colours of Ceylon sapphires as ‘azure-blue, indigo, dark-red, violet-blue, poppy-red, cochineal, carmine, rose-red to rose-white, milk-white, yellow-white, French-white, lemon-yellow, and green!’ I have also seen a clouded sapphire of a greenish opalesque colour, said to be due to water in the stone.
In like manner true rubies are found of every shade of colour. A spinel naturally suggests a lovely rose-coloured gem, but here we may see sparkling bright blue spinels. In point of commercial value the rose-tinted rubies of Ceylon rank lower than the blood-red rubies of Burmah, and I am told that the Singhalese have discovered a method of enriching their colour by wrapping them in shell-lime and exposing them to intense heat. The Ceylonese stone, however, is considered to excel that of Burmah in brilliancy and fire, and very valuable blood-red rubies are sometimes found. One weighing 26 carats, and valued at £5,000, was found at Ratnapura in 1889.
There is one variety both of ruby and sapphire which is, I am told, peculiar to Ceylon, namely, the asteria or star-ruby and star-sapphire, both of which, when skilfully cut and polished, reveal a luminous six-rayed star of light on a blue or red ground. It is a very lovely gem.
I do not know whether the starry rays are due to the same cause as the beautiful light in the luminous olive-green cat’s-eye; that, I am told, is attributed to the presence of particles of asbestos, a theory which seems confirmed by the successful imitation of this gem which is manufactured from crocidolite, a mineral closely related to asbestos.
On the other hand, the Chinese succeed in so cutting a pearly shell as to produce a very pretty so-called cat’s-eye, with a luminous internal ray.
The true cat’s-eye is peculiar to Ceylon. Very fine stones are often found at Ratnapura and in Rakwane, though the finest specimens have generally been found in the gem-pits of Morowa Korale district, considerably farther south. This is one of the gems the value of which is specially affected by the caprice of European fashion, according to which its price rises and falls in a manner exasperating to gem speculators. In the Oriental market, however, it holds a steady place, being especially prized by the Malays.
In 1889 a splendid cat’s-eye was found in the coffee district of Dikoya, said to be the largest and most valuable yet discovered. It was picked up by a man who was unloading a cart of earth, and at once sold for thirty rupees. The purchaser resold it for 700 rupees, and the next owner secured for it 3,000. In its uncut state it weighed 475 carats. When cut, it was reduced to 170 carats, and was purchased for 9,000 rupees by a merchant who valued it for the London market at 30,000 rupees. A small piece of the original stone weighing 6-1/2 carats was sold for 600 rupees. (The nominal value of the rupee is 2_s._, but owing to the depreciation of silver its value when transmitted to England is at present about 1_s._ 5_d._)
Another lovely luminous stone, supposed to have been formerly found in other countries, but now, I believe, only in Ceylon, is the moonstone, which has a soft silvery lustre suggestive of moonlight. It is found in some places so abundantly that the supply exceeds the demand, so it commands a very low price, and exceeding pretty ornaments in really good taste can be bought for a very small sum.
The Morowa Korale has also yielded almost all the fine specimens of a very lovely gem, the alexandrite, so called in honour of the Czar, in whose dominions it was first discovered in the far north. The peculiarity is that by daylight it’s colour is a rich bronzed green, whereas by gas or candle light it appears to be of a vivid crimson—a phenomenon attributed to the presence of copper and oxide of lead. Beautiful and interesting as is this stone, I am told that its commercial value is barely one-twentieth that of a ruby of good quality. Sometimes a stone is found, and distinguished as an alexandrite cat’s-eye, which by daylight is dark green, with a cross line of white light. This at night assumes the ruby colour aforesaid.
A very remarkable feature in the beautiful collection of gems exhibited in the Ceylon Court at the Indian and Colonial Exhibition in 1886 was the extraordinary variety of sapphires of various colours, no less than fifty different tints being there exhibited. Beautiful specimens of all the gems of the Isle were gathered together under the watchful care of Mr. Hayward, who, with unwearying courtesy, endeavoured to teach me and many another inquisitive pupil how to recognise familiar stones, all disguised in unwonted colours, as if bent on a masquerade.
Even the topaz, departing from its traditional golden hue, comes out in fancy dress. Not satisfied with assuming every variety of colour, from pale amber to the richest brown, it occasionally indulges in various shades of red or blue, and there have been found harlequin specimens combining blue and yellow in the same crystal! Occasionally the topaz assumes a faint sea green, so exquisitely delicate that even experts disagree as to whether such a stone is really a precious blue topaz or ‘only an aquamarine,’ in which case, by a freak of the gem-market, its value would be greatly deteriorated.
How truly absurd are these fantastic standards of value! I remember one of my sisters taking a number of Welsh topazes to be set by an eminent jeweller, who admired them greatly, and, assuming them to be Oriental, gave her a large estimate of their value. But on her mentioning where she had found them, and expressing regret that she had not collected more, his countenance fell as he exclaimed, ‘Welsh topazes! Oh, in that case they are worth a mere trifle!’
You can understand that here, where, in addition to the innumerable skilful frauds of the trades in sham gems, Nature herself does so much to puzzle the unwary, the purchase of precious stones is not altogether a wise form of investment for non-professional travellers. In fact, the Moormen take very good care that these shall never even see their really valuable stones, which they keep securely concealed, and like to retain as secure property.
As regards the topaz, not only are its own varieties of colour perplexing, but there are other stones amongst which the untutored eye finds it hard to distinguish. Such is the little-prized cinnamon-stone, a crystal of a rich warm orange-brown tint—a description which also applies to the zircon or jacinth, which, however, ranges in colour from clear gold or delicate pink to fiery sparkling red. The latter are very rare, and consequently highly valued. Some specimens are tinged with olive-green. The zircon is sometimes worn as an amulet to guard its owner from evil spirits and to assure the blessing of sound sleep. Closely akin to it are the red jacinth and the white or grey jargoon, which is commonly known as the Ceylon or Matara diamond.
Then comes the tourmaline, a lovely sparkling gem, which, however, not being the fashion, is of small value. It is so like a yellow zircon or a Scotch cairngorm, that I for one despair of ever being able to distinguish one from the other, or indeed from the chrysoberyl, though the latter sometimes assumes an æsthetic sage-green peculiar to itself. These lead on to chrysolites, and to sundry other stones more or less precious.
In some alluvial districts where the promise of gems seems abundant, they are found to have undergone the same process of disintegration as the rock in which they were once embedded, and crumble to atoms at a touch; so that there are streams, such as the Manick-Ganga, or River of Gems, in the south-east of the Isle, the sands of which are literally composed of glittering particles of quartz, mica, rubies, sapphires, and other crystals, which, gleaming in the sunlight beneath the rippling waters, seem like the realisation of some Eastern fable, till closer inspection proves them to be so thoroughly pulverised as to be literally worthless to the gem-seeker, albeit so fascinating to the eye which can recognise beauty apart from intrinsic value. These crystal sands are the trainers of the great gem family, for though not destined to be themselves exalted to high estate, they supply a polishing material of great value in the hands of the gem-cutter.
Such rivers suggest that somewhere near their rock-cradles there must be abundance of such lovely rose-coloured quartz as is occasionally found in large blocks near Ratnapura, as if Nature had wished to carry out her ruby colouring on a wider scale. She certainly must have established her favoured laboratory somewhere among the great hills of Sabaragamua, whose crumbling crags have scattered such precious fragments in every rocky ravine and over all these alluvial plains.
To a race so keenly addicted to gambling as the Singhalese, the possibilities of such glorious prizes as may reward the gem-seeker are irresistible, and so a very large number of the natives adopt this profession, somewhat to the neglect of their fields and gardens. During the dry season between Christmas and Easter, when the streams are well-nigh dried up and their gravelly beds laid bare, hundreds of the poorer classes devote themselves to searching for such crystals as the sweeping torrents of the previous months may have brought from many a remote mountain.
But the wealthier gem-seekers, who can afford preliminary outlay, find it more remunerative to work systematically by sinking pits in the plains at such points as they judge to be hopeful. They dig through layers of recently deposited gravel, soil, and cabook till they reach the ‘illan’ or gemmiferous gravel, which lies from five to twenty feet below the surface. Ratnapura stands in the centre of a great gravel bed some thirty miles square, and all thus buried; but pits have been sunk in every direction by gemmers, ancient or modern. Of the latter, some are now being sunk to a depth of 80 to 100 feet. The cabook is a hard deposit of plum-pudding stone formed of water-worn pebbles embedded in hard clay. In this are many circular hollows or pockets—natural jewel-cases—washed out by the eddying currents of ancient rivers, and in these many of the finest gems have found a resting-place. The illan is generally found beneath the cabook.
I spoke of ‘preliminary outlay,’ but indeed this is not excessive. The necessary equipment of a gemming party consists of a few mamotees or spades, a few crowbars, a long iron sounding-rod, called ‘illankoora,’ for gauging the illan, and a few baskets of split bamboo. When they have dug to a depth of five or six feet, should the sides seem likely to give way, four jungle-posts are inserted, one at each corner, and cross-beams round the sides and centre-beams. As the digging goes on, this frail support is likewise deepened till the gravel is reached, where it is scooped up and washed in the bamboo baskets. As with all other mining, gemming is exceedingly speculative. A pit may prove workable in a few days, or it may involve months of toil, and finally be abandoned as useless. It is said that of every ten pits sunk, only one pays.
In that one, however, there is scarcely a basketful of gravel which does not contain some inferior kind of gem, and these are called ‘dallam’ and sold by the pound, at about nine rupees, after having been minutely searched for any precious stones, which are found in the proportion of one per cent., and of course really valuable ones are very much more rare. However, even the occasional find of a real treasure suffices to keep up the excitement. For instance, about two years ago, quite a poor man tried his luck in a gem-pit, and straightway lighted on a sapphire of such value that a knowing hand at once secured it for 600_l._, and a few days later doubled his money by selling it in Colombo for 1,200_l._ It was expected to fetch 3,000_l._ in London.
Unfortunately, although some very poor agricultural labourers certainly eke out their scanty living by working in gem-pits, most of the money thus won by gemmers of the poorer class is said to be squandered in gambling and drinking, so that perhaps (though some injustice is apparently involved) it is not altogether to be regretted that recent Government ordinances have imposed a certain check on promiscuous digging.
Under the rule of the Kandyan kings, the right of digging for gems was a royal monopoly, and the inhabitants of certain villages were told off for this purpose. The office was hereditary, as was also that of the headmen who superintended the work. Under British rule this monopoly was dropped, and the gemming industry was thrown open to all men, with the sole restriction that no one might dig on Crown waste lands without a license. Portions of Government land were sold at high prices expressly as gem-lands, and the right of private individuals to seek for gems in any way they pleased on their own land was never questioned.
In 1890, however, when European companies decided to bring European capital to commence systematic mining for gems, a Gem Ordinance was enacted, which is said to be equal to an initial tax of 10 per cent. on problematic gains, and is said to have practically killed the native industry and stopped the work of some 20,000 diggers. It enacts that a license costing five rupees must be obtained for every pit opened, in whatever locality—even in a man’s own garden—and a further sum of 75 cents per head is levied for every person taking part in the work in the next three months. Should the number of persons thus licensed for employment in that pit be exceeded, the whole license may be cancelled, and the extra worker may be fined fifty rupees or suffer six months’ imprisonment. One of the chief dangers of mining is that of a sudden influx of water into the pit, necessitating an immediate accession of helping hands; but of course no men would care to risk such penalties in helping their neighbours, and as the formalities to be observed in altering a license generally involve a delay of three or four days, the immediate result of this legislation has been the abandonment of a very large number of pits.
At present, reports concerning systematic work vary considerably, one company being reported to have recovered £1,000 worth of gems in a week, while another, which had expended about £5,000 on sinking pits, only recovered gems worth about £400 and one gentleman who had sunk £1,000 got nothing at all. These not being endowed with the lynx eyes of the Moormen, are naturally suspicious that their gems have been pilfered, and regret that the regulations of the African diamond-fields are not introduced into Ceylon. There, they say, a man is locked up for having in his possession a gem for which he cannot account satisfactorily, while in Ceylon the man who holds a gem can prosecute the man who dares to suggest that it has not been honestly obtained.
Doubtless a solution for all these difficulties will be found in course of time, and there seems every prospect that the gem treasures of Ceylon will from this time be developed on a more scientific system. The great object is to try and discover those mountain geese which lay these precious eggs; in other words, to find the matrix whence the sun and rains and rivers have extracted those specimens from which we gather such suggestions concerning that hidden treasury. It has been proved that in Burmah limestone forms the matrix of the ruby, so the first thing to be done in Ceylon is to examine all the veins of limestone along the course of the Ratnapura River from its source in the heart of the mountains. If once rubies and sapphires can be detected in these, then the work of mining could be begun in real earnest, with good prospects of remunerative results.
Those who are interested in mineralogy find abundant food for study in the very varied minerals thrown out of the gem-pits, including infinitesimal atoms of gold, which, however, is not found in quantities that would pay to work. Mica is found pretty freely, and iron is abundant in certain districts.
But the only mineral of much importance in Ceylon is plumbago, in which there is a very large trade, hitherto almost entirely in the hands of natives, who dig for it in the plains. It is thought probable that the companies who go to the mountains in search of gems will there also find the cradle of the plumbago, which they hope to work by horizontal tunnels at far less expense, and without the danger from water which attends the deep excavations in the low country. In some of these, shafts have been sunk to a depth of upwards of 200 feet, necessitating the free use of pumping machinery. It is estimated that, including carters, packers and carpenters, who manufacture casks for the export of this mineral, about 24,000 persons are employed in connection with this industry, which is chiefly carried on in the north western and western provinces, though the southern province likewise yields a fair share. But three-fourths of the whole supply is dug from pits in the Kalutara and Kurunegala districts.
It is often found at Ratnapura and elsewhere in large kidney-shaped masses lying loose in the soil, and also forms so large an ingredient in the gneiss rocks that these seem speckled with bright silver. When this rock decomposes, it resembles yellow brick, and is so soft that when newly dug out, it can be cut to any shape, but quickly hardens when exposed to the air. It is a valuable material for the manufacture of firebricks, as it resists the greatest heat.
The annual export of pure plumbago from Ceylon (chiefly to the United States and Europe) amounts to about 240,000 cwts., valued at about two and a half million of rupees. Many and varied are its uses, in supplying the lead for our best Cumberland pencils, blacking for our stoves, and an important requisite in polishing steel guns and steel armour for warships; it is also largely used in colouring dark glass in photographic studios, in piano and organ factories, and even in hat factories, where it is used to give a peculiar softness and smoothness to felt hats!
So what with plumbago and gems, the minerals of Ceylon travel over a very wide range of the earth.